Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro

[wizard]

Can Thunderbolt handle that amount of data or will it become a bottleneck?

It can be a bootle neck and already has been for some users. TB in its latest announced form only runs at 20 giga bits per second. That is bits, 1's and 0's, per second. Some of the ideas expressed so far, in relation to current know TB technologies, are just asinine. TB is slower that PCI Express One (1) in its sixteen lane form and version one of PCI Express is old technology.

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My *guess* is that it'll still be priced around $2500 entry (assuming roughly the same features and workstation grade CPU)... $1500 would undercut the iMac, as well, it would be in a range of more of a tech-enthusiast device .... IMHO only!

.

That is kinda the point! By the way that is a base or entry level machine. Power users can and will pay whatever they want for all the performance they can get.

The idea with the low entry level price is to build volume and suck in customers. Volume is needed to sustain the model else it fall victim to the axe just like the servers did.

 

[GoCubsGo]

An IOS based Mac Pro!! That would be really different. ;-)

And a flop, I bet.

 

[prowlmedia]

rumors can't be hyped? really? First day at MacRumors?

No they can't. Hype is a the over promotion of something tangible. Rumor is pretty much the Antithesis of hype.

First day at English class?

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

There's no way Thunderbolt can handle that kind of workload, and Apple ditched XGrid, which isn't exactly a positive sign for the "Lets leash lots of small computers together as a desktop cluster" concept your suggestion entails.

It's not currently possible with Thunderbolt, Apple's shown no sign of moving in this direction. It's about as sensible to say that maybe the next Mac Pro will be fueled by unicorn blood.

Yes, Apple ditched XGrid but that doesn't mean that they don't have something else up their sleeve which has taken longer to roll out than anticipated - IE the replacement for XGrid.

Instead of XGrid where you need special application hooks to enable distributed computing imagine software which automatically adds "CPUs" requiring no modification (aside from multi processor support) to run.

As I have stated previously, there have been a number of products in the past like Radius Rocket cards running over NuBus which did something VERY similar to what people are proposing and the detractors say is impossible.

Am I saying that is the direction Apple is going? Who the hell knows. But it certainly is possible.

 

[69650]

A nice surprise would be a reasonable price for a new Mac Pro.

LOL. Not a chance. Pro devices = expensive prices on planet Apple.

Reasonably priced = Mac Mini or iMac.

 

[BeauPaul]

in this day and age you really don't need a tower!

Something smaller and more powerful is on the way!

 

[Nik]

**deleted**

 

[paul987]

What a new Mac Pro Needs:

Better video card
Thunderbolt
USB 3.0
HDMI video output
DO NOT take away: Optical drive
DO NOT take away: Easily swappable hard drives
DO NOT take away: 4 3.5" hard drive bays
DO NOT take away: User upgradeable video card
DO NOT take away: User upgradeable RAM
Price starting at $1,500

A smaller case would be nice, but only if all the above conditions are met.

 

[costabunny]

even though I am no longer in the market for a macpro (the need isn't there for me any longer); I am excited to see where they will take the pro next.

If I were to put my five cents in I'd want good gfx expandability, couple of TB ports, USB3, 6x2.5" SATA6 bays and possibly not even an optical drive. (no 3.5" bays).

Yes this is probably going to call for some venting, but to be honest I hardly use Optical disks for clients nowadays - I give them a USB stick or upload via encrypted zip and allow them to have their work however they wish. As I keep multiple backups; clients can always come back to me years later and I will have the files for them.

just my way of thinking thats all

 

[canman4PM]

An affordable Mac Pro would be nice. The base model can be simple Core i7. For most of us 12-core Xeon with ECC RAM is a huge overkill. There has to be something in between the palm-sized Mac Mini and the all-out Mac Pro.

Apple has that already. It's called an iMac. Had it for years.

 

[VoR]

But in summary, the main reason I believe for modularity is about the heat.

...but you also say :

The Mac Pro when it first came out was "revolutionary" in heat dissipation because it channeled air flow separately for some of these heat sources and thereby cut down on the number of fans normally associated with towers of that size.

