Mac Pro Update Now Possible with New Xeon E5 Chips Next Week

[kalsta]

Twenty something? Not even close.

Sorry! Bad assumption on my part. The little angel on my right shoulder told me you were in fact one of the ol' timers in an industry where the move away from Macs was more prevalent. But by that time, the little devil on my left shoulder had already pressed the 'Submit Reply' button, so I must apologise for him.

I was working with scientists and lab technicians who used Macs in this period and they deserted in large numbers, because the Macs of the day weren't powerful enough and didn't represent good value. I hung on, using my Lombard G3 even though it got its ass kicked by Pentiums costing half the price. Then I upgraded to a TiBook that was slower than my wife's Dell at *everything*, AltiVec or not, so I guess that makes me one of the ol' timers... .

So sure, Apple wouldn't have made it to '97 without the pro towers, but only because the consumer products were non-existent or far too anemic to be any use. But this idea that they were saved by a loyal pro army is just wrong. They were saved by the products I mentioned, by Microsoft's $150m and by canning the Newton and the clones.

We can look back and identify many reasons why Apple floundered, and wonder that they even survived. They really were very close to bankruptcy. So I don't think it's unfair to say that those customers who stuck with the Mac through some very lean times kept them afloat. Is 'kept afloat' the same as 'saved'? Well now we're getting into semantics, and I've already agreed with your summation of what brought Apple back into profitability after Steve Jobs' return.

You were evidently one of those customers who helped keep them afloat. And it seems the tide you swam against was stronger than mine. In my industry (I was working with various graphic design and advertising studios at the time) pretty much everyone I worked with stuck with the Mac.

But I'm not seriously suggesting that we all stuck with Apple out of some kind of blind loyalty to the company. There was some sentimentality attached to the brand, but only because the Mac made our jobs more enjoyable, and the alternative sucked so badly. Am I right? Well, I hated using Windows anyway. It was hard to explain this to Windows users at the time, especially since the Mac OS could be pretty unstable too… but with Windows it was just so many little frustrations compounded. When OS X addressed the stability issues, and Steve Jobs bought creativity and imagination back to Apple, there was really something to get excited about.

Apple is the least sentimental company I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong: I would like to see new towers, even though I believe they make no sense economically. I'd say that we *will* see them soon, but the long-term prognosis isn't good.

'Least sentimental' regarding their tendency to ruthlessly abandon past projects and directions? Absolutely! Jobs was notoriously unsentimental about the past. His mind was always on the future. Wasn't he offered an old Apple computer which had become a collector's item, to which he said something like, ' Why would I want that? It was hard enough to sell the first time'?

This attitude has everything to do with Apple's current success. Too much nostalgia, and nothing moves forward. And to be honest, I personally do not need a Mac Pro tower. My 2011 MacBook Pro with solid state drive is plenty powerful enough for my needs. It may be possible to replicate the power of the tower in a much smaller enclosure, and in time the expandability with Thunderbolt—and this looks to be Apple's direction. But for now, a new Mac Pro will delight the most demanding users and send a message that Apple hasn't forgotten the pro market.

I tend to think this still makes sense from a marketing perspective. Don't you think that picture at the far right of the Mac product page is kind of reassuring? It says you have options. Is your current machine not powerful enough? Well, we have a Mac… Oh boy do we have a Mac… A Lion of a machine, crouched and waiting, to rip through and devour anything you can throw at it.

 

[wikus]

agreed, let me know where i can buy a 1 or 2 tb external thunderbolt for 100 bucks and ill be interested in tb

Not to mention be able to connect it to basically every computer on the planet. I don't know a single person from school or work or friends that have a thunderbolt port.

 

[Jst0rm]

Trust me, buddy, there are times when you can't just edit your way out of it.

I'm sure. But you can repeat measurements when the alternative is 20k

 

[seek3r]

I said MUSIC! I perform live and sound great live LIVE... some still do. I said for video or 3D a MP's better... but really, it depends on what you do. I can upload my 3D work to online farms if I need something quick... I got the time, but really, I got the talent and you don't need a 12 core to do cutting edge... you're talent has to be. The only thing is time... most premier software allows ram previews on slower machines. It's ALL THE SAME IN THE END!!!!!!! If you run OSX and use an application, it doesn't really matter but how good you are now, the boxes are fast enough period!

