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Apple Offers Minor Processor Bump to Mac Pro Line, No Thunderbolt

Don't Forget

I thought I would register and reply. I've read most of this thread and it's worthwhile reminding people that Mountain Lion will in fact obsolete several early mac pro models, including the one I own, which cannot do processor upgrades (legit ones). This is crank of the offering to maybe help those people move their chassis more current.

Yes it's (most) disappointing the graphics didn't get an upgrade. I've been holding out for a long time as well to replace my workstation which is the hub of my hobby and home activities.

Best case, this mac pro is replaced in 12-16 months with a newly redesigned chassis and technology refresh.

Worst case it's, as someone astutely pointed out earlier, the final refresh a la white macbook. And then we see some 6 or 8 way iMac? Not sure about that one.
 
iPadPublisher said:
I knew a million guys were going to start saying this. Puts us right back at square one; wait or buy now and regret it later.
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I'd recommend everyone to "NOT BUY" this nonsense upgrade. That'd tell Apple much more strongly that they shouldn't ******** with us. At least come clean and say what your plans are.
 
iBug2 said:
I'd recommend everyone to "NOT BUY" this nonsense upgrade. That'd tell Apple much more strongly that they shouldn't ******** with us. At least come clean and say what your plans are.
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You mean like double down on honesty and respect?
 
Winners and Losers

Winners - tweens who use Twitter and FaceBook
Losers - Pros who need cutting edge computing power, the "over 30" crowd who sees Twitter and Facebook for what they are, and privacy....the "cloud" is just a little too invasive and has the potential to be a "police state" tool once the "backdoor" is installed by the government for "reasons of national security".
 
I'm an iOS developer interested in expanding to OS X and (hypothetically) AppleTV. In the past, I've developed App Store apps using a 1st gen Air. I'm currently on a 2011 MBP with 8G RAM, running Unity, Photoshop CS5.1, and Blender, plus XCode.

I understand "getting by", but I'm slowed tremendously by RAM and CPU limits now. Unity is dandy at picking up changes made in other parts of your toolchain in realtime, so I have mulitple graphics-intensive applications running simultaneously. I need a workstation with a lot of RAM, and beastly GPU(s).

4-8 cores, 32-48G RAM, and a GPU from this decade.

And thats just for iOS.

And I'd like to move from Blender to Maya (or Max...), which *can* run on iMac or MBP, but no it seems severely not recommended.

I have money burning a hole, I have been ready to buy for a year, and Apple is sending the clear message, intentional or not, "run Unity, Photoshop and Maya/Max on some really fast, currently available, non-Apple hardware with a future, and run XCode on a Hackintosh."

Do developers not often need flexible, upgradeable, monster workstations? It doesnt have to be "Mac Pro", but it has to exist.

Or am I not thinking different enough?
 
iBug2 said:
We already knew that, but to me that's still not "enough" to axe the line unless they have a total replacement, which for now, they don't. CPU's and Memory can be "good enough" on iMacs, but PCI-e isn't there and not all PCI-e is replaceable by TB solutions today. If they axed this in 2 years, it'd make much more sense. But then again, they didn't axe it. If someone definitely needs one, they can buy one even today, and then wait for Apple's solution in the future.
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They had a choice to continue with old tech combined with a slight speed bump, go with the newer tech to keep the MP, or just EOL the model entirely, regardless if there's a suitable replacement.

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't have the sales figures to justify the new tech (seems the recession and their unwillingness to reduce their margins affected them greatly), so they went for the speed bump implementation (no R&D in the "new" system).

As per why, it's either they think they can milk it a little more, or they're trying to buy time until a replacement system is ready (i.e. iMac Pro).
 
This slight bump will allow Apple to better clear their Mac Pro inventory. The Mac Pro is dead guys, the writing really is on the wall this time.

Not to worry, its only a computer after all.
 
iBug2 said:
I'd rather have them discontinue the line today instead of this nonsense upgrade. At least if they discontinue, they'd have to say something about it.
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I totally agree because then we would at least know it's officially dead and could move on to other options, but as it stands now, there is still that glimmer of hope that a newer model or update will happen so we are all just stuck for 6 more months, a year or ??? Just wish we would know. Not like it's going to affect the current line of Mac Pro's, those things are are not going to sell well.
 
Every lost Pro user probably means pissed customers not as happy investing in other products as well.

Seriously... the "new" MP has a Radeon 5770 which was "announced on October 13, 2009" it has 1 GB memory...... not very up to date or Pro.

+1 for "not buy"
 
Blue Sun said:
This slight bump will allow Apple to better clear their Mac Pro inventory. The Mac Pro is dead guys, the writing really is on the wall this time.

Not to worry, its only a computer after all.
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Unfortunately it's more than a computer for many, it's that on which they base their livelihood.
 
Cristian123 said:
Good. They deserve it.

I believe we should spit back in their faces. Pros were force multipliers for Apple, now Apple will lose that halo effect.

