This really isn't so, at least not in the last three years or so. For example consider the AIRs, an expensive product at first refactored into a very hot seller. It can be argued that the IPad is agressively priced too.
I'm not saying Apple is cheap but they are very capable of tuning the line up to be very competitive. After all how many we'll constructed Air competitors are there out there. So Apple could position this machine to effectively keep a good portion if the competition at bay.
Apple likely has a long tern strategy here. If the want to take work away from the like of HP they need an aggressive price point. Low enough to effectively cut into HPs margins. I believe part of the design goal here was to be able to deliver the highest performance possible at the lowest cost possible.
HP has weird pricing. The base configurations are less expensive, yet cto options are often higher than Apple's. Lenovo does the same thing with the Thinkpads on things like ram, but it's easy enough to upgrade yourself. It's like they're discouraging certain cto options through pricing strategies.
You can really see how small it is in that video, which is why those who still think there might be a 2 CPU variant (despite the one on Apple's website showing 1 CPU only) must be wrong.
The thermal column has three sides, and each side is directly contacting one chip. Two sides are contacting GPUs and one the CPU. For there to be two CPUs, one side of the triangle would have two chips touching it which, looking at the size of the box, would just not be enough heat sink, and also might result in one chip heating up the other one.
Edit: Or... come to think of it, a dual CPU version could have a square cooling tower...
@geekdad Buy what you want, man! These little categories and unsolicited advice about who's a "pro user" and who's a "hoi polloi" user are bogus. Price notwithstanding, go out and enjoy!
On an unrelated note, where is the power supply? My guess is they made it a brick to sit on the floor just above your outlet.
274W x 2 + 130W CPU + 6 x 10W Thunderbolt + 4 x 5W USB 3 = 758W max so I'm guessing they stuck with a 1kW PSU. No way that's going on the outside. The PSU can sit right in the middle at the base and the cold air will cool the power supply too.
All that matters is Cinebench scores... Let's see some numbers.
I estimate the 12-core CPU will be 24 and the GPU score should be similar to the 7970 in Crossfire, which is 84. Battlefield 3 70FPS on Ultra, CoD 160FPS Ultra, Max Payne 3 85FPS Ultra, Metro 2033 55FPS Ultra.
Of course, they ought to be updating Cinebench with OpenCL. This is CUDA-based iRay:
[VIDEO]
CPU takes about 3:30, dual NVidia 560 takes 1:00. Generally AMD is faster than NVidia at OpenCL too.
If you check the CLBenchmark site, the i7-4770k for raytracing gets 28k, GTX 560 gets 75k so two should be 150k = 5x faster than i7-4770k but the i7 in the above demo was overclocked to 5GHz from 3.5GHz so 5/1.4 = 3.5x faster. One FirePro W9000, which only has half the memory bandwidth of Apple's descriptions scores 274k so two of them would be 548k or about 14x faster than that i7 in the demo i.e complete that render in 15 seconds.
That all depends on if companies doing this sort of thing bother to support OpenCL but the benefits are obvious.
You can really see how small it is in that video, which is why those who still think there might be a 2 CPU variant (despite the one on Apple's website showing 1 CPU only) must be wrong.
The thermal column has three sides, and each side is directly contacting one chip. Two sides are contacting GPUs and one the CPU. For there to be two CPUs, one side of the triangle would have two chips touching it which, looking at the size of the box, would just not be enough heat sink, and also might result in one chip heating up the other one.
Edit: Or... come to think of it, a dual CPU version could have a square cooling tower...
RE: Square cooling extrusion…
Would not work, parts would not fit…
Look at the couple of shots on the Apple website that show the internals from above(ish) in semi-exploded view…
Now use your spatial organizational skills to try and rearrange them around a square core. You will soon realize that the three existing cards would have to be narrower… Which means different parts, which means more overall cost…
Single CPU, dual GPUs… Apple WANTS developers to move a lot of the number crunching into OpenCL & onto the GPUs. WAY more horsepower there…!!!
Single CPU, dual GPUs… Apple WANTS developers to move a lot of the number crunching into OpenCL & onto the GPUs. WAY more horsepower there…!!!
Yep. And OpenCL kernels are not that hard to write, it's a cut down version of C. I think a lot of devs worry/assume that (a) it will be some kind of weird low level coding, or (b) it will be some godawful complicated API like OpenGL, but pleasantly it is neither.
274W x 2 + 130W CPU + 6 x 10W Thunderbolt + 4 x 5W USB 3 = 758W max so I'm guessing they stuck with a 1kW PSU. No way that's going on the outside. The PSU can sit right in the middle at the base and the cold air will cool the power supply too.
