Mac pro and XDR display orders available now + unboxing

[yolosnail]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

sorry though you said 2009.

2010 machines. Man i've worked on a lot of them at my old high school. New GPUs, HDD to SSDs, cleaning, and instaling misc PCIE cards.

Man if I found that kind of a deal I'd keep (really upgrade and then pass it off to my GF to edit on)

It is a 2009, but the hardware between the 2009 and 2010 is identical, with a simple firmware upgrade it becomes a 2010 and compatible with newer CPUs!

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, yolosnail said:

It is a 2009, but the hardware between the 2009 and 2010 is identical, with a simple firmware upgrade it becomes a 2010 and compatible with newer CPUs!

sorry I got the 2008 and 2009 models confused.

[yolosnail]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

sorry I got the 2008 and 2009 models confused.

This is what happens when you keep the same model name for 13 years!

[GDRRiley]

12 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

This is what happens when you keep the same model name for 13 years!

the name isn't the issues. Bigger issues is I can't keep straight when LGA 1366 came out.

[Thaldor]

4 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

You full can buy and put in whatever PCIE devices you can get drivers for.

I would put huge question mark before and after that. It wouldn't be first time for Apple to block hardware on the EFI-level (IIRC back in with old Mac Pros you could buy PNY or EVGA Quadro as upgrade and it was the off-the-shelf GPU you could buy from everywhere but you needed to buy it from Apple to get a driver CD/DVD for 200-400€/$ extra price, you could have the exactly same GPU installed and exactly same drivers from Nvidia installed and your Mac wouldn't even boot because that 200-400€/$ costing driver CD/DVD from Apple included EFI-update that whitelisted the GPU for the system and you couldn't get that from anywhere else (legally). Earlier or later there was different line called "Quadro for Mac" or something that was exactly the same GPUs but they had some differences in their firmware compared to just everyday normal "Quadros" that made the difference between booting and not-booting Mac. On Windows it was all the same if you had "for Mac" or "normal", both worked the same pointing in the difference being that something in Mac Pros was sniffing the GPUs to determine are they "legit" Apple accessories or not).

 

So I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to just put Radeon Pro Vega II GPU into Mac Pro and didn't buy it from Apple as "MPX-module" but used the "AUX-cables" to get power for it and the Mac Pro said "no". Same as with the storage, there's two completely normal SATA-ports and what seems to be a power outlet for them, but to use them you probably just cannot buy any SATA-HDD/SSD and get somewhere power from them, but you need to buy some "storage upgrade rack for Mac Pro"-kit that not only includes SATA-cables, power cable and mountable rack but also some piece of software.

But I might be wrong, that's completely something Apple has done in the past but maybe they have grown a bit more wiser and less greedier.

[jasonvp]

10 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

I would put huge question mark before and after that. It wouldn't be first time for Apple to block hardware on the EFI-level (IIRC back in with old Mac Pros you could buy PNY or EVGA Quadro as upgrade and it was the off-the-shelf GPU you could buy from everywhere but you needed to buy it from Apple to get a driver CD/DVD for 200-400€/$ extra price, you could have the exactly same GPU installed and exactly same drivers from Nvidia installed and your Mac wouldn't even boot because that 200-400€/$ costing driver CD/DVD from Apple included EFI-update that whitelisted the GPU for the system and you couldn't get that from anywhere else (legally).

 

That's not exactly what was happening.  Apple wasn't preventing any other GPUs (in your example) from running, assuming the drivers were installed.  What was required on the card was the proper EFI.  And the only thing that EFI really provided was the ability to see the grey Apple boot screen, which would also allow you to break the boot cycle and, say, boot off another device.  Think: loading a new OS, for instance.  But if your NVidia card didn't have that proper EFI, the Mac would boot.  Eventually, you'd be presented with the login screen.  But you'd see nothing until then.

 

Been there, done that, and had the properly modified PC-based NVidia GPU that booted perfectly in my Mac.

 

[Thaldor]

7 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

 

That's not exactly what was happening.  Apple wasn't preventing any other GPUs (in your example) from running, assuming the drivers were installed.  What was required on the card was the proper EFI.  And the only thing that EFI really provided was the ability to see the grey Apple boot screen, which would also allow you to break the boot cycle and, say, boot off another device.  Think: loading a new OS, for instance.  But if your NVidia card didn't have that proper EFI, the Mac would boot.  Eventually, you'd be presented with the login screen.  But you'd see nothing until then.

 

Been there, done that, and had the properly modified PC-based NVidia GPU that booted perfectly in my Mac.

 

IIRC that came later and I also mentioned it. The earlier Mac Pros had the GPUs blacklisted in their EFI because at that time we managed to save a huge sum when upgrading the media calssrooms Mac Pros to Quadros. Because during upgrading the teachers machine we noticed that you needed to install the drivers first to even get the thing to boot and for the second we just out of curiosity tried to use the driver CD/DVD that came with the teachers machine GPU and ordered the GPU from elsewhere and it worked like a charm, so upgrading the rest of the machines (~10 in total) we just ordered the GPUs from the other place and installed the drivers form the same media.

