While Apple is working on the next-gen Mac Pro, coming in 2018 at the earliest according to Apple SVP Phil Schiller (“that’ll take longer than this year to do” – so they’re obviously not that far along in the process where changes/additions/subtractions can’t be made), we thought this would be a great time for Mac-using professionals weigh in.
All we know from Apple, so far, about the next-gen Mac Pro (and pro displays) is that neither will ship this year. Apple is “completely rethinking” the Mac Pro and the company wants “to architect it so that [they] can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and [they’re] committed to making it [their] highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for [Apple’s] demanding pro customers.”
Last week, Schiller also stated, “We think it’s really important to create something great for our pro customers who want a Mac Pro modular system…”
So, pros, what’s on your Mac Pro wishlist?
My only ask for a Mac Pro is for it to be capable of being a powerful gaming machine that boojee gamers would be jealous of instead of laughing at it. I use my Mac for everything, not just work. This is mainly the one area I’ve never been satisfied with from Apple.
Spoken like a true pro
First, I don’t care about gaming. I haven’t gamed on a PC (or any other platform for that matter) in over 10 years. While gaming is important to many people, it’s just not at all important to me or any of my close working associates. We just don’t have the time (or for most of them, the interest).
I don’t consider any version of an iMac (unless it is *RADICALLY* different from any iMac over the last 10 years) a true Pro machine. Semi-Pro maybe. “Prosumer” very likely. But, a true Pro machine? No way. Not even in theory.
But, if I’m putting together a true wish list for the next Mac Pro…
Chips: Latest X class i7 chips with options for Xeons
Minimum of 8 cores with options for up through 20+ cores
Card: Minimum of four PCIe 4.0 slots (preferably six PCIe 4.0 slots) – PCIe 5.0 if it’s out by then
Minimum of two x16 slots, minimum of one x8 slot (e.g., two x16, one x8, one x4)
Minimum of four USB Type-C connectors each and every one supporting
Full complement of protocols supported: DisplayPort 1.5 (expected soon); USB 3.1 Gen 2; MHL 3.0 & superMHL 1.0; Thunderbolt 3; HDMI 1.5 (expected soon); Power out to external components (100 W)
Minimum of two 10 Gbps Ethernet ports
Graphics Cards: Support for at least two of the latest of both AMD’s and Nvidia’s graphics cards
Minimum of the then equivalent of GTX 1060, options for up to the then equivalent of GTX 1080 Ti
Options for up through the then equivalent of the P100
Memory: Support for up to 128 GB ECC RAM (minimum DDR4-2666) (more would be nice, but even my largest simulations don’t get into a swap thrashing situation with 128 GB)
Storage: Minimum 1 TB SSD, options for up to 4 TB SSD, slots for a minimum of 2 HDDs
Wireless: 802.11ac 4×4 minimum (higher MxN would be better) plus 802.11ad and Bluetooth 5
Shipping with supported monitors of
Digital Cinema 8K resolution (8192 x 4320) in a 40″ diagonal form factor. (And, Mac Pro support for a minimum of two of these)
5K monitor (5120 x 2880) in a 32″ diagonal form factor (And, Mac Pro support for a minimum of four of these)
Wishful/fantacy niceties might include:
Support for dual Xeons with up through 40+ cores (80+ threads)
A minimum of 128 GB of Optane memory running at the then bleeding edge speeds for that.
Internal support for up to 4 HDDs with hardware RAID support (software RAID should be redundant if Apple implements their new file system properly — hardware raid is for speed and added reliability)
Optical Drives (support for TDK’s 200 GB disks too much to ask?)
I know, this all adds up to one hell of a workstation, and it probably would top out at more than $15,000.00 not counting the monitors. But, if Apple shoots for this goal and offers multiple steps below this, then Apple could really bring back the Mac Pro as the premier workstation for professionals.
Nvidia, Nvidia, Nvidia! PCIe, PCIe, PCIe – 16X! USB 3.1, TB3, DDR5, user upgradeable RAM, User upgradeable everything.
In other words an upgraded 2012 Cheese Grater after the grating 2013 mini-strosity.
Including upgradability to all not yet invented technologies and protocols too…
I would be happy with the cheese grater case with new guts. I don’t care much about the housing, just the (expandable, customizable, replaceable) up to date internals.
CPUs are stock, so that doesn’t matter as long as they are FREAKING recent… They need to be the current shipping versions of Intel’s latest.
GPUs – need the 1070+ line in their computers at related prices or a PCI slot that can house whatever the client wants.
