Mac Pro Refesh in March - Page 6

Their CTO options tend to encompass all of the chips aside from the "extreme" configurations.


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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 really doubt it. It really looks like you like stressing yourself over nothing.

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 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.

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.

*nods.

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.


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.

Lemon Bon Bon.

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.

Random thoughts.

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. 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.

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.


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.

Apple has to make up for 'something sour' at NAB this year....

Still not one word on this boat anchor! This isn't looking at all good.

Why? Filler.

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.

*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.

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.

Lemon Bon Bon.

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.

You know... it's going to be a niche market, and the price they charge for just the starting hardware is going to keep it there. The proposed changes just sound like something that would alienate current buyers without really attracting others unless they did something beyond that with it. Right now they're quite spacious, but part of it is Apple's exotic board design. If we were talking about a typical intel reference design, they could go slimmer. They can design it any way they want, but it starts to get into pointless territory when it starts to completely overlap with existing products. I mean let's say you reduced it to TB run via integrated graphics while housing 1-2 drives. Who is going to relate to that? Worse OpenGL/OpenCL performance, lower IO bandwidth, but cheaper price point. I'm not sure how many people are getting choked by the cpu on recent models. I'm not saying that their machines don't get choked. I'm saying I wonder how many of them would benefit from upgrading to such a design.

Anyway... just my thoughts.

By the way, I don't see it getting that much better. MS and Apple are both probably concerned about how power/ram hungry their systems get due to the emergence of the ipad, and software is kind of a mess at the moment. I think it'll be at least a couple more years before we really see any interesting changes. Even if you bought an imac with the initial i7 generation, there's no compelling reason to upgrade. With a laptop maybe as it can address more ram, but most people seem to be under the impression that an SSD is just as good.

Edit: The idea of buying a new computer every two years really should be a thing of the past at this point for consumers. Strong macbook air sales should be an indication of this, but they keep the hardware on the point of just enough so as to encourage upgrades.

Edit Edit: If they were going to scale down the case, they'd probably be looking at E3's rather than E5's.

And here is something other than geekbench...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03..._e5_hot_stuff/

Anyway if they wanted to scale it down, it's doubtful they'd be looking at that. The removable risers and some of those design elements really aren't necessary. Given that it's Apple they also most likely do not care about the ODD in this machine one way or the other. I just think you should consider that if they try to change it incorrectly, it could turn somewhat of a niche machine into one that nobody wants.

Ah yeah, 'hmm' mentioned those earlier on. They could go in the entry models. HP appear to be using them:

http://www.hp.com/united-states/camp...l#.T2TaeWbZdxI

They have a comparison between the E5-1620 3.60 GHz and the W3565 3.20 GHz (which is a BTO Mac Pro option and isn't far off the 2.8GHz Mac Pro). They have a graph with 1.3x speedup on the render.


The 2400-series won't be out until next quarter so if they use those, that might explain the delay.


Genkbench (the name Geekbench is bad enough) does indeed only tell part of the story but it's still a reliable benchmark for comparing some performance aspects of CPUs that relate to real-world use. Some reviews/tests seem more favourable like:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3149-5.html

but they are comparing a new 8-core to an old 6-core.

Raw performance still comes out under 50% better.
Sandy Bridge has AES-NI so the cryptography test is up.
Memory bandwidth is up but in real-world tests, it's not going to make a huge difference.
Cache performance seems to be up dramatically but again these are synthetic tests.


Of course but my conclusion isn't changing. It's not good enough to go up less than 50% raw performance in nearly 2 years. The Mac Pro is not a features machine, it's a performance machine - that's its area of emphasis.


If they can offer a 6-core for the price of the previous 4-core or just get the 4-core price down with the E5-16xx chips, it is appealing to entry-level Mac Pro buyers and other buyers as it becomes more competitive with PC options while being better designed.


