Mac Pro Refesh in March - Page 8

I think we should be able to use any graphics card on the Pro. Also, I think that possibility would increase the sales of the Pro. Why don't Apple just let the GPU makers make drivers for OSX like they already do for Windows? Apple already left Java for Oracle to deploy. The same could happen to GPU drivers. The number of GPUs available for the Pro these days are just silly and extremely overpriced!

Haven't you noticed, the entire Mac Pro is overpriced.

Nope. Because it isn't.

There's two answers to that:

1 - The entry model is indeed overpriced. Too much money for a single processor machine and is a Xeon processor really needed for the lower model? They should replace it with a good core i7. I don't know how much different the performance would be.

2- The 2 processors model it's not so overpriced. It's a Pro workstation. Performance, reliability and build quality all have their higher price attached. It's far expensive putting 2 already expensive processors, a more expensive motherboard and so on.

Of course I would like them to be not so "overpriced" but that's what we have...

Historically, the G3 line of towers was wayyyyy more affordable.

Even the G4 line comparably so.

The G5 hitched it's skirt up even higher...

...and the 2008 on prices have seen nary a single Pro tower under £2000.

Overpriced?

Historically, there was even an entry G5 model at £995. (Shock. I know...) Except even at that it had crap specs and was poor value. But it stands as record that Apple can offer a tower at a sane price.

But it sure made the current entry model look like the embarrassment of riches that it is.

Let's try the 'real world' outside of the Apple space time continuum...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=2051&subcat=

Hmm. That gets us a nice starting bundle...just a case, gpu and a hard drive...

...let me try again...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...40&subcat=1444

Nice gpu....

There's even a 'Bulldozer' in there for Wizard...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=FS-216-OE

Alot of ram...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...40&subcat=1270

...that's a decent price.

Mac Pro, with 3 gigs of ram and an out of date gpu with a so-so quad core starting at over £2000 smackers? ...with nearly 2 year old specs?

It's not over priced. It's daylight robbery.

Lemon Bon Bon.

...and yes...Apple once upon a time even offered an array of dual processor models within the price reach of mere mortals.

I guess the previous update to the latter was 'too good' in terms of value for money. Couldn't have that...more people would buy them. :/

Lemon Bon Bon.

Let me see the thinking at Apple.

"We're now a consumer company...so let's price the Mac Pro as a p*ss taking museum piece. That way nobody will buy it...we can kill it and focus on iOS and laptops."

The good news is that the Mini was rumoured to be killed.

I bet 1 banana that the Pro gets a stay of execution...a price hike and sales will surge into single figures.

Lemon Bon Bon.

*waves. Me, me, me! I noticed!!!

Lemon Bon Bon.

If Apple can approve Apps at a record clip...why can't they approve submitted drivers for OS X?

Maybe they don't want a 3rd party gpu market. It makes Pros...uhm...eh...er...upgradeable? And that's not the point of the Pro...oh wait...

I think your idea...well...it's a good idea. Well. I think...but I have to question what goes through Apple's mind when they don't get why the Pro isn't selling. Sure, it's not just down to it being massively overpriced and having 2 year out of date internals which make it exceptional value for money. :PP But I can't see your idea getting past Apple's control freakery.

The cpu upgrade market, the clone market and the gpu 3rd party market. Encouraged by Apple? Or knifed in it's crib?

How many Apple machines can you barely get into? Why does it cost you £2000+ to get into the 'tinker with it' club?

Is it difficult for Apple to support a range of 5 motherboards, 5 GPUs from ATI and Nvidia, 5 cpus from AMD and Intel. Not as many as the wintel market...but enough to give a bit more choice to but small enough to keep things stable? Geeze. Apple only has a few gpus to support for a new round of updates and even they have their problems. Perish the thought if they added a few more to the mix.

That last paragraph. I wrote it. But don't ever see it flying with Apple's lockdown abc approach to upsell marketing.

I think they'd sooner kill the Pro than offer it for anything less than a thorough eye gauging.

I'm still looking forward to the next Pro update though.

'Hope springs eternal?'

Lemon Bon Bon.

I give them two months to announce end of life for the Mac Pro. It's a dead horse. Hp's z series is the real option for an expandable computer. Have you seen their all in one Z1?

I have. And I have to say I'm impressed.

If they're going to 'can' the Pro line then I'd like to see an iMac Pro line like this with Xeons and Quadros. If HP (a PC division that was about to be spun off) can do it...why not Apple.

They could give the standard iMac line a price cut and introduce a Pro iMac where the mid to high end is now. Boom. You get your expandable iMac.

They even made the point about the z taking up less space.

