Mac Pro update April 4, 2017, and new Mac Pro design in 2018 with new Apple display.

[Eug]

It's good to hear they haven't abandoned the Mac Pro (and pro displays) just yet. Today we get a minor update to the existing Mac Pro. The new Mac Pro design is not coming in 2017, but it will be out in 2018.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/

The gist of the article is that Apple admits they fscked up with the trash can Mac Pro design. The main issue is they designed it around a dual-GPU philosophy, but what this meant is it was poorly suited for faster single GPUs and for top single-threaded performance too. That and other issues basically meant it couldn't be easily updated in the way many of their pro users wanted, so they're rethinking the entire design.

IOW, they repeated the mistakes they made with the Power Mac Cube. And maybe like the Cube, I'll buy one when the price brings them into sub $500 category, just to add to my collection.

---

BTW, here are the Mac Pro updates for today:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/04/apple-upgrades-2013-mac-pros-with-more-cores-faster-gpus

The base $2,999 model is being boosted from 4 cores to 6, and from twin AMD FirePro D300 cards to a pair of D500 units. The $3,999 model is growing from 6 cores to 8, and switching its twin GPUs from the D500 to the D700.

 

[Commodus]

Very good news, to say the least. My question: will they still start at $3K, or will Apple offer an olive branch? I miss the Power Mac G5 days when you could get a $1,500 model that was clearly the "I just want a headless desktop Mac" version. Not counting on that price, certainly, but it'd be great if there was a version with high-end consumer parts.

As it stands, the same discussion also had Apple talking about pro iMac configs this year, and that might scratch the itch. I'd probably be happy with one of those if it just had high-quality graphics (c'mon, bring back NVIDIA).

 

[Kaido]

Just came in to post this...Apple announcing a hardware product a year early, what the heck?? lol.

For me, it's too late. I already switched to the Windows platform for my video editing years ago, after FCPX & the trashcan were released. The message to me, at the time, was that Apple didn't care about Pro's & wanted to focus on iOS & laptops. My workflow is almost entirely cross-platform though, and I do prefer OSX, so I'll reserve judgement until I see what they have to offer. Hackintosh is still an extremely viable option as well. But with Windows, I can hop on eBay & buy a pair of 22-core E5-2696v4 Xeon chips for as low as $1,399 each, throw them in a sub-$500 dual-socket ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS motherboard, and have an insane DCC machine. Plus NVMe drives up to 2TB, NVIDIA Quadro cards up to 24 gigs each, built-in Bluray burner, the works. Same apps (Premiere, Resolve, etc.), different OS, so unless you specifically want Mac-specific tools like Final Cut & Autodesk Smoke, there's nothing really holding anyone back from being "creative" on a Windows machine these days. But so many other things work on both now...Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Houdini, Nuke, etc. It's not like Aperture or iPhoto even exists anymore either.

Meh. We'll see, Apple, we'll see.

 

[Kaido]

Very good news, to say the least. My question: will they still start at $3K, or will Apple offer an olive branch? I miss the Power Mac G5 days when you could get a $1,500 model that was clearly the "I just want a headless desktop Mac" version. Not counting on that price, certainly, but it'd be great if there was a version with high-end consumer parts.

As it stands, the same discussion also had Apple talking about pro iMac configs this year, and that might scratch the itch. I'd probably be happy with one of those if it just had high-quality graphics (c'mon, bring back NVIDIA).

Seriously, right? Let's bump up the comparison to the $4,000 base 6-Core Mac Pro with the dual GPU's, simply because the price vs. performance delta has lagged so much that there's a huge gap now. These are all off-the-shelf parts, available directly off Amazon:

Windows 10 Pro: $140 (installs via a USB stick these days, no need for an optical drive)
EEB-sized rackmount case: $105 (which you can rackmount under your desk, or else spend a bit more on a pimp $310 tower case)
1300w PSU: $223 (way overkill, but why not)
Motherboard: $470
22-core Xeon: $1850 (motherboard supports two if you've got some extra bucks lying around, 44-cores FTW!)
CPU Cooler: $36
512GB NVMe: $330 (NVMe chips are currently available in up to 2TB sizes, or you can go with a regular 2.5" SSD up to 4TB)
32GB ECC RAM: $207 (expandable up to 1,000 gigs of RAM, no joke)
4GB Quadro K1200 GPU: $318
Second 4GB Quadro K1200 GPU: $318

