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Apple Offers Developers a Closer Look at the New Mac Pro

They promote the new Mac Pro as having a quad channel memory controller, but Ivy Bridge E actually has a 4-channel memory controller per CPU so in a dual-CPU configuration there should actually by 8 memory channels. From the pictures and descriptions there might only be 4 memory slots in the whole system which means you're only getting half the potential memory bandwidth that the processors could provide which is disappointing.

EDIT: Ivy Bridge E is available in a configuration with 12 cores in a single CPU so the Mac Pro is a single processor system and my above comment is incorrect.
 
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OrangeSVTguy said:
It's nothing more than a mini on steroids. I'd rather have a bigger Mac with space for upgrades.
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ArtMooney said:
I need expandability, not a table cluttered in expensive cables that don't plug into anything. I don't need a smaller, lighter stationary computer. I need more places to put hard drives, video cards and ram as I can afford it. I need a disk drive.
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In the space that it took me to compose what i was gonna say, everyone said it before me. High five?
 
vertgo said:
It's a beautiful case and a beautiful machine, but saying "all exandability will be external" is really unfortunate.

I have had my mac pro for 5 years, i've swapped out video cards, slapped new hard drives and SSD's into it. It's a beast, but i can code for scientific computing with the cuda enabled cards i've put in there, I started off with less ram and added more as I needed it and it got cheaper.

This to me is like a mac mini on steroids. You can add peripherals to it via thunderbolt, it has a very powerful gpu (Ati so no CUDA, just openCL) No space for hard drives. Direct PCI access of the SSD's. It's gorgeous and in no way what I think a mac pro is. In 2 years when the GPU's are average to obsolete, you seem stuck there (I'd love it if I was wrong and you could upgrade, please say so).

I think it's pretty, i'd love to look at it, but I will probably be replacing my mac pro with a mac mini if this is all there is to it.

And sure, it's smaller and neater looking, but when you add all the hard drives back in through thunderbolt ports, it's going to be looking a lot messier than just getting a single mac pro tower.

ALTHOUGH if apple came out with a larger station for all those things and you can just drop this tube into it as a computing core, it would LITERALLY BLOW MY MIND. It would literally blow my mind so much I wouldn't even be able to use the word "literally" correctly.
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It comes down to this - if you CAN replace your Mac Pro with a Mac Mini, you probably should, and then this isn't the Mac Pro for you. Perhaps the Mac Pro isn't for you. It's as simple as that, really. The graphics in a Mac Mini won't come anywhere near the vicinity of what the next Mac Pro will be able to accomplish. 3x Workstation Class 4K monitors (not 4K theatre display, that's a different spec). Try that on a Mac Mini.
 
Where's my optical drive!?
I'm loving the new design, but removing pro-required features from the pro machine ? I'm not convinced.
I don't want a fragmented workspace, I prefer everything together in one unit.
 
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ArtMooney said:
Look! It's the Mac Pro X! Just what everyone wanted - a smaller, lighter stationary computer that is only expandable via an expensive cable that no one supports.

We need tools, not shiny cases. I need expandability, not a table cluttered in expensive cables that don't plug into anything. I don't need a smaller, lighter stationary computer. I need more places to put hard drives, video cards and ram as I can afford it. I need a disk drive. Apple is killing me. For what I needed, wanted and waited patiently for so long for - I got not one single thing I can use. I understand trying to be innovative if they've found a new way to make an old tool better - but changing things we've all come to know, love and need into something useless and unrecognizable just for the sake of change is exasperating (see; Final Cut X). Sure, it's pretty. It'll look great under a table every time I accidentally kick it or get my foot tangled up in one of the 20 cables laying in a rat's nest next to it. Looking forward to the clutter of hard drive caddies, a RedRocket card enclosure, the bare LG BluRay writer tethered via a USB cable, the adapter array full of FireWire ports to access cameras and drives containing legacy projects…oh, wait, never mind. It also just occurred to me - how am I going to mount that thing in a rack??? How is any of this going to attach to shared storage when I'm gonna have to wait 2 years for a 3rd party to invent an impossibly expensive Fibre channel adapter? Seriously, does anyone there actually use these products when they're designing them or listen to customers - or do they look at the suggestion cards and do the opposite???

Not that any of this really matters because without a working version of Final Cut, I don't need one anyway. So, thanks for saving me a bunch of money I guess? 3 - 4K monitors. For who??? The high school students using FCPX won't be able to afford it, nor will they need that much real-estate to edit YouTube videos.

