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Apple Needs Midrange Tower - dream system?

IlluminatedSage

IlluminatedSage

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 1, 2000
1,571
350
What apple really needs is a midrange tower. something upgradable with:

1- CPU- ability to put something faster than a core 2 duo in it. ie, the core 2 extreme.
2- Memory - need DDR2 800 memory, not that crazy expensive crap the mac pro's use.
3- a graphics card slot - a double width slot so that we could use latest NVIDIA/ATI CARD
4- powersupply capable of 4 core cpu and fastest video card
5- full blu-ray or dvd+-r capabilty.

My reasoning is that the core 2 duo is a laptop chip being used in the mac mini and imac and isn't that great.

With a mid range tower at say $1299-1499m apple would fill a void in their market for years. not everyone has the money to plunk down on a mac pro, nor a need for one.

if a mid range tower came into existence, my bet is people would buy it. and at much higher rates than mac mini. the mac mini is a lil integrated video computer. hardly has real world applications if you like graphics and such.

Apple please give us something in the middle. that we can upgrade the graphics cards on or buy custom configured from apple. we need it affordable. the memory and systems on mac pro's are wasteful and too expensive.

there goes my thoughts, hope others agree out there
 
The day the iMac was invented, was the day you all kissed goodbye to a mid-range tower. I just wish people would give up on the idea...

Apple have done their marketing, and if that indicated a reasonable demand to warrant yet another case design and product that would cannabalise sales from the iMacs and low-end Mac Pros, you'd see it happening.

I really think it's geeks who want this mythical mid-range tower, a smaller and more fickle crowd than you might think. Most people I know are very happy with either a laptop or an iMac, and towers for those who work with their Macs.
 
Blue Velvet said:
The day the iMac was invented, was the day you all kissed goodbye to a mid-range tower. I just wish people would give up on the idea...

Apple have done their marketing, and if that indicated a reasonable demand to warrant yet another case design and product that would cannabalise sales from the iMacs and low-end Mac Pros, you'd see it happening.

I really think it's geeks who want this mythical mid-range tower, a smaller and more fickle crowd than you might think. Most people I know are very happy with either a laptop or an iMac, and towers for those who work with their Macs.
Click to expand...

There are many people who need an expandable tower for pci cards but do not need the price of the Mac Pro. Many people don't need to be spending 700$ on that whole second processor.

However, when the new Mac Pros come out Apple may keep the 2.66 machine and sell it for a lot cheaper. And as Apple continues with Intel first gen Macs will become very cheap second hand reguardless.
 
Here's some lotion for you guys who keep stimulating yourself over this "Mid-Range Tower" fantasy.

200.jpg
 
mdntcallr said:
What apple really needs is a midrange tower. something upgradable with...
Click to expand...

Wrong headline. It's not "Apple needs", it is "You want". Big difference.

What are the chances that there is a spreadsheet somewhere in the Apple organisation that contains detailed cost of a midrange tower, including the added pressure and hardware development and sales marketing teams, projected sale price, estimated number of sales, lost sales of iMacs and Mac Pros, and total benefit to Apple of such a computer, and that the total benefit number is negative or only very slightly positive?
 
mdntcallr said:
What apple really needs is a midrange tower. something upgradable with:

1- CPU- ability to put something faster than a core 2 duo in it. ie, the core 2 extreme.
2- Memory - need DDR2 800 memory, not that crazy expensive crap the mac pro's use.
3- a graphics card slot - a double width slot so that we could use latest NVIDIA/ATI CARD
4- powersupply capable of 4 core cpu and fastest video card
5- full blu-ray or dvd+-r capabilty.

My reasoning is that the core 2 duo is a laptop chip being used in the mac mini and imac and isn't that great.

With a mid range tower at say $1299-1499m apple would fill a void in their market for years. not everyone has the money to plunk down on a mac pro, nor a need for one.

if a mid range tower came into existence, my bet is people would buy it. and at much higher rates than mac mini. the mac mini is a lil integrated video computer. hardly has real world applications if you like graphics and such.

