First, how would you have any idea how many people are building hackintoshes?
And second, the notion that the number of hackintoshes is an indication of how many people would buy MP is nonsense.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
David Pogue: New iMacs and Mac Pros Coming 'Probably in 2013' [Update]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
First, how would you have any idea how many people are building hackintoshes?
And second, the notion that the number of hackintoshes is an indication of how many people would buy MP is nonsense.
calaverasgrande
macrumors 65816
a lot of the bulk in the mac pro design was for the outrageous G5 cooling system. These days I see dual Xeon systems in 1ru boxes. 2ru boxes with as many slots as a mac pro.
About slots. I suppose there is still a need for full length cards, but beyond video cards I simply dont see them as often anymore. If apple decided to make the case shallower and only allow LP cards and half lenght at that, I wonder if they woudl be able to get a workstation video card top fit that?
I dont doubt it. Though a lot of upmarket cards these days are pretty much hairdryers with a DVI jack soldered on. So they would be constrained in their efforts to shrink the case simply by the size of available video cards.
About slots. I suppose there is still a need for full length cards, but beyond video cards I simply dont see them as often anymore. If apple decided to make the case shallower and only allow LP cards and half lenght at that, I wonder if they woudl be able to get a workstation video card top fit that?
I dont doubt it. Though a lot of upmarket cards these days are pretty much hairdryers with a DVI jack soldered on. So they would be constrained in their efforts to shrink the case simply by the size of available video cards.
Bigger boxes means bigger diameter of fans in cooling which leads to quieter cooling.
But xMac could be just like you visioned. Half hight & length pci-e slots. In addition the width of the front of the box could so that you could insert 3.5" hdd from the front and 2,5" hdd/sdd from the side. Bigger than 4" fans could also used in the sides.
If some does it in the privacy of their own home, how would Apple Legal even be aware of it, much less able to do anything about it?
It's largely a hobbyist market and they know it. There are probably a small group of freelancers out there working off of them, but they would still be small enough to be classified as hobbyist/enthusiasts and not warrant the attention of Apple. There is still a halo effect from these consumers most likely purchasing other apple/compatible products and espousing osx evangelism. There's a benefit to be had from a small fringe group of people working to see what's possible with a given product outside the boundaries of standard operating procedure.
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
IOW, you don't have a clue about the number of Hackintoshes, yet you made a post about how few there are.
Priceless.
I'm sure there are people doing it "in the privacy of their own home".
Apple knows pretty much exactly how many hackintoshes are in use - as long as they continue to do nothing aggressive about it, there is no reason to believe the number of hackintoshes out in the wild is any more significant than a pimple on an elephant's arse.
How do you reckon they know? Is some identifying information sent when an update is downloaded? Can they tell the difference between my old real Mac and my (hypothetical) Hackintosh? Just wondering...
So now it's "exactly"?
So I'll ask again, if someone has one, HOW does apple know about it, and thus know how many there are overall?
calaverasgrande
macrumors 65816
seriously?
I guess you didn't hear about the guys, I think they were in Florida, who got sued by Apple for selling Hackintosh gear. Mind you they didnt sell actual hackintoshes or even a modded version of OSX. They just sold some USB gadgets that made it a bit easier to turn a wintel machine into a Mac.
There was an article in Wired and everything.
There was also some company that got a cease and desist for selling turnkey hackintoshes.
Fact of the matter, when you fire up OSX you agree to legally binding restrictions by clicking through all those terms of service banners.
Apple does the same thing with their hardware. Legal notices on the bags that enclose the shiny-precious.
Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
The bottom half of the following article might offer up a decent explanation as to why we're not seeing a Sandy Bridge E(X/P) Mac Pro and why Apple has thusly decided to table the true update to the 2010 model until next year:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-Ivy-Bridge-CPU-Range-Complete-by-Next-Year-263451.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-Ivy-Bridge-CPU-Range-Complete-by-Next-Year-263451.shtml
Why don't you say exactly what you mean.
All I took from the article, and it was dated April, five, going on six, months ago, is that Apple does not want to bother providing customers current hardware. Are they lazy or just contemptuous of their customers?
Yes, I realize that Apple have always had serious problems because of the poor thermal design of Jonny Ive's designs, but someone else should long ago have given him "guidance" to provide better functional design.
The more this sort of delay and excuse mongering goes on the more one is forced to consider the merit of a comment by a leading video editing software company that, if one were concerned about performance, one would have left the Mac platform some time ago. 😱 (Ouch!)
