David Pogue: New iMacs and Mac Pros Coming 'Probably in 2013' [Update]

[MPQholygrail]

Reality Check....

Honestly I am forced to use a favorite saying I have heard recently. “Words fall from mouth like sh* from as*.” (Sparticus) The truth is I have yet to see that one professional that has suffered loosing a substantial amount of clients due his workflow being held up because his Mac Pro is just too slow. Realistically I would like to see someone here tell me how much money they have lost in their business because a 6 SSD Raid complete, 128GB of ram 12 Cores at 3.46 GH, with ESATA 4gb Fiber Cards just cost them so much money that ROI simply is impossible at this point.

Not going to happen, I’m not trolling but just looking for some hard Financial Data that suggests this actually affects A QUANTIFIABLE amount of professionals. Again, the key point here is Professionals not Prosumers.

We all like new, fast and pretty things but don’t start using the Professional* ect ect card. Thunderbolt cars will come; they already have a plethora of adapters out.

By the way OWC provides some of the means for upgrading some of these items.

 

[faroZ06]

And as far as hard drives = pro that is a complete joke. Servers are switching to SSDs (and cost an arm and a leg and a kidney). Hard drives are great for mass storage still but their performance is lacking.

Who ever said that hard drives = pro? That is completely wrong. The only people I know with SSDs are rich kids with MacBook Airs and pros with Mac Pros that have SSDs in them.

A good combo is: small SSD for documents and OS, big fat hard drive for storage of music and video.

 

[neversink]

Yes, Yes, Yes.... The new upgrade to the Mac Pro, now dubbed the Mac Amateur.... Yes, I've said it before, and the more I discuss it with my colleagues the more we realize that Apple has abandoned us.... BOXX or HP... I'll hate to leave the Mac OS and don't know what I'll do with my MBPs, but what choice do I have. I need to keep up with my competitors. My cameras have all been updated and they use much more power to import and edit.... The old machines can't keep up... UGH!!!!

 

[NAG]

Who ever said that hard drives = pro? That is completely wrong. The only people I know with SSDs are rich kids with MacBook Airs and pros with Mac Pros that have SSDs in them.

Oh that wasn't you. But it was implied in the whole "Apple hates the Pro market like they hate optical and hard drives" that i replied to then you replied to me and I was agreeing and so on.

 

[reallynotnick]

All they had to do was put Sandy Bridge-E in it, throw Thunderbolt and USB 3 on it and put a new graphics card in it and call it a day. People would have been happy.

I'm glad they are working on an update, but next year is way too late.

 

[Glideslope]

"Later Next Year"? Tim, WTF?

 

[faroZ06]

Oh that wasn't you. But it was implied in the whole "Apple hates the Pro market like they hate optical and hard drives" that i replied to then you replied to me and I was agreeing and so on.

Oh, I was just wondering who said that hard drives are pro. That other guy thought that? Well he is wrong.

 

[NAG]

Yes, Yes, Yes.... The new upgrade to the Mac Pro, now dubbed the Mac Amateur.... Yes, I've said it before, and the more I discuss it with my colleagues the more we realize that Apple has abandoned us.... BOXX or HP... I'll hate to leave the Mac OS and don't know what I'll do with my MBPs, but what choice do I have. I need to keep up with my competitors. My cameras have all been updated and they use much more power to import and edit.... The old machines can't keep up... UGH!!!!

You'd be silly to not consider a migration path at this point. Still, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions here. The evidence seems to support that the update today wasn't entirely by choice for Apple and that it was basically the minimum required to let them keep selling the old model as far as parts. This seems to support the idea that Apple is indeed working on something and they're not going to be ready for at least six months (which sucks). But if you can wait that long it would probably be a good idea to see what Apple can do before committing to switching platforms.

 

[Naaaaak]

With Pogue's post today, however, the future of the Mac Pro seems slightly more assured.

