So, what do you think the pricing will look like across the line?
I think entry will be price around where the entry is priced now ( 2,499 +/- 100 ) . If iMac prices don't shift down significantly then many of the non-overlap issues will remain. So dramatically down isn't likely. Dramatically up is goofy. When has Apple ever radically revised a product and stuck a 20% price increase on it? There is zero historical track record for that? Even the drop-and-replace of MBA 11" -> MacBook or rMBP 15" -> MBP 17" larger hit the old price slots.
Apple can tweak the components to hit the price points they want to hit.
All I can gather from what you've wrote is that you believe the entry level can't possibly be as low as $2300 but also can't be as high as $3000.
Then you aren't looking very hard at what I wrote. The lower boundary is a combination of components + Apple mark-up + iMac boundaries. I think there will be two W7000 equivalents, reasonable sized SSD ( 256GB ) , and 8GB RAM so it would be pretty tough with those constraints to drop below $2300.
$3000 is possible, but suicidical for the product's long run outcome. I don't think Apple is trying to kill off the Mac Pro.
But then you also say there's historical evidence that there might be a second model under $3K.
If I think the entry is around the $2500 how hard is it to fit the next model up to be under $3K? Even more so when there is a $290 gap between the E5 1620 v2 and E5 1650 v2. Same gap that has been there before between the xx20 and the next logical step up the Xeon 3xxxx product ladder?
There is no competitive advantage at all of pushing the Mac Pro pricing out of the 2-3K zone as quickly as possible. None. My presumption is that Apple isn't purposely trying to shot themselves in the head.
The only way that's possible is with a 1620v2 ($300) and 1650v2 ($500) in a system that is priced at around $2200-$2400 before CPU. Is that your assertion?
The 1620 v2 won't have a $300 effective price since Apple will layer their mark-up on top. But if this is a "will or won't use quad core" issue, then yes I think Apple will use the quad core offering. There is zero good reason not too. If folks have some sort of "I can only buy 6 cores" dilemma they just skip the entry model. There are many thousands of folks who don't have that drama. There is no good reason to deny them a Mac Pro because some happen to have that other issue.
And you're also asserting that a 10-core model must be somewhere around BOXX pricing of $7300.
No. I primarily asserting you could do a reality check by looking at the BOXX model. Your price differed by almost $3000. The "around" implication in my assertion is that +/- $1000 is around. A $2800 delta isn't. I think Apple's pricing is going to be different ( mark-ups on FirePro cards different. Also some differences due to components in respective configurations ). Just matching CPUs is off, but minimally matching CPUs should bring into same zipcode. If doesn't then need to look at what big gap is. In your case, it was that was in part that your CPU price was off.
That's an insane gap so I'd like an explanation on how you see that making sense.
Let's see you are the one with the wrong CPU price but the implication is that I have an insane gap to explain. Yeah right. Part of the gap is the difference in RAM. Part of it is the difference in FirePro costs and part of the gap is that your CPU prices are made up. They aren't what Apple is going to charge.
So rather than pick apart my reasoning, give us something to discuss...
The flawed parts of your reasoning are worth discussing because they are repeated in these threads over and over again. The "why" behind the numbers are only part worth a long discussion. The prices of the components are posted around the web. They are what they are ( as long as quoted correctly).
What are your proposed price points for an entry level quad, a 6-core, a 10-core, and a top of the line 12-core model?
baseline infrastructure:
16GB ( 4 x 4GB ) [ Don't find many 2GB modules in the DDR3 1866 range ... that is going to escalate cost since Apple is moving from 1GB modules and will need minimal 4 to match the memory controllers. That is huge jump even with the interim number of years. ]
256GB SSD [ this is capacity that rMBP 15" come with. It is going to be hard to justify why a higher priced Mac Pro is coming would come with less. Given there is possibly only a single drive even more weak justification. ]
Dual equivalents to W7000 [ to drive 7 monitors and also not have iMac equivalent GPUs this is where have to start from. 7870 equivs with 80% mark-up for AMD licensing + 2GB upgrade are about $400 before Apple mark up. ]
So baseline without about $2,100 ( with Apple's mark-up of 35% )
The primary way to a around a $2K (or lower ) baseline is to gut RAM (kind of hard for reasons outlined... don't make them that small, although Apple could possibly twist someone's arm. ) and/or SSD capacity. [ there is crippling the GPU with a W5000 equivalent but at iMac graphics level now, gutted GPGPU performance, and can't drive 7 outputs. ]
Standard 2013 configs:
quad 1620 v2 $2,499 ( $294 + 35% -> $396 )
hex 1650 v2 $2,999 ( $583 + 35% -> $787 )
hex 1660 v2 $3,599 ( $1080 + 35% -> $1458 )
Shockingly (*cough*) Apple's 2010 line up was....
quad 2.8GHz $2,499
quad 3.2GHz $2,899
hex 3.3GHz $3,699
So some drift with the top two but inside of a +/- $100 delta. Up two cores with middle (so +$100 isn't a value drop) and hex is more mainstream 2013 so down $100.
What they do with BTO is more up in the air. Minimally there is a12 core model:
E5 2697 v2 (12 core ) would mean $2614+ 35% so around 3,528. Plus baseline that is about $5,699.
That is a big enough gap with the top end standard there is likely another in there.
E5 2658 ( 10 core 2.4GHz ) is $1440; so 1,944 . Plus baseline is $4,099.
[ The 2658 is only 95W which means can more easily swap the extra 35W for at least one W9000 equivalent for same thermal headroom . The flawed CPU selection so far in this thread is that it purely 130W clock chasing. That isn't necessarily a holistic system perspective. If looking for GFLOPs output there is bigger bang-for-the-buck by assigning that thermal headroom to the GPGPU. ]
The 1680 v2 or 2680 v2 option I wouldn't be surprised if present, but I wouldn't count on them either. The 2680 v2 makes more sense of the two.
I don't think Apple is going to try to cover a high number of the old dual processor price points. If that was a big market they'd still be in that competition. They aren't. Only expect there to be two BTO options max.
Perhaps they will split those over the entries.
So perhaps entry/mid gets two BTO options. And the top end gets two BTO options with only an intersection. But not expecting more than 6 CPU configurations and probably only 5.
BTO on graphics.
Minimally a W9000 equivalent offering. I would expect that Apple allows mix-and-match (e.g., a W7000 equiv paired with a W9000 equiv. ) so that covered more price/value points.
Depending upon how good the price is on the W9000 they may not offer a W8000 equivalent to fill the gap. I initially thought they would, but now suspect better for platform to not have a huge gap here and get the performance into more systems.