Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Pro To Continue Quad-Core Tradition? Woodcrest?

What should be the Mac Pro form factor?

  • Go back to the PowerMac G3/G4 design! It was better!

    Votes: 19 3.8%

  • Keep the current design! It is so sleek!

    Votes: 135 26.9%

  • Revamp it, and bring us something new. I'm sick of the current design.

    Votes: 348 69.3%
  • Total voters
    502
~Shard~ said:
Or perhaps they will introduce a "Mac" and a "MacPro", with the "Mac" being a Conroe mimi-tower and the "MacPro" being a Woodcrest beast. :eek: ;) :cool:
Click to expand...
That sounds like a great idea, but Apple will never do it.


;)
 
i can see them doing single chip, dual core conroes for the bottom and middle tiers of the line, with the quad core going for the top end. and then maybe a year down the road all of them will be quad (similar to how everything eventually went dual a few years ago).... i'd like to see a case redesign for some of the practical reasons (only 2 internal hdds, no dual optical, just wasted space in general), but also just because it's always interesting to see a new case/design.

looking forward to it.
 
The key to the new Mac Pro is the size of the motherboard being the same as the G5..
Knowing how Intel boards are designed I'd say we're in for quit a machine.
 
admford said:
Apple is trying ot boast that the passage to Intel chips gives their computers a large adavance in speed, but with the Quad Core PowerMac, being as fast as it is, it's going to be extremely hard for Apple to produce something that on ALL apps is at least 1.5x faster than the current generation.
Click to expand...

Quite true. Many people look at Photoshop benchmarks, for instance, and I can’t see a quad PPC running CS2 natively being beat too easily by a Woodcrest PowerMac running it via Rosetta. With many apps not going universal until late 2006 or 2007 (especially CS3 not coming out for almost another year) this might pose a bit of a challenge. Of course though, it all comes down to the chicken and the egg problem – app developers won’t go to Intel until Intel machines are out there and people are using them, but people don’t want to buy Intel machines until the apps are there for them to use. ;) :cool:
 
~Shard~ said:
It's great to hear that Apple might be planning to do this. As the news item states, Conroe cannot operate in a dual processor configuration, so Woodcrest would have to be used. It wil be interesting to see if Apple splits up the line with 2 separate processor architectures - Conroe for the lower 2(?) models and Woodcrest for the top machine. Or perhaps they will introduce a "Mac" and a "MacPro", with the "Mac" being a Conroe mimi-tower and the "MacPro" being a Woodcrest beast. :eek: ;) :cool:
Click to expand...

Not too bad of an idea :cool:

I just don't get why people want more optical drives? for what?
 
LtCarter47 said:
Interesting idea. I wonder if the "Mac" could then fit in a smaller case design...
Click to expand...

I think that would be the whole point. Especially with only one Conroe processor in it, a smaller form factor would be ideal. Plus, I personally believe a gap exists between the iMac and the PowerMac where a product like this could fit. I think for many people, a PowerMac, especially the quad beast, is far too much for their needs, power-wise and cost-wise. Yet the iMac, although very powerful, might not be the ideal choice for some people due to its lack of upgradeability (apart from the memory). For instance, I really only need an iMac for my needs, yet if my HDD fails or if my built-in screen dies, I’m pretty much screwed. I can’t replace those components, nor can I upgrade them if I ever wanted to in the future to extends the machine’s life. If my machine goes, my perfectly good display is useless, and vice versa. A “mini PowerMac” would be ideal for me. :cool:

AidenShaw said:
That sounds like a great idea, but Apple will never do it.

;)
Click to expand...

Oh I know – I’m no dummy. ;) :D
 
Given that the Woodcrest chips should be available by the end of June, do you think Apple will wait until August to announce a Woodcrest Mac?
 
~Shard~ said:
Of course though, it all comes down to the chicken and the egg problem – app developers won’t go to Intel until Intel machines are out there and people are using them, but people don’t want to buy Intel machines until the apps are there for them to use. ;) :cool:
Click to expand...


Photoshop is the central application for the moment, but there is also Maya and other engineering software. I use Ashlar-Vellum's Cobalt, and they even say on their site that running in rosetta, it's rendering is too slow to use productively. I'm worried on what would happen if you'd try to run benchmarks with Maya 7 on an Intel Mac. I have a friend that does Maya animation for a profession, and he says that the PowerMac G5 Quad machine is roughly 5-7 times faster in rendering than his one year old dual Opteron machine (with a professional level video card that supports Maya Rendering). Both machines have similar amounts of ram (4Gb for the Opteron, and I think 6GB on the PowerMac).
 
jelloshotsrule said:
i can see them doing single chip, dual core conroes for the bottom and middle tiers of the line, with the quad core going for the top end. and then maybe a year down the road all of them will be quad (similar to how everything eventually went dual a few years ago)....
Click to expand...

With Kentsfield and Cloverton coming out soon after this first batch of 64-bit procs, I definitely see that happening.

Only a matter of time before we see some Dunnington PowerMacs! :eek: ;) :cool:

Sharewaredeom said:
Macbook?
Click to expand...

