You know... like when you hit the red button an app still runs in the background instead of fully ending the process... it's better if it would entirely just close the damn app instead of having to go to the app menu to close it... two clicks are more than one.
I'm not extremely happy with some of the new features in Mac OS/X myself. In the end the features just waste RAM that the system vacant manage properly.
I actually don't care if it has either.
Well there is a new Safari coming... It's eventually gonna have to evolve more into chrome with themes, extensions, apps, etc.
Hell no!!! Safari can always use improvements but lets not turn it into an abortion like Chrome.
I actually get channels using a tv/torrent client called Zona, it's russian, but it has a few channels in english. It's actually pretty cool. of course the real thing Apple would have to make to compete with Google TV would have to get the channels streamed directly from The sources and pay them to stream it to Apple TV's or Macs.
I'm not knowledgeable on this subject but I can say that TV on Computers is the future ever since Youtube became a thing.
Actually I tend to agree it is a big part of the future. I can find more interesting things on YouTube than I can TV. Some of it self produced and frankly of better quality than what whole networks deliver. The concept of a million monkeys banging away at typewriters does seem to apply to the staffs at the networks.
Hell no!!! Safari can always use improvements but lets not turn it into an abortion like Chrome.
Blah I will never move away from firefox. It takes too much ram, but so does safari.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
2. The new Mac Pro. First I thought they could easily create a whole separate event for it, but that might have reporters focus too much on it. Perhaps it is better to either simply have it pop up on their website/store or indeed show it during the WWDC week, or main event on the 10th. But if they don't, Cook said 2013 so anything is possible.
That seems really unlikely. There aren't any hardware releases that really align with WWDC either prior or a few weeks out.
2. The new Mac Pro. First I thought they could easily create a whole separate event for it, but that might have reporters focus too much on it. Perhaps it is better to either simply have it pop up on their website/store or indeed show it during the WWDC week, or main event on the 10th. But if they don't, Cook said 2013 so anything is possible.
That seems really unlikely. There aren't any hardware releases that really align with WWDC either prior or a few weeks out.
True, but there has been the occasional release of an Intel CPU released for the Mac months prior to the competition.
True, but there has been the occasional release of an Intel CPU released for the Mac months prior to the competition.
That is a false assertion. For example the 2007 version was much hotter than those adopted by other oems months later. In 2008 or 2009 (can't remember which) it was maybe by a month, but I'm unsure how that happened. 2010 they can out 4-5 months after the other oems. When people bring these things up, it reminds me of the "everything will be updated at WWDC" rumors. It's an attempt to extrapolate a pattern from extreme corner cases.
That is a false assertion. For example the 2007 version was much hotter than those adopted by other oems months later. In 2008 or 2009 (can't remember which) it was maybe by a month, but I'm unsure how that happened. 2010 they can out 4-5 months after the other oems. When people bring these things up, it reminds me of the "everything will be updated at WWDC" rumors. It's an attempt to extrapolate a pattern from extreme corner cases.
Not really! There is lots of evidence that Intel and Apple are working closely on a number of fronts. As to the Mac Pro volumes there are so low and the market so specific I don't think anybody really cares if Apple gets early access.
Also we are assuming that Apple will stay with the XEON line for the "Pro" machine. The fact that they have said this is a redesign hints to the possibility of a move away from run of the mill XEON hardware. I can see a new Mac Pro or its replacement being announced at WWDC, it might not ship real soon but there isn't a better venue for the debut of a new hardware effort.
Time did say a MacPro was coming later in 2013. If it is a big revamp, what a better place to intro it than in front of all the developers (who actually would know what it was he was presenting) as opposed to media types who have no clue and just want to see popular things?
I think he'll intro it, with the new chips, and say it will be available in August/September and that the chips will also be making their way into other machines.
Anybody out there feeling the frustration from the LACK OF LEAKS?
I mean really two weeks to go - we should be getting something juicy.
Mac OS X code and iOS program leaks uncovered after the 6.1.2 jailbreak suggests iRadio service coming, and Wifi AC Chips on new Macbooks with Haswell processors in them. And if new Wifi AC Chips are coming that means so is a new Airport.
Plus other leaked code for Mac OS X and people with the matter say it'll support PCI Express 3.0 finally and it'll bring more power user features from iOS to OS X like opening two windows side by side full screen.
