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Mac Pro Update Now Possible with New Xeon E5 Chips Next Week

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ericinboston said:
1)"Yes, it is a niche. But so what?"...that's my whole argument about WHY Apple MAY CHOOSE to kill this line.

2)You are mistaken (this is the 2nd time I've told you)...the $2500 Mac is 4 Core. 4 Core. 4 Core. Go read it: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

3)As for comparing 12core workstations, no, I really don't have any history or comparing such machines...and I'm not going to bother...because now you're getting at the top of the line Macs for huge amounts of money...folks buying those are, again, needing it for niche uses.


Also, don't think the a/v world and publishing world heavily rely on the Mac. This isn't 1990. Wintel platforms stepped into those markets in the mid-90s and own the space...Mac no longer owns those spaces. A player? Yes.
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Four Xeon cores trump four Corei7 cores.
 
osx11 said:
It's great thinking about the possibilities that Thunderbolt will one day provide. However, thunderbolt technology for external drives ONLY makes sense with SSD.

So unless SSD prices start dropping dramatically in the very near future, few people are going to take advantage of this technology.

In a few years, It'd be interesting to see what percentage of 2011 thunderbolt-equipped Macs will ever have used that technology. So far, thunderbolt is pretty much a feature that is theoretically awesome but way too overpriced.
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Agree totally

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PeterQVenkman said:
Thanks for the links, but I was wondering about other, less expensive ways to hold multiple hard drives in an external enclosure. :)

There's this thing:
http://www.newertech.com/products/hdddocks.php

but it's notoriously low quality.
Click to expand...

Check this out... Even better!
Receive it yesterday after ..well 2 monts (BO)

http://blog.macsales.com/13133-owc-...bus-powered-usb-3-0-portable-storage-solution

With SSD 6G ,it's my solution before Thunderbolt become more prevalent...
 
I have a 2007 MacPro 1,1. I love having 4 drives. SSD as the boot/application drive, all my data is on drive 2, drive three is a back-up of the data drive (thank you Super Duper) and the last drive is partitioned (1 for a monthly backup of the boot drive and one for Windows/parallels). With Thunderbolt, I can envision a small case with the CPU/board, a discrete Graphics card and one or two extra slots, but no drives. All the drives would be Thunderbolt, so you add what you want and they will run like they are all inside a MacPro. I could live with that. I do not want to string together thunderbolt drives to an iMac with a fair graphics card. Time will tell.

(BTW, my almost 5-year old MacPro hums along like it did when I got it...actually, with the SSD boot drive, it's quite perky!)
 
Rot'nApple said:
How many times have you upgraded your 2006 Mac Pro to keep it viable, I'm curious to know? I have a 2006 24" white iMac first Intel chip one and I'm gonna be in the market soon for a new iMac. My old one, as is, served me well, and I never once thought about, 'man I wish I could upgrade or expand this thing'! With the new iMacs, I'd be looking at bumping up the RAM but that is the extent of upgrades and expandability that I'd be concerned about.



Please, and seriously, I mean no disrespect, but aren't you and other Mac Pro users Apple's niche market?

I myself have had three what can be considered early version MacPro's before switching to two iMacs on my way to a third. In all the time I had my three power machines, I never once cared to upgrade or expand even if I could. Even today, RAM is about my only concern for the iMac, but swapping out graphics cards or new processors or Hard Drives or whatever the more inquisitive people do with their PowerMacs, I never had an inkling! I'm sure by shear numbers that your average iMac user feels the same. Plug it in and go to work irrespective of whether I can add to it 3 - 5 years down the road.

Again, it's nice that you have the smarts and capabilities to enhance your MacPro... Me?! I'd just break something if I ever tried to enhance. So, I'm usually content with the offerings out there, as I bet most people are who are in Best Buy to buy their iMacs so as to own a computer to do the lesser things in the first place, are too!

