Future of Mac Pro - Page 4

Just looked at the Apple Store. It is difficult to fathom that Apple could allow sales of the current Pro for the next 6-9 months.

 

USB3 can always be added later, but not having Thunderbolt on board really does make these machines kind of disposable.

 

If Cook knew the upgrade was going to take a year or more, why didn't they just drop first-gen Thunderbolt in last fall?

 

I think buyers of the 2012-13 Mac Pros will be the first Pro buyers to actually regret their purchase.

 

What, the new model, or the model on sale now?

It's the 2010 Mac Pro still now. If you haven't been regretting it for a while, you're not in the "regret this sort of thing" market in the first place.

I mean the model that's on sale now. For those that buy it this year without knowing.

 

While we're plugged in to the news, I'm sure there are a small number of converts from windows that will buy it.

 

If you don't know, you don't care, and you're getting a machine that you'll be happy with anyway.

I forgot to address this. There are some okay external solutions. Most of the good ones exist at much higher price points even without adding the hard drives. At the very least you need external backup devices, so you'll always be impacted by these things to some degree. I'd just avoid the lacies and g-raids of the world. Ideally you want something with decent airflow and some kind of drive monitoring. The internal bays are a better solution for budget configurations. The only good external solutions tend to be quite expensive.

They tend to have decent enough airflow and you'd backup the data.

There's also the WD drives:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thunderbolt-External-Dual-Drive-Storage/dp/B006W3ZXJC
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thunderbolt-External-Dual-Drive-Storage/dp/B008S94HX6

and cheap USB 3 enclosures:
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-Dual-Single-Enclosure-HUR1-SU3S2/dp/B004L637P4
http://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-TowerRAID-TR4UT-Hardware/dp/B004WNLPGE

Apple could get in on this market. They make an external optical drive but seem to rely on 3rd parties for external drives. They maybe don't want to step on their toes too much. I expect the prices of the Thunderbolt products to come down as the chips get cheaper. Lacie has managed to get it down to a $50 premium over USB 3.

"Today Intel made a sobering, but not entirely unexpected announcement: over the next 3 years Intel will be ramping down its own desktop motherboard business.
We will see Haswell motherboards from the group, but that will be the last official hurrah.
Most of the folks who worked in Intel's surprisingly small desktop motherboard division will move on to other groups within Intel that can use their talents.
There's also the obvious motivation: the desktop PC business isn't exactly booming. Late last year word spread of Intel's plans for making Broadwell (14nm Core microprocessor in 2014) BGA-only. While we'll continue to see socketed CPUs beyond that, the cadence will be slower than what we're used to. The focus going forward will be on highly integrated designs, even for the desktop (think all-in-ones, thin mini-ITX, NUC, etc...). Couple that reality with low board margins and exiting the desktop motherboard business all of the sudden doesn't sound like a bad idea for Intel.
In the long run, it does highlight the importance of having a business not completely tied to desktop PC motherboard sales."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6685/the-end-of-an-era-intels-desktop-motherboard-business-to-ramp-down-over-next-3-years

It won't directly affect Apple as the Mac Pro motherboard will be custom built too but it's a sign of the times.

 

Yes, because these days it's hard to find a peripheral that doesn't require Thunderbolt, LOL!

 

TB at this point is just Apple marketing.  There are plenty of alternate solutions that are as good or better, and many that are as good are also cheaper.  With USB 3.0 SuperSpeed or whatever it's called debuting, TB may well die a quick and painful death anyways.

 

… Thunderbolt. But… what happens? How do they enforce its adoption? Enforce is the right word.

It doesn't look like they will in all cases - even their NUC will have models with and without Thunderbolt:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6444/intels-next-unit-of-computing-hands-on

They probably will force it on their mobile line and that's really where the bulk of the sales are. They'll probably just expect that desktop manufacturers will opt for it for compatibility.

I'm wondering if they'll eventually ramp down desktop chip production altogether. They keep lowering the TDPs and eventually the maximum will be low enough to go in a laptop so they don't need to make both desktop and laptop chips. They can still allow the chips to scale in TDP for larger form factors. I think Intel makes too many chip variations.

 

But the situation will be much different in two years. And a Mac Pro is supposed to last for at least four years.

It may be different, but TB cable costs will be a huge adoption barrier.  Even if production advances cut cable costs in half (not likely), consumers will be faced with deciding between expensive TB peripherals and cables, and cheaper USB 3.0 "super speed" that is nearly as fast.  For 95% of all consumer uses, the USB solution will be just as good.  