Plus we already know Jony has been helping design the new iOS so expect more monotone, cleaner blues, simpler icons, black and white interfaces, since he follows Deiter Rams principles of good design. Someone said that you won't be really impressed but it will be better than what iOS looks like today so we should lower our expectations on the new UI.
iCloud is supposed to improve as well and easier access to Brightness and Wifi should come in the multitask view.
We'll just have to wait 11 days to see what Apple's been up to.
And the lockscreen will supposedly be changed a bit for face gesture unlock controls and the fonts will be altered with round number slots kinda like the mockup from a cydia port below.. and the only evidence to support my claim is the new iPod Touch that was just released doesn't have a back camera but the Facetime Eyesight Camera remained on the front.
Not really! There is lots of evidence that Intel and Apple are working closely on a number of fronts. As to the Mac Pro volumes there are so low and the market so specific I don't think anybody really cares if Apple gets early access.
Also we are assuming that Apple will stay with the XEON line for the "Pro" machine. The fact that they have said this is a redesign hints to the possibility of a move away from run of the mill XEON hardware. I can see a new Mac Pro or its replacement being announced at WWDC, it might not ship real soon but there isn't a better venue for the debut of a new hardware effort.
I don't think there has been enough evidence to say that they get early access of any kind. As I pointed out one of the cliche examples of this was due to accepting a hotter batch of chips. I would be amazed if they announced such a thing at WWDC, simply because there are no obvious cpu hardware rollouts either preceding or within weeks of it.
I don't think there has been enough evidence to say that they get early access of any kind. As I pointed out one of the cliche examples of this was due to accepting a hotter batch of chips. I would be amazed if they announced such a thing at WWDC, simply because there are no obvious cpu hardware rollouts either preceding or within weeks of it.
Yes there is... the Intel Haswell CPU's at Computex Tapei on the 20th of next month. Some are already out for sale.
But Haswell Boards are limited to their motherboard socket type... so I'm not entirely sure about the Mac Mini and Macbook Line... and the Mac Pro is still the lowest performing Mac available in sells so it's bound to either disappear or get updated.
Yes there is... the Intel Haswell CPU's at Computex Tapei on the 20th of next month. Some are already out for sale.
Did I really need to clarify appropriate for the mac pro? The only haswell Xeons that come out early basically coincide in performance with the imac and are poorly aligned with Apple's product line. Apple uses integrated graphics to hook in thunderbolt. E3s lack the igpu and instead have 4 more PCI lanes available. They allow for ECC ram, but other than that performance is identical to those used in the imacs. The hardware you could see at that time is the type that is appropriate for the imac, macbook pros, and mini. The mini is usually last to be refreshed. I suspect it will go back to that pattern given that they should not have repeat issues with the imac rollout. The notebooks are usually the first thing to be refreshed, and they're likely to show the best gains. I think if anything new macbook pros will be announced assuming adequate cpu availability.
Yeah but PCI Display Driver evidence from AMD says you can install a PCI e 3.0 GPU on an unreleased version of a Mac... that being the Mac Pro most likely.
Haswell's have bad graphics but it's normal for mainstream users so you won't even be sold an extremely high end GPU like the N780 or R7970 unless Apple has drivers being built/ already built by AMD or Nvidia.
Just build a PC instead.
DDR 4 RAM is coming this fall so I would wait though till Christmas.
Other than that... why do you need Xeon Processors...?
I don't think there has been enough evidence to say that they get early access of any kind. As I pointed out one of the cliche examples of this was due to accepting a hotter batch of chips. I would be amazed if they announced such a thing at WWDC, simply because there are no obvious cpu hardware rollouts either preceding or within weeks of it.
All I'm saying is the lack of an obvious CPU rollout doesn't mean that Apple wouldn't rollout a new Mac Pro.
As to Intel and Apple working together, anything is possible. The interesting thing here is that some technology Intel was working a year or two ago kinda disappeared off the radar. One item that has gone missing is the XEON intel was working on with built in Infiniband, what Intel now calls True Scale Fabric. Also if you go to CPU-world.com you will find listings for XEON Phi and XEON E3 that have popped up for May and June.
