The Intel Powermac / Powermac Conroe / Mac Pro thread - Page 4

This is the expansion chassis I mentioned before. But, Apple won't offer one. It's likely that this is being offered somewhere, if it can be done on a serial bus at all.

Of course, properly, Apple will never offer a machine that includes the old PCI specification.

The current machine is very highly spec'd. It has only one 16 lane slot, but unlike other Express machines, it also has an 8 lane slot, and two 4 lane slots That's pretty good.

If they did offer a 6 slot machine, the question is how they would allocate them. Would they offer 2 board SLI or Crossfire? Will the continue to offer 8 and 4 lane slots.

Will they even offer SLI and Crossfire on another 4 slot machine?

One reason why more slots is important is because all of the high end graphics cards take up the space of the next slot as well. So a 4 slot machine efectively becomes a 3 slot one. If you are using either SLI or CF with two high end boards, you might find that you have NO slots left.

That's where the question of 6 slots comes into play. If you need a firewire/USB board, there might be no where to put one.

A 2 slot machine would become a 1 slot machine with a high end board.

I'm not a computer enthusiast and I don't know if this statement can be proved.


I haven't a clue how much market research Apple has done and this can not be proved. However, I have read on the internet(re: veracity to be questioned here, we all know how accurate the internet is) numerous times that Apple performs a minimal amount of market research.

But we do know that there are/were AIO Windows computers offered and virtually no one bought them. This alone is indirect evidence that the majority of computer buyers, for whatever reasons, valid or not, do not want AIO computers.


Anecdotal evidence, while interesting and important won't convince me that the largest segment of computer buyers want or would buy an AIO.


I, at least, am not talking about " a big roomy box with loud fans".


Yes they did. However, as you pointed out, Apple neutered it. I was the same processer, slower bus, limited ram capable and PCI instead of PCI-X as the iMac and for the exact same cost of the iMac that came with a 17" LCD screen. If Apple had made it a dual processor, with the faster bus, and PCI-X and same ram capabilities as the other towers it might have sold better. But who in their right mind would pay for this machine when they could either buy the iMac or spend the extra money for a dual processor machine?

I'm not saying that Apple didn't make the right choices in the past. Maybe they needed to protect iMac sales or didn't want to sell the low end tower and force people to decide between the iMac and the dual processor tower.

Seriously though, if Apple truly wants to increase market share and now we have them on record twice saying that increasing market share is a goal, then it is IMHO that they will have to add a computer to their line up that targets the arguably the largest segment of computer buyers.

edit cleaned up some grammer, if I left more they ain't getting fixed.

PC users and Mac users are different.

While I may offer anecdotal evidence my anecdotes are supported by the sales figures(which I shall not divulge) for a Top 5 reseller thus they carry a wee bit more weight that the typical mac fans conjecture about what people want.


I think it's clear that,if given the choice between having more computing power for your dollar versus less, most of us would choose the former.

However Apple has decided on their current structure and frankly we vote with our wallets. If they were doing the wrong things sales would be declining rapidly.

I have no faith in the notion that a somewhat expandable headless Mac would increase marketshare at all. This is based on my own experiences and others are free to disagree.

I totally agree with that.

Back to the Woodcrest/Opteron contest for a moment (notice that Conroe isn't considered in this matchup).



http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30963

I haven't read it (but I will) Probably because Conroe isn't a dual socket processor. The Opteron, and Woodcrest are. Or they are just testing the highest spec'd processors from both vendors. OK, I'll go read it.

[edit] OK, read it. It's all about server workstation processors really. The part I liked best were these few quoted sentences.

"The Clovertown dual-socket, 2x4-core workstation worked well rendering the Cinema4D"

That looks like an Octo PowerMac.

"Clovertown (as well as its desktop cousin Kentsfield) as early as this Christmas..."

That looks like it could be ready for MWSF in January.

"Now, the Intel show had a HP dual-socket Woodcrest at 3 GHz / FSB 1333 vs a Sun dual-socket Opteron 285 2.6 GHz / 1 GHz HT, both with 2 GB RAM etc, running SunGard credit analysis application. The Woodcrest completed the job 35% faster, while the power meter also showed roughly 6% less power consumed - 307 W vs 325 W.?"

