OS X 10.8.3 beta supports AMD Radeon 7000 drivers, hinting at Apple's new Mac Pro

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  • Reply 41 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Sadly your post is one of those frustrating things that has good and bad points.
    New case design doesn't matter—the current case is amazing. USB 3, whatever; Thunderbolt would be a welcome addition, still not critical.
    Actually I see both TB and USB 3 as critical for any new Mac Pro machine. Frankly you call yourself a professional but can't see the importance of these standards so it makes me wonder just what you are profession wise. Frankly you would have to be a bit out of touch not to see these as important items for a future Mac Pro.
    It doesn’t need to be smaller, and yes, it could still use an optical drive (or two!) because it’s a big professional machine. People don't buy MacPros for anything but work: scientific, design, audio, video, whatever. The MacPro is not a web-shopping appliance.
    This is garbage. The Mac Pro not only needs to be smaller it needs to fit into industry standard racks with little effort. This does not mean a rack mount machine per say but one that is flexible enough to slip into a cage and not screw up the functionality of the rest of the equipment. Ideally the Mac Pro would shrink down enough so that two of them could sit side by side on a rack shelf and take up standard rack unit increments.

    As to the optical in is an accessory that has no justification anymore for being inside a chassis. Frankly an optical is no different than a USB flash dongle, you simply plug it in when needed.
    I love my iPad—I’m glad Apple sells millions of them—but I can't use it to do my job. Pros don’t worry about constant redesigns. Pros don’t care that the new tower looks the same as the previous model—it's a different market than the iPhone. But when professional products—like Xserve—drop from production, it’s terrifying.
    I love my iPad too! Frankly Apples attitude to the entire desktop lineup is screwed. Yes the Mac Pro has been ignored but so has the iMac and the Mini, it is terrifying to many users. I'm really hoping the new Mac Pro(s) come as a real family of devices that can convincingly demonstrate that Apple does give a damn about the desktop.
    The only thing that matters to us is that Apple keeps making a MacPro tower. Versatility and expandability are critical for serious (meaning: we get paid for this) content creation. For example, PCI audio is the way it works in professional recording:
    This obsession with towers really needs to die. You don't need a tower these days to make a professional computer. You do need a desire to innovate and rapidly move technology forward. Apple could easily produce a pro computer in a case the quarter of the size of the Current Mac Pro and that includes keeping PCI Express expansion.

    http://www.motu.com/products/pciaudio/HD192

    In our studio, we’d sell our PCI gear and use a 4 track tape machine like the Beatles (the results were outstanding, would you not agree?) before we’d switch to Windows.
    This is one aspect I agree with, the future Mac Pro must have at least a couple of PcI Express slots. Many don't grasp their importance and the flexibility they provide. Further people don't seem to grasp that TB is not a replacement.
    Or I guess we could build a beast of a Hackintosh…

    Will that still be an option in the future? If Apple did stop supporting Pro hardware (doubtful) would the drivers even end up in Mac OS to support future Intel hardware.

    In a nut shell I expect Apple to produce a replacement for the Mac Pro next year. However I also expect that machine to look vastly different than the current Mac Pro. For one they have to be able to enter the market at a lower price point for a performance machine. Second; technology marches forward and as such much of the space in the Mac Pro is wasted. Plus technology advancements demand denser PC boards. Third; unless they come up with a proprietary connector TB will require at least one GPU on the motherboard. If you take all the technologies that Apple could possibly build into the Mac Pros replacement it will have to look significantly different than today machine. Of course Apple could pull an i'ac/Mini style release and make it look pretty while cutting back on performance.

    I don't want to dismiss every concern you have because frankly I'm hugely disappointed with Apple direction on the desktop. However this idea that Apple needs to simply issue forth another Mac Pro look alike update is nonsense. The whole problem with the Mac Pro (and the desktop in general) is the lack of serious innovation on Apples part. Simply put they need a range of desktop machines that actually appeal to a wide audience of potential buyers. Right now sales are so heavily biased towards the iMac that it is a wonder that Apple even maintains the Mini and Pro. The only way to turn that around is to innovate with machines that cover the entire desktop performance spectra.
  • Reply 42 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    This is so sad, you sound like a 90 year old wondering why they don't make cars like they use to.
    oomu wrote: »
    I don't want a "cosmetic redesign" of the case just because some geeks are bored...
    Of course not.

    The reason to want a case design is to save the Mac Pro from going the way of the XServe. To put it simply if they build a new Mac Pro in the same case with the same pricing structure the machine will die off. The simple reality is that a expensive tower case is not the modern solution to a high performance computing solution for the next decade. The answer is more modular hardware that consolidates that which is important for a high performance computing machine.
    the macpro already has a GREAT case : beautiful, solid, easy to tweak inside, good air cooling, good alimentation.
    I agree that the current case is great but that means nothing as great cases are simply an engineering effort. You seem to think that it is impossible to make a great case for future machines which if you think about it is ridiculous. I've just barely started to read this thread and have noticed a fixation on the Mac Pros case which is totally unjustified.
    But if you tell me about an internal redesign, with new features,for example hot plug ssd+hd units, more connectors, and better ideas to improve my workflow and <span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">expandability</span>
    , of course I buy that.
    Let me say this first, it is pretty hard to have a Pro computer without internal PCI-Express expandability. However much of what is currently inside the Mac Pro simply doesn't belong there in a modern replacement. For example drive bays need to go, they should be replaced with slots for high performance SSD cards. Drive bays are a hang over from the days of highly mechanical systems. Yes I up understand the need for bulk storage but that is really better done in an external box where the storage system is optimized for the task at hand.
    I don't care about a redesign just for the novelty sake, only about work and utilitarian improvements.
    I care about the Mac Pro or better stated a high performance computer, being around in two or three years and not seeing Apple say screw it. This focus on making a Mac Pro that looks like past machines will kill the product. And by looks I'm not just talking about the case but the entire architecture of the machine.
    Apple never change a design just because fashion, only if they think it's better.