Now Apple isn't likely to go E3 route but you never know. If it wasn't for addressable memory I could see E3 making a very nice and salable "Pro" machine. It really depends upon how radical the new Mac Pro will be. We know it is being overhauled we just don't know how far. I personally believe Apple needs a radical departure but we have no idea if anybody at Apple agrees.
In any event the Intel reveal is literally days away.
Yeah but PCI Display Driver evidence from AMD says you can install a PCI e 3.0 GPU on an unreleased version of a Mac... that being the Mac Pro most likely.
Well yeah but that could also be a Mac with a built in GPU. Anything from a laptop to an iMac.
Haswell's have bad graphics but it's normal for mainstream users so you won't even be sold an extremely high end GPU like the N780 or R7970 unless Apple has drivers being built/ already built by AMD or Nvidia.
Just build a PC instead.
DDR 4 RAM is coming this fall so I would wait though till Christmas.
Lots of new RAM technology on the horizon.
Other than that... why do you need Xeon Processors...?
Actually RAM is the reason to go with XEON. 32 GB is simply to little RAM for some uses of the Mac Pro. However I could see Apple producing a Mac Pro replacement that gives up large RAM arrays for a simpler architecture that would allow them to either drive costs down or include a Phi coprocessor.
All I'm saying is the lack of an obvious CPU rollout doesn't mean that Apple wouldn't rollout a new Mac Pro.
As to Intel and Apple working together, anything is possible. The interesting thing here is that some technology Intel was working a year or two ago kinda disappeared off the radar. One item that has gone missing is the XEON intel was working on with built in Infiniband, what Intel now calls True Scale Fabric. Also if you go to CPU-world.com you will find listings for XEON Phi and XEON E3 that have popped up for May and June.
Now Apple isn't likely to go E3 route but you never know. If it wasn't for addressable memory I could see E3 making a very nice and salable "Pro" machine. It really depends upon how radical the new Mac Pro will be. We know it is being overhauled we just don't know how far. I personally believe Apple needs a radical departure but we have no idea if anybody at Apple agrees.
In any event the Intel reveal is literally days away.
I remain highly skeptical. Here is what I find implausible about the use of E3s. Their primary difference in the context of a workstation compared to the i7s used in imacs would be the ability to use ECC ram. E3s could be used in an xmac type machine if they felt the need to maintain some kind of solution that preserves ECC ram. Most people never experience problems from bit flipping or even understand that parity based correction only applies to single bit errors. It's really there in workstations for things like CAD and engineering applications. I don't see Apple moving toward E3 just for those customers. If thunderbolt really is a high priority to Apple as a part of their core product strategy, the i5 and i7 versions make more sense than their E3 counterparts. This is because they include some form of embedded graphics, so Apple can use their current solution to thunderbolt there rather than rely on internal switches or whatever is necessary to include it. I don't see them as providing a high net benefit compared to the elusive headless imac. Am I missing something there?
I'm not that well read on Xeon Phi. I know you mentioned cheaper variants. The ones I've read about were the chips that cost several thousand yet provide a simpler development path than GPGPU. I'm also not completely familiar with their advantages relative to the typical ever increasing core counts on Xeon EP chips. I do know that Xeon EP is aimed at servers first with workstations being more of a leveraged solution. What little I have read about Xeon Phi has been in the form of tech articles. They typically suggest it's intel's answer to GPGPU use in HPC solutions. The proposed advantage is that they're easier to develop for than NVidia's Tesla cards. There's also the issue that NVidia subsidizes the Teslas somewhat through their higher volume solutions, which Intel has encroached upon with their own integrated gpu solutions.
Well yeah but that could also be a Mac with a built in GPU. Anything from a laptop to an iMac.
Lots of new RAM technology on the horizon.
Actually RAM is the reason to go with XEON. 32 GB is simply to little RAM for some uses of the Mac Pro. However I could see Apple producing a Mac Pro replacement that gives up large RAM arrays for a simpler architecture that would allow them to either drive costs down or include a Phi coprocessor.
It's still only the dual EP solutions that allow for some of the corner case configurations. 32GB isn't far out of line for many professional use cases if they're buying a new machine today. It's not always a matter of whether you absolutely require it either. With 2x8 kits floating around $100 or less, it's often worth going for that. Some of the 100GB+ HPC configurations aren't really available on the mac pro. With Lion it was still limited to 96GB. I don't know if Mountain Lion changed it.
