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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

New MacPro predictions? Hopes? Fears?

M.Halsell said:
Generally I found Resolve is the single reason most need a super hero box. Other tasks perform up to par Avid, MacSmoke, MS Office, Adobe CS, FCX, archival, etc. Our workflow is 95% ProRes, rec 709, web delivery. Our freelance creatives dont like working on Windows. iMacs for the freelances, trashcans for the staff. Windows hero boxes for the 3D team. MBP for the sales and project management teams.
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I'm sitting at an airport flying to do a color session. I have a trash can and an SSD Raid in my backpack. Sure I wish it could be upgraded but the mobility is delightful.
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Precisely - my work environment and those I'm a part of routinely follow this pattern. Also, my monster tower can crunch away as fast as it wants all day but it will never be able to hop in a suitcase and fly with me.

However, thunderbolt 3 begins to change that since we are now capable of building laptops with 6+ Core i7's and external GPU's. With the D700's becoming old news, and GTX 1070/80 and hopefully soon a 1080Ti dropping in next 6 months, we now have GPU's that can outperform those 2013 nMP cards even when mounted in a crippling 40Gb/s enclosure. Plus these laptops have even faster PCIe based storage, 4K monitoring and in certain packages run cooler/quieter and draw less power than a Trashcan is capable of.
 
I think Apples Pay is a revenue stream that is brilliant self engineered golden egg. As it becomes more ubiquitous, it will pay them and it's user dividends. To drive adoption, Apple would benefit from all products being part of the Eco-system, which includes the Mac Pro.

Which Intel chip can Apple put in their new machine that will valid for the next 3 years? The latest 24 core Xeon doesn't even support the current video standards.

Microsoft have also been stung by Intel declaration of leaving one of the up an coming markets. I wonder if MS will return to a version of the their OS that is ARM compatible again? If the 1.2 Watt ARM Ares cores is 60% faster than the ARM A73 cores, it might be only a matter of time before 2 in 1's (or Laptops) running Windows are available on both x86 and ARM.

At that point .... Apple could switch over to a home brewed Cylone that compatible with Windows on ARM (or holo-Windows if they rechristen it). TSMC will have 7nm == Intel @ 10nm. Apple could include their 64 core chip. No Intel Tax (their 24 core is >$7000!) Apple could even include a CCIX (Cache Coherent Interconnect or Acceleration) that would resolve the GPU bottleneck issues.

I guess Apple will introduce HDR P3 screens devices that all incorporate Touch ID (for two factor authentication & Apple Pay), and multiple microphones (to enable better SNR for 'natural language interfaces') on all their Laptop devices this year... and in 2017 we'll get our last Intel Mac Pro.

... not many days to WWDC now :-).

AJ
 
They need to free the MacOS so the clone guys can come back and make some monster machines. We still have a Power Tower Pro sitting in the garage and it took Apple 2 years to catch up to it's specs. The very first thing Jobs did was kill the clones but maybe it's time to open it up again.
 
Aaron McLane said:
They need to free the MacOS so the clone guys can come back and make some monster machines. We still have a Power Tower Pro sitting in the garage and it took Apple 2 years to catch up to it's specs. The very first thing Jobs did was kill the clones but maybe it's time to open it up again.
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"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results"
Why would this be any different this time?
 
I am not in the market for the Mac Pro (or any workstation class computer). However, there are a few interesting things that have been brought up.

I agree with Jake, that Apple will never ever again allow anyone to clone their devices. It didn't work the first time, and in fact it was never at any time a good idea.

However, there is a peripheral issue: a brand new OS. Remember BeOS? That was an OS built using 1990s thinking, not 1960s thinking: multimedia, 3D graphics and pervasive multithreading. Haiku is a modern, free and open version of BeOS but has no useful apps for it. However, it is my strong belief that Apple will want to introduce a brand new OS, built for modern needs with modern thinking. Haiku will probably be the basis for it.

