Apple Allowed Developers to Test a Prerelease Mac Pro Hidden Inside a Metal Box

[haravikk]

I agree with the need for a low-end Mac Pro with regular desktop parts; don't get me wrong, the iMacs are great machines with solid performance, but if you already have one or more monitors that you're happy with then why would you want to pay the overhead of an all-in-one? The iMac screens are nice and all, but not when they're just significant extra cost you don't need.

A Mac Pro variation with desktop parts, maybe swapping some Thunderbolt ports for a built-in USB hub (since the target market would be more likely to stick with USB 3 as good enough), and less high-end GPUs could be pretty sweet. Give it less of a glossy look so it looks very different from the Pro version, maybe even just call it the "Mac" and you could fill a niché that the Mac Pro just doesn't cover right now.

I mean, the Mac Mini is a great little computer, and actually very capable for things like programming (though I really do prefer as many cores as I can get), but its graphics capabilities are terrible. But then an iMac is a big screen with a computer built around it; if you don't need the screen then it's a terrible option, and only brings you up to Mac Pro prices anyway, this is why a headless iMac spec machine really is needed. Apple should avoid an all new case to keep costs down, but right now for people that fall into the middle the Mac lineup has zero options, which only drives people toward hackintoshes or ditching Mac entirely.

 

[Lesser Evets]

$2000 would be a revelation, but I don't think so. $2500 would be nice, but my wild guess is that we'll see the entry level it creep up to $2799.

I want to be wrong.

I think most people are hoping for a low-priced machine due to a reduced size. This is a big problem. Don't be surprised if the trend reverses and you will see this Mac emerge with a starting price of $2999 or more; that price will be for the neutered model. A true powerhouse version will be $3999 and there will probably be an extreme version for $5999.

If this machine starts at $1999 we are lucky. It will take another $1000 for a drive enclosure to sit outside the Pro, so add $1000 to an average new Pro purchase just to complete the machine.

 

[champ01]

This is a great design, which will be accompanied with a great price tag.

But the average consumer does not need Xeon's and dual workstation class GPU's. Way too many "developers" are going to buy this but people making iOS apps do not need a 12 core Xeon CPU to do the trick.

I am tired of Apple missing a market segment to build a "high-performing" consumer level desktop WITHOUT an integrated display. A lot of people think they are "pro" but they are deluded by Apple's marketing and the lack of a upper-middle tier desktop option. Apple just wants to funnel developers into an expensive desktop product.

Apple needs to come out with the "Mac", period. Not iMac, not Mac Mini, not Mac Pro, but a consumer level "high-end" desktop. And I don't want a laptop with "near" desktop performance.

Make a grey version of this using desktop Haswell CPU's, and the option to have one or two GPU's.

Fine, it will steal market away from the "pro" consumers, but it will INCREASE market presence overall. Now that services like Steam are no longer bound to PC gaming Apple is just ignoring the importance of not offering a desktop in this class without the Mini or "i" monikers.

Why not? It just makes sense. Do it now!

It doesn't make sense at all.

The Mini, iMac are consumer Macs.
And your post got 21 likes. Why don't you all share the braincells maybe it can evolve to some reasonable thinking.

De new Mac Pro is the consumer Mac Mini of 2015 but it got here a little early.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Can I drive my flying car to the store to buy this PCIE chassis? You do realize that as of today there is no such thing for OSX, yes? Lots of Kool Aid mixed with Unicorn Poop going round right now.

Reality: To add a single card, a card I have to use, I have to buy some complicated 'chassis' and plug it in to the sexy looking computer, and hope that OS X recognizes the device, hope that the card fits, hope that the cables are long enough, hope that they aren't too long and become disconnected by accident, and hope that the cables don't start picking up Radio Moscow and the whole EXPENSIVE endeavor doesn't turn to crap.

Still, to me, this is a major shortcoming of the new Mac Pro. Look at the new Airport Extreme. It's TALL. Why? It has a drive cage inside. A drive cage YOU CAN NEVER USE. How hard would it have been to have even ONE card slot in the new Mac Pro? I'm thinking pretty damned easy. IF you could pry the 'we are an island' flashback from the developer's minds.

