Apple Updates its Mac lineup: External GPU support, Kaby lake and a new iMac Pro

[Drak3]

2 hours ago, Masken said:

Just curious, in your opinion, how is OSX a proper Unix-based system? Proper compared to what?

OSX is still based on the Unix OS family and operates the same way that many Unix forks do under the hood, whereas Linux is designed to give a strikingly similar user experience (if so desired anyways), but is VASTLY different from Unix under the hood.

 

59 minutes ago, Masken said:

not POSIX UNIX certified

Regardless of certification, OSX is still a Unix based system.

 

2 hours ago, Valentyn said:

It's POSIX UNIX certified OS, based on Darwin BSD.

Apple stopped seeking Unix certs awhile ago, before OSX I believe.

[DrLingard13]

AMD shakes up Intel , must be time for Apple to shake things up again. This time with some benefits. 

[patrick3027]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

The 2016 model also started at $1499.

Both the 2016 and 2017 models started at €1499 in Europe, so there's that.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, patrick3027 said:

Both the 2016 and 2017 models started at €1499 in Europe, so there's that.

In the US the 128gb is 1299$ and the 256gb is 1499$.

[Valentyn]

55 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

OSX is still based on the Unix OS family and operates the same way that many Unix forks do under the hood, whereas Linux is designed to give a strikingly similar user experience (if so desired anyways), but is VASTLY different from Unix under the hood.

 

Regardless of certification, OSX is still a Unix based system.

 

Apple stopped seeking Unix certs awhile ago, before OSX I believe.

As of 2016 OS X is still certified, and the current Mac OS 10.12 Sierra is UNIX 03.

https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3627.htm

[Sauron]

Isn't it hilarious that a high end workstation desktop needs external gpu support?

 

And of course the price is completely ridiculous.

23 hours ago, Jito463 said:

The "tasks" don't need to "take advantage of" ECC memory, that's all handled internally by the system.  Whether the tasks would require ECC memory or not, is a different argument altogether.

 

On topic, that's some pretty impressive stats for an all-in-one.  Overpriced, in my opinion (as is typical of Mac), but to fit all of that in a slim case is still impressive.  And I'm not even a fan of Apple (I've never owned one, and I likely never will).

It's not that impressive, there are smaller laptops which can handle about the same heat. I still fully expect the cpu to throttle like it has in every single "high end" imac of the last 5 years.

23 hours ago, ResidentRad said:

If Razer made this, you all would cream yourselves and Linus would spend the next 6 months waxing poetry over its existence. 

Nonsense. Linus likes a laptop from razer, that's about it - he hasn't and wouldn't use a desktop from them. Hell, he built a custom desk to house his own office desktop and at home he has a watercooler 4U rack mounted behemoth.

 

I personally don't think that laptop makes any sense either, but that would go for all "gaming" laptops, so it's not really a matter of razer messing it up particularly bad for me.

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

i missed any mention of the mac mini. the mac mini is the only mac I would want to buy. I was hoping they would bring out a proper PC instead of all this AIO stuff

I'm curious as to why, there are plenty of good (and more affordable) mini pcs on the market. From what I've seen you seem to be a big fan of Linux, so why would you want the mac mini in particular?

 

I agree that normal desktops are often better than an aio though.

[Mira Yurizaki]

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I'm curious as to why, there are plenty of good (and more affordable) mini pcs on the market. From what I've seen you seem to be a big fan of Linux, so why would you want the mac mini in particular?

 

I agree that normal desktops are often better than an aio though.

Because when all you do is browse the internet and YouTube, you don't need anything more than that.

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Because when all you do is browse the internet and YouTube, you don't need anything more than that.

And you don't need to spend that much either.

[Techstorm970]

What I like about this:

• Apple is finally getting up off their butts and upgrading to DDR4.
• GPUs with more memory (I have no idea why Apple didn't take advantage of the 8GB GPU options of the R9 300 series when they came out.  4GB is NOT good enough for 5k.)
• Better GPUs in general.  They're adding external GPU support, and upgrading their internal GPUs.  Maybe the internal chips are still the underpowered mobile ones, but it's gonna be a massive improvement over what they have now regardless.
• Upgrading thermal design stuff.
• Did not raise the prices on their regular iMacs and Macbook models.

What I don't like about this:

• Did not drop the prices on their regular iMacs and Macbook models.
• While the bigger fans are a thermal upgrade, they didn't add more heat pipes or heatsinks.  Basically, they wasted a lot of potential.
• They made their Mac Pro an AIO.  Guys...workstations are about computational horsepower, not how pretty they look.  I would much rather have seen another computer tower like the ones from 5+ years ago.
• They increased the price of their Mac Pro AIO from their trash can model.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, techstorm970 said:

• GPUs with more memory (I have no idea why Apple didn't take advantage of the 8GB GPU options of the R9 300 series when they came out.  4GB is NOT good enough for 5k.)

