Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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?

Jarek Zabczynski said:
Can’t wait to get amped up for more disappointment.
Click to expand...

I guess that depends on expectations.

I think Apple will continue to make valuable systems that allow people to get their creative work done but it may be in a way different from heavy metal towers and may have certain limits imposed by their vision of their ecosystem (nothing new there).

While I think the new Mac Pro will satisfy many high end users, it will likely come at a hefty high end price.

I think Apple sees the future of personal computers looking more like appliances scaled up in performance by connecting them to other appliances (other Macs, eGPU, etc). I seriously don't think they have a lot of interest in the traditional tower design or even big box systems with PCI slots and are only making the new Mac Pro based on the demand of certain higher end higher profile customers.

In some ways that could seem concerning but in other ways I can see why.

I noticed in the golden age of Mac towers, many pro users hardly maxed out the system in terms of both hard drive bays and PCI expansion slots. Not too many users needed the extra GPUs, SAS cards, video outputs cards, etc.

iMacs, Mac minis, and MacBooks, were not but so powerful back then and there was no real high end solution to expand those systems be it more fast storage or PCI cards.

That's no longer the case (no pun intended).

Between USB 3, Thunderbolt 3, and 10Gb Ethernet many users have what they need to expand the system in ways that are more versatile and sharable, than traditional towers. For example, one can use an eGPU across multiple system (though not at the same time, yet). Raids can now be connected externally with built in connections with relatively minimal performance hits compared to a tower's internal Raid.

10Gig ethernet makes sharing of very large files (video) between systems much smoother.

CPU performance in these non-tower systems has increased drastically and GPU performance can now be expanded.

Many things people used PCI for (RAID controllers, video/audio cards, exotic cards like the RED ROCKETs) are becoming less relevant and have the option of being used in an expansion chassis via thunderbolt.

I think Apple realizes that while there is still a market for powerful big box systems with ample space for internal drives and PCI slots, that market is getting smaller and the tech has established alternatives beyond the traditional 30 or so year approach we're all used to.

Looking at that pic of the new Mac Mini's being used as a render farm may hint at how they see further leveraging this faster connectivity in their systems and scaling performance.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Mac Pro does something similar to these new Mac minis in terms of scaling performance. Again, at a price.

We'll see.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
Can’t wait to get amped up for more disappointment.
Click to expand...

You can always try to run Windows or some fork of Linux on your current apple hardware and see if you can get around with it.
It's a bit like tasting another kind of fruit, learning to drink coffee or your first beer.

Just don't get from one addiction into the other.
 
I like Apple but wait a minute...
I'll defend Apple at times but will call out issues when I see them.

I hope every Apple user who's been involved with this thread signs this petition.

https://www.change.org/p/tim-cook-a...-work-with-nvidia-on-drivers-for-mac-os-10-14

It's one thing to not choose Nvidia as the GPU built into Mac systems but to block
Nvidia and users from using their products on Mac OS is not a good look.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/01/nvidia-comment-on-macos-mojave-drivers/

All users on Mac OS deserve better than this.
I've never been a fan of this behavior and I think it's Apple at its worst.

I don't know Apple's take on this issue but it seems that Nvidia is pushing for
a cooperative effort with Apple. What could you lose in doing that?

And this will have a huge affect on whatever Mac Pro system they're working on as many
pros rightly want the choice of using Nvidia GPUs.

I'm sure many will read this and react with the usual "Apple Sucks" diatribes and that's fine.
But at the end of the day it's noise that huge companies like Apple seldom hears.

Petitions like this are usually much more effective than forum rants which is why I'm posting it.

https://www.change.org/p/tim-cook-a...-work-with-nvidia-on-drivers-for-mac-os-10-14

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
 
People seem to think its just a place holder from Apple, instead of putting some other brand monitor in their own leaflet
 
Change.org : Signed.

Thoughts about the current state of affairs.

1) I understand correctly - Nvidia engineers have advised RED that a MacOS compatible (ie it at least supports CUDA) drivers are available but were not Approved by Apple.
2) There is a divergence of where Apple want METAL acceleration to go and where Nvidia want GPU acceleration to go (according to Apple's Anand S.)
3) We don't know if Nvidia have met Apples METAL API QA requirements for MacOS to use for GPU acceleration.

As Apple support eGPU, and do not make revenue from eGPUs, and Apple would likely sell more computing devices accelerated by Nvidia's top (e)GPUs - it seems a logical conclusion that Nvidia are not yet supporting Apples Metal graphics driver requirement.

