Despite new CPU options, Apple reportedly questioning future of Mac Pro - Page 16

I think Anand has a pretty good handle on Ivy. The CPU has very minor tweaks, worth about 5% at the same clock speed, perhaps 10% with higher default clocks.
GPU has both more units and better units so perhaps 60% on graphics:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4830/i...ture-exposed/6


What I described won't be met by Ivy Mini. Entry CPU will almost certainly still be dual, Ivy Bridge will not bring integrated graphics equivalent to my 8800GT, and Storage is very unlikely to switch to desktop drives.

The Mini is good in it's niche, but that niche is nettop. Apple just made too many compromises for small size cuteness and low power.

I don't trust Anand any farther than I can kick him, at my old age that isn't very far!


Anand has a habit of twisting reports to heavily favor Intel. This is a perfect example, the chip scored 60% better in one synthetic test. For the most part it didn't do much better than 30%. Of course none of this is with final driver, hardware or whatever. More so it is not on Apple hardware.

If Ivy Bridge really cuts power by 50% as some rumors have indicated then four cores plus a discrete GPU ought to be easy in the Mini. I kinda doubt the 50% number but even if they hit a 40% power savings that should help out a great deal.

I'm with you on the four cores though, I will consider nothing less on my next machine.

No net top is not the niche. The niche is a very low power low foot print platform. A niche where many Minis get employed. Unfortunately this rev is just a little too restricted for you and me. However I can see a Mini that is far more capable next year.

I don't see how it isn't a nettop:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363008,00.asp

If the clock speed stays the same, the voltage stays the same, and the number of transistors stays the same, then a 22nm CPU would use about 47% as much power as a 32nm version of the same CPU. However, we know that the number of transistors will be increasing from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge, so the power cut will be closer to 40% for similarly clocked CPUs with the same number of cores. Nevertheless, performance per watt will roughly double.

You should really really look at better figures. Basically the top end ones come down a little and many of the others stay where they are. The concept with ivy bridge is a variable tdp with normal tdp being no more than 25-30% lower on any given cpu. Some seem to change very little. I'll see if I can find the articles on this that outline future quads and duals. It definitely isn't being cut in half.

Regardless of whether they can fit a quad Ivy in the power budget isn't the relevant issue.

Low end Ivy's are still dual core and Apple will use a low end dual core in the base Mini.

Optionally a Quad will likely be available, just as it is now.

It could be a cost issue, but pricing according to wiki doesn't seem to vary that much on those cpus. It does go up quite a bit toward the top end.

This issue isn't how much more it costs Apple. The issue is how much more profit Apple can make selling you an expensive upgrade.

Right now you can only get a Quad Mini by choosing the $1000 Mini Server.

Yes, but it would be profitable to Apple if the model with a discreet gpu had a cto quad cpu option. By profitable I mean it could encourage sales.

Those numbers of yours are similar to others I've seen. As we see later in this thread other values have been offered up. Still I suspect that something like the Mini will get a nice performance boost and maybe allow for a better discrete GPU.

Now maybe not four cores in the Mini, it would be nice though. As a side note Intel has indicated that most of those transistor will go into the GPU, where frankly they are needed the most. Apparently intel has put in some effort at controlling power in the GPU so maybe the thermal gain there won't be too bad. In any event 40% or better thermals for the same performance would be excellent.

I would take that as an indication that the clock rates will be much higher.

We still don't have enough info to say for sure what those numbers mean. We don't know the base CPU clock speed, how turbo boost is handled nor the clock rate of the GPU.

Well you have to look closely at what you are getting at a given wattage. Simply due to the process shrink power will go down and clock rates will go up. How much is an open question. I think it is fair to say an AIR running at the same clock rate should be much cooler. However I doubt that Apple will rev any of it's machines and keep performance the same. For the Mac Book Pros I would expect them to keep the wattage in a similar range to today's machines to reap the performance benefit. On the AIRs they might bump performance a bit to gain additional battery lifetimes, instead of keeping the power the same.

I'm more concerned about the model with the discrete GPU. Or the middle of the road model.

The current quad Mini could end up with one heck of a performance boost. It will be interesting to see just how well the improved GPU actually behaves in Mac OS, I'd like to believe it would be good enough for me. The problem is Intel has screwed this up too many times, OS one has to wait and see.

