Mac Pro Dead or Alive

So far, they aren't using the Xeon E5 series yet. They use the same X5670 in the Mac Pro. No doubt this April 5th event is when they want to intro their E5 update but it still just runs Windows 7. The Mac Pro is more that just hardware - it's the fastest way to run the best OS.

The one on the page you linked.

These guys are jokers, really. It's Psystar without the shyster. People buy Mac Pros to run OS X in those environments. Relearning an OS and its software doesn't become "worth it" to them for a very long amount of time.

I really don't get what your problem is here. Sandy Bridge E has been out barely three weeks, in that time only a handful of computers have debuted with that processor and most of them from shady fly by night suppliers. Just chill a bit until there is a reasonable number of professional machines Available to look at.

It really shocks me that people respond to such advertising. Think about it they are exploiting you based on rumors built on very thin evidence. The only thing we know for sure is that it has been sometime since the Mac Pro revved. Plus we know that Intel screwed up royally with Sandy Bridge E which probable explains the very slow roll out of real workstations built around this processor. Beyond that everything else is speculation.

Now I'd like to think an informed opinion is that the current Mac Pro is dead. That can not and should not be interpreted as saying that Apple is leaving the Pro Market. I'm not sure why this is so difficult for people to grasp. Nor can I understand why people can't grasp that technology has changed dramatically since the need for big box towers was a reality. It is a different world and more importantly many new technologies will become available in the next couple of years to dramatically change what we see as Pro computing hardware.

Intel is looking at building high performance processors with Infinband built in. They are also working with memory manufactures to build 3D high performance memory architectures. AMD and NVidia are starting to make good on high performance GPU computing. All of this stuff and more will end up in a much smaller box than the current Mac Pro. Trust that whatever Apple is doing is for a machine that can adapt to these technologies in the future.

I wouldn't call this a fly by night supplier...

http://www.boxxtech.com/products/3DB...sp?prodid=8920

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixpr5us63M

Lemon Bon Bon.

What he said. Clues in those tea leaves...

Lemon Bon Bon.

Based on the website that you linked to, BOXX is a boutique OEM. Call us back when Dell, HP, and Lenovo sell boxes with these processors.

They've been around quite a long time. They're not really fly by night at all.

I've been holding onto my MacPro2,1 for longer than I'd like to have simply because I'm waiting for a smaller form factor for a Pro mac. I have my credit card patiently waiting in my wallet for the day one is released. Hopefully, my 30" Cinema Display will be supported. I just can't bring myself to use an underpowered Mac Mini.

What if they kill headless desktops altogether except the mini?

There is still that 'last hurrah' Cube (v3.0? NeXT Cube, Mac Cube, the new hawtness) with the Thunderbolt interconnects & half-height/same footprint Thunderbolt RAID chassis

Mac mini Pro (Cube v4.0) in the future?

As long as they let me replace the graphics card and add RAM, I'm ok with that.

Exactly why I think there could be a Mac mini Pro someday

Replace RAM? Check

Replace GPUs? Check, either swap out the MXM card or add an external TB-connected unit

I would expect fatter/faster versions of TB, with at least 4 available, along with other I/O choices

Interconnects between CPUs and self-aware clustering software (Galaxy, duh the rEAL reason behind the legal battles with Samsung) make adding raw horsepower as easy as plugging in another Mac mini Pro

I may be dreaming, but I gotta hope/believe that Apple has something more to offer Pro users than a pimped out iMac, no matter what the specs. The idea of modular components being linked together to make something greater than the parts sounds good to me!

If I'm not wrong, Thunderbolt bandwidth is the same as PCIe x4 and not x16 needed for a craphics card so, no, that's not a good option. What I'm looking for is a Mac where I can upgrade a good graphics card. I don't get all that hype about Thunderbolt. It may be good for storage and other type of peripherals but not for a powerful GPU.

Somehow I don't see Apple going after such a market. Further we wouldn't have a current method of making it behave as a single workstation.

Very interesting, can't disagree with any of that.

Right now with extremely fast interconnects such as Thunderbolt you should already be able to build a pretty powerful compute cluster from just a stack of Mac Mini's. It's not nearly as convenient or flexible enough to replace a badass rig with lots of CPU, RAM, IO and graphics performance, at least not yet, but who knows how the current technologies evolve.

Imagine fiber optic Thunderbolt but almost as fast as the local memory bus of a current Mac Pro, fully transparent distributed GPUs, and software support that allows you to simply hook up more small boxes such as Mac Mini's or even any regular Mac to increase computing power, and I can see something like this replacing big boxes completely some day. Small and flexible computers already replaced large, rigid ones for home computing, so why not for professional ones.