If this is the case:
+) In the short term, I would not expect Nvidia to budge. Nvidia would very much like companies to optimise their code for their ML libraries (that use Tensor) and not Apple's CORE ML.
+) By the time Intel joins the GPU forray - I am guessing that it will be the Framework compatibility that drives purchasing decisions for high end compute heavy loads (for machine learning)
+) In the long term - we are probably going to want Apple GPU. Firstly because they are (probably) already at Nvdia's performance/watt level with the GPU parts of the A12X, and secondly because when they do release an AR & ML 'GPU' - Apple will include silicon dedicated to extract an order of magnitude greater performance per watt that integrates optimally with MacOs (from reading between the lines of the Ars Technica interview with Phil S. & Anand)

AJ

Brian Timmons said:
I like Apple but wait a minute...
I'll defend Apple at times but will call out issues when I see them.

I hope every Apple user who's been involved with this thread signs this petition.

https://www.change.org/p/tim-cook-a...-work-with-nvidia-on-drivers-for-mac-os-10-14
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Glad you signed Anthony and interesting analysis of what may be going on behind the scenes.

I'm a little puzzled given how long popular this thread is, there is minimal response to this situation with NVIDIA.
I understand frustration but apathy produces nothing satisfying in life.

Takes less than a minute.
https://www.change.org/p/tim-cook-a...-work-with-nvidia-on-drivers-for-mac-os-10-14

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
 
Brian Timmons said:
I would like to think but don't believe we're quite there yet.

Apple Insider has an interesting article on the issue.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
Click to expand...
Excellent article, makes me feel more confident in my shift to centos. I was a Mac shop, it was really nice from an admin perspective. I have been cutting over to a centos os shop, it is a bit of a pain the admin's butt, but it's so nice being back in charge of the platform and controlling my own destiny. With centos my laptops are now dual 1080's, it's serious power in a laptop. My servers are now rtx 2080 with 32 cores - I think one server is more powerful then all my old Mac pro's and laptops together. It's just insane power moving off of the Mac from a performance perspective, I'm still nostalgic on the ease of the Mac though.
 
I don't know, when I look into my Apple crystal ball, I see ether a tablet as a central hub of the "new super modular MacPro", where you can connect external RAIDs, external GPUs, anwhatnot,
or they go radical, and move everything to the cloud. Processing power as a service, available on every iPad. There are already companies that do exactly that, and some folks are saying, this is the future - just rent processing power as you need it.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of that, but I can see, that Apple is moving more and more into services, instead of hardware.
 
I see the new Mac Pro being similar to the Intel Pro NUC concept that may arrive later this year. Essentially it would be a compact and highly integrated workstation with lots of I/O ports, yet easily accessed for upgrades (RAM, SSD, potentially CPU). It will have integrated GPU, but like the Pro NUC concept will have a PCIe slot, possibly two.

I don’t expect to see drive bays on the upcoming Mac Pro. If I had to guess what we’ll have for I/O and storage would be 6 x ThunderBolt 3 ports, 2 x USB 3.1 Type A ports, an HDMI, 3 or 4 M.2 SSD sockets, 4 x DDR4 memory slots, 1 x PCIe 4.0 X16 slot, 10G Ethernet (possibly x2). And then everyone is going to be like... “but where do I buy a PCIe v4 GPU or RAID card?”

It will probably have 802.11ax WiFi and BlueTooth 5.
 
Upcoming Apple Pro monitor will probably still be 5K, connect via TB3 and support FaceID.
 
Really looking forward to complaining about the new Mac Pro. :biggrin:
 
If Apple engineers are unaware why Nvidia drivers are being blocked by their senior management, could this be a symptom of Apple secrecy rather than a hand-me-down dislike of Nvidia?

As Apple would sell additional Mac H/W in the long-term if Nvidia e-GPU's were compatible with MacOs - it seems likely there is a shortish-term reason for Apple to take this position.

Scenario Guesses:
+) Apple want to increase the sales of the MMP (as there will be no stopgap NV e-GPU upgrade to boost the Trashcan)
+) Apple want to offer their first Desktop GPU as standard for the MMP.
+) Apple want to introduce an alternative eGPU connection architecture in the MMP that AMD will be given first dibs (to build the one that comes as standard).
+) Apple want to keep 'leveling up' the GPU playing field to accelerate AMDs return to the black - in order to put pressure on NVidia to lower the OEM bulk sales price for high end server grade GPUs.

AJ
 
I fully expect Apple to move to their own GPUs, but probably not in time for the 2019 Mac Pro. We are seeing support for AMD Navi in beta OSX builds as well as some other CPU designations that could be attributed to a new Mac Pro. I'm expecting a refresh of the iMac Pro with updated Navi GPU to happen with WWDC.
 
Would they really refresh the iMacPro at the same time they introduce the new MacPro? You'd think they'd intro the MacPro first, let people gobble it up and then silently update the iMacPro afterwards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top