Apple Offers Sneak Peek of Completely Redesigned Mac Pro

[prowlmedia]

True, and sadly, they don't seem to provide Mercury Playback Engine support outside of the laptops. That sucks for many Adobe users.

http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2013/05/improved-gpu-support-in-adobe-premiere-pro-cc.html

Yup but I hear it's coming though.

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I'd hardly call it a midrange game machine. Maya render times are twice as fast on my Hackintosh then current top mac pro. And it was said that this new mac pro is "Twice" as fast as the current top mac Pro. So sounds about even.

Also if you know what your doing a Hackintosh is very stable.

All that says is you don't your maya set up right on the MP.

What lets see what it can do later on today at the pixar wwdc event.

 

[Wildblood]

bf3/4

So can we play bf3/4 with extreme/ultra/mega graphics in 1080p?

 

[DudeDad]

Ok. How does the 3 internal HD that I have inside of my MP gonna work in this tube? Guess all data on those 3 HDs are now useless?

Seriously? You can't figure this out? All you need to do is to remove your drives, place them in external enclosures and plug them into your new Mac Pro cylinder.

If you couldn't figure that out, perhaps you really don't need a Mac Pro.

 

[Lesser Evets]

Despite all the bitchin', the point is that there is a redesigned Pro with far better power than what we have now. That's amazing, excellent, needed.

There is only one concern: price.

Shifting the design and paradigm from inwardly (and outwardly) expandable into a MacPro Mini-type configuration will be quite welcome... if it is cheaper than the current MacPro. The design is brilliant, and the external expansion isn't the end of the world. Despite the cynicism and lame jokes, it is a singular choice of shape and engineering which will again be an Apple icon elevating itself above the rest of the industry's "grey boxes".

If this thing is more than $2999, it will die on the vine. If they can have an entry model down around $2499, it might work. Don't forget that anyone wanting to transfer from MacPro original to MacPro future needs to buy a slew of external enclosures for PCI cards and hard drives; that's not inexpensive, making the price of a new machine instantly skyrocket up to $5000 or more.

If the dual GPU-single CPU processing makes the experience bottleneck and seize like any single-processor Mac, this Pro will truly appear to be nothing more than a trashcan for your money.

 

[SactoGuy18]

It seems many are attacking this machine: some are against the new aesthetics, some against the lack of internal expandability, and some even against the purported build quality (it seems to be made of metal to me).

I'll go ahead and say that it's exactly the kind of machine I've been holding out for: legacy-free, maximum-performance components throughout, connected in a no-compromises way and crammed into a compact case.

Amen.

I think by NOT having to accommodate multiple bays of "legacy" spinning hard drives, Apple was able to drastically reduce the size of the Mac Pro case with the new model. And the very reason why they could do this is the availability of the Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, which has a maximum data transfer rate of 20 gigabits/second, over three times the Serial ATA III standard found on most high-end Windows-based desktop PC's.

I expect very soon some third party (or even Apple themselves) to offer a matching expansion chassis box connected back to the Mac Pro via the Thunderbolt 2.0 port that can accommodate extra SSD drives, hard drives, optical drives and removable flash memory. As such, the new Mac Pro plus new external expansion box will still be smaller than the current Mac Pro desktop case.

 

[jncoanalog]

I think that is an unfair reading. People have been saying they should have kept the old MP form. They have cut out expandability, but why? Is there a reason they couldn't have made a similar device 1/2 -> 2/3 the size of the old MP instead of 1/8?

Don't get me wrong I think this is a lovely machine. I just don't see why they 'needed' to make it so small and non-expandable internally. It makes even less sense when that was one of the main selling points on their own website for the previous version. Add on the cables they spent years get rid of you come away really confused.

