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Rumor Suggests Replacement for Mac Pro Due in April or May
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Send in the Clones
Well said. I've been thinking this for a while now. Apple's made themselves the most profitable company in the world by focusing on small consumer electronic devices. You might think they would use the high-end for advanced R&D since it has a higher profit margin, but since they get a good margin on the low-end they seem to have no motivation to dedicate resources to the high-end.
Steve Jobs killed the clones, which was a good thing at the time, but unless Apple wants to lose all their high-end users they need to get more responsive with their pro-line. If it doesn't make financial sense to do that, then they should absolutely partner with someone that can. If they lose the high-end all together they lose some of their mind-share as a cutting edge company and begin the slow decay of becoming the Microsoft of consumer electronics--nowhere to go but down.
Well said. I've been thinking this for a while now. Apple's made themselves the most profitable company in the world by focusing on small consumer electronic devices. You might think they would use the high-end for advanced R&D since it has a higher profit margin, but since they get a good margin on the low-end they seem to have no motivation to dedicate resources to the high-end.
Steve Jobs killed the clones, which was a good thing at the time, but unless Apple wants to lose all their high-end users they need to get more responsive with their pro-line. If it doesn't make financial sense to do that, then they should absolutely partner with someone that can. If they lose the high-end all together they lose some of their mind-share as a cutting edge company and begin the slow decay of becoming the Microsoft of consumer electronics--nowhere to go but down.
What ever the chipset used.
I bet on the new Mac Pro will be more less:
Slimmer Tower, Ditched 5.25", 3.5" bays, only 2.5" HDD (Hybrid), 2-5 Iternal 2.5" Bays, no External DVD/BD
Thunderbolt at least 2 TB Ports, and 4 USB 3
Graphic Card: Maybe A Propetary Slot (actually a modded pcie16 )
2/3 Towe Size. 2 CPU, 12 Cores on i7, Later 20 Cores on 2x Xeon E5
A 'NeXT Cube' Design may come (with Stackable Storage), but conservative tendence suggest Apple Will Release as a modular Tower (minor aestetical refresh).
Neither this year will be Available the new Thunderbolt required for UHD Display, So If Apple Want to Support UHD Graphics must go on dedicated HDMI or DisplayPort Solution.
I bet on the new Mac Pro will be more less:
Slimmer Tower, Ditched 5.25", 3.5" bays, only 2.5" HDD (Hybrid), 2-5 Iternal 2.5" Bays, no External DVD/BD
Thunderbolt at least 2 TB Ports, and 4 USB 3
Graphic Card: Maybe A Propetary Slot (actually a modded pcie16 )
2/3 Towe Size. 2 CPU, 12 Cores on i7, Later 20 Cores on 2x Xeon E5
A 'NeXT Cube' Design may come (with Stackable Storage), but conservative tendence suggest Apple Will Release as a modular Tower (minor aestetical refresh).
Neither this year will be Available the new Thunderbolt required for UHD Display, So If Apple Want to Support UHD Graphics must go on dedicated HDMI or DisplayPort Solution.
Exactly. Apple knows there is almost no market for an oversized, overspecced machine. It's just not necessary outside of a few niche applications and for gear heads.
Apple had $1.2 billion in cash reserves when the public thought they were going "bankrupt." The previous quarter to this had ~$750 million loss due largely to write-downs, not operating losses, but nobody paid attention to that. Operating losses per quarter at the time were in the tens of millions, not hundreds. If Apple kept on the same course, they had several years of solvency ahead of them.
I never said trash the computer.
I don't remember trashing any of my Macs. They were all sold or given to someone.
saw this...
intels-next-thunderbolt-twice-the-speed-4k-video
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We should take note that GIGABYTE was the first to bring the 4K to market on motherboards.
Motherboard w/Dual TBolt and 4K
Could be true. The Intel Xeon E5 V2 ships in the third quarter, officially, but Apple could have secured early production.
From CPU World:
Mmmmm, a single socket 12 core Mac Pro. And I'd bet good money it will be THINNER!
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That's all true, but at that time Apple had no future whatsoever. Their marketshare was dwindling, Mac OS was technically inferior to Windows, and PPC was beginning to fall behind Intel. Big initiatives like Copeland were failures. It wasn't unreasonable to predict that Apple would soon be dead and bloated.
From CPU World:
Mmmmm, a single socket 12 core Mac Pro. And I'd bet good money it will be THINNER!
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That's all true, but at that time Apple had no future whatsoever. Their marketshare was dwindling, Mac OS was technically inferior to Windows, and PPC was beginning to fall behind Intel. Big initiatives like Copeland were failures. It wasn't unreasonable to predict that Apple would soon be dead and bloated.
Honestly, if Intel's next appropriate chip shipping in the fall, I'd be perfectly happy if they shipped the new MP then and made an announcement about it fairly early. Yes, Apple rarely announces early, but it would make sense in this case because of the unusually long delay and because they've already said something new is coming and MP sales must be in the toilet right now anyway.
Very likely, and maybe a good thing. I love the current Mac Pro chassis, but it's just too expensive. $2500 to get a decent Mac with PCIe slots kills Apple's pro market presence as much as the lack of Mac Pro updates. One can buy a quad core i7 tower for under $1000 now that will serve many professional needs and is faster than the entry level Mac Pro.