 

Apple's TB display is a desperate attempt to push TB on users and will very likely fail.  It offers few advantages over a Mini DisplayPort display with a USB 3.0 hub, and for the cost of a single TB cable people can buy an external USB 3.0 HDD enclosure (cables included).  As a hub station for a laptop it's a good idea, but a $1000 laptop hub is not going to take computing markets by storm.  Apple should have offered a more practical stand alone TB hub for users who prefer to use it with a cheaper display or to simply use their laptop display while connecting a MacBook to the hub for greater connectivity options.

 

Will TB completely disappear?  Probably not, but it will remain a speciality item much like Firewire 800 was, but with less market penetration.  

 

As for a Mac Pro with internal PCIe expansion slots, there's little need for TB.  Apple could skip it and pro content creators wouldn't miss it at all.  It's not even a good solution for external RAID volumes fast enough to support 4K editing.

Edited by Junkyard Dawg - 1/23/13 at 2:12pm

Thunderbolt is fast enough for 4K, you'll have to push your artificial barrier a bit higher. If you manage to get RAID 0 SSD topping 1GB per second, you'd be able to handle at least 10x 4K streams. They can skip it in the Mac Pro though. I'd rather they went with multiple 20Gbps ports but if they can't do it yet, a PCI slot will work. Either route is good IMO, it'll end up as something like Thunderbolt regardless.

I would gladly pay $1500 for an iMac inside a case with some expansion that did not include a built in monitor.

 

I'm willing to pay more for OSX and Apple.

Just the same I am not going to buy something from Apple if it doesn't meet my needs and wants.

 

Right now I'm not buying.

Part of the issue there is to gain certification it has to be hot pluggable and meet certain criteria. People keep predicting things like eGPUs where I don't expect them unless driven by shifts from Windows. I'm not entirely sure how the discrete graphics market will shake out. You'll eventually see integrated on pretty much everything, but discrete graphics could still be included on higher end systems. I just don't see a big market for it on Macs when I draw out a matrix of possible configurations between models, look at what is currently included compared to a mid range solution in some kind of breakout box. I say midrange as there's no way you'd get a 200W card into such a thing without it becoming cost prohibitive.

 

I'm with you on this, but desktops in general are pretty weak at the moment. Contrary to the site's belief, workstations are in better health than the consumer desktop. Their numbers are reasonably stable, where the consumer desktop has been turning into a relic. Gaming was one of its last strong points, and a lot of games don't put out the same demands today. They're often tuned to run okay on notebooks and console ports.

Bang on the nail, hmm ! A very concise summation of the workstation at the moment.
My concern is that I can see Apple dropping the MacPro for those very reasons - just not enough potential. But I want them to stick with it so the OS will still support the higher end configurations. If they drop the MP, what else would drop out of the OS over time ?

As I see it Apple has to offer something decent for the desktop as it adds credibility and shows a commitment to Macs and Mac OS as ongoing products. The problem is that neither the Mini nor the Mac Pro are configured well to serve a market where desktops are in less demand. Poor sales of the Mini and the Pro really has little to do with the general decline in "PC" sales, it has far more to do with the poor value the machines represent even when measured against Apples other products.
As the Pro is currently designed this is certainly the case. The Pro has only really been a valid machine for those that can justify the higher end versions and the performance those machines offered for the price. Effectively this put a big gap in Apples desktop lineup with the Mini very far behind capability wise. Apple really needs to make a desktop machine that is affordable and justifiable to a far wider array of customers. So while I don't dismiss market factors in the Pros decline, I see a far bigger issue with how it is marketed and placed in Apples lineup. In a nut shell the Pro costs too damn much for what most customers want or need in a desktop machine.
This is a huge issue but frankly doesn't require a "Pro" sized machine to accomplish these days. Apple needs a much smaller chassis that can be marketed competitively at $1500 as a midrange machine and at whatever $$$$ for a high performance machine. The Pro has inflated in price to the point that it simply can't be justified for what many users need out of a desktop.

 

Excactly,

 

If they drop the high end Mac Pro, there goes hackintoshes having a comfortable, Mac Pro starting point, for Xeon or Dual CPU machines, in the eventual end...

Good stuff there, wiz !
I seriously hope you're right. Catering for expansion is key to the whole redesign.