I know the day will come when I won't need a discreet GPU but right now I don't believe Ivy Bridge is there yet. Intel could prove me wrong and I'd be very happy if the do, as that could result in buying lower end hardware in the the future.

Quad cores really should become a check list item for most users. Even something a simple as running Safari now benefits from the extra cores. Once consumers get a clue here dual cores will be hard sells. It is sort of like the transition to dual cores from single cores, many said I don't need dual cores only to quickly realize just how much of a difference the cores make.

\

After my G5 died, I bought a MacBook Pro (early 2008).

It's severely underpowered - even with 6GB ram - for the graphic processing I want to do (stacking 90 30MB files using Zerene Stacker, for example. And some seriously large and detailed Panoramas.)

I don't want to switch back to Windowsall of my software purchased since 2006 is Mac. I never liked Windows, anyway.

If Apple is going to discontinue the Mac Pro line, I would be very dissappointed as there is no other desktop that supports OS X. Then I would buy one of the 2 year old units.

What irritates me is the lack of information which is stopping me from being able to make a decision.

If something new is going to come out, I'll wait for it. If the existing stock of Mac Pros ends the line, I'll buy one of those.

I can't accept Apple would drop the line even though it's a minor part of their business, because there's no way to get sufficient processing power out of a laptop, even in parallel (which would be an exercise in futility).

I don't expect an answer because if Apple had something to say they'd say it. Everything else is conjecture, wishes and hope.

It's a laptop. What did you expect? I have the same model and I certainly don't use it for hyper-powered work.


YEAH! Because the iMac and Mac Mini sure don't exist at all, that's for sure.


And you'll know when something new comes out or it's discontinued. It's not like you could know before that happens and it's not like it matters that you can't know until it happens.


Huh. If only Apple sold OTHER DESKTOP MODELS.

YEAH! Because both have workstation class CPU's and upgradeable workstation level graphics cards! And the Mini, oh, the Mini supports enough RAM to run anything! Its integrated GPU is AMAZING for Mudbox! Its whole two cores make Photoshop scream! And don't get me started on the iMac, which professional doesn't want to toss a whole computer AND monitor every time they need an upgrade?!

Really...

Then 'desktop' doesn't describe his market, 'workstation' does. And that's how Apple sells the Mac Pro, too.

Modern laptops are a good deal faster than the Core 2 Duo models. The entry MBPs will be double the speed and the quad 15" models 3x. They also take up to 16GB RAM for just $240:

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartsp...40D783A5CA7304

You can get an OWC Mercury Pro SSD 240GB for just $360:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/inter...olid_State_Pro

for around 500MB/s read/write:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJZG54fPOg0

You don't even need to get the latest one, this one would do:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC721LL/A

Then you get a crazy fast machine for under $2k that will have absolutely no problem doing what you want. This setup would be faster than the current entry Mac Pro with the exception of the GPU.

Once the Ivy Bridge chips come along around March/April with another 30-50% speed boost, there will be very little advantage to the Mac Pro. The multi-CPU models have always had an advantage but the entry model is not really that worthwhile and the higher ones are way too expensive. I expect Ivy Bridge GPUs to come with a unified memory model too so that VRAM is not a limiting factor vs desktop GPUs, which is great for apps like Motion, Mudbox etc.

Dragon's Tail kicks ass.

Marv' torches the Mac Pro.

It's a workstation in name only. You can buy a PC rig for half it's entry cost that blows it's 'workstation' performance. A 'hollow' label. Any computer that has enough power to do what you want is a 'workstation.' And many PCs offer way more computing power for way less price.

It's a relic of Dinosaur Apple Computer Past. Those 2k-4k Apple towers are a thing of the past.

The thing hasn't been updated in almost two years. The gpu is way out of date. The entry model is 2k for a quad core. With a so-so amount of ram.

It's a joke. Stale as old bread and antiquated.

The design is old. The price is old. The performance is old. Apple's own attitude tells a tale. Apple could have done a re-design ages ago with desktop chips with decent gpus and had 'mid-tower' 'workstations' that would have allowed those 'hot swap' jockeys to tinker and pretend they have 'worksations' for 'serious' work.

You can get just as good if not better performance with the top end iMac now...well...much better, frankly. And you get a damn good 27 inch monitor into the bargain. 'Workstation' re-defined in my book. Go to dual processors and the price escalates to a 'money to burn' for extra seconds saved. Good for the minority that actually need or can afford to slice salami like that. :/

Having said that, I hope the old girl has one more revision. Just for old times sake... (Maybe Apple can set the bar even higher at £2500 for an entry level quad core...)

