Lou Borella, who has no track record to support his assertions, and who is very, very vague on exactly who his sources are and their own track record.
Marco Arment (Instapaper) says it best:
http://www.marco.org/2013/06/05/future-mac-pro-rumor?
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Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro
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Lou Borella, who has no track record to support his assertions, and who is very, very vague on exactly who his sources are and their own track record.
Marco Arment (Instapaper) says it best:
http://www.marco.org/2013/06/05/future-mac-pro-rumor?
"Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro"
Like putting it off till next year?
Like putting it off till next year?
Do Apple actually hold focus group meetings with, or even consult their existing pro customers? You'd think a quick straw poll would tell Apple EXACTLY what their pro customers want and it doesn't exactly marry up with what the rumours are saying!
I suspect there are more Pro users inside Apple itself than out in the wild. I am sure these have been duly consulted
... And as you can see, Ive completly revamped interface, now its flat and black & white only.
;>
Sorry, but Thunderbolt hasn't "more than replaced" internal PCIe cards.
In its present TB (v1) form, its bandwidth is roughly equivalent to a 4 lane PCIe.
The implications of this are that even the soon-to-come TBv2 will only double performance ... to an equivalent of an 8x PCIe, which means that to merely equal the 16 lane PCIe that's been in the Mac Pro since 2006, we need TBv3, which is the generation-after-next.
Yes, TB is flexible ... but it is still a bottleneck, and it is one where Video and Storage are now competing for the same lanes.
Good idea, but the engineering reality is that Intel CPUs have inherent limits on how many total PCIe lanes they can support, and for this conversation, TB is simplistically just a PCIe slot in a different plug format. As such, the notional idea of a bunch of TB plugs is CPU-limited.
And I used to be happy with 6TB hanging off of FW800 on my G5. Much nicer to only have one set of big fans running instead of a beehive of little ones.
Yup. A big honking box reduces the noise of god-only-knows how many fans are running in all those externals, plus you're able to do away with an easy hour's worth of "re-setup" time any time that the desktop machine has to be moved. Take a look at the nightmare of some peoples' USB wire tangles (and multiple hubs) and now multiply.
That is a good idea, but TB .. even TB2 or TB3 .. simply doesn't have enough bandwidth for it to be better than the current capability.
FWIW, my thoughts this week have been maybe some of this interconnectivity could be done wirelessly ... 802.11ag? But even though this does represent a nice bump in bandwidth, (a) is it enough bandwidth?, and (b) how much additional lag time do the protocol layers add?
Simply put ... more Streamlining of Manufacturing Lines.
FWIW, this streamlining is why I do see some potential for the "Modular Mac" concept, where the higher end power users buy multiple units to get made into a cluster ... from a manufacturing standpoint, Apple is able to punch out four identical units instead of having to design-manufacture-inventory a half dozen Mac Pro variants ... single/dual CPUs x Quad/Hex Cores x Slow/Fast GHz ... all in all, it looks like a really good idea, but the engineering to make that vision work is what is still a TBD.
Maybe Apple has successfully cracked these "hard nuts" engineering challenges, but there would have been Patents and the applications for these should have already been filed (and have come to light) if it is to be unveiled as a real product at WWDC 2013.
-hh
even a "grotesquely oversized" Mac mini wouldn't be half as big as the current Mac Pro.
What Box do you put it in?
Seems to me that the current classic tower box in eminently suitable to put on the floor under the desk. Make it slim and and its not stable enough and could be easily kicked over, or it would need some sort of base or stand which seem a little inelegant for Apple so its back on the desktop once you start to shrink it.
I don't think it will be stripped out thunderbolt only minimalist machine, My thinking is they will stick with tower format, not a supper mac Mini, they quickly become messy with cables and add ons, and take up desk top space, tower keeps everything tidy and under the bench, make it modular internals but with a Thunderbolt only data backplane, that can fit either several CPU's, APU's drives what ever, and since the sad demise of SJ, there no-one to say no any more, USB3 optical drive, firewire, PCI slots, RS232, kitchen sink everything but Blueray.
Seems to me that the current classic tower box in eminently suitable to put on the floor under the desk. Make it slim and and its not stable enough and could be easily kicked over, or it would need some sort of base or stand which seem a little inelegant for Apple so its back on the desktop once you start to shrink it.
I don't think it will be stripped out thunderbolt only minimalist machine, My thinking is they will stick with tower format, not a supper mac Mini, they quickly become messy with cables and add ons, and take up desk top space, tower keeps everything tidy and under the bench, make it modular internals but with a Thunderbolt only data backplane, that can fit either several CPU's, APU's drives what ever, and since the sad demise of SJ, there no-one to say no any more, USB3 optical drive, firewire, PCI slots, RS232, kitchen sink everything but Blueray.
Too little too late. The company I work for decommisioned all their MacPro's in lieu of updates last year and have migrated everything to new Windows 7 workstations and a couple of decked out iMacs for the dinosaurs that refused to let their precious OSX go. I'm convinced many other companies did the same. Apple should let the Mac Pro die an honourable death instead of this second rank tomfoolery.
