It's about time Apple redesigned the 'ageing queen' that is the Mac Pro. It's overblown. It's pretty poor we can't get a 'consumer' tower from Apple. And Marv' here suggests a 'mid-tower' type design to get us back to the level of £1495. Makes sense to me.
He's right. The design needs a bit of an overhaul. It's due. But I wouldn't hold my breath, it seems Apple have designed themselves into a cul-de-sac with their marketing/sales grid. More of the same?
I'd lose the handles. And it give it a cosmetic 'lift' and saw a 1/3 off it's height. Apple should be able to design a more compact tower than that..
Nice mockups! I think it needs pronounced feet for ventilation and as a nod to past PowerMac designs.
I could actually see a smaller version. An "urban" MacPro, for those of us who want top-flight performance, but DO NOT need a zillion drive bays, etc., and do NOT have the space for a full-size MacPro.
Give it comparable MacPro performance in a MUCH smaller form factor: same CPU, same RAM slots, 2 HD bays, 1 optical bay, 2 PCI slots (1 for video). Maybe add an ExpressCard slot in front. Add 4 or 5 separate FireWire 800 circuits (plus LightPeak?) for external expansion. The rest they can keep.
This would be for those of us who opt for a 15" MacBook Pro and external monitor rather than a MacPro or iMac. EVERY designer I know has a similar setup. iMacs are for "the staff". I carry my 15" MBP between my office and different clients', connecting to external monitors, keyboards, trackballs, etc.. No one I know that has a 17" MBP ever carries it, except between their office and the conference room. (BTW, my new 15" i7 MBP is stunning!)
No matter what anyone says, they iMac is NOT pro level. I won't bring up the anti-glare screen debate, but that's a big part of it. Try doing extensive 3D modeling on a glossy screen and I'll give you an ice pack and bottle of Advil.
Nice mockups! I think it needs pronounced feet for ventilation and as a nod to past PowerMac designs.
Yeah, I like the design with the feet much better. If it was lighter, there's less chance they'd get damaged. Plus, heavy impacts get absorbed more by the feet than the machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffharris
This would be for those of us who opt for a 15" MacBook Pro and external monitor rather than a MacPro or iMac. EVERY designer I know has a similar setup.
Being able to replace the drive fairly easily in the MBP and buy whatever external screen you want and upgrade it is a big plus. Although you can hook another screen to the iMac, you're still pretty much tied to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffharris
No matter what anyone says, they iMac is NOT pro level. I won't bring up the anti-glare screen debate, but that's a big part of it. Try doing extensive 3D modeling on a glossy screen and I'll give you an ice pack and bottle of Advil.
I've compared a matte IPS and glossy iMac and I'm still of the opinion that the iMac is unusable for me. I feel that the iMac doesn't diffuse the backlight in black areas so you get sharper blacks but you get very intense reflections and they are far more distracting.
On a bright day, it's painful when you catch something bright and the surrounding illumination makes the content almost invisible and this isn't the case on the matte screen so long as the brightness is up.
Even the quad i5 iMac CPUs don't seem to be any improvement over the old Mac Pros so it's not great value for money as you are shelling out almost the same amount as a new Mac Pro. The 27" IPS is great to have bundled but being forced to take one removes the competition so you can't shop around for the most cost-effective solution.
You get people who say how the iMac is fine and pro-level but it's always photographers or even some designers where there's really not much heavy lifting going on. Once you try editing/encoding 1080p or doing raw rendering, the iMac gets so hot you can't even touch it and you feel it's going to break and worry about how much it would cost to repair because it's really been turned into an appliance.
I love the aesthetic improvements in the new iMacs but they still don't quite cut it and Apple needs to give the Mac Pro some attention. It's as if they only ever put the care and attention into their iMac and laptop designs these days. The Mini is about using the weakest parts so it copes in the small box and the Mac Pro, it's about just making the biggest case that can handle anything anyone would want to throw at a machine. I'd rather they push the boundary of what they can get away with fitting in a small box and try to cover 90% of what people need with the Mac Pro and force the rest to do without.
Who cares if one random person can't fit 4 GPUs in one machine or turn their Mac Pro into a 12TB server with 32GB RAM? These are fringe cases. The desktop will die eventually when parts get small enough so even the Pro model needs to start catering for the transition. You get 3TB drives now and pretty much nobody needs more than 9TB of active space. Optical drives are dying out, especially DVD drives so no need to ship every machine with two of them.
