JustSomeGuy1

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  • Editorial: Mac Pro puts the pedal to Metal in Apple's race with Nvidia

    JustSomeGuy1JustSomeGuy1
    It's true that right now the GPU situation for Macs is terrible. Gaming is thus badly hampered, when it's even possible.

    I expect that to change very quickly over the next three years or so, and not because Apple has any interest in gaming on the Mac. (They may finally be developing one, but I'll believe that three or four years after I see it.)

    Apple has a deep interest in AR and VR. They understand that it is, ultimately, the future of computing, just as the GUI was the future of computing back in, say, 1982. The Lisa came in 1983, the Mac in 1984, and Windows 3 (the first "real" GUI on PC) came in 1990. It took a while, but that revolution is complete - you haven't been able to buy a CLI-based mass-market PC for many years (and no, Linux, the Mac Terminal, and Windows command.com don't disprove that). Similarly, we don't even have a clear vision of what an AR/VR-based computing paradigm will look like yet, but we can see it coming. We are living today in the 1982 of AR/VR.

    But the pace of technological advance is faster today than it was then, and Apple is a big part of that. I expect that they will make a big push to release mass-market (i.e., *not* the nnMP) Mac hardware sometime in the next few years capable of handling real AR/VR. Maybe along with a push to use ARM, maybe not, but either way, you know what that will require? Massive GPU capability.

    Gaming will, most likely, be a major accidental beneficiary of that market force.

    (It's an interesting question to ponder, will Apple still support even AMD GPUs then, or will they go all-in with their own GPU? I hope they will support AMD, but wouldn't be at all surprised to see them ship their own GPU, and restrict Metal to that.)
    cornchip

  • Apple releases first developer beta of macOS 10.15.1

    JustSomeGuy1JustSomeGuy1
    bobcubsfan said:
    Mac OS Catalina or Horta from Star Trek?

    Heh. First thing I say when I boot a new OS for the first time?

    " NO
     KILL
        I"
    bobcubsfanmacseeker

  • Inside Apple's fantastically fast new Mac Pro

    JustSomeGuy1JustSomeGuy1
    sdw2001 said:
    I can't get over what a monster this thing is.  Apple's "pro" machines have always been more marketed to prosumers/power users rather than true workstation users.  This machine changes everything.  

    I'm not up on PC workstation class machines, so a question for someone who is:  Is there anything even close to this?  
    Yes and no.   Don't expect a lot of innovation coming from Intel they're likely to skip next years PCI-Express 4.0 evolutionary step and refresh most of their Xeon class hardware with PCI-Express 5.0 which employs a lot of new technology chiefly a new CXL Interconnect  .  NVME SSD on PCI-Express 4 are already doing 5Gbps reads and very fast writes but many people feel like existing PCI-E limitations limit the benefits of  that extra speed  After PCI-Express 5 you're going to see 4-Level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4) which will not only get PCI-E 6.0 to 64 Gigatransfer but it'll be key in 100Gbps Ethernet for Data Centers and more. 

    The obvious question is who needs this bandwidth?  AI,  8K and VR encoding,  Machine Learning,  Databases as always and even gaming.   I think Apple has designed or workstation form factor that is going to be able to scale with the insane amount of bandwidth increases we have coming in just 4-5 years. 
    You need to do a lot more reading, and you can start with the link you provided. You are confused about the relationship between CXL and PCIe5. PCI5 does not use any aspect of CXL. Rather, CXL leverages PCIe 5, with its major selling point being memory coherency between CPUs and attached coprocessors of various sorts (GPUs, FPGAs, NNPs, etc.). It's roughly similar to CCIX, and somewhat similar to GenZ (though CXL and CCIX use PCIe5 mechanicals, whereas GenZ doesn't).

    You are similarly confused about the state of play in NVMe SSDs. Not one person who understands the technology thinks that "existing PCI-E limitations limit the benefits of  that extra speed". The limitation comes from the only PCIe4-capable controller that's on the market currently (the Phison PS5016-E16), which was a quick patch job on a previous controller to add PCIe4 compatability. Better controllers are coming soon, and they should be able to push read and write speeds up to ~7GB/sec... that is, if you're moving bulk data. For most people, random I/O is more important, as is latency, and the PCIe version doesn't make any difference for that- it's the flash and the controller.

