I think the MBP will use the higher up CPU though.
Their CTO options tend to encompass all of the chips aside from the "extreme" configurations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Apple really doesn't have any excuses anymore. I mean this totally, there is no reason why they can't higher the people they need to get drivers, OpenGL and other features up to snuff. When Linux has better drivers and support you know something is wrong.
The AMD GPUs are ready to go so I don't think an update is being held up there. Well other than the possibility that Apple will integrated the GPU processor on the motherboard.
Yes I know and that is why I object to the blame Apple mentality. Like it or not Apple can't ship new stuff if the processor isn't there to ship in the first place.
In any event Apples problem with the Pro is targeting to small of a market considering it is Apples only viable and configurable desktop. I see this as the primary driver for a refactored Pro.
Apple relies on the gpu manufacturers for drivers, yet supposedly they only allow modification of a portion of their code, and they're very restrictive in general. The AMD gpus are launched, but I heard they were not yet shipping. On the Mac Pro I don't see them going with them integrated into the motherboard on this generation. Part of the problem is that it doesn't attract a lot of users over from PC workstations. One of the issues is graphics drivers and a lack of appropriate cards. This most likely held back adoption rates even on the first couple generations where pricing was very competitive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I would want to see production systems from Apple before getting too excited one way or the other. I've seen numbers all over the place, some indicating a 2 X improvement in performance.
I can't wait and frankly I'm not even in the market. Today my intention is to hold off another year but hey you never know.
The interesting thing here is that they will likely be competing directly with Trinity from AMD. If that chip lives up to its billing it would be a better choice for the AIR and Mini. However I was under the impression that the Mini already used 35 watt processors
Frankly I hope they stay away from NVidia. Mainly because AMD has changed for the better with respect to drivers and open source. Note I said better, their drivers have a ways to go but are far better than past efforts.
NVidia isn't actually that bad. On the Windows side they're typically the preferred choice, and I'm sure many people would enjoy mercury playback on the mac pro. While they pushed CUDA, OpenCL should run just fine over newer NVidia cards. I'm not sure if the Quadro 4000 does on a Mac, but if not it's most likely because it was released some time ago. The thing is the gpu hardware itself is good enough for even most demanding users, or it would be if the drivers were really good.
The mini uses 35-45W. The quad is 45. I think the others are 35, but I'm not certain.
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
Boxx is always ahead of the competition in terms of product releases. You pay a lot for the hardware, but their support is ridiculously knowledgeable. Their upgrade cycles are a bit different from Apple in that hardware seems to be staggered at times. Given that new Quadro and Firepro cards will come out significantly later than equivalent consumer versions, Boxx is releasing hardware with the latest cpus now, and they'll bump the gpus as new options become available.
Apple will wait until everything is available, and they'll put out some kind of release. It's not the cpus that were entirely neglected. It's just a lot of little things that could have been improved. Instead they just keep the box up to date enough and spend the majority of their time on other products.
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
Ah the old 'do what I want now, or me and everyone I know are switching all hardware and software' routine. Why would you expect Apple to have released an update by now? The E5 CPUs arrived last week. It's not as if Apple has been ignoring these CPU options for a while.
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
So a company gets a product out a few days before another and you find that justification for switching vendors, operating systems and apps?
Quote:
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Are you nuts? Seriously the E5's have only been on the market a few days, it is totally unreasonable to expect that anyone with decent quality control would have a new workstation on the market that fast.
Quote:
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
I call BS on that one because not every studio is run buy a bunch of uneducated fools! Rational individuals would realize that Intel just released the E5 series and that shopping choices are extremely limited right now. Businessmen into the long term don't jump at the first new of anything, they take their time to see what the market will offer.
Quote:
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Anybody with any sense would have moved off XServes years before Apple discontinued the line. Servers are infrastructure best sourced at a good price and capability point. Their is no advantage to the Apple label when servers are locked up in a rack in a closet someplace.
Quote:
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
Only if you dwell on it for an excessively long period of time. There is nothing tough at all about buying the best hardware and software for you business.
Quote:
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
I really doubt it. It really looks like you like stressing yourself over nothing.
Ah the old 'do what I want now, or me and everyone I know are switching all hardware and software' routine. Why would you expect Apple to have released an update by now? The E5 CPUs arrived last week. It's not as if Apple has been ignoring these CPU options for a while.
Frankly I'd love it if these sorts would actually switch and leave this board. I really believe that these guys can't read for content or follow the news.
Quote:
They normally release updates on a Tuesday. The CPUs only came out last Tuesday so the earliest they'd put them up is this coming Tuesday.
They might not even have an intention of releasing anything for weeks or maybe even months. It isn't like the market got instantly flooded with Sandy Bridge E5 options after Intels release. Frankly these are professional machines and thus manufactures are more careful about what they release.
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
The other thing to consider is that Apple may very well retire the Pro for a smarter architecture. The wait for a new Pro could be a long one.
It amazes me that so many professionals can't see beyond what they know from the past. Somebody truly concerned about a new computing platform would be demanding just that, not another respin of a worn out concept. Instead we have a bozo jumping at the first shinny box to hit the market even if it offers very little in the way of new technology. It makes me think the guys at Boxx are fly fisherman.
