On the Mac Pro? I better get a Blu Ray Drive.
I know tons of people, including myself who still use optical media. ( Beats the cloud, thats for sure )
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Boot Camp Files Hint at New Mac Pro and iMac Models [Updated]
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On the Mac Pro? I better get a Blu Ray Drive.
I know tons of people, including myself who still use optical media. ( Beats the cloud, thats for sure )
I'm just considering just jumping in and getting a 6-core 3.33Ghz to replace my 2009 8-core 2.26 Mac Pro. Do you think I will get enough of a performance boost for HD editing / rendering with CS6?
This isn't likely to ever be a good solution. The support really isn't there. You have a couple expensive products with severe limitations. They exist. It doesn't mean they are viable. Thunderbolt would be much more useful here in a mature form. In its current form existing solutions do a better job.
True but then again Apple is slowly moving towards the consumer market - if they happen to touch on the pro segment then it is by accident rather than design. In all due respects, if people want professional level of support then maybe Windows is the platform because all evidence so far (based on the decisions Apple have made) that they're not interested in the professional market any more.
Maybe it is me but the only reason that Apple ever catered for the creative types was because it was pretty much run out of the consumer market by cheaper clones running MS-DOS/Windows but now they have the opportunity to re-take the consumer market through the iPad and MacBook (and lesser extent iMac - which I I think they'll cull off along with the Mac Pro). The opportunity to re-emerge in the consumer market will come at the expense of their professional base which I don't think Apple really cares all that much about given that the consumer opportunity is a heck of a lot bigger opportunity for them. Don't be surprised if in a few years there is the MacBook Pro 'Retina' and the MacBook Air 'Retina' with the Mac Pro and iMac culled off.
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I doubt if apple would ever get rid of the imac ($1100) because its probably cheaper than a pc with the same specs and a monitor of the same specs.
The imac is how apple competes with the pc desktop market, and they still 3 plus million a year. Why would they give that up?
Before I get into comment replying/bashing/agreeing, I'm going to lay out a few facts. For one, the current design of the iMac is flawwed; there is way too much heat being generated by desktop components that belong in a tower and that results in most failure-prone Mac on the market (a) by far and (b) in recent history. Thanks to this, we have proprietary hard drives that MUST be replaced with Apple part numbers carrying a substantially shorter warranty than an aftermarket drive. Beyond that, the design of the iMac clearly favors form over function resulting in a machine that in terms of performance output really doesn't justify its price tag. Two, the Mac Pro, unlike any of the other four product lines is invaluable; editing houses NEED Xeons (as even two year old Xeons kick the crap out of Mobile Ivy Bridge), NEED PCI slots (as Thunderbolt is simply not widespread enough), NEED RAM capacity beyond 16GB, NEED four 3.5" SATA bays and two 5.25" SATA bays. If Apple abandons the Mac Pro, that is money that they are losing to HP, Dell, and Microsoft. Lastly, three, Apple's plan, as dating as far back in time as the Macworld 2003 keynote, is to replace desktop sales with notebook sales. It is their plan to eventually ditch the Mac mini and the iMac in favor of a stronger notebook product line. Whether that consists of MacBook Pros with or without retina, MacBook Airs, or even just "MacBooks", who knows? The point is that Apple has publically declared themselves to be a mobile devices company, putting most of their marketing muscle in that area first and foremost. While the Mac Pro has reasons for existing, albeit, in its own little niche, the iMac and Mac mini won't, especially as the Thunderbolt display ends up adopting more features previously exclusive to those machines (imagine a Thunderbolt display with an iMac/gamer-laptop-PC form factor graphics board, an optical drive bay, and a 3.5" drive; without the CPU and chipset, such a display might be feasible and perfect for any mac lacking in discrete graphics.)
That being said...
You can buy one now as all iMacs have high resolution; the 27" iMac has a much higher resolution than most 27" displays out there. It's not like Apple not releasing an update prevents or precludes you from buying such a machine; it just won't have Ivy Bridge or anything newer than a Radeon HD 6970M in tow.
It always is. Case in point, the rumors leading up to WWDC where everyone thought that the retina MBP would replace the non-retina MBP when, in a surprising move, both machines saw the light of day and with Ivy Bridge and updated internals.
I'd be shocked to see it discontinued this soon. Though Apple has had a history of sometimes waiting for over a year to update the Mac mini. Pity, because I'll bet it wouldn't be hard to simply update the logic board for Ivy Bridge in the same way that the 13" MacBook Pro and 15" non-Retina MacBook Pro was.
