I saw something weird and similar in reverse the other day. I have a 27" Dell 4K as a second screen to an iMac i9 27" 5K. Unfortunately I can't remember what I was trying out but the screen resolution on the 4K showed as full 5K in the settings of whatever I was doing. I haven't found what I did to repeat this yet but I wasn't drinking (at the time).
Why nobody remembers that iMac Pro is actually just updated in 2019?
That was just increasing the available memory options (something the existing chipset already supported) and using the same GPU as before, just overclocked.
Apple would have had to update the system board to incorporate Titan Ridge and they would not do that when there was no benefit at the time (since the XDR display was not announced) except the raise the cost.
The current iMac Pros are old in computer years, so this doesn't surprise me. My XDR arrives in January. Can't wait to pair it in 6K with my 16-inch MBP.
This is exactly the problem. Apple simply lets its “pro” hardware languish for way too long turning them into bad buys. There are few rumors yet but I’m really hoping we see a new iMac Pro early in 2020! Chip technology has advanced significantly and it isn’t just TB3 controllers. An iMac Pro built around AMDs Thread Ripper technology would be amazing. IMac might not be able to handle the highest end Thread Rippers but with in a reasonable power budget Intel can’t compete.
Pro aaa my a pipe dream but the fact remains IMac Pro is due for an update. Hopefully the new Pro team at Apple will address the mechanical issues that make iMac Pro too much of a pain in the ass for pros. Specifically RAM and SSD access.
Why nobody remembers that iMac Pro is actually just updated in 2019?
Also, that update came alongside those 2019 iMacs which are compatible with Pro Display XDR.
They definitely had a chance to upgrade the Thunderbolt component this year.
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
Define “pro” my guy. Because per Craig, their most populous group of pro users are...software devs. And these machines (iMac 5K, iMac Pro, MBP) serve our purposes just fine. Very well, in fact. Pro is and has been a marketing term to indicate “best” in the typical good/better/best tiers. Just because it doesnt do something some pros want doesn’t mean it’s a cop out, poorly managed, gimped hardware, yada yada.
Yeah definitely DEFINE "Pro."
Because in my eyes, taking into consideration, there are "Pros" who can do some seriously cool things with a Raspberry Pi. So I think we are really talking about a super "relative" word here. All I have is context, i.e. MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, the context here is MacBook or Mac...
Mac (Desktop) Pro Mac(Book) Pro
Big difference, and the Desktop is DEAD unless you're a... Pro? hehe
I am at my limit of what "want" to do. I don't care to edit 8K video for 4K HDR10/Dolby movies on Netflix, and my Audio needs are well taken care of with 2008-2011 equipment...
My limit is 1-4 MacMini(s) and I'll do some really cool stuff with that. That puts me at $5000, and I can buy 64GBs of ram for each.
To each their own, but man quite a few heads are wrapped up/caught up, in the word PRO around here!
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
That's not true. There is no definition as to what pro means for equipment, other than pros use it. And we know that a lot of pros use this equipment.
What I don't like, is Apple not updating it every year.
Still waiting on that book that describes what happened inside Apple from about early 2012 to about 2017. They bought into the iPad sales trajectory and thought Macs were done, so they put little effort into it?
Didn’t Craig already address this with regards to the MP in the tech crunch transcript of their meeting on the roadmap for the MP, where they announced the 2017 iMP and teased the MP? Craig talked about the bet on parallel processing which didn’t come to pass, and the thermal corner.
Yes, they knew they messed up with the 2013 Mac Pro, probably accepted it in 2015 after about a year on the market, and started on the iMac Pro in late 2015 as a replacement. Then, they knew they messed up again in 2017 while the iMac Pro was still in development, and pre-announced the 2019 Mac Pro about 30 months ahead of its availability.
That’s not a thermal corner engineering issue. That’s their product marketers not knowing the market or the company executive not understanding where they wanted the company to go. That was two big product mistakes on what used to be one of their core products. I really want to know who and why. Then, you can include not shipping an external monitor, which left billions off the ledger imo. Got rid of the routers, Didn’t upgrade the Mac mini for years, and the MacBook 12” was not good enough to replace the MBA or the low end of the laptop line.
