Despite new CPU options, Apple reportedly questioning future of Mac Pro - Page 4

My Mac pro is used every day, and as far as upgrading goes, it's still quite fast -- a machine like this has a longer upgrade cycle than the integrated desktops Apple sells. I'm sure I'd buy another -- presuming they are available -- in a year or so.

My Macpro has six monitors and four TB class HDs. While you might be able to do that at some point in the future with the new fast links, I really don't look forward to drives and display units all over the place.

Oh well. I guess it'll be time to go back to the PC world, where you can still get high powered desktops. I suppose It'll be Hackintoshes for me. Normally I wouldn't even consider such a thing, but if Apple won't supply the hardware, I guess I'll have no choice.

I payed $4,200.00 for my 8 core MacPro in 2007. It still chops through data like a hot knife through butter. If Apple discontinues the line I won't have a chance to buy the hewer model and there for will be forced to eBay it for the last model made. \ Hmm.

I have high end iMacs, 17'' Macbook Pros and Mac Pro, and those other computers can't even compare to Mac Pro (even couple of generations older, it's still faster and more capable machine than newest Macbook Pros).

I do software development mostly, but I do an occasional video and lots of image processing, but everything is so fast on Mac Pro it's such a joy to use. It does everything you throw at it without a glitch. That computer always puts a smile on my face. I'll be really sad if they actually discontinue Mac Pros too.

I'd like to see Apple go to a mini-tower form factor and knock $1,000 off the list price. The main problem with sales are two-fold 1) none of the top MCAD/EDA, GIS, or Imaging Apps are certified for MacOS and 2) it's too damn expensive to sell in volume. I still feel strongly that Apple needs a machine for the high-end professional, but the price they charge significantly limits it's volume. Change the form factor, cut the price and you have a viable product.

The wife (grandma) and I (grandpa) have a lot of gadgets: 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, MBP, MBA, MB, 2 MacMinis, few iPods, etc. Also a G3 BW, Quadra 700.

I also have a 6-core MP that I bought when by PowerMac DP died. It has 10gb of ram, 3 hard drives, a BR R/W drive. I do some high end computing and it handles that with ease. I am sure that there will be proc upgrades available if Apple discontinues, perhaps even a TB card (I know, I know).

I don't think that necessarily follows. The key thing is to rewrite their Pro apps to use the GPU more. Then even a midrange, non-removable GPU in a iMac should be able to do what used to take 12 Xeon cores.

I've owned a MacPro (2008) and would love to put a better graphics card in it to play games under bootcamp. Everything I look at them they always seem overpriced.

I'm a missing something, is there a cheaper option then buying one from Apple?

Having a limited, high priced product in your catalog is not an abnormal thing. Nikon and Canon sell mostly $120 point & shoot cameras. But they also sell $8,000 EOS 1Dx II or Nikon D3s full frame digital pro cameras, which sell in limited quantities compared with the amateur market. Even Hyundai has the Equus, which sells for $60,000 where as the dealers sell mostly Sonatas and Elantras for $16,000-25,000. The high end model gives the company an upgrade path so it does not lose the customer as they gain more wealth and aspire to a higher-end product. Professionals need the rugged durability of the Mac Pro line. Apple needs to keep the Mac Pro to keep its toes in the high-end market and keep their broad array of products available to even small segments of the user base. Steve Jobs was the antidote to the "bean counter" non-creative-thinking corporate CEOs that almost sank Apple in the early '90s. Jobs knew what both average consumers and the pro needed. I hope the new CEO at Apple has the sense to keep Job's vision of a deeply integrated company and not succumb to small thinking that will sink Apple in the future.

Those Mac tower users (like me: dual G5), who can be lumped into the category of "prosumer", will eventually move to either the iMac line or Minis linked by Xgrid.

I think Apple calling their towers "Pros" signals that they are targeting people who make a living from using their computers ("Pro"fessionals). Hence, the high cost. So those complaining about cost are probably out of luck.

It used to be that a power user, like myself, had to get a tower to have adequate power and storage for the occasional intensive personal project (in my case, making videos). However, nowadays that can be done with a high-end iMac, which is in fact my next planned purchase.

Having made a video recently with the latest low-end iMac, I can confirm that it was up to that task; something that used to but no longer requires a tower.