I estimate the 12-core CPU will be 24 and the GPU score should be similar to the 7970 in Crossfire, which is 84. Battlefield 3 70FPS on Ultra, CoD 160FPS Ultra, Max Payne 3 85FPS Ultra, Metro 2033 55FPS Ultra.
As a general rule, workstation drivers perform horribly when it comes to games. This would be especially true in Windows gaming where games are tuned for DirectX, unless for some reason it views the card as a 7970 and installs 7970 windows drivers. Unless tests prove otherwise, it would be the last thing you would want for gaming. I have no real interest in games, so it wouldn't bother me.
As a general rule, workstation drivers perform horribly when it comes to games. This would be especially true in Windows gaming where games are tuned for DirectX, unless for some reason it views the card as a 7970 and installs 7970 windows drivers. Unless tests prove otherwise, it would be the last thing you would want for gaming. I have no real interest in games, so it wouldn't bother me.
Basing conclusions on general rules and assumptions again, eh. Facts are so much more reliable:
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably as it's only 70% of the pixels to render) and run at above real-time framerates and these are just single cards not two in Crossfire.
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably as it's only 70% of the pixels to render) and run at above real-time framerates and these are just single cards not two in Crossfire.
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
It only augers well for the future of the Darth Pro.
This is the Mac we've been dreaming for.
'SLI' (well, 'Dual') GPUS as STANDARD. We've been after this for years. The latest Workstation GPUs. Emphasis on 'CL' computation after Apple intro'd it years ago.
Finally getting GL 4.1 (with 4.2 and 4.3 pending being built in, I guess?)
Blistering SSD PCIe speeds outstripping the native drive in the old model by a factor of 10!!! 1.25 TB of SSD? It's like some kind of dream!!!! :O
12 core(!!!!!!) (I used to dream about that kind of core count) at double the computation. Faster MB, faster RAM.
IN a Cube package shaped like a Darth Vader Tube thermal core thingie?
*Pinch me. I know I'm going to wake up...
'...and there were these people moaning they didn't like the revolutionary design...and...and they didn't even think it was powerful even with 7 terraflops of computation on dual GPUs...and then...well, my alarm went off. One hell of a dream though...'
The Apple website says the PCIe flash storage has 1250MB/s THROUGHPUT, not that it is a 1.25TB capacity stick…
Where are you getting 1.25TB capacity from…?!?
I think the MOST we might see from the Apple Store (BTO) will be 1TB; and I am still hoping for that second spot to be fitted and available when these bad boys ship…!!!
Dreaming of a MODO / MARI / NUKE / HEIRO PLAYER / FCPX / Motion pipeline…!
Viewed on an Apple 4K Thunderbolt 2 Display & a Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch; external storage on a PROMISE Pegasus R6 18TB RAID (set for RAID 5)…
I guess I might as well put an external Apple USB SuperDrive on top of the RAID box…
Total cables from having to use external items, three, hardly a rats nest…
I do not count the Mac Pro power cable, the Gigabit Ethernet(s), or the cables for the two displays; all that is gonna be there no matter if it is the new Mac Pro or the outgoing beastly chassis…
Well, there you go. It's official. Heavy weight developers, 'The Foundry' tested the bad ass Vader Pro in Apple's 'Evil Lab.'
Aaaaaaamen.
Unfortunately I'm no more inclined to believe them outright than anybody else. It is pretty obvious that this is a powerful machine, how powerful is an open question though.
They're saying that Apple's revolutionary (and it is!) Mac Pro kicks ass. That it currently blows PC equivalents out the water. More ass kicking.
That isn't really that hard to do
I'll take the Foundry and Pixar over the doubters (whoever they are...) any time. It's quite an endorsement.
Remember WWDC is as much about marketing as it is software development. I'm not saying they are dishonest but rather have the ability to spin things by focusing very tightly on specific issues.
More so, the fact that the Foundry ported their Mari program in just a week?
Thereisahuge difference between ported and running cleanly as a Mac App.
Strange thing?
Given all the screaming, cryin' and gnashing of teeth (don't forget sack cloth and ash...) going on wit the 'pros' over the last couple o' years...
Sadly many of the so called Pros just don't grasp how nice this machine is, how forward looking it is or the potential to support a wide array of new software.
We've had Autocad? Mari? (And numerous and increasing amount of 'Pro' apps from the PC side being released onto the Mac side...) We're getting dual released of many, many graphic apps. Poser Pro, Photoshop, Lightwave, Painter, Manga Studio. It's been this way for years though. But...some of those elusive heavy weight boys like Auto Cad and now Mari? (I doubt we'll see Studio Max any time soon?)
Seeing all of this new software makes me very happy. However Auto CAD isn't really a demanding pro app anymore. 3D solid modeling is all the rage now.
Significant.
What's behind it?
People are really frustrated with MicroSoft. Apple is the only real alternative and the workstation market has basically collapsed into Windows and Mac camps. In other words Apple is the only other platform for workstation class functionality at a reasonable price.
Well. Maybe a few things.
1st. The WWDC. Apple sold out in 70 seconds? Apple are adding millions of developers a year. That's incredible. There's an iPad gold rush. And it needs content. Apps. Content. New generation apps. As the iPad gets more powerful... Apple's Mac to develop for it needs to keep a pace to push the envelope, I'm sure. 600 million iDevices is a lot of money! 10 billion paid out to developers. And it's still going up. No matter what wallstreet thinks about the lack of 'iThis' of a £95 plastic iPhone to kill Android in unit share.
70 seconds is Impressive. I can see Apple needing to split up WWDC In the future just to accommodate everybody better.
As you it share frankly I have to agree with Wall Street here. Maybe not so much with respect to pricing as to physical size of its devices.
The Mac Pro was a significant machine to spearhead this kind of development. Serious development for a serious market. It's not separate - the Mac Pro is part of the Apple Eco-System. The Mac is from the Mini to the laptops to the iMac to the Pro. They're all decent 'pro' machines in their own context.
Well not yet but Apple is moving very rapidly in this context. Even the new Airs are a massive step forward over last years models. In fact it is a bit perplexing when you think about how well the Airs have evolved over the last couple of years.
An installed base of 70+ million Mac users and counting. That's money you can't just walk away from when it takes a 'mere' week to port an app' for the Mac.
Software developers are slowly waking up to the size of the market and the goodness of both platforms. However take that week to port statement with a grain of sand. The C++ code was likely a snap, I'd be willing to bet there re a lot of GUI and OpenCL features to iron out yet.
Increasingly, 'pro' level work can be done on anything from a Mini (which was nibbling the ankles of the entry Mac Pro...), an iMac which has hoovered up many of the former 'Mac Pro' territory domains from video, music, 3D, gaming (yes, I said it...), photography. You no longer need a 'Pro' to do such things. The Macbook Pro too. With SSD and an i7 and decent gpu can hold its own to a degree.
It all depends upon how you define "Pro" and your personal expectations. The Mini for example can cover a lot of development work as can most of Apple laptops. However development is one of those things that really benefits from lots of cores, memory and disk performance so many a developer would have good reason to laugh at the Mini as a developers tool. On the flip side I would suspect that most of the apps in the app stores is developed on either a Mini or an iMac, sometimes economics beats out productivity.
Sure, doing 'Mari' on a Mini might be a stretch. Well, du-oh!
However, The Mac as the 'creative' machine has been somewhat democratised for the 'rest of us.' (it's true mandate...even more so with the iPad...)
Honestly that has more to do with the move to i86 on the Macs. The timing of this transition was almost perfect. By the time they had Mac OS ironed out on i86 MicroSoft was in a rapid decline.
So this porting over of key 'killer' 'pro' software is significant. And we finally have Apple reaffirming their commitment to their 'high end' customers.
Significant? Maybe, what Apple needs is a wide range of apps moving over to the platform. As to commitment that is an open discussion, the problem is this: what does the rest of the platform look like?
When the machine actually launches we will better understand what sort of system Apple has for professionals.
Mini? iMac? Pro? It's all about just how much computation you want. And with the Mac Pro. You're going to get a fulcrum shift. The Foundry have confirmed Apple's own PR which came from Phil's lips. Or his 'My ass' :P
The Foundry people didn't even know about this machine.
The new preview Darth Pro looks like a land mark release. Heavy single cpu 12 core computation upto twice as fast? Super tanker dual GPU as standard for back breaking computation, scorchingly fast SSD on PCIe with faster M/B and Ram? In something the size of the Cube?
Apple is moving so fast right now that a lot of people can't keep up. They are trouncing the industry from above and below. The low end Airs are remarkable!
Pinch me?
I'm an iMac top of the line owner. (Love it..) But...
I'm looking at Darth Pro covetously. (That an a 4k monitor? Somebody stop me...)
I admit it. There.
