Apple Reportedly Developing 5K Retina Thunderbolt Display With Integrated GPU (hothardware.com)

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: If you head over to Apple's website, the Cupertino outfit will happily sell you a 27-inch Thunderbolt display for $999, at least until its inventory runs out. Word on the web is that it's nearly out of stock and Apple doesn't plan to replenish them. Instead, Apple will launch a new version of its Thunderbolt monitor, one that's been upgraded to a 5K resolution and has a discrete GPU stuffed inside. It's an interesting product actually, if you think about it. Depending on the task, it can take some serious graphics muscle to drive a 5K resolution display. It amounts to over 14.7 million pixels (5120x2880), compared to Apple's current generation Thunderbolt display which runs at 2560x1440, or less than 3.7 million pixels. Apple's thinking is likely that if it integrates a GPU capable of driving a 5K resolution into the display itself, it won't have to worry about trying to balance graphics performance with thin and light designs for its future Mac systems.

Comments

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the source isn't 5K is it true 5K when processed and output by the monitor?

Re:How?

[Jzanu]

Think interpolation - a lower quality signal doesn't change the hardware requirements to manipulate and control 15 million individual pixels for contrast and brightness regulation with ambient lighting; that is a feature advertised heavily for cinema displays.

Re:How?

[AmiMoJo]

Send 5k compressed video to the monitor, and have the built in GPU decode it. Of course, no-one makes 5k video, but say you are doing video editing now you can have a 4k video a full resolution and some controls on screen at the same time.

Re:How?

[TheRaven64]

Thunderbolt can, among other things, encapsulate PCIe. You effectively end up with a discrete GPU that has slightly higher latency than the attached one, but all of the rendering is done on the GPU and the final image is output directly to the display. You'll upload textures, geometry, and shaders to the external GPU via Thunderbolt, but you won't be streaming rendered images over the connection.

This isn't a very surprising development. At least one third-party has been providing external GPUs for Macs since shortly after they started shipping with Thunderbolt (you can also buy a simple PCIe enclosure that plugs into Thunderbolt and lets you plug in other cards). Moving the GPU into the display (which, in an Apple monitor, already uses the PCIe parts of Thunderbolt to provide USB, Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, audio, and a camera) is a pretty logical step and one that several people had predicted.

Re:How?

[BasilBrush]

Don't sent pixels.

You're sending the instructions that go into the GPU, not the pixel data that comes out of the GPU. So you're sending polygon vertices and textures and so on. Worst case is video, and then you are sending an mpeg stream, which is a lot less bandwidth than number of pixels times number of frames.

Re:How?

[aurasdoom]

But the source is 5k. What's not to understand? You don't run a video cable to the monitor, you run a thunderbolt cable to the video card inside the monitor.

Re:How?

[John Allsup]

If you think about how a blu ray player works, for example, turning the video into raw pixels then sending over HDMI is actually quite stupid. Rather, if your display can decompress h264 in hardware, you can just stream the raw h264. With a few decent royalty free standards things could work so much better, albeit against a number of entrenched proprietary interests (which is why I don't hold my breath).

Re:How?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This isn't the sort of thing likely to bother Apple; but the major downside will be that the monitor will be stuck with whatever GPU was integrated for its entire life; and odds are that a nice 5k panel will be good enough for the job longer than the GPU that would fit within a suitably slim power budget.

Not a huge problem if you just want a lot of screen to do relatively undemanding things; but if Apple hasn't entirely finished chasing off their workstation customers they will probably find the performance rather painful.

Re:How?

[itamihn]

That's no problem. You can always buy next year the new model.

Re:How?

[muecksteiner]

I was under the impression that on your computer monitor, there is this thing called the operating system that is capable of providing genuine 5k content to your heart's desire. To wit, and by geeky standards: more open windows with more (typographically, at least) legible code on one and the same monitor.

Re:How?

[Malc]

You could also send compressed video (e.g. HEVC) to the display and decode it there, saving bunch of your Thunderbolt bandwidth.

Re:How?

[Plumpaquatsch]

This isn't the sort of thing likely to bother Apple; but the major downside will be that the monitor will be stuck with whatever GPU was integrated for its entire life;

It would probably not be something Apple would do, but you could easily make that GPU replaceable.

Re:How?

[Gamasta]

More likely a technology akin to DisplayLink, which drives a monitor over USB-Port. A DisplayLink chip is used either in the monitor itself (like on ASUS MB169B+ or Philips P-Line 231P4QUPES) or inside a docking station with some monitor connection. The operating system treats the USB device like a graphics card and you can do the usual multi-monitor setup.

I have a docking station on my desk (which drives 1920x1080 via USB3) and it works fine for productivity. It's not so good for gaming as there seems to be some latency involved.

The article indicates that this monitor would work over thunderbolt. That'd be like connecting a graphics card on PCIe and plugging the monitor there, except that the PCIe connection is done via cable and the graphics card is inside the monitor and not directly on the motherboard. I believe this solution may reduce the latency a lot and have larger bandwidth.

Re:How?

[jtownatpunk.net]

This isn't the sort of thing likely to bother Apple; but the major downside will be that the monitor will be stuck with whatever GPU was integrated for its entire life

Yeah, you've pretty much described Apple products since the aughts. I don't think I've seen a significant number of video upgrades for Apple computers since the 90s. I remember maybe 10 years ago, there were a handful of aftermarket cards available for the Mac Pro but you had to buy the Apple version. Or get the PC version and a PC to flash the Apple-compatible BIOS onto them. The Mac Pros may have had expansion slots but there wasn't a heck of a lot of hardware you could plug into them.

So you're right. This isn't going to bother Apple in the least.

Re:How?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It could be made modular(though Apple probably wouldn't be the vendor to do it); but I suspect that it would be in serious danger of falling into the same sort of niche that 'MXM' GPU modules for laptops have. Those are theoretically standardized and swappable; but relatively rare and often thermally or mechanically limited such that only a few specific upgrades can be made.

5k is too high a resolution for DP 1.2 to drive at 60Hz, so you would be limited to DP 1.3 or 1.4 parts, or nonstandard hacks of 1.2 parts(which is what the 'retina' iMac uses); and unless the plan is to actually have a little displayport dongle sticking out of the back of the monitor to plug into the GPU, you couldn't just use an ordinary PCIe expansion card, it would have to be something with an embedded DP connector and probably a mechanical design better suited to a monitor than to an ATX case.

Worse, since DP 1.3 or 1.4 can drive 5k monitors normally, without any putting the GPU in the monitor and using a PCIe link, there is going to be a relatively narrow window of opportunity before people who care enough to buy fancy monitors all have GPUs capable of driving them anyway; which means that selling upgrades for the oddball embedded GPU monitors will be of interest only to niche vendors like OWC(who are often your best option for upgrading freaky mac parts; but generally aren't inexpensive).

It would certainly be doable technically; but would be at serious risk of being orphaned in practice(much like the GPU cards in the 'cylinder' Mac Pro: architecturally those are normal PCIe parts; but board layout and connector are totally different and nobody seems to have taken much of an interest in offering upgrade modules).

Re:How?

[muecksteiner]

Sure. I was only saying that because the OP claimed "5K is pointless one-upping until there is an application for it.". It sure is when it comes to raw, full-screen video content - but that does not mean an Apple 5K screen intended to display OS X content is pointless.

Re:How?

[SuricouRaven]

But then you have to upgrade your display every time a new codec comes out, or have a player capable of real-time transcoding.

Re:How?

[SuricouRaven]

I've only ever plugged two things into my Mac pro expansion slot: An eSATA interface card (which worked perfectly) and an infiniband adaptor (Which was not detected by any OS). Based on that record, I wouldn't buy any PCI-e expansion for a mac pro without checking the returns policy, just in case.

Re:How?

[SuricouRaven]

That's going to take pricy hardware and a lot of power, and it's really unsuited for anyone who works in content production and needs artefact-free display.

Re:How?

[Malc]

TBH I was only thinking of the scenario where you've already got compressed video, not encoding first before transmitting it over the Thunderbolt connection. Perhaps you were thinking there'd be an encode step, hence your comment about artefacts? That'd be a pretty poor encoder BTW.

Re:How?

[Gr8Apes]

Well, since the iMacs have been running 5K for a while now... I guess they're not worthless. :)

Re: How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Upscaling DVDs isn't about getting more detail out than there was before, it's more about displaying the video you have in the best way possible.

If you have a simple set up of blu-ray player and TV directly connected by HDMI you've got 2 options.
1) Player decodes mpeg2, outputs pixels as a 480p stream. TV upscales each frame to fill the screen.
2) Player decodes mpeg2, upscales frames to 1080p/4k, sends that to TV. TV displays them 1:1

The upscaling has to happen somewhere, or you'd get your movie as a small rectangle in the middle of the screen. The player has more information available, as it can use multiple frames to assist in interpolation looking forward and back from the current one. Some TVs can also do that, but only by introducing a lag on the incoming video which can make external speakers get it off sync.
This is also why many TVs have a "games mode", which disables temporal interpolation and reduces latency.

Re:How?

[cayenne8]

until there's real content for it. 5K is pointless one-upping until there is an application for it.

Well, there are a number of cameras coming out, that are getting into decent price ranges, that shoot 4K+ video....and with my photo editing, that high resolution really allows me to truly see my high rez images while editing them.

I can also fit a LOT of open windows on a 5K monitor which is nice too....

But there are applications for a 4K or 5K computer monitor.

I had thought recently to get one of the iMac 5K's....but was worried that the GPU on it would be so busy with the display that it might now have quite enough power to run Davinci Resolve as speeds I wanted and needed for editing and color grading video.

With a monitor like this with GPU internal, I might could get that, and a new CPU unit (macbook pro, mac pro, etc)...and let the GPU in the computer unit do all the hard work for the application and the GPU in the monitor would do the display work....that sounds pretty sweet!

Re:How?

[Megane]

It could be as easy as updated GPU firmware to support a new codec (but not for your GPL Codec of the Week). In the worst case, it's still over a link that is already designed to run a 4K monitor, so unless you had a full 5K source, you could send the raw decoded video and the GPU in the monitor would upscale to full screen resolution.

This isn't some kind of crappy USB3 here, Thunderbolt is set up to be basically a PCI-e x2 or x4 port. The question is, what's it's future? Apple has had some pretty cool technologies that died when the rest of the world finally caught up with a different technology, in particular Firewire. Intel has accepted it, I don't see any other technology leap-frogging it yet, and it is possible that Thunderbolt over USB-C could actually catch on. (which could make the mini-DisplayPort version fall to the curse, ha ha)

I hate this a lot less than cramming the whole computer (something you want to upgrade more often than the screen) into a nice screen like current iMacs. Making a KVM switch for it could be tricky, though.

Re:How?

[Megane]

What resolution do they work in? Not 5K I presume, and the link is already designed to handle 4K of raw display data. Worst case, uncompressed video of the desired resolution can be sent, and will get up-scaled in the display's GPU to Retina resolution. It just goes over a bit more wire to get to the GPU. And there's nothing to keep someone doing 4K video production from just, you know, getting a computer with a built-in GPU and a dumb high-res monitor. They're also not going to need a GPU that pushes polygons. This is meant to allow a high-end GPU (aka gaming GPU) to be used with an otherwise cheap headless Mac Mini, or a second monitor for an iMac.

The problem is, what would they use instead? Thunderbolt is already one of the highest-bandwidth links you can get without using a dual-link connection to your monitor.

Re:How?

[D.McG.]

As long as it comes with a GTX 1080 I'd be OK with it. Apple has typically put notebook GPUs in their iMacs, but there won't be a notebook version of the GTX 1080. Though, to get their proprietary TCON to work with 8 display port lanes, they've been in bed with RADEON for the 5K Retina iMac. Hopefully it's not needed anymore now that DP 1.4 is out and supported by NVIDIA.

Re:How?

[D.McG.]

GP is referring to lossless video to the monitor. No encoding (which adds artifacts). Sure, it can be compressed a little bit without loss, but that's not what he's looking for. The CPU is better spent adding special effects during content production; not encoding/decoding in real time.

Re:How?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That would certainly keep it from being hopelessly obsolete longer than pretty much anything else currently available; but it would be quite a surprise to see Apple put a ~180watt, $700 GPU in what is already going to be a fairly expensive monitor. That's the other trouble with GPU+monitor: it really isn't possible to build the right product for various sorts of customers without having some serious SKU proliferation:

For the customer who just wants to be able to use a macbook air or the like and still enjoy a giant screen when at home/work, basically the cheapest, lowest-power GPU that can push that many pixels is exactly what the situation requires.

For people who are gaming or doing 3d work, the fastest cards available are barely enough for a 5k screen, so they'll need something markedly different(and not just more expensive; but with sufficiently different power and cooling demands that their version of the monitor will presumably need a different chassis unless you wildly overengineer the base model). Extra fun if the user needs CUDA and Apple goes AMD or anything of that sort.

It does seem that putting the GPU in the monitor is the best(and really only, since Thunderbolt 3 only uses DP 1.2 and Apple has a lot of recent and current products that therefore can't natively drive 5k screens) option for making 5k displays compatible with Apple's products in the near term; but it has a lot of gotchas and additional costs unless everything is made ugly and modular, which is not Apple's style. Plus, it runs the risk of being orphaned once DP 1.3/1.4 cards become more common and Intel bumps Thunderbolt to whatever the next step is, and computers are capable of driving screens directly again.

It'll work; but it seems like one of those expensive stopgaps that is best skipped unless you have no other option.

Re:How?

[AlterEager]

Thunderbolt is set up to be basically a PCI-e x2 or x4 port.

Ugh. A graphics card on a PCIe x4.

That's going to be fast.

Re:How?