    Well better in this case has to be a machine that strengthens sales. My biggest fear is that the wishes of many in this thread will come true, that is the new Mac Pro will be a huge expensive tower that doesn't sell any better than the current model. That would lead to the death of the product line. Nothing is more important than a sign that Apple is again innovating its desktop machines. Here one important factor is that they need a box that is capable of delivering far more performance at a reasonable price than the current solution.
  • Reply 43 of 211

    Quote:

    I agree that the current case is great but that means nothing as great cases are simply an engineering effort. You seem to think that it is impossible to make a great case for future machines which if you think about it is ridiculous. I've just barely started to read this thread and have noticed a fixation on the Mac Pros case which is totally unjustified.


    The thing is, every time someone talks about a redesign, they're taking away all the features that make it a pro machine.   A new case would be nice (especially if it were lighter) but the iToy crowd just talks about how "antiquated" the mac pro is, and all they want to do to is take away functionality.  I know optical drives are over, but RAM?  PCI-E?  Multiple HDDs?  Proper air flow and heat dissipation?  

  • Reply 44 of 211
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    What happens to the workstation crowd?

    Die of old age? It depends on who exactly we are talking about.

    There are people who have money and want to spend it on the best that money can buy for the sake of it. This isn't an important market to satisfy.
    There are people who buy the Mac Pro because they see it as a superior form factor but could quite happily use a quad-i7 iMac. Again not an important market.
    There are people who genuinely push the Mac Pro to the limit and build their businesses around them. This is the only important market for the Mac Pro.

    The latter might need the most power they can get for compositing/rendering/transcoding. They might have a multitude of high-end peripherals to connect.

    To satisfy the highest power needs, the power needs to scale linearly and be good value. It can't be a case of waiting 2 years for a 30% increase in speed. A better solution is to be able to plug in another Mac Pro without requiring the skillset to manage a computer farm and scale up performance. If the money is there and the need is there, it works. It's what the big boys do:

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20068109-52/new-technology-revs-up-pixars-cars-2/

    "Pixar had to triple its size, and today, the render farm features 12,500 cores on Dell render blades."

    No matter how big you make it, one box isn't going to do that so the workstation has to be as good as possible for real-time tasks, allowing it to scale like a farm so that smaller businesses don't have to invest in server blades and offering the best value so they don't just go for HP or Dell. If they can add a special ARM co-processor, even better.

    For peripherals, external is always better because you aren't limiting the form factor of the peripheral, you aren't dictating the power requirements, you don't have to force the computer owner to install it and risk damaging a very expensive machine, you don't have to have the peripheral active when you aren't using it and you aren't forcing it to be used exclusively with one type of machine.

    You can connect a simple Firewire adaptor or an entire server rack with the same tiny plug.

    This could well alienate people who are used to the tower form factor never changing since computers came into existence but it won't be a case that they can't do the same things with the new machine, they just have to do them differently.

    Having a more integrated, unchanging core design like the other machines in the lineup will make the Pro more reliable.

    Eventually, once everyone is down the route of external peripherals and the performance of the iMac is 30x higher or more in 10 years, everyone will see it as a workstation, just like the Mini and laptops. From here, we can see where the puck is going and we know the path it has to take to get there.
    Are we to be stuck with 3 RAM slots?

    4 slots (the Mac Pro has 4 per CPU), allowing up to 64GB RAM with 16GB DIMMs.

    No one will ever need more than 64GB of RAM. You heard it here first.
  • Reply 45 of 211


    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

    It depends on who exactly we are talking about.


     


    Your mockup appears more like an xMac than something designed to serve the needs of the Mac Pro's market right now.


     


    If the true market is, as you say, those that push it to its limit, cutting its limit in half doesn't seem like the best idea.


     



    4 slots (the Mac Pro has 4 per CPU), allowing up to 64GB RAM with 16GB DIMMs.

    No one will ever need more than 64GB of RAM. You heard it here first.


     


    I'm just… I'm losing it. You're right; it's four now, eight in the dual-chip, so did that mean Nehalem/Westmere can have 6 per processor normally? I guess all that I remember is they shorted us on the maximum number of slots. But that's probably up for grabs now, too… 

  • Reply 46 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    philboogie wrote: »
    philboogie wrote: »
    Will look great next to all my older MP's; becoming more like a museum.

    Hmm. Is that really what you want from what is supposed to be a bleeding-edge computer?

    Of course not; the internals are the important factor. Give me 16x PCIe on all 4 slots et cetera. The request for a smaller MP I don't get; which is why I'd rather have the same case design.

    The request for the smaller case is being made for multiple reasons, but the big one is that we don't want to see the Mac Pro go the way of XServe. Frankly from what I can see it was rather close to doing that as I have my doubts that sales have been very strong at all. Everyone has seen the sales percentages of laptops versus desktops at Apple and most of the desktop sales are iMacs so it isn't unreasonable to think that Mac Pro sales might be in the low tens of thousands per quarter. That is close to what XServe was selling at when it go canned.