By the way I mean no disrespect for Boxx, my disrespect is reserved for those without a clue.
The other thing to consider is that Apple may very well retire the Pro for a smarter architecture. The wait for a new Pro could be a long one.
It amazes me that so many professionals can't see beyond what they know from the past. Somebody truly concerned about a new computing platform would be demanding just that, not another respin of a worn out concept.
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
It could be any length of time before launch. Too bad Ivy Bridge E is so far off. That will most likely have cooler versions of some of those, although I imagine it will still be a smaller release like westmere (smaller as in fewer SKUs). Looking at that link I'm wondering about their method of calculation in terms of speed. It didn't look like an immense gain from other data. Any ideas? They run hot, but it should still be doable in a mac pro form factor, although the fans might require a slightly higher default rpm. If you recall the mac pro 2,1, that also used extremely hot cpus. I kind of wonder what the Xeons will be like when it gets to Haswell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
So a company gets a product out a few days before another and you find that justification for switching vendors, operating systems and apps?
Are you nuts? Seriously the E5's have only been on the market a few days, it is totally unreasonable to expect that anyone with decent quality control would have a new workstation on the market that fast.
I call BS on that one because not every studio is run buy a bunch of uneducated fools! Rational individuals would realize that Intel just released the E5 series and that shopping choices are extremely limited right now. Businessmen into the long term don't jump at the first new of anything, they take their time to see what the market will offer.
A soft refresh and moderate price adjustments on some of the configurations could have made sense last year if they felt it would even out sales. The available gpus from AMD weren't a huge boost or anything. If you look at gpu options, most of them at the workstation level came out no later than Q4 2010. Some of the top end ones wouldn't make it to OSX anyway. Anyway given that such a thing did not happen, it wouldn't make sense to worry about one being rushed out now. You're also correct. Larger studios are very conservative on purchases. They wait for reviews and do internal testing before a large deployment, or in many cases purchases are staggered. The only rush would have been if they could have potentially put one out at the end of last year. That might have motivated a few people for tax reasons. Otherwise they're already accomplishing work with what they have. I've worked in a few environments where the hardware really was behind for the way they worked, but that's not very common. Typically the workflow is influenced by what the hardware can handle. When that becomes limiting, they upgrade. Lack of 64 bit builds a couple years ago had a huge impact on the way people worked. Not having that ram limitation there in some cases makes an enormous difference.
The very latest ones aren't actually shipping yet. The AMD ones which are "launched" should ship soon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
By the way I mean no disrespect for Boxx, my disrespect is reserved for those without a clue.
Boxx has a lot to do with support. They market their workstations for certain applications, and much of their staff has significant hands on experience and training with these applications, so their technical support can be a bit more in depth. It's a cool company. If I made a move to Windows it would be a definite consideration as I respect what they do. Pricing has gotten a little high though even for my tastes on some of their models.
In the absence of any Macs 3 months into calendar 2012 (unless you count the iPad '3' then I'm enjoying the discussion.
Keep it going.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. I don't doubt that many Mac Pro potential buyers gasping like fish on dry land will maul any Sandy Based Pro update. But for the rest of Apple's line up...if you have a Mac that works why not just wait for Haswell? It sounds more significant? And rumours of these HiDPI Macs have begun to swirl as well...
As for workstations in general. I thought that Apple was beginning to take the 'tower' market more seriously when they first introduced the G5. Even more so when they FINALLY started to include 'serious' 3D cards...and EVEN MORE so when you could get get dual quad machines for competition busting prices.
But with the last update they went back to 'true to old school Apple Computer' form and charged ridiculous prices. Fine if they want to kill their Pro market.
I'd still like to see them bring a single CPU model down to G3 era pricing. £1-1200 for the entry model. By the time you buy the Apple monitor you're at £1800-1900!!!! Just to get on the ladder with a tower/monitor. Which is the high end of the iMac. Price the next one at £1500 and you're at £2200 for the mid range. Dual processor model at £1800 and you're at £2500 with monitor.
And even at that...it's expensive. Does anybody really buy £2000+ towers any more? Is that a consumer purchase? A mainstream one? Do even 'most'/many 'Pros' want to pay that any more?
To me, it's not a value proposition these days. I think those days are long gone and that's why the Pro (aside from the Intel CPU delay) sits as Apple ponders it's next move. But then, we thought the Mini was going to die and Apple updated it ages later.
As for Renderman. Read the comments with interest.
Apple has always priced software insanely cheap to drive hardware sales...? Look at Final Cut. Compared to where it was a handful of years ago that on line price is insane. Same with Logic.
If Apple wanted to take 3d creation more mainstream in the way that photo manipulation and video phaffing have done and sound manipulation...who knows what they could do.
I always thought they might buy Xsi at some point...to add to their stable of pro apps. But given recent moves to re-interface eg Final Cut, I can see Apple is supporting their consumer/prosumer base. Broadening it's appeal perhaps. Power to the people or 'more' people and all that.
If Apple were really serious about the Pro/workstation market they could smash all comers. Maybe they feel they can get there with most of their consumer stuff with 'good enough' and 'mainstreaming' what pro software they have. It's all relative. Alot of the stuff you used to need a tower for have seen laptops and desktops take over that role. You used to need to sit at computer to browse the web. Now I spend more time browsing the web on my iPhone than on my iMac. Weird.