[macs4all]

This isn't some kind of crappy USB3 here, Thunderbolt is set up to be basically a PCI-e x2 or x4 port. The question is, what's it's future? Apple has had some pretty cool technologies that died when the rest of the world finally caught up with a different technology, in particular Firewire. Intel has accepted it, I don't see any other technology leap-frogging it yet, and it is possible that Thunderbolt over USB-C could actually catch on. (which could make the mini-DisplayPort version fall to the curse, ha ha)

The coolest thing here is that it doesn't require any hardware changes to the computer-side of things, so long as the computer supports Thunderbolt or USB-C. Heck, with a Display-List-Transfer protocol like this, even plain-old USB 3.0 would have enough bandwidth by far.

Now, who says Apple just repackages other people's ideas?

Re:How?

[mattventura]

I don't know if things have changed, but it used to be that the primary GPU was always the one doing the rendering, and merely sent the rendered images to the other GPUs (on Windows at least). This means that upgrading the primary GPU would still improve performance of the others.

Re:How?

[rockout]

This entire discussion may be moot, as it appears there won't be a 5K monitor coming from Apple at all; at least, not in the near future.

Way to be up-to-date on the Mac rumors, Slashdot.

Re:How?

[macs4all]

A minor point to make: Intel didn't just accept Thunderbolt, they invented it. Apple just happens to be the only mainstream adopter that I can think of, and if something like this was in their long term plans it makes sense why they started including it years ago in the MBP line.

Not exactly true.

While Apple is far-and-away the leading evangelist and adopter of Thunderbolt (afterall, they co-developed the copper-wire version in partnership with Intel), there are Wintel PCs from major OEMs with it (sorry I couldn't find a more recent article), and their number is increasing.

I would bet that this idea of Apple's is a game changer, though. The time for attempting to pour raw pixels to the monitor is past. "Display-List-Transfer" is FAR more efficient, even at the expense (no pun) of making monitors significantly jump in price.

Think of it as "Distributed Processing".

Re:How?

[macs4all]

This isn't the sort of thing likely to bother Apple; but the major downside will be that the monitor will be stuck with whatever GPU was integrated for its entire life; and odds are that a nice 5k panel will be good enough for the job longer than the GPU that would fit within a suitably slim power budget.

OTOH, there is a possibility that GPUs can be in a dedicated, but standardized, card-slot in the display, allowing the display OEMs the ability to easily offer a range of performance/cost options without having to spin-off an entirely new model of the entire display. Also the possibility of user Upgrades to the GPU card could create aftermarket and OEM add-on sales.
br. Done right, this is a very interesting development.

Re:How?

[alvinrod]

Would make a good case to make the display capable of being upgraded then. There aren't that many codecs that mainstream players need to be capable of and it really comes down to the mainstream one (h.264/h.265) and the FOSS competitor at the time. Build the hardware into a module that can be put into the display or otherwise connected to it and it's fine. New codecs don't come around all that often, so it's unlikely to be that much of a hassle for consumers.

Of course this assumes companies design their displays in a sane manner which we know won't happen, because Sony will want you to use their god damned proprietary module which isn't compatible with the LG TV you previously had and want to get rid of because it's old and you want to watch movies in 16K.

Re:How?

[macs4all]

It could be made modular(though Apple probably wouldn't be the vendor to do it); but I suspect that it would be in serious danger of falling into the same sort of niche that 'MXM' GPU modules for laptops have. Those are theoretically standardized and swappable; but relatively rare and often thermally or mechanically limited such that only a few specific upgrades can be made.

I am on the fence as to whether Apple will at least offer BTO GPU options for these displays, and I agree that, if this catches-on, other mfgs. could come out with aftermarket GPU-card upgrades.

Second, I think this is a different situation than with the MXM modules, simply because of Form-Factor. Laptops live-and-die by crunching-out millimeters and tenths-of-millimeters, but in a monitor/TV, there is automatically a TON of space to allow for cards with heatsinks, fans, etc., so there is LOT more design-freedom for the GPU-card mfgs. to play with.

Re:How?

[BronsCon]

even plain-old USB 3.0 would have enough bandwidth by far.

Now, who says Apple just repackages other people's ideas?

Every USB 3.0 display adapter manufacturer.

Re:How?

[tigersha]

That was because Apple used PPC, which means the code for ROM on the card had to be recompiled. Not that hard.

Re:How?

[jedidiah]

When has ANY GPU ever been upgraded in such a manner?

Getting the latest version of PureVideo with a 5 year old card/monitor? Don't see it happening.

Re:How?

[jedidiah]

> That's no problem. You can always buy next year the new model.

Yeah, for 5 times the cost of the video card by itself.

Meanwhile, your old monitor will be reduced in value because of it's obsolete components.

Re:How?

[TechyImmigrant]

Putting the subtitles and progress bar in the extra pixels along the bottom of the screen when watching video, rather than overlaying them on the video is a win.

If you're editing code, all additional pixels are a win.

I'll be tempted by this thing when it's available.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that when people are editing video, it's nice to have both the full video in a window, as well as their tools and timeline on the screen at the same time, yes?

This is why the current Cinema Display was amazing back in the day - you could have a full 1080p window and still have your application interface with it.

Re:How?

[MachineShedFred]

Asus and others actually sell motherboards that are Thunderbolt capable - you just need the add-in card that gives you the ports for $20.

It's becoming far more common now that Apple's exclusivity agreement expired. Why? Because it's good technology with advantages over USB.

Re:How?

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, because temporal interpolation doesn't exist.

No wait, we've had that since progressive scan DVD players.

Re:How?

[MachineShedFred]

One point in favor of a modular design with swappable GPU that made the trashcan Mac Pro a non-starter for a lot of people: if you don't give me an nvidia option, then it's a non-starter for any CUDA application.

If you make an option with ATI and Nvidia both, then people can choose the one that works best for them - OpenCL or CUDA. Then maybe they could stop their dwindling pro video market share that started with the release of Final Cut X and the ATI-only trash can.

C'mon Apple - show the Adobe Premiere shops a little love too.

Re:How?

[MachineShedFred]

Anything from a GeForce 6xx to a 780 work in the MacPro4 and MacPro5 without any flashing at all - plug it in, boot it up, have video.

For best results, install the Quadro drivers from Nvidia's web site.

Re:How?

[tibit]

The "source" are PCI transactions to the GPU in the monitor. That GPU is driving the display. This is IMHO a very nice idea. Thus far, we've been putting all the monitor hardware there only to drive the display panel; that's a big waste in a way. Since we can now push PCI transactions over fairly robust, thin interconnects that are as easy to use as USB is, there's not much point anymore in keeping the GPU inside of the PC. The interconnect performs the same whether it's internal or external.

Re:How?

[mysidia]

With HDCP; you have to do that anyways, because holes were discovered, and new HDCP versions get released.

Eventually, at an unknown time in the future HDCP versions earlier than 2.3 are going to stop working, because new content released requires the new version.

Re:How?

[MachineShedFred]

It depends on the scheme being used. For example, Nvidia's SLR uses alternate-frame rendering where the render load is load balanced per frame across the set of GPUs, with the "primary" being the one with the connection to the display and handling the output transport. DX12 is a bit different, in that is splits each frame into regions and distributes the regions to the GPUs via a queue, which means that you could have non-identical GPUs sharing the render work. Microsoft demonstrated an Nvidia GPU and an Intel in-die GPU working together in a technology demo for a performance increase.

Re:How?

[macs4all]

Asus and others actually sell motherboards that are Thunderbolt capable - you just need the add-in card that gives you the ports for $20.

It's becoming far more common now that Apple's exclusivity agreement expired. Why? Because it's good technology with advantages over USB.

I believe that Intel's exclusivity agreement with Apple was only for 1 year, anyway. I just wish that the peripheral manufacturers wouldn't use TB compatibility as an excuse to rape the customer. But that will change as market-pressure (read: Cheap Chinese knockoff crap) drives the price of TB-compatible peripherals down.

Re:How?

[SuricouRaven]

It's the new firewire, really. It's faster and lower-overhead than USB - but it's also a lot more expensive, and very few users have a call for more than USB3 can provide, so thunderbolt remains a very niche connection.

Re:How?

[Anne Thwacks]

The only reason for 5120x2880 is to see what the hell you are doing when attempting CAD of complex parts.

FTFY.

Re: How?

[Redbehrend]

They jumped on the AMD train, in a way AMD started this new external mass market GPU trend.. They announced and started releasing monitors with built in gpus or combo external gpus. I bet apple will somehow turn it around to say they were the first....

Re: How?

[supabeast!]

The purpose of 5k is to allow people to edit 4k video at full resolution and have a UI on screen.

Re:How?

[Lord_Jeremy]

He's just talking about WWDC. And it's a given that Apple will general focus on software over hardware at WWDC. The new Mac Pro preview a couple years ago was a fluke. Apple tries not to make this event a media frenzy over new products because they want it to be for the developers.

Re:How?

[Coren22]

Now, who says Apple just repackages other people's ideas?

Intel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How?

[Coren22]

This presumably is one reason Apple has limited angst about USB-C vs Thunderbolt. The primary difference is the shape of the connector and a bit of software deciding what to do on the wires. USB-C adds power delivery wires too, but that's a separate system.

It couldn't have anything to do with 4x the data transfer over the USB-C 3.1/TB 3.0 interfaces?

Re:How?

[macs4all]

Now, who says Apple just repackages other people's ideas?

Intel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Oh, is "Repackaging" what you call Joint Development?

From the "Description" section of the article you just linked-to:

"This copper-based version of the Light Peak concept was co-developed by Apple and Intel. "

This is doubly-important, because, according to the same Article you linked to, Intel and Industry-Partners for the original Optical-Based "Light Peak" are "still developing optical Thunderbolt hardware and cables.[25]"

So, it looks to me like Apple not only had a hand in TB Development, but are the ONLY ones that have come up with the idea for a WORKING SOLUTION for its implementation.

Next time you want to throw "facts" in my face, try to make sure they actually support your point, not mine.

Idiot.

Re:How?

[Coren22]

Who had the idea for Lightpeak? Was it entirely Apple? You try to claim that Lightpeak was entirely Apple's idea, when it is much less clear. Intel invented Lightpeak, Apple and Intel developed Thunderbolt.

Perhaps you shouldn't act like such a delicate flower when someone challenges you?

Idiot.

Re:How?

[macs4all]

Who had the idea for Lightpeak? Was it entirely Apple? You try to claim that Lightpeak was entirely Apple's idea, when it is much less clear. Intel invented Lightpeak, Apple and Intel developed Thunderbolt.

Perhaps you shouldn't act like such a delicate flower when someone challenges you?

Idiot.

So, before you were claiming that Intel was saying that Apple "Repackaged" Light Peak

But then, when I PROVED you were WRONG, you try to DOUBLETALK your way out of it by claiming that I said that "Light Peak was "entirely Apple's idea". BULLSHIT.

I said that the only WORKING SOLUTION that involved the Light Peak concept was instigated by Apple and CO-DEVELOPED by Apple (and Intel).

Perhaps you shouldn't try to continue to defend the indefensible.

Re:How?

[Coren22]

OMG, are you APK or something? Flying off the handle at being challenged?

You are now trying to claim that Apple took Intel's work and advanced it considerably, while in a strict sense, Apple did repackage Lightpeak. They took an optical communications protocol, moved it to an electrical communications protocol, and put it in a Displayport connection. My point was that Apple didn't develop it, which I stand behind. Intel developed the technology, then worked with Apple to move it to a copper connection called Thunderbolt, using Displayport connectors (developed by Apple and approved by VESA). What are you missing?

Apple didn't develop it, tried to create a trademark around it, then gave the trademark to Intel. Intel developed 99% of Thunderbolt, and Apple admitted that and handed everything back to them. Apple didn't invent anything, they repackaged an existing technology, just like they did with tablets, smartphones, and many other "inventions" of theirs.

Why do you try to rabidly defend Apple despite them not actually innovating all that much? Why do you feel that Apple invented all these technologies?
 

Re:How?

[macs4all]

Apple didn't develop it, tried to create a trademark around it, then gave the trademark to Intel. Intel developed 99% of Thunderbolt, and Apple admitted that and handed everything back to them. Apple didn't invent anything, they repackaged an existing technology, just like they did with tablets, smartphones, and many other "inventions" of theirs.

Here's the point: While I freely acknowledge that Intel developed the original Light Peak concept, they have STILL not gotten past what my old Director of Engineering boss would call the "Lab Queen" stage. That is, something that works fine on the lab bench, but, for whatever reason(s), isn't PRACTICAL in the "real world".

Apple did NOT "repackage" LightPeak. They came to Intel and said "Hey, we really like this Light Peak thing; but would like to see if this can be modified to use copper wires rather than fibre optics, because we want to be able to transmit POWER over the same cable and also keep the costs down, and if you'd like, we'll be happy to help. Oh, and we've also got this cool display connector that we would like to use with it, and Steve wants to sell this under the name "Thunderbolt", because he feels that the name "Light Peak" implies "Optical", and besides it's a terrible marketing name."

That isn't "repackaging", that's "an improvement on an existing idea or concept."

Welcome to Engineering.

If that had NOT happened, Light Peak would STILL be "on the bench". Period.

And Apple didn't "admit" that Intel invented Light Peak, and then (sheepishly) "turn over the trademark", as you allege. Apple WANTED Thunderbolt to be an INDUSTRY standard, because they KNEW that was the only way that widespread adoption of the peripheral bus they were betting the next decade or so on would have ANY chance of being SUCCESSFUL.

But you just keep on trying to assign mental illnesses to those who point out the real facts, and focus on the fact that Apple is often not the first seat to the table as far as bleeding-edge tech goes (afterall, HOW many Wintel mobos had USELESS USB connectors on them (what are these for?) LONG before the iMac came along in 1998 and single-handedly changed the way most peripherals attached to most computers); but is often the first one that CORRECTLY brings the software and hardware pieces-parts together to form a PRACTICAL solution.

If you want to call that "Repackaging", then about 95% of ALL engineering of ALL types falls under that definition.

Re:How?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Who had the idea for Lightpeak? Was it entirely Apple? You try to claim that Lightpeak was entirely Apple's idea, when it is much less clear. Intel invented Lightpeak, Apple and Intel developed Thunderbolt.

Perhaps you shouldn't act like such a delicate flower when someone challenges you?

