How many would have preferred the old form factor with upgraded parts?

[crjackson2134]

I'm not a Pro user but a user of the Pro and some Pro apps. I definitely prefer the current 5.1 form factor for myself. It would be nice if they offered both models but that's not going to happen. I think if they did that, the new design would struggle. Discontinuing the current model is probably the only way to push the new model. I would like to have the OPTION of TB on my 5.1, but I don't really need it. In fact, I don't need a Mac Pro at all, I just like them.

I'll add more memory and SSD's to my 5.1, later on if I can find one, a more powerful GPU. The 5.1 is new, and will have a home with me for a long time.

 

[scottsjack]

Apple could make a lot of people happy and make money by doing the following;

Retain the MP 5,1 as 5,2 with the following changes;

1) Same classic case and processor tray, lots of expansion for enthusiasts.
2) New main board with SATA3 and USB3.
3) Retain the front and two rear FW800, current USB2 ports become USB3.
4) CPU choices are fast 4th gen i5 and i7, maxes out at fastest extreme i7.
5) All six drive bays go to SATA 3.
6) GPU choices are on-board Intel Iris Pro with TB or discrete nVIDIA or AMD.
7) Power supply can drop to a lower level.

At $1700 or so with a powerful i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200 RPM HD and no optical drive installed the MP 5,2 would fill that missing Mac position for many people. For my own use (photography) I would be happy with a well-cooled i7, Iris Pro graphics and lots of internal HD/OD room.

Just a thought. . .

 

[Frost7]

I like the idea of the new Mac Pro. I really do. But I think it would have better served being scaled up in size and including internal drives, and making the GPU "blades" swappable at the very least by purchasing an upgraded blade from Apple.

Having to have all your storage and optical drives in a mess of Thunderbolt clutter is bad enough, but no nVidia and thus no CUDA, and dropping dual CPUs altogether (there goes the dream of 24-core Ivy Bridge computing horsepower) really puts a bad taste in my mouth. Mostly because those are things the people I sell upgraded machines to want. And they want them very much.

 

[OS6-OSX]

Apple could make a lot of people happy and make money by doing the following;

Retain the MP 5,1 as 5,2 with the following changes;

1) Same classic case and processor tray, lots of expansion for enthusiasts.
2) New main board with SATA3 and USB3.
3) Retain the front and two rear FW800, current USB2 ports become USB3.
4) CPU choices are fast 4th gen i5 and i7, maxes out at fastest extreme i7.
5) All six drive bays go to SATA 3.
6) GPU choices are on-board Intel Iris Pro with TB or discrete nVIDIA or AMD.
7) Power supply can drop to a lower level.

At $1700 or so with a powerful i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200 RPM HD and no optical drive installed the MP 5,2 would fill that missing Mac position for many people. For my own use (photography) I would be happy with a well-cooled i7, Iris Pro graphics and lots of internal HD/OD room.

Just a thought. . .

Hear Hear!

Hopefully the only MP 6.1 made was that in the WWDC demo. If they read the numerous pgs pertaining to what the "users" want and wanted, a combination of new and old could have been achieved.
Keep the current users and attract the new.
Hey Tim, keep an eye on this poll!

 

[brand]

Apple could make a lot of people happy and make money by doing the following;

Retain the MP 5,1 as 5,2 with the following changes;

1) Same classic case and processor tray, lots of expansion for enthusiasts.
2) New main board with SATA3 and USB3.
3) Retain the front and two rear FW800, current USB2 ports become USB3.
4) CPU choices are fast 4th gen i5 and i7, maxes out at fastest extreme i7.
5) All six drive bays go to SATA 3.
6) GPU choices are on-board Intel Iris Pro with TB or discrete nVIDIA or AMD.
7) Power supply can drop to a lower level.

At $1700 or so with a powerful i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200 RPM HD and no optical drive installed the MP 5,2 would fill that missing Mac position for many people. For my own use (photography) I would be happy with a well-cooled i7, Iris Pro graphics and lots of internal HD/OD room.

Just a thought. . .

Apple could do a lot of things but putting an i5 or i7 processor in a Mac Pro wont be one of them. It is a workstation so they put a workstation class processor in it.

 

[barmann]

Hear Hear!