The biggest disappointment will be for them to simply leave everything as is and switch the CPU to the 6-core Xeon for the same price because it would show they haven't spent one ounce of effort thinking about it.
I'm losing my faith in a new Mac Pro coming anytime soon \
All I can say is that I really hope the Apple pulls a winner out of the hat if/when they decide to update it... I just can't see any justification for putting this off for so long for no good reason.
1) Once they feel there are enough of the 6 core Xeons available, update to those, 6 and 12 core systems plus hyperthreading
2) Shrink the box down a bit and make it more Pro-sumer with i7 chips and a bit lower price, 4 and 8 core plus hyperthreading
3) Eliminate the line
I think option 2 would be the best route honestly, at least if they want to sell Mac Pros to anyone besides colleges and scientific research facilities. Musicians can certainly find uses for the extra PCI slots, but server processors are not needed by them really.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
i7 875K 2.933GHz Quad $330
i7 960 3.2GHz Quad $570
i7 980X 3.333GHz 6-Core $1000
Lots of great graphics cards available from both companies, there's no reason we couldn't see the return of a $1500 Mac Pro with a solid CPU and graphics card. 4GB RAM base, 16GB max on the single cpu, 32GB max on the dual cpu systems. They could even look at having a SSD for the system drive with 1 or 2TB options for all other drives. A dual 980X with SSD, another drive or 2 and a good graphics card would still be more expensive than the current top end, but the entry price for a Mac Pro would be back where it would be more accessible. Heck, they could probably still do $1500 or $1600 on a dual 875K system. That would help the new Mac Pro's performance stay ahead of whatever upgrade is coming toward the iMac next.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
Core i7 cpus can't be used in pairs. Only Xeons from the 5xxx series.
Core i7-8xx and Core i7-9xx don't use the same chipset nor have the same memory control, that would mean two really different motherboards.
FWIW, the Xeon 35xx series used in the single cpu MP are very similar to Core i7-9xx series, same speed, same price, they "only" have ECC enabled. They even share the same X58 chipset.
Instead of checking on newegg for Intel's pricing, they have a pdf for all their retail processors, that gives a good idea of what is what and how much. I'll let you google it.
So, maybe there are a bunch of Nehalem-based Mac Pros in Apple's inventory and they want to clear those out before releasing the 6 and 12-core Mac Pros? Plus, where is that 27" LCD monitor? Come on Apple, your iPhone is nice, but we need you to refocus on the power users, on your original customers. I've been using your products since 4MB of RAM was considered outrageously huge! Let's go, get that new stuff out the door already!
So, maybe there are a bunch of Nehalem-based Mac Pros in Apple's inventory and they want to clear those out before releasing the 6 and 12-core Mac Pros? Plus, where is that 27" LCD monitor? Come on Apple, your iPhone is nice, but we need you to refocus on the power users, on your original customers. I've been using your products since 4MB of RAM was considered outrageously huge! Let's go, get that new stuff out the door already!
Unfortunately, those like that (myself incuded) are simply of no real concern any more. There was a reason why they wanted to get "computer" OUT of their corporate name.
Unfortunately, those like that (myself incuded) are simply of no real concern any more. There was a reason why they wanted to get "computer" OUT of their corporate name.
I was a professional photographer at one time. I used Nikon equipment. Nikon was considered to be the pro choice in the late 70s and 80s. Then, Nikon went consumer-happy. Their pro cameras are still good, but they diluted their image to the point that Nikon lost its caché as a company dedicated to the pro photographer. Yeah, I can take a great picture with a Kodak Instamatic, but when a company loses its focus (no pun intended) one starts to wonder if they are still serious about the guys who made them the go-to name in the industry. I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
I was a professional photographer at one time. I used Nikon equipment. Nikon was considered to be the pro choice in the late 70s and 80s. Then, Nikon went consumer-happy. Their pro cameras are still good, but they diluted their image to the point that Nikon lost its caché as a company dedicated to the pro photographer. Yeah, I can take a great picture with a Kodak Instamatic, but when a company loses its focus (no pun intended) one starts to wonder if they are still serious about the guys who made them the go-to name in the industry. I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
Not so sure Nikon's foray into the consumer space is the same as Apples. Among pro shooters (especially photojournalists) the hi ISOs with little noise very much set Nikon pro cameras apart from Canon. At least at this point, there is nary a real hint FROM Nikon tey'd be moving away from pros.
