Widespread Availability of Hexacore Xeon Processors for Mac Pro Not Slated Until Late June?

[greenmeanie]

Well I know in the school system I work at there is a freeze on buying and that includes computers too. And when the teachers asked for new MP's all we could do is laugh.
I really can't see many school systems buying new MP with the economy the way it is. And the school systems in my book are the ones who where buying most of them.
Like I said Apple is doing the right thing. Why waste money on Tooling a new MP for a few thousand people when they can sell lots of ipads and MBP's.

Believe it or not 3D artists, motionographers, video and other professionals read these forums just like everyone else. In all honesty, 3K isn't squat next to the cost of the software we use to create. We can justify spending that kind of money for top performance to improve render times and UI response. When the next iteration comes out, and the specs show 2x or 3x faster, that's the difference between taking a week to render vs 2-3 days, which in the professional artists world, is everything. Of course if I had a big house in the burbs instead of a tiny apartment in the city, I would just build out a 10+ node render farm with PC parts. Like a lot of people in this thread Apple's lack of pro updates is making me think about going back to the dark side... god forbid.

 

[deconstruct60]

Wrong, the "Pros" spend on average about 100X more than the "average" Mac consumer.

Go to the Apple Store home page. Look at the "Top Sellers" list over on the middle right edge. Right now that reads:

1. iMac
2.MacBook
3.MacBook Pro
4.Mac mini
5.Mac Pro
6.MacBook Air

iMac and MacBook are 1 and 2 despite the MBP just coming off a refresh.

100x is in no way supported by that listing. 10x is in no way support by that listing. You are trying in part to switch this to revenue as opposed to units. That's still not supported because there is no 10x, let alone 100x, difference in pricing. Even the "non pro" items that Apple sells come with 30-40% margins on them. There aren't any "loss leaders" that "Pro" devices are subsidizing. All of those other devices make money too and in higher volumes. Higher volumes leads to lower componet costs which keeps the profits high. MacPros sell for higher costs, but the component costs are higher also. Profit per unit is higher, but that doesn't mean the company makes more profit with the product line. Not saying the MacPro profits are not significant, just not singularly significant. Apple would have profit problems if either MacPro or iMac profits dropped to zero.

Being late with a MacPro isn't going to drop the profits to zero. The Mac Pro is outselling the MBA for instance.


As Apple keeps their product prices relatively constant over time the demographics is going to increasingly shift to the left (lower prices). All computer consumers are going to drift to lower prices over time because that is the expected move for this type of product. That is what the overall market is doing. The "core" market for any computer company is never off to the extreme right. If they do that they are doomed over the long term. The cash cow market may be over on the extreme right, but cash cow isn't necessarily core.


Over time Apple, if sticks to this prices fixed in stone policy, is going to treat the right edge of the market as a cash cow. Over time the whole Mac line up will be a cash cow ( as Jobs buys more and more into notion that PCs are dead and old. )

And then there is "advice" chain, Pros can easier sway average user one way or another.

Like consumer to consumer advice doesn't work? Or the product speaks for itself (30 minutes using a Mac at times being a bigger seller than one expert telling someone to buy one. This is one reason why Apple spends gobs of money on retail stores where can play as oppose to giving bounty/spiff money to experts to steer the clueless) . Again this effect is being gross exaggerated in impact.

The other effect is that Apple has grown much better. The notion of "I have a $500,000 purchase order therefore I'm a big shot" has less of an effect on a $5 billion/year company than it does on a $500 million/year company.

... be in Apple's best interest to establish a healthy relationship with the "Pros" ... that's the real core of their market.

it is Apple's interest to have a healthy relationship across a wide variety of customers. "Pro" being one of them but not exclusive nor most important.
Folks can delude themselves saying pro are the single key core. Repeating it over and over again isn't going to make it true though.

 

[deconstruct60]

When the next iteration comes out, and the specs show 2x or 3x faster, that's the difference between taking a week to render vs 2-3 days, which in the professional artists world, is everything.

Don't hold your breath on 2x or 3x speed up. More than half of the new 5600 series line up is quad Core replacements for the previous 5500 quad cores. Apple is going to use several quad cores in the new boxes. Those improvements will be more so in the 1.1-1.3x range than 2x. Likewise, going from 8 to 12 cores is only a 50% increase in cores. There is no doubling the number of cores, so extremely unlikely going to get 2x speed up ( if everything was perfectly linear speed ups would get 2x. It is not going to be.)