I remember poster Dick Applebaum suggesting something along the same line of thinking about a year ago, and I'm starting to see it actually coming together now.

This may seem a little off topic but for some light relief while we all dangle on the end of a string waiting to see if Apple are going to give the pro a second chance, can it or reinvent it, have a look at this:

http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_AMIGAmini.aspx

enjoy

Nice old Mac Mini. Oh, wait.

This would be a more appropriate link. Looking at your link, it really doesn't add much in the way of capability beyond what is already present in the imac. While I feel there are needed improvements to the imac, that design doesn't provide a lot of extra differentiation unless the differentiating factor is headless machine. I wouldn't have minded a scaled up mini, but we didn't get one. With the mac pro design, I'm not sure how small you're going to see that thing get. It would require a drastically different design trending away from that processor tray setup it has currently. Like the article mentions, you'd still need large fans to maintain a quiet machine. I wouldn't expect to go smaller than this and I have no idea if it's noisy. They made it to work with a setup of many workstations crammed into a rackmount enclosure. It's a valid comparison, but it's also quite expensive. I'm not saying it won't be crunched down, but if you're expecting comparable gpus and a top end involving 95-130W cpus, without generating audible noise, it's going to be difficult. Assuming it remains their high end line, there aren't many alternative cpus.

The typical i7 idea isn't going to happen. Your only really viable option would be the one shared with the top imac, and its price point is roughly the same as the current mac pro cpu. All it comes down to is a relatively weak entry level option. In some cases the other oems are cheaper. It varies depending on configuration. Outside of Apple a 3 year warranty is the norm on workstation hardware, so that does count slightly against Apple.

Overall while they could probably do something with this market, I think they're just going to keep their updates as simple as possible, and the uninformed will continue to debate how many cores the imac would require to be appropriate when nothing about its design makes it conducive as a successor.

Ah...the legendary C64. ...from the Golden Age of consumer computers.

Macdailynews has a link about the sad passing of Jack Tramiel at the ripe old age of 83.

I would have thought Appleinsider would have given another 'founding father' of computing a nice little tribute.

Commodore at their peak gave home computing power with an affordable edge embodied by the C64.

It's a shame that Jack got ousted from the company he founded by people who should have known better. In fact, they didn't know better and ran Commodore straight into the IBM clone Juggernaut.

Ran so badly it bettered even the dark days of Apple at the end.

So it goes. A cautionary tale.

I hope Jack and Steve have share a wry tale or two 'up there.'

God speed, Jack.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Apples MacPro sales went down when Intel introduced Nehalem.
The "Core" based Xeon's cost about 300-500 dollars for a decent core/mhz processor.

With Nehalem (and no competition from AMD), Intel raised the prices 300% for Xeon processors. 2006 I could get a dual quad core 2.66ghz Mac Pro about 2000 dollar. The cheapest Nehalem MacPro dual core was 3500 dollars, and that was 2ghz/2.2ghz parts. To get some speed you needed to add 1000 dollars.

This killed the macpro sales.

The whole MacPro saga is sad. "thunderbolt" was demoed on a MacPro in 2009. We can still today not buy one with thunderbolt.

The sad thing is how little work it is for Apple to redesign the Mac Pro.
During Intel/Apples exclusive agreement, Intel designed the motherboards for Apple. If Intel still does design the motherboards, the work for Apple is to write drivers for the new hardware.

Nothing more.

Apple's pro division is dead.
And this is sad. All core business should be addressed by own personal/hardware. The integrated model. Now Apples core Icloud is outsourced to MSFT Azure. No wonder that Siri often have network problems or that iCloud does not work for many users.

Did it kill Dell/HP/etc. Xeon sales?


The sad thing is that people think that's needed

An excellent post.

The price hikes on the last couple of rounds of Mac Pro's was notable. I guess Apple passed on Intel's price increase. The Pro went from being great value to 'HOOOOOOOOOOOW MUCH!??!?!' Really, 2k for a quad core machine?! :O And then you had all those weird low mhz configs still costing an arm and a leg. Just bizarre. But it shows you what happens when monopolies don't have any COMPETITION!

Ironic that the i7 did plenty for the iMac's power and value but little for the Mac Pro in the form of the Nehalem Xeon. You have to pay an awful lot extra for that extra performance. When effects houses and movie studios are feeling the pinch with a world economy in the crapper and no updates for the 'poor value' Pro are we surprised Pro sales aren't roaring along?


Yep. You nailed it there. When people boo-hoo, poor me the Mac Pro...part of me has little sympathy for the flat out backwards peddling on value and eye gauging greed. It's not like Apple wasn't making money in 2006...before the obligatory Apple are here to make money posts. Well. Duh.

