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OWC Debuts First Intel Xeon Processor Upgrades for 2013 Mac Pro

Iconoclysm said:
I hope this was sarcasm...because your gaming rig wouldn't have a chance to keep up with this without spending as much as the price of this in upgrades.

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Name one as portable and that takes up such little space as well as remains as quiet, is as cost effective, and uses as little power.
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Not really... Some Core i7 processor crashes the lower tire of Mac Pro. Also you can pretty much build a server grade PC with much lower cost.

I do not care if it take small space, it gonna sit there and never move again. I never get the idea of make desktop PC smaller with no or limited upgradability and expandability.
 
cgc said:
These aren't Apple sanctioned, they comply with Apple's technical specifications (e.g. power consumption, heat generation/dissipation, etc.). Completely different.
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If it's not Apple sanctioned, where are they getting the technical specifications from for the CPUs? That's not public info. That's why they're not completely different things. Apple doesn't have a public tech note anywhere that gives out that information.

The only reason Apple would disclose that information is if they intended for the processors to be swappable for repair parts that didn't come from Apple originally.
 
ChrisA said:
It will be a long time before we can do that world wide but we can do exactly as I described above within one building or campus. Today it is cost effective to install fiber optic cables in building and campuses. Gigabit level bandwidth is common within building today. This will grow. In 100 years no one will even know where data is. It will liley be widely distributed and fault tolerant and certainly strongly encrypted
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In the late 90s I worked at a place that used Sun Ray thin clients everywhere. You could mill about the office and find an open machine and swipe your card, and you would magically be presented with your session. Whatever you were working on would just follow you everywhere.
 
ChrisA said:
I think I'd want to be able to just sit down any place in the world at a borrowed computer and work on editing that video I'm making. No login or password, the computer would see it's me and remember what I was doing.
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...and so would a good/lucky thief. There are times when Everything Everywhere doesn't work.
 
MisakixMikasa said:
I never get the idea of make desktop PC smaller with no or limited upgradability and expandability.
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^ This

In this day and age, the only real reason to get a desktop PC anymore IS for the flexibility that the forma factor provides. That flexibility is almost completely gone with the new Mac Pro.

When balancing form and function, Apple veered way to far to the form side of things with this.

My ideal Mac Pro would have been similar to their previous design, but much smaller - something along the lines of a Micro-ATX system. They still could have provided everything they are right now, in a nice small form factor but with all the flexibility people expect from a desktop PC. But no, they threw that out the window to let their designers show off and they screwed the consumer in the process.

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Mac-Mac-McAfee said:
Guess some of the internet experts forgot to tell OWC that the new Mac Pro is the least upgradable Mac of all time.
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Yea! You just have to pay $200 dollars above market price for the CPU and give them your CPU worth a few grand and lose your warranty/Applecare in the process... Bargain!

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antonis said:
Doesn't that void the guarantee or apple care ?
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Almost certainly yes.
 
Interesting. So those speed increases are based on the 4-Core base model. I read that these processors are slightly faster than their Apple counterparts (something to do with bus speed/cache/etc). I wonder how much faster the 8-Core is compared to the 8-Core BTO Apple processor (assuming this is the case and they're not comparing processor to processor).
 
TechGod said:
Weren't people crying over no upgradability before?:confused::rolleyes:
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Goftrey said:
Expandability.
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Not to mention -- I can do it myself instead of blowing a wad of money in shipping and labor paying someone else to do it.

macs4nw said:
I had suspected all along that it would only be a matter of time…..
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18929401&posted=1#post18929401
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Poster's sig:
"Due to my aversion to bragging and clichés..."
 
SlCKB0Y said:
Yea! You just have to pay $200 dollars above market price for the CPU and give them your CPU worth a few grand and lose your warranty/Applecare in the process...
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Sick! Can they legally keep something you have paid for?
 
We placed an order for a 8 core model and a Pegasus2 RAID array. The price was something like $12k. The procurement department guys had a fit until they priced out a similar Dell Precision workstation and it was a couple thousand more.
 
