So, in lieu of brand new processors and some apparently unavailable technology we are getting a much cheaper path to some fairly high powered stuff. If Logic can use 12 cores then the $3700 price seems pretty reasonable. I was among the chorus crying foul when I first saw the specs but knowing that the path to high power comes at a lower cost is as much of a boon as the latest CPU, since i couldn't afford the 12 core before.
agree.
I also don't use Thunderbolt. who does at this point?
graphics cards I always replace, anyway, and it sounds like there are ones out there.
at the least, this will be supported by the OS for a while, so perhaps there is a sliver of hope. they could have end-of-lifed it more easily than to have done this.
we shall see. at least you can still buy a new Mac that you can slap a Kona or other PCIe card into. that counts for something.
I know! ... Can't believe the new Mac Pro has no Thunderbolt or USB 3.0. Disappointing... Hope it's not too long before the latest connectivity is included. The wait continues...
People wanting to use the new Apollo interface are making sure to get TB capable systems. I think that beefing up the low end a smidge for the same price and bringing the high end way down in price is a good move. Yes, it isn't the Sandy Bridge Xeons people wanted, but the Mac Pro has been a solid system for awhile. Ivy Bridge Xeons next fall (and the change to include USB 3 and TB) along w/there being more TB stuff out there by then, will make things interesting. I'm lusting the new Retina 15", but something tells me I'll skip a laptop next year, let my wife upgrade to a new MBA, take her current MBA for a portable and just buy a TB Display for my desktop.
Well, I'm going to wait (art least) another generation. This "upgrade" is pitiful.
There have been higher power machines in the PC world for years now.
Then again, with the huge screwups in Lion and Mountain Lion - sandbox, certificates, multiple monitor support breakage, hidden library... maybe it's time to look elsewhere altogether. Apple is dumbing down in every direction at once.
Performance per dollar is better with the Sandy Bridge Xeon but not by much, especially if you only go for the Mac Pro. Buy a Retina MBP along with the 12-core Pro, stick the MP on a network in a closet and control it from anywhere in the world.
For essentially the same price, dual E5-2690 (16 cores, 2.9 GHz) systems yield Cinebench score of 24.7. That's $251/unit.
Xeon E5 supports quad channel ECC memory--customers can install 1/3 more memory and still get top performance.
The E5-2690 costs $2057 per CPU. The X5675 costs $1440 - that's the most expensive Apple has used. An E5-2690 from Apple would cost at least:
$6200 + $1234 = $7434 (24.7) = $300/unit.
There aren't too many scenarios where the $3799 12-core is going to fall short. If people need render power to match the E5 then buy two of 'em. The price isn't vastly different.
Apple isn't abandoning professionals here, they have designed one of the best professional notebooks in the world. The clearest statement is that high resource users are no longer a priority but that isn't news.
What's the outcome of Apple not updating the Mac Pro properly? A few blog posts here and there. Big deal. The Mac Pro is still there and decent value for money. They bought themselves another year at least. I think they are treating it as a stop-gap. There are some people who won't ever want to let go of the MP form factor and what it offers but given enough time, everyone will. It happens with all technology, film cameras, SCSI HDDs, CRT displays and so on, just give it enough time.
I was happy there was going to be a keynote, but then became sad when there was no Mac Pro announcement.
I became happy again , thinking there may be a "One more thing...", only to become sad again when Tim Cook walked off stage.
I grudgingly >:( went to the Apple.com store to at least buy the laptops I had planned on, and I became super excited when I saw the "NEW" badge. I was super happy!
Apple had not forsaken us!
Then I began looking at the options.
Anandtech had a good SKU chart and I compared the specs against the chart to figure out the CPU. I saw it was a 5645. Huh? That is odd, isn't that from a little ways ago? *Bing search* Quarter 1 2010?!
I became terribly sad again.
But then I really thought about it. Yesterday, a six core mac pro with the upgraded video card would have cost you $3,579 (American), today $3,679 will get you 12 cores and a minor speed increase. It doesn't have the thunderbolt or USB I/O like I wanted, but it is a message from Apple.
They aren't going to abandon the Pros. It takes a lot of effort to update a line. They wouldn't spend that money on a product they planned on EOL'ing.
In the end, I bought two quad core laptops, a thunderbolt display, an R6 and I still have 2K left to go towards that Mac Pro Ivy Bridge Xeon refresh I know is coming.
Despite the hyperbole and blog rants, I am still happy with Apple.