Again, not meaning to rile you or anyone or start a PowerMac versus iMac argument or anything like that. Just trying a nice conversation! Thanks...
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That the Mac Pro is not for you, doesn't make it a 'niche' product.
It's a 'professional' product, but not a niche one (the clue is in the name).
If you produce music, edit video, render 3d Models, or do heavy duty DTP (Photoshop, Indesign etc), multiple Hard Drives, upgradable graphics CPU's and extra PCIe slots are an absolute must.
Millions of people around the globe do all of the above every day and a lot of them use Mac Pro's to do it.
Not to mention the multiple monitors, dual gigabit ethernet and dual optical drives - my second optical drive is a Blu Ray writer.
My wife has a 27" Quad Core i7 iMac and it's great, but it's no match for my 8 Core Mac Pro and my 2 x 30" (non glossy) displays.
An iMac (great as it is), simply isn't a viable alternative to those who NEED a Mac Pro. It was only an alternative for you as you obviously didn't.
I can't wait for the new Mac Pro's to be announced and I'll be getting one when/if they do announce them.
 
ericinboston said:
Basically because:

1)The Mac Pro is ridiculously expensive (especially in comparison to Wintel workstations/high end boxes)

2)iMacs are really pretty powerful for much cheaper...sure, they're not the exact same performance as a $3000 MacPro but unless you really really really really need that 10-20% performance gain of a MacPro (compared to a high end iMac), it's not worth it...might as well buy 2 iMacs...or, golly, just wait the extra 2 minutes while rendering something.

3)Nobody buys MacPros (mainly for the 2 reasons above) unless there is some super special need/niche...and for the folks who like to brag that they spent $2500+ on a computer with daddy's money.


My friend has a higher end $1700 iMac 27" and as for cpu cycles is concerned, the thing flies. But that's using specialty software that uses all the cores 100% of the time at full throttle. For the rest of his use, the machine still flies. Mac Pro starts at $2500 and has no monitor and a pathetic 3GB RAM installation. So again, $800 more expensive and the performance is similar. Once you start upgrading the Mac Pro you're really at $3000 minimum...so why not buy 2 iMacs? Sure, every situation is different but the MacPros really fit into a small niche.
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What your describing is why people want an update to the mac pro.
It is outdated. when it just came out it was worth what it cost and was comparable to other pc workstations.

You are giving the reasons why everyone is frustrated and wants an update. To say an imac is good enough is simply false for the high end applications pro users are looking for.
 
kalsta said:
Aw… Wooks wike somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning… And then accidentally wandered into the wrong thread!



Let me guess, you're twenty-something?



You're quite right… Apple was saved by all those things after Steve Jobs returned in 1997. But you know what? Apple wouldn't even have made it to 1997 if it weren't for those of us who continued to fork out money for expensive machines from a company which we were constantly told had no future.

All you spoilt ingrates should be thanking us ol' timers, 'cos if no one was buying Macs through the 'dark years', there would be no iMac, no iPod, no iPhone and no iPad. :p
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Just as I said, someone who thinks their purchase ages ago entitles them to something from Apple and who think iPod users owe them some gratitude. Guess you'll have to get your validation somewhere else. You're not as important or consequential as you wish you were.
 
Capt Underpants said:
Apple is moving the Mac Pro towards a two-year update cycle. We won't see this for a while.
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Well, I thought it was funny.

Anyway, my 5/2009 Octo still has a ways to go, thankfully. I don't know what I'd do without the expandability the MP provides. I guess have hard drives sitting all over my desk. In a year or so it will be time to start upping the RAM & GFX. Love this thing.

:apple:
 
Oh please please please be soon! I need a new Pro at my job and they want to provide me one but I've been telling him to hold off until they finally release a new model. (Why pay 300% above it's actual worth?)
 
Another thought on: "But Thunderbolt is the future!"

The Mac Pro case is a brilliant functional design, both in ease of accessibility (anyone who has built a PC box from parts can attest to this) and the efficiency of its cooling system. If suddenly you replace the Mac Pro with an iMac with Thunderbolt enclosures, now you have separate cooling systems for each enclosure, most of which will use cheap, loud fans that will be unusable for things like audio recording work and also more susceptible to breaking and frying your critical components.

I buy Mac hardware because I dealt with PC boxes for too long. I built my own rigs with quality parts, and they still didn't approach what the Mac Pro gives me in terms of reliability and consistency (i.e. I don't have to mess around with the BIOS just to get PCI cards to play nice together). Putting my upgrade parts into Thunderbolt enclosures is going a bit back into dodgy PC land. As a creative professional/musician/software developer, I don't have time to mess with hardware. I just need it to work and get on with my mountain of tasks. If Apple kills the Mac Pro, I don't know what the alternative for my needs would be, but whether it's another Mac model or it's a PC box, it won't be pretty.
 
StefSSU said:
Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web on a "niche" NeXT computer. This is what I mean. The niche are those who create. As long as the area is profitable for Apple, and doesn't consume excessive resources, why not continue to take part?

