wizard69

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  • Redesigned Mac Pro with up to 40 Apple Silicon cores coming in 2022

    wizard69wizard69
    lkrupp said:
    pslice said:
    40 Cores? I just want 10-12. How many potential customers??? I have modest wants, 27-30” screen, 12 cores and modest storage and decent RAM. Come on , Apple. 
    Well, if it’s a Mac Pro then it’s not designed for you is it. Potential customers? Same as the current Mac Pro, professionals who need maximum performance and who are willing to pay the price for it,

    There simply are not enough of those sorts of customers.   Apple keeps designing a Mac Pro for a customer base that does not exist in the volume to justify the machine they design.   This then results in sales failures that lead to Apple giving up and the same machine on the market for years with no updates.   It has been the history of the Mac Pro for more than a decade now. 
     
    Apple absolutely needs an intro machine that is under $2000 and doesn't suck.   They need that price to drive volume and to support the platform so that they can have high performance models.   More so they need to go a step further and make sure the mother board is compatible for other platforms like an iMac Pro or an Xmac.   Literally a multi use motherboard that again drives volume to address the issue of cost or more importantly the perception of value.

    Now some of you probably think I'm nuts and will say this can't be done.    I say it has to be done to break the cycle of Mac Pros that frankly are jokes.   The current Mac Pro is an embarrassment when you look at what one can do with a Thread Ripper based system.   Frankly I don't think Apple has a chance in hell of competing with such systems but they can make a far better and competitive Mac Pro.   The enablement for this is in fact Apple Silicon.   They will have to bin such chips as it isn't likely they will get every CPU core and every GPU core working out of such large chips.   So maybe more than 10 cores but less than the 40 or 32 of a performance chip.    As long as you support the same pin outs you can cover a very broad range of performance needs.
    caladanianviclauyycpatchythepiratesmalm

  • Redesigned Mac Pro with up to 40 Apple Silicon cores coming in 2022

    wizard69wizard69
    JWSC said:
    Marvin said:
    Ok, so how much will this $40k MacPro cost?
    The good thing is it's entirely up to Apple, whereas before they were charging a markup on top of Intel's and AMD's prices.

    Intel charges a few thousand dollars for high-end Xeons, the following is in the Mac Pro:
    https://www.amazon.com/Intel-CD8069504248702-Octacosa-core-Processor-Overclocking/dp/B086M6P8D6

    An AMD Radeon Pro VII based on Vega architecture retails for $2740:
    https://www.newegg.com/amd-100-506163/p/N82E16814105105

    Apple charges $10k for 4 Radeon Pro GPUs. Cutting Intel and AMD out means it instantly cuts out around $15k of costs from a $24k Mac Pro. If Apple continued charging that, the extra $15k would all be profit.

    For the easiest manufacturing, they'd use multiple units of the chips that go in their laptops and iMac models. An entire MBP/iMac would cost under $2.5k with a 30% margin so $1750 manufacturing. The CPU/GPU part would be well under $500. It will have bundled memory though up to 64GB per chip. Using 4 of them shouldn't cost more than $2k with 64GB RAM total. The whole machine will likely start around $5k but the lowest quad-chip model will perform like the $24k Mac Pro.

    If they price it too high, people will just buy multiple MBPs/iMacs. I would guess the price range to be starting around $5k and going up to $10k with maximum memory (256GB) and bit higher for 8TB+ SSD. Hopefully the XDR will come down in price a bit too to be able to get a decent Pro with XDR under $10k.

    It may still have PCIe slots to support things like the Afterburner card and other IO cards but I don't see any reason to include slots for GPUs and they can always build an external box for IO cards with a single internal slot.
    zimmie said:
    If it's using the same GPU cores as the M1, clocked at the same speed, a 64-core GPU could do 20.8 TFLOPS, while a 128-core GPU could do 41.6 TFLOPS. For comparison, a GeForce RTX 3090 (the top consumer card from Nvidia) does up to 35.6 TFLOPS, and a Radeon RX 6900 XT (the top consumer card from AMD) does up to 23 TFLOPS.

    Considering the RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT still universally sell for more than double their MSRP, I wonder if Apple will have scalping problems. Their system of allowing backorders mitigates scalping, but doesn't eliminate it. With the added demand from blockbros, it may be difficult to get one for a year or so.
    It would be a terrible shame if a significant use of these machines is for block chain mining.  (But if it boosts my AAPL investment, I'll be crying all the way to the bank.)
    I could see them being used in render farms and servers. They would be extremely efficient and cost-effective machines.