"So, my feel is: Intel wins the 1-socket and the 2-socket soccer match this year - next year, anything can happen..."

Well we all new the woodcrest would kick ass. Which is what I have been trying to tell all the people that said Apple should have used AMD.

People who thought that Intel was down for the count weren't really undersding the amount of R&D Intel can bring to bear. Once Intel understood that the Prescott design wasn't leading anywhere they turned their aircraft carrier around pretty quickly.

Hell that Israeli team they have must but the companies golden boys/girls. They've laid golden eggs with most of their projects (Pentium M)

AMD isn't going to lay down and raise the white flag but they'll have to compete very hard now that Intel is bringing out the products that killed Tejas.

The prospect of 8 cores in a future Powermac cause me to salivate like Pavlov's dogs. Then you toss in stuff like GPUs with h.264 acceleration and huge framebuffers and I have no complaints other than I'd like to see 10G ethernet at an affordable price<smile>

Something else interesting as well. Parallels software works well because of the virtualization built into Intel's new chips. But graphics performance sucks.

However, both ATI and Nvidia are working on GPU virtualization. The estimate is that either, or both, will have it out anywhere from end of 2007 to beginning of 2008. while performance won't equal what the chip can do with just one system, it could give 75% of its performance to the virtualized OS.

That will be a humdinger.

Melgross

I did read something like that today. If Nvidia and ATI can get GPU virtualization down by end of 2007 that's great. By then Intel and AMD should be moving virtualization to not only the CPU but PCI-Express cards and other I/O.

I imagine that as soon as 2010 we'll look back and laugh about how archaic 2006 really was with Boot Camp dual booting and Parallels just getting started.

The computing Power User at that time will likely have at least 3 OS running simultaneously at all times. Fibre Broadband connections, 8 cores of processing and Terabytes of storage likely on the network.

Today we had a laugh about the old Trash 80s and Commodore 64s at work today. I guess someday we'll look at today's Powermacs with the same nostalgia.

I can still remember my heart pounding from the Altair 8080. While I never bought one (damn!), I do still have the literature, as well as my old Atari 800, my wifes 400, my ST's, etc.

Yeah, those were the days. It really was exciting back then.

But, in a few years, we'll likely think the same about now.

Back then it was exciting because there was stuffing coming out that could do things that simply no consumer product could do before. It was bleeding edge, exciting stuff and people were putting out software that nobody had seen before. The last 15 years or so can really just be categorized as "more". More memory, more pixels, more megahertz, more disk space, more (of the same kind of) software.

Right now we are on the cusp of a new kind of transition. Multi-processors have been in the dual range for a while, but it hasn't been a major change since there is usually 2 things in existing software to be done at the same time, even if the OS is "the other one". The first commodity 4-8 way systems are about to appear and that will encourage the software developers to start thinking outside their simple single-processor box. By 2010 we're going to be seeing far more cores far more commonly... I've seen predictions of 20-50 cores in a system, depending on how simple or complex each one is (imagine the 9 processor Cell moved to a process 4x smaller). The developers who haven't adapted will see no real change to what they can do. The developers who adapted and figure out how to leverage the potential will deliver stuff that won't just make you salivate... sphincter control will be in jeapordy. Exciting times are ahead.

That's certainly true. But, you know, this is an emotional response, not a logical progression. New generations of people see what they see, and not what we've seen in the past.

Wherever you get in on the ride is exciting. I'm excited about the future.

My thought's have always been that no matter where we are, no matter how advanced we think we are, we are always on the primitive end of the curve, always at the beginning. 100 years from now they will be laughing at just how backward we are. 100 years after that, they will be having the same laugh about what was being used in 2100. And on and on. Of course, that's if people are still people as we know ourselves to be, and are thus still capable of laughing at all.

And that's assuming that civilization will be around for some time after we're gone.

point taken.



Not relevant in discussing Apple's options to fill a void in their line-up.


Yes, but in the last 2 years they are on record that market share matters.

Few people thought they would introduce an inexpensive computer like the mini Mac. Very few thought they would ever switch to Intel and even fewer ever dreamt they would introduce software like Bootcamp. Times change, so does Apple.


I disagree, but respect your opinion.
and I guess I should stop posting on this subject in this thread, kind of a thread hijack and I apologize.

