Seems like Pro Users will switch over to hacks now. Considering a SR-2 hackintosh from 2009 can beat out this system (When OC) its so sad.
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Apple Offers Sneak Peek of Completely Redesigned Mac Pro
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This page says it's got a PCI Expansion chassis!
http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ ( Eleventh (gestured) bullet down. )
You can connect massive amounts of storage, add a PCI expansion chassis, and work with the latest external displays — including 4K desktop displays and peripheral devices capable of broadcast monitoring in 4K. And since each Thunderbolt 2 port allows you to daisy-chain up to six peripherals, you can go all out by plugging in up to 36 external devices via Thunderbolt alone.
So is it a Thunderbolt 2 or a PCI expansion chassis? Lets hope PCI?
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I like the MacPro
Because:
1) It's small
2) Although the current one has lots of slots, I barely used them.
3) Storage is much easier to handle when it's pluggable anyways.
External enclosures or RAID's are getting cheaper and better
4) The only thing you might upgrade is RAM and you still can do that.
5) The days of big towers is over. Long over.
I'll buy one if Apple is not screwing me on the SSD options.
I own a MacPro 3,1 (2008), I still love it except for graphics,
but Apple has never offered reasonable upgrades.
Meaning: Buy the latest stuff and forget about the money as quickly as possible.
Because:
1) It's small
2) Although the current one has lots of slots, I barely used them.
3) Storage is much easier to handle when it's pluggable anyways.
External enclosures or RAID's are getting cheaper and better
4) The only thing you might upgrade is RAM and you still can do that.
5) The days of big towers is over. Long over.
I'll buy one if Apple is not screwing me on the SSD options.
I own a MacPro 3,1 (2008), I still love it except for graphics,
but Apple has never offered reasonable upgrades.
Meaning: Buy the latest stuff and forget about the money as quickly as possible.
Seriously you lot are nuts - it's going to be massively fast. And I mean massive.
The Main memory is 10 times the fastest HD
You put the Raid in an external box in the garage. TB optical cables are up to 100m (300 ft in medieval speak) long.
The thing is you have to move with the times and now is that time.
32GB modules have been up since 2012, and Xeons support more than 200GB per CPU.
Workstation GPU's do just fine with games. Two FireHD GPU's will be faster than 680mx. They just won't beat a dual Titan setup.
That is one good concern to have. Worse, lose one the whole machine has to go in the shop? I am not a fan of this level of integration on a "Pro" machine. Its more limiting than empowering with a built in solution.
Most likely they came up with the shape first then told engineering to make it work. Hence conventional main boards were out, using risers/daughter cards/etc would not work, so integrate it all.
Really wondering the base model will be priced below 3k, kind of doubt it
I see 6 thunderbolt ports. You could put a pretty big RAID array in the remaining footprint of the old mac pro...
Looks like the graphics cards could be replaceable, they are immediately accessible when you open the case, but the design is non standard.
What drug are you one ? You need to change medications. This thing will beat any hackintosh at any task.
I swear, some of you guys are amazing. You complain about no new Mac Pro until you get a thoroughly rethought Mac Pro and then complain about that. On top of commenting about things you obviously didn't bother reading about through the specs (plastic, fan noise, etc., etc. ) I think most of you simply want to complain for the sake of complaining. Read through the full description of the hardware and compare it to what you are using now and what else is available. This is a pretty amazing bit of hardware. If your big complaint is having to connect a couple of external drives for your specialized set up (which you're complaining you don't have what you want now either) then I think you're just out of touch. If PIXAR sees the promise of this hardware with they way they push the limits of media, I think you'll be fine.
Agree 100%. If Apple had announced a new Mac Pro that looked like the current one, everyone would be complaining about no innovation. So instead Apple comes out of nowhere with a design that is unlike anything else they have done in the last few years and ... people complain. I just watched the walk-thru on Apple.com, it's a gorgeous machine and they put a TON of thought into this, I for one, can't wait to get one.
Thunderbolt IS PCI!