Really impressed with the access the z allows. They've actually thought about it.

It's a gauntlet down to Apple as far as I'm concerned. Apple are doing sealed units.

I'm loathe to give HP any credit. But credit where it's due.

Apple's desktop line does need a little more thought. More spec. A price cut and a touch more innovation.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Yes, I really love my 2008 dual quad core, and am still hoping for at least one more refresh, but the fact that there are absolutely no creditable rumors, Tim Cook's speech about the post PC era, and no announcements after Intels release, tells me they want this thing dead. It's funny how they can't pull their heads out of the iPad, and iPhone long enough to even see whats going on around them. If I have to I may end up maxing out the 2.93 12 core with the 5870, and install my own ram. I just have to much invested in Mac software It really hurts though to spend that much money on old technology. I'll give then 8 more weeks I guess.

While I feel your pain, if you were making most of your revenue from two product categories, and a tiny and diminishing amount of revenue from a third product category, which would you invest in?

If I had the kind of money Apple has, I would certainly not stick it to the professionals who supported them for all these years. I mean come on, to keep the pro line alive for Apple is no big deal. They would save face with HP, Dell, and Apple's own customers. If they dropped the pro line a lot of people would be very upset. Do you think that public relations nightmare is worth it? Besides it does make them money. Sure not like the iPad, but then it doesn't cost $800.00. What they need to do is possibly change the form factor, and lower the cost.

The 5870 is just a bit older (but not much) when compared to most of the popular workstation grade cards on the Windows side. I think the most comparable workstation version would have been a Firepro V7800 when comparing raw hardware, but the drivers are considerably different. NVidia Quadros always seem to remain higher in popularity there.

Not all of the other manufacturers have mentioned the total sum of their intended updates, or when they'll be available. Apple usually announces closer to when they're shipping. Anyway you are really over thinking this. Apple could be somewhat more proactive in the situation, but Intel really seems to be going toward very long refresh cycles on this cpu line. I'm not sure if they're running into difficulties from the continuous die shrink cycles.


Again you are blowing this out of proportion. Apple does have some annoying habits, and they market these as workstations even though they're missing a couple typical workstation features to justify higher markups, but you're building this up in your head here. You got caught in an awkward refresh cycle, and if you were using a Windows PC built with the same cpu type, you would still be waiting. Rather than speculating, you should figure out what your costs would be on sidegrades if you're debating switching platforms. It can be anything from full retail to nothing depending on what you run, and sometimes companies do offer discounts if you are switching from a competing product (in case you're switching out something like FCPX).

As I said, I feel your pain. And I hope that Apple does update the MP, even though I'm not a user.

But:

It takes a lot of money to re-engineer something like the Mac Pro - the case, cooling, power supply, etc. And that money has to be recouped through sales - Apple has shown it is not going to invest money in items that lose money. Without knowing the financials around the MP, it's impossible to say if it makes money, loses money, breaks even, etc.

Sorry, but I just don't buy it. Apple has tons of cash. They would have no problem at all financing another MP refresh, and lets not forget the fact that it does make them many millions of dollars. I'm sure there sales were on pare with HP. at least 90%of the people I deal with in my industry are using Mac Pros.

I wonder how many mac pros apple could give away for 45 billion instead of giving said money to shareholders?

Seriously... Your average pc company selling towers on razor margins can sell towers with up to date specs, more ram an up to date GPu. I don't see dropping in some new parts being expensive development. Even a redeveloped pro compact? *shrugs.

Hp probably sell towers on less margins than apple. They're showing a bit with the z all in one.

Apple sell pros with xeons in. We're waiting for the sandy bridge chip.

So I wouldn't panic just yet. If it hasn't been updated by next year? It's dead.

Lemon Bon Bon.

This is somewhat of a misconception regarding the case and cooling and stuff. First the board designs last at least two years. The external shell stays pretty much the same. Some of the internals might change a bit, but they can pretty much stick to the current design. Foxconn produces the boards. They probably do most of the development there. I actually do not think much of the work surrounding these machines takes place in Cupertino.

Keep in mind, I don't expect them to do much to re-engineer it. I expect them to ride the current design as much as possible. They approve a logic board design, let Foxconn handle testing and stuff, and sell a machine.

This isn't the case at all. Sales could be around 50,000 a quarter and maybe significantly less than that. This idea that the Mac Pro is a huge money maker for Apple really needs some thought out into it. Begin by looking at the split between Laptops and desktops which is now significantly skewed towards laptops. So let's be generous and say desktop sales are 25% of all Mac sales. Then we have to device that up between iMac, Mini and Pro, Apple pretty much acknowledges that the iMac gets the majority of desktop sales with the Mini coming in second. In the end the Mac Pro could be less that a percentage point of overall sales.