IF they have 76% of their revenues from iOS maybe they'll get there through osmosis. Just like the wandered into teh 'gaming' market.
It could be any length of time before launch. Too bad Ivy Bridge E is so far off. That will most likely have cooler versions of some of those, although I imagine it will still be a smaller release like westmere (smaller as in fewer SKUs). Looking at that link I'm wondering about their method of calculation in terms of speed. It didn't look like an immense gain from other data. Any ideas? They run hot, but it should still be doable in a mac pro form factor, although the fans might require a slightly higher default rpm. If you recall the mac pro 2,1, that also used extremely hot cpus. I kind of wonder what the Xeons will be like when it gets to Haswell.
A soft refresh and moderate price adjustments on some of the configurations could have made sense last year if they felt it would even out sales. The available gpus from AMD weren't a huge boost or anything. If you look at gpu options, most of them at the workstation level came out no later than Q4 2010. Some of the top end ones wouldn't make it to OSX anyway. Anyway given that such a thing did not happen, it wouldn't make sense to worry about one being rushed out now. You're also correct. Larger studios are very conservative on purchases. They wait for reviews and do internal testing before a large deployment, or in many cases purchases are staggered. The only rush would have been if they could have potentially put one out at the end of last year. That might have motivated a few people for tax reasons. Otherwise they're already accomplishing work with what they have. I've worked in a few environments where the hardware really was behind for the way they worked, but that's not very common. Typically the workflow is influenced by what the hardware can handle. When that becomes limiting, they upgrade. Lack of 64 bit builds a couple years ago had a huge impact on the way people worked. Not having that ram limitation there in some cases makes an enormous difference.
The very latest ones aren't actually shipping yet. The AMD ones which are "launched" should ship soon.
The lack of significant progress on gpus (ie old gpu tech with a new badge on a process shrink or whatever) didn't stop them updating the iMac in the past but I guess the cpu was there to update with. The whole Mac Pro is out of date, poor value and offers gpus that appear dated. With the recent AMD gpus hitting town just compounds the perception. 5000 vs 7000. Seems out of date to me. The standard gpus on the entry and mid machines are a joke. So is the ram. You're point about ram being a cheap and powerful upgrade is noted. So why doesn't Apple sort out the ridiculous ram on it's Pro? Or the Hard Drive sizes? Things a 100 billion pound company can't fix? Penny pinching. But it bites them in the ass as anyone will see greed when they see it and won't buy. I'd rather set the pro on fire and p*ss on it for that price. The components are a strange, shameful oxymoron to the purported market the 'workstation' is aspiring one. Can't sort out value for an over priced machine yet is offering superb value on an iPad with techno busting retina screen and quad core gpu on something 1/2 an inch thin. It shows us where their priorities lie.
Apple could take the Pro workstation mainstream or more so. (Perhaps they already are with the top end iMac which is a handsome and capable machine with the option for a 2 gig Vram card and a lovely 27 inch monitor with a fantastic resolution.) Sure, not cutting edge but about the best gpu update the iMac has ever had.
Make a more compact 'workstation/desktop'...shave the monitor price to a sane level and start teh entry pro at a reachable level.
Apple could chop the Pro prices in nearly in half, bundle the monitor at a value price at the price points I note above and they'd still make plenty of profit.
Does it HAVE to have the Xeon? What are the prices for the Sandy Bridge chips from single to dual anyhow?
The lack of significant progress on gpus (ie old gpu tech with a new badge on a process shrink or whatever) didn't stop them updating the iMac in the past but I guess the cpu was there to update with. The whole Mac Pro is out of date, poor value and offers gpus that appear dated. With the recent AMD gpus hitting town just compounds the perception. 5000 vs 7000. Seems out of date to me.
Well the firepros offered by most oems are still based on the AMD 5000 line. The 7000 launched recently, but it hasn't started shipping. My theory is that Apple will wait for any bugs to work their way out of the manufacturing process to limit any warranty servicing costs. I don't see a launch before April at all. If it was much much later, it wouldn't truly surprise me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
Make a more compact 'workstation/desktop'...shave the monitor price to a sane level and start teh entry pro at a reachable level.
Apple could chop the Pro prices in nearly in half, bundle the monitor at a value price at the price points I note above and they'd still make plenty of profit.
Does it HAVE to have the Xeon? What are the prices for the Sandy Bridge chips from single to dual anyhow?
Lemon Bon Bon.
Bundled displays are typically pretty bad, and I wouldn't suggest that TB display anywhere color matters. Glossy and LED backlighting are both bad (color temperature issues). It lacks any kind of accessible LUT/DDC control system as well as an appropriate SDK. Basically you can profile it, and in past experience Apple displays take a very long time to warm up, and show significant drift after the first year or so. The available displays today are actually a bit discouraging, but there are still better options.
Still not one word on this boat anchor! This isn't looking at all good.
The CPU increase is not dramatic - it's 15% at the same clock speed. They have to put in more cores for the same price to make the upgrade worthwhile. They can't unless Intel makes it cheaper to do that.
Right now, the low-end has the $284 W3530 2.8GHz 4-core/8-thread.
