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8-Core Mac Pro with Clovertown... in November?
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Holy cow, why isn't this Front Page news everywhere?!?!?!
Now that Xgrid is an element of the distribution, I wonder if any apps can use that well? This way you can hook your MacPro to your 4-5 "obsolete" Powermac G5's and G4's and original X-serves in a local cluster, presumably via Gigabit Ethernet or Firewire.
Rocketman
I disagree. POPULAR PC laptops are commonly 2" thin not 1" thin. So if I can get a MacBookPro^2 with dual quad core and built-in 2 drive hardware raid and workstation graphics, I really think we might have something there.
Even if you only sell half as many as the current high end. Remember when Powerbooks were $5-8k? That was BEFORE some inflation.
Rocketman
Referb Quad 3.0 or wait for 8-core?
I'm using a dual 1ghz G4 right now and need to upgrade to use Aperature. Apple has a referbished Quad 3.0 for $3299, which is a good discount. I know that the 8-cores are only a matter of time before they replace the current Mac Pros, but even so they will be more expensive and run at a lower Ghz.
Any thoughts? Any reason not to buy referbished MacPro?
Oh, and my other issue is that I need to purchase before dec 31st for this year tax purposes. Buy or wait??
I'm using a dual 1ghz G4 right now and need to upgrade to use Aperature. Apple has a referbished Quad 3.0 for $3299, which is a good discount. I know that the 8-cores are only a matter of time before they replace the current Mac Pros, but even so they will be more expensive and run at a lower Ghz.
Any thoughts? Any reason not to buy referbished MacPro?
Oh, and my other issue is that I need to purchase before dec 31st for this year tax purposes. Buy or wait??
I have been reaching fo my business check book so many times for a new Mac pro which (again with Soakley news) seems to be perpetually obsolite before it arrives. As it is aimed at professional users, I wish they would sort it out before the end of the year, as that is when most businesses can claim the tax refund on it... or else have to wait the best part of a year for the refund.... and for those itching to fill out a reply preaching "Just buy what you need now...", well A: I wasn't asking your advice, B:you are clearly more used to filling out replies than filling out checks for 6,500 euro knowing there are considerable improvements "weeks away"; this carrot and donkey situation is simply bad for business, but I understand it is a seminal moment for processors.
Anyway, I am just interested, how many of you will buy the first 8-cores that comes available, and how many will hold out for the "correct" Soakley solution?
(ps: I am at the point where I will just take the first that comes available, and live with it)
Anyway, I am just interested, how many of you will buy the first 8-cores that comes available, and how many will hold out for the "correct" Soakley solution?
(ps: I am at the point where I will just take the first that comes available, and live with it)
Apple's current 3GHz Mac Pro w/ the x1900xt video card is a pretty good deal on the refurbished page. I'm considering one myself... If you need it by the end of the year, I'd say hold off a couple more weeks just to be sure and then you'll have to pull the trigger. OTOH, with the price on that 3GHz quad-core, you're probably going to get more power per $ compared to one of the new 8-core options... I'm guessing the 8-core won't be available until MWSF, but who knows.
Welcome to the fabulously f'd up world of x86 architecture. It's always a seminal moment for processors and there's always considerable improvements that are only "weeks away". If you want to get truly glum over the whole situtation, go look at Intel's road map for upcoming CPU products. As soon as Stoakley is about to start shipping, we'll all be talking about the impending release of unified quad-core CPUs, but that may not be worth buying because we will already have quad-core that is 75% as good and 8-core CPUs (read: 16-core Mac Pro) will only be 4~5 months down the road.
So, if you're like many small business owners, who like to position large purchases at the end of a year, I'm afraid the best advice is to wait just a wee bit longer and then make your purchase of the best that's available before the end of the year.
2.66GHz Refurb Mac Pro Not 3GHz You Need The $1100 For 4GB Of RAM
The 8-Core might still happen next week. But not likely. You might want to wait a few more weeks. Those refurbs are not going to go away. Once they're up there, they pretty much stay up there. They may go away for a few days from time to time. But they always return. So don't worry about a refurb shortage.
I would wait until December and pull the trigger then if the 8-core hasn't been announced by then.
PS. You can buy the ATI x1900 card with your 2.66GHz refurb for only $359 more IF YOU NEED IT which a lot of users don't. Then you still have $741 for two 2GB sticks for a total of 5GB inside the 2.66GHz model instead of only 2GB inside a 3GHz.
After reading about Stoakley Wednesday, my hunch is Apple will want to wait for that to go with their first 8-core offering. But it's only a guess. If Apple offers a pre-Stoakley 8-core Mac Pro, I will have to look at it a little while to decide if that's the way I want to go knowing Stoakley is probably no further then Spring '07. While I would like more power sooner than that in an 8-core MP, I can limp along with the Quad G5 a few more months i guess. Or I might even get the 2.66 refurb.
