haha, sorry. I'll go back and fix. I'm not sure what my brains doing
I think i'm still bitter HD-DVD lost the war
Not at all. Your brain is just spelling the word "blue" out. I still have to slow down to type iPhone and iPod and iMac and such.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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Apple Offers Sneak Peek of Completely Redesigned Mac Pro
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Not at all. Your brain is just spelling the word "blue" out. I still have to slow down to type iPhone and iPod and iMac and such.
Well, if you look in my signature, it quite clearly says I have a Memorex USB3 BD/DVD/CD drive (I got it for $52 shipped at that). I don't really use it much for BD, though. It gets used more for loading old Windows games (via VMWare with XP and Win98) and the occasional dump of a CD into iTunes than anything else. In short, the Mac Mini doesn't have a drive period. I could either lament this or just get a USB3 drive for cheap. The Mac Mini is hidden behind my two monitors and the Memorex Drive sits vertical mounted between them. I get a consistent black look (between the monitors, drives and speakers and keyboard I have on a dark desk and the Mini is tucked out of site. I still have the full tower nook available under the desk in case I want to share the monitor/keyboard/mouse setup with a dedicated gaming rig or whatever at some stage.
I'm not trying to "all in one" anything. I've got a Mini with external attached storage and internal RAID0 storage. Having the media drive external means if the Mini goes down, I can always temporarily serve it off my Macbook Pro if need be.
This isn't an argument about the new Mac Pro in terms of BD. It's just about BD versus media farming. The Mac Pro is a whole different bag of hurt and the lack of a PCI expansion bus bugs me more than the lack of internal optical drive space. Who buys a Mac Pro as a media server anyway?
It's called Ethernet. Of course, I don't personally use it since an encoded 720P version is all I need with my current projector (due to be replaced in the next year or so, though) and I have no trouble sending it across dual-band WiFi.
Again, I don't personally need that level since I cannot see enough difference worth the misery of using an optical disc (not to mention my downstairs is still using a receiver that only uses component so that has to be upgraded first; a product of putting together a home theater 6 years ago when it wasn't worth the extra expense for HDMI switching and it was 1.0 anyway.
Even that would require a new receiver here (since all newer Blu-Ray with Netflix, etc. require HDMI and even older versions can disable HD output by the disc if the networks decide they feel like screwing you over). Don't forget the next step you didn't list which is to watch the ads, previews and animated menus before you can even get to the movie and if the studios want to force you to watch them, they darn well can. Personally, I can't stand advertising anymore and I don't want to watch movie previews I've seen before for the rest of my life. The trade-offs are simply unacceptable to me. Then there's the search for the disc upstairs/downstairs thing and no ability to watch the same movie on both floors at the same time (which I've done before when I ran out of space downstairs for everyone that came over). You have one disc only. And in my case, I'd have to go buy a lot of Blu-Rays first to play.
LOL. That's an amusing thing to say if you think of the ironic double entendre (i.e. the format is going nowhere). Hey, VHS was around for over two decades. That didn't mean I bought few if any movies on that format (a handful of Bogart movies unavailable on any other format at the time is all, really). But then buying Laserdisc in the '90s wasn't much smarter. It was the disc that never wore out and was over 40% sharper than VHS! Yeah, I still have over 100 of those LP-like discs downstairs. I wonder how much they're worth now....
After all, Super Blu-Ray is the next big thing and it means all current BDs will be obsolete once again so they can sell you the same movies all over again. At some point, the relative screen size versus viewing distance makes it seem pointless in a home environment for most people, but these are the same people that think Blu-Ray is like 1000x better than H264 1080p and so no amount of logic or science will convince them that they aren't seeing all that detail. They probably own LPs too since AAC sounds just horrible.
