'Machined Aluminum Enclosure'
Detailed in the Assembly section of apple mac pro site.
But I understand if you were confused as it looks like this japanese plastic trash can.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0018NRM9U/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_azjp_mo7ilt
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's Mac Pro to Be Assembled by Flextronics in Fort Worth, Texas?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
'Machined Aluminum Enclosure'
Detailed in the Assembly section of apple mac pro site.
But I understand if you were confused as it looks like this japanese plastic trash can.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0018NRM9U/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_azjp_mo7ilt
'Machined Aluminum Enclosure'
Detailed in the Assembly section of apple mac pro site.
But I understand if you were confused as it looks like this japanese plastic trash can.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0018NRM9U/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_azjp_mo7ilt
Just saw the post over the Mac pro's forums. Same process as coke cans...
Any who, as a pro user I don't have the need to upgrade my 4,1 specially since Logic hasn't changed in years, further more the difference from 5,1 to this new can its mostly visual with improved memory bandwidth. Nothing that cannot be done with then previous models.
I'm mostly disappointed and was hopping for something better...
What is the difference between FirePro and Radeon? It's nothing much in silicon, and that's what really drives the cost to manufacture. The HD 7990 (and W9000) is spec wise comparable to what Apple claims for the Mac Pro regarding core count, VRAM size and type, bus speeds, FLOPS and so forth. The difference in pricing in the retail offerings between FirePro and Radeon are in the drivers and application support, and Apple doesn't make the drivers workstation/gaming specific as they are for Windows/Linux. AMD's margins and support cost are probably significantly higher for their FirePro products than what they are for their gaming products so they are pricing them higher because they can. And AMD would probably sell a lot more of there high end/pro parts through Apple than they would in retail and they wouldn't have to do marketing, packaging, distribution and so forth either so they could afford lower margins.
Apple's call center(s) are in North America, US and Canada to be precise.
----------
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit I take it?
The hard technical differences between the FirePro 9000 series and Radeon HD 7900 are superficial. They are based on the same core design (XT2 Tahiti), are speced very similarly and are manufactured on the same fab. I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't cost exactly the same to manufacture.
What drives the retail price is drivers, customer support and marketing, something that AMD wouldn't pay a dime for since that's Apple's domain. The FirePro will always be priced higher bought from AMD, not because the actual cost of designing and manufacturing, but other factors. Factors that does not apply to Apple's case.
Last edited:
According to this report, Foxconn employees will move up to $700/month by end of this year. They were at $350, and back in 2010 they were making $145.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/china/iphone-manufacturer-foxconn-to-double-worker-salaries-by-2013/438
Their website numbers are for the highest end configuration. My guess is the base model will come with dual W5000 or something similar.
True, plus by putting the CPU directly on the chipset instead of on a card, that likely saves some costs as well.
The Haswell that just came out is ONLY the i7 (and down) and Xeon E3. Xeon E5 is only on Sandy Bridge right now, Ivy Bridge is coming out this fall and Haswell not until next year.
So yes, Apple will be using the latest chips, ones that aren't even shipping today and haven't had specific chips announced by Intel yet.
Now it's a darn good question why the high end chips are lagging two generations behind the consumer ones but that's a question for Intel, not Apple.
I really do hope they are built in the old Nokia plant that Flextronics bought...
That might bring my home price back up to what it was 5 years ago... The plant is 3 miles north of me.
The Alliance area has gone bonkers. In just the past year construction started up full force again, and there is a wide price range of homes close by.
Good location considering that Apple likes to ship product by air, and the Alliance airport is perfectly suited for the task. Huge runways, and already handles air freight. No consumer air traffic to get in the way.
Just hope it doesn't take away the Alliance air show in the fall.
That might bring my home price back up to what it was 5 years ago... The plant is 3 miles north of me.
The Alliance area has gone bonkers. In just the past year construction started up full force again, and there is a wide price range of homes close by.
