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2010 Mac Pro Wish list
- Thread starter JesterJJZ
- Start date
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Nostromo
macrumors 65816
DMR kills Blu Ray for use on Macs. It's just too much legal hassle.
And you don't need it. Hard drive space is cheap, and flash drives are reusable and read faster than discs.
pastrychef
macrumors 601
My wish list...
1. No support for Blu-ray
2. SATA 3
3. eSATA ports
4. USB 3
5. More 16x PCI-e slots
6. Firewire S1600 and S3200
7. Apple Remote
8. Reasonably priced SSD options
1. No support for Blu-ray
2. SATA 3
3. eSATA ports
4. USB 3
5. More 16x PCI-e slots
6. Firewire S1600 and S3200
7. Apple Remote
8. Reasonably priced SSD options
ildondeigiocchi
macrumors 6502a
Why exactly wouldn't you want bluray support. At least it would put Apple on par with tech as Windows machines.
I'm not sure this really counts. You weren't even in the right BOARD.
P.S. Warcraft and WoW (which you probably meant) are distinctly different games. 😛 </comicbookguy>
Icaras
macrumors 603
I don't get it either. To predict it is one thing. To add a feature that you don't want on your wish list is another, even considering the complete possibility that Apple could simply implement it as simple a CTO, which wouldn't hurt people who don't want or need said feature.
After 2009's impressive blu-ray adoption, I can't think of a reason why one would not want the option.
Icaras
macrumors 603
Quote from your linked article:
Even if DRM is the bane of blu-ray's existence, it has widespread industry support, something I don't think Apple can afford to ignore for too long.
Icaras
macrumors 603
Also, worth noting is that this article is dated 2007, which is kind of a long time ago. Things have gotten better for blu-ray in terms of royalty rates in 2008/2009. Its much more affordable to publish and manufacture blu-ray content, which just leads to more and more widespread industry support, hence why we've just witnessed a massive boom in 2009. We'll see more of this domino effect continue this year and beyond.
Though I'm unsure if its DRM policy has been affected, I'm confident things will only improve over time as blu-ray continues to hit critical mass.
Though I'm unsure if its DRM policy has been affected, I'm confident things will only improve over time as blu-ray continues to hit critical mass.
Compared to what? These are workstation class machines and as such are in many cases cheaper than Windows workstation while being much higher quality.
Actually, the comparable workstations (using CPU P/N parity from the base models, as absolute parity is impossible, which is intentional) have actually been cheaper. Especially the Quads. If you move to faster CPU's, the price comparison gets closer.
But you also need to keep in mind that the PC variants have better warranties (3yr on-site included), better graphics choices, and can actually utilize 1333MHz DDR3 (as the '09's are fixed to 1066MHz).
pastrychef
macrumors 601
I'm more concerned with the hooks to the OS that it requires.
In regards to the studios not letting go of it, I feel that the days of physical media are numbered and don't see the need for Blu-ray on a computer. Secondly, if I wanted to watch an HD movie, I do it on my couch on a TV and not in my office chair in front of my computer. I have an optical drive capable of playing DVDs on my computer. I can't remember the last time I watched a DVD on my computer.
so might a few RED shooters.
i'd like to see cheaper fibre optic and RAID options from apple.
in regard to apple blu ray support, i see it becoming something that people can specifically request if they want it from apple, and if not i'll just wait for the eventual linux hack. in the meantime, it's worth getting a ps3.
Nostromo
macrumors 65816
Let's hope Apple is going to close the gap a bit in 2010, especially on the lower priced Mac Pros.
With all those high end gamers out there Apple should really try to work up more sales for its workstations.
This includes more attractive pricing and weeding out half-ass machines like the 2009 lame duck Quad.
gugucom
macrumors 68020
This is just repeating Apple propaganda. Apple make money with inferior online distribution of low res "HD" materials. This is why they don't support BD play back. It is annoying to switch to Windows on Mac Pro to watch a Blu Ray movie but I still do it. And every time I do it I curse bloody Steve Jobs for his crooked ways of pushing iTunes.
Are you denying that there's difficulties in supporting Blu-Ray playback? At least in the US there are, as Apple has to take extensive precaution against 'misuse' as defined by the content owners.
It just so happens that the technical complications are a convenient excuse to not bother, and push their download service. That's not so much malicious as it is lucky for Apple.
I couldn't agree more. It really amazes me how people instantly accept everything Apple pushes their way, even if it only serves Apple's interests.
gugucom,
How do you get around the whole HDCP compliant issue in Windows, or is it not an issue with your hardware / display?
Apple's been quietly updating the hardware to HDCP compliance (i.e. graphics cards). Most, if not all 3rd party monitors are as well, so it tends to work under Windows with more recent systems. 🙂
It's just that Apple would have to pay licensing fees to Sony, and it could affect the iTunes sales (and as mentioned, it's of lower quality than BD's can provide). So most likely, there's no compelling reason to do so else it could impact their bottom line negatively in thier opinion.
I would love to figure out a clean way of getting Blu Ray Playback to work in Windows with my 30" ACD which is not HDCP compliant.. The only solution I have found is AnyDVD which seems to be hit and miss for some people...