Internally the iMac really shouldn't ever have a desktop GPU as that thing is way too hot. Though I completely agree with you on the topic of external Thunderbolt GPUs.
Pretty rad story. You basically used your oven as a reflow machine. Pro manuver, and kudos to you for it!
The Radeon HD 6970M for being what it is (namely a gamer-laptop-PC form-factor GPU), is a year old and can and, thusly, should be replaced with something newer. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M ought to be faster than it is, for instance.
This is why the all-in-one enclosure is a really stupid idea from the standpoint of bang-for-buck. It's a desktop computer, why does it need to be small or thin? if the iMac were substantially thicker, it could support higher performance components, therefore it's only thin to look sleek. Sleekness at the cost of performance. Anyone else here feel like that's a poor trade-off or am I the only one here?
Get a MacBook Pro and a Thunderbolt display. Much better use of your money, much more reliable combo. Even if they do a design refresh, which they are due to do at some point soon (given the problems with the current design), it will still not be as powerful or as expandable as either (a) other Macs or (b) as it should be as a desktop.
They kind of have to or an entire industry moves to Microsoft Windows powered workstations from the likes of Dell and HP and once people get used to using PCs at work, it is theorized that it is much more likely that they get used to that platform and stick with it at home.
You're probably never going to see matte displays on a Mac past the eventual discontinuation of the non-retina 15" MacBook Pro, but you probably knew that already. That said, the retina 15" MacBook Pro's glass is said to be 75% less reflective of light. Odds are, Apple will use that glass across the board on their future glass-laden Macs.
The notebook GPU in an iMac is typically the same kind of GPU used in gamer laptop PCs and are thusly, more powerful (and also more heat-generating) than the standard GPUs found in something like the 15" MacBook Pro. A GPU of that calibur CAN likely be fine for such a machine.
It's not feasible for an iMac. Period. Not unless thinness goes from top priority to bottom priority.
Same three year old GPU, same two year old CPUs, no Thunderbolt, USB 3, no AirPlay mirroring support, no OS X Internet Recovery support, more or less the same as the 2010 version...some "Mac Pro update", buddy.
If you go by trends set in the last three major redesigns, we're due for a refresh this next rev. The last three designs have lasted three revisions/refreshes. The current iMacs mark the third rev of this design. Not only that, but the current design is functionally problematic, and when that happens, Apple tends to do redesigns sooner rather than later.
Apple might not be making desktops by then. They'll probably still make the Mac Pro in some capacity, but Mac minis and iMacs are another story.
They'll give some sort of an update; they know that they can delay on new iMacs because only a small minority of technically savy people will even notice that they haven't been updated.
Thunderbolt is not that common nor affordable yet. Same for those PCI cases. Plus there's no guarantee of compatibility with such devices. Otherwise, your idea is a good one.
They won't kill the laptops. Desktops are potentially another story.
I'm pretty sure that between that card and the GeForce 8600M GT fiasco with Apple and the other PC notebook manufacturers, NVIDIA has gotten their **** together. They have to have, otherwise, they probably wouldn't be in business right now.
As a pro-optical drive supporter, I once held the stance that you now have. Though the needless removal of the optical drive in Mac mini systems that only ship with one hard drive and no discrete GPU (the entry level model) as well as the retina MacBook Pro being forecasted as "The Next Generation MacBook Pro" and lacking one itself seems to forecast a future in which Apple slowly pulls out the optical drive from all of its Macs. The Mac Pro ought to retain its drives for a while simply because, unlike the other four systems, it's not all about being thin and sleek. But the iMac will likely lose its drive too before too long. And really, as a pro-optical drive supporter, I was bummed about this. I, myself, will buy a 15" non-retina MacBook Pro in the coming weeks, but I get the feeling that aside from needing extra lap space and carrying around one more peripheral, it'll be better to just live with an external drive; replacing even the Apple USB Superdrive is $80, whereas replacing the internal Apple Superdrive is $160 excluding the required labor. Utimately, it IS cheaper, better, and more sensible this way, much as I, myself, don't like it.
They still do that; they're all (well, the laptops at least) on 8-10 month cycles. We're only on Mid-2012 MacBook Pros now because it is 8-10 months after the Late 2011 models came out.
Yup, like old times, indeed.
A lot of people still like them and want them. They shouldn't expect Apple to come out with them, but I see no problem with stating how much they want they want them as long as they make that distinction between hopes and reality.
Yup, I still use the crap out of mine.
