TB shouldn't be a problem. New PC boards with Thunderbolt simply pipe the data from the dedicated GPU frame buffers through the integrated Intel GPU to output to TB. It's probably not that big of a deal to route that directly to the TB controller though the PCI bus.
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Mac Pro to Finally See Updates Next Week
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I love the fact that they are updating this machine (wouldn't want to bet it'll see another update) and will get one when its out.
That said, as far as Apple and its commitment to the high end Pro users you can take a look at their Pro web page to see what Apple thinks:
http://www.apple.com/pro/
At this point, we're lucky the Pro got updated, IMHO, but I'll gladly take it.
I assume you are being sarcastic...but if not...
Go try and run Houdini on an iPad, or Maya, or ZBrush, or Renderman Studio, and then get back to me
I wish I could +1 this post millions of times.
That said, as far as Apple and its commitment to the high end Pro users you can take a look at their Pro web page to see what Apple thinks:
http://www.apple.com/pro/
Haha! It says "The new Mac Pro" at the bottom!
A rackmount option would be just amazing! I'd be on that in an instant.
Bring on expandability
The present Mac Pro enclosure is an engineering marvel of sophisticated simplicity and expandability. I hope if there are any changes to the MP case it improves both of those features.
I sure hope this update actually happens. There is absolutely NO way any current iMac can replace my Mac Pro system at this time.
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Hell Yeah!
Apple is putting in real boards. The ones that are OpenCL 1.2 certified, highly optimized for such work and by the time these systems come out the AMD 8000 series will be popping on the scence and you can do your battle of frame rates for video games while Apple and the rest of the Applied Sciences will continue buying more and more AMD based GPGPUs for their superior OpenCL 1.2/2.xx performance and an actually better design architecture that OS X leverages.
This is an embarrassing test for OpenCL 1.1, never mind OpenCL 1.2 showing the sheer dominance even on Windows for AMD Radeon 7970 versus Nvidia 680.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20120427/clb...chmark-for-windows-tested-hd-7970-vs-gtx-680/
Keep in mind that Apple's OpenCL 1.1/1.2 stack is superior and more finally tuned system-wide to that of AMD and together you have a system that can churn out requests to AMD's GPGPUs at will.
Good news indeed!
Fingers crossed, that not to many users of multiple machines have gone to Pcs already.
Would be great if they released at the same time as an overhauled FCP - x
Fingers crossed, that not to many users of multiple machines have gone to Pcs already.
Would be great if they released at the same time as an overhauled FCP - x
God this makes me happy Apple is updating it at least one more time...
That just made this a great day.
That just made this a great day.
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!!
You need not concern yourself with things you can't possibly understand.
Guess what the designs for the iPad were rendered, constructed, modeled, and engineered on? I'll bet you the wealth of Apple Jony Ive was using Mac Pros...silly child.
It takes true horsepower like that in the towers of the Mac Pro that create the real art that you enjoy so much as a consumer. Those of us who need that power to render the films, commercials, TV shows, products, art, magazines, websites, graphics, etc that you consume every day, are the ones who demand products with such power. Don't dismiss it just because you are too young or naive to understand the tools we use or what impact they have on your silly little life. Your comprehension of the subject matter at hand is too minute to truly be taken seriously.
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No more daft than when older Mac Pros had 2-3 GT120 cards in them.
If the embedded GPU can do OpenCL work then really doesn't matter if some users never "hook it up" to a monitor. Some workload can be shuttled to it that is of added value.
Also no more daft than a server model with a mid-range graphics card in it either. [ with embedded graphics the server model could come without a discrete GPU card opening up another slot for high speed I/O card. ]
What I think folks would get twisted about is if the embedded GPU soaks up an additional slot. For example the Mac Pro went from a 4 PCI-e slot machine to a 3 PCI-e slot machine ( 16x , 4x , 4x with one of the 4x sharing the 4x to TB ). Folks would probably moan at that move.
However, with two E5's that isn't necessary. There are 80 PCI-e lanes. More than enough to allocate 16x to an embedded card and have plenty left over for 4, quite wide , lanes. The design disconnect would only be the single CPU package models. It is more of a pain to add TB to them if it is going to effectively take up 20 PCI-e lanes out of a 40 lane budget.
That's an option too.
The gross assumption here is that TB monitors would be primariy device connected to a Mac Pro's TB socket. Especially if there is a perfectly good discrete GPU card in the the PCI-e slot.
No, that is the tail wagging the dog. Mac Pros aren't there to sell TB docking stations ... errr monitors. Perish the thought Apple could actually ship "just a monitor" product. mDP and USB connector and no power cord. And matte with a wide color gamut. That would be a more natural fit with the Mac Pro. If they could just use a different backlight and supporting electronics it could share the basic panel with the TB version. They could drop the price a bit too. $899 or $799.
The normal mode would shockingly be to hook the monitor to the discrete PCI-e GPU card just as done now in a Mac Pro.
Daft would be hooking a monitor up to the Mac Pro with a dangling magsafe power connector. It is useless.
I have to say that page and it's offerings are pretty sad. Apple should stick to the hardware/os game on the pro end and stop hunting pro media software like it were a trophy sport.
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How shallow and uni-dimensional your life must be, not that you'd know of course, as you are blissfully unaware, being wrapped in an aluminum cocoon of your own ignorance.... Good day to you sir, and may you never lose your iPad, otherwise by your own rational, your life will not be worth living....
Oh, goody.
My poor old 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo iMac has been limping along for over a year waiting for this update. I have over 24-hrs of 1080p home video that I'd like to edit but can't because my machine is too slow. I have been eyeballing high end PCs lately, but nothing has caught my fancy.
