Total = $1494 + 40% margin = $2490 so same starting price.
That's more than achievable. (If they want Pro sales to increase! :P )
But I'd rather they take it outside into the car park. If HP can have 'Workstations' starting at £700+? Why can't we have a top end iMac config' monitor less price of £1295-iSH with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, 7xx Nvidia and an i7 quad?
12 core cpu more than enough. (Especially considering it's improvement in IPC/MB etc...)
But groundbreaking (for Apple) use of dual GPUs for gravely car park computation.
Scorching SSD PCIe speed. (Though surely there's room for another on the other side - looks at screenshot*)
And the eye bulging size of the dwarf star.
Simply - 'Can't innovate anymore my ass.'
I'd seriously like Apple to look at an entry price (Even if margins squeeze to 20% to get people on the ladder...) of £1295 ie top config' iMac minus monitor.... i7 Quad. 7XX Nvidia. 8 gigs of ram. 512 gigs SSD.
I JUST realized where Apple got this (obviously alien) advanced technology from…! The new Mac Pro is actually the Central Compute Core in an Imperial Probe Droid…!!!
Hmmm...12x? That's in the data spec and they control both GPU and MB completely.
Maybe, Thunderbolt bandwidth is confusing. There are two controller types: 2-channel and 4-channel. The 2-channel ones have 40Gbps aggregate, and the 4-channel 80Gbps. PCIe 2 x4 is 40Gbps:
According to Anandtech, Apple's been running the controller off the CPU lanes so they might have been using PCIe 3 lanes already, possibly just two lanes.
But Thunderbolt 2 gets rid of the reserve for display bandwidth so that should mean it's possible to have 80Gbps aggregate PCIe per pair of ports (240Gbps aggregate external - same as the old Mac Pro had internally, just divided differently), which is double the old Thunderbolt data limit. Technically it's the same overall aggregate as before but you have the ability to use the previously reserved bandwidth for something other than display data.
That would require 12 PCIe 3 lanes for the Thunderbolt on the MP, leaving 28 to divide between two GPUs and the storage. The GPUs could be on x12 each as you say, leaving x4 for storage and anything else.
It definitely has 40 lanes as the marketing says 40GB/s PCIe 3 bandwidth (1GB/s per lane). There are legacy PCIe 2 lanes on some motherboards though so they could be getting bandwidth elsewhere for things like the SSD.
I'm sure when it comes out we'll know for certain where the bandwidth is allocated. For heterogeneous computing, it makes sense to have them on as fast an interface as possible but again, it depends on what's being done. I don't see why data would have to be copied across the interface a lot when there's enough memory on each side because even on PCIe 3 x16, that's less than 1/10th the GPU memory bandwidth so copying data around isn't efficient.
Huh? I put my MP5.1 with 10.8 to sleep instead of shutting down. That's hibernation, right? I'm missing something here...
Hibernation is distinct from sleep - it's used to mean dumping the contents of RAM to the hard drive so the RAM can be powered down for long standby (RAM is volatile so it has to stay powered for the contents to stay in there, SSD/HDD is non-volatile so it can be shut off from power and keep the memory state). Hibernation is used on laptops to maintain standby time (battery life while the computer is asleep) but desktops are powered all the time so they just sleep without hibernation.
Apple LED Cinema Display is finally going to be dropped from the (online) Apple Store, as all Macs have Thunderbolt ports now. I wonder if Apple is going to introduce an Apple 4K Display in the fall. There could be a “pro” event, where they could release the Mac Pro and also introduce new Retina MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt 2. That would be a perfect moment to introduce Apple 4K Display (since 4K cannot work over Thunderbolt 1).
I JUST realized where Apple got this (obviously alien) advanced technology from…! The new Mac Pro is actually the Central Compute Core in an Imperial Probe Droid…!!!
Could well be...
...though I'm more in with the Vader sitting down in Empire in his 'Dock'. 'You have failed me for the last time, Admiral...'