I can't even make a business case for it. It isn't like the price is going to drop dramatically. (Please let me be wrong here!) People would have paid the price anyway if they wanted a MP; heck, I was hedging and would have bought a version last year had it had significant internals upgrade.* The market that wanted internal expansion may have been small, but surely they would have contributed to a larger market willing to pay for a MP. Unless the price drops significantly, I can't see how this increases their market, and they were already at high profit margins for the boxes. I can only see the market shrinking.
[...]

Well, they 'needed' to make it smaller because they wanted to. Because they felt the current 'Pro' (whatever the ***** Pro means) desktop paradigm was old, obsolet and didn't fit well with current computing needs anymore. And while the new Mac Pro may not be internally expandable, it certainly seems internally upgradable*.
Being a designer, and a computer aficcionado since I laid my hands on the first 286 my dad brought home (in the early 90's), I happen to agree with them apple on this.

For a long time I've been thinking of how you could optimize the 'Pro' desktop experience. And modular is the way to go.
I probably don't have the same computing needs that you do, so why should I be obliged to stick with the same components than you inside my MacPro? Or with empty space (air) for that matter? Huge amounts of empty space means huge amounts of air that you have to move and try to cool down.
By concentrating only the main components in a self-sufficient tidy package, they have (hopefully) improved thermal dissipation and greatly reduced noise (yes, heat and noise ARE a big concern for me: I want a computer to compute, not to act as the main heater and ambient noise creator in the room).
This way, they also should have been able to reduce the cost of the machine, but with high-end components (specially PCIe internal storage), R&D investments and the 'assembled in USA' tagline let's see where the price goes...
Plus, and even more importantly, my computing needs will not stay the same for years and years to come (yours probably won't either), so this way I could keep my CPU and motherboard (which, let's face it, nowadays can easily last 5-to-10 years for most use-cases) and easily upgrade and expand anything else as I need to (again, both RAM and GPUs seem upgradable from the images).


So, when you're designing something (remember, design has [almost] nothing to do with how the thing looks) and you face the confrontation: huge amounts of empty and inefficient space vs. no inefficient empty space and super efficient user-oriented expandability and upgradability what do you do?

Well, 3 years ago when I really needed a so-called 'Pro' machine and I designed and assembled my own computer**, I followed the second permise...but that's just me
- I had no use for an optical drive, so I didn't put one in, nor did I left the space that it would take empty and stalling.
- I needed an HD that I could attach to my 'Pro'-machine but also take with me and connect to my MacbookPro or to a client's machine, so I bought a SATA HD and made an external USB+FIREWIRE enclosure.
- I needed fast internal storage (mainly for Windows and other software installation) but the machine should also be self-sufficient (meaning I needed space to save the files I was working on at any given time, even if the external drive was not connected), so I bought a small SSD + a 1TB SATA HD. The 'hybrid' choice here was purely due to money constraints, and I believe Apple could have found room for 1 (ONE, and ONLY ONE) 'standard' HD inside the MacPro enclosure, but well... ssd prices should be going down for some time now, plus you can have as many externals as you want (just leave one connected to the machine all the time).


--------------------

* RAM certainly IS upgradable, and I don't see why the GPUs wouldn't be, but Apple has the tendency to screw up there, so let's keep hoping they just didn't 'reformulate' the pro-desktop paradigm just to cripple it before it's even born.

** At the time, the MacPro was both too inefficient and too expensive for my needs, and having no choice but to use 3ds Max + Vray meant that it would be stupid from me to spend $2.000+ in an Apple computer just to install windows and never use OS X (I have a 13" MacbookPro that I carry with me all the time for the rest of my computing needs).

--------------------

P.S.: Please don't get me wrong (if you ever find the time to read this long post), I'm not trying to attack you in any way, I just needed to express my opinion on the 'Pro'-desktop paradigm, something that I felt was in need to be re-imagined for a long time now, and your post seemed the perfect excuse to do it...

 

[sennekuyl]

Amen. Image

I think by NOT having to accommodate multiple bays of "legacy" spinning hard drives, Apple was able to drastically reduce the size of the Mac Pro case with the new model. And the very reason why they could do this is the availability of the Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, which has a maximum data transfer rate of 20 gigabits/second, over three times the Serial ATA III standard found on most high-end Windows-based desktop PC's.