I wasn't talking about the Quad core base MP for a very good reason - you're right, it doesn't represent great value IMO. This doesn't mean however that the same is true for the rest of the lineup. I mention the 8 and 12 core specifically as these machines use dual socket-able CPU's, something only possible with Xeon processors, therefore conveying how these machines cannot be compared to those with non-Xeon CPU's. But even comparing the base quad MP vs an iMac? Again, heat, low noise, multiple drive bays, no integrated screen (meaning keep existing screen across multiple computers), PCIe slots, non-mobile graphics, ECC memory, etc. The list goes on. In general, the components are of much higher quality, thus higher reliability too, and increased longevity especially through expansion.

Sure Apple will inevitably kill it off one day. Thunderbolt goes a long way towards this. But today that is not the reality. You do not get the same performance, and many configurations are simply impossible.
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Although we've gone round and round a bit, I think you and I agree on most of it.

Yes, niche can be good or bad...if you build a product that serves a very particular (niche) interest and are the dominant player, that's very good. But if you solve a niche interest and are no longer a dominant player, niche *can* be bad. In my view, the Mac Pro line is a dying breed for Apple...if not dead already or on life support. Once upon a time the Mac owned a lot of spaces in this world...now it owns none. The Mac line has transformed 1/2 a dozen times since its inception and in my view that's too much. Apple started the death of the high end Mac line in the mid 90s when they stopped making numerous models and starting aiming at sexy Macs for the consumers. Gone were a lot of the beige boxes that you could open easily and play just like most PCs. Now you have 1 box like that (Mac Pro), 1 iMac series, and 1 Mini which until very recently, was un-upgradeable by the common man.

My overall feeling is the Mac Pro will be no longer be offered soon. Maybe this next release will be it. I can see Apple execs looking at each other and asking "why do we continue to make this super high end niche unit for 20,000 customers a year when we can concentrate our efforts and profits on iPhones, tablets, iMacs, TVs, etc. that will EACH sell tens of millions year after year?" I'm sure Apple is making a profit on the Pro....but it seems to be a lot of effort and overhead for something that sells in such small numbers...especially numbers compared to all Apple products in the past 12 years. The Pro reminds me a lot of the iPod Classic...boy do I love my 160GB Classic but ya know, it's just so niche.
 
ericinboston said:
Phew! So the 89 pro-sumers in the market for a Mac Pro will be happy. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple killed the Mac Pro line this year.
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Wow I'm so surprised Ferrari came out with the F12Berlinetta. Not many people are in the market so they should have just abandoned making v12 cars altogether since they don't sell many. :cool: Its the exact same principle as the Mac Pro...
 
O and A said:
...To say an imac is good enough is simply false for the high end applications pro users are looking for.
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You're not re-stating me accurately. :)

I'm saying high end quad-core iMacs are far CHEAPER and have COMPARABLE performance to LOW END quad-core Pros. $800 cheaper and 10-20% performance difference.

Yes, of course, if you want to go grab a 12-core core 32GB Mac Pro for some specialty, every-second-counts-while-we-render-Pixar-movies, that is a different story. Or if you run your cpus at 100% 24x7 (literally) to solve distributed computing problems and have money to blow, yes, a high(er) end Mac Pro will be welcome.

There is no perfect example I can give to cover all use cases, all owners, all performance needs, and all prices. :)
 
aliensporebomb said:
Four Xeon cores trump four Corei7 cores.
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Oh yeah? Really? :rolleyes: In terms of what? Price? Sure!!

Because last time I check, performance wise, i7 2600 on top end 2011 27" iMac beat the $h1t out of "Nehalem" Xeon W3530 found on basic 2010 MacPro. And it's a fair quad core CPU comparison, no 6, 8 , or 12 cores of course!

Not convinced? Check for yourself!
 
raysfan81 said:
Wow I'm so surprised Ferrari came out with the F12Berlinetta. Not many people are in the market so they should have just abandoned making v12 cars altogether since they don't sell many. :cool: Its the exact same principle as the Mac Pro...
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So Ferrari also sells other items that are not cars?