It's more than enough to run the desktop, you're definitely not going to play 5k games on those anyway (nor could you on an 8gb r9 390).

2 minutes ago, techstorm970 said:

• They made their Mac Pro an AIO.  Guys...workstations are about computational horsepower, not how pretty they look.  I would much rather have seen another computer tower like the ones from 5+ years ago.

Some time ago they announced they were redesigning the mac pro with expandability in mind, so I think they intend to release a new tower (/trash can) system some time in the future as well.

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And you don't need to spend that much either.

Of course not. But you get a nicer experience on a $500 Mac Mini than a $300 computer.

[EnergyEclipse]

I do sincerely wonder as to of how well thermal performance shall be on such systems, since those what appear to be blower style fans are certainly looking to be slightly starved of airflow considering they have to grab airflow through the bottom, and only probably have less than an inch of room in front of them to intake.

 

Dual heat pipes though?  One shall believe there is probably more behind. I hope there is.

 

I wonder if, despite the possibly sounding ridiculous, but could they make the surface area of the rear chassis/back into some kind of passively 'cooling' heat sink like the Streacom Db4 possibly?

 

I mean, at least they've tried with that rather confusing airflow diagram...

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Of course not. But you get a nicer experience on a $500 Mac Mini than a $300 computer.

I disagree, mac minis are underspec´d and as long as you have an ssd in your system you won't notice the difference (if there is any) in cpu performance for this sort of task. Particularly if you're willing to run linux, which the guy I quoted is as far as I know, which is why I was asking him in particular.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I disagree, mac minis are underspec´d and as long as you have an ssd in your system you won't notice the difference (if there is any) in cpu performance for this sort of task. Particularly if you're willing to run linux, which the guy I quoted is as far as I know, which is why I was asking him in particular.

I've used a Mac Mini. It was fine.

 

And SSDs are only useful in reducing initial loading times on the local system. It won't help that YouTube video load faster or that Facebook update come sooner.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

And SSDs are only useful in reducing initial loading times on the local system. 

That's not true at all, if you're saying that you probably haven't used a hdd based system for long. Having an ssd improves the whole experience. It may not impact notifications on facebook but it does impace the time it takes for you to open the browser and get there. And honestly, on what else would you judge the quality of a user experience if not on responsiveness? What was it about a mac mini that made you think it was a "better experience" than the alternatives?

[79wjd]

10 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I disagree, mac minis are underspec´d and as long as you have an ssd in your system you won't notice the difference (if there is any) in cpu performance for this sort of task. Particularly if you're willing to run linux, which the guy I quoted is as far as I know, which is why I was asking him in particular.

I use Linux for school and I still vastly prefer macOS, so I would gladly pay the premium for a Mac mini if my option was a Mac mini or another brix-like computer. I would seriously consider replacing my mom's working laptop (840qm+8gb ram+ssd) with a Mac mini just because it would make me life easier. 

 

Of course it comes down to personal preference, but there are certainly applications where a Mac mini is the best choice -- and for me I would take macOS over Linux or Windows any day and I'd gladly pay a premium for it.

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I still fully expect the cpu to throttle like it has in every single "high end" imac of the last 5 years.

Oh, no doubt.  From my experience with working on them, Apple often misses the mark with thermal management.  Anyone remember the Mac Cube?
 

Spoiler

 

Completely fanless system that would overheat and fry the touch sensor for powering on the system, preventing you from even turning the thing on.  When I worked at CompUSA for a while, there were several times those came in because of the power sensor going out.

 

Regardless, it's still impressive specs (not stats, as I originally typed) for such a small form factor, despite the inevitable throttling issue.

[babadoctor]

someone please explain to me why a desktop computer needs ECC ram.

 

mac or not.

 

is someone going to bit flip my ram or something har har

[RedRound2]

19 hours ago, Drak3 said:

It's overpriced, all AiO are. It's the tax people pay for AiO. For what you're getting on paper, it's not a huge offender.

1

18 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

It is overpriced, you are paying quite a bit more for the hardware you're getting.

 

 

Well, then you guys don't what overpriced means. A $1000 HDMI cable is overpriced, where there doesn't seem any reason for it to cost more than $100 even after gold plating, etc

 

Industrial Design costs money. If you take in account of it's very compact and arguably beautiful design the cost can very well increase to like $500. And with kind of specs it packs, it's not at all overpriced

 

Quote

Understanding laws of thermodynamics, history, and understanding the size constraint AiO have. What we don't know is how hard it will throttle. If it just means taking 100MHz off of the stock clock at high load, no big deal. If the clockrate is halfed under light load, and the iMac Pro is outperformed using weaker parts of the same grade, then it's a huge deal and any Windows/Linux workstation with said lesser hardware is a better proposition if one doesn't explicitly need OSX.