For me, it has too few memory slots, and no expansion slots. It's a very sexy island. Possibly a very fast sexy island, but... I'm happy Apple likes their new computer. And they should. It's incredible looking, but it's 'the rest of us' that have to try to work within the constraints of that new box.

I imagine, once they are available, a PCIE chassis is not going to be very inexpensive... And dumping that task on third party companies is pretty cheeky...

 

[winston1236]

The MacBucket Pro will take some getting used to. Maybe there's an add-on market for that steel box the developers used?

Is that your troll face?

 

[blitzer09x87]

i really love the new mac pro, i hope it's not too expensive.
would love to buy one if it's up to my mark.

 

[Swordylove]

Haha... "blind tasting"... I like that

Anyone want to bet some enterprising person already has some stickers in the works?

"This is my computer, NOT a trash can!"

Some one is SURELY already planning on a trash can parody video using an actual Mac Pro to post on YouTube. I know I would if I had way too much money.

 

[runeapple]

This crying about the mac pro is just ridiculous.

If you are a "pro" in sense you are an professional programmer, any of the macs can do the job just fine. Which iphone developer need a mac pro? none.

And when its going to expandability. The new Mac Pro does you a favor.

Dropping PCI cards shifts everything to Thunderbolt. And like we all know Thunderbolt support right now isnt the best. Now the Hardware manufacturers have to deal with Thunderbolt, because no OSX user can now use their PCI cards.

This helps everyone, especially everyone who doesnt need a mac pro. Just take Pro Tools. For big system you always needed the the cards. Now you take your cards in some 3rd party case or Avid is going to make more Thunderbolt devices which can be used with a Mac Pro, a Mac Mini Macbook.. you call it. Isnt that what everyone wanted with Thunderbolt?

Would a somewhat disagree - my retina MacBook Pro chunks with large application compiling, some light browsing (perhaps 30 tabs open) and some light photoshopping (maybe 40 small icons being developed) - the whole system becomes very laggy, jerky and nearly all my 16GB of ram is used. Pretty sure it's down to ML's poor memory management but we'll see with Mavericks - I haven't plucked the courage to install it on my retina yet.

So basically we shouldn't need a Mac Pro, but the current solutions aren't that great at performing.

 

[davida1]

Pricing

What will the Mac Tube Pro cost? We can take an educated guess, at least for the top configuration that has been demoed.

GPUs: Two workstation FirePro GPUs with 6GB GDDR5 DRAM each: This should be the FirePro W9000, which retails for $3200-$3400. Don't expect Apple to sell anything cheaper than competitors, it just doesn't happen.

Base machine: closest comparison is the current Mac Pro, which is $3799 for a 12-core two-chip Xeon configuration.

Adjustments, based on current prices for these items for a custom configuration at the Apple store: remove the non-pro GPU (-$250), replace the 1TB mechanical HD with a 512GB SSD ($+600 Apple store), remove optical drive ($-100 Apple store).

Adjustment, guess: replace the two 6-core Xeons with a single 12-core Xeon ($-400?)

Total: $10,449.00

Expansion: Now add the external Thunderbolt drive chassis to make up for the lost drive slots, external optical drive (I'd choose a Blu-Ray burner), 2 or 3 monitors.

As for expansion, you've used 3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports for the above expansion, so you have 2 to 3 left. Thunderbolt 2.0 is 4x PCIe lanes, so that leaves 8 to 12 PCIe lanes left.

 

[shaunp]

It doesn't make sense at all.

The Mini, iMac are consumer Macs.
And your post got 21 likes. Why don't you all share the braincells maybe it can evolve to some reasonable thinking.

De new Mac Pro is the consumer Mac Mini of 2015 but it got here a little early.

what's difficult to get? The mac mini has terrible graphics options, we don't want an iMac and the Pro is too expensive. There are no other options. All many people want is a middle of the road stand alone Mac with decent graphics.