This is my sentiment too. I'm afraid that if Mac Pro disappears too, real pro users will be forced to go with PC route, and in the long run this can only be damaging to Apple.

I could easily say another smug AppleInsider retort designed to belittle rather than uplift the conversation. I actually don't use any iDevices. I enjoy my macbook pros because they are a good combination of attractive hardware coupled with a pretty good operating system.

I find it interesting that you so-called pros just sit and complain about every little thing. If you are so professional, you should be remaining agile with things that make you money. If it takes a move to Windows, and better hardware to allow you to work better/faster/cheaper, then so be it. Complaining on this particular forum will only reach as the other complainers.

After having had nothing but the top of the line Macs since day one including the II fx and Quadra 840 and so on through to Mac Pros ... as of this year I sold mine and got a couple of MBPs with i7 and an i5 and LCD Cinema Displays. OK I missed the Pro at first and I do notice less power but all in all I love the ability to work at a desk or on the go ... There is no going back for me as long as Apple keep the top end MBPs coming. That said I am a one man show and my heart goes out to the production departments with high end requirements not met by MBPs.

I find this to be an interesting response. In many (most?) cases, databases are IO/memory limited, not CPU bound.

You really need the larger enclosure for heat dissipation. Without it you are going to have to compromise on either power or noise. Smaller cases need more fans, faster fans, and more air conditioning. Have you ever been inside a professional data center? Freezing cold and you need to bring some ear plugs or risk damaging your hearing. A mini tower might be ok for the entry level workstation, but if you plan on maxing it out, it just won't work.

This? Really? That's nonsense. Apple can live without the Mac Pro quite well.

Without a proper SERVER, however? They'll never get market penetration. Whatever the Mac Pro becomes, it needs to be more servery.

"But Apple doesn't care about Mac marketshare!"

Steve didn't care.

Tim. Cook. Does. Watch him at the beginning of the iPhone 4S announcement. He actually BROUGHT UP marketshare. If that's not obvious enough for you, watch the way he presents that section. The subtleties of his… know what, if you're not convinced by him bringing up marketshare, there's no way you'd catch the subtleties of how he presents that section.

At any rate, he's gearing up for a fight.

I have a Mac Pro with 12 cores and 32GB's of RAM. I use it to do the work of about 10 PC's. I run VMWare Fusion on it and can simulate an entire PC lab in this one box. i.e. Server 2008, Multiple Win7 clients, Ubuntu servers, etc. This is why I bought it.

If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro than they must make Lion run in VMWare's vSphere / ESX. This would allow the server crowd to use it like a virtual XServe. The workstation crowd can get a power HP workstation and run Lion at almost full bore.

I have thrown everything I can at this box and have yet had it slow down. It remained response even with about 8 Virtual Machines each with heavy loads plus Digital rendering humming way and Handbrake cranking 64bit using all remaining resources. It was still very responsive to loading web pages, etc.

So nice to have a machine faster than I am and that can do amazing things. Scientists, Programmers (big apps like Wolfram's Mathmatica), Engineers, CAD users, 3D Animation, etc. They all need the power of a Mac Pro. Video editors and photographers may not need it quite so much but they still like them.

This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!

Not worried about Thunderbolt support, there's not a big choice in accessories. I am looking forward to dropping in an eSATA PCIx card and plugging in a 5 bay external enclosure and using Ten's Compliment's Z-410 (ZFS for OS X) and doing that instead of a Thunderbolt drive. Cost quite a bit less and will be scalable fast storage. If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work. Short of the Promise drive array, I don't see other options and that solution is crazy expensive. For a few hundred bucks I can go the Z-410 route and switch to Thunderbolt later when it's more affordable.

How does a Mac mini with MacBook Pro internals sound?

THIS, so much this.


I believe Thunderbolt has to be on the motherboard and know Thunderbolt has to have all options of the port available to it.

So you're not gonna be able to buy PCIe cards for it like you would USB or FireWire; it has to have the graphics capabilities.

Now, Apple somehow swinging new graphics cards that use Thunderbolt ports instead of Mini DisplayPort and managing to make that work isn't completely out of the question, but it's something of a long shot.

Apple actually putting Thunderbolt on an upgradable part, though? That's the shot in the arm the port needs to have MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pros upgrading their Mac Pro graphics cards and buying tens of millions of Thunderbolt accessories. It's exactly what Apple needs to do to get Thunderbolt adoption rates through the roof. Whether they'll do it is left to be seen.

