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Mac Pro to Use Custom Intel CPU? More Details on Mac Mini and Time Capsule

hugodrax said:
Ecc ram is not overkill for a workstation, but for a regular desktop then yes.

But the Mac pro is a workstation.
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ECC ram is overkill for quite a few workstations too. Think back to the late 90s and early-to-mid 2000s. The vast majority of Power Macs never shipped/were offered with ECC Ram, and yet did you regularly hear of anyone using them as workstations for video, audio, etc., having many issues? No...

ECC Ram has its uses, but it's not as necessary as some believe.
 
Skika said:
I never understood what are the benefits of MacPro being smaller:confused:
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What's the advantage of anything being smaller? Portability. I think anyone that seriously thinks the Mac Pro needs to be more portable is probably not using it like the majority but some people feel that way. Also, some people think smaller = more attractive.

I understand what others are saying when they want it. I don't quite agree with them, like yourself I assume, but that's their opinion I guess.
 
hugodrax said:
Ecc ram is not overkill for a workstation, but for a regular desktop then yes.

But the Mac pro is a workstation.
Click to expand...

No, it's overkill for most of the work done in Mac Pro's. ECC Ram doesn't necessarily benefit people just because they use a Mac Pro. Servers make use of ECC Ram due to uptime.

Also ECC RAM is slower than regular RAM so if you are not making use of it, it's actually making your computer perform worse.
 
I think with the iPad and iPhones cutting the cord, an iOS powered Time Capsule could be big....think of it: Time Capsule being able to host you music and movies locally (on wifi) and serve to the apple tv.

Makes alot of sense to me
 
Hellhammer said:
Custom CPU sounds very interesting. I wonder what would make it unique
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They ability to deny the hackintosh community. With a custom CPU, assuming Intel will seel the CPU only to Apple, it'll be increasingly difficult to load a hackintosh kernel etc.
 
BigBeast said:
They ability to deny the hackintosh community. With a custom CPU, assuming Intel will seel the CPU only to Apple, it'll be increasingly difficult to load a hackintosh kernel etc.
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Hmmm, now that sounds lovely. :)
 
BigBeast said:
They ability to deny the hackintosh community. With a custom CPU, assuming Intel will seel the CPU only to Apple, it'll be increasingly difficult to load a hackintosh kernel etc.
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Not really. Because 1) Apple will continue to use regularly production-run Intel processors in the MBPs, the MB, the MBA, the iMac, etc., 2) Apple has to maintain "legacy" support for older Intel processors and chipsets they used to allow people to upgrade, thus allowing the Hackintosh community to take advantage of this, and 3) as long as Apple is using X86 systems, it won't be *that* difficult to modify OS X to run on a custom system.
 
blue22 said:
So, perhaps it's better to wait not this for this speculated version of the Mac Pro but rather the one due out sometime in 2012 instead?
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You're speculating about not waiting for this speculated version instead of the one (speculated to be) due in 2012? Hopefully you don't need a computer soon :)
 
iBug2 said:
If you are not giving up other stuff, isn't everything better with smaller size? :)
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Why? Other than a Mac Pro I can't think of a current Mac that would run a little cooler or hold better equipment if it wasn't just a little thicker or wider or taller.
 
Hellhammer said:
Custom CPU sounds very interesting. I wonder what would make it unique
Click to expand...

There will not be any custom CPU for Mac Pro. There simply could not be one. Mac Pro sales are just too small to justify development of special chip for Intel. If anything it could be underclocked or overclocked version. Or, as it happened in the past, it could be a "special" CPU that Apple just happens to announce but everybody else gets their hands on it the same day (or week later). Just a PR stunt.
 
justinfreid said:
Do you mean in order to network them or to have them share a processing load? I think fiber networks may still be better for grid computing: http://www.apple.com/science/hardware/gridcomputing.html.
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But TBolt is not a network interconnect - it's a PCIe link to an expansion chassis, which is daisy-chainable to a small number of additional expansion chassis.