The nearest E5 equivalent is E5-2609 $294 but it's only 2.4GHz and 4-core/4-thread. They'd have to use the E5-2620 $406 2GHz 6c/12t.
As for the high-end options, the Mac Pro maxes out at the $1440 X5670 and achieves 25,000 geekbench:
Linux 32,772 and Windows 39,229. If we assume the average of 36,000, that is high but those chips are $2,000 each and 135W. Given the vast differences between the 3 E5 tests, I think there will have to be more tests for accurate numbers.
Going by clock speed, if we assume that the $1440 chip would achieve 82% of the speed of the high-end chip, that means the 12-core E5 Xeon Mac Pro would get between 27,000-32,000.
In the best case, that's 30% faster than the current one. They might as well upgrade it as it's 30% for the same money but if it takes nearly 2 years to jump up 30%, there's absolutely no rush.
The Mac Pro might double as a boat anchor but the Moore is broken and that ship has sailed.
It's not good to have people wait 2 years and then put a graph on an update page saying 1.3x. That's very weak. It's time they Think Different about the Pro and how to make it interesting again. That only comes by tackling workflows.
Scale it down, narrow the range, design it to be less upgradeable, make it better performance per dollar and focus on GPU and Thunderbolt technology. The only way they can top those performance benchmarks is by allowing you to chain 4 x 6-core $2,500 Mac Pro mini towers together over Thunderbolt.
Going by clock speed, if we assume that the $1440 chip would achieve 82% of the speed of the high-end chip, that means the 12-core E5 Xeon Mac Pro would get between 27,000-32,000.
In the best case, that's 30% faster than the current one. They might as well upgrade it as it's 30% for the same money but if it takes nearly 2 years to jump up 30%, there's absolutely no rush.
The Mac Pro might double as a boat anchor but the Moore is broken and that ship has sailed.
It's not good to have people wait 2 years and then put a graph on an update page saying 1.3x. That's very weak. It's time they Think Different about the Pro and how to make it interesting again. That only comes by tackling workflows.
Scale it down, narrow the range, design it to be less upgradeable, make it better performance per dollar and focus on GPU and Thunderbolt technology. The only way they can top those performance benchmarks is by allowing you to chain 4 x 6-core $2,500 Mac Pro mini towers together over Thunderbolt.
*nods. It's about creating performance and value. 6 core. Good GPU. Daisy chain. Price it to go. You create value added through a great single priced unit but drive volume by X-griding them to taste. Great for smaller business type or larger. Daisy Thunderbolt for open cl?
£995 for a six core. £1500 with monitor for the base model.
It has to have value and performance and start far below the top end iMac which is a compelling desktop in the context of apple desktop sales.
I went in the Apple Store to buy the iPad last night and the 27 inch iMac is lust worthy.
The lower the price the better and offer a discount for buying the 27 inch display with it. You'd hit the mid to upper iMac price range for the entry model. This is the way it used to be in the g3 and g4 tower days.
Apple have priced their towers beyond reason. And right now they're an expensive joke.
The CPU increase is not dramatic - it's 15% at the same clock speed. They have to put in more cores for the same price to make the upgrade worthwhile. They can't unless Intel makes it cheaper to do that.
Right now, the low-end has the $284 W3530 2.8GHz 4-core/8-thread.
The nearest E5 equivalent is E5-2609 $294 but it's only 2.4GHz and 4-core/4-thread. They'd have to use the E5-2620 $406 2GHz 6c/12t.
bla, bla, bla...
The Xeon you are comparing are not at all equivalent.
The closest thing to the W35xx/36xx models (single cpu) are the E5-16xx models:
Comments
I think the MBP will use the higher up CPU though.
Their CTO options tend to encompass all of the chips aside from the "extreme" configurations.
Apple really doesn't have any excuses anymore. I mean this totally, there is no reason why they can't higher the people they need to get drivers, OpenGL and other features up to snuff. When Linux has better drivers and support you know something is wrong.
The AMD GPUs are ready to go so I don't think an update is being held up there. Well other than the possibility that Apple will integrated the GPU processor on the motherboard.
Yes I know and that is why I object to the blame Apple mentality. Like it or not Apple can't ship new stuff if the processor isn't there to ship in the first place.
In any event Apples problem with the Pro is targeting to small of a market considering it is Apples only viable and configurable desktop. I see this as the primary driver for a refactored Pro.
Apple relies on the gpu manufacturers for drivers, yet supposedly they only allow modification of a portion of their code, and they're very restrictive in general. The AMD gpus are launched, but I heard they were not yet shipping. On the Mac Pro I don't see them going with them integrated into the motherboard on this generation. Part of the problem is that it doesn't attract a lot of users over from PC workstations. One of the issues is graphics drivers and a lack of appropriate cards. This most likely held back adoption rates even on the first couple generations where pricing was very competitive.
I would want to see production systems from Apple before getting too excited one way or the other. I've seen numbers all over the place, some indicating a 2 X improvement in performance.
I can't wait and frankly I'm not even in the market. Today my intention is to hold off another year but hey you never know.
The interesting thing here is that they will likely be competing directly with Trinity from AMD. If that chip lives up to its billing it would be a better choice for the AIR and Mini. However I was under the impression that the Mini already used 35 watt processors
Frankly I hope they stay away from NVidia. Mainly because AMD has changed for the better with respect to drivers and open source. Note I said better, their drivers have a ways to go but are far better than past efforts.
