Apple quietly updates Mac Pro with Intel Xeon CPU [u] - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by gfeier 

This is not an update, it's an insult! Looks like Apple wants it to fail so they have an excuse to kill the line. Very disappointing to me personally, but it probably makes sense from a business point of view.
 

Not trying is never good form the business point of view.   It sends the wrong message to your customers.

As to this "update" i'm a bit in shock, Apple had got tot realize that this sends the wrong message to its customers pro and not so pro.   The lack of a real GPU update though is totally shocking.    A new chip soldered to the motherboard would have ben better than this.

I have to believe something is up at Apple and this is some sort of stop gap measure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DHagan4755 

Wow.  That's really quite pathetic!

Pathetic is way to kind but an honest appraisal would likely get censored here.

Terrible update and terrible reporting by AI.  The headline here is that it's barely an update (to a TWO YEAR OLD CPU).  And still no sata III, usb3, or thunderbolt.

In short, the only explanation for this is that they think they can sell a few last machines to suckers before killing the model.

If Apple doesn't want to bother with us Mac Pro customers anymore, they should just end the line and license OS X to another company that can legally make a decent pro machine. The license would limit it to only Xeon class so as not to compete with the iMac or Mini. This is just an insult. I feel so sorry for all the people that were desperate for a real new Mac Pro today. My 2008 model will have to serve a while longer. To call it new when it looks the same, doesn't include a truly modern CPU and an ancient GPU, no USB3, and not even thunderbolt is like a huge slap in the face. After 2 years waiting and this is what they give us?

The only good news I can take from this debacle is that the Mac Pro line is not dead and hope this is just to clear stock for the actual new Mac Pro update in a few months. Apple never likes to update too many models at once and today it was all about the new retina Macbook. After the limelight fades, maybe a new Mac Pro and iMac. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69 
Pathetic is way to kind but an honest appraisal would likely get censored here.

Why? Have at it.

Unless the appraisal includes links to 9to5Mac, that is. 

And there's no working shake head emoticon, so imagine one until we either uncensor those links or the emoticons start working, whichever comes first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBrickley 
  I just remote connect to the private cloud and kick off my rendering jobs there.  It's faster that way anyway!

You hear this all the time - render, render, render is all a Mac Pro is good for. If you do a lot of multimedia, desktop publishing, Photoshop etc, the Mac Pro is a workhorse. iMac can't compare to the Mac Pro when it comes to having half of Adobe CS open at the same time and copy huge Photoshop layers or Illustrator drawings with thousands of bezier nodes from one app to the next. Sure some people are rendering long clips in FinalCut but most of our video work is less than two minute long so I'm not going to send it out to the cloud to render. I'm going to export four different versions right in FCP, Fmpeg or QT7, H264, Flash, Ogg, V8 and upload them to the website. That is where the Mac Pro shines, is in multitasking. I couldn't care less about your cloud based render server, I need workstations.

Yeah I'm gonna chime in and vote for mistaken icon update, or incomplete information update, or something.

Reading the specs it's just old bluetooth 2.1, old low resolution gfx card, old cpu, old old old etc.

Can't be the real deal, can it? If it is.. then Apple has given us a clear message... at least for now.

Somebody with a vested interest in the current Mac Pros should write Tim Cook asking for a public comment.   I honestly would not buy the current Mac Pro as it doesn't fit my needs so there is little sense in my asking.   However a professional user might have some leverage.

I'm wondering if Apple gave up on Sandy Bridge E.   As far as I know it is still not shipping in volume.

My biggest concern here with the Mac Pro is that I want Apple to demonstrate that it has a plan for the desktop lineup.    The lack of even modest updates is depressing their sales significantly.    If they can't wrap their heads around what users want it is about time they start asking, because frankly they are chasing customers away.   I need a desktop machine but there is no way I'm going Apple with this sort of disinterest in the product line.

For years we had some pretty awesome hardware and a weak OS that couldn't harness the power.  Now we have the best OS in the World and hardware made for Facebooking and Tweating. 

the apple page shows the NEW icon next to the mac pros.