Lemon Bon Bon.

You'd be better off switching to a good Windows box at that point. I'm not hung up on the mac pro. It's just they haven't really come up with a replacement machine with that level of reliability. Imacs suck. They're just terrible. Screen looks terrible after a year or two. Hard drive costs $300 or so to replace outside of warranty (can't diy). It's just a piece of crap. I actually prefer the mini to the imac in some ways, but it's really designed for size more than performance. The laptops are okay, but they're still laptops.

Your mistake is not understanding where you're short on power. "Graphics processing" describes an issue that you don't seem to be having. One of your big problems is that the machine won't take anywhere near enough ram, even at the most conservative preference settings. Preventing spotlight from indexing system files where any scratch data is stored also helps. A gpu is not going to fix this. 32GB of ram and faster cpus would fix your problems or if your workflow includes 32 bit applications, less ram and a scratch SSD.


Most workstation cards are turned into workstation cards at the driver level. Sometimes they have more VRAM which helps if you're dealing with higher texture resolutions. Photoshop isn't too hard on the cpus. It's really not. It requires a lot of ram or fast scratch disks. Mudbox does need some gpu power given that it uses OpenGL drawing for 3d imagery. On the imac, the display is mediocre anyway. It's not that stable. It drifts. It looks ugly after a year. My real problem with it is lack of reliability, and the need to send in the whole machine for what should be minor repairs. It's not designed for heavy use. Every one of them I've seen that has been subjected to heavy use has really hit a wall quickly.



Apple is the one who didn't bother to keep the machine competitive. Their entry configuration is pathetic for that price, and even at the exorbitant pricing model, people still buy the 6 core. If they had another machine that really offered a comparable experience, I wouldn't care about this. The others really don't hold up that well if pushed to their limits on a daily basis for a long period of time.

The gpu thing comes down to two things, hardware and support. OpenGL implementation in OSX and their graphics drivers both kind of suck (unfortunately). Intel hasn't put out any integrated graphics that are worth using, and even if they did, companies that rely on OpenGL mostly ignore models with integrated graphics in testing meaning more bugs. Intel would have to show capable hardware for one to two cycles before this would start to change. Just watch... Intel has promised the same crap before, and they never delivered on it. If I can't

Regarding Ivy Bridge, are you sure about that boost in cpu speed? That sounds significantly higher than what Intel has predicted. We've actually started to see some powerful gpus at the top on the laptop end, but Apple doesn't use any of them, and integrated graphics will still suck for those applications for a few reasons. OpenGL in OSX has gotten pretty bad. They've really let it slip over the years. The gpu drivers are pretty terrible. Autodesk and the other companies don't tend to test on integrated graphics. Even if we reached a unified memory model, Intel cannot design quality integrated graphics. They've made this promise before. Every time they've failed at it. I wouldn't predict anything else until we see a split from the current trend actually make it to market.

I expect the mobile chips to have a higher jump than the desktop ones. Intel have benchmarks for the desktop chips here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis..._Partners.html

but the Ivy Bridge desktop chip has been cut in power by 20W. The mobile chips seem to have around the same power draw. The GPU demos look decent enough so the MBA and 13" MBP will benefit here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1-arYrOAJ4
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5391/i...idge-ultrabook

I can't imagine that a 17W Ivy Bridge ULV chip would only be 10-15% faster in CPU performance than a 17W Sandy Bridge ULV chip.


I didn't mean the Ivy Bridge IGP but dedicated GPUs shipping in Ivy Bridge machines can move to a shared memory design - NVidia's Kepler chips will have a unified virtual memory space shared by the CPU and GPU as will AMD's 7000 series.

Thanks dude . I was unaware of the shared memory design thing. I don't see myself being an ultrabook/macbook air adopter next year, but I can understand why they're pushing it. Intel hasn't been paying a lot of attention to desktops/workstations at all .

You summarize the problem well. There are a lot more people who want a tower than want a true workstation.

The problem with the iMac, even with Thunderbolt, is that the ability to add things comes at a fairly steep price. Just look at what an external TB device will cost compared to simply popping a PCIe card into an internal slot if you want to use a PCIe SSD...even when external TB PCIe expansion slot devices become available. I believe it was Belkin which just previewed a TB hub which will allow USB 2/3, FW 400/800, eSATA and TB devices to be connected through the TB port. It will have a MSRP of about $300, but should be popular with people who want to continue using legacy devices.

