The New Mac Pro is Here!!!

[Jarek Zabczynski]

They listened!!! Cheesegrater 2.0!!!

https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

•Intel Xeon processor up to 28 cores
•12 RAM Slots
•8 PCIe Slots, 4 Doublewide
•Two MPX Modules for up to four GPUs
•AMD Graphics Only (so far)
•Two Apple SSD modules
•Optional “Afterburner” dedicated video editing card
•Two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
•Thunderbolt and USB-A Expansion cards available
•2x Internal SATA and USB-A Ports (Use Unknown)
•Two 10Gb Ethernet ports
•Rack Mount version optional
•Optional Wheels
•Keyboard and Mouse Included
•Starting at $5,999
•Available Fall 2019

Still waiting for full specs, I'll add them here when posted!

So excited!!!

 

[Michael Wahba]

Definitely want to hear more about Red support and how the 8k playback strides may be at play with this machine.

It looks great. It's been a while since Apple has produced something I'm this excited about. Shame on the $1,000 monitor stand though. That was a low-blow. Lol

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I'm sure Red will support the Afterburner card. It's meant to handle Prores RAW, which AFIK is similar to R3D in many ways.

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

I’m assuming RED will make use of the Afterburner card in the same way they use the RT Cores in Nvidia systems. This will probably do the heavy lifting.

In some ways it blows my mind that Apple created this just so it could bypass putting Nvidia cards in its system, and in other ways it shows that Apple is very serious about investing in new tech for its Pro market.

Curious for real-world demos on R3D files.

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I wonder what these are for?

Looks like 2x SATA, 1 USB-A, and a power connection?

Maybe there will be a cage for a couple 2.5mm drives?

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

Is the Afterburner a standard in this Mac pro? Or is it an addon?
It kinda seems like a step backward to have a dedicated hardware as opposed to having a GPU do it (kinda like the old days of a red rocket x)...at least with GPU you can increase speed as technology advances....

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Is the Afterburner a standard in this Mac pro? Or is it an addon?
It kinda seems like a step backward to have a dedicated hardware as opposed to having a GPU do it (kinda like the old days of a red rocket x)...at least with GPU you can increase speed as technology advances....

It will be an optional purchase.

I think it's great because not everyone needs it. This really is the most customizable Mac ever.

I'm just scared how much those dual graphics cards will be.

 

[Mike Halper]

Internal USB-A is common on workstation motherboards. Important for dongles and other things you don't want someone to just remove. SATA and power for internal drive expansion or for an alternate I/O expansion card than what comes with it.

 

[Brian Timmons]

Pro app developers react to the new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019...react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/

Jarred mentions Metal support for R3D.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Internal USB-A is common on workstation motherboards. Important for dongles and other things you don't want someone to just remove. SATA and power for internal drive expansion or for an alternate I/O expansion card than what comes with it.

Ah...nice place for my Resolve dongle.

 

[Remington Chase]

Make Mac Grate Again!

 

[Blair Thornton]

Pro app developers react to the new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019...react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/

Jarred mentions Metal support for R3D.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

I especially like the: “Apple’s new hardware will bring a mind-blowing level of performance to Metal-accelerated, proxy-free R3D workflows in Final Cut Pro X that editors truly have never seen before. We are very excited to bring a Metal-optimized version of R3D in September.” — Jarred Land, president, Red Digital Cinema

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Holy shit. This thing is sublime. I haven't been excited about computers since, well, a long time ago. Apple has indeed outdone itself.

I mean this affectionately, but:

 

[Ivan Verlaan]

I'm very relieved to see that R3D will be metal optimized this year! The whole Nvidia / Apple mess has already been talked to death, but has certainly been an extremely frustrating place of limbo for my studio.

What's not very clear right now (day of the announcement, granted) is how this plays with the new video-specific Afterburner Kit. That seems to be specifically for ProRes and ProRes RAW, at least in the initial marketing materials. BMD says that they are already supporting the Afterburner in Resolve:

“DaVinci Resolve is the world’s most advanced color correction and online editing software for high-end film and television work. It was the first professional software to adopt Metal and now, with the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we’re seeing full-quality 8K performance in real time with color correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade and finish movies and TV shows.” — Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design

I'm not sure Afterburner is a Metal accelerator, so much as a co-processor that you can access for specific purposes if you write code for it... Apple calls it a "programmable ASIC" on the MacPro page. So, that might not actually help with R3D workflows, unless Red also optimizes their decoding for Afterburner... but it sounds like they're betting on Metal, which is GPU dependent.