Idiot.

If you call Apple somebody who "repackages other people's ideas" because they didn't do all development of Lightpeak themelves , what do you call everybody else, Bozo?

Re:How?

[Coren22]

I wasn't the one stating that Apple invented Thunderbolt. That is the only thing I was responding to.

Now, I could be Bozo the clown, and APK could be an actual security researcher, however, I doubt either of these things are true :)

Re:How?

[Plumpaquatsch]

No you were the idiot claiming " Apple just repackages other people's ideas" - No wait, you claimed that Intel claimed that, adding another layer of stupid to your stupid sandwich.

Re:How?

[Coren22]

I was pointing out that contrary to what macs4all (a Apple troll) posted, Apple didn't invent Thunderbolt, Intel did. Apple modified Lightpeak to run electrically, not exactly a difficult thing, and literally it is a repackaging of an existing technology. This is true, do you deny that Lightpeak was an Intel invention? Or are you another Apple troll that feels that Apple invented everything?

macs4all claimed that Apple doesn't just repackage other people's ideas by claiming that Apple invented Thunderbolt. Apple invented a VERY minor portion of Thunderbolt, the connector.

Re:How?

[Plumpaquatsch]

I was pointing out that contrary to what macs4all (a Apple troll) posted, Apple didn't invent Thunderbolt, Intel did.

He didn't claim Apple invented it. You however basically claimed Intel claim Apple stole. You are looking dumber with each post, Bozo.

Modularity Revolution

[Jzanu]

I've hoped Apple would take this design route for years; their other existing product lines benefit from having a superior display provide independent capabilities. Think of the future where a more universal video connector allows everything from iPhones to MacAir, etc. to connect and display video on it seamlessly. That is the crucial issue with modern multi-device households - no single visual interface, even when all the devices are in the same room. That will change now.

Re:Modularity Revolution

[macs4all]

I've hoped Apple would take this design route for years; their other existing product lines benefit from having a superior display provide independent capabilities. Think of the future where a more universal video connector allows everything from iPhones to MacAir, etc. to connect and display video on it seamlessly. That is the crucial issue with modern multi-device households - no single visual interface, even when all the devices are in the same room. That will change now.

Exactly. This could be a REAL game-changer, akin to the switch from Serial over DB-25s and DE-9s to USB.

Re:Modularity Revolution

[jedidiah]

...except that this is really only a PCI-e cable. That means DRIVERS.

Although any wired bus standard has this problem. Slapping a thunderbolt interface on an phone won't be that simple. Beyond the fact that a TB port is no trivial thing, you will still need drivers for the phone.

A high performance GPU is not something that's a vendor is going to want to handle with the equivalent of a standard USB driver.

Re:Modularity Revolution

[macs4all]

...except that this is really only a PCI-e cable. That means DRIVERS.

Although any wired bus standard has this problem. Slapping a thunderbolt interface on an phone won't be that simple. Beyond the fact that a TB port is no trivial thing, you will still need drivers for the phone.

A high performance GPU is not something that's a vendor is going to want to handle with the equivalent of a standard USB driver.

As I said; this then turns into a SOFTWARE problem (drivers), rather than a "pixel-pushing" problem.

And since I am told that there are already USB 3.0 displays in the world, it is not a question of "is it possible/practical?" anymore. Just whether Apple will do this in an elegant, non-proprietary, way. And overall, they have a much better than average record, at least in the past several years, of either using an existing standard, or when creating a new standard, releasing it to the world.

Sounds great....

[Anonymous Coward]

Now give us the 17" retina Macbook Pro.

Some of us do real work and need a portable workstation. not everyone is an internet blogger that can live on a low power paper thin 13" stack of paper.

Re:Sounds great....

[michelcolman]

Exactly. I'm currently still using my mid-2010 17 inch MacBook Pro because Apple refuses to sell me a new one. I've upgraded it as much as I can (SSD, max RAM) and it's still doing everything it needs to do, but I would probably have bought at least two new ones if only Apple made them. That's two lost high end laptop sales just from me, and I bet I'm far from the only one.

Apple stopped caring about the high end a long time ago. They just make what most consumers want, and that's it. If you're not an average consumer, tough luck for you. Gone are the days of Photoshop races, all they want to do now is be the most stylish.

Re:Sounds great....

[umafuckit]

Is your 2010 laptop really faster than a modern one? I somehow doubt that. It will also have a lower res screen. Just what is worse in the current ones that stops you from upgrading?

Re:Sounds great....

[michelcolman]

It's definitely slower than a modern one. And yes, the resolution is lower. But it's bigger. I can comfortably put several windows side by side, compare different sections of code without having to squint, work in multiple apps without having to use exposé or spaces all the time. 15 inch feels constrained, there's not enough room. I know the retina displays have more pixels, but it's not the same. They make everything sharper but don't give you more room. Unless you shrink the interface, making it harder on the eyes.

Re:Sounds great....

[phayes]

AC's often claim to claim represent a large population of dissatisfied potential users for a 17" MBP but actual sales figures proved that to be false. The 17" MBP was eliminated because it had been proven to be a tiny market that needed disproportionate ressources to serve.

Re:Sounds great....

[phayes]

Getting old sucks. Bite the bullet & get glasses so you can clearly read 1920x1200 on a rMBP. Apple isn't going to bring back the 17" as it was always a minuscule market that needed disproportionate ressources.

Re:Sounds great....

[michelcolman]

My eyes are actually pretty good. I just like having a lot of stuff on my screen. People already ask me how I can read such small text. I don't want to go any smaller.

Re:Sounds great....

[phayes]

Had I bought my mac a year earlier I'd have been exactly in your shoes but as I waited for a refreshed 17", the rMBP came out & I had to admit that I needed glasses for the 15".

If there were more people that actually bought the 17" it'd still be around but there aren't, it's not and not lying to myself anymore has had it's benefits, among them a much lighter Mac.

Re:Sounds great....

[Megane]

Late-2011 17" here, bought in mid-2012, still going strong, recently scored a used late-2012 Mac Mini 6,2 (quad i7) for mostly remote headless use. I also got a used 1st gen 15" Unibody as a "just in case" laptop, it had trackpad problems, learned all about how to fix that mere weeks before my 17" trackpad got flaky.

Re:Sounds great....

[Megane]

I'm lying down on a couch right now with my 17" on my chest, right under my chin. The size is just right as far as viewing angle goes, and my nearsightedness lets me (requires me to!) go without glasses at 6-9 inches.

Re:Sounds great....

[Austerity Empowers]

I would really, really like a 17" MBP. Not AC, not alone. I do real work, I need pixels.

My hunch is that getting "retina" pixels in a 17" form factor is probably expensive/difficult. I'd be happy with their best effort.

Re:Sounds great....

[phayes]

I'd like one myself. Apple does not exist to assuage our every whim however and unfortunately the number of us who would buy one is insufficient for them to make enough money to justify making it.

Re:Sounds great....

[macs4all]

I would really, really like a 17" MBP. Not AC, not alone. I do real work, I need pixels.

My hunch is that getting "retina" pixels in a 17" form factor is probably expensive/difficult. I'd be happy with their best effort.

That's what I thought, too. The yields for 17" Retina panels probably sucked (I'm SURE they had some made some to try in their R&D dept.), and the prices quoted by the glass mfg. was likely astronomical.

But now that they have a 5k riMac, perhaps they could revisit the 17" rMBP thought.

Re:Sounds great....

[graphius]

Personally I find the 15" macbook pro the right compromise between portability and screen size, however I wonder why no one has produces a 17" (or larger) battery powered monitor for people who need more real estate...

Planned Obsolescence

[Anonymous Coward]

Integrated GPU just means that you'll be looking to upgrade your 5k monitor in a year or two.
Nope, no thank you apple.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Jzanu]

I think you never experienced the days of separate hardware 2D and 3D video accelerators. It is entirely possible to have one built into the display for the normal display and TV functions, and another in a computer attached to it which is used for 3D acceleration.

Re: Planned Obsolescence

[Entrope]

How would it be cheaper? Except for modularity, it would be a worse product. The video card would need to sit on a riser (or be perpendicular to the display). It would be bulkier, physically less robust, harder to cool, harder to manage compatibility, and probably more expensive due to the extra components and cooling.

There is probably a market for a 5K monitor with user-replaceable video card, but I think a fixed GPU makes more sense for almost all of Apple's target market.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

Who is "you"? For the average person, they don't upgrade monitors very often. Sure consumers eventually ditched CRTs for flat screens but most of them probably waited for wide screen ones. Many of them might still be on 720p. As for 5K monitors, you realize that is not only cutting edge but also extremely niche. The only people that might want 5K monitors are pros who do video. Game developers maybe not gamers. Unless the industry goes to 5K as a standard for media, they are not going to upgrade that monitor. Considering most video is barely 1080p these days that's not going to happen until 4K and beyond. So who is this market that you speak of that upgrades monitors every few years.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[danbob999]

except... this is not what is going to happen. They will have both 2D and 3D into the monitor.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Megane]

It's still a lot better than an integrated WHOLE FUCKING COMPUTER. Especially one with soldered-only RAM like modern iMacs. Unless you're a serious FPS gamer, you probably don't need to upgrade your GPU every year or two. And if you are, you probably already have a computer with, you know, actual card slots that you can plug those $1000 graphics cards into.

This is meant to let you use a real GPU with a computer that has no slots, like a Mac Mini, for those who need better than the now half-decent CPU integrated graphics. (Actually, since Thunderbolt can work like an x2 or x4 PCI-e, it's like having a sub-1cm slot with no card cage.)

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Megane]

...or as someone mentioned in another post, this is really targeted at laptop users. That actually makes a lot more sense than the Mac Mini use case. It's kind of hard to fit a monster desktop NVidia card into a laptop. Just leave the display+GPU on the desk at home, plug it in when you get back.

Re: Planned Obsolescence

[Megane]

Not to mention the power supply issues. Some of those high-end cards need a LOT of power, even having dedicated power connectors on the card. At that point you might as well go to a Thunderbolt-to-PCIe card cage, at which point you would realize that TB is only PCI-e x2 or x4, not the x16 that most video cards want. You could make it fit (PCI-e is designed that way), but you would lose 3/4 of the potential bandwidth from the start.

And the target market of this seems to be laptop users, who wouldn't have 16x slots at all. You want a real video card, get a real desktop computer with real card slots. The people who need to upgrade yearly to the latest GPU aren't playing their games on laptops. This isn't for them. There will still always be dumb monitors; there is no evil overlord trying to force you to use this.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

It also makes no sense to try to sell an ultra-expensive monitor for the low-budget Mac mini. Sure, some people might want that setup, but the Mac mini isn't a huge seller to begin with compared to the iMacs and the laptops.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Megane]

The average person doesn't upgrade CPUs very often either. Usually they take whatever is in their new computer and leave it there. If they play games, they're mostly running them from web pages in IE. The gamer market is very small compared to the people-using-computers market.

The big thing about this is that it will let you plug a 5K monitor into a laptop. Once you get into that high of a resolution, it gets too big for integrated GPUs to handle, and you can't use a current consumer standard single video connector, they all top out at 4K now. And this will do so with a connector that can already handle dumb video at 4K.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

The big thing about this is that it will let you plug a 5K monitor into a laptop. Once you get into that high of a resolution, it gets too big for integrated GPUs to handle, and you can't use a current consumer standard single video connector, they all top out at 4K now. And this will do so with a connector that can already handle dumb video at 4K.

But I ask again, which consumers going to buy a 5K monitor especially when there's very little actual media in 4K? They are fine with 1080p displays for a long time. Professionals need 5K for the extra resolution when they work in multiple windows. I agree with you that is product might appeal more to consumers in that they don't need to buy any extra hardware to run a 5K monitor but I don't think they need it to begin with. For those that do buy this monitor it will be a while before 8K or whatever the next and trendy resolution becomes available.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

For games, yes. But the purpose of the GPU in this case is mainly to handle the ridiculous number of pixels. So not the same scenario. You wouldn't buy this for gaming.

There are many reasons gamers would not buy this monitor including most games are probably going to 4K (3840x2160) eventually instead of 5K (5120x2880) as this is doubling the pixels both horizontally and vertically from current games. Scaling to 5K is much more difficult. 5K monitors are really for professionals like game and video developers who need to see the whole resolution of a 4K screen while working on it.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

No gamer is going to buy a 5K monitor to run a 4K or 1080p game. You'd think they would know better. This is for creative professionals which are not likely to upgrade their monitors every other year.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

And why is using AMD a problem? You only have AMD or NVIDIA and there's only a slight difference in performance between the two especially for professional graphics.

Re: Planned Obsolescence

[macs4all]

How would it be cheaper? Except for modularity, it would be a worse product. The video card would need to sit on a riser (or be perpendicular to the display). It would be bulkier, physically less robust, harder to cool, harder to manage compatibility, and probably more expensive due to the extra components and cooling.

There is probably a market for a 5K monitor with user-replaceable video card, but I think a fixed GPU makes more sense for almost all of Apple's target market.

I disagree with most of that.

Other than the greater expense (duh!), I would bet that almost ALL monitors still have a major component in common: Dead space inside the enclosure. There is absolutely NO reason to think that the connector for the graphics-card in the monitor would have to be perpendicular to the display. Whatever gave you THAT idea?

And as far as "compatibility", well, that entirely depends on how Apple manages this, combined with third-party "adoption". If done right (and Apple has a damn good track record of that, IMHO), they will either use an existing standard, or release whatever standard to the industry in general.

There are many more potential "upsides" to this. Stop being so negative, and start thinking of how this could actually change a lot of things about "displays" that have been more-or-less stagnant for quite some time, and the band-aids (such as dual-link displays) are beginning to show more and more.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Austerity Empowers]

nVidia works better in Linux, I have had bad experiences with AMD particularly their drivers in all operating systems, and I like nVidias development tools better.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

You are using Linux for professional video editing/game development? That's what a 5K display is really for. It's not for gamers.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Macdude]

Only gamers are going to want to upgrade the GPU in a year or two -- and they don't buy Apple hardware anyway. The vast majority of people use Intel Integrated Graphic chips (or similar from AMD) in their computers and won't have a problem with such a display for a decade or more.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[khellendros1984]

Scaling to 5K is much more difficult.

