The 2009 (Gainestown) Mac Pro: Everything We Know

[Fomaphone]

This is an interesting read, dunno if it was linked before:
http://macosrumors.com/2009/01/09/n...-and-xserves-based-on-intel-core-i7/#more-288
http://macosrumors.com/2009/01/09/next-for-apple-mac-pros-and-xserves-based-on-intel-core-i7/2/

includes some comment on new case design, processors, memory,

from an admin's post on january 10...

"We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck."

is this particularly significant?

 

[jjahshik32]

from an admin's post on january 10...

"We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck."

is this particularly significant?

Whoa you highlighted the wrong part!

 

[m1stake]

Good find. If this information is correct, the long awaited Nehalem Mac Pro will drop at the end of February, roughly six weeks from January 10. Moreover, it appears that we're in for a redesigned exterior.

 

[jjahshik32]

Good find. If this information is correct, the long awaited Nehalem Mac Pro will drop at the end of February, roughly six weeks from January 10. Moreover, it appears that we're in for a redesigned exterior.

Hey that means roughly 4 more weeks!

 

[Fomaphone]

Good find. If this information is correct, the long awaited Nehalem Mac Pro will drop at the end of February, roughly six weeks from January 10. Moreover, it appears that we're in for a redesigned exterior.

i dunno about that...

"it" could refer to the xeon chip, snow leopard, or any other "announcement" related to this MP... we'll have to keep an eye/ear out for whatever ballparked info does get released this week to have a better idea of what he was talking about.

can anybody here vet macosrumors?

 

[TennisandMusic]

If those posts are accurate....I've changed my mind and am going to wait.

 

[Setmose]

"Apple's New SLI Muliple GPU Technology"

This is an interesting read, dunno if it was linked before:
http://macosrumors.com/2009/01/09/n...-and-xserves-based-on-intel-core-i7/#more-288
http://macosrumors.com/2009/01/09/next-for-apple-mac-pros-and-xserves-based-on-intel-core-i7/2/

includes some comment on new case design, processors, memory,

"Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology..."

'Dual-chip' means that the Gainestown Xeons are now production sampled and on the test benches.

So. Apple finally builds a gaming monster. Heh. I will buy one.

 

[chedda]

Quadro drivers

Autodesk has been a big player within 2D & 3D for some time, their launch of 5 new osx products at mwsf could signal a shift in support. I suppose the big question is autocad ? The connection between the quadro drivers and the autodesk products i believe is intrinsic. This could signal better support for the quadro cards in the future with drivers being as optimised as the windows world. Excuse me if this is straying from the OP but in the long term it does affect the mac pro, professional market.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Well, I certainly missed a lot.

I've known for a while that Tylersburg supports SLI, but that'll be Windows-only. Should I add it to the first post anyway?

And what is the legitimacy of this site to have "received" newly redesigned Mac Pros with chips topping out one step lower than we envision?

 

[nanofrog]

Well, I certainly missed a lot.

I've known for a while that Tylersburg supports SLI, but that'll be Windows-only. Should I add it to the first post anyway?

And what is the legitimacy of this site to have "received" newly redesigned Mac Pros with chips topping out one step lower than we envision?

Thanks for the link Fomaphone.

You might want to go ahead and mention the SLI support. I would imagine Apple took advantage the SLI support in Tylersburg. Sort of strange not to, given it's already available in the hardware.

Do you mean the 3.2GHz W5580?
It could be cost, it's listing as a workstation part, or may be as simple as not having enough/ or even any to spare ATM. I wouldn't read too much into it. Yet.

 

[Tallest Skil]

I'm sorry... I don't buy this.

Not only can Nehalem offer chip-level performance that’s 3-5X that of current 45-nanometer Xeons, and the new Mac Pro i7-based motherboard back it up with a total combined advantage upwards of 10X in some cases against current Mac Pros...

Not even Snow Leopard will be able to do this. Not even Snow Leopard with Gainestown, Tylersburg, and dual SLI GTX 260s will be able to do this.

No longer purely silver all over, black panels and a new power/sleep LED...

I buy this, though. Black side panels, or black cheese grater mesh like my design?

 

[amoergosum]

Good find. If this information is correct, the long awaited Nehalem Mac Pro will drop at the end of February, roughly six weeks from January 10. Moreover, it appears that we're in for a redesigned exterior.

That's fantastic news...I'm waiting now for sure!

 

[Umbongo]

Well, I certainly missed a lot.

I've known for a while that Tylersburg supports SLI, but that'll be Windows-only. Should I add it to the first post anyway?

And what is the legitimacy of this site to have "received" newly redesigned Mac Pros with chips topping out one step lower than we envision?

Xeons were sent to board manufacturers and other partners for testing in mid December so the timeline is plausible.

As for the chip speed that is irrelevent. It's either just what they had or was chosen as it should beat the 3.2GHz Penryns on everything.