Last week everyone took Jim Dalrymple's "No" in response to "Will Apple kill off the Mac Pro?" as assurance. Today, it's Pogue's "Probably in 2013". Stop looking to journalists for assurance and start looking at the source. Apple gave us all of the non-assurance in the world today.

Bottom line: The MacPro is not important enough to them to actually update it with the times. When you need to update it (as so many of us 2006-era Mac Pro owners do) you will be abandoned by OS requirements and given a choice to pay a ridiculous amount for leftovers if you want to keep using this line.

 

[skyline r34]

i'm waiting

I feel really sorry for all who waited for the 2012 Mac Pro with it's minor updates, i guess I won't be selling my current 12-Core MP anytime soon, I'm waiting until next year for a new Mac Pro but for now I got my eye on the new 15"inch Retina display MBP

 

[mozumder]

Guessing what they're planning

It's obviously going to be a major system redesign.

My guess: probably a modular, rack-mounted system - buy CPU modules, GPU modules, Memory Modules, Storage modules, Network Modules, Power Supply modules, Cooling modules, etc..

 

[neversink]

You'd be silly to not consider a migration path at this point. Still, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions here. The evidence seems to support that the update today wasn't entirely by choice for Apple and that it was basically the minimum required to let them keep selling the old model as far as parts. This seems to support the idea that Apple is indeed working on something and they're not going to be ready for at least six months (which sucks). But if you can wait that long it would probably be a good idea to see what Apple can do before committing to switching platforms.

Good advice... but I don't know if I can afford to wait that long. I already feel behind on the curve...

 

[Umbongo]

They basically did. With the exception of the entry level model, you're getting a lot more processor for the money. Yesterday the 12 core model was $5K, today it's $3800 and comes with double the RAM.

You're getting the pricing updates to Intel's Xeon line from February 2011 applied today. The ones that Apple aren't using probably aren't being made by Intel any more as they were redundant so long ago.

I would have loved to see a massive update to the Pro just like everyone else, but the reality is that the options available from Intel right now aren't going to allow it. Yes, there is a newer processor option available that could work for a single processor option, but to get the same in a dual socket model would be exorbitantly expensive.

Apple are using two $551 processors, two $996 and two $1,440. Intel have DP Xeons using the Sandy Bridge architecture at those sort of price points and they are better than the ones being used now.

Add to that, they're Sandy Bridge generation processors. They'll support Thunderbolt, but not USB 3.0. Who in their right mind is going to spend thousands more and still not have USB 3.0? Especially when the rest of the Mac lineup has it.

Plenty of UP and DP LGA 2011 boards have USB 3.0 connectivity.

Instead, what we got was a confirmation that the line isn't being killed. The lower tiered options are still available. The high tiered options got a major price cut.

A price cut that Apple could have applied in 2011.

 

[NY Guitarist]

Update: A MacRumors reader writes in to share an email he received from Apple CEO Tim Cook after he asked about the future of the Mac Pro:

Quote:
Our pro customers are really important to us...don't worry as we're working on something really great for later next year.

Wait... later NEXT year? Haha... this is a joke.. right..? lol... good one... wait... your NOT joking??

Edit: I see a number of other posts that echo my post. I was compelled to post after reading Cooks response, but before reading through the thread posts.

The post PC era might really mean post-MACINTOSH era.

 

[macnews]

something up their sleeve?

I hope you are right. A release a year from now with current 2013 specs will not really be worth waiting for. A new machine that can take the pro stuff to the next level, that would be nice.

While my 2009 machine is still running nicely, I have to ask for how much longer? I've been waiting and waiting for a decent update and this isn't it. I can wait another year to update that one but also have two other older mac pros which I need to update. Held off for this WWDC in hopes of a good bump. I can't afford to drop $7k on 2 year old hardware (basically). I don't know, maybe stretch my one machine out for another year and see if I can do a hackintosh on some old PCs for cheaper....