If it was a thermal corner, they could have engineered a solution to fit inside the same cylinder to support a 150 W CPU and one 250 W GPU and moved forward with the form factor. They put those same components in about 1.5”, that’s at the thickest point, behind a 27” display for the iMac Pro., and even more constrained volume. So, I don’t think engineering a solution would have been a problem.
The current iMac Pros are old in computer years, so this doesn't surprise me. My XDR arrives in January. Can't wait to pair it in 6K with my 16-inch MBP.
This is exactly the problem. Apple simply lets its “pro” hardware languish for way too long turning them into bad buys. There are few rumors yet but I’m really hoping we see a new iMac Pro early in 2020! Chip technology has advanced significantly and it isn’t just TB3 controllers. An iMac Pro built around AMDs Thread Ripper technology would be amazing. IMac might not be able to handle the highest end Thread Rippers but with in a reasonable power budget Intel can’t compete.
Pro aaa my a pipe dream but the fact remains IMac Pro is due for an update. Hopefully the new Pro team at Apple will address the mechanical issues that make iMac Pro too much of a pain in the ass for pros. Specifically RAM and SSD access.
Why nobody remembers that iMac Pro is actually just updated in 2019?
Also, that update came alongside those 2019 iMacs which are compatible with Pro Display XDR.
They definitely had a chance to upgrade the Thunderbolt component this year.
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
Define “pro” my guy. Because perCraig, their mostpopulousgroup of pro users are...softwaredevs. And these machines (iMac 5K, iMac Pro, MBP) serve our purposes just fine. Very well, in fact. Pro is and has been a marketing term to indicate “best” in the typical good/better/best tiers. Just because it doesnt do something some pros want doesn’t mean it’s a cop out, poorly managed, gimped hardware, yada yada.
I've asked you four times in different threads to support this claim but you have never provided an answer, much less a full quote in context from Craig.
My recollection of his words led me to a different conclusion although this time you seem to have tweaked your wording of the claim with regards to previous posts.
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
That's not true. There is no definition as to what pro means for equipment, other than pros use it. And we know that a lot of pros use this equipment.
What I don't like, is Apple not updating it every year.
Still waiting on that book that describes what happened inside Apple from about early 2012 to about 2017. They bought into the iPad sales trajectory and thought Macs were done, so they put little effort into it?
Didn’t Craig already address this with regards to the MP in the tech crunch transcript of their meeting on the roadmap for the MP, where they announced the 2017 iMP and teased the MP? Craig talked about the bet on parallel processing which didn’t come to pass, and the thermal corner.
Yes, they knew they messed up with the 2013 Mac Pro, probably accepted it in 2015 after about a year on the market, and started on the iMac Pro in late 2015 as a replacement. Then, they knew they messed up again in 2017 while the iMac Pro was still in development, and pre-announced the 2019 Mac Pro about 30 months ahead of its availability.
That’s not a thermal corner engineering issue. That’s their product marketers not knowing the market or the company executive not understanding where they wanted the company to go. That was two big product mistakes on what used to be one of their core products. I really want to know who and why. Then, you can include not shipping an external monitor, which left billions off the ledger imo. Got rid of the routers, Didn’t upgrade the Mac mini for years, and the MacBook 12” was not good enough to replace the MBA or the low end of the laptop line.
If it was a thermal corner, they could have engineered a solution to fit inside the same cylinder to support a 150 W CPU and one 250 W GPU and moved forward with the form factor. They put those same components in about 1.5”, that’s at the thickest point, behind a 27” display for the iMac Pro., and even more constrained volume. So, I don’t think engineering a solution would have been a problem.
Hopefully there is a book.
They described the thermal corner as being related to the corner or side of the triangular heatsink:
"The triangle you mentioned, the thermal core, is designed to have three fairly similar loads – similarly balanced in power. And so the overall size of the product and the fan, that defines the overall thermal capacity for the enclosure. And we didn’t see as much take up in dual GPUs as we would have expected."