 
Why would that be true? It's the standard 16:9 aspect ratio, and it's just as easy to tell the API to render to 5K resolution as it would be to any other, arbitrary resolution. GPUs are great at stretching things to whatever resolution you ask for; raster elements like 2D overlays would get smoothed out/filtered, and vector or polygon elements would be rasterized at the higher resolution without a problem.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

Why would that be true? It's the standard 16:9 aspect ratio, and it's just as easy to tell the API to render to 5K resolution as it would be to any other, arbitrary resolution. GPUs are great at stretching things to whatever resolution you ask for; raster elements like 2D overlays would get smoothed out/filtered, and vector or polygon elements would be rasterized at the higher resolution without a problem.

it's just as easy to tell the API to render to 5K resolution

So instead of multiplying by 2 from 1080p to 4K you want it to multiply by 1.25 and not have any artifacts with 1.25x as many pixels? Color me skeptical.

GPUs are great at stretching things to whatever resolution you ask for; raster elements like 2D overlays would get smoothed out/filtered, and vector or polygon elements would be rasterized at the higher resolution without a problem.

Let's just assume its all really easy as you say. So what are the plans of major game studios to produce 5K content? I would say they aren't any because it will take time for everyone to go to 4K and then the next target would be 8K instead of 5K.

Re: Planned Obsolescence

[Entrope]

There may be open space inside a typical LCD enclosure, but not enough to easily add a single-slot PCIe edge card plus fans to keep it cool. I'd bet a lot of it is there for heat management. Also, I said the connector for an in-monitor card would have to either be on a riser *or* perpendicular to the display. A riser would allow it to be parallel to the main control board. Maybe you missed the parentheses and the "or" in my earlier comment that indicated that the perpendicular arrangement was not the most obvious or preferable one?

As for compatibility, I was thinking strictly of physical, power supply and heat dissipation. Software and electrical compatibility are not the big issues. Regardless, you're not likely to have space for a double-height PCIe card in an LCD that somebody would want to buy, much less want fans to cool it right behind your monitor. As mentioned elsewhere, Thunderbolt is PCIe 3.0 x4 at most, so there is little point in having a hugely powerful GPU without bandwidth to keep it busy, but a lot of users won't (or won't want to) consider that. Just like you don't.

Let me guess: You've never been (seriously, professionally) involved in developing and delivering a combined hardware/software system. That is probably why you think my concerns -- which are merely basic issues that occurred to me in about 30 seconds -- are unduly negative. There are good reasons that products involving out-of-box GPUs have not taken the world by storm. In particular, the same difficulties that make it hard to scale pixel pipes to huge bandwidths make it at least as hard to scale bidirectional bit pipes to similar bandwidths, and cable latency affects bidirectional pipes twice.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Blaskowicz]

For decades game studios have supported multiple resolutions. Flight Simulator 4 had many of them and it's old as fuck. In particular, Quake 1 had a very large selection including 360x240, 360x350, 400x300, 512x384 and all the way up to 1600x1200. The OpenGL version supported arbitrary custom res. Quake 3 added 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratio though that's a console/command line switch.
Then in the last 15 years games have tended to show the same list of reses the OS offers for its desktop.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[UnknowingFool]

For decades game studios have supported multiple resolutions. Flight Simulator 4 had many of them and it's old as fuck. In particular, Quake 1 had a very large selection including 360x240, 360x350, 400x300, 512x384 and all the way up to 1600x1200. The OpenGL version supported arbitrary custom res. Quake 3 added 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratio though that's a console/command line switch.

What are the resolutions that the studios are supporting now? 1080 if you are lucky. 720 if you are not. Are any of them supporting 4K? Yes, a few. 5K: None. The 5K displays right now are not being used by game studios as the next resolution: They are being used in production of 4K material just as 1280x1024 monitors were used to for 1028x768 material. Now if everyone goes to 8K, sure 5K will be supported but by that point, why?

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Plumpaquatsch]

Don't Apple already have a range of pricey screens called iMac? :)

They sell like hotcakes.

Wasn't Dell forced to drop the price of their cheap 5k monitor (they couldn't actually ship yet) because Apple's pricey "iMac" display cost just as much as the Dell? Why yes, they did.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Plumpaquatsch]

Especially one with soldered-only RAM like modern iMacs.

Only the 21.5" iMacs have soldered RAM.

Rene Ritchie, said "no", so no new display

[justcauseisjustthat]

Seems to have consistent well placed source ( Rene Ritchie), said "no", so no new display at WWDC.
BR> But I think at least one hardware announcement will sneak in.

Re:Rene Ritchie, said "no", so no new display

[UnknowingFool]

It's possible that Apple is working on it but like many companies many things that they work on might not be released for various reasons and get cancelled in development. For example the iPad development actually started before the iPhone. When Apple realized they could shrink everything into a phone, the development shifted to smart phones first then tablets afterwards. I heard somewhere that the first tablets were Atom based but Apple as Apple had shifted to Intel for their computers. They reportedly could not get the battery life they wanted to they shifted to ARM processors instead.

Re:Rene Ritchie, said "no", so no new display

[Austerity Empowers]

He didn't say no new display. He said no new display with integrated GPU.

External graphics make sense for laptops

[sjbe]

Integrated GPU just means that you'll be looking to upgrade your 5k monitor in a year or two.

That's what most people do anyway. The only people who upgrade piecemeal are geeks like us and even then most of us don't bother. Most people just buy a whole new system when they buy a new computer. Apple knows this better than anyone. What you are saying isn't silly but the numbers don't lie. Most people just go the simple route and upgrade everything.

Honestly I've wondered for a long time why nobody made an external graphics system - either integrated into a monitor or a separate box or in a docking station. I would be SUPER useful for a laptop or other portable device - maybe even for a tablet. Then you can have your industrial strength graphics at your permanent desk but when you are traveling or doing light duty work and don't need it you don't have to lug the extra hardware and have the attendant power drain. It makes a lot of sense if you have a fast enough interconnect. Apple sells a ton of laptops so external graphics processing actually makes a ton of sense for a certain segment.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[TheRaven64]

That's what most people do anyway. The only people who upgrade piecemeal are geeks like us and even then most of us don't bother

I'd say that monitors, keyboards, and mice are probably the exceptions to these. That was part of the motivation for the Mac Mini - most people already have the peripherals and so can plug in a computer. Generally, monitors are upgraded less frequently than computers and a faster GPU is one of the main reasons for upgrading the computer, now that CPU speeds have plateaued.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

But the problem with docking stations are that cannot be used with different laptop models from the same company sometimes much less different companies. A cable is more universal.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[squiggleslash]

A quick look at most electronics stores shows that desktop PCs are usually sold with a keyboard and mouse, but no monitor. I'd be very surprised if the majority of people buying those things insist on buying a new monitor.

Of course, "most" ordinary people don't buy desktop PCs, they buy laptops. They rely on "geeks like us" to set up desktops, and they don't want to do that.

I do agree that it's strange that external graphics isn't a concept that's caught on. That said, Apple may suffer poor timing with the idea - Intel has been moving GPUs onto the processor dye recently AND massively upgrading their power. The HD 530, for example, has about as much power as a mid range Radeon and the only reason you wouldn't necessarily use it for gaming is that games still find the concept of integrated graphics weird (I tried it, GTA IV refused to believe mine had more than 128Mb of video memory. Once told via command line switches that, no, really, it does, it ran smoother than it does on my Radeon...)

Now, I'm not saying today you'd want a 4K monitor to be driven by an integrated GPU. But in five years - 3 generations of CPU/GPU from now - there's a very good chance that you will.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

How is this a bad move for professionals?

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[avandesande]

This definition of what people do with computers is constantly evolving. Who would have thought that my 7 year old computer (i7 950 based system) would still be perfectly usable today?

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[macs4all]

But the problem with docking stations are that cannot be used with different laptop models from the same company sometimes much less different companies. A cable is more universal.

Yeah, but these days, "Docking Station" actually means "Port Replicator/Replacer" HUB, and is an entirely separate box connected with a single Thunderbolt/USB-C cable. Thanks to LVDS links like Thunderbolt, we no longer have to have "Docking Stations" that actually DOCK with a laptop, making them very proprietary. Instead, you can go to B&H Photo, Amazon, etc, and get a "Docking Station" that will not only work with pretty much anything that supports the "data link" cable, but even "Desktop" systems that need an extra port or three.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[BronsCon]

Thunderbolt, USB 2.0/3.0, and USB-C docking stations have been on the market for as long as their respective ports have existed. All of them can be used with any system that has the required port.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[macs4all]

Of course, "most" ordinary people don't buy desktop PCs, they buy laptops. They rely on "geeks like us" to set up desktops, and they don't want to do that.

Which is why the iMac is more popular than the Mac mini, even though the 'mini is much lower-priced. Because the iMac offers the power, separate keyboard & mouse and display-size of most mid-range desktop systems (IOW, more than enough for most users), but with nearly the same ease of setup (i.e. "none") of a Laptop.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

I was referring to the old style laptop docking stations that actually "docked" with laptop/company specific connectors like this Dell

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[macs4all]

Not professionals. If this is in any way aimed at the professional market (regular people will just buy an iMac) then this is yet another bad move by Apple.

In what possible world is it a "bad move" for Apple to "release control" over the GPU hardware? After all, that is the single-most complained-about issue from the gamer-crowd regarding Macs.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[BronsCon]

The ones that haven't been around for about a decade? Got it.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[thegarbz]

That's what most people do anyway.

Err no. Piecemeal has always meant components, not things that plug into the "harddrive" (It's 2016 and some people still call the box that).

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

If by "decade" you mean last year, then yes. "Ports are spread among both sides and the back, while the device's E-series docking port, fans and removable battery lie on the bottom."

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[BronsCon]

Huh... I haven't seen one in nearly a decade. WTF Dell?

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

Well they were used mostly for work as most consumers didn't really want to spend a few hundred dollars more for one. Also wifi is replacing ethernet for practical purposes and USB is replacing most other connections. Also HDMI/DisplayPort also carries sound so no need for an aux jack. It's still not as simple as docking but power, USB, and video are far fewer connections to make than there used to be.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[BronsCon]

Yeah... I guess "just set the laptop on this thing" solves a lot of "where does this cord go" support tickets, which are literally always answered with "the only place it fits" or, after a few hundred from the same user (and after you've already found alternate employment), "up your ass".

You know, for the few who can't manage to plug in 3 cables (power, USB, and display). Or 2, in the case of a Thunderbolt dock (power and thunderbolt). Or 1 in the case of USB-C.

How do the people for whom this is actually beneficial manage to breathe, let alone maintain gainful employment? And that question, right there, is why I don't do IT support.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[squiggleslash]

The iMac is one less cable, that's all.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[macs4all]

The iMac is one less cable, that's all.

You're stuck in 1990. Remember this thing called Bluetooth? It is very popular for Apple keyboards and mice.

You pull the iMac out of the box, plug in power cable, and if you have home WiFi (which a LOT of people do) and a wireless printer/all-in-one (which most modern printers support), you're DONE.

ONE cable, PERIOD.

Boot it up, and in a couple of minutes you're off to the races...

Not at ALL the same experience as with a "traditional" desktop computer.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[UnknowingFool]

Well in the case of TB docks over older docks, a company can use them with other models and manufacturers so they are limited to one manufacturer (Dell) or one series (Latitude) as long as they have TB connectors.

Re:External graphics make sense for laptops

[tigersha]

A year or two? Unless you are a very serious gaming geek, probably not. I have not upgraded my graphics card in 5 years.

The problem is that all the whiners here are freaks who have to have the greatest and latest discrete component every minute. Nobody in the real world does this, and certainly not the sort of content-creator who would use a 5K monitor.

Some innovation finally!

[tomxor]

An actually interesting way of utilising thunderbolt beyond a simple combination of display port and data bus. I wonder what other pcie devices could benefit from being externalised? It feels like this would actually reduce obsolescence (yeah I know it's Apple though).

Re:Some innovation finally!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

PCIe devices don't really benefit from being handled over thunderbolt(it's effectively only a PCIe 4x link, and slightly higher latency than an internal slot); but if what you have is a laptop pretty much any PCIe card is better external than not at all.

You can get thunderbolt-attached PCIe cardcages that let you put basically any PCIe card you would normally install internally in an external enclosure; and various outfits with a focus on mac users have integrated peripherals that are the same basic concept in a somewhat smaller box(a lot of high end video capture cards, a few 10GbE and fiber channel interfaces).

Re:Some innovation finally!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

True, and Thunderbolt is an approved USB-C alternate mode payload. I'm not sure how common PCIe roots are in phone chipsets. I think Intel's offerings have at least a vestigial PCIe bus(so far as software is concerned, I'm not sure if it is available on external pins or just used to connect the iGPU and certain other embedded peripherals); and there are various ARM SoCs with PCIe, mostly in NAS and networking; but it would certainly be doable in principle.

Put the GUI there too.

[John Allsup]

The sensible thing is to have the GPU, or at least some of the GPU, in the display, along with a lightweight processor so that the display alone can run a decent GUI. Essentially something like the Quartz display server, but with a few extras. First, you can set up surfaces in the display GPU and stream content to them via either HDMI/VGA/DVI interfaces etc. and over a gigabit ethernet cable, possibly even wifi. You need a programmable API for how the GUI actually works, etc. Basically, you end up reinventing X11, but with a decent drawing API which is built around the capabilities of a modern GPU. I would do likewise in the main machine, having a small ARM chip handling IO tasks, and bringing up the main processors. Move certain parts of security onto these devices, and you can have a setup where rogue software running on the main processors can do little harm. In addition, the main processors can be used totally for running user programs, and can be powered down if necessary, leaving something with the power of a raspberry pi for basic IO and device management. If the GUI is running in the external display, this lightweight io processor needs only send basic instructions to the display to power a reasonable gui interface, and do stuff like the ILO features you find on rack servers. Given how cheap these small chips are, it is IMHO quite stupid to have the main processors doing the housekeeping tasks they do on current machines.

