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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 :)

The New Mac Pro is Here!!!

FWIW, I think RedUsers are the bullseye of the target market for the 7,1 MacPro. I fully expect a $12-20K MP 7,1 config to be fabulous for the workflows most of us use. I would further suggest that folks needing more compute power than that will need machine/server room racks anyway.

If the mMP 7,1 is as fundamentally sound as it projects to be - easy access case design, premium 1400w PSU, support for 68 PCIe lanes, etc - and the ability to upgrade regularly - they should pay for themselves long before they are obsolete. Looking forward to seeing just what the Afterburner card can actually do, on paper its a beast.

Cheers - #19
 
Marc Wielage said:
I have it on good authority it will be able to speed up other camera formats, too, before the end of the year. Possibly at product launch.
Click to expand...

As Spock would say...


I didn't think they would base the card on FPGAs if they didn't plan on
expanding functionality beyond the ProRes family.


Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA
 
I think JL alluded to Proxy-Free R3D processing on the MMP / and a Metal optimised R3D SDK.
+) I presume the first part of this refers to Apple breaking their own rules (by extending the OS to include 3rd party FPGA code)
+) That RED will leverage the new OS feature to let it load balance Metal workload over multiple GPU / possibly even use the new ‘GPU channel’ (PCIe 3 based Infinity Fabric)

If Apple believe that the GPU-GPU fabric is going to have a huge impact on the performance of the MMP, how would a MMP with 2xNAVI perform compared to 2xMDX modules (each with Dual Vega)?
+) Each MDX connects to a single PCIe 3 x 16. Two x MDX (4 Vega) would have the same bandwidth as 2 x NAVI connected directly to the motherboard
+) NAVI run ?50% faster than VEGA.
+) NAVI Infinity Fabric (based on PCIe 4) is twice as fast as VEGA

If 2xNAVI is 75% the performance of 4 Vega in MDX modules - this will make purchasing decisions interesting.

And if the Speed-up is attributed to the Infinity Fabric - this will be a big win for Apple & AMD, who will benefit from 3rd party development for Metal and the IF respectively.

AJ
 
Marc Wielage said:
I have it on good authority it will be able to speed up other camera formats, too, before the end of the year. Possibly at product launch.
Click to expand...

At the higher end of the spectrum, the only codec that needs speeding up is .R3D at a low compression ratio. X-OCN is not that heavy, ARRIRAW is uncompressed logged, so also pretty light, Canon RAW is light and Panasonic VRAW is also light.

In the midrange BMD's BRAW doesn't need it, Canon RAW light doesn't need it, Sony's FS7 XAVC-I doesn't need it, etc..

Long GOP codecs(h264, h265, VP9) are pretty well handled by NVidia Turing and AMD Navi.

So that leaves us kind of with .R3D at the camera side and AV1 at the delivery side(at their current resolutions) that might benefit from a speedboost.

It will come down to the cost of the afterburner vs. the cost of CPU's and GPU's that currently handle these codecs.


A fully specced Mac Pro incl. Afterburner card can only handle 3x ProResRAW(HQ?) 8k streams in realtime. ProResRAW HQ is atleast 4 times lighter on the CPU than R3D at a 3:1/5:1 compression ratio. With a Threadripper 2950x + 3 RTX titan X's you can achieve that today with 3 streams of 8k.R3D 5:1 24 fps. All the software that will see an optimalisation for Metal is already optimized for CUDA.
 
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I didn't fully understand by now if this new R3D format will only benefit of the Mac Pro afterburner card or all Metal Based Macs with AMD GPUs? Did they clearly state that?
 
Misha,

Algorithms with few variables, small memory footprint and mathematics that resemble the native assembler of a CPU can run incredibly efficiently on a CPU.

That same algorithm may or may not run efficiently on an GPU (depending if the algorithm can be expressed natively).

If an algorithm can be expressed with higher level operations (eg FFT / massive matrix dot products / Wavelet processing) with fewer loops - it may end up being More efficiently expressed on an FPGA than a simpler algorithm that uses basic maths and large loop counts.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...-noising_using_Haar_level_5_wavelet_transform

RED likely already knows what FPGA's can do in realtime on 28nm silicon [RRX]. Scaling that 14nm .. or if Apple have pulled out all the stops.. a 7nm monster .. would inform them of what the Afterburner could do in the world of Decrypt - Decompress - and Debayering.