To be fair, Apple has always had (with the wonderful exception of Snow Leopard) the features that they advertised and changes under the hood. In this release the changes that they're advertising are mostly stupid. But it sounds like the revamp of the graphics system is well worth the $20 admission price.
That's not a terrible theory, come to think of it. I'll bet that's not what actually went down/is going down, but it is definitely fathomable.
That being said...
You can buy one now as all iMacs have high resolution; the 27" iMac has a much higher resolution than most 27" displays out there. It's not like Apple not releasing an update prevents or precludes you from buying such a machine; it just won't have Ivy Bridge or anything newer than a Radeon HD 6970M in tow.
It always is. Case in point, the rumors leading up to WWDC where everyone thought that the retina MBP would replace the non-retina MBP when, in a surprising move, both machines saw the light of day and with Ivy Bridge and updated internals.
No mention of a Mini 6,0
I'd be shocked to see it discontinued this soon. Though Apple has had a history of sometimes waiting for over a year to update the Mac mini. Pity, because I'll bet it wouldn't be hard to simply update the logic board for Ivy Bridge in the same way that the 13" MacBook Pro and 15" non-Retina MacBook Pro was.
It needs a desktop GPU badly that would make it so much better and yes, it would help a Retina iMac greatly. In the meantime, where are those Thunderbolt eGPUs .
Internally the iMac really shouldn't ever have a desktop GPU as that thing is way too hot. Though I completely agree with you on the topic of external Thunderbolt GPUs.
Pretty rad story. You basically used your oven as a reflow machine. Pro manuver, and kudos to you for it!
The Radeon HD 6970M for being what it is (namely a gamer-laptop-PC form-factor GPU), is a year old and can and, thusly, should be replaced with something newer. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M ought to be faster than it is, for instance.
This is why the all-in-one enclosure is a really stupid idea from the standpoint of bang-for-buck. It's a desktop computer, why does it need to be small or thin? if the iMac were substantially thicker, it could support higher performance components, therefore it's only thin to look sleek. Sleekness at the cost of performance. Anyone else here feel like that's a poor trade-off or am I the only one here?
OT: I really can't wait either. This will be my first iMac purchase and I really can't stand the wait. Seems like I picked the wrong year for waiting on a refresh
Get a MacBook Pro and a Thunderbolt display. Much better use of your money, much more reliable combo. Even if they do a design refresh, which they are due to do at some point soon (given the problems with the current design), it will still not be as powerful or as expandable as either (a) other Macs or (b) as it should be as a desktop.
They kind of have to or an entire industry moves to Microsoft Windows powered workstations from the likes of Dell and HP and once people get used to using PCs at work, it is theorized that it is much more likely that they get used to that platform and stick with it at home.
You're probably never going to see matte displays on a Mac past the eventual discontinuation of the non-retina 15" MacBook Pro, but you probably knew that already. That said, the retina 15" MacBook Pro's glass is said to be 75% less reflective of light. Odds are, Apple will use that glass across the board on their future glass-laden Macs.
The notebook GPU in an iMac is typically the same kind of GPU used in gamer laptop PCs and are thusly, more powerful (and also more heat-generating) than the standard GPUs found in something like the 15" MacBook Pro. A GPU of that calibur CAN likely be fine for such a machine.
It's not feasible for an iMac. Period. Not unless thinness goes from top priority to bottom priority.
Same three year old GPU, same two year old CPUs, no Thunderbolt, USB 3, no AirPlay mirroring support, no OS X Internet Recovery support, more or less the same as the 2010 version...some "Mac Pro update", buddy.
If you go by trends set in the last three major redesigns, we're due for a refresh this next rev. The last three designs have lasted three revisions/refreshes. The current iMacs mark the third rev of this design. Not only that, but the current design is functionally problematic, and when that happens, Apple tends to do redesigns sooner rather than later.
Apple might not be making desktops by then. They'll probably still make the Mac Pro in some capacity, but Mac minis and iMacs are another story.
They'll give some sort of an update; they know that they can delay on new iMacs because only a small minority of technically savy people will even notice that they haven't been updated.
Thunderbolt is not that common nor affordable yet. Same for those PCI cases. Plus there's no guarantee of compatibility with such devices. Otherwise, your idea is a good one.
They won't kill the laptops. Desktops are potentially another story.
I'm pretty sure that between that card and the GeForce 8600M GT fiasco with Apple and the other PC notebook manufacturers, NVIDIA has gotten their **** together. They have to have, otherwise, they probably wouldn't be in business right now.