Total: $3,997

Comparison of a Mac Pro vs. a DIY Windows Machine:

macOS Sierra vs. Windows 10 (Mac wins here because OSX is awesome & Microsoft can bite me with their Windows 10 update garbage, lol)
3.5ghz 6-core Xeon vs. 22-core 2.2ghz Xeon (16 extra cores for Windows)
16GB ECC RAM vs. 32GB ECC RAM (16 extra gigs of RAM for Windows, expandable up to 1TB of ECC RAM)
Dual 3GB FirePro D500 GPU's vs. Dual 4GB NVIDIA K1200 GPU's (extra gig per GPU, expandable to up to four 24GB NVIDIA M6000 GPU's)
256gb PCIe SSD vs. 512gb NVMe SSD (250 extra gigs, expandable up to 2TB for NVMe or 4TB for regular SSD...or 10TB if you want a mechnical boot drive!)

Mac Pro bonuses:

1. Small size
2. Runs OSX natively

Windows DIY bonuses:

1. Same price
2. Faster
3. Way more expandable

Oh, one more con of the current Mac Pro...barfs out wires like crazy:

 

[Kaido]

Very good news, to say the least. My question: will they still start at $3K, or will Apple offer an olive branch? I miss the Power Mac G5 days when you could get a $1,500 model that was clearly the "I just want a headless desktop Mac" version. Not counting on that price, certainly, but it'd be great if there was a version with high-end consumer parts.

I'd even be happy with an Intel Skull Canyon NUC equivalent, which can run GPU's through an external GPU box via Thunderbolt (I've built them myself, work great! just did one with a GTX1080). Where's our Mac Mini upgrade? A Mac Mini with an eGPU option would be an awesome mid-range tower for people who want a "tower" equivalent without shelling out thousands for an actual Mac Pro.

 

[Commodus]

Just came in to post this...Apple announcing a hardware product a year early, what the heck?? lol.

For me, it's too late. I already switched to the Windows platform for my video editing years ago, after FCPX & the trashcan were released. The message to me, at the time, was that Apple didn't care about Pro's & wanted to focus on iOS & laptops. My workflow is almost entirely cross-platform though, and I do prefer OSX, so I'll reserve judgement until I see what they have to offer. Hackintosh is still an extremely viable option as well. But with Windows, I can hop on eBay & buy a pair of 22-core E5-2696v4 Xeon chips for as low as $1,399 each, throw them in a sub-$500 dual-socket ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS motherboard, and have an insane DCC machine. Plus NVMe drives up to 2TB, NVIDIA Quadro cards up to 24 gigs each, built-in Bluray burner, the works. Same apps (Premiere, Resolve, etc.), different OS, so unless you specifically want Mac-specific tools like Final Cut & Autodesk Smoke, there's nothing really holding anyone back from being "creative" on a Windows machine these days. But so many other things work on both now...Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Houdini, Nuke, etc. It's not like Aperture or iPhoto even exists anymore either.

Meh. We'll see, Apple, we'll see.

I look at it this way: the very fact that Apple is even admitting that it needs a more modular design is important. This is the company where everything seems predestined toward smaller, simpler and less expandable (that's not always a bad thing, to be clear). Here, it's recognizing that pros by their very nature need a degree of complexity and flexibility.

On that note: I can't help but think that the current MacBook Pro is one of the last Macs Apple made before turning around that philosophy, and that you could see the portable line restoring ports as well down the line. Probably not this year, but with the next significant chance at tweaking the design.

 

[Kaido]

IOW, they repeated the mistakes they made with the Power Mac Cube. And maybe like the Cube, I'll buy one when the price brings them into sub $500 category, just to add to my collection.