If HP can have 'Workstations' starting at £700+? Why can't we have a top end iMac config' monitor less price of £1295-iSH with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, 7xx Nvidia and an i7 quad?
Well, those entry ones usually sell without a GPU and Core-i3. If Apple used an Ivy Bridge E5 with an IGP, they could do this.
They could have something like:
Ivy Bridge quad with 4600 graphics $294
8GB RAM $100
no dedicated GPU
256GB SSD $200
$300 for the rest
add 40% and you get $1490 (£1250). The Mini wouldn't be far off that though so it would need some sort of dedicated GPU. They could offer even a single desktop one for not much more but these are all custom built. They could but I don't think they will.
I probably picked the wrong GPUs before. Most likely, the top ones will be the dual-S10000 with ECC video memory:
These cards are pretty expensive and having to get custom versions of loads of models is probably not that efficient but who knows, maybe their new manufacturing will give them the freedom to have a range of GPUs. I'm not sure how they can easily scale from a $1000 GPU to a $2000 one if it's dual-GPU, that single option would jump $2k. There's no reason they can't have single GPU options, especially if they will have a server model.
They must have got cheap prices from AMD because even if Apple sells 250k Mac pros per quarter, that's probably more than AMD sells of these GPUs to anyone else.
The design is interesting. If external storage and cd etc... are designed as a fitted cylindrical base that stack underneath the computer, with a place to tuck the cables... Then I can see it working. This of course would require 3rd party design to match the Mac Pro only, so a bit unlikely or insanely expensive. A splooge of different color cables bursting out of this design to a variety of different shape and sized devices... Uuuugh. It will look like a trash can spilling its guts.
I recommend waiting for rev 2 or 3 (if it makes it) on this design. It takes time to work out bugs in new manufacturing facilities as well. Something tells me adoption will be painfully slow and expensive.
The concept is intriguing. Definitely a push to use cloud based storage. It is absolutely critical Apple get the matching display right thou. If its a useless glossy piece of shit like current offerings, then this Mac Pro will not be compelling enough to actual professionals who are already excluded from the iMac line. Forcing pros to buy other brands of displays is negative branding and a gateway to abandoning Apple altogether. (Easier to finance a single invoice).
Then again, if this thing comes out and requires a mortgage, it will all be for not.
The design is interesting. If external storage and cd etc... are designed as a fitted cylindrical base that stack underneath the computer, with a place to tuck the cables... Then I can see it working.
It works fine with non-matching peripherals. The Foundry & Pixar WWDC session is up called Painting the Future. The Pixar artist was using the Mac Pro connected to a Cinema Display and Wacom:
They got to use pre-release versions of the Mac Pro but they were apparently hidden inside large boxes and didn't get to see it until it was revealed to the public. They use it for painting multiple layers of 8k textures on 3D models in real-time. Both him and the guy who originally developed the texture software said that it runs more smoothly on this hardware than any other hardware they've used - they mentioned that typically gamers have two GPUs, not artist workstations so having this push for dual GPUs makes it an easy choice. The texture artist also showed how he'd taken a photo of tree bark on his iPhone and used that as a brush texture to paint wrinkles into the face of one of the Monsters U characters. Very cool presentation.
Something tells me adoption will be painfully slow and expensive.
It's not a high volume product and they typically don't release breakdown numbers so you'd never know if adoption is painfully slow or otherwise. The Mac Pro makes up much less than 5% of the whole Mac sales and it will likely continue to do so because of the price range it's in.
There was no push towards cloud storage. If you have massive amounts of data, storing it in the cloud isn't feasible. Local NAS storage maybe, you can have a personal server hooked up to gigabit ethernet and work that way or some Thunderbolt setup. Hard drives are noisy so you can get a 100ft optical Thunderbolt cable and sit a Pegasus RAID in a well ventilated cupboard somewhere.
I don't know enough about this industry to know if this should make my jaw drop.
