WWDC? Is it going to be Good - Bad - or Ugly...

[KaraH]

It will the thinnest mac pro ever. You won't be able to upgrade ram or video and it will be glued together.

Welcome to the new Apple. 😀

Are you trying to scare us now? 🙂 Thin may work for a consumer device but not for a machine where people regularly swap out drives and cards. I was waiting for the 2012 iMac release to buy one but when I saw what they did I changed my mind ASAP. *shudder*

Maybe it is a plan to sell the 2012 MP? 🙂

 

[Tutor]

The Next Mac Pro

yes, yet another is the mac pro dead thread. Should we make it interesting and get a pool going?

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20 bucks say they screw it up, 10 says it's decent, but gets delayed for 6 months after announced

Given GPGPU superiority over the CPU, Apple should make a software emulator that makes the OS and all OSX applications run on ATI and Nvidia GPGPUs and make a big box that looks likes this internally and have PCIe 3, SATA 6, USB 3, Thunderbolt and InfiniBand connectivity. Then, whatever CPU(s) it houses and whatever timetable Apple chooses to adhere to for future upgrades will just be small talk. We'll then have ATI and Nvidia to depend on for, or blame for the lack of, future speed enhancements.

 

[deconstruct60]

Given GPGPU superiority over the CPU, Apple should make a software emulator that makes the OS and all OSX applications run on ATI and Nvidia GPGPUs

That emulator would a dog (performance wise). GPGPU are only superior at digesting embarrassingly parallel workloads. Farming out 100's of small computations 100's of different math function units. ( add these 10,000 pairs of numbers or individually hash these 100,000 passwords , etc. )

Anything much more substantially sequential or involving lots of branching and they don't have much of a lead or very superior. Likewise don't even attempt to task them with context switching between 20 or 30 different tasks.

They are highly useful. Much of mutating video, rendering (text , video , etc) , audio , modeling complex objects , mutating photos, etc does boil down to crunching numbers. But running an OS's core infrastructure? ... not really.

 

[deconstruct60]

Do you think Apple would be likely to opt for a single-socket model with an 8, 10, or 12 core cpu in it?

There aren't likely going to be any single socket 8, 10 , or 12's from Apple.

Single socket Xeon E5 1600 v2 will cap out at 6 cores just like v1 did.

Dual socket Xeon E5 2600 v2 will nominally move from 8 to 10. ( probably later there will be some 12's thrown in. Probably when yields get better).

The factor that is being side stepped is that 10 12 8 cores means taking a hit on base rate GHz of the individual cores. The 12 likely will be capped substantially lower than the 1600 6 core offerings. It is a trade off more cores that run slightly slower or fewer cores and higher base rate clocks. ( GPGPUs are largely the same trade off at a bigger scale of much lower clocks and order of magnitude more cores. )

If Intel keeps to past offering there may be a relatively very high TDP 10 core that tries to offer both but it will never make it into a Mac Pro. As mentoned before it likely will be too expensive ( $2000 range) and too hot to fit the Mac Pro design parameters. I highly doubt there will be a 12 core offering that also cranks up the clock rate. Everything points to Intel stretching more than a bit to leap to 12 at this point.


Apple is highly unlikely to sell single package E5 2600 systems for several reasons.

1. It is largely a waste since you pay substantive more for dual capability for 2600 to not to use it in a system. Price/performance wise a "6 core but clocked substantially higher" E5 1600 is going to be far more competitive for the vast majority of usages.


2. Selling a system with an open CPU socket only invites folks to stick something in it. Apple sells systems not "bare bones boxes" . If there are two CPU package sockets Apple will fill them both.


3. Frankly something that scales up from 6-12 probably will also scale to 16 or 20 just about as well. You can buy two entry level 6-8 core E5 2600 far cheaper than one "monster" 12 core. That folks the 12 core is targeted at is really folks who have a high "need" for 24. (most likely a workload consolidation box ).

 

[m4v3r1ck]

And for the sake of ****** and giggles... (something about seeing specs on a page is fulfilling)...

**** I have NO idea what the actual CPU speeds will be for the new v2 Ivy Bridge chips.. so I plucked speeds out of thin air that sounded logical?!?

Kept the specs pretty much within realism. Smaller chassis, all Solid State Storage. No Optical. No 3.5" bays.

Thanks so much for this list! I like it when people have a good & realistic overview on things ;-)

Let's wait and see what the choices may be after the WWDC...

Cheers!

 

[deconstruct60]

And for the sake of ****** and giggles... (something about seeing specs on a page is fulfilling)...