As a pro-optical drive supporter, I once held the stance that you now have. Though the needless removal of the optical drive in Mac mini systems that only ship with one hard drive and no discrete GPU (the entry level model) as well as the retina MacBook Pro being forecasted as "The Next Generation MacBook Pro" and lacking one itself seems to forecast a future in which Apple slowly pulls out the optical drive from all of its Macs. The Mac Pro ought to retain its drives for a while simply because, unlike the other four systems, it's not all about being thin and sleek. But the iMac will likely lose its drive too before too long. And really, as a pro-optical drive supporter, I was bummed about this. I, myself, will buy a 15" non-retina MacBook Pro in the coming weeks, but I get the feeling that aside from needing extra lap space and carrying around one more peripheral, it'll be better to just live with an external drive; replacing even the Apple USB Superdrive is $80, whereas replacing the internal Apple Superdrive is $160 excluding the required labor. Utimately, it IS cheaper, better, and more sensible this way, much as I, myself, don't like it.
They still do that; they're all (well, the laptops at least) on 8-10 month cycles. We're only on Mid-2012 MacBook Pros now because it is 8-10 months after the Late 2011 models came out.
Yup, like old times, indeed.
A lot of people still like them and want them. They shouldn't expect Apple to come out with them, but I see no problem with stating how much they want they want them as long as they make that distinction between hopes and reality.
Yup, I still use the crap out of mine.
To be fair, Apple has always had (with the wonderful exception of Snow Leopard) the features that they advertised and changes under the hood. In this release the changes that they're advertising are mostly stupid. But it sounds like the revamp of the graphics system is well worth the $20 admission price.
Apple moved rapidly from a cross-product commitment to the MiniDisplayPort connector for video, to the Thunderbolt Port. They pushed the video card manufacturers to be early adopters on MiniDisplayPort, which they complied with. Then Apple turned around and said, naw, now we need Mac-specific versions of your video cards with Thunderbolt! Well, Mac-specific versions of the video cards to satisfy just the Mac Pro market aren't that huge a sweet-spot for AMD or Nvidia, so, yawn, this time around they are taking their time. The new ACDs require Thunderbolt, so Apple got themselves up a tree. Until they have an OS X native video card with Thunderbolt Port they are not going to announce a new Mac Pro that requires you to buy a legacy ACD. Just a dopey series of decisions, nothing more.
That's not a terrible theory, come to think of it. I'll bet that's not what actually went down/is going down, but it is definitely fathomable.
If the Thunderbolt displays had their own GPUs inside, a multiple display configuration on a retina iMac would be doable. As for redesigning the iMac to be "smaller", I agree, it's stupid. If they wanted to preserve the same dimensions, the only things that would make even remote sense would be to take out the hard drive and replace it with multiple RAIDed mSATA blades and to replace the optical drive and the cavity previously occupied by the hard drive with more fans and cooling options. Still though, I agree with you, the machine should be serviced from the rear, like the pre-Sight models and it shouldn't be hard or dangerous (to either the user or the machine) to do so. As for the pricing of retina displays, my guess is that will come down quickly over time. By next rev, the 15" retina MacBook Pro, as simply the only MacBook Pro, will have prices similar to what the non-retina 15" has had for the last five revs now.
FireWire is dead. For literally every purpose, one can use USB 3 or Thunderbolt instead. And if one badly needs FireWire 800, there's a $30 adapter that goes from Thunderbolt to 800 and a $15 adapter that goes from 800 to 400. While I would personally like on-board FireWire 800, I likely don't need it. My guess is that if Apple redesigns the iMac (like they're all but scheduled to do), you will see the FireWire port replaced by an extra Thunderbolt port and the USB 2 ports replaced with USB 3 ports. As for the optical drive, if what they did with the Mac mini (and the 15" retina MacBook Pro for that matter) was any indication, they'll nix it from the iMac too. On the plus side, it's a desktop, and having an external optical disc drive is much easier to stomach; plus it'll be much cheaper to fix/replace if ever it goes bad than the internal one ever was. As for SSD being standard, it depends on how intent they are on making the design thinner. Obviously, 3.5" Hard drives demand a thicker enclosure. 2.5" drives could work, but they could slim the design down much more by using mSATA blades than by using traditional 2.5" SSDs/Hard Drives.
I seriously doubt it'll be a lot smaller. They'll try to make it smaller, but there's only so much you can do to make a computer capable of running two Xeon processors that much smaller.
Seriously! I'm so tired of "iPhone 5" rumors. The damn thing isn't even the fifth generation iPhone, it's the sixth!
Anyway, yeah, glad to see rumors for things that are not that.
