You could use something like this but it is probably super expensive in comparison. it is due out soon-ish. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/
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.
Mac Pro Build-to-Order Ship Dates Slip as Future Remains Uncertain
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You could use something like this but it is probably super expensive in comparison. it is due out soon-ish. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/
As covered in the thread, because the Mac Pro can be argued as an infrastructure component.
Why invest in servers for iCloud? They provide no profit on their own, just cost a lot to run. Why maintain a website? It just costs money.
The mac pro generally operates as a heavy lifter. They're the ones that power the heavy projects that many people motivate purchasing a Mac for in the first place.
Someone else covered it above. With the loss of the Mac Pro - OSX can no longer perform any heavy jobs; serving almost exclusively as a light powered machine. It can sustain itself on its own on that sure, but a lot of people still buy macs because they saw Professionals using Mac Pro machines.
As I also detailed earlier - it raises the question of iOS device management. You cannot, to my knowledge, manage iOS devices with anything but a Mac OS server installation. The removal of the Mac Pro could bring iPhone and iPad sales in the enterprise to a halt, because they can no longer be managed properly as required by national law, because they can no longer acquire satisfactory systems to do it.
That part of course could ALSO be solved by simply not implementing the hardware locks anymore (which is basically the sole thing stopping Hackingtosh machines from working out the box) - but that would be a very uncharacteristic move.
How exactly do you propose that a ARM based MacBook Air run any applications given that all mac apps are either Intel or PPC compiled?
That has nothing to do with what I said though. Need thunderbolt to reach PCI-e speeds with optical cabling in the future and then need boxes which are connected to macs and have PCI-e slots in them. So we'll install the cards from the outside using TB. But that has at least 2-3 more years to go.
As I said to the post from October, I think Apple understands well enough that even though the Mac Pro is underselling and many professionals are turning to iMacs et al, professional users are what made Apple what it is and many of us in the design/publishing industry simply won't settle for a PC. But if there were no more Mac Pro, I would be stuck in a difficult position. I require the extra precessing power and expansion capabilities of the Mac Pro that the iMac lacks. If its discontinued, I will certainly be trading my 2 2008 mac pros for a very very nice 2010 model. But hopefully MacRumors is flat out wrong and this is indeed a sign of an upgrade.
Gotcha. My bad. For me personally I need pcie ports as well. I need them for dsp powered audio applications. even the beefiest iMac will not do this for me. It seems that the solution i presented would work in my case me but i could be wrong. I can install my cards in that external chassis. I was hoping it would work for you as well if we are faced with worst case.
Though my guess is that it is extremely expensive.
Personally i would rather just buy a mac pro solution and not deal with external peripherals.
Well said, I don't know why suggesting that prosumer market is king is getting you negative responses. The only line between iMac and Mac Pro is the ability to upgrade easier, keeping the investment rolling and the chip set. With the expandability of thunderbolt, now you have your answer.
New AMD graphics card + new generation intel chips + supply Mac Pro slipping = New high end work station.
What form it will take is not clear, but I'll take a huge guess that the new 32 and 37 "appleTV" purchases are to either make a bigger iMac Pro, or to up the cinema display credentials along with new, smaller towers. I mean, you have to have a blueray external right now, why not keep it that way with all the drives and storage?
My argument was that the Mac Pro line was not going away. If it were, support for a new video card wouldn't make sense since you are supporting a dead platform.
To compare the Pro to iCloud is a false equivalency. Products are not always services, and vice versa.
I hope you are stating this as an uninformed layman b/c it would be the wrong answer on a 1L exam, any state Bar Exam, or in front of a real life judge.
While the article is nonsense, do expect a major Mac Pro overhaul.
The Pro won't be discontinued so much as it will morph into a different machine. Hopefully Apple will make it decidedly cheaper, at least in one expandable version.
The Pro won't be discontinued so much as it will morph into a different machine. Hopefully Apple will make it decidedly cheaper, at least in one expandable version.
For a price like that they should probably deliver it in the Chevy Sonic included with the computer.
What's odd is that the reverse is true for the Imac. For example if you add a 2TB drive (like I did) instead of the stock 500GB or 1TB drive the time increases to 1-3 weeks. 
Can someone explain this?
Can someone explain this?
