1) then don't call it a computer
2) See Rule Number 1
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Actually , see all my other posts in this thread
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Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?
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1) then don't call it a computer
2) See Rule Number 1
.
.
.
Actually , see all my other posts in this thread
Who says it needs cables? If Apple replaces the Mac Pro with stackable Mac Minis, they could put an optical Thunderbolt port at the bottom of each Mac Mini with a female port under a removable Apple logo. You stack them neatly, adding as many Mac Minis as you need to give you the power you're looking for.
Their heavy lifting is done on a cluster built out of PC systems running a Linux OS, not Macs.
The problem is, the DP systems have been shrinking in terms of workstation sales.
Intel has known this was coming for years, and have been transitioning their CPU line in response to this (more cores per die = SP chip only will become the dominant workstation system). They're also expecting heavy lifting on moderate scales to be done via GPGPU processing, and on extreme scales to be done on clusters.
And the market is in fact following this direction. GPGPU end is a bit short right now due to available software, but that is expected to change in the next few years (as more and more applications are written to take advantage of CUDA or Open CL, as the GPU's are already capable).
ECC is really only needed if an error will totally screw up the output, such as from a recursive algorithm. Since servers are far more likely to use such software, they do need it.
Workstations, only in specific cases, such as scientific and engineering applications (i.e. simulations).
But for creative professionals (2D still images, video editing, 3D animation, and audio), it's not critical. Worst case, you get a bad pixel as a result of a memory error, not 100% trashed output.
Ultimately, Yes. The real question is when, not if.
The primary reasoning behind this comes down to the financial aspects. If there's not enough ROI (which takes growth into account), then it's more profitable to take the funds spent and place them into a different project that has a higher ROI, such as a portable device.
And as I'm sure you've noticed, Apple's attentions have been focused on the consumer market for some time. Which isn't a coincidence, as they realized that the enterprise market hasn't been a big money maker for them, combined with the growth potential in the device market.
It's really a no brainer...
Now if they can come up with a replacement product, say an SP system based on an enthusiast consumer socket part, then there may be an alternative to the iMac.
But given the iMac + TB could suffice, I'm not sure how likely this is (still won't have the ROI of an iMac, unless they don't mind lots of cannibalization of the iMac, which is currently a big earner in the desktop segment, if not the biggest earner).
Small in Apple's sales terms, but not in too small a group to not be heard, just take Final Cut X, not many people use Final Cut Pro in the scheme of things but boy did they let their frustration known at what Apple did with it in Final Cut X!!
Professional isn't really a term which needs a redefining here. If you use your computer in your work to make money, you are in the professional market segment of computers.
This news shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone really.
Ever since Steve Jobs came back to Apple, a principle of minimalism has ruled the product line. The fact is that for the last few years, the Mac Pro's value proposition has been getting more and more difficult to argue. It's not all Apple's fault, and Intel's Xeon pricing structure has a lot to do with it but even so, Apple has been clearly pushing into the mainstream consumer market for which an iMac or Macbook has been sufficient.
It's the Mac Pro users who need to adjust. We need to accept that Apple no longer sees the pro market as worth chasing after, painful as that may be to deal with.
Time to stop acting like an abused spouse in denial.
Ever since Steve Jobs came back to Apple, a principle of minimalism has ruled the product line. The fact is that for the last few years, the Mac Pro's value proposition has been getting more and more difficult to argue. It's not all Apple's fault, and Intel's Xeon pricing structure has a lot to do with it but even so, Apple has been clearly pushing into the mainstream consumer market for which an iMac or Macbook has been sufficient.
It's the Mac Pro users who need to adjust. We need to accept that Apple no longer sees the pro market as worth chasing after, painful as that may be to deal with.
Time to stop acting like an abused spouse in denial.
Consider that Apple (or any other company) will not build what they consider 'niche' products unless they think there is enough demand and ROI + profit.