I haven't seen this mentioned(here or in "current hardware" so I'll link to the article site), but AnandTech has a good review of the MacBook Pro and in their conclusion kind of recommended that if you could wait for Memrom you might consider waiting. They seem impressed with coming Intel offerings. Still, good to see such an overall good review about the current MacBook Pro from what was previously an all Windows site.

Hmm, a new G5 for $500 or a new Mactel PowerMac Conroe for $1800? Decisions decisions. Ill go for the Mactel.

(and I was being generous. Two months ago I would have paid $1800 for G5; today I wouldnt even pay $500.)

True, but to increase market share where does Apple have to pull from?


No of course this computer would not raise Apple's market share all by itself. But yes it would play a part in the team.

The Mac mini is not the hottest selling computer for Apple, of course Apple does not really want it to be, but the mini plays its part in bringing new people to the Mac.


The prospect of this actually reinforces the need for Apple to produce a small cheaper tower.

An extremely small segment of the user base could afford or even need an 8 core PowerMac.

At this point 4 cores is complete overkill for most users.

Yes... but we're only 1 killer app away from it being essential.

As far as we know, the iMac is Apple's best seller. The Mac mini is apparently not a hot seller, but as said above, brings new customers. The PowerMac is the ''butter'', Apple may not sell a lot of them (because of the price?) but the margin on each is big.

I don't see why introducing a new design would not bring more ''average'' customers, those who are not used to AIOs and who could see the Mini more as a ''toy'' (although I am NOT thinking that) and who think that the current PowerMacs are overpriced. There are lots of offerings in the $999-$1499 range of PC desktops and different people want different screens: small, big, standard or widescreen, with speakers or without, analog and/or digital...

I know a lot of people that find the iMac beautiful, but wouldn't want one for themselves, go figure!

Like someone wrote above a dual-woodcrest computer has a non-negligeable power consumption while a single (dual-core) Conroe is rated at about 65W.

So why not keep the current PowerMac enclosure for the dual-woodcrest models (with good cooling and some modifications to support, lets say 6 slots, in a 16-8-2-2-2-2 configuration, and 4 HD spaces etc...), and design a new one for Conroe-based PowerMacs (standard cooling, 2 slots, 2 HD spaces...)?

Offering two configurations for each model wouldn't hurt, and with the price of the Conroe CPUs compared to the Woodcrest ones, I think Apple can release another good margin computer line. Example:
$1099 Conroe dual-core 2.13GHz, 512MB, 160HD...
$1499 Conroe dual-core 2.67GHz + bigger HD, better GPU
$2499 Woodcrest (quad) 2.33GHz + more RAM, even better GPU
$3299 Woodcrest (quad) 3.00GHz (+/- same config)
...
This also leaves room for a Conroe Extreme Edition model (X-Mas 2006 or MWSF 2007) at $1999!!!

Every model will have some sales, and bring in more customers. Dell has many models, and they all sell, to a certain extent.

So, if Apple had ten more models, they would certainly pick up more sales. The question is whether these models would sell in great enough numbers to be profitable. Dell can afford to play around, Apple can't. If Dell doesn't sell much of a couple of models, and discontinues them, no one hears about it, or cares. But when Apple makes a model that fails, it's spoken about for years afterwards. That's a danger for Apple. In their position, publicity like that can scare away potential customers.

Insofar as power usage for Woodcrest goes, it's 85 watts for the 3GHz version. The low voltage models use less, but I don't know the number offhand.

I don't remember the exact number, but about a year, or so ago when I thought the powerMac line was not selling at all because it was:

1. Old, and not been updated in forever.
2. The last of the powerMacs before the new G6, and a huge PM update that everyone was waiting for.
3. Long overdue for an update. (moving to 3GHz IBM)

Apple had a conference call, and in it they said they had sold over 400,000 PowerMac units in that quarter.
The ones that were not selling was the iMac, and PowerBook which both had been updated before the last powerMac update at that time.

So saying the PowerMac is a not as big a seller than the iMac for Apple may be just a what you think, because you really have no idea about pro users, or what kind of sales apple has with pro users.

I was suprised at the numbers. I thought that everybody was pretty much waiting on the revision. I know a lot of people that were. Which is actually what I'm doing right now. I want an intel Dual Woodcrest machine with a Quadro FX (if not two of them).