I'm thinking they'll have a larger update later on this year. I don't believe the next gen of Xeon chips are available yet, but I could be wrong. I've seen Apple do a piddly update before a major one before.
You're right, this is an old chip. According to Intel's Website this chip was launched in Q1 of 2010. People seem to still like and buy this chip, but it's by no means cutting edge. I'm also surprised that they didn't update the graphics card. Particularly since Mountain Lion offers out-of-the-box support for cutting edge graphics cards.
You can still buy "new" server systems from Dell using any DDR3-era processor, so that includes Westmere-EP and Nehalem-EP. Businesses don't buy the latest greatest thing every year, they wait till there is a cost benefit to replacing. The same goes for Apple's Mac Pro when used in server configurations. For most cases the energy use envelope stays the same if they keep picking the same performance characteristics. 300$ vs 4000$ per processor, you decide if it's worth it. In places like the stock market, you must absolutely have the fastest, latest thing, since if you don't, some other guy does, and will beat you to the best trades.
But for everyone else, picking renderfarms for example, you don't pick the most expensive part, but rather the part that you can stuff as many of into the data center, which is usually not the 135watt TDP parts, but rather the 95watt parts.
Everyone's hopping up and down and pissed off right now because Apple didn't make any changes to the Mac Pro that matter.
We'll probably have to wait for Ivy Bridge-EP chipsets first, then we'll see the E5's. Apple could build system now with the current E5, but they'd have to add TB and USB3 using additional chips, exactly the same way USB3 has been added since Sandy Bridge parts became available, but this doesn't enable PCIe 3.0 since that's only in Ivy Bridge parts. Then there's SATA III to consider as well. So once you do the math that's at least 4 features that should be in the next chipset that aren't in the current one. Any Mac Pro's bought with all those features will be usable for 7 years or so.
However Apple needs to refresh the CPU and GPU every year otherwise people will go nuts over it.
I'm thinking they'll have a larger update later on this year. I don't believe the next gen of Xeon chips are available yet, but I could be wrong. I've seen Apple do a piddly update before a major one before.
They are. Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 came out in March. That's what's next for the Mac Pro. Ivy Bridge Xeons come out late next year, and they incorporate USB 3 on the chipset (don't expect Apple to that before then).
I feel like it is far more embarrassing and a discredit to the product line to have done this "update" than to have just outright discontinued.
This update is a joke. A very, very bad one for sure ! Actually it is a joke not worth telling anyone. It's the kind of joke that makes you, the teller of the joke, look like a total fool. I don't even want to think about this joke. This must be a mistake, a bad dream !
With 100 billion in the bank, there is still some kind of universal law that says; thou shalt not show off in the Pro-market when the margins are lower than on an iPhone ?
I agree, Apple is now abandoning the desk top market to concentrate on iOS toys and laptops - the revision to the Mac Pro is an insult, the iMac could be so much more, its ignored and way overpriced - don't even get me started on the Mac Mini, a great idea with huge performance promise that Apple ignore.
To put it bluntly, from 1997 - 2005 had it not been for the desk top users utilising Apple products the company would have died - the iPod in those days being a nice little earner with iTunes, but not the core of the business.
Today Apple is more concerned about share price, its next consumer fad and becoming another Sony - Serious computing, which they did with the G5 models is a thing of the past - obviously, professional users who require workhorses and a stable OS are now in a minority - next all of Adobe will migrate to iOS, it will be like the old Moto days of pushing underpowered devices - looks like Dell or HP are going to shine, you can also run Linux on their kit!!!!
What I don't understand is that there are great new Intel workstation-class processors either available or on the horizon, including 8-core processors enabling up to 16 cores in dual-processor configuration. With the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture (moving the memory controller onto the die) and a greater number of cores, there are significant performance gains to be had over previous models. Couple that with the latest IO and SATA specifications including Thunderbolt, USB 3 and SATA 3 and there are a lot of people that would be clamouring for such a powerhouse and would be prepared to pay a significant price for the privilege.
Apple should be embarrased by such behaviour. I mean a 5770/5870 AGAIN! WTF???
My only hope is that this is intended to be a short-term spec bump until Apple can sort out various supply or technical issues and then release the Mac Pro that is meant to be!
About a year ago I commented that if Apple puts the effort into developing an all new Macpro then professionals can be assured of the lines future but if an update to the same old is all there is forth-coming then I don't expect to be depending on a commercial domestic platform for professional use any more.