Just because a small amount of Apple owners like to switch out internal hardware, most, including Mac Pro owners, don't. Apple has really changed as a company and has greatly simplified their supply chain, products and over business factores into something far more streamlined than what other 'competitors' have (Dell, HP, etc..).
I would happily dump the Mac Pro if they upped the iMac to 64GB Max Memory, offered 10k internal drives and top-end graphics. But it better be some seriously competitive graphics if they limit my ability to upgrade. Throw my storage and peripherals cards in my Thunderbolt chain.
Right, a laptop in a box run by a weak power supply and connected to expensive TB external drives is the next Mac Pro. Ha Ha.
... and what tangible steps has Apple taken so far, to address their concerns?
Besides continuing to sell the obsolete prior version in a limited form, I mean.
Ah, so if I understand you correctly, in the future Prosumers will be rendering billion dollar blockbuster movies on their iToy. Film studios will spend millions of dollars on a movie budget and that movie will be edited by a hobbyist who just learned to play with iMovie, uh pardon me, Final Cut X. Yeah, right.
The Pro market is not dying. The Pro market is moving to Windows.
It's not just after Jobs came back to Apple. It's how Apple started in the first place. What Steve wanted to do was to mass market a "consumer" computer, which was built decently.
it doesn't need much of major re-design (besides making it more easily rackable. Reining-in or making optional the handle height and dumping at least one of the ODD bays should be enough. ).
There are a couple of things that Apple could do relatively easy that would make it more viable.
1. as noted above perhaps replace two ODD drive bays with one external lockable 2.5" sled drive (refactored XServe sled). The objective is to increase sales a bit by making Mac Pro a decent 4U rackable box.
(sure there are folks who need thinner models since designed datacenters around 1U boxes but there are lots of situations that only require 2 or 3 boxes and 12 U is available. )
They need a config that is just Mac OS X Server with a easy replace 2.5 drive.
2. Let the Mac Pro prices drop down close the $2,000 barrier. The iMac gets to roam freely in the $1000-2000 range but if it wants to poke its head into the $2000 price zone then the gloves are off. The two Mac compete head to head.
[ over time the iMac has creep higher and higher into the price zones that the tower (Mac Pro) operated in. I'm not saying Apple has to reverse its "no compete and cannibalize zones... just don't push the Mac Pro increasingly higher. Pushing higher kills sales. ]
2. Put embedded graphics option ( pull a common iMac graphics board that is OpenCL capable to share component costs and keep R&D low). A sub $2,400 model would come with no video card, minimal HDD , and minimal (4GB) RAM. The folks who just want a "box with slots" could buy a $2,099 or $2,199 box. Those who want to fill it up with 3rd party disks, memory , and grahics cards can.
This also makes adding TB standard much easier also.
[ At some point Intel is likely going to put a integrated GPU even into the Xeon E5's. Once the transistor budget gets high enough that have room for it. Once Intel's integrated GPU can do GPGPU it is also like putting an "extra" FPU into the chip so even servers can leverage it if need be. It also simplies server lightweight need for graphics if just absorbed into core major chips also. ]
3. Better OS software to more efficiently manage the Mac Pro's hardware. That means threading/NUMA/etc aware optimizations sooner rather than later. [ it is not like the other macs aren't going to pick up the issues later when they get more cores and the arch features in the Xeon. ]
Similarly, there should be no need for a card to enable a RAID set-up using the for internal drive sleds. (i.e., they should render the Apple RAID card obsolete).
4. A better GPGPU platform. [ Apple needs to grow the market of folks who will buy these. At this point workstations are for people who need personal supercomputers (or what was a supercomputer 5-10 years ago. ) ]
There are some folks using Mac Pro for this but Apple doesn't have support for this.
It isn't just PCI-e cards that are important to sustain the Mac Pro. It is high I/O + very low latency PCI-e that will fit the market or not. The pedestrian PCI-e cards are going sucked up by Thunderbolt.
