My suspicion is that they barely even want GPUs, which they seem to see as annoying sources of heat and noise, getting in the way of their ultimate vision of an imac so thin you could use it as a kitchen knife.
(I wish I were kidding about this, but I am not.)
https://developer.apple.com/metal/
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/12/the-new-iphone-8-has-a-cus...
For Apple, they want thin and light. Mobile is both things, and the thought of designing a system that can cope with the 200W+ draw of desktop GPU parts doesn't even factor in to their thinking.
They're tossing a bone to the users who need actual heavy-duty GPU power by talking about the ability to use external cards, but (in my opinion) considering the cost and performance issues that come with that approach, it is more an admission that they truly don't care about that segment of the market than an actual solution.
The AMD Vega 64 has got to push a few hundred watts.
Microsoft has the Surface Book 2 with GTX 1060 and they must be looking at that as competition for the high end MacBook Pro.
According to: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-...
Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W.
According to the imac pro tech specs from the link you provided, it has an idle draw of 64W, and a peak draw of 370W for the entire system.
Unless I'm mistaken, that seems to imply that there has to be a good deal of throttling between the CPU & GPU to come in at that power budget. (The specs also note an additional 50W(!) of potential draw for fans alone if the imac is operated in a warm environment.)
Am I mistaken?
Not arguing, just hashing out my understanding. Your point regarding the Surface Book 2 and the 1060 makes sense. It does look like I was technically incorrect about them not engineering to a 200+ watt GPU, although I do wonder what sustained draw it can handle thermally compared to a full desktop part, and how much that would affect performance.
John from Mantiz reported 650W peak. Surely only for milliseconds but still. https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/2014-mac-mini-v... it is absolutely not in the interests of an eGPU chassis manufacturer to report figures which hinder their own sales so I believe him.
Similarly, someone with an awful lot of AMD knowledge (AMD employee?) on the egpu.io forums pretty much begged people not to try the Vega 64 in a Sonnet 550 hinting at similar problems https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/sonnet-says-th... and saying a solution is in the works.
Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_... says the Vega 64 is only supported in the 650 box -- which was just released pretty much because of the necessity to support the Vega 64. Something is rotten in Denmark: 650W power supply supports up to 375W card (up to 8-pin + 8-pin power connectors) plus provides additional 100W of peak power.
I wish they offered a full size, liquid cooled but fans included high end/Nvidia GPU desktop. A system that’s not afraid to be noisy because their users aren’t seeking that. Then sync up the less hardware intensive tasks between their mobiles. But maybe that desktop market died in their eyes.
(I wish I were kidding about this, but I am not.)
Ok... so we had a bunch of the new MBPs at work and kept having keyboard issues (like 50% of the team complained about the keyboards and had keys that stuck within the first 3 months). I brought one machine in to the Apple Store and was scolded for eating while using the computer. "Hey Guys, I'm sorry that humans weren't in your target audience focus groups -- the new butterfly keys are amazing!" Wasn't even my machine... just doing a favor for a friend. Ugh.
That was only when they needed to survive.
I personally disagree with making engineering compromises on the human interface to make things a few mm thinner, but the results speak for themselves. People keep buying them because Apple has succeeded in the number one goal of branding - their products are instantly recognizable as luxury goods. So if you're a pro developer who doesn't care about the branding, you just buy a different laptop that has the attributes you do care about. If developers abandoning the Macbook Pro because of nerd rage about low key travel and the ESC key cause sales to plummet, I'm betting Apple will change the keyboard. I'm also betting that the sales won't plummet.
Xcode is far better on the desktop but for terminal + vim + broswer type work, the laptop screen is perfectly reasonable.
As for using OSX, I've just gotten comfortable with it. I never have to fiddle anymore. I always wait to upgrade OS's and it generally just stays out of my way. Windows is annoying and I haven't found a comparable fussless linux laptop yet (and I'm actively looking because I won't be able to keep avoiding that stupid touchbar).