Quote

The heatsink looks like it is slightly bigger than a Nvidia FE heatsink, but it has to cool a 140-200W CPU and a 200-250W GPU at the same time, there is no way that the CPU and the GPU will not thermal throttle.

If there is an air current like how Apple claimed, I don't see how it would thermal throttle. Sure you could say they exaggerated their cooling performance, but Apple is an almost a trillion dollar company and they can do pretty impressive things no matter how much haters deny it in their sleep. Before the Mac Pro released everyone including Linus said that their one fan design would either throttle the components or it would sound like a hairdryer, both of which turned out to be not true

 

12 hours ago, techstorm970 said:

• Apple is finally getting up off their butts and upgrading to DDR4.

 

Umm, this was their first chance ti upgrade. They didn't intentionally block the upgrade. Skylakes weren't compatible with LPDDR4 modules

Quote

• GPUs with more memory (I have no idea why Apple didn't take advantage of the 8GB GPU options of the R9 300 series when they came out.  4GB is NOT good enough for 5k.)

 

Don't possibly know why one would need more than 4GB VRAM before in a mac, since it was never meant for gaming. But now they support VR content creation, which doesn't indeed require a lot of VRAM

Quote

• Did not raise the prices on their regular iMacs and Macbook models.

 

They usually don't unless it's a massive overhaul

Quote

What I don't like about this:

• Did not drop the prices on their regular iMacs and Macbook models.

 

They did on the iMac and one of the MBPs. But I did expect them to drop price on 12" MB and touch bar models

Quote

• While the bigger fans are a thermal upgrade, they didn't add more heat pipes or heatsinks.  Basically, they wasted a lot of potential.

1

You dont know that

Quote

They made their Mac Pro an AIO.  Guys...workstations are about computational horsepower, not how pretty they look.  I would much rather have seen another computer tower like the ones from 5+ years ago.They increased the

 

 

They said like a month ago that they ill be releasing a powerful iMac later this year and a new modular mac pro next year

[PCGuy_5960]

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Industrial Design costs money. If you take in account of it's very compact and arguably beautiful design the cost can very well increase to like $500.

Even if it does have a $500 chassis(which it probably doesn't), it's still overpriced, since the actual hardware doesn't cost more than $1000-2000

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

And with kind of specs it packs, it's not at all overpriced

Really? You can build a PC that offers the same (if not better) performance for less than $2000. And for $5000 you can build a PC with a 22 core CPU, a GTX 1080, a 1TB NVMe drive and a 5K display. I think that a PC with a 22 core CPU would be quite a bit better than the 8 core Mac Pro.....

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Sure you could say they exaggerated their cooling performance, but Apple is an almost a trillion dollar company and they can do pretty impressive things no matter how much haters deny it in their sleep.

So with enough money, you can change the laws of physics....... Interesting, didn't know that!

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Before the Mac Pro released everyone including Linus said that their one fan design would either throttle the components or it would sound like a hairdryer, both of which turned out to be not true

Proof that the Mac Pro is not thermal throttling? Because I couldn't find any....

 

This is the iMac Pro's cooler:

Please tell me, HOW can this tiny heatsink cool a 140W Xeon and a 200-250W Vega GPU without thermal throttling?

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

it's very compact and (IMO) beautiful design

The design is subjective. IMO, this looks 100x better than the iMac Pro:

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Even if it does have a $500 chassis(which it probably doesn't), it's still overpriced, since the actual hardware doesn't cost more than $1000-2000

Really? You can build a PC that offers the same (if not better) performance for less than $2000.

No you can't. 

A PC with an 8 core Xeon+board+32GB ECC+1070/1080-class GPU+1TB 960 Pro+PSU+nice case+Windows+5K monitor costs around $3300. The monitor more than likely isn't as good and it's also not in an ultra small form factor (which people clearly do care about).

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2620 V4 2.1GHz 8-Core Processor  ($408.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U12DXi4 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($64.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Supermicro - X10SRM-F Micro ATX LGA2011-3 Narrow Motherboard  ($275.66 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 32GB (4 x 8GB) Registered DDR4-2400 Memory  ($345.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Samsung - 960 Pro 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($579.99 @ Dell Small Business) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Turbo OC Video Card  ($489.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ NCIX US) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($92.99 @ Amazon) 
Monitor: HP - Z27q 27.0" 5120x2880 60Hz Monitor  ($909.98 @ Directron) 
Total: $3323.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-07 09:12 EDT-0400

 

Quote

So with enough money, you can change the laws of physics....... Interesting, didn't know that!