 

But either way the point was that Apple has in the history limited the usable hardware not because it doesn't have the drivers but because some deliberately made difference that doesn't have anything to do with how something works or how it is attached but just to make sure you buy the hardware from the right vendor and retailer.

[jasonvp]

20 hours ago, jasonvp said:

Yep.  RAM will be a big money saver for folks.  Storage may, assuming it works properly with the Mac.  I'm not sure how the Xeon is attached; if it's a ZIF-style slot or not.  If so, adventurous modifiers could theoretically buy a lower-spec system and kick the CPU up on their own, later.  I've done that with the previous gen cheese grater Mac Pro.

Looks like fairly big savings to be had on ECC RDIMMs, just based on my initial search.  But the savings aren't as big with the 96G and lower upgrades; it's not till you bump up to the 16G RDIMMs that you can start saving more than $1K US.

 

The Xeons, on the other hand?  Hm.  Not so sure yet.  Based on the "suggested retail" prices on ark.intel.com, it looks like outright buying the 28-core W-3275M would set you back around $7400 or so.  Compare that with the OEM upgrade cost of $6900 or so.  However, if you wanted the same chip that's limited to 1TB (which Apple isn't selling), it's a big drop in price: $4500 or so.

 

The same applies to the 24-core chip.  The 'M' version sold with the Mac is $6400, but the one limited to 1TB is $3400 or so.  Some more money to save if you're OK with the "lower" (cough) amount of RAM.  Heh.

 

As I said: the adventurous Mac Pro purchaser could save some money and still end up with a hell of a machine.

[Mira Yurizaki]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

But more to the point why even have the MPX modules and not just standard cards?   Are they really that hell bent on preventing people from not buying parts from them and having their own unique parts.

Because Apple hates cables. I'm almost certain that extra slot is just for power delivery and Apple magic.

[DrMacintosh]

4 hours ago, Thaldor said:

But I might be wrong

And you probably are. Nothing you’ve said has been substantiated with this Mac Pro. 
 

This is a modular l, socketed, upgradable Mac. Give Apple Credit for that. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Because Apple hates cables.

Yep. There isn’t a single visible cable run when you look at the machine without its case on it. Sockets > cables. Cables are gross. 

[Commodus]

27 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Because Apple hates cables. I'm almost certain that extra slot is just for power delivery and Apple magic.

Apple has said as much -- it's really just to fit a very high-powered GPU (or in this case, two GPUs) without either running cables or chewing up an additional slot.  I get a kick out of how Apple found a way to cram four GPUs into a tightly packed case without hurting airflow or requiring enough cooling to make the Mac Pro sound like a jet engine.

[Mira Yurizaki]

36 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Apple has said as much -- it's really just to fit a very high-powered GPU (or in this case, two GPUs) without either running cables or chewing up an additional slot.  I get a kick out of how Apple found a way to cram four GPUs into a tightly packed case without hurting airflow or requiring enough cooling to make the Mac Pro sound like a jet engine.

I don't know about "tightly packed", as the Mac Pro looks about as big as a full ATX case and the two MPX modules take up basically half the internal volume.

[Commodus]

4 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I don't know about "tightly packed", as the Mac Pro looks about as big as a full ATX case and the two MPX modules take up basically half the internal volume.

The space is tightly packed, at least.  I know I like the thought of a system that can have four GPUs in it and still be virtually inaudible while you're in the midst of serious work.

[Drak3]

9 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I don't know about "tightly packed", as the Mac Pro looks about as big as a full ATX case and the two MPX modules take up basically half the internal volume.

It looks pretty standard IMO. The MPX modules are just passive, more up to date versions of cards like the Titan Z or 295x2, with a different power connector.

 

 

Overall, not much new is really brought to the table with this system, just the dedicated power slot.

[GDRRiley]

5 hours ago, Thaldor said:

I would put huge question mark before and after that. It wouldn't be first time for Apple to block hardware on the EFI-level (IIRC back in with old Mac Pros you could buy PNY or EVGA Quadro as upgrade and it was the off-the-shelf GPU you could buy from everywhere but you needed to buy it from Apple to get a driver CD/DVD for 200-400€/$ extra price, you could have the exactly same GPU installed and exactly same drivers from Nvidia installed and your Mac wouldn't even boot because that 200-400€/$ costing driver CD/DVD from Apple included EFI-update that whitelisted the GPU for the system and you couldn't get that from anywhere else (legally). Earlier or later there was different line called "Quadro for Mac" or something that was exactly the same GPUs but they had some differences in their firmware compared to just everyday normal "Quadros" that made the difference between booting and not-booting Mac. On Windows it was all the same if you had "for Mac" or "normal", both worked the same pointing in the difference being that something in Mac Pros was sniffing the GPUs to determine are they "legit" Apple accessories or not).

