I'm a 67 year old developer. I suspect this may be my "LAST COMPUTER!"
If you're in the US, you may have to keep working as it appears they want to raise the retirement age. Soon you won't get to retire until you die.
Can't wait for the new MacPro! I'd love to see the benchmarks for it before I order, but I imagine there could be a backlog of orders if I do. The ole MacPro 1,1 is still chugging along, but it's showing its age.
If you're in the US, you may have to keep working as it appears they want to raise the retirement age. Soon you won't get to retire until you die.
Don't bring political stuff into a thread not in PO, please.
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
With the usb 3.0 Sandy Bridge doesn't natively support it. I'm guessing they are putting in a usb 3.0 controller. Now that make me wonder why apple didn't support usb 3.0 in the Macbooks earlier. I'm glad apple is finally understanding that people want these thing and make bias towards their purchase when things that are so simple not available Either way this Mac Pro is probably going to be the last Workstation apple makes.
It's sad that Apple has gone basically all mobile and mobile component devices. Apple really has nothing to loose other than expanding their customer base. I'd argue this is better time than ever for Apple to offer more high end products with people ditching Dells and HP's. It also would be nice for Apple to do like Dell and have a Performance segment i.e. Alien-Ware and cater to Gamers and Professionals. I doubt they'd ever will but they sure have the money and the right infrastructure to do such amazing things.
USB 3.0 up until Ivy Bridge required a separate controller which raised the price of any computer it was implemented in. Since Apple had already made a commitment to including Thunderbolt (which probably wasn't cheap to implement), I suspect that USB 3.0 took a back seat to that feature need. I'm also sure that Apple wanted Thunderbolt to get a decent headstart without having to compete with USB 3.0. In some ways it mirrors Apple's moves back in the last 90's. Although Apple was one of the earliest adopters of USB 1.x in the original iMac, USB 2.0 was not adopted until after a year it had shown up in PCs. Instead, Firewire 400 (which Apple had developed all the way back in the early 90s) made it's debut in B&W Powermac towers, aluminum Powerbooks and eventually the iMac.
I still think they would do well to make a mini-pro model. Sure, laptops have increased in power, but I think a scaled down version of the Pro would be good. It would be in a smaller case, have iMac power but with greater flexibility/upgradeability. I think just 2 HD slots, allowing one SSD. If they could hit an $1100 starting price point - or even $999, they would do real well.
I am happy Apple is updating the Mac Pro. My Mac Pro is only 3 years old and runs well so need for me to get this version, but I want that option in the future and I am glad I will be able to upgrade when needed. I understand the need to have a high end Mac Pro with as many slots for Ram and as many CPU's and cores possible for those people that demand every ounce of performance they can get. What I don't understand is why Apple insists on putting a Xeon in the low end model that only includes one CPU. Aren't the high performance ivy bridge Core i7 as fast if not faster than Xeon when you only have one? Not to mention a lot cheaper.
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
Good question. The Radeon (assuming that's what it will be due to the better compute) is plugged in to the PCIe bus, so in theory it should be able to pass those signals through, creating a full Thunderbolt port. But it would need a custom card and who knows if Apple is willing to go that far?
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
I think it only makes sense that the Thunderbolt port will transfer data to and from the logic board. Graphics cards always have their own ports, don't they?
I still think they would do well to make a mini-pro model. Sure, laptops have increased in power, but I think a scaled down version of the Pro would be good. It would be in a smaller case, have iMac power but with greater flexibility/upgradeability. I think just 2 HD slots, allowing one SSD. If they could hit an $1100 starting price point - or even $999, they would do real well.
You can order a Mac mini with a 750 GB HDD + 256 GB SSD.
I think it only makes sense that the Thunderbolt port will transfer data to and from the logic board. Graphics cards always have their own ports, don't they?
Yes, but that's only part of the point. Thunderbolt ports cannot be considered part of the spec without the ability to push graphics as well as data. Therefore the ports have to be connected to SOME sort of GPU, and that's either going to be a chip integrated on the logic board or the Thunderbolt ports will be on the GPU in a PCIe slot (but that's not allowed, as far as I know).
OR, the third option, whatever GPU you order from Apple is built into the computer and non-upgradable. That gives users the power of that card usable through their logic board Thunderbolt ports.
[B]Intel's new Xeon E5 workstation-class chips first hit the market in early March. [/B]
I would not really say that they "hit the market" but rather they were announced. No manufacturer is selling the Xeon E5 in volume yet and that isn't expected till July.
