Next-gen Mac Pro processors could arrive March 29 - Page 3

Mostly, that's correct.

But I differ about the Mac Pro's.

When I had my lab, and we had out two and three year purchase plans for differing computers, we would simply not buy that year if there wasn't a significant upgrade to the models we had.

I'm willing to bet that Apple could have sold a large number more of the Mac Pro line the past year, more as the year went on of course, if they had made a good upgrade during that time. Since they did nothing, there was no reason to upgrade. Companies and people with models that were old enough would do so, but it cuts out many that upgrade on a regular schedule. Particularly during difficult economic times.

The Mac Pro's what?

I differed with that.

I think hes being anal about the apostrophe. I left a few out deliberately to annoy him's.


I suppose as its the only machine with a PCI slot, it would have to be limited to the Pro. The Fusion-IO drives are very fast. Fairly pricey too though:

http://www.gadgettastic.com/2007/10/...ie-hard-drive/
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34065/135/

640GB = $19,200

Even the 160GB would be $4800. This stuff is for server storage. Its nice to know its their though so that consumers have something beyond the SSD drives we are familiar with. Copying 1 DVD size in 5 seconds.

This is where we will all reach eventually. Essentially having 100GB+ of non-volatile Ram.

The OS will no longer matter because virtualization software opens in seconds. You even get server companies doing this already. Instead of selling a dedicated machine, they sell a virtual machine for a lower price and it means that you aren't limited to your own hardware failures.

Edit: on the subject of the Mac Pro, the Mac OS Rumors site have an article saying they are using prototype Mac Pro hardware. I can't remember if that was the site that was full of crap. The ads suggest it was.

I'll copy/paste the stuff in instead of linking:

"A prototype Mac Pro with twin 2.93GHz Core i7 processors was made available to two of Rumors’ senior editors who streamed their experience to the home team in New England for a series of reviews and articles that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks.

For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems.

Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel….

Although much of our hands-on experiences are still under a very nervous embargo by the sources who continue to provide us with hands-on access, often at a great distance from Cupertino, to high-end next generation Mac hardware, we can say this — Core i7 lives up to the hype, and with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market.

We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve, but for now, just the few minutes we’ve had thus far with the mid-December built Mac Pro were more than enough to give us fodder for any number of articles. To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."

"Its power usage will be as little as 1/3 that of the 3.2GHz current-generation model in typical usage; under very heavy loads such as 3D gaming & the rendering of intensive video effects in Motion, the difference can approach double that."

The top end Core i7 will top out at 2.93GHz, and I imagine an 8-core variant will be Apple's top end.

It all sounds like it could be made up including the following:

"we were working with a build of which is after 10.5.6 but isn’t fully integrated into the 10.5.7 build tree either. From what we hear, a significant part of 10.5.7 will be drivers, hardware support and processor/platform optimizations centered around Nehalem — remember, Core i7 starts on the desktop but will also reach into the laptop space soon as well with dual and even quad-core, single-chip designs that also sport the triple-channel, DDR3-1066 based architecture which makes Core i7 so powerful.

We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck.

In short…..yes, we are working with what is basically 10.5.6 plus a basic set of Nehalem optimizations. Grand Central, which is at the heart of Snow Leopard, does a far better job we’re told and comes pretty close, even in its present form, to the most optimized system in existence for Core i7 according to sources at Intel and Infinite Loop. So we would expect considerable improvements indeed out of 10.6."

Now these posts were made mid-January. I doubt they hold any weight whatsoever but there's a possibility Mac Pros could come sooner than the end of March. Intel have also confirmed 8-core Xeon chips:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17103

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel...0-103440.shtml

Since that article was from MOSR, we can pretty much disregard it altogether. While they occasionally make a few lucky guesses, they don't know anything.

I brought this up to the writer of another site when he linked to it, and he said "Oops!" I didn't realize it was them.

Why would Apple ever give them something in advance to work on? It makes no sense. Then for them to report on it? Even crazier!
No NDA? Impossible?

And then they say it's the i7. I'd be shocked at this point if it turns out to be the i7 rather than the Xeon.

There's really no excuse for taking this long if they're just going to use the i7 that has been on the market for three months now. Nevermind the fact that it can't be used in a dual-socket config (or so Intel says).

I also don't buy the line about Apple using Nvidia's SLI technology. Apple has never given a damn about graphics performance, they're only paying lip service to it now because of the GPGPU stuff coming in the next few years.

But who knows?

Yes. I was going to mention that as well. Why wait?