That is all right, I'm not real strong on this. Here is the problem, unless Intel pulls a rabbit out of the hat not much is getting updated at WWDC. I just don't see a lot of chips suitable for Apples line up being ready for June.
Here is what I find implausible about the use of E3s. Their primary difference in the context of a workstation compared to the i7s used in imacs would be the ability to use ECC ram. E3s could be used in an xmac type machine if they felt the need to maintain some kind of solution that preserves ECC ram. Most people never experience problems from bit flipping or even understand that parity based correction only applies to single bit errors.
I was under the impression that modern ECC codes could detect and correct more bad bits than that. It doesn't really matter as you say only a few people even understand the benefit. However whatever does replace the Mac Pro needs to support ECC or Apple will have yet another big gap in its line up.
It's really there in workstations for things like CAD and engineering applications. I don't see Apple moving toward E3 just for those customers.
The biggest problem for E3 in a Mac Pro replacement is addressable RAM.
If thunderbolt really is a high priority to Apple as a part of their core product strategy, the i5 and i7 versions make more sense than their E3 counterparts. This is because they include some form of embedded graphics, so Apple can use their current solution to thunderbolt there rather than rely on internal switches or whatever is necessary to include it. I don't see them as providing a high net benefit compared to the elusive headless imac. Am I missing something there?
TB implements a form of a cross bar switch to route single out to the TB bus. That chip can connect to integrated GPUs or discrete GPUs from what in understand. As you know finding information on Intels sight is very difficult these days.
I'm not that well read on Xeon Phi. I know you mentioned cheaper variants. The ones I've read about were the chips that cost several thousand yet provide a simpler development path than GPGPU. I'm also not completely familiar with their advantages relative to the typical ever increasing core counts on Xeon EP chips.
Well you get around 60 cores. Performance is as much as ten times what you can get on a dual socket XEON machine. That of course depends upon the code. I mention Phi because it is an alternative, I suspect that Apple will prefer GPU compute.
I do know that Xeon EP is aimed at servers first with workstations being more of a leveraged solution. What little I have read about Xeon Phi has been in the form of tech articles. They typically suggest it's intel's answer to GPGPU use in HPC solutions. The proposed advantage is that they're easier to develop for than NVidia's Tesla cards. There's also the issue that NVidia subsidizes the Teslas somewhat through their higher volume solutions, which Intel has encroached upon with their own integrated gpu solutions.
That is pretty much it. Right now they are in effect co processors that are easier to program than a GPU.
In any event I just find it interesting that it is so difficult to find info on Intel initiatives that they freely had on their web site while back. It is like they have adopted Apples security concepts and now hide everything in development from the public.
It's still only the dual EP solutions that allow for some of the corner case configurations. 32GB isn't far out of line for many professional use cases if they're buying a new machine today. It's not always a matter of whether you absolutely require it either. With 2x8 kits floating around $100 or less, it's often worth going for that. Some of the 100GB+ HPC configurations aren't really available on the mac pro. With Lion it was still limited to 96GB. I don't know if Mountain Lion changed it.
I don't think ML changed maximum RAM the system can use. In any event 96 GB is three times 32. For some users a 32 GB limit is a problem which is probably the strongest reason to avoid E3.
All I know for sure is that Intel needs to have some hidden hardware available next week or we won't see as much in the way of hardware updates as many of us hope for.
I was under the impression that modern ECC codes could detect and correct more bad bits than that. It doesn't really matter as you say only a few people even understand the benefit. However whatever does replace the Mac Pro needs to support ECC or Apple will have yet another big gap in its line up.
You could be right. Sometimes I end up with outdated information. The PowerPC era towers never supported ECC. One of the positives to picking that up with the switch to intel was it made the use of engineering software more feasible on OSX. There's no OSX catia, but Autocad, Alias, and Inventor are all available on OSX.
Quote:
The biggest problem for E3 in a Mac Pro replacement is addressable RAM.
TB implements a form of a cross bar switch to route single out to the TB bus. That chip can connect to integrated GPUs or discrete GPUs from what in understand. As you know finding information on Intels sight is very difficult these days.
I wasn't under the impression that it was impossible. Apple has simply used embedded graphics solutions there. I'm not sure if they're easier to implement or if it's just coincidental with what was already present.