I can give you one really good reason for a case redesign. To make it rack mountable in a reasonable space. Apple no longer offers a product that can act as an MDC for Xsan out of the box that any legitimate administrator is going to put in a server room. Getting it to something that will fit in a 2U or 3U space in a rack opens up a number of possibilities. If they work with VMWare on the project and bring ESXi to the MacPro it could be offered as a possible replacement for the XServe and allow OS X virtualization in more environments...
For practical purposes, Apple went down that road and found too few people wanted an xserve to justify keeping it in the lineup. IIRC, Jobs said so himself.
Could Appleinsider sink any lower quality wise. I quote: "handle voltage far worse than their 32nm Sandy Bridge brethren," this non sense should be obvious to anybody with a clue. The issue is that there are no new Ivy Bridge Xeon and that it took Intel forever to debug the current Sandy Bridge E series. This is reality not something pulled out of a behind somewhere. The fact is there may never be a Ivy Bridge Xeon since the CPUs offer so little over Sandy Bridge.
Apple insider should be embarrassed to support such obviously wrong information. The rest of the article may or may not be reflective of the coming new Mac Pros but who is going to pay much attention when there are such glaring mistakes.
For practical purposes, Apple went down that road and found too few people wanted an xserve to justify keeping it in the lineup. IIRC, Jobs said so himself.
Not an Xserve replacement but making a workstation rack mountable does have its benefits.
The case is designed for maximum airflow as are other workstation and server cases. I can't think of a real need for a redesign of the shell, which is what most people are think about when they talk about a "case redesign".
I agree with you on the airflow, which seems optimized for the present component layout. However, one big case improvement would be to move the drive bays to the front for easier access (and possibly include hot-swap capability), although that would require reworking the airflow.
And although it would be an aesthetic challenge, creating something that could optionally be rack-mounted (as suggested earlier) would make the overall package more flexible for those who benefit from such functionality.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by go4d1
I'm a 67 year old developer. I suspect this may be my "LAST COMPUTER!"
If you're in the US, you may have to keep working as it appears they want to raise the retirement age. Soon you won't get to retire until you die.
Can't wait for the new MacPro! I'd love to see the benchmarks for it before I order, but I imagine there could be a backlog of orders if I do. The ole MacPro 1,1 is still chugging along, but it's showing its age.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheUnfetteredMind
If you're in the US, you may have to keep working as it appears they want to raise the retirement age. Soon you won't get to retire until you die.
Don't bring political stuff into a thread not in PO, please.
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmxing85
With the usb 3.0 Sandy Bridge doesn't natively support it. I'm guessing they are putting in a usb 3.0 controller. Now that make me wonder why apple didn't support usb 3.0 in the Macbooks earlier. I'm glad apple is finally understanding that people want these thing and make bias towards their purchase when things that are so simple not available Either way this Mac Pro is probably going to be the last Workstation apple makes.
It's sad that Apple has gone basically all mobile and mobile component devices. Apple really has nothing to loose other than expanding their customer base. I'd argue this is better time than ever for Apple to offer more high end products with people ditching Dells and HP's. It also would be nice for Apple to do like Dell and have a Performance segment i.e. Alien-Ware and cater to Gamers and Professionals. I doubt they'd ever will but they sure have the money and the right infrastructure to do such amazing things.
USB 3.0 up until Ivy Bridge required a separate controller which raised the price of any computer it was implemented in. Since Apple had already made a commitment to including Thunderbolt (which probably wasn't cheap to implement), I suspect that USB 3.0 took a back seat to that feature need. I'm also sure that Apple wanted Thunderbolt to get a decent headstart without having to compete with USB 3.0. In some ways it mirrors Apple's moves back in the last 90's. Although Apple was one of the earliest adopters of USB 1.x in the original iMac, USB 2.0 was not adopted until after a year it had shown up in PCs. Instead, Firewire 400 (which Apple had developed all the way back in the early 90s) made it's debut in B&W Powermac towers, aluminum Powerbooks and eventually the iMac.
Sounds a LOT better than my first workstation:
http://lowendmac.com/ii/macintosh-iicx.html
Should probably upgrade.
I still think they would do well to make a mini-pro model. Sure, laptops have increased in power, but I think a scaled down version of the Pro would be good. It would be in a smaller case, have iMac power but with greater flexibility/upgradeability. I think just 2 HD slots, allowing one SSD. If they could hit an $1100 starting price point - or even $999, they would do real well.