God help Apple this is a disaster. They do know 'Pro' is short for 'professional' right?

I'm so depressed. I waited for 5 years to get nothing I can use or wanted.
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Ya, it fails on so many levels. Really glad I bought my 3.06 12 core.
 
commander.data said:
They promote the new Mac Pro as having a quad channel memory controller, but Ivy Bridge E actually has a 4-channel memory controller per CPU so in a dual-CPU configuration there should actually by 8 memory channels. From the pictures and descriptions there might only be 4 memory slots in the whole system which means you're only getting half the potential memory bandwidth that the processors could provide which is disappointing.
Click to expand...
Ouch, so it is dual processor. That is 8 channels and 80 PCIe 3.0 lanes. All that trapped inside of Apple's cage.
 
DanTheAppleMan said:
Where's my optical drive!?
I'm loving the new design, but removing pro-required features from the pro machine ? I'm not convinced.
Click to expand...

It's the epitomy of a Central Processing Unit (CPU)...nothing more. It's a nice modular design with as much connectivity as most users could require now and for the foreseeable future.
 
ChristianJapan said:
It's for sure a designer piece
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Yes it is, but not from Johnny Ive.

Johnny (as with everything else he ever did) just took it from Dieter Rahms.

braun_kf_20-785x490.jpg
 
This thing looks like something off of Star Wars!
 
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Wow

I was not in the market for a MacPro UNTIL I SAW THIS!!! Wow, Just Wow!!!

It certainly is radical and innovative. Let's hope that it ends up being as good as it looks. R.I.P. boring old tower design...you won't be missed!!!

P.S. SamSung or some other ripoff company will come out with a torus design computer and claim Apple copied them.
 
Chaszmyr said:
Stunning. Will be even more stunning when we see the astronomical price tag.
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Tell you what, if it's 5K, that's still 5K in 2013 dollars. Compare that to an "equivalent spec" from 2003, 1993, 1983. It's amazing the level of performance today's dollar can buy compared to where we've been in the past.

Add up the individual components and see what they'd cost you if you rolled your own. Add the requisite "Apple Tax". Then add in the value of the Apple OS and ecosystem (excluding "Hackintosh" as a possibility for the moment), you can choose to subtract a portion of the value add from the "tax" or both the "tax" and the unit itself, if you want, and then come to the conclusion of whether or not it's worth it.
 
commander.data said:
They promote the new Mac Pro as having a quad channel memory controller, but Ivy Bridge E actually has a 4-channel memory controller per CPU so in a dual-CPU configuration there should actually by 8 memory channels. From the pictures and descriptions there might only be 4 memory slots in the whole system which means you're only getting half the potential memory bandwidth that the processors could provide which is disappointing.
Click to expand...

It's a single CPU system.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
I kinda like it and then I don't. It's nothing more than a mini on steroids. I'd rather have a bigger Mac with space for upgrades. What about upgrades for GPUs and possibly CPUs? I'm looking forward to the teardown once this reaches the streets.
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It has two high end ATI GPUs. Since when does the Mac Mini come with gfx cards let alone two of them?

@WhyWhyWhyWhy: Can't you read? It is aluminum, not plastic.

@Umbongo: It supports up to a 12 core configuration. Is there a 12 core Xeon CPU?
 
chimney

Who will pay thousands for a stove pipe?

Especially one without a floppy drive.
 
Star Wars themed definitely it is. Check out the image of the 'thermal core' at the Mac Pro website. It is Darth Vaders mouth.

So: it looks like the off spring of r2-d2 and Darth Vader.
 
Excited

I've been happy living with my Early 2008 MP, but I usually try to update every 5 years or so. Existing models don't give me enough reason to, but this one has me really excited. I just hope they price it right-- price it to sell and I'll get two. Price it where the current models are and I may hold off a year before getting one.

Either way, I'll probably opt for the air ionizer option.

cray-2-computer-system.jpg
 
cmanderson said:
Tell you what, if it's 5K, that's still 5K in 2013 dollars. Compare that to an "equivalent spec" from 2003, 1993, 1983. It's amazing the level of performance today's dollar can buy compared to where we've been in the past.
Click to expand...

True, but most people will be comparing it to contemporary Dell and HP machines not 1983 machines ;)
 
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