Quad iMac undercuts Quad Mac Pro

[yg17]

*yawn*

Wake me up when I can shove 5 hard drives and a Blu Ray drive in an iMac in under 10 minutes without taking the entire computer apart.

Until then I'll stick with my Mac Pro.

 

[gugucom]

That being said, overlapping the two lines this way makes it almost certain to me that there will be no other choice than to bump octad (maybe 6-12 core?) to standard on the Gulftown MP to prevent cannibalistic sales.

The easiest option for Apple would be a replacement of all quad CPUs by hexad CPUs. For this to work they would need a 3600 single socket Xeon along the 5600 DP Xeon line. I dunno if Intel are planning such a thing. They are obviously planning a single CPU Core i7 desktop version. So a single socket Xeon would also be possible without much ado.

If they do not get the 3600 they could use the 5600 in the single socket board but they would give people a better upgrade path. It would probably mean another price hike for the base model as the cost of the 5600 CPU would be much higher than the current 3500.

 

[Umbongo]

I dunno if Intel are planning such a thing.

Of course they are.

 

[gugucom]

Of course they are.

Then my guess is we will not see Quads and Octads from 2010. It will be six and twelve cores in the existing package with a bit of new micro code sprinkled in. Very simple in terms of development resources and marketing plan.

 

[KG2002]

It is funny. You know what killed the case for iMac? Glossy monitor. We went to Apple store last night and my wife said there was no way she would stand looking at that mirror for 10 hours a day. With potential CPU upgrade to 6 core next year, I am going to take my chances and go with the lowest Mac Pro model for now and wait for 6 cores to be released next year. They should be on the same platform. With

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on what can be upgraded on Mac Pro.

P.S. Now I need to find a monitor

 

[Macinposh]

Apple is not killing MPs anytime soon.
They would shoot them selves in the face like no company in the history before. They would have to can the Logic,Aperture and Final Cut application segments the same day. Music,photo and movie industries in the same blow.
With all the PR and userbase that they have within those industries.
The industries that makes the Hip,the industries that decides what is the Next Big Thing.

Never.

Or at least not in the foreseable future.

That image is so valuable that it cant be bought with billions and billions of dollars and no executive at the apple would risk it. Even if those departments would make a net loss of tens of millions,wich they are not doing.
Apple will just maybe milk every penny out of those segments.

 

[RebootD]

Apple is not killing MPs anytime soon.
They would shoot them selves in the face like no company in the history before. They would have to can the Logic,Aperture and Final Cut application segments the same day. Music,photo and movie industries in the same blow.
With all the PR and userbase that they have within those industries.
The industries that makes the Hip,the industries that decides what is the Next Big Thing.

If they discontinue the Mac Pro line and continue to only have glassy iMacs then it's back to building Windows boxes for me. (Before you flame I understand people love them and you are allowed to, I don't.)

I tried to save money and bought the 2007 iMac model but I missed having a 2nd hard drive, more ram and I couldn't get used to the screen so I sold it to a friend and got the Quad MP w/ an NEC 2690wuxi2 and my life is complete again.

 

[apolloa]

With potential CPU upgrade to 65 core next year,

WTF are you on about

 

[J the Ninja]

Apple is not killing MPs anytime soon.
They would shoot them selves in the face like no company in the history before. They would have to can the Logic,Aperture and Final Cut application segments the same day. Music,photo and movie industries in the same blow.
With all the PR and userbase that they have within those industries.
The industries that makes the Hip,the industries that decides what is the Next Big Thing.

Never.

Or at least not in the foreseable future.

That image is so valuable that it cant be bought with billions and billions of dollars and no executive at the apple would risk it. Even if those departments would make a net loss of tens of millions,wich they are not doing.
Apple will just maybe milk every penny out of those segments.