Ah man, now I'm sad. iirc you were on the Cubeowner forum too right? I just got rid of my Cube recently...it was really really really hard to part with, but it just didn't have a place in my home anymore. My current setup is:

Me = Chromebook
TV = Windows VR gaming rig for my Vive
Wife = still rocking our 2011-era Hackintosh

I wanted to keep the Cube on display, but with kids & being in a smallish place...meh. Maybe I'll get one again someday

 

[KeithP]

The new Mac Pro design is not coming in 2017, but it will be out in 2018.

Correct me if I am wrong but that is not what Apple said. They said the new Mac Pro wouldn't be out "this year." I don't believe they ever said it would be out in 2018. Of course, 2018 would be the logical assumption but who knows?

The fact of the matter is Apple's reason for the delay doesn't make much sense. They would have known about the thermal and dual GPU limitations by 2015. Here we are in 2017 and they still haven't been able to design a replacement machine?? How can a company with Apple's resources make such a claim with a straight face?

Apple, and the press that were invited to this briefing, seem to be treating this as a single blip on the radar. When the fact of the matter is that it would be more correct to say this is a repeating pattern.

Apple is once again taking something simple, designing a pro machine, and is making it much more complex than it needs to be.

-KeithP

 

[Kaido]

Correct me if I am wrong but that is not what Apple said. They said the new Mac Pro wouldn't be out "this year." I don't believe they ever said it would be out in 2018. Of course, 2018 would be the logical assumption but who knows?

The fact of the matter is Apple's reason for the delay doesn't make much sense. They would have known about the thermal and dual GPU limitations by 2015. Here we are in 2017 and they still haven't been able to design a replacement machine?? How can a company with Apple's resources make such a claim with a straight face?

Apple, and the press that were invited to this briefing, seem to be treating this as a single blip on the radar. When the fact of the matter is that it would be more correct to say this is a repeating pattern.

Apple is once again taking something simple, designing a pro machine, and is making it much more complex than it needs to be.

-KeithP

I haven't seen a confirmed 2018 date, although Engadget is reporting it as such:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/04/apple-is-sorry-about-the-mac-pro/

One paraphrasing of Schiller said "next year", but I haven't seen a direct quote (even Daring Fireball says they hope it's next year, but that's not confirmed yet). Kind of be silly not to launch it next year though...

 

[KeithP]

Kind of be silly not to launch it next year though...

I would argue no less silly than not having one to go now. Unfortunately I fear the "press" invited to this briefing was probably more concerned about getting invited to the next briefing rather than asking tough questions.

-KeithP

 

[Anubis]

Correct me if I am wrong but that is not what Apple said. They said the new Mac Pro wouldn't be out "this year." I don't believe they ever said it would be out in 2018. Of course, 2018 would be the logical assumption but who knows?

The fact of the matter is Apple's reason for the delay doesn't make much sense. They would have known about the thermal and dual GPU limitations by 2015. Here we are in 2017 and they still haven't been able to design a replacement machine?? How can a company with Apple's resources make such a claim with a straight face?

Apple, and the press that were invited to this briefing, seem to be treating this as a single blip on the radar. When the fact of the matter is that it would be more correct to say this is a repeating pattern.

Apple is once again taking something simple, designing a pro machine, and is making it much more complex than it needs to be.

-KeithP

all of this

FFS they could put modern hardware in a new one of these and it would sell like hotcakes. the market for the pro unit doesn't really care what it looks like, it needs to be powerful and expandable

 

[Commodus]

Correct me if I am wrong but that is not what Apple said. They said the new Mac Pro wouldn't be out "this year." I don't believe they ever said it would be out in 2018. Of course, 2018 would be the logical assumption but who knows?

The fact of the matter is Apple's reason for the delay doesn't make much sense. They would have known about the thermal and dual GPU limitations by 2015. Here we are in 2017 and they still haven't been able to design a replacement machine?? How can a company with Apple's resources make such a claim with a straight face?

Apple, and the press that were invited to this briefing, seem to be treating this as a single blip on the radar. When the fact of the matter is that it would be more correct to say this is a repeating pattern.