    Mind you it isn't so much a request for a smaller case as for a more economical platform that can realistically spur sales. The huge case is just one element that makes the Mac Pro rather expensive for what you get. Frankly it is a big box that offers all sorts of capability that not all power users need. In a nut shel this is the big problem, many people can justify a high performance computer but not everybody is willing to pay for all of the extras that come with the Mac Pro to get it. So here is the challenge,distill what is needed for a high performance workstation down into a reasonably sized and priced box. Those that need extra capability can tack on additional boxes as needed. The idea being to get the core down to a minimal box that can be offered at a rational price.

    In the end you are right about internals being important, but what is more important is coming up with the right mix of internal components that effectively allow Apple to deliver a high performance compute module. One example here is the row of disk drive bays in the Mac Pro, frankly they don't belong in a Mac Pro replacement. Now I know some out there will rebel at the thought but even a few minutes of thinking will show that it makes sense to drop them in favor of other solutions. The first rational is that very few users make use of all of those bays, those that do would be better served with an external disk array. I know there are many "yeah buts" about to be offered up but remember you are not the average Mac Pro user. Getting rid of all of the drive bays saves significant case space while cutting power supply needs.

    In any event think of how refactoring is done with software. A new Mac Pro refactored into a much smaller box would be an attempt to solve high performance computing in a different way. The computer simply becomes a module that is tailored to specific user needs.

    *******************************************

    By the way guys, those AMD Radeons are OpenCL power houses delivering some impressive performance specs. By the time this machine ships there might even be lower power variants. The point is if this is coupled with just one of Intels coming many core chips we could see some rather impressive performance from a one socket machine. It is just another reason to not focus on the past when thinking about what is right for the future.
  • Reply 47 of 211
    z3r0z3r0 Posts: 238member


    Oh hellzzzz nooo!  I don't want my Mac Pro to look like an Octopus full of cables. Going that route means one cable to the PCI-X/GPU box, another for the optical drive, another for external storage plus all the other wires for the displays and peripherals. I prefer to have everything internal if possible.


     


    I wouldn't mind one optical drive on top and the second slot for a card reader like this: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/qio.html as an additional option, but removing the optical drive bay would be a bad idea!


     


    In the case of the Mac Pro BIGGER is better.


     


    As for gartner, they are full of baloney.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    They might have gone the route of putting a single Xeon in the iMac but the model number MP60 listed in the Bootcamp plist suggests that won't be the case. It also provides good evidence that it won't have an optical drive, which indicates a redesign because that 5.25" unit takes up a lot of space. They could move the hard drives into that space and just lower the height or maybe have a different shaped power supply but I think they should go beyond that.

    We get the same comments cycling round every time there's a Mac Pro reference such as putting in more PCI slots and an i7 because it's cheaper.

    The entry Mac Pro uses a $294 processor, which costs exactly the same as an i7. The 1000W power supply and motherboard will be more expensive but we know that they upped the Mac Pro price by $300 after the first Mac Pro model so they obviously weren't selling enough to justify the margins they had. The lower the volume, the higher the price.

    The parts that go into the Mac Pro can be bought for about $1200-1400 so they are easily at 40% profit margins.

    When it comes to Thunderbolt, there's still the issue of how they get it to work with a dedicated GPU. The spec they are required to follow in order to call it Thunderbolt is that it has PCI and displayport on the same connection, no compromise. So they either have PCI slots and no Thunderbolt or they don't have Thunderbolt because if you put in another GPU, it can't know how to route the graphics out the TB ports. If you put in a non-standard GPU, it breaks the TB spec.

    There's also the issue about the machine having 40 PCI lanes. If you have 4 slots, you can't give them all 16 lanes and if you max out the lanes on the slots, there's nothing to allocate to Thunderbolt. I think it's very much an either/or situation.

    When you consider that the Mac Pro slots only have a 300W power allocation, you can only have multiple low-power GPUs or a single high-end one. The simpler option is the single high-end one.

    Once you've decided on the GPU, Thunderbolt can take care of expansion. It would be better if Apple managed to get the 20Gbps Falcon Ridge controller though. This prevents the scenario where Macbook Pro/Air//iMac/Mini professionals are buying Thunderbolt peripherals and Mac Pro professionals are buying PCI cards. They all buy the same peripherals.

    The single GPU would still be upgradeable but only from Apple as it has to work with Thunderbolt.

    As far as the CPU goes, they can stick with allowing 2 CPUs but Ivy Bridge will bring 10-core chips, maybe 12. These will be expensive chips.

    Right now, the highest-end MP uses 2x $1440 CPUs = $2880 but the performance is only about 20% faster than the $1885 single CPU 8-core E5-2687W. The equivalent Ivy Bridge chip will likely be 20% faster so they could offer the same performance as the current $6200 Mac Pro for:

    $2499 - $294 + $1885 = ~$3999

    While they could still offer a faster dual processor model at $6200, if few people are buying those, the better option would be to offer the best value to the highest volume of customers.

    The entry model could do with a 6-core CPU and then have an 8-core in between.

    By taking out the optical, the PCI slots and 2nd CPU, they can cut the power consumption down so the PSU can drop to 500-600W.

    If they can fit this into a Cube, that would be great but I think they'd struggle with that. They can at least manage the following size as it's just a reworking of what they have already:



    If they can put in functionality to allow zero-config connections over Thunderbolt, even better. You could buy as many $3999 models and just plug a TB cable between 1 and 2 then 2 and 3 etc.

