New Mac Pro Announced at WWDC! - It's OFFICIAL!

[Mike Halper]

I really struggle to grasp your logic. As far as I know the most information we have about next-gen Xeon came from the Apple WWDC event.

There's plenty more information out there about E5v2 than Apple has revealed. Intel has announced the roadmap for their Xeon processors with some details and they gave details on the new Thunderbolt 2 chipset. No mention of Thunderbolt and dual processors. Sure, they probably haven't released all the info and none of the info released says it can't allow Thunderbolt with multi-CPU configs, but that doesn't mean it can either, and until it's specifically said otherwise and since there's zero products on the market or even announced with that ability (i.e. motherboards designed for it) I'd guess things remain the same as other current processors and chipsets.

I sure hope I'm wrong as I'd like to see a Mac with dual Xeons and Thunderbolt. It would give us the extra lanes needed to run the GPUs at x16 instead of the x8 they're likely running at, and likely diminishing overall system performance when using 2 GPUs and all the Thunderbolt ports. There's just not enough lanes in one processor and one Thunderbolt chipset (48 total) to run 2 GPUs, 6 Thunderbolt ports, etc (at least 56 needed) all at their full potential. That alone is making me seriously look into going Hackintosh (dual CPU and skipping Thunderbolt) seems as it's much easier to build them and set them up these days than it used to. With a dual CPU computer (80 lanes) you could run 2 GPUs at x16, Rocket-X at x8 (or x16 if that's what it needs), Decklink card, SAS card, RAID card, integrated ports, etc. all at their maximum performance without running out of lanes.

 

[L. Langer]

Given that things tend to be "hardware accelerated" by ASICs today, are dual-CPU systems really all that relevant anymore, especially with the advent of things like Xeon Phi and Tesla boards? Apple's movement towards full OpenCL on all of their products seems to be a sign of things to come as far as what is under the hood goes.

 

[Mike Halper]

Given that things tend to be "hardware accelerated" by ASICs today, are dual-CPU systems really all that relevant anymore, especially with the advent of things like Xeon Phi and Tesla boards? Apple's movement towards full OpenCL on all of their products seems to be a sign of things to come as far as what is under the hood goes.

I'd say dual-CPU is less important today, except for the fact that's how you get your PCIe lanes. 40 lanes just isn't enough for multi-GPU systems. Might be just my opinion though.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Dual CPUs are important for heavy calculations that don't utilize GPUs...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm waiting for the final specs and pricing before I get all twisted up about dual CPUs. They may still offer them, we don't know. Given the form factor and what we have seen thus far, I'm expecting it to be a single CPU workstation, but who knows. Adding a second CPU would probably raise the overall power requirement by at least 60%, possibly as much as 80% depending on cooling needs. It would raise the thermals by 80% as well. OTOH, these are looking to provide equal to superior density as what we get from 1U blade systems when we start racking and stacking these soda can style.

Most computationally intensive tasks like rendering do benefit from more CPUs, but they are also not hampered by relatively slow interconnect speeds, even then these Mac Pro systems are not hindered in that way. I think what people are missing here is that it seems we rack these units up and have a 20Gbps interconnect fabric with no additional hardware, just thunderbolt cables. So right off the bat, we're rocking along at speeds 20% faster than both dual-mode 16Gbps fibre or quad-channel Infiniband. What's funny is that while I'm still unsure of how the new Mac Pro will hold up as a power-user workstation, it seems that Apple has come up with one seriously awesome replacement for the XServe. If the price is right, the new Mac Pro is going to make the most badass render node appliance system out there.... 12-core system with flash storage, dual GPUs and multiple 20Gbps interconnects right out of the box...

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Not a server room, but a render node table... Could be nice in the reception area...

 

[L. Langer]

It looks like the current CPU board just has circuits for a single CPU by design and there might not be room for a second unless they reshuffle the board layout, which would certainly allow a second CPU to snugly fit right on there.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

It looks like the current CPU board just has circuits for a single CPU by design and there might not be room for a second unless they reshuffle the board layout, which would certainly allow a second CPU to snugly fit right on there.

I hope so!

How long can thunderbolt cables get btw.? I would like to have storage in the server room, not making a mess on the workstation table...

 

[Tim Morten]

The whole problem goes away with one simple measure that winds up costing less, gives you access to newer/more CPU's / GPU's, and even let's you plug-in a Rocket-X.

PC.

Open architecture. Broader install and software base. Cheaper. Faster. Expandable. Regularly updated. Support for more CPU's, more GPU's, and newer versions along the way. Competition between multiple manufactures to constantly improve.