I expect very soon some third party (or even Apple themselves) to offer a matching expansion chassis box connected back to the Mac Pro via the Thunderbolt 2.0 port that can accommodate extra SSD drives, hard drives, optical drives and removable flash memory. As such, the new Mac Pro plus new external expansion box will still be smaller than the current Mac Pro desktop case.

But why was the reduction necessary? It takes away more than it gives. What is wrong with a reasonable sized case (1/2, not 1/8 of the size) with some internal expansion, while delivering a considerably smaller device than the old MP? You get: those that love that love the design and smaller size, those that love the design but not keen on the smaller size & those that don't care for the design but can still do some expansion.

I don't know. Maybe Thunderbird doesn't play well with PCIe expansion? It is either TB or PCIe slots?(I know TB is PCIe.)

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Three 4K displays is the equivalent of 16 1080p 24" displays. People need to think about that for a second. It has 6 TB and 1 HDM 1.4. So in theory you can connect 7 legacy monitor devices without any chaining.
Chaining, you can chain up to 36 devices. I've done the chaining multiple devices on my macbook so I know it is possible and useable. I do it all the time.

As for fas SSD RAIDs. Yes, Thunderbolt one is more than enough. The Pegasus R4 and R6 with SSDs in them do 800 MB/sec to 1GB/sec in the real world. 700 MB/s with platter drive. They are pretty much enterprise SAS controller with a thunderbolt backplane. You get that speed with a 11" macbook air from 2012. I know a few people complaining about lack of disk/raid space. And those people I know personally have $150 eSATA cards connected to 200 MB/sec eSATA boxes or do internal disk striping with three 7200rpm drives in their "old macPros" The built in SATA on those older Mac pros are SATA 2 and even with a SSD, the max they get is 175 MB/sec through the old bus. I do know a few people with SAS PCI cards but they've been impressed with that they've seen with Thunderbolt RAID, the move will be an improvement. The thing I am worried about is fast GigGbE etherent.


Whereas, I'm booting externally off Seagate Thunderbolt Desktop drives or portable SSDs in 7 seconds, launching the entire CS suite in 5 secs, copying 30 GB of files in a minute and a half. No, I don't miss internal storage. I can plug and unplug my drives, boot on other.

I think those other dedicated PCI cards for ProTools and AVID will move over to Thunderbolt. The only thing that requires more bandwidth than TB2 are GPUs. But who upgrades a GPU 3 year later? In 3-4 years, there will be faster I/O like USB 4, Thunderbolt 4, etc. The fact it has a beefy GPU now means you will at least get 3 years out of it. Which is coincides with lease/tax write offs for computer equipment. Then you go buy a new one.

Good summary and points.

I think we should wait and see.... I could easily see using this thing on my desk at work, granted, the most intensive program I'm using is AutoDesk Revit and maybe Rhino for a render.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Despite all the bitchin', the point is that there is a redesigned Pro with far better power than what we have now. That's amazing, excellent, needed.

There is only one concern: price.

Shifting the design and paradigm from inwardly (and outwardly) expandable into a MacPro Mini-type configuration will be quite welcome... if it is cheaper than the current MacPro. The design is brilliant, and the external expansion isn't the end of the world. Despite the cynicism and lame jokes, it is a singular choice of shape and engineering which will again be an Apple icon elevating itself above the rest of the industry's "grey boxes".

If this thing is more than $2999, it will die on the vine. If they can have an entry model down around $2499, it might work. Don't forget that anyone wanting to transfer from MacPro original to MacPro future needs to buy a slew of external enclosures for PCI cards and hard drives; that's not inexpensive, making the price of a new machine instantly skyrocket up to $5000 or more.

