The xMac is different things to different people. If everybody agreed on what it ought to be, Apple might actually think that there's untapped market potential there.
The simplest option (I think) would be:
- a regular MacPro case, no need to spend R&D $$$ on something new.
- a consumer-grade i7 could conceivably work on exisitng mainboards with few (or no) modifications.
- a less powerful, cheaper PSU
- no ECC memory
- lower-cost GPU
- no dual-CPU support
This way there's little extra R&D cost involved, and I bet they could sell this profitably at $1500 with full options approaching the $2500 base-model MacPro.
Hey, am just dreaming out loud...
That's what the iMac is, and that's why you'll always have to go to someone else to get this.
I'll never buy another AIO. I bought the iMac back in 1997 and regretted it a year later. Bought the G4 933 in 2002 and it served me until 2009, when I bought the mini. It's showing its age already, and my next leap will be probably a Mac Pro. Dead? Hardly.
The xMac is different things to different people. If everybody agreed on what it ought to be, Apple might actually think that there's untapped market potential there.
I don't know what Apples mind set is with respect to new Mac models, however they should realize by now that they have turn the Mac Business into a success. They can further drive sales by simply meeting the needs of more users. Frankly bringing more new users into the fold should be a high priority thus the need for a Mac that is attractive to switchers. The Mini is not that Mac.
Quote:
The simplest option (I think) would be:
- a regular MacPro case, no need to spend R&D $$$ on something new.
You see right off the bat you mis the point. Pros don't really care all that much about the Mac Pros giant case, for many it is exactly what they need. However once you step outside of the realm of pros that actually use all of that power the Mac Pro becomes huge and impractical. It is simply to large for many desktops.
In the end a smaller case saves Apple money. Further reducing wasted space means a reduction in other components like fans. In the end you want an easily transported machine that minimizes wasted desk space.
As a side note I've been flirting with an idea that puts a PC into a half rack instrument case. Imagine a HP DVM or similar instrument. With today's components a xMac could very comfortably fit into the case. It would make for a nice standalone PC that could easily be converted into a rack mount. In essence you kill two birds with one stone. Styling is up to Apple but many manufactures make good looking instruments in this form factor.
Quote:
- a consumer-grade i7 could conceivably work on exisitng mainboards with few (or no) modifications.
Well modifications would be required but why not make a motherboard tailored to the platform? I look at it this way if you don't design something that is appealing and capable of being sold in high numbers you might as well stay home. It is sort of the same rational as is used to build the Mini, design to a set of goals.
Quote:
- a less powerful, cheaper PSU
- no ECC memory
- lower-cost GPU
- no dual-CPU support
Those four items should have a major impact price.
Quote:
This way there's little extra R&D cost involved, and I bet they could sell this profitably at $1500 with full options approaching the $2500 base-model MacPro.
I don't really believe you can escape R&D costs because frankly Apple has already tried that with the single processor Mac Pro. You need to work from the ground up to make a cost effective platform. Honestly Apple should be able to hit the $1100 mark with a modestly performing base model. Remember it doesn't cost a lot to build a machine with double the cores of the Mini, better performing cores at that.
Quote:
Hey, am just dreaming out loud...
As are the rest of us!!! I honestly believe that Apple needs to put effort into this to be successful. Of late the Mac Pro is an example of a platform demonstrating a lack of effort. With the right effort Apple could be rewarded with strong sales.
Does anyone care about this overpriced Mac any more?
It has kept the same overall design since the Power Mac G5. I'd buy it & a cinema display but the price would set me back $3,500. How about something a little more reasonable, Apple?!
I just bought the 12 core one recently. If you are a professional and make your living using a Mac, this is the computer to have. The case is old in design but is a marvelous of tech if you look inside. Very well build and designed.
The damn computer is fast as hell.
I just hope at some point Apple will bring back the 30" or plus with a redesigned look and matte screen.
my next leap will be probably a Mac Pro. Dead? Hardly.
It is dead in the sense that it will inevitably die. Storage is moving towards SSD and can be as small as the tiny cards in the Air. It may even merge with RAM at some point - that's the ideal scenario. So they don't need 3.5" drives.
PCI performance can be matched by Light Peak for add-on cards, in fact USB 3 will suffice for a lot of things.
GPUs are eventually going to be best merged with the CPU and sharing the same memory. The CPUs will keep doubling in core count every couple of years.
