Mac Pro To Get Dual Optical Drive Slots?

[shamino]

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?

Interesting question, but I don't think any of us here will have the answers.

PCs don't use EFI. I don't know if a generic AGP/PCIe card can be initialized by EFI, or if the card will need some EFI code to be on-board.

As for OS X, I think we can be fairly certain that Apple will only bundle drivers for cards that Apple sells. If you install a third-party card, they will probably tell you that you'll need a driver from the card's manufacturer - that's what they've historically told customers.

Generic VGA drivers? I'm sure they were developed - they'd be very useful during that time when OS X/Intel was internal-only. But I wouldn't expect them to be bundled with a shipping copy of the system software.

Now, assuming that the Mac firmware (including whatever EFI drivers they include in it) is capable of initializing a generic video card, then there should be no need for more than a device driver, which the card vendors can probably provide, if they are so inclined. If the cards will require special ROM code for EFI, however, then we're back to the same problem that plagued the PPC systems.

 

[Eidorian]

Interesting question, but I don't think any of us here will have the answers.

PCs don't use EFI. I don't know if a generic AGP/PCIe card can be initialized by EFI, or if the card will need some EFI code to be on-board.

EFI can emulate BIOS though. It's basically what Boot Camp and the original Windows hack did.

As for OS X, I think we can be fairly certain that Apple will only bundle drivers for cards that Apple sells. If you install a third-party card, they will probably tell you that you'll need a driver from the card's manufacturer - that's what they've historically told customers.

I've rarely noticed third party hardware that requires drivers. Most of them simply say "Requires OS 8.x, 9.x., 10.x". Of course newer things like 802.11g and USB 2.0 are going to need a version of OS X.

Now, assuming that the Mac firmware (including whatever EFI drivers they include in it) is capable of initializing a generic video card, then there should be no need for more than a device driver, which the card vendors can probably provide, if they are so inclined. If the cards will require special ROM code for EFI, however, then we're back to the same problem that plagued the PPC systems.

You don't need a special ROM code for the auxiliary hardware. The video BIOS doesn't change when you boot between OS X and Windows.

 

[Silentwave]

Mac Pro $1999
2x Woodcrest 2.0Ghz
1GB DDR667

That price point for a quad would not be easy. A dual processor Xeon 2GHz woodcrest Dell workstationwith 1GB FB-DIMM 533 running Linux (cheaper than the windoze version) with a 750W power supply is nearly $2900. And even though I did my best to equalize some of the things to be more like the features of the powermac (ports, vid cards etc.), it still has the potential to be much more expensive.

 

[gerrycurl]

and...

the question still remains--will the powermacs be able to use standard, off the shelf, pc video cards?

i know that you couldn't do so in the power architecture due to the bios irregularities. now that they're using efi, does this still mean we have to buy mac based cards? because that's really the question nobody seems to ask and nobody seems to have an answer for.

what this new mac workstation will mean is the chance to upgrade your macs based on commodity parts. no more mac tax for hardware. i remember when the radeon 9700 was king, the price was around $299 for pc version and $399 for mac version.

think about this, the ability to upgrade processor, video card, and sound card without having to pay the apple tax.

that's what it really comes down to. the speculative "good" version of the mac pro has a so-so video card, but it's not really worth the $600 more just to get a 1800, i'd rather just get the 1600 and upgrade on my own.

 

[gerrycurl]

and...

the question still remains--will the powermacs be able to use standard, off the shelf, pc video cards?

i know that you couldn't do so in the power architecture due to the bios irregularities. now that they're using efi, does this still mean we have to buy mac based cards? because that's really the question nobody seems to ask and nobody seems to have an answer for.

what this new mac workstation will mean is the chance to upgrade your macs based on commodity parts. no more mac tax for hardware. i remember when the radeon 9700 was king, the price was around $299 for pc version and $399 for mac version.

think about this, the ability to upgrade processor, video card, and sound card without having to pay the apple tax.

that's what it really comes down to. the speculative "good" version of the mac pro has a so-so video card, but it's not really worth the $600 more just to get a 1800, i'd rather just get the 1600 and upgrade on my own.

oh, btw, i did some of my own investigations and found this site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html

which may mean that the standard cards are compatible with mac os x now.

 

[Eidorian]

oh, btw, i did some of my own investigations and found this site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html

which may mean that the standard cards are compatible with mac os x now.

You can get the 7xxx series in the Power Mac G5.