Sadly, I get the feeling that (a) you're partially serious about this and (b) you are correct in doing so...
Or something like the pre-iSight iMac G5s, except with less failure-prone logic boards or power supplies. Those things were ticking time bombs despite their otherwise amazing designs.
Apple's laptops are fine machines; they're just not workstation laptops. The 15" MacBook Pros are, for what they are, great machines; they're just not comparable to say, a gaming laptop PC or something like a Dell Precision laptop. And really, that's fine because at that point, why the hell aren't you using a desktop to do that kind of heavy lifting? As for your stance on all-in-one machines, I completely agree; they are worthless. Designed more for form instead of for function and really, what's the point of that; computers are tools! Your stance on the Mac Pro is also one I completely agree with; give it SLI/Cross-Fire support (even though it doesn't help much in non-gaming tasks, the option should still be available because it should be a tower capable of ANYTHING).
It's basically a do-it-yourself reflow machine. Though your video card is either old as hell or a piece of crap (or both) if it requires the use of a reflow machine.
This is getting irritating. My 20" iMac is getting long in the tooth (still runs perfect though) but I really don't want to replace it until Apple does a full redesign of the desktop line. I'll be so disappointed if they wait until summer next year for major updates and just do speed bumps this fall/winter.
Yeah, definitely don't get an iMac with the current chassis design as it really is horrendous. Or just get a 15" MacBook Pro now instead and use a NAS or some other machine for your storage needs; it's a much better and much more reliable set up that way.
You will not be able to hot-swap 6-8 2.5" drives in the current (size of) enclosure let alone a smaller one. If, instead of 2.5" drives, they had 6-8 mSATA blades, that'd be one thing, but otherwise, even 2.5" drives generate heat that mSATA blades don't. That said, mSATA SSD blades replacing the hard drive and fans replacing the optical drive bay might make a machine with the current size thermally doable, let alone allowing for a thinner design. But really, who needs a desktop to be thinner? Honestly people!
I know that nobody can really answer this question, but I am asking for an advice.
I have bought a 27" thunderbolt display 8 months ago, thinking the new mac pro would be released in 2012.
Now, do you think it's better to keep it assuming that the 2013 new mac pro will have a thunderbolt port, or does it make more sense to sell it before its value decrease and not knowing if the 2013 mac pro will have a thunderbolt port??
Thank you for your reponse.
I have bought a 27" thunderbolt display 8 months ago, thinking the new mac pro would be released in 2012.
Now, do you think it's better to keep it assuming that the 2013 new mac pro will have a thunderbolt port, or does it make more sense to sell it before its value decrease and not knowing if the 2013 mac pro will have a thunderbolt port??
Thank you for your reponse.
Best not to get your hopes up too high. One thing I've learned after all these years is that with Apple, you end up getting get less that you had hoped for and it takes much longer than it should longer to get there.
New Mac Pro will definately have Thunderbolt. In my opinion, that is what is holding up the Mac Pro -- Apple is waiting for Nvidia and AMD to do Mac-specific video cards with Thunderbolt. Outside of Apple, I don't see Thunderbolt taking off like a wildfire, so Nvidia and AMD are not motivated. It will happen, eventually.
No. That actually scales worse as increase the number of displays involved.
GPUs are normally connected by a x16 PCI-e lanes. Thunderbolt only approximately provides x4. While many GPUs can "get by" with something close to x8 bandwidth caps to drop to x4 will definately lead to a drop in performance. Putting two GPUs on one x4 link only would hammer the Thunderbolt PCI-e links to rather dismally small bandwidth allocations to each ( at best you'd have defacto x2 links. )
You'd also be dramatically increasing the costs and thermal complexity of the TB displays. The power supply would typically have to significantly increase and you'd have an relatively huge thermal problem inside the case now with the GPU+VRAM cooling.
"GPU over Thunderbolt" works OK when dealing with rather lowend GPUs (Intel's HD2000, HD3000, and to some extent HD4000 ). The alternative GPU is 60-80% faster so taking a hit going through TB that reduces that to 45-70% is still faster.
Thunderbolt will not generally bring "external" GPU cards to the solution matrix. In some corner cases perhaps where systems are hamstrung with embedded GPUs that are singificantly underpowered. But as a general solution to apply to all docking stations .... no.
It is far more efficient and effective to send just the post-processed video stream out onto the relatively segregated Display Port "half" of the Thunderbolt data stream than to jam all of the raw input that goes into data (occluded window data , memory transfers and caching data , etc. ) out onto the wire. The former is smaller.