I don't expect to see a Mac Pro in 10 years. What I do expect is a $600 16-core Mac Mini with an IGP 4x faster than a GTX 480 that can render higher than the following quality:
running at 1080p and 120FPS. By then, 256GB SSD should be in the base model, maybe even 512GB and there will certainly be ports fast enough to handle larger external storage.
Now, people may say there's still a need for the Mac Pro even at this stage because rendering 3D graphics animations will still take forever on it. I'd say no. Firstly, this process will be sped up dramatically using the GPU and algorithms will be tweaked to suit. Secondly, there is a point where calculations will rely too much on data from local storage, which will create a bottleneck in a single machine.
The solution of course is to buy 30x Mac Minis, which take up the space of 1 current Mac Pro and then you have a 480-core renderfarm with 7TB SSD and 240GB RAM all for just $18000 and will draw under 1kW of power and you don't hit the IO bottleneck.
Even if the Mac Pro were to reach a similar spec, there's no reason it would remain at the size and price it's at currently.
Long story short: within 10 years, the Mac Pro will get smaller to become the mid-sized tower we are talking about now and the Mini will become fast enough to satisfy most of the requirements for this mid-range tower.
We might also have 16-core iPads though. A 15" 1600x1200 iPad with even 8-core 64-bit ARM, 8GB RAM and 256-512GB SSD would be a pretty awesome little device without some of the iOS restrictions.
However I still see a limited number of people needing a Mac Pro type computer. Frankly they will be the same sorts of people that put the current Mac Pros to work using all of the available cores.
The near future though is likely to be focused on a move to smaller form factor machines. 32nm and smaller feature sizes means that we will see incredibly dense SoC implementations that run very cool. We could potentially see a 4 core 8 thread Mini by next year that uses less power than the current machine. This year is likely to see a Sandy Bridge based Mini, which again should dramatically improve performance and lower power usage. Of course Apple will have to stop treating the Mini like a poor step child but that is another thing all together.
Minis problem is that its size dictates the use of Mobile processors in the lower power ranges. This isn't bad at all as the Mini is a really nice platform for many users. It is a problem however for those that look at computing hardware as a platform for implementing what ever their imagination conjures up. Mini simply doesn't have the flexibility of a machine with easily accessed disk drive slots or a PCI slot or two. However this mythical XMac doesn't have to be a massive tower these days as we have already established that SoC tech means that these machines can be made extremely small. Combine this with far smaller drives, power supplies and basically everything else and you can see where a small but upgradeable machine isn't all that much of a stretch.
We don't need massive tower like machines anymore to make a PC flexible.
I don't know what Apples mind set is with respect to new Mac models, however they should realize by now that they have turn the Mac Business into a success. They can further drive sales by simply meeting the needs of more users. Frankly bringing more new users into the fold should be a high priority thus the need for a Mac that is attractive to switchers.
Well, their computer business has increased exponentially thanks to their success with consumer electronics. And the majority of their users are just fine with a Macbook or iMac. Their design philosophy works. I doubt they?d change course because a few people still want ?in-the-box? expandability. The iMac suffices for my everyday computing needs, just not for music/audio. But I?d wager we are an insignificant portion of the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
You see right off the bat you mis the point. Pros don't really care all that much about the Mac Pros giant case, for many it is exactly what they need. However once you step outside of the realm of pros that actually use all of that power the Mac Pro becomes huge and impractical. It is simply to large for many desktops.
Well modifications would be required but why not make a motherboard tailored to the platform? I look at it this way if you don't design something that is appealing and capable of being sold in high numbers you might as well stay home. It is sort of the same rational as is used to build the Mini, design to a set of goals.
I don't really believe you can escape R&D costs because frankly Apple has already tried that with the single processor Mac Pro. You need to work from the ground up to make a cost effective platform. Honestly Apple should be able to hit the $1100 mark with a modestly performing base model.
Perhaps I do miss the point, but I?m just thinking out loud about how Apple could make a more affordable, expandable machine with minimum investment. Personally, I?d much rather have the MacPro in a 2U rackmount case, with detachable mounts for those who don?t need it. Towers are sooo 20th century. But designing an Xmac from the ground up means dedicating $$$ and human resources to a project that is not likely to appeal to the masses.
As it is, I don?t see why the current entry-level MacPro can?t sell profitably for $1999. With the modifications I mentioned in a previous post I figure it would possible to get the price further down, perhaps to $1499
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I honestly believe that Apple needs to put effort into this to be successful. Of late the Mac Pro is an example of a platform demonstrating a lack of effort. With the right effort Apple could be rewarded with strong sales.