NVidia isn't actually that bad. On the Windows side they're typically the preferred choice, and I'm sure many people would enjoy mercury playback on the mac pro. While they pushed CUDA, OpenCL should run just fine over newer NVidia cards. I'm not sure if the Quadro 4000 does on a Mac, but if not it's most likely because it was released some time ago. The thing is the gpu hardware itself is good enough for even most demanding users, or it would be if the drivers were really good.
The mini uses 35-45W. The quad is 45. I think the others are 35, but I'm not certain.
http://boxxtech.com/products/3DBOXX/...sp?prodid=8920
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
BOXX may have a new customer..
http://boxxtech.com/products/3DBOXX/...sp?prodid=8920
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
Boxx is always ahead of the competition in terms of product releases. You pay a lot for the hardware, but their support is ridiculously knowledgeable. Their upgrade cycles are a bit different from Apple in that hardware seems to be staggered at times. Given that new Quadro and Firepro cards will come out significantly later than equivalent consumer versions, Boxx is releasing hardware with the latest cpus now, and they'll bump the gpus as new options become available.
Apple will wait until everything is available, and they'll put out some kind of release. It's not the cpus that were entirely neglected. It's just a lot of little things that could have been improved. Instead they just keep the box up to date enough and spend the majority of their time on other products.
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
Ah the old 'do what I want now, or me and everyone I know are switching all hardware and software' routine. Why would you expect Apple to have released an update by now? The E5 CPUs arrived last week. It's not as if Apple has been ignoring these CPU options for a while.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/processo...sors-40095209/
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...-Family/server
They normally release updates on a Tuesday. The CPUs only came out last Tuesday so the earliest they'd put them up is this coming Tuesday.
They need to keep them running cool too:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03..._e5_hot_stuff/
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
BOXX may have a new customer..
So a company gets a product out a few days before another and you find that justification for switching vendors, operating systems and apps?
I really thought Apple would have released a new Mac Pro by now with these new processors. Their lack of commitment to the professional market is causing me to give other options great consideration.
Are you nuts? Seriously the E5's have only been on the market a few days, it is totally unreasonable to expect that anyone with decent quality control would have a new workstation on the market that fast.
Every studio I freelance at is asking themselves if they should switch too.
I call BS on that one because not every studio is run buy a bunch of uneducated fools! Rational individuals would realize that Intel just released the E5 series and that shopping choices are extremely limited right now. Businessmen into the long term don't jump at the first new of anything, they take their time to see what the market will offer.
The majority have already switched their networks from X-Serves. It's certainly looking like the workstations and laptops will be next.
Anybody with any sense would have moved off XServes years before Apple discontinued the line. Servers are infrastructure best sourced at a good price and capability point. Their is no advantage to the Apple label when servers are locked up in a rack in a closet someplace.
Apple used to be the easy answer, now they're the tough question.
Only if you dwell on it for an excessively long period of time. There is nothing tough at all about buying the best hardware and software for you business.
I hate the thought of this, since I've been an Apple customer for 30+ years.
I really doubt it. It really looks like you like stressing yourself over nothing.
Ah the old 'do what I want now, or me and everyone I know are switching all hardware and software' routine. Why would you expect Apple to have released an update by now? The E5 CPUs arrived last week. It's not as if Apple has been ignoring these CPU options for a while.
Frankly I'd love it if these sorts would actually switch and leave this board. I really believe that these guys can't read for content or follow the news.
They normally release updates on a Tuesday. The CPUs only came out last Tuesday so the earliest they'd put them up is this coming Tuesday.
They might not even have an intention of releasing anything for weeks or maybe even months. It isn't like the market got instantly flooded with Sandy Bridge E5 options after Intels release. Frankly these are professional machines and thus manufactures are more careful about what they release.
They need to keep them running cool too:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03..._e5_hot_stuff/
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
The other thing to consider is that Apple may very well retire the Pro for a smarter architecture. The wait for a new Pro could be a long one.
It amazes me that so many professionals can't see beyond what they know from the past. Somebody truly concerned about a new computing platform would be demanding just that, not another respin of a worn out concept. Instead we have a bozo jumping at the first shinny box to hit the market even if it offers very little in the way of new technology. It makes me think the guys at Boxx are fly fisherman.
By the way I mean no disrespect for Boxx, my disrespect is reserved for those without a clue.
The other thing to consider is that Apple may very well retire the Pro for a smarter architecture. The wait for a new Pro could be a long one.
It amazes me that so many professionals can't see beyond what they know from the past. Somebody truly concerned about a new computing platform would be demanding just that, not another respin of a worn out concept.
*nods.
Lemon Bon Bon.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/processo...sors-40095209/
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...-Family/server
They normally release updates on a Tuesday. The CPUs only came out last Tuesday so the earliest they'd put them up is this coming Tuesday.
They need to keep them running cool too:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03..._e5_hot_stuff/
I expect they'll also want to get the iPad launch out of the way - the resources required for a multi-million unit shipment in the space of a few days are high. Even an extra couple of weeks or months isn't going to make much difference given the time it's been since the last Mac Pro update.