What's wrong with sticking with that? Simple internal design segregating heat is at least as efficient and more convenient than external expansion. I wouldn't say it was revolutionary though

Simple random dimension boxes, blade racks, silent minitowers etcetc just need enough airflow to dissipate heat to keep all parts in specified ranges. Design dictates your requirements. As you said, heat is always the limiting factor and the big tdp culprits are cpu/gpu with generationally similar output. You can walk to the shops tomorrow and squeeze a board full of the highest end components behind a single 120mm fan with off the shelf parts and run flat out 24/7. apple are a design and production powerhouse that can do whatever they want, very nicely and at a fraction of the cost of many.

My guess is that they'll either stick to the same general tower case/design with dual sockets or condense to a small, high density case with two full length pcie slots. (Edit: Which should cost the same as the mac mini with the cost difference of the hypothetical cpu/gpu options.... but won't )

 

[Renzatic]

No they can't. Hype is a the over promotion of something tangible. Rumor is pretty much the Antithesis of hype.

First day at English class?

The word "antithesis" isn't usually capitalized. OH! LOOK AT WHAT I DID! TURNED YOUR POINTLESS SNARK AROUND ON YOU!

Anyway, hype isn't only the over promotion of something tangible, it can also be used to describe the building anticipation within a fanbase. Like being "hyped" (imagine me doing air quotes here) for a new album by your favorite band or something similar. In this latter case, rumors play into the hype and help build it.

We really get into some pedantic arguments around here, don't we?

 

[Marx55]

Something different:

Mac minitower
http://www.macworld.com/article/2029740/the-time-is-finally-right-for-a-mac-minitower.html

Thunderbolt display with USB 3 - 24-inch

Keyboard with numeric keypad and built-in USB 3 hub

 

[blackhand1001]

What entry level price range were you thinking? around $2100 ?

.

More like 800-1200. You can get very capable hardware from other manufacturers in that price range.

 

[unibility]

...but will the new Mac Pro share Intel's 20Gbps 'Thunderbolt 2' or will it already be out of date when it's announced.

 

[Blu Reel]

...but you also say :



What's wrong with sticking with that? Simple internal design segregating heat is at least as efficient and more convenient than external expansion. I wouldn't say it was revolutionary though

Simple random dimension boxes, blade racks, silent minitowers etcetc just need enough airflow to dissipate heat to keep all parts in specified ranges. Design dictates your requirements. As you said, heat is always the limiting factor and the big tdp culprits are cpu/gpu with generationally similar output. You can walk to the shops tomorrow and squeeze a board full of the highest end components behind a single 120mm fan with off the shelf parts and run flat out 24/7. apple are a design and production powerhouse that can do whatever they want, very nicely and at a fraction of the cost of many.

My guess is that they'll either stick to the same general tower case/design with dual sockets or condense to a small, high density case with two full length pcie slots. (Edit: Which should cost the same as the mac mini with the cost difference of the hypothetical cpu/gpu options.... but won't )

I guess I should have added that the big tower is annoying to move around. The clients I work with could use a more "portable" solution with the same power and flexibility of the existing tower. A modular construction would hypothetically make the Mac Pro more portable, but of course, we really won't know until we see what Apple shows us.

 

[anomie]

What a new Mac Pro Needs:

Better video card
Thunderbolt
USB 3.0
HDMI video output
DO NOT take away: Optical drive
DO NOT take away: Easily swappable hard drives
DO NOT take away: 4 3.5" hard drive bays
DO NOT take away: User upgradeable video card
DO NOT take away: User upgradeable RAM
Price starting at $1,500

A smaller case would be nice, but only if all the above conditions are met.

What you want is a faster horse.. You lack vision.
Realize that Apple never listens to its customers, which made Apple so successful in the past.

 

[Mago]

What a new Mac Pro Needs:

Better video card
Thunderbolt
USB 3.0
HDMI video output
DO NOT take away: Optical drive <-

Impossible, optical drive actually is an legacy technology, if apple decides to still support it they need to compromise the future design of the mac, the fact is that 99% PRO users already ditched cd/DVD years ago and is used so often that a cheap external unit has sense, and for those 1% like you there is available external unit as solid as internal ones for heavy usage, also coz you use that so often when it die you don't need t open your mac to replace it, so no cd/DVD is a win-win for every one.

DO NOT take away: Easily swappable hard drives. <-

sure, no question

DO NOT take away: 4 3.5" hard drive bays. <-

unlikely 2.5" hdd hybrid allow 5x hdd on the space for 3x 3.5", saves 50% power, 10x faster.