I think that would be amazing. I don't know about being the same as iOS. But making Business-level computing more streamlined and less time consuming so business can get back to running their business quicker is all good in my books.
Reading through this thread I notice many of you are automatically linking Modular to thunderbolt. What would be the problem in Apple instead developing an expandable motherboard that connects by connectors similar to the ones connecting the CPU Tray to the Main Motherboard on a current Mac Pro?
You would retain the bandwidth and also be able to handle upgrades to a certain degree. Engineer the Motherboard ahead of time for a certain maximum criteria but let someone pick and choose which components they want, while having a direct interface connecting the boards and the components.
Surely apple could develop something like this for a Mac Pro instead of relying on thunderbolt to do the job for them.
Basically do the modular setup as follows
from bottom to top
-Base Plate
-Power Supply (I am assuming they would supply one for max config and one for medium as 2 options here)
-CPU Trays (Choose single or dual cpu config)
-PCI-E Units (You should be able to select based on need, especially to accommodate double wide Graphics Cards without Blocking slots. Make it so you can chain it up to 7 Slots if necessary.
-Hard Drive Bays (I expect the Pro to have some kind of built in SSD to speed things up, but Hard Disk expandability is a must) Set it up so you can add 2 units each capable of holding 5 so 10 HDDs could take you to 20-30 TB in storage
-Optical Drive Bay
-Top Plate
If you are going to do modular, and you have a company like apple who definitely has put some Research and Development money into a real product refresh, I do not see why they couldnt engineer such expandability without having to rely on thunderbolt I/O, and using a specialized connector as is done with the CPU Trays now.
You would retain the bandwidth and also be able to handle upgrades to a certain degree. Engineer the Motherboard ahead of time for a certain maximum criteria but let someone pick and choose which components they want, while having a direct interface connecting the boards and the components.
Surely apple could develop something like this for a Mac Pro instead of relying on thunderbolt to do the job for them.
Basically do the modular setup as follows
from bottom to top
-Base Plate
-Power Supply (I am assuming they would supply one for max config and one for medium as 2 options here)
-CPU Trays (Choose single or dual cpu config)
-PCI-E Units (You should be able to select based on need, especially to accommodate double wide Graphics Cards without Blocking slots. Make it so you can chain it up to 7 Slots if necessary.
-Hard Drive Bays (I expect the Pro to have some kind of built in SSD to speed things up, but Hard Disk expandability is a must) Set it up so you can add 2 units each capable of holding 5 so 10 HDDs could take you to 20-30 TB in storage
-Optical Drive Bay
-Top Plate
If you are going to do modular, and you have a company like apple who definitely has put some Research and Development money into a real product refresh, I do not see why they couldnt engineer such expandability without having to rely on thunderbolt I/O, and using a specialized connector as is done with the CPU Trays now.
It'll magical and really great
That would be people who need more power than an iMac, more storage than and iMac, more RAM than iMac, more video power (aftermarket) than an iMac, and people who need more flexibility than an iMac. The iMac is faster than only the quad Mac Pro and looses all the above.
You know what?
I'd be happy with an supercharged Mac mini, with an external Thunderbolt Dual-GPU addon, as well as a caddy for hot-swappable drives, connected by Thunderbolt as well.
Just totally deconstruct the concept of a computer, so the CPU, GPU, and HDD are all separate, swappable appliances.
Need more GPU power? Just get a new GPU box.
Need more HDDs? Get a new Thunderbolt enclosure.
All nicely stackable like AV equipment.
I'd be happy with an supercharged Mac mini, with an external Thunderbolt Dual-GPU addon, as well as a caddy for hot-swappable drives, connected by Thunderbolt as well.
Just totally deconstruct the concept of a computer, so the CPU, GPU, and HDD are all separate, swappable appliances.
Need more GPU power? Just get a new GPU box.
Need more HDDs? Get a new Thunderbolt enclosure.
All nicely stackable like AV equipment.
Like a tower where you can swap out components at will with a simple plug. No need for taking a side off or using anti-static wrist-straps, as the bus is all Thunderbolt.
"Hey Bill, can I borrow your GPU for a while, I need to do some GPU-accelerated rendering".
"Sure, I'll unplug it and just use the integrated graphics in the base unit for a while, give me two seconds to switch the monitor into the base unit, then you can take it".
No internal pcie? Ok, then call it mac mini deluxe. If they call it pro them make fool of them self again as with final cut. Still hackintosh works so fine that dont have to bother that much. Can we have Jobs back please!
The new Mac Pro is a product I'll buy as soon it gets on the market. Can't wait, no iMacs for me, never liked the iMac's always worked on Mac Pro's due the ability to scale.
OK..if that's appealing or somehow more elegant to you than a PCI slot I can't/won't argue it..
Make something that blows a ws a way. A machine that can have 8 cpus, 12 core each with HT. 1TB ram and 4 slots for 3.5 SD and 8 SSD's all with sata3 6.GB/s and optional and a infiniband controller that works with SSD as write back cache. Something that put apple in driver seat. And of course 4x4K display without using any pcie.
It may be a crafty way to kill Mac Pro. Release something 'really different' that no one wants to buy, then kill it saying "oh, there's no demand for it".