The next Mac Pro should have..................

[ildondeigiocchi]

What should the next Mac Pro have....

In my opinion....

1. 8X Blu Ray Drives
2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)
3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:
4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.
5. SSD as BTO option
6. MORE PCI Power connectors that ARE STANDARD!!!

[Tallest Skil]

Oh... I've been serious all night. Thank you very much for that laugh. :D:cool: I appreciated that! *thumbs up*

Want to know the funniest thing? They already support FAR more RAM than you've put there; the DIMMs just don't exist yet! :D

1. No Blu-ray until 2015.
2. _____ (low-end), GTX 260, Quadro FX 5800
3. Covered.
4. WHY?
5. That's a given.
6. As opposed to the NON-standard ones that they use... yeah, no one uses PCIe... :rolleyes:

[Pressure]

The short answer, mostly no.

The long answer:


Steve has already shared his thoughts about BluRay as a viable solution for distributing digital media. Plain and simply he said, "It's a bag of hurt".

The high-end card would be an actual high-end card for professionals and not for gaming. It seems that a new Mac Pro might have support for the following cards based on the RV730 chip: ATI FirePro V5700 (device-id 949E) and perhaps Radeon HD 4670 (as it also is based on RV730).

The current Mac Pro can already address up to 128GB of memory (although officially only 32GB because of the astronomical price of higher than 4GB Fully-Buffered modules).

A new design seems plausible, radical or not. That is how Apple rolls after all.

It only makes sense to include a Solid-State Drive as an upgrade option.

The PCI-Express power connectors in the Mac Pro are, surprisingly, standard. Everyone can buy those molex connectors.

[Umbongo]

2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)

Apple won't go with the highest end in the top tier of graphics cards because the price increases a lot for minimal gains over the second best card.

3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:

It will probably have 12 memory slots and officially support 4GB DIMMs, but 8GB and 16GB DIMMs are comming according to Intel.

[J the Ninja]

1. No. They won't. Not to mention I cringe at the thought of what Apple would charge for a user-replaceable part that costs $400 just for a 3rd party bare drive.

2. Maybe, there just might with Apple's new Nvidia friendly-ness, and hte occasional anecdoatal allegations of SLI in Snow Leopard. Then again, maybe they won't. In which case you will get a 3650, a GTX 260, or a Quadro FX 5800. HEY WAIT: Pressure, did I miss something? Where did those IDs come from?

3. Already been replied too.

4. Yes, they will redesign it, if for no other reason than it and the Mini are the last two Macs that still have a PPC-era design.

5. In a 3.5"? Maybe...

6. Wut?

[QuantumLo0p]

7. Quad i7 quads. The only way to go is up.
:D

[J the Ninja]

7. Quad i7 quads. The only way to go is up.
:D

Those aint cheap :eek:


Hey, don't they share a socket with the new Itaniums? OMG, APPLE IS GOING TO SWITCH AGAIN!!! :eek: :p :D

[m1stake]

A RAID card that had more features and a lower price? I don't know how or why they settled on that garbage part.

EFI 2.1

Realistic DIMM prices.

[robinp]

I mean, really 32GB of ram max is plenty for me, even if it is possible to add more. Not fussed about SSD as BTO because they would probably end up being cheaper to add in afterwards. New graphics cards are surely a certainty but again to be honest I'm not that fussed as long as they are mid-high level current generation.

What I need is pure rendering power. For that, the Nehalem Xeon's will be such a big step up. I've had the money for 2 months and will wait another 2 or 3 until the new mac pro is out. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

edit- also I think a computer of the mac pro's calibre should have basic hardware raid built in as standard

[holzensp]

If they really want to go into new directions and significantly bump up specialist application performance, maybe they should add a Xeon socket and stick in a Virtex-5 [1] :D

I'm not too sure on where developments are on multi-FPGA modules for Intel sockets, but it was quite a while ago that people demonstrated tri-FPGA ones [2]. Of course, the time between prototype and production is a radically varying thing.

[1] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/635/1044635/intel-opens-up-its-front-side-bus-to-the-worlddog
[2] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/920/1021920/fpgas-grow-xeons

[johnqh]

Want real speed gains without the cost of SSD?

Provide a SAS option, even SAS RAID. Maybe make SAS standard.

[Tallest Skil]

Want real speed gains without the cost of SSD?

Provide a SAS option, even SAS RAID. Maybe make SAS standard.

There already is, you know. It isn't standard, but SAS drives work.

[jessica.]

A RAID card that had more features and a lower price? I don't know how or why they settled on that garbage part.

EFI 2.1

Realistic DIMM prices.

DIMM can be bought for realistic prices at OWC. I don't care to give Apple any more money than I already do.

Blu-ray would be nice but Apple has already expressed their stance on this so we'll keep waiting.

Redesign the case? The case is clearly timeless. Seriously, how many years has it been this design? I wouldn't change it after all these years.

More RAM? 64GB? Possible, probable, but I have 10 gb right now and life is good. But then again my needs do not involve video editing for YouTube.

SSD as BTO? Ok fine, but since I never move around with my MP much the HDD is fine by me. More space less money ... at least for now.

However the RAID card is indeed something they need to change. To charge the price they charge for that POS is beyond me.

I am quite happy with my MP and intend to keep it for as long as possible.

[ggg05a]

The next Mac Pro should have..................

The capability of using any PCIE graphics card, wether for PC or Mac.

My 2 cents.

[Tallest Skil]

The capability of using any PCIE graphics card, wether for PC or Mac.

My 2 cents.

Talk to ATI and nVidia for that. They don't want to make the drivers.

[ggg05a]

You would think that the smart people at Apple could write drivers and work just as well, if not better than the graphics card manufacturers.

We all know that ATI and nVidia are known for excellent driver support. :rolleyes:

[Pressure]

You would think that the smart people at Apple could write drivers and work just as well, if not better than the graphics card manufacturers.

We all know that ATI and nVidia are known for excellent driver support. :rolleyes:

They actually are.

Making a driver for a piece of hardware requires intimate knowledge of said hardware and thus Apple cannot just make a driver.

[Tallest Skil]

You would think that the smart people at Apple could write drivers and work just as well, if not better than the graphics card manufacturers.

Making a driver for a piece of hardware requires intimate knowledge of said hardware and thus Apple cannot just make a driver.

Then why was Apple forced to write the 8800GT EFI32 driver to make it backwards compatible with the first Mac Pro?

Because nVidia sucks at what they do.

[nanofrog]

A RAID card that had more features and a lower price? I don't know how or why they settled on that garbage part.

EFI 2.1

Realistic DIMM prices.
I hear you. :D
DIMM can be bought for realistic prices at OWC. I don't care to give Apple any more money than I already do.

However the RAID card is indeed something they need to change. To charge the price they charge for that POS is beyond me.

I am quite happy with my MP and intend to keep it for as long as possible.
I think he was thinking in terms of FB-DIMM vs. standard DDR2. Add the little AMB chip, and different heat sinks, and the price goes nuts comparitively speaking. Especially when it's first introduced. The added cost to make them would make you sick. :eek: ;)
You would think that the smart people at Apple could write drivers and work just as well, if not better than the graphics card manufacturers.

We all know that ATI and nVidia are known for excellent driver support. :rolleyes:
Hmm....Currently, Apple writes the Nvidia drivers, and ATI writes their own for Macs. Given the performance of the graphics cards on a Mac, ATI does a better job than Apple. :eek: Numerous posts and reviews available seem to back this up.

So would you care to re-evaluate that comment? ;) :p

[m1stake]

DIMM can be bought for realistic prices at OWC. I don't care to give Apple any more money than I already do.

Why should Apple's memory be double the price of other retailers and e-tailers? OWC caters to a need that shouldn't exist.

[Umbongo]

Why should Apple's memory be double the price of other retailers and e-tailers? OWC caters to a need that shouldn't exist.

