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Rumor Suggests Replacement for Mac Pro Due in April or May

wildmac said:
But that's what you implied. (Either that, or you were implying the everyone here was a fanboy with too much money).
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Well, that's not what I meant.

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wildmac said:
A HP Z820 can be hackintoshed out of the box?
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It's running dual 8 core Intel Xeons, so it would be my assumption would be that it could. I just don't know about Mac OS X's limitations when it comes to RAM and graphics, since that thing maxes out at 6GB of video memory with 450+ graphics cores and 512GB of RAM. Like 64 bit Windows, Mac OS X most likely will be able to address 512GB of RAM.
 
gto55 said:
at least you can find some nice concepts

ImageImage
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^ Is this a joke? :D

These are nowhere near refined or simple enough to be Apple designs. They're just shouting about how "radical" they are for the sake of looking radical, and they are ghastly!

There's a very good reason most "concepts" stay on paper, or as a 3D model - they are horrible.
 
rGiskard said:
Could be true. The Intel Xeon E5 V2 ships in the third quarter, officially, but Apple could have secured early production.
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That is a substantially long time to wait for relatively little upside. Mac Pro are blocked from sale in the entire EU markets. Apple would blow past an 12 month anniversary date of the "minor speed bump June 2012" Mac Pros having done nothing. zip. nada.

Other than the rest of the system not being done there is about zero good reason to wait.


Mmmmm, a single socket 12 core Mac Pro. And I'd bet good money it will be THINNER!
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About as likely as a metorite strike directly on Apple's HQ. Apple is going to sell E5 2600 CPUs in pairs like they are suppose to be.

Single socket will likey use a E5 1600 processor package which will top out at 6 cores at a substantially higher GHz while being at least $2000 lower price point if used the 12 core monster that Intel will drop. That is going to be one of those "if have to ask can't afford" options that Apple almost never does.
 
Diseal3 said:
But will it beat a hackintosh
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If Apple is serious about a halo computer, like the original Mac Pro which was an astonishing bargain, they could make it as fast or faster for not that much more money. When the original Mac Pro came out, you couldn't build a comparable machine for the price. If Apple is willing to sell these at a lower margin for bragging rights, they could be that amazing again.
 
dysamoria said:
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!!
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Your government exists to protect you from yourself. There are a number of things that is wrong with that law.

1) The Mac Pro's fans are quite a bit more finished than any PC fan I've seen. They have smooth edges and I can't imagine one ever cutting you.

2) The Mac Pro's fans typically spin very slowly. Unless you're rendering a big file of some sort.

3) Who sticks his hand in a running computer?
 
So there was Mac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro... And now we have the iPad, iPad Mini. Surely the replacement must be iPad Pro - a 60" iPad! :)

The main audience for a Mac Pro are high-end pros, those who charge the same price as the machine for a days work. They want the best for their purpose, and are able to leverage the power of the computer.

Secondly we have the semi-pros who just see it as an investment for a computer that will not require a full replacement a year later, so they can easily put extra cash on the table for it. Then you have the Mac-enthusiasts who just want to show off with bestest specs ;) or just want to treat themselves with a "luxury" computer. They will not need the power, but love it still.

There should be a server model, but I doubt that is in Apples eyes. However a pro model should have specs close to a fully featured one, but might have the extra bells really not needed.

For the rest Apple want you to either use the mobile solutions or Mac Mini/iMac.

I would love to see it as an rack type computer like the Xserve, maybe 1U or 2U would look great. I can understand that for some that form factor may not be perfect, but for most pros it should do well. And designing two different cases would most likely not make it sustainable enough for Apple. Thunderbolt should make it easy to connect it with like a hard drive rack unit or other standard size equipment.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
Well, that's not what I meant.

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It's running dual 8 core Intel Xeons, so it would be my assumption would be that it could. I just don't know about Mac OS X's limitations when it comes to RAM and graphics, since that thing maxes out at 6GB of video memory with 450+ graphics cores and 512GB of RAM. Like 64 bit Windows, Mac OS X most likely will be able to address 512GB of RAM.
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What CPU it uses isn't as important as the motherboard. Not every Intel PC can be turned into a hack.
 