If the dual GPU-single CPU processing makes the experience bottleneck and seize like any single-processor Mac, this Pro will truly appear to be nothing more than a trashcan for your money.

Totally agree. I cannot recommend this machine to the high end pro user, production house etc. The freelancer, or the one man band indie filmmaker could use this machine esp. if its a toss up between this and an iMac.

But the price needs to be right. Place it at $2000 and were talking good times.

 

[samcraig]

It needs to be priced right - and those that would benefit from the new design will line up - and those that don't will hold on to their older machines or switch to a PC.

I'll be very curious (and will be following) whether or not their new design and heat sink "innovation" is as good as they say and how it's reviewed (over time) by professionals/via board posts.

They're making it a big deal on their website - so I'm hoping it's not all hype and that the design truly keeps the CPU cool(er).

 

[JaguarGod]

To me this thing is like a pipe bomb.

I half expect people to run these in parallel. It would be pretty rad to see two on a desktop, networked.

Like a dual tank oxygen chamber for diving.

haha

Since you mentioned this I can't get the image out of my head. I think it would look quite interesting to see two side by side.

 

[blitzer09x87]

wow, compact and shiny black, pretty impressive, haven't seen anything like that before. i would love to buy it, i hope it's less than $1200(my budget).

 

[dpalme]

I feel so disgusted by complaints i've read about the lack of optical drive. I can't conceive that there are people that can't handle progress! If you need an optical drive go buy an external one, buy ten i don't care. But please don't force the rest of us to have useless 80s' tech in our computers! I'm glad Apple ignores such ridiculous requests, even if i'm angry with Apple for other reasons!

Sorry, but if I'm going to be expected to pay 2,499 for a box, I fully expect to get one with everything I need, without having to pay an extra 50 just to run down to best buy and buy a cheap slow ass dvd burner.

You might think of it as 80's technology but a tremendous amount of programs and video is still delivered via the disks.

 

[MachineGirl]

I really like it. As for external storage, it won't be long before we see circular drives which stack up underneath it, and fit into the design seamlessly. It would make sense in that case to include some sort of connecting pins on the underside, which would eliminate the use of cables.

 

[sennekuyl]

Well, they 'needed' to make it smaller because they wanted to. Because they felt the current 'Pro' (whatever the ***** Pro means) desktop paradigm was old, obsolet and didn't fit well with current computing needs anymore. And while the new Mac Pro may not be internally expandable, it certainly seems internally upgradable*.
Being a designer, and a computer aficcionado since I laid my hands on the first 286 my dad brought home (in the early 90's), I happen to agree with them apple on this.

For a long time I've been thinking of how you could optimize the 'Pro' desktop experience. And modular is the way to go.
I probably don't have the same computing needs that you do, so why should I be obliged to stick with the same components than you inside my MacPro? Or with empty space (air) for that matter? Huge amounts of empty space means huge amounts of air that you have to move and try to cool down.
By concentrating only the main components in a self-sufficient tidy package, they have (hopefully) improved thermal dissipation and greatly reduced noise (yes, heat and noise ARE a big concern for me: I want a computer to compute, not to act as the main heater and ambient noise creator in the room).
This way, they also should have been able to reduce the cost of the machine, but with high-end components (specially PCIe internal storage), R&D investments and the 'assembled in USA' tagline let's see where the price goes...
Plus, and even more importantly, my computing needs will not stay the same for years and years to come (yours probably won't either), so this way I could keep my CPU and motherboard (which, let's face it, nowadays can easily last 5-to-10 years for most use-cases) and easily upgrade and expand anything else as I need to (again, both RAM and GPUs seem upgradable from the images).


So, when you're designing something (remember, design has [almost] nothing to do with how the thing looks) and you face the confrontation: huge amounts of empty and inefficient space vs. no inefficient empty space and super efficient user-oriented expandability and upgradability what do you do?

Not sure how you come to your design adage. It is only a relative truism. Looks are due often design constraints, or we'd have the infinitely cooler oval displays from numerous alien technologies you see in the abundant documentaries available on the internet.

Most computers need more air to cool it, but because they are making them smaller and smaller need faster noisier fans. A large fan rotating quietly is often better than a small fan pushing the air at a faster speed. Sure, air is a terrible coolant, but it really the only one in use in commercial systems and in this system.

Okay, it isn't a linear function in that double the fan size at half the speed doesn't move the equivalent volume of air, but it is noticeable. The core's triangular design makes it so you can combine several fans that create cooler pathways over disparate hotspots into a single simple pathway. That is awesome. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't have benefited from a larger fan at the same quiet speed pulling more air over parts at a quieter db. And the device could have provide both smaller device and some expandability.

As you say they did it this way because they wanted to, and there are innumerable variations that a arm-chair designer could make. I want to know, though, why they cut out a segment of their potential market. That is however presuming that the purchase cost-benefit ratio is largely the same as the previous MP.

Well, 3 years ago when I really needed a so-called 'Pro' machine and I designed and assembled my own computer**, I followed the second permise...but that's just me
- I had no use for an optical drive, so I didn't put one in, nor did I left the space that it would take empty and stalling.
- I needed an HD that I could attach to my 'Pro'-machine but also take with me and connect to my MacbookPro or to a client's machine, so I bought a SATA HD and made an external USB+FIREWIRE enclosure.
- I needed fast internal storage (mainly for Windows and other software installation) but the machine should also be self-sufficient (meaning I needed space to save the files I was working on at any given time, even if the external drive was not connected), so I bought a small SSD + a 1TB SATA HD. The 'hybrid' choice here was purely due to money constraints, and I believe Apple could have found room for 1 (ONE, and ONLY ONE) 'standard' HD inside the MacPro enclosure, but well... ssd prices should be going down for some time now, plus you can have as many externals as you want (just leave one connected to the machine all the time).

I'm not against modular. I think it is a great idea. TB is fantastic, and hopefully will outstrip potential saturation for years to come. But the box was already pretty modular as far as peripherals go.

Apple on the other hand has been working to reduce the number of cables around. Now they have back-flipped for non-obvious reasons and implemented a design which will introduce clutter. SSD prices haven't dropped that much recently, and data volumes are still steadily increasing.

--------------------

* RAM certainly IS upgradable, and I don't see why the GPUs wouldn't be, but Apple has the tendency to screw up there, so let's keep hoping they just didn't 'reformulate' the pro-desktop paradigm just to cripple it before it's even born.

** At the time, the MacPro was both too inefficient and too expensive for my needs, and having no choice but to use 3ds Max + Vray meant that it would be stupid from me to spend $2.000+ in an Apple computer just to install windows and never use OS X (I have a 13" MacbookPro that I carry with me all the time for the rest of my computing needs).

--------------------

P.S.: Please don't get me wrong (if you ever find the time to read this long post), I'm not trying to attack you in any way, I just needed to express my opinion on the 'Pro'-desktop paradigm, something that I felt was in need to be re-imagined for a long time now, and your post seemed the perfect excuse to do it...

Yeah, didn't feel you were. You're pretty spot on with the need for a new paradigm and this design is pretty good effort. Had I the money and resources, mine probably would have been either triangular or hexagonal.

To re-iterate, my main question is: given that any upgraded MP meets the requirements of most people needing or wanting a MP, why cut off those-small-but-enough-to-make-noise customers who want some expandability? I'm not even asking for a different form, as the only thing visibly preventing expansion is the extreme reduction in size.

 

[dpalme]

Now, if Apple wanted to really impress me, they would have figured out a way to add thunderbolt to some of the existing iMacs, Mac Pro's, etc.

That would have been a leap in the right direction, oh wait, that means I would not have to buy a new one which of course is exactly what Apple wants.

Sorry, my business model does not permit me to fully upgrade workstations that run right around 3g every three years... I work on a 4-5 year replacement schedule. Its not what Apple wants, but its perfectly fine for what we do.

