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Any new news on Gulftown and/or Mac Pro?
- Thread starter mds
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Hardmac was suggesting late March I think.
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2010/02/11/intel-to-release-only-limited-amount-of-hexa-core-xeon
Thanks...
Wonder what Apple will do at the $2500 entry price point...will they use a single 6 core? Hope so...
An update, one year after the release of the '09's is likely to provide a lower price for equivalent performance and/or higher performance at the existing price points. So if you buy an '09 now, you might be depressed when you see that a short wait would have rewarded you with money saved, or higher performance.
Hopefully, the CTO options will also change, especially the graphics adapters, so that the base adapter will be better than the 120GT card, and a Radeon 5xxx will be available. Maybe an SSD option, too. The truly hopeful are predicting USB3.0.
In my opinion, all of these things are worth waiting for a few weeks.
Hopefully, the CTO options will also change, especially the graphics adapters, so that the base adapter will be better than the 120GT card, and a Radeon 5xxx will be available. Maybe an SSD option, too. The truly hopeful are predicting USB3.0.
In my opinion, all of these things are worth waiting for a few weeks.
After the new products are announced, there may be good deals available on the current stuff (new, not refurbished). E.g. an Apple store will probably be willing to knock a few hundred $$$s off the price just so they can clear out the old merchandise. They hate to have old stock around.
I can't imagine that the 6-core boxes will be cheaper than today's 4-core boxes. I'm willing to wager 1000 quatloos that the new stuff will be more expensive.
Maybe, but at the lower end, not so much. Most people who would end up with a "starter" MP barely benefit from a 4-core system, much less a 6-core one.
Sure, but all things that could be replaced in a current MP. Don't understand the hype about USB3.0, personally. Anything worth getting at the speeds they promise are already available with a firewire interface.
A common reasoning, I dunno how much water it holds, though.
How so?
Since Apple doesn't really upgrade their machines over the year, you really overpay for year old technology. I'd rather wait out the new one and least get my money's worth. Early benchmarks show decent performance increases, so I'd rather get more performance per dollar.
I hate to tell you, but you will hardly be "getting your money's worth" buying any recent base MP. Both the future profit margin and Apple's intentions have been blatantly exposed with the '09 models, and few think the '10's will be any different. Not only are they taking advantage of people in the hardware department, but the addition of more cores is only poised to boost performance in the rare multi-threaded application, while mostly everything else benefits from clock increases.
I understand what you're saying, but IF they're both the same price, I'd rather overpay for the new one.
You got me there
If you do decide to go for a new one when they come out, the least you can do is save a few hundred bucks by going the refurb route.
Yeah, I'm considering that. Depends how much cheaper it is...I was going to buy an 08, but those are still $2k+. I'd rather pay $2500 for a new one...this is a work machine, so I just want the most power I can get for around $2500.
Not going to happen. The hexacore (only available at 3.33Ghz at first) is going to be high end, probably a $1000 BTO option. If we're lucky we'll see some prices drop for the low end quads though. Other than the new processor I don't think there will be any dramatic changes.
No bluray, no USB3, no SSD boot drive (like the Xserve's). I'm just hoping we will at least see a ATI 5800 series graphics card.
The vast majority of users aiming for the low end of the MP line don't use applications that will utilize all 4 cores for any significant amount of time, much less 6.
Yeah, there may be performance increases, but if you look close, they're for "parallel tasks". Not a lot of non-scientific applications use parallel operations, so you end up with 4 under-utilized cores.
There's some benefit to be considered if the rumored i9's run at 50% of the power usage of the current Xeons, but the benchmarked additional performance increase in the 50% realm just won't apply to the entry level user.
For the folks building render farms and other such clustering workstation setups, it'll be a good deal, however. They won't be doing that with a $2400 machine, though.
I, for one, will be utilizing 12 cores. Although the workflow ain't bad on an MBP with 4K Red, it's not nearly as easy, fluid, and fast, and it's difficult to sell myself as an editor with my own post options with only a 15" MPB. I need as many cores and gigabytes of RAM that a machine can offer, because Red is serious heavy lifting.
I think there's two routes they could go with the 2010...
1. Simply add the 6-Core processor as a BTO option to the existing lineup... (both quads and octos) effectively pricing it out of the stratosphere.
