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Apple Begins Showing Mac Pro Teaser in Movie Theaters with 'Fall 2013' Announcement

tripleg said:
Let's hope the TB external expansion units offer low RPM silent fans as well. Still waiting for a RAID unit that doesn't have cheap noisy cooling fans.
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lol a unit sold by a mac vendor for 3x what the one that looks suspiciously familiar on alibaba from a random generic taiwanese company right?
 
donutbagel said:
Wait what? It's showing as a teaser in movie theaters... as in you go to watch Star Trek, and you see this before along with the ads for new movies? That's really weird.
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Well, maybe not… I mean, people who go to theatres to see films are enthusiastic enough to get out of the house, and also willing to pay for a ticket. They want a better experience than they would get from a downloaded file, and they obviously care about the quality of that experience. It kinda makes sense, in a weird sorta way...
 
apull said:
funniest thing i ever heard--i hope you're not serious. apple does not drop prices on new models when they're such an upgrade over previous models. considering that the current single-processor mac pro starts at $2500, with a consumer-level video card, there is NO WAY this will start at less than $2k.

if apple saves money by not buying fans for graphics cards, that's like $2 per machine. they'll chalk that up to higher margins.

I'd be surprised if it started at less than 3k.
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I doubt it will be that high. The trend at Apple right now seems to be to reduce the cost of entry to their pro line (i.e., price reductions of Logic and Final Cut). And I think these machines might be much cheaper to manufacture than the old Mac Pro, which must have been a bit of a beast to build. There's a considerable reduction in raw materials and weight (shipping -- to Apple, not the customer), too. Mind you, US build means higher manufacturing costs, I'd guess. Mind you, there can't be all that much manufacturing involved, to be honest. So... I'm totally stumped on what the entry-level price will be, but from a historical perspective I do doubt it will be less that $2500.

I'm curious also about what kinds of multi-processing features we might see. There was talk at one point about opening up GCD to allow a single approach for accessing all processors, including GPUs, without the need for custom code (i.e., OpenCL). Something like that could be a huge factor. The other thing I'm curious about is distributed processing. This seems like an obvious direction for the new Mac Pro, which is basically just a bunch of processors in a tube. For example, what if we could plug our Macbook Pro into it, via TB, and get an extra 12 cores, auto configured, for heavy processing tasks (and beefed up video)? That would be cool, and it would kinda make sense.
 
jclardy said:
Still doesn't make sense if they have dual firepro cards in every machine (Suspected to be the W9000 which run at $3k each.
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Whoa. Seriously? $3k? I just.. wow. Doing some fast and unreliable math:

Graphics:
AMD FirePro 9000 6GB VRAM ~$1500/per, ~$3000

Processor(s) - Single 12-Core Intel Xeon E5 v2* (les powerful processors may be available):

  • Xeon E5-2680 v2 – $1,944
  • Xeon E5-2667 v2 – $2,321
  • Xeon E5-2687W v2 – $2,414
  • Xeon E5-2690 v2 – $2,356
  • Xeon E5-2695 v2 - $2675**
  • Xeon E5-2697 v2 – $2,950

Memory***:
E5's may support quad-channel DDR3-1866, 2133, 2400, 3200

64GB Configuration (16GBx4):

Crucial $179 per DIMM, $716 64GB
Hynix $140 per DIMM (used) $560 64GB

PCIe Flash based 1250MB/s Storage:

OCZ PCIe 480GB ~$1500

High End BTO:
  • $3000 Graphics
  • $2950 Xeon E5-2697 v2 Processor
  • $716 64GB DDR3 1866MHz RAM
  • $1500 PCIe 480 SSD

Total: $8166

Entry Level BTO:
  • $3000 Graphics
  • $1944 Xeon E5-2680 v2
  • $140 [used] 16GB DDR3-1866
  • $700 PCIe 128GB SSD

Total $5784

Assuming these prices are even close to retail, it seems very unlikely the 2013 Mac Pro will be under $5000.

RAM sources:

*Mac Pro Price: Expect an Incredibly Expensive Device

**Xeon E5-2600 V2 Price List: Server Ivy Bridge-EP

***OS X Mavericks due out this fall is stated to support 128GB memory.
"assuming Mavericks fixes the OS X memory addressing bugs in Mountain Lion, a 4/6-core Mac Pro will be able to go to 64GB instead of 48GB as today, and a 12-core from 96GB to 128GB."
 
