If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
They could take the price off the iMac monitor and offer that as an entry tower (I'd say 're-designed desktop' to keep the Wizard, JD and myself happy...) for about £1000. Offer one mid range for £1500. High end with dual processors for £2000.
If Apple lowers prices drastically and drives 'combo' sales of said unit with their monitor then maybe they can get split margins as a package. Same with the iMac. It's a good deal. You get the monitor included. They could do the same with an 'Apple Pro.' (as JD named it.) That way you get margins on two products if you 'bundle' them. I don't think that's anti-American or anything...
That way, you have laptops in the £1000-£2000 if you want portability. iMacs if you want desktop elegance with decent power. But if you want just that bit more power and expandability you get the 'not a tower' also in the same price range but with the added expense of a monitor (but still wayyyy cheaper than the current Pro set up which is ridiculously priced.) There's no reason laptops and desktops/more powerful desktops can't occupy the £1000-£2000. That's still premium pricing compared to bargain basement PC prices of £399 to £795. There's just slight trade offs for the consumer depending on what they want.
...plus...if Apple re-designs it with a nod to an X-Grid hardware set up of modular lego bricks that you can add ala a Lego-Brick X-Server...you can add nodes/clients as you need more power.
Think 3 'Cube's equalling the power of a Mac Pro dual processor kind of thing. Apple make more money over time because people can aggregrated the computing power.
A bit like some have suggested can be done with Mac Minis.
Apple did X-Serve. Can it be that hard to make '3 Cubes' Minis work to pool compute resources to feed Open CL which just parcels info' anyhow?
And you have that juicy Thunderbolt connection and all...(think of the margins on cables alone for noding...)
I thought it was in Apple's DNA to turn the non-trivial into the trivial?
If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
That makes sense for GPUs, there are already a few companies promising external enclosures. But with this implementation of TB I think adding CPUs is some time off, we're talking 17GB/s (not Gb) just in memory bandwidth from one channel for some of them, and then all the other interconnects. Its an interesting thought though. Another revision of Thunderbolt down the line maybe its possible, and once that's possible the Mac Pro would have limited appeal, you could have external RAID enclosures for storage, hubs for different ports you need, TB music/pro accessories rather than PCI, etc.
The enthusiast in me wants them to continue making a balls-out tower, but who knows with Apple, they've cut off waning tech early many times before.
That is how does Apple get the TB integration with the GPU's sitting in PCI-E slots. Will Apple even support that integration on the Mac Pro or its replacement? This could be a long discussion and frankly impacts how Apple updates or replaces the Mac Pro.
I honest think they will have to integrate the GPU onto the motherboard. This might result in fixed GPU memory, but if Apple was smart they would put the GPU memory on a separate card. The other option would be multiple Mac models varying in GPU implementation.
The more that I think about this the more I believe that the Pro is due for a total make over. This is just one technical issue that Apple will be running into.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
First; we have t think about Thunderbolt (TB) and how Apple will go about supporting that and the associated video channels. The first possibility is that they punt and simply don't support the video multiplexing. I don't think that will happen. They could go with a special purpose video card connector but again I don't think that ill happen. I suspect that they will integrate the chip right on the motherboard. This is the right long term solution especially as video hardware becomes more closely coupled to the CPU hardware and allows them to support TB as they already have been. Like it or not this is one reason why I think the Pro is dead.
Second; SATA is pretty much dead as the primary storage channel for forward looking PC hardware. Instead I'm expecting that a base machine would rely upon solid state storage implemented on an advanced plug in card. This card would use the latest PCI Express interface electrical standards but might vary in physical dimensions. This would allow Apple to implement very fast solid state arrays for the primary secondary storage implementation ( in other words the boot and app drive). I'm careful to say solid state here as i don't expect flash to be around for long, however memory on a card is the long term play. I could see Apple implementing two or three slots dedicated to high speed system storage.