 

[wmmk]

the question still remains--will the powermacs be able to use standard, off the shelf, pc video cards?

i know that you couldn't do so in the power architecture due to the bios irregularities. now that they're using efi, does this still mean we have to buy mac based cards? because that's really the question nobody seems to ask and nobody seems to have an answer for.

what this new mac workstation will mean is the chance to upgrade your macs based on commodity parts. no more mac tax for hardware. i remember when the radeon 9700 was king, the price was around $299 for pc version and $399 for mac version.

think about this, the ability to upgrade processor, video card, and sound card without having to pay the apple tax.

that's what it really comes down to. the speculative "good" version of the mac pro has a so-so video card, but it's not really worth the $600 more just to get a 1800, i'd rather just get the 1600 and upgrade on my own.

oh, btw, i did some of my own investigations and found this site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/7_series_techspecs.html

which may mean that the standard cards are compatible with mac os x now.

i'v actually heard that with a normal PC, you can make almost any NVIDIA card compatible with mac, but it takes a bit of geekery and hackery.

 

[cr2sh]

The thing I like least about this rumor is that it specifies only a 320GB harddrive.

The current configs (quad g5) were released in October of last year, in that time harddrive capacities have increased well beyond that (320) small number.

The new machines will get 500GB drives I have to believe.

 

[wmmk]

The thing I like least about this rumor is that it specifies only a 320GB harddrive.

The current configs (quad g5) were released in October of last year, in that time harddrive capacities have increased well beyond that (320) small number.

The new machines will get 500GB drives I have to believe.

320 would be the standard. you could upgrade to a terabyte if there are still two HDD bays.

 

[Silentwave]

320 would be the standard. you could upgrade to a terabyte if there are still two HDD bays.

Heck you could have 1.5TB with the new Seagate 750GB drives!

 

[wmmk]

Heck you could have 1.5TB with the new Seagate 750GB drives!

dang, I didn't know those existed!

 

[shawnce]

Agreed. I can make an argument for the consumer machines, where perhaps 512 MB is sufficient for basic users. Specifically, why force them to pay more for 1 GB if they don't need it. But when it comes to the Pro machines, as if anyone buying one of these beasts is not going to require at least 2 GB of RAM, let alone 1 GB. No one buys a quad Xeon Powermac to just surf the Internet and check their e-mail.

Personally I go the BTO route at Apple.com for my PowerMacs and downgrade all RAM to the minimum cost and buy my RAM from a trusted 3rd party vendor for a savings of at least 10% if not more so.

 

[Mr. Mister]

Power supply at the top? Blah! I hate the power supply on the top, not that
it would keep me from purchasing a new MacPro though.

Power supplies produce a lot of heat. It makes great sense according to simply the most basic laws of thermodynamics.

 

[Shadow]

Why be limited to 2? Why not 3, 4, 5 or 6? I also want quad-10GHz Woodcrests with 20GB of DDR6-8000 RAM, with 2exobytes of HDD space. AND room to upgrade. Oh, and quad 7900GTXs. For £1000.

Ok, that never gonna happen, but it illustrates the point that people want more and more for less and less.

 

[guzhogi]

Re-read the article.

It says there will be three available slots - 2 4x and 1 8x. These are the slots that will not be used by factory-bundled devices.

The bundled ATI X1800/X1900 video card will be in a 16x slot. It probably won't physically fit anywhere else!
4 slots. 3 unused. Not 3 total.

Most PCs don't have more slots, either. Sure you can find a few counter-examples, but 6-slot systems are not common. And with the exception of the PM 9500/9600, Apple has never shipped a 6-slot system. (The Quadra 950 had 5. Everything else shipped with 4 or less.)
You seem to think that a Pro system must have the capability of accepting every hardware device ever invented. (And how do you do this without making the case six feet tall?)

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.

As for FC interfaces, they can work fine in any of the available slots. And there's no need for audio cards when you've got S/PDIF optical audio in/out.

Remember also that a studio won't be doing both video and audio editing on the same console! The people who are expert at one job are not going to be expert at the other. And if your studio is so strapped for cash that the different editors have to share a single computer, then you're in pretty sad shape!

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.

You're probably right about the slots, but I never said that it had to do everything at once. Just saying that it is my understanding that Apple is trying to make this a workstation (or at least that's what the rumor sites make it out to be) and it might as well have as much power as possible.

Also, as for the sound card, what about sound in? Some musicians might want MIDI in/out. I know, a lot of MIDI instruments come w/ USB now, but some musicians might want MIDI. Also, gamers aren't the only ones who might want/need to use 2+ graphics cards. What about CAD designers? Some of their stuff is pretty graphic intensive. Plus, since MacTels can run Windows, gamers might buy Macs, too. Just saying that some people might want this stuff, not necesarily everyone. To be honest, I don't care. Different strokes for different folks.

On a completely different note, I wonder what the Intel xServes will be like, along with new xServe RAIDs. If I read Apple's xServe RAID site, correctly, it uses ATA/100, not SATA. I wonder if/when Apple would upgrade? If I'm right (correct me if I'm wrong) SATA II has a max transfer rate of 3 Gb/s (or 750 MB/s), though I've also heard 300 MB/s. ATA/100's is 100 MB/s. Also, Western Digital's Raptor X is a 10,000 RPM drive and only has a SATA interface while all the ATA/100 drives I've seen are just 7200 RPM. People who need high bandwidth might want this.