 

[Wildblood]

what are the odds that at its core there is tibanna gas?

Jokes aside, why expandability must be inside?

Now we have a core machine so anyone who needs any special equipment just plugs it.. And the total volume of them both is still smaller than a legacy tower...

I don't know, it is very futuristic, its quite like an iPhone actually.
A brain which does most things but not everything:
-need to test your blood? plug your equipment
-need more battery? plug your whatever..
-need more graphic peformance? plug it...

ok maybe the last one does not exist... yet..
but can you say iPhone is not expandable?

I dont think the innovation is the crazy atomic darth vader turbine look, neither the 24 cores with twin gpus. I think it is the idea of the "core unit".
That's what he meant about his *ss

I see it more like a brain and those 6 tb ports are nerves to ears, eyes, arms, legs.

legacy tower = amoeba ==> it has to have everything inside
technology/evolution was not advanced enough for a tower/unicellular guy

MacPro ==> primate brain
technology/evolution is advanced enough and it seems to find no reason to put everything inside.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Just saying, putting a drive at the top would have killed the airflow, both forced and convective, which would have required a change in configuration away from a cylindrical design. From a design standpoint, TB has given Apple a lot more leeway than a conventional bus based chassis would have.

For the record, an expansion chassis would be compatible with any TB equipped Mac, including Air's. Might turn out to be a higher volume product than if it was just Mac Pro capable.

It's just 'cables'. They seem to breed, and reproduce. Pretty soon you have a nest of cables, and it gets out of hand. I'm just whining here, but I also glance at my Apple monitor which has a single cable carrying power, USB, Firewire, and the video signal. A single cable. It cuts down on the rats nest. Having a slot-less computer means that it's an island, everything you need to add-on is external, which means cables, which means cable management, which means a hassle for mean mortals... It also means needing more power plugs, and UPS's only have a certain amount of them.

I like the cooling idea, but perhaps too much emphasis was placed on cooling (and locking down users again)over functionality, and the Apple/Zen aesthetic... I had issues with the original Apple focus on locking down user options by making the box a closed environment. This is a disturbing throwback to those times, and coupled with the new focus on non-upgradable notebooks too, disturbs me.

People here and at other sites have said that 'it has everything you could want'. Well, and if it doesn't? Optical storage is a show stopper for me at this point, and adding it on through a plug-in device doesn't answer the question for me. The current drives are limited by short cables. THAT makes in inefficient 'solution' to a demand being made by people that IMO haven't a clue what their users actually use, or need.

But I'm just a user. I am not privy to the 'all encompassing view of the future', and I definitely can't be the tail that wags the industry.

I have other concerns about the new Mac Pro, but whatever. It's not out yet...

It was rather odd that one article I read compared it to supercomputers from ten years ago. 'It would be the sixth fastest supercomputer ten years ago' is like saying 'I was a real ladies man, ten years ago'. Who freaking cares. That's a pointless comparison. It's like saying the woman that you have setup your friend with has a 'great personality'. (Bad analogy warning)

I guess we will see when it's released...

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What lets see what it can do later on today at the pixar wwdc event.

That will be interesting, but not an unbiased demonstration, still, it would be interesting to see, and be a fly-on-the-wall...

 

[dpalme]

Why expandability must be inside?

Here's my point. Let's just say for sake of argument that the price point, which I haven't seen yet comes in at 2,499.00 the current entry level model out today.

You have taken away the super drives (which I still need (2)), you have taken away my expandability (Avid) and given me what? Ok, let's just say the GPU is indeed faster or more reliable....I'll take that and the faster processor. However, I now have to go out and purchas two external burners, tha'ts easily $100.00 and they will be slower than I was getting when they were internally. An external expansion unit? That alone is going to cost me 4 bills or more.....

Add it all together and my price point today of $2,499.00 just became at the very least over 3 grand, not to mention more headaches on my part.