----------


Hmmmm... a 100 piece orchestra is well... only 100 tracks right? Okay, try again. Anyway, I hire real orchestras to do that and if I do virtual stuff, I just render each part. VEP is cool of you think your a virtuoso but really, the whole things a joke because nothing is better than REAL so go spend all your $$ and get a loan on your home because I'll just mic a college student and give him cred, and some cash and I have REAL on my iMac ha ha!!!! Whatever man! Just use your mind... there's no set RULE in music creation and if you want to feed that to me... go over to motunation or gearsluts because they are all brainwashed too.

1)You come off sounding like a bravado-laced kid. I'll give you another piece of advice: Sometimes you will be wrong in life. When that happens you regroup, rethink, and have a rational conversation. More bolding and caps is the equivalent of teen throwing a temper tantrum, and doesn't get respect from anyone, anywhere.

2)Again, I don't work in sound or music but I *have* chaired a number of large events, and I know that for good acoustics, large facilities aint cheap either, even if you just "mic a college student" you still need space for that real orchestra to play. (Unless you are a music student yourself and are using the free facilities available to you for commercial ends, in which case it's still expensive, you're just not the one paying for it)

3)You're damn right that for a lot of things you don't need faster hardware to be *better*. What you need faster hardware for, no matter the industry (could be music, MatBio, auto diagnosis, fast food, etc) is to more easily make deadlines, finish work faster to get to the next job, etc. A faster tool is not magically going to replace talent, in anything, but it damn well makes getting work done *easier*. For that matter, a better tool in the right hands does make a difference. A master pianist may still sound amazing on a dime store toy electric piano, but the things that one'll do on a nicely tuned steinway are apt to be mind-blowing.

4)Which brings us to your statement "I can upload my 3D work to online farms if I need something quick... I got the time, but really, I got the talent and you don't need a 12 core to do cutting edge"

First of all, in a lot of jobs interconnect latency and I/O are as big issues as the proc. My big jobs get tossed to an IBM bluegene system, a QDR infiniband backboned cluster, or an older GigE backboned cluster depending on need. A lot of my decision is based on how much data I'm reading to/from disc, availability of local scratch, etc. A lot of the commercial cloud solutions (like Amazon's EC2) can have issues with lots of I/O, so if you only need 12 cores a mac pro may be a better investment than EC2 time in the long run if you're doing something heavily I/O intensive (some forms of video and sound editing I know fall here).

So sure, you could rent time on EC2 or similar, but if you're doing 3D editing as your *job* a 12 core mac pro may not replace talent, but it sure as hell may help you get your job done easier!

I guess what I'm saying is your statement reads like this:

"I can always rent a chainsaw when I'm cutting trees and need it done quick, but really I got the talent and the time and if you give me long enough with a sharpened toothpick I'll get it done nicely", which I suppose is nice and well and good, unless you need to make a living from selling trees, in which case it might do you well to invest in a saw of some kind of your very own

 

[Dj Lee]

I really don't understand why people come here and put down the Mac pro. Some people want or need a Mac pro. I want a Mac pro. I like the ability to upgrade with lots of processing power.

Its my money and I don't want some prick putting me down on how I spend my money. I earned this money. I don't care what you buy. Its like they find amusement in peoples sorrows and let downs. O well, I guess thats life.

I use Logic pro and currently Logic can run 8 cores. I make dance music and a lot of dance music relies heavily on synthesizers, effects, and processing. You can produce everything within a computer. Its not uncommon to see songs with over 50 tracks with many plugins running. Many plugins these days have started to really use a lot of CPU processing to mimic analog gear, and they sound good to.

Pro musician need PCIe for low latency audio card. Apogee sells one of the best for a Mac Pro. http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony-system.php

I understand that Apple doesn't need me and I'm fine with that, but I find it irritating that they don't inform their Pro users on the future of their Pro products.

If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro, I will have to move on. I understand I'm part of what people call a "niche" group. Well if many people in these niche groups move else where many else will follow. How long can Apple maintain selling smart phones, note pads, and mini computers without people who rate , and build products for Macs? May be they can last without the people but I won't be sticking around if thats all Apple provides.

Never underestimate the power of the few. The few can become many.