I'm sure at some point Apple has a big boost in PowerMacs when the majority of the professional market was moving from the G4 to the G5. I'm sure Apple selling over 400,000 PM was a temporary phenomenon.

The same selling boost will happen with the Intel PM when most of the pro market moves from G5 to Intel.

Most average users can afford and only need the iMac, that's why its logically the best seller.

No way! They haven't sold 400 thousand PM's a quarter for years. They are selling about 125 thousand a quarter. I wouldn't be surprised if that number is well below that now, and has been for several months.

The iMac has been their best selling desktop since it came out. The Powerbook sales haven't sailed for a while, but their sales were up 16% last quarter.

Like I said "I don't remember the exact number", but it was way beyond what I had thought they should have sold in that situation. Nevertheless it was a ton of PM's, and it was at an odd time for it.

I don't think that this 'selling boost' will be as big as you think.
The so called pro market will see a much larger selling boost when Adobe CS3 will be intoduced.
That's the best moment to upgrade for most pro-users and they will.
imo.

There's an error that's constantly being made that assumes that the large majority of PM purchasing depends on Adobe's suite.

That's just not true. While that does account for a good part of it, the other users account for much more than most people seem to think.

Video, tv, and film production are a good proportion. Scientific users are also a large portion. Music production as well. And even though MacCAD is not a big portion of the industry, it is a good size of PM sales. In Europe, architectural firms use them to a much greater extent that they do here. they are also used as servers in educational facilities, such as K-12, where XServes are rarely used.

I think that we will see a decent boost shortly after they come out, with a rise after that. When CS3 comes out, hopefully, shortly after, I expect to see another boost, and a continued rise.

I'd have to say the last two statements were both pretty accurate as far as those are two big selling areas for Macs. I think PS is the most popular Mac app though. Someone said that 80% of Adobe PS sales are to Mac users. That's a lot of sales, and a lot of Mac users if it's true.

I don't know who said that, but it's clearly wrong. Adobe themselves said several months ago that Mac users comprised 27% of PS users. That has risen a point or two since then.

It used to be correct, but things change and statistics (unfortunately) don't come with a "best before" date attached.

Very sadly, it used to be true years ago. but then, it used to be 100% before that. If Apple's sales hadn't started to fall the way they did, perhaps Adobe, and others, would never have felt that it was necessary to protect their companies by moving their programs over to Windows as well.

The Mac was never in a position to be a monopoly so Adobe supporting both platforms was inevitable eventually. The fall in Mac sales is primarily attributable to other things, but that's a topic for another day.

Not to state the obvious or anything but. If Your getting 27% of your sales from a group of users that has only 2 to 4% market-share of total available sales; Your application has to be the dominant app for that group. (Mac buyers + Photoshop = Probably 80+% of us have it)
Not only that. Alias said 25% of Maya licenses were to Mac users.

I don't know the #'s for the Audio Professional, FCP-HD, or Final Cut Express HD, and the VIdeo Professional, (but I do know a few audio, and video pro's): this leads us right back to how important the Pro Machine is to Apple.
Obviously there is a massive number of users that rely on the Apple Pro Workstation. I'm not saying all Photoshop users, or all Maya users (well maybe Maya users) absolutely need the workstation, but it stands to reason that there is a very high percentage of us that do.

It's very important. But, like all things Apple, they at times ignore it, and then push it. I truly believe that they should cater more than they do, to the people buying their highest area of profitability after software, which is the PowerMac.

Not only do they not always make the machines we ask for, they even waste space in the ones they do make.

From the beginning of the B/W tower, through the current G5 towers, there has been room atop the optical drive for another 5 1/4 unit. A number of third party companies have taken advantage of that space to place an additional HD there, to no discernible negative effect. I've placed drives there myself, in several machines.

As all of the older towers had optical drives right at the top of the case, where this blank spot is, it makes no real sense. But Apple has refused to utilize it, at no increase in size for the machine.

This is an example at engineering NOT at its finest.

My hope is that Apple will be redesigning these machines from the very first model. We don't need to be reassured by the constancy of design they seemed to have felt was necessary with the first IMac's and MBP's.

Now that Apple is going to Intel's chips, these machines will be compared to other workstations (because that's what they are) that do have six slots, and three to five external bays, with room for another three or even four HD's.

