I think they decided to scrap the Mac Pro in 2012 due to poor sales but then decided to try an experiment with a new design that fit with the rest of the Mac lineup. The old Mac Pros didn't support Thunderbolt. It also allowed them to experiment on a small scale with manufacturing in the US. Apple's keynote here explains the drive to make their machines all-in-one and how messy Steve Jobs considered the headless form factor
Who knows why they did what they did, including not having an Apple branded 4K display, which is even more mystifying.
I don’t have a problem with the 2013 Mac Pro design. My problem was that they never updated it. Drop in component upgrades were definitely possible. There wasn’t anything technical preventing them from redesigning the internals for a 600 to 700 Watt system, and most certainly a 500 Watt system with a 300 W GPU and 150 W CPU. This really pushes me towards thinking it was a management imbroglio.
The Mac Pro will need to use multiple GPUs and CPUs to outperform the iMac Pro. To get a dual high-end CPU and dual high-end GPU, it will cost ~$6200 on top of the base price, which won't be below $3k so easily $9200 to be a worthwhile investment over an iMac Pro and then add their Retina display, which I'd estimate to be $1500 and you're at $10,700.
They could have refreshed the Mac Pro with the same components in the iMac Pro as you said but there's no point in selling both. The iMac form factor outsells the Mac Pro and mini 10:1. Partly this is due to the price and spec but most buyers prefer that form factor just as most buyers prefer laptops. There's a myth that if Apple just makes the right headless desktop, everyone would flock to it but that doesn't match up to reality. All PC manufacturers want to get away from the box model because it's the least desirable, least profitable, hardest to support and leads to the worst inventory management.
I don’t think anyone is arguing over a headless machine selling 1 million units per quarter or even 1 million units per year in this thread. Most everyone is arguing for is a machine with the highest performance and throughput, and the market is big enough to support the machine.
If Apple doesn’t want overlap between the Mac Pro and iMac Pro, then yes, the Mac Pro has to be 2 CPU socket, 2 GPU capable. This is basically a 1000 Watt system. I don’t have a problem with price overlap either. Apple gets a sale either way.
There's not a compelling reason for the headless desktop form factor to exist if much sleeker form factors offer enough performance to satisfy the vast majority of buyers, especially if the price point for that form factor results in an audience so small that it produces less or the same revenue it costs to run the manufacturing operation.
This line of thinking presumes we know how and what people will use computers for in the future. Performance scales with Watts. The slimmer or AIO form factors will be limited in Watts and therefore will not offer the highest performance, highest throughput. This would leave certain classes of work from being on the Apple platform. Just look at what happened in the past 3 years or so. VR and GPU compute workflows couldn’t be done on Macs. Some classes of 3D and data modeling (architecture, Pro/E, visualization) couldn’t be done on Macs. This type of model protects Apple from missing out on future high performance, high throughout applications, and any kind of downstream effects on the mainstream machines.
This market is only 1%, 2%, 3% of the PC market, so from the bean counter perspective, not offering a model could be the right thing to do. But Apple is a platform onto itself and models that offer the highest performance and throughput completes the platform.
If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do.
You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:
Up to the Z8:
Is that supposed to be impressive? The old Mac Pro cheese grater cases were more impressive and they’re over 12 years old.
The "cheese grater" Mac Pro's were impressive for their time, and the same can be said of the HP workstations of the time, IIRC the XW8000 series. But Apple is no more in the mid/high end workstation market, while HP have been doing an excellent job. As today, there is nothing from Apple that comes close to the Z8. This system can be configured with 2 Xeon CPU's (56 cores), 1.5TB of RAM (yes, Terabytes. And 3TB for first half of next year), three NVidia P6000 and 48TB of internal storage. And this system is design to work under stress with all those components installed. IMO, this is far more impressive than the "cheese grater" Mac Pro.
I’m obviously not referring to the specs of an obsolete Mac. I’m referring to the case design and its thermal map he posted.
I'm talking about thermals too. That's the reason I mention the specs you can have the Z8, which generate a lot of heat. Would be nice to know how do you get to the conclusion that the 2006-2012 Mac Pro thermals are "far more impressive" than a 2017 HP Z8 based only in the picture @VRing posted.
Let me try to make it clear for you - the case design (internals as posted in the pic and with regard to thermal management) of the 12+ year old cheese grater best the snot out of that ugly piece of junk.
I'm still not clear by your response. Again, how the MacPro 2006-2012 if "far more impressive" than a HP Z8 2017? How do you got to that conclusion by only looking at the picture? Do you have technical details of both devices on how they manage thermals?