 

[lukarak]

MP Intel Xeon chips have been up to 10 cores since April 2011:

Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-2850 (24M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53573
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-2860 (24M Cache, 2.26 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53570
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-2870 (30M Cache, 2.40 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53578
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-4850 (24M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53574
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-4860 (24M Cache, 2.26 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53571
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8860 (24M Cache, 2.26 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53572
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8870 (30M Cache, 2.40 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53580
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8867L (30M Cache, 2.13 GHz, 10 cores): http://ark.intel.com/products/53577

Of course, they're incredibly costly and go for anywhere from $2.6k to $4.6k per chip; as an aside, with an 8 CPU motherboard from Supermicro and 512GB of memory, you'll be looking at spending upwards to $72k.

These are server Xeons, while Macs have been using workstation Xeons on 1366 socket.

 

[Mac2012]

1)You come off sounding like a bravado-laced kid. I'll give you another piece of advice: Sometimes you will be wrong in life. When that happens you regroup, rethink, and have a rational conversation. More bolding and caps is the equivalent of teen throwing a temper tantrum, and doesn't get respect from anyone, anywhere.

2)Again, I don't work in sound or music but I *have* chaired a number of large events, and I know that for good acoustics, large facilities aint cheap either, even if you just "mic a college student" you still need space for that real orchestra to play. (Unless you are a music student yourself and are using the free facilities available to you for commercial ends, in which case it's still expensive, you're just not the one paying for it)

3)You're damn right that for a lot of things you don't need faster hardware to be *better*. What you need faster hardware for, no matter the industry (could be music, MatBio, auto diagnosis, fast food, etc) is to more easily make deadlines, finish work faster to get to the next job, etc. A faster tool is not magically going to replace talent, in anything, but it damn well makes getting work done *easier*. For that matter, a better tool in the right hands does make a difference. A master pianist may still sound amazing on a dime store toy electric piano, but the things that one'll do on a nicely tuned steinway are apt to be mind-blowing.

4)Which brings us to your statement "I can upload my 3D work to online farms if I need something quick... I got the time, but really, I got the talent and you don't need a 12 core to do cutting edge"

First of all, in a lot of jobs interconnect latency and I/O are as big issues as the proc. My big jobs get tossed to an IBM bluegene system, a QDR infiniband backboned cluster, or an older GigE backboned cluster depending on need. A lot of my decision is based on how much data I'm reading to/from disc, availability of local scratch, etc. A lot of the commercial cloud solutions (like Amazon's EC2) can have issues with lots of I/O, so if you only need 12 cores a mac pro may be a better investment than EC2 time in the long run if you're doing something heavily I/O intensive (some forms of video and sound editing I know fall here).

So sure, you could rent time on EC2 or similar, but if you're doing 3D editing as your *job* a 12 core mac pro may not replace talent, but it sure as hell may help you get your job done easier!

I guess what I'm saying is your statement reads like this:

"I can always rent a chainsaw when I'm cutting trees and need it done quick, but really I got the talent and the time and if you give me long enough with a sharpened toothpick I'll get it done nicely", which I suppose is nice and well and good, unless you need to make a living from selling trees, in which case it might do you well to invest in a saw of some kind of your very own

We're going in circles... no pun intended. I'm a purist, I use great clocks, great conversion stages and circuits, and just pure raw talent... that has NOTHING to do with raw DSP processes or computational power, it has to do with getting it done RIGHT going in so the post processes are @ a minimum... that's all, and that's it.
People need fast computers to fix things... if you're having to do lots of DSP then there's a slight chance, it wasn't done RIGHT to begin with and fast computers are needed to FIX things in most cases because why would you need to process something if it's already setting well in the mix? You DON'T! If you do video, get something that's fast, but rendering is where MOST machines are different... get a Matrox HD card and do the rendering off line and your computers speed isn't a factor any longer. For scientific engineering, there's a fine line but you don't NEED the fastest computer on earth do do GREAT things... that's pure BS! And you can say I'm a kid all you want just because I say it as it is... if your convinced that your right, that's fine... but I have proven it time and time again with the people I work with and they're actually "doing it" so. It's foolish to go in circles here... I can do anything on my Nehalem MP that I can do on my wife's iMac period... there's NO DIFFERENCE for my techniques, and what I DO!

 

[Mac2012]

OK, whatever. You hire an orchestra and record them in a top-tier studio. Cost for one day at the studio + 40 union players is what? 10-15k or so? Everything sounds great and your iMac doesn't break a sweat. Life is good.