    Sure the complaints will come in about not being able to access PCI cards but for high-end tasks, wouldn't you rather spend $3999 on another MP and run any task natively on a dedicated 10-core Xeon than spend $4750 on a Red Rocket PCI card that only does one thing? There's always the backup of having an external PCI box anyway.

    If they can figure out how to make PCI slots and Thunderbolt work together in a Xeon box, all the better I suppose but they still need to allocate 40 lanes between them so they won't have more than 4 slots.

    Ultimately, just like FCPX they have to design this box for the next 10 years, not for the last 10 years and make it appeal to the widest Mac Pro audience. If leaving the design largely unchanged and leaving out Thunderbolt accomplishes this, so be it but I don't think it does. I think the USP should be performance-per-dollar, not expansion - make it more than twice as fast as the iMac for less than twice the price.

    Remember what the original Macintosh said:



    These big, heavy workstation form factors are becoming unnecessary for workstation use just like the mainframes. Same for servers. One day, so few people will buy them that they will be dropped:

    http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2079015

  • Reply 48 of 211


    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

    By the way guys, those AMD Radeons are OpenCL power houses delivering some impressive performance specs. By the time this machine ships there might even be lower power variants. The point is if this is coupled with just one of Intels coming many core chips we could see some rather impressive performance from a one socket machine. It is just another reason to not focus on the past when thinking about what is right for the future.


     


    Just hope one of them works with my Early 2009…

  • Reply 49 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    conrail wrote: »
    I agree that the current case is great but that means nothing as great cases are simply an engineering effort. You seem to think that it is impossible to make a great case for future machines which if you think about it is ridiculous. I've just barely started to read this thread and have noticed a fixation on the Mac Pros case which is totally unjustified.
    The thing is, every time someone talks about a redesign, they're taking away all the features that make it a pro machine.
    Is the cup half full or half empty. I'm certain if we took a poll we would get a whole lot of differing descriptions as to what a Pro machine is. The fact is the vast majority of Pro users are using Apple Mac Book Pros instead of desktop machine. You can't even argue with that unless you demand that your personal definition of what a Pro is be used.

    Now we could focus the discussion about what is a "pro" machine just on Mac Pro users but do you think the definition of a Pro machine would still be homogeneous? I'm certain it wouldn't be and that we would see a wide array of Mac Pro users represented.

    In the end we are talking about distilling the Pro down to a base high performance computing module, nothing more and nothing less. These days it is easy to provide the niche capabilities via plug in boxes. So for the few that still use an optical they can plug one in. Likewise for those that need a disk array.
      A new case would be nice (especially if it were lighter) but the iToy crowd just talks about how "antiquated" the mac pro is, and all they want to do to is take away functionality.  
    Don't be so bull headed. How much of that functionality does the average Pro user really use? Personally I'd much rather have an affordable high performance computing module that to pay current MacPro prices for what is a crap machine for my needs. In the end what Apple would actually do is to improve core functionality. Niche users can then slap what ever they want onto the computer module.
    I know optical drives are over, but RAM?  PCI-E?  Multiple HDDs?
    When did anybody say anything about RAM? However it might not be the RAM as we know it today as there are options and physical realities that will come into play in the near future. For example the latest spec for DRAM includes performance options for RAM soldered onto the motherboard. Then you have the 3D memory technology that Micron and Intel have been working on. The simple reality is that If one wants to improve the performance of RAM arrays the approaches of the past will not work so sooner or later your Mac Pro will implement new RAM technology.

    As to PCI-Express again who has said anything about that? Slots will be needed for the foreseeable future. However the GPU might not be plugged into a slot, it all depends upon how they resolve the TB issues.

    With respect to multiple hard drive bays yes they need to go. Disk arrays can be easily implemented as external devices these days leaving the user to implement what is best for his needs. The bigger issue is why would anyone even bother with SATA or other legacy disk ports in a modern forward looking computer. Any machine that will be calling itself Pro will need to have a solid state storage system sitting on a high performance PCI-Express port.
     Proper air flow and heat dissipation?  
    Contrary to popular opinion this is something that a new enclosure could improve upon significantly.
  • Reply 50 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Marvin wrote: »
    What happens to the workstation crowd?

    Die of old age? It depends on who exactly we are talking about.

    There are people who have money and want to spend it on the best that money can buy for the sake of it. This isn't an important market to satisfy.
    There are people who buy the Mac Pro because they see it as a superior form factor but could quite happily use a quad-i7 iMac. Again not an important market.
    There are people who genuinely push the Mac Pro to the limit and build their businesses around them. This is the only important market for the Mac Pro.
    Even then that part of the market is highly varied. One of the problems with Mac Pro discussions is that these people only see their point of view as to what entails professional usage.
    The latter might need the most power they can get for compositing/rendering/transcoding. They might have a multitude of high-end peripherals to connect.

    To satisfy the highest power needs, the power needs to scale linearly and be good value. It can't be a case of waiting 2 years for a 30% increase in speed. A better solution is to be able to plug in another Mac Pro without requiring the skillset to manage a computer farm and scale up performance. If the money is there and the need is there, it works. It's what the big boys do:
    The issue of performance increases is interesting especially in the case of the Mac Pro which gets ignored update wise. One thing a distiller Mac Pro offers is the POTENTIAL for more regular updates. That is if the machine is focused on a minimal design validating updates becomes much easier. This might eliminate going for years without a performance update at all. Of course the chip supplier plays a role here.
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20068109-52/new-technology-revs-up-pixars-cars-2/

    "Pixar had to triple its size, and today, the render farm features 12,500 cores on Dell render blades."

