Well Tim wants more secrecy and more facebook integration. Ok Tim, start here:
http://www.facebook.com/MacProsPlease
http://www.facebook.com/MacProsPlease
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Mac Pro Update Now Possible with New Xeon E5 Chips Next Week
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You missed the point. My point is the iMac and MacBook Pros are capable of punching so much power now that the monster trucks (Mac Pro) are quite unnecessary. I'm not saying we've reached the ceiling in computing power. I'm saying the work will now focus on packing the power computer users need into smaller more elegant devices.
I'm afraid this doesn't get around the issue of required power for high-end projects requires a lot more power than the iMac can offer.
You are definitely right in the fact that iMacs are punching much more power, however the professional production industry requires industrial power and not prosumer power even if you could class an iMac as a prosumer device.
I think you are also right in the idea that more power in smaller devices is in the foreseeable future as that has always pretty much been the case since computers fitted in a ware house.
Even though MacBook pros and iMacs are providing more power and speed it is always relative to its place in the industry and neither are a piece of kit that are capable of turning around high end output at the speeds companies and clients require.
In my opinion I look it as a separate class and can't fairly be viewed on the same platform. iMacs are great, MacPros are great but you don't cut down a forest with a hand saw that is great for cutting things little things here and there, you mow it down with a bulldozer made for mowing down forests.
The gross generalization here is that the "production industry" is all uniformly increasing their workload requirements. Even though the computers are getting faster the workload is growing at an even higher rate than "Moorse's Law" (and other hardware/software growth factors) can keep up.
So if the "prosumer power" is increasing at 70 MPH and the workload is increasing at 30 MPH at some point down the road the "prosumer power" will overtake the workload.
Some subsets of industry are increasing at "higher than hardware" rates and some are not. They are not all uniformly moving forward at exactly same speed.
The number of "big iron" Mainframes sold now is substantially lower than 20 years ago. The effect has happened to almost every single computer hardware category. Supercomputers (as monolithic boxes) lost over over time to the attach of the killer micros. Mainframes lost ground to minicomputers. Minicomputers lost ground to workstations/personal computers , etc.
The huge flaw in this analogy is that "power" is not inherent to size. Yoda was not the weakest Jedi master because he was the shortest.
If a hand saw only took 2 seconds to cut through a fully grown tree it could keep up with a bulldozer.
The burning issue for the Mac Pro is what "workload" it can take away from computers that are "bigger" than it that will make up the ground for the industry subset that the MBP/iMacs are going to take away. The match of industries to platforms are in fluid transitions over time. It is that treadmill it needs to master to survive.
A "preview" in that an updated Mac Pro will be faster than the current one???? Well yeah, when is the last time Apple introduced a new Mac that was just as fast in every way as the last Mac it was superseding?
A relatively precise "preview" for a new Mac Pro benchmark numbers? Unlikely. ProMax threw the hottest possible E5 in there. Apple hasn't done that in previous iterations where there were alternatives that let the work at a more even balance between performance and noise/thermals or on price and performance (Intel reserves its highest nosebleed pricing for the highest possible clock offering). Shortest possible benchmark bar graphic is not likely to be a top 3 design criteria Apple constrained themselves with.
P.S. This is humorous in that a couple of months ago the ProMax site has the same models all just coming to market in 2012 with Xeon 5600's in them.
Yeah sorry, I do tend to generalise the Production Industry to try and keep on track. I do agree that in the case of Prosumer Power increase faster than work load then it would overtake. My issue is not down to the symmetry or lack of between power available and workload output, it is the reliance of workload output on the power available. More specifically that as power increases so does the opportunity to use the newly available power. My point was aiming down the route of clients wanting HD from SD, 2K from HD, 4K from 2K and so on, each new bit of technology has derived from the pushing ability of the previous technology. It is obviously limited to how far the current technology can be pushed or accessed.
Overall I guess it is more of an case for me of having the best solution to meet the requirements of the workload in the shortest time. If that means prosumer power surpassing the dwindling need of industrial power then it is a route that will have to be taken. You are totally right about the variance of "higher than hardware" development rates, maybe areas like print.
Again sorry for the vagueness, Cracked me up about Yoda though, imagined him giving me a look of shame ha ha! I guess I was working to the habit of our iMacs over heating and having a thermal shutdown when rendering as part of a deadline network render, the size issue comes in as the current technology and its restrictions of temperature to power then trying to keep all of this cool in tightly packed units (loosely structure on my basic knowledge of physics). Again the theory is there and can be argued both ways as lower voltage processors can run cooler, new cooling systems etc all bring down the need of size.