5. Better, 21st century software that isn't hobbled by artificial single threaded roadblocks. Right now the Mac Pro suffers from a large glut of legacy software that can't fully leverage the capabilities present. That makes is hard to get maximum value for money spent. FCPX is a step in removing that glut but there is lots of other pieces to the puzzle.
[ Apple invests in new Flash memory and LCD display facitilites. This is similar. They could put some bounties out there for folks to remove the cruft some software and perhaps recoup with a higher MacApp store taxes on that software. ]
In the very long term the Mac Pro does have a problem of how to put more value into the box since it is constrained to the over $2,000 price range. Over time it may die off because enough user problems all fall out of the $2,000+ worth of hardware needed zone.
The single socket and consumer lines have been keeping pace with the Xeon lineup as well. It is more than likely due to the fact that they are just simply binned off from the same wafer.
I remember when the Athlon 64 X2 came out (2005!?) and it was manna from heaven. Now getting a dual core is Celeron territory. Core 2/Athlon X2 lowered the price of entry into the ~$100-200 market. The lackluster HD 2900 XT lineup brought a "gaming" level graphics card into the sub-$200 after nVidia was king of video cards on the G80. The 8800GTS 320 MB was the entry level at the time.
The high end is now drawn at $300 for processors and video cards. You really need some special case otherwise or you want to splurge. Cores are cheap and RAM is EVEN cheaper.
In my opinion this all started when you had to pick between a single processor Power Mac G5 2.0 or an iMac G5 2.0 at US$1,499. This has been going on for years. The iMac languished in mobile processor territory until recently. The iMac Core Duo at sub-100W loads now gives way to nearly 400W monsters.
No. The Pro market is moving to cheaper computers, on both the Windows side and the Mac side.
Btw your examples are weird. I don't know any render farms that use macs. Rendering is done on Linux. Film studios don't necessarily need Mac Pro's to cut their movies. 4K films were cut in G5 Powermacs, which are 1/4 the speed of the current iMac. iMac is fast enough to cut a feature length film and always was.
I didn't read it that way.That's what I said
But where Xeons have traditionally come in, is due to core counts. Specifically when SP systems didn't have enough, and a DP system was required (which requires Xeons to do).
So instead of developing 2x separate systems, it makes better sense to use a single platform. Particularly when the cost for the SP components is the same (still makes the DP development cheaper by sharing a single backplane board between both configurations; just needed to develop 2x CPU trays).
And in the case of ECC costing significantly more, that was valid back in the days of FB-DIMM, but not any longer (*might* add up to $10 to the cost of the system).
I know there's 24 pages to this thread already, but I'll say it anyway.
Drop the damn $1500 a piece Xeons and use desktop-class processors, make the chassis smaller (2, maybe 3 HDs) and drop the price to the place where people will buy them.
Done.
Tower-style Mac for $1800? I'd buy it. But a $5000 over-powered 12-core tower for use at home? No way.
Drop the damn $1500 a piece Xeons and use desktop-class processors, make the chassis smaller (2, maybe 3 HDs) and drop the price to the place where people will buy them.
Done.
Tower-style Mac for $1800? I'd buy it. But a $5000 over-powered 12-core tower for use at home? No way.
F Apple.
How about putting MINIMUM effort into the MacPro line?
Intel showed a Lightpeak MacPro september 2009.
Intel designs the motherboard for Apple + CPU. The CPUs have the same cooling requirement = Apple does not need to redesign anything.
Apple just need to write a couple of drivers.
This is so lazy.
Apple hate the MacPro since its the last mac that users can upgrade stuff in. The users are so incompetent that they wants to remove that option. Its more fun for Apple to sell built to order stuff. SSD 50% more expensive and 50% slower.
How about putting MINIMUM effort into the MacPro line?
Intel showed a Lightpeak MacPro september 2009.
Intel designs the motherboard for Apple + CPU. The CPUs have the same cooling requirement = Apple does not need to redesign anything.