That's pretty much what I got, too. Basically, "why bother providing a 2012 spec machine when we're just going to have to build a 2013 spec machine afterwards anyway?"
Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
Intel skipped on doing its Sandy Bridge EX and Sandy Bridge EP six, eight, and ten core Xeon chips and is tabling those chips until Ivy Bridge E. That's what the latter half of the article was saying. These are the chips that would be going in the proper 2012 Mac Pro refresh if there was ever to be one. Again, those chips didn't materialize and therefore Apple didn't use them and rather than putting out a disjointed Nehalem Mac Pro release that didn't update CPUs (which, mind you, is the Mac Pro's trademark marketed feature), they tabled their big update until 2013 when Intel could actually provide the goods.
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
Skipped ? What's this then :
http://ark.intel.com/products/64607...E5-4620-16M-Cache-2_20-GHz-7_20-GTs-Intel-QPI
Intel didn't skip squat. Apple skipped an update.
You illustrate the fundamental problem with Apple. They can't seem to put out updated products when new hardware is available. They are inflexibly wedded to a generally meaningless calendar schedule of releases. The net result is that Apple is frequently very late to market with current hardware in a reasonably timely manner. Apple will eventually get around to releasing hardware that is yesterday's news amid much to do about nothing worth mentioning save the fact that it will be what Apple have chosen to allow you the privilege of spending your money on it. Grrrr!
Cheers
xbjllb
macrumors 65816
And so, you walk. It's what Apple wants anyway, so they can go on being a fad toymaker. You know, where the "real" money is.
For awhile.
As long as they can keep suing competitors and winning.
Gotta love the corporate mind.
While their chips aren't called EX or EP, they do have the E3 and E5 series which include six and eight core versions. I don't know if you're just unaware of those or if you think there's some reason those wouldn't be appropriate for MP?
Besides having chips that are perfectly fine for MP, an update is way overdue for the sake of USB3, TB, and especially SATA III.
I have to agree with the other responses, just puzzled why this article from April is popping up now and what relevance it has. The chips are there (and yes, Intel did take their sweet time releasing a real update appropriate for MP), nowhere to place the blame other than Apple this time around.
EDIT: My bad, looks like the E5-26xx models are EP chips (although I don't really see much of a difference from the EN versions, is it just a bit higher clock speed?).
Really all that Apple is missing out on is 10 core chips, and Intel has already had those out in previous generations without Apple using them. And I wouldn't even count on Apple using the 10 core versions next year if and when they finally update, especially if they require socket 1567.
Last edited:
Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
Yeah, I overlooked that it was only the ten-core versions that were lacking; and really, even though it's not Sandy Bridge EX, those 8-core Xeons ought to be an adequate enough replacement for what's already in there. Apple would be making a foolish decision to hold off on a 16-core Mac Pro (and respectively, an 8-core single-CPU Mac Pro) just because they couldn't get out a 20-core Mac Pro (and respectively, a 10-core single-CPU Mac Pro).
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
Regardless of Intel CPUs, what would it really changed to at least update the GPU. A AMD 5770... in 2012. Sad.
Apple doesn't need to wait for Intel necessarily to update the Mac Pro, there's more to it than just a CPU.
Yebubbleman
macrumors 603
I absolutely agree with that, it wasn't so much of a "here's a good reason why they skipped this round of Intel chips" as much as it was a "here's why they might have decided to skip this round of Intel chips" in a devil's advocate fashion. Really, the lag on all three of their desktop lines right now is atrocious; though it might just mean that they're slowly devoting fewer resources to their desktop lines because (Mac Pro probably aside) they can afford to skip a generation of desktop Macs. I mean really, will the average iMac customer even notice that the iMac still has Sandy Bridge and not Ivy Bridge? How about the average Mac mini customer? Mac Pro customers, on the other hand, I can see being plainly noticing and pissed as a result.
Umbongo
macrumors 601
EN processors max out at 2.4GHz 6-core and 2.3GHz 8-core, have triple channel memory controllers and only 24 x PCI-E 3.0 lanes.
EP max out at 3.3GHz 4-core, 2.9GHz 6-core, 3.1GHz 8-core; quad-channel memory controllers and 40 x PCI-E 3.0 lanes.
There are also 4 way processors and boards available with EP now.
There is no Sandy Bridge-EX replacement for Westmere-EX. Probably will come as Ivy Bridge-EX. Ivy Bridge-EN and EP will be available with 10 cores.
The Mac Pro should have been updated with Sandy Bridge-EP.