What do you mean it is pretty obvious that the petition was a waste of time. Unless you call this "new" Mac Pro the type of machine Mac Pro users where expecting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sennen
I hope all those in comments after the previous article about this petition who said it was a waste of time and that Pros should just get over it or "adapt or die" are able to admit they were wrong. Perhaps I should go find some choice quotes from that thread?
It might be a waste of time answering the questions below. I will give it a shot though.
First; the current Pros are crap. Basically you have I/O that would have been great 3 or 4 years ago but is now an impediment to fast operation. Second; no one cares about Final Cut. Third; if you don't know why paying a premium price for a 3 year old GPU card is a problem you need to get a life and a bit of an education.
The problem is it is a workstation costing thousands of dollars as such people expect modern hardware for that cash out lay. Think about it a bit why in hell would you spend multiple thousands of dollars for a machine that doesn't support modern I/O? We can focus on USB 3 or any other part of the system if you like but really why would you lay out cash for hardware that has been dated for three years now? Especially a machine that is an investment and has to last.
AS to Pros loosing money it should be pretty obvious, if the competition does the same work in one quarter of the time you will suffer as a Mac Pro user. It is simple business where time is money. Your mi 2010 line up is technically very dated. In many cases that line up will be out paced by todays laptops and certainly by run of the mill desktop machines.
Really I don't know what you are harping about. There is no defense for the current Mac Pro that I can think of. Why you would choose to emend this move by Apple is beyond me. Consider that this machine doesn't even meet the desires of the most conservative of members on these forums. Last week few would have believed that Apple would have seriously tried to deliver such a machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
I'd like to know what exactly the problem is with the *current* Mac Pros? Do they not run Final Cut fast enough? They might not have the absolute newest video card, but what are you doing with it that you'll need that? I don't get all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth. It's a workstation costing several thousand dollars, with the top-end system requiring a bank-loan for some (unless their company picks it up or writes it off, etc.) So it isn't meant to be updated very regularly. These things are built to last and built to handle heavy loads.
I'd like to know how Apple's current Mac Pro upgrade cycle is having such a detrimental effect on Pros that they're *losing money* because the machines can't do the work necessary to fulfill contractual obligations to clients.
I'm betting that the above is hardly the case.
Here was the mid-2010 lineup. Let's not even talk about the most recent spec bump.
Mid-2010 Mac Pro Lineup
Quad-Core
8-Core
12-Core
CPU
1 x Xeon W3530 (2.8GHz - 4C/8T)
2 x Xeon E5620 (2.4GHz - 4C/8T)
2 x Xeon X5650 (2.66GHz - 6C/12T)
Memory
3 x 1GB DDR3-1066
6GB DDR3-1066
6GB DDR3-1333
Graphics
Radeon HD 5770 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
Hard Drive
1TB
1TB 7200RPM SATA
1TB 7200RPM SATA
Optical
18x DL SuperDrive
18x DL SuperDrive
18x DL SuperDrive
Prices
$2499
$3499
$4999
And there's opportunity for expandability there. Unmatched build quality. By the looks of it, lots of power. And it runs OS X.
The timeframe of late 2013 makes me think this will be the big overhaul. While Ivy Bridge Xeons would be due at that point, I really don't think it would be wise of Intel to bother with Ivy Bridge Xeons. They have 22nm already so they might as well jump right to the Haswell architecture.
10-core/20-thread single CPU, 8" Cube design, 512GB SSD blade, 3x platter bays, fast GPU only upgradable from Apple using HSA architecture, 6x Thunderbolt ports 20Gbps each, 4x RAM slots (up to 64GB RAM), Thunderbolt daisy-chaining for compute sharing CPUs and GPUs.
No way they'd wait 3 years and build another giant box.
It is something the idiots in petition villa don't grasp. Tim basically said this is the end of the road for the Mac Pro and that they have something planned to replace it.