Yes, the MacBook got a bit of a facelift and of course the built-in iSight, etc., but I was referring to a whole new design. I would argue that the new MacBooks aren't that much aesthetically different from their predecessors, but perhaps that's just my perception of things....
 
DavidCar said:
Given that the Woodcrest chips should be available by the end of June, do you think Apple will wait until August to announce a Woodcrest Mac?
Click to expand...

If they wait until August you can be sure that it will have some conroes in part of the line-up. If it comes out earlier then it'll be all woodcrest. does anyone know what future processor the conroe will be pin compatible with? I'd like to know my upgrade path, if any.
 
Peace said:
The key to the new Mac Pro is the size of the motherboard being the same as the G5..
Knowing how Intel boards are designed I'd say we're in for quit a machine.
Click to expand...
Here's a Woody mobo you can buy today:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000P/X7DB8+.cfm

X7DB8+_spec.jpg


64 GiB RAM
 
DavidCar said:
Given that the Woodcrest chips should be available by the end of June, do you think Apple will wait until August to announce a Woodcrest Mac?
Click to expand...

Absolutely – that’s the whole point of delaying WWDC into August. Apple is definitely releasing the new PowerMacs at this event, and since this lines up nicely with the Conroe and Woodcrest release dates, I would not be surprised at all to see both chips introduced into the line as this news item speculates. :cool:
 
People out there seem to have this thought that the new Mac Pro won't have any heat issues. I think IBM really got us screwed up and gun shy about heat.

All the new Macs with Intel so far have had reports that they are hotter than their PPC ancestors. My MacBook runs a hell of a lot hotter than my iBook ever did.

My personal belief is that the Mac Pro will have only some minor changes to the overall look of the Power Mac G5 based on two facts:

1) There have been no drastic changes to any of the MacIntels yet, probably to help with blending in the older PPC Macs with the newer Intel Macs. The MacBook is probably the most severe, but from across the room I have to look hard to see if my wife is using our iBook or MacBook if I am seeing it closed or opened from the back.

2) These new Intels will still kick off some major heat. They will need to have airflow similar to what is needed for the PPC G5's to start off with. I say give it 2 Intel generations before we see a drastic change to the Mac Pro, so probably around next spring/summer we could see a brand spankin new Mac Pro design..... Hmmmm just in time for Adobe CS 3 it seems.....
 
so... if it is a new design for the 'tower', apple would also make a new acd with new specs or not?
 
Peace said:
The key to the new Mac Pro is the size of the motherboard being the same as the G5..
Knowing how Intel boards are designed I'd say we're in for quit a machine.
Click to expand...
i'm not to happy that its going to be around the same size. I thought with with the new chips out, the mac pro or powermac would be a lot smaller. THe g5 is a great computer, but the shier size of it turns me off...(only because i don't have the room for it in a college dorm)
the current imac is powerful but i don't think its powerful enough to run pro apps, like FCS, well
thl said:
so... if it is a new design for the 'tower', apple would also make a new acd with new specs or not?
Click to expand...
didn't apple wait a few months to put out the new displays when the G5 came out...?
 
New MacPro case design?

I *partially* agree with you. I think the PowerMac G5 case was actually quite functional in most respects. Keeping the arched handles was a very smart idea, since it allows the machine to sit up off of the floor (keeping as much dust from being sucked into it when people set them up on their floor). It also makes them easier to pick up and move around, and provides a place to route cabling for external devices sitting on top of the PowerMac. All of the perforations in the front and back panels give far superior cooling to most PC tower designs I've seen too. The plastic see-through inner panel is a nice touch also, for those who like to put the insides of their machine on display. (Note that despite lots of attempts to mimic the G5 case in PC cases, they haven't yet made the effort to copy that idea.)

On the other hand, it really needs more drive bays. A MacPro is the type of system that would be likely to be configured in a RAID 5 disk array, so it should have enough drive bays to accomodate one!


BenRoethig said:
The G5 design was a disaster. It looked nice, but It lacked functionality compared to similar PC workstation designs.
Click to expand...
 
thl said:
so... if it is a new design for the 'tower', apple would also make a new acd with new specs or not?
Click to expand...

As many have said here, a redesign of the tower is doubtful at this point, but not an impossibility. Whenever the towers do get resdesiged though the ACDs will no doubt follow, however not necessarily right away. The old ACDs were around for quite some time after the new G5 PowerMacs were released (6 months, I believe?) so if the past is any indication, Apple wouldn't be in a huge rush to change them. Apple will also want to time things with the release of new technology as well and will not release a new ACD just so it matches a new PowerMac case. ;)

All that being said, a refresh to the display line would be nice to see as well in the upcoming months... :cool:
 
puckhead193 said:
the current imac is powerful but i don't think its powerful enough to run pro apps, like FCS, well
Click to expand...


If the MacBook Pro can, chances are a same-speced iMac will work nice too...
 
Semi-Unrelated Question

I'm calling this "Semi-Unrelated" because we're talking about multiple HD bays. I was wondering if anybody think that with BootCamp and a MacPro I could take my old PC HD and just plug it into the second HD bay. I think that would be an absolutely amazing option seeing as how I really don't feel like reinstalling all the games I have. I really don't know enough about HD/motherboard inter-dependency to say this will/will not work.

Any ideas??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back