However, it would be less days. A four day render is better than five. Or perhaps another way to view this is the following:

An employee costs company $80K per year ( for simplicity say bill out employee at break even. Does creates $80K of work for $80K in compensation) If faster computer means 10% more productive then $80K * 10% = $8K. If spending $5K (and $3K in more software) makes them more productive it is worth it if can sell the extra productivity (again at break even for simplicity sake) . This is also quite illustrative of why MacPros don't work as gamer or bragging boxes as being a "core market". Bragging and games don't bring in more money ( unless professional gamer) for the user.


Sure when company profits are flush full of cash, folks can overspend on MacPros for folks for which the productivity increases aren't realized. However, the speed increases don't particularly have much value either; so being late to the upgrade doesn't matter.

Why waste money on Tooling a new MP for a few thousand people when they can sell lots of ipads and MBP's.

The inability to get them in volume plays a part for Apple here in that they don't run their own factories. A contractor with a dedicated MacPro line would likely bill Apple at a higher rate than Apple would incur itself with an idle (or grossly underutilized ) line. It is more profitable for Apple to contract for a MacPro run rate that ramps up to a steady level and stays there for a protracted period of time.


The increasingly curious part though is how come the XServe line doesn't get the refresh if the CPU package availability is low? The volume on XServe is even smaller than the MacPro. Dell and HP have several server configurations with 5600 parts. The run rate on MacPros may be higher than many of Dell and HP servers (although there are some where that likely isn't true), but the XServe is got be below their server run rates.

Intel chip shortage is a plausible excuse for the MacPro, but seriously weak for the XServe. Releasing an XServe with 5600 processors would make it more apparent that eventually the MacPros are next in line. In short, that there is a commitment to moving forward with these higher end line ups. [ These two differ largely in case form factor with a few extra tweaks for the XServe while giving up a few PCI-e slots. ]

 

[alent1234]

For HP the 5600 is still a build to order upgrade. No prebuilt models yet that most customers buy

 

[Cavepainter]

Be careful on the exaggerations, an iMac 27 inch i7 beats the low end Mac Pro, Sometimes. However, it's not even close after that. Even the low end Mac Pro has room for 4 Hard disk, you get one in a iMac plus the fact it's using a notebook size graphics card and Memory. You can also open and replace things in the old Mac Pro easily. I replaced one hard disk in my old iMac and I was so afraid I was going to mess up something, it took me just short of 1 hour to do it. In my Mac Pro I can change a hard disk in less than one minute. The Mac Pro is like working on a car and the iMac is like working inside a model (1/10th size.) of a car. Having said that, the i7 iMac looks great outside, heaven forbid you should ever have to open up one.

On some levels I agree with you, Eastend, thats why I haven't already bought an i7, I know the new mac pro will ultimately probably fit my needs better (I will immediately be buying at least one more internal drive as well as more memory, for example). But, really, when I really think about it, i've only had to crack open my old G5 maybe four or five times, so that convenience doesn't really add up to saving me much time.

The 27" i7 will do many things about as fast as a $2500 mac pro for around 500 bucks cheaper AND IT HAS A 27" MONITOR included in the price! How much would a Mac Pro cost if you add in a big monitor like that? That's why I'm not exaggerating... My coworker here at our studio did the exact same thing... he wanted a Pro and broke down and bought the top of the line imac instead and he uses it for the same reasons I do... and he absolutely LOVES it. I use timeline-based animation programs like Animate Pro/Harmony, After Effects, Flash, some editing apps like Final Cut, as well as window intensive programs like Photoshop, etc and that great big, long timeline with all those windows open at the same time on a huge monitor means I can work pretty fast............

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Like I said Apple is doing the right thing. Why waste money on Tooling a new MP for a few thousand people when they can sell lots of ipads and MBP's.

Apple is doing the right thing for them. For the pros who love their macs, it looks like we'll have to seriously consider windows. The upside is that we'll save so much on the switch to a windows machine that we can afford to sidegrade our software.

A local company in my town just ditched all their macs because the lack of updates to Apple's pro line coincided with the release of CS5 and their upgrade schedule. They worked out a switch to Windows with adobe when they upgraded to CS5 - and they ended up saving thousands of dollars to dump their macs.