Something will have to happen VERY quickly, though. The Mac Pro can't keep going without Thunderbolt forever, and Tim Cook has expressed that he wants the Mac's marketshare to climb, and that can't be done without a new server/Mac Pro/something.

Apple should use you as an ad for high end computing! What a great set up you have there.

I don't need the processing power of the Mac Pro but the Mac Pro is the only Apple computer I am interested in buying. Why? Because the mini is limited in what it doesn't offer or allow and the iMac forces limitations on me with the built in screen.

Can't understand Apple at all.

People complain about the price of Mac Pros now but those people weren't around when we were paying over $10,000 for a II fx. Then add several thousand for a 20 meg HD and 32 megs of ram. I think I ended up with about $20k into that box before I was done and it still took two days to render a 30 second video.

I haven't bought a tower Mac since the 1990s. And I consider myself a 'power user.'

Have you actually looked at the revenue that comes from desktop computers nowadays?

For context HP was contemplating dropping its entire PC business.

I do believe that Steve was probably about ready to pull the trigger on the Mac Pro.

I don't think Tim Cook seems as ready, but does see that its inevitable.

Tim Cook also said the future of computers is in tablets.

When Steve Jobs took over the company again in the nineties one of the first ways to exhibit his idea for marketing was to draw a cross on a whiteboard with the four corners being desktop, portable, pro, and consumer. The iMac is the consumer desktop machine and always will be because if the no after market custom options. What apple needs to do is not negate the Mac Pro to the annals of history but evolve it to fit the needs of power users today. The problem with the machine isn't that it has not place in the market. The problem is that the market has evolved beyond the machine Apple has been selling for the last 7 years.

I agree; I'd rather have the components all together in a tower under the desk than a desktop full of gadgetry hooked up to an iMac life some kind of digital life-support rig. Isn't that what the original iMac was about? Getting rid of the sea of cables and gizmos?

My MP is worth it just for the ability to host my iTunes library, and redundant disk drives. I've upgraded it several times in the 4+ years I've had it.

The next unmet need for many, imho = reliability and archival. The cloud is great but when it comes to depending on your data, it starts locally. Time machine is nice, but not nearly as great as swapping in a replacement drive on a running system that still has redundancy even after a disk failure. Would you rather spend a moment swapping a bad drive, or hours, even days, recovering?

Sure you can do RAID now, but it's either a pale version or you really have to be determined if you want a serious, high-performance, bulletproof solution. It shouldn't be so hard to protect the core of your "digital life". If you're a pro, your data is likely worth far more than the hardware it's running on.

What the next MP needs, imho, is to implement a fully-configurable, fully-capable RAID, BUILT-IN, using up to 16 laptop-size drives.

Unless Apple is planning on discontinuing all their Pro software, the Mac Pro isn't going anywhere.

Here's two solutions that I predict could happen:
Apple redesigns the Mac Pro to use the 2011 pin socket in UP and DP configurations
The case becomes rack mountable with hotswapable everything.
This becomes the new Mac Pro/Server
Because Intel will keep this socket for another 5 years at least, everyone who wants this refresh will finally buy. Then Apple doesn't do another redesign till the next socket. As the next generation ships contain all the former north bridge logic there is little need to keep redesigning it.

Other solution:
Apple sells an ATX style motherboard that ships with OS X Server, or some other "half a mac" board that lets you replace the motherboard in an existing workstation or server. The end user is then responsible for purchasing the remaining compatible parts and no support for any of the parts is provided except for the motherboard part itself.

This is one reason the hackintosh community even exists at all, and why hackintosh users infringe on copyrights, Apple doesn't sell OSX separately legally, and doesn't wish to support all the boatloads of garbage PC hardware out there. So the solution is to narrow it down to just one part to support... which goes back to the spirit of the Apple I.

Or Apple could turn around an just sell OS X as a separate product for EFI equipped computers (No licencing fail like with the mac clones.) But you can already predict what will happen here, that will cannibalize all Mac sales like it did last time.