That is good of course but it still doesn't justify the current Mac Pro update.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Landcruiser
"...allaying fears of current Mac Pro owners that the desktop had reached its end of life"
Well if your current Mac Pro hadn't reached end of life before, it sure did now with this announcement.
I am not sure why anyone cares at this point. The Mac Pro is two years old and Apple is asking their customers to wait another year?
If you are running a business that uses Mac Pros and the professional software that goes along with it, it is time to start thinking about Windows. For all we know, Apple's new Mac Pro will be the hardware equivalent of FCP X. If history is any indication, we will still get a limited selection of GPUs and they will likely be out of date. We won't have a choice either, it will be whatever manufacturer Apple decides to go with, ATI or Nvidia.
And after the next one comes out, how long will the next hardware update take? 12 months? 18? 24? Why any professionals would invest in such a platform is beyond me.
5. Software seems to have fallen off the agenda. Aperture and Final Cut received updates purely to promote the new retina MBP rather than to add new features. iWork seems to have totally dropped of the radar.
What was that about nine camera views running at once?
I don't think Retina 15" has any more "screen real estate" than the regular 15" MacBook Pro. Just sharper. Like the iPhone and iPad. The 17" still has more on the screen.
(this is a reply to a post on page 1 about the Retina 15")
Which implies that the current Mac Pro is a dead platform.
I'm in agreement that a major overhaul of the machine and even the concept of a high performance computer is in order. They almost have to innovate massively to pull themselves out of the mess they just created.
While we could speculate for another years as to what this box will look like, it is the current box that is the problem. I just see a rapid decline in sales. Further the complete and utter disregard for the desktop shown at WWDC doesn't look to good at all from the standpoint of a customer. AT best we will be waiting for another 6 months and likely far more for even a hint as to what Apple has planned. Looking at it as a span form the last Mac Pro update that will be well over 4 years of time for technology to pass Pro users by. That is the big insult.
As to the machine you outlined below, I was actually hoping to see such a box replace the Mac Pro this year. The technology is there to do so. Granted Intel has some interesting technologies up their sleeves that could make for a better box in 2013-2014. For example if they get their new 3D memory modules on line. In any event we could easily be talking another 12 month wait here and that would mean that very stable hardware will be in the hands of the competition for that period of time.
I really think Apple blew it big time with this screw up. At the very least they should have done something with the other desktop machines to demonstrate that they have a clue with respect to desktop user needs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
The timeframe of late 2013 makes me think this will be the big overhaul. While Ivy Bridge Xeons would be due at that point, I really don't think it would be wise of Intel to bother with Ivy Bridge Xeons. They have 22nm already so they might as well jump right to the Haswell architecture.
10-core/20-thread single CPU, 8" Cube design, 512GB SSD blade, 3x platter bays, fast GPU only upgradable from Apple using HSA architecture, 6x Thunderbolt ports 20Gbps each, 4x RAM slots (up to 64GB RAM), Thunderbolt daisy-chaining for compute sharing CPUs and GPUs.
No way they'd wait 3 years and build another giant box.
Your points are very valid. However the issue with the GPU is more complicated I'm actually expecting the next machines to have the GPU integrated right on the motherboard. It is the only way to move technology and performance foreword. We can only hope that the GU isn't to dated.
By the way form the software development standpoint having a fixed GPU for a specific model is a huge advantage. It means time spent on optimization is less likely to got to waste.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kpluck
I am not sure why anyone cares at this point. The Mac Pro is two years old and Apple is asking their customers to wait another year?
If you are running a business that uses Mac Pros and the professional software that goes along with it, it is time to start thinking about Windows. For all we know, Apple's new Mac Pro will be the hardware equivalent of FCP X. If history is any indication, we will still get a limited selection of GPUs and they will likely be out of date. We won't have a choice either, it will be whatever manufacturer Apple decides to go with, ATI or Nvidia.
And after the next one comes out, how long will the next hardware update take? 12 months? 18? 24? Why any professionals would invest in such a platform is beyond me.