Good location considering that Apple likes to ship product by air, and the Alliance airport is perfectly suited for the task. Huge runways, and already handles air freight. No consumer air traffic to get in the way.
Just hope it doesn't take away the Alliance air show in the fall.
re: pricing
I wrote a blog article guessing at new Mac Pro pricing just a couple days ago.
Honestly, I think a lot of people will be in for a big shock when it arrives at a price-point considerably higher than previous models.
It's also possible Apple will offer some stripped down models to achieve a lower price point ... but just looking at exactly what they listed as specs at WWDC?
1. They're including a PAIR of AMD FirePro graphics processors with "up to 6GB of VRAM, each". The current AMD FirePro card with 6GB of VRAM for Windows is this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...kwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=CJ6fmYzF5LcCFcad4AodSRIAjg
So even if Apple negotiates a really big discount on pricing and saves more by integrating the chips into their own board/packaging instead of on a regular PCIe expansion card? Umm... a pair of these things HAS to cost in excess of $4000-5000, don't you think?
2. The PCIe flash drive in the Mac Pro that's "up to 2.5x faster than current SSD technology"? Again, sounds costly! The only similar drives I see for sale already in the Windows world are models like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Express-Solid-OCZSSDPCIE-ZDP84512G/dp/B002PONRNQ
Again, they're asking over $2,300 for that, and it's a 512GB. There's a lot of speculation the new Mac Pro's flash will offer a 1TB capacity, in at least one configuration option. (The mini PCIe flash card they show looks longer than similar ones made by companies like Intel that people have seen, to date. That could be to fit 2x the number of chips on it to double capacity from 512GB to 1TB or so.)
I wrote a blog article guessing at new Mac Pro pricing just a couple days ago.
Honestly, I think a lot of people will be in for a big shock when it arrives at a price-point considerably higher than previous models.
It's also possible Apple will offer some stripped down models to achieve a lower price point ... but just looking at exactly what they listed as specs at WWDC?
1. They're including a PAIR of AMD FirePro graphics processors with "up to 6GB of VRAM, each". The current AMD FirePro card with 6GB of VRAM for Windows is this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...kwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=CJ6fmYzF5LcCFcad4AodSRIAjg
So even if Apple negotiates a really big discount on pricing and saves more by integrating the chips into their own board/packaging instead of on a regular PCIe expansion card? Umm... a pair of these things HAS to cost in excess of $4000-5000, don't you think?
2. The PCIe flash drive in the Mac Pro that's "up to 2.5x faster than current SSD technology"? Again, sounds costly! The only similar drives I see for sale already in the Windows world are models like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Express-Solid-OCZSSDPCIE-ZDP84512G/dp/B002PONRNQ
Again, they're asking over $2,300 for that, and it's a 512GB. There's a lot of speculation the new Mac Pro's flash will offer a 1TB capacity, in at least one configuration option. (The mini PCIe flash card they show looks longer than similar ones made by companies like Intel that people have seen, to date. That could be to fit 2x the number of chips on it to double capacity from 512GB to 1TB or so.)
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Apple is very likely to offer build options. Firepro cards in the 5000 series are significantly cheaper. So when they say "up to 6GB each" that may simply mean that if you go for the custom build option, you can get a couple W8000's if you really want them.
As for flash memory, the price difference between a 256GB and 768GB SSD in the Macbook Pro is $700. And that is retail. So, a sub $1k TB SSD should not be an issue for Apple. I don't think PCIe vs SATA has any significant effect on the price. These are the same modules they are already shipping in the new Air, just smaller I suspect. The SATA SSD in the MacBook Pro already clocks in at 400MB/sec, so double the chip count (and bus width) and you are already approaching the 1GB/sec speed.
re: competition, free market, etc.
I don't think I was exactly one of those people on Slashdot back then, but I was a Slashdot user back in those days and I do believe in a free market economy.