Apple may not care about pro's but pro's care about Apple. I add users like crazy at my works. Mac Pro's, iMac's and Macbook Pro's only. It depends on what you do. The Photo groups can get away with iMac's if they can deal with the display because of Adobe's inability to scale across cores, so single thread i7 wins these days. Video/ 3D crowd all go for 12-core Mac Pro's with AJA/ Blackmagic 3D capture, etc. The rest are usually Windows converts who like their iPhone and request a Macbook. The largest growth in the enterprise I have seen in 10 years. How does that equal Professional death at Apple? I've already refitted my servers and have plans to remove Xserves as they go out of warranty. No big loss really as Apple stopped caring years before they killed the HW.
Easily; Jonathan Ive still works for the company, and he's responsible for a large part of Apple's success ever since he arrived. If he's put to the task he'll come up with a design as attention-grabbing as the G5 tower case was when it first arrived.
That said, even if the new range is coming soon (and it seems almost certain to me) they may not change the way the towers look at all. I hope they do but the important thing is that the Mac Pro towers get a performance boost.
They could offer minor spec bumps in terms of RAM, HD, and graphics. I thought they have done this in the past, but I'm probably wrong.
First of all: I like the MacPro. I think it needs to be updated. And I hope Apple will continue producing a cool Pro tower.
With that out of the way, there is simply no truth to the insinuation that creative professionals in general needs the MacPro.
An example: In the advertising industry, where I have worked for 16 years, at least 9 out of 10 Macs are not MacPro. Where I work now it is 1 out of 47 to be exact*.
Even our video editors are on iMacs these days. Most of us are on MacBook Pros - mainly since portability is of much higher value to us than even more CPU horsepower (MacBook Pros and iMacs are super-fast).
Most of the professional photographers I work with are also on MacBook Pros or iMacs these days. Same goes for Programmers, Illustrators, Animators, UXers, DJs/VJs, Movie Directors, Fashion Designers, Stylists, Locations Scouts, Casters ... You name it.
There is obviously still a need among 3D people (most that I know are on PCs though), movie editors and other power-hungry people.
But in general I'm pretty sure the creative pro community will stay Apple faithful - even if Apple decides to kill our beloved MacPro.
* Yes, I work at a professional agency. In fact it is one of the worlds largest, constantly award winning, advertising networks.
Last edited:
My Local Apple Store Doesn't Even Stock The Mac Pro
It's a doomed form factor. Apple stopped pursuing the "pro" market several years ago. The Mac Pro itself hasn't seen its form factor updated since 2006 - an eternity. Given the pitiful volume of machines Apple moves in that space, supporting those users (who tend to be the most demanding) is clearly more hassle than they're worth.
The only way I could see Apple remaining in the "pro" market is if they release a new, slimmed down high end Mac - call it a Mac Ultra. Something the size of a small rackmountable server, maybe with two extremely high-end CPUs, a solid state system drive and a single 2TB drive for storage. It would be as much CPU power as they could pack into a slim box, sort of a Porsche 911 to the Mac Mini's VW Bug. It would sport a single high-end graphics card, perhaps even fitted to the motherboard in order to keep the machine small and sleek. The target market wouldn't really be "pro" users, though - it would be rich people with money to burn who just want the most powerful computer they can buy, without having a boat anchor cluttering up their home. And that's likely how Apple would market it - as the most powerful personal computer ever sold.
Apple's biggest takeaway from such a niche product wouldn't be market share or even profit, although the machine would certainly be profitable. Apart from bragging rights, Apple would derive most of its value from using this machine as a platform to experiment with designs and engineering to be utilized in future iMacs, Mac Minis and potentially even laptops.
Apple could use such a machine to unofficially service "pro" users, I suppose. If you want more expansion options, Apple could sell you an external Thunderbolt cage capable of holding 4 or 5 hot-swappable hard drives in a RAID array and 2 or maybe even 4 graphics cards. You could use the same gadget with an iMac, a Macbook or even a Mac Mini if you wanted, giving "pro" abilities to users who opt for portable or all-in-one form factor computers. So Apple could potentially keep "pro" users from defecting even without providing a dedicated "pro" computer which, with Thunderbolt, seems more and more like an obsolete concept.
That might explain why Apple was in such a rush to get Thunderbolt onto their machines in the first place. It'll allow them to discontinue the Mac Pro without necessarily losing their remaining "pro" users.
Heck, the ability to utilize RAID and multiple graphics cards with high-end laptops might even garner them some new "pro" users.
It's a doomed form factor. Apple stopped pursuing the "pro" market several years ago. The Mac Pro itself hasn't seen its form factor updated since 2006 - an eternity. Given the pitiful volume of machines Apple moves in that space, supporting those users (who tend to be the most demanding) is clearly more hassle than they're worth.