Apple aren't in the memory business so they are always going to charge more for memory even if they started adjusting prices over the products lifetime. OWC cater to a market that has to exist.

[Tallest Skil]

OWC cater to a market that has to exist.

In truth, it doesn't HAVE to exist (Apple could be nice with prices, but then again, they're a business and they like not being bankrupt anymore), but I'm sure glad that it does, I'll tell you... :cool:

[Umbongo]

In truth, it doesn't HAVE to exist (Apple could be nice with prices, but then again, they're a business and they like not being bankrupt anymore), but I'm sure glad that it does, I'll tell you... :cool:

Someone will always under cut Apple's memory prices, especially in the world of online stores.

[QuantumLo0p]

Those aint cheap :eek:

Hey, don't they share a socket with the new Itaniums? OMG, APPLE IS GOING TO SWITCH AGAIN!!! :eek: :p :D

Yeah, I agree. If Apple would fill that freakin Apple Gaping Lineup Hole there would not be the hunormus jump between a core2 dual core and an eight core Xeon.
:eek:

[nanofrog]

Why should Apple's memory be double the price of other retailers and e-tailers? OWC caters to a need that shouldn't exist.

Ahh... You were referring to Apple's pricing vs. 3rd party. :o

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that Apple sells at the prices they do. I would think they would not only increase their sales, but the profits associated would increase, even at a lower margin. Assuming the sales volume was high enough. Given most people seem to go 3rd party, I'd think it would work out in Apple's favor.

At least there are 3rd party options. :D ;)

[Tallest Skil]

Yeah, I agree. If Apple would fill that freakin Apple Gaping Lineup Hole there would not be the hunormus jump between a core2 dual core and an eight core Xeon.
:eek:

Fill it with what? Show me one thing that could go in there that wouldn't go against Apple's business plan.

[nanofrog]

Fill it with what? Show me one thing that could go in there that wouldn't go against Apple's business plan.

This is how I see it. It's sold as a workstation, so that means ECC memory. No Core i7 can use ECC. For a single CPU part that does, it requires the W55xx parts, and like the rest of the Xeon 5500 series, isn't available yet. :(

Same pricing as the Core i7's, when comparing the same clock speed though. ;)

[Tallest Skil]

Same pricing as the Core i7's, when comparing the same clock speed though. ;)

The Xeon 5500 series is, you mean? They perform a lot better than the standard chips, too, though, so that's awesome.

[mchalebk]

Someone will always under cut Apple's memory prices, especially in the world of online stores.

That may be so. However, if Apple charged reasonable prices (say 10% more than 3rd party vendors), a lot of us would simply pay the premium for the sake of convenience and to make sure we have maximum compatibility.

When I bought my Quicksilver as a BTO in 2001, I downgraded my RAM from 256 MB to 128 MB and got a $200 price reduction. Then for $235, I bought 1.5 GB of RAM from a 3rd party. So, I basically paid $35 to max out the RAM in my computer.

I think I do understand, however, why Apple doesn't play this game. First, they don't really want to be a RAM vendor. Their profit margins would probably be so low that it wouldn't be worth the hassle. Second, there are probably plenty of people/businesses who actually buy the RAM at Apple prices, which is a tremendous profit for Apple. Third (and this might be the most important reason), they would have to constantly vary the prices, since RAM pricing is so volatile. I don't think Apple likes to change prices on stuff.

Bottom line: Apple charges too much and the knowledgeable folks buy their RAM elsewhere.

[nanofrog]

The Xeon 5500 series is, you mean? They perform a lot better than the standard chips, too, though, so that's awesome.

Yup. :D

Xeon Workstation Parts:

Dual socket
W5580 3.2GHz, 1333MHz ECC mem, $1600/1k pcs

I was ignoring this one, but I goofed the numbers a little. Got the 3 and 5 mixed up. :o Really a server part, IMO, given the dual socket. Just clocked higher. :D The X5570 is 2.93GHz, and is the fastest part of the 5500 series listed in the current roadmap (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-product-roadmap-2009,6384.html).

Single Socket
W3570 3.2GHz, 1333MHz ECC mem, $999/1k pcs
W3540 2.93GHz, 1066MHz ECC mem, $562/1k pcs
W3520 2.66GHz, 1066MHz ECC mem, $284/1k pcs

These should work nicely in an ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution (http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=179&l3=815&l4=0&model=2697&modelmenu=1) board, if a second CPU isn't needed. ;) According to Asus's specs, it will support these and the associated ECC memory. :D I like the layout and the available slots too. :p

Now if Intel would only deliver the parts,...:D

[Umbongo]

That may be so. However, if Apple charged reasonable prices (say 10% more than 3rd party vendors), a lot of us would simply pay the premium for the sake of convenience and to make sure we have maximum compatibility.

I think the problem with the 2008 Mac Pro was Apple weren't charging a huge premium over 3rd parties like Crucial and Kingston, but OWC and others came in and severely undercut them all.

I think I do understand, however, why Apple doesn't play this game. First, they don't really want to be a RAM vendor. Their profit margins would probably be so low that it wouldn't be worth the hassle. Second, there are probably plenty of people/businesses who actually buy the RAM at Apple prices, which is a tremendous profit for Apple. Third (and this might be the most important reason), they would have to constantly vary the prices, since RAM pricing is so volatile. I don't think Apple likes to change prices on stuff.

I agree with all your points. I would love to see the actual numbers for the Mac Pro division on total sales and the percentage who got memory and hard drive upgrades from Apple.

[thedarkhorse]

My ideas for a new generation of Mac Pro

-Refreshed case design
-USB 3.0 -SATA connectors
-hardware raid built in
-expresscard34 slot in the front.
-blu-ray with full support
-2 more hard drive racks
-wider video card support, if not all cards at least 3 gpus from every generation of at least one brand.
-dedicated & fast hardware h264 decoding/encoding.
-& whatever the next chipset/processor upgrade is supposed to be

[J the Ninja]

Ok.....here are my thoughts:

8 core "standard" can't be kept up, the 5500 chips just cost too much. We'd be looking at a $3000 base config. So, I think Apple may split the line. A "Mac Pro Quad" and a "Mac Pro Octo" (or whatever they call it). The quad will use 3500 chips, the the octo will use the 5500. Theorecically, the cost savings would allow the 2.66Ghz Quad to be sold for maybe $600 under the current one.....or maybe not quite that much...maybe $1799 for the base config.....with:

2.66Ghz Xeon 35** (which is more or less a rebadged i7 920)
3GB DDR3
9500GT
500GB hard drive
New case (for the sake of making a new case)

and an octo-core

Dual 2.66Ghz Quads (Xeon 55**)
Maybe 6GB RAM as it is "premium"
and the same 9500GT, 500GB HDD, and and case.

Price the base octo around $3k, and of course BTO options for faster procs, bigger GPUs, and other such typical things for both.

[robinp]

Ok.....here are my thoughts:

8 core "standard" can't be kept up, the 5500 chips just cost too much. We'd be looking at a $3000 base config. So, I think Apple may split the line. A "Mac Pro Quad" and a "Mac Pro Octo" (or whatever they call it). The quad will use 3500 chips, the the octo will use the 5500. Theorecically, the cost savings would allow the 2.66Ghz Quad to be sold for maybe $600 under the current one.....or maybe not quite that much...maybe $1799 for the base config.....with:

2.66Ghz Xeon 35** (which is more or less a rebadged i7 920)
3GB DDR3
9500GT
500GB hard drive
New case (for the sake of making a new case)

and an octo-core

Dual 2.66Ghz Quads (Xeon 55**)
Maybe 6GB RAM as it is "premium"
and the same 9500GT, 500GB HDD, and and case.