Apple please give us something in the middle. that we can upgrade the graphics cards on or buy custom configured from apple. we need it affordable. the memory and systems on mac pro's are wasteful and too expensive.

there goes my thoughts, hope others agree out there
Click to expand...

I agree with you. A gamers machine - the iGameyurA**Off :p
I just responded to you in another thread without reading this one first.

Bests
 
as for Turkish who thinks this is fools sex folly, goto youporn.com

Honestly, I think that if Apple wants to seriously satisfy enterprise and gaming market. a mid tier tower is needed. not everyone needs a high end editing system or photoshop rig.

but some of us want something that is in the middle. there is an entire line of intel chips they are ignoring that offer alot more power than the core 2 duo and are less expensive than the xeon chips. additionally the ram in the mac pro is crazy expensive.

give the consumers something in the middle that has some real consumer level power and upgradablity, we would love it.

The imac has serious limits, laptop chip, lame graphics card, built in monitor. we need something better.

If apple wants to expand its market share, they have to start offering more models.
 
I don't get it. Who games on a mac??? Get a dell xps for that.

Although it would be nice to have a cheap single processor mac that takes standard Core 2 duo chips. You could upgrade those systems on the super cheap. Upgrading a xeon mac pro is too expensive. Its cheaper to sell your mac and buy a faster one. Plus the ram setup in the mac pro is not ideal. Gets too hot.

Lets see a mac mini with pcie slots. Call it a mac and have regular desktop chips in it. That is all that is needed IMHO. There is definately a hole in the lineup.

I just don't think apple cares. They don't make money on desktops. They make money on ipod, iphone etc. Desktops just bring in those buyers.

You either have rich people buying (mac pro) or poor people (mac mini). The middle class is made to just go cheap or fork over the rent money. Apple knows this. If they make a mid tower mac then one of the systems gets eaten up in sales.
 
macenforcer said:
I just don't think apple cares. They don't make money on desktops. They make money on ipod, iphone etc. Desktops just bring in those buyers.
Click to expand...

Their margins are in the 50% region, you can't say they don't make money on their desktops. Apple is making a ton of money on ALL their products. The only one I would argue is maybe OS X and iLife.
 
mdntcallr said:
Honestly, I think that if Apple wants to seriously satisfy enterprise and gaming market. a mid tier tower is needed.
Click to expand...


They don't care about enterprise that much and they don't care that much about gamers either... most of them are happy with their consoles, anyway.

Most people, by far the biggest majority, don't even upgrade their computers. They wouldn't even know where to start.

Don't confuse your desires for what the market will support. The iMac has plenty of consumer power.
 
Blue Velvet said:
Don't confuse your desires for what the market will support. The iMac has plenty of consumer power.
Click to expand...

There's a ton of PC people which don't like wimpy machines (mini), all-in-ones and which won't or can't pay for a Mac Pro. If apple had a normal box they would buy it because their main concern is Windows, with OSX being something to try out.
 
cube said:
There's a ton of PC people which don't like wimpy machines (mini), all-in-ones and which won't or can't pay for a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...


I think this 'ton' is not as a substantial market as you might think. Open your eyes; your family, your relatives... your neighbours. How many them hang around here or Ars or elsewhere similar? Most people don't care about gaming on their computer or opening it up to tweak it. And fact is, this niche product would cannabalise sales from Mac Pros and iMacs.

Don't you guys seriously think that Apple hasn't explored this option in research and found it wanting?

And another thing, some of you may not remember the bewildering proliferation of models that Apple used to produce, all with letters and numbers in their names... disastrous.

From what I know of enterprise, they're more interested in thin clients, small computers... much like a Mini, to be honest. People like the ones you describe are best served with a Windows box.
 
Here could be a possibility:
2.13GHz "E6420" Conroe Mid-Tower Mac Pro
1GB DDR2 667mhz memory, up to 8GB in total
4 hard drive bays and 160GB hard drive standard
nVidia GeForce 8600GT and an option of ATI Radeon X1950 XT
supports 20", 23" and 30" Displays
uses PCI-express
Blu-ray disc drive option
$1999
 
dartzorichalcos said:
Here could be a possibility:
2.13GHz "E6420" Conroe Mid-Tower Mac Pro
1GB DDR2 667mhz memory, up to 8GB in total
4 hard drive bays and 160GB hard drive standard
nVidia GeForce 8600GT and an option of ATI Radeon X1950 XT
supports 20", 23" and 30" Displays
uses PCI-express
Blu-ray disc drive option
$1999
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? 4 hard drive bays?