That means nothing! That is like working in a swimwear store and saying the majority of woman wear spandex. In the area I work in nobody has a desktop Mac installed.

You assume that the next Mac Pro will be built on the same chassis. That appears to be fairly unlikely at this point.

As for design I do think most of the effort is California based. At one time it was rumored that the Mac Pro design was handed off to Intel during the transition but I'm not sure I believe that.

That is certainly possible but it would be a sign of the products death to me.

When working with a subcontractor you really are working as a team. However I don't think Apple is going to give up significant control over its designs. If anything they are likely in stronger control than many of the competitors.

I was unaware that you had access to Apple's internal financials regarding the Mac Pro.

Unless you do, you have no idea what it would cost Apple to re-engineer the Mac Pro. Nor do we have any way of knowing what Apple's ROI targets are for the MP, and if it is worth it to them to come out with a new one. Put simply, it's more complicated than you make it to be.

As I've said before, I'm not a MP user, but I do hope they release new models. But you have to look at it from Apple's perspective, not from yours. It has to make sense from the overall corporate perspective - that includes both financial and non-financial data.

I presented some things that are somewhat of a given. No company actually wants to lose customers. If they decide to eol it, they will be looking at how to minimize such an effect. You mentioned engineering costs. As I mentioned, they shouldn't be too rough with a tower configuration given the generous fan space, and Foxconn does in fact design their boards. This was a change as of the 2009 model. I'm just saying if they're attempting to buy time, that kind of refresh isn't difficult. Regarding whether or not it goes away, there hasn't been a single credible rumor, and it remains listed on the front page (usually when they EOL something it leaves the front page of their site beforehand). The only reason we're even talking about this is that too many people don't even pay attention to Intel's cpu release cycles, and now that cpus have started to ship, they've gone back to declaring an obituary for the line. In other products, sometimes cpus are out for 2-3 months before we see an update.

Anyway, we don't really have any evidence on what will happen there.


Well the logic boards went away from intel's reference spec to one done by Foxconn. I kind of doubt they're going to put a lot of resources into this round, especially with Intel's floundering here. Sandy Bridge E just started shipping, and the Ivy equivalent is due around the same time as consumer Haswell. Given that the cpus are running quite hot and Apple tries to make a silent tower (especially for the guys who deal with audio), I think it's likely that they'll retain the current form factor given its ability to house large fans.

I'm really not expecting much in the way of imagination from them. Towers are an easy way to deal with legacy baggage and really hot cpus. The way things are seated in the tower currently takes up quite a lot of space. I know they could do something new with it. I'm just not expecting it this round.

IMHO a Pro iMac doesn't make sense. Pro users don't go after the kind of screen on the iMac. They prefer matte displays.

You seem awfully sure about that. I'm not convinced that Apple would give up that much control. I'm certain they have a partnership with Foxconn but that is a bit different than saying Foxconn designs the boards.

Well this I agree with! The almost spastic demand that Apple release a new Sandy Bridge E machine is ridiculous as Apple seldom releases hardware in lock step with Intel. The only exception here seems to be the laptops where it often appears that Apple is pulling Intel along.

Well again I'm not so convinced of this. First off the Pros board is not a reference design, it is a pretty unique design on its own.

As to resource allocation I really think they have no choice, they need to show the customer base that the desktop has not been abandoned. Apple has serious credibility problems on the desktop right now.

A large box does not really solve ones cooling problems. As to the audio guys, frankly screw them. Apple really needs to focus on a design that can service a very wide array of customer needs first. If the design is suitably quiet for the audio world afterward then fine, but the Pro really shouldn't be a niche machine.

I'd have to say just the opposite. The Mac Pro isn't really known to be a cool running platform. The large internal volume actually makes even cooling more difficult.

As two doing something with it, I've expecting something for the last couple of years. Frankly they have been rolling in cash, so if they can't pull off a modern refactoring of the Pro this round when will they be able to? One reason to expect this is that the technology exists to allow for it. Compact motherboards are easy, high speed I/O is solved and high speed storage is easy to come buy.

In effect this allows Apple design flexibility. For one they can put disk arrays into a separate box, this alone dramatically reduces the Pros size. In the Pro itself local storage can be taken care of by very fast SSD technology which again takes up less space. Drop out the large optical bays and again the machine shrinks. The final step would be to shrink I/O card space leaving room for one high performance GPU card and an additional slot. With four TB ports the machine would still have access to bulk secondary storage.