RAM – no 16GB freaking limit on their new hardware.
SSD – 1TB at LEAST with expansion and multiple drive expansion options.
A realistic, pragmatic and commercially responsive time frame for its release date, not worrying about sprinkling the damn thing with designer pixie dust and washed with unicorn tears. It’s just a box of bits for crying out loud!
It sounds to me like you’re simply describing a hackintosh….why don’t you just build one then? You customize it however you want without all that Jonny Ive magic?
8
Industry standards that are in wide use today, not tomorrow.
Add the tomorrow as well.
But keep the today.
Life in the now.
Not in the when?
That just makes us ask why?
That its an update of the 5,1 cheese grater Mac Pro with pci slots, and not an update of the 6,1 trash can Mac Pro.
with the look, feel, and friendly usability of Snow Leopard, don’t need or want the wimply low contrast Jony Ive influence, just go ahead and pay him if the condition is that he stay away.
I hope they leave have an option that allows one to opt for the best CPUs and most RAM, while at the same time not having to get a super-powerful GPU. My needs are for music and audio (mostly with Logic), and a top-line GPU is wasted on me.
Upgradeable everything so they’ll last as long as the xserves and 5,1 MPs that are keeping my data center afloat ’til now. Fingers crossed what I have will last long enough so I don’t need to buy a 3yo Mini as a stop-gap replacement.
Also…
– if they can be paired for extra power or redundancy, that would be sweet.
– if USB-C is “it” for the next decade or so, fine, but have a single block adapter that can turn a couple USB-C ports into multi-ethernet, hdmi, usb, thunderbolt, etc. (many dongles = many points of failure).
– needs to fit nicely in an existing data center (ie, flip sideways with brackets to mount in rack — even if it takes up 4-5Us, course a 1-2u xserve revisited would be lovely).
– multiple power adapters, hot swappable drives, other things to minimize having to turn them off.
Industry standard, latest CPUs, Latest GPU, Latest nVidia GPU and Support, 32GB+ memory, INTERNAL storage, with SSD I don’t see why you couldn’t have at least 8 drives, USB-C and a couple of USB 2.
Demi-Cheese-Grater
Minimum expansion:
2 PCI Slots
4 RAM Slots
2 HD slots, with the option of HD, Fusion HD, SSD, or optical
USB 3 X 4
Thunderbolt 3 X 4
SD slot
1 FW slot (allow me to dream)
There should NO reason to make it difficult to upgrade the HD and RAM or video card on any desktop Mac.
Size and weight and power consumption should NOT be major priorities for a desktop machine.
I just want a good looking box with a motherboard and slots.
All Apple need to do is provide driver support to allow me to put whatever I like in it.
Sure, offer ready to go systems on the website, but also offer a bare bones option for people who know what they want, where to get it and how to put it together.
More than anything, annual hardware updates/upgrades/refreshes. Even if I don’t make a purchase every year Apple, show your commitment to the ENTIRE pro community.
-The last cheese grater has a CPU/RAM tray that can be pulled out – USEFUL for blowing out the dust every couple months, give us that.
-PCIe slots, a couple x16 ones if we want to SLI… And a few more general purpose PCIe slots.
-Of course, USB3 and Thunderbolt 3. And sure, give my pro machine an ethernet port!
-Internal drives, plural; 4 is enough. Optical drive? I dunno, maybe not.
-Nice that Nvidia is giving us Mac drivers for the Pascal line, give us the option to order, but not at ridiculous prices (and do nothing to preclude us replacing video cards down the line, as long as drivers are available).
Lots of good entries here, but, yes, this sucker needs to be infinitely variable. It’s half the fun to spend hours picking out options, after all.
Infinitely variable is a good illustration.
But it also comes down to cost effectiveness: the reason why the Trash Can didn’t gain traction in certain customer segments was because its “Thunderbolt Tax” was pretty rude (I priced my own use case out as costing an extra $2K **per desktop seat**).
For example, my needs lean towards fast storage I/O and big local data storage. The cheese grater has been pretty good with this for a decade by doing a RAID 0 … and although SSD’s are taking this over, it’s still damn pricy to have 5TB worth of SSDs for a small independent business to swallow.
And the other part of this is … EXPCOSYSTEM.
Doesn’t do us any damn good to have improved hardware on OS X if there’s no products that make the OS worth having. Apple’s discontinuation of stuff like Apeture is a prime example of ecosystem erosion. We’re not all music composers, etc, which is why there’s the need for flexibility for diversity in customers.
