Apple Sends Mac Pro Posters to Journalists: 'The Computer We Were Insane to Build'

[Peace]

Apple has put themselves at the mercy of third party action with this machine. Whether this new MacPro is ever accepted by the "Pro" community will depend on what happens in the "Thunderbolt World". I imagine there will be some people who will buy the 4 core model with a Thunderbolt enclosure for their desktop, but all the "Pros" will need a special Thunder Bolt Rack of some kind. There are a few thunderbolt devices out there but most are too expensive or too limited.

The real "Pro" community is used to spending thousands of dollars on misc. stuff for their workstations.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I'm just disappointed you only get a one-year warranty with the Mac Pro. I'd at least hope that the higher costing ones would come with 3 years, with the option to extend to 5 years. Puts a bit of faith in what you just bought, considering how much you paid for it.

I appreciate they didn't do that in their older Pro machines though, so it's all just wishful thinking.

 

[Redneck1089]

Sli is nvidia, AMD calls it crossfire.

The drivers are same ones as 7950/70 in OSX, you can see for yourself in 10.9 extensions folder.

The quote I can't get over from their letter. "And blew away limitation after limitation"

Curious what they meant.

All I can see is that they added a bunch.

This.

 

[Yamcha]

Maybe I'm in the few category, but I don't really like the new design for the Mac Pro.

I know It's been said a million times, but the new Mac Pro resembles a trash can, certainly a fancier one.

Maybe I'll change my mind when I see it in person. But I found a picture of a modded trash can with PC components inside, attached it below, reminds me of the Mac Pro..

 

[WestonHarvey1]

Sli is nvidia, AMD calls it crossfire.

Ahh yes, in my mind SLI is still a 3dfx term, "Scan Line Interleave".

 

[ValSalva]

Apple really wants the press to like this.

 

[Lancer]

Before people start complaining about the lack of an optical drive I was in a PC store yesterday looking for blank DVD+RW which have become hard to find in the last few months. He said even PC buyers aren't looking for DVD anymore, and even less want BluRay in their computer.

They didn't even have external USB BluRay units to sell.

I guess optical media is slowly dying.

FYI I needed the DVDs for my PVR not my 2012 iMac.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

Same concept as "can't innovate my ass" or most of the buzzwords from the last 2 events. It makes apple sound like apple is run by incompetent fools who can't properly express themselves. The current management team is so far beneath the quality of the company.

The worst was "I'm a huge fan of the Black Knight". So am I, but that's not what I think he meant.

 

[iBug2]

but all the "Pros" will need a special Thunder Bolt Rack of some kind.

Correction: Probably most pro's are not using any of the PCI-e expansions of the current Mac Pro.
The ones getting screwed the most are video editors since there's still some specialty hardware for video capture. Audio world has been moving to USB for a while now, not even TB bandwidth is needed on that front and desktop publishing does not have any specialty PCI-e cards that speeds things up.

 

[Winni]

He's being serious and has a point.

I mean if Apple can design something that runs better and faster with a quad then other competitors needing twice as much power, then what's the issue?

It's like having a race with a car that has a 700HP engine vs a 350HP engine but the 350HP engine is a better designed car from weight ratio to air flow, handling, etc. and in the end beats the 700HP car in the race due to the engineering feats.

That argument would have flown eight years ago when Apple was NOT building machines with off-the-shelf Intel processors. But now they do, and Apple cannot perform any "magic" here that the competition cannot also do. They all use the same hardware pieces, and there are limits to how much you can optimize those. You simply cannot provide the same computational power with four processor cores when others need eight cores with the same architecture for that. It's impossible. So let's come back from the realm of fantasy and wishful thinking.

Apple ships a nice design here and they squeeze a lot of horse power into that design. But that comes with a lot of tradeoffs, and it will quickly look very ugly on your desk when that myriad of cables are attached to the nice little box that are needed to communicate with the extensions that cannot be hidden in the computer's case. This thing is a powerful Mac Mini, not a traditional Workstation computer that is not only designed to be powerful, but also to be extensible - like the old Mac Pro was.

I wonder what will happen to all those ProTools users? Will they now also have to use external boxes that contain their sound cards, audio outlets and whatever? This thing really wasn't designed to cater to the needs of the traditional Mac Pro/Workstation users.

Don't get me wrong: This -is- a nice machine. Like a Lamborghini is a nice car. It's just not the car that you would buy to transport a pack of dogs or go shopping. It's not the car that you would use for anything that's work related. So who was this new machine designed for? The same kind of customer that would buy a Lamborghini, for the same purpose? There's probably no other clientele left for that machine. I can imagine those fancy glass desks with that Mac Pro on it. But no folders or paper. Nothing that would actually even remotely remember somebody of a work place. Like a private library where all books have leather bindings - and were never read.