With room to get the 30 incher left in your budget if so desired. Apple used to make much boast that they 'gave' us 'two' of them. Try making the same pitch with a crappy old quad core at 2k plus 27 inch monitor for about 3k? The value proposition should be greater 6 years later. NOT WORSE! Apple does tend to pull this crap from time to time. Intel aren't blameless. Neither is Apple. Nor AMD for not performing better.

I'm a 'spiritual' Mac Pro buyer. But I think it lost it's roots when it left the mainstream mini-tower market of £999-£1895. They'd still have a tower market. They'd maybe have a lively gpu/3rd party/gamer's market. The iMac would still be doing well as it did during the G3 tower blue and white special's time.

Yes. Ok. I'm a frustrated 'Power Mac' buyer. That's why I have an iMac. Go figure.

Lemon Bon Bon.

There have been moments in time...where the Pro was king and should, in my view, still be.

But every time Apple 'had it' they blew it in my view.

The moved the tower wayyyyy out reach for many small business and artists in my view. That extra thousand 'just' to get on the ladder? Puh. See my post above.

Sure, the cpus haven't been updated by Intel...but Apple could have given us more ram, bigger hard drives, included a boot drive SDD, put a thunderbolt on the motherboard, put dual processor on the entry model, offer the latest gpus, DROP THE BEEPING PRICE!

In what universe do people still expect £2000+ for a nearly two year old machine with specs that ancient and turned over by PC towers costing wayyyy less?

It's where Apple's rigid upsell 'grid' comes unstuck.

They could use the same frickin' case and stick the consumer i7 with decent gpus in there for half the price losing the iMac screen getting you a consumer tower with more oomph. I wonder which they'd sell more of. The 'consumer' mini tower or the 'Pro'?

But even when they had the blue and white G3 tower, PC mags still thumped Apple for not including Monitors etc. Right now. If Apple offered me a tower in the iMac price range with a better gpu and allowing me to pick my monitor. I'd tear their arm off. And I love my iMac.

I get the whole Apple OSX and the premium branding thing. Np.

With iOS hardware and the laptops, they get it so right. But Wizard has a point about the desktop hardware.

I don't see Apple doing the X-Mac. As much as I'd like it.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Apple hasn't changed specs without a CPU bump since 1996.


Tha, mmm could they? I somehow doubt that.


That's not for them to decide, though.


Apple hasn't done that mid-revision EVER.


They have no interest in selling a "consumer tower". Everyone else does that.


Exactly, yeah.

I liked that idea the one guy had when he was lying about the "Apple Galaxy" system. Where it's just GORGEOUS cubes of aluminum with Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining them (and monitors) with software built in to make modularity completely plug and play.

Exactly.

Hasn't. But 'could.' (They managed to proclaim giving 45$ billion smackers to shareholders over the next several years though... Compared to that, the Pro almost seems inconsequential while us Mac heads noodle over the Pro's doodle.)

I don't want to hear their boo-hoo about poor Pro sales. There's plenty of things they could do. But 'won't' do.

Given Apple's politics and philosophy we can only wait.

The next year is going to tell us alot about where this is going. (Obviously...)

Lemon Bon Bon.

Yeesh, and I had my wallet ready to go...

Lemon Bon Bon.

Maybe Apple could give away 'wowchers' with each low end Pro...to get sales moving...y'know. 'Go to the mud wrestling' event of your choice. (Bare breasted babes probably not included knowing Apple...)

Lemon Bon Bon.

Everyone else does that on the Windows world. There's no "consumer tower" that can run OS X on a perfectly legal way. Just that justifies the existence/birth of such model.

Apple used to have a consumer tower just fine. It was the old Blue and White G3 tower. And with decent GPU too!

What happened? The 'tower' moved on up with £1000 extra onto the entry price.

And the iMac moved on up into the mini-tower price range.

The iMac used to be the 1k and under computer for the 'rest of us' now the Mini occupies that 'cheap' end of the market. (Minus display...mouse, keyboard... *looks.)

Don't count on Apple doing us any favours. The mini is now worse value than the iMac that used to occupy that price range. They swapped around the Cube and iMac in the desktop line. At least you now get a screen with your 'Cube' so to speak.

That's about it. I doubt their desktop 'policy' will change. Swings and roundabouts. Apple want you to pay more just to get on the ladder. See iMac. See Pro.

Back when they 'needed' us their line up had greater value. Still. More people are buying Macs as the 'aspirational' brand they now are.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Given the rate at which Apple Mac sales have been going you'd think they'd offer a machine to help them over...and that you'd get more desktop sales accordingly.

Dunno.

Hard to prove that argument without a mini-tower to sell.

