New Mac Pro - PCIe 1.25 GB/s SSD, Dual ATI/AMD FirePro GPUs with 3X 4K monitors

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
Yes, there is no internal expansion. So, for the GPUs at most you'll get is daughter cards, but there's a good chance everything is soldered.

Not sure about that. Apple's official "New Mac Pro" photo that includes the 2 AMD GPU's appear to be more or less standard PC video cards, except that the end brackets are chopped off. They're shown attached to the triangular shaped central column for heat transfer purposes. Most likely serviceable at a Genius Bar at least, if not by the end user.

apple-mac-pro-01.jpg
 
Last edited:

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Not sure about that. Apple's official "New Mac Pro" photo that includes the 2 AMD GPU's appear to be more or less standard PC video cards, except that the end brackets are chopped off. They're shown attached to the triangular shaped central column for heat transfer purposes. Most likely serviceable at a Genius Bar at least, if not by the end user.

apple-mac-pro-01.jpg

Yea, looking at those blocks at the bottom, that might be the power and data interface area. I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing how much this is, and then seeing a teardown.
 

sxr7171

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2002
5,079
40
91
Not sure about that. Apple's official "New Mac Pro" photo that includes the 2 AMD GPU's appear to be more or less standard PC video cards, except that the end brackets are chopped off. They're shown attached to the triangular shaped central column for heat transfer purposes. Most likely serviceable at a Genius Bar at least, if not by the end user.

apple-mac-pro-01.jpg

If those could be changed at will then that changes this machine completely in my eyes. Then again I'm not the target market for it.
 

HaukSwe

Member
Jul 6, 2010
96
3
66
So... how well do you guys think this thing will run games? :) I mean these FirePro GPU's aren't exactly meant for that right.

I'm only going to buy a mac for my main station. I'm a casual Mac gamer (which means I play very few games) but when I do I want it to run well.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
So... how well do you guys think this thing will run games? :) I mean these FirePro GPU's aren't exactly meant for that right.

I'm only going to buy a mac for my main station. I'm a casual Mac gamer (which means I play very few games) but when I do I want it to run well.

FirePro vs Radeon & Quadro vs GeForce is mostly a marketing/driver difference. The hardware is the same, and you can swap out drivers (at least in Windows) like you swap out tires (so there's a little work involved, but not too time consuming). I don't know what they are going to be doing with this, but the raw performance is certainly there, it's just a matter of having the drivers and OS telling it what to do with it.
 

joshhedge

Senior member
Nov 19, 2011
601
0
0
FirePro vs Radeon & Quadro vs GeForce is mostly a marketing/driver difference. The hardware is the same, and you can swap out drivers (at least in Windows) like you swap out tires (so there's a little work involved, but not too time consuming). I don't know what they are going to be doing with this, but the raw performance is certainly there, it's just a matter of having the drivers and OS telling it what to do with it.

Is the Mac Pro OP for Candy Crush? :sneaky:
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Not sure about that. Apple's official "New Mac Pro" photo that includes the 2 AMD GPU's appear to be more or less standard PC video cards, except that the end brackets are chopped off. They're shown attached to the triangular shaped central column for heat transfer purposes. Most likely serviceable at a Genius Bar at least, if not by the end user.

According to this close-up from Anand, he is saying that they are removable. And if they are removable, they are replaceable.

Is the Mac Pro OP for Candy Crush? :sneaky:

I don't know what that means.
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
According to this close-up from Anand, he is saying that they are removable. And if they are removable, they are replaceable.
Those two pictured AMD GPU's are not identical. The one on the right also includes a small ~1" wide white "ledge" which is used as a proprietary PCIe socket for the system SSD storage. I suppose there could be made available a pair of equivalent nVidia GPU compatible replacement parts, but sort of seems unlikely.
Apple's attitude of "my way or the highway", etc.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Those two pictured AMD GPU's are not identical. The one on the right also includes a small ~1" wide white "ledge" which is used as a proprietary PCIe socket for the system SSD storage. I suppose there could be made available a pair of equivalent nVidia GPU compatible replacement parts, but sort of seems unlikely.
Apple's attitude of "my way or the highway", etc.

We'll see.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
5,470
136
I'm pretty bummed that you can't swap out the GPUs, but I love this machine overall.

Hasn't been confirmed yet, and I'm betting they *will* be upgradable. From the looks of it, it's just going to take custom-sized GPU's. So that would kill the GPU black market on the Mac Pro. Otherwise it'd have to use external GPU's for expansion, but Tbolt 2 is only PCIe v2, not v3, plus you have to take the overhead hit, so you're not going to get max bus speed that way either.

I don't see many pros buying a Mac Pro that doesn't have upgradable graphics - that's what an iMac is for.
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
Well, except for the GPU's being "AMD only".
Maybe they'll relent and offer optional nVidia workstation GPU's?

Seems like the biggest gripe is CUDA support.
However with the recent comments BlackMagic devs concerning Davinci Resolve 10's performance on the machine w/ OpenCL I don't see that as much of a problem. (Said it SCREAMS on the new machine)

People underestimate Apple's influence with the major software developers.
Hell, Apple and Adobe have a love hate relationship and they are porting Primer Pro CC to OpenCL.

Its really up to the developers and we don't know what kind of pressure Apple has been putting on them but I have no doubt that when this launches they will have most (if not all) of the primetime developers lined up supporting OpenCL.
 
Last edited:

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
My wife's first impression was awesome: "The old one had handles so you could lift it. What do you do with this one? Roll it?"

Heh heh!

To me, this fits right in with Apple's gutting of the 'Pro' line with everything else.

Final Cut Pro becomes iMovie Pro.

Mac Pro becomes Mac Mini Pro.

