Xserve July, Mac Pro (PowerMac) in August?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif

ThinkSecret reports that they have heard that Xserve will take advantage of Intel's upcoming Woodcrest processor. Woodcrest is Intel's successor to the current "Xeon" server-targeted processors. There had been reports that the Woodcrest family of processors would be making it into "Macintosh workstations" as early as 3rd quarter. Indeed, Woodcrest, is expected in June of this year, with the rumor site expecting the Intel Xserve to follow in July.

Meanwhile, PowerMac revisions (Mac Pros) are expected to make the transition to the recently announced Core 2 Duo processors (codenamed Conroe). These processors are expected in July.

ThinkSecret speculates that the PowerMac revisions would come at WWDC, and indeed, MacRumors has received confirmation Intel PowerMac revisions ("Mac Pros") are to be announced at the WWDC Keynote which takes place Aug 7-11, 2006.

[Silentwave]

I don't entirely believe ThinkSecret. I do think that it is logical for the XServes to come out first, though, as they will be 100% Woodcrest-Xeon. The Mac Pros will likely contain a mix of Conroe and Woodcrest, as if i understand the way it works correctly, a quad would need to have two woodcrests.

[longofest]

And if steve says that the new Mac Pros are 4x as fast as my Quad, I'm going to go down to Cupertino and punch him in the face.

[rockandrule]

What and who confirmed to MR that the Mac Pro will be released at WWDC?

[longofest]

Originally Posted by rockandrule

What and who confirmed to MR that the Mac Pro will be released at WWDC?

Steve Jobs. Don't you listen to his podcast?

[WildCowboy]

Think Secret's reputation has been pretty shoddy of late, but they aren't really saying too much with this one. It's pretty much along the lines of what people are expecting.

Now that Apple is using the same processors as everyone else, they're release schedule is going to follow the Intel roadmap very closely so that they can stay up-to-date.

[kev0476]

thinksecret hasn't been right recently, but this is also almost not new.

[risc]

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

[longofest]

Originally Posted by risc

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

Every piece of information we have had up until now has pointed to "No" in regards to the question I believe you are really asking, which is can you place two Conroe chips together. Yes, Conroe is SMP capable because it is a dual-core chip, but so far we have not seen evidence that it will support dual-processor configurations, so in that respect, it will be similar to the Pentium 4.

Of course, if anyone has hard evidence to the contrary (or even hard evidence supporting this idea), please let us know.

p.s. I should note that it is most likely the chipset that accompanies Conroe that is most likely the limiting factor in deploying multi-processor Conroe systems.

[kuwan]

Originally Posted by longofest

Every piece of information we have had up until now has pointed to "No" in regards to the question I believe you are really asking, which is can you place two Conroe chips together. Yes, Conroe is SMP capable because it is a dual-core chip, but so far we have not seen evidence that it will support dual-processor configurations, so in that respect, it will be similar to the Pentium 4.

Of course, if anyone has hard evidence to the contrary (or even hard evidence supporting this idea), please let us know.

p.s. I should note that it is most likely the chipset that accompanies Conroe that is most likely the limiting factor in deploying multi-processor Conroe systems.

Intel demonstrated Conroe processors in a Quad configuration at this year's IDF. So yes, Conroe should support Quad configurations, but they aren't expected to ship any chipsets that support this until next year. The only Quad configurations that are expected to be available this year are with Woodcrest CPUs.

Which makes me wonder if Apple will use both Conroe and Woodcrest CPUs. They could use Conroe for Dual configurations and Woodcrest for the high-end Quad configurations.

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by risc

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

Yes, it is SMP capable, just like the old Yonah chip. You have two cores in one chip. What it cannot do is have two or four chips working together, for four or eight cores.

In the end, I think Thinksecret is down to pure speculation, because everyone knows that the next time Thinksecret gets some real information, Apple _will_ find the source and hang them up by their balls. But their speculation is not good at all.

Intel says that Woodcrest is aimed at the server market and Conroe is aimed at desktop. But Apple doesn't care what Intel aims their chips at. People who bought a quad G5 box will be very happy with a quad Woodcrest box (eight cores), and you won't find anyone complaining that Woodcrest should go into servers and they would prefer a single Controe (dual core) because it is the proper chip for a desktop machine.

And people who need a server, but one that is cheap and easy to set up and maintain, will be quite happy with a cheap XServe machine with a single Conroe if it does the job.

[Glen Quagmire]

Originally Posted by gnasher729

Yes, it is SMP capable, just like the old Yonah chip. You have two cores in one chip. What it cannot do is have two or four chips working together, for four or eight cores.