AJ
 
Antony Newman said:
Misha,

Algorithms with few variables, small memory footprint and mathematics that resemble the native assembler of a CPU can run incredibly efficiently on a CPU.

That same algorithm may or may not run efficiently on an GPU (depending if the algorithm can be expressed natively).

If an algorithm can be expressed with higher level operations (eg FFT / massive matrix dot products / Wavelet processing) with fewer loops - it may end up being More efficiently expressed on an FPGA than a simpler algorithm that uses basic maths and large loop counts.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...-noising_using_Haar_level_5_wavelet_transform

RED likely already knows what FPGA's can do in realtime on 28nm silicon [RRX]. Scaling that 14nm .. or if Apple have pulled out all the stops.. a 7nm monster .. would inform them of what the Afterburner could do in the world of Decrypt - Decompress - and Debayering.

AJ
Click to expand...

I pretty much know the ins and outs of CPU's, GPU's, FPGA's etc...

The thing is that Apple showcased a fully specced MacPro, that can handle 3x 8k streams of ProResRAW.
In the ProResRAW whitepaper Apple showed that ProResRAW is ~ 4 times lighter than R3D 3:1/5:1.

Let's assume that 8k 24fps ProResRAW HQ needs the same compute power as 8k .R3D 5:1 24 fps.

Estimating that the MacPro used in the demo cost around ~$30k+
where a similar powered Threadripper + 3 RTX Titan X cost ~$15k.
(256 GB DDR4 3200 cl14~ $2,800, cpu $850, AIO-cooler $250, MB with 2x 10G $500, 3 RTX Titans $7500,1 sata SSD as systemdrive 2TB $500, 2x 2TB NVMe SSD's $1,200, PSU 1500 Watt $ 350, Case $300, small material $150 ~ totals $15k)

Both systems can handle the same workload at the same speed (3x 8k streams at the highest quality).
All software mentioned during Apples WWDC is already(or in process of being) optimize for the NVidia GPU's, we just have to wait for NLE's implementing the RED+NVidia SDK(which is already available) for GPU decoding and I still haven't heard of any camera producing 8k ProResRAW.
 
Misha Engel said:
I still haven't heard of any camera producing 8k ProResRAW.
Click to expand...

The new Atomos Neon recorders can be upgraded to do 8K ProRes RAW with the appropriate cameras. That was announced with the new Mac Pro design and Afterburner cards.
 
L. Langer said:
The new Atomos Neon recorders can be upgraded to do 8K ProRes RAW with the appropriate cameras. That was announced with the new Mac Pro design and Afterburner cards.
Click to expand...

I still haven't heard of any appropriate camera with enough SDI or HDMI outputs that can output an 8k RAW signal.
 
With the Tokyo Olympics roughly a year away, I would expect the universe of shipping 8K cameras to expand rather quickly. Will any of them have 8KRAW spigots? Perhaps, but how many? I do expect several to have live 8K RGB (likely 4,320 x 7,680 16:9 raster) outputs for broadcast, probably only 8bit subsampled color to start.

Over the last decade many have decried the focus on more pixels and wished for better pixels (starting with bit depth). Since sports coverage is leading the way to 8K at 60fps (or even 120) the first wave of devices will likely decimate color information rather aggressively to facilitate "manageable" signal transport data rates. AFAIK, RED DSMC2 is the only current camera platform that offers 8K and legit color information.

Perhaps the more interesting discussion is what DSMC3 will offer. Will we break through the 300MB/s cap on DSMC2 mini-mag write speeds? My guess is 600MB/s with potentially a short cache based "burst" rate. We'll see. IAC, writing R3Ds is one thing - what about internally processed RGB signals? Some flavor of 8K ProRes seems likely, perhaps with frame rate limitations and 422 color, but still very useful on many assignments. I think low latency 10bit 4K RGB monitoring will come standard, but 8K???

Back in DSMC1 days, RED made a 4K (actually UHD spec) broadcast module that included some processing muscle and a SMPTE fiber connector for hard lined EFP production. Total speculation alert - it seems like an 8K module designed to integrate with live broadcast infrastructure might be on the road map for DSMC3 to expand the market. If RED decides to create such a thing, it might have the secondary benefit of having enough added processing capacity to support 8K monitoring. While the engineers at RED might be able to get enough oomph inside the new brain to push out live 8K RGB, it seems like a stretch.