If they did drop the MacPro - well I guess it'd be, "Hello Linux distroland" - and all the tinkering/kludging around that goes with it.
lol [irony]

.....
exactly

In my case expansion means at least a couple of PCI - Express cards and some internal secondary storage. I left Linux land to come to Mac OS, the integration with iOS locked that move. Linux is a great kernel but it is a hopeless desktop platform with zero direction. Frankly the mainstream Linux desktops suck, be that KDE or GNome.

As to the Mac Pro I don't know if I'm right of course and from past experience I don't think Apple gets it anymore. Their problems on the desktop are of their own making. Apparently they are having trouble dealing with that reality. They even screwed up iMac release so it looks like the division is being run by a bunch of bumbling fools.

There's no doubt in my mind that they're struggling with it, totally agree.
They might be waiting for some tech that can be introduced - but hell, what's out there that we don't know about ?

What they have to give us is now something akin to the dreaded xmac, there I said it ! in a form factor that's like a breakout box with every conceivable connection under the sun. Low end and high end configs, scalable in a form factor that at least is something you can pick up if you have to.

If someone posts a pic of the Mac mini rack - I might kill or commit hare kare :-)
Don't go there !
Edited by RobM - 1/25/13 at 10:51pm

There are many technologies out there that we do know about. For example 3D RAM and a number of other high performance RAM systems. Some time ago Intel was rumored to be working on Processors that where targeted at scientific work with Phi being part of that initiative. These processors would have super computing networking hardware built in. Moving secondary storage to PCI-Express interfaces should become very interesting real soon now. XMac sure, every conceivable connection no. Yep a spread of capability is needed.
I try not to knock the Mini, I just don't think people grasp why it isn't good enough for many uses.

Edit:

Actually the things I highlighted above we know about. What we don't know about is what Apple will put into the Pro's replacement. Further we don't know about what Apple or its partners might be working on out of public view. Apple has even influenced Intel to a significant extent as they have become much more secretive than they have ever been in the past.

So what could Apple deliver that we don't know about? Hard to say obviously but we shouldn't dismiss things like new cooling technologies, optical interconnects, specialized processors and much higher integration.
Edited by wizard69 - 1/26/13 at 5:00am

Interesting...

 

...a sign of the times.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

Erm.  You have a point about Apple losing touch with their desktop computer users...  I'm not sure if it's hubris.  I'm not sure (yeah, right) if Apple aren't making enough money when the UK is about to hit a triple recession...aka greed.

 

The iMac took a £100 price hike.  It's £475 more expensive for the entry model that it was 4-ish years ago.  Add to that £200 for a Fusion drive (when SSD drives are dirt cheap now, they've fallen like rocks eg 256 gig drives for about £100+) and add to that you have to pay £60 for a DVD that used to come for 'free' as an internal part.  Let's add all that up.

 

...£725 more to get the 'basic' model.

 

'...money isn't everything.'  Steve.

 

Sure.  And it the best quarter still wasn't enough for Wall Street.

 

Add in the stupidity of pricing the Mac Pro at 2k plus for a quad core machine, with crappy gpu and no monitor.

 

The iMac isn't a bad machine at all.  But if Macbook Air can come with SSD why can't the iMac?  

 

Sometimes I don't think they 'get' the idea that we don't all have millions in stock options.  £1100 is pushing it for an entry machine.  And I'm sitting in front of top end iMac.  Great performance but I payed for it.

 

Given the price, retina would have been nice.  But I'm guessing it's a year away at least.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

Can we remember when you could get an iMac for £595 WITH keyboard, mouse and monitor?  And they had LESS volume then!

 

Now we have NO desktop under a £1k with keyboard, mouse or monitor?

 

How's that for 'losing' touch.

 

But shrugs, the Mac Pro is a similar joke at the 'top' end.  (Yeah, looks at the naff gpu on the Mac Pro...)

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

Don't intel now have a 6 core cpu for Ivy?

 

Why not have that as the £1495 entry tower.  And a dual processor at £1995?  SSDs as standard.

 

'Done.'

 

Why make it difficult?  Bundle a decent gpu and a discount on their massively over priced studio display...when you buy together.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

Because that's the difficult part. 

 

The Thunderbolt Display isn't overpriced, much less massively.

Ivy Bridge can deliver a decent desktop mac with just quad cores, though I have to admit that six cores would be nice for some uses.    Hell i'd be happy with a base model that had integrated graphics only, if it also supported a slot for a decent graphics card.  The expectation would be that an integrated graphics machine would start at around $1200, but that is an easy target to hit.   The sad reality here is that Joe bumbling idiot can come up with a better video card than Apple can.