With Ivy Bridge coming in about six months, quad-core will become standard in the Mac Mini. A bigger, faster Mac to replace the Pro and complement the Mini would initially have 8-core and 12-core processor options (with Ivy Bridge). I think Apple would abandon the dual CPU option in favor of simplicity and price. Today, with Sandy Bridge, 8-core CPUs are available. Ivy Bridge will provide for 12-core and Haswell will provide for 16-core CPUs.

If I'm right about the CPUs, then a fan will be necessary.

I have little idea what Apple would do regarding disk drives for such a machine, other than obviously not include an internal optical drive.

Thunderbolt would obviously be included. My guess would be 2x Thunderbolt ports. I really doubt Firewire would be included at this late date. Firewire is moribund. I'm not convinced that Apple will ever adopt USB3. We'll see. Gigabit Ethernet is a given. I don't know about SDXC.

With the possible exception of a slot for a graphics card, I think the chances of any other slots is nil.

A headless Mac with only enough room and cooling for 2 CPUs (maybe 4?); a high-end, user replacable graphics card; and a single 3.5" hard drive bay, would seem to be the bare minimum. Basically a Mac mini but built with desktop parts instead of laptop parts. Everything else can be attached via Thunderbolt.

You mean something like this:
http://www.macworld.com/article/163265/article.html

I couldn't agree more. I am scrambling to hold on to FCP X on my MBP i7. I would buy a new Pro today if i could. And please, don't push me towards an iMac. If i need a mirror, i'll buy a mirror !

Considering how much Intel processors that go into Mac Pro cost, it doesn't seem justified for customers to expect units to cost less than they do.

Sure, but we are not talking about "people" here. We are talking about professionals doing actual work on their computer, not just consuming information. Frankly Air or even iPad is good enough for that.

But professionals editing HD video, or software developers developing all those back end cloud servers and services need a Mac Pro class machine. Hooked up to two 30'' screens, these things are a joy to work on. And you know I love this kind of computing power I would have to give up OS X and use a PC just to get it.

That could be considered "another high-end mac". And I would not have a problem with a rebuild and redesign.

But if that would do it there are som more demands that a "mac mini with mac pro internals" needed

-Storage. Expanding and changing drives at will
-3. Party hardware
-Supporting a lot of connections (could be done with 3.party HW)

And what would be the point if I needed so many externak devices that it would take up a Mac Pro volume anyways...

People aren't buying Mac Pros because Apple hasn't significantly upgraded them in over 2-1/2 years. This is essentially due to a slow-down by Intel.
Believe me, there is pent-up demand for faster, more-capable versions. Mac Pros are fast, rock solid systems. There's just been no way to upgrade in over 2-1/2 years! And from Intel roadmap, it will be over 3 years!

What makes me laugh here is that the article is taking popular opinion and assigning anonymous sources to it. The machine for the past couple years has been priced higher than PC workstation counterparts, and it's weaker on features and available accessory hardware. Anyone could have told you the future of the mac pro must be a topic of discussion at Apple. You don't need an insider source for that.





The mac mini to me is in a weird spot. People like the concept but it has too many compromises over even the imac which is really designed as a consumer machine and leveraged upward into professional markets. Much of the manufacturing cost there comes from engineering it to be small, and you do end up having to make choices. You don't get a lot of internal storage. You are limited in ram. You're limited on gpu power. I think they don't want it to interfere more than necessary with imac sales. Apple likes to ensure that their line is really simple at a given price point.


The case isn't the reason for the price. The laptop cases are way more intricate to make, and the majority of the cost with something like aluminum is generally processing rather than raw materials. As for thunderbolt, it needs more third party support.


That's fairly normal. With an imac or mini you can't easily do these things. The mini especially is a bit tight on ram, and buying 8GB sticks really kills the economy of it (even though it would help ensure a long usable life to the machine).


I need to correct this misconception. It may inflate the cost of the logic board "slightly" but even there it's not much at all. Apple uses a fairly basic logic board configuration. ECC ram used to be way way more expensive. It's not so much anymore, especially if you upgrade your ram via third party. Mac Pro 1,1 through 3,1 (2008) used special ram with the aluminum fins for additional cooling. The newer ones don't require this, and their cost isn't that bad assuming you don't buy from Apple.

The Xeons used are basically identical in cost to the corresponding i7 extreme processors. The baseline model uses a $300 processor in a $2500 machine. It's roughly the same processor cost as the cto i7 imac (and you don't get a 27" ips display built in). It costs less than the most expensive macbook pro processor option (the 2820QM had a $568 recommended channel price).