And perhaps Apple will use the 2016 Mac Pro to give a debut to the new OS. They won't want to debut it publicly on an iMac or mini, because they don't want to create any risk of confusion. But Mac Pro customers are more likely to want a beta copy of the new OS on their computer. And because there are fewer Mac Pros sold, feedback will be manageable.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
I agree with Jake, that Apple will never ever again allow anyone to clone their devices. It didn't work the first time, and in fact it was never at any time a good idea.
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Really? You don't feel that a licensing or manufacturing deal with a major workstation vendor could work? Say, a deal with HP, to make, oh I don't know, maybe a Z840 Mac Edition, with all of the things that Apple abandoned but people in our line of work need - like 6 slots, 36 cores on two processors, a couple of hundred gigs of RAM, and unlimited graphics and GPU choices via companion deals with Nvidia and AMD. Not a free for all open licensing program, but basically a replacement for the Mac Pro that is no longer a strategic product for Apple, but very well might be for an HP. Or even Dell.

You might not think that's a good idea, but I dream of such things, and would welcome it. And as long as Steve Jobs remains dead, such a deal might be possible. Who knows.
 
^^^ This ^^^

The best thing Apple could do for the professional workstation market is select ONE vendor (like HP) to make a "OSX Certified" workstation. A Z800 line that runs OSX would be a dream come true!
 
M Most said:
You might not think that's a good idea, but I dream of such things, and would welcome it. And as long as Steve Jobs remains dead, such a deal might be possible. Who knows.
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History has shown that Apple is generally negative on the idea of helping other hardware manufacturers make money with their operating system. I don't think this is going to change as long as the current management is in control. If it were proposed today, Tim Cook would simply ask, "but what's in it for us? How will this help Apple?" Bear in mind they give away the operating system, so it won't be there.

I continue to believe that for the last five years, Apple has turned into a smartphone/tablet company that makes computers on the side. Their lack of attention with desktops, monitors, laptops, and licensing QuickTime tells me that they're into doing what they do and not facilitating any competitors. Financially, it's hard to argue with that. But from a user point of view, I think it's awful.
 
The argument for Apple keeping control over the hardware+software combination has always been the same; controlling the entire experience. From the beginning, Microsoft and the PC community struggled with incompatibilities and overcame them sometimes and only with great effort a lot of gnashing of teeth.

Steve Jobs may be dead but Tim Cook is still very much alive and I sincerely doubt he'd consider it for even 10 seconds.
 
Apple's walled garden or vertical market approach is both the best and worst thing about the Mac platform (and iOS as well). It offers many advantages, but also creates some real shortcomings. I really doubt they would open up OS X to run on arbitrary PC hardware. And I don't think most in the industry mind the vertical paradigm. The problem is that they have a viable platform that demanding professionals want to use and they don't seem interested in offering solutions to satisfy the higher end of the market.

The 2013 Mac Pro was not a bad system, but in terms of demanding content creation, computational work or other such tasks the previous generations of Mac Pro were praised for by the industry elite, it fell flat on its face. A quad-core trash can with D500 GPUs, 32~64GB RAM and dual 4K displays was a smash hit in the photo editing, publishing/ print and editorial markets and still is. Unfortunately the GPUs were never fully realized and that same quad-core Mac Pro when equipped with D300 GPUs is often performance matched, and sometimes exceeded, by a quad-core i7 iMac for less money.

Apple needs to get their collective shit together and release a real workstation. Or they need to suck it up and push out OS X as open source as they have done with several of their recent technologies and open it up to all.