BTW, do you really think a device that can hold 1.5/3TB of RAM, 56 cores and three NVidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM each is an "ugly piece of junk"? I don't think companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Solidworks, Siemens and Bentley agree with you, since every HP Z Workstation is certified by them, among other companies.
You come up with so much bold statements that you need to forward a shitload of benchmarks (god forbid) to support your claims above.
How for example those ISV's software products scale up to 1.5/3 TB of RAM, 56 cores and three (THREE !!!) Nvidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM while that industry couldn't even keep up with 2013 Mac Pro's dual GPUs?
If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do.
You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:
Up to the Z8:
Is that supposed to be impressive? The old Mac Pro cheese grater cases were more impressive and they’re over 12 years old.
The "cheese grater" Mac Pro's were impressive for their time, and the same can be said of the HP workstations of the time, IIRC the XW8000 series. But Apple is no more in the mid/high end workstation market, while HP have been doing an excellent job. As today, there is nothing from Apple that comes close to the Z8. This system can be configured with 2 Xeon CPU's (56 cores), 1.5TB of RAM (yes, Terabytes. And 3TB for first half of next year), three NVidia P6000 and 48TB of internal storage. And this system is design to work under stress with all those components installed. IMO, this is far more impressive than the "cheese grater" Mac Pro.
I’m obviously not referring to the specs of an obsolete Mac. I’m referring to the case design and its thermal map he posted.
I'm talking about thermals too. That's the reason I mention the specs you can have the Z8, which generate a lot of heat. Would be nice to know how do you get to the conclusion that the 2006-2012 Mac Pro thermals are "far more impressive" than a 2017 HP Z8 based only in the picture @VRing posted.
Let me try to make it clear for you - the case design (internals as posted in the pic and with regard to thermal management) of the 12+ year old cheese grater best the snot out of that ugly piece of junk.
I'm still not clear by your response. Again, how the MacPro 2006-2012 if "far more impressive" than a HP Z8 2017? How do you got to that conclusion by only looking at the picture? Do you have technical details of both devices on how they manage thermals?
BTW, do you really think a device that can hold 1.5/3TB of RAM, 56 cores and three NVidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM each is an "ugly piece of junk"? I don't think companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Solidworks, Siemens and Bentley agree with you, since every HP Z Workstation is certified by them, among other companies.
You come up with so much bold statements that you need to forward a shitload of benchmarks (god forbid) to support your claims above.
My posts were related to thermals and not performance/benchmarks.
How for example those ISV's software products scale up to 1.5/3 TB of
RAM, 56 cores and three (THREE !!!) Nvidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM while
that industry couldn't even keep up with 2013 Mac Pro's dual GPUs?
DreamWorks have been using Z Workstations for years, and in this article they gave details of the scale of the work they do,
"Released in 2001, Dreamworks Animation’s original “Shrek” film used more
than 6 terabytes of data and required nearly 5 million render hours.
With the artistic bar rising ever higher, the production of “How to
Train Your Dragon” used nearly 100 terabytes of data and more than 50
million render hours."
In 2013 "Turbo" had 75 million render hours and 230TB of data.
This is an example on how much grew the data and rendering process during the years. Can you imagine now with 4K? Plus HP says the Z8 is capable of 8K rendering. Maybe this kind of customer are the one who will benefit with a maxed out HP Z8.
And now we are talking of AR/VR and machine learning, among other technologies, which will benefit of multicore CPU's, GPU's and lot's of RAM.
(But frankly I think the iMac Pro will exceed sales expectations, as it is likely to be a great pro-sumer machine that works out cheaper than the next "Mac Pro" will likely be)
I’m still clutching to the hope that they will go to the iMac/Mac Mini model where the headless option will be priced lower. Would make sense since they are supposedly working on new displays. Are those things really going to start at 10K? I’m going to have to get a new Pro machine in the next 24mo. I can’t really see myself being able to afford the iMac Pro, so maybe I’m just delusionally convincing myself it’s possible. I’ll likely have to do the ‘09 to ‘10 chip & card swap as a stopgap.
Looking forward for the TRUE Pro: Mac Pro with Thunderbolt MATTE Display. Support for nVidia 3D Vision. Replace Mac when required, keeping display until desired. Ecological. Truly easily upgradable by user in seconds. Mini, midi and maxi models. No soldered parts. No proprietary connectors for SSD or GPU. No forced RAID inside. No paired SSD to main board. Wired keyboard and mouse. Forget obnoxious batteries to protect environment and avoid inconvenient and unnecessary recharges. Always ready to work. Workflow ready! The Mac way! We need thousands of them.