It could be any length of time before launch. Too bad Ivy Bridge E is so far off. That will most likely have cooler versions of some of those, although I imagine it will still be a smaller release like westmere (smaller as in fewer SKUs). Looking at that link I'm wondering about their method of calculation in terms of speed. It didn't look like an immense gain from other data. Any ideas? They run hot, but it should still be doable in a mac pro form factor, although the fans might require a slightly higher default rpm. If you recall the mac pro 2,1, that also used extremely hot cpus. I kind of wonder what the Xeons will be like when it gets to Haswell.
So a company gets a product out a few days before another and you find that justification for switching vendors, operating systems and apps?
Are you nuts? Seriously the E5's have only been on the market a few days, it is totally unreasonable to expect that anyone with decent quality control would have a new workstation on the market that fast.
I call BS on that one because not every studio is run buy a bunch of uneducated fools! Rational individuals would realize that Intel just released the E5 series and that shopping choices are extremely limited right now. Businessmen into the long term don't jump at the first new of anything, they take their time to see what the market will offer.
A soft refresh and moderate price adjustments on some of the configurations could have made sense last year if they felt it would even out sales. The available gpus from AMD weren't a huge boost or anything. If you look at gpu options, most of them at the workstation level came out no later than Q4 2010. Some of the top end ones wouldn't make it to OSX anyway. Anyway given that such a thing did not happen, it wouldn't make sense to worry about one being rushed out now. You're also correct. Larger studios are very conservative on purchases. They wait for reviews and do internal testing before a large deployment, or in many cases purchases are staggered. The only rush would have been if they could have potentially put one out at the end of last year. That might have motivated a few people for tax reasons. Otherwise they're already accomplishing work with what they have. I've worked in a few environments where the hardware really was behind for the way they worked, but that's not very common. Typically the workflow is influenced by what the hardware can handle. When that becomes limiting, they upgrade. Lack of 64 bit builds a couple years ago had a huge impact on the way people worked. Not having that ram limitation there in some cases makes an enormous difference.
The very latest ones aren't actually shipping yet. The AMD ones which are "launched" should ship soon.
By the way I mean no disrespect for Boxx, my disrespect is reserved for those without a clue.
Boxx has a lot to do with support. They market their workstations for certain applications, and much of their staff has significant hands on experience and training with these applications, so their technical support can be a bit more in depth. It's a cool company. If I made a move to Windows it would be a definite consideration as I respect what they do. Pricing has gotten a little high though even for my tastes on some of their models.
Keep it going.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. I don't doubt that many Mac Pro potential buyers gasping like fish on dry land will maul any Sandy Based Pro update. But for the rest of Apple's line up...if you have a Mac that works why not just wait for Haswell? It sounds more significant? And rumours of these HiDPI Macs have begun to swirl as well...
But with the last update they went back to 'true to old school Apple Computer' form and charged ridiculous prices. Fine if they want to kill their Pro market.
I'd still like to see them bring a single CPU model down to G3 era pricing. £1-1200 for the entry model. By the time you buy the Apple monitor you're at £1800-1900!!!! Just to get on the ladder with a tower/monitor. Which is the high end of the iMac. Price the next one at £1500 and you're at £2200 for the mid range. Dual processor model at £1800 and you're at £2500 with monitor.
And even at that...it's expensive. Does anybody really buy £2000+ towers any more? Is that a consumer purchase? A mainstream one? Do even 'most'/many 'Pros' want to pay that any more?
To me, it's not a value proposition these days. I think those days are long gone and that's why the Pro (aside from the Intel CPU delay) sits as Apple ponders it's next move. But then, we thought the Mini was going to die and Apple updated it ages later.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Apple has always priced software insanely cheap to drive hardware sales...? Look at Final Cut. Compared to where it was a handful of years ago that on line price is insane. Same with Logic.
If Apple wanted to take 3d creation more mainstream in the way that photo manipulation and video phaffing have done and sound manipulation...who knows what they could do.
I always thought they might buy Xsi at some point...to add to their stable of pro apps. But given recent moves to re-interface eg Final Cut, I can see Apple is supporting their consumer/prosumer base. Broadening it's appeal perhaps. Power to the people or 'more' people and all that.
If Apple were really serious about the Pro/workstation market they could smash all comers. Maybe they feel they can get there with most of their consumer stuff with 'good enough' and 'mainstreaming' what pro software they have. It's all relative. Alot of the stuff you used to need a tower for have seen laptops and desktops take over that role. You used to need to sit at computer to browse the web. Now I spend more time browsing the web on my iPhone than on my iMac. Weird.
IF they have 76% of their revenues from iOS maybe they'll get there through osmosis. Just like the wandered into teh 'gaming' market.
Random thoughts.
Lemon Bon Bon.
It could be any length of time before launch. Too bad Ivy Bridge E is so far off. That will most likely have cooler versions of some of those, although I imagine it will still be a smaller release like westmere (smaller as in fewer SKUs). Looking at that link I'm wondering about their method of calculation in terms of speed. It didn't look like an immense gain from other data. Any ideas? They run hot, but it should still be doable in a mac pro form factor, although the fans might require a slightly higher default rpm. If you recall the mac pro 2,1, that also used extremely hot cpus. I kind of wonder what the Xeons will be like when it gets to Haswell.