Apple, OTOH, heralded this years back with the dropping of "computer" from their name. I got vilified for suggesting that made me queasy, that to me it signaled a shift in focus to yuppie toys.
Besides, it's two days away from keynote and I see ZERO ink about why no MacPro announcement, or even speculation there will be an update. Looks like even the rumor sites are discarding much coverage of actual general purpose Mac computers.
I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
In some ways but 'end users' is a broad brush that encompasses consumers who benefit from Apple's consumer-focused approach. I dislike the lack of updates on pro-level hardware and software but I greatly appreciate the fact that the consumer approach has brought smartphones into the consumer space. Those things used to be ridiculously expensive and not terribly functional and Apple has shaken that industry up from top to bottom.
They need to keep propping the company up with extra legs so that they can then focus on improving their other products. I reckon there will be a Mac Pro refresh before June is done - they need to get those 6-core chips in use.
They won't be using any 8-core chips just yet as they are too expensive:
Yeah, I like the design with the feet much better. If it was lighter, there's less chance they'd get damaged. Plus, heavy impacts get absorbed more by the feet than the machine.
Being able to replace the drive fairly easily in the MBP and buy whatever external screen you want and upgrade it is a big plus. Although you can hook another screen to the iMac, you're still pretty much tied to it.
I've compared a matte IPS and glossy iMac and I'm still of the opinion that the iMac is unusable for me. I feel that the iMac doesn't diffuse the backlight in black areas so you get sharper blacks but you get very intense reflections and they are far more distracting.
On a bright day, it's painful when you catch something bright and the surrounding illumination makes the content almost invisible and this isn't the case on the matte screen so long as the brightness is up.
Even the quad i5 iMac CPUs don't seem to be any improvement over the old Mac Pros so it's not great value for money as you are shelling out almost the same amount as a new Mac Pro. The 27" IPS is great to have bundled but being forced to take one removes the competition so you can't shop around for the most cost-effective solution.
You get people who say how the iMac is fine and pro-level but it's always photographers or even some designers where there's really not much heavy lifting going on. Once you try editing/encoding 1080p or doing raw rendering, the iMac gets so hot you can't even touch it and you feel it's going to break and worry about how much it would cost to repair because it's really been turned into an appliance.
I love the aesthetic improvements in the new iMacs but they still don't quite cut it and Apple needs to give the Mac Pro some attention. It's as if they only ever put the care and attention into their iMac and laptop designs these days. The Mini is about using the weakest parts so it copes in the small box and the Mac Pro, it's about just making the biggest case that can handle anything anyone would want to throw at a machine. I'd rather they push the boundary of what they can get away with fitting in a small box and try to cover 90% of what people need with the Mac Pro and force the rest to do without.
Who cares if one random person can't fit 4 GPUs in one machine or turn their Mac Pro into a 12TB server with 32GB RAM? These are fringe cases. The desktop will die eventually when parts get small enough so even the Pro model needs to start catering for the transition. You get 3TB drives now and pretty much nobody needs more than 9TB of active space. Optical drives are dying out, especially DVD drives so no need to ship every machine with two of them.
The biggest disappointment will be for them to simply leave everything as is and switch the CPU to the 6-core Xeon for the same price because it would show they haven't spent one ounce of effort thinking about it.
Your post is littered with some excellent points.
In particular, the fact that the 'Pro' could be trimmed down. We don't need 4 hard drive bays with HDs approaching 3 T(!) DVDs are...well, uhm, on the decline? Do we need 2 drive spaces?
When you look at the mini and the 'Pro'...they are two ridiculous desktop extremes...and for me, 'follys' of design. ie one too little, one too much. Can we have a 'goldilocks' desktop in the middle, please? WITH DESKTOP PARTS!
One of your ideas, was pushing the 'boundaries' of what Apple can fit in a box giving people 90% of what they need. So we could end up having either a mid-tower(!) after all or a 'Super-Cube'..? Price it £995-£1495. (...and leave the 'Pro' for people who like paying 2k for a quad core cpus with a lame ass consumer gpu.)
