JustSomeGuy1

DuhSesame said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

DuhSesame said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

The server market is really distinct from the workstation market. And why do you think TR isn't selling well?

But again, I say it's not relevant, because we're not talking about some random risk-averse IT manager, or the tech team at Amazon's EC division. We're talking about Apple, which is supposed to have some vision, and to "skate where the puck is going to be, not where it is". The puck was obviously headed towards AMD in 2019.

“Vision”, okay…I’m sure they have planned to switch way back then, well scheduled during or even before the current design.  Whatever this product is marketing at, it should primarily cover this transition period first, not fighting spec wars.  28-core is enough for couple of years, may not be the best, but does the job, and way more reliable.

That’s the other issue, as you want a serious production system to work 100% all the time, where IIRC Zen 2 does tend to glitch if someone maxed out their PCIe lanes.  This is why there’s now a TR Pro to cover this segment.

You keep claiming that Zen 2 had reliability problems. Source?

But not relevant anyway, as you seem to be saying this about the desktop chip. That's not what we're talking about! The chip in the Mac Pro is a Xeon, providing >40 PCIe lanes and 6 channels of DRAM. If they'd used a Zen 2 chip, it would have been the EPYC, in order to provide as many PCIe lanes (or more, EPYC has 128 PCIe4 lanes), and 8 channels of DRAM. The desktop chip would have been a nonstarter at two DRAM channels, nevermind the smaller PCIe config.

I think everyone’s favorite Techtubers (LTT) did an episode on this.  I’m just too lazy to find it.  And I doubt Apple is interested in full-blown Server chips.

DuhSesame said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

The server market is really distinct from the workstation market. And why do you think TR isn't selling well?

But again, I say it's not relevant, because we're not talking about some random risk-averse IT manager, or the tech team at Amazon's EC division. We're talking about Apple, which is supposed to have some vision, and to "skate where the puck is going to be, not where it is". The puck was obviously headed towards AMD in 2019.

“Vision”, okay…I’m sure they have planned to switch way back then, well scheduled during or even before the current design.  Whatever this product is marketing at, it should primarily cover this transition period first, not fighting spec wars.  28-core is enough for couple of years, may not be the best, but does the job, and way more reliable.

That’s the other issue, as you want a serious production system to work 100% all the time, where IIRC Zen 2 does tend to glitch if someone maxed out their PCIe lanes.  This is why there’s now a TR Pro to cover this segment.

DuhSesame said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

DuhSesame said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

To answer one of the questions posted here: Thunderbolt (TB3, specifically) is not tied to a version of PCIe. It is *roughly* equivalent to a PCIe3 x4 link, in bandwidth - 40gbps vs 32gbps. But you can use it with any PCIe.

And further about the Mac: If you're sticking with Intel chips, you don't have any option for PCIe >3 yet. Though that will change in the next few months with Sapphire Rapids, and if Apple really does release another Intel Mac Pro, it will likely use that, bringing it up to PCIe5. Of course, they could have used AMD, and indeed I think they absolutely should have. Using Zen2, they'd have had PCIe4. And they'd still have that now, with Zen 3... which still puts them only one generation behind.

There are plenty of problems with the Mac Pro, but this PCIe nonsense is a meaningless sideshow.

Right, can you list all the problems then?  Zen 2 aren't that reliable back then.

That's not true. Zen 2 was great, and it basically rewrote the rules for desktop and server. There were minor USB issues that affected some users on the desktop; that's about it, and very easily worked around, if Apple cared, given the 128 lanes of PCIe4 coming from each chip (64 each usable in two-chip systems, still 128 total).

And no, I won't make a list, it's been done to death here in the past including by me. However in brief - the Mac Pro was competitive and a class leader for Intel systems, but grossly uncompetitive against AMD systems. The SSD setup is some serious engineering but brings relatively few benefits compared to the repairability drawbacks. The lack of nVIDIA drivers, while possibly not Apple's fault, still holds them back significantly in some applications.

But the biggest problem with the Mac Pro is new since then... which is that it's not new since then. There have been no revisions. That's an appalling error, which they should know better than committing AGAIN after the last decades-long (seemingly, it was actually six years - which is ridiculous anyway) period of stagnation. If SuperMicro (for example) can bring out two dozen new motherboards every year or two for Intel processors, Apple can certainly bring out ONE new motherboard for their Mac Pro. And yet...

it's my sense that, due to stagnation in the server chip business through 2021 on the Intel side, Apple hasn't yet totally lost all relevance, but they're hanging on by a thread. The M2-based Pro presumably due this year (or perhaps still M1-based, if they're using a four-way symmetrical mirror of the M1 Max) will prevent that, but they will still lose a big chunk of what's left of their market without an x64 system, as much of the Pro software won't be available for the Mx chips yet, and many people will avoid Rosetta despite its overall good performance. So it's still reasonably likely that they will come out with a Sapphire Rapids based Intel Mac Pro this year, along with whatever Mx-based Pro (or iMac Pro) they ship. (And that would be a predictable shame, as an AMD Zen3 system would still be better.) We'll see soon enough.

Well...
https://thetechzone.online/amd-vs-intel-cpu-market-share-in-q1-2021/

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-desktop-server-notebook-cpu-market-share-q1-2021

    AMD desktops are great, but not servers.  There's no data dedicated for workstations, so I assume everyone counts them as regular desktops.   On paper they looked great, they might be sold really well compared to Core X, but I doubt their impact on true workstations.  Mainly, TR isn't built for workstations but HEDT, i.e. extreme performance users who may or may not do important works.  Otherwise, AMD won't release TR Pro, which is almost a year late.  Sure, AMD has the performance lead, though this aspect is overblown.  In case you're wondering, their 64-core lineup isn't doing great because it's grossly overkilled.  In fact, the 5990WX was still delayed.

    As far as the upgrade cycle, well, they're abandoning Intel after all.  ASi must be worth the wait.

DuhSesame said:

killroy said:

Another note. Intel Ice lake is PCIe 4 and Alder Lake is 5. We still don't know if the new M chips will be 5.

That’s a lesser issue.  Anything besides the Mac Pro only need a fixed amount of lanes, primarily SSDs, then Thunderbolt.  A lot of common controllers will be built-in.

shareef777 said:

rob53 said:

sflocal said:

Dr.MORO said:

Hi all,
Just an amateur question.
Thunderbolt 3/4 is compatible to carry PCIe of what specification or lower at this moment?
…

The current Thunderbolt spec provides 40gb/s bandwidth.  While fast, it's still far below PCIe 3.0 max of 32GB/s.  I don't see a time where Thunderbolt will be at the same speed as the native PCIe bus.  

The PCIe 6.0 specification I think will be geared more for servers than for consumer PC's.  It involves some pretty expensive tech, and motherboard fabrication to handle those high speeds which is why it will be limited to servers, render-farms, etc..

In other words, there’s nothing really wrong with the version Apple used in the 2019 Mac Pro. Apple didn’t put any devices in the Mac Pro that would economically benefit from PCIe 4/5/6 so author is complaining about nothing. 

Pretty sure some MacPro buyers had upgradeability in mind. Then again, if they planned on upgrading, they should have known the limitations of the MacPro when they bought it.