It gets tricker once you factor for your post platform of choice... clearly FCPX will take advantage of Afterburner, as will Resolve (though, not necessarily for R3D??), but the Adobe quote doesn't mention Afterburner, just the general power of the new MacPro. And there's certainly a lot of Metal power on tap with a couple of Vega II Duals

Thankfully, there are a few months to go before release, so hopefully we'll get more details on how to best configure a system. Fingers crossed... I hope that a good video-capable spec doesn't double the $6k starting price :blush:

 

[Ivan Verlaan]

Also of interest to us video folks... An MPX module that seems to be a 4x HDD RAID kit! Massive internal storage was one possible negative I saw in this new design, but now I'm excited to see what OWC and others come up with along these lines!

Scroll to the bottom of the Tech Specs page https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

Anyone knows the price of afterburner?

 

[Brian Timmons]

I especially like the: “Apple’s new hardware will bring a mind-blowing level of performance to Metal-accelerated, proxy-free R3D workflows in Final Cut Pro X that editors truly have never seen before. We are very excited to bring a Metal-optimized version of R3D in September.” — Jarred Land, president, Red Digital Cinema

Indeed. One of the biggest takeaways from that press release is that almost every company statement specifies Metal support.
That's a particularly big development for the 3D and VFX area that were uncertain about Macs when Apple announced they were moving away from Open GL.

I also remember hearing toward the end of the keynote that Apple were making Metal related announcements later this year.

Not an engineer but I recall hearing statements that Metal is not quite as mature as CUDA as a graphics language.
Hopefully future developments of Metal will allow for comparable R3D performance with GPUs similar to the latest CUDA updates and will allow
RED to leverage the power of this new Afterburner card.

Afterburner is a rather radical addition as it's an FPGA based card and thus flexible in functionality. Been a while since Apple included this type of exotic hardware (albeit as an upgrade) in one of their systems.

An Apple box that can handle 4 GPUs and a powerful dedicated video processing card is beyond what most people ever expected.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Antony Newman]

It is fascinating that Apple have decided to go FGPA.

I am guessing that FGPA's low latency was critical for Apples AR/VR ambition - which then opened up the option for select Metal code (or new Metal primitives) to get massive acceleration, and at much lower wattage than a heavyweight GPU.

I wonder how Apple will manage all the Pro App's FGPA flashing needs?

AJ

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

Ah...nice place for my Resolve dongle.

Yes, I've seen many an iLok USB dongle locked into the older Mac Pro towers when I was working more in audio.

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

Indeed. One of the biggest takeaways from that press release is that almost every company statement specifies Metal support.
That's a particularly big development for the 3D and VFX area that were uncertain about Macs when Apple announced they were moving away from Open GL.

I also remember hearing toward the end of the keynote that Apple were making Metal related announcements later this year.

Not an engineer but I recall hearing statements that Metal is not quite as mature as CUDA as a graphics language.
Hopefully future developments of Metal will allow for comparable R3D performance with GPUs similar to the latest CUDA updates and will allow
RED to leverage the power of this new Afterburner card.

Afterburner is a rather radical addition as it's an FPGA based card and thus flexible in functionality. Been a while since Apple included this type of exotic hardware (albeit as an upgrade) in one of their systems.

An Apple box that can handle 4 GPUs and a powerful dedicated video processing card is beyond what most people ever expected.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

I'm just excited that Apple has decided to push forward with this sort of idea via their own hardware and not relying on someone else. I'm hoping that the developers and software creators really make use of this offering to prove that they want Apple's Pro platform to survive. If they do, I can only imagine how this sort of technology might be integrated into the Mac platform's new hardware into the future (as tech gets smaller, cheaper, and more efficient) - especially as Apple realizes the investment was worth it. Come on Moore's Law.