I mean, you know, since Apple "isn't interested in cutting costs and turning their devices into appliances", wouldn't that have been the right thing to do?
The Mac Pro chassis is also incredibly easy to work on. That goes against apples current philosophy. Take a look at how non-user friendly repairing any modern Apple product is. You can't even replace various components yourself.
No mention of the eGPU possibilities? Last I heard you had to hack one of the MacOS modules to get this to work over thunderbolt and it was much simpler to use a windows installation. Maybe this could solve that problem.
"In the case of the former, while macOS doesn’t support external GPUs (and isn’t certified as eGFX complaint by Intel), it’s possible to use Macs with Thunderbolt eGFX chassis with a bit of OS patching. "
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the article. Thunderbolt 3 with external GPU and now driver support opens up better options. Hack away!
Nice. I currently have a GTX 970 in my 12 core Westmere Mac Pro and this provides me a solid upgrade path. I'm really surprised how long this model has endured due to Apple's missteps.
Considering that on the CPU side, the 2013 model of the Mac Pro only bests my model in AVX based code, my system is still state-of-the-art on the Mac side. With my GPU and SSD upgrades, I've got a machine faster than what Apple is currently selling in several aspects. I also have greater memory capacity (128 GB).
If I really wanted to go crazy, I wonder if the Quadro GP100 is supported under those macOS drivers...
Agreed, but connectivity is the issue for the older model, no USB 3 or thunderbolt...and prior to this announcement, display connectivity. However a brand spanking new nvidia card solves that problem and makes it much more appealing to me
This could have happened for either one of these two reasons:
1) Apple will use Nvidia GPUs for its next Mac Pro, and it forced Nvidia to provide its own drivers for the whole Mac OS and all Mac devices.
2) Apple chose AMD again or is about to, and Nvidia is all "Hey, look at us how much we love Mac OS! - Pick us! Pick us!"
Personally, I'd much rather Apple chose AMD for both GPUs and CPUs. Imagine the (rumored) AMD 16-core Ryzen "threadripper". It would be the absolute BOMB if it went into the Mac Pro, even if they kept a $4,000-$5,000 price tag. As long as it would have tremendous value/pack, the final price tag won't matter that much for professional workshops.
I'd rather just have the option to shove anything I want in there, Apple can choose the CPU and I'll pick the GPU. At least with the option there's a chance for competition and better prices.
agreed. it makes no sense to buy a one time appliance in the professional space at an absurd price. The ability to upgrade is a must, hence the existence of the hackintosh scene.
I would like to see a new standard for graphics cards, the PCIe slot is very limiting. I can see why Apple designed that computer and the innovation in having everything fit, but unless they have upgrades ready in that form-factor.. it's going to fail.. and it did.
it's not, he/she's a mac user which in 95% of most cases means they've been mislead by apple PR and are simply ignorant to the reality of most situations when it comes to technology (even though they may in fact be an intelligent person in real life). The mac pro failed for three reasons:
Absurd, ridiculous pricing Lack of co processing enabled apps, due to the lack of machines out there using co processors. Dongle mess, a mac pro on your desk means wires everywhere.
I am not a MAC user. You make wild assumptions and crap all over someone you don't know on a single comment? you're a really bad person inside aren't you? I can tell. You need to go outside more.
The limiting factor I always find is the slot itself. Look at an ITX motherboard, you get one slot to insert a card into, then you have to mount that card in the case (we're talking without using risers and ribbons) so then the size of the case is going to limit you to either full height or half height. Then you have the bracket limit and the width of the card. Like my ITX 1070 cards are taller and reach into a third slot a bit and have less chance of fitting.
Additionally you're only ever going to have a single card. So if the slot and bracket is done away with. You get a new connector perhaps with a cable. You think outside the box with the GPU design, perhaps having it mounted to a radiator, a cable connector down to the board, the monitor ports are fed through the motherboard.. you can do almost what you want.
Oh, thanks GOD, finally I can use my shiny GTX 1060 with the MacBookPro!
I have an external eGPU setup, and after buying a brand new GTX 1060 last year, I realized that there is no driver support for this graphic card on MacOS, so I needed to buy an used GTX 970 and make a downgrade!
New Mac Pro is not this year and probably no time early next year...Could this indicate external GPU support instead? Or a Geforce/Quadro iMac "pro" that they were talking about?
"The fact of the matter is that neither of these groups is very big relative to the much bigger Mac user base – who wants to do real professional work on an unsupported video card setup?"
A friend of mine is a big-time film editor - mostly does TV series and commercials. Started out with an iMac, moved onto a Mac Pro, and as of relatively recently had no choice but to go Hackintosh, because of performance. If that doesn't qualify as "real professional work" I don't know what does.
The Hackintosh market might be niche, but it's not as small as this article tends to make it seem. And, as you've said, professionals and enthusiasts tend to spend big bucks on hardware.
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lilmoe - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
The old tower looked way better than the trash can. All they had to do was update it with newer components. SHM...lilmoe - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
I mean, you know, since Apple "isn't interested in cutting costs and turning their devices into appliances", wouldn't that have been the right thing to do?sc14s - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Shake head my indeedlilmoe - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Blame the edit button. Strange you found it more amusing than the trash can though.Krysto - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
"We've innovated our way into the trash-can!" - AppleSamus - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
The Mac Pro chassis is also incredibly easy to work on. That goes against apples current philosophy. Take a look at how non-user friendly repairing any modern Apple product is. You can't even replace various components yourself.MadDuffy - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
No mention of the eGPU possibilities? Last I heard you had to hack one of the MacOS modules to get this to work over thunderbolt and it was much simpler to use a windows installation. Maybe this could solve that problem.Ryan Smith - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
"In the case of the former, while macOS doesn’t support external GPUs (and isn’t certified as eGFX complaint by Intel), it’s possible to use Macs with Thunderbolt eGFX chassis with a bit of OS patching. "galfert - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the article. Thunderbolt 3 with external GPU and now driver support opens up better options. Hack away!Kevin G - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Nice. I currently have a GTX 970 in my 12 core Westmere Mac Pro and this provides me a solid upgrade path. I'm really surprised how long this model has endured due to Apple's missteps.Considering that on the CPU side, the 2013 model of the Mac Pro only bests my model in AVX based code, my system is still state-of-the-art on the Mac side. With my GPU and SSD upgrades, I've got a machine faster than what Apple is currently selling in several aspects. I also have greater memory capacity (128 GB).