Re:Put the GUI there too.

[Jzanu]

Danger there is a return to Sega Saturn days with 8 individual processors - that complicates programming significantly, and kills 3rd-party developments.

Re:Put the GUI there too.

[NatasRevol]

Isn't that basically an iMac?

The source is *INSIDE* the monitor

[DrYak]

Thunderbolt isn't only Display Port.
Thunderbolt is also PCIe.

The idea is that to drive a 5k monitor, you need a 5k-capable source.
i.e.: a quite big GPU.

But instead of putting the big discreet CPU inside the laptop and have a regular 5k picture over the display port
(which would have negative impact on battery life, weight and thickness - which doesn't seem to align with Apple's current goals which seem to boil down to "Make a laptop thin enough that you can cut cheese with it")
You put a huge honking GPU inside the screen (say a Nvidia Pascal or AMD Polaris), and have the PCIe link to the laptop.
Thus when you the laptop is connected to the screen, on its PCIe bus, it has access to a big enough GPU, but when you disconnect it, the etra weight and power consumption stays inside the monitor and the marketing department can continue touting the Mac Air being so thin you can almost see-through.

Plus it has the nice advantage to lock you even further into Apple's hardware:
you need to buy Apple's Monitor+GPU combo in order to use it with Apple's Mac Airs.
You won't get 5k out of a regular 5k monitor with vanilla DisplayPort or HDMI inputs.

But this also raises a big security problem:
as the GPU is inside the monitor, the texture uploads happen to RAM located *on the graphic card inside the monitor*.
If the monitor isn't powered down between uses, a hostile could plug the monitor and instead of uploading new texture/windows to it dump its memory content and get a good idea of what was displayed latest.
And remember that nowadays games aren't the only things uploading textures to a GPU. Desktop Composers (including like Apple's Quartz Extreme) do use it to composite the desktop too.

Re:The source is *INSIDE* the monitor

[Malc]

Yes I was thinking this would save the switch from integrated to discrete graphics cards that my MBP does when I connect an external monitor. Good for battery life, although I wonder if a future monitor would be supplying power back to the laptop (USB-C connection). If they get rid of the discrete graphics card, could this be the first step to them making Intel QuickSync available to end-user applications such as video encoders?

Re:The source is *INSIDE* the monitor

[mlts]

I wouldn't say the security problem is impossible... just when the monitor is unplugged, have all RAM get flipped to all 1s, then back to 0. Very quick, and would ensure that nothing is displayed that shouldn't be.

However, this is something that is really original. I would pay for a monitor that had its own GPU so the laptop wouldn't need as much silicon to power up and cool down.

I do wonder if this functionality should be in a docking station as well, think the PowerBook Duo, or the IBM docking station of yore that didn't just add ports, but added a PCI bus, an additional ISA (yes, this is antediluvian tech here) bus, two IDE bays, a video card, and so on.

Excited!

[wicka_wicka]

Can't wait to see the kind of reasonable comments an Apple post generates on Slashdot.

Non Apple route?

[DrYak]

There has been some external GPU chasis for this exact purpose already in the PC world.

Mainly, a small plug to the extrernal express-Card connector of the laptop going to a expander box with the big GPU inside.

Maybe, some of these companies would manage to build a similar Thunderbolt-PCIe expander box ?
And then you plug a vanilla 5k display into it using a regular DP or HDMI cable.
So 2 years down the line you can upgrade the GPU independently of the monitor.

The main draw backs are:
- hot-plug: not all GPU are designed to be plugged in and out on the flight. You probably won't be able to buy absolutely any random GPU of your choice and expect it to work flawlessly. (That was the main problem that plagued the PC "express-card" version of the technology).
- drivers: Apple will probably design their OS around their specific GPU+Monitor combo. It probably won't work with your prefered brand of GPU.
(e.g.: They might decide to stick AMD Polaris inside their monitor. So if you want to use an Nvidia Pascal as your external GPU, you'll be left hoping that Nvidia decides to write the necessary support into their drivers)
- small detail around compatibility (to keep with the above exemple, Nvidia might decide to write a new driver supporting GPU hotplug over thunderbolt's PCIe connection... but then it might only work with their own Nvidia brand of expander boxes).

Re:Non Apple route?

[Dr. Evil]

These have been around for years for Thunderbolt. Search on "Thunderbolt 2 PCIe Expansion Chassis"... You'll find product announcements from 2010.

Not really innovative

[Solandri]

Putting the GPU in a separate box sitting between the computer and monitor and connected via a high-bandwidth cable like Thunderbolt, has already been done. This is just that idea, but combining the box and monitor. The only advantages I can think of over a separate GPU box are: You don't need a separate power cable because you can mooch off the monitor's power supply. And you could conceivably bypass any cable speed limits by running a direct channel from the GPU to the monitor (thinking ahead to when resolutions are higher than even Thunderbolt can support).

I can think of a lot of disadvantages though. Can't be repaired/upgraded separately. Destroys the thin profile of modern monitors. Overly complicated purchase choices (thinking ahead to a future when x different monitors and y different GPUs are available, you have to pick from x*y monitor/GPU combos, instead of just picking them separately for x+y choices). Hotspot created by GPU could damage the portion of the monitor it's adjacent to. Fan to cool the GPU is stuck in the monitor, so you can't shove it and the computer into a closet with only KVM cables leading to your desk, for some peace and quiet,

Great, an external integrated GPU! I can't wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

How powerful could the eGPU possibly be?

Apple's shipping laptops can't even keep their own Retina displays running at 60FPS. Random parts of the GUI just love to lag, and almost nothing is as smooth as it should be.

I can't imagine an external display would be any better. You can bet your ass Jony Ive is going to regurgitate some design abortion that's super thin and woefully underpowered a result, because the damned thing won't be able to dissipate the heat from the GPU chipset (which will probably be further down clocked just to fit it in the thermal envelope the design *can* handle).

If people think they're going to get any kind of modern day technology in this thing, they're delusional. At best, you'll be getting a 5 year old GPU (which will be marketed as new and innovational because Ive designed a fancy heatsink for it) that just BARELY has enough power to draw the OS X GUI, and not a whole lot else (forget about smooth scrolling in Safari, or playing any kind of modern day game on it at native resolution).

Most people vs Geeks

[DrYak]

Yup, most people replace their whole laptop after a few year.
And most people will be okay with the GPU power built into their 5k display anyway.
It will be far enough for most people's use
(watching video - so unless the entire world switches to a completely new codec (the Daala/Thor/VP10 mash-up that is supposed to come out of AOMedia) *AND* drops forever any MPEG AVC/HEVC and Google VPx codec, it should be still working 2 years down the line
casual gaming - the OpenGL/Vulkan capability of the GPU should still be okay)

The problem would be for people needing big GPUs for their work.
Thus mostly Unix software developer (mostly scientific work).
Mac Apple are extremely popular among some developers (specially those designing scientific software) mainly because their laptops are light, but Mac OS X is still a (BSD) variant of Unix, while at the same time being better looking than Linux and it supports better the hardware (well obviously, as apple makes both the OS and the hardware).
But these devs are exactly the kind of devs who would like to have access to the latest biggest GPU (think the same kind of requirement as a game devs, only their run more often Unix-like OSes, instead of Windows).

But this peculiar market is quite fringe and is only a small percentage of the user targetted by a GPU+Monitor combo from Apple.

(cue-in Nvidia and AMD releasing external Thunderbold PCIe expander boxes for this exact purpose).

Re:Most people vs Geeks

[drinkypoo]

casual gaming - the OpenGL/Vulkan capability of the GPU should still be okay)

Define casual. If it doesn't need many textures, it should be fine. But I'm betting that they will skimp on RAM, and then the bus speed will become an issue where it otherwise wouldn't.

External graphics on docking stations

[sjbe]

People have made docking stations with integrated graphics cards for quite some time.

None you could use by plugging in a single standard cable. I'm aware of a few clumsy attempts at it from days of yore but nothing anyone would actually buy as you point out. If Apple is really doing it and doing it properly, there is a stronger than average chance it will actually be done well and catch on to whatever degree the market will support. Personally I think it could make a ton of sense. I would absolutely buy such a thing for my laptop which I often tote between work and home. I only need heavy duty graphics when I'm sitting at my desk anyway and integrated graphics can handle the odd video or whatever else I do on the road.

TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[Joe_Dragon]

TB3 is only pci-e X4 3.0 MAX and display / other data on the same chain eats into that. Now if apple can get pci-e switches that can pool 2 TB3 buses at the display to get pci-e 3.0 X8 and also have at least 2 TB3 bus at the cpu then this may work.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[LWATCDR]

Correct.
I would rather see a separate box that you just attach to the monitor. However this is only useful for laptops.
Dear Apple your anorexic design language is played out. iMacs, MacBook Pros, and MacPros do not have to be the smallest and thinnest devices.
Give your customers a MacBook Pro that uses M.2 for SSDs and allows them to upgrade the ram! Give your desktop customers a line with at least one PCI-e slot and that uses desktop CPUs. Give your MacPro customers a tower with M.2, SATA, bays for drives, and slots for GPU cards.

Thunderbolt is not becoming a new standard it is becoming Fireware. Good for a some small markets but not a mass market interface.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[naughtynaughty]

Dear Apple Consumer,

Our real customer is Wall Street. They like it when you pay $400 for something that is available at NewEgg for $100.

Best,
Tim

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[LWATCDR]

Mac sales are down. iPhone sales are down. iPad sales are down.
Wall Street is not happy with the lack of the next big thing.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[UnknowingFool]

Dear Apple your anorexic design language is played out. iMacs, MacBook Pros, and MacPros do not have to be the smallest and thinnest devices.

Yes because consumers want the computers to be as fat and large as possible. Especially their laptops. They want to carry more weight not less. If Apple did what you suggest, are you going to complain that they are not innovative and are copying every other manufacturer?

Give your desktop customers a line with at least one PCI-e slot and that uses desktop CPUs.

The 90s called with their requirements. You know who does all of that: every other competitor of Apple. You are free to buy IBM (I mean Lenovo), Hewlett-Packard (I mean HP-Enterprise), Sony (I mean VAIO). Hmmm, it seems other companies that follow that model are exiting the business. . .

But in all seriousness, what do you need a PCI-E slot for? Video for gaming . . . and maybe that's it. Everything else is built into the motherboard these days. Most consumers only need the power of integrated video when surfing the internet (unless Flash is involved).

Give your MacPro customers a tower with M.2, SATA, bays for drives, and slots for GPU cards.

Um, the MacPro is a tower. It's just a small one. M.2? You realize M.2 is just a connector for PCI-E or SATA right? PCI-E based storage is already available for the MacPro. As for SATA, you want Apple to use the slowest possible connector to storage for the workstation? Bays for drives: For what? With most pros using networked storage (especially for collaborative work), why does Apple need that again? GPUs? for what? The MacPro is a workstation, not a gaming machine. The current cards in the MacPro which are almost 3 years old are still good for professional work although they are a bit older.

Thunderbolt is not becoming a new standard it is becoming Fireware. Good for a some small markets but not a mass market interface.

That's why every PC companies like Dell and Razer are selling TB3 products like docks and computers. Because Dell selling out of their TB3 docks because it is becoming obsolete. TB took a while for the PC industry to adopt (like USB) but it's starting to become more of a standard.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[LWATCDR]

"Yes because consumers want the computers to be as fat and large as possible. Especially their laptops. They want to carry more weight not less. If Apple did what you suggest, are you going to complain that they are not innovative and are copying every other manufacturer?"
The Air and the Macbook can be the light at all cost notebooks. Who really cares if your desktop machine is 2MM thinner?

"But in all seriousness, what do you need a PCI-E slot for? Video for gaming . . . and maybe that's it. Everything else is built into the motherboard these days. Most consumers only need the power of integrated video when surfing the internet (unless Flash is involved)."

VIdeo editing, gaming, and or CAD. The iMac and mini will be fine for all users that don't need a slot.

"Um, the MacPro is a tower. It's just a small one. M.2? You realize M.2 is just a connector for PCI-E or SATA right? PCI-E based storage is already available for the MacPro."
M.2 is a standard and you can take advantage of the economy of scale. AKA you can get the latest for less.
" As for SATA, you want Apple to use the slowest possible connector to storage for the workstation? Bays for drives: For what? With most pros using networked storage (especially for collaborative work), why does Apple need that again?"
Because some workstation users need to use large datasets and SATA drives on your machine will be faster than a NAS or SAN.
" GPUs? for what? The MacPro is a workstation, not a gaming machine. The current cards in the MacPro which are almost 3 years old are still good for professional work although they are a bit older.""
UMM GPU Compute.. The GPUs and CPUs in the MacPro are not even the current generation. In fact the MacPro is using IvyBridge-E/EP and Haswell and now Broadwell-E/EP are now available. The new Pascal class GPUs as well as Tesla cards are much better GPU computer platforms than the AMD cards in the current MacPro. ATI also has better GPUs available as well but not if your a MacPro user.
Sorry Mr. Cook but as a current Apple user I have to say that I love your OS but your current hardware just does not meet my needs or the needs of many other professionals.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[UnknowingFool]

The Air and the Macbook can be the light at all cost notebooks. Who really cares if your desktop machine is 2MM thinner?

Again, you need your desktop to be as big and heavy as possible. Why? It that penis envy? With desktops requiring fewer and fewer additional parts (Ethernet, sound, etc), it benefits Apple to make smaller computers with fewer materials. It benefits consumers who want less of a footprint for the computers. Now Apple isn't shrinking the Mac Mini by 2MM. They are shrinking their portables by 2mm. You know those things that people have to carry all the time.

VIdeo editing, gaming, and or CAD. The iMac and mini will be fine for all users that don't need a slot.

If only Apple made a machine for video professionals that came with professional video cards. . .