I think if they had the Mini, Mini-Tower and Max-tower they'd hit 300k-500k 'tower varient/headless' sales with the iMac on about 650-850k sales. Just a guess. *(Don't send me letters...)

Looking at the average Apple store...it looks increasingly less likely Apple are going to do 'tower' anything.

It's nearly half way through April and no new Macs. I guess the Macbook Pro or some laptop will be first. Seeing as they sell 75% of them. Apple usually update in order of sales priority these days.

*Notes iPad being out the block first... Probably laptops next then the iMac after that...all between late April and late June.

...with the Pro by X-Mas. ?

Lemon Bon Bon.

In a very literal sense it was technology change that enabled the first Mac. A massive number of technology improvements since has given us the Macs we have today. For some reason people want the Mac to freeze in its current state never to improve. Sadly these thoughts are being expressed by people calling themselves professionals.


I really don't think TB is at all suitable for compute clusters, at least not clusters of any size. This is again another problem I see in this forum, that is the wide eyed belief that TB can solve every issue that can be imagined. It can't as effectively it is nothing more than a 4X PCI-Express slot.

Fiber optic in and of itself does not make TB faster. This is another concept I find challenging. To go faster you would need a faster source. That would mean either a faster PCI-Exprees bus or more lanes, all possible of course but it is still PCI-Express.

The problem here really isn't hardware but rather software. Cluster technology has existed for years, but it isn't the worlds friendliest software environment. In any event Intel has announced plans to make the hardware part of the equation even easier with their new supper chip with built in Infiniband.

It is really hard to know what Apple has up its sleeves. I just see so many possibilities for a new professional machine that I'm not at all worried. The time to worry is when the cards are laid on the table. It is then that we will know what Apple has in mind. I just think the concept of a tower for a professional machine is pretty dead, technology has long passed that vision by. Let's face it folks, at one time machines employing S100, Multibus and a host of other rack systems where popular, those days are gone. I just don't see a huge tower as being the best way to deliver a professional computing platform anymore.

It is one of those machines I've admired from a distance. Frankly this is closer to what the Mini should be than a Mac Pro replacement. Except for the stiff price the machine looks really nice.


To really deal properly with various Pro needs XMac, or whatever you want to call the Pros replacement, will likly have to be closer to 12" square. I really believe it needs to be able to handle at least a couple of PCI-Express cards, even if limited to short cards.

What inspires me here is the thought that Apple could make a base machine in a box like this with an IB processor to effectively replace the Mini at the low end. At the high end they could implement a Sandy Bridge E with a high performance graphics chip. Ship these in the same box and you effectively lower costs for both models.

In any event I still maintain there are so many avenues for Apple to follow that one should not worry about the Pros death.

The sad thing here is people not recognizing that the concept of tower computers is multiple decades old. It hasn't been a bad concept but let's face it technology has changed significantly since then.

As I've stated elsewhere the resistance to change here is significant and perplexing. It is like everybody here has aged 50 years and can no longer adapt to the new world around them. Mind you I'm 50 myself and have been involved in technology since long before leaving high school. This battle against change is filthy in its denial of the history of the entire industry, where hundreds of computer companies have failed over the years due to their inability to change.

So really guys if you want to assure that the Mac Pro dies without a replacement then continue this non sense and fear over change. Without change the Mac has no future.

I'm nowhere near against change myself, I'm just against a redesign for the sake of a redesign.

Very old really, especially if you are tuned into the business enough to see where technology is going. The combination of SoC, 3d technologies and very high speed busses will lead to much smaller foot prints while increasing performance. So if Apple has to redesign the Mac Pro, I believe they have no choice here, then they need to look towards the future not the past. Another tower would basically say that Apple is stuck in the past.

The question really becomes is it time to shake up the product mix and debut radically new hardware. One look at both the Mini and the Pro tells me yes. In fact they are over due in my mind. Both platforms are grossly over priced and in some ways I see the Minis pricing to be the worst of the two. Interestingly I suspect the use of Intel hardware plays a big part in pricing this hardware out of the market. Then again AIRs are very competitive so maybe Apple has gone stupid here. In any event the point with pricing is this, people can only put so much value into Mac OS, so an additional $100 isn't death to a product rather it is the multiple hundreds that kill these products.

So what are Apples options here, it is either cut margins or redesign. Apple, could redesign both platforms to be attractive in their product categories again. That means priced within a reasonable value for the markets served and in line with competitive hardware. There are many avenues but one consideration for the Mini has to be AMD hardware. That if you think a Mini is even worth keeping.

Look. Two hard drives and an optical drive, all internal. How simple was that Apple?

also has PCI Express slots and better on board video then apple mini.