 

So I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to just put Radeon Pro Vega II GPU into Mac Pro and didn't buy it from Apple as "MPX-module" but used the "AUX-cables" to get power for it and the Mac Pro said "no". Same as with the storage, there's two completely normal SATA-ports and what seems to be a power outlet for them, but to use them you probably just cannot buy any SATA-HDD/SSD and get somewhere power from them, but you need to buy some "storage upgrade rack for Mac Pro"-kit that not only includes SATA-cables, power cable and mountable rack but also some piece of software.

But I might be wrong, that's completely something Apple has done in the past but maybe they have grown a bit more wiser and less greedier.

at least on the 2019-2012 ones most AMD GPUs work as long as you've got one with the right firmware. Along with people building hackintoshs

There are people who have used rx 560-590, vega 56 and 64 along with Radel VII and the 5700 series.

Apple has never locked down sata storage like that.

Ive put 580s, 560 in 2010s

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I know I like the thought of a system that can have four GPUs in it and still be virtually inaudible while you're in the midst of serious work.

Yeah, it's annoying that nothing in PC's is really designed to maximize airflow and so things have to resort to point forced convection.

 

It annoys me to no end that most video cards have their heat sink fins oriented perpendicular to the motherboard rather than parallel.

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Yeah, it's annoying that nothing in PC's is really designed to maximize airflow and so things have to resort to point forced convection.

 

It annoys me to no end that most video cards have their heat sink fins oriented perpendicular to the motherboard rather than parallel.

servers, just put in low RMP fans.

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

servers, just put in low RMP fans.

You're not going to get much cooling in a 1U rack with 200W TDP parts.

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

You're not going to get much cooling in a 1U rack with 200W TDP parts.

why are you trying to shove it in a 1U case? that defeats the purpose of having 1 set of fans because they need to be tiny.

smallest I would go is 2U

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

why are you trying to shove it in a 1U case? that defeats the purpose of having 1 set of fans because they need to be tiny.

smallest I would go is 2U

Actually I'll go back to what I originally said. Nothing in desktop PCs is really designed for airflow.

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

This is a modular l, socketed, upgradable Mac. Give Apple Credit for that. 

No it took the 6 years to refresh and 7 years to go back to a design real people could do work on.

 

the mpx slot; wow PCIE 16x but with half the pins changed to do power so you can get 300W along with 8 lanes for thunderbolt and display port (which isn't even enough if you half saturated 4 thunderbolt 3)

 

This should have been threadripper or EPYC for PCIE gen 4. that would have given it enough bandwidth and more power

 

3 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Actually I'll go back to what I originally said. Nothing in desktop PCs is really designed for airflow.

this isn't a desktop, its a workstation/server that apple put in a desktop case.

 

 

I'm not sure how many people care but apple just added a new configuration

1 or 2 W5700X with 16gb of VRAM

Edited December 11, 2019 by GDRRiley
added new config info

[Zando_]

3 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

this isn't a desktop, its a workstation/server that apple put in a desktop case.

Workstations are usually desktops, servers they put in either desktop cases or rack cases depending on where they're going and what the computer is used for. The currently available Mac Pro is a desktop, and they have a rackmount coming soon. 

 

4 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

This should have been threadripper or EPYC for PCIE gen 4. that would have given it enough bandwidth and more power

Apple has been building macOS exclusively for Intel CPUs for a good while now, I don't think just switching to AMD suddenly is at all feasible. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

this isn't a desktop, its a workstation/server that apple put in a desktop case.

I don't see what the use case has to do with the hardware design. It's not like a gaming PC can't enjoy the same benefits of a cooling system designed around taking advantage of airflow.

 

Oh wait:

 

[DrMacintosh]

8 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

the mpx slot; wow PCIE 16x but with half the pins changed to do power so you can get 300W along with 8 lanes for thunderbolt and display port (which isn't even enough if you half saturated 4 thunderbolt 3)

This is not how the MPX slot works. The MPX slot is a a full 16x PCIe slot with an additional slot for for power and TB3. It is an addition to PCIe, not a replacement and removing the MPX modules does not prevent regular cards from being inserted. 

 

8 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

This should have been threadripper or EPYC for PCIE gen 4. that would have given it enough bandwidth and more power

Threadripper was not as established when Apple was developing the Mac Pro. If AMD wanted Apple to use TR or EPYC, they needed to come to market sooner. The gears were already in motion for the Mac Pro by the time TR was clearly better than Xeon for Apples uses. 

 

Going with Threadripper isn't as simple as taking an off the shelf part and throwing it in, everything about the Mac Pro would have had to have been reengineered.