Quote:
Well you get around 60 cores. Performance is as much as ten times what you can get on a dual socket XEON machine. That of course depends upon the code. I mention Phi because it is an alternative, I suspect that Apple will prefer GPU compute.
That is pretty much it. Right now they are in effect co processors that are easier to program than a GPU.
Well yeah that's in line with my understanding of them. They were developed for HPC number crunching solutions rather than something that runs many OS instances via whatever hypervisor solution. In some cases that might be better suited to workstations than the most expensive high core count cpu options.
Quote:
In any event I just find it interesting that it is so difficult to find info on Intel initiatives that they freely had on their web site while back. It is like they have adopted Apples security concepts and now hide everything in development from the public.
I wonder if it's a sign that their engineers are projecting downstream problems in their tick tock timeline.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I don't think ML changed maximum RAM the system can use. In any event 96 GB is three times 32. For some users a 32 GB limit is a problem which is probably the strongest reason to avoid E3.
All I know for sure is that Intel needs to have some hidden hardware available next week or we won't see as much in the way of hardware updates as many of us hope for.
I get that. The single chip mac pros were also tested up to 48GB in a 16x3 configuration. I'm not sure if it's a chipset limitation with the imacs. They might be limited to 32GB at that level, but they use sodimms anyway. There are currently no 16GB sodimms. I doubt that will change prior to DDR4 in any meaningful production quantity.
Yeah but PCI Display Driver evidence from AMD says you can install a PCI e 3.0 GPU on an unreleased version of a Mac... that being the Mac Pro most likely.
Haswell's have bad graphics but it's normal for mainstream users so you won't even be sold an extremely high end GPU like the N780 or R7970 unless Apple has drivers being built/ already built by AMD or Nvidia.
Just build a PC instead.
DDR 4 RAM is coming this fall so I would wait though till Christmas.
Other than that... why do you need Xeon Processors...?
You have higher performance and higher bandwidth options available there. I'm not sure I personally need them anymore, but those are the things offered by such a solution. I'm not convinced Apple is really going to expand upon that $1000-2000 range beyond what they have, and an "xmac" type solution with a $2500 starting point is kind of ridiculous. Wizard wants to see one in addition to the current lineup. I don't personally think they would morph the mac pro into one. I'm not debating whether it would sell.
I just can't see them really building out what has become their slower growth area. The presence of rmbp + cmbp seems more transitional to me. They may just be seeing how many people buy the old ones due to the specific limitations of the newer ones. The issue of maintaining price points is more likely. They have certain goals in terms of margins and sales volume, and whatever nonsense people on here say at times, demand is not entirely elastic. It's not just whether people buy macs or PCs. It's also how often they choose to buy new ones.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Hell no!!! Safari can always use improvements but lets not turn it into an abortion like Chrome.
Blah I will never move away from firefox. It takes too much ram, but so does safari.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
2. The new Mac Pro. First I thought they could easily create a whole separate event for it, but that might have reporters focus too much on it. Perhaps it is better to either simply have it pop up on their website/store or indeed show it during the WWDC week, or main event on the 10th. But if they don't, Cook said 2013 so anything is possible.
That seems really unlikely. There aren't any hardware releases that really align with WWDC either prior or a few weeks out.
True, but there has been the occasional release of an Intel CPU released for the Mac months prior to the competition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
True, but there has been the occasional release of an Intel CPU released for the Mac months prior to the competition.
That is a false assertion. For example the 2007 version was much hotter than those adopted by other oems months later. In 2008 or 2009 (can't remember which) it was maybe by a month, but I'm unsure how that happened. 2010 they can out 4-5 months after the other oems. When people bring these things up, it reminds me of the "everything will be updated at WWDC" rumors. It's an attempt to extrapolate a pattern from extreme corner cases.
Not really! There is lots of evidence that Intel and Apple are working closely on a number of fronts. As to the Mac Pro volumes there are so low and the market so specific I don't think anybody really cares if Apple gets early access.
Also we are assuming that Apple will stay with the XEON line for the "Pro" machine. The fact that they have said this is a redesign hints to the possibility of a move away from run of the mill XEON hardware. I can see a new Mac Pro or its replacement being announced at WWDC, it might not ship real soon but there isn't a better venue for the debut of a new hardware effort.