Price the base octo around $3k, and of course BTO options for faster procs, bigger GPUs, and other such typical things for both.

essentially what you are suggesting is what people have been wanting for years: a lower specced tower. It might happen, but so far apple have chosen not to get involved in this market. I can see three 8-core set ups remaining, perhaps with a price increase (but maybe not given the motherboard is simpler without the FSB)

[iMacmatician]

1. 8X Blu Ray DrivesDon't see them.

2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)A bit too high end for Apple, considering the previous GPUs. I'd say 9600, GTX 260 (280), and Quadro FX 5800.

3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:Nehalem CPU memory has to be in multiples of 3, so I'd say 48/96 GB.

4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.If it comes at WWDC, then we have a higher likelihood of a redesign. Any such redesign is likely to be small.

5. SSD as BTO optionYep. In the highest capacity available.

I'm not too sure on where developments are on multi-FPGA modules for Intel sockets, but it was quite a while ago that people demonstrated tri-FPGA ones [2]. Of course, the time between prototype and production is a radically varying thing.

[1] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/635/1044635/intel-opens-up-its-front-side-bus-to-the-worlddog
[2] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/920/1021920/fpgas-grow-xeonsMac Pro Extreme. :cool:

Ok.....here are my thoughts:

8 core "standard" can't be kept up, the 5500 chips just cost too much. We'd be looking at a $3000 base config. Yeah. Although the clock speeds go down to 1.87 GHz, the bus speeds vary.

So, I think Apple may split the line. A "Mac Pro Quad" and a "Mac Pro Octo" (or whatever they call it). The quad will use 3500 chips, the the octo will use the 5500. Theorecically, the cost savings would allow the 2.66Ghz Quad to be sold for maybe $600 under the current one.....or maybe not quite that much...maybe $1799 for the base config.....with:The other scenario is if Apple wants to go all-octo and use the cheap CPUs. But that may not be as appealing as a single-socket or high-end desktop system. Personally, the "Mac Pro Quad" makes perfect sense as an additional Mac Pro model.

What I think is a more likely path for Apple, however, is to raise the Mac Pro even higher and release higher-end iMacs to fill the gap. We've seen the base Power Mac / Mac Pro go up from $1499 to $1999 to $2499 (≈$2100) to $2799 ($2299) since 2004 or so. It's not impossible that Apple would raise the price if they feel like they need to.

Filling part of the gap would be the upcoming quad-core iMacs (that would actually most likely come earlier). There is the rumor of 65 W quad-core CPUs coming to the iMac, and Nehalem has an entire CPU lineup of mobile quads. The 20" iMac may not be able to handle the quad-cores, so they would stick with mobile dual-cores. So then there will be a fairly significant difference between the 20" and 24" iMacs, and the 24" iMac and the Mac Pro.

The other possibility is that Core i7 28" iMac rumor. That would very nicely fill the gap, at least performance wise. Even if Apple does not use Core i7 or other hot components, a 95 W quad-core at 3.0 GHz and a desktop GPU are a step up from both the current and a possible quad-core 24" iMac.

[Tallest Skil]

My ideas for a new generation of Mac Pro

-Refreshed case design
-USB 3.0 -SATA connectors
-hardware raid built in
-expresscard34 slot in the front.
-blu-ray with full support
-2 more hard drive racks
-wider video card support, if not all cards at least 3 gpus from every generation of at least one brand.
-dedicated & fast hardware h264 decoding/encoding.
-& whatever the next chipset/processor upgrade is supposed to be

1. Why?
2. Not until 2010 for USB 3.0
3. It'd be nice.
4. Eh? It's a TOWER.
5. Not until 2015.
6. It'd be nice.
7. ... huh? Wider? Oh. More of them. Talk to ATI and nVidia.
8. Don't they?
9. Gainestown Nehalem chips

[iMacmatician]

-wider video card support7. ... huh? Wider? Oh. More of them.No more cooling problems, because we now have triple-slot GPUs! :p

[Fomaphone]

Ok.....here are my thoughts:

8 core "standard" can't be kept up, the 5500 chips just cost too much. We'd be looking at a $3000 base config. So, I think Apple may split the line. A "Mac Pro Quad" and a "Mac Pro Octo" (or whatever they call it). The quad will use 3500 chips, the the octo will use the 5500. Theorecically, the cost savings would allow the 2.66Ghz Quad to be sold for maybe $600 under the current one.....or maybe not quite that much...maybe $1799 for the base config.....with:

2.66Ghz Xeon 35** (which is more or less a rebadged i7 920)
3GB DDR3
9500GT
500GB hard drive
New case (for the sake of making a new case)

and an octo-core

Dual 2.66Ghz Quads (Xeon 55**)
Maybe 6GB RAM as it is "premium"
and the same 9500GT, 500GB HDD, and and case.

Price the base octo around $3k, and of course BTO options for faster procs, bigger GPUs, and other such typical things for both.

if this is the case, in terms of overall performance, will $4500 go farther now than it will when the new line of MP's comes out?

[Tallest Skil]

if this is the case, in terms of overall performance, will $4500 go farther now than it will when the new line of MP's comes out?

They're not splitting the line. There won't be a "budget" Mac Pro or an xMac. The 5500 series is more expensive, so expect the base configuration Mac Pro to be $3,000.

[nanofrog]

if this is the case, in terms of overall performance, will $4500 go farther now than it will when the new line of MP's comes out?
If you mean in terms of performance, I wouldn't think so. The Nehalem architecture offers a lot, and maybe worth it if you think in terms of substantial performance boost for $300 more.

To give you an idea of substantial, take a look here (http://browse.geekbench.ca/user/rickmitt/profile). Using a Core i7 920.

The remaining $1500 is up to you. :p

[nick9191]

What should the next Mac Pro have....

In my opinion....

1. 8X Blu Ray Drives
"Bag of hurt"
2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)
No, ATI card high end, Nvidia drivers for Mac suck ass. Not to mention thats a gaming card, the Mac Pro is a workstation, try Alienware
3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:
Probably
4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.
No
5. SSD as BTO option
Despite the fact you can buy a far faster hard drive for 1/10 the price per GB? SSD's are only good for laptops at the moment.
6. MORE PCI Power connectors that ARE STANDARD!!!
Yes
Response in bold.

What I would like to see:
1. Core i7, up to 12 cores.
2. More hard drive bays.
3. Slot load drives.
4. Dual Mini DisplayPort and a DL-DVI per graphics card.

[Umbongo]

if this is the case, in terms of overall performance, will $4500 go farther now than it will when the new line of MP's comes out?

No, if the base model is a 2.66GHz 8 core for $3,000 that will out perform the current 3.2GHz 8 core which currently costs $4,400.

[nanofrog]

No, if the base model is a 2.66GHz 8 core for $3,000 that will out perform the current 3.2GHz 8 core which currently costs $4,400.

I'm certain it will outperform the current 2.8GHz model, but didn't want to go that far. Yet. :D :p

Do you have a link that could help confirm my suspicions/hopes? :D

[Bakey]

What should the next Mac Pro have....

In my opinion....

1. 8X Blu Ray Drives
2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)
3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:
4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.
5. SSD as BTO option
6. MORE PCI Power connectors that ARE STANDARD!!!

Whoah there!!

8X Blu-ray drives!?!! Holly smoke... Well, I guess you'll definitely need a new design to house those puppies.

Wouldn't one, or maybe two as per the current Mac Pro tower, suffice? :cool:

[Tallest Skil]

Whoah there!!

8X Blu-ray drives!?!! Holly smoke... Well, I guess you'll definitely need a new design to house those puppies.

Wouldn't one, or maybe two as per the current Mac Pro tower, suffice? :cool:

8x burning speed, not number of drives...

What I would like to see:
3. Slot load drives.

NO. WHY?! That means LAPTOP drives and LAPTOP drive speeds in a workstation computer! Not to mention that it would not be expandable.