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And is that a market that Apple is interested in supplying? At the moment they are shipping small numbers ( but increasing ) of units into the PC market, but make a higher margin on what they sell.

If they start selling the xMac, then margins will drop as will be competing with regular box shifters and the DIY markets where margins are lower.

Is the same in the phone market, look at the numbers of units sold as a percentage of the market, and then look at the percentage of profits in that market they make.

Apple simply has no need (currently) to enter a higher volume, lower margin market area.

Instead they know there target audience ( target as defined by Apple, not by users of the computers ) and aim to serve up a product for that audience.

Who said they have to compete with other box shifters as such. I would be willing to pay over the odds for an i7 Mac with decent graphics that's not an iMac. I built a desktop PC for under £1000 and yes it's fast, quiet, etc, but it's a PC not a Mac. I would happily pay £1500-1800 for the equivalent Mac, but such a product doesn't exist.

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This turned into an xMac thread. For those who haven't heard the word before it refers to the mystical headless expandable affordable Mac which geeks really want but Apple never make. The word has been around for over a decade which explains why we get so many of these threads and the same point comes up over and over again.

For a quick primer, here's John Siracusa at Arstechnica writing nearly in 2005 what the commotion is about, and why he doesn't think Apple will make one even though he wants one: http://arstechnica.com/staff/2005/10/1676/

Having said all that, I wouldn't mind seeing a cheaper, less powerful version of the new Mac Pro, especially with a decent GPU.

It keeps coming up because the apple desktop range is too narrow.

 

[cmanderson]

I'm going to put Apple out of business?

If Apple doesn't make products consumers want, and they do this for a large enough percentage of potential customers that it keeps them from staying in business, whose fault is it? I think you've forgotten what running a business is about.

I never said I would be adverse to paying for a copy of OSX to run on hardware elsewhere. But I'm not going to pay for boutique-design computer hardware if it doesn't have the features I want. I think the new Mac Pro is pretty cool honestly, but there's this small issue where I buy PCs to use, not to look pretty on a white glass-top desk. Apple didn't have to do things like this. I know folks used to complain about the size of the old Mac Pro, but we seem to have gone too far the other direction. Apple could have made something of similar aesthetic design but made it 1/4 the size of the old tower or even 1/2 -- instead of 1/8. Then, they could have used the extra room to add space for internal expandability.

Apple could also offer the Mac Pro in the size it is right now with consumer graphics cards and have a real nice designer gamer machine. A machine that comes with a linked graphics card setup from the factory would certainly find a market on a platform that at this point is completely missing a gamer-oriented machine (the kind of niche the xMac would also fit).

You don't understand sarcasm? You know what, just never mind.

 

[bill001]

I think the price is going to be completely dependent on Intel...if they're charging $1500 per cpu x 2 then the computer is going to be $5000+, but if Intel helps us out then hopefully it'll be less. I guess its economy of scale, if they choose to sell a lot for less or less for more! We'll see.

 

[nep61]

Is hiding the NEW Mac Pro in a GIANT metal box what they would call doubling down on security? Hmmm, glad to hear the new Mac Pro is snappier too.

 

[deconstruct60]

Y
One game that Apple is playing with the new Pro is to drive the uptake of Thunderbolt.

Which isn't working so hot since first TB Macs started showing up in 2011. It is 2013. Apple can't drive the whole PC market by themselves. If the other large system vendors don't also jump on board, then it is not going to drive the overall market.

Remember the iMac? Every recent PC had USB on the motherboard alongside all the legacy ports, but there were no devices and Windows didn't really support it. Then the iMac launches, dropping ADB, Localtalk, RS232 etc. in favour of USB, and a few months later the shops are full of USB printers, modems, hubs, all resplendent in translucent Bondai blue.

Largely overblown. Apple wasn't the first system vendor to ship with USB sockets. The other large system vendors were doing it also, just without nuking the legacy slots.