A soft refresh and moderate price adjustments on some of the configurations could have made sense last year if they felt it would even out sales. The available gpus from AMD weren't a huge boost or anything. If you look at gpu options, most of them at the workstation level came out no later than Q4 2010. Some of the top end ones wouldn't make it to OSX anyway. Anyway given that such a thing did not happen, it wouldn't make sense to worry about one being rushed out now. You're also correct. Larger studios are very conservative on purchases. They wait for reviews and do internal testing before a large deployment, or in many cases purchases are staggered. The only rush would have been if they could have potentially put one out at the end of last year. That might have motivated a few people for tax reasons. Otherwise they're already accomplishing work with what they have. I've worked in a few environments where the hardware really was behind for the way they worked, but that's not very common. Typically the workflow is influenced by what the hardware can handle. When that becomes limiting, they upgrade. Lack of 64 bit builds a couple years ago had a huge impact on the way people worked. Not having that ram limitation there in some cases makes an enormous difference.
The very latest ones aren't actually shipping yet. The AMD ones which are "launched" should ship soon.
The lack of significant progress on gpus (ie old gpu tech with a new badge on a process shrink or whatever) didn't stop them updating the iMac in the past but I guess the cpu was there to update with. The whole Mac Pro is out of date, poor value and offers gpus that appear dated. With the recent AMD gpus hitting town just compounds the perception. 5000 vs 7000. Seems out of date to me. The standard gpus on the entry and mid machines are a joke. So is the ram. You're point about ram being a cheap and powerful upgrade is noted. So why doesn't Apple sort out the ridiculous ram on it's Pro? Or the Hard Drive sizes? Things a 100 billion pound company can't fix? Penny pinching. But it bites them in the ass as anyone will see greed when they see it and won't buy. I'd rather set the pro on fire and p*ss on it for that price. The components are a strange, shameful oxymoron to the purported market the 'workstation' is aspiring one. Can't sort out value for an over priced machine yet is offering superb value on an iPad with techno busting retina screen and quad core gpu on something 1/2 an inch thin. It shows us where their priorities lie.
Apple could take the Pro workstation mainstream or more so. (Perhaps they already are with the top end iMac which is a handsome and capable machine with the option for a 2 gig Vram card and a lovely 27 inch monitor with a fantastic resolution.) Sure, not cutting edge but about the best gpu update the iMac has ever had.
Make a more compact 'workstation/desktop'...shave the monitor price to a sane level and start teh entry pro at a reachable level.
Apple could chop the Pro prices in nearly in half, bundle the monitor at a value price at the price points I note above and they'd still make plenty of profit.
Does it HAVE to have the Xeon? What are the prices for the Sandy Bridge chips from single to dual anyhow?
Lemon Bon Bon.
The lack of significant progress on gpus (ie old gpu tech with a new badge on a process shrink or whatever) didn't stop them updating the iMac in the past but I guess the cpu was there to update with. The whole Mac Pro is out of date, poor value and offers gpus that appear dated. With the recent AMD gpus hitting town just compounds the perception. 5000 vs 7000. Seems out of date to me.
Well the firepros offered by most oems are still based on the AMD 5000 line. The 7000 launched recently, but it hasn't started shipping. My theory is that Apple will wait for any bugs to work their way out of the manufacturing process to limit any warranty servicing costs. I don't see a launch before April at all. If it was much much later, it wouldn't truly surprise me.
Make a more compact 'workstation/desktop'...shave the monitor price to a sane level and start teh entry pro at a reachable level.
Apple could chop the Pro prices in nearly in half, bundle the monitor at a value price at the price points I note above and they'd still make plenty of profit.
Does it HAVE to have the Xeon? What are the prices for the Sandy Bridge chips from single to dual anyhow?
Lemon Bon Bon.
Bundled displays are typically pretty bad, and I wouldn't suggest that TB display anywhere color matters. Glossy and LED backlighting are both bad (color temperature issues). It lacks any kind of accessible LUT/DDC control system as well as an appropriate SDK. Basically you can profile it, and in past experience Apple displays take a very long time to warm up, and show significant drift after the first year or so. The available displays today are actually a bit discouraging, but there are still better options.
Still not one word on this boat anchor! This isn't looking at all good.
Why? Filler.
Still not one word on this boat anchor! This isn't looking at all good.
The CPU increase is not dramatic - it's 15% at the same clock speed. They have to put in more cores for the same price to make the upgrade worthwhile. They can't unless Intel makes it cheaper to do that.
Right now, the low-end has the $284 W3530 2.8GHz 4-core/8-thread.
The nearest E5 equivalent is E5-2609 $294 but it's only 2.4GHz and 4-core/4-thread. They'd have to use the E5-2620 $406 2GHz 6c/12t.
As for the high-end options, the Mac Pro maxes out at the $1440 X5670 and achieves 25,000 geekbench:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/571928
There is a test of the E5-2680 here (costing $1723) getting 23,000:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/582614
The highest-end chip, the E5-2690 has 2 tests:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/572555
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/571626
Linux 32,772 and Windows 39,229. If we assume the average of 36,000, that is high but those chips are $2,000 each and 135W. Given the vast differences between the 3 E5 tests, I think there will have to be more tests for accurate numbers.