Pretty much the machine was made on a very limited hardware budget, so at the low end it couldn't take full advantage of all updates made available for this socket (for example westmere focused on more expensive processors).


You're right. It shouldn't surprise anyone. The clashing with Adobe really is completely stupid though. It hasn't actually benefitted anyone who uses things made by either of these companies.



The thing about Apple is they know a lot of people will grumble and buy something anyway. They don't worry about what is left. If you look at their products and accessories that serve a very limited market, those are always the ones that are unreliable and full of bugs (display adapters, quadro cards, etc). If it affects enough users, the bugs are fixed much quicker or they move on to something new.


If the imac display was really a solid display, that would get me to buy one. Unfortunately getting that display to be really amazing and working out the quality control to a finer degree would be cost prohibitive. The top display manufacturers tend to use a lot of extra electronics and testing to get the LG panels to perform as they do.


You can't really assuming that imac is set up correctly. In a lot of past iterations it was missing a few things. Scratch drives used to be a big deal due to hard drive speed. Faster hdds/ssds and the ability to cost effectively put 16 GB of ram in one solves this issue. Your G5 can't handle anything from Adobe past CS4, nor can it handle the 64 bit rewrites of other software manufacturers which make use of the extended ram capacity here.

You think it's faster because at one point it handled certain bottlenecks that were still an issue in something like an imac. That is not the case today.




It's annoying isn't it? Aside from the area directly around the cpus, the case design really isn't that great. You can access things easily, but the airflow to other components isn't anything special. Graphics cards often run too hot. Hard drives tend to run closer to their upper limit than I'd like. For a couple generations it required a special ram design for extra cooling.


That's something I never understood about Apple fans. I use their computers too, but I'm not emotionally attached to the brand. Anyway they could have done something beyond this kind of awkward retreat from the market segment.


Windows isn't as bad as it was say around XP to Vista. Windows 7 is quite usable really even though I prefer OSX. Both have bugs. OSX doesn't always just work. I hate when people suggest that it does. It's just if you've worked with it long enough, you may have workarounds for some of the weird quirks. A slow switch toward Windows means having to deal with new issues. I still wish Linux was up to my own needs.

I have a medium octo-core end MacPro3,1 which I have beefed up to 4TB internal storage and 2 X25-M intel SSDs 1 for 10.6 bootup and 1 for win7 ultimate. 5 drives, one machine and I have 2 removable eSATA backup drives used to image copy my backup drives monthly - this setup would be a mess with external drives and a thousand power bricks.

In addition - I need the flexibility, updatability and I need a paper weight that is secure and I can lock down. I also need 2-3 24" matte monitors and have an upgraded graphics card. It is still a good fast setup (if you haven't gone SSD - you can buy 4 yrs equivalent worth of upgrades - it is worth the bucks), but I will probably upgrade in the next year or two if there are viable upgrades.

I admin a bunch of PCs (no choice) for my wife's business and I buy Dell - they have so many tower configs with any chip (e.g. OptiPlex 990 Desktop comes in 4 form factors and is a great PC world business desktop), power supply (including very efficient ones), and cards you want. How can crappy Dell have the engineering resources to make literally tons of models and Apple can't even justify one lousy pro machine?

Apple needs to stop acting like a small start-up and address multiple market niches with smaller margins - to build a true Halo effect with techies and pros you need to address the niches and push them. Apple should even use the idevices to subsidize the pro side - the Halo effect will pay off in spades. And give us a few choices - at least a big tower and a slimmer tower and with or without ECCs - and no we don't need to buy a new monitor every 2 or 3 years - they now last for 10.

I'll always buy apple for my business if there are viable options, but I don't like the way things are headed - and if I have to go PC for my business, it is too much trouble to admin multiple platforms at home and might have to do a full PC switch (heaven forbid - and this from a die hard apple guy)

Apple - don't do it - listen to the pros - you are being penny-wise and pound foolish!

It strikes me as if Apple is waking up to birthing off a sub-line and not using the Xeon as the only solution for the Mac Pro.

I suppose so... Without innovation leading the ship Apple, instead of counting beans and trying to defend what you already have, Apple will slowly deteriorate and simply be another tech company... but I give 'em at least 5 to 10 years.