FWIW, for the first time since the release of the RedOne, the road map for RED cameras is not obvious. Odds are that DSMC3 will be an evolution of DSMC2 - but there are other ways to go...

Cheers - #19
 
raspro.png


https://www.instructables.com/id/Rasp-Pro/

 
Call them cheese graters, trash cans, form over function, whatever - at the end of the day it seems like the kind of nickname denigration regularly used by a certain reality TV personality.

I appreciate Misha's contrarian takes and Apple deserves plenty of criticism. That said, might I suggest we wait until the mMP 7,1 is a shipping computer before passing judgement...

Thanx - #19
 
New Mac Pro is way more functional as a cheese grater than the 2013 Mac Pro was at being a trash can.... Just sayin’
 
Goin' mobile

Goin' mobile

Can't imagine they'd commit to a redesign and keep the hated keyboard. More resolution always welcome around here. I see 16" as a good compromise between screen real estate and portability, though I'd happily go to 19" for a 4K display...

Issues:
1) What CPU will it use?
2) How powerful of a GPU will it be able to host? Will it use a Thunderbolt 3 implementation that can support higher throughput with eGPUs?
3) Will it support 64GB RAM? 128? 256?
4) Will it have enough cooling to run full bore for hours?

Assuming there are enough lanes of PCIe available to an eGPU, optimized drivers and support for connecting a display directly to the eGPU it might be the ticket for folks who prefer Mac OSX and don't want to lay out the big coin for the new 7,1 MacPro... BTW, if you plan to make it your primary machine - I suggest you find a laptop cooler for it to sit on when under sustained loads.

Cheers - #19
 
I should point out that you can ALREADY preorder a PCIe gen4 SSD from Corsair - and it's reasonably priced too!
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14584/corsair-mp600-pcie-4-ssd-available-for-preorder-2tb
Here is something the new MacPro already will never be able to support.

Also AMD's 64-core Epyc chip prices have leaked and they're quite reasonable too. And fast.

Hmm, no PCIe 4.0, no NVIDIA GPU, no AMD CPUs... Sorry Apple, you missed again for me.

For everyone defending Apple, ask yourselves this: What if Apple announced a nice 16" laptop with a nice keyboard...

And then said "AND ONE MORE THING" and announced an AMD Epyc Mac Pro with NVIDIA options?

Everyone would leap on in a heartbeat. I bet AMD CPU + NVIDIA GPU would outsell this Xeon + AMD GPU nonsense they announced by a 2:1 ratio.

I kinda feel Apple is just being stubborn because they feel like it.

I mean what is the business case AGAINST a Mac Pro with 64-core Epyc chip and lotsa TITAN RTXes?

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv
 
I think the issue with Nvidia is due to a previous generation MacBook Pro which had a recall due to faulty Nvidia cards. Also, the fact that CUDA seems to be proprietary doesn't help. Apple doesn't seem too keen on being "locked" to non apple proprietary things...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
New Mac Pro is way more functional as a cheese grater than the 2013 Mac Pro was at being a trash can.... Just sayin’
Click to expand...

My "trash can" has worked just fine since I got it in early 2014. It has made me hundreds of thousands of dollars...so it can' be all bad. Works with FCPX just fine.
 
Scot Yount said:
My "trash can" has worked just fine since I got it in early 2014. It has made me hundreds of thousands of dollars...so it can' be all bad. Works with FCPX just fine.
Click to expand...

A dozen of the first batch here.
A few years ago I was reading on overheating issues and did not experience it till a few months ago with a D700.
That's one of 12 and after an OS re-install, the unit is serving fine as a graphics design station.
We shall see how long the other one will last.
Its hosting Avid and Pro Tools hardware.
I am hoping it dies, maybe I can replace with the new model :)
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
New Mac Pro is way more functional as a cheese grater than the 2013 Mac Pro was at being a trash can.... Just sayin’
Click to expand...

Im gonna miss being able to just grab the Mac Pro and buckle it to my front passenger at any time :(

The new one looks heavier than a Z840 :P
 
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