Third; I see a move away from dual socket systems. Things like Sandy Bridge E will improve rapidly and some of the leak benchmarks are indeed impressive. If we do see dual socket in the future one of those sockets will be for the GPU at which point it will be an equal to the CPU on the memory bus. Interestingly I see AMD as the more interesting play here with their GCN initiative. In any event I suspect all future machines will have one CPU socket
Fourth; far more TB ports. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see at least four on a Pro replacement machine. They will of course be used to hook up the video screens but I see extended usage for connection to disk arrays, and for the creation of clusters of Macs. TB all also start to support a lot of novel hardware so the more ports the better.
Fifth; if the new machine provides for any sort of magnetic drive capability it will probably be with small notebook sized drives. The preference for mass storage will be TB connected disk arrays. The Pros replacement would signal the end of magnetic media in desktop machines.
Sixth; Even though the machine will be far more compact I expect that it will still have expansion slots. I just don;t think they will be capable of supporting graphics cards.
Seventh; the same chassis that supports an advanced machine running Sandy Bridge E or what ever workstation processor will also have a mid level performance machine. This would use a Fusion or Ivy Bridge like processor to deliver something better than Mini performance. Think of this as a mid range volume machine where GPU performance can be more modest.
There are two problems with much of what you suggest:
1. Apple is not likely to create an entirely new storage mechanism by itself and have it stick at the Pro level. They just don't sell enough machines to drive the industry in a new direction. Same thing with some of your other suggestions. The cost of doing something completely new would be too high for something that only sells 50 K units a quarter (or year, or whatever).
2. Putting the GPU on the motherboard is probably a mistake. Pros are quite willing to change out GPUs when something newer and faster comes along. Similarly, the idea of basing the new Pro design on the iMac is a non-starter. Expandability is critical.
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Originally Posted by Mike Eggleston
If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
There's some value to that and it was suggested in earlier threads by someone.
Picture a Mac Mini with a slot on the top and bottom (perhaps based on Thunderbolt). When you need more power, you buy another one and stack it on top. Maybe some of them come with CPU, GPU, and SSD, others might just have hard disk storage. Others might have only a CPU or GPU (they might even have different thicknesses, as well). You could buy what you need when you need it. Particularly if they used something like ZFS, expansion would be trivial. When you start running out of storage, just slap on a new hard drive subunit. When the system starts slowing down, slap on a CPU unit. And so on.
I'm sure there are a lot of technical issues to be resolved (and maybe even something that would make it impractical), but it's a clever idea.
This is what I have been pondering regarding a Mac pro replacement. Apple should take what they have learned making the Mini and apply it to the workstation. Maybe even put the Mini team on the Mac Pro team. I'm not saying they try to make a Mini Mac Pro, but rather use the knowledge and creativity from that team to open a can Think Different whup ass on the Mac Pro's aluminum butt.
Internal discussions at Apple were said to focus on the fact that sales of the high-end Mac Pro workstations have dropped off so considerably that the desktop machines are no longer particularly profitable for the company.
I recall these discussions first came to light in the apple-rumors realm about 1 year into the Mac Pro's current iteration (give or take a few months).
I admit I'm not a highly-paid sales executive or a highfalutin market researcher, but isn't it reasonable to expect that an over-priced, over-configured, outdated hunk of aluminum (albeit attractive) is going to drop off in sales? That's it for my "well, duh" reference. I feel it's a mistake to base their Pro desktop strategy on that metric. Honestly, I'd be surprised if that's all they considered in their process.
I don't pretend to be a 'somebody' in the industry, but I'd still like to proffer my desires for a Mac Pro replacement (on the off-chance that someone of influence reads this and cares in the slightest).
First, I'd like to see the dual processor option go away. This is where a good chuck of cost occurs. If I had to choose between an 6 to 8-core (single chip) Mac Pro and a discontinued Mac Pro, I'd pick the single-chip version. There are very powerful non-Xeon chips available that are quite reasonably priced.
Second, I'd change the form factor to 18.9" high by 2u wide. This way the Pro could play the roll of both desktop and rackmount server - killing two birds with one stone and offering some solace to those of us who cling to the Xserve. The case door would have to be rackmount access friendly and the internals must be easily serviceable.
Third, I'd take the plunge and switch to 2.5" front mounted hot-swap drives. It's not really what I want, but I think it makes sense with this form factor. Oh, and those drives would have activity and status lights.