 

[guzhogi]

Power supplies produce a lot of heat. It makes great sense according to simply the most basic laws of thermodynamics.

I'm no physicist, but even I know that warmer air rises so if the power supply was at the bottom, all that heat would go up the entire case (not counting whatever fans are in there) and make it harder to cool maybe. But as I said, I'm no physicist & I don't know how all this all works. It would be cool (pun not intended) if it were possible to create a vacuum inside, that woould help solve heating issues since (if I remember my high school physics) temperature is just how much energy matter has. If there's no matter in the case other than the components, then it should be pretty cold in there.

 

[GFLPraxis]

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! ).

Who cares about GHz? In the benchmarks I'm seeing a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo is easily outperforming a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4.

 

[amac4me]

WWDC ... it's getting closer ... can't wait to see what's announced. Oh yeah ... we'll see the preview of Leopard too.

Bring it on Steve

 

[Cowinacape]

All this talk about gamers, and video cards, wonder if they will intro a SLi Macpro *wipes away drool*

 

[xPismo]

WWDC ... it's getting closer ... can't wait to see what's announced. Oh yeah ... we'll see the preview of Leopard too.

Bring it on Steve

Yeah. I don't believe a word. No powercord at the top, no tweaked G5 case, no way. Those bits throw the rest into dispute. I think we will all be shocked at what The Steve has for us at wwdc.

OTOH, its been great to finally read the benchmark figures for the new apple processors. It hit me that the mac community will finally have overclocking hardware readily available! Wow!

But this rumor just dosn't look or smell right.

 

[Silentwave]

Personally I go the BTO route at Apple.com for my PowerMacs and downgrade all RAM to the minimum cost and buy my RAM from a trusted 3rd party vendor for a savings of at least 10% if not more so.

sounds like a plan for me too. I just hope the prices drop soon and the selection gets a bit better

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

 

[RichP]

Why is everyone talking about overclocking these machines? To overclock, the MB has to support changing the multipliers (if the chip is unlocked, which they wont be) and/or FSB, along with voltage, etc. I doubt Apple will be providing us with such BIOS/EFI settings.

 

[SeaFox]

I suspect they will choose one format over the other because all the systems (except potetially the MacPro) apple makes will only have one optical drive. Forcing them to choose a standard for media delivery.

Maybe not...

 

[heisetax]

Your preference?

Doh! Well, again IMHO, it is my preference to have only one optical drive built in. I could always add an external later.

Why do the rest of us have to settle for your preference?

I know people that have their systems running that could get by with a 5-10 GB hard drive. Does that mean that we should feel that all systems should only have a 5-10 GB hard drive, maybe a CD drive & since we all will have the same small needs a floppy drive. A DVD writer could make a complete backup in most ccases. Why would we need one of them. So why have more than one external 5 1/4" slot.

I may only run probrams that I can download on the internet, why then even one external drive slot?

Sounds a little far out. But what is really far out? Everybody has different needs & wants. Many Windows systems have the ability to have at least 4 internally mounted external 5 1/4" drives 2-4 or more 3.5" external drives, several internal 3.5" drives, 10-in-1 flash card reader/writers & many more things. My old Mac Clones had space for 4 5 1/4" external & 2 3 1/2" external drives, with either 2 or 4 internal 3.5" drives.

There are people that need to run many different drives at once. They don't all want to have more external drives with all of those many, many cords than they absolutely have to. Right now I have 3 external drives hooked to my 17" PowerBook. Then there is usually a flash drive or 2 hook up to this system.

Remember that everyone does their computing different. That means that only a certain group would be happy with what you think is all that needs to be in a system. Others will think that you have too much.

My wife & me each have MDD PowerMac G4's for our desktop units. They both have DVD burne & CD burner drives. I miss the other slots that I have on myy Clones. I may have up to 6 internal 3.5" drives mounted. Usually a couple of SCSI drives, a couple PATA drives, & a couple SATA drives.s I still have 3-6 drives attached externally plus a NAS drive. Most external drives are FW800, with a couple FW400 drives & a 3 CF drives tower by Lexar.

What is the correct amount of drives? To me it is whatever it takes to properly get your computer job down. So to you, it will always be, why more than 1 internal 5 1/4" drive.

Bill the TaxMan

 

[heisetax]

PowerSupply on top.

the size and weight of the power supply makes it damn stupid to put in the top.

top heavy is just idiotic.

i'd love to see dual optical drive bays and the same basic design as the G5. it's a great design, so why the need for change in the first place... [/QUOTE


I always thought that the power supply was on top because of the heat generated by it. Since heat rises, it wouldn't pass over the rest of the computer on its way out. I still agree with you about the weight part though.

Bill the TaxMan