I really don't know what to do. I was all full of excitement and anticipation about the early 8-core coming now and then realizing it was just a figment of my imagination and that I didn't have enough information to really know that. So I'm out of the prediction business here. My bad Arn. Sorry. You were great yesterday on CNBC BTW.
You save $1100 buying the 2.66GHz refurb for only $2199 and only lose 1.36GHz of power. The 3GHz model is not that much more powerful. And you need to buy RAM for it so use the $1100 saved for two 2GB sticks for $700-$800. Still save $300 plus $1100 worth of sales tax.I'm using a dual 1ghz G4 right now and need to upgrade to use Aperature. Apple has a referbished Quad 3.0 for $3299, which is a good discount. I know that the 8-cores are only a matter of time before they replace the current Mac Pros, but even so they will be more expensive and run at a lower Ghz.
Any thoughts? Any reason not to buy referbished MacPro?
Oh, and my other issue is that I need to purchase before dec 31st for this year tax purposes. Buy or wait??
The 8-Core might still happen next week. But not likely. You might want to wait a few more weeks. Those refurbs are not going to go away. Once they're up there, they pretty much stay up there. They may go away for a few days from time to time. But they always return. So don't worry about a refurb shortage.
I would wait until December and pull the trigger then if the 8-core hasn't been announced by then.
But I think buying the 3GHz model is a waste of money.
PS. You can buy the ATI x1900 card with your 2.66GHz refurb for only $359 more IF YOU NEED IT which a lot of users don't. Then you still have $741 for two 2GB sticks for a total of 5GB inside the 2.66GHz model instead of only 2GB inside a 3GHz.
After reading about Stoakley Wednesday, my hunch is Apple will want to wait for that to go with their first 8-core offering. But it's only a guess. If Apple offers a pre-Stoakley 8-core Mac Pro, I will have to look at it a little while to decide if that's the way I want to go knowing Stoakley is probably no further then Spring '07. While I would like more power sooner than that in an 8-core MP, I can limp along with the Quad G5 a few more months i guess. Or I might even get the 2.66 refurb.
I really don't know what to do. I was all full of excitement and anticipation about the early 8-core coming now and then realizing it was just a figment of my imagination and that I didn't have enough information to really know that. So I'm out of the prediction business here. My bad Arn. Sorry. You were great yesterday on CNBC BTW.
I am wondering something related to that. The MacPro has been out for a while now. One can buy chips from vendors that do that all day long. Presumably they will be among the first to get actual cloverfields for sale so one can buy a 2.66 Ghz version and drop it right into an existing MacPro. Proven to work. No problem.
My question is this, what market is there for resale of "spare" chips, or these new chips after you have used them for 6 months and want to upgrade to whatever "true" Octo MacPro Apple comes out with, or to something else later? I presume you would have a rational tradeoff decision between selling the "new" stock MacPro chips now to maximize price, or keep them to resell the machine with, and sell the "new" chips at a depreciated price later.
Hell, I sound like my PeeCee geek brother now!
Rocketman
I Think Doing It Yourself May Be A Road To Disaster
1. The 2.66GHz model has thermals 150% higher than what the 4 core Mac Pro is made to support - 120 Watts vs. 80 Watts.
2. A Do-It-Yourself processor change in the Mac Pro is nothing short of brain surgery. You would be ILL ADVISED to try it. Apple has made it next to impossible to successfully accomplish that change.
3. Chip changes besides the processors like Stoakley-Seaburg may help a lot.
4. You void your warranty.
5. Would cost more than buying an 8-core from Apple when it's all ready.
No Problem? Joke post right?
1. The 2.66GHz model has thermals 150% higher than what the 4 core Mac Pro is made to support - 120 Watts vs. 80 Watts.
2. A Do-It-Yourself processor change in the Mac Pro is nothing short of brain surgery. You would be ILL ADVISED to try it. Apple has made it next to impossible to successfully accomplish that change.
3. Chip changes besides the processors like Stoakley-Seaburg may help a lot.
4. You void your warranty.
5. Would cost more than buying an 8-core from Apple when it's all ready.
Market will be close to zilch I think. I doubt many will attempt do-it-yourself given the report from Anandtech that it is nearly impossible to do.
I think you point out accurately I should have said 2.33 Ghz Cloverfield not 2.66. With that restated, I do believe it would work, right? That is what you have been on about for weeks now.
I take it from your post one should assume near 100% depreciation on any such incremental upgrade purchase.