GOOD (4 cores)
3.7GHz Intel 'Ivy Bridge E5v2' Quad-Core XEON CPU
8GB 1866MHz DDR3 RAM (expandable to 128GB)
512GB Solid State Storage
nVidia GeForce GT750 2GB Graphics

BETTER (6 cores)
3.4GHz Intel 'Ivy Bridge E5v2' Hex-Core XEON CPU
8GB 1866MHz DDR3 RAM (expandable to 128GB)
512GB Solid State Storage
nVidia GeForce GT750 2GB Graphics

Not sure why pulling stuff out of the air when the E5 1600 equivalents in the Core i7 space have been leaked a couple months back and posted into these forums.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/...ge-E_extreme_CPUs_to_launch_in_September.html



Note the RAM expansion limitation is OS X driven not hardware driven. Unless that is uncorked in OS X 10.9 Mac Pro's will still be stuck at 96 in OS X mode.

BEST (8 cores)
Dual 2.9GHz Intel 'Ivy Bridge E5v2' Quad-Core XEON CPU

Not particularly likely at all since the current Mac Pro starts at 12. Why would it even be remotely possible that using technology a full tick-and-tock cycle into the future that Apple would backslide back to 8?

Standard on all models:
5 x USB 3.0 ports (2 on front, 3 on back)

Not. Standard USB 3.0 discrete controllers have 4 USB 3.0 ports. Apple is highly unlikely to also stick a USB 3.0 hub inside the Mac Pro just to juice the port count.

Either there will be 4 total. Or more reasonably Apple will split the USB controller between front and back. Something like front ports handled by chipset so USB 2.0 ( e.g. 2 or perhaps 4 ports ) and back handled by discrete USB 3.0 controller (e.g., 4 ports).

3 Thunderbolt Ports (data only) (1 on front, 2 on back)

LOL not even remotely probable. There is no "data only" Thunderbolt. It is a hand waving concept that folks have made up.

Never mind that all TB controllers are capped at two physical ports max. There are no 3 or more port TB controllers. The whole point of simpler to route daisy chain networks is that don't need gobs of ports on a single device.

10Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) Port
Gigabit Ethernet Port

10GbE is doubtful on a single CPU package Mac Pro. It is pretty much tapped out on PCI-e lanes if going to try to support 4 PCI-e slots and Thunderbolt. It is short on bandwidth.

No Optical Drive

Not surprised if that happens.

No Firewire (TB converter available)

Will be surprised if this happens. The sheer cost and volume of legacy FW equipment typically attached to Mac Pros in A/V sector that would cause a riot for really no go reason. It isn't like Apple needs ran out of edge space for a FW socket or ran out of board space for a FW controller. The mini has a FW port.

This would probably drop down to just two FW ports. (probably on front ), but zero is evidence of drinking way too much cupertino kool-aid. It is pretty far disconnected from the user base. Especially since FW TB dongles are both chain enders (reducing value of TB socket) and limited on power (not as widely useful for higher end equipment).

Up to six x 768GB SSD Storage

Kind of a waste since somewhat likely that not all of those will be 6Gb/s SATA connections. There will likely be a few 3.5" drives since if use C601 won't have that many lanes to drive that fast and will be given up lots of storage capacity.

Kept the specs pretty much within realism. Smaller chassis, all Solid State Storage. No Optical. No 3.5" bays.

If sticking with E5 v2 and 4 PCI-e slots to carry 4 GPU cards the chassis isn't going to get substantially smaller. You have to pick a side. Either want 4 cards and high TDP budget or want smaller box. One of the two.

 

[seveej]

I'd be surprised if the Mac Pro is even mentioned once by Apple during WWDC. I don't think they will kill it; updates will occur, in some manner, later this year.

I see three alternatives:
1) The Mac Pro gets a spec upgrade (new Xeon's when they become available) Thunderbolt, USB3, SataIII, maybe faster RAM (And naturally the EU-regulation changes), In which case it is either not mentioned at WWDC or presented as an afterthought
2) The Mac Pro is dead, long live the New Mac Pro, in which case they'll prob'ly use the WWDC to hype it up. Naturally, if this new pro desktop solution differs from the current product sufficiently, Apple may keep the current Pro on sale for some time concurrently....
3) The Mac Pro is dead period. No noise is made.

I sure hope it is not no. 3...

RGDS,

 

[Tesselator]

2006: Mac Pro announced
2007: no hardware
2008: no hardware
2009: Macbook Pros and iPhone
2010: iPhone
2011: no hardware
2012: new Macbooks

Everything is stacked against the Mac Pro being announced.

What, that doesn't look right to me. I dunno what's exactly official date-wise, but here's how I recall it:

2005 - Apple official leaks about Intel Based "Mac Pro".
2006 - MacPro1,1 is announced.
2006 - MacPro1,1 is released.
2007 - MacPro2,1 info is officially leaked.
2007 - MacPro2,1 is announced.
2007 - MacPro2,1 is released.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is officially leaked.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is announced.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is released.

