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I beg to differ; I have in fact, repeatedly advised customers of mine to forego the Mac Pro in favor of an iMac this year. And many of them were people who believed they needed "a Mac Pro, nothing less", kept upgrading their old (Mac Pro) machines instead of purchasing a new faster (i)Mac, etc. etc…

I do believe it to absolutely make sense "from a business standpoint" for many of them.
A Mac Pro just currently just isn't a good value proposition in terms of price/performance for many:

"1000$ more for a Mac Pro won't buy you a faster computer".

A current top-end iMac(3.4GHz i7, SSD) offers about the same performance as a 6-core 3.33 Xeon Mac Pro in most applications*. Yet even with its "27" built-in Cinema Display", the iMac costs 1000 USD less than the display-less Mac Pro.

* Slightly more in Photoshop, DTP etc…, and only a bit less for heavily multithreaded encoding/rendering.

And you're not going to make the Mac Pro faster with any upgrades - it's CPU stays the same, greater RAM expandability won't matter, save for only the most exotic applications, external HDs can be added externally via Thunderbolt (if admittedly at a higher price due to the casing/controller needed - yet often still less than a Mac Pro with multiple internal drives - and then, the iMac still has the advantage of including a big display).

So why and where's the iMac supposed to be "nonsense", "from a business standpoint"?

First of all you bolding out stuff to make me look dumb isn't quite the nice touch. Just wanted to point that out.

Second - and that is a big second - the mere fact, that I can buy a consumer oriented all-in-one machine that is faster than the so called Pro workstation should make your grey cells fire in repent.

But that was and is Apple's business decision - we don't upgrade the MacPro so people keep buying our shiny iMacs.

Third - and that was my main point - from a business POV it is stupid to replace something that doesn't need a replacement every year. With each and every upgrade I have to buy a new display.

This is mainly due to Apple's policy in upgrading. I understand your point, that Pros should toss out the money to upgrade to iMacs as they are currently more bang for the buck.

But I will say again - it is a strong commitment to the Mac platform to throw away a perfectly viable display every two years. It doesn't make any sense and to say the least it is very unecological.

Heck - even if you had the chance to buy a Mac Mini with the internals of the top-of-the-line iMac it would be the better business decision as (and now I bold that so you may see my point) there is absolutely no logical reason to throw out around 300 bucks every two years for a new display than being forced to do it by Apple!
 
the numbers

Of course the sales are down. We are all waiting for a refresh. Build it and we will buy!

I don't think they need to do much in the way of "pour any additional resources into the product line". The case design is still quite good, efficient cooling, quiet, easy access, etc.

The Pro line already has a non glossy display option. Just throw in some faster processors and this line will run on it's own.

R
 
I have a 30" DVI Cinema Display and a 23" DVI Cinema Display...how am I supposed to hook these up to an iMac?

Also, my 2006 Pro which I've been waiting patiently to replace has 5 internal HDs. I don't want to move them to some JBOD external box.

The iMac also now has the annoying feature of the hard drive temp sensor built in to the drive of the computer making it impossible to replace.

Apple needs to have Pro Level hardware for customers who require Pro features.

But Apple is not about the pro anymore. It is just about dumbing down Mac OS X. THen there is only iOS left.

A 1st gen Mac Pro User
 
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Late last week, we noted that with pricing information on Intel's upcoming Sandy Bride E Xeon processors surfacing, Apple's options for a potential "Early 2012" Mac Pro have begun to clear up. The Mac Pro has not been updated since mid-2010, and delays in Intel's new chips have pushed their availability out from late this year to early next year.

But despite the new processors now being in sight, AppleInsider reports that Apple is reportedly "questioning" the future of the Mac Pro line and whether it will even release updated models.The report's source indicates that with Intel's new Thunderbolt connectivity standard making its way across all of Apple's Mac products, those products now have enhanced flexibility to assume some of the tasks that have historically been handled the Mac Pro. Combined with a continuing shift towards notebooks that has seen the desktop share of Apple's Mac business fall from 70% ten years ago to under 30% today, the increasing power of Apple's other Macs has resulted in the Mac Pro becoming only a minor portion of Apple's product lineup.

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Speculation in the report suggests that Apple could elect to offer higher-end versions of its iMac or Mac mini models in an attempt to appease those buyers looking for the power of a Mac Pro. Those smaller form factor machines are, however, unable to match a number of the Mac Pro's other features, although Apple apparently believes that Thunderbolt could serve as a means to bring some of that expandability from the Mac Pro to other Macs.

Article Link: Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?

Sandy Bride? Interesting codename there.
 
I used an easy to understand example of the risks of single-bit errors. Map that to whatever you do, and think of the worst case scenarios from one bit of memory being bad.

What if you're doing a scientific analysis, and one number early in the run was bad, and days later you discovered that the whole run was nonsense because the error caused the analysis to diverge instead of converge? What if you're doing a multi-day render, and some critical metadata was corrupted early in the first day - and all the humans in the film are now the color of Smurfs?

