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When will the next Mac Pro be announced

They may give a 133MHz bump to the line prior to Q1 2012 but why when they can sell the now older parts for the same price and source much lower. Like 12-core 3.07GHz 95W Dual Socket, 6-core 3.46GHz 130W. The chips are out on Intel's site.
 
bearcatrp said:
Unless your making money from this purchase, grab a refurb with what you can afford. If you have the bucks, grab a westmere system. Will last you a long time.
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What he said ^^^^^^^^

Or if you never upgraded the G5 consider a iMac i7 Quad 🙂

If you are a Final cut pro user: the big limitation right now is Final cut pro itself, just bought a Westmere 8 core thinking it would blast my Mac Pro 1,1 out of the water and it is faster with rendering but not extremely faster or more stable with most editing stuff. A good 2009 refurb will do the trick just as well as a new one and leaves you money for more RAM and perhaps a SSD.
 
nerdo said:
What he said ^^^^^^^^

Or if you never upgraded the G5 consider a iMac i7 Quad 🙂

If you are a Final cut pro user: the big limitation right now is Final cut pro itself, just bought a Westmere 8 core thinking it would blast my Mac Pro 1,1 out of the water and it is faster with rendering but not extremely faster or more stable with most editing stuff. A good 2009 refurb will do the trick just as well as a new one and leaves you money for more RAM and perhaps a SSD.
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http://www.lacomputercompany.com has new stock of 2009 2.66 quads in stock again for $1799
 
Garamond said:
They had their reasons behind axing the Xserve, but it will not happen with the Mac Pro. It just won't happen.
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Their "reasoning" behind axing the Xserve is perfectly valid for the mac pro. So I wouldn't be surprised. Both are bad moves, but apple is trying to think like an economist about the mac line, not like a business strategist.
 
In the same boat as OP here. From reading here I think a reasonable strategy would be to snag one of last August's Westmere rigs now and then maybe sell and get a new one when they ship the new models?

What's the resale on these things like?
 
timbloom said:
Their "reasoning" behind axing the Xserve is perfectly valid for the mac pro. So I wouldn't be surprised.
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It would be surprising. At least to do it within 2 years of the XServe being removed.

The reasoning was a combination of relatively low volume and low growth versus the other Mac models. Second contributing category is that don't have a "new" Mac Model to add to line up. ( MBA expanding to 11" and 13" is spreading fixed Mac engineering thinner.)

The Mac Pro was/is not as bad shape as the XServe:

1. Prior to MBA remodel the Mac Pro was selling at a faster clip then MBAs on Apple's online store. Granted Apple has "fixed" the MBA in terms of growth and units with the addition of a lower priced option. They "fixed" the XServe volume to .... with Mac Mini Server.

2. There is no widespread industry trend of virtualizing higher end workstations. A decent number of folks who howled at XServe discontinuation said effectively "Didn't really want your hardware anyway Apple.... if it runs on VMWare on commodity boxes that's all I want". (i.e., "Apple we don't want your software/hardware integration").


Sure there are the "I want a cheaper, more limited mini-tower" folks, but so far there not a ground swell of folks saying don't want to buy workstations anymore. That will probably get a bit louder when the new Xeon E3-1200 series workstations start rolling out. I think a remodeled Mac Pro could show that it has more I/O throughput then what those boxes are going to show.
(e.g, more unswitched PCI-e lanes, more I/O, more cache( less integrated graphics) , etc. )


Additionally, the Mac Pro should get a slight bump in growth from use as Mac OS X Server after the XServe retirement. Apple is likely to wait to see if that is sustainable before canceling the Mac Pro. Merging a subset of the XServe's tech into newer versions of Mac Pro ( boot SSD , front removable drives , LOM option, etc. ) is doable. It doesn't have to become a perfect plug-in replacement for a XServe to sop up a decent fraction of the former XServe market. Just like the top end iMacs didn't need to take on all the characteristics of the Mac Pro to peel off some of MPro market.



However yes, if a growth bump doesn't appear and folks flock to Windows 7, sub $1800 'workstations' then yeah the Mac Pro is in trouble.


Both are bad moves, but apple is trying to think like an economist about the mac line, not like a business strategist.
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It is not particularly good biz strategy to keep pursuing something that has no growth and is a shrinking share of your portfolio. They only had to look at a pie chart of the Mac sales to see the XServe shrink into a tiny sliver of the graph. And unlike most of the PC vendors Apple doesn't sell the rest of the PC line up and razor thin margins. So there is no necessity for "Servers" with bulky margins to balance out the low margins.
 
timbloom said:
Their "reasoning" behind axing the Xserve is perfectly valid for the mac pro. So I wouldn't be surprised. Both are bad moves, but apple is trying to think like an economist about the mac line, not like a business strategist.
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Or for the love of god.... this again?

Apple sells way more Mac Pros than they did XServes, and the XServes had far higher R&D and support costs. Stop comparing them. Just stop, people.
 
turbobass said:
From reading here I think a reasonable strategy would be to snag one of last August's Westmere rigs now and then maybe sell and get a new one when they ship the new models?
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You'll loose money/time doing two moves in rapid sucession. However, that only adds to taking the refurb track. If you buy "slightly used" when comes time to sell should be easier to sell as "used" ( it has already lost the "new car smell" price premium.)



What's the resale on these things like?
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Refurb from Apple usually for for 15-18% off original price. Used with no Apple "like new" warranty to back it up probably won't do any better than that unless you get lucky and find someone who is in a hurry.
 