And I didn't pay very close attention after that but is seems to me the pace and pattern of the release schedule remained about the same till mid or late 2010 and then slowed tremendously.

 

[i make movies]

Here's my prediction.

***IF*** there is a MacPro announcement, I predict one of the 2 option will happen:

Option A: Exact same form factor, just everything inside upgraded.
USB2 -> USB3
FW800 -> Thunderbolt
SATA2 -> SATA3
PCIe v2 -> PCIe v3
And they'll put in whatever new chips intel has.

Option B : New Form factor...everything is modular with 3 "plates".
1st plate is a CPU and RAM plate
2nd plate is a PCIe plate with 2 to 4 slots
3rd plate is a SATA / hard drive plate.

Need more anything? Buy another plate, you can make it as big or small as you need it. Free standing or rack mountable.

 

[Umbongo]

What, that doesn't look right to me. I dunno what's exactly official date-wise, but here's how I recall it:

2005 - Apple official leaks about Intel Based "Mac Pro".
2006 - MacPro1,1 is announced.
2006 - MacPro1,1 is released.
2007 - MacPro2,1 info is officially leaked.
2007 - MacPro2,1 is announced.
2007 - MacPro2,1 is released.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is officially leaked.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is announced.
2008 - MacPro3,1 is released.

And I didn't pay very close attention after that but is seems to me the pace and pattern of the release schedule remained about the same till mid or late 2010 and then slowed tremendously.

That's a list of hardware announced at WWDC.

2006 Mac Pro was announced and released same day at WWDC, but yes there had been leaks before indicating it was coming. 2007 Mac Pro details were never leaked from what I recall, they just did a press release before NAB and added the 2,1 model. 2008 models had a supply-chain rumour that Apple had purchased all high-end Xeons in the Nov/Dec and then it came out a week before Macworld to everyone's surprise.

 

[deconstruct60]

Here's my prediction.

Option A: Exact same form factor, just everything inside upgraded.
USB2 -> USB3
FW800 -> Thunderbolt
SATA2 -> SATA3
PCIe v2 -> PCIe v3
And they'll put in whatever new chips intel has.

Since the matching chipset and/or CPU for any new Intel CPU option includes PCI-e v3 and SATA 3, most of that isn't big leap.

A discrete controller swap more likely be FW800 -> USB 3.0

FW800 TB dongles have power distribution problems which for a 800+ W system is a joke. The number of FW ports likely will go down. But zero is a stretch. Perhaps Apple is drinking gallons of Thunderbolt kool-aid and thinks everyone who buys a Mac Pro is going to also by a TB Docking station/display to get a single decent FW port. Kind of silly but sadly wouldn't be surprising.

Thunderbolt pragmatically requires an embedded GPU. (that may drive Apple toward an Xeon E3 like solution. ... and make a large subset of current Mac Pro folks unhappy. )

Option B : New Form factor...everything is modular with 3 "plates".
1st plate is a CPU and RAM plate
2nd plate is a PCIe plate with 2 to 4 slots
3rd plate is a SATA / hard drive plate.

This is almost completely disconnected from the reality of Intel's computer architecture. The PCI-e lanes are provided by the CPU package (for higher bandwidth , i.e. PCI-e v3 ) and IOHub chipset for basic I/O (for hooking up discrete controllers like USB 3 , FW800 , THunderbolt , Ethernet , etc. )
Similarly the SATA connectivity is provided in the IO Hub chipset which needs to be directly coupled to the CPU package. ( heck the C600 series hub for Xeon E5 has a RAID 0,1,10,5 controller built into it... but that typically requires OS support to work. Doubt Apple is going to put in the effort. )

Therefore PCI-e and SATA all has be present in the first box. It makes very little sense to run that out of the first box out into secondary boxes. All that does in increase costs and overhead for no good return effect.

The PCIe cards and/or Thunderbolt from the first box can provide expansion if want to go that way, but a common core subset of PCI-e and SATA services are already paid for when buy the Intel CPU and required IOHub. Might as well use them.

Excessive and gratuitous modularity only drives overall system costs up. Mac Pro already labors from a high price point. Higher still for no clear advantage would be self destructive.

 

[Tesselator]

That's a list of hardware announced at WWDC.

Ah, I see... that's a WWDC specific list.

Now if I just knew what the heck WWDC was... 😀

 

[echoout]

Just got an email from BOXX that they're taking orders for their Xeon E3-1285 v3 machines. The machine is in the $5K range decked out and ready to ship in a month. I wonder if that could be a glimpse of things to come?

 

[Bear]

Not. Standard USB 3.0 discrete controllers have 4 USB 3.0 ports. Apple is highly unlikely to also stick a USB 3.0 hub inside the Mac Pro just to juice the port count.