I would also say that this doesn't change anything on our discussion of the release timeline.

edit: Having gone back and read the article fully rather than skimming it seems to me that someone with a Nehalem Mac Pro provided their "two editors" with access to one without Apple's approval. However they then go on to talk about embargos which to me doesn't add up. Not that I'm trying to discredit the article, but plenty of sites have printed up things on upcomming Apple hardware as fact that was false or never appeared. The perspective it is written in though and the source would make me believe it's some what accurate.

 

[Umbongo]

You might want to go ahead and mention the SLI support. I would imagine Apple took advantage the SLI support in Tylersburg. Sort of strange not to, given it's already available in the hardware.

Well this is the first time they have had native hardware support, so it makes sense to consider it. I wouldn't have predicted it being there as Apple has an approach to graphics cards and drivers that hasn't exactly hinted that they would invest time and resources in that arena.

 

[t0mat0]

I'm sorry... I don't buy this.

Not even Snow Leopard will be able to do this. Not even Snow Leopard with Gainestown, Tylersburg, and dual SLI GTX 260s will be able to do this.

I buy this, though. Black side panels, or black cheese grater mesh like my design?

You forgot the graphics card on top.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/uiuc.html

On specific applications, if all meets most of the hype, it could. GPU accelerated computation, may well give a one-off boost above Moore's Law expectations, with then a more Moore's Law-eque speed increase over time. Guess we're going to have to wait this one out, to find some more info on the Intel side, which it seems we're waiting for...

Hard call really, between getting suckered into the potential over-hype, and underestimating the potential if 10.6 can harness hardware better.

Some tidbits from the article

Whilst the Mac Pro basically got the cold shoulder in terms of support by Apple in the earnings call - doesn't it make sense that they'd want to brag about the capabilities of what the best hardware and software Apple could do, i.e. a Mac Pro/XServe, and Snow Leopard, with i7?

If the article is true:
- They're embargoed, but already have articles ready. So who's holding them to embargo?
- They've already got the "a series of reviews and articles" ready / in progress (suspiciously seems a little ahead of everyone else unless others are better at keeping schtum under an NDA) "that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks."
- "For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems. - So is this a teaser as to a larger than previously normal level of unique hardware features?

- "Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel…."

So they're aiming to maximise what they can get from the i7? Would that mean trying to make the upper limit for RAM, and the graphics card options better than before?

- "with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market." Good to hear...

- "We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve" Something that is getting underplayed in a way - a 1U Snow Leopard XServe could really invigorate the XServe, and give it the modularity/space to really spec the OS to the hardware hilt.

- "To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."
I think it might be a bit more than 25-40% improvements. Because that was expected from known i7 benchmarks. We'll see I guess, but there's a lot of potential, if the GPU can get some action.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/elcomsoft-gpgpu-wifi-crack,6863.html

 

[BenRoethig]

Ok.. so if you were me lets plan this out. And again , thanks to all of your help guys, really.. I appreciate it. If any of you need any design work done I swear I'll discount the hell out of it. Just visit my site! Because this is really helping me get my computer situation in order ( sorry for stealing the attention of the thread !! )


OK SO:

If I buy now.. I can sell it for a good price later, my ration is their will be a few problems and maybe buying on release date is a bad idea anyways, so it may be about a year before that machine is stable enough for me to sink a large amount of money into.


As far as a monitor.. for as much as I know about everything in the world.. lol I know not about monitors.. I use my cintiq for color matching so i've never really needed a "graphic design" monitor.
What can I get thats better than a 30" Cinema Display? for the same or less..

What graphic card should I get, if I decide to go with the current system? ( Price doesnt matter, but I may need 2 or more so..)

Is 8gigs of ram going to last me a while?

What can I do to improve the current system that will keep the machine "Re-Sellable"

Is it going to be fast enough to render 50Billion polygon proccessing points for 3D mapping? ( will snow leopard help this out with this system?)

So many questions.. Guys at the apple store don't know half what the people here know.. thanks again

Cory, Owner
vogelhaus design
www.vogelha.us

The current Mac Pros are still very good high end workstations and with the better multi-processing support and OpenCL in Snow Leopard, they will serve you sell for a couple of years. A couple things though, if you buy current machines. As other has pointed out, the same FB-DIMM memory and hard drives Apple uses can be had for a fraction of what they charge from other sources. Apple makes a lot of money of upgrade markups that can be up to 500% or more from OEM prices.

As for the Cinema Display, if you overriding concern is matching the machines you can't go wrong. They use an older, but still very good 30" LCD panel from LG. That being said, I would take a Look at LG's new W3000H. It was released a couple of months back with their next generation panel which will also show up in the next cinema display. The new panel a much faster refresh rate than its predecessor. Not near as flashy, but it might be worth a look. Did I mention its also $500 cheaper ($700 now as its on sale)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005115

 

[diamond.g]

Thanks for the link Fomaphone.

You might want to go ahead and mention the SLI support. I would imagine Apple took advantage the SLI support in Tylersburg. Sort of strange not to, given it's already available in the hardware.

Do you mean the 3.2GHz W5580?
It could be cost, it's listing as a workstation part, or may be as simple as not having enough/ or even any to spare ATM. I wouldn't read too much into it. Yet.