The only way I could see Apple remaining in the "pro" market is if they release a new, slimmed down high end Mac - call it a Mac Ultra. Something the size of a small rackmountable server, maybe with two extremely high-end CPUs, a solid state system drive and a single 2TB drive for storage. It would be as much CPU power as they could pack into a slim box, sort of a Porsche 911 to the Mac Mini's VW Bug. It would sport a single high-end graphics card, perhaps even fitted to the motherboard in order to keep the machine small and sleek. The target market wouldn't really be "pro" users, though - it would be rich people with money to burn who just want the most powerful computer they can buy, without having a boat anchor cluttering up their home. And that's likely how Apple would market it - as the most powerful personal computer ever sold.
Apple's biggest takeaway from such a niche product wouldn't be market share or even profit, although the machine would certainly be profitable. Apart from bragging rights, Apple would derive most of its value from using this machine as a platform to experiment with designs and engineering to be utilized in future iMacs, Mac Minis and potentially even laptops.
Apple could use such a machine to unofficially service "pro" users, I suppose. If you want more expansion options, Apple could sell you an external Thunderbolt cage capable of holding 4 or 5 hot-swappable hard drives in a RAID array and 2 or maybe even 4 graphics cards. You could use the same gadget with an iMac, a Macbook or even a Mac Mini if you wanted, giving "pro" abilities to users who opt for portable or all-in-one form factor computers. So Apple could potentially keep "pro" users from defecting even without providing a dedicated "pro" computer which, with Thunderbolt, seems more and more like an obsolete concept.
That might explain why Apple was in such a rush to get Thunderbolt onto their machines in the first place. It'll allow them to discontinue the Mac Pro without necessarily losing their remaining "pro" users.
Heck, the ability to utilize RAID and multiple graphics cards with high-end laptops might even garner them some new "pro" users.
Apple Has No Respect For Its Core Base
The fact that Apple might even consider discontinuing the Mac Pro shows how far they have gone from the company they used to be. People who buy Mac Pros are the types who have been with Apple for years - those who want a real computer - a tower - not some shoddy laptop that is slow as all heck and/or a tablet meant for children. Apple should remember who put them where they are. They are a computer company first and foremost. This gadget-centric approach is absurd and if they ever run into financial trouble again those of us who have been there since the beginning will remember how they abandoned us.
The fact that Apple might even consider discontinuing the Mac Pro shows how far they have gone from the company they used to be. People who buy Mac Pros are the types who have been with Apple for years - those who want a real computer - a tower - not some shoddy laptop that is slow as all heck and/or a tablet meant for children. Apple should remember who put them where they are. They are a computer company first and foremost. This gadget-centric approach is absurd and if they ever run into financial trouble again those of us who have been there since the beginning will remember how they abandoned us.
Aside from the bandwidth and power limitations of those, I question the cooling and overall design. It doesn't look like it would fit oversized cards. There are a lot of problems in delivering a workable product there including possible firmware tweaks. If thunderbolt adoption looks really good on the PC side next year, that could really help push products like this or encourage breakout box form factors from PCI card manufacturers. The reality is that if something like that caters primarily to Mac users who need these, it may be too small of a market to ensure a stable product.
What I really dislike about its article is that it's speculating on previous speculation. We're now up to a second tier of speculation with the first having been speculation citing "anonymous sources"
. I'm not sure I'd believe any of it. It's like when people felt the mini would be cancelled and suddenly Apple was questioning its future. Now shipping times are increasing, so they can speculate on it going away.It won't actually be able to do that on any functional level for a while. Even then if they go to a slimmed form factor on everything (which has also been rumored) there's a good chance that you'll be using a single lower bandwidth TB port like on the Air. Currently one TB port can't run many PCIe devices at their full bandwidth. Once you start chaining them, it becomes a lot worse (there's an article somewhere on anandtech on this). Basically don't count on anything here. You can celebrate once a good/workable solution is present. Optical cabling next year doesn't change much of anything. The speed constraints are roughly the same and it's not a true optical setup that's planned anyway.
I don't think the tower form factor is necessarily what is important. In the end it comes down to necessary features and a machine designed for high duty cycle and reliability (as in one capable of running with massive storage and 24/7 reliability). The other machines weren't really designed for this. They're the kind of thing that you buy for such a reason because of price or availability of the design.
Last edited: