4 ms·

They will be if they start putting them in Macs.

Baeocystin 9y ago
I think we agree on that. I'm certain they will. But that also agrees with my initial statement, no? For Apple, they want thin and light. Mobile is both things, and the thought of designing a system that can cope with the 200W+ draw of desktop GPU parts doesn't even factor in to their thinking. They're tossing a bone to the users who need actual heavy-duty GPU power by talking about the ability to use external cards, but (in my opinion) considering the cost and performance issues that come with that approach, it is more an admission that they truly don't care about that segment of the market than an actual solution.
- doomlaser 9y ago
  https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/ — released just a few months ago. The AMD Vega 64 has got to push a few hundred watts. Microsoft has the Surface Book 2 with GTX 1060 and they must be looking at that as competition for the high end MacBook Pro.
  - Baeocystin 9y ago
    I did a little poking around out of curiosity. According to: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review/20 https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-... Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W. According to the imac pro tech specs from the link you provided, it has an idle draw of 64W, and a peak draw of 370W for the entire system. Unless I'm mistaken, that seems to imply that there has to be a good deal of throttling between the CPU & GPU to come in at that power budget. (The specs also note an additional 50W(!) of potential draw for fans alone if the imac is operated in a warm environment.) Am I mistaken? Not arguing, just hashing out my understanding. Your point regarding the Surface Book 2 and the 1060 makes sense. It does look like I was technically incorrect about them not engineering to a 200+ watt GPU, although I do wonder what sustained draw it can handle thermally compared to a full desktop part, and how much that would affect performance.
    - chx 9y ago
      > Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W. John from Mantiz reported 650W peak. Surely only for milliseconds but still. https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/2014-mac-mini-vega-rx-64-akitio-node-apple-tb3-tb2-adapter-macoswin10-rolfl/#post-18787 https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/2014-mac-mini-v... it is absolutely not in the interests of an eGPU chassis manufacturer to report figures which hinder their own sales so I believe him. Similarly, someone with an awful lot of AMD knowledge (AMD employee?) on the egpu.io forums pretty much begged people not to try the Vega 64 in a Sonnet 550 hinting at similar problems https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/sonnet-says-that-350550-will-not-support-vega/#post-22333 https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/sonnet-says-th... and saying a solution is in the works. Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_a2&action=b914#b914 http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_... says the Vega 64 is only supported in the 650 box -- which was just released pretty much because of the necessity to support the Vega 64. Something is rotten in Denmark: 650W power supply supports up to 375W card (up to 8-pin + 8-pin power connectors) plus provides additional 100W of peak power.
- ianai 9y ago
  Since 2003, they’ve always made their best hardware solutions as mobile devices. Desktops have been more for specific use cases - almost exclusively geared toward niche use cases. Ie Mac Pro and iMac Pro. It seems more than a little odd to me. They don’t really offer a seam less transition from desktop to laptop to handheld. Even the old iPods felt more naturally integrated into their desktop usage than current. I wish they offered a full size, liquid cooled but fans included high end/Nvidia GPU desktop. A system that’s not afraid to be noisy because their users aren’t seeking that. Then sync up the less hardware intensive tasks between their mobiles. But maybe that desktop market died in their eyes.
  - prewett 9y ago
    I think the market for liquid-cooled desktops is pretty niche itself. It just happens to be a niche that Apple is not interested in. Whereas for the majority of people, a regular iMac is just fine.

I think we agree on that. I'm certain they will. But that also agrees with my initial statement, no? For Apple, they want thin and light. Mobile is both things, and the thought of designing a system that can cope with the 200W+ draw of desktop GPU parts doesn't even factor in to their thinking. They're tossing a bone to the users who need actual heavy-duty GPU power by talking about the ability to use external cards, but (in my opinion) considering the cost and performance issues that come with that approach, it is more an admission that they truly don't care about that segment of the market than an actual solution.

doomlaser 9y ago
https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/ — released just a few months ago. The AMD Vega 64 has got to push a few hundred watts. Microsoft has the Surface Book 2 with GTX 1060 and they must be looking at that as competition for the high end MacBook Pro.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  I did a little poking around out of curiosity. According to: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review/20 https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-... Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W. According to the imac pro tech specs from the link you provided, it has an idle draw of 64W, and a peak draw of 370W for the entire system. Unless I'm mistaken, that seems to imply that there has to be a good deal of throttling between the CPU & GPU to come in at that power budget. (The specs also note an additional 50W(!) of potential draw for fans alone if the imac is operated in a warm environment.) Am I mistaken? Not arguing, just hashing out my understanding. Your point regarding the Surface Book 2 and the 1060 makes sense. It does look like I was technically incorrect about them not engineering to a 200+ watt GPU, although I do wonder what sustained draw it can handle thermally compared to a full desktop part, and how much that would affect performance.
  - chx 9y ago
    > Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W. John from Mantiz reported 650W peak. Surely only for milliseconds but still. https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/2014-mac-mini-vega-rx-64-akitio-node-apple-tb3-tb2-adapter-macoswin10-rolfl/#post-18787 https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/2014-mac-mini-v... it is absolutely not in the interests of an eGPU chassis manufacturer to report figures which hinder their own sales so I believe him. Similarly, someone with an awful lot of AMD knowledge (AMD employee?) on the egpu.io forums pretty much begged people not to try the Vega 64 in a Sonnet 550 hinting at similar problems https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/sonnet-says-that-350550-will-not-support-vega/#post-22333 https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/sonnet-says-th... and saying a solution is in the works. Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_a2&action=b914#b914 http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_... says the Vega 64 is only supported in the 650 box -- which was just released pretty much because of the necessity to support the Vega 64. Something is rotten in Denmark: 650W power supply supports up to 375W card (up to 8-pin + 8-pin power connectors) plus provides additional 100W of peak power.
ianai 9y ago
Since 2003, they’ve always made their best hardware solutions as mobile devices. Desktops have been more for specific use cases - almost exclusively geared toward niche use cases. Ie Mac Pro and iMac Pro. It seems more than a little odd to me. They don’t really offer a seam less transition from desktop to laptop to handheld. Even the old iPods felt more naturally integrated into their desktop usage than current. I wish they offered a full size, liquid cooled but fans included high end/Nvidia GPU desktop. A system that’s not afraid to be noisy because their users aren’t seeking that. Then sync up the less hardware intensive tasks between their mobiles. But maybe that desktop market died in their eyes.
- prewett 9y ago
  I think the market for liquid-cooled desktops is pretty niche itself. It just happens to be a niche that Apple is not interested in. Whereas for the majority of people, a regular iMac is just fine.