Aidan5806 said:
Its not easy to find a dual cpu motherboard with 8 slots for ram. and those kind of specs are just surface.
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gto55 said:
Do you think Apple will use these new Xeon processors based on Ivy Bridge, rather than waiting for the next Haswell iteration due to the recent USB3.0 bugs :confused:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/10/intel-xeon-e7-e5-e3-idf/
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The next stepping of Ivy Bridge will fix the USB issue, and will be out in a matter of weeks. Only the initial batch of systems will have this very, very minor bug.
 
HenryDJP said:
You have numbers to back this up? I didn't think so. "Most People"? :rolleyes:
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Should have clarified my comment by saying "Most people I know..." I have a lot of entertainment industry friends. Work computers are almost always Linux based and home computers are going from Mac Pros to either iMacs or build-your-own PCs.
 
SPUY767 said:
2) The Mac Pro's fans typically spin very slowly. Unless you're rendering a big file of some sort.
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Have you actually opened one up? They run surprisingly fast and with more force than you'd expect (at least the one at the back of the case). Thankfully, they're very quiet even at that speed.
 
INTRODUCING:

The new Apple A7X processor with 32 cores :apple: No more need for Intel. And you get not one.. but TWO with the new Mac Pro. Yes, 64 cores!

Jokes aside... Reckon they could ever ditch Intel?
 
AMD could be a possibility, but a variant of the mobile chips, not in the next few years at least. And I wouldn't want to see that happen since it would break compatibility and require all new apps, just like the PPC transition all over again.
 
dysamoria said:
Are unprotected fan blades actually dangerous in computers? .... 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?...
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SPUY767 said:
Your government exists to protect you from yourself. There are a number of things that is wrong with that law.

1) ...

3) Who sticks his hand in a running computer?
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Technically, Europe didn't probably didn't ban Mac Pros because of the fans, but because of a lack of paperwork. It is more likely Apple declined to pay a company to certify that Mac Pros did not break the rules. So, while it is very likely that the certification company wouldn't have certified the Mac Pros as complying with the rules because of the fans (or something else.. I haven't seen any thing that specifically said fans, but rather a catch-all category that includes the fans. Though I may have missed it, of course). Anyway - technically it appears the ban was imposed due to the missing paperwork.

While it may have cost Apple very little to bring the Mac Pros up to code, the certification fees might have been quite hefty. If you are thinking of replacing the current model sooner rather than later then it may have made more sense to wait.

Also note that Apple was free was stuff their warehouses full of Mac Pros prior to the deadline because it was a ban on importing the systems, not a ban on selling.
 
deconstruct60 said:
That is a substantially long time to wait for relatively little upside. Mac Pro are blocked from sale in the entire EU markets. Apple would blow past an 12 month anniversary date of the "minor speed bump June 2012" Mac Pros having done nothing. zip. nada.

Other than the rest of the system not being done there is about zero good reason to wait.




About as likely as a metorite strike directly on Apple's HQ. Apple is going to sell E5 2600 CPUs in pairs like they are suppose to be.

Single socket will likey use a E5 1600 processor package which will top out at 6 cores at a substantially higher GHz while being at least $2000 lower price point if used the 12 core monster that Intel will drop. That is going to be one of those "if have to ask can't afford" options that Apple almost never does.
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I didn't realize that about the 12 core chips being for dual sockets. Too bad since that would be a sweet and cool running single cpu system.
 
snberk103 said:
While it may have cost Apple very little to bring the Mac Pros up to code, the certification fees might have been quite hefty. If you are thinking of replacing the current model sooner rather than later then it may have made more sense to wait.
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That's just silly. The requirement about the fans was three years old. Apple updated the MP multiple times since it was announced, and probably had to get the updated models approved for sale anyway. No company would ever stop selling a product based on the cost of paperwork required to sell it.
 
snberk103 said:
While it may have cost Apple very little to bring the Mac Pros up to code, the certification fees might have been quite hefty. If you are thinking of replacing the current model sooner rather than later then it may have made more sense to wait.
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The fees aren't that big of a deal. It is far more that it is a waste of time and effort going to replace them anyway. Primarily this happened because Apple hasn't done anything substantive with the Mac Pro since the law was passed. The law was never meant to ensare that many products. Vendors had 4+ years to get their stuff up to code. In the tech product space, that is a very long time.

Time and effort spent on tweaking an old design would take resources away from work on the new one. Apple typically provisions products with "just enough" resources of people and time. Witness iOS 7 sucking folks off of OS X to get around higher than expected amount of work that needs to be done.