M.2 is a standard and you can take advantage of the economy of scale. AKA you can get the latest for less.

Do you know how many M.2 variations there are? Not just the keying but the sizing as well. Probably the main reason Apple avoided M.2 altogether. But the whole point of M.2 is to use PCIe which Apple did directly without using M.2. Are you aware that 3rd parties offer storage options other than Apple?

Because some workstation users need to use large datasets and SATA drives on your machine will be faster than a NAS or SAN.

They are not faster than PCIe based drives which was my point. You wanted Apple to use the slowest possible connector to local storage?

UMM GPU Compute.. The GPUs and CPUs in the MacPro are not even the current generation. In fact the MacPro is using IvyBridge-E/EP and Haswell and now Broadwell-E/EP are now available. The new Pascal class GPUs as well as Tesla cards are much better GPU computer platforms than the AMD cards in the current MacPro. ATI also has better GPUs available as well but not if your a MacPro user.

So you want to buy a MacPro workstation aimed at creative professionals like video production and use it for a niche market like GPU computing instead of a machine that is optimized for that like a GPU blade server in a purpose that Apple never intended. I see.

Sorry Mr. Cook but as a current Apple user I have to say that I love your OS but your current hardware just does not meet my needs or the needs of many other professionals.

Well I would say that you are free to buy other machines for your purposes but I feel that your needs are not that of your average Apple customer or even professional.

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[LWATCDR]

"Again, you need your desktop to be as big and heavy as possible. Why? It that penis envy?"
No I need to upgrade my ram an SSD.

"f only Apple made a machine for video professionals that came with professional video cards. . ."
Too bad the cpus are 2 generations behind as are the GPUs.

If only I could put in new video cards without waiting for an Apple specific card.

"They are not faster than PCIe based drives which was my point. You wanted Apple to use the slowest possible connector to local storage?"
Some professionals" need massive data sets and PC drives are too small to hold them. You then have to get a big clunky thunderbolt enclosure.

"So you want to buy a MacPro workstation aimed at creative professionals like video production and use it for a niche market like GPU computing instead of a machine that is optimized for that like a GPU blade server in a purpose that Apple never intended. I see."

I want options. Where I work we have some MacPros but they are only being used for IOS development and testing for the simple reason that they are too limited and expensive for other projects.
Other users are using Linux machines with GPU compute cards and I and other developers are using Xeon based workstations running Windows 7 and Linux in VMs for development..
So you feel that I am not an "average" apple user. That is self defining. since Apple does not offer me the tools I need so it excludes me from it's user base. Funny thing is that I am a Mac user. I have a Macbook Pro that I have added an SSD and ram too. It seems that I used to be an average Mac user until Apple kicked me out. The other funny thing is that I know a number of "creative professionals" that have left the Mac world and gone to windows because they no longer want to be stuck with Apple's slow update cycle for the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro also locks you out of Cuda development.
Is the Mac Pro a good video editing computer? Yes. Is it the best Video editing computer? No. Is it a good choice for a workstation class machine? No not really.
So I still say that an iMac slightly larger that allows end users to simply upgrade the SSD and ram would be a benefit to all customers.
Adding a Mac that uses desktop i3,i5, and i7 cpus and has at least one PCIe slot would offer better performance than the MacMini and iMac for a lower cost and open up the Mac market to more users.
I will also say that a real MacPro workstation with slots would be a big win in lots of markets.
And a Macbook Pro that allows user expansion would be great for the professional user market. Keep the Air and the Macbook for the light at all costs cround

Re:TB3 is only pci-e X4 MAX

[UnknowingFool]

No I need to upgrade my ram an SSD.

Um, you can upgrade the RAM and SSD in a Mac Pro. Until the 2014 Mac Mini model, you can upgrade the RAM and drive in the Mini. You still can upgrade the SSD. It's not easy but you can do it. Again, the average consumer doesn't which is why the Mac Mini offers less customization.

Too bad the cpus are 2 generations behind as are the GPUs.

If you are not gaming, why do you care? Oh . . . GPU computing a purpose for which the Mac Pro was never designed. Gotcha.

If only I could put in new video cards without waiting for an Apple specific card

If only I could put in the video card I wanted on my Surface/Android/Apple tablet. If only I could order a Ford engine in my new Chevy . . .

Some professionals" need massive data sets and PC drives are too small to hold them. You then have to get a big clunky thunderbolt enclosure.

You seem to be confusing so many issues: 1) the speed of a SATA HDD or SSD is much slower than an PCIe one. That was my original point. You seem fixed on using insisting that Apple use SATA (which is a slower, older technology) for local storage. That's silly. 2) Many professionals use network drives like RAID enclosures to store their work because of collaboration and new drives can simply be added without much configuration 3) how much big are these "datasets". You can get 1 TB drives from Apple and 4TB from 3rd parties. How big are these datasets or are you confusing total storage with workspace storage?

I want options. Where I work we have some MacPros but they are only being used for IOS development and testing for the simple reason that they are too limited and expensive for other projects.

And that's your problem. If you buy a Mac Pro, you're buying a professional video editing/sound editing machine. You're not buying a super computing number cruncher. Whoever made the decision to buy a Mac Pro and use them for iOS development needs to make better choices. A Mac Mini or iMac would have worked.

Other users are using Linux machines with GPU compute cards and I and other developers are using Xeon based workstations running Windows 7 and Linux in VMs for development..

And good for them. Apple did not make the Mac Pro for this purpose. Period.

So you feel that I am not an "average" apple user. That is self defining. since Apple does not offer me the tools I need so it excludes me from it's user base.

You want a Mac Pro for GPU computing. How does that make you an average Mac user or consumer? I don't see your average consumer shopping for GPU blades from Dell. I don't see an average video professional looking for one either.

Funny thing is that I am a Mac user. I have a Macbook Pro that I have added an SSD and ram too. It seems that I used to be an average Mac user until Apple kicked me out. The other funny thing is that I know a number of "creative professionals" that have left the Mac world and gone to windows because they no longer want to be stuck with Apple's slow update cycle for the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro also locks you out of Cuda development.

How hard is it for you to understand that Apple NEVER designed the MacPro for your very specific computing needs? NEVER. The fact that it has Xeon processors and FirePro cards does not make it to be a GPU compute machine. They designed it for Peter Jackson to make The Hobbit. They designed it for music producer Greg Kurstin to help make Adele's last album.

Is the Mac Pro a good video editing computer? Yes. Is it the best Video editing computer? No. Is it a good choice for a workstation class machine? No not really.

Your needs are not everyone else's needs.

So I still say that an iMac slightly larger that allows end users to simply upgrade the SSD and

Upgrading vs "upgrading"

[sjbe]

I'd say that monitors, keyboards, and mice are probably the exceptions to these.

I'm pretty sure Apple has substantial data regarding this. I'm equally sure they've examined it. Outside of the enthusiast market I think most people actually do "upgrade" those things when they change computers. They often don't throw away the old machine so the new one needs it's own peripherals. Some do use the old stuff of course but it's hardly unusual for them to buy new as well.

That was part of the motivation for the Mac Mini - most people already have the peripherals and so can plug in a computer.

The Mac Mini isn't Apple's best selling computer. They sell FAR more laptops and I seem to recall the iMac tends to outsell the Mac Mini. I think the external graphics is largely aimed at laptop users who want something beefier when sitting at a desk. On paper at least it seems to make sense if they do it right.

VR & portable high performance GPUs

[ooloorie]

Apple's thinking is likely that if it integrates a GPU capable of driving a 5K resolution into the display itself, it won't have to worry about trying to balance graphics performance with thin and light designs for its future Mac systems.

Anchoring the GPU to the desk may be entirely the wrong choice now: there will likely be a lot of demand for portable high performance GPUs from VR headsets.

Re:VR & portable high performance GPUs

[Megane]

Hint: who said anything about "anchoring" to the desk? You can plug this into a laptop. And this may be more about 5K (go ahead, see what's available right now even from a desktop, yeah, that's right, even the cables only support 4K!) than about moving a high-performance GPU out of the computer.

Re:VR & portable high performance GPUs

[ooloorie]

Hint: who said anything about "anchoring" to the desk?

If the GPU is inside the 5K display, it's "anchored to the desk", since 5K displays aren't portable.

And this may be more about 5K (go ahead, see what's available right now even from a desktop, yeah, that's right, even the cables only support 4K!)

High resolution monitors have been around for a while: they simply divide the display into multiple regions and treat them as separate monitors.

VR headsets, of course, have two displays to begin with and people are itching to go to two 4K displays at 90Hz, which actually requires more compute power than a 5K display at desktop refresh rates.

User replacable cards

[sjbe]

Except for modularity, it would be a worse product.

Maybe but maybe not. That's a bit like arguing that a PC with a discrete graphics card is a worse product than one with integrated graphics. Worse in what way? You have to consider the entire product and the equation isn't just as simple as More Complicated = Worse.

The video card would need to sit on a riser (or be perpendicular to the display).

A discrete card could be mounted into a gap in the board flush with the board for the monitor itself. It wouldn't necessarily have to have a riser though that is possible. Even if it did, is that really a problem? I don't see it as one. If my monitor is 4 inches deep vs 6 inches deep is that really a big concern?

It would be bulkier, physically less robust, harder to cool, harder to manage compatibility, and probably more expensive due to the extra components and cooling.

Probably a bit bulkier but not much and not enough to really matter in most cases. Physical robustness isn't likely to be a challenge unless you plan on moving it a lot which kind of defeats the entire purpose of a device like this. Plus it would be roughly as robust as a desktop PC which is demonstrably fine. Cooling is a concern but a well understood and manageable one. We're not talking bleeding edge water cooling here. It definitely would be more expensive than a regular monitor but that doesn't prevent it from being good value for money.

There is probably a market for a 5K monitor with user-replaceable video card, but I think a fixed GPU makes more sense for almost all of Apple's target market.

I think there is almost no chance it will be a user replaceable GPU. Would be nice but it would be pretty contrary to Apple's standard MO. If Apple can make it catch on however it wouldn't surprise me to see something in the PC enthusiast market for user replaceable cards. Unclear how much of a market there is for that but I could see it happening.

Re:User replacable cards

[Entrope]

I gave the reasons that I think a monitor with a discrete graphics card would be worse (for most of Apple's target market) than one with a well-chosen, integrated GPU. That was my consideration of the entire product, and I don't appreciate your straw-man reduction of my comment.

You could maybe install the video card adjacent to a controller board, but even so, you will need additional space beyond the card's height. I do think a 2" deeper monitor would be a problem. (Most current 27" monitors seem to be between 3" and 3.5" deep, so a 5" or 6" deep panel would look pretty hefty next to them. You might not see that as a problem, but Apple would, and apparently thinks their customers will.) If you kept the hinge for the stand near the back of the panel, you're probably moving the center of gravity for the monitor-minus-stand forward by that 2". Alternatively, you could put the GPU card at the top of the monitor, making it top-heavy instead of front-heavy, but the balance gets substantially worse either way.

The only way you'll get PC-like robustness is by screwing the GPU's rear panel into something solidly mounted. Is that something going to be attached to the controller board or to the monitor chassis? In either case, I suspect tolerance stack-up will be an issue, and the monitor will need that much more space for someone to reach in with a screwdriver.

I think you also underestimate the cooling difficulties. It is much easier to manage cooling with a known GPU on an existing controller board, because you can select heat sinks or pipes or fans that can be permanently installed and spec'ed for a single heat dissipation number, and you can make assumptions about heat dissipation through the board that PCIe card designers usually can't make. Yes, the cooling problems for a discrete GPU can be solved, but they require more work, more space, and more components than an integrated GPU would.

Thunderbolt 3 dubious for external GPU

[Glasswire]

T3 has only 4 x lanes (x4) of PCIe gen 3.0 ( and 2 slower lanes ), given that most discrete GPU adapters want to be in a x16 slot, it suggests to me that external GPUs will be crippled in PCIe connection bandwidth. However, I assume the beautiful monitor will accept the 4K DP over T3 to give you great performance for on-system GPUs.

Re:Thunderbolt 3 dubious for external GPU

[xactoguy]

Seeing as the purpose of this setup seems to be more for the ability to drive the 5K display than to actually use the power of the GPU for gaming or other heavy tasks, I don't think it's going to be a huge issue. As well, the 4x lane isn't as huge a limitation as you'd expect

Funny thing about Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have largely taken over the "specs over functionality" from PC's. It used to be that if you wanted to buy a PC that "just worked" you bought a Mac. Sure you paid a little more and it wasn't as high end but it did what you needed. Nowadays Apple seems to have taken on the "entusiast" segment instead of focusing on their core "wants a PC that works" market. My last two Macs (a newer Macbook and a two year old iMac) have been utter shit shows of unreliability and frustration, so much so that a couple of months ago I put together a PC from parts and threw Windows 8 on it and holy SHIT what a difference, it has become my daily driver despite costing only $600 to build.

Re:Funny thing about Apple...

[Megane]

Why are you connecting a work laptop over WiFi? Especially overnight! How cheap are they that you don't have a gigabit wired Ethernet connection?

And why are they such drooling morons that they don't require you to use wired Ethernet, but force you to run antivirus crap on OS X? Yeah, all those overnight updates to everybody's computers via WiFi? No wonder it's flaking out all the time.

Protip: go to the wireless icon in the menu bar, Turn Wi-Fi Off, Turn Wi-Fi On. Much faster than rebooting.

Gonna agree with you about click-less trackpads, though. (using a 2011-2012 era MBP right now) The haptic feedback is important, and I've never found a trackpad that reliably worked with soft-clicking. It drives me nuts that the trackpads on old PC laptops default to soft-click mode with no driver (when they have real buttons!), and you have to install a driver just to turn that bullshit off. Also, I turn off all trackpad options except for 2-finger scroll (which I just noticed I can't disable anyhow), they're more trouble than they're worth.

Re:Funny thing about Apple...

[tlhIngan]

Nowadays Apple seems to have taken on the "entusiast" segment instead of focusing on their core "wants a PC that works" market.

Have you seen how much a Mac costs? Apple can't simply take a $500 PC and sell it for $1000 verbatim. Apple has to push the edge because that's the only way to command premium prices. Things like super fast SSDs (Apple was among the first to put PCIe SSDs into consumer PCs), 5K displays (which there is no standard for driving, yet, except using some awful "near lossless" compression), etc. etc. etc. Hell, USB was lagging around until Apple forced it on the iMac (I remember wondering why people would bother with USB - all the USB peripherals were 2x the cost of their legacy counterparts - a cheap $20 keyboard was $50 if you wanted USB, a $20 mouse was starting at $50 if you wanted a USB version, etc).

They can't wait around for the PC to catch up because then prices will tumble quickly. Heck, PCs of 2016 are starting to feature PCIe SSD support (NVMe), years after Apple regularly started doing it, everyone clanking around with SATA3 that's been maxed out for years.

Why are people talking about video or DisplayPort?

[DylanTaft]

Pretty sure this is just going to be ThunderBolt driven, more or less an external PCIe GPU. You can already run an external graphics card over Thinderbolt, more adapters to do so coming out lately.

Re: Why are people talking about video or DisplayP

[DylanTaft]

Thinderbolt? Sorry, stupid autocorrect.

Re:Because fuck standards...

[UnknowingFool]

And what standards is Apple ignoring? Oh you mean Apple doesn't do things like other PC makers. Well we've kinda known that forever. Or do you mean that Apple is conforming to the Thunderbolt standards (which Intel controls)?

Natural evolution

[transami]

This has seemed the natural evolution of monitors to me for some time. Powerful GPUs are getting cheap enough that they should be able to be built-in to all TVs and monitors without raising costs inordinately. Once this becomes common place, CPU-oriented devices can drop their power and size requirements substantially.

The only pain point to this is hand-held gaming devices. Obviously they can't depend on an external monitor.

Almost correct.

[danaris]

Rene Ritchie specifically said that there was not going to be a display with an integrated GPU introduced at WWDC or in the near future.

That doesn't mean that there isn't going to be any Thunderbolt Display refresh.

Dan Aris

Take that Mac-hating gamers!

[Sir Holo]

Now maybe the major studios will release on OS X at the same time as other platforms.

...but not from Apple yet

[Roger W Moore]

I've hoped so too but apparently Apple aren't ready for it yet. That just leaves the Bizon Box for the moment.

Too late, already probably false

[Dixie_Flatline]

The news cycle on /. is so slow sometimes. If you follow Apple news, you were hearing about this a few days ago, and YESTERDAY we already heard from Rene Ritchie claiming that this isn't happening.

So don't expect anything. And for those of you already mad at Apple for a product that hasn't been officially announced and is probably imaginary, calm thine tits. At least be mad at Apple for the stuff they ACTUALLY do, not the made up stuff that hasn't happened.

Re: Why are people talking about video or DisplayP

[Megane]

Hey, cool, now we have a new name for Thunderbolt-over-USB-C!

Re:very bad idea

[Megane]

Except that this may be integrated more due to the "5K" part (for Retina) than the "GPU" part. Try looking up what it takes to hook up a monitor larger than 4K when current standard cables don't support more than 4K. This GPU is probably not intended for you to play your Cowadoodys on.

Why would you want the GPU outside the box?

[Tony Isaac]

The GPU needs to communicate closely with the CPU. It needs to have access to huge amounts of data. Never mind the pixels involved in a 5K display. The GPU has to take many inputs that would likely be much higher total resolution, and digest them into a 5K output. There's a reason the GPU is tightly integrated with the mother board. It seems to me that moving it to the monitor would be like tying one hand behind your back, when it comes to performance.

Re:Why would you want the GPU outside the box?

[UnknowingFool]

The GPU needs to communicate closely with the CPU.

That's why Thunderbolt communicates directly with the CPU over PCIe.

It needs to have access to huge amounts of data. Never mind the pixels involved in a 5K display.

The GPU communicating with the CPU does not need large amounts of data as you think as the CPU is not pushing the raw screen pixels to the GPU. For gaming, the graphics API commands are being sent not the screen, they are sent to the GPU which then processes the commands into images. For video, TB2 can easily handle 4K at 60Hz video. TB3 handles two 4K streams at 60Hz or one at 120Hz.

The GPU has to take many inputs that would likely be much higher total resolution, and digest them into a 5K output.

What are these "inputs"? The GPU as far as I know is only communicating with the GPU via PCIe which is done today. You might argue that PCIe3.0 X 4 (instead of PCIe 3.0 x16) isn't enough for gaming but 5K displays are not really for gaming.

There's a reason the GPU is tightly integrated with the mother board. It seems to me that moving it to the monitor would be like tying one hand behind your back, when it comes to performance.

Again, the current connection of GPUs to the MB (and the CPU) is PCIe. If this connector is Thunderbolt, the spec uses PCIe to connect.

Re:Why would you want the GPU outside the box?

[Tony Isaac]

You answered the "how" question, but not the "why" question. Sure, PCIe might have enough bandwidth to handle the communication, but WHY would you want to go to the trouble of moving the GPU to the monitor?

You seem to think that the CPU sends a bunch of simple commands to the GPU, and the GPU turns those commands into complex graphical images. That's true, but only for a very narrow set of applicatoins. Much of what a GPU does in gaming is paint surfaces using images and / or videos. Very often, a full HD video is used to "paint" a 3D surface that may end up occupying only a few hundred pixels of actual screen real estate. Multiplying this effect by the many surfaces that require painting for a realistic 3D experience, and you end up transferring far more pixel bytes across your connection, than the resulting pixels would require.

There's a reason Oculus Rift refuses to support Apple hardware. Maybe this type of thinking from Apple explains why they have become frustrated.

Re:Why would you want the GPU outside the box?

[UnknowingFool]

You answered the "how" question, but not the "why" question. Sure, PCIe might have enough bandwidth to handle the communication, but WHY would you want to go to the trouble of moving the GPU to the monitor?

Laptops? The problem with 5K displays is that not many GPUs can handle it. Certainly not many laptop ones. By moving the GPU to the monitor, many laptops can run the 5K display. Certainly you could build a small box like a Razer Core.

You seem to think that the CPU sends a bunch of simple commands to the GPU, and the GPU turns those commands into complex graphical images.

I never said "simple". I said it was not as much data as you assumed by sending commands as opposed to sending raw pixels.

That's true, but only for a very narrow set of applicatoins.

Um, have you heard of OpenGL? Or DirectX?

Much of what a GPU does in gaming is paint surfaces using images and / or videos.

First of all I said that a 5K display isn't really for gaming so the rest of your points are misguided. A 5K display is most likely used by video professionals not gamers.

There's a reason Oculus Rift refuses to support Apple hardware. Maybe this type of thinking from Apple explains why they have become frustrated.

Um Oculus Rift requires lots of 3D computing not video. And it requires top of the line gaming video cards which Apple does not provide. It has nothing to your flawed reasoning.

Re:Because fuck standards...

[tlhIngan]

That's why

Except... there's no standard for a 5K display. There are proposed standards, and ones coming down the pipeline, but ... no standards now. Which is why it is impossible to connect (easily) a 5K display. Sure, you CAN buy 5K displays now, but they're dual display port displays (basically two monitors that your OS mashes together as multi-monitor), but that's.. inelegant - you need two DP cables, you need to configure your OS correctly, twiddle any cables and your monitor layout may reconfigure itself, etc. etc.

Right now, DP 1.2 doesn't support 5K. Apple's twiddled the TCON to allow 5K over eDP using heavily modified timings (you can play with the blankings a bit to get extra active pixels).

That's the only reason why Apple has to go this route - there's simply no standard available to meet their needs.

It's happened before - Apple did it with their SSDs - NVMe wasn't quite done yet (nevermind M.2) so Apple had to go it alone with PCIe SSDs.

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

5k is a gimmick. It gives marginally better resolution than 4k for a lot more trouble. I'd wait for 8 or 16k.

where are the luddites .. ?!

[micahraleigh]

I went looking for some slashdot luddites to upvote because I don't want to pay for an extra 1K by 1K.

I was sure I would see something like, "The rich are going to get this first ... let's do some criminal things to them." Or how this is killing the jobs of artists or union workers or whatever.

I thought: "Finally! A chance to agree with the lefties!"

No success. I guess there is no bipartisan overlap anymore.

Re:very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

Why is 5K a gimmick? You realize that 5K isn't meant to replace 4k but to give professionals extra pixels so that they can work with 4K material? That they can see a 4K video in full screen while editing it for example.

Re:No, walled garden mentality.

[macs4all]

So, you take your pick - the Apple way or Standards, so, nothing really changing, they are just moving monitors inside the walled 'garden'.

Actually, that is a longstanding, but mostly inaccurate, perception of Apple.

By and large, Apple does a pretty good job of either using existing standards, or, when creating a new protocol, releasing it to the world.

Long-gone are the bad-old-days of Apple's proprietary ADC monitor connectors and ADB mouse/keyboard connectors. Or else, products like the Mac mini wouldn't be practical, now, would it?

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

I disagree. 5K isn't meant to give a few more useful pixels. I is meant so that manufacturers can brag about having "more than 4K", which happens to be the maximum available on common standard interfaces (ie HDMI 2.0). I bet those editing on 5K display play videos in full screen anyways.

Probably won't work on current gen Mac Pro

[heldal]

..since everything seems to be geared towards Thunderbolt 3 these days. Not that I blame anyone for it, but when I originally bought my Mac Pro "trash can", the option of expanding and upgrading using Thunderbolt was one of the very reasons I chose to go for it.

Right now, I have an excellent desktop that's perfect only with the exception of the GPU. If anyone released a certified (i.e. non-hassle) external GPU I'd have no qualms forking out $1000+. However, Thunderbolt 2 (and hence my machine) seems to be an intermediate generation where everything was possible but didn't catch on.

Re:Probably won't work on current gen Mac Pro

[Blaskowicz]

I suppose Thunderbolt 3 stuff will run at Thunderbolt 2 speed. 5K screen would remain a technical possibility, esp. if it's for displaying something dumb like excel spreadsheets, text, Photoshop, audio software or some lightweight 3D thing such as Google Earth.

Re:very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

I disagree. 5K isn't meant to give a few more useful pixels. I is meant so that manufacturers can brag about having "more than 4K", which happens to be the maximum available on common standard interfaces (ie HDMI 2.0).

What content is in 5K these days? Games, none. Video, none. There is barely any 4K content. What content is likely to be in the future at 5K? None because if the industry moves beyond 4K, it will mostly likely go to 8K. So Apple designed, made, and sold hardware for which there is no real content just for "bragging" rights.

Let's look at the history of Apple displays. They have been used in the video production industry for decades. Decades. For these users, Apple has been making displays slightly larger than the content like:
Apple Studio Display 17" (2001) with 1280x1024 when most screens were at 1024x768
Apple Cinema Display (1999-2013) with resolutions (1600 × 1024, 1920 × 1200,1680 × 1050 ,1920 × 1200, 2560 × 1600) increasing from larger than 720 to larger than 1080
Apple Thunderbolt Display (2011-now) (2560x1440) larger than 1080
iMac with Retina 5K Display (2015 - now) larger than 4K

But according to you, Apple spent decades designing, making, and selling all these non-standard displays for just bragging rights. All these more expensive displays were marketed and sold to professionals and not to consumers so that Apple could boast on having the most pixels.

I bet those editing on 5K display play videos in full screen anyways.

By that statement are you admitting that you don't know the industry or that you've never seen the interfaces of video editing software? The two biggest players are Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro. So when I say "That they can see a 4K video in full screen while editing it for example" I mean they are looking at a full 4K video and using the interface to edit it. Why would they run it at 5K when the content isn't in 5K when they are trying to also edit it?

RAM: that's a good question

[DrYak]

But I'm betting that they will skimp on RAM

On the other hand, it's a 5k display. 5120x2880 pixels.
That a little bit short of 60MB for a full screen at 32bits per pixel.

Modern desktop (like anything more recent than Compiz and including Wayland on Linux, like Aero on Windows or like Quartz Extreme on Mac OS X) use compositing: each application windows is a seprate buffer that gets composite on the flight on the screen at display time (usually simply using the OpenGL hardware, but some time as with Raspberry Pi using a dedicated compositing hardware acceleration).

If you have more than a couple of applications with full screen windows, that means that you're going to need several hundreds of MB just to hold the render buffers for all applications.
Thus I don't think they'll try to get that cheap with memory.
You won't find a 16-24GB monster inside such a GPU+Monitor combo (you still need to sell them for a reasonable price. Though "reasonnable" and "Apple fanboy" can hardly be used in the same sentence).
But I think 2-4GB (or even 6-8GB) won't sound that alien, specially given that prices for memory are falling, that won't be such an expensive amount of memory, and Apple my try to spare money by opting for a slightly older generation of RAM (you won't necessarily find GDDR5X, Apple may opt for older GDDR5 memory)

Specially, as you mention, excessive bus transfer aren't the best idea when the data must transit over a ThunderBold PCIe link (not as wide the latest gen PCie x16. And over a longer cable connection).
Keeping unmodified video buffers in-VideoRAM is definitely important.

In short:
- due to recent trend of high resolution monitors with more pixels to be pushed
- multiplied by the number of different nearly-full screen windows open
- combined with modern compositing desktops
Normal desktop use is starting to become a noticeable VRAM consumer.

Docking station

[DrYak]

I wouldn't say the security problem is impossible... just when the monitor is unplugged, have all RAM get flipped to all 1s, then back to 0. Very quick,

Indeed. It's a graphic card, after all. Using G DDRn. Buffer initialization *should* be something hardware accelerated on the RAM chips.

Still the blanking need to be triggered. (the proper commands sent to the GDDR chips)
And such monitors are very special corner cases (not much people are using hotplugable GPU), which requires special new code to be added to the firmware running inside the GPU (that hasn't been much needed in mainstream GPUs yet).

On one hand, even DIMM slots aren't properly blanked at shut down time, enabling hotswap attacks on *main* memory. So neglect to properly wipe past display buffers is definitely a possible risk.

