SGI bankruptcies were due to poor management and marketing.
I'd emphasize the bolded portion. I wonder what it costs configured. It could be many times that as shown. It also doesn't mention what kind of backplane/interconnect is used there or really any kind of detail. Anyway it's not really in line with something we should expect from Apple. This kind of stuff is ruled by Linux.
I have always stated that this is another lame attempt to foment for an xMac. I don't care if you want Apple to make a new cube with a few slots. That would make me happy and I would buy one.
But it pisses me off when this desire translates into "Apple should castrate the Mac Pro people use to make the xMac I want to buy because I don't give a shit about their needs".
Most of those pushing for an "xMac" want it to compliment Apple's Xeon workstations, not replace them. Basically we want a headless iMac with a full-sized video card. NOT a thin iMac, a fat-bottomed iMac sans screen.
Obviously we will never get an xMac because Apple's business model is disposable electronics. An xMac scares the sh!t out of them because users might actually upgrade it. Apple wants Macs to go from the store to the landfill in 3 years tops. The Mac Pro is the odd one out in their lineup, so my guess is that they make the next one thinner and less upgradable. Apple has proven that they don't care about alienating their professional user base, and that's what they'll do with the newest Mac Pro.
My guess is that Cook gets panic attacks when he thinks about us Mac users upgrading the CPUs or video cards in our Mac Pros. Apple are working to carefully gimp the next Mac Pro just enough so that it doesn't quite serve professionals' needs, but can still be sold at professional prices.
I can handle losing one optical drive but I hope it keeps one. I know Apple foresees an end to and indeed wants to kill the CD and DVD but I'm not ready to make that sacrifice. iTunes doesn't yet offer CD quality audio and if I buy a PC game chances are it'll come on a DVD. If you take Blu-Ray into consideration, optical media still has a longer life than Steve tried to have us believe.
One of the things I most love about the Mac Pro are that everything is internal, allowing for a very clean workstation. I don't have external drives and Apple's cheap-looking afterthought of an external CD/DVD clogging up my desk. If I've got a big tower for performance and heat-dissipation adding an optical drive doesn't make a huge difference.
So don't! Grab an 18x external. Or even, as you said, a Blu-ray drive. Those are 8x now, right? I actually have a 6x in my Mac Pro.
"Wait, you?!"
Yeah, it's a BD-RE/HD DVD-ROM drive. Really I got it for the latter half of that, but I've lightly used it for both.
One of the things I most love about the Mac Pro are that everything is internal, allowing for a very clean workstation.
When the new model comes out, I think you'll feel firsthand what I said earlier about "current Mac Pro owners will hate it".
This thing won't have optical drives, and it's absolutely not going to have FireWire. I'm thinking at least four Thunderbolt to make up for that, four USB 3, and then whatever else.
I agree, though; I like that my setup is only screen, tower, keyboard, trackpad. I'd take an all-in-one over that, but you can't fit a Xeon behind a screen without it exploding.
This thing won't have optical drives, and it's absolutely not going to have FireWire. I'm thinking at least four Thunderbolt to make up for that, four USB 3, and then whatever else.
USB3 is going to displace the use of firewire more than thunderbolt. Firewire always had some points of superiority over usb, but the sustained speed should significantly outpace FW800. I'm not sure what meaningful advantages would be maintained by firewire outside of older devices. I'm not sure intel has any thunderbolt chips that currently support 4 ports out.
Quote:
I agree, though; I like that my setup is only screen, tower, keyboard, trackpad. I'd take an all-in-one over that, but you can't fit a Xeon behind a screen without it exploding.
I find them a bit limiting in some ways, but display technology continues to homogenize, so perhaps that will change.
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
I've only heard of doing it, myself. I remember reading tutorials about getting into the 2006 model, seeing blood on the hands of the guy tearing it down as he cut himself multiple times getting into the case…
And OWC offers a daughterboard exchange program, but has anyone even done that?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
Macrumors has a number of posts on that. It seems like a number of people with 2009 mac pros went for 6 core upgrades. When they first came out those cpus were around $1100 on newegg. A year later with no Sandy Bridge E in sight they were just under $600 while the 6 core mac pro remained $3800 minimum. I would personally call that an unusual circumstance. As for faulty cpus. I've seen dead logic boards, although I haven't personally seen any in mac pros. I've never seen a dead cpu.
Macrumors has a number of posts on that. It seems like a number of people with 2009 mac pros went for 6 core upgrades. When they first came out those cpus were around $1100 on newegg. A year later with no Sandy Bridge E in sight they were just under $600 while the 6 core mac pro remained $3800 minimum. I would personally call that an unusual circumstance. As for faulty cpus. I've seen dead logic boards, although I haven't personally seen any in mac pros. I've never seen a dead cpu.
It happens very infrequently on Dell equipment anyways. That would be either the logic board or CPU going dead. With modern CPUs it is much much harder to kill them by overheating, so that failure mode is not common anymore. I've heard of Mac Pros going dead it is not however a common thing.