Icaras
macrumors 603
Sorry, I am not disputing the quality of these machines. I was simply echoing what I thought was the general consensus here on the forums since benchmarks have already proven that the 08 models seem to be the better value for the money. And Nano explained it better.
But talking about about which location you find it personally preferable to view a movie says nothing about the future of physical media. 😕 Besides simply viewing blu-ray movies for consumers, there are already those here that rip blu-ray content and what about blu-ray authoring for professionals?
I do not see the days of physical media numbered, no matter how much argument is thrown about at how much cheaper hard drives are in comparison because the bandwidth is simply not there to support that kind of storage.
You may have incredibly cheap hard drives, but thanks to extremely limited broadband infrastructures, you have an annoying bottleneck. I would say good luck downloading 1080p content with DTS-HD MA 7.1 Lossless audio, with which is not even commercially available yet, for very obvious limiting bandwidth issues. Movie studios and consumers will continue to have a field day with the joys of which blu-ray has to offer.
Data shows that blu-ray sales continue to rake in more and more than each previous year. Adoption has already been studied to be faster than DVD, so its completely contradictory to think that physical media is coming to an end any time soon when sales are in fact, going up.
I do find more and more queries in this forum concerning gaming with the Mac Pro. As I see Apple's Mac market share to continue to grow, this has to bring gamers along too.
It would be interesting to see Apple open up the Mac Pro line to a gamer market and it might work if they marketed a cheaper base line model, without inventing a new mid-level tower, headless Mac. But like you mentioned, these are workstation machines and I don't think we'll ever see a sub $2000 Mac Pro if Apple continues to invest in workstation class CPUs.
Nostromo
macrumors 65816
I don't see any good in a mid-level tower. The iMacs are already mid-level, and with their included good screen as good deal, except when you do a lot of graphics and need something better as a monitor.
I'd say a good gaming PC isn't that cheap, either. So, giving us a good Mac Pro for 2500$ should work out well. Just let it be a dual processor Mac. No cheesy wanna-be MacPros.
And, and this will be essential to win over additional fans: better and cheaper graphics options. It's really not acceptable why a Mac user should pay double for the same GPU than what a PC owner pays.
Apple has tremendous leverage. They should take nVidia and ATI in a headlock to get better options.
TheStrudel
macrumors 65816
This, only replace "headlock" with "strategic partnership," or "offer incentives".
Given that Nvidia made a bundle off of the 9400m's mandatory inclusion in every single portable made recently, it's not implausible.
But I think it requires senior management (like, say, Steve) to care more about graphics cards.
I think we all know the realistic likelihood of that.
With regards to Blu-ray, I and others have posted at length as to why it's useful for more than just playback (archiving, sending media to somebody because mailing a hard drive doesn't work well for everybody). The most legitimate objection to it is the content protection, but handled that in the past with DVD player - boxed away from everything else. I'm reasonably sure they could either add the blu-ray functionality to the DVD player app or write a new app that locks other access away, for the required legal reasons.
The DRM has been cracked a long time ago, and *historically are only really interested in DRM compliance to the legal requirements of partners.
It's feasible. As for things I'd like to see, they can be pretty much summed up like this: More of what's already good, newer iterations of existing tech, to wit:
USB 3, SATA 6, Firewire 3200, more PCIe slots, additional bays for HDDs (2.5" bays for SSD use would be sufficient).
eSATA would be a nice addition at this point, given how it would free up a PCIe slot for some people.
Unfortunately, the 30"ACD isn't HDCP compliant, and I'm not sure about your graphics card, but will presume it's new enough to be capable for the moment.
That means either a new monitor is needed, or to try to stick with a software solution.
The '08's are currently the best value of all the MP's made so far. Granted, the 2010 models may be faster (depending on the exact clocks offered), but the prices will be higher than the '09's, again eating away at the overall value (performance/cost). 🙁
Physical media has another advantage. No downloads required, even if there's sufficient bandwidth, as data caps are gaining popularity and being implemented by ISP's (definitely the Accounting Depts. on up). So that amount of data per movie could get prohibitively expensive (i.e. 25GB for a single layer BD). 🙁
Purchased BD's can be loaded onto HDD's for an HTPC to allow for whole house availability without the need for dedicated players for each set (then archive physical BD's for safe keeping). And as it's been mentioned, shipping optical media is much less expensive than an HDD.
They won't be able to remain with Xeons for too much longer, as Intel's going with far more cores than is needed by a workstation (i.e. developed for clusters). So if the MP remains, it will eventually have to shift to a high-end desktop part. Single CPU's with 8 cores isn't that far away. 😉 The i7-9xx parts and the Xeon 35xx are a good example. They're Xeons with the ECC functions disabled.
It should also be noted that in most cases, there's no need for ECC either. All it's actually doing is raising the price.
DP workstations are going to disappear, given the state of software. We're on the verge of 6 core chips, with 8 to follow in the not too distant future. Since little software is capable of using that many cores, it's not worth having more. And the cost of a 16 core system will be more than many can handle. Even the enterprise world would take a closer look at what they're using.
If software manages to catch up (and it's not been placed on clusters that are a pay-per-use system), the die shrinks will allow for more cores, and make it into the desktop parts anyway.
Intel's current direction lends me to think we'll will have desktops on one end of the spectrum, and clusters on the other, with little in-between.
It's doable IMO. And not actually that much effort.