These expansion chassis could have PCIe "cards" for network interconnects, but the network will not be TBolt.
 
lilo777 said:
There will not be any custom CPU for Mac Pro. There simply could not be one. Mac Pro sales are just too small to justify development of special chip for Intel. If anything it could be underclocked or overclocked version. Or, as it happened in the past, it could be a "special" CPU that Apple just happens to announce but everybody else gets their hands on it the same day (or week later). Just a PR stunt.
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actually, it is possible. changes in packaging, for example, would not entail a large cost compared to the volume of apple's business. Similarly, changes that can easily be affected by SoC design methodology (e.g. connecting a thunderbolt macro to the crossbar) would be doable, particularly if Apple places a guaranteed minimum order.

When I was at AMD we offered to do one-off chip designs for at least two customers I can think of (we didn't actually reach a deal, though).
 
Bafflefish said:
Not really. Because 1) Apple will continue to use regularly production-run Intel processors in the MBPs, the MB, the MBA, the iMac, etc., 2) Apple has to maintain "legacy" support for older Intel processors and chipsets they used to allow people to upgrade, thus allowing the Hackintosh community to take advantage of this, and 3) as long as Apple is using X86 systems, it won't be *that* difficult to modify OS X to run on a custom system.
Click to expand...

Yep! would not be the end of the hackintosh community! But would love to see a lower price point! Might motivate me to buy:apple: instead of build.
 
kdimitt said:
Are there current benchmarks that compare the C2D with nVidia graphics vs. the combine Intel SB?

I know little about graphics so I hope someone can explain the comparisons between the two. Wouldn't taking a step back in graphics for the sake of integration be stupid?

Simple question, if the mini has the new Sandy Bridge processor (graphics combined) will there be less graphical power then the intel's with the nVidia chip?

Hope for an honest and straightforward answer, I would really like to be informed not harassed.
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NVIDIA doesn't make integrated graphics chipsets for i3/i5/i7 chips, so if Apple wants to upgrade the processor they have to switch back to integrated Intel graphics. They'd obviously want to keep NVIDIA integrated graphics, but it's just not possible. Apple basically held out as long as they could. There are discrete graphics options of course, but those cost more and need more space.

The NVIDIA and Intel integrated graphics aren't that different anymore. Minor graphics downgrade for major CPU upgrade.
 
If by custom CPU they mean something that isn't a core i7/Xeon that would be interesting. Imagine if they put custom X86 CPUs into all macs, it would restore the sort of distinctive character that macs had before the Intel switch with PPC.
 
lowonthe456 said:
I think with the iPad and iPhones cutting the cord, an iOS powered Time Capsule could be big....think of it: Time Capsule being able to host you music and movies locally (on wifi) and serve to the apple tv.

Makes alot of sense to me
Click to expand...

This is the first thing I thought of. I never understood why the Apple TV 2 is a media device with no storage. The new Time Capsule would basically become your personal media and file server (your local cloud). Maybe allow streaming through iCloud like previous rumors.
 
paradox00 said:
NVIDIA doesn't make integrated graphics chipsets for i3/i5/i7 chips, so if Apple wants to upgrade the processor they have to switch back to integrated Intel graphics. They'd obviously want to keep NVIDIA integrated graphics, but it's just not possible. Apple basically held out as long as they could. There are discrete graphics options of course, but those cost more and need more space.

The NVIDIA and Intel integrated graphics aren't that different anymore. Minor graphics downgrade for major CPU upgrade.
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Appreciate the response, thanks a lot. +1 to you sir.
 
The new Mac Pro's are promising to be fast. I wonder just how fast they are going to be.

The new iMacs are very fast and they're supposed to be a few notches below a Mac Pro.

Not a Mac Pro buyer myself but I'm interested to see what comes out of such a long refresh cycle.
 
I bet that Apple has an exclusive on the much rumored Intel 8i 16x core for the rest of the year.

Smoking!
 
lilo777 said:
There will not be any custom CPU for Mac Pro. There simply could not be one. Mac Pro sales are just too small to justify development of special chip for Intel. If anything it could be underclocked or overclocked version. Or, as it happened in the past, it could be a "special" CPU that Apple just happens to announce but everybody else gets their hands on it the same day (or week later). Just a PR stunt.
Click to expand...

This is unreasonably pessimistic considering that Apple has been heavily involved in chip development for iOS devices and Intel has announced that custom chips are not as prohibitively expensive as they once were.
 
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