The new Mac Pro

[Guy Rowland]

Who'd have thought - return of the Cheesgrater!



The website will be live shortly no doubt [edit - its up now - https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ ], but from the Guardian blog on the livestream in the meantime:

There’s a lot of specs coming for the Mac Pro: it has a 28 core Intel Xeon, with 300 watts of power, supporting 1.5TB of Ram, and 8 internal PCIe slots. It has built in ethernet, four Thunderbolt 3 slots, two USB-A slots and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

It also has a new built-in graphics module, the MPX, that lets users dock powerful AMD graphics cards in a… new fancy way. But they can also dock normal graphics cards in a normal way.

There’s also another card called Afterburner, which users can buy purely to speed up their video rendering and playback.

And it has wheels.

We get a price and release date! The Mac Pro will start at $5999, this autumn. (Expect that to be £5999). And the pro display will start at $4999, with an anti-glare version for $5999, and will also be available this autumn.

Note - "start at"

[Mike Marino]

Jeez...

[Lawrence]

Jeezgrater

[kpc]

Logic Pro got some Keynote time - up to 1000 audio tracks and 1000 VI tracks now available in Logic. No word on when the Logic update will hit.

[Guy Rowland]

Jeezgrater

BRILLIANT

Anyone wanna place bets on max config price? I'll open the bidding at $18k.

Looking at the specs, two thoughts occur. 1 - its as close to an admission from Apple that they got something wrong as you're gonna get, the previous Mac Pro was a blind alley. 2 - I hardly dare say this, but I think its OTT for audio use, at least for any but the Aest of A listers. I need LESS RAM now than I used to with VE Pro disabled.

[kpc]

Yeah, but Guy- 28 Cores!!

[kpc]

Way out of my league/budget no matter what - unless a lot more work comes my way. I am very curious if the new version of Logic Pro will require Mojave or Catalina - in which case I won't be able to run the latest version for the first time since switching to Logic v6/ My 2012 MP won't run either OS

[Lawrence]

One of the attractive things about my lowly ‘grater is that it looks and feels server class-it’s built like a tank and had massive expandability for its time. They’ve obviously gone back to a big, solid form with massive capabilities.

I need more info, but-the processor turbos to 4.2?? Methinks it should run at that as basic. Also-non-USB 3 ports mentioned? Maybe on the back?

I’m thinking the cut down version (sans monitor) will be 10k.

[Lawrence]

Way out of my league/budget no matter what - unless a lot more work comes my way. I am very curious if the new version of Logic Pro will require Mojave or Catalina - in which case I won't be able to run the latest version for the first time since switching to Logic v6/ My 2012 MP won't run either OS

It’s almost hack time for me , Kayle. I prolly will try it.

[kpc]

What have you got Larry, a 2012 MP? I have heard that if I put a new Vid card in, it will be compatible, but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

[Guy Rowland]

One of the attractive things about my lowly ‘grater is that it looks and feels server class-it’s built like a tank and had massive expandability for its time. They’ve obviously gone back to a big, solid form with massive capabilities.

I need more info, but-the processor turbos to 4.2?? Methinks it should run at that as basic. Also-non-USB 3 ports mentioned? Maybe on the back?

I’m thinking the cut down version (sans monitor) will be 10k.

2 USB 3 ports according to the tech specs Larry - that's it for USB.

Xeon processors never have high clock speeds, preferring very high core counts. And you're right, I think this is very much the weak spot in an otherwise colossus rig. I went into this area a lot on the last build, and essentially for my work a high single core speed is equal in importance to a moderately high core count. 4.2 should be a kinda bare minimum for a premium rig.

Now, no doubt as the years roll by better processors will achieve more in this area. The question is - is the MP able to upgrade the CPU? As it is, I'd be extremely wary of shelling out the price of a car on a DAW rig with such a major limitation.

[Lawrence]

What have you got Larry, a 2012 MP? I have heard that if I put a new Vid card in, it will be compatible, but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

2008!

(and a 2012 Mini.)

[Lawrence]

Guy-the front page specs said 2 USB-A ports. Those are 3.0?

[Guy Rowland]

Guy-the front page specs said 2 USB-A ports. Those are 3.0?

Yes, according to the specs here - https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/ . Just noticed that of course the Thunberbolt ports also support USB-C. All round a real paucity of ports. (But "paucity of ports" is pleasingly alliterative, so maybe that appealed to Jonny).

[kpc]

Perhaps they are counting on the PCI slots to add additional ports as needed?

[Lawrence]

That seems dumb. Paucity of ports for a plethora of pounds.

[Mike Marino]

Jeezgrater

Anyone wanna place bets on max config price? I'll open the bidding at $18k.

I think it'll be more. The 256Gb RAM option in the iMac Pro is $5200....and the new machine tops out at 1.5TB of RAM. I think a maxed config is close to $35K.

Granted this is server class RAM....but you're already at $25k...

[Guy Rowland]

Mike, you're quite right, $18k was a stupid low guess.

I guess its mostly VFX / animation that really needs that kinda RAM?

[givemenoughrope]

Hello, Hackintosh! (Or PC...)

[Mike Marino]

Guy - my guess as well. Production houses aimed at VFX and animation.

[soundbylaura]

I guess if I want to ditch my iMac and get dual monitors I'll have to trick out a Mac Mini. Or get a second mortgage.

[Geoff Grace]

When I balk at the price of the new Mac Pro, I am reminded that I spent $7,000 in '90s dollars (over $11,000 today) for a fully loaded E-IV. I'm guessing a new Mac Pro would be even more useful and less quickly outmoded, but I don't think it would open the doors for me today that the E-IV did back then.

Fortunately, I'm in no urgent need for a new Mac; so I have some time to weigh my options. I should probably start saving soon though...

Best,

Geoff

[GR Baumann]

Wow, that's interesting.

My guestimate was way off on the new MacPro. 56.8 TFLOPS max. I was expecting more, much more.

Back in 2017 a 20 core Intel Xeon E5-2698 equipped powerhouse with 256 Gig Ram and 480 TFLOPS at less than USD 70k, and 960 TFLOPS at about 140k. Ok, that's not for your average Logic DAW, but AI and deep learning, however, power can be compared I think, especially considering R&D involved in both.

[Lawrence]

Jeezgrater

Anyone wanna place bets on max config price? I'll open the bidding at $18k.

I think it'll be more. The 256Gb RAM option in the iMac Pro is $5200....and the new machine tops out at 1.5TB of RAM. I think a maxed config is close to $35K.

Granted this is server class RAM....but you're already at $25k...

Is it a cold day in hell yet? Why no, it isn’t. I guess I won’t be going with a maxed MP.

On the other hand, it will be fun to see what someone who can afford one reports back about their zillion instrument, million high end reverb, 18 monitor 10k video setup.

[EvilDragon]

Anyone wanna place bets on max config price? I'll open the bidding at $18k.

With 1.5 TB of RAM and those high-end LCDs? Probably over $40k.

This is just insane. So you can have up to 1.5 TB of RAM, but SSD storage tops at 4 TB? Just...

Then again, I'm never in the market for Apple. But still, I wonder who's actually going to buy the maxed out machines. Animation rendering farms can get more power for much cheaper using PCs (and they do that), for server farms and data centers this is also too expensive since they need about a billion of such machines... so I suppose this is a computer for the 1%ers.