I like your comment of 'mastering the treadmill to survive', hopefully a solution that will be that extra step closer to mastering the treadmill sooner or later.
Good input though, thanks.
I'll ask again - have you EVER rendered an after effects project? A single processor with limited ram is simply NOT "so much power" and you just sound more and more foolish everytime this "imacs are so powerful" argument is made.
There are applications out there that need more cores and more ram. End of story. Will a new imac run them faster than an old mac pro from years ago, perhaps. But a new imac will get TROUNCED BADLY by a new xeon based system with double the cores and much more ram.
Please quit embarrassing yourself trying to claim that imacs offer what high end machines do.
You're being incredibly unimaginative here. No one cares about elegance if they're working on a job. They don't back up their chair and admire the aesthetics. They don't marvel over specs. You buy a computer to solve a problem. If no problem exists, you don't buy a new one at all. Your problem is that you assume you know what would benefit others and that the resistance is solely out of familiarity toward a known working solution. Beyond that noticing an increase in laptops doesn't make you a genius. I could have told you the same thing would happen ten years ago. It happens whenever growth at the low end surpasses the acceleration of mid range computing requirements for enough people. Noticing this a decade after the trend toward laptops ramped up (it accelerated even more around the time of the first macbooks) does not mean you have any kind of insight.
When I buy a drill, I always choose the brand that exudes quality and elegance. One that tells the world the owner has exquisite taste and refinement in his choice of power tools. I want a drill that that advertises itself by its sleek, compact, industrial design.
This...(dramatic pause)...is why I refuse to buy anything other than Makita's line of 8-Volt battery powered drills. It's perfect for everything I need a drill for. If I want to make a birdhouse, I can do it with style. A foot stool? Easily done with the one drill that defined the industry. No other drill has the same user experience, or offers such a tightly integrated ecosystem with other power tools as a Makita.
Face up to the facts, people. Small 8-volt drills are the future. Makita has shown us the way. Anyone who claims otherwise, claims they can't do their job without at least a 24-volt hammer drill, are either too ignorant to fully grasp the concepts and innovations Makita has kindly bestowed upon us, or are stodgy dinosaurs on the slow march to their technological graves.
No one needs big drills anymore. Makita knows what's best for us. If you still ignorantly believe otherwise, you can always lower your standards and buy a...heh...Dewalt.
edit: Dewaltards.
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Pfft. 24V? Seriously? If it's not 3-phase mains powered don't even bother. You're trying to pretend you know the business, but you call a 24V thing a 'Pro' device?
(PS: nice work buddy!)
Thanks everyone. It's always good getting confirmation that I am, in fact, quite witty in the internet.
There will be a new Mac Pro after all.
This is probably the next best thing to a press release from Apple confirming it. Gruber and Dalrymple routinely leak information that I assume Apple wants to put out there. I guess they do it through guys like these two so as not being seen as themselves responding to wild speculation.I'm disappointed Apple is going to continue wasting time on this high-end stuff. But I guess I can be happy for those of you who think you still need a monster truck as your work computer.
Offering options to those who need it is never a waste of time. If anything, Apple should "waste" more time on options, higher-end, lower-end etc..
I tried to use a newer top of the line iMac to work while the logic board of my MP was being replaced. An iMac can absolutley NOT take the place of a MP for any real task. If you are using iMovie maybe.....
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I'm disappointed Apple is going to continue wasting time on this high-end stuff. But I guess I can be happy for those of you who think you still need a monster truck as your work computer.
Time is money and waiting for a computer to finish a task costs me time, which in turn costs me money. I am happy to pay more for a computer that saves me time. Just because you don't need a high performance computer doesn't mean people who do only think they do.
I'm always skeptical of people who say they need it. I had some idiot developer tell me they needed a Mac Pro, a real computer, for their work. Then one day I watched what he was doing for a living: coding PHP applications in BBEdit and pushing their work using git or transmit when straight to server.
Graphics and video editing (final cut, premiere pro) is easily possible on the latest models of iMac and MBP. I'm sure there are people who legitimately need all the power of the MP and will benefit from the next speed bump. But I think that group of people is growing smaller by the year.
I'm always skeptical of people who say they need it. I had some idiot developer tell me they needed a Mac Pro, a real computer, for their work. Then one day I watched what he was doing for a living: coding PHP applications in BBEdit and pushing their work using git or transmit when straight to server.