The big advantage here is a far lower cost for the base machine. This means a wider audience that would find the platform usefull. More importantly for those that need the extra capability they give up nothing, except for maybe an all in one box solution.

Now maybe such a platform would shock some current Pro users, especially those that get something personal out of having a big box near buy. In the end though you either evolve or you die.

Some Pro users prefer a matte screen but this is a dwindling number. The advantages to matte screens are few, the disadvantages many. Once Apple goes to HiDPI screens I see the vast majority of so called Pros giving up long held beliefs. Just play around with iPad 3 for a bit to grasp the advantages of the newer screen technologies.

Though I prefer a headless desktop, I think the display on the iMac is great. I like the color saturation on glossy screens even if they aren't the best for work on well lit environments. I don't need to see the new iPad to see how better the screen is. The screen on the iPhone 4 already got me but I still believe that there will be a legion of pros wanting matte displays for work with image/video/3d.

Yes you can use many normal PC graphic cards. Off the shelf cards are always cheaper then buying from the Apples store, same goes for memory, drives, controller cards and CPU upgrades. What I would like to see the most is support for SLI.

I buy NEC monitors for that.

Maybe it is me but my iPhone 4 doesn't have the same effect on me as does my new iPad. I'm not sure why yet but that IPad is just amazing to use.

Dave

*ponders Wizard's post.

Lemon Bon Bon.

You have the 2? Or the new one? I used the 2 and was very impressed.

I have the 'new' iPad and I'm in love in a way that I haven't been since my first power mac with a copy of photoshop 4.

Recharge takes a while though!

Lemon Bon Bon.

I used procreate 1.5. An astonishing simple and powerful paint program for the iPad and it isn't even optimised for iPad '3'.

1.6 promises to tear up the town as the engine is asked on gl. The developers are very excited about the quad core GPu as their engine is GPu not CPU based.

Finger painting was never this much fun.

Getting a stylus soon...

Lemon Bon Bon.

*nods enthusiastically.

A creative post.

Bravo. I hope Apple listen.

Lemon Bon Bon.

The armchair executive opinion on here seems to be that they don't really require such a machine given what they already have. I feel like at the top end the imac has been very much of a leveraged design in that it's grown due to people choosing it out of Apple's lineup over a different Mac. Perhaps design is a strong word there. From what I have seen of the insides on the current one, they've moved away from Intel's typical reference design. It's quite a bit different from earlier models (2006-2008), and it does seem to handle heat pretty well.



Apple's marketing used to state "whisper quiet" in the G5 era. They definitely lent some prioritization to noise level. Overall it should still be possible to keep the machine reasonably quiet. No one wants the noise of server fans.


I truly don't care about the shape. Some users might benefit from a rackmount friendly case. If the reliance was on thunderbolt, they'd really need to provide some ports. It seems to be touted as a catch all solution on here whether we're speaking of ethernet adapters, external video, drives, etc. Certain things really should have their own port in its current state.


I kind of wonder how you came to that conclusion. Glossy displays are quite annoying. It's not that the matte coatings have to be super aggressive, as that can lead to secondary specular issues (note the glitter effect on some anti glare panels). It's just that the way they are currently, the display can become almost a mirror solely from its own emitted light. Calling it matte or glossy doesn't really mean much. The goal should be to provide a clear picture without the obvious perception of environmental reflection. I have a feeling that it comes down to costs, as I've seen displays with much better anti glare finishes than the old cinema displays.

I never used the 2, in fact after it came out I avoided the Apple store for fear I'd blow my budget on one! I'm really glad I waited for iPad 3.

It is a nice machine. All of the performance problems of iPad1 are gone (even if 5.1 helped a lot there), it just feels much smoother or fluid. I hardly even look at my Mac for E-mail, or web access anymore.

Well you can't win them all.

I know this will perplex many but I had a very hoo hum attitude to my iPhone 4's screen. There is much to like about that phone but I guess I see it more as a tool than something that one can get pleasure from using.

Oh well... March is ending and nothing on the horizon...

Yes. It's by turns frustrating and sad.

Needed: Macintosh desktop computer with multiple internal ssd hard drives in raid configuration, Thunderbolt out, high end video card, latest Intel chips. Will pay cash.

I'm not so demanding but a decent Mac desktop is required.

Fixed that for you! ;^p

Seriously though, a PCI-Express SSD RAID card would be awesome for the OS & apps. It would also leave all the HDD bays open for a much larger internal RAID array, which would be controlled by its own PCI-Express RAID card. In a (hopefully still) 4 slot machine, I would still have room for a secondary (and lesser specced) graphics card to run 2 secondary monitors, while the 'double-wide' slot handles the high-end graphics card.