Other machines do this sort of thing already as they have had access to the same GPUs but the guy mentioned the previews were running at 60FPS. So it's really just that this is a very explicit demo of not only being possible on a Mac but one that small and out of the box performing better than other machines they've used before - having PCIe SSD will help load the textures really quickly. It needs a lot of video memory to hold high resolution textures - he mentioned that games typically have 256x256 textures, some will have 512x512 so this 8k resolution is significantly higher than what you tend to find in real-time games and is quite demanding on GPUs. It wasn't obvious if the Mac Pro on the desk was the one being used but if it was, there was also no audible fan noise from it while it was rendering the demo. It wasn't a very intensive or long session so the noise level won't be certain until people really put it through its paces.
…painting multiple layers of 8k textures on 3D models in real-time. Both him and the guy who originally developed the texture software said that it runs more smoothly on this hardware than any other hardware they've used…
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
IT'S. SO. SMALL. This is a bigger revolution than anyone wants to admit. And it's not going under anyone's desk. Not anymore.
I don't know enough about this industry to know if this should make my jaw drop.
The Pixar guy says that the data set for a single character is around 10GB, and as Marvin replied later, they were interacting & painting on the models at 60fps in real time. They loaded in a second character, the data set(s) jumps up to 20GB, still smooth like butter!
I would bet Apple's first really large order for the new Mac Pro would be headed to Pixar, depending on what their replacement/upgrade cycle looks like. The artists there are probably gonna be fighting for the privilege of getting one of these workstations in their cubicle…!
Now the real trick is to get all of the DCC software creators out there to get their OpenGL 4.x & OpenCL coding into the apps to take proper advantage of the dual GPUs…!
Comments
Quote:
I imagine the base spec will be (costs listed, not retail prices):
Quad Xeon $294
8GB RAM $100
dual FirePro W5000 $600 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195119 )
256GB SSD $200
Motherboard, PSU, peripherals = $300
Total = $1494 + 40% margin = $2490 so same starting price.
That's more than achievable. (If they want Pro sales to increase! :P )
But I'd rather they take it outside into the car park. If HP can have 'Workstations' starting at £700+? Why can't we have a top end iMac config' monitor less price of £1295-iSH with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, 7xx Nvidia and an i7 quad?
Lemon Bon Bon.
ie get those scale of economies moving...
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
People can claim the imac represents a market, because they're tech illiterate.
*Let's rip a big FARRRRT. And gives him the finger. :P *waves at 'Laser Brain.'
Lemon Bon Bon.
Back on top.
Really blown away by the new 'Preview' Darth Pro.
Astonishing design direction. Their best yet.
Called it brilliantly.
Take the storage 'outside'
Big focus on computation.
12 core cpu more than enough. (Especially considering it's improvement in IPC/MB etc...)
But groundbreaking (for Apple) use of dual GPUs for gravely car park computation.
Scorching SSD PCIe speed. (Though surely there's room for another on the other side - looks at screenshot*)
And the eye bulging size of the dwarf star.
Simply - 'Can't innovate anymore my ass.'
I'd seriously like Apple to look at an entry price (Even if margins squeeze to 20% to get people on the ladder...) of £1295 ie top config' iMac minus monitor.... i7 Quad. 7XX Nvidia. 8 gigs of ram. 512 gigs SSD.
They'd walk out the stores.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I JUST realized where Apple got this (obviously alien) advanced technology from…! The new Mac Pro is actually the Central Compute Core in an Imperial Probe Droid…!!!
Maybe, Thunderbolt bandwidth is confusing. There are two controller types: 2-channel and 4-channel. The 2-channel ones have 40Gbps aggregate, and the 4-channel 80Gbps. PCIe 2 x4 is 40Gbps:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4542/eagle-ridge-the-cheaper-optionally-smaller-thunderbolt-controller
"(4 x 10Gbps bidirectional = 80Gbps aggregate bandwidth)"
The Macbook Air uses the 2-channel one, which could be why it got the update at WWDC.