[jjahshik32]

Damn man the i7 is going to spank the current 8 core machines. I cant wait!! :p

[Tallest Skil]

Damn man Nehalem is going to spank the current 8 core machines. I cant wait!! :p

Fixed, and yes... Yes. It. WILL! :cool:

Also, Snow Leopard. :D

Snow Leopard+Nehalem=

Computer: "Your encoding task is complete."
You: "I... I didn't even press the button yet..."

[Umbongo]

I'm certain it will outperform the current 2.8GHz model, but didn't want to go that far. Yet. :D :p

Do you have a link that could help confirm my suspicions/hopes? :D

The i920 (2.66GHz x 4 Nehalem) has similar, and sometimes a lot better, performance to the QX9770 (3.2GHz x4 Penryn) on most benchmarks I've seen. I would think the difference will increase in Nehalems favour when two processors are involved due to the new architecture (edit: and Snow Leopard before Tallest Skill quotes me and points it out). The only things I've seen the QX9770 really show it's clock speed constitently on are games. I wouldn't be surpised to see Mac benchmarks all in Nehalem's favour when comparing such clock speeds.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/824/1/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-920-945-965-review/1

Tom's Hardware comparison between the two (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/compare,823.html?prod%5B2271%5D=on&prod%5B2178%5D=on)

A $3,000 Nehalem 2.66GHz Mac Pro will certainly offer better value and should offer better performance, by quite a bit for some users.

[jjahshik32]

Fixed, and yes... Yes. It. WILL! :cool:

Also, Snow Leopard. :D

Snow Leopard+Nehalem=

Computer: "Your encoding task is complete."
You: "I... I didn't even press the button yet..."

I'm so glad I sold my mac pro 7 months ago! I will be buying one of these sweet nehalems come this summer! :D

[nanofrog]

The i920 (2.66GHz x 4 Nehalem) has similar, and sometimes a lot better, performance to the QX9770 (3.2GHz x4 Penryn) on most benchmarks I've seen. I would think the difference will increase in Nehalems favour when two processors are involved due to the new architecture (edit: and Snow Leopard before Tallest Skill quotes me and points it out). The only things I've seen the QX9770 really show it's clock speed constitently on are games. I wouldn't be surpised to see Mac benchmarks all in Nehalem's favour when comparing such clock speeds.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/824/1/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-920-945-965-review/1

Tom's Hardware comparison between the two (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/compare,823.html?prod%5B2271%5D=on&prod%5B2178%5D=on)

A $3,000 Nehalem 2.66GHz Mac Pro will certainly offer better value and should offer better performance, by quite a bit for some users.
Ahh... I see where you're coming from. :) They should, as the i7 can trounce Core 2. :)

I just didn't want to go overboard, as I was hoping for more evidence about how the second CPU scales with Xeon 5500's vs. the current parts.

Haven't seen much yet. The last I did, little information was given. NDA's I presume. :rolleyes: ;)

Just enough to tease. :p

[TheStrudel]

Here's my relatively modest wish-list, not that I'll be buying a new desktop for a long time. I suspect that software won't make full use of the hardware I've got for 3-6 years, unless Snow Leopard is everything I want it to be and more. But I digress!

Hardware:

1. eSATA ports. I think it's about time we had these. Two would be plenty.
2. Firewire 3200 ports. Now would be a good time to deploy this, if they're ready to go on it.
3. Graphics cards that are no more than half a year old. For example, 4870s right now. Failing that, revision of the Nvidia drivers. Please? These guys are not performing as well as they ought to be on anything pro-app oriented. Also, I guess use of Displayport, since that's the way they appear to be going. I feel like straight Displayport instead of mini may work out well if, say, the upcoming 30" display uses regular displayport.
4. Use SATA on the optical drives instead of pATA. Now that the industry is over pATA, apple can get over it as well. May as well make it standard.
5. More USB ports or memory card readers built-in. I guess this is just greedy on my part because I run out of ports frequently and somehow, various hubs tend to work less than perfectly. Would be nice to just tap memory cards straight off of the motherboard with Apple aesthetics.
6. More efficient power supply unit. I hear this one wastes a fair bit of juice, and is somewhat less than completely cutting edge in its construction.
7. More 3.5" HDD bays is impractical, but...what about the addition of 2.5" bays? They could be used for say, Velociraptor boot drives or solid-state boot drives. Not a likely design choice, but maybe some design wizard could figure something out.

Software:

1. Better video card drivers. Please. Core image in particular. Seriously, guys, the pros could use some love here.
2. Software support for Blu-ray. Heaven knows we've already got a lot of what's needed; all that needs to be done to finish is a DVD player style app for movie playback and support in DVD Studio Pro.
3. Better support for multi-channel audio output through the optical connection. This can be had, after a fashion, with some apps, but it's just not there in say, iTunes. I know there's not a lot of demand for it, but it'd be nice. It'd be nice to monitor surround output from FCP/Soundtrack/DVDSP through that connection without needing a full-on mixing board. I'm just a one-man video shop, but I'm enabled to do so many things through bundled software that I'd enjoy using my hardware to its fullest extent.
4. Snow Leopard looks like it's going to work some serious mojo with existing software, but if it's technically feasible, there's one trick I'd love to see entertained: loading entire applications and projects into physical RAM. My 10 gigs could be used to fit, say, my 4 GB photoshop files (once that goes 64-bit!) straight into memory and be operated upon at lightning speed. By the same token, if I moved an HDV project that encompassed less than 45 minutes of footage, operating it all in memory would be blindingly fast by comparison. Now, I'm no bithead so that may all be nonsense, but it's a nifty idea to toss around.
5. ZFS support, native and boot support. Yes. Eliminate redundancy/reliability problems and use onboard bays to accumulate a large storage pool. I like.

Random others:

-Power button back on keyboards? I kind of liked that.

I could ask for more HDD bays or more PCIe slots - and definitely make use of them - but I think it's an unreasonable request unless we want our Mac Pros monstrously large. It's already quite heavy for a tower, and adding more space for that sort of thing would only make it heavier.

[bigwig]

FireWire 3200 or 6400. My bet is that they're much faster than USB 3.0 for sustained data transfer despite USB's theoretical bandwidth advantage.

[TrevorMac]

I'm looking to buy the current Mac tower or wait for the next one.
The guide says Wait....
Product Mac Pro
Recommendation: Don't Buy - Updates soon
Last Release January 08, 2008
Days Since Update 369 (Avg = 217)

OK I'll wait. For a bit, my dual 2k G5 is getting old.
I love this thread, but I'm feeling like I'm in the dark... What did Steve/Apple say about Blu-Ray? Where can I find out more info on that. I'm with LAFCPUG, they haven't mentioned anything. I was at NAB and MacWorld, did'nt hear anything there... Please, what did I miss?

Thanks

[Full of Win]

Phase change cooling....do it for the children

[Uroboros]

1. Why?
for the extra drive bays, I'm tired of having a loud power hungry external box just to house drives.
2. Not until 2010 for USB 3.0
Sadly true
3. It'd be nice.
It's been available on even the cheapest motherboards on the PC side for years.., but I'm OK with 3rd party cards, just give me enough space and power connectors to get at lease six drives in there, eight would be even better.
4. Eh? It's a TOWER.
Uhm, yeah, and the only solution readily available to ingest XDCAMEX on the tower is a slow ass expensive USB card reader from Sony, given the incredible growth rate in this format (JVC is now using it too) and its inclusion on the MacBook Pro, it comes right after more drive bays on my list. Plus it would buy folks a flexible front side expansion bay, (2 more FW ports, serial port, memory card reader etc.)
5. Not until 2015.
Been doing it on the PC side for more than a year, and btw Encore CS4 is fully capable, spits out a nice image, just needs a burner...
6. It'd be nice.
7. ... huh? Wider? Oh. More of them. Talk to ATI and nVidia.
I hear you here.
8. Don't they?
Not that I'm aware of, Black Magic has a standard def chip set, but not hidef
9. Gainestown Nehalem chips

And please don't forget e-sata ports and quite fans.