Hopefully the only MP 6.1 made was that in the WWDC demo. If they read the numerous pgs pertaining to what the "users" want and wanted, a combination of new and old could have been achieved.
Keep the current users and attract the new.
Hey Tim, keep an eye on this poll!

Don't hold your breath, even today's Apple employs a few people who know a thing or two about workstation computers .
But they also know not to read the forums, I assume , which isn't necessarily a bad thing .
Either way, the new MP happened on purpose, which purpose that is is not likely to be made public .

The next MP will start out as a stand-alone product in many respects, with very few available or affordable peripherals to support the design concept.

The much larger competition can of course easily catch up any time they want, if any unlikely performance gap to their products should exist, use any technology they want in more flexible designs, dictate future development, same old .

It is my guess, that by the time external extensions have caught up, the new MP will either have changed quite a bit in size and internal design, or has gone the way of the Cube .

Only with greater consequences for those who stuck with Apple workstations ; noone ever cared about loosing the Cube .

It might well be that iOS and the iGadget succeses have convinced Apple that painting yourself into a corner is a recipe for success .

 

[OS6-OSX]

Don't hold your breath,
Either way, the new MP happened on purpose, which purpose that is is not likely to be made public
.

I have zero need for an MP 6.1 Everything I do can be done with my "souped up" 3.1 + peripherals. With the correct software/hardware combination, the "latest" computer chase is not necessary. Adobe has shown that to be true with their mercury engine.
Since it's apple making something "happen on purpose", based on their track record it's only to pad their profit margin. Look at their track record for anything that was "Pro" under the apple name.
1. Shake-Engineers (Nothing's Real crew) left and went to The Foundry to work on Nuke
2. FCP-Turned into FCPX. The X stands for X-Pro
3. Motion-Never developed into anything that can compete with "Pro" apps
4. Color-Not close to BMD's Davinci
5. Logic Audio-Will never replace Pro Tools for mixing. OK as a sequencer?
Every time they buy a company (Shake, Color, Logic Audio) or just try and do "Pro", they "i"onize it!
Now they have "i"onized the MP. It was done on purpose to increase sales. Later to come will be the iChassis for your PCIe cards.
Apple makes lots of money on ithings, it's the "Pro" things they really need to stay away from.

 

[slughead]

The much larger competition can of course easily catch up any time they want, if any unlikely performance gap to their products should exist, use any technology they want in more flexible designs, dictate future development, same old .

There are a hell of a lot more impressive ways of using 40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 than six tbolt2 ports and two video cards.

I posted some of the options available today which are incredibly impressive--40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 divided among 6 PCIe ports (4 go up to 16x, one 8x, one 1x). Why anyone would prefer the rather limited options of TB2 over this, I have no idea.

It is my guess, that by the time external extensions have caught up, the new MP will either have changed quite a bit in size and internal design, or has gone the way of the Cube .

Only with greater consequences for those who stuck with Apple workstations ; noone ever cared about loosing the Cube .

I am highly skeptical as well as to how hard manufacturers are going to work to compete in the thunderbolt market, especially in regards to GPU. My guess is that RAID options will get cheaper (thank God), but everything else will remain fairly scarce.

I also don't think, as others do, that this new MP will be such a raging success that it'll push manufacturers to create new TB2 options. My guess is that Apple will push this thing hard for 6 months to a year and then change the formfactor or drop the line within 2 years.

It might well be that iOS and the iGadget succeses have convinced Apple that painting yourself into a corner is a recipe for success .

Nitpick: They're painting their USERS into a corner. The difference with computers, and especially professionals is: They have experienced other options and are rather used to them. The smart phone was a market that few users had experience with, and therefore didn't feel the sting of the locked-in platform. This is quite a bit different.

 

[VirtualRain]

I also don't think, as others do, that this new MP will be such a raging success that it'll push manufacturers to create new TB2 options. My guess is that Apple will push this thing hard for 6 months to a year and then change the formfactor or drop the line within 2 years.