2. Revamp the entire lineup so that the base model is a $2500 6-Core and the dual proc is a 12-core beast.
Obviously the first option serves a broader range of performance/price ratios with a higher margin top-of-the-line offering while the second one provides the most value to the customer. I don't think it's difficult to bet on what Apple will do.
I still dream that they might offer a firmware update to 2009 Mac Pro's that will allow us to upgrade the processors ourselves (I can dream!).
1. Simply add the 6-Core processor as a BTO option to the existing lineup... (both quads and octos) effectively pricing it out of the stratosphere.
2. Revamp the entire lineup so that the base model is a $2500 6-Core and the dual proc is a 12-core beast.
Obviously the first option serves a broader range of performance/price ratios with a higher margin top-of-the-line offering while the second one provides the most value to the customer. I don't think it's difficult to bet on what Apple will do.
I still dream that they might offer a firmware update to 2009 Mac Pro's that will allow us to upgrade the processors ourselves (I can dream!).
I think there's two routes they could go with the 2010...
1. Simply add the 6-Core processor as a BTO option to the existing lineup... (both quads and octos) effectively pricing it out of the stratosphere.
2. Revamp the entire lineup so that the base model is a $2500 6-Core and the dual proc is a 12-core beast.
Obviously the first option serves a broader range of performance/price ratios with a higher margin top-of-the-line offering while the second one provides the most value to the customer. I don't think it's difficult to bet on what Apple will do.
I still dream that they might offer a firmware update to 2009 Mac Pro's that will allow us to upgrade the processors ourselves (I can dream!).
1. doesn't work exactly because of the options available.
On the single socket side the Xeon W3590 will become redundant as it has the same price of the 32nm 6 core version coming. The 2.66GHz W3520 (and Core-i7 920) is set to be replaced by a 2.8GHz version and the 2.93GHz option has already been replaced by a 3.2GHz version. On the dual socket side, the leaked processor details indicate that Xeon 5600s will replace 5500s. So just on future supply we should see small changes.
They could of course move back to dual socket systems as standard, especially now the iMac is more powerful.
this has ben posted here before and it makes some sense:
a) a dual quad (8 core)
b) a dual hexa (12 core)
that keeps the mac pro away from the imac..
perhaps with a higher starting price
it seems logic, but dus apple care? i don't see apple as something logic
i'd still go for a new mac pro even if it's quad core
a) where i life their aren't refurbs
b) almost no second hand 2008s which i can grab&test before making the deal
c) come on, paying the full (ok slightly less now) price now for a 2009MP ?!?!?
a) a dual quad (8 core)
b) a dual hexa (12 core)
that keeps the mac pro away from the imac..
perhaps with a higher starting price
it seems logic, but dus apple care? i don't see apple as something logic
i'd still go for a new mac pro even if it's quad core
a) where i life their aren't refurbs
b) almost no second hand 2008s which i can grab&test before making the deal
c) come on, paying the full (ok slightly less now) price now for a 2009MP ?!?!?
Not sure your equating of the entry level machine to entry level user is accurate. I'll use every drop of those processors, but my budget allows for a $2500 machine, simple as that. If I bought the dual cpu machine I'd use all of that too, but I don't want to spend that kind of money.
I think there's two routes they could go with the 2010...
1. Simply add the 6-Core processor as a BTO option to the existing lineup... (both quads and octos) effectively pricing it out of the stratosphere.
2. Revamp the entire lineup so that the base model is a $2500 6-Core and the dual proc is a 12-core beast.
Obviously the first option serves a broader range of performance/price ratios with a higher margin top-of-the-line offering while the second one provides the most value to the customer. I don't think it's difficult to bet on what Apple will do.
I still dream that they might offer a firmware update to 2009 Mac Pro's that will allow us to upgrade the processors ourselves (I can dream!).
I'll be kinda bummed if all they do is add a top of the line BTO option. I'd at least like a speed bump on the $2500 price point...
this has ben posted here before and it makes some sense:
a) a dual quad (8 core)
b) a dual hexa (12 core)
that keeps the mac pro away from the imac..
perhaps with a higher starting price
it seems logic, but dus apple care? i don't see apple as something logic
i'd still go for a new mac pro even if it's quad core
a) where i life their aren't refurbs
b) almost no second hand 2008s which i can grab&test before making the deal
c) come on, paying the full (ok slightly less now) price now for a 2009MP ?!?!?
I'd be happy if the $2500 machine got me an 8 core dual. Certainly a better deal than the current 09 machine...