On yet another stab in the dark topic, I do believe it is right to believe OSX.5 or more to the point OSX.5.01 (the real release I care about) is due in 3-07. Approximateloy then we will also see new ApTel platform releases.
So, if you buy a MacPro now and are ahead of the curve on processor core requirements, as you have so eloquently stated is possible, one wonders if besides buying third party seller Intel cloverfield chips, one should also plan RAM purchases.
When OSX.5.01 hits the streets RAM requirements should just about double due to amazing new capabilities. Along with that we should see RAM prices about halve, or more to the point double in capacity for the same price.
So one will want to be buying 4GB RAM sticks (in pairs) and bleeding edge types will be paying silly prices for 8GB sticks (in pairs).
So shouldn't one buy a Mac Pro now, with 2 2GB RAM sticks, stick a (2.33) Cloverfield in it next week, and when 4GB chips are the same price as 2GB are now (presumably Jan-Feb 07, populate the remaining two holes in the RAM trays?
I know you love to tell (suggest) people what to do, so I hope I have given you something to chew on
Rocketman
2.66GHz Model Is The Right One To Buy
But you bought the right one. No you should not buy the 3GHz model. Way too much extra money for hardly any more power.
Congratulations! "refresh"? 4x1GB? The refurbs only ship with two 512 sticks total 1GB for $2199. So I'm not sure what you mean.
But you bought the right one. No you should not buy the 3GHz model. Way too much extra money for hardly any more power.
Best Not Do-It-Yourself Rocketman You May Break Your Mac Pro In The Process
I don't understand what you mean. I never said it won't work. What I am saying is that if you do it yourself, you lose your warranty and according to the Anadtech article you have to break parts to even get to the processors. I think it's a bad idea to think of upgrading the processors yourself.
RAM prices are not going to drop like you imagine:
No evidence that will be the case. I doubt it.
No way. 4GB sticks are not going to be afforable for another year or two.
Because your presumptions are inaccurate. 4GB sticks won't crossover to same as 2GB sticks before 2009-2010 or so - if then. Nobody's even selling 4GB sticks that I know of yet.
ROFLMAO...
Out of all those links / searches he posted, only two lead to actual 4GB DIMM parts. Hehe.
...And nobody is selling Apple compliant FB-DIMMs with proper heat spreaders in 4GB capcity right now. So it's somewhat irrelevent. Anyway, the price on 4GB will fall and by this time next year, 4GB modules will definitely be more common. I doubt they will be as cheap as 2GB modules are currently, RAM doesn't usually drop that fast and the need for that sort of RAM just hasn't materialized yet.
With the Leopard release there really won't be that big of a demand for more memory. Most of the OS niceties and improvements are already present in some form in Tiger and the extensions of these in Leopard don't take much more in the way of resources. So it's not like suddenly we install Leopard and need an extra 500MB.. Maybe 10 to 12 MB if you have everything maxed out. 64bit software that will be increasingly more common over the next year or so will also use more RAM, but for the most part, 32bit software will still continue to be mainstream for a while and even once our favorite word processors, web browsers and spreadsheet apps finally go full 64bit, they're not going to need much more RAM. So it's not like veryone is going to run out and double their system RAM overnight next spring.
The big apps that will see the need for more RAM are the ones that are RAM-starved already -- 3D design, CAD, high-def/film editing and compositing, massive database systems... This is why systems like Xserve already support 32GB via 2GB modules. I don't even know if the Intel memory controller in the Mac Pro and Xserve can use 4GB modules?
Of course, the day will come with 4GB modules are commonplace and rather cheap. Not next year, but possibly commonplace for workstation type systems like the Mac Pro by early to mid '08. 4GB modules will be commonplace for notebooks and mainstream desktop systems probably by the end of '08, maybe into '09... It's just a gradual evolution... I just think Rocketman is jumping the gun here.
Out of all those links / searches he posted, only two lead to actual 4GB DIMM parts. Hehe.
...And nobody is selling Apple compliant FB-DIMMs with proper heat spreaders in 4GB capcity right now. So it's somewhat irrelevent. Anyway, the price on 4GB will fall and by this time next year, 4GB modules will definitely be more common. I doubt they will be as cheap as 2GB modules are currently, RAM doesn't usually drop that fast and the need for that sort of RAM just hasn't materialized yet.
With the Leopard release there really won't be that big of a demand for more memory. Most of the OS niceties and improvements are already present in some form in Tiger and the extensions of these in Leopard don't take much more in the way of resources. So it's not like suddenly we install Leopard and need an extra 500MB.. Maybe 10 to 12 MB if you have everything maxed out. 64bit software that will be increasingly more common over the next year or so will also use more RAM, but for the most part, 32bit software will still continue to be mainstream for a while and even once our favorite word processors, web browsers and spreadsheet apps finally go full 64bit, they're not going to need much more RAM. So it's not like veryone is going to run out and double their system RAM overnight next spring.