They exceeded the 10Gbps data in one direction in a test here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/11
According to Anandtech, Apple's been running the controller off the CPU lanes so they might have been using PCIe 3 lanes already, possibly just two lanes.
But Thunderbolt 2 gets rid of the reserve for display bandwidth so that should mean it's possible to have 80Gbps aggregate PCIe per pair of ports (240Gbps aggregate external - same as the old Mac Pro had internally, just divided differently), which is double the old Thunderbolt data limit. Technically it's the same overall aggregate as before but you have the ability to use the previously reserved bandwidth for something other than display data.
That would require 12 PCIe 3 lanes for the Thunderbolt on the MP, leaving 28 to divide between two GPUs and the storage. The GPUs could be on x12 each as you say, leaving x4 for storage and anything else.
It definitely has 40 lanes as the marketing says 40GB/s PCIe 3 bandwidth (1GB/s per lane). There are legacy PCIe 2 lanes on some motherboards though so they could be getting bandwidth elsewhere for things like the SSD.
I'm sure when it comes out we'll know for certain where the bandwidth is allocated. For heterogeneous computing, it makes sense to have them on as fast an interface as possible but again, it depends on what's being done. I don't see why data would have to be copied across the interface a lot when there's enough memory on each side because even on PCIe 3 x16, that's less than 1/10th the GPU memory bandwidth so copying data around isn't efficient.
Hibernation is distinct from sleep - it's used to mean dumping the contents of RAM to the hard drive so the RAM can be powered down for long standby (RAM is volatile so it has to stay powered for the contents to stay in there, SSD/HDD is non-volatile so it can be shut off from power and keep the memory state). Hibernation is used on laptops to maintain standby time (battery life while the computer is asleep) but desktops are powered all the time so they just sleep without hibernation.
Glossy 4k please.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRonin
I JUST realized where Apple got this (obviously alien) advanced technology from…! The new Mac Pro is actually the Central Compute Core in an Imperial Probe Droid…!!!
Could well be...
...though I'm more in with the Vader sitting down in Empire in his 'Dock'. 'You have failed me for the last time, Admiral...'
Lemon Bon Bon.
They could have something like:
Ivy Bridge quad with 4600 graphics $294
8GB RAM $100
no dedicated GPU
256GB SSD $200
$300 for the rest
add 40% and you get $1490 (£1250). The Mini wouldn't be far off that though so it would need some sort of dedicated GPU. They could offer even a single desktop one for not much more but these are all custom built. They could but I don't think they will.
I probably picked the wrong GPUs before. Most likely, the top ones will be the dual-S10000 with ECC video memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105005&Tpk=s10000&IsVirtualParent=1
There's also the S9000:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105004
and S7000:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105006
These cards are pretty expensive and having to get custom versions of loads of models is probably not that efficient but who knows, maybe their new manufacturing will give them the freedom to have a range of GPUs. I'm not sure how they can easily scale from a $1000 GPU to a $2000 one if it's dual-GPU, that single option would jump $2k. There's no reason they can't have single GPU options, especially if they will have a server model.
They must have got cheap prices from AMD because even if Apple sells 250k Mac pros per quarter, that's probably more than AMD sells of these GPUs to anyone else.
This of course would require 3rd party design to match the Mac Pro only, so a bit unlikely or insanely expensive.
A splooge of different color cables bursting out of this design to a variety of different shape and sized devices... Uuuugh. It will look like a trash can spilling its guts.
I recommend waiting for rev 2 or 3 (if it makes it) on this design. It takes time to work out bugs in new manufacturing facilities as well.
Something tells me adoption will be painfully slow and expensive.
The concept is intriguing. Definitely a push to use cloud based storage.