I'd like to see a new design start with a single socket version at $1599, same as the early Power Mac G4. If that means removing the ODD and HDD bays, so be it. Thunderbolt and USB3 create sufficient possibilities for external storage to make the lack of HDD bays in a pro tower reasonable. Remember that when the current Mac Pro was introduced, TB-like bandwidth required a $1000 PCIe RAID card. Now most storage needs are addressed by $100-$200 USB 3.0 enclosures/drives, and $1000 will buy a whole TB RAID box with drives. $1599 + $1000 puts us right about today's entry level Mac Pro!
A forward thinking Mac Pro chassis will IMO have four SSD blade mini-PCIe slots so in 5 years we just load it up with 2 TB SSDs and the lack of HDD bays is a thing of the past. It doesn't even need SATA, leave that for the HDD module that Apple could even make themselves to be stackable with the new Mac Pro. When HDDs are obsolete, Apple can discontinue the HDD module without redesigning the Mac Pro again.
By removing the bays for HDD and ODD and SATA, the PSU can shrink, the size can shrink, and Apple can hit a much lower price point. THIS would be worth letting the current design languish. Perhaps Apple has been waiting for NAND prices to fall sufficiently to lose the HDD bays on the new design. Maybe they were also waiting for the new 4 lane Thunderbolt to make a high speed external HDD enclosure fast enough to justify a Mac Pro sans HDD bays.
T-bolt would be such a bottleneck that such a machine would be a dog, and most anyone who needs a Mac Pro would shift to a different brand of system.
Hard Drive RAID over next generation TB wouldn't be a "dog" and pros who need more bandwidth will just use a PCIe SAS RAID card like they do now.
Note that there is no reason to move SSDs out of the main chassis as long as they are on the PCIe bus and not SATA. SSDs are already saturating current SATA implementations so it's time to ditch SATA. With SSD blades being used in many laptops, Apple has enough volume to offer them relatively inexpensively on a new Mac Pro.
The key is if they remove HDD bays to lower the price. If the Mac Pro replacement lacks HDD/ODD bays but still has an entry level of $2500, then yeah, that would be pretty stupid. I could see them doing that, too, and explaining that it's still worth it because thinner.
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Exactly. Apple knows there is almost no market for an oversized, overspecced machine. It's just not necessary outside of a few niche applications and for gear heads.
because everything can be done on an imac, right?
It's amazing how many iMac drones think everything can be done on one, and there's no reason Apple should produce a better machine.
iDiot
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what are you smoking? That tower was a pain in the ass to service. The current design is fantastic to service.
Sorry, but I thought that you were agreeing with Bonte's extreme modular picture that you quoted.
Sure, you can put a disk array or two on T-Bolt at full speed, but CPUs and GPUs and RAM and... just won't work. T-Bolt bandwidth is a tiny fraction of what's available from the chipset.
Surely you jest. As someone who had to maintain more than 50 of those, I can assure you, the Blue & White G3's were a godsend. The Beige towers were awful, cramped and difficult to service.
I think the current design is the best chassis in history. ( Well the G5 1st Gen fanless design anyway )
The PowerMac 9600 was, hands down, the most easily ACCESSIBLE tower Mac ever with its "flip open" design. This is all I am talking about in case you misunderstood my post.
Are unprotected fan blades actually dangerous in computers? I've made contact with many and never sustained even discomfort (except for the repair discomfort of having one specific CPU fan break apart and start spinning lopsidedly, requiring quick shutdown and superglue, twice).
I've sustained many injuries due to servicing computers and all were caused by sharp edges and ridiculously tight spaces, combined with crappy engineering. Never once an injury from a fan. They're instantly stopped by the slightest contact. It can be startling but ... I mean really. Why is this an issue? Anyone here ever gotten cut and bled, or worse, from a computer fan? Mainframes and computer room HVAC not included!!
I've sustained many injuries due to servicing computers and all were caused by sharp edges and ridiculously tight spaces, combined with crappy engineering. Never once an injury from a fan. They're instantly stopped by the slightest contact. It can be startling but ... I mean really. Why is this an issue? Anyone here ever gotten cut and bled, or worse, from a computer fan? Mainframes and computer room HVAC not included!!
I really hope so. I am currently using a mid 2008 Mac Pro and it is really due for an upgrade. After using a Retina Macbook Pro, not having a flash / SSD drive in it is painful. Not to mention, I really want to upgrade my 5970 and really need USB 3. I have a Canon 7D, and downloading 32GB off a CF card over USB 2 is *painfully* slow.
At this point...... Unless of course, you would want to wait another year for that "upgraded" port..
Given up waiting! just getting on with my stuff and what happens happens.
I only jest about TB2 , hardware for TB1 has been slow to arrive so not sweating over TB2.
"MacDailyNews, which does not have much of a track record on rumors,"
...and why should we believe this. ? This is unsettling... I would rather trust iMore.
Having sai that previous rumors never suggested about a Mac Pro, they said "something FOR a Mac Pro".... This could be anything from an accesses, to a new "iMac-type-Mac Pro like" thing. (obviously not as thin), but an "all in one" Mac Pro.
Get anyones fancy ?
...and why should we believe this. ? This is unsettling... I would rather trust iMore.
Having sai that previous rumors never suggested about a Mac Pro, they said "something FOR a Mac Pro".... This could be anything from an accesses, to a new "iMac-type-Mac Pro like" thing. (obviously not as thin), but an "all in one" Mac Pro.
Get anyones fancy ?