Apple Offers Sneak Peek of Completely Redesigned Mac Pro

[nubero]

Wow, you seem awfully certain of yourself for not having all of the information about a "sneak peak" of a product.

What more information is needed?

I for one don’t really see how the final specs are going to make a difference. The bad part is already out there.
In our case, if this new machine was our current one we would have to have a box with PCI Slots for our Fibre Channel and Video cards, another box for Hard Drives and the CPU sitting around. How on earth is that more cost efficient or better designed?

The guy you criticize is right I’m afraid. This is a huge middle finger to professional customers…

 

[Chrisg2014]

HELL NO! I'm going to have some many wires and now I'm going to have to not only pay for an over priced plastic computer (that is super powerful don't get me wrong) but I'm going to have to invest in overpriced Thunderbolt drives! WTF APPLE! Also have to buy a CD Drive for making DVD's.

 

[AnonMac50]

Not bad. I see what they mean with external expansion. It's like the ThunderBolt docks they have that have all sorts of stuff in them and more ports and drives and things are expected to be used.

 

[sna]

Is TB2 fast enough to support external GPUs? ...and storage, and displays, and a RED Rocket Card?

Concerned about latency since there is a conversion step between TB and the processor(s).

That is really the only weak link I see so far in this new form factor. I could care less what it looks like... but I do need serious GPU support, of the CUDA variety and I need that support to be flexible. Most everything else I needed PCIe for can (and will) be replaced or put in a chassis.

GPU... not so sure.

Please back up your answers with facts. Signal to noise ratio on this tread is a bit insane.

It depends on the chip itself and on many Lanes it uses to connect to the CPU ...

I guess they are all shared on one BUS.

the strange thing is , why did not Apple use Expternal PCIe 3.0 16X ports ? they exist Natively without the need of any chips.

I really dont know why Apple are missing this.... it is also CHEAPER. no chips needed.

 

[Mike Valmike]

I thought Mac Pro users would understand the lastest tech and how to expand. I was wrong.

Are you kidding? Pro users cling to legacy tech with a death grip borne of such incendiary fervor that mainstream religions wish they knew how to inculcate it. You move their cheese, they go Pompeii in a microsecond. Pro users willing to migrate to new tech? Hah. They say so, but it's all talk. It's always talk. They want faster horses, and ONLY faster horses, FOREVER.

 

[2ms]

I'm not happy if it only is available with ATI GPUs. As much as I hate it that Nvidia has been able to pull it off, I have no choice but to only get Nvidia hardware because I need CUDA. It'd be a colossal (i.e. unacceptable) waste for me to pay for a pair of ATI GPUs + an external enclosure + NVidia GPUs.

 

[otismotive77]

nice shiny body, awesome specs. the shape is completely new, i havent seen anything like that before. but i dont think i'll buy this my macbook air is perfect for me.

 

[Schizoid]

interesting that both graphics cards seem to have a little PCI-e slot in front of them for the flash storage... well space for one anyway...

there's probably an option for 2 x PCI-e storage...

 

[fithian]

Sure, if you are the kind of person who spends $25k on a 4K 60"+ Flat Panel for your home, I could see this additional $5k-$10k HTPC for you.

How about four of those $1200 4k TV sets. With OSX Mavericks it would make a hell of a desktop; maybe in a 2x2 arrangement. For $10k you get a really big fast desktop.

 

[i.mac]

I take you don't know the difference between a processor and a core? What's wrong with wanting 24 cores, plus whatever GPUs I have access to?

If you are a professional that needs 24 cores for sure, then:

1. You would probably not be complaining here.
2. You would know where to get what you need without embarrassing yourself.
3. You would know how to make two 12 core machines work as one.

 

[dukebound85]

Made out of plastic? Seriously? Spend $1299 and get a nice aluminum iMac. $2499 gets me a plastic Mac Pro(predicting cost of the new Mac Pro)? Screw that.....

Not sure why you haven't edited this comment to prevent others who read the first few posts to continue to believe it is plastic, although you had clarified you were in error later on..

 

[genovelle]

about time! but i think it only has 1 intel processor?

With configurations offering up to 12 cores of processing power, up to 40GB/s of PCI Express gen 3 bandwidth, and 256-bit-wide floating-point instructions, you’ll never be at a loss for speed.

 

[MillerTaylor]

It's all starting to make sense now...

How's that for unified design?

 

[ikir]

Only external expansion ? It won't look so cool with all the devices all around though... At least, are the internal parts upgradeable without external substitutes ?

