Apple Starts selling AMD W5700X

[hishnash]

Apple have put the W5700X (MPX card) for sale when buying a macPro and also when buying on its own.

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MW662AM/A/radeon-pro-w5700x-mpx-module?fnode=fc0535109a1385293f3ffad012e547bfacdff00b42e9c1c894f6364601d96447efc83e7907cd453bc4277561ed13e3df8623b2b7984778661cef225b02ad8c5307c8a7c61d18543c68062cf016123544d920d9f0b3c3026446033d62e4c15716c7ad43fb9b9e6a2f26e6c8b32f89ae06

 

Priced at $1000 USD

This GPU seems to be higher binned AMD W5700 that retails at $799.

In comparison between them:

# AMD W5700
Compute Units.         36

Stream Processors.   2304

Memory Size             8 GB

FP32                         8.89 TFLOPs

FP64                         556 GFLOPs

memory bandwidth  448 GB/s (GDDR6)

# AMD W5700X

Compute Units.         40

Stream Processors.  2560

Memory Size             16 GB

FP32                         9.4 or 9.5 TFLOPs

FP64                         (not listed)
memory bandwidth  448 GB/s (GDDR6)

 

[SenKa]

Couple hundred bucks extra for a high binned custom PCB/Cooler GPU? Thats actually really damned competitive.

[hishnash]

4 minutes ago, SenKa said:

Couple hundred bucks extra for a high binned custom PCB/Cooler GPU? Thats actually really damned competitive.

GDDR6 is not that costly but 8GB to 16GB will cost them something. Interesting the AMD website list this card as being able to support upto 32GB so maybe there will be another option later this year?

this should have been the GPU for the entry level macPro.

[SenKa]

Just now, hishnash said:

GDDR6 is not that costly but 8GB to 16GB will cost them something. Interesting the AMD website list this card as being able to support upto 32GB so maybe there will be another option later this year?

Sounds like theyre just planning things with AIB's for higher end versions. Though, I'd imagine Apple to be one of them once everything calms down around the world.

[hishnash]

3 minutes ago, SenKa said:

Sounds like theyre just planning things with AIB's for higher end versions. Though, I'd imagine Apple to be one of them once everything calms down around the world.

the `X` series seems to be exclusive to apple at least from how AMD are presenting it on their page. Also does AMD have any other AIB's for WX cards? I thought it was just AMD and Apple on these cards (in-fact this is the first WX named card apple have used in years, normally apple put a postfix `pro` on the end instead)
 

[williamcll]

Or you could get two Pro W5700 instead. Probably worth the money

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, williamcll said:

Or you could get two Pro W5700 instead. Probably worth the money

W5700 retail price is $799 and at the moment is retailing for over $870 in most places

[Doobeedoo]

I mean ok and all.

 

I wonder will they sell new wheels that can lock for $999 eventually.

[Commodus]

7 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

I mean ok and all.

 

I wonder will they sell new wheels that can lock for $999 eventually.

I don't quite get how Apple overlooked the wheel locks... with that said, this new GPU is definitely a relief for Mac Pro buyers who still have to watch their budgets (i.e. individuals and smaller businesses).  You can get pretty solid GPU performance without dropping $2,400.

[jasonvp]

51 minutes ago, Commodus said:

this new GPU is definitely a relief for Mac Pro buyers who still have to watch their budgets (i.e. individuals and smaller businesses).  You can get pretty solid GPU performance without dropping $2,400.

I likely would have chosen it over the Vega II had it been available when I ordered.  Mainly because of the faster hardware encoding and decoding that Navi brings to the table.  The concern I'd have right now is: how will its rendering performance match up against the older Vega II?  I recently picked up a new Canon C500 Mk II, and when playing/editing its RAW Lite output in Resolve, the GPU's utilization shoots up to nearly 95%.  Which is awesome; means I'm getting my money's worth out of that expensive GPU.  But would the same exercise knock the W5700X over?  Would two W5700X GPUs work better for Resolve than a single Vega II?  They'd certainly be less expensive, but they'd also eat into my Mac's PCI-E slots.

 

[Commodus]

2 minutes ago, jasonvp said:

I likely would have chosen it over the Vega II had it been available when I ordered.  Mainly because of the faster hardware encoding and decoding that Navi brings to the table.  The concern I'd have right now is: how will its rendering performance match up against the older Vega II?  I recently picked up a new Canon C500 Mk II, and when playing/editing its RAW Lite output in Resolve, the GPU's utilization shoots up to nearly 95%.  Which is awesome; means I'm getting my money's worth out of that expensive GPU.  But would the same exercise knock the W5700X over?  Would two W5700X GPUs work better for Resolve than a single Vega II?  They'd certainly be less expensive, but they'd also eat into my Mac's PCI-E slots.

 

If you go by raw computing power, the W5700X sits roughly in between the 580X and the Vega II at about 9.4 teraflops.  However, if Resolve can make use of dual GPUs, a twin W5700X setup might actually be better since it'd have more overall computing power and cost several hundred less.

[jasonvp]

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

If you go by raw computing power, the W5700X sits roughly in between the 580X and the Vega II at about 9.4 teraflops.  However, if Resolve can make use of dual GPUs, a twin W5700X setup might actually be better since it'd have more overall computing power and cost several hundred less.

That's exactly my thought.  The question I'm not going to answer right now is: would the additional ~4TFlops of single precision be worth the loss of some storage performance in my, specific case?  In order to put two of the MPX modules in my Mac, I'd have to move one of my HighPoint NVMe cards into a x8 slot, which would neuter its performance by half.  What I don't know is: would that have an adverse effect on the video editing?

 

Anf further, that's 18TFlops and then I'm done.  Game over.  Would Resolve just gobble up the two GPUs and ask for more?  I simply don't know, and have better thing$ to do with my money at the moment.