I am very disappoinoted. However....

I think the problem is intel, not apple, go to check intel website.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board.html

The MB which support xeon E5 right now didn't support USB 3.0 and thunderbolt natively.

Maybe this is why apple can't update mac pro.

I find the Apple Mac Pro Performance Specs to be highly misleading.

Instead of comparing the old 12 core performance against the new 12 core performance, they are now actually comparing:

** the old 8 core performance  against the new 12 core performance ... and reporting a 30% gain ....

I suspect that a large chunk of that 30% is just the 8 to 12 core difference on their rather biased parallel-rich gravy tests ...

But since you could buy a 12 core before, this seems totally contrived. They are reporting nothingness.

Come on Apple ... Show us:  12 core before vs 12 core now .... What's the speed difference? Eh?

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


I have to agree. They care very little for this machine if they didn't even add TB or USB 3.0.

Is USB 3  or TB even compatible with Nehalem and Westmere?

Quote:

Originally Posted by gwmac 

The only good news I can take from this debacle is that the Mac Pro line is not dead and hope this is just to clear stock for the actual new Mac Pro update in a few months. Apple never likes to update too many models at once and today it was all about the new retina Macbook. After the limelight fades, maybe a new Mac Pro and iMac. 

I have to agree on the Pro wasn't outright killed at this point (although with the same boards and basic prices as 2 years ago one could argue its being killed), but disagree with you on an update likely coming.  If there was a new Mac Pro coming in a few months Apple would never have bothered to updated the processors just a couple of months in advance.

iMac will get a real update for sure, but it seems very unlikely another update is coming for the Pro.  Time will tell and I hope you're right, but doesn't seem remotely likely to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

Why? Have at it.

 

Unless the appraisal includes links to 9to5Mac, that is. 

 

And there's no working shake head emoticon, so imagine one until we either uncensor those links or the emoticons start working, whichever comes first.

I will defer until I get a grip on what transpired today.   Talk about ☔on the party.   Right now words can not express what i'm feeling👿😱😡😪

Quote:

Originally Posted by redison 
2010 Macpro:

Processor Number X5670

 

 

2012 Macpro:

Processor Number X5675

Woo! It's five integers larger! That means it's better!

Oh, right, not the consumer side of things. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by scorpio995 

I am very disappoinoted. However....

 

I think the problem is intel, not apple, go to check intel website.

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/server-motherboards/server-board.html

 

The MB which support xeon E5 right now didn't support USB 3.0 and thunderbolt natively.

 

Maybe this is why apple can't update mac pro.

Then give us at least a Mac with a new top of the line Core i7 that does support thunderbolt and USB3,. The iMac can't handle the fastest i7's due to heat dissipation and there really is no reason for the single CPU version of the Mac Pro to use a Xeon. Dual CPU versions, absolutely, but no appreciable advantage to the single CPU model. Xeon's are also way overpriced and slow to be updated apparently. Only problem is that the single CPU version would be cheaper but also faster since the Xeon is so slow to upgrade. The fastest 6 core i7 would satisfy probably 70% of the Mac Pro crowd. 

What does AMD currently offer that would compete with Xeon? I bet they would bend over backwards to get a foothold with Apple. Is thunderbolt exclusive to Intel or can AMD offer that as well?

Well, I think it's obvious Apple doesn't care about the Mac Pro anymore.  These updates don't bring Thunderbolt or USB 3 and the case is 10 years old.

Everyone, check intel website:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/server-chipsets/server-chipset-c600.html

Now all the chipsets which support xeon E5 doesn't support USB 3.0 and TB, even not support pcie 3.0

The cxx chipset although support pcie 3.0, but it is for entry level workstations.

Apple MAY want to make BIG UPDATE when REAL CHIPSET which support tb, usb 3, and pcie3.0.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bdkennedy 
…and the case is 10 years old.

And your argument falls apart there.