Proof that the Mac Pro is not thermal throttling? Because I couldn't find any....

 

This is the iMac Pro's cooler:

 

Please tell me, HOW can this tiny heatsink cool a 140W Xeon and a 200-250W Vega GPU without thermal throttling?

The design is subjective. IMO, this looks 100x better than the iMac Pro:

 

Do you have any proof that it is thermal throttling? It hasn't even been released yet and you're already bitching about how it throttles. It very well might, but it isn't even available yet, so you can be concerned that it will throttle, but you can't say that it will throttle.

 

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

The design is subjective. IMO, this looks 100x better than the iMac Pro:

You're clearly not the target audience, but I'd really like to have an iMac form factor with a ton of power in it -- if I could I'd swap my build into a Node 202 in a heartbeat (which is also quite a bit bigger than I would like).

[PCGuy_5960]

12 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

A PC with an 8 core Xeon+board+32GB ECC+1070/1080-class GPU+1TB 960 Pro+PSU+nice case+Windows+5K monitor costs around $3300. The monitor more than likely isn't as good and it's also not in an ultra small form factor (which people clearly do care about).

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Really? You can build a PC that offers the same (if not better) performance for less than $2000.

When did I mention a monitor? And why is a $275 motherboard a necessity?

But anyways, here is a $4.5K PC:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2699 V4 2.2GHz 22-Core OEM/Tray Processor  ($1756.00 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($24.88 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - X99 Extreme3 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($146.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 32GB (4 x 8GB) Registered DDR4-2400 Memory  ($345.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Samsung - 960 Pro 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($579.99 @ Dell Small Business) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 ROCK Video Card  ($494.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ NCIX US) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.89 @ OutletPC) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($89.89 @ OutletPC) 
Monitor: HP - Z27q 27.0" 5120x2880 60Hz Monitor  ($909.98 @ Directron) 
Total: $4528.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-07 09:18 EDT-0400

12 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Do you have any proof that it is thermal throttling? It hasn't even been released yet and you're already bitching about how it throttles. It very well might, but it isn't even available yet, so you can be concerned that it will throttle, but you can't say that it will throttle.

While that is speculation, the heatsink is barely as big as a 212 Evo, which leads me to believe that it is not enough for a 140W Xeon and a 250W GPU. Of course, there is a very slight chance that it won't, but chances are that the Mac Pro will thermal throttle.

You're clearly not the target audience, but I'd really like to have an iMac form factor with a ton of power in it -- if I could I'd swap my build into a Node 202 in a heartbeat (which is also quite a bit bigger than I would like).

Of course I am not the target audience......

[TheMasterNerd]

Thank god, my mac is so crappy with an intel core i5 no ones ever heard of and mobile graphics. bleh.

[mynameisjuan]

30 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

No you can't. 

A PC with an 8 core Xeon+board+32GB ECC+1070/1080-class GPU+1TB 960 Pro+PSU+nice case+Windows+5K monitor costs around $3300. The monitor more than likely isn't as good and it's also not in an ultra small form factor (which people clearly do care about).

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2620 V4 2.1GHz 8-Core Processor  ($408.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U12DXi4 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($64.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Supermicro - X10SRM-F Micro ATX LGA2011-3 Narrow Motherboard  ($275.66 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 32GB (4 x 8GB) Registered DDR4-2400 Memory  ($345.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Samsung - 960 Pro 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($579.99 @ Dell Small Business) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Turbo OC Video Card  ($489.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ NCIX US) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($92.99 @ Amazon) 
Monitor: HP - Z27q 27.0" 5120x2880 60Hz Monitor  ($909.98 @ Directron) 
Total: $3323.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-07 09:12 EDT-0400

 

Do you have any proof that it is thermal throttling? It hasn't even been released yet and you're already bitching about how it throttles. It very well might, but it isn't even available yet, so you can be concerned that it will throttle, but you can't say that it will throttle.

 

 

 

So its worth paying an extra $2000 for a pretty case that will not allow for full hardware performance. You could get an even better system for $5000 that would outclass the top end iMac pro for cheaper than the base model. God knows how much the top end model will cost.

 

And yes it will thermal throttle. EVERY iMac has throttled in the past 6 years as there is not enough room for a decent heat sink and on top of that they are using hotter chips. Unless apple breaks the laws of physics then I guarantee it will throttle. I mean they couldnt even get top end desktop chips to not throttle let alone top end workstation and GPU chips.