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lol
there isnt anything really to upgrade to cpu wise, which is the big selling point for the mac pro
the only thing is in a few months a 3.33 ghz quad core xeon is coming out
but if you talk gpu wise,
yes there is lots to upgrade too
i would love to see a geforce gtx 280 in a mac pro, buuuttttt apple will never put it in the mac pro.
i feel the 8800 gt is a slap in the face
ram is at its best for the mac pro ..... i think
blue ray drive would be welcome :)
 
blue ray drive would be welcome :)

Please understand. EVERYONE, please understand. Blu-ray already works in OS X. You can burn and use data disks. All that you cannot do is play Blu-ray movies. If you're a professional, data would be your primary concern. Why do you want Apple to make available an upgrade that not only already works third-party, but would also cost $900 from Apple and you'd just go get it from a third-party then, anyway?
 
Please understand. EVERYONE, please understand. Blu-ray already works in OS X. You can burn and use data disks. All that you cannot do is play Blu-ray movies. If you're a professional, data would be your primary concern. Why do you want Apple to make available an upgrade that not only already works third-party, but would also cost $900 from Apple and you'd just go get it from a third-party then, anyway?

yeah, we know that
but how many mac pro users want to upgrade stuff in their mac past ram and hard drives
and the blue ray disc wouldnt be used much for back up and storage because
it costs to much, takes longer to copy data to a disc, the blue ray burner alone would set you back a grand, plus 50 bucks a disc, no thank you, i could get an external 500 gb hard drive for 150 - 200 or maybe even less
the main thing is that people want to see is progress from apple in the adoption of blue ray.
wouldnt a blue ray movie look gorgeous on the 23" apple display :) :)
 
yeah, we know that
but how many mac pro users want to upgrade stuff in their mac past ram and hard drives
and the blue ray disc wouldnt be used much for back up and storage because
it costs to much, takes longer to copy data to a disc, the blue ray burner alone would set you back a grand, plus 50 bucks a disc, no thank you, i could get an external 500 gb hard drive for 150 - 200 or maybe even less
the main thing is that people want to see is progress from apple in the adoption of blue ray.
wouldnt a blue ray movie look gorgeous on the 23" apple display :) :)

Heh, the 6x LG BD burner is only $300 (CHEAP compared to how much I paid for my 2x DVD-R burner when it came out back in early 2000) and discs are about $15 not $50. Prices will drop, don't worry about it. BD is the future of optical media.
 
Heh, the 6x LG BD burner is only $300 (CHEAP compared to how much I paid for my 2x DVD-R burner when it came out back in early 2000) and discs are about $15 not $50. Prices will drop, don't worry about it. BD is the future of optical media.

well i guess i haven't checked pries on blue ray in a while
but with no blue ray playback whats the point
 
Apple would have to make major changes and additions to its video architecture to support the end-to-end DRM that Blu-Ray video playback requires on a computer.

Microsoft was more willing to bend over [backwards] to put all that crap in Vista, but I'd put my money on Apple never actually bothering to do it on the Mac. Apple doesn't seem a very enthusiastic supporter of DRM, let alone someone else's DRM! They'd rather you download video content from iTunes and completely bypass physical media.

As for any other minor upgrades Apple could do to the Mac Pro before Nehelem: well, if Intel will have faster Xeons between now and then, there is certainly precedent for Apple making that kind of upgrade to the Mac Pros. It would be nice to see some more cutting-edge video card options between OEM and retail channels (e.g. the Radeon 3870 Mac Edition).
 
"I need some processing power soon, and I would hate to invest in a Mac Pro that was updated 6 months ago!"

Are you serious? Or are you kidding?

What kind of "processing power" do you need? Are you in charge of the satellite systems? Nuclear arsenal? Security of the West Coast?

The current offering of Mac Pros, and the one I purchased 3 months ago is far more than I will "need" for quite a while and I do 10 hours of video production and rendering daily!

This may be the silliest statement I have ever heard...

"processing power..." NEWSFLASH! It already does! Where the hell did the weather man go?

J
 
"I need some processing power soon, and I would hate to invest in a Mac Pro that was updated 6 months ago!"

Are you serious? Or are you kidding?

What kind of "processing power" do you need? Are you in charge of the satellite systems? Nuclear arsenal? Security of the West Coast?

The current offering of Mac Pros, and the one I purchased 3 months ago is far more than I will "need" for quite a while and I do 10 hours of video production and rendering daily!

This may be the silliest statement I have ever heard...

"processing power..." NEWSFLASH! It already does! Where the hell did the weather man go?

J
lol, you could have the fastest computer in the world and people would still want one thats faster, its the law of pcs:)
 
Are you serious? Or are you kidding?

What kind of "processing power" do you need? Are you in charge of the satellite systems? Nuclear arsenal? Security of the West Coast? ...