Here is a very strange idea. Do you think Apple has an ace up their sleeve in the area of super fast computing? That next year they are going to release something radical, something much much faster? A whole new architecture of like 15 Arm11 chips in parallel or something of the like. I read an article in Scientific America about splitting up the CPU and putting different parts on the RAM boards which would make computers much much faster.


Look at the assortment of facts.

1) Intel has basically dropped the ball on the development of server chips. That is no SandyBridge server chips, and 12 months later finally an Ivy Bridge one. Remember what happened the last time a chip manufacturer couldn't keep up with Apple (IBM - PPC)

2) Six core Nehlam is slower but on par with i7 both Sandy and Ivy. - read #3

3) Although more cores are good, more than 4 are basically pointless unless you use one of a few high end programs that utilize these cores - AE, FCPX, Maya, AutoCad, 3D Modeling, Logic/Pro Tools... etc. Looking at benchmarks for rendering, the 12 core Nehlam machines still outpace everything else.

4) Back to processor speed. Advancement in speed over the last 4-5 years has lagged in terms of computers getting faster. Look at the MacPro rendering scores and you will see a lot of the speed increases are due to motherboard architecture change and graphic cards rather than actual processors changes.

5) So if you are into high-end rendering, the 12 core machine with a good graphics cards is going to be good enough for now.

6) With the release of the laptop Ivy Bridge and Mountain Lion, the hackintosh market is going to go into overdrive. Why will Apple let that happen?

7) The costs of developing a new motherboard and processor for the MacPro would be minimal since they already are releasing Ivy Bridge laptops. ANd they could just recycle the old boxes.

With that all said, why wouldn't Apple just release a new i7 Xeon machine? I actually can not think of any good reason. So there must be some other explanation. I wonder what it is.

 

[NAG]

Bottom line: The MacPro is not important enough to them to actually update it with the times. When you need to update it (as so many of us 2006-era Mac Pro owners do) you will be abandoned by OS requirements and given a choice to pay a ridiculous amount for leftovers if you want to keep using this line.

If all things were equal in a fair world I would agree. But this isn't that world. I'm not going to defend Apple because frankly they needed to have said something instead of this stealth "update". And I don't mean through a media intermediate (love loopinsight.com but Apple shouldn't have us rely on him for something like this). I'm willing to believe Apple is working on something. It would be beyond insane to just secede the Pro market (just as it would be beyond insane for Apple to kill OS X and go iOS only...which had understandable worry surrounding it after 10.5 was delayed due to iOS). Apple sucks when it comes to communication because they want to delight us with new stuff. The problem comes when they just flat out can't so they do nothing instead until they get it right (copy and paste anyone?).

 

[juanm]

I don't understand this hype about upgrading computers. In 2008, pros used 2008 computers. Why do they suddenly need faster processors?

Because in 2008, the hype was 1080p with the 5D mkII. Now, it's stereoscopic 3D. We're starting to see 4K footage. After that, they will expect us to work with 4K stereoscopic 3D...

In 3D animation and VFX, it's common to have scenes that take hours of computing and rendering, per frame. Imagine when we will have to work in 4K!

As technology advances, more and more is expected, and many artists/technicians can't upgrade a 6000$ computer every year. We have to take our purchases decisions very seriously, and right now, those working with Apple-based workflows and pipelines are being left in the dust. A 1000€ pc is faster and much more expandible than a 2500€ Mac Pro. Which means, 3D animation studios using W7 will be able to afford three times more workstations, and cut their in-house render times by three, and so on...
We have to know whether to go back to Windows (which means buying new software and train to use it) or hold onto our existing workflow for a few more months. All the expectancy and hype is good and fun for consumers, but for professionals, it's a dangerous game to play.

 

[gramirez2012]

I'm really hoping the iMacs and/or Minis are updated within a month or so. Ivy Bridge and USB3 are all I'm asking for.

 

[bobobenobi]

I feel really sorry for all who waited for the 2012 Mac Pro with it's minor updates, i guess I won't be selling my current 12-Core MP anytime soon, I'm waiting until next year for a new Mac Pro but for now I got my eye on the new 15"inch Retina display MBP

Why the **** would selling a 12 core Mac Pro even enter the back recesses of your mind? What is your machine unable to do for you?

