Reality of New Mac Pros??
O.k.- I know there have been countless threads here about New Mac Pros and the Octo-Core version. But now that Macworld has passed, what is the reality of new Mac appearing soon (1-2 months)? I just don't want to buy one now and in one or two weeks have a new version come out. I have a G4 Dual 500 that I'm itchin' to replace! Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
-Mike
-Mike
Comments
Yup, expensive. Closer to $4k than $3k. That's if Apple thinks it is worth it.
An octo-core Mac is going to be announced in a press release now. No keynotes or special press briefings.
Yup, expensive. Closer to $4k than $3k. That's if Apple thinks it is worth it.
What about Form factor? Do you think there is a redesign in the works too? A smaller box would be appealing too. I had figured that when they came out with the Mac Pro it would be smaller because supposedly the original design was to keep the G5 cooler. Maybe now after initally keeping the G5 enclosure to get the Mac Pro to market, what do you think of a re-design?
-Mike
An octo-core Mac is going to be announced in a press release now. No keynotes or special press briefings.
Yup, expensive. Closer to $4k than $3k. That's if Apple thinks it is worth it.
Dear THT
Really? Holy Cow! (I remember the 350MHz 9600. I think that box sold for around US$5600.)
When you say "now," do you mean in the next few days?
I was expecting the introduction of new Mac Pros to coincide with the Creative Suite 3 release. I know they're different companies, but both Apple and Adobe have cited pent-up demand for Mac Pros and Creative Suite 3, respectively, in their SEC filings. I forgot the verbiage, but their statements indicated that we Mac folks are waiting for CS3 before purchasing new hardware.
THT, what would you predict the performance difference will be between a dual 3GHz dual-core Mac Pro and the fastest near-term quad-core dual-processor Mac Pros in Photoshop CS3? (I realize that's a pretty "out-there" question, but I'd still like to know what your opinion is.
THT, do you foresee any display updates and/or pricing changes before early April?
Sincerely,
Jaddie
Your question with CS3 is a difficult one without any specifics. I've heard everything from minimal difference with added cores to 1/3 performance gain. I don't know what to believe because of the rumors. It greatly depends on adobe's programming style / design.
I'm waiting no matter what for Rev B... just so I don't screw myself out of some $$$.
The design of the Mac Pro did change from PPC -> Intel. More harddrive bays (big complaint... right onlooker?
You may want to check out this article on anandtech's review of clovertown against other xeon / opteron cpu's. I have to admit it didn't do as well as I had hoped. But hopefully that is just because the software isn't optimized for it.
1. hardly any of todays applications will be able to utilise all eight cores (most struggle with four cores).
2. each of the eight cores is clocked slower than each of the cores found in the current quad-core machines.
3. the task of managing eight cores represents quite an overhead.
As many of the sites who have dropped two Clovertowns in to a Mac Pro have pointed out, the real-world result is that you end up only being able to employ two or maybe four of the eight cores, and each of those cores is slower. Factor in the eight-way overhead, and theres a very real chance that an octo-core machine will be slower than a quad-core. When the site reports that 'no matter what we threw at it, we were unable to saturate all eight cores' you can read that two ways:
4. the machine is SO powerful that it'll devour everything that you throw at it without it touching the sides.
5. the software just can't employ all eight cores and it's a complete waste of time.
For this reason, I don't think you'll see Apple replacing the two dual-core CPUs found in the current quad-core line up with a single quad-core CPU (kind of like they did with the last iteration of the G5 tower family).
The fact is, that the majority of users who fancy the octo-core machine would be better served by investing in a quad-core machine stuffed with memory and a x4 RAID-0 setup.
Regardless, I think we will see an octo-core version of the Mac Pro at some point, because you could argue that if there are customers who are running the super exotic software that is able to employ all eight cores, then they are at the very top end of the Pro user scale and therefore firmly in the Mac Pros target market. Apple wants to be seen to be able to cater for the real double-pro users, and if that means selling just 100 units a year then so be it.
As for updates to the mainstream Mac Pro itself, until Intel release faster Woodcrest CPUs all you're likely to see is a refresh that delivers some sub-system tweaks. There's nothing to stop Apple offering different graphics cards options, and bumping the stock config. from a 7300 to a 7600 seems like an obvious move to many. Likewise, there's nothing to stop Apple shipping a RAID-0 config. Both of these tweaks would be dead simple to implements and realise impressive real-world performance boosts. Because such a refresh is CPU independent, it's almost impossible to predict when it might happen.
Please bear in mind that:
When the site reports that 'no matter what we threw at it, we were unable to saturate all eight cores' you can read that two ways:
4. the machine is SO powerful that it'll devour everything that you throw at it without it touching the sides.
5. the software just can't employ all eight cores and it's a complete waste of time.
The way I take it is the software just can't employ all eight cores and is a complete waste of time for a few reasons (unless the site that said that didn't konw what they were doing).
Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't some compilers and benchmark utilities (dnetc?) capable of using as many cores as available?
I've never compiled on a machine with more than 4 cores and I've never cluster compiled. Anyone know about this?
Thanks!
-Mike
The only advice I can offer is wait until I've bought my Mac Pro - you can be damn sure a new machine will be released a week after...
When Mac Pro will be come out...???
If you mean when will they be updated, then I can safely say probably before March.
Mid-February most likely.
Tomorrow is crunch day. If there's no announcement made tomorrow then I'm ordering - have to.
So I reckon a Wednesday update is a given.
<shakes head>
oh well, at the end of the day it'll only be a few dollars I could have saved.
I think they'll likely offer the octo at the top end with the others moving down the rank.
A 2.66 for me and 5 gig of Ram, tomorrow. wheee ... it'll be great.
I skipped the whole G5 thing so I'm looking forward to it.
Please bear in mind that:
1. hardly any of todays applications will be able to utilise all eight cores (most struggle with four cores)...
...Regardless, I think we will see an octo-core version of the Mac Pro at some point, because you could argue that if there are customers who are running the super exotic software that is able to employ all eight cores, then they are at the very top end of the Pro user scale and therefore firmly in the Mac Pros target market...
Can anyone give me an idea of what kind of software can make good use of Octo-Core processing?
I'm guessing that Shake's 2008 successor will, and maybe a super high-end version of FIlemaker could.
My line of thought here is that surely Intel realized that there wasn't going to be a lot of software for these chips but they sank a lot of development money into them anyway.
Is it possible they've partnered with Apple to produce a new category of software to raise the demand for these chips?
Could this be why iLife '07 hasn't been unveiled yet? Could there be a new animation program (or something else) that raises the demand for Octo-macs?
lol - yeah, it blows chunks !
oh well, at the end of the day it'll only be a few dollars I could have saved.
I think they'll likely offer the octo at the top end with the others moving down the rank.
A 2.66 for me and 5 gig of Ram, tomorrow. wheee ... it'll be great.
I skipped the whole G5 thing so I'm looking forward to it.
I don't think you missed much with the g5. I didn't really like my rev b 2.0. Glad I got rid of it now.
Could this be why iLife '07 hasn't been unveiled yet? Could there be a new animation program (or something else) that raises the demand for Octo-macs?
iLife is primarily for consumer Macs not for 8-core beasts.
I suspect the delay might be to do with Leopard integration. After all Vista includes iLife type applications and Panther used to...