Today just confirmed the decision I took last year, while Apple sits on its self asserted "it the fastest mac ever" headliner, PCs with well integrated powerfull GPUs (nVidea 690) are storming ahead of the editing game (Maingear.com) and win8 is going to punish macOS'es less than pro performance later this season,
Ivybridge is to have 6 OS software backed 5gig cores soon and next generation sees 12 and more on a single dye so are twin Zeon cpu also ran machines reaching expensive overkill status in the future, which leaves MacPro behind by next year.
even personal cloud rendering servers are using multiple Arm processing now (HP) and Ivybridge is quite powerful enough for most semipro editing where studio pro editing is done on dedicated machines (Avid.com media composer) and 4Dgraphics (nVidea maximus multi GPUprocessing).
Now if Apple really wanted to show willing it would have bought out an all new svelt design Ivybridge nVidea 680 Farrari MacX to the small editing professional workstation market, like what everyone has been shouting for for over a year now,
but have they been too busy trolling and legally defending styfulling patents this last two years to be really bothered with future inovation conception and commitment to those of us who stood by them through the tough years getting to the top or maybe they just don't need us anymore now.
Alot is made about switching to MAC, its just as easy to switch back.
They are. Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 came out in March. That's what's next for the Mac Pro. Ivy Bridge Xeons come out late next year, and they incorporate USB 3 on the chipset (don't expect Apple to that before then).
I feel like it is far more embarrassing and a discredit to the product line to have done this "update" than to have just outright discontinued.
That is what I meant...Ivy Bridge Xeon's aren't ready. I'm thinking you'll see a MacPro update when they come out. This opens up all of the capabilities such as Thunderbolt, USB 3, etc on the chipset.
Thunderbolt won't be natively supported until Haswell.
And updated… provided there's anyone LEFT buying Apple products when those chips come out.
Theory: Apple has the luxury of patience these days. All the iOS profit allows them to lose some market share in the big iron desktop arena because it isn't critical to their survival like it once was. When the Haswell (and later Skylake) CPUs are available they can release a solid Mac Pro and then build back the client base. Seems like they don't really have a choice if they are going to insist the next Mac Pro have Thunderbolt native on the CPU.
Who knows really? Until someone high up in Apple decides the pro segment of their business should have a clear product roadmap we will forever be guessing. Considering how small the pro segment now is, what could it hurt to let us know what is coming?
Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by strask
So, in lieu of brand new processors and some apparently unavailable technology we are getting a much cheaper path to some fairly high powered stuff. If Logic can use 12 cores then the $3700 price seems pretty reasonable. I was among the chorus crying foul when I first saw the specs but knowing that the path to high power comes at a lower cost is as much of a boon as the latest CPU, since i couldn't afford the 12 core before.
agree.
I also don't use Thunderbolt. who does at this point?
graphics cards I always replace, anyway, and it sounds like there are ones out there.
at the least, this will be supported by the OS for a while, so perhaps there is a sliver of hope. they could have end-of-lifed it more easily than to have done this.
we shall see. at least you can still buy a new Mac that you can slap a Kona or other PCIe card into. that counts for something.
I know! ... Can't believe the new Mac Pro has no Thunderbolt or USB 3.0. Disappointing... Hope it's not too long before the latest connectivity is included. The wait continues...
Thunderbolt is the latest rage in high end audio production. I won't by a new computer without it. I can get by just fine with a stock graphics card.
People wanting to use the new Apollo interface are making sure to get TB capable systems. I think that beefing up the low end a smidge for the same price and bringing the high end way down in price is a good move. Yes, it isn't the Sandy Bridge Xeons people wanted, but the Mac Pro has been a solid system for awhile. Ivy Bridge Xeons next fall (and the change to include USB 3 and TB) along w/there being more TB stuff out there by then, will make things interesting. I'm lusting the new Retina 15", but something tells me I'll skip a laptop next year, let my wife upgrade to a new MBA, take her current MBA for a portable and just buy a TB Display for my desktop.
PS. Something = my wife
Well, I'm going to wait (art least) another generation. This "upgrade" is pitiful.
There have been higher power machines in the PC world for years now.
Then again, with the huge screwups in Lion and Mountain Lion - sandbox, certificates, multiple monitor support breakage, hidden library... maybe it's time to look elsewhere altogether. Apple is dumbing down in every direction at once.
The E5-2690 costs $2057 per CPU. The X5675 costs $1440 - that's the most expensive Apple has used. An E5-2690 from Apple would cost at least:
$6200 + $1234 = $7434 (24.7) = $300/unit.
There aren't too many scenarios where the $3799 12-core is going to fall short. If people need render power to match the E5 then buy two of 'em. The price isn't vastly different.
