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Next Mac Pro is a dead-end
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How many people are going to be doing CPU upgrades to a Mac Pro?
I know a few people here may do so, but it would have little bearing on 99% of buyers.
I know a few people here may do so, but it would have little bearing on 99% of buyers.
And by the time the tech makes its way into a Mac Pro and has a chance to work the bugs out and have the memotry controller on the CPU (in two product generations) my Mac Pro will be around 4 year old and I'll be ready to upgrade.
Very few computes have ever been "upgradable". I've replaced the CPU in exacly one machine. All the others required new motherboards and/or new memory - a new power supply. New case. New Graphics card. New hard disk. etc. etc. With the move the the fast paced world of intel - this was inevitable for Macs too. Better off just buying a whole new rig. Perhaps keep the HDs (if they will work with whatever is being as a replacemnt for the current SATA standard). Monitor could still be up to the job (but the industry is squabbling over the replacment for HDMI and DVI so I'm not banking of anything I have working with the latest and greatest).
Of course in 3 years everyone will want to hang one just a bit longer for the "next big thing".
Huh? I upgrade CPU/VideoCard/HDDs/Memory all the time. Granted when sockets change you have no choice. But it's happened way more than one occassion. Just because the Apple crowd accustomed to buying an entirely new computer every time they want something new, doesn't meant the rest of us do. Mobo/CPU/RAM are typically ALL that is changed when upgrading to new chipset. Video cards, hdds, drives, case,power supply go along for the ride.And by the time the tech makes its way into a Mac Pro and has a chance to work the bugs out and have the memotry controller on the CPU (in two product generations) my Mac Pro will be around 4 year old and I'll be ready to upgrade.
Very few computes have ever been "upgradable". I've replaced the CPU in exacly one machine. All the others required new motherboards and/or new memory - a new power supply. New case. New Graphics card. New hard disk. etc. etc. With the move the the fast paced world of intel - this was inevitable for Macs too. Better off just buying a whole new rig. Perhaps keep the HDs (if they will work with whatever is being as a replacemnt for the current SATA standard). Monitor could still be up to the job (but the industry is squabbling over the replacment for HDMI and DVI so I'm not banking of anything I have working with the latest and greatest).
Of course in 3 years everyone will want to hang one just a bit longer for the "next big thing".
I've only been using Macs for the last two years.
40MHz 386. kind of hard to upgrade to a 486, and impossible to upgrade to a Pentium. I bought a new P90 system. Of course that was the max speed the motherboard would do, so upgrade from there requires a new MB. And memory. And case (the case did not accept the new format MBs). And memory. Putting a PII in there was out of the question (slot 1 CPU now - with ATX MBs requiring yet another case - and an ATX PSU - and a memory). Next upgrade was to a ABit MB that could run two Celeron CPUs (socket style again). Next came the wonders of the Xeon CPU - a duel 2GHs system. New board. New socket. Needed a new PSU. AGPx4 video card - and RamBus memoey whooohoooo!. Shure - could upgrade the CPUs in that sucker - IF the MB manufacture would sell me the VRMs to deal with the shift in voltages with new CPUs (they didn't - was like talking to a brick wall). Looking at moving on from there - there is a new PSU format come in since - and new memory - and PCI express video - and the CPUs will not work in any of the currnt boards. I just bought a Mac Pro.
IF you change parts every couple of months then perhaps compatibility is not too much of a problem. Try an upgrade on a machine that is more than a couple of years old - best of luck to you.
That is why myself and many others don't keep around 2 year old computers. And I'm not talking about upgrading from one chipset to another, I'm talking about upgrading to the max CPU/Memory/whatever of that current chipset. Obviously you can't skip generations and expect it to just fit.
Not even close. Have you ever built a PC before? For $3-400 you can upgrade all 3 to some pretty respectable components. Considering highend video cards will run you $500 easy, $3-400 for the core stuff is trivial.