All I'm saying is that during my 5 year usage of Mac Pro, I have not seen more than 10 corrected parity errors. And I do lots of CPU heavy work. Yes it's possible that a memory error causes issues, but it certainly doesn't happen frequently enough to justify the ECC use in many areas Mac Pro's are being used.

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An "ecosystem" is highly connected in ways that may not be obvious. Killing the XServe and the Mac Pro may look good to MBA Tim for this quarter's numbers, but it could be a big mistake over time.

Could be, most probably isn't. If it is, Tim would realize that much faster than any of us would. It's his job.

Not to mention, if Apple kills Mac Pro this year, that decision most certainly should have been reached when Steve was CEO.
 
Apple should "Think Different" - build a machine without a display - like the Mac mini - but with thunderbolt, a much faster CPU, and upgradeable video.

Sell it for $1499

Of course the sales are down. We are all waiting for a refresh. Build it and we will buy!

I don't think they need to do much in the way of "pour any additional resources into the product line". The case design is still quite good, efficient cooling, quiet, easy access, etc.

The Pro line already has a non glossy display option. Just throw in some faster processors and this line will run on it's own.

R
 
Gotta love my Mac Pro.. I don't want another pos PC.. expandable and stylish and just plain works vs headaches after headaches of consistent software reloading pcs..
 
LTD said:
Apple owes nothing to anyone. Especially not out of sentimentality. Those people you are referring to are no more special than anyone else. And market dynamics have changed in leaps and bounds since those "dark days."

Apple needs to service the most profitable markets. Nothing personal. Biz is biz.

Right. Biz is biz. And most businesses, Apple especially, should want to keep everyone inside their ecosystems.

If Apple continues down the path they're taking, it might potentially cost them in the future. See, the iPad is going to become more powerful, more capable, as time goes on. To harness that power, software programmers, graphic artists, game developers, are going to need access to heavier computers. Computers that Apple won't provide, since they've decided to focus solely on the consumer at the expense of the creative professional.

What this means is that these people will migrate en masse to Windows platforms. That won't matter much to Apple's bottom line in the short term, since they're only a relatively small demographic, offset by all the millions of people for whom an iDevice will fit their needs perfectly.

But here's the thing. Apple requires you to own a Mac product to publish apps for the iDevices. Yet if things continue they way they are (or seem to be going, rather), then developers will have to buy a Windows machine to make their stuff. This adds extra, unnecessary complications to the process. Complications that the creative professional might not be willing to put up with, specially when the competition makes the process of making and distributing apps so much easier. They'll think "why should I have to buy a workstation AND spend extra money on a Macbook Air that's only good to me for getting my apps on the app store, when they other guy allows me to develop and publish everything from the same machine. Give me an ecosystem That Just Works".

Take away those creative professionals, and you don't have your apps. If you don't have your apps, then all those millions of consumers will flock to the platform that does. So small though they may be, they are a key demographic to the continued success of the iDevices.
 
Yep - but can provide the same (or better) error recovery by just keeping systems and software redundant. So while ECC RAM makes sense by itself, it is by no means a non-substitutable necessity.


The graphics card is about the only thing in a Mac Pro that can be upgraded in a Mac Pro that you cannot (reasonably) in an iMac.

What if you wanted a CPU upgrade? You have to purchase a new Mac anyway (as opposed to some other PCs/workstations). Graphics card upgrades are mostly overrated anyway, if you cannot upgrade the CPU in the same machine. Especially on the Mac platform, which isn't a great gaming platform anyway, and where you pay through the nose for a high-performance graphics card. In some cases nearly as much as for an entire Windows PC that delivers comparable performance.

That's true, though at the same time Mac Pros aren't really meant for gaming to begin with. I don't know the details so somebody else can fill in for me, but the graphics cards in them, as I understand it, are designed for graphic work.

Though the sad fact remains that it is the only Mac that can natively support more than 1 hard drive at once. You can pull it off in MBPs but at the loss of the CD drive (and using third party equipment).
 
This is why no one buys the mac pro.

Its a ripoff.

300 dollar cpu (apple pays no where near this much btw)
100 dollar motherboard (again apple pays less)
25-35 dollar memory
75 dollar hdd (being generous you can find them cheaper.
110 dollar gpu
100 dollar case (apple probably spends less)
60 dollar power supply
20 dollar cd drive

Around 800 dollars worth of parts if you bought them personally. No? lets give it the benefit of the doubt and pretend the mother board and case cause 200 a piece and the memory was 50. Its still only a 1000. That 1000 still has hefty margins. Where is this extra 1500 going.

Now lets take it a step further. Lets say they replaced that aging nehalam and replaced it with a sandy bridge i5 (this would kill the quad mac pro.

That would drop the price of the motherboard and the cpu significantly. Put that in a mid sized case and now the case is also cheaper. The experience would be great and they would be at a good price if they were around 900-1000.