None of this makes sense. Why wait to upgrade the mini and iMac when appropriate processors have been available for months (talking about low power Core 2). With the Mac Pro, it makes sense Xeon 5500 series processors are only now starting to show up and not even officially released yet. Apple is already pretty much using the fastest Xeons they can.

There is going to be a huge shakeup for the desktop lines this quarter.

I'm betting there will be a big apple event in two weeks (the 24th), dedicated to refreshing the desktops. Totally random speculation though.

If they are going to be using the desktop quads, it would make sense in terms of marketing for them to wait for the green versions due on the 23rd:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...11680&Itemid=1

Halide free, new instructions, power states

On February 23rd, Intel is planning to launch an R0 revision of its Core 2 Quad Q8200 chip, which is currently using M1 stepping. Additionally, it plans to launch an energy efficient 65w TDP model of the same chip with the same stepping revision, the Q8200s, as we've mentioned previously.

These chips will be manufactured with "all green" materials and will now be halide free, which means no halogens or halide compounds such as bromine and antimony. This is just another one of Intel's steps to go above and beyond basic "lead-free" manufacturing to produce safer, smarter, and more energy-efficient technologies.

The CPUID number on the Q8200 will change from 10677 to 1067A, while the Q8200s will also be 1067A. Additionally, sSpec numbers and part numbers have also been changed. More importantly, however, there will now be Power State Indicator (PSI) support with Intel 4-series chipsets along with three low power states - Extended Stop Grant State, Deep Sleep State and Deeper Sleep State.

Finally, two new instructions have been added, XSAVE/XRSTOR, which manage the existing and future processor extended states on Intel's x86 architecture.

I think they will want an event for the introduction - that's just Apple's way - so we will probably have to wait until we hear word of a press invite.

That's not exactly what I meant when I said "Why wait?"

I was only talking about the Mac Pro, which is a business oriented machine, unlike the others, which is bought for performance.

I said why wait in the context of MOSR's article stating that it would be using the i7, which is already a much better performing chip than what is currently being used.

Since I said in previous posts that it's not likely the Mac Pro will be using the i7, but rather the not yet released Xeon, I wasn't saying that it should have been released already.

You should have read the dialog between FuturePastNow and myself on this. Neither of us think it should have been released with the i7.

Ah I see, I was mixing up conversations.

^^ Mac Pro meets HTPC?

That's a good exercise in 3D but in reality, the LCD on the front is redundant, and impractical for a desktop machine that is likely to be sitting on the floor. That form factor and size can definitely support full sized optical drives.

The display looks nice and fresh but honestly, why rehash the same old design, but smaller, for the tower? Given the opportunity to come up with a new design I don't think Apple will just miniaturize a current design.

Intel is showing off the Nahalem processor this week at the ISSCC in San Francisco according to this article...

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41371/135/

The mini display is redundant on the tower, but on a revised Mini, it would work well as an interface for a HTPC.

That's an impressive processor but it's Beckton, the enterprise level Xeon. It'll have 4 QPI links, 1567 pins, and require FB-DIMMs added in fours. I posit that it'll be the Xeon 7500 series.

What we assume the Mac Pro will egt is Gainestown, the LGA1366 Xeon 5500 series that will still be 4 core (for now) but with 2 QPI links, so it can connect to the Tylersberg IHC and the other processor.

A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.

And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.

All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.

Lemon Bon Bon.

PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...

Dunno about the grate, but I could definetely see it looking like his mockup, but with the light aluminum metal sides & handles, and a black-backed glass center.

Ah, you know better by now. Apple won't do what it doesn't want to do.

The fact that they can do it doesn't matter. They have a long term plan, and they stick to it.

The only reason why desktop sales slumped by 36% this quarter is because customers were expecting newer machines, as usual, before a major show, esp. when nothing new has been out for many months. I'll bet that if Apple had made decent upgrades to all of its desktop lines, sales might have slumped by less than half that, and their computer sales for the quarter might have reached 2.75 million.

Apple is willing to give up what they see as short term gains for what they believe will be long term gains. Maybe they're right. Overall, their sales, despite some people whining about prices, has been moving up much faster that the PC industry as a whole. That's astonishing!

I just read an article about phones, in which thy mentioned that Dell may be coming out with one in a desperate attempt to move beyond computers. An area in which they are being trampled upon by Apple in the high end, and Hp everywhere else.

I can't pretend to know why Apple refuses to make some less expensive mid tower, though many of us (yes, I said US) would like to see one, but they obviously do have a reason, otherwise they wouldn't be so resistant to the idea. They must also think that their concept is working. They aren't so stupid that they would refuse to change course if their roadmap wasn't working. Don't forget how quickly Apple abandoned the Cube, even though the problems could easily have been fixed.