Either there will be 4 total. Or more reasonably Apple will split the USB controller between front and back. Something like front ports handled by chipset so USB 2.0 ( e.g. 2 or perhaps 4 ports ) and back handled by discrete USB 3.0 controller (e.g., 4 ports).

Apple does put more than one USB controller in some systems. In particular on my iMac, there are 2 USB 2.0 Controllers and only 4 external USB ports. The internal Bluetooth module is on a USB port as well as the IR receiver, the SD Reader and the built in camera.

If Apple uses two USB controllers in an iMac, it's quite probably they will put 2 in a Mac Pro. And yes I can see Apple putting 5 or 6 USB ports on a Mac Pro.

 

[Topper]

Now if I just knew what the heck WWDC was... 😀

It's the place all good Mac Pro people go to abandon all hope.

 

[deconstruct60]

Apple does put more than one USB controller in some systems. In particular on my iMac, there are 2 USB 2.0 Controllers and only 4 external USB ports. The internal Bluetooth module is on a USB port as well as the IR receiver, the SD Reader and the built in camera.

How old is this iMac? Apple doesn't go out of their way to duplicate what is already in the chipset. That is one of the primary reasons that USB 3.0 took so long to roll out to the Mac line-up ("lazy" waiting on Intel to put it in the chipset).

USB 3.0 is not present in the C600 chipset. Two discrete conotrollers would require two PCI-e v2.0 lanes. That's quite unlikely given the other uses for the the only 8 v2.0 lanes coming offthe C600 to blow both on two USB controllers when just a single one is prefectly capable of driving 4 sockets.

There are only three USB sockets on the back of the Mac Pro now. It isn't likely Apple would increase that number.

The other USB 2.0 sockets (if any) would be pulled from the glut of sockets ( 8-10? ) that are on the C600 chipset. Probably less (or equal to) the same 3 on the back.

Frankly, any USB 3.0 on Xeon E5 Mac Pro would be a huge shift for Apple do any discrete USB 3.0 controller at all. They probably need one for an updated TB docking station/display... which probably helps.

If Apple uses two USB controllers in an iMac,

The question would be why did they use them in the iMac. If there are similar motivating factors maybe. The problem is back when Apple did that they were not other "lane grabs" being made by Thunderbolt , dual 1 GbE (or better) sockets , etc.

Of late Apple supports as many USB ports as is available from the chipset ( or less if not alot of room on the edge).

it's quite probably they will put 2 in a Mac Pro. And yes I can see Apple putting 5 or 6 USB ports on a Mac Pro.

I can see 6; just not all USB 3.0. If folks want a USB 3.0 hub they can buy one.

 

[deconstruct60]

Just got an email from BOXX that they're taking orders for their Xeon E3-1285 v3 machines..... I wonder if that could be a glimpse of things to come?

If Apple weights Thunderbolt as more important than greater than 2 PCI-e card slots and > 4 x86 cores ... then yes. It will allow them to shrink the box so that it is primarily design to sit on top of a desk and couple to their TB docking station/display ( so the 'can't reach the floor' fixed cable to the thing works. ). The cost likely will be lower too. (both relative to current MP and the certified workstation GPU configs of Boxx ).


Buckle your seat belts if they do though....... gobs of "end of the world" threads bound for macrumors.

 

[echoout]

If Apple weights Thunderbolt as more important than greater than 2 PCI-e card slots and > 4 x86 cores ... then yes. It will allow them to shrink the box so that it is primarily design to sit on top of a desk and couple to their TB docking station/display ( so the 'can't reach the floor' fixed cable to the thing works. ). The cost likely will be lower too. (both relative to current MP and the certified workstation GPU configs of Boxx ).


Buckle your seat belts if they do though....... gobs of "end of the world" threads bound for macrumors.

Yeah. As I saw that configuration on the BOXX site, it occurred to me that that might actually make sense in a way similar to the cheapy iPhone 5 model, it would be good enough for many and keep them in the Pro space without even trying to compete with the upper-level workstations. I dunno. Kind of makes sense.

 

[Tesselator]

It's the place all good Mac Pro people go to abandon all hope.

WWDC = World Wide Disappointment Consortium?


😀

 

[akadmon]

WWDC 2013 will bring the end to the the Mac Pro as we know it.

WWDC 2013 will bring the end to the the Mac Pro as we know it. But...

Fret not! I'm guessing we'll see an offshoot of a Mac Mini: stackable, TB enabled, with each stack adding additional (sic!) cores and memory. You want 64 cores, 256 GB RAM, 16 GB VRAM, 16TB RAID? No problem! Just stack 16 of these cuties, hookup a TB based video module, a few daisy chained external RAID boxes and - viola! Ladies & Gentlemen: I give you the new Mac Pro.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

WWDC = World Wide Disappointment Consortium?
😀

Noooooooooooooooooo, please, please, please not! 😉