2022 Mac Pro said to use Intel Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 CPU

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  • Reply 61 of 71
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    crowley said:
    Again, this is just a total bunch of guesswork, seems to have some massive gaps, and seems weirdly hostile to the Mac Pro as a concept.  You're completely overlooking Apple's R&D costs, licensing costs, the fact that they can't profit on any chip volume sales and that 3nm is as of now an unknown quantity that Apple have not used in the CPU of any shipping product.   

    The assertion that "Apple can match that spec on Apple Silicon for over $12k less" (previously "as much as $12k" now "over $12k"?) is completely baseless as of now.  Apple have no Apple Silicon product that can match that spec, and the products that they do have are not so much cheaper to justify anywhere near that kind of optimism.
    TSMC 3nm will offer chip density up to 300 million transistors per mm2, end products will be a bit less. Apple's current 5nm chips are around 130m. Obviously it's an unknown in terms of shipped product but they've placed the orders, as has Intel, which is enough of an indication that they have something worth shipping.

    In terms of what they are capable of making, this can be seen with the game consoles, the XBox series X is a 12TFLOP SoC:



    https://www.techpowerup.com/271115/microsoft-details-xbox-series-x-soc-drops-more-details-on-rdna2-architecture-and-zen-2-cpu-enhancements

    This is using TSMC 7nm RDNA2/Zen2 and is under 200W of power. 3nm would allow Apple to more than double the chip density in the same power, closer to 3x. Microsoft sells this hardware for $500. If Apple couldn't significantly improve on that at a $5k price point, they'd be doing something very wrong. This would be somewhere in the region of 24-36TFLOP hardware in a 200W cylinder-like form factor, that's not being overly optimistic, the hardware easily allows for this.

    As for the price difference vs current Intel Mac Pro, the only way there wouldn't be a $12k difference in price is if Apple charged $12k of profit on it. I don't see why they'd do that. The low-end products didn't change in price because those used lower priced Intel chips. Apple won't charge $12k for their highest-end chips.
    killroy said:
    Marvin said:

    Like I say though, the tower form factor hasn't made much sense for Apple to keep making it for at least a decade and it makes less sense now than ever with such efficient hardware. Apple has stated repeatedly their goal was always to make the hardware disappear, that's why the new iMacs are so compact. The Mac Pro has stuck around as an ugly wart on that goal for far longer than necessary and this was only due to the failings of Intel, Nvidia and AMD over the years. Now they can go it alone and build exactly the hardware they want.
    I would have to disagree, if it wasn't for the pro towers they would not have the Pro market where I work. The infrastructure where I work requires PCI slots. There's a lot of 32 gigabit fiber-optic networking for video editing and all the apps or Adobe and Avid. If Apple ever put out another product like the trashcan my employer may never approve an Apple  product again no matter what chip is in it.
    Having no high speed connector options at all creates limitations but this doesn't require having internal slots. The connector can be there just as there are PCIe SSD slots and they can connect to an external unit for people who need them. If it's just for this optical connection, Apple could even bundle one with the machine, it's not that expensive relative to the rest of the hardware, there are Thunderbolt products too:

    https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Qsfp-Server-Network-Card/dp/B07QZHQTVH/
    https://www.amazon.com/Thunderbolt-Fiber-DisplayPort-External-Enclosure/dp/B079RNJ7NK
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 62 of 71
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Marvin said:

    As for the price difference vs current Intel Mac Pro, the only way there wouldn't be a $12k difference in price is if Apple charged $12k of profit on it. I don't see why they'd do that. 
     :D 

    Ok fine, I'll take that bet.  I bet you $1000 that the MX Mac Pro, fully kitted out, will not be $12k cheaper that the current model that most resembles it in performance and features.

    And this being the build that you're referring to:




    edited July 2021 elijahg
  • Reply 63 of 71
    The negative “trashcan” crowd here are engaging in a bit of selective memory with regard to what Apple has said about the problems with the 2013 cylindrical Mac Pro. 