I see nothing wrong with the present case. As an efficient design to remove heat from the unit, it reflects what many workstations and servers have as front and rear panels. I don't see what they can do to make it better. Changing the colors a bit to designate a "new" model would be nice, but wouldn't do anything to improve the design, which has been called one of the best computer cases ever made.

I suppose they could rearrange the inside a bit more this time so as to give us an additional front storage bay, but I don't see them wanting to do that.

What I've wanted for some time was for the four drives to be accessible from the outside of the side of the case in a "hot mount" configuration.

Melgross

As much as I've read about how great an xMac would be my personal
experience selling computers to consumers has corroborated a few things.

1. Mac users don't upgrade extensively. We've never had off the shelf motherboards, GPU and more. The typical Mac user buys more RAM or storage and that's it.

2. xMac loses Apple monitor sales. Let's face I've seen as many Dell monitors displaying OS X as an Apple Cinema Display. xMac simply means Apple loses revenue which offsets any mythical gain.

3. Consumers tend to replace systems. Consumers tend to want the CPU and the display to be new. People will put up with older technology and budget to replace both the computer and display. Seen it a thousand times.

We enthusiasts see things differently but in fact we are the niche as are our desires.

I don't agree that's a problem. Only a very small percentage of PC owners upgrade either. It's a myth to think otherwise.

People often buy something because of what they THINK they will do with it, rather than what they actually will do with it. Many people who think they will upgrade their machines never do. The most they do is to add some more RAM, and possibly another HDD. Only a small number percentagewise ever upgrades the graphics card.


That's only because Apple has no inexpensive monitors. If Apple were to make a relatively inexpensive xMac, then it would behoove them to also make a relatively inexpensive line of monitors, at least one or two. That would gain them monitor sales, rather than to lose them as they do now.


Some consumers do, some don't.

But, more importantly, I've read more than a few articles over the past two or three years in places like Computerworld and Infoworld, where in interviews about Macs in the workplace, where they said that companies don't want all-in-ones. They want to have separate monitors and computers, and that was holding back Macs in the enterprise, almost as much as anything else.


Normally, I'd agree with that, as you know. I usually find that people on forums are way off base when compared to the average person, or business.

But this is one area in which I think people on the forums are right about it.

In the PC world, they've been selling all-in-ones long before Apple started selling its more modern iMacs. But sales have been dismal.

Most consumers buy what they're familiar with, which is some form of tower, because almost everyone else has that. They have it at work as well. More technically adept people, as I said before like to think they are going to do upgrades, and some of them do, but the point is not that they do, but that, again, as I said, that they think they will.

It's like cameras. Over they years I've gotten a very large number of people asking me what they should buy (because of my business). Very often they want a Canon or Nikon because of the very wide selection of lenses. Of course, almost none of those people would ever buy anything other than the usual selection, but it didn't matter. Somehow, the thought that they were available was enough to sway their decision.

Since you asked how could it be improved, then what about a filtering system so the internal parts of the Mac Pro don't get so dusty so easily? From what I've read on these forums, the Mac Pro needs something to keep dust from piling up on the internal parts.

That wouldn't require a case redesign, just a moving around of the interior, which Apple has done already.

I don't know of any computer that doesn't get dusty inside. The ones with filters get clogged up, and overheat, unless the user pays a lot of attention to that filter, which interestingly enough, on most machines that have them, are not replaceable! Filters cut the airflow by a good amount without even getting dirty. Server rooms have air conditioning with filtered air entering the room that takes care of this problem for them.

A certain amount of dust inside a machine isn't a problem. For that, companies make special vacuums. Once in a while, open the case, and give it a quick vacuuming, and that will solve any problem. It's less work and mess than cleaning filters, and in the long run, less expensive than buying replaceable ones. Any small vacuum will do.

I don't know if any small vacuum will do, don't they have a risk of building up static charge if it isn't built for this job?

I've never had a problem. The computer is grounded, and thats what matters. The specialty vacuums are rarely grounded. Their claim to fame is that they're small, and come with accessories that allow probing into the recesses of the machine more easily.

They all get some dust inside, but some more than others. I put in a larger HD in my G4 466 DA a little over a year ago. That was the first and only time I have ever cleaned it and it didn't have much dust on the inside after almost 7 years. And the fan runs about 18 hours a day and I do have a normal amount of dust in my house. So I still feel that is something that Apple needs to improve upon in the Mac Pro.

Going back to my 950, I've seen all of my Macs get plenty of dust inside. I've cleaned all of them once avery three months or so. I see PC's get just as dusty.

