That's exactly the setup that I have at home, actually. Sort of defeats the purpose of an "all-in-one." Not to mention that I had to spend an extra $100 on an external drive (granted, I chose to get a blu-ray drive, but that's maybe something Apple should have already included anyway). Also, it ties up a USB port.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's exactly the setup that I have at home, actually. Sort of defeats the purpose of an "all-in-one." Not to mention that I had to spend an extra $100 on an external drive (granted, I chose to get a blu-ray drive, but that's maybe something Apple should have already included anyway). Also, it ties up a USB port.
The Radius Rocket is something different. If you can offload most computing functions onto a full machine (like that card) and only communicate with the main machine when absolutely necessary, you might be able to pull something like that off with NuBus - and by extension, Thunderbolt.
That's entirely different than weaving a system together from modular parts that's expected to act as a single contiguous system.
Yeah, I get that.
I think people are too hung up on external graphics.
Have no doubt that whatever they do there will be a ample supply of PCIe slots.
The question is what do they do to leverage available technology to expand processing power, be it external co-processors, Xeon Phi, or integrated ARM co-processors.
They didn't say a redesign, they said "something new" which could very well be a new model inside the same case with updated components.
As for GPUs, I'll just point out that I said multiple GPUs. PCI slots are useful for a lot of other things too, besides. Integrated GPUs just don't cut it for many professional uses.
my si
I know work SOP isn't typical, but it's hardly rare.
But we already own a USB super drive shared by our retina guys.
8.4gb dvdr are much cheaper to the point of being disposable. They are read only, cross platform and much easier to deal with in workflows. In many mission critical production environments thumb drives are not only forbidden, the USB ports may be locked physically and/or in software.
I know work SOP isn't typical, but it's hardly rare.
But we already own a USB super drive shared by our retina guys.
I think the problem is not that people are too hung up on external graphics as much as "Oh, you can just offload all that stuff onto Thunderbolt" is asking a lot of the technology. And the problem with external co-processors as a replacement for a multiple processor main unit is that the Xeon Phi, or most integrated co-processors need special code written for them to dump commands onto the co-processors, then not touch them until its ready to return some information.
That's a much more formal, careful process than the regular back and forth regular processors do. It would need special software, things rewritten, and to happen transparently, an awful lot of work on the OS end of things.
Somehow I doubt if Apple is going for a easier, high volume "Mac Pro" that that's the route they'd go down. There's just no evidence they're working on anything of that scale.
Solution.
Or use dropbox, web hosting, etc.
Yes, i am aware people use discs for some reasons, but they can be worked around, and the other 95% of people who never use the drive don't need it internally...
For the examples they listed dropbox or web hosting could be even a bigger no then usb flash drives.
This is nothing I personally have to deal with. For personal use I love dropbox and a flash drive when needed. I am thinking for those who are not allowed to use flash drives for security reasons are not going to be able to use something even less secure.
octoMac
It is starting to sound like what I have been thinking all along. With the introduction of Thunderbolt, I had an image of Mac Pro being a central hub that could link, via Thunderbolt, to whatever items the user needs.
There might be a basic GFX card in it, but if you need certain GFX support, you would buy a unit that would house the card and plug it in. If you need additional RAM, you would purchase a unit that would house RAM chips and plug it in. Essentially instead of Apple providing the architecture within the main unit for all these "accessories", they would be external. Instead of picking what was important to your workflow at the time of the build, you could do so after purchasing.
Of course, you can add items to the current Mac Pro after purchase, but they have to provide all the varied connections and slots up front. And it required you to open the Holy Tower, which we know Apple hates.
However, given the dismal enthusiasm for Thunderbolt by 3rd party manufacturers thus far, I am not sure how feasible this would be.
It is starting to sound like what I have been thinking all along. With the introduction of Thunderbolt, I had an image of Mac Pro being a central hub that could link, via Thunderbolt, to whatever items the user needs.
There might be a basic GFX card in it, but if you need certain GFX support, you would buy a unit that would house the card and plug it in. If you need additional RAM, you would purchase a unit that would house RAM chips and plug it in. Essentially instead of Apple providing the architecture within the main unit for all these "accessories", they would be external. Instead of picking what was important to your workflow at the time of the build, you could do so after purchasing.
Of course, you can add items to the current Mac Pro after purchase, but they have to provide all the varied connections and slots up front. And it required you to open the Holy Tower, which we know Apple hates.
However, given the dismal enthusiasm for Thunderbolt by 3rd party manufacturers thus far, I am not sure how feasible this would be.
I very much doubt Apple will want to make this into segments. They love selling beautiful packages computers, so it s very unlikely you will have to plug everything in that you want to expand.
I guess it will be a little slimmer and lighter, but it will still have some space inside, maybe you can buy a thunderbolt-box that you connect through two cables to the main chassis and fill up with whatever you want.
I guess it will be a little slimmer and lighter, but it will still have some space inside, maybe you can buy a thunderbolt-box that you connect through two cables to the main chassis and fill up with whatever you want.