My understanding is that so few 17" MBPs were being sold relative to the other models, that it should be no big surprise that they dropped the 17" form factor. I would be buying a 17" right now to replace my old 2007 15" MBP if they had come out with some, but instead I'll be getting the new 15".
Just add a large Apple external screen for when you are a desk and you're golden. That's what i did.
Why in the world does Apple act like they can't "afford" to update more then what is making the most money at the time? They say they believe in making the best products possible but what they really mean is making the best products possible with the highest profit margins. How in the world is updating the iMac or Mac Pro detrimental to them even if it is only for their "hard core" mac users? These "hard core" Mac users are the ones that kept them alive before the iPhone and iPod.
What was that about nine camera views running at once?
Yeah, the [arguably] best multicam implementation out there running full bore on a laptop... And displaying a full 1080p video running in the upper right corner of the screen
Which implies that the current Mac Pro is a dead platform.
I'm in agreement that a major overhaul of the machine and even the concept of a high performance computer is in order. They almost have to innovate massively to pull themselves out of the mess they just created.
While we could speculate for another years as to what this box will look like, it is the current box that is the problem. I just see a rapid decline in sales. Further the complete and utter disregard for the desktop shown at WWDC doesn't look to good at all from the standpoint of a customer. AT best we will be waiting for another 6 months and likely far more for even a hint as to what Apple has planned. Looking at it as a span form the last Mac Pro update that will be well over 4 years of time for technology to pass Pro users by. That is the big insult.
As to the machine you outlined below, I was actually hoping to see such a box replace the Mac Pro this year. The technology is there to do so. Granted Intel has some interesting technologies up their sleeves that could make for a better box in 2013-2014. For example if they get their new 3D memory modules on line. In any event we could easily be talking another 12 month wait here and that would mean that very stable hardware will be in the hands of the competition for that period of time.
I really think Apple blew it big time with this screw up. At the very least they should have done something with the other desktop machines to demonstrate that they have a clue with respect to desktop user needs.
This pro offering may just be a necessary peace offering to the pros... Obviously, Tim sought out a dissatisfied user to respond to, in order to assure him that Apple is not going to abandon this very important market.
Even if it costs Apple $1 million -- it is money well spent... Advertising!
I'm not sure why (most) everyone here is assuming that the "something really great" Cook is hinting at will look anything like an existing Mac Pro. If all they wanted to do was to build a newer Mac Pro, there's no reason for that to take a year and a half to put together. Meanwhile, the market for Mac Pros is clearly declining (I have one and love it, by the way -- no hating here!) and, if I were Cook, I'd be looking for a way to provide lots of computing cycles to my high-end customers, but in a way that might also pay off for other customers in other ways.
Perhaps give a Mac Mini a bigger processor, an SSD drive, and a Thunderbolt interface, and then let people hook together as many as they need? Two for my home server, ten for my video rendering box at work. Maybe open up Apple's cloud service so that I can offload compute-intensive jobs in a way that seems transparent/invisible? There are lots of ways to give people lots of computing cycles other than to stick a bunch of stuff in a big box under their desk.
The bottom line is this comes down the number of units sold, the costs of parts and production, and what Intel wants to do.
For a MacPro, Apple needs as many cores as it can throw at multi-threaded pro media apps. To get more cores you have to go multi-processors, or Xeons. A single i7 might actually be as fast or faster than a Xeon at many tasks, but when you throw in dual processors the Xeons win when doing heavy processing. The Xeon processors Apple use in the MacPro are older version, but even the latest Xeons are not Ivy Bridge, they are Sandy Bridge. And the increase in performance of the newer Sandy Bridge Xeons is not a huge gain. Intel has been focused on die shrinking the Ivy Bridge i-series chips because they can sell millions more of those than server/workstation processors.
The next part of the equation is the chipsets and sockets needed to support the CPU's and provide I/O. Again, Intel holds the cards here. I believe the older Xeons the MacPro has use the LGA 1366 CPU socket, and the newer Sandy-Bridge Xeons use a newer LGA 2011. So to get a marginal increase in performance, along with some power and heat reduction, Apple would have had to design a new motherboard around the LGA 2011.