That said, the workstation market is shrinking and the current paradigm needs a massive rethinking. Apple sees this. They see it better than anyone else in the industry for some reason. This is what they tried to do with the 2013 Mac Pro refresh. In many ways it was an admirable effort. Unfortunately they missed the mark with some of the key features needed. And as much as people like to complain about the over-engineered and over-priced little trash can of a workstation, I don't think the bulk of the user base out there knows what they really want or need at this point. The bulky tower workstation needs to go away. Many innovations that were included in the trash can are very much a step in the right direction. But we need something that can take commodity GPUs and at least two, preferably four of them. We need room for dual CPUs with proper cooling and ample power to drive them and a good amount of RAM along with those previously mentioned GPUs. PCIe flash storage is great, but we also need internal storage in other forms as well. I don't always want my workstation tethered to an external RAID.

Here's what I want to see from Apple:

Scalable and modular configuration architecture that allows for single i7 or Xeon CPU or dual Xeon CPUs within the same system / logic board design. 4 (preferably 8) RAM slots per CPU socket. 5 PCIe slots, maybe 6. Proper spacing to run up to 4 dual-width GPUs. Internal support for 2.5" devices. Preferably 8 bays. As well as dual PCIe M.2 style connections. Base configuration with minimal, but functional GPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB flash and quad-core i7 CPU should come in under $1500. And I want to configure any option I want all the way up to dual Xeon with quad GPUs, 2TB flash, 8 X 4TB NVMe SSDs and 512GB RAM. Equip it with dual TB3 ports and make the jump to USB 3.5 ahead of everyone else and they could completely dominate the workstation niche of the computing market.

But let's step back from that fantasy for a moment and realize that we'll probably get a lame duck of an update.

Here's what I'm expecting:

Updated 2016 Mac Pro. Same cylinder design, but now supports single or dual Xeon CPUs. Due to TDP, some of the most compelling Xeon CPU options won't be available in dual form within the small cylinder. Still be slumming it with 4 RAM sockets meaning that to get 128GB or more RAM, we'll have to spend big money and end up with less performance. New GPUs with more RAM and more specs that look awesome on paper. But the same crap support for drivers and even though the form factor is open, no one outside of Apple/AMD will want to support it. So that means we won't see any GPU updates until the next Mac Pro refresh in another 2~3 years.
 
People need to remember, that Mac clones were allowed at a time, when Apple was on the ropes. They were barely surviving. Gil Amelio was in charge of Apple and he had no clue about anything, including bringing Steve back, only to be kicked out and replaced by the very same Steve. To be fair, Gil did push for the purchase of NEXT, thank god, as they almost bough Be. Apple desperately needed to move Macs, no one was buying them and Apple was bleeding cash. Money paid by clones helped to keep Apple afloat and even Microsoft invested money in Apple after the return of Steve. Everyone probably remembers the outcry and grief that cash infusion caused Apple. Fast forward to today, does anyone thinks Apple needs money in order to ruin the most important aspect of Apple experience- a full control over software and hardware? That is what makes Apple... well Apple. They don't have any desire to turn into another Android, because that is what you're proposing.
And just for the record, would I want Mac in Z800 form factor? Hell yeah!!! Do I think this will ever happen? Hell no!!!
 
The problem is the tower design is stone dead at this point. We're all using it still because that's what the PC vendors keep shoveling. The HP Z8x0 workstations need a serious overhaul. Whoever was in charge of picking the slot layout on the Z820 and Z840 needs to go back to computer building school. That airflow design with the stupid plastic shroud over the PCIe slots completely infringes on PCIe spec and I've run across several GPUs that just don't fit in the Z8x0 because of that.

Ultimately it's not the tower that is the inherent problem -- other than the amount of typically wasted space within them and terribly inefficient cooling due to the only somewhat directed airflow or targeted liquid/ vapor cooling used. A small tower or cube is still the way to go, but a massive re-thinking is in order. None of the PC vendors want to deviate from reference designs and established form factors for new motherboards and related components. Really makes it difficult to advance the industry. OTOH, it only takes one computer maker to break the mold with a product that becomes popular and everyone follows suit. Apple continuously does it with their notebooks -- too bad they can't find a way to do it with a pro workstation. 2013 Mac Pro -- right idea. Poor execution. Almost like they weren't sure just who they were designing the system for...
 