Yours, (spiritual Power Mac owner back in '97)
A couple of questions though. Is there any reason you can't buy a 2nd Mac Pro and have 2 12 core systems and 2x 2 GPUS as a make shift renderfarm for 3d renders?
2nd. What's the state of Open GL 4 on the Mac Mavericks? We've been bemoaning the lack of update to Open GL, now we have 4.x? But will Apple and AMD turbo boost the 100% deficit of PC vs Mac GPU drivers?
These are very reasonable concerns. Hopefully the long development cycles mean high performance implementations.
Now it's all about Open CL and Open GL, has Apple's Open GL implementation finally slayn the the ghost of poor past GL performance vs PC?
Sounds like they're finally getting serious about GPUs and GL if they're including two of these babies in the Pro and GL 4.x?
Discuss.
Lemon Bon Bon.
You certainly have some things right here. Apple is really putting itself far ahead of the competition.
The Apple website says the PCIe flash storage has 1250MB/s THROUGHPUT, not that it is a 1.25TB capacity stick…
Where are you getting 1.25TB capacity from…?!?
I think the MOST we might see from the Apple Store (BTO) will be 1TB; and I am still hoping for that second spot to be fitted and available when these bad boys ship…!!!
Then make an effort to let Apple know today!!! I can't stress this enough, Apple will listen if the voices are strong enough.
Dreaming of a MODO / MARI / NUKE / HEIRO PLAYER / FCPX / Motion pipeline…!
Viewed on an Apple 4K Thunderbolt 2 Display & a Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch; external storage on a PROMISE Pegasus R6 18TB RAID (set for RAID 5)…
Sounds like you are just as excited as Lemon! ????????????
I guess I might as well put an external Apple USB SuperDrive on top of the RAID box…
Total cables from having to use external items, three, hardly a rats nest…
The rats nest complaint isn't even remotely valid for anybody with real pro needs.
I do not count the Mac Pro power cable, the Gigabit Ethernet(s), or the cables for the two displays; all that is gonna be there no matter if it is the new Mac Pro or the outgoing beastly chassis…
Exactly. As will be a connection to an external array. I'm not completely pleased with the arraignment of the ports but it is something one can live with. Further why does Apple so resist forward facing USB port, two would make a huge difference.
Generally Apples drivers are what I'd call more balanced with maybe strong lean towards workstation quality, one should never expect gaming type drivers from Apple. Beyond that I have this feeling the drivers will be optimized for running OpenCL code even if that means more modest OpenGL performance. In any event it will be interesting to see how these card do across all apps with Apples drivers.
As a general rule, workstation drivers perform horribly when it comes to games. This would be especially true in Windows gaming where games are tuned for DirectX, unless for some reason it views the card as a 7970 and installs 7970 windows drivers. Unless tests prove otherwise, it would be the last thing you would want for gaming. I have no real interest in games, so it wouldn't bother me.
The other part of this equation is that we don't really know what Apples chosen GPU chip is. I suspect Tahiti or a follow on, for the stronger support of OpenCL or compute in general. It is very possible that Apple might have access to AMDs next generation and will launch with something newer in the GCN line.
274W x 2 + 130W CPU + 6 x 10W Thunderbolt + 4 x 5W USB 3 = 758W max so I'm guessing they stuck with a 1kW PSU. No way that's going on the outside. The PSU can sit right in the middle at the base and the cold air will cool the power supply too.
If I ever buy one of these I will have to resist the desire to tear one apart to see how it is put together. I'm sure a tear down will lead to a nerdgasm.
I estimate the 12-core CPU will be 24 and the GPU score should be similar to the 7970 in Crossfire, which is 84. Battlefield 3 70FPS on Ultra, CoD 160FPS Ultra, Max Payne 3 85FPS Ultra, Metro 2033 55FPS Ultra.
Of course, they ought to be updating Cinebench with OpenCL. This is CUDA-based iRay:
CPU takes about 3:30, dual NVidia 560 takes 1:00. Generally AMD is faster than NVidia at OpenCL too.
Not only faster but they support double precision better. This makes AMD the smart choice for workstations targeting a wide array of users.
If you check the CLBenchmark site, the i7-4770k for raytracing gets 28k, GTX 560 gets 75k so two should be 150k = 5x faster than i7-4770k but the i7 in the above demo was overclocked to 5GHz from 3.5GHz so 5/1.4 = 3.5x faster. One FirePro W9000, which only has half the memory bandwidth of Apple's descriptions scores 274k so two of them would be 548k or about 14x faster than that i7 in the demo i.e complete that render in 15 seconds.