While I realize this is a Mac Pro thread the issue with this embarrassing update goes beyond the mac Pro user segment.   What is truly bothersome is Apples thumbing its nose at desktop users of any sort.   As far as I know there are no Mini or iMac updates to speak of either.    It is like they have totally given up on the desktop, no matter what your performance needs are.    

Their excuse may be poor sales as the only machine close to holding even was the iMac, with the rest of the product line in decline.    Apparently nobody at Apple asks why the lineup is having such a terrible time sales wise.   Nothing done today will improve Apples desktop sales position, but rather will make it far more pathetic in the coming quarter.

I have to wonder how the poor engineers at Apple are feeling right now.   I'm convinced they want to produce bleeding edge desktop machines but apparently have had the rug pulled out from under them.   The fact that they couldn't manage a GPU update is so disgusting as to leave me with flames coming out of my ears.    Mind you I'm not likely to be a Mac Pro customer but I'd like to be a desktop customer but this has a a big FU written all over it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by huntson 

Notice the lack of raid cards

The prior raid card was a piece of trash, and they didn't offer decent support on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBrickley 

Good grief!  The MacPro is still, two years later, faster than most PC's.  In order to get any better you have to spend a heck of a lot of money on PC Workstation class hardware.  Only a couple of Ivy Bridge Xeons are even out yet.  Most people who use Mac Pro's can't even push them hard enough to max out their capabilities.  Quit the attitude!

 

I have a Mac Pro (last produced model), it cost me $8k and I didn't even max it out on options.  They are not selling a lot of these machines.  Instead of fretting over this machine, I am building a rackmount cloud server instead.  Future computers will be laptops and anything that needs real power will be on the cloud server.  I just remote connect to the private cloud and kick off my rendering jobs there.  It's faster that way anyway

Where are you getting your information? The hardware is the same. OSX is faster in some things, slower in others, and this is a workstation. If you're capable of building servers, you already knew all of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69 

 

Not trying is never good form the business point of view.   It sends the wrong message to your customers.

 

As to this "update" i'm a bit in shock, Apple had got tot realize that this sends the wrong message to its customers pro and not so pro.   The lack of a real GPU update though is totally shocking.    A new chip soldered to the motherboard would have ben better than this.

 

I have to believe something is up at Apple and this is some sort of stop gap measure.

A stop gap measure would have made more sense last year. Intel's price adjustments came about last year. The W3565 dropped to around $300. The w3680 dropped to roughly $600 from 1000-1100. Prices from Apple stayed the same. I can't imagine that they're introducing a couple different cpu models if they are planning on a Sandy Bridge E release in the coming months. Apple doesn't do short refresh cycles like that. Further they could use the same board design for Sandy + Ivy. I wouldn't personally invest in updates on a line that get so little attention given that it doesn't say much for future support.

After Apple's huge comeback (I remember the dark days), I never thought I'd ever again need to think about switching platforms.  Sadly, here we are.  Is the Mac dead?  That the real question.  Apple is stronger than ever, but is the Mac dead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69 

 It is like they have totally given up on the desktop, no matter what your performance needs are.    

I don' t think it's like that at all.

Wait, so this 2012 MacPro has the same video card (5770) I put into my 2006 MacPro 2.0GHz (1,1) back in 2009, which I paid $299 for at Fry's? 

Am I missing something? Is there a 'Super Turbo Extreme' after the '5770' that I'm not seeing? 

https://www.facebook.com/MacProsPlease/posts/454670807879356?comment_id=5766996&offset=0&total_comments=183

Facebook user on mac pro group claims tim cook replied with pretty much 'later next year"

Translation, maybe they are going to wait for ivy server chip? who knows.

At the very least they need to bring the 2010 rehash into a price that's actually reasonable. Charging what the parts were worth, in 2010, is unacceptable. Not a single peice of hardware in the "new" mac pro is current or relevant by todays standards.