The Mac Pro is really outdated technology for a workstation. I'd much rather see Apple take something line Sandy Bridge E and make a thoroughly modern and forward looking desktop computer. The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon.
So yeah I hope Apple uses this chip, I just hope that it is in a modern implementation that completely leverages the technology they have available these days. Oh and please do it at a reasonable price point.
i dont' know why they don't revisit the 'cube' made out of aluminum. basically just make a mini but cube it so you can have better processors, drives, add in card etc.
I admit I'm not a highly-paid sales executive or a highfalutin market researcher, but isn't it reasonable to expect that an over-priced, over-configured, outdated hunk of aluminum (albeit attractive) is going to drop off in sales?
Actually, if you do some comparisons for truly comparable systems, the Mac Pro is very competitively priced, especially for the dual- CPU versions.
Admittedly, they can't quite touch the very high end performance since they haven't updated the CPU for quite a while, but until these Sandy Bridge chips, the gains were modest. The CPU in a mid-2010 Mac Pro is only a few percent slower than the latest CPUs available.
I think there will be a new Mac Pro soon. People say Apple are unpredictable with their Mac Pro releases, and that is bad for company buying cycles, but I don't think they are unpredictable: they follow the Intel CPU releases quite closely.
What is a legitimate complaint, is that as the years go by, they don't gradually lower the price of their machines to reflect the fact that the technology is getting old. But if they did gradually lower the price, people would complain when there's an update and they put the price back to "normal." And people would also complain that the price drops are unpredictable.
To be a happy Mac Pro owner, buy right after it is updated (because they actually are quite good value at that point) and then track the Intel rumours to know when your next buying cycle will be. And don't listen to relatively baseless speculation about discontinuation. Baseless relative to the Intel roadmaps that leak fairly regularly and the historical evidence that Apple updates the Mac Pro at this point.
It would be great if Apple would at least offer an upgrade to the newest motherboard/chipset if they do not go forth with new Mac Pro machines. I would be interested in upgrading my Mac Pro which is a dual Quad 2.26GHz (8 core). The physical machine is perfect, why toss it? Upgrade it!
i dont' know why they don't revisit the 'cube' made out of aluminum. basically just make a mini but cube it so you can have better processors, drives, add in card etc.
Personally, being a video editor, it would be great if the Mac Pro had at least 4 card slots for graphics, audio and video boards. Put in a AJA board, an extra graphics card and a fiber channel card, you are max'd out. Anyone remember the old Power PCs like the 9500? It had 5 slots as I recall. The iMac is a nice machine, but too limited for pro editing and audio applications.
"The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon."
I'm curious (not trying to be sarcastic), what would be the "right" Mac Pro to base the next 10 years upon?
I don't think the real question is about the right Mac Pro, but the right Mac. There isn't as much need for pros to have a tower computer as there was in the past. There will be a need for drives, extreme IO and the most intense processing, but the need for a tower workstation is dwindling as time goes on. The power of an SGI Indigo can probably be emulated in a Mac mini a few times over.
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Originally Posted by jouster
The iMac.
I know that's not what people want to hear, but I think there's an increasing chance that it's what Apple plans.
That's probably where Apple is going. I'm thinking of buying an iMac soon to replace my workstation tower for CAD CAM work. For the pro market, I think iMac or a laptop. Pros have been using laptops for a decade now for their mobile activities anyway, and now there are quad core options, and pretty soon enough, hexacore, etc. For video encoding and special processing, I think AJA, Black Magic and the rest of them will have dedicated boxes that do that sort of thing more efficiently than a CPU, if they don't already.
All of the mac Pros we have here are at least 3.5 years old. We have a couple of the original 4 core models too. They all still work and are in daily use. I just spiffed up a 2008 model with a SSD and 16 gigs of RAM. Better than new.
We certainly would consider buying a new model, particularly if it offered significant processing increases along with power saving improvements and a smaller footprint.
The Mac Pro's may not be profitable by themselves, but the people who do buy them are the same people who create the Apps and Content that drives the sales of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks.