It will be very interesting to see what FirePro chips Apple is actually using
That all depends on if companies doing this sort of thing bother to support OpenCL but the benefits are obvious.
OpenCL has a wide following, those that aren't onboard are doomed to suffer.
Dreaming of a MODO / MARI / NUKE / HEIRO PLAYER / FCPX / Motion pipeline…!
Viewed on an Apple 4K Thunderbolt 2 Display & a Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch; external storage on a PROMISE Pegasus R6 18TB RAID (set for RAID 5)…
I guess I might as well put an external Apple USB SuperDrive on top of the RAID box…
Total cables from having to use external items, three, hardly a rats nest…
I do not count the Mac Pro power cable, the Gigabit Ethernet(s), or the cables for the two displays; all that is gonna be there no matter if it is the new Mac Pro or the outgoing beastly chassis…
I AM SO EXCITED (and I just can't hide it)…
RE: The cabling… That is what I am saying; folks are bitching about the whole having to go external for secondary storage/RAID & PCIe expansion, and the huge increase in cabling it would be… When it just really is not…
Also, the folks bitching about how much space it is going to force them to lose on their desktop… Please, SO lame of an argument, It is less than seven inches in diameter…!
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Unfortunately I'm no more inclined to believe them outright than anybody else. It is pretty obvious that this is a powerful machine, how powerful is an open question though.
That isn't really that hard to do
Remember WWDC is as much about marketing as it is software development. I'm not saying they are dishonest but rather have the ability to spin things by focusing very tightly on specific issues.
RE: The Foundry/Pixar WWDC MARI demo; spin or no spin, that demo was DAMNED IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE from the machine… If the developers can only do that for other DCC software, this thing will be the go-to workstation for a lot of folks; from Big Shops to one-man-bands…
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
If I ever buy one of these I will have to resist the desire to tear one apart to see how it is put together. I'm sure a tear down will lead to a nerdgasm.
Not only faster but they support double precision better. This makes AMD the smart choice for workstations targeting a wide array of users.
It will be very interesting to see what FirePro chips Apple is actually using
OpenCL has a wide following, those that aren't onboard are doomed to suffer.
RE: Tearing one apart… YES…!!! I have worked in manufacturing/production doing assembly work in the past, and I cannot look at it without mentally taking it apart…
Okay, I was just indulging in some Hardware Porn, but I SWEAR I was not touching myself inappropriately…
And I noticed something I sort of overlooked before…
Look at the pics of the CPU & GPU cards… Each one has metal brackets & burly knurled machine screws that cover the area of the chips… I think, for ease of assembly/disassembly/repair/replacement; rather than having the CPU/GPUs thermal pasted to the Thermal Core, there is some sort of (just as efficient) pad of material between the processors & the Thermal Core… The brackets & machine screws push the chips firmly against the Thermal Core (with the aforementioned heat conductive pad sandwiched in between) and the machine screws go from bracket, thru the PCB and are anchored into the Thermal Core… Easy, Efficient, Effective…!
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably as it's only 70% of the pixels to render) and run at above real-time framerates and these are just single cards not two in Crossfire.
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
That's a lot higher than I expected, but you're right they wouldn't be terribly cost effective. Typically these drivers are highly tuned for OpenGL, which most Windows games don't use. The hardware itself tends to be at least similar, especially in recent years. I remember the Quadro 4000 really tailing the 5870 according to barefeats, but the only article I found just now was this one.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
This really isn't so, at least not in the last three years or so. For example consider the AIRs, an expensive product at first refactored into a very hot seller. It can be argued that the IPad is agressively priced too.
I'm not saying Apple is cheap but they are very capable of tuning the line up to be very competitive. After all how many we'll constructed Air competitors are there out there. So Apple could position this machine to effectively keep a good portion if the competition at bay.
Apple likely has a long tern strategy here. If the want to take work away from the like of HP they need an aggressive price point. Low enough to effectively cut into HPs margins. I believe part of the design goal here was to be able to deliver the highest performance possible at the lowest cost possible.
HP has weird pricing. The base configurations are less expensive, yet cto options are often higher than Apple's. Lenovo does the same thing with the Thinkpads on things like ram, but it's easy enough to upgrade yourself. It's like they're discouraging certain cto options through pricing strategies.
You can really see how small it is in that video, which is why those who still think there might be a 2 CPU variant (despite the one on Apple's website showing 1 CPU only) must be wrong.
The thermal column has three sides, and each side is directly contacting one chip. Two sides are contacting GPUs and one the CPU. For there to be two CPUs, one side of the triangle would have two chips touching it which, looking at the size of the box, would just not be enough heat sink, and also might result in one chip heating up the other one.