    It’s instructive to go back and look at what was actually said in 2017, now with the added benefit of hindsight:

    https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives

    For example, the remarkable description of how a subset of Apple's “pro” users had been drifting away from the Mac Pro, toward increasingly-powerful iMacs. In addition, they talked about how the 2013 cylinder was an attempt to meet the needs of a further subset of Mac Pro users, for whom the regular iMac just wasn’t enough. The iMac Pro was also aimed at them, and this glimpse into Apple’s thinking at that time would argue for its rebirth into the Apple Silicon world. 

    They do admit pretty much outright that they failed the subset of Mac Pro users who want a modular system. Thus the current Mac Pro was born. But that doesn’t negate the reality or weight of the other two subsets Apple was catering to. Nothing in the 2017 mea culpa (or since) suggests Apple has given up on the users who liked the cylinder and/or the iMac Pro, at least in concept. Especially now in a world where the XDR display exists.
    edited July 2021 Xedwilliamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 64 of 71
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    mcdave said:
    elijahg said:
    mcdave said:
    loopless said:
    HPC runs on Intel. Software vendors are slow to move in this field as it isn’t a simple recompile to run on Apple silicon. Apple would need to show a massive performance advantage…
    What proportion of Macs are sold into this market?
    It used to be surprisingly high. A large proportion of scientific software runs on Macs. That it until Apple essentially abandoned HPC users with the trash can, plus the 7 year gap between Mac Pro updates. Bit like the abandonment of Macs when Apple tried to force FCPX on editors, and then dropped Shake. Apple’s unreliability and penchant for dropping software titles isn’t something businesses can rely on with long term investments in hardware and staff. So they have gone elsewhere. The BBC’s editing was almost all on Macs until the FCP fiasco. Now it’s Avid on PC. 
    I wanted to believe Xserve was a big seller but I don’t think anything backs that up. Not sure how many of the current Mac Pro rack mounted units have sold but I’m pretty sure it has limited market share.
    I don’t think the iMac Pro was a stop-gap, I really think that’s where Apple saw their pro desktop form-factor.
    When the M2X (because the Apple Silicon flagship won’t be a phone chip) iMac Pro & Mac Mini ship, that’ll be it.
    It wasn't, but it was very convenient for schools and businesses who had many Macs. Redundant power supplies, lights-out management, designed to be flat out 24/7. A 1U rack Mac vs a 5U Mac Pro on its side, and for a long time, incredulously, Apple suggested people use Mac Minis... From $699 Mac Mini to $5999 Mac Pro is quite a jump, without many of the features of the Xserve, and apparently Apple considers Mac Minis and Mac Pros equally good for the same server use-case. 
  • Reply 65 of 71
    killroykillroy Posts: 271member
    Marvin said:
    crowley said:
    Again, this is just a total bunch of guesswork, seems to have some massive gaps, and seems weirdly hostile to the Mac Pro as a concept.  You're completely overlooking Apple's R&D costs, licensing costs, the fact that they can't profit on any chip volume sales and that 3nm is as of now an unknown quantity that Apple have not used in the CPU of any shipping product.   

    The assertion that "Apple can match that spec on Apple Silicon for over $12k less" (previously "as much as $12k" now "over $12k"?) is completely baseless as of now.  Apple have no Apple Silicon product that can match that spec, and the products that they do have are not so much cheaper to justify anywhere near that kind of optimism.
    TSMC 3nm will offer chip density up to 300 million transistors per mm2, end products will be a bit less. Apple's current 5nm chips are around 130m. Obviously it's an unknown in terms of shipped product but they've placed the orders, as has Intel, which is enough of an indication that they have something worth shipping.

    In terms of what they are capable of making, this can be seen with the game consoles, the XBox series X is a 12TFLOP SoC:



    https://www.techpowerup.com/271115/microsoft-details-xbox-series-x-soc-drops-more-details-on-rdna2-architecture-and-zen-2-cpu-enhancements

    This is using TSMC 7nm RDNA2/Zen2 and is under 200W of power. 3nm would allow Apple to more than double the chip density in the same power, closer to 3x. Microsoft sells this hardware for $500. If Apple couldn't significantly improve on that at a $5k price point, they'd be doing something very wrong. This would be somewhere in the region of 24-36TFLOP hardware in a 200W cylinder-like form factor, that's not being overly optimistic, the hardware easily allows for this.