On the other hand, we live in a post-Snowden world, were general awareness about recurrent hacking has been raised a tiny bit. And WhatsApp (among others) activating end-to-end encryption seems a big deal.

I do wonder if this functionality should be in a docking station as well, think the PowerBook Duo, or the IBM docking station of yore that didn't just add ports, but added a PCI bus, an additional ISA (yes, this is antediluvian tech here) bus, two IDE bays, a video card, and so on.

You can already find modern-day docks with a full blown GPU inside. MSI is having one.

And indeed this kind of technology looks nice for the "travel light but have big screen when not moving)

Upgrading graphics card

[Khashishi]

So, now if I want to upgrade my graphics card, I need to buy a new monitor? I expect my monitor to outlast my computer.

Yes it REDUCES obsolescence a tiny bit

[Blaskowicz]

I've wanted to point it out in reply to more than one comment above. We can have our reservations, but what it does is to allow the 5K display to run on existing Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook Pro. (iMac 5K, if this one has a Thunderbolt out?)

If it did not, a lot of bitching there would be.
Does an old GPU suck? Not really as long as it's a bit properly supported. AMD did disappoint some but gets better. Nvidia and Intel are good to go for a decade basically.
When/if you won't use the monitor's GPU, by then you'll use it (the monitor) in monitor mode at full res on hardware that supports DP 1.3 such as a future low end desktop PC with integrated graphics.

I wonder how this will be messed up.

[sethstorm]

Apple's been well known for not playing well with others, especially with Thunderbolt.

(Waste your modpoints on someone else, Apple shills)

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

I've seen the software. They mostly use two monitors. One for full screen viewing, the other one for the interface and scalled-down previews. The difference between 5k and 4k is usually not enough for the interface anyways.

And 1280x1024 was a very common resolution in 2001, and even before, so I don't see your point. That awkward 5:4 ratio was certainly not meant for video editors anyway.

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

When you accuse someone of failing at math, at least get your facts straight.
Where is the 4k in 2560x1440?

Re:very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

They mostly use two monitors.

Some people can and do use two monitors. Some people have to make due with one monitor.

And 1280x1024 was a very common resolution in 2001, and even before, so I don't see your point.

For gaming in 2001, the resolution was 1280x1024? And websites? I assure it was not. However if you were to create content for websites or games in 2001, 1280 x1024 would be helpful to have on the content production side.

That awkward 5:4 ratio was certainly not meant for video editors anyway.

How do you know? Again, the ratio is not the ratio of the video. It is the ratio of the screen which means that other UI elements like a clip browser, sound track panel, etc. can fit in the frame as well.

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

Gaming in 1280x1024 was very common in 2001. You can change the resolution in most PC games and 1280x1024 was a very common resolution in games.

If 5:4 1280x1024 is good for editing 4:3 1024x768, why is it the only time they used a "squarer" aspect ratio for UI elements?

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Coren22]

https://slashdot.org/comments....

Yay! I win. Wanna play again?

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Coren22]

That's 2.

I'm gonna win again, I see it already.

https://slashdot.org/comments....

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Coren22]

You know, I see you as such a sad waste. I imagine at one time you were at least competent, but then your untreated mental illness took over and you became a raving lunatic much along the lines of Quixote. If you actually have a point, feel free to make it, but this constant shit posting is just simply depressing, and makes me want to call your state mental hospital to suggest you get committed for your own safety. It can't be healthy to be so deranged. It can't be healthy to always believe you are winning arguments without actually making any points. It can't be healthy to obsess over things to the point where it consumes your life.

Seek help, you really need it.

Re:very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

Gaming in 1280x1024 was very common in 2001. You can change the resolution in most PC games and 1280x1024 was a very common resolution in games.

Um, no it wasn't. I had a 1280 x 1024 monitor in 2001 because a friend of a friend was clearing out a storage locker from a dotcom failure who went bust and it was full of useful equipment they probably forgot. You could use the monitor on games but many games would only go to 1024 x 768. The resolution wasn't 1280 x 1024.

If 5:4 1280x1024 is good for editing 4:3 1024x768, why is it the only time they used a "squarer" aspect ratio for UI elements?

Again, you're confusing the aspect ratio of content and the aspect ratio of the monitor. 1024x768 content fits inside a 1280x1024 monitor at full screen with lots of pixels to spare for UI elements like a timeline bar, an object browser window, etc. The 4:3 doesn't get automagically scaled into 5:4.

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Plumpaquatsch]

You win "dumbest post". Infinite times in a row. Your mother must be proud.

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Coren22]

Wow, so APK did create an account.

Re:very bad idea

[danbob999]

You are just wrong. I had a 1280x1024 monitor in 1995 (17" CRT). Surely it was widespread in 2001. As for games, Quake III Arena was released in 1999 and supported any resolution, up to at least 2048x1536. Many games were based on this engine. And many much older games also supported any resolution.
The Geforce 3, released in 2001, could acheive 110 fps (more than enough) in this game in 1280x1024 http://www.vogonswiki.com/inde...

You also misunderstood my point on 5:4. What I meant is that 5:4 1280x1024 gives you much more vertical space, but just a little more horizontal space than 1024x768. Are you saying people doing editing wanted toolbars on the top and bottom back then and somehow this all changed and they now need space on all sides? Doesn't make sense.

Re:I don't need a registered luser acct

[Coren22]

You are so delusional it is cute. Keep it up, maybe one day you will score a point, but for now, you are a failure.

I'll leave you with some reading, others recommending against using hosts files:

http://superuser.com/questions...
http://serverfault.com/questio...

Keep up the good fight APQuixote, one day that windmill will bow to your "superiority".

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Plumpaquatsch]

Wow, so APK did create an account.

So you admit you are actually APK - figures.

Re: very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

First of all having a game work in 1280 x 1024 isn't the point. I could make any game work on my large monitor. The resolution of many, many games were not 1280 x 1024 so the game was a little pixelated. For example, Black and White which was voted Video Game of the Year by PC World was at the cutting edge of graphics. The max resolution was 1280 x 960.

This display difference is more noticeable for webpages as there would be simply extra space around the page. The web designer could design it so the extra space wasn't white space but blended into the page.

As for the ratio you still missed the whole point. If you are editing content back in 2001, you don't want the computer and monitor to stretch the content to 5:4. You want it at full screen at 1024x768 so you can have additional pixels for your application UI. As for having more vertical pixels than horizontal pixels, please refer to this image that shows what I mean about fitting one screen in another as your comments suggest you've never done any content production in your life.

Re:Time to show everyone you're Coren the clown

[Coren22]

No, I was pointing out that the way you flew off the handle, and insulted me for something that you aren't even involved in, was exactly like his behavior. You posted a response to me stating that I won the argument (as APK does 10 times a minute), based upon an actual measurable thing, the number of ACs agreeing with him (himself acting as a third party), vs the number of logged in user agreeing with him (none in this case, he didn't even bother to create accounts to agree with his posts). How is that dumb? I am trying to prove to APK that he is the only one who thinks he is winning anything.

I guess it is kind of dumb to me to argue with someone who is obviously mentally ill (APK, not you, I know nothing about your posting history).

Re: very bad idea

[danbob999]

Many crappy games indeed didn't support changing resolutions. Many (I would even say most) did. Quake 3 didn't just run full screen on a 1280x1024 monitor. It ran at that resolution, and supported even higher resolutions. A lot of games were developed using the Quake 3 engine.
Artificially limiting a game to 1280x960 was the exception, not the norm.

As for the ratio you still missed the whole point.

Read my comment again. By reading your answer, it seems it is you who missed the whole point.

Re:My behavior? You're a liar... apk

[Coren22]

Aww, poor pathetic APK, the wannabe security professional that thinks programming a piece of shit sort/unique is security chops.

So, when are you getting your CISSP or you Security+ to prove that you have security know how? When are you getting recognized as a security researcher and publishing your virus examinations?

Keep up the insulting the source rather than responding to the criticism, we all know that means you are admitting defeat.

Re:LMAO! What've YOU done better Coren22?

[Coren22]

Except that I didn't lie, you just seem to have the logic skills of an infant.

I get paid every day for what I do in security. I have pointed out the flaws in your thinking so many times, I get tired of responding to your garbage, yet you keep coming at me as if you have proven me wrong....yet the only person who agrees with you is you posting as if you are a third party. I have shown where you are wrong, it is your choice to continue attacking rather than accepting the honest criticism.

Re:LOL, bullshit & your words = the proof

[Coren22]

Are you socially retarded, or do you just play that on the internet?

A secretary, Coren22 you bullshit artist liar

http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

You say I told others NOT to use AD & DNS?

Basic logic. You said that people should deploy your host file through Group Policy. As that is terrible advice, and will cause a domain network to run slow as shit, and putting the entries into DNS is far better and faster, and WAY better on resources, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that you think people aren't running DNS with AD. Just because you REPEATEDLY fail to understand this, doesn't mean the point hasn't been made at least 5 times already.

Coren22 "doesn't trust 1 security researcher" (though I had over 60++ going MY WAY vs. his desperation DO NOTHING OF HIS OWN bullshit)? Bullshit

You have had 1 person look at your code. This is not a code review, and doesn't guarantee the safety of the code. Also, he has retracted his statement about the safety of your software. 60++ whatever is BS, you have virus scanners that say your software isn't a virus, that means nothing when it comes to the safety of your software, and prevention of you performing a man in the middle attack.

Used your OWN bullshit against you on that one, imbecile... lol!

Yeah, I'm the imbecile, is that why after so long explaining the same damn things to you, you are still not getting how idiotically insecure your shit is? Is that why you are still BS posting on everything I post as if that will solve everything, despite promising to stop? http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

As far as security you fucking bullshitting blowhard, what is it you ALLEGEDLY do & for whom?

I've already told you repeatedly and at length, I can't talk about my own work, it is all proprietary and not for public consumption, but what does that have to do with the glaring holes in your software? Do I have to prove myself before I can point out over and over that your software has these glaring holes? And what would software experience (which you are asking for) have anything to do with security expertise I have shown over and over? Software people are notoriously insecure in their designs, as I have shown in your design. When you fix your shit, then it might be secure, but it doesn't take someone with a PHD to see that you don't know the first thing about security.

YOU WON'T ANSWER THAT ANYMORE THAN YOU WILL MY OTHER QUESTIONS YOU RAN FROM HERE https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

Really? I have answered your questions so many times, it is tiring. Just because you post the same thing 400 times, doesn't mean I ran away when I don't respond to every single one. You are the one who can't seem to get it through your skull what I am saying.

P.S.=> You menial fucking liar (I spent 1/2 my career securing code of all types as well as database + webservers & desktops + servers too besides coding solutions people use that work)... apk

More idiotic insults like that has anything to do with it. I've seen your work you published, I did better in middle school. You don't know the first thing about security, just those things you could find and collect together on the internet. You like to act like you are all that, but you really aren't. I have proven it over and over, now I will link to this post every time you reply, have a nice day.

Re:Coren22 = NO PROOF bullshitter (I knew it)

[Coren22]

You have the reading comprehension of a toddler. It is quite sad really. Are you sure you haven't been replaced by an AI?

Re:Coren22 = NO PROOF bullshitter (I knew it)

[Coren22]

More agreeing with yourself APK, so classy.

The proof was given, your inability to read and comprehend isn't my failing.

Re:Coren22 - you'll never manage it... apk

[Coren22]

Aww, more insults, but yet, you still lost the argument. Funny how that works, you still can't respond with actual points, just insults. So nice to see how weak your skills are.

Re:You have NO skills, lol... apk

[Coren22]

Do you have some kind of reading comprehension issue?

Here, I will make it as clear as is possible.

Coren22 backup your alleged self-proclaimed professional status in security + programming.

No.

In case you, yet again, need to understand the reason, my work is company proprietary information. It will never be published, just like you claim you will never publish your source code. I don't need to prove myself as a professional, as my work speaks for itself. Just like you have yet to prove your claims of being an epic programmer and awesome systems administrator, I have no need to prove myself to you.

Re:You have NO skills, lol... apk

[Coren22]

APK, quit pretending to be someone else. It is the most pathetic thing you could do. It makes you look like even you don't believe what you are typing about.

Re: very bad idea

[UnknowingFool]

Are you saying that Black and White (which was a Game of the Year) was a crappy game? I see. Second you don't seem to understand the word "in". A 5K monitor will display 4K content "in" the monitor at full resolution with extra pixels for content editors. A 1280x1024 monitor will display 1024x768 content "in" the monitor with extra pixels for content editors. Why is that so hard for you to understand? The vast majority of people buying these monitors are not people who need to brag about having more pixels; they are people who need the extra pixels because of the work.

Re: very bad idea

[danbob999]

Limiting to 1280x960 was artificial and stupid. I even read a registry hack enabled larger resolutions in that particular game. That being said, most full screen 3D games supported multiples resolutions in 2001, and having resolution choices going all the way over 1024x768 was the norm, not the exception. This is easy to verify and even gave you the Quake 3 example but you still don't get it.

Why do you repeat your comments about the toolbars? You really don't get it. Of course I know toolbars take space. I asked you why toolbars needed to be top and botom during the 5:4 1280x1024 era but they moved all around for all other display resolutions which kept the aspect ratio? You don't have an answer for that.

You can edit 4k content just fine on a 4k monitor, and even not too badly on a 1080p monitor. There is no "need" to get just a few more pixels. And you can edit 1080p content just fine on a 4k display, by stretching it. You don't usually "need" 1:1 pixel mapping and when you do, full screen is fine and toolbars can go on a second monitor.
Of course more pixels is always better and professionals tend to pay more for cutting edge hardware. As a developer, I prefer my 2560x1440 display to a standard 1920x1080 one. But it has nothing to do with producing 1080p content in my case. Photographs are working on 2-4 MP monitors for their 16-100 MP pictures. And they are doing just fine. With toolbars. They won't downscale their pictures to 4k so that it "fit" within their shiny new 5k (which most don't have anyways) along with toolbars.