It wouldn't use integrated graphics. The iMac uses a dedicated graphics card. The performance could easily be better than it is now and they could even let you upgrade the GPU. You just couldn't buy a standard PCI card. IO bandwidth is lower on paper but in practise, are people using higher than 10Gbps connections directly to their PCI 2 slots?

There could be some overlap/cannibalisation but the value incentive for the iMac is in the bundled 27" display. The value incentive for the Mac Pro would be performance per dollar and serviceability as well as the form factor. The form factor is especially important if they have could implement Thunderbolt chaining. This concept to an extent bypasses the issue of weak updates from Intel. If you need more power, buy another good performance-per-dolar unit and plug it in.

Just read this report:
"Intel’s soon-to-arrive Xeon processors are generally thought to go off the production line nearly simultaneously with AMD’s high end Tahiti graphic cards supported by the latest OS X 10.7.3 Lion version saw. People with inside knowledge of the matter, however, have claimed that Apple’s management hesitated over investing extra resources in the Mac Pro product line last May.

Internal discussions at the company reportedly concentrate on the fact that sales of the high-end Mac Pro workstations have slipped so significantly that the desktop machines aren’t particularly profitable for Apple anymore."

http://iphone-squad.com/new-intel-sa...o-refresh.html

Everything I've seen tells me that Apples desktop sales are terrible, sustained only by flat iMac sales. This really should surprise no one. There are many factors of course, the long drawn out updates are one, but I still see the biggest issue being that they have nothing in the desktop line up suitable for most people interested in a desktop.

The closest thing to a decent machine in the line up is the Mini and that only if you can accept the absurd compromises there. The Mini is an example of a good idea hamstrung by thoughtless marketing and a love of excessive margins. The Pro on the other hand is grossly over priced for the 1000 people a week that might actually buy it and make use of the platform. Strike that, it should be 500 a week!

Sadly Apple has a line of crap desktops just when it is reasonable to start thinking about buying desktop hardware again instead of laptops. More and more I see my iPad as my portable choice of the day. There is a real question of even needing a Laptop by the time iPad 4 comes out.

Same idea here, with apple I have graduated from a iPod touch iPhone iPad2 very happy with them all so... I thought why not just go all apple and get a mac desktop for my office. My iPad2 serves well for all my needs as a laptop (I have one that has been collecting dust for months) Now I decide to get serious about going to a Mac and have found nothing but frustration... The Mac Pro is very nice but too much, the iMac is an all in one which I dont like and scary as crap if you ever had to take it apart, and I dont know but I'm not sure even with a maxed out Mini if it would be enough.... there just aren't many choices in this division. then there are all this secret secret stuff - dont tell whats coming... that you stay in limbo as to what to do.... Very frustrating indeed...

Reminds me of Goldilocks and the three bears; only someone forgot to put out the middle bowl... or it has the kitchen table attached to it and a lid on it that you cant get off

Desktop sales are 'terrible?' Not in Apple's context. They've been leading the charge away from the 'traditional' desktop for some time with their laptop lines. They've led in this regard.

Their 'desktops' are somewhat unconventional compared to the Wintel traditional desktop too. This is deliberate. It's what makes Apple's desktops 'different.' But they're selling sealed boxes that can update the ram and...uhm...have an external hard drive. Not to 'box tinkers' or the 'enthusiast' market. Certainly not to people who want a Windows tower in the £399-£1800 price range. Because...they don't make one. But nearly 1 million iMacs per quarter is probably better than any single windows desktop model...or AIO. It's a compelling desktop design. But clearly not one to your taste.

Out of Apple's line of desktops the iMac offers the best value in context. The screen adds value. It's far from 'crap.' I doubt it would sell the best part of a million if that was so. While the screen adds value...I still think the internals suffer from the problem most of Apple's desktops suffer from. 'Modest' internals...which you pay through the nose for. But hey, they're selling more Macs than ever for a variety of reasons but primarily because Apple are brilliant at laptops and focuses on it...but this is in no small part due to the gravitational pull of the iOS halo and the awesome stores.