Apple isn't abandoning professionals here, they have designed one of the best professional notebooks in the world. The clearest statement is that high resource users are no longer a priority but that isn't news.
What's the outcome of Apple not updating the Mac Pro properly? A few blog posts here and there. Big deal. The Mac Pro is still there and decent value for money. They bought themselves another year at least. I think they are treating it as a stop-gap. There are some people who won't ever want to let go of the MP form factor and what it offers but given enough time, everyone will. It happens with all technology, film cameras, SCSI HDDs, CRT displays and so on, just give it enough time.
Nice try but i am still sad. Very sad.
My feelings were on a see-saw today.
I was happy
I became happy again
I grudgingly >:( went to the Apple.com store to at least buy the laptops I had planned on, and I became super excited
Apple had not forsaken us!
Then I began looking at the options.
Anandtech had a good SKU chart and I compared the specs against the chart to figure out the CPU. I saw it was a 5645. Huh? That is odd, isn't that from a little ways ago? *Bing search* Quarter 1 2010?!
I became terribly sad again.
But then I really thought about it. Yesterday, a six core mac pro with the upgraded video card would have cost you $3,579 (American), today $3,679 will get you 12 cores and a minor speed increase. It doesn't have the thunderbolt or USB I/O like I wanted, but it is a message from Apple.
They aren't going to abandon the Pros. It takes a lot of effort to update a line. They wouldn't spend that money on a product they planned on EOL'ing.
In the end, I bought two quad core laptops, a thunderbolt display, an R6 and I still have 2K left to go towards that Mac Pro Ivy Bridge Xeon refresh I know is coming.
Despite the hyperbole and blog rants, I am still happy with Apple.
I'm thinking they'll have a larger update later on this year. I don't believe the next gen of Xeon chips are available yet, but I could be wrong. I've seen Apple do a piddly update before a major one before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NormM
You're right, this is an old chip. According to Intel's Website this chip was launched in Q1 of 2010. People seem to still like and buy this chip, but it's by no means cutting edge. I'm also surprised that they didn't update the graphics card. Particularly since Mountain Lion offers out-of-the-box support for cutting edge graphics cards.
You can still buy "new" server systems from Dell using any DDR3-era processor, so that includes Westmere-EP and Nehalem-EP. Businesses don't buy the latest greatest thing every year, they wait till there is a cost benefit to replacing. The same goes for Apple's Mac Pro when used in server configurations. For most cases the energy use envelope stays the same if they keep picking the same performance characteristics. 300$ vs 4000$ per processor, you decide if it's worth it. In places like the stock market, you must absolutely have the fastest, latest thing, since if you don't, some other guy does, and will beat you to the best trades.
But for everyone else, picking renderfarms for example, you don't pick the most expensive part, but rather the part that you can stuff as many of into the data center, which is usually not the 135watt TDP parts, but rather the 95watt parts.
Everyone's hopping up and down and pissed off right now because Apple didn't make any changes to the Mac Pro that matter.
We'll probably have to wait for Ivy Bridge-EP chipsets first, then we'll see the E5's. Apple could build system now with the current E5, but they'd have to add TB and USB3 using additional chips, exactly the same way USB3 has been added since Sandy Bridge parts became available, but this doesn't enable PCIe 3.0 since that's only in Ivy Bridge parts. Then there's SATA III to consider as well. So once you do the math that's at least 4 features that should be in the next chipset that aren't in the current one. Any Mac Pro's bought with all those features will be usable for 7 years or so.
However Apple needs to refresh the CPU and GPU every year otherwise people will go nuts over it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
I'm thinking they'll have a larger update later on this year. I don't believe the next gen of Xeon chips are available yet, but I could be wrong. I've seen Apple do a piddly update before a major one before.
They are. Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 came out in March. That's what's next for the Mac Pro. Ivy Bridge Xeons come out late next year, and they incorporate USB 3 on the chipset (don't expect Apple to that before then).
I feel like it is far more embarrassing and a discredit to the product line to have done this "update" than to have just outright discontinued.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacMichiel
This update is a joke. A very, very bad one for sure ! Actually it is a joke not worth telling anyone. It's the kind of joke that makes you, the teller of the joke, look like a total fool. I don't even want to think about this joke. This must be a mistake, a bad dream !
With 100 billion in the bank, there is still some kind of universal law that says; thou shalt not show off in the Pro-market when the margins are lower than on an iPhone ?
