Mac Pro To Get Dual Optical Drive Slots?

[kevin.rivers]

<snipped...>I don't think you realize what you're asking for. A system that is capable of performing all possible tasks at once is just unrealistic. Nobody will ever equip a system like that, because no user will have those kinds of requirements.

Even in the PC world, where more slots are common, you almost never find a system that has actually filled all those slots with devices.

Amen. It makes me sick to see people crying foul.

"I want 4 of every port/slot there is, in a case that is no more than a foot tall, plus 2 3Ghz processors, blu-ray, dual gpus, all for $1500! And if Apple doesn't give it to me, I will never buy anything from them ever!"

Even though they will never even use them(all the ports/slots). Most people will fill the x16 and maybe an old school PCI slot. Thats about it.

 

[cloudnine]

Dual video cards are only used by gamers. I doubt gamers are going to be interested in buying one of these, for the same reason they don't buy other Macs - the software comes out for other platforms first.

What about support for 2 30" cinema displays? You need two video cards to do that, right?

 

[ShnikeJSB]

ONLY DDR2-667?!?

Come on Apple, you'd BETTER use DDR2-800 or I'll be pissed!

 

[edenwaith]

Dual optical drives

I'm not concerned so much if this rumor is true or not, but I've never fully understood the need for more than one optical drives for most of the time. At work I've occasionally needed more than one optical drive to create back ups of software CDs, but that's about it. At home, however, the need just isn't there. The retarted Dell we have at home has two optical drives because Dell was too cheap to put in a single combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW. Instead they put in a CD-RW and a CD-ROM (it was SUPPOSED to have come with a DVD-ROM, but they didn't put it in). Times like that are just dumb.

Personally, I'd opt for more hard drive space. There was one PM model that supported up to four internal hard drives, I believe.

 

[Mr. Mister]

If There's No BTO Option For A Single-processor 2.66 Configuration, That Will Be Frustrating™.

 

[Marx55]

Dual optical drive is fantastic. Actually, even cheap PC-Windows boxes have had them for ages as a standard feature in basically of models.

On the other hand, a quiet Mac would be great. If possible, with no fans. Quiet. As the cube was.

 

[edenwaith]

The REAL specs

ONLY DDR2-667?!?

Come on Apple, you'd BETTER use DDR2-800 or I'll be pissed!

No, they better equip every new Mac with 10 Terabytes of DDR9-5000 RAM! And they will also include a Raid 5 configuration at 20 Exabytes! And the entire machine will be smaller than your fingernail.

But it will then come equipped with a 16Mhz Motorola 680x0 chip.

 

[LaDirection]

"Steve Jobs really must have been embarassed after claiming we'd have 3 ghz when we still can't even pass 2.7 ghz without a huge unstable liquid cooling system."

I think we'll see more cores per cpu before we see 3GHz. IMHO, 4,8 or more cores at 2.66 is far better than 1 or 2 cores at 3GHz.

""Steve Jobs really must have been embarassed after claiming we'd have 3 ghz when we still can't even pass 2.7 ghz without a huge unstable liquid cooling system."

IBM never produced chips that could run at 2.7GHz. In 2004, IBM was stuck at 2.2GHz instead of the 3GHz promised. Apple requested that chips be overclocked to 2.5GHz. In 2005, IBM was stuck at 2.3 GHZ, these chips were also overclocked to 2.7GHz. This year we are at Dual Cores 2.5Ghz. Even if Apple uses nothing but 2.66 GHz Dual cores, they will still be the fastest, non-overcloked chips that Apple has ever used.

"IMHO, 4,8 or more cores at 2.66 is far better than 1 or 2 cores at 3GHz."

8 cores?! Wow, maybe one day! But 2 or more cores/CPU are only good if your app can use them. Most applications, and in fact many of Apple, do not use more than 2 cores/CPUS. The Quad core G5's are a good example how the 3rd and 4th core are 98% or the time unused. A Dual 3GHz to a user would be much more usuefull than an 8 core 2.5GHz!


P.S. The number ONE problem that Apple must address in their pro line is the lack of Hard Drive bays! We need at least 4 HD, please! An internal 10,000 RPM RAID array is music to teh ears of pro video and film users.

 

[edenwaith]

2003: "In 12 months, we'll be at 3GHz".
Mid 2006: "I want to talk about 2.66GHz" although 4 cores running at 2.66GHz (Yum! ).