    No matter how big you make it, one box isn't going to do that so the workstation has to be as good as possible for real-time tasks, allowing it to scale like a farm so that smaller businesses don't have to invest in server blades and offering the best value so they don't just go for HP or Dell. If they can add a special ARM co-processor, even better.
    In this realm ARM has nothing (yet).

    However I'm in complete agreement with the idea of a modular system. I'm actually hoping that this machine ships with the Phi chip that is expected to ship with super computing networking hardware built in. This would allow for clustering in a simplified way and keep TB focused on what it does best. It is interesting that Intel has been rather quiet about super computing networking being built into some of their coming many core chips.
    For peripherals, external is always better because you aren't limiting the form factor of the peripheral,
    Actually that is baloney.
    you aren't dictating the power requirements, you don't have to force the computer owner to install it and risk damaging a very expensive machine, you don't have to have the peripheral active when you aren't using it and you aren't forcing it to be used exclusively with one type of machine.

    You can connect a simple Firewire adaptor or an entire server rack with the same tiny plug.

    This could well alienate people who are used to the tower form factor never changing since computers came into existence but it won't be a case that they can't do the same things with the new machine, they just have to do them differently.
    If you look through this thread you will see a huge resistance to change here. This is rather sad to see really as you would seem to think that the computing industry is a mature field. In reality it is anything but mature and is changing rapidly.

    So how does Apple deal with stubborn people that can't see another way to address a problem? Compelling hardware is the best approach, That is the new Mac Pro must be refactored in such a way that it causes people to rethink their preconceptions of what a Pro computer should be. Frankly the only way to really do that is to throw a bunch of new tech at the machine.
    Having a more integrated, unchanging core design like the other machines in the lineup will make the Pro more reliable.
    Well hopefully. There is still the question of how they go about solving the TB / GPU issue. However in general I agree that a solid core machine is more reliable and frankly more like a module.
    Eventually, once everyone is down the route of external peripherals and the performance of the iMac is 30x higher or more in 10 years, everyone will see it as a workstation, just like the Mini and laptops. From here, we can see where the puck is going and we know the path it has to take to get there.
    This is a real threat to the big tower designs. Even the near future promises some really interesting iMacs and Minis. However I really don't see the need for a performance machine ever going away completely. It does become a question of Apple bothering to build that performance machine though.
    Are we to be stuck with 3 RAM slots?

    4 slots (the Mac Pro has 4 per CPU), allowing up to 64GB RAM with 16GB DIMMs.

    No one will ever need more than 64GB of RAM. You heard it here first.

    This whining about RAM is bothersome. First people don't seem to grasp that RAM is or will be performance limited by sitting in slots in the future. I'm talking very near future too, high performance RAM will have to be soldered on the motherboard. Further other technologies like multi chip 3D Ram means that that RAM will take up very little space on the motherboard. It will be rather easy to put 64GBs into a Mini in the not to distant future soldered right on the motherboard. In the end the discussions about RAM are just like the discussions about case size, to much focus on the past! People need to be open to the idea that motherboards will look dramatically different in the future.
  • Reply 51 of 211


    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

    This whining about RAM is bothersome. First people don't seem to grasp that RAM is or will be performance limited by sitting in slots in the future. I'm talking very near future too, high performance RAM will have to be soldered on the motherboard. Further other technologies like multi chip 3D Ram means that that RAM will take up very little space on the motherboard. It will be rather easy to put 64GBs into a Mini in the not to distant future soldered right on the motherboard. In the end the discussions about RAM are just like the discussions about case size, to much focus on the past! People need to be open to the idea that motherboards will look dramatically different in the future.


     


    Imagine how much controversy there will be when the Mac Pro comes with soldered RAM like half of their laptop lineup right now…


    And price? I can see the threads now. ????

  • Reply 52 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    z3r0 wrote: »
    Oh hellzzzz nooo!
    Though luck.
     I don't want my Mac Pro to look like an Octopus full of cables.
    It won't. Mainly because the things you think you need today you won't need in the future.
    Going that route means one cable to the PCI-X/GPU box,
    Why does this nonsense keep getting repeated. There is no way that external PCI-Express / GPU boxes will replace internal slots and GPUs. It is simple engineering as you can't get the required performance. You may see the GPU soldered onto the motherboard though.
    another for the optical drive, another for external storage plus all the other wires for the displays and peripherals. I prefer to have everything internal if possible.
    External storage just makes sense if you want to serve a wide array of users at a reasonable cost. How ugly it looks is up to the designers.

    By the way I've been a dues paying member of the internal storage crowd for a very long time now but have seen the light so to speak. Mainly because there are far more options for bulk storage, some of which can't be implemented internally. In the end the big deal for me is shrinking the case and lowering the price. Further you are in the minority when it comes to needing a lot of bulk storage inside that Mac Pro.
    I wouldn't mind one optical drive on top and the second slot for a card reader like this: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/qio.html as an additional option, but removing the optical drive bay would be a bad idea!
    Anybody that is so hung up on optical drives really needs to get with the program.
    In the case of the Mac Pro BIGGER is better.
    Nope! The Mac Pros size is a serious detriment to sales, it has to shrink.
    As for gartner, they are full of baloney.
    You may or may not be full of baloney yourself but one thing is for sure, you are living in the past. Apple needs to come up with an architecture that can serve high performance users for the next several years while controlling machine costs. The current Mac Pro architecture is a non starter in this regard.
  • Reply 53 of 211
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    wizard69 wrote: »
    This whining about RAM is bothersome. First people don't seem to grasp that RAM is or will be performance limited by sitting in slots in the future. I'm talking very near future too, high performance RAM will have to be soldered on the motherboard. Further other technologies like multi chip 3D Ram means that that RAM will take up very little space on the motherboard. It will be rather easy to put 64GBs into a Mini in the not to distant future soldered right on the motherboard. In the end the discussions about RAM are just like the discussions about case size, to much focus on the past! People need to be open to the idea that motherboards will look dramatically different in the future.