I think Apple's laptops just offer more value for money and the best design in a market that's going portable. We can only guess at the future implications for an iPad 4. But for now, iOS devices are outstripping Mac and PC sales. The Mac may merely morph into iOS one day...kind of. Maybe in a few years it will be no Pro, talk of an iMac being killed off, laptops feeding into bigger monitors as a desktop and iOS iPads getting bigger? who knows.

But the Mac Pro and the Mini are terrible ('crap?') value for money. The mini used to have the fact that it was cheap going for it. Now it doesn't. The Mac Pro is absurd. Surely Apple must see why they don't sell more of it?

If it was me, I'd have kept the iMac at £1200 and under. Cube (the machine I think the Mini should have been...) at £1000-£1500 and Mac Pro at £1295-£2000. A nice bit of overlap up sell. But even better. Just an iMac under a grand and a Cube over a grand. Compact tower. Two desktops. Job done. That would mean canning the mini and pro and create one more scaleable desktop in their wake. With a deep discount on buying an Apple monitor as well. But Apple isn't me.

The tide is with laptops. It's clear that Apple's focus is on laptops and has been for some time. But even the Mac has taken a backseat to the iOS devices.

eg I bought the New iPad and the Apple TV only last night.

...and no Mac in sight 3 months into 2012. That would have been unthinkable ten -12 years ago? When Mac emphasis and intro's were big things. Sometimes those Mac updates don't even make the front page in any significant way or at all.

The Store I went to? All Airs and iPads and iPhones. (Ten+ years ago in independent Apple sellers it was all desktops and some laptops. ie iMac and G-whatever-tower...at the front with laptops at the back. That's very much changed these days...)

That's what they've selling most of.

Apple Inc. Not 'Apple Computer...'

Lemon Bon Bon.

Agreed. It's about value. Apple couldn't have done plenty with the Pro line to create value.

eg a decent gpu.
eg 8 gigs of ram (now dirt cheap but Apple are holding onto penny pinching eye gauging...prices!)
eg bigger hard drives.
eg discount the Apple monitor.
eg saw the bloody stupid Mac Pro entry price by bloody half.

They could have done any/all of that in the last nearly 2 years. Without a major design change.

They have 100 billion in the bank and can't create a compelling 'tower' priced to sell?

That doesn't mean cheap. But £995 for a tower isn't cheap. It's only cheap compared to the ridiculous prices they charge for it.

Lemon Bon Bon.

They can use leverage and bulk buying power now.

eg Air and iPad.

They could have used this to create more compelling value in the desktop line.

But Apple's desktops are unique in that they offer less value than their laptops. In a world where the compelling value is portability and lightness and value, Apple's laptops are doing just fine. The desktop has to compete in a different way. Perhaps by being cheaper than a laptop and also by being more powerful and flexible than a laptop in terms of component choices. But it doesn't appear to work that way in terms of Apple desktops. Their ultimate goal seems to be Xen design with 'most' of the power you'd expect for an 'average' consumer at a premium which makes their laptops even more compelling? Or quite simply. Every body wants a laptop right now. Apart from Dave and me...and a few others on this very forum.

But Apple's design decisions are unique compared to the Wintel market. I can see why they do what they do. Even though I don't necessarily agree with all of their choices.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Most of Apple's promotional materials feature laptops.

The iMac may get the occasional look in.

But do Apple even mention the Pro much on their site? :?

Lemon Bon Bon.