Kind of odd/funny how we seem to be going backwards in processor speeds. Instead of 3.6 GHz Pentiums, we are looking at 2.x GHz Intel Cores. It would be interesting to see how well a single Core processor matches up to PowerPC, or a Pentium, or AMD.

However, I am finding one of my predicitions finally happen...it appears that a ceiling has been currently met on how fast the current line of processors can go, and now we are relying on multiple cores/processors to distribute work, instead of relying on just one fast chip.

So when will we start seeing 8 chips in a computer? Perhaps this will become the new measurement...not processor speeds, but the number of processors (or cores).

 

[Cowinacape]

I don't know if I am real big on the rumored 512 meg of ram (geesh) for the bottom end tower, c'mon Steve would throwing a gig in there really break the bank?? I do like the idea of dual optical drives though ( I do copy my cd's for use in my garage/workshop, so I don't wreck the originals).

An extra one or two pci slots would of been nice, (sucks, that some video cards wind up taking two slots, due to their cooling setup)

 

[Timepass]

For dual opitical drives I say abotu time. Almost all cheap Pc have 2 opical drives. I like having them because I like to leave disk that I use a lot in the system. A lot easier that have to swap them time when running different programs.

As for the PSU at the top I like that design. The PSU is going to generated the most heat over all and that heat has to go somewhere.

Put it at the bottom it going to suck cooling air way from the graphic card and the CPU to cool it self and add more heat inside the case to make cooling the CPU and graphic card even worse. Or put it at the top where it will help pull cooling air over the CPU and graphic card and pulling heat off of them. Then pushing it al out the back. I like the 2nd one more. The design I would like would be a BTX mount and PSU at the top. That would put the CPU at the bottom, then graphic card and then PSU at the top. That way things that have the worse problem over heating get the coldest air and moves up from there. The hottest object is at the top of the case so the over all temp in the case is lower.

That just my logic of it. Balance wise it not go effect it to much. it not like you are going to move you Tower that offen and it going to be out of the way so the center of gravity being a little higher is not going to be big deal.

 

[Cowinacape]

....while I am at it, hopefully there will me room for more than just 2 hard drives inside the case........

 

[Silentwave]

ONLY DDR2-667?!?

Come on Apple, you'd BETTER use DDR2-800 or I'll be pissed!

Actually I'm surprised Aidenshaw didn't pick up on this.

The specs provided are
CLEARLY FAKE!

You'd think they'd at least get the RAM right.

Woodcrest requires the use of FB-DIMM (fully-buffered DIMM) RAM, dual channel, available at 533 or 667mhz speeds. ECC built in. Though technically this is using DDR2 chips, it is referenced as a distinct type, including in Intel's publications. It does not use plain DDR like the low end spec posted in the article (and will transition to DDR3 as those become available).
(edit: toned down the sizes, they were hurting my eyes )

 

[Morpheus_]

Looking for Something In-between

Dear Steve,

The iMac might be fine, but I don't need to pay for another monitor - I have a 20" and maybe I'll update that someday. I like expandability/flexibility in my displays, as well as my hard drives and hopefully my CPU.

The Mac Mini is not powerful enough.

The Mac Pro is too expensive, too top-end.

So Steve, will there be a "Mac" (not Pro) line? (How about "Big Mac"? Oh, that's taken...)

I basically want something that is good for gaming (in OS X and hence also in Windows, if necessary), but not ludicrously expensive. Something like I would have built myself in the years past - a good but not ridiculous CPU, a good but not ridiculous graphics card, and a nice amount of memory and storage -- then just throw it in a tower.

Maybe there will be a lower-end "Mac Pro", but it just doesn't make sense following the "Pro" nomenclature.

 

[~Shard~]

I wasn't being a smartass.

I wasn't saying you were... Just stating the fact that Apple hasn't exclusively chosen Blu Ray over HD-DVD, that's all.

 

[sockgap]

Power supply on top makes sense

It would help cooling to put the power supply on the top.
This is why newer energy efficient refridgerators put the compressor on the top.

 

[shamino]

What about support for 2 30" cinema displays? You need two video cards to do that, right?

Nope. The GeForce 6800 card Apple offered on their AGP-based G5 towers had two dual-link DVI ports.

Today's high-end PCIe offering - an ATI Quadro 4500 - also does, but it consumes two slots (one card, but the fan is too large to allow anything in the slot next to it.)