This may be the silliest statement I have ever heard...

"processing power..." NEWSFLASH! It already does! Where the hell did the weather man go?
J

By processing power, I mean, similar to the definition of power in physics, the rate at which the computer processes calculations per unit of time. With all 8 cores going, I think the MP has a lot of processing power.

If I'm going to buy a MP, then I want to know that I got access to the greatest processing power available that is within my budget. If an upgrade were imminent, then it's worth it for me to wait, but from reading people's posts an upgrade is not imminent, so it looks like I should take the plunge.
 
should I wait or should I buy?

So... I was thinkin of getting a 3.2 Ghz but I'm not too sure if i should...
i currently own a Powermac G5 Dual 2.5 Ghz... should I wait.. or should I buy?
 
this guy keeps on going about how "NEHALEM WILL COME IN 2010 I KNOW BECAUSE THE ONLY BOARDS THAT WILL SUPPORT FB-DIMMS ARE BEING RELEASED IN Q3 2008". To dispel this "logic", lets take a look at a bit of history. Show me a Mac that used FB-DIMMS before the switch to Intel. You can't. Now, if Apple were married to FB-DIMMs, why would they not include them on hardware that they have FULL control of?

The only reason FB-DIMMs made an appearance was because Apple talked to Intel and said "WE WANT A BOARD WITH 2 SOCKETS LIKE THE G5 QUAD" and Intel said "OK BUT YOU HAVE TO USE FB-DIMMs WITH IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE".
 
this guy keeps on going about how "NEHALEM WILL COME IN 2010 I KNOW BECAUSE THE ONLY BOARDS THAT WILL SUPPORT FB-DIMMS ARE BEING RELEASED IN Q3 2008". To dispel this "logic", lets take a look at a bit of history. Show me a Mac that used FB-DIMMS before the switch to Intel. You can't. Now, if Apple were married to FB-DIMMs, why would they not include them on hardware that they have FULL control of?

The only reason FB-DIMMs made an appearance was because Apple talked to Intel and said "WE WANT A BOARD WITH 2 SOCKETS LIKE THE G5 QUAD" and Intel said "OK BUT YOU HAVE TO USE FB-DIMMs WITH IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE".

Thanks for clearing that up. So, now we are back to Jan, 2009 for the first Nehalem Mac Pro?
 
I'm kinda worried that FB-DIMMs won't be around for much longer, I read somewhere that they are going to be phased out soon? (Something about DDR3 FB-DIMMs not being manufactured)
 
this guy keeps on going about how "NEHALEM WILL COME IN 2010 I KNOW BECAUSE THE ONLY BOARDS THAT WILL SUPPORT FB-DIMMS ARE BEING RELEASED IN Q3 2008". To dispel this "logic", lets take a look at a bit of history. Show me a Mac that used FB-DIMMS before the switch to Intel. You can't. Now, if Apple were married to FB-DIMMs, why would they not include them on hardware that they have FULL control of?

The only reason FB-DIMMs made an appearance was because Apple talked to Intel and said "WE WANT A BOARD WITH 2 SOCKETS LIKE THE G5 QUAD" and Intel said "OK BUT YOU HAVE TO USE FB-DIMMs WITH IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE".

Suck it up. WWDC 2009 if they go with Beckton, MacWorld 2009 if they go with Gainestown. That's all I'm saying. When did FB-DIMMs first come out?
 
Suck it up. WWDC 2009 if they go with Beckton, MacWorld 2009 if they go with Gainestown. That's all I'm saying. When did FB-DIMMs first come out?

beckton can only run on a quad setup... therefore 16 cores, 32 threads... impossible for a mac pro... its gonna be gainestown.
 
beckton can only run on a quad setup... therefore 16 cores, 32 threads... impossible for a mac pro... its gonna be gainestown.

Apple: Impossible is nothing. :cool:

Isn't Harpertown supposedly required to have two processors? Then why can there be an open socket in the current Mac Pros?

Apple will go to sixteen cores. Not with Nehalem, certainly, but I can see them being exclusively sixteen by Sandy Bridge.
 
beckton can only run on a quad setup... therefore 16 cores, 32 threads... impossible for a mac pro... its gonna be gainestown.

Beckton can support up to eight cores per CPU and up to four CPUs per systemboard. But a quad-octo-core-CPU configuration is not the only one that will be available for Beckton.
 
Apple: Impossible is nothing. :cool:

Isn't Harpertown supposedly required to have two processors? Then why can there be an open socket in the current Mac Pros?

Apple will go to sixteen cores. Not with Nehalem, certainly, but I can see them being exclusively sixteen by Sandy Bridge.

I think you are confusing "Clovertown" (Mac Pro 2006) with "Hapertown" (Mac Pro Early 2008).
 
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