No, I think it's more like at some point in the near future, you'll just be able to buy a stand-alone box that downloads movies onto a massive included hard drive and it will automatically stream to other sub-boxes around the house (i.e. imagine Sonus for HD movies). AppleTV isn't too far off the mark here, but requires a server computer which may be too darn technical for the average person. In either case, viewers will have the option of either sitting on their couch and clicking to buy or rent a movie and having near instant satisfaction or driving off to Wal-Mart or wherever to buy a physical disc, only to find they're sold out of Gee-Whiz-Bang and that Hollywood Video is already out of business so they're just plain SOL. Pay-Per-View is already more popular than home video stores and it's only a matter of time before people get completely sick of having to wait for Netflix to send them a Blu-Ray since nobody in the entire state rents them anymore. And just how many movies do people really BUY anyway? DVDs became impulse buys below $10, but I have yet to see the level of market penetration where Blu-Rays are at every grocery store checkout counter like DVDs and frankly, most people buy HDTVs that are like 40-50 inches where it's not even worth bothering with a Blu-Ray if you're sitting 15-20 feet away. It's hardly sharper looking with a set that size at that seating distance. Most people don't have the BIG screens to REALLY appreciate 1080p. I have a 93" screen and 720P looks PHENOMINAL compared to Laserdisc and DVD and frankly looks more "film" like than 1080p at that size (i.e. large movie theaters do not look like a 60" or even a 93" 1080p display at the screen sizes and seating distances, IMO. They're more film like and that's not a bad thing. I'm not sure I want movies to look like an NFL game, but that's where they're heading with Super HD and high frame rate playback.
Basically, I'm saying Blu-Ray is already overkill for the typical "average" person. They're going to appreciate convenience over the last pixel perfection to the nth degree at some point. Just look at how popular music streaming and sales services have become and just how quickly CDs are disappearing from local stores (any good selection at least). There's a very good argument that CDs are better quality (not lossy) than AAC or MP3, but people DON'T CARE for the most part. They want convenience and most can't hear that difference anyway (if there even is one audibly compared to high bit-rate AAC). There has been a push for high-end audio formats (SACD and DVD-Audio). Yeah, they have a few fans, but the reality is in terms of world-wide sales, they're pretty much FAILURES as formats because the average person listening with dirt cheap garbage ear-buds isn't going to appreciate the quality already available on CD or AAC, let alone some super format that may or may not offer better sound (I say it's the mastered recordings that are better since lower rate dumps sound the same; I myself record my own music in 24/96 for head room, but the final mixes sound the same even on my best speakers (Carver ribbons with a custom crossover setup; same setup and drivers used by $50k Genesis IIs).
This is precisely my problem with the Mac Pro as well (in other posts here). Thunderbolt 2.0 is no substitute for PCI 3.0 16x slots.
yes it helps with process of burning more than two copies for the customer
USB 3 enclosures are useless and they do slow down your mac especially when you use USB
and this is a horrible option
all that extra room on desk that I do not have
I love the speed but no expandability, it makes it useless for usage as a pro all in one computer, at least if they would give us two extra bays for hard drives it could of helped us make a switch to new mac pros but with no internal bays, its almost impossible to do this for us.
as we do not what to add extra parts on our desks
After reading it all, We are basically on the same page.
I'm in full agreeance that for the average consumer Blu-Ray is overkill. Digital means are absolutely sufficient.
I'm in the same boat as you, I have actually a very similar setup and currently my projector is 720p as well (almost time for an upgrade). I've ripped everything to storage media and use Plex exclusively.
But I understand the other side of the story. Blu-ray here at least has a lot of penetration, possibly due to the extremely high Canadian telcom costs being a barrier to download / streaming.
you can go to grocery stores and buy blu-rays in bins by the door. overall, generally blu-ray is cheaper here than downloading. Most people in Canada have stupid low caps like 60gb / mth, where downloading HD content is very cost prohibitive.
And overall, Those who are thinking of building a home theatre / server setup are best served by other means than this new MP. due to all we've discussed about limitations of internalized storage and hardware.
it seems like this MP, while a fantastic piece of engineering, and probably an extremely powerful piece of hardwar,e does have some glaring technical limitations, that while have "work arounds", don't truly cover enough, which to me, makes the new MP more of a niche "boutique" workstation, than a true work horse.
as I always say, everyones mileage varies and I'm sure many people will be very happy with this.
Well, look at what Apple does on the new MacPro.
http://www.thunderbolt4mac.com/Apple/New-Mac-Pro/index.asp?C=4
USB3 and Thunderbolt ports. Let the USB people stay in USB land and Thunderbolt people stay in Thunderbolt land
You dont want to add extra parts on your desks but Apple does not want you to add any parts internally in their machine. This would create support tickets which is what Apple doesnt want. They have no control over what you want to add. If you go everything USB or Thunderbolt, easier for them to support. First thing to ask is if your device gets certified by either USB or Thunderbolt? if not, go ask your vendor. Either you put extra parts on your desk with a tiny MacPro or having a huge old MacPro with all the little parts you wanna add
Well, look at what Apple does on the new MacPro.