Exactly. It is the same situation with the Xserve. The high powered workstations and enterprise class rack servers are used to support high end content creation and the purchase of many more client systems. So of course high end systems will always sell in lower numbers than midrange or entry level systems. And it is the same situation in real life. It's like saying Apple should "discontinue" Tim Cook and eliminate his position because Apple has only one CEO.
For people who think laptops will completely replace Mac Pros, do you actually enjoy listening to your fans running loudly at full speed when doing CPU intensive tasks like video encoding? The Mac Mini is not so quiet either at full saturation. Yet the Mac Pro remains quiet when doing the same tasks and more.
For people who think laptops will completely replace Mac Pros, do you actually enjoy listening to your fans running loudly at full speed when doing CPU intensive tasks like video encoding? The Mac Mini is not so quiet either at full saturation. Yet the Mac Pro remains quiet when doing the same tasks and more.
Exactly. I use a MacBook Pro when I need to be portable, and as an auxiliary machine to my Mac Pro, which I will always use for 99% of my HD video encoding/editing, color correction, and motion graphics. The MBP gets hot and loud when I have to do such things on it, while the Mac Pro silently and dutifully handles it with ease. I bought the most recent model in summer/fall 2010, and it still feels brand new.
I'm all for a smaller form factor/new design, but they need to have a product of equal power be the upgrade. Hell, the iPod classic is still around because it's the only iPod with that kind of storage. I'd like to think the Mac Pro will live on in a similar vein...
and... if Apple decides to just do what it has to do and axe the line, I hope there's at least a month or two grace period before it's discontinued, much like they did with the XServe. But... I just don't want to think about that.
I don't think the real question is about the right Mac Pro, but the right Mac. Except for drives and maybe extreme IO, there isn't as much need for pros to have a tower computer as there was.
That's probably where Apple is going. I'm thinking of buying an iMac soon to replace my workstation tower for CAD CAM work. For the pro market, I think that or a laptop, pros have been using laptops for a decade now for their mobile activities anyway, and now there are quad core options.
Bullseye on both points.
As for your second point. It was pretty interesting when I attended a '3D Class' around eight years ago. Lots of '1 gighz' PEE CEE 'workstations'... One day, this girl came in with a 'PowerBook' (as they were then...I think...) and ran the 3D program in question much faster and rendered much faster than the desktops! I couldn't believe (at the time) how quick it was to model and render on the laptop.
Not so long ago, Apple boasted that the G5 could handle audio this and Photoshop actions that in x seconds...and do Mathematica algorithms twice as fast as a Pentium 4 etc.
Today. Many years after the transition to Intel...we have machines that can blitz G5s to melted marshmallows...in laptops and desktops from consumer to prosumer.
For a majority of creative types, I'd guess a quad core i7 with 4-8 gigs of ram with a reasonably recent GPU is more than enough.
You're paying an awful lot extra for that 2nd socket when maybe a Raid and more memory may better serve you.
By the time you get 6 and 8 core iMacs (who knows..?) in the next few years with even more ram and who knows what else...maybe even bigger screens to create an iMac Pro (you never know...
...it's not like the quad or 6 core Pro shames the iMac in any way. The iMac i7 quad core was all over the six core Pro in Aftereffects (a program that is apparently hard going?)
Apple have just sheared the laptop line to two models.
This makes the desktop line all the more bemusing. 3 desktop models when you're selling millions more laptops? Surely by the laptop reckoning, a desktop model gets dropped.
I'm not sure why Apple intro'd the Mini at all in retrospect. (An almost good idea when it was about £395...but it's very pricey now with no monitor, keyboard etc.) They'd have been better served by driving the iMac down to the £595 entry level mark. (They got close with £695 before the ginormous 2008 HIKE!) And drove the Pro down to £995 to £2000 single cpu topping out at dual cpu at the top end. Two models. Job done.
As it is...the desktop line seems neither one thing nor the other.
If we cast our minds back. The iMac started off as the 'entry' machine. The Pro had the upper end. They tried (and failed) to put the Cube in the middle. (What they did was have a more limited machine at the same price as the Pro. Big mistake.)