I'll write the check today.

[Uroboros]

Here's my relatively modest wish-list, not that I'll be buying a new desktop for a long time. I suspect that software won't make full use of the hardware I've got for 3-6 years, unless Snow Leopard is everything I want it to be and more. But I digress!

Hardware:

1. eSATA ports. I think it's about time we had these. Two would be plenty.
2. Firewire 3200 ports. Now would be a good time to deploy this, if they're ready to go on it.
3. Graphics cards that are no more than half a year old. For example, 4870s right now. Failing that, revision of the Nvidia drivers. Please? These guys are not performing as well as they ought to be on anything pro-app oriented. Also, I guess use of Displayport, since that's the way they appear to be going. I feel like straight Displayport instead of mini may work out well if, say, the upcoming 30" display uses regular displayport.
4. Use SATA on the optical drives instead of pATA. Now that the industry is over pATA, apple can get over it as well. May as well make it standard.
5. More USB ports or memory card readers built-in. I guess this is just greedy on my part because I run out of ports frequently and somehow, various hubs tend to work less than perfectly. Would be nice to just tap memory cards straight off of the motherboard with Apple aesthetics.
6. More efficient power supply unit. I hear this one wastes a fair bit of juice, and is somewhat less than completely cutting edge in its construction.
7. More 3.5" HDD bays is impractical, but...what about the addition of 2.5" bays? They could be used for say, Velociraptor boot drives or solid-state boot drives. Not a likely design choice, but maybe some design wizard could figure something out.

Software:

1. Better video card drivers. Please. Core image in particular. Seriously, guys, the pros could use some love here.
2. Software support for Blu-ray. Heaven knows we've already got a lot of what's needed; all that needs to be done to finish is a DVD player style app for movie playback and support in DVD Studio Pro.
3. Better support for multi-channel audio output through the optical connection. This can be had, after a fashion, with some apps, but it's just not there in say, iTunes. I know there's not a lot of demand for it, but it'd be nice. It'd be nice to monitor surround output from FCP/Soundtrack/DVDSP through that connection without needing a full-on mixing board. I'm just a one-man video shop, but I'm enabled to do so many things through bundled software that I'd enjoy using my hardware to its fullest extent.
4. Snow Leopard looks like it's going to work some serious mojo with existing software, but if it's technically feasible, there's one trick I'd love to see entertained: loading entire applications and projects into physical RAM. My 10 gigs could be used to fit, say, my 4 GB photoshop files (once that goes 64-bit!) straight into memory and be operated upon at lightning speed. By the same token, if I moved an HDV project that encompassed less than 45 minutes of footage, operating it all in memory would be blindingly fast by comparison. Now, I'm no bithead so that may all be nonsense, but it's a nifty idea to toss around.
5. ZFS support, native and boot support. Yes. Eliminate redundancy/reliability problems and use onboard bays to accumulate a large storage pool. I like.

Random others:

-Power button back on keyboards? I kind of liked that.

I could ask for more HDD bays or more PCIe slots - and definitely make use of them - but I think it's an unreasonable request unless we want our Mac Pros monstrously large. It's already quite heavy for a tower, and adding more space for that sort of thing would only make it heavier.

Good list!,

Why are more drive bays impractical, Antec has made a pretty big business building PC cases about the same size as a MacPro with more drive spaces than this, and btw the raptor might be a 2.5 inch drive deep down inside, but it's wrapped in a required heat sink that is a 3.5 inch form factor.

I will say moving my (god help me) steel Antec case with all those drives in it is a giant pita, because the thing does weigh a ton, but it easier than wrestling with a cable nest and e-sata drive bays as well. :)

[lostngone]

How about giving us the option to easily add more processors.
This would make some sense with the GSD in Snow Leopard.

Maybe a fully modular case design.

The Main module would only have Ram and CPU cards and you could snap on/build up any other options via modules. You could buy a storage module with 1 optical drive 2 hard drive but have an option for a 10 drive array module. Maybe the base expansion module would only come with 2 PCIe slots and have an option for a larger module with 5 or more. They could sell different size power supply modules for different needs. They could sell different I/O modules for different needs, one with the standard ports and wireless and others with different options like more firewire ports or more optical ins and outs.

Of course this wouldn't be easy, they would have to invent a new bus architecture to link each module together and it would add latency and cost but you could build the exact system you need.

I am just throwing ideas out...

[Tallest Skil]

And please don't forget e-sata ports and quite fans.

And the current impossibly quiet fans aren't quiet enough?

How about giving us the option to easily add more processors.

The Gainestown Nehalem Mac Pro will have 8 real cores and sixteen logical ones...

That not enough for you?

What did Steve/Apple say about Blu-Ray? Where can I find out more info on that. I'm with LAFCPUG, they haven't mentioned anything. I was at NAB and MacWorld, did'nt hear anything there... Please, what did I miss?

Blu-ray is a "bag of hurt". As such, it won't be in Macs until about 2015.

Also, the Buyer's Guide is horribly skewed. The average number of days until an update is FAR more than 200...

[Umbongo]

How about giving us the option to easily add more processors.
This would make some sense with the GSD in Snow Leopard.

Maybe a fully modular case design.

The Main module would only have Ram and CPU cards and you could snap on/build up any other options via modules. You could buy a storage module with 1 optical drive 2 hard drive but have an option for a 10 drive array module. Maybe the base expansion module would only come with 2 PCIe slots and have an option for a larger module with 5 or more. They could sell different size power supply modules for different needs. They could sell different I/O modules for different needs, one with the standard ports and wireless and others with different options like more firewire ports or more optical ins and outs.

Of course this wouldn't be easy, they would have to invent a new bus architecture to link each module together and it would add latency and cost but you could build the exact system you need.

I am just throwing ideas out...

I imagine we may see more modular platforms one day, but right now it isn't practical. Certainly not for Apple anyway.

[pwn247]

Hardware:
-More USB ports. Seriously, for a professional machine, seeing just 3 USB ports on the back is pathetic. My P4 Dell downstairs (purchased in ~2003) has 5 on the back, and two on the front. Get with the program, Apple! After all, you're the one who's pushing USB. And the "get a hub" solution doesn't cut it.
-Much more efficient PSU. The one we have now garbles lots of energy for nothing. Apple needs to apply their "eco-friendly" touch to our favorite high-end desktop.
-All ports need to be PCI-E x16. With the 1KW PSU, there's no excuse for "not enough power". It's ridiculous that I pay upwards of $3,000 and only get one x16 slot.
-Quieter fans. I know the ones we have now are "quiet", but I should be able to crank em' up a good ways and still sound like a whisper.
-New case? I love the cheese grater (not being sarcastic!), but I feel that Apple's black-on-aluminum look will also be applied to our Mac Pro since the MacBook Pro got an upgrade too.

Software:
-Of course, Snow Leopard. Nuff said.
-Better drivers. + Support for off-the-shelf PC cards, EVEN GENERIC DRIVERS WILL DO. Vista manages it, OS X can too.
-A BIOS-like manager inside of EFI. It's well documented that EFI is an extremely powerful boot manager, so let's integrate a BIOS-style hardware management/diagnostic system.

[Umbongo]

-All ports need to be PCI-E x16. With the 1KW PSU, there's no excuse for "not enough power". It's ridiculous that I pay upwards of $3,000 and only get one x16 slot.

This wasn't anything to do with Apple and the 2008 Mac Pro has two full x16 lanes by the way. The Tylersburg-36D chipset which Apple should be using supports 36 lanes with a single IOH (Input/Output Hub). However the platform can support two IOHs for a total of 72 PCI-E 2.0 lanes which I would expect to see on the Mac Pro.