Last time I checked, Apple sells a number of product lines, 1 of which is Macs. Ferrari, um, sells 1 product line. Not to mention that Ferrari is an EXTREMELY NICHE player in the auto industry...worldwide. So 1 company that sells 1 product line (cars) all of which are priced so high and made in such limited quantity that the company and brand name is synonymous with "niche"

Not the same comparison of companies.
 
ericinboston said:
The Mac line has transformed 1/2 a dozen times since its inception and in my view that's too much. Apple started the death of the high end Mac line in the mid 90s when they stopped making numerous models and starting aiming at sexy Macs for the consumers. Gone were a lot of the beige boxes that you could open easily and play just like most PCs. Now you have 1 box like that (Mac Pro), 1 iMac series, and 1 Mini which until very recently, was un-upgradeable by the common man.
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I don't quite agree with this. This has more to do with Steve Jobs:
* Mac 512, Plus, SE (Steve Jobs)
* Mac II headless box series (post-Steve Jobs)
* Mac Quadra/Performa...too much product proliferation. From what I heard, the Performas were hell to upgrade. I worked at a uni computer store during this time and it was even hard for us to keep track, let alone potential customers, and most Macs saw significant manufacturing delays. The latter being a huge problem.
* PowerMac series, which replaced the Quadra series. Some great models and some real stinkers.
* iMac (Steve Jobs return), basically the reboot of the Mac Plus.
* Mac Cube -- Mac Plus for rich executives
* Mac Pro, the new face of the PowerMac.

So if you notice, Apple had headless desktop models all through the Mac lineage after Jobs left. When he came back, he introduced another all-in-one, because he considered computers to be appliances, and he knew that was the key to getting revenue back on track. He also gutted the midrange Performa series, and we haven't seen a headless midrange Mac since. He could've killed the PowerMacs too, but he probably knew Apple pro market would revolt and he couldn't have a mutiny on his hands while trying to get Apple back on track.

So, to sum up, the only big changes in the Apple line happened when Steve left and when Steve came back. The number of separate high-end models Apple sold was paired down to one, but this was just marketing. You could still get a faster CPU and whatnot, it just wasn't going to be a separate model name anymore. But overall, Apple has had all-in-ones and headless Macs the whole way through. If even Steve Jobs didn't get rid of the Mac towers, I can't imagine Tim Cook will. But who knows.
 
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osx11 said:
It's great thinking about the possibilities that Thunderbolt will one day provide. However, thunderbolt technology for external drives ONLY makes sense with SSD.
Click to expand...

That's absurd.

You don't have to saturate the bus with one drive for it to "make sense".

Anyone with multiple drives, or multiple different types of devices, can benefit from T-Bolt letting them all run at full speed. Anyone with a T-Bolt docking station or other multi-function T-Bolt hub can benefit.


scott911 said:
I volunteer with a small non-profit where design work is an important component of the mission, and right now they use... PC's :eek:

yeah right?,

seriously - how can they be saving the world, working in an environment like that? ;)
Click to expand...

If they're using Adobe or other cross-platform tools, does it really matter if the tools are running on Windows or Apple OSX?


StefSSU said:
Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web on a "niche" NeXT computer.
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Yes - but the web didn't begin to take off until the CERN HTTP server for VAX/VMS was made available, as well as clients for VMS and the multitude of incompatible UNIX systems in the very early '90s.

If the web depended on NeXT, it would have been a "web" of one computer.
 
StefSSU said:
Yes, it is niche. But so what? If Apple can make any profit at all in this area then it is still worth pursuing.

With regards to point 3... Go on. Seriously, go out and find me an example of a comparable workstation to in particular the base 8 core and 12 core Mac Pro's. For reasons I've already explained, i7's are not comparable to Xeons. Remember that today is day 583 after the MP was last updated, and that because Apple does not lower there prices these machines were at their best value more than a year and a half ago. Still, my guess is that if you were to configure a comparable windows box that actually used the same components as the MP it would be much more expensive than you think. And that is ignoring many things such as service, software (OS X), enclosure, etc.



For consistency we can only compare the full prices that each company provides, we'd be going in circles to talk abput discounts, special deals, etc. You'd have to consider refurbished macs, and the excellent educational discounts for example (in particular the edu discounts the applecare very significantly, which is pretty important in a workstation).

And no, you're not forced to go Dell, but give us an example. I've seen countless comparisons to Dell and HP in particular vs Mac Pro's and for the most part Apple is very competitive here price wise. They are generally more expensive when considering optional upgrades, and pro grade GPU's (Quadro / FirePro), but competitors generally lack an enclosure of the same quality, don't run OS X. Also, especially with Applecare, apple's service is highly respected. I won't argue which is slightly better value, since we all value these aspects differently. But I will argue that Apple is very competitive here in it's pricing.
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StefSSU said:
Well I hate to break it to you but it's not all roses on the other side either. I prefer using macs yes, but that's mainly because their laptops are far superior to any of the competition, although I do like OS X. I'd be lying if I told you that I've never had any hardware or software problems. I've had many. Hardware wise, well the machines pretty much use the same internals these days, generally Apple stuff can be expected to be well tested, but that is not always the case. Software? Windows 7 is a massive improvement, and I thought it would be enough. But to be honest? Due to an HDD failure I was forced to run Win 7 exclusively for a few weeks. I hated it. It's a great OS, but IMO OS X is better.