Marx55 still lives. It's been at least ten years of "we need thousands of them". So reassuring.
If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do.
You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:
Up to the Z8:
Is that supposed to be impressive? The old Mac Pro cheese grater cases were more impressive and they’re over 12 years old.
The "cheese grater" Mac Pro's were impressive for their time, and the same can be said of the HP workstations of the time, IIRC the XW8000 series. But Apple is no more in the mid/high end workstation market, while HP have been doing an excellent job. As today, there is nothing from Apple that comes close to the Z8. This system can be configured with 2 Xeon CPU's (56 cores), 1.5TB of RAM (yes, Terabytes. And 3TB for first half of next year), three NVidia P6000 and 48TB of internal storage. And this system is design to work under stress with all those components installed. IMO, this is far more impressive than the "cheese grater" Mac Pro.
I’m obviously not referring to the specs of an obsolete Mac. I’m referring to the case design and its thermal map he posted.
I'm talking about thermals too. That's the reason I mention the specs you can have the Z8, which generate a lot of heat. Would be nice to know how do you get to the conclusion that the 2006-2012 Mac Pro thermals are "far more impressive" than a 2017 HP Z8 based only in the picture @VRing posted.
Let me try to make it clear for you - the case design (internals as posted in the pic and with regard to thermal management) of the 12+ year old cheese grater best the snot out of that ugly piece of junk.
I'm still not clear by your response. Again, how the MacPro 2006-2012 if "far more impressive" than a HP Z8 2017? How do you got to that conclusion by only looking at the picture? Do you have technical details of both devices on how they manage thermals?
BTW, do you really think a device that can hold 1.5/3TB of RAM, 56 cores and three NVidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM each is an "ugly piece of junk"? I don't think companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Solidworks, Siemens and Bentley agree with you, since every HP Z Workstation is certified by them, among other companies.
You come up with so much bold statements that you need to forward a shitload of benchmarks (god forbid) to support your claims above.
My posts were related to thermals and not performance/benchmarks.
How for example those ISV's software products scale up to 1.5/3 TB of
RAM, 56 cores and three (THREE !!!) Nvidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM while
that industry couldn't even keep up with 2013 Mac Pro's dual GPUs?
DreamWorks have been using Z Workstations for years, and in this article they gave details of the scale of the work they do,
"Released in 2001, Dreamworks Animation’s original “Shrek” film used more
than 6 terabytes of data and required nearly 5 million render hours.
With the artistic bar rising ever higher, the production of “How to
Train Your Dragon” used nearly 100 terabytes of data and more than 50
million render hours."
In 2013 "Turbo" had 75 million render hours and 230TB of data.
This is an example on how much grew the data and rendering process during the years. Can you imagine now with 4K? Plus HP says the Z8 is capable of 8K rendering. Maybe this kind of customer are the one who will benefit with a maxed out HP Z8.
And now we are talking of AR/VR and machine learning, among other technologies, which will benefit of multicore CPU's, GPU's and lot's of RAM.
This is not “scaling”. Or it is, if your only layman knowledge consists of reading spec sheets.
If Apple just wanted to pull an HP and just slap a bunch of shit together with a shitty heatsink on it then they could have had a new Mac Pro out before the end of 2017, but obviously Apple isn't going to do that. If that's what makes you happy then by all means go buy the HP. Nearly everything you see on and inside a Mac (or any Apple product for that matter) is custom engineered and built by Apple. Its not as simple as slap a bunch of shit together and call it a day like PC manufacturers do.
You should really stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
HP makes some excellent workstations from the Z2 Mini:
Up to the Z8:
Is that supposed to be impressive? The old Mac Pro cheese grater cases were more impressive and they’re over 12 years old.
The "cheese grater" Mac Pro's were impressive for their time, and the same can be said of the HP workstations of the time, IIRC the XW8000 series. But Apple is no more in the mid/high end workstation market, while HP have been doing an excellent job. As today, there is nothing from Apple that comes close to the Z8. This system can be configured with 2 Xeon CPU's (56 cores), 1.5TB of RAM (yes, Terabytes. And 3TB for first half of next year), three NVidia P6000 and 48TB of internal storage. And this system is design to work under stress with all those components installed. IMO, this is far more impressive than the "cheese grater" Mac Pro.
I’m obviously not referring to the specs of an obsolete Mac. I’m referring to the case design and its thermal map he posted.