    Imagine how much controversy there will be when the Mac Pro comes with soldered RAM like half of their laptop lineup right now…
    And price? I can see the threads now. <span style="font-family:'Apple Color Emoji';font-size:28px;line-height:normal;">????</span>

    Yep I can see it coming. But again that will be the way of the future unless the industry comes up with some amazing socket that eliminates current issues. In the end if the Mac Pro is to be a performance machine in the future it will have to drop RAM sockets for the simple reason it isn't technically possible to operate the high speed signals over current socket technology. When that will happen is any bodies guess but the wheels are already in motion.

    The other thing that people seem to mis in this discussion is that even Intel is moving towards SoC technology. Machines will be smaller or more capable in the future simply because there is higher integration and fewer parts to work with to realize a system. This will happen to both mainstream processors and performance processors though what gets integrated will vary. We are not far at all away from a Mini that can match today's Mac Pro in performance and capability.
  • Reply 54 of 211
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Your mockup appears more like an xMac than something designed to serve the needs of the Mac Pro's market right now.

    If the true market is, as you say, those that push it to its limit, cutting its limit in half doesn't seem like the best idea.

    It's not quite cutting it in half. Apple doesn't use the fastest CPUs. They use two lower performance processors. This design is just using one of the best single Ivy Bridge processors (10/12-core) instead of two lower performance ones and it means they can put the same parts in every model. It also means nobody can criticise them for not using the best parts.

    An xMac would be something like this:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227438

    except the entry 27" iMac is pretty good value compared to that and looks a lot nicer. The xMac that's been described over the years never had more than quad-core processors.
    did that mean Nehalem/Westmere can have 6 per processor normally? I guess all that I remember is they shorted us on the maximum number of slots.

    I think Intel has a document somewhere showing support for 6+ RAM slots. It is more than Apple puts in. IBM has layouts here for more:

    ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/xsw03075usen/XSW03075USEN.PDF

    but there are performance hits in certain setups:

    "The number and type of DIMMs and the channels in which they reside will also determine the speed at which memory will be clocked."
    wizard69 wrote:
    The request for the smaller case is being made for multiple reasons, but the big one is that we don't want to see the Mac Pro go the way of XServe.

    Yes, it's like the FCPX face-lift. It doesn't matter much to people who ignore that but it broadens its appeal.
    z3r0 wrote:
    I don't want my Mac Pro to look like an Octopus full of cables. Going that route means one cable to the PCI-X/GPU box, another for the optical drive, another for external storage plus all the other wires for the displays and peripherals. I prefer to have everything internal if possible.

    It still has an internal GPU (the best one you could buy in fact - likely the Radeon 8970 by the time it arrives). Having 3 drives instead of 4 doesn't mean external storage is required but if it's to be a RAID setup, it's better being external as it's hardware RAID. You get bus-powered optical drives so one small cable and it can sit in the drawer 364 days of the year.
    z3r0 wrote:
    In the case of the Mac Pro BIGGER is better.

    What they should do is make it 4x the size, support 4 processors, 8 PCI slots, 16 RAM slots, 8 HDDs, quad Blu-Ray drives. But then colour it polka-dot pink with plastic windows and flashing neon internals and see how many people ignore the aesthetics.

    Apple can really do whatever they want to be honest. People were posting the usual comments about abandoning Apple and telling all their friends in high places to do the same bringing Apple to its knees at the last potential refresh if it didn't turn out how they wanted and look what Apple did. What was the outcome? Customers have no power over Apple at all in this market segment. By the time it comes out it will have been nearly 3 years since a proper update. For all the noise that goes on about the Mac Pro, that's enough evidence of how ineffective it is.
    wizard69 wrote:
    I really don't see the need for a performance machine ever going away completely

    The need for performance won't but what are the tasks that need done? Think of how fast GPUs will be in 10 years. 3D computer graphics will all be real-time and photoreal. Compute power will be insane. I think this will satisfy the needs of the individual and anything more will be in server-space.

    edit: in terms of size, new advances in cooling should help. The heatsink in the MP is huge like the following:

    http://www.dynatron-corp.com/en/product_detail_2.aspx?cv=&id=184&in=0

    The new Sandia CPU heatsink is supposed to be able to do a much better job:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cpu-cooler-sandia-heatsink-fan,16100.html

    They note 7x more efficient in mass produced models and dirt cheap. If it's as good as that, it should definitely make it's way into the MP and Apple could probably manufacturer it to a higher grade than most.
  • Reply 55 of 211
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    If they can put in functionality to allow zero-config connections over Thunderbolt, even better. You could buy as many $3999 models and just plug a TB cable between 1 and 2 then 2 and 3 etc.

    Sure the complaints will come in about not being able to access PCI cards but for high-end tasks, wouldn't you rather spend $3999 on another MP and run any task natively on a dedicated 10-core Xeon than spend $4750 on a Red Rocket PCI card that only does one thing? There's always the backup of having an external PCI box anyway.

    If they can figure out how to make PCI slots and Thunderbolt work together in a Xeon box, all the better I suppose but they still need to allocate 40 lanes between them so they won't have more than 4 slots.