For massive volume products, Apple has no problem creating their own chips and chipsets and having them fabricated. For a product like the Mac Pro they are going to rely on the 3rd parties as much as possible for standard designs. Right now, it appears that none of the chipsets out there that support multi-processor Xeons provide ThunderBolt support. So Apple would have to add support for Thunderbolt.
Next year a new die-shrink Ivy Bridge Xeon is expected, and the support for Thunderbolt will be more wide-spread.
So bottom line, Apple looked at its options and said "we don't want to invest a lot of money to create a new, marginally faster computer model that will probably need to be replaced need to be replaced again next year.
So this is what they get for going with Intel... delays on releasing new MacBooks because Intel was late with Ivy Bridge CPUs, and slow development on high-end Xeon lines. But the alternative of going with PowerPC would probably have been worse when looked at over the long-term.
I would look for the NEW MacPro's next year when the Ivy Bridge Xeons come out. Sadly, Apple could have chosen to at least offer faster graphics cards, but perhaps they figure that most pros will choose their own video upgrade options. However, by showing weak support to the MacPro, Apple does not send a good sign to 3rd party video card makers to stay in the Mac market.
And now you know why Apple likes making its own chips for iOS devices.
"we're working on something really great for later next year"
Translation - A man Mini with three thunderbolt ports, a 1TB SSD, and a high end video card. From the Apple perspective, this is exactly the product they think is great for the high end market.
I don't see anything in Tim's email to suggest that the "Great Product" will be anything like the current Mac Pro.
I'm not sure why (most) everyone here is assuming that the "something really great" Cook is hinting at will look anything like an existing Mac Pro. If all they wanted to do was to build a newer Mac Pro, there's no reason for that to take a year and a half to put together. Meanwhile, the market for Mac Pros is clearly declining (I have one and love it, by the way -- no hating here!) and, if I were Cook, I'd be looking for a way to provide lots of computing cycles to my high-end customers, but in a way that might also pay off for other customers in other ways.
Perhaps give a Mac Mini a bigger processor, an SSD drive, and a Thunderbolt interface, and then let people hook together as many as they need? Two for my home server, ten for my video rendering box at work. Maybe open up Apple's cloud service so that I can offload compute-intensive jobs in a way that seems transparent/invisible? There are lots of ways to give people lots of computing cycles other than to stick a bunch of stuff in a big box under their desk.
"Think different", remember?
I agree!
How about modular boxes daisy chained together with thunderbolt and/or fiber optics...
Separate boxes with: RAM/CPUs; SSDs; GPUs; HDD RAIDS... mix or match these as needed to address current needs.
Apple already has software to manage this distributed computing system
I'd like to know what exactly the problem is with the *current* Mac Pros? Do they not run Final Cut fast enough? They might not have the absolute newest video card, but what are you doing with it that you'll need that? I don't get all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth. It's a workstation costing several thousand dollars, with the top-end system requiring a bank-loan for some (unless their company picks it up or writes it off, etc.) So it isn't meant to be updated very regularly. These things are built to last and built to handle heavy loads.
I'd like to know how Apple's current Mac Pro upgrade cycle is having such a detrimental effect on Pros that they're *losing money* because the machines can't do the work necessary to fulfill contractual obligations to clients.
I'm betting that the above is hardly the case.
Etc
Etc
.......
And there's opportunity for expandability there. Unmatched build quality. By the looks of it, lots of power. And it runs OS X.
Comments
What do you mean it is pretty obvious that the petition was a waste of time. Unless you call this "new" Mac Pro the type of machine Mac Pro users where expecting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sennen
I hope all those in comments after the previous article about this petition who said it was a waste of time and that Pros should just get over it or "adapt or die" are able to admit they were wrong. Perhaps I should go find some choice quotes from that thread?
It might be a waste of time answering the questions below. I will give it a shot though.