I am happy Apple is updating the Mac Pro. My Mac Pro is only 3 years old and runs well so need for me to get this version, but I want that option in the future and I am glad I will be able to upgrade when needed. I understand the need to have a high end Mac Pro with as many slots for Ram and as many CPU's and cores possible for those people that demand every ounce of performance they can get. What I don't understand is why Apple insists on putting a Xeon in the low end model that only includes one CPU. Aren't the high performance ivy bridge Core i7 as fast if not faster than Xeon when you only have one? Not to mention a lot cheaper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
Good question. The Radeon (assuming that's what it will be due to the better compute) is plugged in to the PCIe bus, so in theory it should be able to pass those signals through, creating a full Thunderbolt port. But it would need a custom card and who knows if Apple is willing to go that far?
Have people seen this?
http://ark.intel.com/products/64590/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2650-(20M-Cache-2_00-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI)
8 cores on one chip! With this they could make a true 16-core Mac Pro.
1. XSan is kinda dead..
2. Mac Mini's with Thunderbolt work fine as XSan MDC's
3. XSan is kinda dead..
MHz is an abbreviation, not an acronym.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Who here thinks that the Thunderbolt ports will only be serving graphics from an Intel 4000 built onto the logic board and the ports on the Radeon 78xx cards will just be Mini DisplayPort?
I think it only makes sense that the Thunderbolt port will transfer data to and from the logic board. Graphics cards always have their own ports, don't they?
It would be nice if they could add an extra four drive bays.
It would be fraking awesome if they created a new device with four to eight hard drive bays with Thunderbolt and RAID.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmmx
I still think they would do well to make a mini-pro model. Sure, laptops have increased in power, but I think a scaled down version of the Pro would be good. It would be in a smaller case, have iMac power but with greater flexibility/upgradeability. I think just 2 HD slots, allowing one SSD. If they could hit an $1100 starting price point - or even $999, they would do real well.
You can order a Mac mini with a 750 GB HDD + 256 GB SSD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chabig
I think it only makes sense that the Thunderbolt port will transfer data to and from the logic board. Graphics cards always have their own ports, don't they?
Yes, but that's only part of the point. Thunderbolt ports cannot be considered part of the spec without the ability to push graphics as well as data. Therefore the ports have to be connected to SOME sort of GPU, and that's either going to be a chip integrated on the logic board or the Thunderbolt ports will be on the GPU in a PCIe slot (but that's not allowed, as far as I know).
OR, the third option, whatever GPU you order from Apple is built into the computer and non-upgradable. That gives users the power of that card usable through their logic board Thunderbolt ports.
I would not really say that they "hit the market" but rather they were announced. No manufacturer is selling the Xeon E5 in volume yet and that isn't expected till July.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomahawk
I can give you one really good reason for a case redesign. To make it rack mountable in a reasonable space. Apple no longer offers a product that can act as an MDC for Xsan out of the box that any legitimate administrator is going to put in a server room. Getting it to something that will fit in a 2U or 3U space in a rack opens up a number of possibilities. If they work with VMWare on the project and bring ESXi to the MacPro it could be offered as a possible replacement for the XServe and allow OS X virtualization in more environments...
For practical purposes, Apple went down that road and found too few people wanted an xserve to justify keeping it in the lineup. IIRC, Jobs said so himself.
Apple insider should be embarrassed to support such obviously wrong information. The rest of the article may or may not be reflective of the coming new Mac Pros but who is going to pay much attention when there are such glaring mistakes.
Not an Xserve replacement but making a workstation rack mountable does have its benefits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheUnfetteredMind
Soon you won't get to retire until you die.
Not really. Early retirement is becoming more common.
When you get to 50+ you might find yourself forced / urged to retire / layoff, company downsize etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
The case is designed for maximum airflow as are other workstation and server cases. I can't think of a real need for a redesign of the shell, which is what most people are think about when they talk about a "case redesign".
I agree with you on the airflow, which seems optimized for the present component layout. However, one big case improvement would be to move the drive bays to the front for easier access (and possibly include hot-swap capability), although that would require reworking the airflow.
And although it would be an aesthetic challenge, creating something that could optionally be rack-mounted (as suggested earlier) would make the overall package more flexible for those who benefit from such functionality.