Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?

You might want to look at a power system design book that has been published in the last 20 years, gman.

Most all computer power supplies are now universal input switch mode converters and will operate with line voltages from 85 or so up to the mid 200s. Everything apple now makes does this - and automatically, without any need for manual input voltage selection or any lossy "240 to 120V conversion."

As other have correctly pointed out, the only advantage to the higher mains voltage in some countries is lower input AC current and associated smaller gauge wiring in the mains circuitry. The power dissipated in the computer by both the electronics and by the power supply will be the same to within a couple of percent. And yes, power is heat.

gman36 said:

It isn't a linear relationship, since these are very non linear systems. Inductors and capacitors are very dynamic. But essentially if apple designed power supplies specifically for the EU market, I am claiming they will run cooler.

The voltage isn't a speed. Current all travels at the same rate.

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random tidbit
mta 3rd rail is 625v
(nothing to do with the conversation about volts and stuff.. just neat info)
going to sleep this time for real.

gman36 said:

Watts is power, which is not heat.

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Really?

http://rapidtables.com/convert/power/Watt_to_BTU.htm

AidenShaw said:

Really?

http://rapidtables.com/convert/power/Watt_to_BTU.htm

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Please tell me next, that velocity m/s, is equivalent to acceleration m/s^2...

You just linked me a conversion from watts to BTUs... Therefore watts is not heat, watts "can" be converted to heat. A watt, is measured in joules/second. BTU as you mentioned, is a joule....

I can't believe I am explaining this...

Haha, interesting that we will discuss some basic Physics here. Anyway, agree that Power is not equals to Energy, but the rate of change of energy.

Try looking at a lot of the topics in this forum. Don't you all feel that it's ridiculous that we are going through all kinds of hacks/workarounds to update our Mac Pro's to catch up with the rest of the pro desktop PC market?

We're now treating the Mac Pro platform as a legacy product. It's like modding a C64 or an Amiga to do things it was not intended for. Quite telling. And sad. But clearly Apple are not interested in it.

Simon R. said:

Try looking at a lot of the topics in this forum. Don't you all feel that it's ridiculous that we are going through all kinds of hacks/workarounds to update our Mac Pro's to catch up with the rest of the pro desktop PC market?

We're now treating the Mac Pro platform as a legacy product. It's like modding a C64 or an Amiga to do things it was not intended for. Quite telling. And sad. But clearly Apple are not interested in it.

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Exactly! It just seems so bizarre that they won't treat this system like any other computer company would by giving simple refreshes. For all the R&D spent on the design, you would think they they would want to sell them in as many numbers as possible.

The truly sad thing is cMP represents the end of the line that started with Apple 2+. (I often wonder if anyone on this board bought an 80 column card from me a few years back)

Apple has clearly found phones and now watches more fun and profitable to sell. I just don't understand why they can't keep a presence in the "heavy lifting" computer market.

To me, when those giant computer labs full of linked G5s were doing mass computations at universities it proved Apple was serious.it proved that a PowerBook was related to the powerful machines used by serious folks.

The nMP would be a GREAT 2nd tier machine. There is no rational reason they can't have a 1st tier machine as well.

MacVidCards said:

To me, when those giant computer labs full of linked G5s were doing mass computations at universities it proved Apple was serious.it proved that a PowerBook was related to the powerful machines used by serious folks.

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what do you think they'd rather of had:

G5 * 1,100

or

nMP * 2

?

gman36 said:

Please tell me next, that velocity m/s, is equivalent to acceleration m/s^2...

You just linked me a conversion from watts to BTUs... Therefore watts is not heat, watts "can" be converted to heat. A watt, is measured in joules/second. BTU as you mentioned, is a joule....

I can't believe I am explaining this...

Click to expand...

If you buy an electric heater, in what units is its heat output rated? Electric heating pad? Electric water heater? Implicit in the uses of these products is that the time span in which they will operate is greater than zero. A million watts and 1 watt will produce the same amount of heat for 0 seconds - but a million watts for five minutes and 1 watt for five minutes are vastly different.

My HP servers report their power consumption graphically, and there's a box to choose whether the charts are in watts or BTU/hour. When I talk to my HVAC engineers, they don't understand watts - but I can use http://www.rapidtables.com/convert/power/kw-to-ton.htm to put it in terms that make sense to them.