First; the current Pros are crap. Basically you have I/O that would have been great 3 or 4 years ago but is now an impediment to fast operation. Second; no one cares about Final Cut. Third; if you don't know why paying a premium price for a 3 year old GPU card is a problem you need to get a life and a bit of an education.
The problem is it is a workstation costing thousands of dollars as such people expect modern hardware for that cash out lay. Think about it a bit why in hell would you spend multiple thousands of dollars for a machine that doesn't support modern I/O? We can focus on USB 3 or any other part of the system if you like but really why would you lay out cash for hardware that has been dated for three years now? Especially a machine that is an investment and has to last.
AS to Pros loosing money it should be pretty obvious, if the competition does the same work in one quarter of the time you will suffer as a Mac Pro user. It is simple business where time is money. Your mi 2010 line up is technically very dated. In many cases that line up will be out paced by todays laptops and certainly by run of the mill desktop machines.
Really I don't know what you are harping about. There is no defense for the current Mac Pro that I can think of. Why you would choose to emend this move by Apple is beyond me. Consider that this machine doesn't even meet the desires of the most conservative of members on these forums. Last week few would have believed that Apple would have seriously tried to deliver such a machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
I'd like to know what exactly the problem is with the *current* Mac Pros? Do they not run Final Cut fast enough? They might not have the absolute newest video card, but what are you doing with it that you'll need that? I don't get all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth. It's a workstation costing several thousand dollars, with the top-end system requiring a bank-loan for some (unless their company picks it up or writes it off, etc.) So it isn't meant to be updated very regularly. These things are built to last and built to handle heavy loads.
I'd like to know how Apple's current Mac Pro upgrade cycle is having such a detrimental effect on Pros that they're *losing money* because the machines can't do the work necessary to fulfill contractual obligations to clients.
I'm betting that the above is hardly the case.
Here was the mid-2010 lineup. Let's not even talk about the most recent spec bump.
Mid-2010 Mac Pro Lineup
Quad-Core
8-Core
12-Core
CPU
1 x Xeon W3530 (2.8GHz - 4C/8T)
2 x Xeon E5620 (2.4GHz - 4C/8T)
2 x Xeon X5650 (2.66GHz - 6C/12T)
Memory
3 x 1GB DDR3-1066
6GB DDR3-1066
6GB DDR3-1333
Graphics
Radeon HD 5770 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
Hard Drive
1TB
1TB 7200RPM SATA
1TB 7200RPM SATA
Optical
18x DL SuperDrive
18x DL SuperDrive
18x DL SuperDrive
Prices
$2499
$3499
$4999
And there's opportunity for expandability there. Unmatched build quality. By the looks of it, lots of power. And it runs OS X.
10-core/20-thread single CPU, 8" Cube design, 512GB SSD blade, 3x platter bays, fast GPU only upgradable from Apple using HSA architecture, 6x Thunderbolt ports 20Gbps each, 4x RAM slots (up to 64GB RAM), Thunderbolt daisy-chaining for compute sharing CPUs and GPUs.
No way they'd wait 3 years and build another giant box.
That is good of course but it still doesn't justify the current Mac Pro update.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Landcruiser
"...allaying fears of current Mac Pro owners that the desktop had reached its end of life"
Well if your current Mac Pro hadn't reached end of life before, it sure did now with this announcement.
I am not sure why anyone cares at this point. The Mac Pro is two years old and Apple is asking their customers to wait another year?
If you are running a business that uses Mac Pros and the professional software that goes along with it, it is time to start thinking about Windows. For all we know, Apple's new Mac Pro will be the hardware equivalent of FCP X. If history is any indication, we will still get a limited selection of GPUs and they will likely be out of date. We won't have a choice either, it will be whatever manufacturer Apple decides to go with, ATI or Nvidia.
And after the next one comes out, how long will the next hardware update take? 12 months? 18? 24? Why any professionals would invest in such a platform is beyond me.
-kpluck
What was that about nine camera views running at once?