Then the film director comes back and tells you they edited one scene and it is now 5 seconds longer. Please adjust music cue accordingly. All you've got is your beautifully recorded audio that is now 5 seconds shy of being perfect.

You are going back to the studio and record those guys again, for what, another 10-15k?

Good luck with that MO. There is a reason why people use mock-ups. Even industry vets like Zimmer use virtual instruments for precisely this reason.

5 seconds too short, Zimmer, Union players? Okay, better go get a Mac Pro then because you need one to appease your greatness... WOW!

 

[ValSalva]

The possibility of 16 physical cores and 32 virtual ones is amazing. Ivy Bridge Xeons, whenever those are available next year, will run cooler and probably only slightly faster.

I hope the upcoming dual core SB Xeon E MPs are not too loud.

I can't see Apple releasing new Mac Pros before mid-April. They are not going to do anything to take the attention off of iPad 3 for at least a month even if Mac Pros are only a slight blip compared to iOS devices.

 

[D*I*S_Frontman]

Regarding the "need" for raw CPU:

For recreational and prosumer/hobby applications, the Apple consumer line (Minis and iMacs) are extremely capable machines, and TB expandability greatly expands the utility of such systems. If your financial life does not absolutely depend upon them, Minis and iMacs are brilliant choices.

But for people who rely on their machines for their livelihood, Mac Pros are an important option. Speed, expandability, reliability, and serviceability become critical productivity considerations.

When doing graphic design, let's say, a person takes a large media file and begins their tweaking (color, filters, etc.). They might make a hundred tiny decisions with regard to the image before they're finished. If something takes 15 seconds to render on an iMac and only 10 seconds on a Mac Pro, that seems like a negligible benefit. But for that one photo, that means 8.33 extra minutes of lost productivity. If you worked on four pictures per day, you've lost 33 minutes. Five days a week over 52 weeks, and you've blown 8666 minutes or 144 hours of productivity. If you bill your professional design services @ $100/hr, you've eaten $14,400. That's real money. In that light, the extra $2-3k a professional invests in his/her MP system over an iMac/Mini variant begins to look less frivolous and more financially astute.

For many applications, huge RAM speeds things up as much as CPU. Audio engineers who can put entire sample libraries into RAM experience a lot fewer problems that those whose hosts have to constantly hit the drives. As of now, 2012, a person is not loading 96GB RAM into a Mini or an iMac, but late model MPs can hold that much right now.

Also, seeing that Minis and iMacs essentially use laptop hardware in highly space-restrictive form factors, heat issues that result in shorter life might come into play, and in the event of a significant hardware failure, it is easier to swap out parts on a big tower than in a sexy yet knuckle-busting consumer case.

If one is a true "professional", downtime is the biggest fear. The ability to load an MP with redundant drives in order to prevent downtime in the event of a HDD/SSD failure, preserve client project data from catastrophic loss, and still continue working almost immediately AFTER a drive failure occurs are all bankable assets.

Raw CPU speed, more space for HDDs/SSDs in order to configure RAID for both speed and redundancy, better cooling for longer service life, larger RAM configurations all confer enormous advantages, short and long term, for a professional whose work is centered around computer-based tasks.

 

[zimv20]

that has NOTHING to do with raw DSP processes or computational power, it has to do with getting it done RIGHT going in so the post processes are @ a minimum... [...] I can do anything on my Nehalem MP that I can do on my wife's iMac period... there's NO DIFFERENCE for my techniques, and what I DO!

in your workflow, you don't need low-latency monitoring?

 

[twoodcc]

now this sounds promising! but would apple release a new mac pro the same week as announcing the next iPad?

 

[slrandall]

Hopefully this is true for all those people who want/need a Mac Pro, it's been too long since an upgrade, thanks to Intel.



Something doesn't compute here

Lion on a G4?

I have Lion on my home machine. The G4 is a work computer.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

now this sounds promising! but would apple release a new mac pro the same week as announcing the next iPad?

Why not? People who buy Pros are waiting with credit cards in hand and don't need Apple's publicity machine to find out when they can order. A Mac Pro product release wouldn't even be noticed by most iPad users. I understand that Apple makes great use of the Secrecy Thing to market iPhones and iPads and iPods and so on. What I don't understand is why Apple applies this same secrecy marketing model to the Pro products. Habit, I guess.

