Mac Pro to Finally See Updates Next Week

[crsh1976]

I was wondering about this. It was common to see CPU speeds double every 2 years, but there has been very little change lately. How much does cooling play a factor in performance? I often suspect my iMac I7 of slowing down when rendering a video, due to extreme heat.

Unless a chip is melting off the motherboard (then the machine has got some serious issues), only software is going to make your processor "feel" slower - and even then, that's a subjective measure - there is however such a thing as forced obsolence.

Chips nowadays are so fast that manufacturers are bogging machines down via software to make consumers believe they need to upgrade.

 

[lixuelai]

Actually modern cpus do auto-throttle if the temperature gets too high.

 

[TyrellDirt]

Unless a chip is melting off the motherboard (then the machine has got some serious issues), only software is going to make your processor "feel" slower - and even then, that's a subjective measure - there is however such a thing as forced obsolence.

Chips nowadays are so fast that manufacturers are bogging machines down via software to make consumers believe they need to upgrade.

Considering that "Senseless" is talking about an i7 cooking in the tight confines of his iMac, and then only when doing sustained heavy work (like rendering) I actually suspect that he's not hallucinating. For an i7 in an Alu iMac, vid editing/rendering must be like exercising in a sauna.

 

[-hh]

Windows didn't support PPC. PPC was not invented to not run windows

Actually, if I recall my Windows trivia correctly, there was a version of NT that ran on PPC ... my recollection is that it was NT 4

...ah, Wiki is our friend: PPC support started with NT 3.51 and NT 4 supported PPC too. Gone in Win2k.


-hh

 

[iAmRod]

So you can wait 2 years?...

What, you can't?

Chips nowadays are so fast that manufacturers are bogging machines down via software to make consumers believe they need to upgrade.

Interesting thought! I could see this being the case.

 

[xbjllb]

ugh, why are they wasting their time updating this out of date relic!
Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave that they've not yet killed off the mac pro.

Face it, they are not needed any more.
Everything you ever need you can do on an ipad.
If you can't do it on an ipad, then its not worth doing.
Epic Apple fail!!

I got your sarcasm since no one else did! ROFL!

Suffice it to say that this day came ONLY because Jobs is gone.

And it IS a great day indeed.

It's too bad Steve never lived to see them.

That was HIS choice. And preference. If he were alive, there'd be nothing to see but a new shiny tiny toy.

The adults are running Apple now.

just because he didn't live to see the release doesn't mean he didn't live to see the machines. Remember this stuff doesn't happen over night

As if. On EVERY level.

 

[Zozo Calypso]

Hoo-****ing-ray!!

 

[mBox]

Originally Posted by crsh1976
Chips nowadays are so fast that manufacturers are bogging machines down via software to make consumers believe they need to upgrade.



Interesting thought! I could see this being the case.

What its been done for years by Microslow

 

[CausticPuppy]

That is because the PPC was thankfully made to not to support Windows, after all its a Mac, not a PC with an Apple logo on it.

Wow. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you running OS9? If you're running OSX, you are running an OS that was designed from the very beginning to run on PPC and Intel chips. You realize that, right?

But maybe you're using PPC and OS9 for the nostalgic hipster value...

 

[Knara]

Wow. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you running OS9? If you're running OSX, you are running an OS that was designed from the very beginning to run on PPC and Intel chips. You realize that, right?

But maybe you're using PPC and OS9 for the nostalgic hipster value...

It's a stupid statement anyway, since, as has been stated before, Windows did run on PPC for a fairly long period of time. It was simply a workstation/server version of the OS and few people bought it.

Putting aside the fact that you typically write an OS to work with a CPU/chipset, not the other way around, of course.

 

[ogh]

Does Apple take pre-orders for delivery tomorrow? The queue is just too long to get my job done on the cluster tonight, so a new number-cruncher is wanted.

 

[amgems]

I hate to say it, but back in 2011, I was wanting to get a Mac Pro. I thought to myself - 'wouldn't I feel like an idiot if I got the 2010 right before they came out with the 2011 iteration'. I figured it was worth waiting a few months, but it turned into a year. I'm not holding my breath for the next update, provided this one has good specs.

In 2011, my Early 2008 developed the 'sudden power off on sleep' problem. Apple replaced the logic board, and still not fixed. I held off replacement hoping for an update. In retrospect, I wish I had just bought whatever was available at that time. I wasted a year, with the MacPro sitting dead and me using an iMac. Finally paid last month to have a power-supply replacement, which is what I thought it was all along, and it is back running fantastically, especially with the OWD SSD I gifted it as a 'get well' present.

Not sure if I will jump onto the new one or not.

 

[skunk]

The adults are running Apple now.

That is not necessarily a good thing.

 

[28monkeys]

hallelujah !

 

[G51989]

That is not necessarily a good thing.

Of course it is.

Steve Jobs was ok, but I think Tim Cook will take Apple much further.

 

[coldmack]

Wow. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you running OS9? If you're running OSX, you are running an OS that was designed from the very beginning to run on PPC and Intel chips. You realize that, right?

But maybe you're using PPC and OS9 for the nostalgic hipster value...

I do have OS9 in classic view at least on 3 of my machines, but I am getting along fine with my PPC just fine. BTW it's Macheads that still use PPC macs, hipsters on the other hand are using intel machines.