    As for 100Gbps Ethernet, a single PCIe3 x16 slot is almost but not quite adequate to saturate the link. A PCIe4 x16 could handle a dual port card. By the time you get to PCIe5, a single x4 slot could handle a single port. PCIe6's bandwidth will obviously be welcome for anyone using 100Gbps Ethernet, but it's far from necessary.
    zhirorundhvidphilboogiewatto_cobrahodar

  • Inside Apple's fantastically fast new Mac Pro

    JustSomeGuy1JustSomeGuy1
    karmadave said:
    The new Mac Pro will largely appeal to Audio and Video professionals who's company foots the bill. A) it's not a Consumer machine and B) it's under-featured and overpriced compared to PC Workstations from Dell, HP, and Lenovo...
    "Overpriced" is a nonsensical claim at the moment, as none of us have any idea what pricing will be. (The "starting price" is meaningless here, as very few will buy that configuration.) You may turn out to be correct, but right now there's no telling.

    At least, if you're comparing Intel-based workstations. I'm afraid you're almost certainly right if you compare to an EPYC2-based workstation.

    In what way is the nnMP "underfeatured"? Aside from a lack of NVMe or U.2 ports (easily rectified by a PCIe card), what do you think is missing?
    philboogie

  • Inside Apple's fantastically fast new Mac Pro

    JustSomeGuy1JustSomeGuy1
    AppleExposed said:
    JustSomeGuy1 said:
    sdw2001 said:
    I can't get over what a monster this thing is.  Apple's "pro" machines have always been more marketed to prosumers/power users rather than true workstation users.  This machine changes everything.  

    I'm not up on PC workstation class machines, so a question for someone who is:  Is there anything even close to this?  
    Yes and no. You can get machines from HP, Dell, etc. with similar CPUs, RAM, and room for video cards. The afterburner card, no. That much Thunderbolt, no. Those video cards, no, though you can use NVidia cards that are either way better or somewhat worse, depending on what you do. Flash storage, yes, and you can do better than the Mac (FSVO better, again depending on use case). Slots... maybe not, I haven't checked.

    Unfortunately, this Mac *still* hasn't shipped, whereas EPYC 2 is now readily available, with Zen-2 based Threadripper coming soon. While some people will still be unwilling to look at AMD products, I doubt that that will last long, as the AMD chips are ridiculously superior to Intel's product line, and will remain so for at least a year, I expect.

    This Mac Pro will be a great workstation at a reasonably competitive price *for Intel-based workstations* (probably, but Intel pricing volatility and Apple's pricing stability may make Apple's pricing very unfavorable - time will tell). But cheaper Threadripper or EPYC-based workstations will wipe the floor with it, in most ways, and probably by the end of the year.

    On a separate topic, does anyone know if the TB3 ports on the PCIe card are somehow provided with full bandwidth? Or are they constrained by the bandwidth of the PCIe card?

    You've never worked in a studio have you? There's a reason movie studios are still running last gens Mac Pro from 2013. I'm not even gonna bother telling you why since you seem obsessed with specs. No wonder you're "JustSomeGuy".
    Thank you for your gratuitous and irrelevant ad hominem attack. I'm sure you make your mommy proud. (See, I can do it too.)

    I actually am not that obsessed with "specs", but they are relevant to the question that was asked. Which, BTW, I answered with facts; do you have any to add?

    My major followup point was that Apple may have made a significant mistake by sticking to Intel here, and that as impressive a machine as the nnMP is, the Intel chip is such a huge drawback that for anyone who really needs massive power, it's going to look weak compared to AMD-based workstations. Memory support will also be against it for some people, though not that many as 1.5TB should be enough for most people for a while. :-)

    It will in the end depend on whether the CPU or other processors are paramount - the afterburner card alone is likely to be a determinative argument in the Mac's favor for certain video people. The dual-dual GPUs also, though that's a little murkier.
    entropysrundhvidphilboogie