My dual 2GHz G5 PowerMac doesn't get any dirtier than any of the others, and it uses the same case. I haven't seen any Mac Pro's that are dirtier either. The internal fans always get lots of dust on them and have to be vacuumed.

Most of the dust is at the bottom of the cases, out of the way, except for the dust on the fans. While the mobo and cards get a fine dust, it's not much, and I usually leave it alone.

I think the idea of upgrades on a headless machine wrt internals is less important than the display upgrade for consumers and businesses alike. I don't think people buy headless machines because they think they will want to upgrade the internals of the machine but rather the display or easily replace it if it breaks.

The iMac screen looks expensive and it costs about half the price of the machine to replace it outside of warranty. When a consumer separates a PC box, the display, the peripherals into parts, it's easy to weigh up the cost of ownership as they can break it down into worst case scenarios. The worst case scenario of fixing even an iMac isight is uncertain at the point of purchase.

I personally couldn't care less about the CPU and GPU these days in terms of upgrades. It's just not worth it to consider upgrading them so those parts can be sealed up. Everything else however I want to be able to replace myself: Ram, HD, display. In the case of the aluminium iMac, 1 out of 3 is not good enough.

To be perfectly honest, if Apple made their displays (and hard drives) as easy to replace as the hard drives in the Macbook and they were inexpensive as well as with a matte option, I'd be completely sold on the AIO design.

Essentially, if you could unclip the front bezel of the iMac display and simply pull out the display part, buy another from Apple for a reasonable price and drop another in, it would be fine. I feel the same way about the laptops, if they could find a way to allow consumers to just unclip the display from the laptop and buy the display along with the top shell for a reasonable price.

They can't do this for a reasonable price though because they use IPS panels in some models so once you get that, you're stuck with having to pay for an IPS display if your one breaks.

People may not upgrade extensively but a xMac gives them more choice at the time of sale.


3. Consumers tend to replace systems. Consumers tend to want the CPU and the display to be new. People will put up with older technology and budget to replace both the computer and display. Seen it a thousand times.
[/QUOTE]

People tend to want to pass down / reuse a old displays and THEY DON'T want to BE LOCKED in a poor one and / or a over or under sized one in a AIO.

If being locked into a configuration was such an issue for most people then notebooks wouldn't be so popular and gaining popularity each year. PC tinkering just doesn't interest the majority. If it interests you and you want to run Mac OS X there is OSx86 and EFiX available.

I think notebooks are so popular because people like the idea of carrying it with them. That idea seems to bypass having an upgradable machine at home. But when many people do get a machine at home, they want a bigger monitor, and something that they THINK they will want to keep current.

Here's a good article to check out. It looks like notebooks will be blessed the 4th quarter of this year.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3513&p=1

Exactly right. I have a 19" LCD that I bough six years ago and still use. It's on its second computer. I bought a 24" display last year, and I intend to use it until its backlight craps out.

All-in-one? No thanks.

There is nothing novel about AIO machines, we've had them since 1984. Speaking as an iMac G5 owner, I've come to realize that the AIO gives you the restrictions of a laptop with none of the portability benefits. I propose the greenMac initiative:

Mac micro tower with a PCIe slot for graphics. This computer will have a high TCO because of upgrade modules you can purchase later on. The case comes off with a latch on the bottom similar to the unibody MacBooks. There you have easy access to the RAM slots, the cpu/cooler module, and the hard drive sled. You never actually see the logic board, everything is engineered to be drop in replaced. Only the CPU would be Apple specific since it will come with it's own engineered cooler permanently attached.

I know, it's highly unlikely. But i would like to see Apple abandon it's current approach of "we want people to upgrade their whole computer". It's not an environmentally sound approach, especially when people are getting rid of perfectly good monitors with their AIO.

I meant to add that Apple's short sighted approach are doing them well now but their good fortune won't last forever. They can't be of the mindset that they should continue doing what their doing indefinitely because it's working now. Their strategy will evolve one way or another.

But haven't we known this for half a year now, if not longer? That the really yummy mobile CPUs will arrive Q4 2009?

Basically you will literally get twice the performance for the same price at the same battery life.

And this is just a dual core running 4 threads. Imagine if Intel releases a mobile quad-core with 8 threads? That'll be 4x as much CPU power as the currently fastest MacBook Pro...


Or in other words, it's just a bad time to buy a laptop that you intend to use for 3+ years.

1 1/2 years from now any current MacBook Pro will feel like a G3 PowerBook today...

A bit off topic, but that's why I refuse to buy an iMac with a dual core processor now.

Its analogous to buying a pentium 4 machine 3 years ago.