Well, the onus is on us (pun not intended) as Apple computers continue to sell better than ever. But I agree that the latest incarnations of the MacPro seem somewhat half-hearted. Apple?s product road map so far does not bode well for power users.
We might also have 16-core iPads though. A 15" 1600x1200 iPad with even 8-core 64-bit ARM, 8GB RAM and 256-512GB SSD would be a pretty awesome little device without some of the iOS restrictions.
FWIW, I expect a 15" iPad to have at least 2048*1536 in a couple of years, and probably 3840x2400 WQUXGA (300 ppi) in less than 5 years.
Quote:
ST-Ericsson's new Nova A9600 brings over 200 percent more mobile computing performance compared to the U8500 platform. It features the industry's best and most efficient low-power implementation known today of a dual ARM® Cortex- A15 MPCore? with each core running up to 2.5GHz thanks to very innovative power saving techniques to be disclosed later this year.
The Nova A9600 will be the first platform announced to incorporate Imagination Technologies next generation of graphics processors, codenamed Rogue, which will set a new performance bar for GPUs at mobile power consumption levels. The Nova A9600 will bring more than a 20-fold improvement in graphics performance compared with the U8500 platform.
"POWERVR Series6, codenamed 'Rogue', moves the goalposts in terms of graphics performance and efficiency at low power consumption for next generation mobile."
The Nova A9600 will also be able to play full HD video at 120 frames per second, supporting professional camcorder-quality recording in 3D, as well as high definition videoconferencing and tele-presence.
I find it laughable that people always bring up the graphics card as the only use of PCI expansion.
Seriously, if you're actually working on stuff that requires PCI expansion then paying for a Mac Pro shouldn't be an issue. If it is an issue, then it sounds like you're not billing enough.
Seriously, if you're actually working on stuff that requires PCI expansion then paying for a Mac Pro shouldn't be an issue. If it is an issue, then it sounds like you're not billing enough.
Where is this coming from?
There are much more uses for PCI(e) cards than just graphics. Period.
Did I even say I was working on stuff that requires PCI expansion?
Of course there are more uses for it. All of which are pretty much reserved for professionals or hobbyists.
No, you didn't but clearly I was speaking of the proverbial "you."
You don't have to mention the Mac Pro. This is a Mac Pro thread. That's what we're talking about.
Again, you're assuming that I'm interested in your justification for the content of your previous post. I'm not. You just didn't need to quote my post to make your statement. That's what made it not clear at all.
For the majority of users the iMac fits the bill better, but I suppose for some pro users who for instance need workstation graphics cards (which the pro is lacking in anyways, but if they NEED OSX) or ECC memory, the Pro is still needed. I can't imagine volume being very high, but if its still around I guess it means people are still buying it.
As for its fate, I'm not certain. Maybe it will be discontinued like the xServe, who knows. That would certainly irk pro users/developers though.
...I suppose for some pro users who for instance need workstation graphics cards (which the pro is lacking in anyways...
A lot of people think that because Apple doesn't offer Workstation GPUs as BTO that they're not available. That's not true. In fact, there are two Workstation GPUs available on Apple's own site:
Many professional creators use Macpro's to do their work on and cost is largely irrelevant as it is recovered through business and thus is not aimed at the same people.
With the onset of cloud computing iMacs and Macbook air/pro are perfectly set to become the intelligent domestic user terminals of the future running suitable small apps.
But what professional users need is a re-designed MacPro, maybe half the volume size of todays having just a motherboard with twin zeon multicore processors 32gbt of RAM slots and 8 full PCIexpress slots capacity housing upto six hotswopable 2terabt SSD cards or whatever and a full graphics card for twin monitor workstation use or extra 2 SSD slots for stackable server node use, one design can service all pro users in all studio requirements and the machine can still be bought by funky geeks like me and you wishing to show off OK! and NO despite the wiring nightmare thirty minies just doesn't cut the mustard does it. (that is a rhetorical question btw)
If Apple used such a new sleek streamlined design in their own datacentre it would be quite cost effective to re-develop the Macpro and would also bring professional services back on their cloud nine campus so to speak for the foreseeable future.
Comments
The xMac is different things to different people. If everybody agreed on what it ought to be, Apple might actually think that there's untapped market potential there.
The simplest option (I think) would be:
- a regular MacPro case, no need to spend R&D $$$ on something new.