Unfortunately with Apple, is that they suffer from anorexia nervosa . If they can't make the length and width shorter they seem to have a ridiculous compulsion to shrink height. That have to change "something". There is no such thing as "thin enough".
It isn't dead. It just doesn't have any forward momentum. However, there are relatively large number of folks who have legacy equipment that still works. Over time that will drop off to newer USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt solutions, but those 100's of millions of devices won't disappear overnight.
As long a Apple rolled out two port TB solutions across the Mac line up that wouldn't be a problem. It appears so far though that Apple is going to "slow roll" that solution. For a while they will hold back as to make the "two TB port" a premium charge option.
The problem with the FW adapter is that it is a "chain ender". It caps a TB chain. With two ports one can serve as a end cap (instead of the computer being the end cap) while the other is used for a string of TB devices (perhaps capped by a legacy Display Port device).
If they took a different strategy to maximize component and R&D reusability they could split the single CPU package design from the dual CPU package design. The single package design (or variant on single package design with a Xeon E3 ) could easily be a 1/3 smaller.
An E3 with a single PCI-e slot and no ODDs could trim off a substantial amount of bulk since the power/thermal problem is greatly reduced and don't need 5.25" drive spaces anymore.
The core problem is whether there is enough volume in the Mac Pro market to split out the designs but not dramatically increase R&D , marketing, support , and lifecycle costs. If they project it being too small then they will keep the CPU+RAM daughtercard design to maximize overlap.
It would not be surprising if the iPhone joined the Mac products , iPods , and iPad in dropping the number from its name and turn into just "iPhone". (and users forced to reference it as " iPhone late 2012 " when they want to distinguish.
The fact that this primarily is a kludge solution for gaming rigs is precisely why it is extremely unlikely to come to the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro isn't targeted to being a gaming rig.
Apple already has an extremely successful gaming platform. It is over on iOS. They don't really need one on the Mac side. At least not as a "checklist feature match Windows" sense.
If targeting high end workstations the gap in Firepro , Tesla, and Quadro is a much more significant gap to close than gaming rigs.
Eh? Not really. Unless talking about HDD 2.5 versus mSATA SSD blades. The only heat difference between a SSD mSATA and a 2.5" is only do increase in capacity in the 2.5' over those of the Flash chip limited blade sizes. For the most part though for smaller SSD sizes the blade is just the result of stripping out the 2.5" case. The heat generating internals are the same. The aluminum case is thermally inert.
I remember reading somewhere that external Thunderbolt video cards were absolutely feasible. Or at least they would be before too long. That being said, either way, I'm not too worried about the ability to have a retina iMac with external retina Thunderbolt displays down the road. Regardless as to whether the PCI-E bandwidth is there or not, thermally, such a thunderbolt display (provided it had more of an iMac-like thickness than a current Thunderbolt display thickness) wouldn't be too much to contain in that system given that said system would be lacking two of the most heat-generating components in the iMac, namely the desktop form factor CPU and motherboard chipset.
I hate how much you're right about this.
Let me rephrase myself. FireWire is no longer needed on new Macs. The need to have a FireWire 400 port disappeared with the standardization of FireWire 800 on all non-MacBook-Air Macs. Now with the standardization of Thunderbolt on every shipping Mac (including the MBA and rMBP), the need to have a FireWire 800 or FireWire 400 port disappears as Apple sells a $30 adapter to turn any Thunderbolt port into a FireWire 800 port, and any number of vendors sell adapters that can take that resulting FireWire 800 port and convert it to 400. If you buy a retina 15" MacBook Pro, and you have a ton of FireWire devices to hook up, you are, by no means, left out in the cold.
MacBook Air customers ought to not really need it. Retina MacBook Pros already have it and that is all but the declared future of the MacBook Pro product line. It's not unlikely that Apple (in the same vein that it started replacing FireWire 400 ports with FireWire 800 ports in 2008 and 2009) will replace the FireWire 800 ports on both the Mac mini and the iMac with an additional Thunderbolt port, making two on the Mac mini and the 21.5" iMac (assuming they still use that size) and three on the 27" iMac (assuming they still use that size). That's more than enough.
That's interesting. I did not know that. Still though, I think in most cases, the fact that it is a chain-cap will be an inconvenience to only a few set-ups.
Right, but at that point, why? Obviously, we all want something to exist that isn't as hefty as a Mac Pro but is still far more capable and expandable than an iMac. This is a need that Apple, as a computer company that is actively pushing laptops over desktops, doesn't feel exists.