I can understand folks having a subjective preference for Apple's OS, but tolerating their ridiculous hardware limitations and cost premium is mind-boggling. If you really want Mac OS, build a hackintosh.

 

[L. Langer]

I hope so!

How long can thunderbolt cables get btw.? I would like to have storage in the server room, not making a mess on the workstation table...

It will be at least a few years until Thunderbolt is useful for you in that regard. Thunderbolt 3 or 4 will probably bring fibre-optics to Thunderbolt and that's the only way you will get what you want. Though FO Thunderbolt cables do exist for long cable runs, they are way out of your price range (thousands of dollars per cable and that goes up with length) and are only available in Japan.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Well GPU's are what is concerns me. Those don't run externally... Not on OSX, and even with thunderbolt 2 not at full 16x pci 3 speeds. That is looking like a major workflow issue coming down the pipeline. Same with Red Rocket X being not internally attached to a PCI 3 16x slot, also looking like an upcoming problem...

Believe me, I'd love for these not to be problems, but something inside my head is telling me to watch out...

Sure the Mac Pro leaves users the option to upgrade or add components to boost performance, but all within a very well controlled environment, as you know. It isn't so much about tinkering at all. The options are few. That is why it doesn't crash so much. That is how Apple has been able to release a new version of the OS every year. You can't really have extensive customization, bulletproof and up to date in the same system. It's a pick two situation.

So why the concern? Within 12 months of release the other parts of the ecosystem will be available and you should be able to tinker as much, if not more than you can now. That is my expectation FWIW

 

[L. Langer]

Well Brian, I think that this new design is not meant to be "Dual video cards are mandatory!" and it's likely that a version of the RED Rocket for this new form-factor could be commissioned by RED, if it isn't cost-prohibitive to do so. Stripping out the video card display circuitry would shorten the card a bit and further circuit optimization could yield a drop-in card with the right dimensions.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Well Brian, I think that this new design is not meant to be "Dual video cards are mandatory!" and it's likely that a version of the RED Rocket for this new form-factor could be commissioned by RED, if it isn't cost-prohibitive to do so. Stripping out the video card display circuitry would shorten the card a bit and further circuit optimization could yield a drop-in card with the right dimensions.

I find this unlikely, but even more of an issue is having only one GPU on a finishing station...

 

[Scott Crawley]

We shall see. I expect answers are forthcoming, just as the necessary peripheral devices are. These are the usual growing pains. They are nothing new to me. What is new is all of the Chicken Little Syndrome inspired by social media's exacerbation of the FCPX release troubles.

Take a deep breath... everything is OK. ;-)

P.S. Diggin your Vimeo, Brian.

Well GPU's are what is concerns me. Those don't run externally... Not on OSX, and even with thunderbolt 2 not at full 16x pci 3 speeds. That is looking like a major workflow issue coming down the pipeline. Same with Red Rocket X being not internally attached to a PCI 3 16x slot, also looking like an upcoming problem...

Believe me, I'd love for these not to be problems, but something inside my head is telling me to watch out...

 

[Brian Merlen]

Much appreciated! I'm gonna start working on my edit of Go Skateboarding Day from NYC that I just shot two days ago...boards were flying everywhere, got hit so hard my batteries fell off while rolling, twice! Should be some pretty amazing stuff when I get it together though...

We shall see. I expect answers are forthcoming, just as the necessary peripheral devices are. These are the usual growing pains. They are nothing new to me. What is new is all of the Chicken Little Syndrome inspired by social media's exacerbation of the FCPX release troubles.

Take a deep breath... everything is OK. ;-)

P.S. Diggin your Vimeo, Brian.

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I had a dream last night that Apple also released an updated MacPro in the current form factor. It was copper in color lol.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It will be at least a few years until Thunderbolt is useful for you in that regard. Thunderbolt 3 or 4 will probably bring fibre-optics to Thunderbolt and that's the only way you will get what you want. Though FO Thunderbolt cables do exist for long cable runs, they are way out of your price range (thousands of dollars per cable and that goes up with length) and are only available in Japan.

Fiber optic Thunderbolt cables are available now. Have been since last October. Thunderbolt 2 compliant fiber is supposed to ship with Thunderbolt too. 1000 meters allowed on fiber for TB connections, even more if you use a repeater, hub or switch.

 

[Mike Halper]

Jeff, since you're among the most knowledgeable here, do you think it's possible that the GPU's in the new Mac Pro are running at x16 each and each Thunderbolt port is running at x4 each? That would be 56 lanes without taking into consideration the SSD, USB3, and Ethernet. My understanding is the max lanes on any processor now is 40. Add up to 8 lanes for the TB chipset and you get 48, but that's still 8 shy of the 56+ that are really necessary to get the full potential out of the hardware that's there.