Apple doesn't even support Crossfire, which hasn't required anything any special chipsets since the 2x00 line. I wouldn't bet on SLI support in the OS...

I'm sorry... I don't buy this.



Not even Snow Leopard will be able to do this. Not even Snow Leopard with Gainestown, Tylersburg, and dual SLI GTX 260s will be able to do this.



I buy this, though. Black side panels, or black cheese grater mesh like my design?

Hey who knows two GTX 295's may be able to do it

 

[Horst]

Is it going to be fast enough to render 50Billion polygon proccessing points for 3D mapping? ( will snow leopard help this out with this system?)

So many questions.. Guys at the apple store don't know half what the people here know.. thanks again

Cory, Owner
vogelhaus design
www.vogelha.us

Many questions, indeed .
I've been following your postings as I'm in a similar situation, only on a smaller scale, being a photographer working with PS CS4 and Cinema 4D.

Recently, I purchased a MacPro, at a time when the new models where still be expected to be released just a couple of months later.
The main reasons were compatibility, reliability and affordability of current hardware, software, and OS .

You are looking for efficiency, aka speed, in your workflow, which includes a whole bunch of power hungry pro applications.

By most peoples guesses, the next generation of MacPros might see a performance gain of 20-30% - that's not much.
It will be faster, though, no doubt.
To what extent this will be true for individual apps remains to be seen, and when exactly a program like Cinema 4D will be able to fully utilize the speed gains is not known.
C4D R11 is running in 64bit already, by the way.

That said, with the existing MacPro, you can double and triple the speed for PS CS4 and Cinema 4D by using an efficient configuration of RAM and HDDs, or render farming for the latter.

The kind of money you are willing to spend can buy you two pimped out workstations for Adobe CS4, which are still supposed to take advantage of Snow Leo GPU and multi-processor support - once apps like CS4 have caught up, which they have not yet.

On top of that, there is plenty money left for a render farm and external storage - face it, you can't do rendering and multi-tasking at the same time on the same machine.

As for GPUs, for you and me both that basically means OpenGL performance in C4D's editor.
Right now, that's a tough one; 3D app makers talk about ditching OpenGL, OpenCL isn't there , who knows...

Oh, and put some bucks aside for paying a local Mac Service provider to set you up, and get you your RAM and HDDs for a reasonable price - win/win.

 

[nicolasmasset]

Regarding release date. Ever since I saw this teaser of their notebook event, I've had this gut feeling Apple would release the mini, imac and macpro all at once during a "The spotlight turns to desktops" event.

 

[nanofrog]

Well this is the first time they have had native hardware support, so it makes sense to consider it. I wouldn't have predicted it being there as Apple has an approach to graphics cards and drivers that hasn't exactly hinted that they would invest time and resources in that arena.

That, and the recent corporate relationship developments between Apple and nVidia. So it's actually looking possible at some point.

Apple doesn't even support Crossfire, which hasn't required anything any special chipsets since the 2x00 line. I wouldn't bet on SLI support in the OS...

True, but I've not had the impression Apple and ATI are that close.

Apple may have decided it wasn't worth the effort, or more importantly, didn't want to give ATI access to their IP (namely OS X), as ATI develops their own drivers. Simply put, loss of control, and other potential issues. Apple's past relations with MS comes to mind over the latter.

Apple has developed the nVidia drivers so far, but didn't have the hardware support. Keep in mind, Apple gets their boards from Intel, and may not have even been able to obtain such hardware support if had they desired it. It may have actually been out of Apple's hands, given their supplier agreements.

 

[Weepul]

Wow, you guys are getting desperate if you're looking for clues on Mac OS Rumors...

If the article is true:

And if I'm keeping my rumor sites straight, Mac OS Rumors is notoriously inaccurate and sensationally (fictitiously) optimistic.

 

[Fomaphone]

word from the appleinsider forums from a couple of years ago is that Mac OS Rumors can't be trusted.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=65043

 

[diamond.g]

That, and the recent corporate relationship developments between Apple and nVidia. So it's actually looking possible at some point.

True, but I've not had the impression Apple and ATI are that close.

Apple may have decided it wasn't worth the effort, or more importantly, didn't want to give ATI access to their IP (namely OS X), as ATI develops their own drivers. Simply put, loss of control, and other potential issues. Apple's past relations with MS comes to mind over the latter.

Apple has developed the nVidia drivers so far, but didn't have the hardware support. Keep in mind, Apple gets their boards from Intel, and may not have even been able to obtain such hardware support if had they desired it. It may have actually been out of Apple's hands, given their supplier agreements.

How long has Apple been writing Nvidia drivers?

 

[nanofrog]

word from the appleinsider forums from a couple of years ago is that Mac OS Rumors can't be trusted.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=65043

Aren't rumors to be taken with a grain of salt anyway?

 

[Fomaphone]

Aren't rumors to be taken with a grain of salt anyway?

sure, but it's another thing to have somebody tell you that they're using a test machine... that's just lying for ad revenue.

anyway, wikipedia also has them described as notoriously unreliable... and i have the utmost trust in EVERYTHING on wikipedia