(According to some audio people I know, Logic becomes ilLogic.)

The image of the quintessential high-end Mac user continues to fade from 'global entertainment company edit bay' to 'guy in basement making YouTube videos'.

I don't know a single working pro that was clamoring for a smaller workstation at the expense of higher end features, I/O and expansion options, nor any consumers that were clamoring for a $2500+ (guesstimate) boutique-box. But I'm sure there's an audience in between that will love these. (Heck, I'd love one at work, but I would never buy one for myself).

Meanwhile, the first person to build a dual-socket Haswell/Maverick Hackintosh wins. :D
 

Subyman

Moderator <br> VC&G Forum
Mar 18, 2005
7,876
32
86
I think a lot of people are missing the fact that most "high end entertainment" companies use GPU clusters for render work. The Mac Pro is perfect for doing a draft render while working. The ray tracing gets sent to the GPU cluster for a final pass. No one fully renders from their workstation anymore, unless you are doing Unity games or something.

Again, most high end companies throw out the old computers entirely every 2-3 years. They don't have an IT dude putting in new GPUs on everyone's workstation, they just order more workstations.

The people missing out are the hobbyists and maybe small start ups.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
^ I wish this was universally true. I can't speak for every 'high end entertainment' company of course, but for the ones I can... you've rarely in your life met a cheaper bunch of penny-pinching bastards.

People absolutely rely on local rendering, hell I wish I had my own network renderer. There's a hell of a lot more to production than the final output- there's tons of work that gets done long before that. IT is not tossing machines out either. I do LOOOOVE the idea that I can just snap my fingers and get a new top of the line workstation out of thin air though... here, let me give it a try...

...hello? Hello? New high end workstation please? Hello?

Nope. It's not working. :D

Man, that would be nice though.

Not doubting there are places where this red-carpet service happens for all the mere mortals of production... but I haven't as yet worked for any of them. (WB, Fox, Universal, a host of smaller production houses and studios, etc.)
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
9,280
0
0
^ I wish this was universally true. I can't speak for every 'high end entertainment' company of course, but for the ones I can... you've rarely in your life met a cheaper bunch of penny-pinching bastards.

People absolutely rely on local rendering, hell I wish I had my own network renderer. There's a hell of a lot more to production than the final output- there's tons of work that gets done long before that. IT is not tossing machines out either. I do LOOOOVE the idea that I can just snap my fingers and get a new top of the line workstation out of thin air though... here, let me give it a try...

...hello? Hello? New high end workstation please? Hello?

Nope. It's not working. :D

Man, that would be nice though.

Not doubting there are places where this red-carpet service happens for all the mere mortals of production... but I haven't as yet worked for any of them. (WB, Fox, Universal, a host of smaller production houses and studios, etc.)

And what makes you think that this machine isn't capable of performing local rendering at a comparable rare (or higher) to the other currently high end workstations on the market?
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
7,162
424
126
And what makes you think that this machine isn't capable of performing local rendering at a comparable rare (or higher) to the other currently high end workstations on the market?
I didn't say it wasn't. In fact, I said I wish I had one at work right now. I even tried snapping my fingers at IT for one but I didn't get quite the response I had hoped for. :)

I personally don't think it's a bad machine, so don't misread what I'm saying.

It's just not the machine many pros (as I said, NONE of the ones I know) were hoping for. As badass as it may be right now today -before you can even get your hands on one- very soon it'll be behind the curve. And hey, it's not like Apple has any history of letting any of their computer lines languish for years in un-updated limbo or anything, heavens no. Perish forbid.

So to a pro willing to spend $3K-$4K plus on not only today's most badass system, but years from now down the road's badass system that can still hold its own (and I'm talking those pros for whom $4K is still a crapload of change, that don't just pick up the 'old' and toss it while plunking down $4k for the new at the drop of a hat) this isn't making a lot of those types jump for joy.

I'm sure it'll be expandable enough to cover a good many people's needs (personally, I think a LOT of people have a very hyper-inflated idea of just how much computing power they really need, like people I know that do literally *NOTHING* but digital naval-gaze with their computers, and yet are convinced they need a liquid cooled/12+ core/512GB/16TB monster for it) it's just that it's not as obviously expandable as it could be, which does affect how future-proof it is for a lot of people. For a person upgrading from a MacMini, it's a huge upgrade. Not so much for someone upgrading a current top of the line MacPro with 10K+ of expansion in it. (Oh but hey, everyone will just toss all that out because the 'high end' users all have a grove of money trees out back of the mansion.)
 

HaukSwe

Member
Jul 6, 2010
96
3
66
I like the idea of this pro because it's a desktop that'll last. Currently, my ivy bridge macbook air is enough for everything except my occasional gaming.

Why would I buy the pro? Well... :) I want a desktop for my home. I'm going to buy ONE desktop computer, and will have it for at least 4-5-6 years i imagine. Over that amount of time, does it matter if it's 1500 or 3000? Not really.

So people are guessing 2500 USD on this, isn't that a bit low? Surely apple will tax this a fair bit higher, given design innovation, dual GPU's etc? Aren't we looking at 4000+ here?
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,825
1,396
126
I like the idea of this pro because it's a desktop that'll last. Currently, my ivy bridge macbook air is enough for everything except my occasional gaming.

Why would I buy the pro? Well... :) I want a desktop for my home. I'm going to buy ONE desktop computer, and will have it for at least 4-5-6 years i imagine. Over that amount of time, does it matter if it's 1500 or 3000? Not really.

So people are guessing 2500 USD on this, isn't that a bit low? Surely apple will tax this a fair bit higher, given design innovation, dual GPU's etc? Aren't we looking at 4000+ here?
I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually cheaper to buy an iMac and then resell it every year to buy a new one.