Also note that Apple was free was stuff their warehouses full of Mac Pros prior to the deadline because it was a ban on importing the systems, not a ban on selling.
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Ban not just on Apple. Distributors can sell what they already had in inventory. Mac Pro don't actually fly off the shelves at a rapid rate. A distributor that normally had double stock of Mac Pros probably still has some.

Apple only keeps a couple of weeks on inventory on hand so when the incremental updates stop their inventory shrinks to zero extremely rapidly relative to most retail inventories. The dual edge sword with just in time production and super thin inventories is that hiccups lead to shortages.
Internally, Apple spends tons of money to keep their inventories razor thin. The internal control systems are likely set up to stop that from automatically. Even with the usual circumstances, I'm not sure Apple even has a place to put far larger than normal inventory.

Best case could have been to work with distributors to push a bit more than normal into their space.

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milo said:
Apple updated the MP multiple times since it was announced, and probably had to get the updated models approved for sale anyway. ....
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Not really. The law passed in late 2008-early 2009 time frame. The design for the 2009 Mac Pro was certainly locked down at that point, if not already processed. The 2010-2012 updates were firmware tweaks (software and not regulated) and CPU parts updates. It is same core physical infrastructure. There should be no reason to re-certify what are only component parts updates. They aren't part of the common core infrastructure (For example in 2009 , you would not have to certify the Xeon 3520 version separate from the 3540 version. Bumping that component in a later year is no different. )
 
Vip said:
It would seem so, seeing as the first batch are available mid 2013, meaning mac pro in June I suspect.
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I'd suspect June '13 will be the unveil. They'll start pre-orders at best in June.

The processors will either be "available" in Q3 or Q4, so July-December. I'd say it's a good chance to be able to buy a new MacPro between July and October this year. Unless Intel gives Apple shipments far before common release dates, I can't believe in anything sooner than July. April-May is almost impossible.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
The way I see your post is two ways: Either the current Mac Pro doesn't really need to be updated or Apple should throw away their other products since they aren't upgradeable, other than RAM.

Another reason I keep my main system running on Windows, it's very upgradeable and I never have any issues. So that may be why an iMac would be perfect for me, as a secondary machine (another reason I bought my PowerMac G4, because it's a Mac but I can't make much money). But still, 2GB for dedicated video will be pretty good for a few years. Heck, not very many systems nowadays don't even come with more than 1GB. Even though my main computer is a laptop it's still just as powerful as a fully maxed out iMac (with slightly more powerful graphics capability) minus being able to go past 16GB of RAM. And it cost less than $1000 so I don't have a problem buying a new one in 5+ years since that's how long I was able to use my previous machine for. It was from 2007.

Again with the upgradeability, I guess my next machine will be a desktop. I just wouldn't need a Mac Pro, a fully maxed out iMac at best. I just don't need a Mac as powerful as the Mac Pro because I can get software that either does the same thing or is the same thing as the Mac variant on Windows. All I really want a powerful Mac for is for Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, iMovie and GarageBand. My PowerMac G4 is just too old and incompatible to be able to do much of that on it.

I'm going to be publicly executed for saying that, aren't I?
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LOL ! No mate! You'll not be executed for saying that! :) You should buy what you think would be best! I agree that iMacs are good machines and more then enough for most users. Everyone has his or her reasons to buy a mac pro or not, there is no just one view in all of this, I respect your point of view simply because it does sound more then logic to me.
By the way, I don't say Apple should destroy all the iMac's, I don't dislike iMacs but I simply like horsepower machines, those I can upgrade when I like to do so, that's all. And the iMac, all tough they are good machines, are a bit limited in that. That's all i.m.h.o :)
 
Mac Pro could make a come back if they are much smaller footprint, near the size of a Mac Mini, which can satisfy the pros and the mass consumers.

Below article is another reason Apple is not going to spend their time trying when they already have the iPad and iPhone market in their court.

Apple's U.S. Mac Shipments Fall 7.5% as Overall PC Market Plunges 14% Year-Over-Year
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https://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/1...-overall-pc-market-plunges-14-year-over-year/

Apple has learned their lesson in marketing.

People are wanting smaller and portables even if they are desktop units. That is why the Mac Mini has been doing well with consumer and pros.
 
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