Unless you buy a Mac Pro right now with the x1900xt. That card will run you $400.00 overall, even though it's almost two year old tech (released January 2006). Keep in mind an 8800GTX 640 meg can be had for ~$330.
However, updating all the components you speak of on a PC, and adding a relatively high-end card shouldn't run more than $600 if you know where to buy and when to buy.
but you could almost build a whole new pc for not much more than that. granted, it wouldn't be top of the line, but better than what you already had
Yeah, because the underlying technology changed very little from 1999 to the MDD introduction. That's not exactly what most people would call a positive. Most people would call that being stagnant.
Essentially, every computer you buy is a 'dead end' at some point in time. The question is what are you using it for? If you use it for high end stuff and the inputs and outputs stay the same for sy video editing why would anyone need to change? Ifthe input and output requirements change and you need more power then yes time to upgrade.
It seems as if the best route is to flip the mac every 2-3 years depending on resale value and essentially getting the latest for anywhare from a couple hundred bucks to a grand on the Mac Pro.
It seems as if the best route is to flip the mac every 2-3 years depending on resale value and essentially getting the latest for anywhare from a couple hundred bucks to a grand on the Mac Pro.
Well if you're trying to say it's the last of it kind, you might be right.
It really doesn't make sense to create 16 core machines this way, also there is not much clock speed increase to go as wel. I seriously doubt 16 core machines (this way) will ever be developed. Just like the P4 was the end of the clock speed generation, i think this will be the end station of the multi-core race in it's current form.
Next generation x86 processors will be quite different, with more control over different cores and specialized cores for certain tasks.
The x86 will gradually evolve toward essentially being cell processors.
It really doesn't make sense to create 16 core machines this way, also there is not much clock speed increase to go as wel. I seriously doubt 16 core machines (this way) will ever be developed. Just like the P4 was the end of the clock speed generation, i think this will be the end station of the multi-core race in it's current form.
Next generation x86 processors will be quite different, with more control over different cores and specialized cores for certain tasks.
The x86 will gradually evolve toward essentially being cell processors.
So that's good for us current Mac Pro owners, this time next year once our dead end systems need a boost, we can throw in an 8 core CPU which are available now for probably $500 and hopefully by then there's a legit Mac Video card with a little more balls for $500.
I'd think that system would last pretty long at my house doing audio recording and mixing. Mind you the Stalk 2.66 is doing just fine right now, I haven't maxed it out yet.
Later
B
I'd think that system would last pretty long at my house doing audio recording and mixing. Mind you the Stalk 2.66 is doing just fine right now, I haven't maxed it out yet.
Later
B
I think the person you are reffering two meant 2 quad cores. since after..nehelem(sp) comes out the quad core clovertown prices should drop.
I just know that buying a powermac, you'll need to max out the memory while it's still availabe, and supply is already tightening up, so the promise of cheap FB-DIMMS for all is gone.
But you're assuming there will be a market for 8-cores on a single chip by then, and it will come by '09? Somehow I doubt the die size/heat dissipation for 8-core on the chip will materialize until 2010, with <32nm process, just my guess. But as to the thread title, as others have explained, while it had been a tradition on pre-Intel with PPC, and aways the case for so many more on the PC side, Apple has never to my thinking specifically designed any of their systems with the idea of upgrading older CPU's (even if they do authorize aftermarket solutions like Daystar as 'official' Apple service centers)...they'd rather you buy a new system every week and make Steve-0 the top 10 richest Americans, just like M$ wants to you buy Vista, lol.
So true "termina8" or is it "termina3"
, the prior poster needs to run that through spell checker, lol.Spikenator's drinks are spiked?
...haha, I'm not the only one who can't remember how to spell all those silly code names Intel has for CPU's...reefering .Contextual figure of speech 'cube', but then maybe you meant to put a
at the end of your reply post? Only thing I recall being a 'promise' of cheap anything in the computer industry, was that $100 laptop initiative for developing nation's children that has skyrocketed in price.