It was the last line of your post that resonated with me.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. You are right about the iMac getting 'hot' to the touch when it does anything remotely taxing. eg playing a game. It's uncomfortable to the touch.
1) Once they feel there are enough of the 6 core Xeons available, update to those, 6 and 12 core systems plus hyperthreading
2) Shrink the box down a bit and make it more Pro-sumer with i7 chips and a bit lower price, 4 and 8 core plus hyperthreading
3) Eliminate the line
I think option 2 would be the best route honestly, at least if they want to sell Mac Pros to anyone besides colleges and scientific research facilities. Musicians can certainly find uses for the extra PCI slots, but server processors are not needed by them really.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
i7 875K 2.933GHz Quad $330
i7 960 3.2GHz Quad $570
i7 980X 3.333GHz 6-Core $1000
Lots of great graphics cards available from both companies, there's no reason we couldn't see the return of a $1500 Mac Pro with a solid CPU and graphics card. 4GB RAM base, 16GB max on the single cpu, 32GB max on the dual cpu systems. They could even look at having a SSD for the system drive with 1 or 2TB options for all other drives. A dual 980X with SSD, another drive or 2 and a good graphics card would still be more expensive than the current top end, but the entry price for a Mac Pro would be back where it would be more accessible. Heck, they could probably still do $1500 or $1600 on a dual 875K system. That would help the new Mac Pro's performance stay ahead of whatever upgrade is coming toward the iMac next.
Comments
As usual, Marv' 'gets it.'
It's about time Apple redesigned the 'ageing queen' that is the Mac Pro. It's overblown. It's pretty poor we can't get a 'consumer' tower from Apple. And Marv' here suggests a 'mid-tower' type design to get us back to the level of £1495. Makes sense to me.
He's right. The design needs a bit of an overhaul. It's due. But I wouldn't hold my breath, it seems Apple have designed themselves into a cul-de-sac with their marketing/sales grid. More of the same?
I'd lose the handles. And it give it a cosmetic 'lift' and saw a 1/3 off it's height. Apple should be able to design a more compact tower than that..
Nice mockups! I think it needs pronounced feet for ventilation and as a nod to past PowerMac designs.
I could actually see a smaller version. An "urban" MacPro, for those of us who want top-flight performance, but DO NOT need a zillion drive bays, etc., and do NOT have the space for a full-size MacPro.
Give it comparable MacPro performance in a MUCH smaller form factor: same CPU, same RAM slots, 2 HD bays, 1 optical bay, 2 PCI slots (1 for video). Maybe add an ExpressCard slot in front. Add 4 or 5 separate FireWire 800 circuits (plus LightPeak?) for external expansion. The rest they can keep.
This would be for those of us who opt for a 15" MacBook Pro and external monitor rather than a MacPro or iMac. EVERY designer I know has a similar setup. iMacs are for "the staff". I carry my 15" MBP between my office and different clients', connecting to external monitors, keyboards, trackballs, etc.. No one I know that has a 17" MBP ever carries it, except between their office and the conference room. (BTW, my new 15" i7 MBP is stunning!)
No matter what anyone says, they iMac is NOT pro level. I won't bring up the anti-glare screen debate, but that's a big part of it. Try doing extensive 3D modeling on a glossy screen and I'll give you an ice pack and bottle of Advil.
I'm dyin' ovah here!
For the love of humanity... please don't let this WWDC pass by without an update to the MacPro...
I'm dyin' ovah here!
Tomorrow's Tuesday.... maybe then?
New MacPro along with the new Apple trackpad?
Nice mockups! I think it needs pronounced feet for ventilation and as a nod to past PowerMac designs.
Yeah, I like the design with the feet much better. If it was lighter, there's less chance they'd get damaged. Plus, heavy impacts get absorbed more by the feet than the machine.
This would be for those of us who opt for a 15" MacBook Pro and external monitor rather than a MacPro or iMac. EVERY designer I know has a similar setup.
Being able to replace the drive fairly easily in the MBP and buy whatever external screen you want and upgrade it is a big plus. Although you can hook another screen to the iMac, you're still pretty much tied to it.