Not everybody needs (or can afford) 64 GB or 128 GB of RAM that is frequently utilized in honest to goodness workstations.

The lack of flexibility of the iMac platform, not to mention the continuing thermal design issues, simply does not sit well with a lot of people even if it will suffice.

When it comes to professional photographers, videographers, graphic artists and so on, the commitment to the Apple platform is not what it once was, if for no other reason that the delay in getting 64 bit CS out of Adobe. If you apply the logic that we are not making as much money off of Mac Pros as we do off of iMacs you will soon be faced with the question of what do do with the iMac as you don't make as much money off of it as you do laptops. When does the question become we don't make as much money off of laptops as we do off of the iPad/iPhone duo? That sort of downward spiral logic avoids the question, when does the company cease to be relevant except for 'gadgets'? The differences in the Adobe apps between the Windows platform and the Mac platform have continued to shrink. Those folks don't care if the computer has a cute brushed aluminum case or not. To borrow from a TV commercial, they want tuna that tastes good, not tuna with good taste.

If Apple quits offering the tower I expect that they will soon lose a lot of sales to the medical/edu market who make great use of the power of the Mac Pro to run not only OS X, but Unix scientific apps. Because most universities operate in a mixed computing environment, Apple needs to do something to remain relevant outside the laptop and small device market.

I could easily see universities configuring Linux/Unix boxes for these users to replace the Mac Pro if Apple fails to keep it current. They might even do Windows!

Anyway, I am waiting to see what Apple brings out in the way of Ivy Bridge updates. I think it may help with the thermal issues of the iMac. Now if OWC or somebody can figure out the hard drive issues with the cooling fans so that you don't have to get gouged by Apple when the hard drive does fail. $300 for a 2 TB hard drive is just outrageous, even in a post flood environment.

Cheers

No one has mentioned hackintoshing?

Zero stability, support, or upgradability. I'm not surprised.

People have claimed to own stable hackintoshes on many occasions. They don't seem so bad these days given the hackintosh community, but it's really better as a hobby. I need a machine to do work, so using a patched solution isn't really an option that I'm willing to consider. I'd rather move to Windows than do that. It's actually somewhat of a tossup between the two. Windows has a few things I can't get in OSX.

This is the reason I am ditching my 2 x Dell Netbook Hackintoshes and swapping them for a Macbook Air.

It was a fun experiment while it lasted and they work pretty well, but not being 64bit chips and having to wait on the hackers to produce the next fix for nearly EVERY OSX update was getting a little tiring..
plus of course the shitty hardware / touch pads you are forced to use

Come on Intel! Bring on the Ivy Bridge Xeon's ffs
We want new Mac(Pro)'s

Supposedly it's a better experience if you pick out hardware with the fewest conflicts possible, which is really only possible in building a desktop. Even then most of the people who make them do it as kind of a hobby (which is probably one of the reasons Apple doesn't care).

That is precisely where I am. I am accustomed to OSX and have used Windows enough that I can get around. Given the choice, I would prefer to stick with OSX. Sadly, Apple's hardware seems more and more restrictive and people say Win 7 really isn't that bad with Photoshop and etc.

You you mind commenting about the the Windows has that you can't get in OSX?

Cheers

Twenty years of using Macs and I'm considering switching because of the limitations of the hardware also. Or rather the limitations in how Apple chooses to package the hardware.

A couple of the 3d packages and a number of cool plugins for some stuff that I use. I only noticed because I was shopping for this stuff a while ago. On the consumer end some games still aren't released natively under OSX. Having the option of 10 bit displayport is nice too, and I can't get that with OSX (or a mac in general). Apple has been pretty weak on OpenGL implementations too. It's not stuff everyone would need. I could find more things, but I wasn't really looking. It used to be the other way to a degree, in that a lot of stuff I used was best supported on a Mac. Looking at Lion vs Windows 7, I don't have much of a preference there. Windows still has a couple things that irritate me, but I've already figured out most of the workarounds there, so it's less of an issue if I have to switch.

I don't find any thing restrictive about using an iMac.

I'll look forward to the line getting more than 4 cores in the following years and even better mobile GPUS.