 

[macbookflasher]

i am curious to it . and i am waiting.

 

[G51989]

I do have OS9 in classic view at least on 3 of my machines, but I am getting along fine with my PPC just fine. BTW it's Macheads that still use PPC macs, hipsters on the other hand are using intel machines.

uh, i have a bunch of power PC machine thats I still use, I bought some of them NEW. Intel Macs are great to.

PPC was great, but IBM ****ed PPC. As did the Big M.

Intel made processors that were better in every single category. Thats why Apple switched.

 

[macuser453787]

BTW it's Macheads that still use PPC macs, hipsters on the other hand are using intel machines.

Just in case you're actually being serious: I'm not in any way trying to make light of your choice of Mac, but I respectfully disagree with that comment. I've been using a G4 Digital Audio for 8 years now that I have upgraded about as much as I can, and I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO look forward to buying and using the latest and greatest MP on so many levels I won't even begin to describe them here - except for one very important level, which is: much, much, much, much MUCH better and faster performance across the board in every area over and above the PPCs.

And I'm a Mac user all the way. Have been since 1989 (23 years).

 

[xbjllb]

That is not necessarily a good thing.

On the contrary; it's always the best possible development.

Of course it is.

Steve Jobs was ok, but I think Tim Cook will take Apple much further.

BLASPHEMER!!!

Tim Cook's already listening to Apple's oldest customers and heaviest individual contributors.

 

[CausticPuppy]

I do have OS9 in classic view at least on 3 of my machines, but I am getting along fine with my PPC just fine. BTW it's Macheads that still use PPC macs, hipsters on the other hand are using intel machines.

The PPC is a wannabe chip. Every body knows that real apple computers use the MOS 6502 chip.

 

[KnightWRX]

The PPC is a wannabe chip. Every body knows that real apple computers use the MOS 6502 chip.

Anyway, Macheads were hipsters. So while Intel Mac users are current hipsets, PPC Mac users are has-been hipsters.

Everyone knows that techheads use SPARC. Still have my trusty UltraSparc-II workstation handy, a nice Sun Ultra 5. 64 bit computing just coming to Macs now ? Pfff... I had 64 bit computing in the 90s.

 

[AidenShaw]

I was wondering about this. It was common to see CPU speeds double every 2 years, but there has been very little change lately. How much does cooling play a factor in performance? I often suspect my iMac I7 of slowing down when rendering a video, due to extreme heat.

As stated, CPU speeds (in GHz) are plateauing due to physics, but CPUs are getting more cores and the execution units are changing to do more work per Hz. Different designs have different CPI (cycles per instruction), so directly comparing GHz across different designs isn't very useful.

And, as stated, CPUs do throttle themselves to avoid damage, but the throttle is at relatively high temps (70C to 100C). You should be able to run a CPU temperature app to see if your temps are that high.

So on these new MP, I wonder if they'll finally up the number of ram slots on the base model? It always seemed dumb to have 8 on the higher end but only 4 for the base, hopefully it will be 8 across the board this time around.

The is due mainly to the design of the Xeons. The memory controller is in the processor chip, and supports 4 DIMMs directly. A single socket system, therefore, supports 4 DIMMs easily, and a dual-socket system supports 8.

PPC chips did outperform x86 chips for a while (in actual benchmarks, not just comparing clock speed).

This was true, but primarily for applications that used the AltiVec instruction extensions. applications which hadn't been optimized for AltiVec (or which couldn't be optimized for SIMD) were pretty close between PPC and x86/x64.

Everyone knows that techheads use SPARC. Still have my trusty UltraSparc-II workstation handy, a nice Sun Ultra 5. 64 bit computing just coming to Macs now ? Pfff... I had 64 bit computing in the 90s.

I got my first 64-bit system in 1992 as well (Alpha).

 

[milo]

The is due mainly to the design of the Xeons. The memory controller is in the processor chip, and supports 4 DIMMs directly. A single socket system, therefore, supports 4 DIMMs easily, and a dual-socket system supports 8.

And yet there have been plenty of motherboards on the PC side with more than 4 slots for single CPU machines. For a $2499 machine I expect more than what can be done "easily".

And why would intel design a chip with a memory controller that supports 4 dimms, but triple channel memory? Doesn't really make sense.

This was true, but primarily for applications that used the AltiVec instruction extensions. applications which hadn't been optimized for AltiVec (or which couldn't be optimized for SIMD) were pretty close between PPC and x86/x64.

Still, it's not true to say "It wasn't superior at all" which is what I was responding to. The PPC desktop chips were no slouch, it's not like Apple went with way inferior chips just because they were cheaper.

 

[foodog]

Apple also needs to just let go and let companies virtualize OS X Server on VMWare vSphere and Citrix XenServer. Not everyone needs dedicated machines for servers anymore, especially for the tasks that run on OS X Server.

Lion server is just an add on now so in essence no need to have a dedicated server anymore.

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I do have OS9 in classic view at least on 3 of my machines, but I am getting along fine with my PPC just fine. BTW it's Macheads that still use PPC macs, hipsters on the other hand are using intel machines.

I'm sure those are very productive for tasks in this decade.