-Quieter fans. I know the ones we have now are "quiet", but I should be able to crank em' up a good ways and still sound like a whisper.

This is something I'm sure every manufacturer would like to deliver but is perhaps beyond Apple's control.

Software:
-Of course, Snow Leopard. Nuff said.

It is worth considering, for everyone waiting, that the new Mac Pros may not ship without Snow Leopard. Which I guess affects the timeline and software issues for those needing a stable platform.

-Better drivers. + Support for off-the-shelf PC cards, EVEN GENERIC DRIVERS WILL DO. Vista manages it, OS X can too.

Apple could support off-the-shelf cards but they won't because it wouldn't be good business to do so. There is just no money in it for Apple. As for better drives, I think sadly this isn't going to happen as the drivers they have are "enough" to sell systems.

[TrevorMac]

What should the next Mac Pro have....

In my opinion....

1. 8X Blu Ray Drives
2. An NVIDIA GTX 295 (nothing less for the high end)
3. 64 GB DDR3 RAM :eek:
4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.
5. SSD as BTO option
6. MORE PCI Power connectors that ARE STANDARD!!!

I did a little research last night on the issue of blu-ray. It's BD-ROM vs BD-DVD.
You can install a blu-ray burner for data storage 25gig or DL 50gig. Which is great, BUT...to burn a playable HD movie on blue-ray requires a $2700 license fee to Sony. I'm not sure if it is a one time fee, or per title.
That's the bag of hurt that Steve was talking about. Thanks for input.

[nanofrog]

Good list!,

Why are more drive bays impractical, Antec has made a pretty big business building PC cases about the same size as a MacPro with more drive spaces than this, and btw the raptor might be a 2.5 inch drive deep down inside, but it's wrapped in a required heat sink that is a 3.5 inch form factor.

I will say moving my (god help me) steel Antec case with all those drives in it is a giant pita, because the thing does weigh a ton, but it easier than wrestling with a cable nest and e-sata drive bays as well. :)
There's a couple of good case manufacturers that do great jobs with full tower cases. I just don't have the impression Apple would go that route. :(
But I'd still like to see it. ;)

The transition from 3.5" to 2.5" drives will take some time I think. In the case of the Velociraptor, the heat sink mount is not required. That's just marketing hype, as they sell it without one WD3000BLFS (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WD3000BLFS-300GB-VELOCIRAPTOR/dp/B001F235N6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=miscellaneous&qid=1231949816&sr=8-6). :eek: :D
This wasn't anything to do with Apple and the 2008 Mac Pro has two full x16 lanes by the way. The Tylersburg-36D chipset which Apple should be using supports 36 lanes with a single IOH (Input/Output Hub). However the platform can support two IOHs for a total of 72 PCI-E 2.0 lanes which I would expect to see on the Mac Pro.
Intel would have had to design such a board for testing, and a good chance Apple would order a custom version. :)

[Fast Shadow]

Mac Pro, 2X 2.8GHZ Intel Xeon Quadcores, 500GB WD HDD, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT, 2 Superdrives, 30" Apple Cinema Display

Why on Earth do you have a system like that with only 2 gigs of RAM? You're crippling it.

[Fast Shadow]

8 core "standard" can't be kept up, the 5500 chips just cost too much. We'd be looking at a $3000 base config.


ahahahaha.. do you realize how much a base pro level Mac used to cost? The IIFX base price was $10,000. The base Mac II price was $5,500. Even at $3,000 today's Mac Pros are a steal for what we get. Dual Quad Core Xeons? Those beautiful cases with the high flow fans, power supplies, etc? We're spoiled with what we have today at these prices.

[m1stake]

I am remembering that $5,000 G3 PowerBook that now sits in my closet for when I need to do something in OS9. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

[lostngone]

How about 6, 32x PCIe slots so I can REALLY take advantage of OpenCL.

[Tallest Skil]

How about 6, 32x PCIe slots so I can REALLY take advantage of OpenCL.

Forget that! Just give us PCIe 3.0. 1 GB/s data rate? Yes, please.

[nanofrog]

Forget that! Just give us PCIe 3.0. 1 GB/s data rate? Yes, please.
Greedy are we?
It's not even out yet! 2010 if we're lucky. :eek: :D :p

Though I did get an e-mail from Atto telling me they have their first 6.0Gb/s SAS/SATA OEM RAID adapters available. :D

[m1stake]

What a waste, PCI-e 1.0 doesn't bottleneck anything. Why would you need more? I guess that's in irrelevant question coming from someone who still uses a 233mhz G3 every day.

[Sesshi]

Fans, cooling design and reliability actually worthy of being called 'workstation' would be nice. The drive bays still P me off, so a change in that aspect would be good too. Apart from that the updates are pretty predictable - and probably won't lead me to buy them.

If the cooling and system layout gets a radical revision, it might persuade me to replace some of the existing Pros.

[jjahshik32]

What a waste, PCI-e 1.0 doesn't bottleneck anything. Why would you need more? I guess that's in irrelevant question coming from someone who still uses a 233mhz G3 every day.

Next year or so the PCI-e 1.0 will become useless (actually it might already be) when the only available compatible cards will be the older ati and nvidia cards, especially the extremely limited gpu card variety that the mac pro offers.

[lostngone]

What a waste, PCI-e 1.0 doesn't bottleneck anything. Why would you need more? I guess that's in irrelevant question coming from someone who still uses a 233mhz G3 every day.


It will become a bottleneck when Snow Leopard is released. The app will need to be re-engineered/recompiled to take advantage of it.

If the program does a lot of floating point calculations OpenCL is really impressive. However it needs to load data to and from the card and the slower bus is the bottleneck.

[TheStrudel]

Hey, I forgot one. Slightly better-designed drive bays, preventing the resonance problem. Yes, I know this is fixable through a variety of methods, but it'd be nice to not have to.

[m1stake]

Next year or so the PCI-e 1.0 will become useless (actually it might already be) when the only available compatible cards will be the older ati and nvidia cards, especially the extremely limited gpu card variety that the mac pro offers.

It will become a bottleneck when Snow Leopard is released. The app will need to be re-engineered/recompiled to take advantage of it.

If the program does a lot of floating point calculations OpenCL is really impressive. However it needs to load data to and from the card and the slower bus is the bottleneck.

Not true, even the GTX 280 and the 4870 don't even get close to saturating the bus. PCI-e 2.0 cards are fully backwards compatible with PCI-e 1.1 slots.

[jjahshik32]

Not true, even the GTX 280 and the 4870 don't even get close to saturating the bus. PCI-e 2.0 cards are fully backwards compatible with PCI-e 1.1 slots.

Just wait until nehalem are released, pci-e 1.1 will fade away very very soon.

[lostngone]

Not true, even the GTX 280 and the 4870 don't even get close to saturating the bus.

Really???

So are you saying if you have 300 megs of data that you need the card to work on that it is going to copy to the card and back out into ram and the PCIe 1.0 bus is going to be faster then what the northbridge can handle? As I understand it PCIe 1.0 only supports 250MB/s max. Am I missing something?

[jjahshik32]

Really???

So are you saying if you have 300 megs of data that you need the card to work on that it is going to copy to the card out of and back into ram and the PCIe 1.0 bus is going to be faster then the northbridge? As I understand it PCIe 1.0 only supports 250MB/s max. Am I missing something?

The guy has the classic case of defending your own hardware syndrome. :rolleyes:

[m1stake]

Just wait until nehalem are released, pci-e 1.1 will fade away very very soon.

PCI-e 1.1 is already gone. All new boards ship with at least one 2.0 slot. However, the 1.1 spec is still more than enough for even the most powerful cards.

Really???