I'm talking about thermals too. That's the reason I mention the specs you can have the Z8, which generate a lot of heat. Would be nice to know how do you get to the conclusion that the 2006-2012 Mac Pro thermals are "far more impressive" than a 2017 HP Z8 based only in the picture @VRing posted.
Let me try to make it clear for you - the case design (internals as posted in the pic and with regard to thermal management) of the 12+ year old cheese grater best the snot out of that ugly piece of junk.
I'm still not clear by your response. Again, how the MacPro 2006-2012 if "far more impressive" than a HP Z8 2017? How do you got to that conclusion by only looking at the picture? Do you have technical details of both devices on how they manage thermals?
BTW, do you really think a device that can hold 1.5/3TB of RAM, 56 cores and three NVidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM each is an "ugly piece of junk"? I don't think companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Solidworks, Siemens and Bentley agree with you, since every HP Z Workstation is certified by them, among other companies.
You come up with so much bold statements that you need to forward a shitload of benchmarks (god forbid) to support your claims above.
My posts were related to thermals and not performance/benchmarks.
How for example those ISV's software products scale up to 1.5/3 TB of
RAM, 56 cores and three (THREE !!!) Nvidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM while
that industry couldn't even keep up with 2013 Mac Pro's dual GPUs?
DreamWorks have been using Z Workstations for years, and in this article they gave details of the scale of the work they do,
"Released in 2001, Dreamworks Animation’s original “Shrek” film used more
than 6 terabytes of data and required nearly 5 million render hours.
With the artistic bar rising ever higher, the production of “How to
Train Your Dragon” used nearly 100 terabytes of data and more than 50
million render hours."
In 2013 "Turbo" had 75 million render hours and 230TB of data.
This is an example on how much grew the data and rendering process during the years. Can you imagine now with 4K? Plus HP says the Z8 is capable of 8K rendering. Maybe this kind of customer are the one who will benefit with a maxed out HP Z8.
And now we are talking of AR/VR and machine learning, among other technologies, which will benefit of multicore CPU's, GPU's and lot's of RAM.
This is not “scaling”. Or it is, if your only layman knowledge consists of reading spec sheets.
Looks like I misunderstood the "scaling" of your post. My English definitely needs to improve...
But since you have question about how software scale, here is an interesting line I found from an article,
“We’ve usually used 75 million compute hours just to render the images,
and that’s just for one movie. We usually have 10 films in active
production, so we are actively using 15,000 cores in a completely
ProLiant blade server farm to make these movies every single day.”
"Otto showed me a demo of the software on a machine with 16 cores —
quadrupling what you’d find in the base-level Mac Pro — and the moment
he tweaked a character’s position the sequence re-rendered seamlessly
without even the mildest hiccup."
So it looks like they have some experience scaling software in high end
hardware. I don't see any issues for them doing the same for the Z8
hardware.
What I didn't find was an article with benchmarks, and I don't think will be easy having a Z8 with 3 Nvidia P6000 considering they cost $5300 per card (that's more expensive than an iMac Pro). But I don't think there are any doubts that the Z8 is a very capable device.
I want a box, not an iMac. I have a great monitor setup and I do not need to toss them and buy a machine I can't expand. Frankly, when they came out with the cylinder design, I smacked my head. This was just more of Apple's ivory tower BS, where design is more important that function and practicality. I've been hanging onto my tower, waiting for Apple to pull their heads out of their tailpipes and give us something with the internal expandability of the tower but at a smaller size. As for external peripherals, my desk is occupied with dual 27s, a pair of pro reference speakers, a printer and a scanner, and my Mac and RAID are happily ensconced beneath my desk. My video IO is on a card in my tower, which also has cards selected for my particular situation. What I do not need is to add _more_ peripherals on my desk and I do not need to pay for things I don't need and have almost-great for the stuff I do need. As for the iMac pro, the price is ridiculous (one third of which goes to pay for the freakin display). The format is ideal for the intermediate user and has everything they need, but how many companies would be willing to blow that much money for a half dozen seats of this particular Mac. They would rather have their intermediate users on $2K iMacs. The serious pros need something other than an all-in-one. Why is this so _achingly_ difficult for the hookah-smoking caterpillars at Apple to understand this?
Comments
I don’t have a problem with the 2013 Mac Pro design. My problem was that they never updated it. Drop in component upgrades were definitely possible. There wasn’t anything technical preventing them from redesigning the internals for a 600 to 700 Watt system, and most certainly a 500 Watt system with a 300 W GPU and 150 W CPU. This really pushes me towards thinking it was a management imbroglio.
