Mac Pro Supplies Tightening as WWDC Approaches

[cjoy]

However I do believe they will revamp and update the Mac Pro to address the needs of their small but important client base.

Thats the last straw we have to hope for a decent pro update, isn't it?

I fear that apple popularity and market share has risen to a level where they can actually feed crap to developers and content producers and still have most of em suck it up... simply because the pro users cannot afford to loose out on such a big (consumer) market or are by now so locked in on the mac platform, that the pain of transition is too great to risk.

 

[Philter]

For a lot of people it's already too late. Apple lost a lot of pro users by waiting too long. People are rolling their own machines or have moved to Windows. I can't imagine going back to paying 100% price premiums just for owning Apple-branded hardware. I would much rather build my own and keep the money.

 

[69650]

Thats the last straw we have to hope for a decent pro update, isn't it?

Who knows they might just surprise us all. Tim Cook did say they were "working on something great" for this year re the Mac Pro.

Don't forget Mac Pro users tend to be business users who also buy a lot of MacBooks, iMacs, iPhones, etc. Apple wouldn't want people to leave and jeopardise those sales as well.

However it makes sense from a business standpoint to try and widen the appeal of the Mac Pro to open up new markets and new customers, which might mean a more modular or flexible device.

I'm intrigued to see what they'll do, although I don't think they will announce it at WWDC.

 

[VoR]

However it makes sense from a business standpoint to try and widen the appeal of the Mac Pro to open up new markets and new customers, which might mean a more modular or flexible device.

I think if they were really concerned about this (and pushing for osx as a mainstream desktop os) they would have simply thrown a relatively off the shelf atx board into a case and used their powerhouse production muscles to keep the price dirt cheap.

 

[Cavalier777]

Finally.

you mean MAC rumors on MACrumors.com?

 

[cjoy]

Who knows they might just surprise us all. Tim Cook did say they were "working on something great" for this year re the Mac Pro.

Words like "great" from the mouth of Apple executives have lost pretty much all meaning for me. Anything Apple ships, they deem "amazing great super fantastic exciting awesome" products.
From what I see, few MP users really want anything "magic" to replace their workhorses... keep the MP very much the way it is and equip it with the best available tech. Easy. Done.

 

[AidenShaw]

I think if they were really concerned about this (and pushing for osx as a mainstream desktop os) they would have simply thrown a relatively off the shelf atx board into a case and used their powerhouse production muscles to keep the price dirt cheap.

Look at the Dell Precision T1650 for example.

• $841 ($762 with non-ECC RAM and 512 MiB graphics)
• 3.31 GHz quad core E3-1220 Xeon
• 8 GiB ECC RAM
• 1 GiB Quadro 600 graphics
• 500 GB 7200 RPM 6 Gbps SATA
• 3 year next business day on-site warranty

A simple basic workstation (Xeon with ECC RAM).

 

[Moonjumper]

Words like "great" from the mouth of Apple executives have lost pretty much all meaning for me. Anything Apple ships, they deem "amazing great super fantastic exciting awesome" products.
From what I see, few MP users really want anything "magic" to replace their workhorses... keep the MP very much the way it is and equip it with the best available tech. Easy. Done.

But does the current Mac Pro sell in large enough numbers to justify the cost of updating it? So many people here at MR are afraid for the future because they realise that the sales volumes probably are far too low.

I am hoping for something flexible that will meet the needs of current owners, plus can also be configured with lower cost options so that the user base can widen to sustainable levels.

It will be difficult to engineer something truly flexible without too many compromises. It may be worthy of the term "magic" if Apple pull that off.

 

[cambox]

Words like "great" from the mouth of Apple executives have lost pretty much all meaning for me. Anything Apple ships, they deem "amazing great super fantastic exciting awesome" products.
From what I see, few MP users really want anything "magic" to replace their workhorses... keep the MP very much the way it is and equip it with the best available tech. Easy. Done.

I agree entirely, the words from any apple spokesman or woman is the same marketing rubbish.. Awesome! Great! Magical! Try asking them what they think of the current Mac Pro? It's great! Awesome! Magical even though its out of date technology but yet people pay today prices? Yeah that is magical I grant you.
The Mac pro used to be a special and even magical machine years ago, but today its a sad excuse of a company that have over 100bn in the bank and cant be bothered to update it as their ''Pro apps' are a thing of the past.

I do use and own a 2010 Mac Pro but the hackingtosh I have ordered (cant wait any longer) 2 thirds cheaper but will look the same in the same case. Good bye Apple it was fun while it lasted, lets hope your IOS keeps your shareholders happy unlike your original Pro users. This will be the second major Apple device change in one year as the iphone went recently aslo. Apple wake up you cant rely on one demographic! Lets see which Fanboy says something first?

