The Mac Pro: So what’s a D300, D500 and D700 anyway? We have answers

[Edit. note: We discovered a typo in our in-line sub-title in “Southern Islands” below. It was originally “Southeast” which is incorrect. 4 Nov 2013.]

 

In Schiller’s presentation, he remarks that “if you know what D300′s cost and high-speed flash you are actually super impressed with this pricing…”

With the D300 — an AMD FirePro GPU series including D300, D500, and D700 — he was referring to the new dual FirePro GPUs in the new Mac Pro. But the funny thing was…he was referencing a product name that is unknown because it was created only for the new Mac Pros themselves. So how could anyone know what a D300 cost? You would need to know what it is based on.

MORE: A Day Away from New Macs—One Reader’s View (And Design) of A New Pro Desktop

Well, we think we have that pretty well figured out.

Southern Islands

We have done some homework and correlated the available information out on the Net. Here’s what we know and why you should care.

AMD’s current latest fastest FirePro workstation-class graphics units are based on the Tahiti and Pitcairn architecture, the 28-nanometer Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture that, from our AMD information given to us in a recent AMD GPU review, is highly tuned for OpenCL performance. So which of the latest FirePro GPUs correspond to the D300, D500, and D700? That’s the 64,000 dollar question.

D700

So here’s the easiest part. The D700 has exact spec matches to the FirePro W9000, AMD’s highest performing workstation-class GPU. Notable specs for both the D700 & W9000 include:

• 2048 Stream Processors (texture mapping units/unified shaders)
• 384-bit memory bus width
• 264 GB/s memory bandwidth
• 6 GB VRAM GDDR5

The W9000 specs at 4 teraflops single precision while Apple has the D700 at 3.5 teraflops. This could be because of a frequency delta for the core clock. On the W9000 it specs at 975 MHz core clock speed. Perhaps on the D700, it runs at 900? D700 is a Tahiti-based GPU.

Amazon has the FirePro W9000 at 3,158.USD. Apple is providing two D700’s in all Mac Pro configurations as options. That’s over six grand in GPU costs alone.

D500

The D500 is a bit harder. What we know for certain is it too is Tahiti-based. Although it has a 384-bit bus and more memory bandwidth than AMD’s W8000–the next best-ranked FirePro available–it has 2.2 teraflops of performance compared to the W8000’s 3.2 teraflops.

Because this is also a Tahiti-based unit it could be based on the W8000 or the W9000, though its memory bus is matched to the W9000. We just don’t know? Here are the key specs:

• 1525 Stream Processors (texture mapping units/unified shaders)
• 384-bit memory bus width
• 240 GB/s memory bandwidth
• 3 GB VRAM GDDR5

The D500 on a teraflop rank basis is just slightly more powerful than the Pitcairn-based W7000, the third-best ranked FirePro card. But as we said above it is a Tahiti-based GPU. And in terms of streaming processors, it ranks closer to the W8000 than the W7000.

The D500’s memory bus is not 256-bit like the W8000 but it ships with 1 GB less VRAM. Apple seems to have cleverly balanced various performance metrics to create an upper-mid level workstation-class option while decreasing streaming processors (1792 down to 1525), decreasing VRAM (4 GB down to 3 GB), and possibly frequency on the core clock to result in a slightly less teraflop-performing mid-level option. The result is a reasonable price increase over the D300 for this Tahiti-based D500.

Amazon has the W8000 retailing at 1,308.USD. Apple is providing roughly two of these or just about 2,500.USD of GPU value. But because of the strategic decreases as noted above the “real value” Apple is providing may be much closer to just under 2 grand. (see below or next page)

D300

The D300 is a Pitcairn-based GPU, just like the AMD FirePro W7000. Of the three GPU options on the new Mac Pro, only the D300 features a narrower 256-bit memory bus with a 160 GB/s memory bandwidth.

We feel that the D300 is in essence the W7000 but with half the VRAM. The actual W7000 comes with 4 GB not 2 GB like the D300. Essential key specs include:

• 1280 Stream Processors (texture mapping units/unified shaders)
• 256-bit memory bus width
• 160 GB/s memory bandwidth
• 2 GB VRAM GDDR5

The D300 provides 2 teraflops of single-precision compared to 2.4 for the W7000. Could this again be because of core clock differences? Has AMD provided D-series FirePro GPUs with slightly dialed down clocks for thermal temperature reasons?

Amazon has FirePro W7000 cards retailing at 649.USD. Apple is providing essentially two of these or approximately 1,200.USD in GPU value in the baseline Mac Pro.

MORE: Is the new Retina iMac the ‘iMac Pro’ the market seems to be screaming for?

Importantly, although the D300 is Pitcairn-based while the other two are Tahiti based, both are apart of the 28-nm architecture series and both are Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture.

next page: The Value Discussion

The Value Discussion

Some people are getting the wrong idea about Apple’s new Mac Pros–again feeling that Apple is throwing them a special curveball. Numerous posts on the Net suggest this. But it must be stated again that Apple’s use of dual GPU’s has its reasoning.

Why would Apple only make Mac Pros with two GPUs? 

Not enough people are asking this question…and trust me there is a great answer.

Apple’s entry-level Mac Pro is at 2,999.USD. Out of that price, the dual D300’s may have value not less than 900.USD—2000.USD for the rest of the unit. 

Apple’s mid-level Mac Pro starts at 3,999.USD. Out of that price the dual D500’s net yield 85 percent of the streaming processors, 69 percent of the teraflops, and 75 percent of the video memory of a FirePro W8000. Averaging these the D500 yields 76 percent of much of the value of the W8000, or 1,308.USD. Apple appears to be equipping users with about 1,800.USD of graphics value in the dual D500 configuration—2,199.USD for the rest of the unit. 

We don’t have a price of a machine with access to the D700. But as we noted above it seems to be nearly identical in specs to the FirePro W9000, a three-thousand dollar GPU. If you configure the baseline machine and simply add that D700 to it the final price may be approximately 6,999.USD.

Our math doesn’t add up on this last guess. And that’s because we think Apple may scale value on the D700 quite a bit, essentially giving away the extra heaps of video ram. That would make the D700-equipped Mac Pros a “must-have” for the top-end performing pro users…and it would steal away dedicated Windows workstation users as well.

It’s just a guess…. 😉

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