I was just about to order a Mac Pro at a reseller, but was told to hold off today (Monday) as there's a possibility that a new MacPro will be announced. The only reason I have to believe this is that the shipping of MacPros have also been stopped, and current stock have been sent back to Apple. According to the reseller I spoke with.

Not saying this is true. Just saying that I'm postponing the ordering of my MacPro to Thursday, and not before.... 😀
 
GugGug said:
I was just about to order a Mac Pro at a reseller, but was told to hold off today (Monday) as there's a possibility that a new MacPro will be announced. The only reason I have to believe this is that the shipping of MacPros have also been stopped, and current stock have been sent back to Apple. According to the reseller I spoke with.

Not saying this is true. Just saying that I'm postponing the ordering of my MacPro to Thursday, and not before.... 😀
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Could be linked to Light Peak.

Or, they could be getting discontinued, and getting buried in a landfill Lisa style! : panic :
 
Or perhaps GugGug or the reseller is getting a bit confused between the MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro. The MacBook Pro should be updated later this week. I would have thought we would have heard something by now if the Mac Pro was being updated as well, but they could surprise us I guess.
 
No confusion over the suffix "Book" regarding Mac Pro or MacBook Pro. I'm talking about a big silver tower with a separate monitor. 😛
 
Well if they do update the Mac Pro that would be a pleasant surprise. Would be really nice to see a 3.2Ghz Hex as either the standard or cheapest CTO upgrade for the CPU.
 
mdgm said:
Or perhaps GugGug or the reseller is getting a bit confused between the MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro. The MacBook Pro should be updated later this week. I would have thought we would have heard something by now if the Mac Pro was being updated as well, but they could surprise us I guess.
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This is also possible.
 
You will see quiet update this year with all westmere across the entire line excluding 16 core

6 core starting at 3.2 two models
8 core starting at 2.13 three models
12 core starting at 2.26 three models
16 core starting at 2.0 1 model and 20 core as an upgrade
all this in 4th QTR
 
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MattDSLR said:
You will see quiet update this year with all westmere across the entire line excluding 16 core

6 core starting at 3.2 two models
8 core starting at 2.13 three models
12 core starting at 2.26 three models
16 core starting at 2.0 1 model and 20 core as an upgrade
all this in 4th QTR
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So you expect the Mac Pro won't use Sandy Bridge Xeons till the second half of next year?

I would have thought if they were going to do a quiet update this year it'd happen before the 4th quarter, but I could be wrong.
 
Their "reasoning" behind axing the Xserve is perfectly valid for the mac pro. So I wouldn't be surprised
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They will continue to need their Mac Pro line to run their high end software like Final Cut Pro ect. I just dont see this software being run on an imac as production machines. They need the power and expandability. They just went to the 12 core that should be an indication already.
 
mdgm said:
So you expect the Mac Pro won't use Sandy Bridge Xeons till the second half of next year?

I would have thought if they were going to do a quiet update this year it'd happen before the 4th quarter, but I could be wrong.
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They will wait for 20 core model to be released
no Sandy Bridge this year Apple will start testing it this year and release it with USB3 and FW1600 or 3200 in 2012
You can also expect FC to be announce this year cable of utilizing up to 16 cores as well Aperture
4 cores will be retired and 6 will become base or we will see one 4 core and two 6 core
soon you will see cores are more important than power as finally we will see all the new revisions being able to utilize more than 8 cores of your mac and up to 64 gig of ram
 
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Couldn't they release new Mac Pros sooner than the 4th quarter and quietly later add a 20 core option as a CTO?
 
MattDSLR said:
They will wait for 20 core model to be released
no Sandy Bridge this year Apple
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20 core??? There is no 20 core sandy bridge model this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)#Server_processors


Apple will wait till Q3-Q4 this year because .... wait for it ..... Intel won't release the "Xeon 5000" equivalent ( Xeon E-5's ) till ..... Q3-Q4 this year. Apple can't possible ship what Intel hasn't ship. Similarly should take at least as long to get PCI-e v3.0 support chips out the door also.

There are some Westmere-EX models coming with more than 8 cores but those aren't going into Mac Pros.


and FW1600 or 3200 in 2012
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FW1600 please.... pipe dream. As for as mainstream PCs go FW has reached the end of the line. NOBODY outside the embedded space is going down that path.


The only thing Apple could drop now is a Mac Pro with what really is the follow up to the "Xeon 3500" chip. However, for Xeon E-3 Intel has nuked the QPI links and gone with DMI. These chips blow transitor budget on integrated graphics. That makes sense for a deep discount server where it probably runs headless anyway. But that blows away cache size/bandwidth just to shave a few bucks.

Unless Apple is going to completely change strategy and price a Mac Pros variant with an even smaller set of slots down into the iMac range there is little to be gained by using this kind of chopped down Xeon/chipset.
 
MattDSLR said:
You will see quiet update this year with all westmere across the entire line excluding 16 core

6 core starting at 3.2 two models
8 core starting at 2.13 three models
12 core starting at 2.26 three models
16 core starting at 2.0 1 model and 20 core as an upgrade
all this in 4th QTR
Click to expand...

God. I hope not. Weak numbers. There is too much CTO in this list. They could update everything but the 8-core Ivy now. They'll need a new chipset for that 1 machine. I really hope your joking on the base clocks.
 
Just like they did with the G4, there will be a minor revision with some upgrades to support Lightpeak.

If I were a betting man, I'd even say a Radeon 6970 might be in the cards.
 
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