 

[Renzatic]

But does the current Mac Pro sell in large enough numbers to justify the cost of updating it? So many people here at MR are afraid for the future because they realise that the sales volumes probably are far too low.

Considering the MP is a bog standard desktop tower with a slightly fancier than usual chassis, all they have to do is upgrade the internal components and write some drivers to get it up to spec.

It's job isn't to be the most powerful computer in the thinnest form factor. All it needs to be is a big box with a bunch of fans and heatsinks on top of the highest performing computer hardware on the market. That doesn't take much R&D to do. If Apple continued to update the line once a year, rather than letting it linger like they have, all they'd have to do is sell 10 to get the cost they poured into it back.

 

[VoR]

Look at the Dell Precision T1650 for example.

Yes, I'm aware of the alternatives - you don't even need to look at a manufacturer's site, the CPU and chipset determine the performance and features (people hoping for usb3 and 6gbs sata etc are wearing their keyboards out for no reason), we know what's available.
Apple have a really fantastic supply chain with so much sway, I'm convinced they could knock out nice workstations for very little cash.
The vast majority of people don't need xeons, and I feel anyone buying a single socket Xeon board from apple needs a head examination.
My idea of innovation from apple in the future is to drop the profit margin and push many more machine - cue 'race to the bottom' comments.
Then again, I love good technology and couldn't care less about the brand, I appreciate what apple have done with regards to their buying/building power more than anything else. The only thing they'd lose is some of the marketed exclusivity/perceived quality that the computer illiterates (majority of customers?) rave about?
I want decent machines at dirt cheap prices, and to be honest I think apple are more capable than anyone at providing this. There's a fair few apple fans that argue against simple comments like mine, but why? I'm not interested in their margins, marketing, cannibalisation, stock prices blablabla They should be building machines for me, not for themselves
A lot of the points goes hand-in-hand, but if apple can't beat dell etc in selling extremely cheap machines while at the same time making loads of cash, I'm not impressed

/rambled

 

[echoout]

Surprised to hear that apple doesn't necessarily have the highest priced product on the market or what?
When I last needed a dual socket machine, I bought a Mac Pro because it was pretty much the cheapest option I could find - including building my own white box system. I tried to live with the limitations of osx for a while too, but shudder at the thought of me running an apple branded machine without a single osx partition

I'd love for that to be the case again, but I'm not too hopeful - If they go for a single core i7/Xeon, it'll (carry on) being massively overpriced. Aesthetics etc couldn't be less interesting to me on a workstation, not sure why this is being mentioned. If I was loopy and was making my decision based on looks/build, I'd go with a nice solid steel caged machine, in black from hp/dell/supermicro/etc. One of the only features people might really need from 'a box' of components that are made by the same semiconductor firms is the ability to slide in a rack - apple love to keep their consumer product lines simple(ish), but they forgot to apply this to the Mac Pro when removing the Xserve! - I wish they'd rid the world of the atrocity that is osx server though!

And anyway, seems like a strange time to push a refresh (at intel's mercy...)

I was "WTF"ing the "forget the xeon chips and go with haswell as most mp users are video artists. The imbedded intel 5200hd with quicksync is good enough" part of that. Not sure where you're going with it.

 

[VoR]

I was "WTF"ing the "forget the xeon chips and go with haswell as most mp users are video artists. The imbedded intel 5200hd with quicksync is good enough" part of that. Not sure where you're going with it.

I don't really understand your response, I never mentioned integrated gfx - but, kind of... If you don't need multiple sockets, an i-series CPU is both cheaper and faster.

 

[Yahooligan]

TB requires an iGPU no E5 Xeon has an iGPU. TB is not Apple tech it's Intel therefore required to meet intel standards.

That's actually not true, there's no technical reason why you can't have Thunderbolt with Xeon. Just tie the TB controller to the PCH, which makes it independent of the CPU.

 

[GermanyChris]

That's actually not true, there's no technical reason why you can't have Thunderbolt with Xeon. Just tie the TB controller to the PCH, which makes it independent of the CPU.

Thunderbolt requires the iGPU Intel will not let it work any other way..

 

[echoout]

I don't really understand your response, I never mentioned integrated gfx - but, kind of... If you don't need multiple sockets, an i-series CPU is both cheaper and faster.

Then we'll agree to not understand eachother's responses.

 

[relimw]

Enough with the new Mac Pro!

I want a totally new version of OS X Server that has real server features that you would really actually want to use that has a UI that has been personally redesigned by Jony Ive! I am not joking either!

http://www.apple.com/osx/server/

Um, I hate to tell you, but you can use any OSX machine as a server all the way back to 10.0. I assume what you really want is a glossy UI so you don't have to go in to that "icky terminal program that I can't figure anything out with" and actually figure out how to do what you want.

 

[AidenShaw]

...the CPU and chipset determine the performance and features (people hoping for usb3 and 6gbs sata etc are wearing their keyboards out for no reason)...