DO NOT take away: User upgradeable video card. <-

sure but don't get surprised if apple introduces it's own propertary pcie x16 bus

DO NOT take away: User upgradeable Ram. <-

similar part as on the mini and iMac 27 you'll can to upgrade ram

Price starting at $1,500

A smaller case would be nice, but only if all the above conditions are met.

Obvious You're not a pro, a PRO dont spend 5000$ on a WORKSTATION to burn CD/DVDs.

Most Pro Ditched CD/DVD much earlier than non-pros coz is much faster and safer to copy/backup large files to a pendrive or a sd card than to burn an scratchable CD/DVD, if you use an CD/DVD your are not an pro or you lives in the past, if you still really need to burn a CD/DVD save 4500$ get a mac mini and attach an high perfomance external CD/DVD easy to replace, also saves a lot of space.

 

[vladi]

edit: dalupus, our posts overlapped but same ideas

Think of a backplane switch where you can plug in X number of boxes.

CPU Box
GPU Box
Memory Box
IO Box

You decide how many of each based on how you use your machine.

I'm thinking most storage will be external. The IO Box will come in several flavors: TB only, USB3 only, FW800 only, Legacy

Can't happen in case of GPU unless they use lower end GPUs or higher bandwidth transfer like Thunderbolt 2 for high end GPUs. Even in that case forget about multiple GPUs or Nvidia Maximus combo. But besides that can you imagine how much those modular expansion would cost for being proprietary Apple add-ons? I don't even want to think about it.

If this new machine doesn't support PCIe expandability they can pack and go home just simple as that.

 

[prowlmedia]

The word "antithesis" isn't usually capitalized. OH! LOOK AT WHAT I DID! TURNED YOUR POINTLESS SNARK AROUND ON YOU!

Anyway, hype isn't only the over promotion of something tangible, it can also be used to describe the building anticipation within a fanbase. Like being "hyped" (imagine me doing air quotes here) for a new album by your favorite band or something similar. In this latter case, rumors play into the hype and help build it.

We really get into some pedantic arguments around here, don't we?

Your Capitalised snark line was ironic as I was just rebutting against the poster being rude. Also typing on a mobile. Hyped is a horrible Americanism and bastardazation of the word. Still incorrect. Oh and yes we do. Better than listening to all the paid Samsung posters that live on here now in any case.

 

[Nik]

I don't see the point why Apple should NOT take away the optical drive.
With a desktop setup you can very easily add an external one.

I am concerned that the rumor says that the MacPro itself will not be upgradeable: What's the whole point in the MacPro over the iMac then?!

 

[prowlmedia]

More like 800-1200. You can get very capable hardware from other manufacturers in that price range.

But you still have to use windoze...

Also you realise the single CPU alone in a Mac Pro are about $700

 

[Xiroteus]

I don't see the point why Apple should NOT take away the optical drive.
With a desktop setup you can very easily add an external optical drive.

Why?

What possible reason would there be to remove an option for a optical drive bay on a PRO desktop machine? I may be letting up on laptops moving away from optical drives yet refuse to get an inch on a desktop, people should not have to add a external to a desktop, I would not even bother just based on how ridiculous it is.

so no cd/DVD is a win-win for every one.\

No it's not. I refuse to use an external to a desktop, it is completely ridiculous.

Not that hard for Apple to have options for internal hardware. I imagine many people would rather use that space for other things, that is a win win when we have the correct options of choice.

 

[Umbongo]

But you still have to use windoze...

Also you realise the single CPU alone in a Mac Pro are about $700

$2,499 model has a $300 CPU.

 

[Mago]

I don't see the point why Apple should NOT take away the optical drive.
With a desktop setup you can very easily add an external one.

I am concerned that the rumor says that the MacPro itself will not be upgradeable: What's the whole point in the MacPro over the iMac then?!

Just Troll Comments, no real PRO still uses CD/DVD in any workflow, Pendrives does de job 10x faster and much more reliable w/o waste.

And Why somebody is worried about CD/DVD on a 5000$ Mac? Who Spend 5000$ to burn CD/DVDs all the day, thats idiotic, troll questions.

If there still people requiring to burn a lot of CD/DVD, a Mac Mini with an external HEAVY DUTY EASY TO REPLACE CD/DVD/BD BURNER WILL DO for about 800$ or about 1/6 the value of an Mac PRO.