First, there aren't really that many PCIe cards for the Mac Pro. So all those great PCI expansion slots sit empty in most Mac Pros. For example, try to find a bootable x4 or x8 SATA3 PCI card for the Mac. It simply does not exist. Many of us on here have looked long and hard. Or, try to find a USB 3 card for the Mac Pro that uses native drivers and does NOT require some kludge power wiring? If you've spent any time in this forum over the last year, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Why don't these PCI cards exist? Because the market for Mac Pro specific PCI cards is incredibly small compared to the PC market. So any vendor with half a brain will make a card for the PC instead and milk that for all it's worth and completely neglect the Mac Pro market.

A new Mac Pro with PCIe slots would have been doomed to the same fate as it's predecessors... a poor selection of PCI cards full of compromises.

Now, as we all know, Apple sells a ton of laptops... several times more laptops than desktops... probably a hundred times more laptops than Mac Pros. And, all those laptops and desktops now come with TB ports. So what's happening? TB peripherals are starting to materialize... slowly but surely new TB peripherals are appearing all the time and coming down in price. This is thanks only to the larger market for them made possibly by Apple putting TB in every laptop, desktop, and (now) workstation.

The new Mac Pro is not going to significantly impact the market for TB peripherals, but it will help. Mac Pro buyers have deeper pockets than iMac or MacBook buyers and may fork out for a TB enclosure instead of a USB 3 enclosure. This will help drive the market somewhat. However, its really the fast growing installed base of Apple's full line up of computers all with TB that is creating a market that many vendors can't ignore. The traditional Mac peripheral vendors are already involved and cream skimming now, but it's only a matter of time before the Taiwanese vendors get in and you start seeing all kinds of affordable TB peripherals.

 

[goMac]

Pretty sure this is a false choice. The old form factor wouldn't have supported Thunderbolt.

 

[VirtualRain]

Pretty sure this is a false choice. The old form factor wouldn't have supported Thunderbolt.

Correct. You cannot have proper TB support without either a cable kludge, on-die GPU, or custom GPUs.

 

[deconstruct60]

A new Mac Pro with PCIe slots would have been doomed to the same fate as it's predecessors... a poor selection of PCI cards full of compromises.

That could cut both ways. But in terms of physical format for the vendors functionality it will be an even worse fate as predecessors if the "verticle tube" Mac Pro stuck around and firmly held down the single CPU package price zone and the "box with slots" was largely regulated to the old dual package price zone.

The driver issue should get better as more folks repackage discrete PCI-e cards into Thunderbolt boxes. By the end of 2013, the size of the OS X Thunderbolt market is the same size as the overall Mac Market. That is about 6% of the overall legacy form factor PC market ( leaving out Tablets for now ... the WinPC tablets may or may not change that. For now they have avoided TB like the plague. That may continue).

But it is basically the same PCI-e card hardware in there. The same driver should work for the PCI-e slot after adding in support for PCI-e hot-plug/hot-unplug event handling. When in the slot it just doesn't get unplugged.

No, the bigger blocker here is convincing Apple to have a larger number of design teams and that two workstation products would be better than just one. That is a far more difficult problem than drivers and Mac workstation market size.

but it's only a matter of time before the Taiwanese vendors get in and you start seeing all kinds of affordable TB peripherals.

When Intel starts moving more mainstream desktop CPU products to BGA more of the "mainboard" folks are going to be looking something more integrated to do. TB peripherals that do multiple things is probably going to be part of that.

 

[slughead]

Pretty sure this is a false choice. The old form factor wouldn't have supported Thunderbolt.

Why wouldn't it be possible to have PCIe graphics that didn't output through thunderbolt? Either that or Apple could've gotten a processor with built-in GPU and share it this way (there ARE xeons with processor graphics)

http://youtu.be/YfaLJz9uGhs

 

[GermanyChris]

Why wouldn't it be possible to have PCIe graphics that didn't output through thunderbolt? Either that or Apple could've gotten a processor with built-in GPU and share it this way.

http://youtu.be/YfaLJz9uGhs

Then you wouldn't buy a TB display or a variety of dongles that limit your expansion.

 

[slughead]

Then you wouldn't buy a TB display or a variety of dongles that limit your expansion.

Oh no! I couldn't buy a thunderbolt display [without an adapter]!

You know what? I was just reading and realized that A) There WILL be Ivy Bridge E Xeons with Processor graphics and B) The MP may be one of them

In fact, now that I think about it, that makes total sense, and would be way easier than the alternative. The technology already exists, whereas the alternative would take way more engineering work.