    Crypto mining would depend on the software being optimized for Apple Silicon and the overall price of the compute units:

    https://otcpm24.com/2021/03/01/apple-m1-vs-nvidia-ethereum-hash-rate-comparison-which-is-more-capable-for-crypto-mining/

    M1 is 2MH/s on the GPU at around 10-15W, NVidia 90HX goes up to 86MH/s at 320W. A 3090 can do over 100MH/s under 300W.
    A Mac Pro would be expected to get 16x this so 32MH/s at around 200W.
    An Nvidia 3090 is around $3k so I don't see people buying $5k+ Mac Pros specifically for mining but if they already planned to have a server array of Macs, they might use them for mining. Mining will probably become obsolete in the next year anyway.
    I was wondering if it makes sense to crank up the clock speed on M Series SOC processors.  If cranking up clock speed is one avenue of performance improvement then you have to take yield into account.  With the M1 that seems like virgin territory to explore.  Without that data how would Apple know how to price faster M Series chips?  They would have to produce enough to get statistically significant yield data, which would take time and a lot on money.

    OTOH, maybe the M Series SOC architecture is different enough that Apple need not focus on clock speed and instead focus on making massively parallel systems with many cores.  That brings its own problems with increased overhead associated with task management.

    Apple is almost certainly focused on yields with M1.    Every thing they ship has the same clock rate with no attempt to make the MB-pro faster for example.  

    Now here is the thing, they will almost certainly have to bin parts one they go with these very large chips.   There is just a much higher chance of defects in either the GPU or CPU cores.  So I could see the 32 core ship being offered up as a 16 or 24 core chip for lower end machines.   They would likely disable some GPU cores just to differentiate.  In a nut shell bigger chips mean a greater possibility for defects and thus makes binning mandatory.   They might also truncate performance clock wise to further increase yields or differentiate, so we could see different clock rates just because of that.

    As I've stated elsewhere Apple really needs these lower end machines to make the Mac Pro a viable product.   So if they are not planning for this, in my mind they are nuts.
    JWSCviclauyycwatto_cobra

  • Fatal fire at Apple supplier's factory in Shanghai kills eight

    wizard69wizard69
    tommikele said:
    How long until someone in the tech media or people commenting start claiming Apple has some responsibility with this?

    Well Apple is the one doing business in China and other countries where their only concern is low cost.   In this regard my opinion of Apple has changed dramatically in the last couple of years, I really don't believe they give a damn about the people building their hardware.   Basically they are a forked tongued devil when it comes to worker treatment.
    williamlondonelijahg

  • Apple says Epic Games demands threaten iOS app security, privacy, quality

    wizard69wizard69
    Trey_Lance said:
    Epic is so out of line here , which judge even accepted this law suit?

    Epic is owned by Tencent, you know that company that also makes these movies that says how great the Chinese government is? And half of the board of Tencent have ties to the current Chinese government?

    Hello people?

    This is bullshit as you try to use the horrors of China to deflect from the real issues Apples practices create.   If Epic wins it will be a win for all developers and users of the iOS ecosystem.    Right now Apple has a creatively stacked deck of cards that always generates a winner for them.   Frankly if you combine the issues with App Store and the other anti competitive practices Apple engages in and you will see that Apple is going to have a very tough going in the next few years as governments world wide crack down.   Apple has just gone off the deep end trying to create a world in their image forgetting that many don't have the same views as them.   One of those views is the fairness when it comes to how App store is managed.

    Frankly Apple is using some of he same idiotic excuses, that only the extremely gullible accept, that they use to fight right to repair.    In the end Apples motivations are planned obsolescence and getting a cut of every commercial app that runs on its devices.    It can be likened to Ford demanding 30% from every gas station when you fill up your tank.   It isn't something most Americans would feel comfortable with and frankly is against the law.   I just don't see Apple having a leg to stand on especially if one looks deep into existing law and what has traditionally been accepted business practice.
    williamlondon

  • New 14-inch and 16-inch Apple Silicon MacBook Pro, redesigned Mac mini in pipeline

    wizard69wizard69
    chadbag said:
    Don't have any AS based macs yet but would be in for both the larger screen iMac and redesigned Mac mini 

    Crossing fingers. 

    Sounds like it will be worth the wait.   I will wait to see what is actually delivered but a Mac Mini that would be as good as what is implied here might be on my buy list.    My M1 MBA continues to amaze me, being a passively cooled laptop, a Mini without the MBA's limitations would make for a great desktop machine.