http://www.thunderbolt4mac.com/Apple/New-Mac-Pro/index.asp?C=4
USB3 and Thunderbolt ports. Let the USB people stay in USB land and Thunderbolt people stay in Thunderbolt land
You dont want to add extra parts on your desks but Apple does not want you to add any parts internally in their machine. This would create support tickets which is what Apple doesnt want. They have no control over what you want to add. If you go everything USB or Thunderbolt, easier for them to support. First thing to ask is if your device gets certified by either USB or Thunderbolt? if not, go ask your vendor. Either you put extra parts on your desk with a tiny MacPro or having a huge old MacPro with all the little parts you wanna add
I change drives in my mac all the time with out any issues, and in 10 years I had no need for support
but by adding things to my mac through USB or Firewire always gives problems and slows down my macs,
I still do not get why apple will do that
you can change drive on iMac, whats the big deal with with the new "mac mini pro", or they are going into building external drives so they can get more money
Curious To See Who Ends Up Embracing This Model
My first response was "Cool!". I did speak with my friend who works in television production (using every form of Mac all time on and behind TV sets) this design bummed him out.
By forcing the expansion to happen outside the machine you've got now a major mess of peripherals lying around your workstation, daisy chained together. As others have expressed this can add cost depending on what you need to buy externally.
Also my production friend siad "lightning bolt" has a bad rep for not being quite up to snuff professionally. Not for speed but for connection reliability. Much like HDMI essentially sucks for professional applications because of it's lack of some kind of "locking" connection. Having played with Lighting Bolt connections on the iPhone 5 I think it's better than HDMI in that regard but I could see where an industry professional would want something more durable. There's a lot of money on the line in those circumstances and I could see preferring and really robust connector.
Perhaps this is not a fair analogy, but this design move reminds me of the move from Final Cut 7 to Final Cut X. This design seems to upset the professionals and be targeted at a more prosumer market. I'm sensing the TV and Film Production community having some issues with this design.
That said I may want one for myself at some point depending on pricing. I love the small form factor but I'm also not in a position to want to put in custom (high end) graphics cards or anything like that (plus this has some nice out of the box graphics to start). I haven't read anywhere about if this unit is upgradable. With the 3 sides of the triangular innards I wonder if any one of those panels could be discreetly replaced. Sort of like what they did with the design of the X3i computer that was being associated with the Steam Box hardware. The X3i broke the motherboard into discreet components and made it all modular so you can upgrade parts of the system without having to replace the entire guts (motherboard) of the unit. That I thought was brilliant. xi3.com/
I'll be curious to see how this is embraced. I work with a lot of engineers, graphics people and designers and I haven't heard anyone really excited about it. Oh, and my buddy from from Art Center was worried about someone coming into his office and trying to throw a banana peel away in his new high tech looking garbage can.
Still an apple fan. Just curious where this machine will live in the world of former MacPro users. How many will replace what they had with this? Will this attract a new user base (as I suspect it might)? Very curious.
My first response was "Cool!". I did speak with my friend who works in television production (using every form of Mac all time on and behind TV sets) this design bummed him out.
By forcing the expansion to happen outside the machine you've got now a major mess of peripherals lying around your workstation, daisy chained together. As others have expressed this can add cost depending on what you need to buy externally.
Also my production friend siad "lightning bolt" has a bad rep for not being quite up to snuff professionally. Not for speed but for connection reliability. Much like HDMI essentially sucks for professional applications because of it's lack of some kind of "locking" connection. Having played with Lighting Bolt connections on the iPhone 5 I think it's better than HDMI in that regard but I could see where an industry professional would want something more durable. There's a lot of money on the line in those circumstances and I could see preferring and really robust connector.
Perhaps this is not a fair analogy, but this design move reminds me of the move from Final Cut 7 to Final Cut X. This design seems to upset the professionals and be targeted at a more prosumer market. I'm sensing the TV and Film Production community having some issues with this design.
That said I may want one for myself at some point depending on pricing. I love the small form factor but I'm also not in a position to want to put in custom (high end) graphics cards or anything like that (plus this has some nice out of the box graphics to start). I haven't read anywhere about if this unit is upgradable. With the 3 sides of the triangular innards I wonder if any one of those panels could be discreetly replaced. Sort of like what they did with the design of the X3i computer that was being associated with the Steam Box hardware. The X3i broke the motherboard into discreet components and made it all modular so you can upgrade parts of the system without having to replace the entire guts (motherboard) of the unit. That I thought was brilliant. xi3.com/
I'll be curious to see how this is embraced. I work with a lot of engineers, graphics people and designers and I haven't heard anyone really excited about it. Oh, and my buddy from from Art Center was worried about someone coming into his office and trying to throw a banana peel away in his new high tech looking garbage can.