Apple is once again taking something simple, designing a pro machine, and is making it much more complex than it needs to be.

-KeithP

My hunch is that Apple missed one update due to technical limits, hoped the next would be better, and realized it was in trouble when it still couldn't get what it wanted. At that point, it had to start thinking seriously about what to do to keep the Mac Pro alive (and, no doubt, whether or not the Mac Pro was worth keeping). It bungled things by waiting too long, but I can see how it would make sense.

It is something of a pattern, but at the same time: the fact that Apple had a sit-down to not only promise a new Mac Pro, but suggest that it actually understands what users want, is important. This is a company that's used to staying silent until there's a new product, and seemed locked into a path where it cared more about minimalism than serving users.

As for complicated: well, I don't think it's quite as simple as we'd like. Even the old "cheese grater" was a very considered design where they were worried about airflow, simple storage upgrades and similar factors. My guess is that Apple isn't just going to freshen up the look of the pre-2013 Mac Pro, add newer parts and call it a day. If it does go back to a tower, it has to reinvigorate support for PCIe cards after telling everyone that the future was Thunderbolt; it has to accommodate more demanding video cards, evolving standards and lessons learned on cooling and expansion. And if it doesn't, it has to find a way to appeal to pros beyond just offering, say, an external GPU.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Very good news, to say the least. My question: will they still start at $3K, or will Apple offer an olive branch? I miss the Power Mac G5 days when you could get a $1,500 model that was clearly the "I just want a headless desktop Mac" version. Not counting on that price, certainly, but it'd be great if there was a version with high-end consumer parts.

As it stands, the same discussion also had Apple talking about pro iMac configs this year, and that might scratch the itch. I'd probably be happy with one of those if it just had high-quality graphics (c'mon, bring back NVIDIA).

Meh. DIY Homebrews aren't the competition. Dell Xeon-based workstations with service contracts are.

They have some ground to make up vs. other workstation integrators, but it's not as bad as you think.

Most of the content creators I know don't do their own tech support.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

all of this

FFS they could put modern hardware in a new one of these and it would sell like hotcakes. the market for the pro unit doesn't really care what it looks like, it needs to be powerful and expandable

+1

 

[Commodus]

Meh. DIY Homebrews aren't the competition. Dell Xeon-based workstations with service contracts are.

They have some ground to make up vs. other workstation integrators, but it's not as bad as you think.

Most of the content creators I know don't do their own tech support.

True, but Dell's Xeon workstations also start below $3K. It's a question of where Apple wants to compete. As it is, Apple mentioned an emphasis on having a single powerful GPU over dual GPUs, so that could change the price. Realistically, I'm not expecting to see anything below $2K, and it'll probably be a $3K rig just with modernized specs.

 

[manly]

I don't expect any mea culpas from Apple regarding the MacBook Pro. I don't have a problem with standardizing around USB-C. The ports issue is that they should've retained one USB A port and MagSafe. (There are other issues but we have a separate thread for that already.)

As for the Trash Can Pro, even without admitting the errors of their ways now, they could've done the CPU and/or GPU speed bumps once, if not twice, since 2015. It's one thing to swing and miss on the big picture (even without realizing it for a while); it's another to show active disdain for your most loyal customers.

I have no idea why they'd bother releasing a "pro" display. Sure they make a nice design, but LCD panels are totally commoditized and Apple really has no competitive advantage whatsoever at this point. What's next, printers?

 

[Commodus]

I have no idea why they'd bother releasing a "pro" display. Sure they make a nice design, but LCD panels are totally commoditized and Apple really has no competitive advantage whatsoever at this point. What's next, printers?

A couple of reasons.

First: strictly from a marketing perspective, it helps a lot. Customers sit down in front of an Apple logo, not an LG logo (or Dell, or...). When Apple pitches the Mac Pro, it can proudly tout an all-Apple offering. You think of it more as an Apple experience and less as a generic computing experience that happens to have Apple involved.

The other part: as with most things Apple does, it offers more control. Apple decides the resolution, the ports, and of course the design. The LG UltraFines are, er, fine, but it's clear that they were typical LG products built with some Apple guidelines in mind.