Okay,Thunderbolt 2 is PCIe 8x compatible
One TB2 socket could handle 20 Gbit/s. 40 lanes of PCIe4.0 is 15.7 Gbit/s per lane equals 630 Gbit/s alltogether.
Are you expecting 31 TB sockets on the back of new "pro"?
These numbers pretty simply tell the magnitude of difference between TB and PCIe.
Still, I'm wondering what kind of "support" is needed for TB from CPU and PCH?
Isn't it enough that TB controller is wired to PCI bus and GPU (internal/discrete)?
So there's nothing special needed from cpu or pch itself, mobo just needs to have proper wirings?
(And somehow intel doesn't like this, since they didn't approve mobos that use external cabling from GPU card back to mobo's TB controller?)
Seems like cost is not discussed much, or did I miss it ?
Any additional external components in a modular design, if they require high performance interfaces, would have to be prohibitively expensive .
R&D; seperate enclosures, interfaces, assembly lines, shipping, packaging, marketing, storage, support, training and so on.
External GPUs, CPUs, PCIe boxes - even if it was technically possible, it's crazy to believe anyone could afford it, apart from a few ventures that might be able to fully benefit from such a design, if such benefits exist.
TB has been around for a few years, and I still don't even have it on my radar, due to significantly higher costs, very limited availability of products, and hardly any possible gains - for me .
And that's just a simple interface, for midlevel-performance externals, that have been around for ages .
modular design is what we've heard too with Thunderbolt being relied on for daisy chaining many macs. This way, Apple sells more. As always, it's 'watch this space' for news. Let's see what information Monday brings. Leaks get around last minute...
The strangest thing in these discussions is, that there are two sides like "don't change anything, cause I'm using ODD" and the other side is "change all, ditch pci and/or any upgradeability, make it cables-and-boxes-mess like TB-octopus". Is there no chance for Apple to make modest sane upgrade? Can it be something else than all or nothing? (All meaning pretty much soldered RAM and nothing about what happened to MP one (or 2, or 3) year ago).
Funny that less than a decade ago Apple used pictures of generic Dell pc in their marketing to show what a cable mess it was, now Apple's products are turning to be same. Lots of dongles and boxes and cables. "None-in-ones". Modularity is a good thing, but it is possible to turn that to negative also, just overprice it and use it as excuse to remove expandability elsewhere (like soldered ram in DESKTOP computer for saving, not the footprint, but overall volume of the product, wellll...).
I'm not saying that MP has to have internal ODD, but even macrumors forums should know, that optical discs are still very important and major way to distribute content. Small and medium sized businesses knows this. If you give your marketing material as a link to some online service or in few formats in usb stick, you need to have one person to answer questions like "how can I play this", "the link does not work for me", "our IT security has blocked that off" etc.
For smaller business, it isn't irrelevant question either that how much those one thousand usb sticks you are going to distribute costs and how much does it cost to copy the data to them.
The sane solution for MP's storage would of course be modular internal storage. Space that could be occupied by 5.25" ODDs or 3.5" HDDs or 2.5" HDDs/SSDs. Wouldn't be too hard to desing, but it wouldn't help Apple to sell TB cables either...
I REALLY hope the keep the internal expandability. And hopefully "later this year" isn't too much later. Really want to buy one of these.
People keep chiming in with "just add another graphics card via Thunderbolt".
Graphics card plug into PCIe slots that are x16, Gen2 or better these days.
Today's generation of Thunderbolt is x4 Gen1, or 1/8 the bandwidth of the GPU slot. "Thunderbolt 2" will be double that, x4 Gen2. So it has 1/4 the capability of the slot your GPU needs to function.
Graphics cards are now using PCIe Gen3 (yet again double the potential bandwidth) but I am not sure how much of that they are actually utilizing, as I'm not into GPUs any more.
In any event, the types of GPUs a Professional would want to use are NOT going to function at full performance at the end of a Thunderbolt cable. Thunderbolt is good for storage and networking, not GPUs or additional CPUs or memory or anything else that needs high bandwidth.
Graphics card plug into PCIe slots that are x16, Gen2 or better these days.
Today's generation of Thunderbolt is x4 Gen1, or 1/8 the bandwidth of the GPU slot. "Thunderbolt 2" will be double that, x4 Gen2. So it has 1/4 the capability of the slot your GPU needs to function.
Graphics cards are now using PCIe Gen3 (yet again double the potential bandwidth) but I am not sure how much of that they are actually utilizing, as I'm not into GPUs any more.
In any event, the types of GPUs a Professional would want to use are NOT going to function at full performance at the end of a Thunderbolt cable. Thunderbolt is good for storage and networking, not GPUs or additional CPUs or memory or anything else that needs high bandwidth.
So an all-in-one (iMac) is no good, because you can't open it up and upgrade it - there is no way to set it up the way you want.
But for devices like an optical drive, which some users might need, and others will never use, an external drive isn't an option - the drive HAS to go on the inside of the case.
Maybe Apple should just sell a bunch of sheet metal. Buy whatever the @#$% you need, and then you put a sheet metal box around it, and call it the Mac Pro. Done.