Still an apple fan. Just curious where this machine will live in the world of former MacPro users. How many will replace what they had with this? Will this attract a new user base (as I suspect it might)? Very curious.
Pitched to make the choice difficult......
I ws thinking about buying gen 2 of this thing but more and more articles are pointing out the impracticalities of this thing.
For example, that bit about the lit connection panel at the back. Admittedly you can't do it with the current MP either but when you have for example an iOS device, a monitor, power cable, router and a TB device plugged in exactly how far would it be possible to turn it anyway, (especially if the cables point in different directions)?
I was thinking about buying a latest multicore beast refurb current MP as if I want OWC allows not only this but also this PCI based flash options and I can install lots of things that are fit and forget like graphics cars too. But then I have the cost to look at and no TB support. Also I can't get the MacPro at all in the EU, not even a gaddam refurb!
The new one is lovely but should I wait until TB 3?
I wouldn't go as far as to call this thing a FAIL, but Apple have certainly missed a trick with it.
I ws thinking about buying gen 2 of this thing but more and more articles are pointing out the impracticalities of this thing.
For example, that bit about the lit connection panel at the back. Admittedly you can't do it with the current MP either but when you have for example an iOS device, a monitor, power cable, router and a TB device plugged in exactly how far would it be possible to turn it anyway, (especially if the cables point in different directions)?
I was thinking about buying a latest multicore beast refurb current MP as if I want OWC allows not only this but also this PCI based flash options and I can install lots of things that are fit and forget like graphics cars too. But then I have the cost to look at and no TB support. Also I can't get the MacPro at all in the EU, not even a gaddam refurb!
The new one is lovely but should I wait until TB 3?
I wouldn't go as far as to call this thing a FAIL, but Apple have certainly missed a trick with it.
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My take is the price range will be wider than the current Mac Pro line going from $1999 for the basic quad core system to just south of $10K for a fully tricked out twelve core system.
The lowest end will address those that want more than a Mac Mini and has their system on a KVM switch where an iMac it not practical.
The highest end will sell like crazy to all the render jocks who will also buy the much anticipated line of PCIe expansion chassis products connecting via Thunderbolt.
haha, sorry. I'll go back and fix. I'm not sure what my brains doing
I think i'm still bitter HD-DVD lost the war
Lol... no probs dude.... just had one of those OCD days.... and I work in media post production so I have to deal with all sorts of misspellings all the time....
Prices are starting to leak for the xeons these machines will use. Not cheap and when you look at pricing for single 12 versus dual 6 core, assuming this pricing is real, Apple's decision to only make it single socket isn't looking very good.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7214/xeon-e52600-v2-price-list-server-ivy-bridgeep
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7214/xeon-e52600-v2-price-list-server-ivy-bridgeep
You've linked to a page which shows dual socket processor prices even though we are 99% sure it is a single socket machine (you even said so!!)
The single socket Xeons (which are usually priced the same as the i7 versions) are slightly cheaper according to recent price leaks/speculation.
Misinformation isn't helpful
Jesus H Christ, $2949.69 just for the processor!? And what do those dual GPUs run? About $1,000 starting-price for a 2GB pair and $3,000 for a 6GB pair?
You've linked to a page which shows dual socket processor prices even though we are 99% sure it is a single socket machine (you even said so!!)
The single socket Xeons (which are usually priced the same as the i7 versions) are slightly cheaper according to recent price leaks/speculation.
Misinformation isn't helpful
It wasn't misinformation.
The single-socket Xeon E3-series have a max of 4 cores and 32 GiB of RAM.
Apple will be using dual-socket capable processors and dual-socket capable chipsets. There are no single-socket CPUs with 12 cores - but you can use one dual-capable CPU.
i wish they go easy on our wallet this time, i've ruined all my reserves because i cant resist buying all the new tech.
, i've ruined all my reserves because i cant resist buying all the new tech.Sorry guy, it's not misinformation, Apple is actually planning on using dual socket capable chips but only putting them in a single socket motherboard. Go look at Apple's product page for the new MP, they say it is a single socket E5 configuration.
As AI pointed out, there is no twelve core version of the E3 or other single socket chips.
Not only would a dual socket version be a cheaper way of getting 12 cores, the clock speed tends to be higher with fewer cores. Of course a single socket mobo is going to be cheaper...but not $1200 cheaper. Maybe Apple will come to their senses and build a version that's dual CPU and single GPU. And these are "consumer" prices, Apple will be getting them for cheaper but not that much cheaper.
You both forget about the E5-1xxx series.
They are not going to use a E5-2 series 6 core when a E5-1 series 6 core would do the job.
Besides, just because a E5-1 series 12 core hasn't bean announced doesn't mean there won't be one. If intel doesn't release a 12-core 1 series then maybe the higher end MP will have a series 2 CPU in it. Lower down? 1-series.
It is utterly daft to use a DP CPU in a SP machine when it costs give or take twice as much.
Nope, we both are just aware that that series only goes up to six cores. Apple has announced a single socket 12 core machine. Which chip do you expect them to use that gives them 12 cores on one chip?
That might be the case for a six core configuration, but there's no E5-1 series 12 core (or 8 or 10, if they want those options). And have you seen pricing (even rumored) for the E5-1 series?
Of course anything can happen, but Intel hasn't done that so far, and these machines are scheduled to ship before the end of the year. If that chip was going to exist by then it would probably be leaking along with the rest of the list.
Which is exactly what I said in the first place, glad you no longer feel it's "misinformation".
Even though you just said that Apple may do exactly that if 12 cores is only available in the 2 series.
It's really very simple - Apple has announced single socket 12 core machines, and the only chips we know about that will support that are E5-2695 v2 and E5-2697 v2. And single socket 12 core is more expensive than dual 6 core as well as maxing out at lower clock speeds (meaning the 2x6 option goes up to 3.5Ghz but 1x12 only up to 2.7).
That's a good point.
It will be interesting to see what Apple cuts out to make the entry model.
----------
As low as $294 according to Intel's comparison page http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59138/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-Family/server .
And on the same page, E5-2xxx are as cheap as $188. Maybe that wouldn't be so daft after all....
Those are the v1 versions of these chips, the v2 ones should be similar but I don't think they have leaked yet.
That $188 chip is a quad at 1.8Ghz. Releasing a MP with that would be more daft than anything else mentioned in this thread.
There are fairly cheap 2xxx chips, but they are low performance. The 2xxx versions that are comparable to 1620/1650/1660 are much more expensive.
E5-1620 quad core 3.6Ghz $294
E5-2643 quad core 3.3Ghz $885
E5-1650 six core 3.2Ghz $583
E5-2667 six core 2.9Ghz $1552
The 2xxx do have advantages in cache and QPI but I'm skeptical in real world use people are seeing $1000 better performance. But for more than six cores, they have no choice but to use the 2xxx series.
So Apple could offer relatively cheap (by mac pro standards) quad and six core versions, with a pretty big jump in price up to 8/10/12 core versions.
Apple didn't invent most of the technology they use. They're masters at making the latest technologies work well for most users.
...
the amateurs and fanboys just do not have the knowledge to understand that this new "pro"
is just a disguise for the discontinueing of the mac pro workstation line.
you get something shiny and from afar seemingly something "new"..
but in fact it is just a single cpu system with specially manufactured components,
so that you cant replace them yourself.
you'll be stuck with apples choice of gpu. you cant put in your own standard gpu,
bought at a way lower price than apple would offer it. to use 2 to 4 gpus as it is possible
with modern workstations cant come even to mind. then for higher storage needs, dvd
burning, etc.. you'll need a bunch of expensive tb enclosures.
so great. you have a nice and shiny small box encircled of cables for expansion stuff.
you cant have the gpu you want or need. and the fun ends with one 12core cpu.
dont get me wrong, this is probably a nice computer for a lot of people.
but...
strategic wise this is something between an imac and the old mac pro workstations.
performance wise it is certainly not even close to what will be possible by end of 2013.
the amateurs and fanboys just do not have the knowledge to understand that this new "pro"
is just a disguise for the discontinueing of the mac pro workstation line.
you get something shiny and from afar seemingly something "new"..
but in fact it is just a single cpu system with specially manufactured components,
so that you cant replace them yourself.
you'll be stuck with apples choice of gpu. you cant put in your own standard gpu,
bought at a way lower price than apple would offer it. to use 2 to 4 gpus as it is possible
with modern workstations cant come even to mind. then for higher storage needs, dvd
burning, etc.. you'll need a bunch of expensive tb enclosures.
so great. you have a nice and shiny small box encircled of cables for expansion stuff.
you cant have the gpu you want or need. and the fun ends with one 12core cpu.
dont get me wrong, this is probably a nice computer for a lot of people.
but...
strategic wise this is something between an imac and the old mac pro workstations.
performance wise it is certainly not even close to what will be possible by end of 2013.