 

[Kaido]

I would argue no less silly than not having one to go now. Unfortunately I fear the "press" invited to this briefing was probably more concerned about getting invited to the next briefing rather than asking tough questions.

-KeithP

Yes & no...it's the same effect as a movie trailer, because I lot of video pros I know have been feeling left out by Apple, but now that they've announce this, they have a year to get excited about it, start planning an upgrade budget, etc. Plus Apple has to tool up & whatnot. If they had just dropped a new Mac Pro without apologizing first, I think people would be a bit more hesitant to jump onboard, you know? Especially if they went to the Windows camp the last time they did this.

 

[manly]

A couple of reasons.

First: strictly from a marketing perspective, it helps a lot. Customers sit down in front of an Apple logo, not an LG logo (or Dell, or...). When Apple pitches the Mac Pro, it can proudly tout an all-Apple offering. You think of it more as an Apple experience and less as a generic computing experience that happens to have Apple involved.

The other part: as with most things Apple does, it offers more control. Apple decides the resolution, the ports, and of course the design. The LG UltraFines are, er, fine, but it's clear that they were typical LG products built with some Apple guidelines in mind.

Years ago when the Apple Cinema Displays were still a (decent) thing, the "attach rate" of ACDs to Mac Pros and MacBook Pros was fairly low. People don't care that much about the logo when your price is double a competitive product. Don't get me wrong, ACD had some nice attributes such as industrial design, good IPS panels and the nifty octupus cable. But the display is really a commodity item, and just the viewport into the actual Apple UX. Color correctness matters a hell of a lot for graphics artists and videographers but by and large, other display "manufacturers" have figured this out pretty well by now too.

(Detached) Apple displays have very little competitive advantage.

As for a pre-announcement, that doesn't surprise us except for the vagueness. 2018 is a long time away, and are we talking early, mid, or late 2018 (if at all)? IIRC they announced the Trash Can Pro (sorry) in summer 2013 with a promise that it would ship by year's end. In Tesla fashion, I think they slipped a few boxes out the door by Christmas to meet their goal.

 

[Commodus]

Years ago when the Apple Cinema Displays were still a (decent) thing, the "attach rate" of ACDs to Mac Pros and MacBook Pros was fairly low. People don't care that much about the logo when your price is double a competitive product. Don't get me wrong, ACD had some nice attributes such as industrial design, good IPS panels and the nifty octupus cable. But the display is really a commodity item, and just the viewport into the actual Apple UX. Color correctness matters a hell of a lot for graphics artists and videographers but by and large, other display "manufacturers" have figured this out pretty well by now too.

(Detached) Apple displays have very little competitive advantage.

As for a pre-announcement, that doesn't surprise us except for the vagueness. 2018 is a long time away, and are we talking early, mid, or late 2018 (if at all)? IIRC they announced the Trash Can Pro (sorry) in summer 2013 with a promise that it would ship by year's end. In Tesla fashion, I think they slipped a few boxes out the door by Christmas to meet their goal.

That's part of why I emphasized the branding and marketing first. Only so many people actually bought Apple displays, but they helped represent the company.

I wonder if the current display market actually works in Apple's favor. Yeah, 4K and under is either a commodity or quickly hitting that point, but we're at a moment where you can buy some truly exotic screens: 5K, 8K, super-wide, Thunderbolt 3... keep releasing displays that stand out from the pack and you can afford to charge a premium. The Thunderbolt Display suffered in part because it didn't take much for 1440p screens to be commoditized.

 

[lopri]

Maybe I should read the linked article, but what is the advantage of trash can design (v. tower design) for dual-GPU installations?

 

[Commodus]

Maybe I should read the linked article, but what is the advantage of trash can design (v. tower design) for dual-GPU installations?

It's the other way around: the dual-GPU strategy was what made the cylinder work, since Apple could have two lower-power chips were supposed to be as good or better than a single high-power chip. Problem is, of course, that this isn't how it worked out. Apple boxed itself into a corner: it needed to switch to that single powerful GPU, but couldn't because of thermal limitations.