Apple just need to write a couple of drivers.
This is so lazy.
Apple hate the MacPro since its the last mac that users can upgrade stuff in. The users are so incompetent that they wants to remove that option. Its more fun for Apple to sell built to order stuff. SSD 50% more expensive and 50% slower.
I didn't read it that way.
I said ECC memory isn't useful for the majority of the Mac Pro users, because almost nobody buys Mac Pro for server use. You just explained it further why it is so.
Xeons have come in core counts, and RAM. I'd say if you need 12 cores, you are doing something which would benefit from having more than 16GB.
Mac Pro
I've owned two Macbook Pros for my audio studio. Though I'd love to own a Mac Pro, it is just too expensive for the average person. On a Pro level, it really IS the go to machine. Every big recording studio I've been to has not just one, but multiple Mac Pros. The recording industry isn't going anywhere, though it has changed greatly, and the video/movie industry is definitely not going anywhere. Millions of studios around the world most likely have multiple Mac Pros that they use on a daily basis. It would be extremely sad if movies were ALL edited on PCs. Also 3D artists, Graphic designers, photographers, many people use Mac Pros and NEED a machine that powerful.
Though I love my Macbook Pro, I would switch it in a heartbeat for a Mac Pro, if only it didn't cost so much! I agree with some members who said, keep the form factor, and downgrade some stuff to reduce cost for a line between the Mac Pro and the iMac. The name "Mac" would be super cool too. It would fit perfectly for people like me who had no choice but to go to Macbook Pro due to the Mac Pros costs. I love having options, being able to switch out CPU, graphics, and PCI ports is the best thing ever when owning a PC, Apple needs to get a computer out there that is as affordable AND flexible as a PC.
I've owned two Macbook Pros for my audio studio. Though I'd love to own a Mac Pro, it is just too expensive for the average person. On a Pro level, it really IS the go to machine. Every big recording studio I've been to has not just one, but multiple Mac Pros. The recording industry isn't going anywhere, though it has changed greatly, and the video/movie industry is definitely not going anywhere. Millions of studios around the world most likely have multiple Mac Pros that they use on a daily basis. It would be extremely sad if movies were ALL edited on PCs. Also 3D artists, Graphic designers, photographers, many people use Mac Pros and NEED a machine that powerful.
Though I love my Macbook Pro, I would switch it in a heartbeat for a Mac Pro, if only it didn't cost so much! I agree with some members who said, keep the form factor, and downgrade some stuff to reduce cost for a line between the Mac Pro and the iMac. The name "Mac" would be super cool too. It would fit perfectly for people like me who had no choice but to go to Macbook Pro due to the Mac Pros costs. I love having options, being able to switch out CPU, graphics, and PCI ports is the best thing ever when owning a PC, Apple needs to get a computer out there that is as affordable AND flexible as a PC.
If you read all my posts you can a see that I said several times that LOTS of folks create content using MacPro. Are they the majority? No, but they represent a big part of content created at large and small studios in several media industries.
If you want to deny this then you just do not want to see the obvious and are basing you conclusions to your own needs that seem to be much smaller than people who actually demand the power and expandability that a MacPro can offer.
I have been waiting a long time for the Mac Pro refresh to decide between that and the iMac and I pretty much feel the same.
That is pretty much the future work horse set up for computers as things go mobile I think.
Final Cut X is great once you give it a real chance. They already updated it once and added back a bunch of things and the next release will put it ahead substantially!
But I do think that had Apple released Final Cut X where 2.0 will be feature wise and updated the Mac Pro a year ago they would have seen their sales pick WAY back up! The reason many people have not been buying Mac Pros is because the pro apps couldn't use the horse power anyway, and now that they can it won't be till 2.0 that they are really ready and by then the Mac Pro is old and gone lol! Hasn't really worked out too well!
It's not only redesign costs. The support costs are probably higher than design costs.