They are all running 6 core intel beasts that cost about $1700. They sold their quad mac pros for a little less than that.

 

[deconstruct60]

They are all running 6 core intel beasts that cost about $1700.

6 core AMD boxes around that price I would have few doubts. However, who is selling $1,700 hex core Intel boxes ? Intel's i7 six core processors are going for $1,000. Xeons are at least as expensive. For a system price of $1,700, that leaves $700 for the rest of the elements ( memory , graphics , motherboard , power supply , case , Windows, etc.) . [for example if those 6 explicit things are $100 only have $100 left. ]. That is if assembly costs nothing.

 

[calsci]

Perfect timing for a wwdc announcement. Then release of the new mac pro then around 2 weeks later probably the iphone release.

 

[MacFanJeff]

There's no way you are going to get any pro computer for $1,700. When I fully load and spec out my main computer for my 3D art projects it comes in at around $5+ thousand. That's with a single Intel 980X CPU and an nVidia 480x graphics card, liquid cooling, 16GB RAM, etc.

I love my Mac Pro, but it seems like Apple is really ignoring the pro users and shifting their focus exclusively to the mobile computing market (laptops, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). It's a shame because I know that I am in a niche market and most will never need near the computer power or specs I do. But if you are into 3D art, you must have a new machine and better graphics cards more often than what Apple is doing now.

 

[jadedgamer]

There's no way you are going to get any pro computer for $1,700. When I fully load and spec out my main computer for my 3D art projects it comes in at around $5+ thousand. That's with a single Intel 980X CPU and an nVidia 480x graphics card, liquid cooling, 16GB RAM, etc.

I love my Mac Pro, but it seems like Apple is really ignoring the pro users and shifting their focus exclusively to the mobile computing market (laptops, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). It's a shame because I know that I am in a niche market and most will never need near the computer power or specs I do. But if you are into 3D art, you must have a new machine and better graphics cards more often than what Apple is doing now.

Maybe that statement would be true 15 years ago when computational power seemed to be increasing exponentially. But nowadays you just don't see radical improvements in computer speed year to year. And I can't fathom why you would allude to it not being possible to be a pro unless you shell out upwards of $5k on a computer. I've got a first gen Mac Pro quad 2.0ghz. Cost me ~$2200. It's suited me fine for years, and I see no reason to upgrade for the foreseeable future. The tools don't make the artist, and I don't honestly think a $5k "liquid cooled" system like yours saves you any time over what even the current mac pro's could offer.

 

[Eastend]

On some levels I agree with you, Eastend, thats why I haven't already bought an i7, I know the new mac pro will ultimately probably fit my needs better (I will immediately be buying at least one more internal drive as well as more memory, for example). But, really, when I really think about it, i've only had to crack open my old G5 maybe four or five times, so that convenience doesn't really add up to saving me much time.

The 27" i7 will do many things about as fast as a $2500 mac pro for around 500 bucks cheaper AND IT HAS A 27" MONITOR included in the price! How much would a Mac Pro cost if you add in a big monitor like that? That's why I'm not exaggerating... My coworker here at our studio did the exact same thing... he wanted a Pro and broke down and bought the top of the line imac instead and he uses it for the same reasons I do... and he absolutely LOVES it. I use timeline-based animation programs like Animate Pro/Harmony, After Effects, Flash, some editing apps like Final Cut, as well as window intensive programs like Photoshop, etc and that great big, long timeline with all those windows open at the same time on a huge monitor means I can work pretty fast............

Agreed, have been thinking about replacing my iMac with the next one that comes out, but I will not get rid of the Mac Pro, I use 2, 24 inch monitors on it and 3 hard disk, sometimes a client or employee here needs me to use their hard disk and it's so easy on the Mac Pro.

 

[MacFanJeff]

Maybe that statement would be true 15 years ago when computational power seemed to be increasing exponentially. But nowadays you just don't see radical improvements in computer speed year to year. And I can't fathom why you would allude to it not being possible to be a pro unless you shell out upwards of $5k on a computer. I've got a first gen Mac Pro quad 2.0ghz. Cost me ~$2200. It's suited me fine for years, and I see no reason to upgrade for the foreseeable future. The tools don't make the artist, and I don't honestly think a $5k "liquid cooled" system like yours saves you any time over what even the current mac pro's could offer.