I think the Mac Pro will live on until the day that content creation no longer requires a tower. And no further. That may seem a little far-fetched, but think about a few things: A tower is no longer necessary for office work or basic surfing. There's just no need. The iPhone 3GS has hardware power rivaling the G3 towers. Meanwhile, heavy-duty workstations today can beat down supercomputers from the early 90s. Geez, 8 CPUs and 10GB+ of memory? That was a room-sized machine with refrigerant cooling once that costs hundreds of thousands. Now you can get that in an air-cooled tower that sits quietly under your desk for a few grand. To quote a recent xkcd: "At some point there, we left the present and entered the future". Who knows where we will go in another 15 years?

 

[Macinposh]

Apple is not killing MPs anytime soon.
Or at least not in the foreseable future.

I Now you can get that in an air-cooled tower that sits quietly under your desk for a few grand. To quote a recent xkcd: "At some point there, we left the present and entered the future". Who knows where we will go in another 15 years?

Indeed.

The music genre does not "need" the MPs,headless computers are just easier on logistics/ergonomics atm. The processing power and portability is allready in the laptops.

The photo,about the same.
The print requirements (300dpi) stagnated years ago and in that area there will not be noticeable advancement during the printed pages era. It might last 10 or 100 years,but still. It will not evolve a lot further. Machines from 1995 could handle the pics (A4,A3) let alone the present ones.
In direct photo manipulation the requirements are higher and will get higher for some time. Export TIFFs from Raw are 120-400Mb´s,manipulated files of 1-5 Gb are not uncommon and with bigger sensor sizes they will get higher.
But even the future (5yrs) are manageable even by the modern computers and programs,let alone if the programs would be optimized.

Moving pictures,aka,video.
A bit tougher one.
The high definition era is here,but the 1080p will be the roof for the next 10-15 years. The infrastructure (worldwide,japan excluded) is just not there yet. Terrestial infra is just so clogged,even if we could get rid of the SD content.Wich we wont for decade or two.
And content delivery purely via net just wont happen as it is even more bogged down,even in the western civilisations.
Let alone in the emerging or dormant markets,where it will take the next half a decade or close to reach maturity.
So,the 1080p will be the max medium for a while.
Wich can be handled by the present machines just fine.

And,the BIG moving media creators will be enough financed to get their server based systems where the layout will probably be the server+dumb heads.And I dont mean the operators here...
So they will get by without the towers allso.


So?

The headless systems are indeed on their way out,but at the present,or the near future there definately will be need for the towers and the likes.
After the said 10-15 years,hell,things will look way,way different.

 

[KG2002]

WTF are you on about

Gulftown. It is based solely on socket LGA 1366 and retains compatibility with the X58 chipset that drives all Core i7 9xx and Xeon motherboards today. I am hearing here that CPU at MP is sort of "user replacable". Is it not?

 

[fr4c]

Gulftown. It is based solely on socket LGA 1366 and retains compatibility with the X58 chipset that drives all Core i7 9xx and Xeon motherboards today. I am hearing here that CPU at MP is sort of "user replacable". Is it not?

Yes, but you said 65 core. 65?

 

[apolloa]

Yes, but you said 65 core. 65?

Yes, thanks. Seriously, I know computers are moving at a fast pace but 65 CORES!!! I think that's a couple of years of yet mate. Well for desktop CPU's it is.

 

[Nadav35]

Imacs

And why would you do that? Mac Pro is faster, will last you longer and you can expand. These new iMacs are just fancy toys but your Mac Pro will outlive them very easily especially when application will start taking advantages of more cores. Keep your Mac Pro and don't be silly. I know that new things from Apple makes us crave it but trust me, Mac Pro is the winner here.

Even my 2008 3.2 mac pro will outlive those imacs!! with 4 SSD drives, 32GB of memory and an GTX285 - I can wipe the floor with those imacs! I hate the imacs for this reason - they lack expandability + they are integrated part for part.

 

[Nadav35]

rubbish..........