So are you saying if you have 300 megs of data that you need the card to work on that it is going to copy to the card and back out into ram and the PCIe 1.0 bus is going to be faster then what the northbridge can handle? As I understand it PCIe 1.0 only supports 250MB/s max. Am I missing something?

PCI-e 1.1 supports 250mb/s per lane. For a PCI-e 1.1 x16 slot, that's 16 lanes.

[jjahshik32]

PCI-e 1.1 is already gone. All new boards ship with at least one 2.0 slot. However, the 1.1 spec is still more than enough for even the most powerful cards.



PCI-e 1.1 supports 250mb/s per lane. For a PCI-e 1.1 x16 slot, that's 16 lanes.

So basically your saying that the future hardware will continue to use pci-e 1.1?!?

Sorry, nope its not going to happen. When Nehalem hits on the mac pro pci-e 1.1 will be long gone and new gpu's will at least support only 2.0 and up.

Either way, gives you another reason to upgrade. =D

[Tallest Skil]

So basically your saying that the future hardware will continue to use pci-e 1.1?!?

Sorry, nope its not going to happen. When Nehalem hits on the mac pro pci-e 1.1 will be long gone and new gpu's will at least support only 2.0 and up.

If you really wanted to prove yourself right, you'd look around the Internet for the specifications on Gainestown logic boards.

[lostngone]

If you really wanted to prove yourself right, you'd look around the Internet for the specifications on Gainestown logic boards.

Your all wrong at this rate we will all be talking about PCI-e 3.0 by the time the new Mac Pro's come out... :(

[bobfitz14]

[...]
4. New design ... though the current one is really nice Apple must surprise the World with something truly jaw dropping.

nawwwwwww. the Mac Pro is pretty sleek, i hope there isn't too much change about the physical appearance but maybe a small change would be interesting.

[Tallest Skil]

Your all wrong at this rate we will all be talking about PCI-e 3.0 by the time the new Mac Pro's come out... :(

Except Gainestown is still set to begin production this month or February, meaning a WWDC 2009 release.

[m1stake]

So basically your saying that the future hardware will continue to use pci-e 1.1?!?

Sorry, nope its not going to happen. When Nehalem hits on the mac pro pci-e 1.1 will be long gone and new gpu's will at least support only 2.0 and up.

Either way, gives you another reason to upgrade. =D

The 8800GT is a PCI-e 2.0 card. I keep saying that PCI-e 2.0 and 3.0 cards are 100% backwards compatible because the technology hasn't changed, just the transfer rate. Likewise, PCI-e 1.1 cards are compatible with 2.0 and eventually 3.0.

I wouldn't be that surprised if the tylersburg used all PCI-e 2.0 slots, but it's not really necessary yet, or for the next year or two if graphics cards keep improving at the current rate.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying, lol. :(

[jjahshik32]

The 8800GT is a PCI-e 2.0 card. I keep saying that PCI-e 2.0 and 3.0 cards are 100% backwards compatible because the technology hasn't changed, just the transfer rate. Likewise, PCI-e 1.1 cards are compatible with 2.0 and eventually 3.0.

I wouldn't be that surprised if the tylersburg used all PCI-e 2.0 slots, but it's not really necessary yet, or for the next year or two if graphics cards keep improving at the current rate.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying, lol. :(

My point is Nehalem or for a year from now, there will be no point in the newer hardware/motherboards to support pci-e 1.1 when newer cards will support at least 2.0 and get ready for 3.0.

Just because pci-e 1.1 is compatible with the 2.0 cards doesnt mean that it wont get crappier transfer rates, sure it will work but you wont get the benefits to go with the new cpu architecture.

I dont think you know what I'm saying.

[m1stake]

They automatically support it, they're just different versions of the same spec.

As I've said before in this topic, even the GTX 280 and 4870X2 don't get close to saturating the 1.1 bus, so the difference in transfer rate makes no difference.

[jjahshik32]

They automatically support it, they're just different versions of the same spec.

As I've said before in this topic, even the GTX 280 and 4870X2 don't get close to saturating the 1.1 bus, so the difference in transfer rate makes no difference.

But will it still sustain only saturating only close to the 1.1 bus with nehalem? No one knows that right now what gainestown will bring. But I got my money on saturating that 2.0 bus fully or close to it as you would say.

[m1stake]

It's just the the output of the graphics card. Core i7 and the X58 don't change that.

As I said before the 1.1 bus is nowhere near saturation, and the 2.0 bus is double the 1.1 bus.

[Tallest Skil]

No one knows that right now what gainestown will bring.

Do we have specs on Tylersburg at all?

[jjahshik32]

It's just the the output of the graphics card. Core i7 and the X58 don't change that.

New motherboards of the gainestown could change that very easily as to the inferior architecture right now.

For now we dont know what they are capable of as it is not released yet but you would really have to think this time around the specs that the cards have should be at least utilized with totally new architecture.

[ildondeigiocchi]

I did a little research last night on the issue of blu-ray. It's BD-ROM vs BD-DVD.
You can install a blu-ray burner for data storage 25gig or DL 50gig. Which is great, BUT...to burn a playable HD movie on blue-ray requires a $2700 license fee to Sony. I'm not sure if it is a one time fee, or per title.
That's the bag of hurt that Steve was talking about. Thanks for input.

This is simply not true since a person can buy a version of Roxio Toat 9 or 10 and burn Bluray movies for free once you bought the software.

[Tallest Skil]

This is simply not true since a person can buy a version of Roxio Toat 9 or 10 and burn Bluray movies for free once you bought the software.

Also true, but you can't burn video with HDCP on the disk in either Toast, OS X, iDVD, or Final Cut Studio 2.

That's the bag of hurt: HDCP.

[m1stake]

The board isn't going to magically make the graphics card pump out more data.

This is simply not true since a person can buy a version of Roxio Toat 9 or 10 and burn Bluray movies for free once you bought the software.

I believe he's talking about a license for the studio, similar to the one time $2500 fee that Intel charges for USB. Obviously end users aren't effected.

[Tallest Skil]

The board isn't going to magically make the graphics card pump out more data.

:eek: But... but Snow Leopard! :p

[m1stake]

:eek: But... but Snow Leopard! :p

Now Snow Leopard can push cards past their hardware limits? :p

[jjahshik32]

The board isn't going to magically make the graphics card pump out more data.


But the newer gpu cards that are out when gainestown is available will be able to pump out more data and not to mention the snow leopard! :cool:

[Tallest Skil]

Now Snow Leopard can push cards past their hardware limits? :p

Snow Leopard slowly rearranges your hardware's molecules to upgrade itself to smaller manufacturing processes.

Once you install Snow Leopard on a Nehalem Mac Pro, it will upgrade itself and become a Sandy Bridge Mac Pro within two years, completely skipping Westmere!

...and not to mention the snow leopard! :cool:

Is there an echo in here?! Seriously?! :D

[jjahshik32]

Is there an echo in here?! Seriously?! :D

But of course! :D

[nanofrog]

New motherboards of the gainestown could change that very easily as to the inferior architecture right now.

For now we dont know what they are capable of as it is not released yet but you would really have to think this time around the specs that the cards have should be at least utilized with totally new architecture.

It won't matter what the Xeon 5500 series parts, the X58 parts, or any specific board can do. It's in the PCIe specs, and is hardwired into the PCIe controller bus.

Fortunately, the newer versions are/will be backward compatible. So if you manage to get a board that's strictly PCIe 2.0, your PCIe 1.1 cards will still work. :)

[m1stake]

It won't matter what the Xeon 5500 series parts, the X58 parts, or any specific board can do. It's in the PCIe specs, and is hardwired into the PCIe controller bus.

Fortunately, the newer versions are/will be backward compatible. So if you manage to get a board that's strictly PCIe 2.0, your PCIe 1.1 cards will still work. :)

LOL WOW

[nanofrog]

LOL WOW
What?