-hh
“EXPCOSYSTEM”? … and a new dictionary for iOS!
Just Curious. With what is available in the current technology cycle or maybe the next, what is the baddest box (realistically) that Apple could offer that would appeal ($$$) to the Pro market?
A faster horse.
As in the Henry Ford quote?
Clever, but wrong. Jobs actually made the better analogy: cars and trucks. Cars – ideally, anyway – SHOULD be sleek and sexy and have lots of non-utilitarian appeal; it is part of their appeal. But aesthetics are (largely) wasted on trucks, and trucks are still necessary.
OK, one too many “appeals” there.
Accepts standard Graphics cards.
Accepts standard Memory cards.
Accepts standard expansion cards.
Has a replaceable power supply.
Has a user replaceable plugin wireless card for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Has a BTO option of Core i7 or Xeon Class CPUs
Has internal bays for multiple SSDs or HDs.
Has an optical drive bay for Bluetooth or CD/DVD drives.
Has Ethernet, eSATA, USB 3 and Thunderbolt/USB C connectors.
Has Digital optical output.
Is at least as quiet as a Mac Pro Workstation (pre-trashcan) under load.
Simplified, it is a modern version of the Cheesegrater.
Many of us do not need today’s Xeon CPUs, so a smaller case with Core i7 CPUs and optional BTO Xeons would be nice.
This should also help keep the price down as Xeon CPUs are damned expensive.
When Apple says they are developing a “modular” Mac Pro I suspect they mean they are going to provide a separate PCIe expansion chassis. This will be okay with me as long as they provide a 16-lane Gen 3/4 cable between the main chassis and expansion chassis for no loss of performance (other than some additional latency).
It is also reasonable to put all rotating magnetic media in a separate chassis with a TB3 link, as long as the main chassis has multiple NVMe SSD slots.
I recommend the main chassis support a single Xeon with four channels of ECC DDR$ SDRAM memory, one x16 PCIe slot for a GPU, 4 NVMe M.2 slots, two x16 PCIe expansion links (to external expansion chassis), and multiple TB3/USB-C for external storage systems. (All of the PCIe with require a PCIe switch on the motherboard.)
Nothing difficult or unexpected suggested here, so I just hope Apple gets on and does it. What’s is their mental stumbling-block about this? Imagine the shame involved in going into their new building where the Apple employees/developers themselves will have to use PCs and non-Apple displays. Apple, and this applies to their software as well, sometimes, seem to stop all development on a product with its release, rather than understanding
that the very next day, they have to start work on making it better. The Mac Pro is only the latest, most extreme example of Apple’s tendency simply to stop work on a product after release. I’d also put in a word for the expandable 2012 MacMini; Apple’s 2014 blatant downgrade, not upgrade, was truly shameful: the opposite of their advertising about making the best products for their users.
I would add I am not a trash-can hater. It had its purposes for very specific tasks especially multi-tasking, but almost from the beginning maxed out iMacs were doing some tasks better than the Mac Pro (I was horrified when a non/pro friend bought a Mac Pro rather than an iMac). And that it was a true desktop & quiet, as well as beautifully designed was more than nice. But even editing Final Cut Pro X with a Mac Pro with maxed out RAM, I was surprised how long it took to load the project library each session, and even sometimes with a noticeable lag during editing after the project and all the metadata that had to be computed, not to speak of the graphic demands, had become very large and complex.
Mostly all of the above.
And I think Apple definitely should produce 2 chassis
– A full tower (standard parts, upgradable) Xeon, ECC…
– and a compact one (standard parts, upgradable), possibly i7
No more “one product line suits all”, we are a diverse group of people
Basically everyone’s wish list is the stuff that is standard on an $800 pc tower.
Are dual Xeon CPUs “standard” on an $800 PC tower?
I see headless iMac concepts again, but none of you actually said it. Apple does not make the best trucks. Apple needs to.
Tower type case that supports PCI-SSD, simple hard drive slots to allow easy insert and removal of hard drives. USB 3.1 ports, USB-C ports (Front and Rear). Several PCI Slots. Space for a user add on optical drive.
Continuously upgradeable framework, from CPUs, GPUs, to thermal conditioning; aesthetically beautiful; noiseless; highly customizable (I get precisely what I need, and can ‘grow’ it); very fast disks, but terabytes or storage (e.g., for large image/movie libraries); iRAID (easy raid, w or w/o cloud).