Also, those saying you can't build a tower off the sandy bridge Es?

that doesn't stop it from being a beast

http://www.promax.com/s-154-promax-one-tech-specs.aspx

how is releasing an old model with USB 2.0 better then releasing a beast with 2.0. They BOTh still have USB 2.0. At least one of them is current generation hardware.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin 


I don't think Apple has stock to clear any more. They apparently turn over their inventory in 5 days. Even with something as low volume as the Pro, they won't build enough to have unsold stock. Not after 2 years.
If a worthwhile update was coming, now was the time to do it. The chips are available. The new Xeon CPUs aren't much faster in raw performance but there's no excuse for not including the latest desktop GPUs.
At least the entry 12-core is not much more than the entry 8-core used to be.
I'm surprised at the lack of an iMac update, it's long overdue.

Marvin the whole thing stinks!   I mean this honestly; it is the hostility towards the desktop user that i'm feeling here and an unwillingness to innovate with respect to desktop machines.    I mean really if your sales are in decline and people regularly point out why the desktop lineup stinks you would think Apple would spend a dollar or two too freshen things up.

I'd be the first to admit that there may be issues with Intel and their chip sets.   Sandy Bridge E has a terrible history of delays, bugs and setbacks.   So maybe SB-E wasn't in the cards.    Even so that doesn't mean we should have to put up with a 2 year old video card.

As to the iMac well that does need a major overhaul and this would have been the ideal time to do so.   Apparently Apple has a certain disdain for the desktop user and has decided to make them wait a few more months.   Effectively nothing was touched with respect to the desktop lineup.   

Now we can speculate that maybe, just maybe, that they will release new hardware with Mountain Lion.   That is supposedly a month off.   As to the Mac Pro, I think users here are screwed because you won't see an update for some time, possibly a year.   The only real hope Pro users now have is that Apple has a something in the wings to debut sometime this year that will bring modern technology to the Pro user.   In any event Apple has killed sales for the entire desktop lineup as far as i'm concerned.   There is no way I'd recommend any desktop from Apple at the moment.

I don't think they've given up on the Pro. They need Pro users. They're just not announcing a major refresh of the Pro on the same day as all the updates to these more mobile-oriented unveilings. There will be a dedicated event to announce the major Pro updates. Probably along side with the other desktops. 

Life support....little time left...eh...perhaps another shot...EOL it is...Mac Pro No More

The era started with the PowerMac..

Maybe you should just drop a couple of extra video cards in your Mac Pro as Photoshop can offload to the multiple GPU's.  That is parallel processing using super fast numerics built into video cards.  Welcome to the future.  You could even drop in two old 5770 graphics cards in addition to what you have now and cut your processing time tremendously.  Even if Apple did upgrade to Ivy Bridge Xeon's and SATA III 6g you wouldn't notice much difference as it's all about the video cards with Photoshop.  Do yourself a favor and get a fast SSD from OWC (don't buy the 6G model as the Mac Pro can only do 3G.  Put your apps and OS on the SSD, that will speed things up.  Partition the SSD and leave enough working space for your current project files and loading those multiple GB files will go many times faster.  

The reason you hear "render, render, render" all the time is because that's what most Mac Pro's are used for.  If Adobe would develop a Photoshop render farm command line tool that ran in Linux/Solaris/FreeBSD it would be possible to just drop all those files into a folder where the render farm servers grab it and process it, splitting the work across hundreds of CPUs and GPUs.  So instead of sitting at your desk staring at a Mac Pro crunching multiple steps it goes and gets processed in a data center and gives you the results.  This is the way real work is done, it's automated.  It's pretty expensive to pay a talented artist to stare at a screen and blaming Apple for it is lame.  Unlike Adobe, Apple implemented the ability to compile large projects using surrounding networked Mac's.  So big projects like Mathematica which literally takes all day to compile can do so hundreds of times faster.  

Seriously, you are not pushing your Mac Pro hard if the fans don't roar, your disk starts thrashing and it looks like it's going to melt down.  Photoshop does not push a Mac Pro to it's limits because Photoshop has yet to push enough threads/processes/polygons at it.  Sure it will run Photoshop faster, but if Adobe would get off their lazy butts and write some real code, it would go so much faster still!