Edit: Or... come to think of it, a dual CPU version could have a square cooling tower...
274W x 2 + 130W CPU + 6 x 10W Thunderbolt + 4 x 5W USB 3 = 758W max so I'm guessing they stuck with a 1kW PSU. No way that's going on the outside. The PSU can sit right in the middle at the base and the cold air will cool the power supply too.
I estimate the 12-core CPU will be 24 and the GPU score should be similar to the 7970 in Crossfire, which is 84. Battlefield 3 70FPS on Ultra, CoD 160FPS Ultra, Max Payne 3 85FPS Ultra, Metro 2033 55FPS Ultra.
Of course, they ought to be updating Cinebench with OpenCL. This is CUDA-based iRay:
[VIDEO]
CPU takes about 3:30, dual NVidia 560 takes 1:00. Generally AMD is faster than NVidia at OpenCL too.
If you check the CLBenchmark site, the i7-4770k for raytracing gets 28k, GTX 560 gets 75k so two should be 150k = 5x faster than i7-4770k but the i7 in the above demo was overclocked to 5GHz from 3.5GHz so 5/1.4 = 3.5x faster. One FirePro W9000, which only has half the memory bandwidth of Apple's descriptions scores 274k so two of them would be 548k or about 14x faster than that i7 in the demo i.e complete that render in 15 seconds.
That all depends on if companies doing this sort of thing bother to support OpenCL but the benefits are obvious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
You can really see how small it is in that video, which is why those who still think there might be a 2 CPU variant (despite the one on Apple's website showing 1 CPU only) must be wrong.
The thermal column has three sides, and each side is directly contacting one chip. Two sides are contacting GPUs and one the CPU. For there to be two CPUs, one side of the triangle would have two chips touching it which, looking at the size of the box, would just not be enough heat sink, and also might result in one chip heating up the other one.
Edit: Or... come to think of it, a dual CPU version could have a square cooling tower...
RE: Square cooling extrusion…
Would not work, parts would not fit…
Look at the couple of shots on the Apple website that show the internals from above(ish) in semi-exploded view…
Now use your spatial organizational skills to try and rearrange them around a square core. You will soon realize that the three existing cards would have to be narrower… Which means different parts, which means more overall cost…
Single CPU, dual GPUs… Apple WANTS developers to move a lot of the number crunching into OpenCL & onto the GPUs. WAY more horsepower there…!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRonin
Single CPU, dual GPUs… Apple WANTS developers to move a lot of the number crunching into OpenCL & onto the GPUs. WAY more horsepower there…!!!
Yep. And OpenCL kernels are not that hard to write, it's a cut down version of C. I think a lot of devs worry/assume that (a) it will be some kind of weird low level coding, or (b) it will be some godawful complicated API like OpenGL, but pleasantly it is neither.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
274W x 2 + 130W CPU + 6 x 10W Thunderbolt + 4 x 5W USB 3 = 758W max so I'm guessing they stuck with a 1kW PSU. No way that's going on the outside. The PSU can sit right in the middle at the base and the cold air will cool the power supply too.
I estimate the 12-core CPU will be 24 and the GPU score should be similar to the 7970 in Crossfire, which is 84. Battlefield 3 70FPS on Ultra, CoD 160FPS Ultra, Max Payne 3 85FPS Ultra, Metro 2033 55FPS Ultra.
As a general rule, workstation drivers perform horribly when it comes to games. This would be especially true in Windows gaming where games are tuned for DirectX, unless for some reason it views the card as a 7970 and installs 7970 windows drivers. Unless tests prove otherwise, it would be the last thing you would want for gaming. I have no real interest in games, so it wouldn't bother me.
Basing conclusions on general rules and assumptions again, eh. Facts are so much more reliable:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-14.html
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Basing conclusions on general rules and assumptions again, eh. Facts are so much more reliable:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-14.html
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
Well said.
Lemon Bon Bon.
It only augers well for the future of the Darth Pro.
This is the Mac we've been dreaming for.
'SLI' (well, 'Dual') GPUS as STANDARD. We've been after this for years. The latest Workstation GPUs. Emphasis on 'CL' computation after Apple intro'd it years ago.
Finally getting GL 4.1 (with 4.2 and 4.3 pending being built in, I guess?)
Blistering SSD PCIe speeds outstripping the native drive in the old model by a factor of 10!!! 1.25 TB of SSD? It's like some kind of dream!!!! :O
12 core(!!!!!!) (I used to dream about that kind of core count) at double the computation. Faster MB, faster RAM.