I agree, Apple is now abandoning the desk top market to concentrate on iOS toys and laptops - the revision to the Mac Pro is an insult, the iMac could be so much more, its ignored and way overpriced - don't even get me started on the Mac Mini, a great idea with huge performance promise that Apple ignore.
To put it bluntly, from 1997 - 2005 had it not been for the desk top users utilising Apple products the company would have died - the iPod in those days being a nice little earner with iTunes, but not the core of the business.
Today Apple is more concerned about share price, its next consumer fad and becoming another Sony - Serious computing, which they did with the G5 models is a thing of the past - obviously, professional users who require workhorses and a stable OS are now in a minority - next all of Adobe will migrate to iOS, it will be like the old Moto days of pushing underpowered devices - looks like Dell or HP are going to shine, you can also run Linux on their kit!!!!
It's official. Apple wants to kill the Mac Pro.
What I don't understand is that there are great new Intel workstation-class processors either available or on the horizon, including 8-core processors enabling up to 16 cores in dual-processor configuration. With the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture (moving the memory controller onto the die) and a greater number of cores, there are significant performance gains to be had over previous models. Couple that with the latest IO and SATA specifications including Thunderbolt, USB 3 and SATA 3 and there are a lot of people that would be clamouring for such a powerhouse and would be prepared to pay a significant price for the privilege.
Apple should be embarrased by such behaviour. I mean a 5770/5870 AGAIN! WTF???
My only hope is that this is intended to be a short-term spec bump until Apple can sort out various supply or technical issues and then release the Mac Pro that is meant to be!
USB 3 would have been nice. But maybe this is a baby upgrade and a better more larger upgrade is due next year. Who knows.
About a year ago I commented that if Apple puts the effort into developing an all new Macpro then professionals can be assured of the lines future but if an update to the same old is all there is forth-coming then I don't expect to be depending on a commercial domestic platform for professional use any more.
Today just confirmed the decision I took last year, while Apple sits on its self asserted "it the fastest mac ever" headliner, PCs with well integrated powerfull GPUs (nVidea 690) are storming ahead of the editing game (Maingear.com) and win8 is going to punish macOS'es less than pro performance later this season,
Ivybridge is to have 6 OS software backed 5gig cores soon and next generation sees 12 and more on a single dye so are twin Zeon cpu also ran machines reaching expensive overkill status in the future, which leaves MacPro behind by next year.
even personal cloud rendering servers are using multiple Arm processing now (HP) and Ivybridge is quite powerful enough for most semipro editing where studio pro editing is done on dedicated machines (Avid.com media composer) and 4Dgraphics (nVidea maximus multi GPUprocessing).
Now if Apple really wanted to show willing it would have bought out an all new svelt design Ivybridge nVidea 680 Farrari MacX to the small editing professional workstation market, like what everyone has been shouting for for over a year now,
but have they been too busy trolling and legally defending styfulling patents this last two years to be really bothered with future inovation conception and commitment to those of us who stood by them through the tough years getting to the top or maybe they just don't need us anymore now.
Alot is made about switching to MAC, its just as easy to switch back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
They are. Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 came out in March. That's what's next for the Mac Pro. Ivy Bridge Xeons come out late next year, and they incorporate USB 3 on the chipset (don't expect Apple to that before then).
I feel like it is far more embarrassing and a discredit to the product line to have done this "update" than to have just outright discontinued.
That is what I meant...Ivy Bridge Xeon's aren't ready. I'm thinking you'll see a MacPro update when they come out. This opens up all of the capabilities such as Thunderbolt, USB 3, etc on the chipset.
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
I'm thinking you'll see a MacPro update when they come out. This opens up all of the capabilities such as Thunderbolt, USB 3, etc on the chipset.
Thunderbolt won't be natively supported until Haswell.
And updated… provided there's anyone LEFT buying Apple products when those chips come out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Thunderbolt won't be natively supported until Haswell.
And updated… provided there's anyone LEFT buying Apple products when those chips come out.
Theory: Apple has the luxury of patience these days. All the iOS profit allows them to lose some market share in the big iron desktop arena because it isn't critical to their survival like it once was. When the Haswell (and later Skylake) CPUs are available they can release a solid Mac Pro and then build back the client base. Seems like they don't really have a choice if they are going to insist the next Mac Pro have Thunderbolt native on the CPU.
Who knows really? Until someone high up in Apple decides the pro segment of their business should have a clear product roadmap we will forever be guessing. Considering how small the pro segment now is, what could it hurt to let us know what is coming?
Pogue:
Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013.