It's not about mocking people for keeping a blue collar job and "not going into I.T.", at least not the way I see it? But the root of the sentiment you interpreted that way is more an overall concept that it's foolish to keep working a labor-intensive job that doesn't require much thought, vs. getting some kind of education. It doesn't even have to be formal schooling or degrees -- but I'm just talking about the motivation to be self-taught, or to learn from someone you know who can train or teach you.
The one sure thing is change. And as we move forward, you're going to see a lot of labor jobs vanish completely. Even countries like China who currently have so many people, they consider them basically expendable, won't go on like this indefinitely. Why? Because at some point, it becomes cheaper to use robots that don't have requirements of sleep or eating, and don't make mistakes as long as they're not malfunctioning.
When we reach this point, technologically, I don't expect it will be pretty for a while. I could see displaced workers rising up and trying to destroy the machines in anger, or a civil war of sorts between the "haves" (who own the factories) and the "have nots" who now have no jobs at all.
But again, change is the key. If people are flexible enough to think outside the box, they might grow to realize we've built ourselves a world where it's simply not necessary to report for work 40+ hours a week anymore. Maybe the "trick" will be to restructure society so we're not focused on the idea that employment is required to survive? Why not evolve to where, for example, your utilities like electricity are paid simply by contributing in some small way to maintaining that infrastructure every month? No more money and billing required....
I don't think I was exactly one of those people on Slashdot back then, but I was a Slashdot user back in those days and I do believe in a free market economy.
It's not about mocking people for keeping a blue collar job and "not going into I.T.", at least not the way I see it? But the root of the sentiment you interpreted that way is more an overall concept that it's foolish to keep working a labor-intensive job that doesn't require much thought, vs. getting some kind of education. It doesn't even have to be formal schooling or degrees -- but I'm just talking about the motivation to be self-taught, or to learn from someone you know who can train or teach you.
The one sure thing is change. And as we move forward, you're going to see a lot of labor jobs vanish completely. Even countries like China who currently have so many people, they consider them basically expendable, won't go on like this indefinitely. Why? Because at some point, it becomes cheaper to use robots that don't have requirements of sleep or eating, and don't make mistakes as long as they're not malfunctioning.
When we reach this point, technologically, I don't expect it will be pretty for a while. I could see displaced workers rising up and trying to destroy the machines in anger, or a civil war of sorts between the "haves" (who own the factories) and the "have nots" who now have no jobs at all.
But again, change is the key. If people are flexible enough to think outside the box, they might grow to realize we've built ourselves a world where it's simply not necessary to report for work 40+ hours a week anymore. Maybe the "trick" will be to restructure society so we're not focused on the idea that employment is required to survive? Why not evolve to where, for example, your utilities like electricity are paid simply by contributing in some small way to maintaining that infrastructure every month? No more money and billing required....
AMD have less than 15% of a ~4 million unit market, so yeah even if Apple just sell 100,000 Mac Pros that is an extra 30-35% more AMD workstation graphics processors shipped (because 2 per system).
You see, this is the biggest problem with American consumerists. They want American-made products, but don't want to pay for American manufacturing, then COMPLAIN when their **** is built in China.
I assume when you mean 'free market' you aren't referring to a objectivist paradise of no regulations other than upholding property rights but instead a 'freer market' with sensible regulations? Too would be happy with such a scenario but what I'm proposing is what Adam Smith talked about - the invisible hand of morality being present.
The problem is that you're assuming everyone can simply retrain whilst ignoring that there are those who, no matter how hard they try, will never be able to complete an advanced degree let alone complete an apprenticeship at this stage of their career - if the transition taking place is a natural evolution of the economy but the transition itself hasn't been smooth.
Interesting enough that is already happening - 10 years ago it was cheaper to have more man power than automation but recent pay rises have meant that automation is now entering into the equation but the question is what is China going to do with its 'excess labour capacity' beyond hoping that the service sector will magically pick up the slack?