Looking at PC product offerings by ATI, you can see that they also offer video cards with two dual-link DVI ports on a single card. You can even get this on a Radeon X1900 series card.

Given that this is easily available for the PC world, there's no reason why it can't also be made available for the Mac (aside from someone deciding to write the device driver, of course.)

 

[gnasher729]

A 2.66 Ghz Woodcrest will probably be faster than a 2.93Ghz Conroe. A 1.83Ghz Yonah is faster than a 3.2Ghz Pentium, right?

Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest all use Intel's new "Core Microarchitecture" (a bit confusing: Core Duo does _not_ use "Core Microarchitecture", it is basically an improved Pentium III. The Core 2 Duo chips use Core Microarchitecture).

All three chips produce the same performance at the same clockspeed. Cache size may make a difference, but the Conroe models starting at 2.4 GHz all have the large 4 MB cache. So a single 2.66 GHz Woodcrest will be substantially slower than a 2.93 GHz Conroe. Not that it matters; the 2.93 GHz Conroe is extremely overpriced and unlikely to be used in any Macintosh.

I personally would expect 2.0GHz Conroe, 2.66 GHz Conroe, 2 x 2 GHz Woodcrest and 2 x 2.66 GHz Woodcrest for a wide range from cheap to maximum performance.

 

[Eidorian]

Given that this is easily available for the PC world, there's no reason why it can't also be made available for the Mac (aside from someone deciding to write the device driver, of course.)

Ok, here's ANOTHER can of worms. Since we're on EFI now and can boot in Windows. It means our video cards, etc. don't have Open Firmware BIOS. Does that mean ANY "Windows" video card will work as long as OS X has drivers for it? Does OS X even have generic VGA drivers?

 

[briansolomon]

It's about time. For a company that prides itself on innovations, features, and ease of use this is something that should not just be coming to fruition now...and should have never been eliminated from the G5 during the change from G4 <<<weird wording but I think you all will get the idea

 

[shamino]

Kind of odd/funny how we seem to be going backwards in processor speeds. Instead of 3.6 GHz Pentiums, we are looking at 2.x GHz Intel Cores. It would be interesting to see how well a single Core processor matches up to PowerPC, or a Pentium, or AMD.

It just means that Intel has finally publicly recognized the validity of the MHz Myth.

Raw clock speed is meaningless. You can get better performance at a slower clock speed if you can increase parallelism. This includes features like superscalar architecture (where multiple instructions are executed per clock), deep pipelining, hyperthreading, SIMD instructions, and multi-core chips.

However, I am finding one of my predicitions finally happen...it appears that a ceiling has been currently met on how fast the current line of processors can go, and now we are relying on multiple cores/processors to distribute work, instead of relying on just one fast chip.

That's a part of the equation, but not all of it.

Higher clock speeds are possible, but it's not worth the effort. Pumping up the clock speed creates serious problems in terms of power consumption and heat dissipation. Leaving the clock speed lower, but increasing parallelism will also boost performance, and keeps the power curve down at manageable levels.

It's worth noting that Intel has shipped P4-series chips at 3.4GHz. But the new chips (Woodcrest and Conroe) aren't being sold at speeds above 3GHz.

So when will we start seeing 8 chips in a computer? Perhaps this will become the new measurement...not processor speeds, but the number of processors (or cores).

Pay attention. The answer is "sooner than you think".

There have already been technology briefings from Intel that talk about 4-core chips in early 2007, and 32-core chips by 2010. Similar offerings are expected from AMD.

And the Xeon-MP series processors (which will, of course, eventually get all this tech) are designed with 8-way SMP in mind. A theoretical Xeon-MP based on this 32-core tech would produce a system with 256 cores. Of course, it is doubtful that anything other than a large server would be able to take proper advantage of this, so I wouldn't ever expect to find one on a desktop.

(FWIW, Intel is looking to Sun as a rival here. Sun's latest chip - the UltraSPARC T1 - currently ships in an 8-core configuration, with each core capable of running four threads at a time, and only consuming 72W of power. Even at 1.2GHz - the top speed they're currently shipping at - this makes for a very nice server.)

 

[Xenious]

Dual drive slots are cool, but the design is boring. Don't get me wrong I love my G5 powermac I was just hoping for a new or different design for the next ones...Maybe the same but square or smaller or something. Oh well it doesn't matter I'm still buying.