I would expect it could cool a single larger GPU on one side given that, as you mentioned, the parts fit into an iMac Pro ok but there's no point selling both it and an iMac Pro at the same price point and they probably can cool the parts better by laying them out across the back of a display with separate heatsinks than packed in a box.
The iMac Pro wasn't messed up, there's just so few buyers at those price points it's barely worth paying attention to the products. They could have EOL'd these product lines years ago and it wouldn't have been a blip on their balance sheet.
For upgradability, they could have designed a custom PCIe slot on the iMac Pro to allow connecting a box of GPUs or expansion cards for people who needed it. Most people don't buy multiple GPUs as evidenced by AMD and NVidia's earnings. The new Mac Pro with a single GPU isn't much faster than an iMac Pro, it's just in a much larger, empty box.
There isn't a single product that fully satisfies every professional workflow, there's an assumption that the older towers did but they only did for as long as mobile products weren't powerful enough and that's not the case any more. Macbook Pros now match/outperform every Mac Pro made before the latest one so most people migrated to iMacs and Macbook Pros.
"The triangle you mentioned, the thermal core, is designed to have three fairly similar loads – similarly balanced in power. And so the overall size of the product and the fan, that defines the overall thermal capacity for the enclosure. And we didn’t see as much take up in dual GPUs as we would have expected."
I would expect it could cool a single larger GPU on one side given that, as you mentioned, the parts fit into an iMac Pro ok but there's no point selling both it and an iMac Pro at the same price point and they probably can cool the parts better by laying them out across the back of a display with separate heatsinks than packed in a box.
I read that interview just like everyone else at the time, and as far as I could tell, Ternus and Federighi were speaking technobabble, or manager babble.
The cooling system of the iMac Pro uses one heat sink, just like the 2013 Mac Pro. It has one more fan than the 2013 Mac Pro, but that’s likely a consequence of the heatsink being smaller. The CPU and GPU in the iMac Pro are connected to the singular heatsink through heat pipes, while everything else is cooled by drawn-in air before going into the impeller fans. Those fans then drive that air across the singular heat sink for the GPU+CPU and out. The cooling design of the iMac Pro is basically like the 2013 Mac Pro in idea, just flattened across the back of a monitor.
Ultimately, they made a decision to not update the 2013 Mac Pro, then go on to make the iMac Pro, very likely in 2015. The one area where the iMac Pro is likely better than the cylinder is servicing it, gigantic display and all. The daughter boards, sandwiching of power supply, the attachment and alignment of the boards to the heat sink did not look trivial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they switched away from the cylinder for this reason alone.
But it didn’t have to go that way. They didn’t have to make an iMac Pro. They could have a revved the internal design of the 2013 Mac Pro with a 250 W GPU and a Skylake Xeon, make an external monitor. The internal layout could have been redesigned to make it easier to service, especially if there was one less GPU in it. They made a strategic decision right then in 2015, and had to change it again in 2017.
The iMac Pro wasn't messed up, there's just so few buyers at those price points it's barely worth paying attention to the products. They could have EOL'd these product lines years ago and it wouldn't have been a blip on their balance sheet.
For upgradability, they could have designed a custom PCIe slot on the iMac Pro to allow connecting a box of GPUs or expansion cards for people who needed it. Most people don't buy multiple GPUs as evidenced by AMD and NVidia's earnings. The new Mac Pro with a single GPU isn't much faster than an iMac Pro, it's just in a much larger, empty box.
I meant messed up in the sense that they eventually decided that they could not give up the workstation niche and those customers. They had to know from the very beginning of going the iMac Pro route, at the very least, that it meant giving up the high end space. Then two years later, they reversed themselves and made it known that they will make a high end workstation again.
That’s a strategic mistake that cost them 2 to 3 years. And 5 to 6 years for some customers who didn’t want the 2013 model. Those are the two mistakes I’m referring to.