I don't think Retina 15" has any more "screen real estate" than the regular 15" MacBook Pro. Just sharper. Like the iPhone and iPad. The 17" still has more on the screen.
(this is a reply to a post on page 1 about the Retina 15")
I'll venture a guess and say MAJOR updates at NAB next year.
Mac Pro with a new form factor, a headless iMac (just 'Mac'?) and new iMacs.
Which implies that the current Mac Pro is a dead platform.
I'm in agreement that a major overhaul of the machine and even the concept of a high performance computer is in order. They almost have to innovate massively to pull themselves out of the mess they just created.
While we could speculate for another years as to what this box will look like, it is the current box that is the problem. I just see a rapid decline in sales. Further the complete and utter disregard for the desktop shown at WWDC doesn't look to good at all from the standpoint of a customer. AT best we will be waiting for another 6 months and likely far more for even a hint as to what Apple has planned. Looking at it as a span form the last Mac Pro update that will be well over 4 years of time for technology to pass Pro users by. That is the big insult.
As to the machine you outlined below, I was actually hoping to see such a box replace the Mac Pro this year. The technology is there to do so. Granted Intel has some interesting technologies up their sleeves that could make for a better box in 2013-2014. For example if they get their new 3D memory modules on line. In any event we could easily be talking another 12 month wait here and that would mean that very stable hardware will be in the hands of the competition for that period of time.
I really think Apple blew it big time with this screw up. At the very least they should have done something with the other desktop machines to demonstrate that they have a clue with respect to desktop user needs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
The timeframe of late 2013 makes me think this will be the big overhaul. While Ivy Bridge Xeons would be due at that point, I really don't think it would be wise of Intel to bother with Ivy Bridge Xeons. They have 22nm already so they might as well jump right to the Haswell architecture.
10-core/20-thread single CPU, 8" Cube design, 512GB SSD blade, 3x platter bays, fast GPU only upgradable from Apple using HSA architecture, 6x Thunderbolt ports 20Gbps each, 4x RAM slots (up to 64GB RAM), Thunderbolt daisy-chaining for compute sharing CPUs and GPUs.
No way they'd wait 3 years and build another giant box.
Your points are very valid. However the issue with the GPU is more complicated I'm actually expecting the next machines to have the GPU integrated right on the motherboard. It is the only way to move technology and performance foreword. We can only hope that the GU isn't to dated.
By the way form the software development standpoint having a fixed GPU for a specific model is a huge advantage. It means time spent on optimization is less likely to got to waste.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kpluck
I am not sure why anyone cares at this point. The Mac Pro is two years old and Apple is asking their customers to wait another year?
If you are running a business that uses Mac Pros and the professional software that goes along with it, it is time to start thinking about Windows. For all we know, Apple's new Mac Pro will be the hardware equivalent of FCP X. If history is any indication, we will still get a limited selection of GPUs and they will likely be out of date. We won't have a choice either, it will be whatever manufacturer Apple decides to go with, ATI or Nvidia.
And after the next one comes out, how long will the next hardware update take? 12 months? 18? 24? Why any professionals would invest in such a platform is beyond me.
-kpluck
Just add a large Apple external screen for when you are a desk and you're golden. That's what i did.
Repeated from another forum I posted this in:
Why in the world does Apple act like they can't "afford" to update more then what is making the most money at the time? They say they believe in making the best products possible but what they really mean is making the best products possible with the highest profit margins. How in the world is updating the iMac or Mac Pro detrimental to them even if it is only for their "hard core" mac users? These "hard core" Mac users are the ones that kept them alive before the iPhone and iPod.
Yeah, the [arguably] best multicam implementation out there running full bore on a laptop... And displaying a full 1080p video running in the upper right corner of the screen
This pro offering may just be a necessary peace offering to the pros... Obviously, Tim sought out a dissatisfied user to respond to, in order to assure him that Apple is not going to abandon this very important market.
Even if it costs Apple $1 million -- it is money well spent... Advertising!