All in ones don't make good pro machines because the price performance ratio flat out sucks. For some reason apple think that the mac pro needs to have that same crappy price performance ratio.

http://ark.intel.com/products/47925?wapkw=e5620
That's almost $390 PER CPU. There's two of these guys in an 8-core Mac Pro. When the new Xeons hit, expect performance to triple while keeping the same cost.
Making custom boards to handle 2 CPUs is very expensive. $450 for the motherboard.
6GB memory costs ~$40.
Hard drives cost is $110.
GPU which needs custom casing, etc. would go for around $170.
Casing would cost $200-300 to build.
PSU cost to handle all this would be $100.
SuperDrive cost is $30.

That's an estimated $2000 material cost. That's $1200 more than your fail part list.

Not only would moving to even dual quad-core i5 be a terrible drop in performance, it would just be plain stupid. Very, VERY stupid.
 
I sure hope this isn't true. Apple themselves are the reason Mac Pros don't sell. They're not promoted, they're not updated, and they're overpriced, but still, it's the only desktop Mac I would ever consider using. I'd never buy a crappy iMac. MacBook Pros are very nice, and even faster than my quad-core Mac Pro at some things, just my Mac Pro is irreplaceable. Don't do it, Apple! Bring back Steve! WE WANT STEVE!
 
Back in the day the main benefits to the MacPro were the expansion slots, dual processor, extra hard drives, and dual processors.

Now days with iMacs coming with quad cores, 16 GB of ram, and terrabytes of hard drive space, and thunderbolts ability to add external storage, and an expansion slot chassis; I think this is an obvious move. Add a duel processor option to the iMac and there you go. The only people this will hurt is the people that use Mac OSX Server as the MacPro and MacMini is the only server hardware they currently offer.

If you put dual processors and high end graphics card in an iMac you'd have a pile of molten aluminium.
 
That's true, though at the same time Mac Pros aren't really meant for gaming to begin with. I don't know the details so somebody else can fill in for me, but the graphics cards in them, as I understand it, are designed for graphic work.

Though the sad fact remains that it is the only Mac that can natively support more than 1 hard drive at once. You can pull it off in MBPs but at the loss of the CD drive (and using third party equipment).

added to that at THIS point at least, PCIe offers many more options than TB. and after all, we are talking about axing the MP line at THIS point.
 
That's true, though at the same time Mac Pros aren't really meant for gaming to begin with. I don't know the details so somebody else can fill in for me, but the graphics cards in them, as I understand it, are designed for graphic work.

The graphics cards are standard consumer graphics cards which means they are designed for gaming. Only recently has photo and image editing even started to use the graphics cards. For productivity it was 3D content creation that did and on Macs that was and is a tiny niche.
 
All correct. Because it's in line with market realities. I can't help it if some people find market realities uncomfortable. It's for everyone to come to terms with in their own way.

Like Microsoft and the Windows market reality makes you uncomfortable?
 
I doubt this would happen... I can't see Apple dropping the Mac Pro too soon, they need if for the bragging rights for performance/marketing. If the sales for the Mac Pro are down then I'd very much suspect this would be due the the fact they haven't been updated since 2010, it's the reason I am waiting.

If anything I think we'll see the next Mac Pro with an updated case design with the option to rack mount, while Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge would be pretty safe bet.
 
This is still the main benefit. I am sorry but we are a movie studio that uses every ounce of power in the Mac Pro and quad-core and even 8-core does not cut it, nor does 16GB of RAM. There are MANY professional applications that are very hardware intensive that task current Mac Pros so iMacs and Minis are just not an option. Mac Pros do not lose Apple money, they are still profitable, just just don't make up the lions share of sales. And for Apple's professional market they are a must have, you know Apple's original bread and butter that have kept them in business even in the bad years. If Apple ditches the Mac Pro, you will see people freak WAY beyond what FCPX caused.


Back in the day the main benefits to the MacPro were the expansion slots, dual processor, extra hard drives, and dual processors.

Now days with iMacs coming with quad cores, 16 GB of ram, and terrabytes of hard drive space, and thunderbolts ability to add external storage, and an expansion slot chassis; I think this is an obvious move. Add a duel processor option to the iMac and there you go. The only people this will hurt is the people that use Mac OSX Server as the MacPro and MacMini is the only server hardware they currently offer.
 
The graphics cards are standard consumer graphics cards which means they are designed for gaming. Only recently has photo and image editing even started to use the graphics cards. For productivity it was 3D content creation that did and on Macs that was and is a tiny niche.

This. Nobody needs the GPU in Mac Pro unless they want to game a bit better.

Except the Quadro line. But unless they fixed the drivers on that, those pieces were not performing faster than the consumer GPU's on OS X.
 
I wonder what the graph would look like if it was done as absolute sales instead of notebook vs. desktop %? Aren't their notebook sales increasing? So, the percentage of notebook sale would be increasing even if the Mac Pro sales are staying the same.

Even with the fantastic performance of the new i7 processors, there still is a need for professional grade computing power.

Glenn
 
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