    I'm real interested to see how Apple improves Neural Engine as I suspect that it will be playing a big part in the future of Apples operating systems.   I actually see it as a big factor in the move to Apple Silicon.
    williamlondondoozydozenGG1watto_cobra

  • Return of the Mac: How Apple Silicon will herald a new era at WWDC 2021

    wizard69wizard69
    MacQuadra840av said:
    lkrupp said:
    xyzzy-xxx said:
    I hope that some of the limits of Apole Silicon will be lifted:

    1. no target disk mode

    2. more / expandable ram

    3. 3rd party graphics hardware 
    If you consider those ‘limits’ then just move on. ASi is a new paradigm where those considerations are moot. If that’s what you want just stay with legacy Intel boxes running Windows.
    You are dead wrong, as always.  Look at all benchmark results and discrete graphics continues to blow away the M1.  Apple is not going to release an iMac, MacBook Pro 16, or Mac Pro with the inferior integrated graphics, even on the M1.  The 16GB RAM limit of the M1 is embarrassing, and it is a big deal.  Large graphics files would choke on it.  Especially embarrassing when the previous Intel models had more features than the M1 models.  But of course you hate Apple as evidenced in all your comments.

    This is garbage, there is nothing embarrassing about M1.   Apple debuted it in its lowest end machines and int hat regard it literally blows away anything in the price range.    The M1 is the best tech Apple had at the time to put into something like the Mac Book Air.   Feel free to offer up another passively cooled, low end laptop, that does better.
    muthuk_vanalingamFidonet127watto_cobra

  • Arm's new chip architecture will power future devices, possibly including Apple's

    wizard69wizard69
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 

    Long term I suspect what you will see is that Apple will focus a lot of effort on things outside of the ARM cores.    This will specifically be focused on high performance AI hardware.    In other words the ARM cores, at least for mainstream machines, will become a smaller portion of the entire SoC space allocation.
    killroywatto_cobra

  • Redesigned Mac Pro with up to 40 Apple Silicon cores coming in 2022

    wizard69wizard69
    Marvin said:
    Ok, so how much will this $40k MacPro cost?
    The good thing is it's entirely up to Apple, whereas before they were charging a markup on top of Intel's and AMD's prices.

    Intel charges a few thousand dollars for high-end Xeons, the following is in the Mac Pro:
    https://www.amazon.com/Intel-CD8069504248702-Octacosa-core-Processor-Overclocking/dp/B086M6P8D6

    An AMD Radeon Pro VII based on Vega architecture retails for $2740:
    https://www.newegg.com/amd-100-506163/p/N82E16814105105

    Apple charges $10k for 4 Radeon Pro GPUs. Cutting Intel and AMD out means it instantly cuts out around $15k of costs from a $24k Mac Pro. If Apple continued charging that, the extra $15k would all be profit.

    For the easiest manufacturing, they'd use multiple units of the chips that go in their laptops and iMac models. An entire MBP/iMac would cost under $2.5k with a 30% margin so $1750 manufacturing. The CPU/GPU part would be well under $500. It will have bundled memory though up to 64GB per chip. Using 4 of them shouldn't cost more than $2k with 64GB RAM total. The whole machine will likely start around $5k but the lowest quad-chip model will perform like the $24k Mac Pro.

    If they price it too high, people will just buy multiple MBPs/iMacs. I would guess the price range to be starting around $5k and going up to $10k with maximum memory (256GB) and bit higher for 8TB+ SSD. Hopefully the XDR will come down in price a bit too to be able to get a decent Pro with XDR under $10k.

    It may still have PCIe slots to support things like the Afterburner card and other IO cards but I don't see any reason to include slots for GPUs and they can always build an external box for IO cards with a single internal slot.
    zimmie said:
    If it's using the same GPU cores as the M1, clocked at the same speed, a 64-core GPU could do 20.8 TFLOPS, while a 128-core GPU could do 41.6 TFLOPS. For comparison, a GeForce RTX 3090 (the top consumer card from Nvidia) does up to 35.6 TFLOPS, and a Radeon RX 6900 XT (the top consumer card from AMD) does up to 23 TFLOPS.

    Considering the RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT still universally sell for more than double their MSRP, I wonder if Apple will have scalping problems. Their system of allowing backorders mitigates scalping, but doesn't eliminate it. With the added demand from blockbros, it may be difficult to get one for a year or so.
    It would be a terrible shame if a significant use of these machines is for block chain mining.  (But if it boosts my AAPL investment, I'll be crying all the way to the bank.)
    I could see them being used in render farms and servers. They would be extremely efficient and cost-effective machines.