In any case, until now, there wasn't an interesting upgrade to Westmere, so Apple could easily not disclose its intentions. With the E5's coming out, Apple's direction will be visible. The E5's are going to be a little better than Westmere CPU-wise, and, much better I/O-wise. With the new generation of GPUs, this will be a big step up, if Apple chooses to do it.

 

[deconstruct60]

The possibility of 16 physical cores and 32 virtual ones is amazing. Ivy Bridge Xeons, whenever those are available next year, will run cooler and probably only slightly faster.

It depends upon what tradeoff Intel makes. They could sacrifice cooling gains for more significantly faster.

But yes if they duplicate what they did in the Xeon E3 Sandy Bridge ==> Ivy Bridge transition it will be cooler.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/2012010301_Details_of_Xeon_E3-1200_v2_CPUs.html

The Ivy Bridge "v2" versions dropped about 11-18W. However, that is probably a bigger difference in a box that is trying to keep a 95W processor cool and not so much in a box that has to deal with 130W-230W worth of processor TDP. If it is a choice "shave 20W" or "add 200MHz of clock" I would expect the Ivy Bridge E5's to choose the latter.

I hope the upcoming dual core SB Xeon E MPs are not too loud.

Dual packages? I don't think there is going to be a two core version. Four is about as low as it is going to go.

Shouldn't be a problem.
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2011/2011082601_Intel_to_launch_Xeon_E5-2600_series_in_Q4_2011.html

Apple will likely to use the 95W versions for the most part. That's not that far off the Westmere 95W envelope the previous models had. They may go with the 115W on the top end but most Mac Pros will likely be the same.

The bigger noise maker is likley going to be the top end graphics cards. Those may top the 200W mark for the first time ( if Apple has refactored the power/cooling mix inside the Mac Pro. )

I can't see Apple releasing new Mac Pros before mid-April. They are not going to do anything to take the attention off of iPad 3 for at least a month

Given Intel and the vendors with Mac Pro competitive offerings are likely going to announce before the iPad3 announcement I don't see the point of giving them a whole month head start. The Mac Pro is late. Like almost 5-6 months late from the previous Xeon E5 dates. There was no 2011 model. They missed a whole year. Squatting makes no sense.

Release Mac Pro and then the iPad3 circus show starts. There is no reason to wait. If anything that is a reason to put iPad 3 on the 7th since Intel is going on the 6th.

Most likely they have been sitting on finished hardware for months. I could see waiting past a OS X release boundary if it was very close. In fact, because Mountain Lion is coming they would like to get the Lion versions out the door sooner rather than later so can devote more resources to the upcoming OS.

The whole "mac pro is dead" rumor mill is on overdrive anyway. Squatting on the Mac Pro for another month while all of the other vendors sprinted ahead would only make it 3x worse. It Apple wanted to kill long term Mac Pro sales I can't think of much better approaches than the "do nothing" for a long time after the E5's officially launch.

 

[Umbongo]

Dual packages? I don't think there is going to be a two core version. Four is about as low as it is going to go.

Shouldn't be a problem.
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2011/2011082601_Intel_to_launch_Xeon_E5-2600_series_in_Q4_2011.html.

I'm sure he meant dual processors too, but there is a dual core, it's even listed in your link

 

[Photovore]

So you think a 27" iMac with [Intel Core i7 @ 3.4 GHz, 16GB ram, AMD 6970M with 2GB GDDR5 ram and 2TB HDD] is not good enough?

Absolutely, *positively*, not good enough for my needs, no question whatsoever.

I am barely scraping by with my 4-core 2009 and a 5870. I am waiting for the new Pros and will likely buy the fattest one they make, perhaps a 16-core, and an AMD 7980. (And the Xeons blow the i7s right out of the water, again no question whatsoever, plain as day if you've ever used one for a truly processor-intensive task. No comparison AT all. My 2009 MP is [at least] TEN times as fast compiling XCode vs. my 2010 MBP with i7.)

If you don't *really* know what a professional's requirements are, then, no hard feelings, but you simply have no idea what you are saying. You're saying that Formula-1 drivers should all drop back to stock Camaros and street gas. You're saying that the Space Shuttle could easily be replaced with a tweaked Airbus 330. You're saying that highway rescue teams don't need the Jaws of Life; chainsaws are so much cheaper. You're . . . never mind; if I've made my point then fine; if not then it's not my job to convince anyone....