Yeah, though the 'Pods and 'Pads have a slightly different nomenclature of "Second Generation", "Third Generation", "Fourth Generation" and so forth. The fact that this next iPhone keeps on being referred to as the "iPhone 5" is downright stupid as is everyone's disappointment at the 4S for not being a more substantial upgrade when, internally, it was everything everyone wanted at the time (save for maybe LTE, which, at that time hadn't caught on anywhere outside of Verizon).
I really see no reason to not deal with both. The Mac Pro is meant to be a desktop jack of all trades. I see no reason as to why the person buying their Mac Pro to get the highest possible framerate on their Diablo III game ought to be any different, in terms of importance, than the person buying one to do Maya or 3DSM. Also, note that, as of Mountain Lion, Apple now has the Game Center application for Mac and is thusly working to promote Mac gaming. Do I think it's going to amount to anything? Probably not, but their effort is still there.
I was talking about 2.5" HDDs vs. mSATA SSD blades; I wouldn't imagine that a 2.5" SATA SSD would generate any more heat from simply being packaged differently.
It is feasible, it just doesn't have better performance than distributing two video streams from a better than average GPU than to push the GPUs out into external boxes.
Yes. down the road there will be more powerful GPUs inside the iMac itself.
The seriously flawed game Apple played with holding back FW800 from the whole Mac line up to push "pro" differentiation, helped kill off FW. I suspect they will roll out the "two port" solution out over time over the whole line up. That should be relatively independent between putting a FW controller inside at least the desktop line-up or now for a while.
The iMac (or any other Thunderbolt system) is unlikely to get more than two ports . The max number supported by Intel's controller line up is 2 physical ports ( you may see "4 port" in some description but they are talking the PCI-e + DisplayPort combo ). More ports doesn't deliver more bandwidth to the overall Thunderbolt daisy chain. And it is just that a single daisy chain.
No, it isn't. It is targeted at being a workstation. Folks whose work requires high computation and high I/O without extremely limited and tight budgetary constraints.
It isn't a "tweaker special" box. Or a "tinker box" special box. It isn't "utlimate gamer box". It isn't the ultimate 500-1,000 TB datawarehouse hosting box. .........
Y'know, I've never thought of it like that. But come to think about it, I never had a Mac that had FireWire 800 until FireWire 400 was already removed from Macs and by that time, it was already dead in the water. If they had made more aggressive moves to integrate it into the iMac G4, the eMac, the iBooks, and the 12" PowerBook G4 and all of the other machines that used exclusively 400 ports, it might still be relevant or important. FireWire 400 is only now becoming a standard port to find on PC motherboards. I have yet to see many FireWire 800 ports, but I get the feeling that won't happen...
That controller chip is not very large at all. It wouldn't surprise me if the 27" iMac (or whatever higher-end size it has) adopts a second one to have a third port in lieu of FW800. As for the 21.5" iMac (or whatever lower-end size it has), adopting a second port in lieu of FW800 is also not outside the realm of possibility.
Let me put it this way. It is designed to be the ultimate Mac desktop. Given that, I should be able to do anything with this tower that I can do with any brand name tower. The only thing that "Workstation" should denote is Xeons, ECC RAM, a motherboard designed to properly handle those things while being, in its own right, more powerful than your average desktop chipset-laiden motherboard, and a case that can support all of that with room to grow. That's it. If gaming is my schtick, this machine should be the best box to be able to handle it. If video work is my schtick, then this machine should be the best box to be able to handle it. While in the PC world, there are options more geared for gaming machines and there are options more geared for video pros. In the Mac world, you don't have options, you have grades of Mac performance offered in a desktop and you only have three of them; Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. A Mac Pro is supposed to be superior to the iMac in every way, gaming ability included.
a Firewire controller chip takes up 1x PCI-e lane. A TB controller chip for personal computer boxes soaks up x4 (**). Two TB controller chips soaks up x8 lanes. The iMac doesn't have an "extra" 4 lanes.
There are 16 PCI-e v3.0 lanes coming out of the CPU package.
There are 8 total PCI-e v2.0 lanes on the core chipset for peripheral port/connectivity controllers. (and still have other controllers for Ethernet , sound, bluetooth, wifi, etc. )
There is no PCI-e lane budget for two controllers. How do mainstream PC's have 4-5 slots? They grossly oversubscribe the bandwidth. There is really only enough for a higher end GPU, the rest is just cross fingers and hope folks plug in pokey audio and bluetooth cards.
(**) There is a x2 controller. However, it is intended for devices like the FW and Ethernet adapter. There is only one TB channel coming out (sacrifices being able to run DisplayPort on "2nd" channel). Those aren't going to into PCs. There are there to make inexpensive dongles; not be ports on hosts.