I mean really two weeks to go - we should be getting something juicy.
Time did say a MacPro was coming later in 2013. If it is a big revamp, what a better place to intro it than in front of all the developers (who actually would know what it was he was presenting) as opposed to media types who have no clue and just want to see popular things?
I think he'll intro it, with the new chips, and say it will be available in August/September and that the chips will also be making their way into other machines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Anybody out there feeling the frustration from the LACK OF LEAKS?
I mean really two weeks to go - we should be getting something juicy.
Mac OS X code and iOS program leaks uncovered after the 6.1.2 jailbreak suggests iRadio service coming, and Wifi AC Chips on new Macbooks with Haswell processors in them. And if new Wifi AC Chips are coming that means so is a new Airport.
Plus other leaked code for Mac OS X and people with the matter say it'll support PCI Express 3.0 finally and it'll bring more power user features from iOS to OS X like opening two windows side by side full screen.
Plus we already know Jony has been helping design the new iOS so expect more monotone, cleaner blues, simpler icons, black and white interfaces, since he follows Deiter Rams principles of good design. Someone said that you won't be really impressed but it will be better than what iOS looks like today so we should lower our expectations on the new UI.
iCloud is supposed to improve as well and easier access to Brightness and Wifi should come in the multitask view.
We'll just have to wait 11 days to see what Apple's been up to.
And the lockscreen will supposedly be changed a bit for face gesture unlock controls and the fonts will be altered with round number slots kinda like the mockup from a cydia port below.. and the only evidence to support my claim is the new iPod Touch that was just released doesn't have a back camera but the Facetime Eyesight Camera remained on the front.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Not really! There is lots of evidence that Intel and Apple are working closely on a number of fronts. As to the Mac Pro volumes there are so low and the market so specific I don't think anybody really cares if Apple gets early access.
Also we are assuming that Apple will stay with the XEON line for the "Pro" machine. The fact that they have said this is a redesign hints to the possibility of a move away from run of the mill XEON hardware. I can see a new Mac Pro or its replacement being announced at WWDC, it might not ship real soon but there isn't a better venue for the debut of a new hardware effort.
I don't think there has been enough evidence to say that they get early access of any kind. As I pointed out one of the cliche examples of this was due to accepting a hotter batch of chips. I would be amazed if they announced such a thing at WWDC, simply because there are no obvious cpu hardware rollouts either preceding or within weeks of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
I don't think there has been enough evidence to say that they get early access of any kind. As I pointed out one of the cliche examples of this was due to accepting a hotter batch of chips. I would be amazed if they announced such a thing at WWDC, simply because there are no obvious cpu hardware rollouts either preceding or within weeks of it.
Yes there is... the Intel Haswell CPU's at Computex Tapei on the 20th of next month. Some are already out for sale.
But Haswell Boards are limited to their motherboard socket type... so I'm not entirely sure about the Mac Mini and Macbook Line... and the Mac Pro is still the lowest performing Mac available in sells so it's bound to either disappear or get updated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by darkdefender
Yes there is... the Intel Haswell CPU's at Computex Tapei on the 20th of next month. Some are already out for sale.
Did I really need to clarify appropriate for the mac pro? The only haswell Xeons that come out early basically coincide in performance with the imac and are poorly aligned with Apple's product line. Apple uses integrated graphics to hook in thunderbolt. E3s lack the igpu and instead have 4 more PCI lanes available. They allow for ECC ram, but other than that performance is identical to those used in the imacs. The hardware you could see at that time is the type that is appropriate for the imac, macbook pros, and mini. The mini is usually last to be refreshed. I suspect it will go back to that pattern given that they should not have repeat issues with the imac rollout. The notebooks are usually the first thing to be refreshed, and they're likely to show the best gains. I think if anything new macbook pros will be announced assuming adequate cpu availability.
Yeah but PCI Display Driver evidence from AMD says you can install a PCI e 3.0 GPU on an unreleased version of a Mac... that being the Mac Pro most likely.
Haswell's have bad graphics but it's normal for mainstream users so you won't even be sold an extremely high end GPU like the N780 or R7970 unless Apple has drivers being built/ already built by AMD or Nvidia.
Just build a PC instead.
DDR 4 RAM is coming this fall so I would wait though till Christmas.