Graphics and video editing (final cut, premiere pro) is easily possible on the latest models of iMac and MBP. I'm sure there are people who legitimately need all the power of the MP and will benefit from the next speed bump. But I think that group of people is growing smaller by the year.
You've got the location of the cart and the horse confused.
I'm, refering of course, to the cause and effect of the situation.
The reason the group of people is growing smaller is not because a lot of people don't want a Mac Pro, it's because of Apple's failure to update it on a regular basis, severely limit it's options, no i7 models, only one ACD and it's terrible value as it ages and remains at the originall price.
And last, but not least, many frustrated power users are moving on to HP, Dell, BOXX and other workstations. One day, there'll be an announcement that not enough people are interested in the Mac Pro and the gullible will nod their sad visages in agreement.
The simple fact is a lot of people do not want external hard drives cluttering up their workspace.
If you can have four hard drives not taking up space on your desk AND be using a real desktop GPU please tell me which Mac to buy.
If you can have four hard drives not taking up space on your desk AND be using a real desktop GPU please tell me which Mac to buy.
Not necessarily.
I'm not suggesting "open licensing" of Apple OSX on any piece of hardware, and supporting the myriad configurations possible.
I'm suggesting that Apple identify a partner, and "bless" a small number of configurations. Apple engineers would develop and test on those same configurations - so the "tight integration" would still exist. (By the way, since an HP or Dell workstation uses the same parts as a Mac Pro, the "tight integration" isn't anything in the hardware - it's primarily due to Apple having a very limited set of configurations to test.)
The new Mac Pros:
Apple could even re-skin them if they wanted to sell them with an Apple logo.
I'm always skeptical of people who say they need it. I had some idiot developer tell me they needed a Mac Pro, a real computer, for their work. Then one day I watched what he was doing for a living: coding PHP applications in BBEdit and pushing their work using git or transmit when straight to server.
Graphics and video editing (final cut, premiere pro) is easily possible on the latest models of iMac and MBP. I'm sure there are people who legitimately need all the power of the MP and will benefit from the next speed bump. But I think that group of people is growing smaller by the year.
See now..... when you give your one example you make a point for that person only wanting one. Rather than the very general statement that Mac Pro's are unnecessary. I'm here to tell ya, there are a bunch of people who cannot substitute an iMac for a Mac Pro and I am one of them.
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Possible is you have no deadlines. Another word comes to mind also....painful.
Need, want, whatever. A sale is a sale. What the heck do you care? You should only speak for yourself. I need because I want, period, end of sentence, if anyone must know!
I'm disappointed Apple is going to continue wasting time on this high-end stuff. But I guess I can be happy for those of you who think you still need a monster truck as your work computer.
Why should you care? Just because you don't need it, there is no need to knock those who do, and they do, despite your unwillingness as someone who clearly knows nothing about media heavy video and graphics editing to acknowledge the views of those who do it for a living, and who produce much of the media you might watch on your iToys. We can all switch to Windows, but that doesn't mean we don't need the machines.
How strange is it that there is actually a small contingent of people actually wishing for the demise of the Mac Pro? Where do these people come from?
We have been debating the need for the Mac Pro line to exist, and the reasons why Apple may or may not kill it off. You may find this link useful. I don't care why you or anyone else buys one. If Apple continues to see a valuable market for the Mac Pro, and you and others want to buy updated models, great. It's good for AAPL.
We've been having a discussion. I've put forward some views why Apple may kill the Mac Pro without doing another refresh. Clearly I was wrong and Apple is going to offer customers the chance to buy faster Mac Pros this year. I don't do heavy duty video editing that much is true. But I do know people who do it on MacBook Pros when shooting on location, and use iMacs in their office for the final process.
Personally I like it when Apple takes brave decisions killing things off and focuses on the future with new products. But I'm also happy if Apple still sees good business in making you guys happy by continuing the Mac Pros.
HP Z820 offers up to 512 GB RAM and somebody is arguing that a 16GB Macbook is all the world needs. It will be 1TB in, say, a year and there is certainly a need for it. More memory and more computing power can solve larger problems. Why not launch the Mac Pro with 1TB tomorrow?
Anybody who has a pun for 1TB & Tim? Simply call it the Mac iT? Or spell it out, iTerra - sounds down to earth.
Anybody who has a pun for 1TB & Tim? Simply call it the Mac iT? Or spell it out, iTerra - sounds down to earth.