The reason Apple takes such a laggy, hesitant approach to the Mac Pro is because building workstations is for losers.

It's quite obvious what the problem is: there isn't a single component in a Mac Pro worth drooling over, that Apples makes. Outside of running Mac OS, what sets a Mac Pro apart from a generic PC? Not much.

Going by your (as in most people in this thread) posts, few people here sees a workstation as anything more that a simple sum of its parts. You get your CPU, your GPU, a few slots, SSDs, RAM and so on. In true PC building mentality, you can look up the prices of those components online—and then you get the price tag of how much that computer is worth. And guess what, Apple does pretty much the same! They look at the Mac Pro and ask themselves where the money is in that machine.

I'm sure someone goes "but it's exactly the same thing for any other phone or Notebook". But it isn't. A mobile phone or Notebook still has enough design in it (not just how it looks, but how it's built) to become more than the sum of it's parts. Even if Apple still relies on other manufacturers for key components here, when it's built it's enough 'Apple' for them to price it accordingly. And people who buy these things know to value the design (again—not just a question of looks).

Since anyone can build a workstation with off the shelves components, a large number of people will just look at final price vs number crunching ability. That's totally fine. It's performance in its rawest form. It's also the reason I built my own PCs back then. But Apple don't typically compete on price (since it's an unsustainable race to the bottom).

I think the current Mac Pro design is a mistake. No one asked for a portable Mac Pro. Well, maybe a few did—and it can be useful as someone has already stated above—but it's not the core function of a workstation. We want power and expandability. But there we are again: what good is it to Apple if I can make my 4.1 or 5.1 last 10 years because I can buy next gen CPUs or GPUs from other companies?

While this 'reality' might be annoying, we can't be ridiculously naive here.

I think the rumors of a gfx infused display sound great. I think that display is coming later this fall, together with the new MacBook Pros. Think of the size of a 27" display. You think Apple would put a graphics card in there? No. They'll put 4. Four small chips producing awesome parallel power. Not just to cover the display's needs, but to boost the performance of any computer hooked up to it. That's the kind of solution that Apple needs. Something unique and custom that looks and works great.

A new MacBook Pro with two 27" 5k displays with 8 gfx cores sounds good to me. Power at home and portability on the road: I'll take it.
 
Sergio Perez said:
Am I the only one waiting for a Macbook Pro 15" with Thunderbolt 3, more Ram, faster GPU and a 4K retina screen while keeping the excellent form factor?
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I was until I bought a Dell 5510 notebook.
 
DJ Meyer said:
The latest data I could find claims the workstation market is growing. Not quickly, but ~2% vs -11% for overall "PC" market.
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Software design development is catching up and even starting to push current hardware design development versus staying a couple years behind. The HPC market which media content creation is part of is really one of the keys driving that at the moment with the hardware development cycle now down to 1 to 1.5 years on average.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Here's what I want to see from Apple:

Scalable and modular configuration architecture that allows for single i7 or Xeon CPU or dual Xeon CPUs within the same system / logic board design. 4 (preferably 8) RAM slots per CPU socket. 5 PCIe slots, maybe 6. Proper spacing to run up to 4 dual-width GPUs. Internal support for 2.5" devices. Preferably 8 bays. As well as dual PCIe M.2 style connections. Base configuration with minimal, but functional GPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB flash and quad-core i7 CPU should come in under $1500. And I want to configure any option I want all the way up to dual Xeon with quad GPUs, 2TB flash, 8 X 4TB NVMe SSDs and 512GB RAM. Equip it with dual TB3 ports and make the jump to USB 3.5 ahead of everyone else and they could completely dominate the workstation niche of the computing market.
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Sounds like you largely just described what I asked for (a Z840 Mac Edition) with the main difference being the manufacturer.

And, perhaps, the price...
 
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