SlCKB0Y said:
Yea! You just have to pay $200 dollars above market price for the CPU and give them your CPU worth a few grand and lose your warranty/Applecare in the process... Bargain!
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FYI...the base quad core CPU (Xeon E5-1620 v2) retails for $225 at Newegg. Far less than the "few grand", but you also need to consider that you are not going to get a large sum of money if you were to sell it yourself (maybe $150). So add that onto the markup price from OWC and you are paying them essentially $350 in labor to upgrade your CPU, test it, and provide a one year warranty.

Not a great deal, but not as terrible as you make it out to be. and it is a better deal if you wait for one year before doing the upgrade then you get the Apple and Newegg warranties.

GL
 
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SlCKB0Y said:
Yea! You just have to pay $200 dollars above market price for the CPU and give them your CPU worth a few grand and lose your warranty/Applecare in the process... Bargain!
.
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It's a barely a $300 processor at newegg. Considering it would be "used" now, it would have an ebay value of MAYBE $200. So you are really paying about $400 for the service. Is that really that bad of a deal? You paid $3000+ for your Mac Pro, most likely $400 to know someone else takes all the risk of screwing up your 3k+ computer seems more than reasonable doesn't it?

Edit: I see I was beaten to the punch on the exact points!
 
quagmire said:
The more cores, the lower clock speed generally. So that doesn't explain it. Unless you meant that the 10 core offered is not the fastest 10 core Xeon available in the E5 family.
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The 10-core option is rated at a slower speed than the fastest of the two 8-core options.

We all know at this point that GHz aren't the be-all and end-all performance factor, but marketing wise it's still something sold at a price premium (especially with multi-core processors).
 
g4cube said:
Here is the statement from OWC regarding Warranty:

OWC will assist/fulfill the Mac Pro factory warranty, as well parts and labor, for all OWC installed enhancements. The warranty term start date is based on the serial number of your Mac Pro, and the Apple recorded date of sale for the machine upgraded.

1 year included in base price or $199 for up to 3 years.

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It is not exactly clear that Apple blesses this upgrade, or that Apple will service the upgraded computer. I read this as OWC now being responsible for the warranty.

Do read the extensive FAQ here: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/MacPro2013/2013_Xeon_Processor/Apple_Mac_Pro_2013/faq

My interpretation: no Apple service, no Apple Care, and no service except by OWC technicians
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I don't know and I haven't checked, but are these upgrades the same upgrades that Apple offers on the configure to order? If so, this might be the reason why the warranty will not be voided if installed by Apple Certified Technicians.
 
ChrisA said:
Sorry,I was not clear enough, I meant the LAST place you'd ant your data is inside the workstation.

Ignore what is technically possible and think about a perfect world with no technology limits. What would you want? I think I'd want to be able to just sit down any place in the world at a borrowed computer and work on editing that video I'm making. No login or password, the computer would see it's me and remember what I was doing. I certainly do NOT want to have to carry a notebook computer around with me. I'd prefer them to be generally available. Either that or they are so tiny the video editing computer fits inside my glasses frame or a ring or watch. But carrying a computer with you because the data in inside THAT computer is "so 20th century". The dumbest thing I hear is "I can't get to my email because it is on my other computer". The entire concept of "that data is on that computer" needs to disappear.

It will be a long time before we can do that world wide but we can do exactly as I described above within one building or campus. Today it is cost effective to install fiber optic cables in building and campuses. Gigabit level bandwidth is common within building today. This will grow. In 100 years no one will even know where data is. It will liley be widely distributed and fault tolerant and certainly strongly encrypted
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That's all well and good, but you're ignoring the independent single user. Presently, there is certainly a need/want for that person to store their data locally. The loss of internal drive bays isn't a deal breaker for me, but it's definitely a disadvantage in regards to cost with the old model.

I've been editing on networked storage for years, but for my home setup, I quite enjoyed my old tower and what I could throw in it.

macs4nw said:
I had suspected all along that it would only be a matter of time…..
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18929401&posted=1#post18929401
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I think most were decrying the need to jump through hoops to upgrade/expand that didn't exist before. Besides, from what I recall, most of the complaints were about the GPUs and lack of a dual CPU option. And vendors like OWC can't do anything about them.
 
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