Mac Pro in-store pickup inventory slips ahead of WWDC - Page 2

Merely suggesting that they might remove stock from stores first.  The article has been updated since I posted so my comment is moo.

If it's a lower volume item close to a refresh, it makes sense not to restock stores so as to taper down volume ahead of a refresh. A cancellation would most likely see some kind of sunset as they did with the Xserve. In cases where a mac pro  is needed or a smaller company needs backup machines, they'd have the option to buy them.

 

 

I tend to wonder how they see the mini. They sell it in such a weird way. Even on the non-server, they are sold without a keyboard and mouse at that price. It's always felt like an awkward piece of reverse engineering to me, like they're trying to squeeze a high margin from an entry level product. Also the discrete card mini should have received more vram. That card is essentially a low to midrange card, but it's implemented with 512-1GB of vram in laptops. Considering that many applications with gpu requirements have been setting 512MB minimum requirements since last year, I find this silly in a model that is considered an upgrade. It's just some models they really don't balance as well as others.

 

They rebranded it as a workstation. Those designs don't change as quickly. Workstations tend to focus quite a lot on stability. Even chipsets tend to last longer with reference boards lasting for two cycles. If this is a spec bump, it's reasonable to expect that Ivy Bridge would be the same thing (most likely late next year), with any major changes postponed to Haswell. Obviously many things can change in that amount of time, given that you won't see Haswell Xeons in this type until at least 2014 if the rumors have any credibility. Right now the internet theory seems to be post June 2013 for Ivy Bridge E. 

I agree, the PowerMac G3 and G4 were much more like normal mid-tower PCs. The G5 was huge for airflow reasons, then with Xeon they went the full workstation.

 

I'm with you, I would prefer the mid-tower Mac made a comeback.

 

Also, if they want to increase volume, the old developer discounts they used to give resulted in quite a few Mac Pro sales as I recall.

Damn. What a beast of a computer. Precisely a million times the RAM of my 6502 based box from the eighties....


Anyway, I had a deal for an '06 Pro fall through recently. The specs of your model make me think that it would still be a cheap way to go since I already have a nice monitor. Maybe prices will come down even more after WWDC.

I use a Mini for photography, and my 7D's big RAW files are crushing it.

Probably worth mentioning the first Mac Pro was announced and displayed at WWDC 2006, so not out of the realm of possibility. Although I gotta say, a MacBook Pro with Retina display would make a more exciting announcement, since it's not only a more popular model, it demonstrates HiDPI, a new OS feature. WWDC is about software, after all. The Mac Pro in 2006 was the first 64-bit Intel Mac, if I'm not mistaken, thus tying into the software aspect of the conference.

 

Though I think we're getting our hopes up here. I predict the same or slightly shorter case, room for only one optical drive rather than two (hence the shorter case), new Xeons (of course), two, possibly three thunderbolt ports, USB 3, newer video card, and that's pretty much it.

 

I don't think it'll be rack mountable, I don't think it'll have redundant power supplies, and it'll retain its slots, maybe lose one (again, allowing the case to be made smaller). The slots are faster than thunderbolt - they're needed.

 

I say if it's not getting discontinued (possible) and not just getting a spec bump (probable), the new case would have no optical drive, a redundant PSU BTO option, two or three PCIe, still four HDD bays, and Thunderbolt out the wazoo.

I sure hope not; I have a small museum with this case design, all lined up; looking nice. For nostalgic reasons, obviously. A rack mountable version would only make sense if they include LOM, redundant PSU and the lot.

That is just being realistic, objective. Nothing negative about it.

For questions like these, I always turn to http://mpgproworkstation.com/ amongst other sites, obviously.

The first time I read something innovative from Huddler. No, no sarcasm here. Really, the amount of issues with this new forum software is quite large. Not that vBulletin was perfect, but still...

I sure hope they make all the PCIe slots 16 lanes for max speed. I am thinking on buying more PCIe SSD's and not be bothered with 1953's invention of HDD's. Would love to improve on the 1200MB/s that is available now. Yes, yes, capital B. See here:

Wow! The 960GB model performs GREAT and offers huge capacity: stripe two 960GB units and get 1.9 TB of internal storage running at ~1200MB/sec! Perfect for serious power users looking for “the max”

Never intended for this to be a solicitation, but I might be selling it due to a new kid and the resulting loss of my man-cave. PM if interested. I'd need to get a badass NAS to support the TONS of music/photos/media my MP currently serves to my TiVos, Apple TVs, and so on. 

"The article has been updated since I posted so my comment is moo."

 

I'm glad you're not easily cowed.

 

/someone had to...

 

 

*ba-dum tsh~*

Thank you, thank you!  More in a moment, folks. Oh, and be sure to tip your waitress.