No matter what anyone says, they iMac is NOT pro level. I won't bring up the anti-glare screen debate, but that's a big part of it. Try doing extensive 3D modeling on a glossy screen and I'll give you an ice pack and bottle of Advil.
I've compared a matte IPS and glossy iMac and I'm still of the opinion that the iMac is unusable for me. I feel that the iMac doesn't diffuse the backlight in black areas so you get sharper blacks but you get very intense reflections and they are far more distracting.
On a bright day, it's painful when you catch something bright and the surrounding illumination makes the content almost invisible and this isn't the case on the matte screen so long as the brightness is up.
Even the quad i5 iMac CPUs don't seem to be any improvement over the old Mac Pros so it's not great value for money as you are shelling out almost the same amount as a new Mac Pro. The 27" IPS is great to have bundled but being forced to take one removes the competition so you can't shop around for the most cost-effective solution.
You get people who say how the iMac is fine and pro-level but it's always photographers or even some designers where there's really not much heavy lifting going on. Once you try editing/encoding 1080p or doing raw rendering, the iMac gets so hot you can't even touch it and you feel it's going to break and worry about how much it would cost to repair because it's really been turned into an appliance.
I love the aesthetic improvements in the new iMacs but they still don't quite cut it and Apple needs to give the Mac Pro some attention. It's as if they only ever put the care and attention into their iMac and laptop designs these days. The Mini is about using the weakest parts so it copes in the small box and the Mac Pro, it's about just making the biggest case that can handle anything anyone would want to throw at a machine. I'd rather they push the boundary of what they can get away with fitting in a small box and try to cover 90% of what people need with the Mac Pro and force the rest to do without.
Who cares if one random person can't fit 4 GPUs in one machine or turn their Mac Pro into a 12TB server with 32GB RAM? These are fringe cases. The desktop will die eventually when parts get small enough so even the Pro model needs to start catering for the transition. You get 3TB drives now and pretty much nobody needs more than 9TB of active space. Optical drives are dying out, especially DVD drives so no need to ship every machine with two of them.
The biggest disappointment will be for them to simply leave everything as is and switch the CPU to the 6-core Xeon for the same price because it would show they haven't spent one ounce of effort thinking about it.
I could take that they use an expensive Xeon (they've been on the market how long now? How much do they cost?)
Looking at Newegg for 2.26GHz Nehalem Xeons with 8MB L3 cache, this is what I find:
GHz Model Cost/CPU
2.26 E5520 $380
2.26 L5520 $560
2.66 X5550 $1000
2.93 X5570 $1441.51
All I can say is that I really hope the Apple pulls a winner out of the hat if/when they decide to update it... I just can't see any justification for putting this off for so long for no good reason.
1) Once they feel there are enough of the 6 core Xeons available, update to those, 6 and 12 core systems plus hyperthreading
2) Shrink the box down a bit and make it more Pro-sumer with i7 chips and a bit lower price, 4 and 8 core plus hyperthreading
3) Eliminate the line
I think option 2 would be the best route honestly, at least if they want to sell Mac Pros to anyone besides colleges and scientific research facilities. Musicians can certainly find uses for the extra PCI slots, but server processors are not needed by them really.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
i7 875K 2.933GHz Quad $330
i7 960 3.2GHz Quad $570
i7 980X 3.333GHz 6-Core $1000
Lots of great graphics cards available from both companies, there's no reason we couldn't see the return of a $1500 Mac Pro with a solid CPU and graphics card. 4GB RAM base, 16GB max on the single cpu, 32GB max on the dual cpu systems. They could even look at having a SSD for the system drive with 1 or 2TB options for all other drives. A dual 980X with SSD, another drive or 2 and a good graphics card would still be more expensive than the current top end, but the entry price for a Mac Pro would be back where it would be more accessible. Heck, they could probably still do $1500 or $1600 on a dual 875K system. That would help the new Mac Pro's performance stay ahead of whatever upgrade is coming toward the iMac next.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
Core i7 cpus can't be used in pairs. Only Xeons from the 5xxx series.
Core i7-8xx and Core i7-9xx don't use the same chipset nor have the same memory control, that would mean two really different motherboards.
FWIW, the Xeon 35xx series used in the single cpu MP are very similar to Core i7-9xx series, same speed, same price, they "only" have ECC enabled. They even share the same X58 chipset.