    As for the price difference vs current Intel Mac Pro, the only way there wouldn't be a $12k difference in price is if Apple charged $12k of profit on it. I don't see why they'd do that. The low-end products didn't change in price because those used lower priced Intel chips. Apple won't charge $12k for their highest-end chips.
    killroy said:
    Marvin said:

    Like I say though, the tower form factor hasn't made much sense for Apple to keep making it for at least a decade and it makes less sense now than ever with such efficient hardware. Apple has stated repeatedly their goal was always to make the hardware disappear, that's why the new iMacs are so compact. The Mac Pro has stuck around as an ugly wart on that goal for far longer than necessary and this was only due to the failings of Intel, Nvidia and AMD over the years. Now they can go it alone and build exactly the hardware they want.
    I would have to disagree, if it wasn't for the pro towers they would not have the Pro market where I work. The infrastructure where I work requires PCI slots. There's a lot of 32 gigabit fiber-optic networking for video editing and all the apps or Adobe and Avid. If Apple ever put out another product like the trashcan my employer may never approve an Apple  product again no matter what chip is in it.
    Having no high speed connector options at all creates limitations but this doesn't require having internal slots. The connector can be there just as there are PCIe SSD slots and they can connect to an external unit for people who need them. If it's just for this optical connection, Apple could even bundle one with the machine, it's not that expensive relative to the rest of the hardware, there are Thunderbolt products too:

    https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Qsfp-Server-Network-Card/dp/B07QZHQTVH/
    https://www.amazon.com/Thunderbolt-Fiber-DisplayPort-External-Enclosure/dp/B079RNJ7NK

    In my case we have to use Celerity™ FC - 32Gb/s Gen 7 Fibre Channel and other atto fiber setups for laptops because that's required for warranty support for our raid system and LTO system.  All of that is pre-tested before we put a driver on the Mac.  You so much as say Amazon that order will never go out the door.


    edited July 2021 watto_cobra
  • Reply 66 of 71
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    What they need to figure out is blending x86 and ARM architectures together so you get the best of both worlds in one computer.

    EDIT: Maximara has the same idea. 
    Has that been done already with sandboxing apps. They could just run in instances of the OS on the processor that the profiler says best suits the app and get them to talk. 
    Seems to me the MacPro MPX modules seem perfect for that. Each has a cooling and power envelope options just need to fit within that. Have an AppleSilicon workflow co-ordinator on the mainboard everything gets feed from there. Allows say AS MPX. Intel MPX, GPU MPX 

    Back chamber of the MacPro is Apples Domain -  Front PCIe Chamber has the options. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 67 of 71
    maximaramaximara Posts: 409member
    avon b7 said:
    Marvin said:
    This is just a refresh for the current Mac Pro. No big deal. It’s cost-effective for them, and likely has always been part of the plan. The insider news here is Apple has settled on which generation of Xeon-W they will use for this, and when.

    But this does indicate, I think, that the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro will have a different form factor from the current design. The “mini-me” concept shown in the illustration here seems absurd to me, almost a joke. I could see them producing a module for the current Mac Pro, but I can’t see them making that the only option. iMac Pro reborn is a possibility, but it could also be something that is the heir to the cylinder, something that goes really well with the XDR display.
    Making a shorter Mac Pro would be a simple way to redesign it. The shorter one would look better:



    Even this form factor is overkill for Apple's chips - a lot of the space still left there is for external memory chips. The highest level of performance needed in this kind of product is about 8-16x the performance of the M1 and 10x the memory capacity. Apple can fit this into a 200-300W chip, especially on 3nm in 2022.

    The current Mac Pro with the highest Intel and AMD config idles at 300W according to Apple:

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201796

    The old iMac Pro could handle 500W. The cylinder Mac Pro was around 300W.

    If they want to still support PCIe cards (Afterburner etc) then this form factor makes some sense but they can support PCIe externally using a connector.

    I could see them just making this form factor EOL, it depends on how much they value rack-mountable machines. The amount of sales will be in the low tens of thousands per year.

    When people see how much power is in the iMac and even 16" MBP chips, it will encourage another portion of pro users to switch to those instead.

