New MacPro predictions? Hopes? Fears?

[Misha Engel]

You don't need a special guru for a Mac shop becuase Misha Engle will tell you FOR FREE how much Apple sucks.

Hahahaha, when looking at the price and the closed system yes, I do love the design of the iMac's and we have one at the front desk.

The new iMac's(2019) have a decent price for the specs.

[PatrickFaith]

You don't need a special guru for a Mac shop becuase Misha Engle will tell you FOR FREE how much Apple sucks.

That's so funny! Btw my recent centos/redhat integration of rtx 2080 was really clean, previously getting my dual 1080's running perfectly in Linux was deadly. So ease of installation on the nvidia side is slowly coming to Linux ... but it's still a pain. My feeling is nvidia also needs a kick in the pants so everyone doesn't have to be a os genius in moving to gpu processing ( ie I despise that open nouveau nvidia driver on Linux).

[Misha Engel]

You're missing my point. Red has embraced Cuda and has not to this point given any solid indication if and when they will support other graphics frameworks. So AMD doing things based on a brute force approach to current file formats and the current Red SDK is a bit counter to what Red themselves are doing, and will by definition not be as effective or scalable going forward. One can come up with whatever financial justification one wants, but that is the fact. Nvidia is supported directly by Red and other approaches are not, at least to this point in time.

RED has asked both NVidia and AMD, AMD said no for their reasons(they also sell CPU's for example) and NVidia said yes for their reasons(they do a bit of ARM CPU's and that's it). What is brute force about the AMD solution, it's different and it already works in every NLE that supports .R3D(same is valid for intel) as long as .R3D exists. The problem was that previous CPU's where to slow/expensive to decode .R3D in realtime.
Lucky for us that we have competition again on both the CPU and GPU front, which is accelerating innovation and lowering prices.

NVidia announced the Quadro RTX line at august 14, 2018 for the following prices:
Quadro RTX 5000 $2,300
Quadro RTX 6000 $6,300
Quadro RTX 8000 $10,000

Only the RTX 5000 is still at that price level, the RTX 6000 now sells for $4,000 and the RTX 8000 for $5,500,
AMD had to sell the Radeon VII for only $ 700 because it had about the same speed in games as the RTX2080 which also sells for around $700,
This is what real competition does, multiple solutions for competitive pricing.

That is true, but the title of this thread is "New MacPro predictions? Hopes? Fears?.", not "Mac vs. PC." So, while self evident, use of other OS's is rather irrelevant to this discussion...

Until the next MacPro comes, you can run MacOS 10.14 on a VM under linux(also with NVidia cards, etc..) when you need more speed than a current Mac can deliver.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

So looks like HP bit the bullet on the stackable MacPro concepts.

https://www8.hp.com/us/en/elite-fami...e-desktop.html

While I can file this under "kinda cool" it also goes in my "no thanks" bin.

This design perfectly illustrates how impractical a system like this would be. Especially if the modules are anything more than optical disc add ons and speaker modules.

First off, Apple would need to use a proprietary high speed interconnect. A single Thunderbolt 3 isn't gonna cut it if you're staking multiple modules like SSDs and graphics cards. On top of that, there would need to be a dedicated power pass through between modules. No way each module would need its own power brick.

On top of it all, how often would a person change modules? Once every two years maybe? Most users would configure once and never touch it again after so the entire idea is pointless.

Yes it's neat, and I can potentially see Apply so something like this for the Mac Mini, but for the MacPro, unless really over-engineered, this seems completely wrong for a workstation.

Something you preconfigure before buying and maybe tinker with some upgrades at home later is a better solution in every way.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

A "brain" case, larger than tcMP/G4 cube but smaller than a full tower, designed to house components with reasonable TDP could be the centerpiece of a modular ecosystem. Previous efforts at "compact" were too aggressive, but that doesn't mean only big towers are viable.

My solution would be a mini-tower sized "brain" case for the mobo, PSU, cooling, ports, CPU, RAM, etc with just one PCIe slot. This would suit a portion of the market and support things like eGPU, RAIDs, etc via TB3. For the hard core crew, offer a second matching "daughter" case that's just a slotbox with it's own PSU and at least 24 dedicated lanes of PCIe4 via extender. With clever design, the two cases could allow for a very short distance between the mobo and an external PCIe bus to reduce latency issues.

For those of us that need max performance and would like to avoid a rat's nest of boxes and cables, we can just treat the brain/daughter combo like a cheese grater tower. Pack it full of GPUs, SSDs, specialty PCIe boards, etc. Order the whole thing BTO from Apple if you want full AppleCare coverage and are willing to pay a premium to protect your investment (or satisfy company purchasing rules).

For those folks who need more than a maxed-mini and/or aren't interested in an AIO like the iMac you could still sell them a one case solution. If they ever need more than the thermal envelope can handle, there's TB3 externals or add the daughter case later. This would keep a population of artists, creatives, hobbyists, institutional buyers, etc in the Mac.OSX world at a price point ($3-8K) and TDP requirement (1,100w PSU and air cooling) that would work in a wide variety of situations.

Cheers - #19

[Bob Zelin]

We are now all waiting for June 3rd. If Tim Cook releases a new Mac Pro that is not "user upgradable" - can we organize a "posse" (that is the correct spelling) - to kidnap him, and force him to release a
computer that professionals want ? I have the pitch forks and the torches ! Who is in ? When SWAT asks for our demands, we can say "we won't release him until we get a motherboard with 6 PCIe slots, a 2000 W power supply, liquid cooling, and Nvidia compatibility". We can compromise on the Nvidia compatilbity (now that AMD eGPU is supported by Adobe).

Viva La Revolution ! (will I be arrested this evening ?).
Bob Zelin

[Brian Timmons]

I already have doubts that the new Mac Pro will be embraced by those that want a classic tower.
Going by past Apple releases, I expect the design to be forward thinking but it may take time for
some to warm to it and some may never like it.

I do think Apple might consider licensing OS X and providing developer support to select
workstation manufacturers (Boxx, Puget) that will satisfy the needs of that heavy iron high end crowd.

In a sense it would be an officially supported Hackintosh but at least it would cover the needs of the
extreme high end of the user base.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I think we’ve all wished for an HP or Boxx system running OSX.

[Misha Engel]

I think we’ve all wished for an HP or Boxx system running OSX.

What is holding you back?, you can.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

What is holding you back?, you can.

Officially...obviously.