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Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro
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Solution: If you can afford a Mac Pro, you can afford an external optical drive. For the 95% of the time you're not reading/writing discs, you can (wait for it)... put it away.
I'm almost 100% certain that won't be the case. Why? Well simply as technology moves forward Apple won't have any choice other than to put the primary computer on one motherboard all soldered together. As the speed of components increase things like RAM will have to be soldered in place. If they do offer RAM expansion the expansion RAM will likely have to be on another interface running at a slower speed. Then you have the issue of the GPU, even that will need to be onboard the motherboard in future machines.
At best I would expect "SSD" cards that can be upgraded interfaced over a fast PCI-Express bus. in fact i'm to the point where I'd doubt that the machine would even have conventional drive bays.
Beyond that I'm not seeing compelling reasons to move to new Mac hardware every other year anyways. Look at Haswell hardware which barely improves the CPU performance and sometimes regresses. Four or three year upgrade cycles are very likely in the future for even demanding users.
Finally I'm hoping for supercomputing networking and system support for adhoc clusters. This would deal with many power users reluctance at upgrades because instead of up grading they could simply ad to a cluster of machines. The marginal increase in performance of processor chips these days means that old hardware simply doesn't become as obsolete as quickly as it use to. These days if you want to double performance in the time frame of a few years you need to add another box. Of course software has to support this.
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.
Well, given that Google charges $1300 for the Pixel, I'd say that's an incredible price.
You mentioned chromebox. Which doesn't have a screen. Chromeboxes don't cost remotely $1300. I see your point. Ha?
My guess is a stackable Mac Pro pieces; the basic section (kind of a super-Mac-Mini) would have BTO processor, memory and hard or SSD system drive options and basic graphics (T-Bolt) on board - much like an iMac without a screen. Maybe ethernet connections, too.
All other expansion would be similarly sized boxes that stack on the basic section: T-Bold expansion chassis for PCI cards, hard drives, optical drives (probably non-apple), graphics options, etc. By the time you stacked everything up, it could go on the floor just like now (maybe on a little stand that helps airflow and dust), interconnected with by the stacking "dock" or by t-bolt and power connections. Or you could scatter them around if you wanted.
The stacking connections could be by a special "daisy chain" containing power, etc. so the individual boxes would not each need a power supply. They could also accomplish this goal by making something the pro-audio world is using: the API Lunchbox (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/API5006B-DB/ or http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Workhorse500/ are examples)
with varying numbers of slots to plug stuff into and the ability to chain the chassis together.
Just my guess.
Modular MacPro
It'll be a modular design. No more "last century" pre-set internal expansion ports.
You'll start with a base 'CPU' unit that'll look like a Mac Mini. Expansion will be in the form of 'trays' that stack above the CPU unit via Thunderbolt 2. They'll look like flatter versions of the CPU and snap on flush to form a clean tower shape.
Third parties will need to design expansion trays specifically for the new MacPro as cards will be incompatible, outdated hardware.
Expansion trays at launch will include a DVD drive, extra memory, and a 4K video editing card.
Remember that Thunderbolt 2 I/O is as fast as internal card I/O. So there is zero trade-off going modular over internal.
In terms of form factor, modular is superior because the vast majority of Towers don't reflect the user's expansion needs (either by wasting space with empty slots, or not having enough).
It'll be a modular design. No more "last century" pre-set internal expansion ports.
You'll start with a base 'CPU' unit that'll look like a Mac Mini. Expansion will be in the form of 'trays' that stack above the CPU unit via Thunderbolt 2. They'll look like flatter versions of the CPU and snap on flush to form a clean tower shape.
Third parties will need to design expansion trays specifically for the new MacPro as cards will be incompatible, outdated hardware.
Expansion trays at launch will include a DVD drive, extra memory, and a 4K video editing card.
Remember that Thunderbolt 2 I/O is as fast as internal card I/O. So there is zero trade-off going modular over internal.
In terms of form factor, modular is superior because the vast majority of Towers don't reflect the user's expansion needs (either by wasting space with empty slots, or not having enough).
um
then buy an iMac. Pro-sumers expect big prices. Heck gamers put out retard money for high end gaming systems. And I mean real high end.. not the bargain crap you buy at newegg in the clearance items.
then buy an iMac. Pro-sumers expect big prices. Heck gamers put out retard money for high end gaming systems. And I mean real high end.. not the bargain crap you buy at newegg in the clearance items.
I'm not saying it will be but there is enough new technologies out there to make the architecture of a new Mac pro really interesting if Apple really wanted to go for it. So is it hype? I can't say other than I realize there is potential for a vastly different architecture.
It kind of makes sense if it is a smaller machine that uses thunderbolt for expansion. Thunderbolt has more than replaced the concept of internal cards. I used some of the worlds most highend HD video capture cards through thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is also capable of some serious raid storage which covers a lot of pros as well. Since the 27" iMac has two thunderbolt ports I could see a new Mac Pro having four or more ports. This means a very large amount of potential high bandwidth thunderbolt devices. The benefit is of course being able to finally share expansion device between any kind of Mac.
