I'm merely pointing out the new chip that's the new equivalent to the one they're using in the base MP right now.
It is
NOT equivalent. Just because it says Xeon E3 doesn't means it is equivalent to the old 3500 and 3600 Xeon series. It is not in any way shape or form.
Intel has other lower number 3000 numbered Xeon that were based on mainstream desktop implementations. Mac Pro never used any of those.
The 3500/5500 and 3600/5500 had shared implementations (both implementation architecture and socket). Intel cleaned up the number scheme when shifted to Ex XXXX nomenclature so that the related series are now E5 1600 and 2600 . The '1' and '2' standing for how many sockets. Those are equivalent to the 3500/5500 and 3600/5600 pairings of before.
The Intel scheme in general.
http://communities.intel.com/commun...n-processor-numbering-more-than-just-a-number
Xeon E3 means significant step down for a Mac Pro. Not evolutionary at all in terms of performance. [ In may be evolutionary in terms of matching workload growth leveling off among a high fraction of Mac Pro buyers. ]
Maybe they would do two different boxes, but there's a good argument that they should have been doing that all along...and they haven't been.
More than just maybe. The Xeon E3 is meant for entirely different TDP profile. It would be a huge waste of space and effort to put it into a box sized to take dual E5 26000 and four hefty TDP PCI-e cards.
White box clone vendors do it because it cheaper to slap the same ATX sized board into the same ATX case they bought in bulk .... but it is highly doubtful Apple would do that.
Likewise Dell/HP/Lenovo (all the Tier 1 workstation vendors ) have different size boxes for their line ups as vary across E3 , E5 1600 , and E5 2600 ( e.g., HP z220 , z620 , z820 or Dell 3600 , 5600 , 7600 )
While there are some good reasons to do two different cases, I doubt it will happen.
I doubt so too.... which is why the Xeon E3 is likely out. ( Unless the focus is primarily on Thunderbolt.... then it is in because the implementation is way easier. ). The natural evolutionary path for a Mac Pro is E5 1600 and 2600 v2 which aren't due to be released until Fall. ( Apple could have done E5 1600 /2600 v1 in Jan-Feb but appears were completely not ready. )
There implicit presumption there though is that Apple still wants to track the dual customer market segment. Given that it appears that killed off Mac Pro R&D for a long while ( hence could not release anything earilier this year) that has a decent chance of happening.
If just trim down to just single package and put a high Thunderbolt focus on it ..... downshifting to E3 could be their move. They get USB 3.0 "for free" with the chipset ( just like the other Macs). iGPU to make TB easy to implement. If just a couple SATA 6Gb/s bays... done with chipset functionality.
With the quads, they are outperformed by the high end mac mini.
Not really as the speeds are a bit better for the E3. Frankly the quad 1600 will outstrip any mainstream Core i that Apple would use. The primarily reason why quad Mac Pro don't do well now is that they are still largely on the 3500 series which is almost two tick-tock Intel cycles behind. With E5 1600 last year (and upcoming) Intel stopped kneecapping the quad implementation on clock speed. They are now one of the fastest GHz in the E5 line up ( as they should be, as the core count is low and the TDP is allocated for alot more cores. )