Still. I don't mind the top end iMac now. With a 27 inch monitor and a decent GPU and an i7 it's a whole new ball game.
I think Jeff is on the money re: Apple's direction.
Comments
Will they STILL use the same case after 10 years? I dunno..maybe even jack up the entry price for quad core to drive unit sales...
They can always increase margins by keep the same components they have now...(the parts are now so old they can get rebates from suppliers...)
Lemon Bon Bon.
If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
*Nods.
Lemon Bon Bon.
If Apple lowers prices drastically and drives 'combo' sales of said unit with their monitor then maybe they can get split margins as a package. Same with the iMac. It's a good deal. You get the monitor included. They could do the same with an 'Apple Pro.' (as JD named it.) That way you get margins on two products if you 'bundle' them. I don't think that's anti-American or anything...
That way, you have laptops in the £1000-£2000 if you want portability. iMacs if you want desktop elegance with decent power. But if you want just that bit more power and expandability you get the 'not a tower' also in the same price range but with the added expense of a monitor (but still wayyyy cheaper than the current Pro set up which is ridiculously priced.) There's no reason laptops and desktops/more powerful desktops can't occupy the £1000-£2000. That's still premium pricing compared to bargain basement PC prices of £399 to £795. There's just slight trade offs for the consumer depending on what they want.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Think 3 'Cube's equalling the power of a Mac Pro dual processor kind of thing. Apple make more money over time because people can aggregrated the computing power.
A bit like some have suggested can be done with Mac Minis.
Apple did X-Serve. Can it be that hard to make '3 Cubes' Minis work to pool compute resources to feed Open CL which just parcels info' anyhow?
And you have that juicy Thunderbolt connection and all...(think of the margins on cables alone for noding...)
I thought it was in Apple's DNA to turn the non-trivial into the trivial?
Lemon Bon Bon.
"The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon."
I'm curious (not trying to be sarcastic), what would be the "right" Mac Pro to base the next 10 years upon?
The iMac.
I know that's not what people want to hear, but I think there's an increasing chance that it's what Apple plans.
If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
That makes sense for GPUs, there are already a few companies promising external enclosures. But with this implementation of TB I think adding CPUs is some time off, we're talking 17GB/s (not Gb) just in memory bandwidth from one channel for some of them, and then all the other interconnects. Its an interesting thought though. Another revision of Thunderbolt down the line maybe its possible, and once that's possible the Mac Pro would have limited appeal, you could have external RAID enclosures for storage, hubs for different ports you need, TB music/pro accessories rather than PCI, etc.
The enthusiast in me wants them to continue making a balls-out tower, but who knows with Apple, they've cut off waning tech early many times before.
That is how does Apple get the TB integration with the GPU's sitting in PCI-E slots. Will Apple even support that integration on the Mac Pro or its replacement? This could be a long discussion and frankly impacts how Apple updates or replaces the Mac Pro.
I honest think they will have to integrate the GPU onto the motherboard. This might result in fixed GPU memory, but if Apple was smart they would put the GPU memory on a separate card. The other option would be multiple Mac models varying in GPU implementation.
The more that I think about this the more I believe that the Pro is due for a total make over. This is just one technical issue that Apple will be running into.
First; we have t think about Thunderbolt (TB) and how Apple will go about supporting that and the associated video channels. The first possibility is that they punt and simply don't support the video multiplexing. I don't think that will happen. They could go with a special purpose video card connector but again I don't think that ill happen. I suspect that they will integrate the chip right on the motherboard. This is the right long term solution especially as video hardware becomes more closely coupled to the CPU hardware and allows them to support TB as they already have been. Like it or not this is one reason why I think the Pro is dead.
Second; SATA is pretty much dead as the primary storage channel for forward looking PC hardware. Instead I'm expecting that a base machine would rely upon solid state storage implemented on an advanced plug in card. This card would use the latest PCI Express interface electrical standards but might vary in physical dimensions. This would allow Apple to implement very fast solid state arrays for the primary secondary storage implementation ( in other words the boot and app drive). I'm careful to say solid state here as i don't expect flash to be around for long, however memory on a card is the long term play. I could see Apple implementing two or three slots dedicated to high speed system storage.