Other than that... why do you need Xeon Processors...?
All I'm saying is the lack of an obvious CPU rollout doesn't mean that Apple wouldn't rollout a new Mac Pro.
As to Intel and Apple working together, anything is possible. The interesting thing here is that some technology Intel was working a year or two ago kinda disappeared off the radar. One item that has gone missing is the XEON intel was working on with built in Infiniband, what Intel now calls True Scale Fabric. Also if you go to CPU-world.com you will find listings for XEON Phi and XEON E3 that have popped up for May and June.
Now Apple isn't likely to go E3 route but you never know. If it wasn't for addressable memory I could see E3 making a very nice and salable "Pro" machine. It really depends upon how radical the new Mac Pro will be. We know it is being overhauled we just don't know how far. I personally believe Apple needs a radical departure but we have no idea if anybody at Apple agrees.
In any event the Intel reveal is literally days away.
Actually RAM is the reason to go with XEON. 32 GB is simply to little RAM for some uses of the Mac Pro. However I could see Apple producing a Mac Pro replacement that gives up large RAM arrays for a simpler architecture that would allow them to either drive costs down or include a Phi coprocessor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
All I'm saying is the lack of an obvious CPU rollout doesn't mean that Apple wouldn't rollout a new Mac Pro.
As to Intel and Apple working together, anything is possible. The interesting thing here is that some technology Intel was working a year or two ago kinda disappeared off the radar. One item that has gone missing is the XEON intel was working on with built in Infiniband, what Intel now calls True Scale Fabric. Also if you go to CPU-world.com you will find listings for XEON Phi and XEON E3 that have popped up for May and June.
Now Apple isn't likely to go E3 route but you never know. If it wasn't for addressable memory I could see E3 making a very nice and salable "Pro" machine. It really depends upon how radical the new Mac Pro will be. We know it is being overhauled we just don't know how far. I personally believe Apple needs a radical departure but we have no idea if anybody at Apple agrees.
In any event the Intel reveal is literally days away.
I remain highly skeptical. Here is what I find implausible about the use of E3s. Their primary difference in the context of a workstation compared to the i7s used in imacs would be the ability to use ECC ram. E3s could be used in an xmac type machine if they felt the need to maintain some kind of solution that preserves ECC ram. Most people never experience problems from bit flipping or even understand that parity based correction only applies to single bit errors. It's really there in workstations for things like CAD and engineering applications. I don't see Apple moving toward E3 just for those customers. If thunderbolt really is a high priority to Apple as a part of their core product strategy, the i5 and i7 versions make more sense than their E3 counterparts. This is because they include some form of embedded graphics, so Apple can use their current solution to thunderbolt there rather than rely on internal switches or whatever is necessary to include it. I don't see them as providing a high net benefit compared to the elusive headless imac. Am I missing something there?
I'm not that well read on Xeon Phi. I know you mentioned cheaper variants. The ones I've read about were the chips that cost several thousand yet provide a simpler development path than GPGPU. I'm also not completely familiar with their advantages relative to the typical ever increasing core counts on Xeon EP chips. I do know that Xeon EP is aimed at servers first with workstations being more of a leveraged solution. What little I have read about Xeon Phi has been in the form of tech articles. They typically suggest it's intel's answer to GPGPU use in HPC solutions. The proposed advantage is that they're easier to develop for than NVidia's Tesla cards. There's also the issue that NVidia subsidizes the Teslas somewhat through their higher volume solutions, which Intel has encroached upon with their own integrated gpu solutions.
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Originally Posted by wizard69
Well yeah but that could also be a Mac with a built in GPU. Anything from a laptop to an iMac.
Lots of new RAM technology on the horizon.
Actually RAM is the reason to go with XEON. 32 GB is simply to little RAM for some uses of the Mac Pro. However I could see Apple producing a Mac Pro replacement that gives up large RAM arrays for a simpler architecture that would allow them to either drive costs down or include a Phi coprocessor.
It's still only the dual EP solutions that allow for some of the corner case configurations. 32GB isn't far out of line for many professional use cases if they're buying a new machine today. It's not always a matter of whether you absolutely require it either. With 2x8 kits floating around $100 or less, it's often worth going for that. Some of the 100GB+ HPC configurations aren't really available on the mac pro. With Lion it was still limited to 96GB. I don't know if Mountain Lion changed it.