True, or that people realise the consequences of their actions by understanding that their decision has a roll on effect to the rest of the economy; that higher profits now result in consequences down the road, by demanding cheaper products there are consequences to employees and investors (and in turn their own superannuation funds which are invested in said companies) etc. I'm personally not demanding the government to do anything because these are issues that only as individuals and communities can sort out.
All parts bought from over seas assembled in america.
----------
I am not paying anyone $35.00 hour to turn a screw so sorry.
----------
I am not paying anyone $35.00 hour to turn a screw so sorry.
I'm sure apple said "assembled" in the US, all this means they make it in China, then screw it together it the US, big deal!
The Radeon version of the most expensive FirePro card (i.e. the HD 7990) is priced less than $1000, and that's including 6 GB VRAM. Since AMD isn't selling that at a loss, but rather a hefty premium; the silicon, the assembly, the marketing, the drivers, and the customer support will cost much less than that. AMD will only have to charge Apple for the silicon, the rest is on Apple's tab.
I think AMDs market for this kind of card (Radeon HD 7990 or FirePro 9000) is numbered in the thousands per year. In a Mac Pro, Apple will multiply that at least ten times, so Apple have the serious advantage of volume too. Apple probably can guarantee AMD a very large purchase, so their price will drop considerably. I don't think Apple will pay more than $500 or so.
OZC is a much smaller company than Apple, with much smaller market. They must apply a hefty premium to their high end products to keep margins high since development, packaging, testing, marketing and support cost them dearly. Again, Apple will compensate that by volumes orders of magnitude larger than OZC's. Just look at the new MacBook Air, it has a very similar PCIe SSD in it only 25% slower than what's claimed for the Mac Pro. You get 256 additional GB for $300, and that's Apples premium price to the customer. I think they buy it at least half as cheap. 256 GB for $150, that's $600 for a full TB.
An order of magnitude cheaper than your calculations.
I am not sure why you linked to OCZ's Z drive. Thats almost 6 times(atleast the newest release) as a SATA III SSD. Up to 2.5xs traditional SSD means, somehwere around 1200-1300MB/s not 2600MB/s. Not sure why you are think Apple would use an Enterprise class drive either, they don't use enterprise class drives right now, why would they start with the New MacPro.
Storage technology is changing this year(starting in Q3). M.2, whatever custom job Apple is doing, and next year's SataExpress are going to greatly increase the speeds of SSDs. ADATA has a M.2 drive that does 1800MB/s. No word on pricing yet, but its not coming until LATE 2013, if not sometime in 2014.
As for length of Apples drive, in the renders it does look longer than the 80mm M.2 drives that have been shown but it is hard to tell. A 120mm M.2/NGFF drive would probably fit ~1TB, so far no one has shown 120mm drive though. Unfortunately Apple has to use its own standard it seems, so its not even possible to guess how much capacity even if we knew how long it was.
----------
The one in the air reportedly does 800MB/s, which is less than 1.5x faster than a SATA III SSD. The MacPro SSD will be substantially faster than the MacBook Airs. If Apple is true to its word it should be around 1250-1400MB/s depending on if they are comparing read or write.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Yup, and believe it or not, Ireland. I've called on the weekend a few times and spoke with Irish tech support. Apple did try Indian call centers but received a lot of flack and stuck with N. America and Ireland.
I highly doubt many desktop makers will copy this, unless its priced right it won't be a value for money. And that's what PC makers do, cheap cheap.
And it won't really compete in the super high end workstation market either. ( my work station is worth over 30k, with 4 CPUs, 4GPUs, 18 hard drives, 12SSDs, and dual fiber channel cards ).
This thing will be for small to medium sized post houses that can't afford a server room, and it will do very well in that market:
I'm not saying these guys should make $40 per hour screwing aluminum casing together so we pay more for it. I'm just glad to see something getting made here. We can't live off retail alone, Canada and the US need to keep making stuff.