     


    I'm tired today. I really wanted to reference highlander after you said something about people dying of old age (old movie), but I've got nothing other than the obvious joke about consolidating the lineup. Distributed computing has been around for a while, but I don't see this as a good option at a smaller scale like a 1-5 man shop. It might be better in a larger shop where some machines are under-utilized, but gpgpu computation is likely the future for this stuff. OpenCL and CUDA just need to support a wider range of functions. I'd suggest that in a couple years many of these customers will be better served by multiple gpu cards than an ever increasing number of standard X86 Xeons from a performance per dollar standpoint. The other problem is that starting at $4000 limits your market. Right now the $2500 option and the 12 core really cater to different markets. Trying to homogenize them at the $4000 mark means the imac has to pick up a lot of slack at the low end of that. Regarding thunderbolt and PCI slots, the problem was the lack of integrated graphics. It had nothing to do with PCI slots. The chip depended on specific logic board placement, and the certification requirements made integrated graphics the way to go. Right now we lack that on Xeons outside of the E3s. If that changes, you could have integrated graphics + PCI slots containing other cards.


     


    As much as I enjoy the links and references, you miss many things. The last point is on single vs dual package. If you're starved for bandwidth, you can go with dual cpu packages for this reason. If it's a minor bottleneck, they can do what they've done up to this point. The current machine is slightly over-subscribed, and Apple has done this with many things. Some of the imacs have done this with firewire using a single bridgeport, so plugging in FW400 +800 meant they'd both run as 400. If the integrated graphics thing isn't so much of an issue, you can lose the lower x4 slot in favor of thunderbolt. Allocate 4 lanes to that with a x8 and x16 slot. It's not really ideal, but you could run gpus off both if they aren't oversized or constrained thermally. That basically leaves you with 12 lanes to cover the rest of the ports. It's cutting it pretty close, but it could work.


     


    If Apple goes the route of just trying to chain X86 cores in boxes together, I see it as a product line with little remaining life. They need significant gains and performance per dollar to retain relevance. 20% faster means work gets done a bit quicker, but relying partially on gpu computation can actually alter workflows and enable things that weren't possible or feasible on the older hardware. It was actually one of your links that showed how much differentiation was present between a mobile gpu and a desktop gpu in the $500-1000 range  <200W.

  • Reply 56 of 211
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post







    Yes, it's like the FCPX face-lift. It doesn't matter much to people who ignore that but it broadens its appeal.

     


    I forgot to reference this point. If you read over the most common complaints separated out from the general noise, it came down to lack of licensing options for the old thing after such a significant point of departure, and concerns that certain must have features were missing. Multi-cam support was the most commonly listed gripe, and that's one I can understand. Its name should be self explanatory. Apple remedied it with an update later, but the people who migrated were most likely already disappointed with Apple. My point remains that an increase in X86 cores may not be the way forward for much longer. I'd also suggest you'll retain some performance segment much longer. As we've seen outside of that, the point of focus has trended heavily in favor of mobile form factors with lower power requirements. If the power isn't being used, they'll optimize in a different direction.

  • Reply 57 of 211
    ecsecs Posts: 307member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    And this is based on what? What makes you more of an expert in computer design than Apple?


     


    You never used a thin Mac for anything other than net surfing, right?


     


    1- Pick some music that has some dBA level. Either heavy metal, punk, or Aqua's Barbie Girl will work fine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie_Girl)


     


    2- Use big, full, earphones, and listen to such music at high volume (but take care of your eardrums, please).


     


    3- Start "The Sims 3" in your brand-new ultra-thin Mac (if you pretend you're not a gamer, you can say you run a render job in Maya if you prefer).


     


    4- While "The Sims 3" starts a new game, notice the subtle details in Aqua's Barbie Girl.


     


    5- No, the wind effect in the song's drum base isn't a new mix of the song: It's your ultra-thin Mac hurrying the fans for the CPU not melting.


     


    6- You can now turn off the music, quit "The Sims 3", and continue using your ultra-thin Mac for net surfing. Yes, it was designed for that.

  • Reply 58 of 211


    *GASP*

    This (hopefully) means I can shove a Radeon 7XXX series card in my 2012 MacPro and reap all the nerdy delights a high powered graphics card brings!


    I have the 6-core Uni Processor model and that CPU is on par performance wise with the current 6-core E5-XXXX Sandy Bridge processors (albeit running at a higher clock frequency), so its by no means slow. A 7XXX series graphics card would be the cherry on top.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by rob53 View Post



    Case size is important. Just ask all those enterprise technicians who have to move the old Mac Pros around. For me, a Mac Pro case needs to be just large enough to hold a motherboard with several CPUs, plenty of RAM, and a few specialized PCIe cards. Standard I/O ports don't really take up much room. As for optical drives, I wonder if not having them would be better, letting me attach my specialized and constantly changing drives to whichever Mac Pro I want instead of having to settle for older internal drives. The amount of space for internal disk/SSD drives is something that I'd have to think about. There needs to be enough disk room for individual users but for groups of users, having SSD boot drives and external shared drives might be a better option. This would mean a much smaller case design. Think about a stack of Mac mini. Add better CPUs with heat sinks (tall-mini, size of two minis) and something on the order of four tall-minis would only be a foot tall. Redesign to get rid of the optical drives (two quad- or six-core CPUs could fit in the bottom two or three tall-minis) and you could put disks and I/O cards in the top tall-mini space to get four to six CPUs with disks and I/O cards for a nice new Mac Pro. All in a much smaller design and (maybe) with redundant power supplies. Actually, Apple could have fun and build the new Mac Pro as a modular computer: redundant power module, dual CPU module, disk module, I/O module. Just stack them to plug everything together. Start with a single CPU module but allow 2-4 (or more) to be stacked. Same with disk and I/O modules. This ends up looking like a blade server and could provide the same functionality (maybe even as a reborn OS X Server).