Nope! I don't want a laptop... Ive had stacks of them, don't like them, only had and used them because I "needed" to. Since My iPad2 I havent even turned my laptop on. The iPad does everything I need a portable device to do and I'm probably on my iPhone as much as I am my iPad. Oh, and I bought an Apple TV too, forgot to mention that earlier... I'm just frustrated that Ive come all this way with Apple and finally decide to take the leap to go all the way with a new Mac and look at my choices... Like you said it's a laptop which I dont want. besides I need two monitors to do the things I do. Have you ever tried using two monitors with a laptop??? it's Crap! They dont really handle it well and if you use the laptop as one of the monitors the lid keeps getting in the way and if you close the lid and hook up a bigger monitor you can split work on then you have to hook up another keyboard (or have the lid sticking up in the way). I'm really getting at my wit's end. I really want to switch to Mac but honestly don't know what to do. Some are saying if I really beef up the Mini it will be enough; I dont know... or wait and see if they put the new Ivy Bridge in it then it will be, I dont know... I dont know how much faster and capable a SSD would improve one and the cost is outrageous...
A venting confused, frustrated Man that just wants a Mac... \

Firstly of all. The frailties of Apple's desktop line not with standing...

What kind of work do you want to do?

What is your budget?


I once wanted an X-Mac. It never turned up in my ten years of waiting. So I bought the 24 inch (top of line model in a sale) and it's been just fine. Even the hard drive that went on it...(and I'm no techie...) and I managed to get inside and put a 7200rpm in it instead of the 5200rpm one.

Once I let go of the notion I 'needed' a tower type computer eg a Pro? I was fine. I was worried about the screen. But it's been fine. It's great. For most of the creative stuff I do it's just fine. An i7 quad core with the 2 gigs of vram gpu with a 27 inch screen and plenty of ram would see me in heaven. Your mileage may vary. But I think the top end iMac is a dream machine and a respectable performer. I only hope they add a 6 core version to it someday...and an even higher resolution.

You might want to wait and see how the next 6 months pan out. Is this going to be evolutionary year? Or revolutionary for Apple's Mac line?

For Mac Pro sales to become viable again...it needs a shot in the arm design and price wise. A whole new mandate...design, price and customer wise. I think it's your best shot at what you want if you don't like the iMac.

But Apple haven't changed the desk top line much in years. And that's part of the problem....possibly.

Lemon Bon Bon.

There's also the option of picking up a 2nd hand Mac Pro on ebay.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I've never wanted a laptop. Too many at home limitations to go along with the portability. But an iPad is a game changer for me. At first I felt the same way about the iPad but I'm starting to warm up to one. But I've got to have the desktop I need if Apple ever expects me to own an iPad.

http://www.hp.com/united-states/camp...l#.T2X8ERBYCSM

Very interesting...

...power without the tower?

You can adjust the monitor and open it to service swap out parts eg hard drive and GPu etc.

...and a choice of workstation GPus!

Quad core but no six core but with Xeon options.

An iMac that you can upgrade

Thoughts?

Lemon Bon Bon.

It is a mistake these days to believe that you need a tower to get a powerful workstation. I think it is a case of old habits (beliefs) die hard. It is one of the frustrating things I hear when the XMac is discussed, that is the association of the XMac with a tower.


This is one of the frustrating things about the iMac, Apple could try a lot harder with respect to the mechanical design.


Unfortunately NVidia GPUs.

I've said this in another thread but Apple is loosing desktop customers right and left and doesn't even know it. In this case HP is making a frontal attack on what use to be Apples bread and butter desktop model. A model that has been stagnet design wise for far too long. HP here is just offering up something to attract iMac users, they long ago have grabbed Mac users looking for a decent desktop. In a sense they are whacking Apple over the head and saying, see what you can do if you put in a little effort.

As a side note I know many object when I say the iMac is a crap design. Unfortunately this is a direct result of experience with many industrial all in one PCs. I'm not sure if somebody at Apple is mental over magnets or what but the design of the iMac is just absurd. No body wants to spend hours working on a device, to effect a repair, when the alternatives allow you to do the same in minutes. What is extremely frustrating here though is that Apple has made great strides with its laptop designs while the iMac languishes. It is so sad to see even their flagship desktop treated like a poor step child. Apple should have no problem at all with evolving this machine along with the other desktops but they don't.