Instead of checking on newegg for Intel's pricing, they have a pdf for all their retail processors, that gives a good idea of what is what and how much. I'll let you google it.
Your "possibilities" are impossible.
Of those, how many used more than one?
I've got a question: How many people have ever used the PCI-X (or whatever) slots in their Mac Pros?
Of those, how many used more than one?
Just to install a Kona 3 card. Other than that, no, not recently.
So, maybe there are a bunch of Nehalem-based Mac Pros in Apple's inventory and they want to clear those out before releasing the 6 and 12-core Mac Pros? Plus, where is that 27" LCD monitor? Come on Apple, your iPhone is nice, but we need you to refocus on the power users, on your original customers. I've been using your products since 4MB of RAM was considered outrageously huge! Let's go, get that new stuff out the door already!
Unfortunately, those like that (myself incuded) are simply of no real concern any more. There was a reason why they wanted to get "computer" OUT of their corporate name.
Unfortunately, those like that (myself incuded) are simply of no real concern any more. There was a reason why they wanted to get "computer" OUT of their corporate name.
I was a professional photographer at one time. I used Nikon equipment. Nikon was considered to be the pro choice in the late 70s and 80s. Then, Nikon went consumer-happy. Their pro cameras are still good, but they diluted their image to the point that Nikon lost its caché as a company dedicated to the pro photographer. Yeah, I can take a great picture with a Kodak Instamatic, but when a company loses its focus (no pun intended) one starts to wonder if they are still serious about the guys who made them the go-to name in the industry. I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
I was a professional photographer at one time. I used Nikon equipment. Nikon was considered to be the pro choice in the late 70s and 80s. Then, Nikon went consumer-happy. Their pro cameras are still good, but they diluted their image to the point that Nikon lost its caché as a company dedicated to the pro photographer. Yeah, I can take a great picture with a Kodak Instamatic, but when a company loses its focus (no pun intended) one starts to wonder if they are still serious about the guys who made them the go-to name in the industry. I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
Not so sure Nikon's foray into the consumer space is the same as Apples. Among pro shooters (especially photojournalists) the hi ISOs with little noise very much set Nikon pro cameras apart from Canon. At least at this point, there is nary a real hint FROM Nikon tey'd be moving away from pros.
Apple, OTOH, heralded this years back with the dropping of "computer" from their name. I got vilified for suggesting that made me queasy, that to me it signaled a shift in focus to yuppie toys.
Besides, it's two days away from keynote and I see ZERO ink about why no MacPro announcement, or even speculation there will be an update. Looks like even the rumor sites are discarding much coverage of actual general purpose Mac computers.
Wizard69: seriously.
</grammar nazi>
cachet.
Wizard69: seriously.
</grammar nazi>
Thank you, grammar nazi.
I don't see consumer level Hasselblad. They have kept their attention on the professional. Apple has become just another consumer electronics company. Good for shareholders, bad for end users, in my opinion.
In some ways but 'end users' is a broad brush that encompasses consumers who benefit from Apple's consumer-focused approach. I dislike the lack of updates on pro-level hardware and software but I greatly appreciate the fact that the consumer approach has brought smartphones into the consumer space. Those things used to be ridiculously expensive and not terribly functional and Apple has shaken that industry up from top to bottom.
They need to keep propping the company up with extra legs so that they can then focus on improving their other products. I reckon there will be a Mac Pro refresh before June is done - they need to get those 6-core chips in use.
They won't be using any 8-core chips just yet as they are too expensive:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/neh...ore,10033.html
The Mini update is rumored for next Tuesday so maybe the Mac Pro will tag along and the entry iMac can get a bump to the 320M.
The Mini update is rumored for next Tuesday so maybe the Mac Pro will tag along and the entry iMac can get a bump to the 320M.
please, enough with the rumours!!...
Yeah, I like the design with the feet much better. If it was lighter, there's less chance they'd get damaged. Plus, heavy impacts get absorbed more by the feet than the machine.
Being able to replace the drive fairly easily in the MBP and buy whatever external screen you want and upgrade it is a big plus. Although you can hook another screen to the iMac, you're still pretty much tied to it.
I've compared a matte IPS and glossy iMac and I'm still of the opinion that the iMac is unusable for me. I feel that the iMac doesn't diffuse the backlight in black areas so you get sharper blacks but you get very intense reflections and they are far more distracting.