I can't believe that you're being so pedantic about something that is so obvious to everyone else - even if there are some technical differences. I don't claim that gravity doesn't exist - it's a useful concept that helps explain a lot even though it doesn't exist.

we never will see upgrade GPUs for the Mac Pro (Late 2013) except for cards pulled from working systems and parts coming from the service parts supplychain. maybe there will be eGPU solutions being sold someday, we'll see...

td2243 said:

Exactly! It just seems so bizarre that they won't treat this system like any other computer company would by giving simple refreshes. For all the R&D spent on the design, you would think they they would want to sell them in as many numbers as possible.

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lol what? They just overhauled the machine in 2013 and it's exponentially more powerful.

everybody on this forum just holds on to their ****** legacy system

I don't have a legacy system. I wanted a nMP, but lost my enthusiasm when they haven't refreshed after 18 months. If they aren't excited about the line, it is hard for me to be.

h9826790 said:

Haha, interesting that we will discuss some basic Physics here. Anyway, agree that Power is not equals to Energy, but the rate of change of energy.

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OK, then. Ready for some serious energy computations?

http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/

For "hair dryer" read "nMP."

I doubt I'm the only MacRumors person who loves xkcd.com. I'm also very fond of the book "What If?" that emerged from it.

poematik13 said:

lol what? They just overhauled the machine in 2013 and it's exponentially more powerful.

everybody on this forum just holds on to their ****** legacy system

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That’s a joke. Do you know what the phrase exponentially more powerful means?
Look at the stock results. These are all stock but the cMP with a couple of upgrades all but matches it. The only places it really has an edge is if you’re talking external IO, weight and size. I’m not holding on to my legacy system for any other reason than I don’t have any thunderbolt accessories, I want DDR4, at least 2 internal drives and HDMI2. When they refresh to include these I’m all over the new one.

I have a PCI for USB3, can use PCI expansion for a wealth of massively powerful graphics cards, (dual if need be). Ports front, ports back. I don’t need to unplug to take the case off. Optical drives x2 and there is more.

They should have made this stupid thing at least 20% bigger. It could then have an extra internal drive and GPUs that aren’t throttled.

I can’t believe you got up-voted for that drivel.

monokakata said:

OK, then. Ready for some serious energy computations?

http://what-if.xkcd.com/35/

For "hair dryer" read "nMP."

I doubt I'm the only MacRumors person who loves xkcd.com. I'm also very fond of the book "What If?" that emerged from it.

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I like that.

The nMP is actually a very purposeful design for its intended market. Major league post facilities typically have their storage on NAS or SAN, and in that context the nMP makes tons of sense.

I read somewhere that most of these clients typically buy stock MacPros, and never upgrade. They use them for a few years and then buy new ones.

For these clients the nMP is a winner, you get some (under) desk space back, the new machine is much quieter (better working environment), reduce power bill, and add 4K capability. What's not to like?

However, for those without SAN/NAS, the added expense of ThB storage is a considerable one.

For me, personally, the cMP is a better design.

poematik13 said:

lol what? They just overhauled the machine in 2013 and it's exponentially more powerful.

everybody on this forum just holds on to their ****** legacy system

Click to expand...

Exponentially more powerful? You have been listening to the Apple marketing BS. It only has one CPU - the fastest one is about as fast as the fastest Mac Pro from 2010. The GPU's are also pretty old as I understand, and you can get better performance from a 2010 Mac Pro by updating the gfx card.

And don't get me started on PCI vs no PCI - PCI has way more bandwidth than the TB controllers in the new Mac Pro - besides, you don't need enclosures for everything/cables everywhere in the old Mac Pro.

No, the New Mac Pro is not even as powerful as the one from 2010 in most areas. It might have a little faster RAM and it can drive more 4k displays (we know, most people really have THAT as a top priority lol) than the old MP, but everything else is in favour of the 2010 one. It can be updated with faster CPU's, faster GPU's and it still has a ton of more auxillary bandwidth (PCI) to spare.

----------

zephonic said:

The nMP is actually a very purposeful design for its intended market. Major league post facilities typically have their storage on NAS or SAN, and in that context the nMP makes tons of sense.

I read somewhere that most of these clients typically buy stock MacPros, and never upgrade. They use them for a few years and then buy new ones.

For these clients the nMP is a winner, you get some (under) desk space back, the new machine is much quieter (better working environment), reduce power bill, and add 4K capability. What's not to like?

However, for those without SAN/NAS, the added expense of ThB storage is a considerable one.

For me, personally, the cMP is a better design.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately I think most people are moving towards PC in that business as well. "Major League post facilities" don't need small machines. They need powerful, expandable machines. They put them in the machine rooms with all the other gear and an air conditioning and never really have to look at them - just power up and down once in a while.