You're probably going to have loads of issues at first, especially if you're new to OS X. But the nice thing is that it's generally easier to find a solution. The Mac community is great and really helpful (macrumors is an excellent forst stop), and especially if you have Applecare and live relatively near an Apple store the service is generally great.

The future of OS X and professional Macs is a bit worrying, but I wouldn't hesitate to try it. Just don't jump in expecting the perfect world the marketing preaches it to be. There are caveats, and even many ways that windows is simply better. At least you always have the option to run windows on a mac.
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Thank you for your considerate reply, I really do appreciate it. as someone who has been around this equiptment long enough to know what you are talking about.. Although I am 55 years old and learned long ago there are no perfect worlds... Still I believe I am making a wise move to a company that cares about quality and the users of their products experience with them. Adversly, I dont believe Microsoft or its many vendors or hardware affiliates care anything about you accept to get your money and get you out the door. And it will be so much fun cause as Forest Gump says "Ya never know what yer gowna geait".... I may find I am wrong but I think I can trust Apple a little more than that... Thanks again:)
 
StefSSU said:
These are not last gen CPU's. Yes they are based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, but these Xeons are brand new. While I have no idea why it took Intel this long to release the SNB Xeons, these are as up to date as you can get for any workstation. Ivy Bridge is slated for sometime in the middle of this year, yes. But that does not include workstation and server class dual-socketable CPU's aka Xeons that all Mac Pro's use.
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I get the impression that Intel is chasing the MONEY. The lion's share of the sales in CPU's are for laptops and notebooks... and the now emerging segment of Ultrabooks, thanks to the success of the MacBook Air. So the "Lightweight" ivy bridge chips will be coming out just as the E5-series Sandy Bridge Xeon chips are getting into machines. Remember the days when the heavy iron came out first? Now the server tech is developed LAST. Apple could just wait out till 2013 for Xeon Ivy Bridge CPUs. I don't think they will, but it would not surprise me either. Apple's attention is very focused on iDevices and laptops. The Mac Pro no longer even gets it's own bench or display graphics in Apple Stores any more... and I'm in the NYC area, where we have some BIG ASS Apple Stores.

But I am already bummed.

I was hoping to hold out, but had to upgrade from my papered - and still perfectly functional G5 tower - to a Mac Pro in November. I needed to run Adobe Creative Suite CS5, which doesn't run on non-intel macs. InDesign being the recalcitrant bastard, where older versions can't open the new version's files hardly at all one version back, and not at ALL in older versions. I wanted the greater service life and expandability compared to an iMac 27", so picked up the mid level 2 x 2.5 Gz Quad Core. It's still a damn muscular and shiny beast. I DO like it very much. Most of the time the CPU meters in Activity Monitor don't twitch much at all. I should have this WORKstation for a while.

But I can't imagine Apple NOT enabling Thunderbolt on the MPs next go-around, they've been waving the TB flag for the entire product line. I am wondering how they plan to enable Thunderbolt on the MP platform. Pros still need to use 3rd party displays, and firewire tech and a raft of esoteric peripherals, so really shouldn't dispose of the existing selection of ports. But I can easily see that like blu-ray, Apple could just not bother with supporting USB 3 or E-SATA in favor of Thunderbolt. We might also see that optical drives become build-to-order options and not standard. If they change the case, the optical slots might very likely go away, and leave disc tech to external devices. Apple is quite obviously no longer interested in Optical Tech in favor of the Cloud.

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petsounds said:
* Mac II headless box series (post-Steve Jobs)
* Mac Quadra/Performa...too much product proliferation. From what I heard, the Performas were hell to upgrade. I worked at a uni computer store during this time and it was even hard for us to keep track, let alone potential customers, and most Macs saw significant manufacturing delays. The latter being a huge problem.
Click to expand...

Back in the day, I once had a Mac IIvx... and while a fairly capable machine, had its' issues. While pretty easy to open up, changed out TWO CD-ROM Drives with just a screwdriver... the RAM was another story.. bruised knuckles and danger of electrocution.. and VRAM was worse. The bank was behind and UNDER the power suppy. Had to change that out with chopsticks and forceps.

When Apple Introduced the Power Mac series, with the fold down side and easy access to the guts of the machines, I knew they were on to something cool!
 
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