 

I really don't know what Apples problem is with desktop machines, they haven't done a decently configured machine in years.   Even the Mini is going out the door starved for RAM.

 

 

Apparently it is difficult for Apple!    By the time Apple ships a Pro replacement, the likely GPU that will be in it will be almost two years old.   Yep must be difficult.   

 

This massive lag though just make one think that somebody is asleep at the wheel.

 

The 4xxx line was new when the 2010 model came out. That leads me to believe they'll put the 7xxx line in the next one.

I think dual processor is just too expensive. The entry point is around $4000 now.

I want it to get back to this sort of thing with a single CPU:



I'm not thrilled with the aesthetics there but that's the general idea. It could have a side access panel again but it creates more superflous design and I like that this doesn't need additional parts to lift it up. The insides can be lifted out from the base so it's more seamless. The space at the bottom is for carrying it and for air flow. When it's flipped upside down, it would just have a 180 twist handle and you pull the insides out. This means you can't open it while it's on.

The current Mac Pro doesn't have hot swappable drives but they could do this from the back similar to Lacie drives if they wanted. I'd rather see dual Fusion drives though and hot swapping isn't so good with that.

When I see ads like this, I like that better than where the Pro is now:



It just feels more modern and now it doesn't have to sacrifice any functionality. The ports would be on the back and it would have a proper cooling system. I'd rather see quad 20Gbps TB ports with special connectivity but a single PCIe 3 expansion slot will offer more bandwidth and more hardware support.

The bundled GPU would be a midrange card and you'd have the option to go to the highest-end card.

It would start with 6-core Ivy Bridge EP, 8GB RAM, 1GB 8770 for $2499 (£2049)
It would go up to 10-core, 16GB RAM, 2GB 8970 for $3999 (£3299)

If there is a 12-core, it would go up to that but 10-core IB should be a bit faster than the 12-core from 2010.

For those that need it a dual processor machine is always worth it. The problem is that isn't most of us. Sweet! Maybe a little tall by my taste but the general idea is there. Why not both? TB is great but it is a long up hole road to get market acceptance to the point where people will even consider phasing out PCI-Express cards. I'm not sure it is worth the heat load for a midrange machine. I'd consider capping card power at 100 watts which is still a lot of CPU power. At least this is what I'd expect out of an XMAC like device that does not replace the Mac Pro.

We still come back to one issue, what does Apple do about the TB video channel. We could very well see a soldered in GPU. The other option is a custom video card for Apple hardware. Still too expensive. Apple really needs to hit $1500 dollars for a reasonably high performance base model. I'm still thinking Ivy Bridge mainstream in the base box. Now for the higher end machine by all means go for performance.
This highlights an issue Intel ought to address. That is they should come up with a socket that is compatible across multiple device families so that one mother board can run a processor with integrated graphics while the high end board goes for high core CPU density.

New GPU hardware comes out about every 18 months with the outside sitting at two years. 7xxx will be looking long in the tooth if Apple doesn't hurry up. Now admittedly 7xxx performs well even up against NVidia chips that came out months latter, but do you really want to buy a Mac Pro when AMD is just about to release an entirely new chip? Maybe, maybe not! It really depends on your expectations, a very large majority would prefer reliability over newness, however we still have a large element that whines whenever the perceive that Apple is shipping old stuff.

From my perspective it doesn't matter as I'm not interesting in video cards that draw hundreds of watts. Keep it under a hundred watts, (well under?) and ill be happy as long as the chip is OpenCL compatible and does 3D well.

 

Oh, is that not the set about to be released? I thought it was. 8xxx, then, since the next Mac Pro's chips won't be out until about then.

 

Wish there'd be a breakthrough in GPU tech on the order of what ARM is doing for CPUs to get that down. 

 

I mean, look at the Apple TV. First one was 100 watts. IDLE. The second and third models use 6 watts maximum. That's astonishing, and it doesn't even talk about the heat output! Imagine a GPU innovation that brought power changes like that!

I/O is key for video pro and audio. I would be rapt if I didn't have to spring the battered wallet open for yet another pci card. BMD and AJA have built their businesses around this - not to mention Matrox, Avid et al.