That is pretty much it. Right now they are in effect co processors that are easier to program than a GPU.
In any event I just find it interesting that it is so difficult to find info on Intel initiatives that they freely had on their web site while back. It is like they have adopted Apples security concepts and now hide everything in development from the public.
I don't think ML changed maximum RAM the system can use. In any event 96 GB is three times 32. For some users a 32 GB limit is a problem which is probably the strongest reason to avoid E3.
All I know for sure is that Intel needs to have some hidden hardware available next week or we won't see as much in the way of hardware updates as many of us hope for.
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Originally Posted by wizard69
I was under the impression that modern ECC codes could detect and correct more bad bits than that. It doesn't really matter as you say only a few people even understand the benefit. However whatever does replace the Mac Pro needs to support ECC or Apple will have yet another big gap in its line up.
You could be right. Sometimes I end up with outdated information. The PowerPC era towers never supported ECC. One of the positives to picking that up with the switch to intel was it made the use of engineering software more feasible on OSX. There's no OSX catia, but Autocad, Alias, and Inventor are all available on OSX.
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The biggest problem for E3 in a Mac Pro replacement is addressable RAM.
TB implements a form of a cross bar switch to route single out to the TB bus. That chip can connect to integrated GPUs or discrete GPUs from what in understand. As you know finding information on Intels sight is very difficult these days.
I wasn't under the impression that it was impossible. Apple has simply used embedded graphics solutions there. I'm not sure if they're easier to implement or if it's just coincidental with what was already present.
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Well you get around 60 cores. Performance is as much as ten times what you can get on a dual socket XEON machine. That of course depends upon the code. I mention Phi because it is an alternative, I suspect that Apple will prefer GPU compute.
That is pretty much it. Right now they are in effect co processors that are easier to program than a GPU.
Well yeah that's in line with my understanding of them. They were developed for HPC number crunching solutions rather than something that runs many OS instances via whatever hypervisor solution. In some cases that might be better suited to workstations than the most expensive high core count cpu options.
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In any event I just find it interesting that it is so difficult to find info on Intel initiatives that they freely had on their web site while back. It is like they have adopted Apples security concepts and now hide everything in development from the public.
I wonder if it's a sign that their engineers are projecting downstream problems in their tick tock timeline.
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Originally Posted by wizard69
I don't think ML changed maximum RAM the system can use. In any event 96 GB is three times 32. For some users a 32 GB limit is a problem which is probably the strongest reason to avoid E3.
All I know for sure is that Intel needs to have some hidden hardware available next week or we won't see as much in the way of hardware updates as many of us hope for.
I get that. The single chip mac pros were also tested up to 48GB in a 16x3 configuration. I'm not sure if it's a chipset limitation with the imacs. They might be limited to 32GB at that level, but they use sodimms anyway. There are currently no 16GB sodimms. I doubt that will change prior to DDR4 in any meaningful production quantity.
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Originally Posted by darkdefender
Yeah but PCI Display Driver evidence from AMD says you can install a PCI e 3.0 GPU on an unreleased version of a Mac... that being the Mac Pro most likely.
Haswell's have bad graphics but it's normal for mainstream users so you won't even be sold an extremely high end GPU like the N780 or R7970 unless Apple has drivers being built/ already built by AMD or Nvidia.
Just build a PC instead.
DDR 4 RAM is coming this fall so I would wait though till Christmas.
Other than that... why do you need Xeon Processors...?
You have higher performance and higher bandwidth options available there. I'm not sure I personally need them anymore, but those are the things offered by such a solution. I'm not convinced Apple is really going to expand upon that $1000-2000 range beyond what they have, and an "xmac" type solution with a $2500 starting point is kind of ridiculous. Wizard wants to see one in addition to the current lineup. I don't personally think they would morph the mac pro into one. I'm not debating whether it would sell.
I just can't see them really building out what has become their slower growth area. The presence of rmbp + cmbp seems more transitional to me. They may just be seeing how many people buy the old ones due to the specific limitations of the newer ones. The issue of maintaining price points is more likely. They have certain goals in terms of margins and sales volume, and whatever nonsense people on here say at times, demand is not entirely elastic. It's not just whether people buy macs or PCs. It's also how often they choose to buy new ones.