Sorry, but I know many pro artists and they upgrade their systems at least every 1-2 years plus new video cards. If you spec out your system with top end gear, it is going to cost at least that much or more. I never said the tools make the artist, those are your words so please don't use them out of context here. What I said is there is no way you can "build a pro system" for that kind of money you stated. If you are happy with how your software runs on your systems that's all that matters. But if you use high-end software like I do, then every speed increase and advantage can save tons of time. You can think what you want, but the more updated hardware you have the time is less. For speed test results, check out 3D World Magazine sometime and see some of their tests or Toms Hardware. There are certainly vast improvements to be obtained if you are willing to pay for it and my results show it as do the tests in those publications.

All that matters is you are happy with whatever you do. I know I am happy with my results for sure.

 

[MacFanJeff]

Agreed, have been thinking about replacing my iMac with the next one that comes out, but I will not get rid of the Mac Pro, I use 2, 24 inch monitors on it and 3 hard disk, sometimes a client or employee here needs me to use their hard disk and it's so easy on the Mac Pro.

That's another good reason why I don't and can't use an iMac. I too use two professional graphics LaCie monitors. The iMacs simply don't have the same specs and professional color quality I need to obtain for my art.

 

[maerose]

new mac pro

do you think the new usb 3 will be included, as externals HD's are already appearing

 

[the editor]

do you think the new usb 3 will be included, as externals HD's are already appearing

i'm 99% sure USB 3 will "not" be included in the mac pro update, same goes for blue-ray.


Hope this time they include airport extreme instead of having to pay extra for it, a 1tb hdd would be sweet...thats not to much to ask but of course, its apple so buyers probably will end up paying extra for everything that should be included in a "pro" system anyway .

 

[Houston]

i'm 99% sure USB 3 will "not" be included in the mac pro update, same goes for blue-ray.


Hope this time they include airport extreme instead of having to pay extra for it, a 1tb hdd would be sweet...thats not to much to ask but of course, its apple so buyers probably will end up paying extra for everything that should be included in a "pro" system anyway .

I'll be surprised if there isn't a Bluray option. I find it amazing how little chatter there is about the Mac Pro update, which is very late in coming. It seems as if few care.
If we don't hear something by WWDC, then all bets are off.

 

[Umbongo]

I'll be surprised if there isn't a Bluray option. I find it amazing how little chatter there is about the Mac Pro update, which is very late in coming. It seems as if few care.
If we don't hear something by WWDC, then all bets are off.

The potential update has been discussed ad nauseam for months and months in the Mac Pro sub-forum.

 

[bbowens]

I look forward to these rollouts, as they cause the current product line to drop in price.

 

[Houston]

I look forward to these rollouts, as they cause the current product line to drop in price.

Really? Apple will just quit selling them. Of course, used prices will drop.

 

[jadedgamer]

Sorry, but I know many pro artists and they upgrade their systems at least every 1-2 years plus new video cards. If you spec out your system with top end gear, it is going to cost at least that much or more. I never said the tools make the artist, those are your words so please don't use them out of context here. What I said is there is no way you can "build a pro system" for that kind of money you stated. If you are happy with how your software runs on your systems that's all that matters. But if you use high-end software like I do, then every speed increase and advantage can save tons of time. You can think what you want, but the more updated hardware you have the time is less. For speed test results, check out 3D World Magazine sometime and see some of their tests or Toms Hardware. There are certainly vast improvements to be obtained if you are willing to pay for it and my results show it as do the tests in those publications.

All that matters is you are happy with whatever you do. I know I am happy with my results for sure.

But that's the thing, it's been a year. You were stating that Apple doesn't upgrade their systems fast enough for pro users. It's been 1 year. Processor technology hasn't changed much over this one year that it's been since Apple last updated their mac pros.

I completely agree with your statement that many pro artists upgrade their systems every 1-2 years. In a production environment I would say however that 2 years should be the minimum lifetime for a high-end production machine. I've seen countless upgrades to production machines that yield no real world speed gains.

Now when I say no "real-world speed gains", I mean that the artists using a newly upgraded system do not gain any extra time in their day due to a speed bumped computer. It doesn't matter how fast your machine is, if you're rendering an hd sequence out that is anything longer than a few seconds you're going to have to wait. Now what difference does it make if it takes 15 minutes to render something out as opposed to 10 minutes on a faster machine? Either way you have enough time to grab a coffee, and I find the "I'm rendering" excuse used more often than not to justify coffee-grabbing.