I have a an "early 2009" eight core Mac Pro and the thing still ****ing KILLS, three years in. Sure, it's got an OWC SSD and 24GB of RAM, but I have never thought that the machine was slow in any way.

 

[Pompiliu]

Can't wait for them to release a new MacPro with thunderbolt for my new Apple Displays.
SSD Raid... OMG Can't wait.

 

[jwatts]

Need Update

Ok so I im in desperate need of an upgrade and cannot make a decision especially without a refresh on the iMac and a meaningful refresh on the Mac Pro. I got a quote for a maxed out 27inch iMac 16GB ram ssd + 2TB hard drive for scratch. Should I stick with that, will it suffice for DSLR/HPX CS6 editing on thunderbolt drives? Or get a new Macbook Pro. I would definitely go for the Macbook Pro primarily because of the graphic card and GPU acceleration but I find it painful to edit on a 15 inch screen. Should I go for the retna 16GB ram Macbook Pro option and buy a bigger display? I won’t even be using the retna but like I said want that graphic card. I’m over the Mac Pro and want basically an all in one at this point. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[NAG]

Good advice... but I don't know if I can afford to wait that long. I already feel behind on the curve...

I don't blame you. Time is money and some stuff really does require more power. But think of it this way, how much time would it take to switch over your workflows now? More than 6 months, I bet. You can plan without pulling the trigger.

 

[Woodcrest64]

The idea of not having the Mac Pros updated until 2013 makes sense in some ways. The current Sandy Bridge-E processors from Intel don't have thunderbolt support on their current platform. Its not until the end of 2012 where Intel is suppose to release native USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt for that platform.

I had a feeling Apple wouldn't do a major update to the Mac Pro because of this unless Intel had something ready for Apple which clearly they don't.

Ivy bridge has native thunderbolt and usb 3.0 with the Z77 chipset but that is not for the Pro market. I was surprised not to see iMacs updated though considering Ivy Bridge is out for the PC market.

 

[Eidorian]

Plenty of UP and DP LGA 2011 boards have USB 3.0 connectivity.

Not to mention 40 on a single socket or EIGHTY (80) PCI-Express 3.0 lanes on a dual to play with under Sandy Bridge-E.

There is no lack of money, bandwidth, and lanes for all (8-12) USB 3.0 ports on a Mac Pro in addition to FireWire and Thunderbolt.

The idea of not having the Mac Pros updated until 2013 makes sense in some ways. The current Sandy Bridge-E processors from Intel don't have thunderbolt support on their current platform. Its not until the end of 2012 where Intel is suppose to release native USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt for that platform.

I was had a feeling Apple wouldn't do a major update to the Mac Pro because of this unless Intel had something ready for Apple which clearly they don't.

Ivy bridge has native thunderbolt and usb 3.0 with the Z77 chipset but that is not for the Pro market. I was surprised not to see iMacs updated though considering Ivy Bridge is out for the PC market.

Thunderbolt is still a chipset, controller, and logic pathing issue and not a processor one. You can run a Sandy Bridge processor on that fancy new Z77 board and use Thunderbolt just fine.

You are using an additional controller for Thunderbolt under Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. The Intel 7 Series introduced USB 3.0 onto the PCH and a new lower process manufacturing.

 

[charlituna]

Completely agreed.

Has Apple gone collectively insane? Do they think people would have stopped buying yesterday's or even today's Mac Pro had they just announced publicly that they are working on a new one - instead of «leaking» it to David goddam Pogue??!

The only proof that they leaked anything to Pogue is his claims. Fact is that he's basically gone from a once good indie tech blogger to a paid shill who hit whores like the rest of them. His executive could be second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit for all we know. If he really had any clout or collections he would have wrangled a comment from Tim or Phil etc. I mean if some random nobody can email Tim and get a reply, Pogue should have been able to