Just to review my prior machines for fun... in fairness, the first bunch of these were ones my parents owned when I was a kid: Apple IIc, Apple IIe (can't forget Oregon trail, snake bite, and others), Apple IIgs (probably the fastest booting machine I've ever seen), Mac IIci (AOL is incredible - you can chat with people around the world for 10cents a minute on dial-up; fond memories of mac paint, etc.), Mac classic, Powermac, (some clone, but I forget which one), Performa 6360 (with a $750 17" CRT monitor - boy that was a dandy when I bought it), (skipped the Quadra), iMac G3 (blue), Powermac G3 (beige), Powermac G4 400 (gray with blue front), Powermac dual G4 867 (mirror doors), Macbook core 2 duo (white polycarbonate), iMac core 2 duo 2.4 GHz (aluminum). Still don't have an iPad, but have gotten iPhone 3GS (still my favorite form factor), and 4S.
Somewhere in there we decided that Apples were too expensive and we got an Acer (probably about the late 90s). That lasted about 3 months.
If apple comes out with a high end machine next week, my next machine will be a mac. If not, I'm pretty sure the chain will be broken. I have to admit, I'm pretty pumped about the possibility of a new pro.
My poor old 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo iMac has been limping along for over a year waiting for this update. I have over 24-hrs of 1080p home video that I'd like to edit but can't because my machine is too slow. I have been eyeballing high end PCs lately, but nothing has caught my fancy.
Just to review my prior machines for fun... in fairness, the first bunch of these were ones my parents owned when I was a kid: Apple IIc, Apple IIe (can't forget Oregon trail, snake bite, and others), Apple IIgs (probably the fastest booting machine I've ever seen), Mac IIci (AOL is incredible - you can chat with people around the world for 10cents a minute on dial-up; fond memories of mac paint, etc.), Mac classic, Powermac, (some clone, but I forget which one), Performa 6360 (with a $750 17" CRT monitor - boy that was a dandy when I bought it), (skipped the Quadra), iMac G3 (blue), Powermac G3 (beige), Powermac G4 400 (gray with blue front), Powermac dual G4 867 (mirror doors), Macbook core 2 duo (white polycarbonate), iMac core 2 duo 2.4 GHz (aluminum). Still don't have an iPad, but have gotten iPhone 3GS (still my favorite form factor), and 4S.
Somewhere in there we decided that Apples were too expensive and we got an Acer (probably about the late 90s). That lasted about 3 months.
If apple comes out with a high end machine next week, my next machine will be a mac. If not, I'm pretty sure the chain will be broken. I have to admit, I'm pretty pumped about the possibility of a new pro.
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This is good news (if true of course) and interesting timing, as I just got back from the Adobe Road Show where I had some people swear to me the Mac Pro was DOA...and where I had a serious case of hardware envy looking at some of the HP offerings (especially since Premiere totally blew my mind today...as did a lot of other elements of the Suite...so nice to see a Suite aimed at all elements of production..)
If this update happens it will perfectly timed for the Autodesk Smoke 2013 pre-release trial!
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This too!
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This too!
Finally a new Mac Pro, that means with any luck the 09' models will drop a bit more in price. They seem to go for $1,400 used on ebay so hopefully they'll drop to $1,000.
Finally my 2.4 Blackbook can stop screaming in pain with every port filled and the CPU reaching the 190's.
Finally my 2.4 Blackbook can stop screaming in pain with every port filled and the CPU reaching the 190's.
Uhhhh. No.
I like having tons of open slots, and tons of room for extra hard drives and more memory...gimmie some expansion
Agreed, and let's not forget that heat can start to become an issue inside small enclosures. The MP is about processing horsepower on all fronts, which generates heat. Let's keep it open and ventilated, please.
Defacto it needs to. Intel isn't going to certify a solution where there isn't a non optional display port signal to the Thundebolt card.
In newer Ivy Bridge Core i5-i7 boards there are TB cards that plug into both a x4 PCI-e slot with a nearby socket to transfer the Dispaly Port signal from the iGPU.
It is display port output that goes into the TB controller input. The "problem" with a customer Nvidiia card is two fold. First, it is custom. One of the problems holding the Mac Pro back is the "tax" that has been applied because the cards needed to be custom. With Windows finally adapting EFI/UEFI as a standard boot mode, the Mac Pro can finally get to a context were don't need "custom" cards tagged with additional markup. To once again throw some 'hack' into the card to require customization again .... seems grossly unnecessary. Apple could take that approach. It just seems whacked. Especially, when Thunderbolt solves problems the Mac Pro doesn't have ( PCI-e expansion and multiple video outputs. ).
It is a bigger massive fail to push a kludge solution to a problem that the box doesn't have in the first place.
TB is a solution to the problem the previously more limited Mac's had were the totally lacked significant 4x PCI-e bandwidth level extensibility and the ability to output multiple video signals.
I'm very curious about the changes (not only processors, but also other elements of the data path), and the first benchmark comparisons to the 2009 models.
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!!
Odds are Steve was involved with the design. Plus other designs in the near future.
We won't see something Jobs hasn't been involved in for another 18 months at LEAST. That's just a smart product pipeline.
You can bet your ass Ive, Schiller, Cook, and Co. pulled everything out of Steve when he announced his resignation, that they possibly could have if he didn't offer it up already. Jobs was a man who lived by his legacy, and he wanted to be involved in Apple as long as possible. You can bet he gave them a fine-to-rough product pipeline for everything he could think of before his passing. And they are building on those concepts.