Sure there are times when you're under the gun and have to get something out on a deadline. But in my experience that's just bad time/project management. If someone is waiting for a sequence to render out so that they can print it to tape/disc and race off to the airport to get the last fedex drop-off time, chances are there was a screw-up by someone somewhere along the way and having a marginally faster computer isn't going to magically eliminate that from happening in the future. Nor is it going to realistically help you make that last fedex ship time.

As for the "you can't build a pro system for $1700" comment. I would say that yes you in fact can build a pro system for that amount. $1700 buys a whole lot of computer from your local computer component retailer. Apple will however can not build a pro system for $1700. Not after you add in the pretty aluminium case and all the other non-standard components. And everyone knows that when you buy a mac you're paying a premium.

 

[Houston]

But that's the thing, it's been a year.

Sorry but it will soon be 15 months since the last update. It's TIME.

 

[jadedgamer]

But that's the thing, it's been a year.

Sorry but it will soon be 15 months since the last update. It's TIME.

Oh, my mistake, 14 months...well...sorry, I can't believe I missed those extra 2 months. Hey I'm not saying it isn't time to upgrade the mac pro line. In fact I'm desperately waiting for the refresh because it would potentially include radeon 5xxx series video cards. I currently run a 5770 in bootcamp for gaming, and I would imagine if there were 5xxx series cards available from apple, that I might be able to get my card to work with a hack. Then maybe I would be able to run steam games natively in OSX(my 7300gt isn't supported).

But...I was merely stating that 1 year between releases isn't really a long time in the life cycle of an apple computer. Nor is it mission critical to have bleeding edge hardware updates to be a pro. Staying current is important, but you can have a 2 year old computer and realistically still call it current.

 

[Houston]

Oh, my mistake, 14 months...well...sorry, I can't believe I missed those extra 2 months. Hey I'm not saying it isn't time to upgrade the mac pro line. In fact I'm desperately waiting for the refresh because it would potentially include radeon 5xxx series video cards. I currently run a 5770 in bootcamp for gaming, and I would imagine if there were 5xxx series cards available from apple, that I might be able to get my card to work with a hack. Then maybe I would be able to run steam games natively in OSX(my 7300gt isn't supported).

But...I was merely stating that 1 year between releases isn't really a long time in the life cycle of an apple computer. Nor is it mission critical to have bleeding edge hardware updates to be a pro. Staying current is important, but you can have a 2 year old computer and realistically still call it current.

A lot of truth there, but if you're waiting to buy a Mac Pro, one would be a fool to buy early 2009 technology now. That would guarantee an announcement soon. It seems the more you want it, the longer it's gonna be.

 

[jadedgamer]

A lot of truth there, but if you're waiting to buy a Mac Pro, one would be a fool to buy early 2009 technology now. That would guarantee an announcement soon. It seems the more you want it, the longer it's gonna be.

Oh that's absolutely true. They are sure to update the line within the next month or two. I have no doubt of that. The buyer's guide is absolutely correct. And I don't doubt that the reason why apple has held off updating the mac pro system was because they were waiting for a couple of things.

First, I imagine they were waiting for the new hexacore processors to be available in the quantities they need. And second, they were probably waiting(hopefully)for drivers for ATI video cards.

The fact of the matter is if Apple released a newer mac pro 2 months ago it would be identical to last year's model save updated graphics. CPU speed on quad core xeons has not increased at all since last year's refresh. We just don't see dramatic speed improvements anymore re: cpu's. Especially not since mac pros switched to nehalem cpus last year. Aside from 6-cores which is only becoming readily available now, there has been no point to update the mac pros

 

[mBox]

...Sorry, but I know many pro artists and they upgrade their systems at least every 1-2 years plus new video cards. If you spec out your system with top end gear, it is going to cost at least that much or more. I never said the tools make the artist, those are your words so please don't use them out of context here. What I said is there is no way you can "build a pro system" for that kind of money you stated. If you are happy with how your software runs on your systems that's all that matters. But if you use high-end software like I do, then every speed increase and advantage can save tons of time...

some of us have a budget to burn. its not my fault I work for a company that expects you to write future budgets and then turn around and spend it. In this case, we have to buy 4 MacPro's and I have to be careful at when I buy since I didnt budget for the next round till 2012. Im sure there are other artists/creative/td/managers that are in the same boat.