The Dell T1650 Xeon system has 6 Gbps SATA and USB 3.0 - I don't understand your comment.

And the chipset alone doesn't determine the features - this isn't an MBA, there's plenty of room on the mobo for additional USB 3.0 and SATA RAID controllers. Intel's own motherboards had USB 3.0 long before the Intel chipset supported it.

 

[Yahooligan]

Thunderbolt requires the iGPU Intel will not let it work any other way..

Link please? I can't find anything that states that TB is restricted in such a way.

 

[cjoy]

The vast majority of people don't need xeons, and I feel anyone buying a single socket Xeon board from apple needs a head examination.

I can assure you there are valid reasons to do it - I had my head scanned recently and they did not find anything wrong with it

If you require lots of RAM, easy maintenance and reliable components, the ability to use 2 or more pro grade displays (I use three here and I am not going to accept daisy chained mirrors as a suitable alternative), multiple NIC ... the Mac Pro is the only machine meeting that profile that is capable of running OS X - even though the CPU is not challenged much. In this case, spending the extra dollar for a bazillion cores on 2 sockets would make no sense at all

 

[VoR]

The Dell T1650 Xeon system has 6 Gbps SATA and USB 3.0 - I don't understand your comment.

And the chipset alone doesn't determine the features - this isn't an MBA, there's plenty of room on the mobo for additional USB 3.0 and SATA RAID controllers. Intel's own motherboards had USB 3.0 long before the Intel chipset supported it.

I can assure you there are valid reasons to do it - I had my head scanned recently and they did not find anything wrong with it

If you require lots of RAM, easy maintenance and reliable components, the ability to use 2 or more pro grade displays (I use three here and I am not going to accept daisy chained mirrors as a suitable alternative), multiple NIC ... the Mac Pro is the only machine meeting that profile that is capable of running OS X - even though the CPU is not challenged much. In this case, spending the extra dollar for a bazillion cores on 2 sockets would make no sense at all

I was agreeing, 6gb sata and usb3 is totally unavoidable unless apple take a nonsensical route in their design and chops the circuitry.

Of course there's more room and they're totally free to add 3rd party controllers - Although personally I think they'll just take all the reference features but ignore the included usb2 and add an external usb3 controller for a case full of blue (I think they'll choose green) sockets

Even though I bought one (for dual socket cost value at the time), I don't think the Mac Pro as we know it will exist for much longer. I think high end single socket 'cheap' parts are a much better solution for the people I know that use software on osx heavily - What I don't see is apple doing the world a favour and using their industrial might to sell them at minimum profits like I think all big computer firms should. I think they could do such a nice job of a 'normal desktop pc' and that apple are so large and well placed to design and produce a machine that 99.9% of people could ever need while keeping up with fast incremental hardware refreshes at a cost that matches what we can currently pick up off the shelf at a supermarket.

In my naive little world of playing this 'what I would do if i were apple' game, you have one of these (and/or one with a built in screen and/or a mini one with no internal expandibility) and some mobile devices of your choosing - all other computers in the world are made by someone else, run OSS and are massively dense, parallel and redundant machines that are allowed a price premium (and are probably not inside your house unless you're a super-enthusiast™). Everyone that wants to argue their usage scenario, imaginary or not...is doing it wrong

 

[sennekuyl]

Oh and anyone who thinks a consumer-grade single-CPU option with non-ECC RAM is comparable to a Xeon set-up is simply insane.

Some of we consumers do actually get that. While I have no task that requires it, if I were to come into some serious money... I'd hope there is a recent MP to buy.

'tis my dream home setup (& I know I could get by with ~2008 models; my requirements are mostly storage.)

 

[milo]

I just hope they don't wait until late in the year to release them. 12 months after Tim promised new Mac Pros.

Well, he did say "later next year". A release this fall would meet that description.

 

[Topper]

No New Mac Pro at WWDC

Tim Cook didn't specifically say the Mac Pro would get an update next year—just that "something really great" is coming.

What Cook said was, “Our Pro customers like you are really important to us. Although we didn’t have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today’s event, don’t worry as we’re working on something really great for later next year. We also updated the current model today.”

There will be no new Mac Pro at WWDC. The processors for same won’t be out until September.
Doesn’t anyone find it strange that there has been no leaked infomration about the new Mac Pro?
And no, Tim Cook will not announce a new Mac Pro coming out in September. He won’t announce anything this early.

If we are lucky, which I seriously doubt, maybe he’ll announce a new headless consumer tower.

 

[cjoy]

maybe he’ll announce a new headless consumer tower.

What makes you think so? If anything they want consumers to move to more tightly "integrated" solutions (neatly sealed and sandboxed). Apple targeting consumers with a midi-tower personal computer in the proclaimed "post pc era". Not a chance.