In the quote where Ternus is saying that dual GPUs wasn’t as popular as thought? What’s different now that they are selling a system that can have 4 250W GPUs in it? Or the heatsink thing regarding multiple components. Heck, the Pro Vega II Duo has 2 250W GPUs in it and don’t even have the benefit of having 1 fan’s worth of airflow in the 2019 Mac Pro.
Manager babble trying to cover up a bad mistake, that was then compounded is really all I can conclude from that interview.
There isn't a single product that fully satisfies every professional workflow, there's an assumption that the older towers did but they only did for as long as mobile products weren't powerful enough and that's not the case any more. Macbook Pros now match/outperform every Mac Pro made before the latest one so most people migrated to iMacs and Macbook Pros.
They don’t have to have one product line to satisfy all these difference use cases. They can have an AIO product lineup, a SFF desktop and workstation as they are now, but nothing is stopping them from selling a midrange headless desktop other than their own choice. Just like there is nothing stopping them from selling a 17” MBP or a 15” MBA. They’ll sell hundreds of thousands of those niche devices, they just don’t think it is worth the effort. “No” is a big philosophy for them, but it’s a balance that you can get on the wrong side of.
Reducing the number of customer decisions is a good thing, but they aren’t the company they were 15 years ago either. They have a huge userbase and a lot of customers now. With increased size comes more variety and addressing more and more niches. They can have more variety in hardware and be fine.
I'm thinking of getting one for a 2018 Mac mini, if it's got the grunt. Partly because it's an exceptional monitor (and I really want that $1K stand!) and there's a dearth of good 32" monitors, particularly with Retina equiv. DPI.
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
That's not true. There is no definition as to what pro means for equipment, other than pros use it. And we know that a lot of pros use this equipment.
What I don't like, is Apple not updating it every year.
Still waiting on that book that describes what happened inside Apple from about early 2012 to about 2017. They bought into the iPad sales trajectory and thought Macs were done, so they put little effort into it?
Didn’t Craig already address this with regards to the MP in the tech crunch transcript of their meeting on the roadmap for the MP, where they announced the 2017 iMP and teased the MP? Craig talked about the bet on parallel processing which didn’t come to pass, and the thermal corner.
A corner they backed themselves into again with the iMac Pro...?
The current iMac Pros are old in computer years, so this doesn't surprise me. My XDR arrives in January. Can't wait to pair it in 6K with my 16-inch MBP.
This is exactly the problem. Apple simply lets its “pro” hardware languish for way too long turning them into bad buys. There are few rumors yet but I’m really hoping we see a new iMac Pro early in 2020! Chip technology has advanced significantly and it isn’t just TB3 controllers. An iMac Pro built around AMDs Thread Ripper technology would be amazing. IMac might not be able to handle the highest end Thread Rippers but with in a reasonable power budget Intel can’t compete.
Pro aaa my a pipe dream but the fact remains IMac Pro is due for an update. Hopefully the new Pro team at Apple will address the mechanical issues that make iMac Pro too much of a pain in the ass for pros. Specifically RAM and SSD access.
Why nobody remembers that iMac Pro is actually just updated in 2019?
Also, that update came alongside those 2019 iMacs which are compatible with Pro Display XDR.
They definitely had a chance to upgrade the Thunderbolt component this year.
Moving the base config up isn’t an update. They should’ve updated the chips in the overall motherboard design to include the relevant bandwidth increase for display support. Probably this requires completely redesigning the whole machine because they’ve backed themselves into a corner yet again, due to the obsession with thinness...
That is one strange issue. The TB3 chips in the iMac Pro aren’t full Titan Ridge chips? Bandwidth limitation?
Essentially, yes. Based on teardowns, iMac Pro units uses two JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 controllers ("products formerly Alpine Ridge"; each handles two ports), which only support DisplayPort 1.2.
So even though the base pro tower ships with a 580X one needs an entire iMac Pro upgrade to run 6K (or better 8K) simply due to the choice of a $8.55 controller in a $5,000+ computer...? We have a 2017 'pro' computer based on a 2010 TB standard ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2
How and why does this happen...?
You serious? The Mac team has been poorly managed for year, little of the hardware sold as “pro” is actually pro. Apples goals for years have been high margins at all cost no matter how badly it impacts usability.