I don’t think anyone is arguing over a headless machine selling 1 million units per quarter or even 1 million units per year in this thread. Most everyone is arguing for is a machine with the highest performance and throughput, and the market is big enough to support the machine.
If Apple doesn’t want overlap between the Mac Pro and iMac Pro, then yes, the Mac Pro has to be 2 CPU socket, 2 GPU capable. This is basically a 1000 Watt system. I don’t have a problem with price overlap either. Apple gets a sale either way.
This line of thinking presumes we know how and what people will use computers for in the future. Performance scales with Watts. The slimmer or AIO form factors will be limited in Watts and therefore will not offer the highest performance, highest throughput. This would leave certain classes of work from being on the Apple platform. Just look at what happened in the past 3 years or so. VR and GPU compute workflows couldn’t be done on Macs. Some classes of 3D and data modeling (architecture, Pro/E, visualization) couldn’t be done on Macs. This type of model protects Apple from missing out on future high performance, high throughout applications, and any kind of downstream effects on the mainstream machines.
This market is only 1%, 2%, 3% of the PC market, so from the bean counter perspective, not offering a model could be the right thing to do. But Apple is a platform onto itself and models that offer the highest performance and throughput completes the platform.
How for example those ISV's software products scale up to 1.5/3 TB of RAM, 56 cores and three (THREE !!!) Nvidia P6000 w/24GB of RAM while that industry couldn't even keep up with 2013 Mac Pro's dual GPUs?
DreamWorks have been using Z Workstations for years, and in this article they gave details of the scale of the work they do,
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=302067
"Released in 2001, Dreamworks Animation’s original “Shrek” film used more than 6 terabytes of data and required nearly 5 million render hours. With the artistic bar rising ever higher, the production of “How to Train Your Dragon” used nearly 100 terabytes of data and more than 50 million render hours."In 2013 "Turbo" had 75 million render hours and 230TB of data.
https://www.slashgear.com/hp-workstations-used-for-dreamworks-latest-turbo-animated-film-17290835/
This is an example on how much grew the data and rendering process during the years. Can you imagine now with 4K? Plus HP says the Z8 is capable of 8K rendering. Maybe this kind of customer are the one who will benefit with a maxed out HP Z8.
And now we are talking of AR/VR and machine learning, among other technologies, which will benefit of multicore CPU's, GPU's and lot's of RAM.
But since you have question about how software scale, here is an interesting line I found from an article,
“We’ve usually used 75 million compute hours just to render the images, and that’s just for one movie. We usually have 10 films in active production, so we are actively using 15,000 cores in a completely ProLiant blade server farm to make these movies every single day.”
https://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/06/15/technology-innovation-fuels-the-creation-of-movie-animation-guestoftheweek/
Here is another example from 2014,
"Otto showed me a demo of the software on a machine with 16 cores — quadrupling what you’d find in the base-level Mac Pro — and the moment he tweaked a character’s position the sequence re-rendered seamlessly without even the mildest hiccup."
https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/12/5804070/the-amazing-animation-software-behind-how-to-train-your-dragon-2
So it looks like they have some experience scaling software in high end hardware. I don't see any issues for them doing the same for the Z8 hardware.
What I didn't find was an article with benchmarks, and I don't think will be easy having a Z8 with 3 Nvidia P6000 considering they cost $5300 per card (that's more expensive than an iMac Pro). But I don't think there are any doubts that the Z8 is a very capable device.
Frankly, when they came out with the cylinder design, I smacked my head. This was just more of Apple's ivory tower BS, where design is more important that function and practicality. I've been hanging onto my tower, waiting for Apple to pull their heads out of their tailpipes and give us something with the internal expandability of the tower but at a smaller size.
As for external peripherals, my desk is occupied with dual 27s, a pair of pro reference speakers, a printer and a scanner, and my Mac and RAID are happily ensconced beneath my desk. My video IO is on a card in my tower, which also has cards selected for my particular situation.
What I do not need is to add _more_ peripherals on my desk and I do not need to pay for things I don't need and have almost-great for the stuff I do need.
As for the iMac pro, the price is ridiculous (one third of which goes to pay for the freakin display). The format is ideal for the intermediate user and has everything they need, but how many companies would be willing to blow that much money for a half dozen seats of this particular Mac. They would rather have their intermediate users on $2K iMacs. The serious pros need something other than an all-in-one.
Why is this so _achingly_ difficult for the hookah-smoking caterpillars at Apple to understand this?