- a consumer-grade i7 could conceivably work on exisitng mainboards with few (or no) modifications.
- a less powerful, cheaper PSU
- no ECC memory
- lower-cost GPU
- no dual-CPU support
This way there's little extra R&D cost involved, and I bet they could sell this profitably at $1500 with full options approaching the $2500 base-model MacPro.
Hey, am just dreaming out loud...
That's what the iMac is, and that's why you'll always have to go to someone else to get this.
I can't think of any compelling reason why the single-CPU MacPro has to be a Xeon. Or why it can't sell for $1999
The xMac is different things to different people. If everybody agreed on what it ought to be, Apple might actually think that there's untapped market potential there.
I don't know what Apples mind set is with respect to new Mac models, however they should realize by now that they have turn the Mac Business into a success. They can further drive sales by simply meeting the needs of more users. Frankly bringing more new users into the fold should be a high priority thus the need for a Mac that is attractive to switchers. The Mini is not that Mac.
The simplest option (I think) would be:
- a regular MacPro case, no need to spend R&D $$$ on something new.
You see right off the bat you mis the point. Pros don't really care all that much about the Mac Pros giant case, for many it is exactly what they need. However once you step outside of the realm of pros that actually use all of that power the Mac Pro becomes huge and impractical. It is simply to large for many desktops.
In the end a smaller case saves Apple money. Further reducing wasted space means a reduction in other components like fans. In the end you want an easily transported machine that minimizes wasted desk space.
As a side note I've been flirting with an idea that puts a PC into a half rack instrument case. Imagine a HP DVM or similar instrument. With today's components a xMac could very comfortably fit into the case. It would make for a nice standalone PC that could easily be converted into a rack mount. In essence you kill two birds with one stone. Styling is up to Apple but many manufactures make good looking instruments in this form factor.
- a consumer-grade i7 could conceivably work on exisitng mainboards with few (or no) modifications.
Well modifications would be required but why not make a motherboard tailored to the platform? I look at it this way if you don't design something that is appealing and capable of being sold in high numbers you might as well stay home. It is sort of the same rational as is used to build the Mini, design to a set of goals.
- a less powerful, cheaper PSU
- no ECC memory
- lower-cost GPU
- no dual-CPU support
Those four items should have a major impact price.
This way there's little extra R&D cost involved, and I bet they could sell this profitably at $1500 with full options approaching the $2500 base-model MacPro.
I don't really believe you can escape R&D costs because frankly Apple has already tried that with the single processor Mac Pro. You need to work from the ground up to make a cost effective platform. Honestly Apple should be able to hit the $1100 mark with a modestly performing base model. Remember it doesn't cost a lot to build a machine with double the cores of the Mini, better performing cores at that.
Hey, am just dreaming out loud...
As are the rest of us!!! I honestly believe that Apple needs to put effort into this to be successful. Of late the Mac Pro is an example of a platform demonstrating a lack of effort. With the right effort Apple could be rewarded with strong sales.
Does anyone care about this overpriced Mac any more?
It has kept the same overall design since the Power Mac G5. I'd buy it & a cinema display but the price would set me back $3,500. How about something a little more reasonable, Apple?!
I just bought the 12 core one recently. If you are a professional and make your living using a Mac, this is the computer to have. The case is old in design but is a marvelous of tech if you look inside. Very well build and designed.
The damn computer is fast as hell.
I just hope at some point Apple will bring back the 30" or plus with a redesigned look and matte screen.
my next leap will be probably a Mac Pro. Dead? Hardly.
It is dead in the sense that it will inevitably die. Storage is moving towards SSD and can be as small as the tiny cards in the Air. It may even merge with RAM at some point - that's the ideal scenario. So they don't need 3.5" drives.
PCI performance can be matched by Light Peak for add-on cards, in fact USB 3 will suffice for a lot of things.
GPUs are eventually going to be best merged with the CPU and sharing the same memory. The CPUs will keep doubling in core count every couple of years.
I don't expect to see a Mac Pro in 10 years. What I do expect is a $600 16-core Mac Mini with an IGP 4x faster than a GTX 480 that can render higher than the following quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp9wBqjSCg0
running at 1080p and 120FPS. By then, 256GB SSD should be in the base model, maybe even 512GB and there will certainly be ports fast enough to handle larger external storage.