Also, do you think there will be a difference in how a connected display affects the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 2 vs Thunderbolt 1? Right now with my Retina MBP, I notice a performance drop when I connect external displays to my Thunderbolt ports after other Thunderbolt peripherals are attached. For example, one port has SAS card and Decklink in an enclosure and the other has a Rocket in an enclosure. Performance is noticeably diminished when a display is connected to each Thunderbolt port after those (running the Retina MBP in clamshell mode so the Retina display is off or running with the Retina for 3 displays), when compared to running the MBP open with only the Retina display active. I'm concerned about the same issue where there's not enough lanes to begin with and connecting 2 or 3 4K displays will really hurt TB2 bandwidth when they're really just x4 lanes still. It makes me wonder why they didn't include DisplayPorts directly off the GPUs and save the TB2 bandwidth and lanes, since I'm assuming the HDMI will use the built-in Intel GPU.

Am I thinking of all this wrong? I know it's all speculation and theory at this point, but I'd like to know if it's something to really watch out for in performance tests.

 

[L. Langer]

Fiber optic Thunderbolt cables are available now. Have been since last October. Thunderbolt 2 compliant fiber is supposed to ship with Thunderbolt too. 1000 meters allowed on fiber for TB connections, even more if you use a repeater, hub or switch.

From whom? Sumitomo Electric is the only approved maker of fiber optic Thunderbolt cables at this time and they are only selling them in Japan. Corning Optical is rolling them out here in the US sometime this year but no date has been given. The functional distance is up to 100 meters per cable at this time.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff, since you're among the most knowledgeable here, do you think it's possible that the GPU's in the new Mac Pro are running at x16 each and each Thunderbolt port is running at x4 each? That would be 56 lanes without taking into consideration the SSD, USB3, and Ethernet. My understanding is the max lanes on any processor now is 40. Add up to 8 lanes for the TB chipset and you get 48, but that's still 8 shy of the 56+ that are really necessary to get the full potential out of the hardware that's there.

With the E5-2600 V2 CPUs, we get 40 lanes of PCIe v3 plus a PCIe v2 host, I'm not sure without a spec sheet in front of me how many lanes are accounted for there with v2 . We don't know how Apple is dividing up lanes in the new Mac Pro. I'm going to assume that each GPU gets 16 lanes of v3. So that leaves 8 there. I believe there's 24 lanes of PCIe v2, but there may be more, I don't recall. I want to say there's enough bandwidth to support everything on the system. Thunderbolt 2 is based on PCIe v2 in terms of its own topology and signaling. Each Thunderbolt 2 port can be backed by either 4 lanes of PCIe v3 or 8 lanes of v2.

Also, do you think there will be a difference in how a connected display affects the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 2 vs Thunderbolt 1?

[/QUOTE]

The difference between Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 is that v2 has 4 x 10Gbps channels instead of just two. We will need new cables and new devices to take advantage of it. It's not 100% clear, but it seems that when connecting TB1 devices (including displays) that TB2 ports go into 10Gbps per channel mode. I don't know how that plays into TB2 device use and it may be wise to keep TB2 devices on certain ports and keep all TB1 devices on different ports. That said, when operating in TB2 mode, one of the 20Gbps channels is dedicated to the video stream, uni-directional. All other data must pass over the other 20Gbps channel, same as in TB1, just double the bandwidth. In TB1, you connect a display and your TB port now only has one 10Gbps channel to work with.

From whom? Sumitomo Electric is the only approved maker of fiber optic Thunderbolt cables at this time and they are only selling them in Japan. Corning Optical is rolling them out here in the US sometime this year but no date has been given. The functional distance is up to 100 meters per cable at this time.

You're correct on the distance, I added an extra zero without thinking.

All I know of are the Sumitomo cables and they seem to be available or I guess I haven't put any thought into general availability. I have one of them, one that's just a touch over 65 feet long, or 20m is what it is. Got it right after NAB. The fiber cables were being demoed at NAB at a few booths like Intel and Promise. One of the Sumitomo reps were at the Promise booth and I was asking him about it, as they had the giant spool on the table with the two exposed ends connecting a Mac to a Pegasus RAID. I told him I would like one so I could locate a couple RAIDs away from my desk, he took down my info so that a sales rep could call me. They did call about a week later and I finished up the order, they sent it right out to me. It shipped from a domestic supplier in CA, if I recall. I didn't think there was anything special about it, other than it being expensive, around $320... Ouch.