While I don't expect that Apple will ever give us that amount of freedom, I do hope that we will get closer.

With Boot Camp the new intel PM could be crazy delicious for gaming

just because 27% of the users who use photoshop use a mac does not mean that 80% of their sales don't come from mac users.

Most people that buy photoshop are pros. Pros use macs. How many people do you know that have photoshop? I can think of about 20 off of the top of my head. How many of them have bought it? zero. How many use windows? all but one or two.

It sure would be, but then I don't see that alone as a huge sales factor of this particular machine. Not yet anyway.

• It gets to a point where I don't even want to predict what the internals list will look like in an Apple workstation compared to an Alien-ware, or BOXX, or anything with a Tyan, or a new NForce Motherboard.
  There are a lot of things that I think they need more of even on small scale.
• Like USB ports. I have printers, UPS systems, a flatbed scanner, My Wacom, Speakers, and Sub Woofer - I want to get that new Label-Writer Duo Stamp, and label Printer from Demo, but I'm already plugging, and unplugging things constantly to use USB ports, and I have an external 4 extra ports. I didn't even include my keyboard in that list.
• 2 -FULL SPEED 16x PCI-E slots, and probably another 3, or 4 PCI-(any of kind) would suffice for audio, video, users.
• HD bays is also a sore spot, and RAID options. Every good PC has Raid 0, and 1 available in the same box. I doubt Apple will make one that big, but more drive bays again would hopefully suffice.
• Some of the better perks from the Alienware Workstation is the optional Hot Swappable SATA Drive Chassis for an added $77.
  That could be particularly useful with Boot-camp. Say I just remove my Mac Drives when I put my Windows install in to play a game, or vice verse. Just put the windows drive in when you want it. No need to have it there all the time. Now there is a sweet idea that Mac users would really appreciate. If your not using it you can take it out, and put in a spare, or one you do use. It's particularly good for backup purposes as well.

I guess that list could about kill any nay sayers because it has everything including possible FULL speed 2x 16X PCI-E for SLI if you wanted it, but how far is Apple going to go for us this time? If the QuadroFX 4500 can be used as an indicator that they are serious about committing to the highend market I am definitely pleased at our chances for possibly the best spec'd workstation we have probably ever seen from Apple. What we'll get we'll have to wait, and see.

Still consider through that many people pay thousands of more dollars than what a PowerMac costs on gaming PC's like Alienware. I think that if Apple takes this market seriously they could do really well. All they need is to get those fast fast graphics cards and fast fast CPUs in their Machines and viola they are set.

Well yeah I guess they could, but not for the home builder, but then they would have to emphasize the windows factor, but again... Well yeah.. I guess they could. Just because you play games on a PC doesn't necessarily mean that hate the Mac OS itself. It meant more so that you chose the PC because it offered more to you in the way of games, and computing all around at the time you chose it. Now that Macs can also do windows, the Mac can now offer more than any other computer. Almost worth mentioning, and marketing, but it's a hard market with the PS3 on it's way. I guess it would be a good idea to start before the sony release if you were to try it. Still I'm not sure it would be all that hard of a sell to the mind of PC users that bought because of Games, but in a recession it would probably be harder to get their wallets this year. Once they have you in mind though you will have their sales in the future.

[edit] But I hate to say it that I think there is a bigger market for this if Apple did what I said earlier to the MBP, and iMac, and just changed some of the features. Those who would want to play games would feel more comfortable on one of those systems. Probably beacuse they are more affordable, and the word would reach a larger audience.

No. 27% of their sales are for the Mac version. It's a bit higher now.

Even though you got the name wrong, you are saying the same thing I said.

I have USB/Firewire boards as well as various others. There always seems to be a situation when I'm short just one slot.

It was nice to give us four, plus the AGP on the G4's, but they took memory away to do it. Then they took that slot away again with the G5.

It's not as though Jobs doesn't know that we want these things. You might remember when he proudly made the announcement that we were getting two optical bays, and before that when he announced that we would have four slots.

What bothers me about all of this, is that since he knows that we want them, and since he gives them, why does he then take them away again in the next model? And, at the very least, why not use the extra space, rather than just leaving it open?

I would love to be in those meetings.