I know this bothers many Apple fan boys but the reality is the hardware they use in their Mac lineup is focused far more on margins than value to the customer or longevity of that hardwares. Today one needs to realize that Intel has been left behind and is no longer the first place people go looking for value or performance.
People like to defend Apples practices and even I can understand the low end isn’t going to be state of the art. However Apple simply markets too many machines as pro that simply aren’t pro grade at all.
That's not true. There is no definition as to what pro means for equipment, other than pros use it. And we know that a lot of pros use this equipment.
What I don't like, is Apple not updating it every year.
Still waiting on that book that describes what happened inside Apple from about early 2012 to about 2017. They bought into the iPad sales trajectory and thought Macs were done, so they put little effort into it?
Didn’t Craig already address this with regards to the MP in the tech crunch transcript of their meeting on the roadmap for the MP, where they announced the 2017 iMP and teased the MP? Craig talked about the bet on parallel processing which didn’t come to pass, and the thermal corner.
Yes, they knew they messed up with the 2013 Mac Pro, probably accepted it in 2015 after about a year on the market, and started on the iMac Pro in late 2015 as a replacement. Then, they knew they messed up again in 2017 while the iMac Pro was still in development, and pre-announced the 2019 Mac Pro about 30 months ahead of its availability.
That’s not a thermal corner engineering issue. That’s their product marketers not knowing the market or the company executive not understanding where they wanted the company to go. That was two big product mistakes on what used to be one of their core products. I really want to know who and why. Then, you can include not shipping an external monitor, which left billions off the ledger imo. Got rid of the routers, Didn’t upgrade the Mac mini for years, and the MacBook 12” was not good enough to replace the MBA or the low end of the laptop line.
If it was a thermal corner, they could have engineered a solution to fit inside the same cylinder to support a 150 W CPU and one 250 W GPU and moved forward with the form factor. They put those same components in about 1.5”, that’s at the thickest point, behind a 27” display for the iMac Pro., and even more constrained volume. So, I don’t think engineering a solution would have been a problem.
Hopefully there is a book.
Not shipping a separate Apple-designed and Mac-intended monitor is why I didn’t buy the Mac Pro 2013. I continue to read, to this day, of problems using third-party displays with that machine. Lack of a proper first-party display, pricing (still high), and the fact that it’s sooo outdated now, is why I probably won’t get a used 2013 Pro just to get a newer machine. I’m stuck. A compact machine is not what I want or need, but Apple doesn’t think I matter enough to sell a machine in my price range. I’m willing to spend, but I can’t pretend to be Pixar.
"The triangle you mentioned, the thermal core, is designed to have three fairly similar loads – similarly balanced in power. And so the overall size of the product and the fan, that defines the overall thermal capacity for the enclosure. And we didn’t see as much take up in dual GPUs as we would have expected."
I would expect it could cool a single larger GPU on one side given that, as you mentioned, the parts fit into an iMac Pro ok but there's no point selling both it and an iMac Pro at the same price point and they probably can cool the parts better by laying them out across the back of a display with separate heatsinks than packed in a box.
I read that interview just like everyone else at the time, and as far as I could tell, Ternus and Federighi were speaking technobabble, or manager babble.
The cooling system of the iMac Pro uses one heat sink, just like the 2013 Mac Pro. It has one more fan than the 2013 Mac Pro, but that’s likely a consequence of the heatsink being smaller. The CPU and GPU in the iMac Pro are connected to the singular heatsink through heat pipes, while everything else is cooled by drawn-in air before going into the impeller fans. Those fans then drive that air across the singular heat sink for the GPU+CPU and out. The cooling design of the iMac Pro is basically like the 2013 Mac Pro in idea, just flattened across the back of a monitor.
Ultimately, they made a decision to not update the 2013 Mac Pro, then go on to make the iMac Pro, very likely in 2015. The one area where the iMac Pro is likely better than the cylinder is servicing it, gigantic display and all. The daughter boards, sandwiching of power supply, the attachment and alignment of the boards to the heat sink did not look trivial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they switched away from the cylinder for this reason alone.