Now, people may say there's still a need for the Mac Pro even at this stage because rendering 3D graphics animations will still take forever on it. I'd say no. Firstly, this process will be sped up dramatically using the GPU and algorithms will be tweaked to suit. Secondly, there is a point where calculations will rely too much on data from local storage, which will create a bottleneck in a single machine.
The solution of course is to buy 30x Mac Minis, which take up the space of 1 current Mac Pro and then you have a 480-core renderfarm with 7TB SSD and 240GB RAM all for just $18000 and will draw under 1kW of power and you don't hit the IO bottleneck.
Even if the Mac Pro were to reach a similar spec, there's no reason it would remain at the size and price it's at currently.
Long story short: within 10 years, the Mac Pro will get smaller to become the mid-sized tower we are talking about now and the Mini will become fast enough to satisfy most of the requirements for this mid-range tower.
We might also have 16-core iPads though. A 15" 1600x1200 iPad with even 8-core 64-bit ARM, 8GB RAM and 256-512GB SSD would be a pretty awesome little device without some of the iOS restrictions.
The near future though is likely to be focused on a move to smaller form factor machines. 32nm and smaller feature sizes means that we will see incredibly dense SoC implementations that run very cool. We could potentially see a 4 core 8 thread Mini by next year that uses less power than the current machine. This year is likely to see a Sandy Bridge based Mini, which again should dramatically improve performance and lower power usage. Of course Apple will have to stop treating the Mini like a poor step child but that is another thing all together.
Minis problem is that its size dictates the use of Mobile processors in the lower power ranges. This isn't bad at all as the Mini is a really nice platform for many users. It is a problem however for those that look at computing hardware as a platform for implementing what ever their imagination conjures up. Mini simply doesn't have the flexibility of a machine with easily accessed disk drive slots or a PCI slot or two. However this mythical XMac doesn't have to be a massive tower these days as we have already established that SoC tech means that these machines can be made extremely small. Combine this with far smaller drives, power supplies and basically everything else and you can see where a small but upgradeable machine isn't all that much of a stretch.
We don't need massive tower like machines anymore to make a PC flexible.
I don't know what Apples mind set is with respect to new Mac models, however they should realize by now that they have turn the Mac Business into a success. They can further drive sales by simply meeting the needs of more users. Frankly bringing more new users into the fold should be a high priority thus the need for a Mac that is attractive to switchers.
Well, their computer business has increased exponentially thanks to their success with consumer electronics. And the majority of their users are just fine with a Macbook or iMac. Their design philosophy works. I doubt they?d change course because a few people still want ?in-the-box? expandability. The iMac suffices for my everyday computing needs, just not for music/audio. But I?d wager we are an insignificant portion of the market.
You see right off the bat you mis the point. Pros don't really care all that much about the Mac Pros giant case, for many it is exactly what they need. However once you step outside of the realm of pros that actually use all of that power the Mac Pro becomes huge and impractical. It is simply to large for many desktops.
Well modifications would be required but why not make a motherboard tailored to the platform? I look at it this way if you don't design something that is appealing and capable of being sold in high numbers you might as well stay home. It is sort of the same rational as is used to build the Mini, design to a set of goals.
I don't really believe you can escape R&D costs because frankly Apple has already tried that with the single processor Mac Pro. You need to work from the ground up to make a cost effective platform. Honestly Apple should be able to hit the $1100 mark with a modestly performing base model.
Perhaps I do miss the point, but I?m just thinking out loud about how Apple could make a more affordable, expandable machine with minimum investment. Personally, I?d much rather have the MacPro in a 2U rackmount case, with detachable mounts for those who don?t need it. Towers are sooo 20th century. But designing an Xmac from the ground up means dedicating $$$ and human resources to a project that is not likely to appeal to the masses.
As it is, I don?t see why the current entry-level MacPro can?t sell profitably for $1999. With the modifications I mentioned in a previous post I figure it would possible to get the price further down, perhaps to $1499
I honestly believe that Apple needs to put effort into this to be successful. Of late the Mac Pro is an example of a platform demonstrating a lack of effort. With the right effort Apple could be rewarded with strong sales.
Well, the onus is on us (pun not intended) as Apple computers continue to sell better than ever. But I agree that the latest incarnations of the MacPro seem somewhat half-hearted. Apple?s product road map so far does not bode well for power users.
Let's hope their iWatch will make up for it?
We might also have 16-core iPads though. A 15" 1600x1200 iPad with even 8-core 64-bit ARM, 8GB RAM and 256-512GB SSD would be a pretty awesome little device without some of the iOS restrictions.