Second, Apple came in iterative refinement of USB; 1.1. USB 1.0 was problematical in that different implementations were not so compatible. USB validation and certification process was not very mature or well though out. Version 1.1 cured that. That's was a principle cause in system vendors not dabbling in USB anymore and

So Apple had the right timing to jump in. That in no way means they solely drove the USB 1.1 initial adoption rate. The bondi blue stuff was manly another cheap way of selling what had already had developed in a different color. Yeah there were folks who needed sell second, third iterations on what they had already developed on the cheap.

The question is, what kind of deal have they done with Intel and AMD on those workstation-class parts, and how much will they sell it for?

What deal? entry level workstation-class parts largely overlap with high end "mainstream desktop" parts. It the same prices. Unless apple is trying to push down into the low-mide range Core i5 or into the Core i3 space there is really little to no difference in bill-of-materials costs.

 

[davida1]

I think the price is going to be completely dependent on Intel...if they're charging $1500 per cpu x 2 then the computer is going to be $5000+, but if Intel helps us out then hopefully it'll be less. I guess its economy of scale, if they choose to sell a lot for less or less for more! We'll see.

Keep in mind that my estimated calculation was based on a current Mac Pro at $3799 for a pair of 6-core 2.20 Ghz processors. The higher-end 3.06 Ghz processor option adds $2400. If the demo Mac Tube Pro also used a higher-speed processor, and the price increment was the same, then:

Total price: $12,849.00

Note: Just to be clear, the Mac Tube is not a two-socket system. This can be confirmed based on pictures and the type of RAM, and the fact that there are only 4 memory sockets.

 

[SeaFox]

And is that a market that Apple is interested in supplying? At the moment they are shipping small numbers ( but increasing ) of units into the PC market, but make a higher margin on what they sell.

If they start selling the xMac, then margins will drop as will be competing with regular box shifters and the DIY markets where margins are lower.

Margins will only drop if they start trying to compete on price. Apple still has the fact they are the ones selling computers that will run OSX fully supported and no with odd software hacks required going for them.

Apple simply has no need (currently) to enter a higher volume, lower margin market area.

I know you're talking about the xMac here, but did you see my post earlier about outfitting the new Mac Pro for gamers by simply swapping the pro graphics cards for crossfire-linked performance gaming graphics cards? You know who likes to spend lots of money for comparitively modest performance gains? Gamers. That would open a new market for the Mac Pro with 90% of the work already done for Apple. It would just be setting up a new machine configuration with different graphics. Hey, they could make it a BTO option so they only have to fulfill based on demand. They can keep their high margins on a machine like that by appealing to the segment as Alienware.

Instead they know there target audience ( target as defined by Apple, not by users of the computers ) and aim to serve up a product for that audience.

In other words, Apple doesn't care about us or want our money.
I'll remember that next time they get upset about people making Hackintoshes.

 

[Pompiliu]

I don't need it, but i'll buy one. Can't wait!

 

[69650]

Netbook market entrance, Apple never made a netbook. A tablet does not replace any type of latop, MacBook Air included.

Whether it does or not, the iPad is Apple's solution for the sub $1000 segment of the portable computer market. Instead of making a cheaper computer they made a different computer. If you don't believe me go listen to Steve announcing the iPad back in 2010.

I would also totally disagree with you that a tablet does not replace any type of laptop. The iPad has just about killed off the netbook market.

 

[69650]

What will the Mac Tube Pro cost? We can take an educated guess, at least for the top configuration that has been demoed.

GPUs: Two workstation FirePro GPUs with 6GB GDDR5 DRAM each: This should be the FirePro W9000, which retails for $3200-$3400. Don't expect Apple to sell anything cheaper than competitors, it just doesn't happen.

Base machine: closest comparison is the current Mac Pro, which is $3799 for a 12-core two-chip Xeon configuration.

Adjustments, based on current prices for these items for a custom configuration at the Apple store: remove the non-pro GPU (-$250), replace the 1TB mechanical HD with a 512GB SSD ($+600 Apple store), remove optical drive ($-100 Apple store).

Adjustment, guess: replace the two 6-core Xeons with a single 12-core Xeon ($-400?)