    Why the hell would you do that? Why would you have it all external modules when its already modular inside a single case? You musn't know much about professional hardware because those Xeon CPUs, even the bleeding edge chips, needs a lot of room, big fans and larger heatsincs to keep cool. I have yet to see a small (1U/2U) rack server with more than two CPU sockets and I have never seen a tower with more than two CPU sockets as small as the Mac Pro. People that require that much horse power should turn to computer clusters. You would a LOT more space than the foot print of a Mini (even one 3x as tall) for even a single high power Xeon chip.


     


    Then you have the issue of cost; connecting all those external modules together would require very expensive, high bandwidth, enterprise super/cluster computer grade fibre optic cable. Making drives external is just... dumb... Why would you take your disks out of your system, away from the SATA or SCSI backplane and connect them externally? Thunderbolt is far to expensive and internal disks offer direct connection to the disk controller without going through the PCIe first as with thunderbolt. Its also more secure being inside a locked case, its better for cooling (pro systems and servers have fans for the hard disk bays) and external units would end up being gigantic in order to furnish a fan and the interface ports.


     


    You're suggesting all of this to make the system smaller, when in realistically all you're doing it introducing more parts to potentially fail, dangerouse interface cables, racking up the price and actually make the system unfeasibly large.


     


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ecs View Post


    Finally, an interesting rumor!!! (I was quite bored of iOS rumors)


     


    I'd like to have a new Mac Pro with as few mechanical parts as possible (no HD, fan-less PSU... and if the whole computer can be designed with just one fan, better than two).



    Even the lowest power desktop PCs have fans in the PSU. Those things get HOT. Its not a wall-wart or power brick connecting to a battery in a laptop, its a big brick of a thing that has to power several high performance devices.


     


    Also, one fan? Why would that be a good idea in a high performance system? High performance servers and workstations are designed to stay below at least 60C. The Mac Pro has a fan on the GPU, fan in the PSU, fan for the HDDs, a fan for the daughter card holding the processor and ram, a fan inside the processer heatsinc itself and an exhaust fan. It needs all those fans - you can't just chop them down to one and expect it to function. The only single fan I can see dropped in the near future is the HDD fan once HDDs become obsolete in everything except specialist systems requiring large amounts of high-density storage.


     


     


     


     


    Its comments like the above two that really infuriate me because they are completely unrealistic with little or no thought towards reality and the laws of physics.

  • Reply 59 of 211

    Quote:



     


    (text cut out because WALL-O-TEXT!)


    What you have proposed here is quite possibly one of the dumbest things ever for a professional workstation machine.


     


    You've removed the second processor, crippling the machine in the high-end market, you've removed the PCIe slots, meaning it can no longer be upgraded with extra expansions boards, you're removed a drive bay leaving only three (making almost all RAID configurations useless if three drives are employed) and you've removed the top of the machine above the drive bays that held both the ODDs and the PSU, meaning no space left for extras such as a card reader. Your choice of putting the PSU behind the processor and ram daughter board means that cooling has been compromised as there is now no exhaust fan at the back of the machine for said daughter board (with the heat from the PSU also affecting the airflow around the CPU). Smaller fans would have to be employed for the middle of the tower running at a higher RPM, causing lots of excess noise and their is less space around the CPU heatsinc for it to "breath", causing other components around it to heat up from being in such close proximity, needing either lower performance parts or faster, louder fans.


     


    All you've done is cripple the machine and made it useless in the high-end market. If these are the omissions you'd make to the Mac Pro then you are clearly not its target market.


     


    Machines of this type from any manufacturer have all the features you ommited because they are required by the high-end user. These machiens need to run cool, perform mind-bending calculations quickly, be rated for 24/7 operation with pin point precision and accuracy and have 99.9% uptime at minimum. A consumer PC (home, office, gaming etc.) are none of these things. The Mac Pro and other such workstations should not be treated and thought of as a consumer desktop computer.

  • Reply 60 of 211
    z3r0 wrote: »
    192GB+ RAM

    Lion only sees 96GB (don't know if ML will). Strangely, Windows uses all 128GB under Bootcamp.

    OWC 16GB Memory Modules for 2009/2010 Mac Pro — 48GB / 96GB in Mac Pro

    1000
    Marvin wrote: »
    No one will ever need more than 64GB of RAM. You heard it here first.

    1000

    Photographers disagree. Read this piece on a person using Photoshop to the max, so to speak. Easily needing 80GB, wishing for more.

    I really enjoy this thread. Don't have time to discuss everyones' take on the subject, but I do have one thing to say:

    I think pro's use whatever tool is available to get the job done. U'd think someone like Phil Collins would sound different if he plays on a different drumkit? No, it's not the tool that makes the sound; it's the artist creating whatever he wants. A photographer doesn't blame his gear if the picture doesn't look good to him. There are people creating far better pictures taken with their cellphone than others do with a (D)SLR.

    Which, for example, means that a Pro won't care that much if there aren't any drivebays in the next model; they'll get external (TB) storage if needed.

    Thanks to everyone for their great posts, especially wizard69 and Marvin.

    If they do make a smaller box and some folks need to hook up their external devices that might create desktop clutter:

    1000
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