I'm hoping they do, so I can stop hearing about how "oh, Apple was FORCED to take our PCIe cards away." Please

 

[robanga]

I welcome the change because change is good. We have yet to see many of the advantages of the new design i am thinking.

Computers, even as tools are becoming more appliance like. So plugging in external TB enclosures is IMHO a step in the right direction. A more expensive step in many cases but likely the right one to make.

 

[GermanyChris]

I welcome the change because change is good. We have yet to see many of the advantages of the new design i am thinking.

Computers, even as tools are becoming more appliance like. So plugging in external TB enclosures is IMHO a step in the right direction. A more expensive step in many cases but likely the right one to make.

What advantages are you thinking are there?

 

[robanga]

What advantages are you thinking are there?

Real world performance for one thing based on the new processors, quietness i am guessing because of the cooling and then finally price performance once we know and understand the pricing.

There is a lot we don't know so far.

Finally because of TB enclosures you can more readily share resources, primarily on the video and audio side of creativity. Again more expensive perhaps but not if you can share these things in a multi-machine studio.

 

[Wild-Bill]

Hear Hear!

Hopefully the only MP 6.1 made was that in the WWDC demo. If they read the numerous pgs pertaining to what the "users" want and wanted, a combination of new and old could have been achieved.
Keep the current users and attract the new.
Hey Tim, keep an eye on this poll!

You can always click the link in my signature and tell Apple how you really feel.....

 

[goMac]

Why wouldn't it be possible to have PCIe graphics that didn't output through thunderbolt? Either that or Apple could've gotten a processor with built-in GPU and share it this way (there ARE xeons with processor graphics)

http://youtu.be/YfaLJz9uGhs

There are no Xeon E5s with onboard graphics.

Regardless, I don't think a Mac Pro with Thunderbolt and no significant changes is possible. You may not care about Thunderbolt, but I'm just answering the poll you posted.

As far as PCIe cards, Thunderbolt is very compatible with pretty much any PCIe card that's not a GPU, and I've never added a non GPU card to my Mac Pro, so : shrug :.

 

[slughead]

There are no Xeon E5s with onboard graphics.

There are E3's with onboard graphics. I read somewhere that IBE will too, but since I can't find the source we'll just say "we don't know yet."

Regardless, I don't think a Mac Pro with Thunderbolt and no significant changes is possible. You may not care about Thunderbolt, but I'm just answering the poll you posted.

That depends on the Ivy Bridge E and CPU graphics, and if Apple would be willing to release a computer with thunderbolt that didn't support video over Thunderbolt (which I will agree that they wouldn't).

As far as PCIe cards, Thunderbolt is very compatible with pretty much any PCIe card that's not a GPU, and I've never added a non GPU card to my Mac Pro, so : shrug :.

Right, as long as either there's CPU graphics or some other hardware workaround (AFAIK).

 

[MacVidCards]

You can always click the link in my signature and tell Apple how you really feel.....

Thanks, I did.

And I hope others will too.

Nothing to lose but 60 seconds that you aren't going to miss

 

[barmann]

Nitpick: They're painting their USERS into a corner. The difference with computers, and especially professionals is: They have experienced other options and are rather used to them. The smart phone was a market that few users had experience with, and therefore didn't feel the sting of the locked-in platform. This is quite a bit different.

Well put, I couldn't agree more .

It still would be painful for me to switch to Windows, as I'm running a small business of one, and am my own computer tech ...

That, and of course investments in software .

 

[echoout]

Well put, I couldn't agree more .

It still would be painful for me to switch to Windows, as I'm running a small business of one, and am my own computer tech ...

That, and of course investments in software .

I was thinking the same thing but have realized how much better my work software runs on the Windows side and how similar it is once I'm in there. There has also been a real movement in recent years of video and audio software (that is cross-platform) to offering both versions for no extra cost. I only have a few plugins that I would have to cross-grade to.

And while I'm not totally thrilled with the Adobe CC business model, cross platform installation issues seem to be a thing of the past.

EDIT: But sweet jebus I dread not having Spotlight!

 

[JesterJJZ]

I had a dream last night that Apple also released an updated MacPro in the current form factor. It was copper in color lol.