 

[juanm]

You do realize there's more than a CPU in it right ?

Yes. Two low powered* overpriced** GPUs you cannot upgrade, on top of one very powerful overpriced*** CPU. Also, a tiny superfast solid state drive.

* at least for now, when very few software solutions can make use of it
** workstation gpus are always overpriced and overrated.
*** ECC is nice, but one of the main points of having a Xeon is that you can put them in pairs. For the low end setups a high end i7 would made much more sense.

 

[flat five]

What's innovative about new Mac Pro? They designed cylindrical from factor with a turbine inspired cooling, venting through the top... OK.

right- that's what's innovative about it.. a single fan/heat sink to cool all components

 

[iSee]

In before the insane comments.

hehe.

I wouldn't mind having one of the posters though.

I wouldn't mind having one of those computers!!!

 

[flat five]

Conventional thinking says you have to make a pro desktop tower computer fully upgradable on all parts by the user! Conventional thinking says you have to follow a certain tower design so standard components can be put in there more easily.
We say: **** that, no user serviceable anything! Everyone should throw their computer away after 4 years to buy a new one and if they need any additional hardware, which they will, yes, they should connect everything via thunderbolt. What, there are only a handful thunderbolt devices and almost all sold at outrageous prices?
Hey whatever!! No boundaries! Nothing user serviceable is the new creativity and innovation! We can't innovate anymore my ass!

what parts aren't user serviceable/upgradeable?

 

[coolfactor]

Not talking about the Mac Pro but the poster to the press. Smells like someone is getting very defensive. From a mile.

That's a pessimistic viewpoint. Apple is not being defensive, as they now have the top-of-the-line rig ready to hit the market. PCs won't be able to come close to this thing at the same price print. This is offense more than defence. This changes the landscape for desktop computers.

 

[ruka21]

Price too high for 4 core

Price too high for 4 core they should have started with the with that price for the six core and even that would be too high

 

[aloshka]

Well according to apple the ONLY thing serviceable is memory. So to answer your question. NOTHINGS is serviceable in the new mac pro

 

[AppleScruff1]

That's a pessimistic viewpoint. Apple is not being defensive, as they now have the top-of-the-line rig ready to hit the market. PCs won't be able to come close to this thing at the same price print. This is offense more than defence. This changes the landscape for desktop computers.

Do you think it will cost more to build a pc with the same specs?

 

[coolfactor]

Yes. Two low powered* overpriced** GPUs you cannot upgrade, on top of one very powerful overpriced*** CPU. Also, a tiny superfast solid state drive.

* at least for now, when very few software solutions can make use of it
** workstation gpus are always overpriced and overrated.
*** ECC is nice, but one of the main points of having a Xeon is that you can put them in pairs. For the low end setups a high end i7 would made much more sense.

Technologies like OpenCL are built into the OS, so many applications can easily leverage the power of the GPUs at a very low level. Expect this to change things.

The GPUs are on daughterboards, which apparently will be fairly easy to upgrade once options come onto the market.

 

[dual64bit]

Excited

 

[Peace]

Well according to apple the ONLY thing serviceable is memory. So to answer your question. NOTHINGS is serviceable in the new mac pro

Storage is user upgradable also.

 

[aloshka]

Screw building, an hp z620 is cheaper than this with their 20% off coupon right now. Same parts, just as quiet except expandable and allows dual processors so actually faster performance.

 

[milo]

If people think this box is overpriced they should compare how much the dell and HP workstations using these same CPUs cost right now. I was surprised, but they are actually even more and in many cases have lower specs and fewer features. In HP's case, they seem to be using the 2600 series for single core which is a waste of money, maybe they'll figure out that the 1600s are available and do cheaper versions with those.

The quote I can't get over from their letter. "And blew away limitation after limitation"
Curious what they meant.
All I can see is that they added a bunch.

So guys who sell video cards don't like the new MP? Gee, that's a shocker. :roll eyes:

*** one of the main points of having a Xeon is that you can put them in pairs. For the low end setups a high end i7 would made much more sense.

Why? The quad and 6 core xeons are the same price as the matching i7s. And then they'd probably have a different mobo for the i7 and xeon configs.

 

[WRP]

*cough* no cuda *cough*

 

[aloshka]

Storage is user upgradable also.

No it's not. It using a proprietary apple connector that no one makes. Even if owc makes it, apple will change it again like they did before by adding just one pin or so. It's like their version of mSata. You could only use their drives. so.. No. Still not user replaceable.