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lol here come Macrumors own foremost experts in the field of trashcan design and advertising specialist to comment
 
bedifferent said:
Whoa. Seriously? $3k? I just.. wow. Doing some fast and unreliable math
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My prediction remains $3500 for the low-end if Apple can get aggressive pricing from Intel and AMD. I'm assuming there will be two retail configs with zero CPU overlap for differentiation.

6-core Xeon E5-2630 v2 (CTO: 8-core Xeon E5-2650 v2)
2x AMD Fire Pro W7000 (CTO: W8000, W9000)
8GB RAM / 512GB SSD
$3499

10-core Xeon E5-2680 v2 (CTO: 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2)
2x Fire Pro W7000 (CTO: W8000, W9000)
16 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD
$5499

Retail PCIe SSDs are subject to price gouging because it is a niche upgrade. ODM markets are different and I assume pricing will actually be lower than Apple has traditionally offered CTO.

It is very unlikely that either retail SKU comes with FirePro W9000s as standard components.
 
Maybe a REAL Reason...

…is that Apple's TV project is going to release an Apple TV/Gaming box that picks up a lot of those Mac Pro visual cues. Depending on the movie, I'd think that some movies would present Apple with EXACTLY the target market for any such device.
 
Up to 12 cores....
Quad-Core - $2499 - dual W5000
Octo-Core - $3799 - dual W7000
Twelve Core - $5499 - dual W7000 with option for dual W8000 ($6799) or W9000 ($8499)
 
swagi said:
Completely off topic but I hate reading this fanboy myth over and over again. No, Apple does not have >100 billion $ in their cash reserve. So please stop that myth of that giant cash reserve. Apple does have the money but they can't use it - because they resist paying taxes for it.
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You are sitting in the wrong Economics 101 class. And you cannot read a balance sheet or a 10-Q filing. And you directly contradict yourself in your own posting.

Cash is cash, whether it is in your left pocket or right pocket.

And if Apple chooses to keep it offshore, that is fine with me. They are in no way obligated to do anything else with it. If the United States (and people like you) would have a better understanding how businesses actually work, perhaps Apple and many other companies would not refuse to repatriate their money. But as long as the US wants to abuse corporations, I say avoid the abuse.

And Apple can borrow dollar for dollar against their cash hoard, anytime they want. They just did. Makes better financial sense than dropping a third of it into the trash can of Federal spending.

As a shareholder I am fine with that. I guess if I had my hand out waiting for someone to fill it, I'd have a different opinion.
 
newdeal said:
why would they advertise in movie theaters for what will likely be a $5000 desktop computer? They need to be targeting people who need these machines not the general public
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I actually think its a wonderful idea. Seeing the Mac pro is very appealing to filmmakers, and they obviously go see a ton of movies!
 
Going to get 4 of these suckers and daisy chain them for photo stitch rendering and 4k production rendering. The speed in these is definitely going to be where it counts. GPUs and PCIE SSDs.
 
I don't get it.

I've never heard a pro user say, "Damn it! I wish I had a round computer!" or "I wish my computer was a glossy black trashcan!"

We want speed, value, performance.

This is tech pR0n.
 
Aidyn's X said:
Link? (Please don't link to Star Trek transparent aluminum clip)
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CTM, I was wondering the same thing. A transparent-case Mac Pro cylinder would look really cool. I can imagine the ads now, Scotty typing the formula onto a Macintosh Plus, then a "27 years later" text, then a transparent aluminum Mac Pro.

Being serious, this is it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride
"When formed and polished as a window, the material costs from US$10 to US$15 per cm2 (~ US$20,000/m2) for instrument windows 2mm to 5mm thick in large volume (Costs checked 2012)."

And I was serious about it looking really cool on a Mac Pro.
 
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hrana said:
...EDIT: Since everyone here is an "expert," I figured I'd post pics of my self-built Xeon E5-1660 with 128GB of RAM and 72TB of storage. Eagle-eyed reader will see my Dell M6700 workstation laptop with Core i7-3940XM, 32GB of RAM, 17.3" IPS screen, nVidia Quadro K5000M 4GB GPU, and >3TB of internal storage (and another 24TB in external HDDs). I am the target demographic for the Mac Pro but I won't be buying one.
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Your self-assembled PCs show you are definitely NOT the target demographic for the new Mac Pro.

Also, you left USB 3 out of your analysis of connectivity options. You aren't exactly coming across as a credible expert here.
 
I found some concept art for a transparent-case Mac Pro. Looks amazing!

Mac-Pro-glass-concept-1.jpg
 
The new Mac Pro ad is simply an ad for the new Mac Pro. Like most ads there is an element of emotional gratification(power, coolness, the next great thing) vs practicality but the ads purpose is to sell the product in the ad.
 
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