Showing the flag!
I'm not sure why (most) everyone here is assuming that the "something really great" Cook is hinting at will look anything like an existing Mac Pro. If all they wanted to do was to build a newer Mac Pro, there's no reason for that to take a year and a half to put together. Meanwhile, the market for Mac Pros is clearly declining (I have one and love it, by the way -- no hating here!) and, if I were Cook, I'd be looking for a way to provide lots of computing cycles to my high-end customers, but in a way that might also pay off for other customers in other ways.
Perhaps give a Mac Mini a bigger processor, an SSD drive, and a Thunderbolt interface, and then let people hook together as many as they need? Two for my home server, ten for my video rendering box at work. Maybe open up Apple's cloud service so that I can offload compute-intensive jobs in a way that seems transparent/invisible? There are lots of ways to give people lots of computing cycles other than to stick a bunch of stuff in a big box under their desk.
"Think different", remember?
The bottom line is this comes down the number of units sold, the costs of parts and production, and what Intel wants to do.
For a MacPro, Apple needs as many cores as it can throw at multi-threaded pro media apps. To get more cores you have to go multi-processors, or Xeons. A single i7 might actually be as fast or faster than a Xeon at many tasks, but when you throw in dual processors the Xeons win when doing heavy processing. The Xeon processors Apple use in the MacPro are older version, but even the latest Xeons are not Ivy Bridge, they are Sandy Bridge. And the increase in performance of the newer Sandy Bridge Xeons is not a huge gain. Intel has been focused on die shrinking the Ivy Bridge i-series chips because they can sell millions more of those than server/workstation processors.
The next part of the equation is the chipsets and sockets needed to support the CPU's and provide I/O. Again, Intel holds the cards here. I believe the older Xeons the MacPro has use the LGA 1366 CPU socket, and the newer Sandy-Bridge Xeons use a newer LGA 2011. So to get a marginal increase in performance, along with some power and heat reduction, Apple would have had to design a new motherboard around the LGA 2011.
For massive volume products, Apple has no problem creating their own chips and chipsets and having them fabricated. For a product like the Mac Pro they are going to rely on the 3rd parties as much as possible for standard designs. Right now, it appears that none of the chipsets out there that support multi-processor Xeons provide ThunderBolt support. So Apple would have to add support for Thunderbolt.
Next year a new die-shrink Ivy Bridge Xeon is expected, and the support for Thunderbolt will be more wide-spread.
So bottom line, Apple looked at its options and said "we don't want to invest a lot of money to create a new, marginally faster computer model that will probably need to be replaced need to be replaced again next year.
So this is what they get for going with Intel... delays on releasing new MacBooks because Intel was late with Ivy Bridge CPUs, and slow development on high-end Xeon lines. But the alternative of going with PowerPC would probably have been worse when looked at over the long-term.
I would look for the NEW MacPro's next year when the Ivy Bridge Xeons come out. Sadly, Apple could have chosen to at least offer faster graphics cards, but perhaps they figure that most pros will choose their own video upgrade options. However, by showing weak support to the MacPro, Apple does not send a good sign to 3rd party video card makers to stay in the Mac market.
And now you know why Apple likes making its own chips for iOS devices.
"we're working on something really great for later next year"
Translation - A man Mini with three thunderbolt ports, a 1TB SSD, and a high end video card. From the Apple perspective, this is exactly the product they think is great for the high end market.
I don't see anything in Tim's email to suggest that the "Great Product" will be anything like the current Mac Pro.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mfryd
I don't see anything in Tim's email to suggest that the "Great Product" will be anything like the current Mac Pro.
GOOD. You really want the same thing regurgitated every year?
I agree!
How about modular boxes daisy chained together with thunderbolt and/or fiber optics...
Separate boxes with: RAM/CPUs; SSDs; GPUs; HDD RAIDS... mix or match these as needed to address current needs.
Apple already has software to manage this distributed computing system
My feelings exactly, but far better put.