Apple is consumed with this thinner and smalle rmentality....we went through the same thing with cars in the 90's and look where we are today? Back to the mid size from the 80's. Its nice looking, flower pot and garbage can jokes aside...and I'm sure the airflow design is worth its weight, but what I'm losing is more than I want.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

Any cards in civilization that use the full 32 GB/s?

Graphics cards.

 

[xbjllb]

Ah... the death of the cheese grater

Ah. The death of the cheese grater.

Finally. Hope there are a ton of thunderbolt to firewire adaptors/cables though.

Probably a good thing to shrink it and have people add on what they need (mostly drives).

Now if they would only RESTORE the damned OS to Snow Leopard functionality.

 

[oliversl]

I hope the new cylinder is not the old cube. If it not blatantly expensive, it should work. Look nice btw. I wonder how it work at room temperature of 26 or more, celsius.

 

[xbjllb]

EDIT: Though it does, indeed, look like a trashcan

Aftermarket or premarket idea: Make up "cheese grater" screens to fit the hole at the top.

Presto! No garbage can look, no idiot visitors throwing trash into it, a subtle link with the old "cheese grater" towers.

Apple: You know where to send the check. Oh, all right, if you insist, I'll beta test a prototype.

Ok. So now it's a salt shaker.

 

[milo]

So do we really know which FirePro gpus are going to be in this? They talked about 7 terra flops, three 4k monitors, and the website says up to 6 gigs video memory, but the "up to" part implies more than one video card option.

As an audio guy, I'm not really interested in a machine that's really expensive because it has high end video cards. The range of FirePro cards is all over the place, the high end ones are up to $3000 per card but the low end ones start around $100. What are the chances they have an option that's more basic video and keeps the cost down? Depending on video configuration, it seems like this machine doesn't necessarily have to be that expensive.


One other concern is using the xeon E5 in a single socket configuration. Isn't that spending a lot of money for the dual socket feature and then not taking advantage of it? Sure, the E5 will go up to 12 cores on one chip, but looking at the previous generation E5, they are really really expensive and tend to have fairly low clock speeds.

Looking online at benchmarks, a single E5-2640, six core at 2.5Ghz is about the same speed as an i7 3770k, only quad core but 3.5Ghz. The E5 is $900 and the i7 is $319. An i7 3930k (six core 3.2) is considerably faster than the E5 for $569. Six core E5 start around $400 but that's clock speed of only 2Ghz, the one model over 3Ghz is over a thousand bucks. Eight core starts at $1300 for 2.1 and goes up to almost two thousand dollars to get up to 3.1Ghz. And I assume a major price drop or bump in clock speeds isn't expected with ivy bridge E5?

People always insist that the xeons are no more expensive than the i7s...but that's only the case with the E3's, which Apple isn't using for these. For comparison, the haswell E3 1275V3, quad 3.5Ghz is $354.

Dare I say it, but I'd really like to see a configuration of this box that uses E3 (or even i7). The point of E5 seems to be going past six cores or configuring with dual CPUs (the latter of which it looks like Apple won't be doing). But I assume Apple will offer lower end configurations, the problem is they will be way more expensive than the high end iMac but no more powerful (cool case internals aside).

Or will E5 prices drop (or clock speeds go way up for the price)? Or will they somehow stuff dual CPU in there (not bloody likely)? It just really looks like the high end REALLY expensive versions will be the only ones worth buying, and once again the base model will be a horrible value. Or maybe they will only offer high end configurations and the base model will run $5000. I just don't see the logic behind only offering single socket E5.

Maybe they just need to work on getting six core chips into iMacs and minis, shame they have such a size fetish.

 

[tbrinkma]

Touching story bro. Haven't even used the new Mac Pro and you're already dismissing its capabilities...
Go back to your W8 trash.

Not only that. He hasn't bought any hardware from Apple in 8 years, and now he seems to expect them to be upset that he *still* won't be buying hardware from them.