Total: $10,449.00

Expansion: Now add the external Thunderbolt drive chassis to make up for the lost drive slots, external optical drive (I'd choose a Blu-Ray burner), 2 or 3 monitors.

As for expansion, you've used 3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports for the above expansion, so you have 2 to 3 left. Thunderbolt 2.0 is 4x PCIe lanes, so that leaves 8 to 12 PCIe lanes left.

They are not going to treble the price. Your maths are all wrong.

Using your calculations above:
3799
-250
+600
-100
-400
= 3649

Which is not that far off the $3999 people are predicting.

Even allowing for added extras:
Apple's own Superdrive only costs $80
I bought a WD 2TB portable hard drive for £150 (about $220) recently

By calling it the "Mac Tube Pro" you give away your disdain for Apple products, which presumably is why you are trying to scaremonger here.

 

[cgk.emu]

Again, if the GPU is important, get a Mac Pro. It has the 2 fastest GPUs they can possibly get.

You either need a fast GPU, or you don't need a GPU. There really is no application for a mid-level GPU.

Can you name a use-model for a mid-range GPU? (and macs aren't used for games.. if you wanted games, you would have gotten a PC)

...I have a Mac Pro. An early 2009 with a 5870 I use for video editing, and gaming in Boot Camp. So, what's your point??

----------

So are condescending posts. Lighten up.

How was that condescending? I'm seriously just saying that it was unoriginal after the first person thought it was clever.

 

[Byrnes3969]

I would have preferred the plain metal box rather than the shaft design Jony came up with. I also predicted $2999 and $3999 and a new display will be forthcoming as well.

 

[cwkoller5]

Seems like the old Bose demos

Recall a number of electronics shows where they'd have you experience big, loud and clear speakers, then remove the "shell" to reveal tiny little Bose speakers. I'm open to rethinking the form factor of a "pro" computer. I just want to make sure that Apple and its third-party providers are ready to meet the demands of professional users at launch.

And it would be nice to see the same incremental $/speed & feature improvements in the iMac and laptop line make their way to the Mac Pro. I realize those Xeons are probably the most expensive part of the machine but a compelling price would take the sting away from having to add outboard DVD, drives and specialty PCIe (e.g, AVID) cards via external chassis.

Wish them luck.

 

[Macist]

I run a hackintosh in addition to a Mac Book Pro.

It works well. Some head scratching at first with things like getting sleep to function normally and you have to be careful with OS updates but now it's 99.99% like using a Mac. Fast i7, 16GB 1600mhz RAM, OS on an SSD and mounted in a 19" rack case. And it didn't cost all that much.

I'd have much preferred a Mac, and will continue with the laptops, but Apple just wouldn't give me what I want in a desktop.

 

[tevion5]

Whether it does or not, the iPad is Apple's solution for the sub $1000 segment of the portable computer market. Instead of making a cheaper computer they made a different computer. If you don't believe me go listen to Steve announcing the iPad back in 2010.

I would also totally disagree with you that a tablet does not replace any type of laptop. The iPad has just about killed off the netbook market.

The entire industry has moved in that direction Apple included. Sub 500 laptops or netbooks have been widely replaced by tablets. 500+ have remained strong sellers eg. Sony VIAO and Acer laptops.

I speak of laptops and netbooks as different devices. Tablets never effected laptop sales, but did impact greatly on netbook sales.

 

[davida1]

They are not going to treble the price. Your maths are all wrong.

Using your calculations above:
3799
-250
+600
-100
-400
= 3649

Which is not that far off the $3999 people are predicting.

Even allowing for added extras:
Apple's own Superdrive only costs $80
I bought a WD 2TB portable hard drive for £150 (about $220) recently

By calling it the "Mac Tube Pro" you give away your disdain for Apple products, which presumably is why you are trying to scaremonger here.

No, your math is wrong. You forgot to add the pair of FirePro W9000 GPUs with 6GB each GDDR5 memory. I got the superdrive price from the option of a second superdrive from the Apple store.

I'm calling it Mac Tube Pro to easily distinguish it from a Mac Pro.