Third; I see a move away from dual socket systems. Things like Sandy Bridge E will improve rapidly and some of the leak benchmarks are indeed impressive. If we do see dual socket in the future one of those sockets will be for the GPU at which point it will be an equal to the CPU on the memory bus. Interestingly I see AMD as the more interesting play here with their GCN initiative. In any event I suspect all future machines will have one CPU socket
Fourth; far more TB ports. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see at least four on a Pro replacement machine. They will of course be used to hook up the video screens but I see extended usage for connection to disk arrays, and for the creation of clusters of Macs. TB all also start to support a lot of novel hardware so the more ports the better.
Fifth; if the new machine provides for any sort of magnetic drive capability it will probably be with small notebook sized drives. The preference for mass storage will be TB connected disk arrays. The Pros replacement would signal the end of magnetic media in desktop machines.
Sixth; Even though the machine will be far more compact I expect that it will still have expansion slots. I just don;t think they will be capable of supporting graphics cards.
Seventh; the same chassis that supports an advanced machine running Sandy Bridge E or what ever workstation processor will also have a mid level performance machine. This would use a Fusion or Ivy Bridge like processor to deliver something better than Mini performance. Think of this as a mid range volume machine where GPU performance can be more modest.
There are two problems with much of what you suggest:
1. Apple is not likely to create an entirely new storage mechanism by itself and have it stick at the Pro level. They just don't sell enough machines to drive the industry in a new direction. Same thing with some of your other suggestions. The cost of doing something completely new would be too high for something that only sells 50 K units a quarter (or year, or whatever).
2. Putting the GPU on the motherboard is probably a mistake. Pros are quite willing to change out GPUs when something newer and faster comes along. Similarly, the idea of basing the new Pro design on the iMac is a non-starter. Expandability is critical.
If you look at what Apple has been doing for the past 3 or 4 years, you can see that they are going for more of a distinguishing look and feel. I also think that Apple isn't dumb and understands that the needs of its pro users are expandibility, power, and longevity. This is why I think that they will leverage Thunderbolt for more than just an external connection. I think it is finally time for a truly modular computer that can be upgraded on the fly by just adding or replacing a "module". Need a faster graphics card, replace that module's innards. Need more processor power, ADD another processor core.
If there is any company on this planet that could do this, it would be Apple.
There's some value to that and it was suggested in earlier threads by someone.
Picture a Mac Mini with a slot on the top and bottom (perhaps based on Thunderbolt). When you need more power, you buy another one and stack it on top. Maybe some of them come with CPU, GPU, and SSD, others might just have hard disk storage. Others might have only a CPU or GPU (they might even have different thicknesses, as well). You could buy what you need when you need it. Particularly if they used something like ZFS, expansion would be trivial. When you start running out of storage, just slap on a new hard drive subunit. When the system starts slowing down, slap on a CPU unit. And so on.
I'm sure there are a lot of technical issues to be resolved (and maybe even something that would make it impractical), but it's a clever idea.
Picture a Mac Mini
This is what I have been pondering regarding a Mac pro replacement. Apple should take what they have learned making the Mini and apply it to the workstation. Maybe even put the Mini team on the Mac Pro team. I'm not saying they try to make a Mini Mac Pro, but rather use the knowledge and creativity from that team to open a can Think Different whup ass on the Mac Pro's aluminum butt.
Internal discussions at Apple were said to focus on the fact that sales of the high-end Mac Pro workstations have dropped off so considerably that the desktop machines are no longer particularly profitable for the company.
I recall these discussions first came to light in the apple-rumors realm about 1 year into the Mac Pro's current iteration (give or take a few months).
I admit I'm not a highly-paid sales executive or a highfalutin market researcher, but isn't it reasonable to expect that an over-priced, over-configured, outdated hunk of aluminum (albeit attractive) is going to drop off in sales? That's it for my "well, duh" reference. I feel it's a mistake to base their Pro desktop strategy on that metric. Honestly, I'd be surprised if that's all they considered in their process.