On a bright day, it's painful when you catch something bright and the surrounding illumination makes the content almost invisible and this isn't the case on the matte screen so long as the brightness is up.
Even the quad i5 iMac CPUs don't seem to be any improvement over the old Mac Pros so it's not great value for money as you are shelling out almost the same amount as a new Mac Pro. The 27" IPS is great to have bundled but being forced to take one removes the competition so you can't shop around for the most cost-effective solution.
You get people who say how the iMac is fine and pro-level but it's always photographers or even some designers where there's really not much heavy lifting going on. Once you try editing/encoding 1080p or doing raw rendering, the iMac gets so hot you can't even touch it and you feel it's going to break and worry about how much it would cost to repair because it's really been turned into an appliance.
I love the aesthetic improvements in the new iMacs but they still don't quite cut it and Apple needs to give the Mac Pro some attention. It's as if they only ever put the care and attention into their iMac and laptop designs these days. The Mini is about using the weakest parts so it copes in the small box and the Mac Pro, it's about just making the biggest case that can handle anything anyone would want to throw at a machine. I'd rather they push the boundary of what they can get away with fitting in a small box and try to cover 90% of what people need with the Mac Pro and force the rest to do without.
Who cares if one random person can't fit 4 GPUs in one machine or turn their Mac Pro into a 12TB server with 32GB RAM? These are fringe cases. The desktop will die eventually when parts get small enough so even the Pro model needs to start catering for the transition. You get 3TB drives now and pretty much nobody needs more than 9TB of active space. Optical drives are dying out, especially DVD drives so no need to ship every machine with two of them.
The biggest disappointment will be for them to simply leave everything as is and switch the CPU to the 6-core Xeon for the same price because it would show they haven't spent one ounce of effort thinking about it.
Your post is littered with some excellent points.
In particular, the fact that the 'Pro' could be trimmed down. We don't need 4 hard drive bays with HDs approaching 3 T(!) DVDs are...well, uhm, on the decline? Do we need 2 drive spaces?
When you look at the mini and the 'Pro'...they are two ridiculous desktop extremes...and for me, 'follys' of design. ie one too little, one too much. Can we have a 'goldilocks' desktop in the middle, please? WITH DESKTOP PARTS!
One of your ideas, was pushing the 'boundaries' of what Apple can fit in a box giving people 90% of what they need. So we could end up having either a mid-tower(!) after all or a 'Super-Cube'..? Price it £995-£1495. (...and leave the 'Pro' for people who like paying 2k for a quad core cpus with a lame ass consumer gpu.)
It was the last line of your post that resonated with me.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. You are right about the iMac getting 'hot' to the touch when it does anything remotely taxing. eg playing a game. It's uncomfortable to the touch.
They have a few possible rotes they can go:
1) Once they feel there are enough of the 6 core Xeons available, update to those, 6 and 12 core systems plus hyperthreading
2) Shrink the box down a bit and make it more Pro-sumer with i7 chips and a bit lower price, 4 and 8 core plus hyperthreading
3) Eliminate the line
I think option 2 would be the best route honestly, at least if they want to sell Mac Pros to anyone besides colleges and scientific research facilities. Musicians can certainly find uses for the extra PCI slots, but server processors are not needed by them really.
A few possible i7 chips, 875K as the low end Quad w/a BTO fo a 960, a dual 875K 8 Core with BTO option of dual 960 and a top end dual 980X 12 Core.
i7 875K 2.933GHz Quad $330
i7 960 3.2GHz Quad $570
i7 980X 3.333GHz 6-Core $1000
Lots of great graphics cards available from both companies, there's no reason we couldn't see the return of a $1500 Mac Pro with a solid CPU and graphics card. 4GB RAM base, 16GB max on the single cpu, 32GB max on the dual cpu systems. They could even look at having a SSD for the system drive with 1 or 2TB options for all other drives. A dual 980X with SSD, another drive or 2 and a good graphics card would still be more expensive than the current top end, but the entry price for a Mac Pro would be back where it would be more accessible. Heck, they could probably still do $1500 or $1600 on a dual 875K system. That would help the new Mac Pro's performance stay ahead of whatever upgrade is coming toward the iMac next.
Good post.
Lemon Bon Bon.