    Apple doesn't even have to beat Intel/AMD in performance, it's enough to offer better performance per dollar. Intel and AMD vastly overprice their workstation and server chips because it's such a low volume market and high cost investment. Apple can make these chips at a fraction of the price and they don't need to overprice them because selling chips isn't a line of business they are in, their profit comes from the sale of the whole unit. Apple Silicon allows Apple to undercut Intel/AMD in price by as much as $12k.
    One of my doubts here is if we will finally see a move to cloud 'computing' in these next few years and away from needing local power both in terms of pure compute performance and the energy required to achieve it.

    I've seen white papers pointing in that direction but I always remember the 'netbooting' scenarios that were the 'future' years ago and never really materialised. 

    I fully agree.  Past a certain point external storage can get expensive and if you are editing a movie the last thing you want is the thing out in the cloud outside of your control.
  • Reply 68 of 71
    maximaramaximara Posts: 409member
    killroy said:
    Marvin said:

    Like I say though, the tower form factor hasn't made much sense for Apple to keep making it for at least a decade and it makes less sense now than ever with such efficient hardware. Apple has stated repeatedly their goal was always to make the hardware disappear, that's why the new iMacs are so compact. The Mac Pro has stuck around as an ugly wart on that goal for far longer than necessary and this was only due to the failings of Intel, Nvidia and AMD over the years. Now they can go it alone and build exactly the hardware they want.

    I would have to disagree, if it wasn't for the pro towers they would not have the Pro market where I work. The infrastructure where I work requires PCI slots. There's a lot of 32 gigabit fiber-optic networking for video editing and all the apps or Adobe and Avid. If Apple ever put out another product like the trashcan my employer may never approve an Apple  product again no matter what chip is in it.
    That is a very narrow way of thinking.  Not every design is a hit and Apple learned that it was a bad idea as they went back to the "cheese grader" Mac Pro in 2019.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 69 of 71
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    maximara said:
    killroy said:
    Marvin said:

    Like I say though, the tower form factor hasn't made much sense for Apple to keep making it for at least a decade and it makes less sense now than ever with such efficient hardware. Apple has stated repeatedly their goal was always to make the hardware disappear, that's why the new iMacs are so compact. The Mac Pro has stuck around as an ugly wart on that goal for far longer than necessary and this was only due to the failings of Intel, Nvidia and AMD over the years. Now they can go it alone and build exactly the hardware they want.

    I would have to disagree, if it wasn't for the pro towers they would not have the Pro market where I work. The infrastructure where I work requires PCI slots. There's a lot of 32 gigabit fiber-optic networking for video editing and all the apps or Adobe and Avid. If Apple ever put out another product like the trashcan my employer may never approve an Apple  product again no matter what chip is in it.
    That is a very narrow way of thinking.  Not every design is a hit and Apple learned that it was a bad idea as they went back to the "cheese grader" Mac Pro in 2019.
    Very narrow. It assumes his company is the standard and completely ignores that Apple got rid of the large tower because the market wasn’t enough to supoort it. I had hoped these mini towers thread the needle between cost (for Apple) and sales, but they also look like they won’t be updated very often.
  • Reply 70 of 71
    KeyXKeyX Posts: 1member

    Apple alluded to future Macs using Intel processors in the original press release that announced Apple Silicon:

     “Apple will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-based Macs in development.

     https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/

     

     

     

  • Reply 71 of 71
    mcdave said:
    The highest end Mac Pro can address 1.5TB of main memory. The M1 max is 16GB? Even with a tenfold increase in the number of cores to 40 would it be able to make up a 94 times ratio of main memory.
    And what proportion of the Mac installed base has 1TB+ of RAM? Even current software rarely needs the entire file to be loaded as, in the case of video-processing, there are few data dependencies across the whole file. Stream processing software architecture requires little RAM. We look forward to the new dyld memory management killing the myth that more RAM = more speed.
    We are specifically addressing the Mac Pro community here not the average Mac user. If someone is doing 3D electromagnetic simulations or any 3D physics/engineering simulation it is easy to exceed 1 TB of main memory requirements depending on the dimensions of the structure they are trying to simulate and the resolution of the grid they need to get a converging solution. It isn’t a matter how fast the simulation runs. If you don’t have the required memory the simulation just crashes.
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