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Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

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211–220 of 301 posts

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're the same chip, but one of them has ‎artificially deactivated features and is a different line, yes. Misread the line part as chip.

It's a different part and it has different features. Not having ECC memory support is a big deal for some people, so it's misleading to suggest they're basically the same. They bin things for a reason. If you're happy using a less expensive part with fewer features, great, you can save money. If you're making a top-tier "Pro" product you'll want to avoid cutting corners like that.

It's a different "part" in the stores, but it starts off as the same "chip" in the factory.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#212

To all of you who're disappointed by this not being a "proper Pro": "4x larger L2 cache" and "2x wider AVX" suggest they're going to use the upcoming i9 X-series chips [1] that are based on Skylake design with ~15% better instructions-per-clock (IPC) performance than Broadwell-based Xeons, plus they'll clock much higher than Xeons too: with turbo boost up to 4.5Ghz for even the 10-core model!. Quad channel DDR4 at 26…

With ECC support, these are almost certainly Xeons, not Skylake-X.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#213
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and does not vent heat well enough They made it a point that the heat dissipation capacity is sufficient, 80% more than the non-pro iMac. edit: updated from the press-release.

Fried GPUs in the Macbook Pro line is a running gag at this point. Many iMac models have shown overheating issues as well. And I'm sure they were all supposed to have "sufficient" heat dissipation :) I'd give Apple the benefit of the doubt here, but not with my own money, and with an AppleCare.

iMac overheating? idk, when I had a 2013 27" I was able to overclock the GPU a lot and had no heat issues whatsoever

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#214

Gonna leave this here from the official press release as it seems quite a few people have missed this point: "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display." https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerfu... Also…

Black keyboard and trackpad, but a tenkeyless for the keyboard please!

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#215
post #2

I’m disappointed they chose “pretty” over a “functional” metal box like the old Mac Pros. They ran into thermal issues with the fancy design of the trash can, despite their promises of cutting edge thermal design. These iMac Pros are probably going to be soldered-CPU, soldered-RAM beasts with low repairability. It's a bit of a small victory that they support external GPUs, but I think they are missing the boat here.

Historically, Apple has been verrrrrry anal about making their x-ray marketing images reflect the real design that is hiding inside their units...and I definitely saw RAM sticks in slots when they were showing off the fans. So maybe they have changed course just a little?

The 27 inch imac has always had slotted ram.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#216
post #2

I’m disappointed they chose “pretty” over a “functional” metal box like the old Mac Pros. They ran into thermal issues with the fancy design of the trash can, despite their promises of cutting edge thermal design. These iMac Pros are probably going to be soldered-CPU, soldered-RAM beasts with low repairability. It's a bit of a small victory that they support external GPUs, but I think they are missing the boat here.

DIMMs were visible in the cooling system animation they showed on stage. Also I doubt that Intel will even make non-socketed Xeons.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#217
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about quality not being comparative, the LG panels are great, the real difference is they're not in an Apple aluminum package.

LG's 5K display costs $1299.

This is the standard Apple argument, "You can't get things like this at all". "Well, what about competitors, X, Y and Z?" "Well, you can get things like this, but they might cost more."

You're the one that said "5k screens cost $800-$1000 and they're inferior".

The retort to that is not to say "Well, that monitor costs $1300".

It's like you're only looking to acknowledge cheaper and inferior competitors and stick your fingers in your ears when challenged.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#218

To all of you who're disappointed by this not being a "proper Pro": "4x larger L2 cache" and "2x wider AVX" suggest they're going to use the upcoming i9 X-series chips [1] that are based on Skylake design with ~15% better instructions-per-clock (IPC) performance than Broadwell-based Xeons, plus they'll clock much higher than Xeons too: with turbo boost up to 4.5Ghz for even the 10-core model!. Quad channel DDR4 at 26…

With ECC support, these are almost certainly Xeons, not Skylake-X.

They literally said "Xeon" on stage.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#219
post #210
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just built a powerful Hackintosh for about $1.5k with Sierra. Was worried about how stable it would be and took good care of researching all the parts that were verified by the community[1]. It's been going good for 3-4 months now. Took some effort to get it all setup but am very happy now. I use this for Video/Photo post-processing, web development mainly. [1] https://www.tonymacx86.com/

My concern with this type of set-up is not neccessarily getting it working initially. Clearly you did you research and found parts that were supported. My concern is upgrading. For people with hackintosh experience what has the longevity experience been like? Do things break each major upgrade? Are things slow moving to get to the latest version? I'm worried it might be like Linux desktop back in the day. I've found…

During my tenure with a hackintosh at home, I never upgraded the OS as it basically meant a reformat. This was around 10.6-10.8 - I don't know if it has got better. Meaning once I installed a flavor of 10.x.y, I would never upgrade to 10.x.(y+1) until a new x came out, then I'd just reformat.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#220

Given the support for major gaming engines, Steam VR, and changes within Metal 2, is it wrong to be optimistic for Mac gaming? If the takeaway from this WWDC could be potential gaming parity with Windows, that's a really big deal for me. Me being the segment of Pro users who need to work on a Mac and want to game natively on one, too.

Optimism would be warranted if they announced Vulkan, OpenGL 4.5 and a commitment to update their product line with new internal GPUs more frequently and at reasonable prices. Thunderbolt 3 has less than half the bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0 x16 so that's a lame solution for GPU upgradability.

GPUs don't really use the whole 3.0 x16 bandwidth, x8 is enough. It is sad that they didn't drop Metal in favor of Vulkan, yeah.
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