No, it is *not* SMP compatible. SMP stands for Symmetric Multi Processing. That means two or more CPUs, in two or more sockets. Not one CPU in one socket, as with Conroe.

Don't confuse cores with processors.

[BenRoethig]

Originally Posted by risc

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

No SMP, and not as many PCI-e lanes as the woodwrest/5000x combo. I'm hoping that the Mac Pro ends up being the prosumer machine and there's an woodcrest based xStation above it or something. Then again, this is Apple we're talking about.

[Mac Fly (film)]

Mac Mini
MacBook
MacBook Pro
Mac Pro
MacServe
iMac

What's in a name?

[scottlinux]

http://www.melablog.it/uploads/power_mac_g5_cube.jpg

The new MacPro.

[sam10685]

Originally Posted by risc

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

Conroe.

[Fabio_gsilva]

Originally Posted by sam10685

Conroe.

It is not that clear to me...
I put my money on the quad, at least for now.

[TangoCharlie]

Originally Posted by risc

Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?

Nope. Conroe is a single cpu processor. It's effectively the P4 replacement.

If Apple is going to do a "quad", it's going to have to be Woodcrest.

Personally, I think the "Mac Pro" and the XServe will both be Woodcrest, and both will be released in single-cpu (dual core) and two-cpu (quad core) versions.

Additionally, I think the iMac will get either Merom or Conroe upgrade. Equally, the MBP will go to Merom at some point.

I still think there's a space in the Apple line-up for a "business class" box:
headless with a Conoe cpu. I can't see a space for a new eMac though...

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by TangoCharlie

Nope. Conroe is a single cpu processor. It's effectively the P4 replacement.

If Apple is going to do a "quad", it's going to have to be Woodcrest.

Yes, it does SMP - it has to.

Conroe is a dual-CPU (dual-core) chip. You have to have an SMP-enabled operating system to manage the two CPU cores. It is almost indistinquishable from a two single core chips in two sockets at the operating system level.

For a single core chip, "core", "CPU" and "processor" mean the same thing. A dual-core chip has two "processors", "cores" or "CPUs". A "core" is everything that you've always considered to be the visible CPU. (Things like cache are invisible implementation details.)

There's a terminology problem - what term do you use for the package, vs. for the active processor? Intel has chosen to use "processor" to refer to a package containing multiple cores - primarily for licensing reasons. This is completely independent of the use of the term "processor" in "Simultaneous Multi-Processing". In "SMP" the term "processor" is the same as a "core".

Originally Posted by TangoCharlie

If Apple is going to do a "quad", it's going to have to be Woodcrest....
I still think there's a space in the Apple line-up for a "business class" box:
headless with a Conoe cpu. I can't see a space for a new eMac though...

This year, a quad will have to be a Woodcrest.

Next year, Kentsfield will be out. It's a quad-core (4 CPU) chip that is in the Conroe family. It should drop into a Conroe motherboard.

I also see the place for a new form-factor Conroe mini-tower. One with a x16 PCIe graphics slot, room for a second 3.5" disk or second optical, and more memory.

[puckhead193]

god i hope its true. I just hope they make the tower smaller and a lot less heavy.
I plan on buying either an imac or PM in the summer. Only thing is with the recent release of Final Cut express going universal my hopes of an updated FCS went out the door. (Which was the reason of buying a new mac) o well i still might buy and get express to hold me over till it comes out...

[macgeek2005]

What?

They're not putting Conroe in the towers. No friggin way. Are they crazy? That CPU will be in cheap dell towers!!!

[DTphonehome]

Originally Posted by longofest

And if steve says that the new Mac Pros are 4x as fast as my Quad, I'm going to go down to Cupertino and punch him in the face.

Ha, what a visual! Why? Because he'd by lying, or because you'd be pissed off at having the "slow" machine?

[Mac Fly (film)]

"ThinkSecret speculates" Oh, oh!

[longofest]

Originally Posted by DTphonehome

Ha, what a visual! Why? Because he'd by lying, or because you'd be pissed off at having the "slow" machine?

Because I'd be pissed at having spent over 3 grand for a top-of-the-line machine, only to have him say a year later that I have just been witness to the biggest leap forward in pro-mac desktop performance in this decade.

That, and because he'd be lying while he is at it (so the independent benchmarks say).

[ipacmm]

I don't think we will see the Mac Pro's at WWDC or this July, but I think we could see some new Xserve's and it will be nice to finally see the Xserve having their own processor like they should have had from the start.