If I really wanted to go crazy, I wonder if the Quadro GP100 is supported under those macOS drivers...
Sarah Terra - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
Agreed, but connectivity is the issue for the older model, no USB 3 or thunderbolt...and prior to this announcement, display connectivity. However a brand spanking new nvidia card solves that problem and makes it much more appealing to meKevin G - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
You can get USB 3 via add-in card. Actually pretty much anything you'd want TB3 for you can get an add-in card for too.Filiprino - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Probably Mac users are a target for that card. Easy milking.madwolfa - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
For me it was really an indication that Nvidia is aiming a shot at the new Mac Pro.Krysto - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
This could have happened for either one of these two reasons:1) Apple will use Nvidia GPUs for its next Mac Pro, and it forced Nvidia to provide its own drivers for the whole Mac OS and all Mac devices.
2) Apple chose AMD again or is about to, and Nvidia is all "Hey, look at us how much we love Mac OS! - Pick us! Pick us!"
Personally, I'd much rather Apple chose AMD for both GPUs and CPUs. Imagine the (rumored) AMD 16-core Ryzen "threadripper". It would be the absolute BOMB if it went into the Mac Pro, even if they kept a $4,000-$5,000 price tag. As long as it would have tremendous value/pack, the final price tag won't matter that much for professional workshops.
HomeworldFound - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
I'd rather just have the option to shove anything I want in there, Apple can choose the CPU and I'll pick the GPU. At least with the option there's a chance for competition and better prices.Sarah Terra - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
agreed. it makes no sense to buy a one time appliance in the professional space at an absurd price. The ability to upgrade is a must, hence the existence of the hackintosh scene.jabbadap - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Hmm wonder if it includes vulkan...HomeworldFound - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
I would like to see a new standard for graphics cards, the PCIe slot is very limiting. I can see why Apple designed that computer and the innovation in having everything fit, but unless they have upgrades ready in that form-factor.. it's going to fail.. and it did.prisonerX - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
PCIe is limiting how, exactly?Sarah Terra - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
it's not, he/she's a mac user which in 95% of most cases means they've been mislead by apple PR and are simply ignorant to the reality of most situations when it comes to technology (even though they may in fact be an intelligent person in real life). The mac pro failed for three reasons:Absurd, ridiculous pricing
Lack of co processing enabled apps, due to the lack of machines out there using co processors.
Dongle mess, a mac pro on your desk means wires everywhere.
HomeworldFound - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
I am not a MAC user. You make wild assumptions and crap all over someone you don't know on a single comment? you're a really bad person inside aren't you? I can tell. You need to go outside more.The limiting factor I always find is the slot itself. Look at an ITX motherboard, you get one slot to insert a card into, then you have to mount that card in the case (we're talking without using risers and ribbons) so then the size of the case is going to limit you to either full height or half height. Then you have the bracket limit and the width of the card. Like my ITX 1070 cards are taller and reach into a third slot a bit and have less chance of fitting.
Additionally you're only ever going to have a single card. So if the slot and bracket is done away with. You get a new connector perhaps with a cable. You think outside the box with the GPU design, perhaps having it mounted to a radiator, a cable connector down to the board, the monitor ports are fed through the motherboard.. you can do almost what you want.
HomeworldFound - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
I will add that I wouldn't rule out anything if I enjoyed using it, heck I used to use BeOS on dual boot.zohozer - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
Oh, thanks GOD, finally I can use my shiny GTX 1060 with the MacBookPro!I have an external eGPU setup, and after buying a brand new GTX 1060 last year, I realized that there is no driver support for this graphic card on MacOS, so I needed to buy an used GTX 970 and make a downgrade!
tipoo - Friday, April 7, 2017 - link
New Mac Pro is not this year and probably no time early next year...Could this indicate external GPU support instead? Or a Geforce/Quadro iMac "pro" that they were talking about?prisonerX - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
Nvidia worked out that most of their driver downloads were to Hackintoshes. Well done!ruthan - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
Drivers are only for Titan or all 10xx cards are now supported?yhselp - Saturday, April 8, 2017 - link
"The fact of the matter is that neither of these groups is very big relative to the much bigger Mac user base – who wants to do real professional work on an unsupported video card setup?"A friend of mine is a big-time film editor - mostly does TV series and commercials. Started out with an iMac, moved onto a Mac Pro, and as of relatively recently had no choice but to go Hackintosh, because of performance. If that doesn't qualify as "real professional work" I don't know what does.
The Hackintosh market might be niche, but it's not as small as this article tends to make it seem. And, as you've said, professionals and enthusiasts tend to spend big bucks on hardware.
benzosaurus - Sunday, April 9, 2017 - link
At least they're admitting their power users aren't buying their hardware anymore.sonicmerlin - Monday, April 10, 2017 - link
Can we go back to the design of the Powermac G4? That thing was so curvy and futuristic looking.ziling - Saturday, February 3, 2018 - link
And one year later, running GTX1080 on 10.13.3 hackintosh with web drivers, still zero HEVC encoding/decoding support.