If AI were capable of being embarrassed, it should be embarrassed by this know-nothing article.

What Apple has actually done is:

- Kept the same Nehalem and Westmere processors.

- Pruned the standard and BTO options, making the previously premium 3.2 GHz quad the base model.

- Upped the base RAM from 3GB to 6GB (useless either way).

- Kept the rest of the specs the same, as far as one can tell so far.

- Lowered the prices. 

As a pricing illustration, I bought a quad 3.2/1TB/3GB Mac Pro two months ago for $2928. Today (with 6GB) that costs $2499. Oh, and before 27 geniuses on AI post about how  stupid I must be feeling—wrong. I bought a new Mac Pro workstation for a new employee exactly when we needed it.

Bottom line is it's a slight speed bump and moderate price reduction, but tells us nothing about the future of the Mac Pro line.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WelshDog 

I don' t think it's like that at all.

I'm open to other ideas here!!!   What this is telling me though is that Apple couldn't take the time to put any desktop machine on equal footing at WWDC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by friedmud 

Story is WRONG.

 

This is NOT Xeon E5.... E5645 is still the old Nehalem architecture!

 

E5's are like this: E5-4650

 

All that happened here was a minor speed bump....

 

So disappointed!

You're right, this is an old chip.  According to Intel's Website this chip was launched in Q1 of 2010.  People seem to still like and buy this chip, but it's by no means cutting edge.  I'm also surprised that they didn't update the graphics card.  Particularly since Mountain Lion offers out-of-the-box support for cutting edge graphics cards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBrickley 

Seriously, you are not pushing your Mac Pro hard if the fans don't roar, your disk starts thrashing and it looks like it's going to melt down.  Photoshop does not push a Mac Pro to it's limits because Photoshop has yet to push enough threads/processes/polygons at it.  Sure it will run Photoshop faster, but if Adobe would get off their lazy butts and write some real code, it would go so much faster still!

The point is that doing equivalent work on an iMac you get beach balls and crashes. As long as it is measurably faster and less problematic to work on a Mac Pro than a iMac, I'll opt for Mac Pro. 

I love the 'real work' jab. I thought I was elitist but you have even me beat in that department. We make money in the graphics business because we don't hire specialized artists, programmers and video editors. We do everything ourselves and and do it well enough to get steady repeat business. So although your claim that most work performed on a Mac Pro is rendering, it does not apply to me, even if it were true, which I highly doubt. The most important thing for me is multitasking. We have iMacs here as well but they can't handle the load and you aren't going to put any extra video cards or SSDs in those machines. My comments weren't intended to complain that our Mac Pros aren't fast enough, it was that we want to buy more but not two year old components even if they could be souped up by third party add ons. I, like everyone else but you wanted the latest new hardware because we plan to use them for 5 years or more.

Well you must feel pretty stupid Neil.  26 to go

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilM 

If AI were capable of being embarrassed, it should be embarrassed by this know-nothing article.

 

What Apple has actually done is:

- Kept the same Nehalem and Westmere processors.

- Pruned the standard and BTO options, making the previously premium 3.2 GHz quad the base model.

- Upped the base RAM from 3GB to 6GB (useless either way).

- Kept the rest of the specs the same, as far as one can tell so far.

- Lowered the prices. 

 

As a pricing illustration, I bought a quad 3.2/1TB/3GB Mac Pro two months ago for $2928. Today (with 6GB) that costs $2499. Oh, and before 27 geniuses on AI post about how  stupid I must be feeling—wrong. I bought a new Mac Pro workstation for a new employee exactly when we needed it.

 

Bottom line is it's a slight speed bump and moderate price reduction, but tells us nothing about the future of the Mac Pro line.

I have to agree it tells us little about the Mac Pros future.   On the other hand this tells us volumes about how Apple feels about the desktop user.    I mean really a three year old GPU card.    It isn't just the Mac Pro though as the whole desktop line up was ignored.