There is also a x4 controller with just one physical port output now. It is kind of dubious that the next 21.5" model would pick that up over using the same one that would be in the 27" model and the very small power savings really doesn't matter much.
It isn't impossible. However, there is little to no "space saving" that needs to be done the back of the 21.5" iMac. So not saving space. Saving cost? That somewhat a farce since it is a $1,000+ computer. Oooooo the $5-10 FW component cost is going to break the bank with a 1% price increase on a 30-40% profit margin device? Not really.
The 21.5" iMac is has slightly inhibited value proposition now because the 2 port TB controller is being "blocked" for no good reason to being a "one port" solution. Apple needs to uncork that to stop blocking the value folks are already paying for.
The limited space on a Mac Mini's edge might be justified as a design trade off. However, the iMac it is just a silly design differentiation move of dubious value to the customer. It is a bigger volume component buy if there are the same.
It was not designed to be the ultimate in all cases. It doesn't have to do everything and isn't targeted at everything.
That is the 'spin' some users put on it. That isn't reflected in Apple's design.
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I bring it up with regards to the iMac as it is clearly reflected in Apple's thinking, hence why when going from the black-backed design of aluminum iMacs (20" and 24") to the all-silver-backed design (21.5" and 27") (as well as just prior to) Apple kept the number of ports the same. Even when going to the black-backed design to begin with, they replaced a FireWire 400 port with a FireWire 800 port instead of just simply adding the FireWire 800 port and not removing anything. In that same vein, just prior to the silver-backed design, instead of simply adding another USB port and replacing the FireWire 400 port with another FireWire 800 port, Apple kept the numbers the same. I know they don't have to, but it's still, what they do anyway. In their eyes, on the 21.5", replacing the FireWire 800 port with a second Thunderbolt port is only a natural evolution. Same with the 27" barring technical limitations.
I know it's not reflected in Apple's design, but it is reflected in their marketing. Again, this is the Mac that can do anything or take any add-on device (Thunderbolt obviously aside for the time being).
All of that and more...
It will. What else beyond what you mentioned will be included? What tech will be affordable in a year? PCIe3.0? No. 12GSATA? Maybe. 12G drives have been demonstrated lately. GPU and CPU? How many cores? 16? 20? 24? 16 probably. TB and USB3? Yes. RAM limit? 256 limit via 8 32GB DIMMs?
Maybe not in 2013, but 2014.
What about a modular MacPro?
I hope Apple pushes the limits. They know the Pro customers will pay. If the availability of the cutting edge is there, Apple should do it.
MacPro 6.1? Better come with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 .. And proper upgrade too along with new GPU, CPU and 6GSATA. It's 2012, come on
It will. What else beyond what you mentioned will be included? What tech will be affordable in a year? PCIe3.0? No. 12GSATA? Maybe. 12G drives have been demonstrated lately. GPU and CPU? How many cores? 16? 20? 24? 16 probably. TB and USB3? Yes. RAM limit? 256 limit via 8 32GB DIMMs?
Maybe not in 2013, but 2014.
What about a modular MacPro?
I hope Apple pushes the limits. They know the Pro customers will pay. If the availability of the cutting edge is there, Apple should do it.
Late but not forgotten...
Nice to read the MacPro 'may' be updated or better yet - redesigned. I can wait until next year but that's it! Never thought I would have to consider a Windows PC as my primary machine for photo work.
Nice to read the MacPro 'may' be updated or better yet - redesigned. I can wait until next year but that's it! Never thought I would have to consider a Windows PC as my primary machine for photo work.
D
djbarona
Guest
Mac Pro Line
Looking at the recent line up for Apple it seems as if the company has completely discarded the Pro Line. Apple has turned into a mega money maker of iphones and iPads period. They have gone past 3 years and its shameful that they have completely discarded us the Pro users. The last refresh of the pro line was ridiculous at best. They gave the Mac Pro a stupid silly little upgrade nothing major. Word ...we love your products Apple but you cannot discard the Pro User ...we made you what you are .
Looking at the recent line up for Apple it seems as if the company has completely discarded the Pro Line. Apple has turned into a mega money maker of iphones and iPads period. They have gone past 3 years and its shameful that they have completely discarded us the Pro users. The last refresh of the pro line was ridiculous at best. They gave the Mac Pro a stupid silly little upgrade nothing major. Word ...we love your products Apple but you cannot discard the Pro User ...we made you what you are .