On the flip side I do see a lot of fans in this machine. Also I'd expect an iMac to be a little more up to date port wise.

They most likely considered things that would be familiar to their customers there. A huge portion of their customer base is in corporate sales. They did still keep things a bit light in some areas, but it's not bad. It's just very very expensive fully configured, but that could still change somewhat. What I found stupid were comments on it being an imac clone wherever it was reviewed when the design only really uses the concept of all in one as a point of departure.


It's partially that. I'm still not a huge fan of the AIO concept for myself personally, but they did offer some very nice display choices. Dreamcolor displays have had some issues in the past apart from having some very nice points. I don't know if they ever improved the dithering. Supposedly they stabilize quite fast which is nice. Many people hold the false belief that lcd displays stabilize in minutes after being turned on which isn't really true. The ramp up might be different.

Anyway in Apple's case the G4 imac was probably my favorite imac design, and I remember the display being quite good for its time. I can't remember if it had that inverter problem that was common in the earlier cinema displays.


I think much of it is cost effectiveness in design. They simply don't prioritize this kind of thing in their machines.


This is a somewhat unfounded hatred that I don't understand unless you owned one of the afflicted macbook pros from several years ago. NVidia Quadro is the top choice under Windows in many cases, and they're the only one with really credible workstation drivers on mobile graphics (which the HP is using). For some reason while AMD drivers aren't perfect under OSX, they don't seem to exhibit some of the bugs mentioned at times under Windows. Anyway lack of NVidia options would have been a very bad idea given mercury playback, CUDA, etc. and they can still run OpenCL applications.

The area AMD seemed to really excel was in performance per watt. I don't know if NVidia will improve this year with Kepler. They seemed to think so, but nothing is really shipping yet, then of course it'll take a while longer for workstation drivers to trickle out.

I don't like the clone comparison at all. All in one have been around a very long time, apple has just been rather successful with theirs.

Let's put it this way I'm not a fan of the iMac all in one. The display isn't the problem for me, but rather it is the flexibility you give up for a desktop machine.

I bought my MBP in 2008, the only Apple machine prior to that was a Mac Plus. So you can see a significant spread there. Unfortunately that Mac Plus taught me a few lessons about all in ones, even though I really loved that machine I've resisted such on the desktop since.

You say that but yet they did just that on their laptops. Compare any of the MBP to laptops prior to 2008. Now maybe serviceability and general access wasn't their goal but the end result is notable.

Admittedly cost could be an issue. But what is the price of pushing your customers away?

Actually it has nothing to do with that, rather it is NVidia attitude to the open source world. I still run Linux and frankly I wouldn't want to support a company with the attitude NVidia has towards Linux.

AMD has changed drastically with respect to driver since the take over. They aren't perfect by any means but they have gone a very long way to improving their drivers across the board. Could they do better? Certainly but I think in some cases people think to much about issues in the distant past instead about what AMD is doing now.

As to Apple well Apple is very much in the loop QC wise. More importantly Apple is very very conservative when it comes to rolling out new support. I hate to say this but Apples drivers are good because they are so far behind.

I'm impressed with the strides AMD has made both with its GPUs and with its processor lineup. In any event my aversion to NVidia has more to do with non technical issues.

This is the type of product Apple used to be known for, features that actually make it easier for the owner/user. Options and an easy to open case. Today Apple only cares about "the look" and has taken it so far that Apple is removing features from its computers. The Z1 is the iMac I could see my self owning if there is a matte screen option.

In my opinion Apple just got its "design ass" handed to them on a platter. Apple used to be known for innovation. Who ever thought HP would trump Apple?

Wow that HP is certainly moving in the right direction. Apple better get their heads out of the iPad long enough to have a look around. Apple should have brought that out. This is what happens when you get distracted.