IN a Cube package shaped like a Darth Vader Tube thermal core thingie?
*Pinch me. I know I'm going to wake up...
'...and there were these people moaning they didn't like the revolutionary design...and...and they didn't even think it was powerful even with 7 terraflops of computation on dual GPUs...and then...well, my alarm went off. One hell of a dream though...'
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
1.25 TB of SSD?
Dude, put down the crack pipe…!
The Apple website says the PCIe flash storage has 1250MB/s THROUGHPUT, not that it is a 1.25TB capacity stick…
Where are you getting 1.25TB capacity from…?!?
I think the MOST we might see from the Apple Store (BTO) will be 1TB; and I am still hoping for that second spot to be fitted and available when these bad boys ship…!!!
12-core Xeon E5 v2 CPU / 128GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RAM / 2x 1TB PCIe Flash SSD / 2x High-end FirePro OpenGL/OpenCL (GP)GPUs w/6GB GDDR5 ECC VRAM…!!! SO BITCHING…!!!
Dreaming of a MODO / MARI / NUKE / HEIRO PLAYER / FCPX / Motion pipeline…!
Viewed on an Apple 4K Thunderbolt 2 Display & a Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch; external storage on a PROMISE Pegasus R6 18TB RAID (set for RAID 5)…
I guess I might as well put an external Apple USB SuperDrive on top of the RAID box…
Total cables from having to use external items, three, hardly a rats nest…
I do not count the Mac Pro power cable, the Gigabit Ethernet(s), or the cables for the two displays; all that is gonna be there no matter if it is the new Mac Pro or the outgoing beastly chassis…
Oh, and I think you might need to change your sig when these things ship, LBB…! ;^p
Unfortunately I'm no more inclined to believe them outright than anybody else. It is pretty obvious that this is a powerful machine, how powerful is an open question though. That isn't really that hard to do Remember WWDC is as much about marketing as it is software development. I'm not saying they are dishonest but rather have the ability to spin things by focusing very tightly on specific issues. Thereisahuge difference between ported and running cleanly as a Mac App. Sadly many of the so called Pros just don't grasp how nice this machine is, how forward looking it is or the potential to support a wide array of new software. Seeing all of this new software makes me very happy. However Auto CAD isn't really a demanding pro app anymore. 3D solid modeling is all the rage now. People are really frustrated with MicroSoft. Apple is the only real alternative and the workstation market has basically collapsed into Windows and Mac camps. In other words Apple is the only other platform for workstation class functionality at a reasonable price. 70 seconds is Impressive. I can see Apple needing to split up WWDC In the future just to accommodate everybody better.
As you it share frankly I have to agree with Wall Street here. Maybe not so much with respect to pricing as to physical size of its devices. Well not yet but Apple is moving very rapidly in this context. Even the new Airs are a massive step forward over last years models. In fact it is a bit perplexing when you think about how well the Airs have evolved over the last couple of years. Software developers are slowly waking up to the size of the market and the goodness of both platforms. However take that week to port statement with a grain of sand. The C++ code was likely a snap, I'd be willing to bet there re a lot of GUI and OpenCL features to iron out yet. It all depends upon how you define "Pro" and your personal expectations. The Mini for example can cover a lot of development work as can most of Apple laptops. However development is one of those things that really benefits from lots of cores, memory and disk performance so many a developer would have good reason to laugh at the Mini as a developers tool. On the flip side I would suspect that most of the apps in the app stores is developed on either a Mini or an iMac, sometimes economics beats out productivity. Honestly that has more to do with the move to i86 on the Macs. The timing of this transition was almost perfect. By the time they had Mac OS ironed out on i86 MicroSoft was in a rapid decline. Significant? Maybe, what Apple needs is a wide range of apps moving over to the platform. As to commitment that is an open discussion, the problem is this: what does the rest of the platform look like?
When the machine actually launches we will better understand what sort of system Apple has for professionals. The Foundry people didn't even know about this machine. Apple is moving so fast right now that a lot of people can't keep up. They are trouncing the industry from above and below. The low end Airs are remarkable! These are very reasonable concerns. Hopefully the long development cycles mean high performance implementations. You certainly have some things right here. Apple is really putting itself far ahead of the competition.
Exactly. As will be a connection to an external array. I'm not completely pleased with the arraignment of the ports but it is something one can live with. Further why does Apple so resist forward facing USB port, two would make a huge difference.