Anyway, this discussion is not helping - I realize that the current form factor is what we will get, so work with it. However, when Apple are not updating it, and its bandwidth crippled by design, it's a bit of a letdown.

Simon R. said:

Exponentially more powerful? You have been listening to the Apple marketing BS.

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maybe pedantic but the new mac is exponentially more powerful.. or, it will keep improving whereas the old one is a dead end street.

right this minute, some direct comparisons between the two platforms can be made but what will you say in 2018? will the 2010 still be as comparable? will people continue upgrading (or be able to upgrade) to match a 8.1 nmp? or will the nmp have exponentially surpassed the old mac in regards to computing power?

flat five said:

maybe pedantic but the new mac is exponentially more powerful.. or, it will keep improving whereas the old one is a dead end street.

right this minute, some direct comparisons between the two platforms can be made but what will you say in 2018? will the 2010 still be as comparable? will people continue upgrading (or be able to upgrade) to match a 8.1 nmp? or will the nmp have exponentially surpassed the old mac in regards to computing power?

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I am glad that we agree that Apple released a system in 2013 that was on par with the one they did in 2010, and now we are in 2015, and we still haven't gone anywhere.

You or anyone else can't predict the future.

Simon R. said:

I am glad that we agree that Apple released a system in 2013 that was on par with the one they did in 2010, and now we are in 2015, and we still haven't gone anywhere.

You or anyone else can't predict the future.

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Classic Mac Pro 2014 could have been.... SATA III and a M.2 slot, two double-width gpu slots of PCIe 3.0 16x along with two more 8-pin auxillary connectors.

Apple never fixed the issue in Disk Utility and 4TB and larger did they?

Processor refresh to offer 3.4GHz units.

Those are things this community though have tried to achieve with system mods on cMP.

Simon R. said:

I am glad that we agree that Apple released a system in 2013 that was on par with the one they did in 2010, and now we are in 2015, and we still haven't gone anywhere.

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personally, i don't see it as on par.. in fact, i see it as miles beyond any desktop built to date but i get it that the final say on this forum is a geekbench score so in that regards, yeah, comparable.

just look at the past though.. did the mp1.1 blow away the G5 it replaced? were there hangeroners at the time of transition saying the same thing about the 1.1 that many here say about the 6.1? where are they now? (well, possibly here doing the same thing again with the 6.1.. and when the newnew mac pro comes out in 10 years, they'll be doing the same thing again.)

You or anyone else can't predict the future.

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it's not about predicting the future.
it's about the past repeating itself.

flat five said:

personally, i don't see it as on par.. in fact, i see it as miles beyond any desktop built to date but i get it that the final say on this forum is a geekbench score so in that regards, yeah, comparable.

just look at the past though.. did the mp1.1 blow away the G5 it replaced? were there hangeroners at the time of transition saying the same thing about the 1.1 that many here say about the 6.1? where are they now? (well, possibly here doing the same thing again with the 6.1.. and when the newnew mac pro comes out in 10 years, they'll be doing the same thing again.)


it's not about predicting the future.
it's about the past repeating itself.

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The 1,1 wasn’t just about performance. The fact that it used intel processors opened up the market and capabilities hugely and almost immediately.
I noticed a great improvement in moving from my 1.8DP G5 to my 2.66QP Mac Pro.
The 6,1 is much more throw away than the 1,1

H2SO4 said:

The 1,1 wasn’t just about performance. The fact that it used intel processors opened up the market and capabilities hugely and almost immediately.
I noticed a great improvement in moving from my 1.8DP G5 to my 2.66QP Mac Pro.
The 6,1 is much more throw away than the 1,1

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heh.. I went G4 -> 1.1 and it was freaking awesome.(/off topic ish)

but really, I don't think the change from 5.1 to 6.1 is about performance either. most software right now is lagging behind computers anyway so it's a good time to make the switch.

the 5.1 -> 6.1 is all about design/footprint changes.. but that's obvious, right?

flat five said:

heh.. I went G4 -> 1.1 and it was freaking awesome.(/off topic ish)

but really, I don't think the change from 5.1 to 6.1 is about performance either. most software right now is lagging behind computers anyway so it's a good time to make the switch.

the 5.1 -> 6.1 is all about design/footprint changes.. but that's obvious, right?

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I couldn’t survive that long. My 1.25DP MDD G4 seemed so much slower then the PC counterparts I had to upgrade.
I think the move from 5.1 to 6.1 is driven by compromise and aesthetics. Yes it performs well but at a cost.