Going by clock speed, if we assume that the $1440 chip would achieve 82% of the speed of the high-end chip, that means the 12-core E5 Xeon Mac Pro would get between 27,000-32,000.
In the best case, that's 30% faster than the current one. They might as well upgrade it as it's 30% for the same money but if it takes nearly 2 years to jump up 30%, there's absolutely no rush.
The Mac Pro might double as a boat anchor but the Moore is broken and that ship has sailed.
It's not good to have people wait 2 years and then put a graph on an update page saying 1.3x. That's very weak. It's time they Think Different about the Pro and how to make it interesting again. That only comes by tackling workflows.
Scale it down, narrow the range, design it to be less upgradeable, make it better performance per dollar and focus on GPU and Thunderbolt technology. The only way they can top those performance benchmarks is by allowing you to chain 4 x 6-core $2,500 Mac Pro mini towers together over Thunderbolt.
Going by clock speed, if we assume that the $1440 chip would achieve 82% of the speed of the high-end chip, that means the 12-core E5 Xeon Mac Pro would get between 27,000-32,000.
In the best case, that's 30% faster than the current one. They might as well upgrade it as it's 30% for the same money but if it takes nearly 2 years to jump up 30%, there's absolutely no rush.
The Mac Pro might double as a boat anchor but the Moore is broken and that ship has sailed.
It's not good to have people wait 2 years and then put a graph on an update page saying 1.3x. That's very weak. It's time they Think Different about the Pro and how to make it interesting again. That only comes by tackling workflows.
Scale it down, narrow the range, design it to be less upgradeable, make it better performance per dollar and focus on GPU and Thunderbolt technology. The only way they can top those performance benchmarks is by allowing you to chain 4 x 6-core $2,500 Mac Pro mini towers together over Thunderbolt.
*nods. It's about creating performance and value. 6 core. Good GPU. Daisy chain. Price it to go. You create value added through a great single priced unit but drive volume by X-griding them to taste. Great for smaller business type or larger. Daisy Thunderbolt for open cl?
£995 for a six core. £1500 with monitor for the base model.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I went in the Apple Store to buy the iPad last night and the 27 inch iMac is lust worthy.
The lower the price the better and offer a discount for buying the 27 inch display with it. You'd hit the mid to upper iMac price range for the entry model. This is the way it used to be in the g3 and g4 tower days.
Apple have priced their towers beyond reason. And right now they're an expensive joke.
Lemon Bon Bon.
The CPU increase is not dramatic - it's 15% at the same clock speed. They have to put in more cores for the same price to make the upgrade worthwhile. They can't unless Intel makes it cheaper to do that.
Right now, the low-end has the $284 W3530 2.8GHz 4-core/8-thread.
The nearest E5 equivalent is E5-2609 $294 but it's only 2.4GHz and 4-core/4-thread. They'd have to use the E5-2620 $406 2GHz 6c/12t.
bla, bla, bla...
The Xeon you are comparing are not at all equivalent.
The closest thing to the W35xx/36xx models (single cpu) are the E5-16xx models:
E5-1620 (10M cache, 4 Cores, 8 Threads,3.60 GHz (130W), 32nm) - $294
E5-1650 (12M cache, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 3.20 GHz (130W). 32nm) - $583 -
E5-1660 (15M cache, 6 Cores, 12 Threads,3.30 GHz (130W). 32nm) - $1,080 -
Those are also similar to the desktop Core i7-3800/3900 series for which you can find reviews on the net.
The closest thing to the x56xx models (dual-cpu) are the E5-2400/E5-2600 models.
The E5-2400s have a similar socket and (3-channel) memory controller.
Xeon E5-2407\t4C\t4T\t2.2 GHz\t10 MB\t80 Watt\t$250
Xeon E5-2420\t6C\t12T\t1.9 GHz\t15 MB\t95 Watt\t$388
Xeon E5-2430\t6C\t12T\t2.2 GHz\t15 MB\t95 Watt\t$551
Xeon E5-2440\t6C\t12T\t2.4 GHz\t15 MB\t95 Watt\t$834
Xeon E5-2450\t8C\t16T\t2.1 GHz\t20 MB\t95 Watt\t$1106
Xeon E5-2470\t8C\t16T\t2.3 GHz\t20 MB\t95 Watt\t$1440
The E5-2600s have a 4-channel memory controller and more PCIe lanes, hence a different socket (LGA 2011). Less than 95W models:
E5-2660 (20M cache, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 2.20 GHz (95W) 8.00 GT/sec QPI. 32nm) - $1,329 -
E5-2650 (20M cache, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 2.00 GHz (95W) 8.00 GT/sec QPI, 32nm) - $1,107 -
E5-2640 (15M cache, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 2.50 GHz (95W) 7.20 GT/sec QPI, 32nm) - $885 -
E5-2630 (15M cache, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 2.30 GHz (95W) 7.20 GT/sec QPI, 32nm) - $612 -
E5-2620 (15M cache, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 2.00 GHz (95W) 7.20 GT/sec QPI, 32nm) - $406 -
E5-2609 (10M cache, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.40 GHz (80W) 6.40 GT/sec QPI, 32nm) - $294
There are a few (very good) reviews out there on the E5-2600 series. Genkbench only gives a little part of the picture.
All in all you can do a better home work than that.