Gulftown. It is based solely on socket LGA 1366 and retains compatibility with the X58 chipset that drives all Core i7 9xx and Xeon motherboards today. I am hearing here that CPU at MP is sort of "user replacable". Is it not?

According to a friend of mine who works at Apple, there will be no change to the mac pro line until late 2010 -2011.

SO stop your ******** rumors!

 

[Nadav35]

Screw the imac!

If they discontinue the Mac Pro line and continue to only have glassy iMacs then it's back to building Windows boxes for me. (Before you flame I understand people love them and you are allowed to, I don't.)

I tried to save money and bought the 2007 iMac model but I missed having a 2nd hard drive, more ram and I couldn't get used to the screen so I sold it to a friend and got the Quad MP w/ an NEC 2690wuxi2 and my life is complete again.

I here you also.. I have a 3.2 2008 mac pro fully expanded with 32GB memory and 4, YES 4-- SSD DRIVES! So, I can wipe the imac out if I chose to.

 

[dukebound85]

According to a friend of mine who works at Apple, there will be no change to the mac pro line until late 2010 -2011.

SO stop your ******** rumors!

lol your friend donesnt know sorry unless hes high up at apple

 

[Nadav35]

But with quad coming to iMac and soon to MacBook Pro the Gulftown core increase will make sense.

THERE WILL BE NO MAC PRO REVISIONS UNTIL LATE 2010 - EARLY 2011 - GOT THIS FROM A FRIEND OF MINE WHO IS A APPLE ENGINEER.

The iMac is faster than the complete Mac Pro Quad Lineup.

3.46Ghz SINGLE CORE max speed compared to the max of 2.8 or 3.06 of the quad mac pro.

It doesn't just beat it, it smashes it.

As a Quad Core Mac Pro user I'm exceptionally annoyed.

YOU ARE WRONG! JUST GET 4 SSD DRIVES, EXPAND YOUR MEMORY TO 32GB AND GET THE MOST POWERFUL VIDEO CARD YOU CAN GET - YOU WILL WIPE THE IMAC OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!

lol your friend donesnt know sorry unless hes high up at apple

He is one of the chief engineers, if that makes you happy.

 

[Eidorian]

YOU ARE WRONG! JUST GET 4 SSD DRIVES, EXPAND YOUR MEMORY TO 32GB AND GET THE MOST POWERFUL VIDEO CARD YOU CAN GET - YOU WILL WIPE THE IMAC OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!

How much did you just spend and you still don't have a monitor?

 

[Umbongo]

According to a friend of mine who works at Apple, there will be no change to the mac pro line until late 2010 -2011.

SO stop your ******** rumors!

The theories on the time line for the new Mac Pro are based on previous repetative behaviour by Apple. They release new Mac Pros around the time of new Xeon processors. You're word counts for nothing against that whether you are correct or not. Especially when you weigh in as if you have some authority on the matter while conversing like a child and type in all caps.

 

[hitekalex]

Display: Of course with the MP, you can change displays on a whim... not the case with the iMac... however, you are basically getting the display for free with the iMac.

How exactly do you figure that? A C2D 3Ghz desktop with 4GB of RAM should sell for about $500. The iMac with these specs sells for $1700. So the display in the iMac is hardly "free".

 

[hitekalex]

He is one of the chief engineers, if that makes you happy.

LOL.. My second cousin's wife's brother knows someone who is a head of chief engineers at Apple.. and that person thinks that your friend is an assclown.. kind of like you.

 

[gugucom]

You're word counts for nothing against that whether you are correct or not. Especially when you weigh in as if you have some authority on the matter while conversing like a child and type in all caps.

+1 on that

 

[KG2002]

Yes, thanks. Seriously, I know computers are moving at a fast pace but 65 CORES!!! I think that's a couple of years of yet mate. Well for desktop CPU's it is.

Dude, I work with HP Non-stops. I am used to it

 

[lemonade-maker]

How much did you just spend and you still don't have a monitor?

Pocket change.