 

[seek3r]

We're going in circles... no pun intended. I'm a purist, I use great clocks, great conversion stages and circuits, and just pure raw talent... that has NOTHING to do with raw DSP processes or computational power, it has to do with getting it done RIGHT going in so the post processes are @ a minimum... that's all, and that's it.
People need fast computers to fix things... if you're having to do lots of DSP then there's a slight chance, it wasn't done RIGHT to begin with and fast computers are needed to FIX things in most cases because why would you need to process something if it's already setting well in the mix? You DON'T!

You know how I know you didn't read my post? ::rolls eyes::

For scientific engineering, there's a fine line but you don't NEED the fastest computer on earth do do GREAT things... that's pure BS!

Believe it or not I actually run jobs on the fastest computers in the world, literally. I have accounts on several of the machines in the top 50 of the Top500, and the parallelizability of problems in my field means that when I actually run full sims I really do benefit from those machines. It takes hours instead of weeks to run a job.

Here's the thing, time on those machines is rationed, so if I want to not be burning cycles I need to do lots of local tests first. The more powerful hardware I have handy, locally, the better I can do. I haven't upgraded my MP lately because I opted to for the Dell + Tesla (which itself is due for an upgrade this year), my points on this thread is that I wish Apple would make it worth my while (and many like me) to come back to them for workstations as well as just laptops (Doesn't matter as much on laptops, I'll be working on a larger system remotely from it anyway and, I will say this, SC every year seems to have 2 types of laptops in dominance: Apples and Thinkpad . )

And you can say I'm a kid all you want just because I say it as it is... if your convinced that your right, that's fine... but I have proven it time and time again with the people I work with and they're actually "doing it" so. It's foolish to go in circles here... I can do anything on my Nehalem MP that I can do on my wife's iMac period... there's NO DIFFERENCE for my techniques, and what I DO!

Difference in technique vs. difference in how fast you can finish a job seems to be the distinction a lot of us on this thread are making that you just aren't grasping. If you still don't get it, well, I'm not really sure I can say much more than I have. You can pound nails with a shoe my friend if it makes you feel more authentic, me? I'm gonna use a hammer

 

[thekev]

Absolutely, *positively*, not good enough for my needs, no question whatsoever.

I am barely scraping by with my 4-core 2009 and a 5870. I am waiting for the new Pros and will likely buy the fattest one they make, perhaps a 16-core, and an AMD 7980. (And the Xeons blow the i7s right out of the water, again no question whatsoever, plain as day if you've ever used one for a truly processor-intensive task. No comparison AT all. My 2009 MP is [at least] TEN times as fast compiling XCode vs. my 2010 MBP with i7.)

Just to mention this, the current top imac is pretty similar with the faster of the 2009 xeon quads. The distinction between Xeons and comparable i7 cpus isn't really raw cpu speed unless you look at dual socket options. Otherwise there are i7 equivalents for most of the Xeon workstation cpus. Anyway if you're barely getting by on that, you're definitely correct to wait for a new mac pro. I dislike the imacs for other reasons.

So you think a 27" iMac with [Intel Core i7 @ 3.4 GHz, 16GB ram, AMD 6970M with 2GB GDDR5 ram and 2TB HDD] is not good enough?

There is something I wish to point out here. Whenever a computer seems fast, it's presumed good enough. You could have made the same assumption with a G4 years ago. It's a matter of how it runs whatever is necessary, and the imacs have a long history of display issues anyway (and now you can't change a dead hard drive). If you're running anything gpu dependent, NVidia seems to be making an effort to support mac pros with more of their Quadro cards. If they get the drivers right that gives you capability way beyond what an imac can provide. If OpenCL continues to increase in popularity in some of these applications as well, you will want gpu options that are suitable.

 

[tgc]

Neglect?

In the computer world, not upgrading a product for over 1-1/2 years is MORE than neglect.

The problem with Apple is that they don't adjust their prices on hardware either so when say a new iMac comes out, it compares favourably in the 'bang for your buck' against windows machines, etc.

Wait 8 months or a year, and yes, seemingly overpriced. But 1-1/2 years??

I know the concentration is on iOS but think Apple should pay attention to it's WHOLE line as each segment adds to the marketshare of OSX which in turn attracts developers, etc., etc.

They certainly have a few dollars in the bank to fund all areas of Apple.