 

[Silentwave]

All three chips produce the same performance at the same clockspeed. Cache size may make a difference, but the Conroe models starting at 2.4 GHz all have the large 4 MB cache. So a single 2.66 GHz Woodcrest will be substantially slower than a 2.93 GHz Conroe. Not that it matters; the 2.93 GHz Conroe is extremely overpriced and unlikely to be used in any Macintosh.

While I agree that the 2.93 Conroe is unlikely to make its way into the macs, I don't think the difference will be 'substantial.' The Woodcrest has a faster FSB, and most other variables are equal except clock speed. Based on the benchmarks on the various Conroe versions, I think that the 2.66 Woodcrest will offer performance only very slightly slower than Conroe 2.93.

I personally would expect 2.0GHz Conroe, 2.66 GHz Conroe, 2 x 2 GHz Woodcrest and 2 x 2.66 GHz Woodcrest for a wide range from cheap to maximum performance.

Just a nit, but IIRC isn't the codename for conroe based chips running at 2.4 and below with 2MB L2 caches Allendale? (there is a separate 2.4 with 4mb L2)
I'm still not sure whether Apple will go all woodcrest to get better prices on chips and RAM (FB-DIMM is exclusive to woodcrest in apple's potential lineup)but I would expect either 2x2GHz or 2x2.3GHz as a low end quad, and either a 2x2.66 or 2x3.0 for the high end. Perhaps the 3.0GHz will be a BTO option for the 2x2.66, like the 2.16 was a BTO originally on the 2.0 MBP.

"One more thing, you know we complained about not breaking 3GHz with Power-PC, so for our latest quad, we figured you'd all like to finally do that. So, you can order your top level 2.66 Xeon quad as a build to order with two of the 3.0GHz Xeon chips!"

 

[wizz0bang]

Here are my guesses/wishes:

Mac - New Mini tower case (2 HD, 2 CD bays)

Mac $1499
(Conroe) Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz 4MB cache
1GB DDR2-800
ATI Radeon X1800 256MB
250GB HD
2x front USB, 1x front FW400
4x rear USB, 2x rear FW400, 1x rear FW800
Digital + analog audio I/O
Bluetooth and Airport extreme
Dual gb ethernet
Keyboard and mightymouse

Mac eXtreme $1999
Same as above, but with 2.93GHz Core 2 extreme (maybe overclocked to 3GHz+ so Steve can gloat)


Mac Pro: Similar case to previous G5 towers, all will be quad (dual dual).

Mac Pro $1999
2x Woodcrest 2.0Ghz
1GB DDR667
ATI Radeon X1800 256MB
2x250GB raid
ATI Radeon

Mac Pro $2499
2x Woodcrest 2.66Ghz

Mac Pro $3299
2x Woodcrest 3.0Ghz
More storage and more Ram

Look for same hot video upgrade options.

Come on Steve, I know you can do it!

 

[Silentwave]

It's worth noting that Intel has shipped P4-series chips at 3.4GHz. But the new chips (Woodcrest and Conroe) aren't being sold at speeds above 3GHz.
Pay attention. The answer is "sooner than you think".

Quarter 4 this year will see the X6900 conroe extreme at 3.2GHz.

So when will we start seeing 8 chips in a computer? Perhaps this will become the new measurement...not processor speeds, but the number of processors (or cores).

There have already been technology briefings from Intel that talk about 4-core chips in early 2007, and 32-core chips by 2010. Similar offerings are expected from AMD.

And the Xeon-MP series processors (which will, of course, eventually get all this tech) are designed with 8-way SMP in mind. A theoretical Xeon-MP based on this 32-core tech would produce a system with 256 cores. Of course, it is doubtful that anything other than a large server would be able to take proper advantage of this, so I wouldn't ever expect to find one on a desktop.

8 core should be out sometime between end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 with the quad core Clovertown processors (based on woodcrest) available in dual chip configurations. And it'll only get better from there.

Which reminds me, though slightly OT... this is a good reason why iMac may well get Conroe now or perhaps get Merom now but transition to a desktop chip by the time Santa Rosa comes out. The new chipset/socket means new logic board, and by the time that comes out the Kenstfield quad core chips on the consumer desktop end will start arriving. I don't yet know how far kentsfield will be scaling either up or down as far as clock speed/heat, but if quad core starts moving into the consumer dekstop market, they will need a very powerful processor: either Conroe or Kentsfield.