But it didn’t have to go that way. They didn’t have to make an iMac Pro. They could have a revved the internal design of the 2013 Mac Pro with a 250 W GPU and a Skylake Xeon, make an external monitor. The internal layout could have been redesigned to make it easier to service, especially if there was one less GPU in it. They made a strategic decision right then in 2015, and had to change it again in 2017.
The iMac Pro wasn't messed up, there's just so few buyers at those price points it's barely worth paying attention to the products. They could have EOL'd these product lines years ago and it wouldn't have been a blip on their balance sheet.
For upgradability, they could have designed a custom PCIe slot on the iMac Pro to allow connecting a box of GPUs or expansion cards for people who needed it. Most people don't buy multiple GPUs as evidenced by AMD and NVidia's earnings. The new Mac Pro with a single GPU isn't much faster than an iMac Pro, it's just in a much larger, empty box.
I meant messed up in the sense that they eventually decided that they could not give up the workstation niche and those customers. They had to know from the very beginning of going the iMac Pro route, at the very least, that it meant giving up the high end space. Then two years later, they reversed themselves and made it known that they will make a high end workstation again.
That’s a strategic mistake that cost them 2 to 3 years. And 5 to 6 years for some customers who didn’t want the 2013 model. Those are the two mistakes I’m referring to.
In the quote where Ternus is saying that dual GPUs wasn’t as popular as thought? What’s different now that they are selling a system that can have 4 250W GPUs in it? Or the heatsink thing regarding multiple components. Heck, the Pro Vega II Duo has 2 250W GPUs in it and don’t even have the benefit of having 1 fan’s worth of airflow in the 2019 Mac Pro.
Manager babble trying to cover up a bad mistake, that was then compounded is really all I can conclude from that interview.
There isn't a single product that fully satisfies every professional workflow, there's an assumption that the older towers did but they only did for as long as mobile products weren't powerful enough and that's not the case any more. Macbook Pros now match/outperform every Mac Pro made before the latest one so most people migrated to iMacs and Macbook Pros.
They don’t have to have one product line to satisfy all these difference use cases. They can have an AIO product lineup, a SFF desktop and workstation as they are now, but nothing is stopping them from selling a midrange headless desktop other than their own choice. Just like there is nothing stopping them from selling a 17” MBP or a 15” MBA. They’ll sell hundreds of thousands of those niche devices, they just don’t think it is worth the effort. “No” is a big philosophy for them, but it’s a balance that you can get on the wrong side of.
Reducing the number of customer decisions is a good thing, but they aren’t the company they were 15 years ago either. They have a huge userbase and a lot of customers now. With increased size comes more variety and addressing more and more niches. They can have more variety in hardware and be fine.
Fully agreed. This has been my hypothesis for a while now. I just don’t think they’ve actually corrected their aim yet, because the new 2019 Mac Pro does not have a price point to service the entire customer base of the prior Mac Pro lineup, only the corporate customers. This Uber-privileged Silicon Valley ivory tower mentality at Apple needs to stop. Compact and all-in-one machines are fine for many people, but they’re utterly inappropriate for others (and the fanatics here keep helping Apple believe and spread the myth that they’re fine for everyone’s needs).
I'm thinking of getting one for a 2018 Mac mini, if it's got the grunt. Partly because it's an exceptional monitor (and I really want that $1K stand!) and there's a dearth of good 32" monitors, particularly with Retina equiv. DPI.
Until we get ours, we won't know for sure, but it should be 5K on the Mini, not 6K.
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Because in my eyes, taking into consideration, there are "Pros" who can do some seriously cool things with a Raspberry Pi.
So I think we are really talking about a super "relative" word here. All I have is context, i.e. MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, the context here is MacBook or Mac...
Mac (Desktop) Pro
Mac(Book) Pro
Big difference, and the Desktop is DEAD unless you're a... Pro? hehe
I am at my limit of what "want" to do. I don't care to edit 8K video for 4K HDR10/Dolby movies on Netflix, and my Audio needs are well taken care of with 2008-2011 equipment...