There isn't really an enterprise or consumer market for this.

Like in our office, folks that have to go into Quark, do light PDF work, use MS Office, and do light Photoshop stuff use iMacs. The artists and layout people use Mac Pros (and Power Macs). We have a couple of mini's for the folks who do accounting and paper-pushing stuff.

Hobby geeks are the only market for this mid-range tower.

Just because you can't afford a Mac Pro doesn't mean they should make a mid-range tower.
 
That is a severely unattractive price if it doesn't include the Blu-ray.
 
Blue Velvet said:
I think this 'ton' is not as a substantial market as you might think. Open your eyes; your family, your relatives... your neighbours. How many them hang around here or Ars or elsewhere similar? Most people don't care about gaming on their computer or opening it up to tweak it. And fact is, this niche product would cannabalise sales from Mac Pros and iMacs.
Click to expand...
Just because gamers don't make up the majority of the market doesn't mean it's not a market worth pursuing. I mean, Apple makes the Mac Pro for a certain kind of consumer, even if it's way more than average Joe User, who makes up the largest share of the overall market, is going to want/need.

After that EA Games announcement, about bringing a number of their big titles to Mac, it definitely shows that there are Mac users (and potential Mac users) who want to play games. Yet there aren't a lot of options for Macs that play new, graphically-demanding games well. You get the 24" iMac with the highest GPU upgrade, Mac Pro with GPU upgrade, or MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro's the only one you'll be able to (possibly) upgrade a couple years down the road, and it starts at about $2500. So the potential Mac gamer either shells out the big bucks for a pro-class workstation, buys something with lowish/midrange graphics that can't be upgraded (and still in the $2000+ range), or something that doesn't play games well at all.
 
There is something wrong, because one reason discouraging me from the Mac Pro is the bulk and weight. Two bays would be enough so that one doesn't need to fiddle with external drive assembly when upgrading hard disks.
 
WraithAkaMrak said:
Just because gamers don't make up the majority of the market doesn't mean it's not a market worth pursuing. I mean, Apple makes the Mac Pro for a certain kind of consumer, even if it's way more than average Joe User, who makes up the largest share of the overall market, is going to want/need.

After that EA Games announcement, about bringing a number of their big titles to Mac, it definitely shows that there are Mac users (and potential Mac users) who want to play games. Yet there aren't a lot of options for Macs that play new, graphically-demanding games well. You get the 24" iMac with the highest GPU upgrade, Mac Pro with GPU upgrade, or MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro's the only one you'll be able to (possibly) upgrade a couple years down the road, and it starts at about $2500. So the potential Mac gamer either shells out the big bucks for a pro-class workstation, buys something with lowish/midrange graphics that can't be upgraded (and still in the $2000+ range), or something that doesn't play games well at all.
Click to expand...

You are totally right. most gamers or people who like to upgrade over time, don't like all in one machines. they may already have a monitor and dont want to pay for a new one. rather put their money into performance.

simply put, the mac pro's are just too much and the mac minis are entry level.

if apple is serious about growing their sales. they should keep the mac mini, add a real mid-tower, and only need 2 hard drive bays.

let people do their towers as they see fit, only then will apple drive more real volume, alot of people would build an apple rig if they would offer it.

more than you think, especially if they could have 2 hard drives, one for OSX and one for Winblows.
 
mdntcallr said:
if apple is serious about growing their sales.
Click to expand...

Pure conjecture... last I read, Apple made about 50% of its income from computers, all computers. The rest from iPods and all the other stuff.

So, this market is a small fraction of that 50%... if Apple think there's money to be made, then they'll do it. If not, why should they bother?

Any serious company commisions research on the viability and marketing of their potential products before they even get designed. I can't see why you don't get this... unless you are confusing Apple's needs for your own.
 
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