One step at a time.
Imagination Technologies unveils Series 6 PowerVR GPUs (2014)
FWIW, I expect a 15" iPad to have at least 2048*1536 in a couple of years, and probably 3840x2400 WQUXGA (300 ppi) in less than 5 years.
ST-Ericsson's new Nova A9600 brings over 200 percent more mobile computing performance compared to the U8500 platform. It features the industry's best and most efficient low-power implementation known today of a dual ARM® Cortex- A15 MPCore? with each core running up to 2.5GHz thanks to very innovative power saving techniques to be disclosed later this year.
The Nova A9600 will be the first platform announced to incorporate Imagination Technologies next generation of graphics processors, codenamed Rogue, which will set a new performance bar for GPUs at mobile power consumption levels. The Nova A9600 will bring more than a 20-fold improvement in graphics performance compared with the U8500 platform.
"POWERVR Series6, codenamed 'Rogue', moves the goalposts in terms of graphics performance and efficiency at low power consumption for next generation mobile."
The Nova A9600 will also be able to play full HD video at 120 frames per second, supporting professional camcorder-quality recording in 3D, as well as high definition videoconferencing and tele-presence.
http://www.cringely.com/
If he is right would this do away with the Mac Pro?
I find it laughable that people always bring up the PCI issue with the iMacs. 99% of users are not going to be upgrading their graphics cards.
I find it laughable that people always bring up the graphics card as the only use of PCI expansion.
I find it laughable that people always bring up the graphics card as the only use of PCI expansion.
Seriously, if you're actually working on stuff that requires PCI expansion then paying for a Mac Pro shouldn't be an issue. If it is an issue, then it sounds like you're not billing enough.
Seriously, if you're actually working on stuff that requires PCI expansion then paying for a Mac Pro shouldn't be an issue. If it is an issue, then it sounds like you're not billing enough.
Where is this coming from?
There are much more uses for PCI(e) cards than just graphics. Period.
Did I even say I was working on stuff that requires PCI expansion?
Did I mention the Mac Pro? Did I mention $$$?
Seriously, learn to read.
Where is this coming from?
There are much more uses for PCI(e) cards than just graphics. Period.
Did I even say I was working on stuff that requires PCI expansion?
Did I mention the Mac Pro? Did I mention $$$?
Seriously, learn to read.
Of course there are more uses for it. All of which are pretty much reserved for professionals or hobbyists.
Did I even say I was working on stuff that requires PCI expansion?
No, you didn't but clearly I was speaking of the proverbial "you."
Did I mention the Mac Pro? Did I mention $$$?
You don't have to mention the Mac Pro. This is a Mac Pro thread. That's what we're talking about.
Of course there are more uses for it. All of which are pretty much reserved for professionals or hobbyists.
No, you didn't but clearly I was speaking of the proverbial "you."
You don't have to mention the Mac Pro. This is a Mac Pro thread. That's what we're talking about.
Again, you're assuming that I'm interested in your justification for the content of your previous post. I'm not. You just didn't need to quote my post to make your statement. That's what made it not clear at all.
As for its fate, I'm not certain. Maybe it will be discontinued like the xServe, who knows. That would certainly irk pro users/developers though.
...I suppose for some pro users who for instance need workstation graphics cards (which the pro is lacking in anyways...
A lot of people think that because Apple doesn't offer Workstation GPUs as BTO that they're not available. That's not true. In fact, there are two Workstation GPUs available on Apple's own site:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/H3...k&s=topSellers
and
http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW...co=MTA4MzU2Nzg
With the onset of cloud computing iMacs and Macbook air/pro are perfectly set to become the intelligent domestic user terminals of the future running suitable small apps.
But what professional users need is a re-designed MacPro, maybe half the volume size of todays having just a motherboard with twin zeon multicore processors 32gbt of RAM slots and 8 full PCIexpress slots capacity housing upto six hotswopable 2terabt SSD cards or whatever and a full graphics card for twin monitor workstation use or extra 2 SSD slots for stackable server node use, one design can service all pro users in all studio requirements and the machine can still be bought by funky geeks like me and you wishing to show off OK! and NO despite the wiring nightmare thirty minies just doesn't cut the mustard does it. (that is a rhetorical question btw)
If Apple used such a new sleek streamlined design in their own datacentre it would be quite cost effective to re-develop the Macpro and would also bring professional services back on their cloud nine campus so to speak for the foreseeable future.