I certainly don't expect this type of offering on the low end model. But high end yeah, why not ? There really are very few players in that space. Apple either ignores them in the new MP or caters to them. We as users don't have too much choice. If I'm doing an ad for broadcast it has to conform to specs, therefore I have to be able to see it in broadcast colour space. This means being able to view it on a broadcast monitor, and so it goes on and on and on. Pro market is as much about third party players as it is about sheer speed and applications. That is Apples problem right there - how to cater and is it worth it ?

I don't know what they'll come up with - but the last things pros need is spaghetti junction x 2 or 3. We already have spaghetti junction. It is a very real issue

Anywhoo, just my 0.02 c
Edited by RobM - 1/26/13 at 9:21pm

 

Now this isn't 100% perfect, but it's closer to the mark than what we've seen previously.

 

Bringing back the Cube (in aluminium form) is the perfect tribute to Jobs, while assuring to creatives that the Pro market is still a priority with Apple.

 

Condemning PCI slots to expansion chassis is a double tribute to Jobs. Wouldn't be as well received, but if the new Cube does have hot-swapping drives from the back and even a hot-swappable power supply for server usage, the response from the market would be interesting to watch.

I'm thinking new architecture here, the recently release 8xxx chips are a rebranding and slight tweaks of the 7xxx series.
[/Quote]
Wish there'd be a breakthrough in GPU tech on the order of what ARM is doing for CPUs to get that down. 
[/Quote]
Actually we are getting break throughs, the new chips from AMD and NVidia perform extremely well for the power they consume. Imagination does even better. You literally have hundreds of processors working at once on those chips.
True but I suspect much of that comes from application specific processing. In other words they use hardware video decodes in the new Apple TVs. Just about all video processors come with some sort of hardware decoder now which greatly improves power efficiency when handling suitable video. The issue with the GPUs is that supporting 3D and other technologies demands a fair amount of processing power so these chips still consume energy at high rates. Interestingly the chips run substantially cooler when just handling normal 2D graphics.

As a side note those Imagination Tech GPUs are pretty innovative on the power front. Even NVidia seems to have trouble managing power the way those chips do. The reality of 3D is that performance still involves a bit of brute force no matter what GPU you are running.

I think I still prefer the Cube mod made by the guy on the following site. The above mockup would be around the same dimensions but the angle makes it look different:

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/08/29/japanese-fan-mods-his-mac-cube-into-a-miniature-powermacmacpro/
http://www.conf.co.jp/new_folder/gallery/g5cube.html







The only thing is from the side, the proportions look a little off:



but the hard edges make it look more like a machine built for serious work.

He tried a few designs here:



I like the one furthest to the right. Jonathan Ive will do this in his workshop and be able to pick the best design. If he wants to use a Braun/Rams design, there's this one:



That would work well for stacking and it has a lip so it can be lifted easily. The insides can be pulled out the back and it would be a seamless design for the other parts.

I think so. The Pixar computer was cube-like despite the dimensions being off - 20" cube:

http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer-graphics-music-and-art/15/213/611

The Next Cube was 12":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube

Then the G4 Cube was 8". They have a cubic Apple Store and look at the reactions when they introduced the G4 Cube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=D0NbGbZBPL0#t=41s

"We are combining the power of the [Mac Pro] with the desktop elegance, the silence and the miniaturization that we learned from doing the iMac. Some of you are saying 'it looks like a mid-range machine to me', this is where we get into the magic"

It wouldn't be essential to take away PCI expansion but they could if they wanted. If they soldered the GPU, they could get away with an even smaller cube but the 3.5" drive dimensions would get in the way.

If they can't do something special with connectivity over Thunderbolt, a half-length PCI 3 slot would be the best route for now. That ensures immediate compatibility with everything - in the worst case, you'd connect a PCI breakout box for all existing full length cards.

The original Cube was $1799 and I think they can at least hit that with iMac-like components. I do think the Cube would have more mainstream appeal than a large tower so it justifies a lower price point. I'd like to see a 24" 1080p Cinema display though for about $500. That would be a really nice setup for around the same price as a top-end iMac.

Apple has to decide if they want to boost the headless category of machines any more though. I suspect that's not the case. I see them wanting to wind this category down and if they just do a run-of-the-mill upgrade on the current chassis, you can guarantee that's how it is.

I do understand that designers feel they have to emulate the current design when brainstorming on future Apple hardware directions.

 

But seriously, a Cube that size and weight doesn't have any need for handles, and so Ive won't allow any.