Content creators can use the airwaves to tell the world that Apple just isn't cool anymore.
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And make sure to use our last towers to make "Apple Sucks" youtube videos. And more.

Not wise to bite the hand that fed you to play pretend you're Willie Wonka.

Willie Wonka is dead.

:apple:

P.S. Told EVERYONE three YEARS ago they should have boycotted every piece of iCrap after the iPod.
 
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dbassett said:
Why did Apple even bother upgrading?
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That really is the question - the only answers that really seem to make sense are either this is an inventory cleaning, either for a refresh or EOL-ing, or a stopgap measure, for the same reasons.

Personally I think it is just another example of Cook's Apple's systematic approach to marketing suicide. He's no Scully, but ever since he took over 2 years ago the marketing approaches and cultural attentions that made the company into the success they are today have been replaced by a dogma of absolute silence (that was there before, but never so extreme) and snafu after snafu showing just how out of touch apple is with what their oldest, most loyal segment really wants and needs.

[breath]

What I mean is, under Stevey J, Apple was pretty good at catering to the actual needs of pro users. It wasn't a priority, sure, but it was always there in the back - even when certain types of legacy support were abandoned, the company was generally right and always supportive of alternative options. The changes that have occurred over the last 18 months have steadily become more-and-more marketing driven, and less-land-less what Apple was always about - [basically] turnkey solutions to the problems that users actually have, from the home to the screen. These repeated snafus - which are actually marketing suicide, as the pro segment has a voice much larger than their $$$-segment should suggest, for reasons obvious to anyone with an iota of sense - are just, IMHO of course, the sign of the way the company is going from now on: marketting-driven product development. Just like what you see with the major music labels (see how that worked out...) and are seeing with the big film houses now. This is a borderline stereotypical cutting off of one's nose to smite one's face, and is (also IMHO) destined to be the downfall of Apple, as so many mighty have fallen before.

[bigger breath]

In other words, I don't think that Tim Cook and Co are dumb enough not to notice that their new strategy for pros isn't working, but I do think there is a chance that they are myopic enough to believe that they know better than us (the users) WHY. Classic marketing-driven product dev - and the very thing that Apple has avoided for so long...
 
ytk said:
Shake is obsolete. Switch to Nuke. You won't regret it. It's much faster, not to mention more powerful and extensible. You can pretty much bend it to serve any VFX pipeline by writing some Python.
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True that. The money I saved by not getting a MacPro today will pay for a license. Thanks.
 
dented42ford said:
What I mean is, under Stevey J, Apple was pretty good at catering to the actual needs of pro users.
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I disagree. Under Jobs the direction taken was obvious.

Who knew Cook and crew were stupid enough to follow Jobs into suicide and the grave?

Apple, joining the dead Thomas/Lowrey/Wurlitzer et al Organ Co.s of the last century who weren't smart enough to chase after the big bucks (the only survivors left standing today) instead of the lowest common denominator, eaten alive by cheap Casio toy crap for kiddies.

What always happens when accountants run companies. And creatives go nutty with magnanimity.

Watch.

:apple:
 
My late 2006 MBP is kind at its last breath... I need a faster system and I want a Mac Pro for my work. Don't think I can wait this long for really new and improved Mac Pro's... shoud I get a 2ndhand 2010 model? eek
 
I don't understand how you guys can base sales numbers on the amount of likes a stupid facebook page got...

There are studios with hundreds of mac pro's in them, some people own two, and guess what... Like me, I didn't even know there was a Facebook page for that, and I'm sure a whole bunch of others don't know that either. Do you think apple pays attention to Facebook?
 
sn1p3r845 said:
I don't understand how you guys can base sales numbers on the amount of likes a stupid facebook page got...

There are studios with hundreds of mac pro's in them, some people own two, and guess what... Like me, I didn't even know there was a Facebook page for that, and I'm sure a whole bunch of others don't know that either. Do you think apple pays attention to Facebook?
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Yes, Apple will pay attention to petition when they will buy Facebook !! :D
 
No wonder that they didn't have balls to tell about this "update" in keynote; 2 year old CPU's, 3 year old GPU's, no usb3 or tb...!
Clubber said:
I'm hoping this means there will be a Thunderbolt card.
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I just don't get it, why Apple doesn't offer usb3 and tb as add-on pci-e card?
They wan't to axe MP so badly, that Tim can repeat his sensei's words "hardly no-one was buying these anymore"?
Well, you'll have to be in a bad position if you need to buy these "flagships from history" with these prices...
InuNacho said:
There goes my dream of a used $1,200 09 Pro.
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Mine too...
 
With the money I'm saving from buying 10+ of these machines, I'm doing across the board updates to my studio's self-built FX/Anim Linux rigs. Since my group does more FX/Animation than Editing, these systems will become our new editing bays. Our Mac Pros will then have Debian installed and be annexed into the render farm. New Systems will constructed for Fx/Animation with a possibility of incorporating NUKE Licenses.

Problem Solved.

Aside: Today, my SGI Octane2 became more important than a MacPro.
 
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