I don't pretend to be a 'somebody' in the industry, but I'd still like to proffer my desires for a Mac Pro replacement (on the off-chance that someone of influence reads this and cares in the slightest).
First, I'd like to see the dual processor option go away. This is where a good chuck of cost occurs. If I had to choose between an 6 to 8-core (single chip) Mac Pro and a discontinued Mac Pro, I'd pick the single-chip version. There are very powerful non-Xeon chips available that are quite reasonably priced.
Second, I'd change the form factor to 18.9" high by 2u wide. This way the Pro could play the roll of both desktop and rackmount server - killing two birds with one stone and offering some solace to those of us who cling to the Xserve. The case door would have to be rackmount access friendly and the internals must be easily serviceable.
Third, I'd take the plunge and switch to 2.5" front mounted hot-swap drives. It's not really what I want, but I think it makes sense with this form factor. Oh, and those drives would have activity and status lights.
Now, it's time for me to stop dreaming.
The Mac Pro is really outdated technology for a workstation. I'd much rather see Apple take something line Sandy Bridge E and make a thoroughly modern and forward looking desktop computer. The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon.
So yeah I hope Apple uses this chip, I just hope that it is in a modern implementation that completely leverages the technology they have available these days. Oh and please do it at a reasonable price point.
i dont' know why they don't revisit the 'cube' made out of aluminum. basically just make a mini but cube it so you can have better processors, drives, add in card etc.
I admit I'm not a highly-paid sales executive or a highfalutin market researcher, but isn't it reasonable to expect that an over-priced, over-configured, outdated hunk of aluminum (albeit attractive) is going to drop off in sales?
Actually, if you do some comparisons for truly comparable systems, the Mac Pro is very competitively priced, especially for the dual- CPU versions.
Admittedly, they can't quite touch the very high end performance since they haven't updated the CPU for quite a while, but until these Sandy Bridge chips, the gains were modest. The CPU in a mid-2010 Mac Pro is only a few percent slower than the latest CPUs available.
What is a legitimate complaint, is that as the years go by, they don't gradually lower the price of their machines to reflect the fact that the technology is getting old. But if they did gradually lower the price, people would complain when there's an update and they put the price back to "normal." And people would also complain that the price drops are unpredictable.
To be a happy Mac Pro owner, buy right after it is updated (because they actually are quite good value at that point) and then track the Intel rumours to know when your next buying cycle will be. And don't listen to relatively baseless speculation about discontinuation. Baseless relative to the Intel roadmaps that leak fairly regularly and the historical evidence that Apple updates the Mac Pro at this point.
i dont' know why they don't revisit the 'cube' made out of aluminum. basically just make a mini but cube it so you can have better processors, drives, add in card etc.
Personally, being a video editor, it would be great if the Mac Pro had at least 4 card slots for graphics, audio and video boards. Put in a AJA board, an extra graphics card and a fiber channel card, you are max'd out. Anyone remember the old Power PCs like the 9500? It had 5 slots as I recall. The iMac is a nice machine, but too limited for pro editing and audio applications.
"The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon."
I'm curious (not trying to be sarcastic), what would be the "right" Mac Pro to base the next 10 years upon?
I don't think the real question is about the right Mac Pro, but the right Mac. There isn't as much need for pros to have a tower computer as there was in the past. There will be a need for drives, extreme IO and the most intense processing, but the need for a tower workstation is dwindling as time goes on. The power of an SGI Indigo can probably be emulated in a Mac mini a few times over.
The iMac.
I know that's not what people want to hear, but I think there's an increasing chance that it's what Apple plans.
That's probably where Apple is going. I'm thinking of buying an iMac soon to replace my workstation tower for CAD CAM work. For the pro market, I think iMac or a laptop. Pros have been using laptops for a decade now for their mobile activities anyway, and now there are quad core options, and pretty soon enough, hexacore, etc. For video encoding and special processing, I think AJA, Black Magic and the rest of them will have dedicated boxes that do that sort of thing more efficiently than a CPU, if they don't already.
We certainly would consider buying a new model, particularly if it offered significant processing increases along with power saving improvements and a smaller footprint.
The Mac Pro's may not be profitable by themselves, but the people who do buy them are the same people who create the Apps and Content that drives the sales of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks.