[Tallest Skil]

What?

I think he mistook your "PCIe 2.0 is backwards compatible with PCIe 1.1" to mean that you were saying that the X5500 series was backwards compatible with the boards in the current model.

Which, as all three of us know, they are NOT, in the least.

[m1stake]

I think we've written the same thing five times :rolleyes:

[jjahshik32]

Anyways this thread has gone way off topic.

[Tallest Skil]

Anyways this thread has gone way off topic.

Oh. It's a good thing we know what the Nehalem Mac Pro will have in terms of hardware, then.

I see nothing off topic here.

[nanofrog]

I think we've written the same thing five times :rolleyes:
Maybe.
Let's beat the horse some more and make absolutely sure it's dead. :D :p

[Tallest Skil]

Maybe.
Let's beat the horse some more and make absolutely sure it's dead. :D :p

For clarification purposes, let's beat it one FINAL time (and I'll make a post with all the relevant data once we've collaborated it), because I have absolutely no idea what you're all talking about that we've been repeating?

[nanofrog]

For clarification purposes, let's beat it one FINAL time (and I'll make a post with all the relevant data once we've collaborated it), because I have absolutely no idea what you're all talking about that we've been repeating?
:cool:

Let's say the PCIe spec is v 2.0 on a motherboard. The device plugged in one of the slots is a v 1.1. That device will only run at 1.1 speeds, so 250MB/s for each lane.

The slowest data link in the chain sets the speed, no matter if it's the card or the motherboard.

Does this help? :)

[Tallest Skil]

:cool:

Let's say the PCIe spec is v 2.0 on a motherboard. The device plugged in one of the slots is a v 1.1. That device will only run at 1.1 speeds, so 250MB/s for each lane.

The slowest data link in the chain sets the speed, no matter if it's the card or the motherboard.

Does this help? :)

Yes. So, what is being said is:

There are no PCIe graphics cards in existence that require data transfer speeds anywhere close to being in excess of PCIe 2.0, so there is no need for PCIe 3.0 at any point in the near future.

Right?

[nanofrog]

Yes. So, what is being said is:

There are no PCIe graphics cards in existence that require data transfer speeds anywhere close to being in excess of PCIe 2.0, so there is no need for PCIe 3.0 at any point in the near future.

Right?

Yup. :)

Not until v 2.0 is saturated @ all 16 lanes.

[jjahshik32]

Yes. So, what is being said is:

There are no PCIe graphics cards in existence that require data transfer speeds anywhere close to being in excess of PCIe 2.0, so there is no need for PCIe 3.0 at any point in the near future.

Right?

Wow, this starts to make me think that Nehalem wont be a HUGE upgrade from what the current 8 core xeons offer already.

I feel as if the current mac pro is the best time to buy until a next upgrade.

[RobLS]

I want the next Mac Pro to come with wireless as standard. I hate adding that 50$ option.

[Tallest Skil]

I want the next Mac Pro to come with wireless as standard. I hate adding that 50$ option.

AH! That's what I forgot (in my other thread)! Thanks! :p

[Rick Here]

:mad:
Will they add a RAID card with a battery that doesn't slow the system each time it re-conditions?

[RobLS]

AH! That's what I forgot (in my other thread)! Thanks! :p

Lol no prob, I was actually thinking of messaging you to add it there.

[hatehereyes]

I want the next Mac Pro to come with wireless as standard. I hate adding that 50$ option.

i picked up a broadcome mini-PCIe wireless card off ebay for a total of $3.60.

works perfectly.

[RobLS]

i picked up a broadcome mini-PCIe wireless card off ebay for a total of $3.60.

works perfectly.

But it takes up a slot doesn't it?

[nanofrog]

Wow, this starts to make me think that Nehalem wont be a HUGE upgrade from what the current 8 core xeons offer already.

I feel as if the current mac pro is the best time to buy until a next upgrade.
The PCIe slots on a Gainestown board will still run the a current device (v 2.0 or v1.1) at it's rated speed, so long as you have one with enough lanes available.

The only time this will change, is if you place a v 3.0 device in a v 2.0 slot, and it actually saturates it.

Either way, the performance gains acquired from the Nehalem architecture will still be worth it (processor and memory), provided your needs really require such a system. ;)

[jjahshik32]

I wish I could get the current mac pro running with my 24" LED ACD. Then I think I would just pick up the current 2.8ghz mac pro and just stick my intel x25-m SSD in it along with 16gb of ram.

[m1stake]

Wow, this starts to make me think that Nehalem wont be a HUGE upgrade from what the current 8 core xeons offer already.

I feel as if the current mac pro is the best time to buy until a next upgrade.

It's painfully obvious that Nehalem offers a massive performance increase. There are benchmarks all over the place!

I wish I could get the current mac pro running with my 24" LED ACD. Then I think I would just pick up the current 2.8ghz mac pro and just stick my intel x25-m SSD in it along with 16gb of ram.

Why can't you?

[jjahshik32]

It's painfully obvious that Nehalem offers a massive performance increase. There are benchmarks all over the place!



Why can't you?

The 24" LED ACD uses a mini display port and currently there is no way to connect it to the current mac pros, imacs or mac mini.

Only the unibody macbook and macbook pro can hook up to the 24" LED ACD (which is what I currently use) but can use more raw CPU/GPU power.

[nanofrog]

The 24" LED ACD uses a mini display port and currently there is no way to connect it to the current mac pros, imacs or mac mini.

Only the unibody macbook and macbook pro can hook up to the 24" LED ACD (which is what I currently use) but can use more raw CPU/GPU power.
Do you already have the 24" LEC ACD?

[jjahshik32]

Do you already have the 24" LEC ACD?

Yes, I've had it for about a month now and its the best display I've ever used! :p

I'm running it in dual monitor mode with my 2.53ghz unibody mbp + intel x25-m (nice little setup and very fast) but I could use more cpu power.

I'm itching to stick the intel x25-m SSD drive in an mac pro either the 2.8ghz 8 core or a nehalem, SSD upgrade is the best upgrade I've ever made in the last 18 years (well next to 3d graphics of course).

[m1stake]

1. Buy the dongle
2. Buy Mac Pro
3. ???
4. Profit

There are no PCIe graphics cards in existence that require data transfer speeds anywhere close to being in excess of PCIe 1.1, so there is no need for PCIe 3.0 at any point in the near future.

Fixed, no graphics cards are even particularly close to hitting the 1.1 barrier. It's just a future proofing device more than anything that you could get an immediate benefit out of.

[nanofrog]

1. Buy the dongle
2. Buy Mac Pro
3. ???
4. Profit
LOL! :D

That's Apple. :p

[Tallest Skil]

Fixed, no graphics cards are even particularly close to hitting the 1.1 barrier. It's just a future proofing device more than anything that you could get an immediate benefit out of.

Really? They're not even hitting 1.1? Okay, then. Good to know.

But what about other PCIe expansion cards? (this will all go in my thread)

RAID cards, fiber channel cards, and the like. Couldn't/don't they take advantage of more bandwidth?

[nanofrog]

Fixed, no graphics cards are even particularly close to hitting the 1.1 barrier. It's just a future proofing device more than anything that you could get an immediate benefit out of.
Don't forget the Marketing. :D

[jjahshik32]

Man if I can produce the mini display port (female) to (female) DVI, I'd make a small fortune, LOL.

[J the Ninja]

Really? They're not even hitting 1.1? Okay, then. Good to know.

But what about other PCIe expansion cards? (this will all go in my thread)

RAID cards, fiber channel cards, and the like. Couldn't/don't they take advantage of more bandwidth?

At x16? No, grab Wiki and a calculator. Even with a nested RAID array of X-25s you'd be hard pressed to saturate an x8 PCIe link, much less an x16.