Of course it's a thunderbolt expansion chassis. How are you going to connect a chassis to the board otherwise?
Aesthetically I love the design, I think Apple really innovated on this one. However, practicially, the things that come to mind are:
- how upgradeable are the internal components, if at all? Graphics card, RAM, Flash HDD...?
- how much RAM does the thing have / can expand to anyway?
- how many companies' products support Thunderbolt 2? I was under the impression that Thunderbolt 1 still wasn't widely adopted and prevalent. I realize it's backwards compatible, but still, to fully utilize the extra speed...
- is the "cool" look of this new Mac Pro going to be more than offset by the potential collection of external devices that will be attached to it?
Makes me think that if external upgradability is Apple's new stance on this, then I might as well attach a bunch of external drives, etc. to an iMac or Mac Mini instead. Yes, I realize the processing power, graphics, etc. aren't on the same level, but still...
- how upgradeable are the internal components, if at all? Graphics card, RAM, Flash HDD...?
- how much RAM does the thing have / can expand to anyway?
- how many companies' products support Thunderbolt 2? I was under the impression that Thunderbolt 1 still wasn't widely adopted and prevalent. I realize it's backwards compatible, but still, to fully utilize the extra speed...
- is the "cool" look of this new Mac Pro going to be more than offset by the potential collection of external devices that will be attached to it?
Makes me think that if external upgradability is Apple's new stance on this, then I might as well attach a bunch of external drives, etc. to an iMac or Mac Mini instead.
Yes, I realize the processing power, graphics, etc. aren't on the same level, but still...
First off. We have no idea how long it will last.
Second. the price could be lower then the current macpro now with less options (regular videocards no pci-e flash storage) If the price of this new macpro+thundrbolt expansion chassis is the same as a current macpro then they did a good job. If not then I would also need firewire and esata so thats another thunderbolt expansion or 2. I do run 4 monitors and it looks like I will need 4 display port to dvi adapters as well. Oh well. I have a 6 core 3.33ghz with 24gigs of ram. Lets see how long this girl can last. She still feels good.
The chassis certainly is cheaper from a materials stand point.
Second. the price could be lower then the current macpro now with less options (regular videocards no pci-e flash storage) If the price of this new macpro+thundrbolt expansion chassis is the same as a current macpro then they did a good job. If not then
I would also need firewire and esata so thats another thunderbolt expansion or 2. I do run 4 monitors and it looks like I will need 4 display port to dvi adapters as well. Oh well. I have a 6 core 3.33ghz with 24gigs of ram. Lets see how long this girl can last. She still feels good. The chassis certainly is cheaper from a materials stand point.
The GPU costs around 3K alone. But maybe the baseline will use the cheapest FireHD GPU's, which still would put the base price well over 4K.
Yah I think a lot of the potential complaints were prevented by including the fastest possible GPU combination out-of-the-box.
This is not for "us" guys.this is for the "real pro" crowd who spend 14 hours a day doing so many things "we" Apple fanboys don't understand.
give me a smaller an all SSD aluminum Mac mini, thanks.
give me a smaller an all SSD aluminum Mac mini, thanks.
This announcement is probably just so Apple can see the reaction and hopefully react on things they might have omitted and thought to be not that important.
While I recently built a quite powerful Hackintosh, which has been the most stable Mac I have had since my iBook (the Intel Macs I have had were panicking a lot), to satisfy my computational needs without getting the not so useful (for me) glaring iMac, this is the way Apple chose to go for offering a powerful workstation.
We'll see tomorrow (if my slow connection - 10 KB/s) allows me to) what kind of expandability they offer.
While I recently built a quite powerful Hackintosh, which has been the most stable Mac I have had since my iBook (the Intel Macs I have had were panicking a lot), to satisfy my computational needs without getting the not so useful (for me) glaring iMac, this is the way Apple chose to go for offering a powerful workstation.
We'll see tomorrow (if my slow connection - 10 KB/s) allows me to) what kind of expandability they offer.
This. I don't see the point of the tubular design unless it's designed to stop upgrading. I think the old design is really sweet looking.