The other part of this equation is that we don't really know what Apples chosen GPU chip is. I suspect Tahiti or a follow on, for the stronger support of OpenCL or compute in general. It is very possible that Apple might have access to AMDs next generation and will launch with something newer in the GCN line.
OpenCL has a wide following, those that aren't onboard are doomed to suffer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRonin
12-core Xeon E5 v2 CPU / 128GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RAM / 2x 1TB PCIe Flash SSD / 2x High-end FirePro OpenGL/OpenCL (GP)GPUs w/6GB GDDR5 ECC VRAM…!!! SO BITCHING…!!!
Dreaming of a MODO / MARI / NUKE / HEIRO PLAYER / FCPX / Motion pipeline…!
Viewed on an Apple 4K Thunderbolt 2 Display & a Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch; external storage on a PROMISE Pegasus R6 18TB RAID (set for RAID 5)…
I guess I might as well put an external Apple USB SuperDrive on top of the RAID box…
Total cables from having to use external items, three, hardly a rats nest…
I do not count the Mac Pro power cable, the Gigabit Ethernet(s), or the cables for the two displays; all that is gonna be there no matter if it is the new Mac Pro or the outgoing beastly chassis…
I AM SO EXCITED (and I just can't hide it)…
RE: The cabling… That is what I am saying; folks are bitching about the whole having to go external for secondary storage/RAID & PCIe expansion, and the huge increase in cabling it would be… When it just really is not…
Also, the folks bitching about how much space it is going to force them to lose on their desktop… Please, SO lame of an argument, It is less than seven inches in diameter…!
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Unfortunately I'm no more inclined to believe them outright than anybody else. It is pretty obvious that this is a powerful machine, how powerful is an open question though.
That isn't really that hard to do
Remember WWDC is as much about marketing as it is software development. I'm not saying they are dishonest but rather have the ability to spin things by focusing very tightly on specific issues.
RE: The Foundry/Pixar WWDC MARI demo; spin or no spin, that demo was DAMNED IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE from the machine… If the developers can only do that for other DCC software, this thing will be the go-to workstation for a lot of folks; from Big Shops to one-man-bands…
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
If I ever buy one of these I will have to resist the desire to tear one apart to see how it is put together. I'm sure a tear down will lead to a nerdgasm.
Not only faster but they support double precision better. This makes AMD the smart choice for workstations targeting a wide array of users.
It will be very interesting to see what FirePro chips Apple is actually using
OpenCL has a wide following, those that aren't onboard are doomed to suffer.
RE: Tearing one apart… YES…!!! I have worked in manufacturing/production doing assembly work in the past, and I cannot look at it without mentally taking it apart…
THIS SHIT IS THE FRAKKING FUTURE, FOLKS…!!!
Okay, I was just indulging in some Hardware Porn, but I SWEAR I was not touching myself inappropriately…
And I noticed something I sort of overlooked before…
Look at the pics of the CPU & GPU cards… Each one has metal brackets & burly knurled machine screws that cover the area of the chips… I think, for ease of assembly/disassembly/repair/replacement; rather than having the CPU/GPUs thermal pasted to the Thermal Core, there is some sort of (just as efficient) pad of material between the processors & the Thermal Core… The brackets & machine screws push the chips firmly against the Thermal Core (with the aforementioned heat conductive pad sandwiched in between) and the machine screws go from bracket, thru the PCB and are anchored into the Thermal Core… Easy, Efficient, Effective…!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Basing conclusions on general rules and assumptions again, eh. Facts are so much more reliable:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-14.html
The W8000 there is noted as underperforming but every reasonably powered workstation card performed just fine for all kinds of gaming - the W9000 is pretty close to the 7970GHz edition and the highest cards in the MP are above the W9000. There's certainly no way you can say they 'perform horribly' when they run most of the games at maximum quality (even 2560 x 1440, which isn't necessary - 1080p would increase framerate considerably
Your assumption is probably based on gamers that say they aren't good value for money relative to the performance of gaming cards but all that means is that if you are buying a machine specifically for gaming and little else, workstation cards aren't good value. If you buy a Mac Pro for work, however, it will also play games just fine. A suitable entry model would be for Apple to offer a single 8970 or GTX 780 and above that allow you to configure dual FirePros but they might have a deal with AMD to only ship FirePros because they'll know that the entry models will sell the most.
That's a lot higher than I expected, but you're right they wouldn't be terribly cost effective. Typically these drivers are highly tuned for OpenGL, which most Windows games don't use. The hardware itself tends to be at least similar, especially in recent years. I remember the Quadro 4000 really tailing the 5870 according to barefeats, but the only article I found just now was this one.