You can update ram, SSD and maybe gfx card. You can have pci express external chassis and hard disk. You have 6 Thunderbolt It is like having 6 PCI express 8x.

 

[koban4max]

New mac pro, looks nice. For me it's too bad they don't offer a "low cost" version with more consumer orriented internals like core i7 cpu instead to keep the cost lower

it's for "pros."

 

[ColeHarris]

Huh, all of the benchmarks in Solidworks, AutoCAD, Maya, show the AMD graphics blowing the Nvidia graphics out of the water.

Games? LOL, why would you buy it to play games.

How about CUDA eh? What about CUDA accelerated programs such as After Effects, or Octane? Huh? You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

I have nothing against AMD, Firepro's are great cards. What I am against is fewer options, what happens 4/5 years down the road when AMD releases vastly better GPU's, obviously you won't be able to upgrade which has always been the point of the Mac Pro. Guess you'll just have to buy a new one, what a brilliant business decision for Apple.

Why wouldn't you want to game on this? I honestly don't know since I don't play computer games. I doubt it'll be that expensive given the components, can't be more expensive than the highest end iMac and people game on those.

 

[greenmeanie]

They actually need to let VMware run OSX or they are in trouble anyways.

Complete disappointment. Not Rack Mountable and no redundant PSU. I figured they'd at least make something for former Xserve customers. They need to "officially" unlock running OSX on esxi (without apple hardware)

 

[Schizoid]

It's all starting to make sense now...

Image

How's that for unified design?

the prices will be very similar too!

 

[Jimeny]

SB-E Support (or IB-E)

The one great thing about this machine is that it will bring Ivy Bridge E support to OSX. So.. if you can't afford to buy the new Mac Pro then and do all the external expansions (HD etc..), without re-mortgaging your house, you'll be able to buy the Hackintosh version and have native support for your processors... for a fraction of the cost!!

 

[relimw]

Have no idea about the designers mind, but the best E5 processor has 8 cores. (check ark.intel.com for more details)
There also might be trick of one six core with 12 threads (but they haven't done it before, why would they do it now?)

8 Ram slots sounds like Mac Pro. If they just don't want to add more cores, if they won't add more slots for Ram.

I don't know.

They're obviously waiting on the E5 v2 line (2600 maybe?)....

 

[sna]

With configurations offering up to 12 cores of processing power, up to 40GB/s of PCI Express gen 3 bandwidth, and 256-bit-wide floating-point instructions, you’ll never be at a loss for speed.

we have 12 cores for almost 2 years now ... the new trend next year will be dual 8 , 10 , 12 Xeon systems which means 16 , 20 and 24 cores.

each CPU will give you 40 PCIe 3.0 Lanes. this means 80 for dual CPU.


Apple is going down .... and this time Steve Jobs will not come back lol

 

[ikir]

HELL NO! I'm going to have some many wires and now I'm going to have to not only pay for an over priced plastic computer (that is super powerful don't get me wrong) but I'm going to have to invest in overpriced Thunderbolt drives! WTF APPLE! Also have to buy a CD Drive for making DVD's.

Again? One random guys said it is plastic, but it is aluminum, and all the forums cry about plastic. Really the world is in danger.

 

[doctor-don]

After vacuuming dust from the insides of my Mac Pro every time I open it (to swap HDDs, add SSD, install eSata, add more RAM, etc.), I would appreciate a Mac Pro which is designed to filter air coming through it. I'm sure it will be more reliable for more years if that dust does not accumulate internally.

 

[milo]

Is this single socket or dual? They said up to 12 cores, but the next gen E5s are supposed to have that on a single chip. Anyone have a guess?

And are there two sockets for flash storage or just one? It sure looks like there's a space where they could put a second one, but no socket there.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

What more information is needed?

I for one don’t really see how the final specs are going to make a difference. The bad part is already out there.
In our case, if this new machine was our current one we would have to have a box with PCI Slots for our Fibre Channel and Video cards, another box for Hard Drives and the CPU sitting around. How on earth is that more cost efficient or better designed?

The guy you criticize is right I’m afraid. This is a huge middle finger to professional customers…

Right, because you have no idea what this new Mac Pro is going to cost. You have no idea if the graphics card is socketed and upgradeable. The only thing you are sure about is that expansion has to be external. BFG! Add an external chassis and you have something that still takes up less space than today's Mac Pro.

And you know what? Maybe this Mac Pro isn't designed for every "pro" user out there. Knowing Apple, however, it's designed for the most typical "pro" user and addresses most requested features from their pro users. So if this leaves you out in the cold, sorry, but Apple is going after what most people need and want in this segment. This will be a hot seller.