The current top of the line spanks the current entry Mac Pro. Far more of a 'workstation' than it is. That's the thing with semantics, eh?

I think the Mac Pro should come in 3 flavours from £1000 to £1500 to £2000. Even at that...with the monitor, it would STILL be pricey.

Apple's big sellers are Laptops and iMacs.

Apple's positioning of the Mac Pro and the gradual upsell of the price has priced it to irrelevance.

I think the old Apple comparison picture of a Dell Tower with wires vs the iMac's single power cable said all. We may not like it...but that's Apple.

The current iMac is way more powerful than the old Blue G3 towers, the G4, the G5s and the entry Mac Pro. And it spanks the Mac Pro for value.

It's only going to get better as tech' shrinks.

The dinosaur is on it's way out. But I hope we get one more revision...with a case re-design...and a price axe.

Lemon Bon Bon.

With the increase in CPU capability fewer and fewer actually need the Mac Pro to get their work done.


The strides made with the shift to 22nm are very significant however in the case of GPUs I could see the advantage the new GPUs evaporating to drive higher resolution displays. The cycles of one technology improvement enabling another will go on for some time.


Ablely highlighted in the last conference call! The problem is Apple doesn't have a midrange desktop play so they really don't know what the demand is there.

I think it is more of a case of marketing a high performance workstation to people who don't need it! The Pro is a fine machine for the subset of users that need it.

The dinosaur nees to be reborn as a sleeker mammal. Seriously there are many people who would prefer something in the iMacs price class that is more suitable for their needs.

Conference call? They took this strategy for a while. If you wanted a tower with any applicable advantages of the form factor, you paid a higher markup. They used this to basically pool users, and it seems like it was more of a necessity when Apple was a smaller company. Needing the latest cpu at all times died out long ago. Even for the guys who use a lot of power, not every generation impacts their workload in a linear manner. In the case of work performed in real time, it's an issue of having enough cpu power to where you're not waiting on the machine or experiencing lag. In the case of things like rendering, transcoding, etc. gains matter, but they have to be great enough to impact the workflow. If you're running something overnight or over the weekend on one machine, shaving off an hour can be meaningless. If it goes from an overnight type of task duration to a lunch break, that makes a real difference. As computer power increases the demands of the software and operating system go with it.

Over the past few years we've seen relatively flat growth in application demands which has been partially held up by the transition to 64 bit applications in anything truly demanding. Hardware has continued to progress, so it's logical that there's a tendency toward lighter hardware. In a few years from now we may be seeing tablets as the consumer device of choice over where laptops are today. I think we'll retain something with a bit more punch for a while longer. GPUs aren't going away just yet, especially with the use of teslas in supercomputers. I'm not sure the workstation will go away just yet. There are some thin client PCOIP implementations designed for workstation type tasks, so it could happen. I can say that presently none of the other computers supplied by Apple are really suitable for certain types of work, and it's not just a this cpu is faster than that one issue.

I feel your pain. I stuck with the Mac Pro because of the underpowered laptops. And that includes the Mini as well. The iMacs have a glossy screen, which I don't like (hate actually, love the iPad; hate the screen)


I think almost everyone here feels the same. Well, except for those that never had to deal with Windows in the 1st place hehe.


I understand this. I'm on the 'latest' Mac Pro, mid 2010, and would buy a spare if they would announce it EOL without a new model. Just loike many/some people did with the 30'' ACD.


Better get used to their non verbal standpoint on this, or any issue or product. The fact that they now started to have tech journalists preview the lastest Mac OS X, nee, OS X version is really out of the ordinary.

(Your post was from Jan 8, so I'm late) Welcome to the forum.

Just got a marketing email from Apple encouraging me to accessorize my Mac Pro. Not sure if this is good or sad.

So .... A Month after I break down and buy a Dell Precision we're getting new Mac Pros.

Ill see You next Go Around Apple ..... I I have work to do

 

But you bought a Dell; how're you going to get it done?

 

*crickets*

 

Yeah, not my best work.

 

+1

 

AVID is offering their latest for $999 (upgrade from FCP or their earlier products), including all the plug-ins thru June15 which may make converts of the last of the FCP users and it runs on Windows equally well.

 

I just don't see Apple continuing the Mac Pro line for long and with their characteristic refusal to let customers know there are more reasons to consider making the move now and being done with it.

Xgrid.