Exactly. It is the same situation with the Xserve. The high powered workstations and enterprise class rack servers are used to support high end content creation and the purchase of many more client systems. So of course high end systems will always sell in lower numbers than midrange or entry level systems. And it is the same situation in real life. It's like saying Apple should "discontinue" Tim Cook and eliminate his position because Apple has only one CEO.
For people who think laptops will completely replace Mac Pros, do you actually enjoy listening to your fans running loudly at full speed when doing CPU intensive tasks like video encoding? The Mac Mini is not so quiet either at full saturation. Yet the Mac Pro remains quiet when doing the same tasks and more.
Exactly. I use a MacBook Pro when I need to be portable, and as an auxiliary machine to my Mac Pro, which I will always use for 99% of my HD video encoding/editing, color correction, and motion graphics. The MBP gets hot and loud when I have to do such things on it, while the Mac Pro silently and dutifully handles it with ease. I bought the most recent model in summer/fall 2010, and it still feels brand new.
I'm all for a smaller form factor/new design, but they need to have a product of equal power be the upgrade. Hell, the iPod classic is still around because it's the only iPod with that kind of storage. I'd like to think the Mac Pro will live on in a similar vein...
and... if Apple decides to just do what it has to do and axe the line, I hope there's at least a month or two grace period before it's discontinued, much like they did with the XServe. But... I just don't want to think about that.
I don't think the real question is about the right Mac Pro, but the right Mac. Except for drives and maybe extreme IO, there isn't as much need for pros to have a tower computer as there was.
That's probably where Apple is going. I'm thinking of buying an iMac soon to replace my workstation tower for CAD CAM work. For the pro market, I think that or a laptop, pros have been using laptops for a decade now for their mobile activities anyway, and now there are quad core options.
Bullseye on both points.
As for your second point. It was pretty interesting when I attended a '3D Class' around eight years ago. Lots of '1 gighz' PEE CEE 'workstations'... One day, this girl came in with a 'PowerBook' (as they were then...I think...) and ran the 3D program in question much faster and rendered much faster than the desktops! I couldn't believe (at the time) how quick it was to model and render on the laptop.
Not so long ago, Apple boasted that the G5 could handle audio this and Photoshop actions that in x seconds...and do Mathematica algorithms twice as fast as a Pentium 4 etc.
Today. Many years after the transition to Intel...we have machines that can blitz G5s to melted marshmallows...in laptops and desktops from consumer to prosumer.
For a majority of creative types, I'd guess a quad core i7 with 4-8 gigs of ram with a reasonably recent GPU is more than enough.
You're paying an awful lot extra for that 2nd socket when maybe a Raid and more memory may better serve you.
By the time you get 6 and 8 core iMacs (who knows..?) in the next few years with even more ram and who knows what else...maybe even bigger screens to create an iMac Pro (you never know...
...it's not like the quad or 6 core Pro shames the iMac in any way. The iMac i7 quad core was all over the six core Pro in Aftereffects (a program that is apparently hard going?)
Apple have just sheared the laptop line to two models.
This makes the desktop line all the more bemusing. 3 desktop models when you're selling millions more laptops? Surely by the laptop reckoning, a desktop model gets dropped.
I'm not sure why Apple intro'd the Mini at all in retrospect. (An almost good idea when it was about £395...but it's very pricey now with no monitor, keyboard etc.) They'd have been better served by driving the iMac down to the £595 entry level mark. (They got close with £695 before the ginormous 2008 HIKE!) And drove the Pro down to £995 to £2000 single cpu topping out at dual cpu at the top end. Two models. Job done.
As it is...the desktop line seems neither one thing nor the other.
If we cast our minds back. The iMac started off as the 'entry' machine. The Pro had the upper end. They tried (and failed) to put the Cube in the middle. (What they did was have a more limited machine at the same price as the Pro. Big mistake.)
Still. I don't mind the top end iMac now. With a 27 inch monitor and a decent GPU and an i7 it's a whole new ball game.
I think Jeff is on the money re: Apple's direction.
Lemon Bon Bon.