 

[Snahbah]

All this bickering on this thread's a laugh.

There seems to be two camps; guys that are trying to justify working on iMacs and pros on pro machines.

I'm in the latter group. Now, that's great for me, whoopee. The big difference is making sure I have a great product to sell at the end of the day. This is the primary concern of anyone making money sitting in front of a mac.

And it comes to this; more grunt gives you options. It lets you think in a more liquid way, and that's worth more than the difference in cost.

Try kicking it with a 12 core monster with an SSD and you'll see what I mean in seconds few. I need the power and I have to money to pay for it, so what's the problem? No problem.

So can we get back to the guessing game please. Here's mine; the 40lb lump is coming within a month, it'll have 8 cores per processor. It'll run hot as hell and it's going to cost me more than my car

 

[Photovore]

Just to mention this, the current top imac is pretty similar with the faster of the 2009 xeon quads. The distinction between Xeons and comparable i7 cpus isn't really raw cpu speed unless you look at dual socket options. Otherwise there are i7 equivalents for most of the Xeon workstation cpus. Anyway if you're barely getting by on that, you're definitely correct to wait for a new mac pro. I dislike the imacs for other reasons.

... If you're running anything gpu dependent, NVidia seems to be making an effort to support mac pros with more of their Quadro cards... If OpenCL continues to increase in popularity in some of these applications as well, you will want gpu options that are suitable.

Yep, I must wait. I am in fact using OpenCL and painstakingly splitting the job between the 5870 [~60%] (for which my code is carefully tuned) and the CPU cores [~40%]. I could easily make use of twice the current throughput, which might almost be accomplished with a 2010 12-core alone, but if an updated 16-core + AMD 7980 would yield [i.e.] 3 times what I have now I could lap that up no problem and yet still seek for more. (I tried my task on a Quadro [4600?] and got about 1/4 the throughput as on the 5870 [GPU-only test]. That version was tuned to the nVidia 630m.) The change in architecture between the 5870 and 7980 is tantalizing, to understate _extremely_.

If Apple were to produce a Mac Pro with 10 times the Tflops of the fastest current model, then yes indeed that would exceed my needs for sure. But if the update is 4 times as fast as the 2010, yep I could use all of that headroom and would pay for it.

 

[twoodcc]

Why not? People who buy Pros are waiting with credit cards in hand and don't need Apple's publicity machine to find out when they can order. A Mac Pro product release wouldn't even be noticed by most iPad users. I understand that Apple makes great use of the Secrecy Thing to market iPhones and iPads and iPods and so on. What I don't understand is why Apple applies this same secrecy marketing model to the Pro products. Habit, I guess.

In any case, until now, there wasn't an interesting upgrade to Westmere, so Apple could easily not disclose its intentions. With the E5's coming out, Apple's direction will be visible. The E5's are going to be a little better than Westmere CPU-wise, and, much better I/O-wise. With the new generation of GPUs, this will be a big step up, if Apple chooses to do it.

oh i hope they do release them this coming week. i just don't wanna get my hopes up

 

[seek3r]

All this bickering on this thread's a laugh.

There seems to be two camps; guys that are trying to justify working on iMacs and pros on pro machines.

I'm in the latter group. Now, that's great for me, whoopee. The big difference is making sure I have a great product to sell at the end of the day. This is the primary concern of anyone making money sitting in front of a mac.

And it comes to this; more grunt gives you options. It lets you think in a more liquid way, and that's worth more than the difference in cost.

Try kicking it with a 12 core monster with an SSD and you'll see what I mean in seconds few. I need the power and I have to money to pay for it, so what's the problem? No problem.

So can we get back to the guessing game please. Here's mine; the 40lb lump is coming within a month, it'll have 8 cores per processor. It'll run hot as hell and it's going to cost me more than my car

You can't see it, but I just tipped my beer to you, I'd give you an internet high five but I don't want to get handprints on my screen

 

[MacrefreshPhil]

What about the Big Boys ?

WE work in the field of re-marketing used Apple equipment and hence have direct links into all the big Apple resellers in the UK -

The feedback they are getting from their major customers is simple -
WE WANT NEW MAC PROS . The resellers have been shouting the same message back to Apple in the UK and hopefully all round the world its bee loud enough for Apple to hear.

and just to make that clear - THEY WANT MAC PROS ,

not iMacs , not macbooks, not mini's

Phil.