It is absolutely critical Apple get the matching display right thou. If its a useless glossy piece of shit like current offerings, then this Mac Pro will not be compelling enough to actual professionals who are already excluded from the iMac line. Forcing pros to buy other brands of displays is negative branding and a gateway to abandoning Apple altogether. (Easier to finance a single invoice).
Then again, if this thing comes out and requires a mortgage, it will all be for not.
Lets see where things are at in 2015.
Not long ago, several makers made things that fit the Mac mini form factor perfectly. (Still do?)
I think somebody will come out with a nice design (hopefully soon).
This is a NeXT Cube!
It works fine with non-matching peripherals. The Foundry & Pixar WWDC session is up called Painting the Future. The Pixar artist was using the Mac Pro connected to a Cinema Display and Wacom:
They got to use pre-release versions of the Mac Pro but they were apparently hidden inside large boxes and didn't get to see it until it was revealed to the public. They use it for painting multiple layers of 8k textures on 3D models in real-time. Both him and the guy who originally developed the texture software said that it runs more smoothly on this hardware than any other hardware they've used - they mentioned that typically gamers have two GPUs, not artist workstations so having this push for dual GPUs makes it an easy choice. The texture artist also showed how he'd taken a photo of tree bark on his iPhone and used that as a brush texture to paint wrinkles into the face of one of the Monsters U characters. Very cool presentation.
Someone says that about pretty much every revision and people buy them just the same.
It's not a high volume product and they typically don't release breakdown numbers so you'd never know if adoption is painfully slow or otherwise. The Mac Pro makes up much less than 5% of the whole Mac sales and it will likely continue to do so because of the price range it's in.
There was no push towards cloud storage. If you have massive amounts of data, storing it in the cloud isn't feasible. Local NAS storage maybe, you can have a personal server hooked up to gigabit ethernet and work that way or some Thunderbolt setup. Hard drives are noisy so you can get a 100ft optical Thunderbolt cable and sit a Pegasus RAID in a well ventilated cupboard somewhere.
IT'S. SO. SMALL. This is a bigger revolution than anyone wants to admit. And it's not going under anyone's desk. Not anymore.
I don't know enough about this industry to know if this should make my jaw drop.
Other machines do this sort of thing already as they have had access to the same GPUs but the guy mentioned the previews were running at 60FPS. So it's really just that this is a very explicit demo of not only being possible on a Mac but one that small and out of the box performing better than other machines they've used before - having PCIe SSD will help load the textures really quickly. It needs a lot of video memory to hold high resolution textures - he mentioned that games typically have 256x256 textures, some will have 512x512 so this 8k resolution is significantly higher than what you tend to find in real-time games and is quite demanding on GPUs. It wasn't obvious if the Mac Pro on the desk was the one being used but if it was, there was also no audible fan noise from it while it was rendering the demo. It wasn't a very intensive or long session so the noise level won't be certain until people really put it through its paces.
NeXT Tube?
So it's small enough to be portable. Also may be effective as a fan!
OK I may get one used, which I can afford.
I passed on the G5 and Mac Pro, just too large for my desk area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
…painting multiple layers of 8k textures on 3D models in real-time. Both him and the guy who originally developed the texture software said that it runs more smoothly on this hardware than any other hardware they've used…
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
IT'S. SO. SMALL. This is a bigger revolution than anyone wants to admit. And it's not going under anyone's desk. Not anymore.
I don't know enough about this industry to know if this should make my jaw drop.
The Pixar guy says that the data set for a single character is around 10GB, and as Marvin replied later, they were interacting & painting on the models at 60fps in real time. They loaded in a second character, the data set(s) jumps up to 20GB, still smooth like butter!
I would bet Apple's first really large order for the new Mac Pro would be headed to Pixar, depending on what their replacement/upgrade cycle looks like. The artists there are probably gonna be fighting for the privilege of getting one of these workstations in their cubicle…!
Now the real trick is to get all of the DCC software creators out there to get their OpenGL 4.x & OpenCL coding into the apps to take proper advantage of the dual GPUs…!