About all the inside really needs is enough space for a dual socket motherboard, room for cooling, decent amount of ram slots and maybe a spot for a gpu or two. As nice as a gpu running through thunderbolt is it still doesn't have the same amount of bandwidth for a gpu as an internal slot. Plus I have yet to see anybody make a decent external gpu for thunderbolt.
Another option is we now have a decent selection of external boxes that can hold internal PCI Express cards and can connect via thunderbolt. So if somebody does need a legacy card or a device that doesn't have a thunderbolt option you can always use one of those. A lot of pros use the 27" iMac now and are very happy with what they can all add to their system via thunderbolt. Having even more expansion via thunderbolt and the CPU, gpu, and ram guts of a Mac Pro could be a very nice machine indeed.
Honestly I would love to see a machine a bit larger than a Mac mini but with the expansion and horse power of a Mac Pro. That would just scream to be used to setup a render farm.
About all the inside really needs is enough space for a dual socket motherboard, room for cooling, decent amount of ram slots and maybe a spot for a gpu or two. As nice as a gpu running through thunderbolt is it still doesn't have the same amount of bandwidth for a gpu as an internal slot. Plus I have yet to see anybody make a decent external gpu for thunderbolt.
Another option is we now have a decent selection of external boxes that can hold internal PCI Express cards and can connect via thunderbolt. So if somebody does need a legacy card or a device that doesn't have a thunderbolt option you can always use one of those. A lot of pros use the 27" iMac now and are very happy with what they can all add to their system via thunderbolt. Having even more expansion via thunderbolt and the CPU, gpu, and ram guts of a Mac Pro could be a very nice machine indeed.
Honestly I would love to see a machine a bit larger than a Mac mini but with the expansion and horse power of a Mac Pro. That would just scream to be used to setup a render farm.
Many (including me) predicted something like this: Physical size in between a Mac mini and current MacPro with lots of Thunderbolt ports.
The giant MacPro is probably gone for good, more like a PC mini tower or stackable "bricks" connected by Thunderbolt.
PS: Too bad Thunderbolt 2.0 probably isn't ready yet for this machine and slated for 2014.
The giant MacPro is probably gone for good, more like a PC mini tower or stackable "bricks" connected by Thunderbolt.
PS: Too bad Thunderbolt 2.0 probably isn't ready yet for this machine and slated for 2014.
Sounds like a ModuMac. Not a bad idea, really
why must expandability be internal only when you can do it externally with no performance loss?
Guys, this has the potential to be huge. Think about it right now, there's a hard cap on how far you can expand ANY computer Apple-manufactured or otherwise. Once you've filled your PCI Express slots and maxxed out your SATA ports, that's it. You can't go any further unless you purchase a new motherboard (not an option with a Mac).
With the ModuMac concept, expandability is only limited by the limits of Thunderbolt itself. It also opens up the possibility of entire self-contained units (not just cards) and drive racks snapping directly onto the machine with nary a cable in sight.
This is massive. It's the super-clean Mac Pro interior taken to new heights.
Guys, this has the potential to be huge. Think about it right now, there's a hard cap on how far you can expand ANY computer Apple-manufactured or otherwise. Once you've filled your PCI Express slots and maxxed out your SATA ports, that's it. You can't go any further unless you purchase a new motherboard (not an option with a Mac).
With the ModuMac concept, expandability is only limited by the limits of Thunderbolt itself. It also opens up the possibility of entire self-contained units (not just cards) and drive racks snapping directly onto the machine with nary a cable in sight.
This is massive. It's the super-clean Mac Pro interior taken to new heights.
Apple don't F up like this again with the pro line taking the back seat.
They will, at least in your eyes.
Apple shifted gears years ago. And aren't likely to shift back.
Can we quote you and laugh at you if they do release something really different
Here's my wild prediction:
The "Mac Pro" isn't a single desktop machine at all. Instead it comes in a series of modular units what connect together via thunderbolt (hopefully, they click together like lego).
I don't think it's a wild prediction, that theory has been tossed around. But it's probably sadly what we'll see.
If this new Mac Pro turns out to be a bunch of component cases connected by Thunderbolt cables, I'm done.
Not a chance. Running GPU's over TB makes no sense at all especially in a professional computer. Especially a computer that uses those GPU's for computational work loads or other non traditional uses. These sorts of uses already suffer from bandwidth issues on PCI-Express.
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The question then becomes how big of a cube and what sort of CPU is in the box.
Something really different + heavy thunderbolt usage got me thinking.
A modular pro? I.e lots of mac mini sized boxes you stack up, one has the logic board and CPU/RAM, the next one up has hard drives (or optional raid array), next one up has graphics, then you can buy an expansion one with a couple of PCI-E slots, maybe another one with optical drives, etc
A modular pro? I.e lots of mac mini sized boxes you stack up, one has the logic board and CPU/RAM, the next one up has hard drives (or optional raid array), next one up has graphics, then you can buy an expansion one with a couple of PCI-E slots, maybe another one with optical drives, etc