My limit is 1-4 MacMini(s) and I'll do some really cool stuff with that. That puts me at $5000, and I can buy 64GBs of ram for each.
To each their own, but man quite a few heads are wrapped up/caught up, in the word PRO around here!
Laters...
If it was a thermal corner, they could have engineered a solution to fit inside the same cylinder to support a 150 W CPU and one 250 W GPU and moved forward with the form factor. They put those same components in about 1.5”, that’s at the thickest point, behind a 27” display for the iMac Pro., and even more constrained volume. So, I don’t think engineering a solution would have been a problem.
Hopefully there is a book.
My recollection of his words led me to a different conclusion although this time you seem to have tweaked your wording of the claim with regards to previous posts.
What did he say?
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/transcript-phil-schiller-craig-federighi-and-john-ternus-on-the-state-of-apples-pro-macs/
"The triangle you mentioned, the thermal core, is designed to have three fairly similar loads – similarly balanced in power. And so the overall size of the product and the fan, that defines the overall thermal capacity for the enclosure. And we didn’t see as much take up in dual GPUs as we would have expected."
I would expect it could cool a single larger GPU on one side given that, as you mentioned, the parts fit into an iMac Pro ok but there's no point selling both it and an iMac Pro at the same price point and they probably can cool the parts better by laying them out across the back of a display with separate heatsinks than packed in a box.
The iMac Pro wasn't messed up, there's just so few buyers at those price points it's barely worth paying attention to the products. They could have EOL'd these product lines years ago and it wouldn't have been a blip on their balance sheet.
For upgradability, they could have designed a custom PCIe slot on the iMac Pro to allow connecting a box of GPUs or expansion cards for people who needed it. Most people don't buy multiple GPUs as evidenced by AMD and NVidia's earnings. The new Mac Pro with a single GPU isn't much faster than an iMac Pro, it's just in a much larger, empty box.
There isn't a single product that fully satisfies every professional workflow, there's an assumption that the older towers did but they only did for as long as mobile products weren't powerful enough and that's not the case any more. Macbook Pros now match/outperform every Mac Pro made before the latest one so most people migrated to iMacs and Macbook Pros.
Ultimately, they made a decision to not update the 2013 Mac Pro, then go on to make the iMac Pro, very likely in 2015. The one area where the iMac Pro is likely better than the cylinder is servicing it, gigantic display and all. The daughter boards, sandwiching of power supply, the attachment and alignment of the boards to the heat sink did not look trivial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they switched away from the cylinder for this reason alone.
That’s a strategic mistake that cost them 2 to 3 years. And 5 to 6 years for some customers who didn’t want the 2013 model. Those are the two mistakes I’m referring to.
In the quote where Ternus is saying that dual GPUs wasn’t as popular as thought? What’s different now that they are selling a system that can have 4 250W GPUs in it? Or the heatsink thing regarding multiple components. Heck, the Pro Vega II Duo has 2 250W GPUs in it and don’t even have the benefit of having 1 fan’s worth of airflow in the 2019 Mac Pro.
Reducing the number of customer decisions is a good thing, but they aren’t the company they were 15 years ago either. They have a huge userbase and a lot of customers now. With increased size comes more variety and addressing more and more niches. They can have more variety in hardware and be fine.
Moving the base config up isn’t an update. They should’ve updated the chips in the overall motherboard design to include the relevant bandwidth increase for display support. Probably this requires completely redesigning the whole machine because they’ve backed themselves into a corner yet again, due to the obsession with thinness...
Fully agreed. This has been my hypothesis for a while now. I just don’t think they’ve actually corrected their aim yet, because the new 2019 Mac Pro does not have a price point to service the entire customer base of the prior Mac Pro lineup, only the corporate customers. This Uber-privileged Silicon Valley ivory tower mentality at Apple needs to stop. Compact and all-in-one machines are fine for many people, but they’re utterly inappropriate for others (and the fanatics here keep helping Apple believe and spread the myth that they’re fine for everyone’s needs).