The big apps that will see the need for more RAM are the ones that are RAM-starved already -- 3D design, CAD, high-def/film editing and compositing, massive database systems... This is why systems like Xserve already support 32GB via 2GB modules. I don't even know if the Intel memory controller in the Mac Pro and Xserve can use 4GB modules?
Of course, the day will come with 4GB modules are commonplace and rather cheap. Not next year, but possibly commonplace for workstation type systems like the Mac Pro by early to mid '08. 4GB modules will be commonplace for notebooks and mainstream desktop systems probably by the end of '08, maybe into '09... It's just a gradual evolution... I just think Rocketman is jumping the gun here.
Setting aside your reasonable ROFLMAO, and the very limited availability right now, and the astronomical price (heck, I can set anthing aside),
Apple only endorses 2GB chips in Mac Pros. Crucial limits their warranty of fitness on that basis.
BUT. The parts do exist. They fit. I assume the memory is fully addressed to the point if you actually install 8 chips you get 32GB addressable in a 64 bit system like Quad core Xeon or 8 core Cloverfield with an EXISTING Mac Pro.
Right so far?
So now I want to run 2-4 1080i HD signals in my media room, or whatever might use cores and memory.
It seems, from what I see, it simply is possible now, and further the prices of the DIMMS will drop to some degree in 2-3 months.
So far, so good?
Rocketman
What does Crucial have to do with this?
And I never said that the parts didn't exist... You know, you could have just gone to HP's server config page and pointed out that they offer 4GB DIMMs. It was just funny that you had to search on Google and elsewhere trying to prove they exist and all but two of your results were 2x2GB kits.
Of course the prices will drop, I just fail to see your point or where you come up with the idea that we'll all be buying 4GB modules in the next 3 to 6 months. Prices will drop, but not that fast... The demand just isn't there... And your example of multiple streams of 1080HD, I do that every day on my systems with 4 and 8 GB total RAM with plenty of room left over... I do know of applications that can soak up 10 to 12 GB of RAM, but the need for 32GB in a Mac Pro just isn't here yet... It's questionable in an Xserve, even though it's officially supported.
Anyway, I'm done with this pointless discussion. You have all the finess of a complete noob and obviously little real-world experience with current applications and hardware. You're getting a little overzealous in your predictions... Now in 2 years when 8-core CPUs and 16-core workstations are shipping, then 32GB via 8x4GB modules will make sense and will probably be priced similar to our 2GB offerings now, hopefully even a bit cheaper. It's not going to happen in the next few months. The price on current FB-DIMMs have only dropped about 10% in the past YEAR. In the current crop of hardware, it doesn't make sense and there isn't any software coming out that's going to change that... Not Leopard, not Maya8, not Final Cut Studio 6 or Shake 5...
You never should have listened to "multimedia". That was your first mistake, he clearly doesn't understand hardware. I mentioned the heat/power issue weeks ago and it was ignored.
I also mentioned the fact that the CPU's aren't easily swappable after production but people on here would rather just read rumor headlines than actually read reports.
Mac buyers need to get used to Intel's chip releases or you are all going to end up waiting forever for the next big thing coming in 6 months.
I did ask largely because of the posts by Multimedia. As you see, one of my more recent posts was simply to buy from the "mothership". Also MM said no 4GB chips were available, yet X-serve has them (check out those prices). Applied Visual presumed inaccurately I had said HE said there were no 4GB chips availavle, so he went into a rant.
The heating issue is real.
The real reason I asked, is many of these switchers have a tendency to modify CPU's. I was hoping to get a discussion as to whether it was safe or practical or not.
Personally, I buy from the mothership (Apple). Boring, I know, but then so is Apple hardware that still just works 7 years later too.
Rocketman
Slinger Misunderstands My Opinion Of Heat/Power Hardware Issue Which Is Same As His
How clearly? What is the meaning of this. It's not clear to me that I don't understand hardware. Why is it clear to you? And in what way do you think I don't understand 'cause I'm always willing to learn. I think we have a misunderstanding here.
You must have my posts confused with someone else's because I not only took note of your post about the heat/power issue, I embraced it and never posted anything contradicting your position. I am on your side completely. So if he shouldn't have listened to me then he shouldn't have listened to you.
Which is what I have been posting ever since I read that AnandTech report. Why are you saying I have posted opinions contrary to yours when they have all been congruent with yours?
Some next big thing moments are better than others. Don't you think waiting for the Stoakley-Seaburg 8-core platform will be worth it? Or will you buy the first 8-core if Apple offers one sooner - which I doubt they will now.