    Crypto mining would depend on the software being optimized for Apple Silicon and the overall price of the compute units:

    https://otcpm24.com/2021/03/01/apple-m1-vs-nvidia-ethereum-hash-rate-comparison-which-is-more-capable-for-crypto-mining/

    M1 is 2MH/s on the GPU at around 10-15W, NVidia 90HX goes up to 86MH/s at 320W. A 3090 can do over 100MH/s under 300W.
    A Mac Pro would be expected to get 16x this so 32MH/s at around 200W.
    An Nvidia 3090 is around $3k so I don't see people buying $5k+ Mac Pros specifically for mining but if they already planned to have a server array of Macs, they might use them for mining. Mining will probably become obsolete in the next year anyway.
    Hi Marvin;

    I look at it this way, Apple has no choice but to address the cost of the Mac Pro.    The box is a total embarrassment compared to what your get on other platforms performance wise.   In a nut shell the Mac Pro isn't cost competitive for many of the pro users out there.

    More so I'm talking real aggressive here with an entry price under $2000.   Now that will not be sporting a high end processor, most likely a binned processor that doesn't enable all cores, but capable enough that it doesn't such when compared to other Apple machines int he price range.   The idea is to draw enough customers to make Mac Pro development profitable so that Apple actually takes an interest in the platform.    Everything I know about business tells me that the Mac Pro has been a complete failure in the eyes of management over the last decade, actually more years than that.    It explains why after each major revision the product languishes on the shelf for years some times several years before they try again.   Sadly each time they screw up in the same way going after a market that just isn't as big as many people imagine.  The cycle then repeats, poor sales, threats of a discontinuation, years of no updates (lather, rinse and repeat forever).  

    Apple Silicon will not change this one bit if they don't address the potential market with cost competitive machines.   Actually for this market Apple really needs to be more that cost competitive because for the most part pro users are not Apple fan boys.    Any Apple Silicon based Mac Pro needs to be a performance leader and at the same time under cut other machines price wise.   I'm not kidding when I say Apple needs an intro or base machine, that starts at around $2000.    It is the only way to drive sales and get Apple to actually pay attention to the platform and provide us with yearly updates that have some value to them.

    All one has to do is look at the many pro industries that defected to Thread Ripper for the value that platform offers.   Pros don't care about the cheese grater look or even Mac OS.   They care about performance and value for the dollar.

    In any event one common theme in discussions like this is people form the AV industries apparently thinking that they are the only "pro" in the world.   I sometimes think Apple agrees with them.   However the reality is it is an extremely small, niche market that simply does not buy enough hardware to make anybody at Apple happy.   Apple needs a far broader appeal for any new Mac Pro to avoid rinse, lather and repeat.
    viclauyyc

  • Apple discontinues full-size HomePod, to focus on HomePod mini

    wizard69wizard69
    chadbag said:
    darkvader said:
    Hi Homepod, this is iPod Hi-Fi!  Welcome to the discontinued overpriced garbage club!

    It was a stupid product when it was new, it never improved, the price never dropped to anything even remotely close to reasonable, Apple discontinued it. 

    Why would anybody be surprised?  It was a failure from minute 1.
    Lol.  Troll.   Seeing as it lasted a most 4 years I don’t think that constitutes a failed product.  

    It is awesome and I just went and bought a second to go with my first, which is a great device.  I also have a single HomePod mini which is ok but has nowhere near the sound quality.  

    Hopefully they come out with a HP 2 

    Apple has the cash to keep failed products on the market basically forever if they want.   Look at the trash can Mac Pro, it was a failed product out the door.    They did nothing afterward to properly focus the concept on a market segment that might have found the unit useful.   Believe me the trash can was not a bad concept and would have made an excellent desktop machine at the right price point.    In fact they could leverage some of the technical developments in that machine to make an excellent Apple Silicon based machine.   The problem with Apple is not realizing where the market demand is, and it isn't for $6000 rack mount machines that are out performed by $1500 AMD based desktops.   

    Frankly I'm not in the market for anything so harshly tied to the Apple Eco System.   The simple fact is I need hardware that isn't spy ware and can work with a variety of equipment.    In their current forms I can't ever see buying any of Apples HP's!   Garbage.

  • Apple makes case for Apple Watch Series 2 Christmas gifts in new ad series

    wizard69wizard69
    apple jockey said:
    I have the Series 2, I love it and use it daily.

     I must be getting old, I can't see the relevance in such quick advertising. You barely get a taste of the theme.

    this wouldn't entice me! But I hope it does inspire other would be buyers.


    What i find inexplicable is the timing, which in my mind is a bit late for Christmas shopping.  You dont start an advertising champsigne after you sales problem crops up.  Frankly it is things like this that bother me more about the new Apple than all the whining about drawn out product releases.  
    apple jockey