So don't! Grab an 18x external. Or even, as you said, a Blu-ray drive. Those are 8x now, right? I actually have a 6x in my Mac Pro.
While I can understand the desire to have an internal drive in the Mac Pros replacement I'm not too sure Apple will go that way. Eternal drives are a real pain in the ass for those that use them a lot. Apples obvious problem here is simply this, how many pros actually use Optical drives a lot. The answer is not many in my opinion though we will get a few pipping in any moment saying that they do. The problem is they are the very few that do, so does Apple redesign the Mac Pro and specifically accommodate the few by supporting a dying technology?
"Wait, you?!"
Yeah, it's a BD-RE/HD DVD-ROM drive. Really I got it for the latter half of that, but I've lightly used it for both.
You know I've avoided Blu Ray as much as I possible can. I see no reason to support the mental illness that brought that hardware to market.
When the new model comes out, I think you'll feel firsthand what I said earlier about "current Mac Pro owners will hate it".
Yep they will concentrate on the past and not look towards the future. I only hope that Apple really looks towards the future because we are at another technology juncture that could see rapid changes in what a desktop computer looks like.
This thing won't have optical drives, and it's absolutely not going to have FireWire. I'm thinking at least four Thunderbolt to make up for that, four USB 3, and then whatever else.
Probably close.
I agree, though; I like that my setup is only screen, tower, keyboard, trackpad. I'd take an all-in-one over that, but you can't fit a Xeon behind a screen without it exploding.
It will be most interesting to see where Apple goes processor wise with the 2013 Mac Pro. Something's that Intel had posted about Xeon Phi seems to have fallen off the radar, at least I can't find the references on Intels sight anymore. So maybe a Phi based Mac Pro with supercomputing type networking is in the wings. The chip I'm talking about is not the currently released Phi processors but rather a Xeon derived chip with the super computing networking built in. Or maybe not, the point here is that Apple has more choices for the Mac Pro than ever before. Everything is on the table from memory architecture to secondary storage.
Apples obvious problem here is simply this, how many pros actually use Optical drives a lot. The answer is not many in my opinion though we will get a few pipping in any moment saying that they do. The problem is they are the very few that do, so does Apple redesign the Mac Pro and specifically accommodate the few by supporting a dying technology?
Seriously! They can just get one of these and quit whining about how they "need an optical drive".
Yes, that's a 1-15 duplicator.
You know I've avoided Blu Ray as much as I possible can. I see no reason to support the mental illness that brought that hardware to market.
A younger me would have just out and said that, too.
It will be most interesting to see where Apple goes processor wise with the 2013 Mac Pro. So maybe a Phi based Mac Pro with supercomputing type networking is in the wings.
I_want_to_believe.png
When it is released, what Apple means when they say "the 2013 Mac Pro" is a lot more important than people think. What that means extends downward through all of Apple's products.
Seriously! They can just get one of these and quit whining about how they "need an optical drive".
Nice! It must cost a pretty penny though.
Yes, that's a 1-15 duplicator.
A younger me would have just out and said that, too.
Hey I'm becoming an old fart and I said it. I understand the need to control theft but there was so much stupidity associated with the Blu Ray group that frankly it causes you to loose confidence in capitalism. Seeing the tragedy that is Windows, after the hoops MS had to jump through to become compliant, I'm glad Apple said screw it.
I_want_to_believe.png
When it is released, what Apple means when they say "the 2013 Mac Pro" is a lot more important than people think. What that means extends downward through all of Apple's products.
There is much speculation surrounding the 2103 Mac Pro. However I can see the gap widening between the world of Pro hardware and consumer hardware. It will be more interesting to see what the 2013 Mini will be like. More so it will be very interesting if Apple can deliver a 64 bit ARM platform in 2013.
64 bit ARM would allow them to massively accelerated iOS development and features. This would lead to even faster split between consumer and more professional devices.
You know I've avoided Blu Ray as much as I possible can. I see no reason to support the mental illness that brought that hardware to market.
Blu-rays have awesome image quality and can support 3-d. Sorry you don't appreciate that but many folks obviously do.
The most prevalent form of mental illness in this forum is the inability to accept that things that aren't personally useful aren't automatically stupid and need to be disparaged.
Getting a bit OT, but as much as I wish Blu-Ray and DRM would die a painful death I think it still offers something that is unavailable (or at least very difficult to find) elsewhere. That is, the very best picture quality and data rates available. Many of us have high resolution 1080p or more displays and TVs and SD tends to look very flakey on them. If I want to watch Lord of Rings Extended Edition in Blu-Ray quality, I either buy the box-set set or download some 300 Gb from a torrent site (if available). I certainly can't download it from iTunes.
The latter isn't really worth doing, not only because it would take a good while but because I can't be bothered finding space to store and back up that much data. Where Blu-Ray used to be overpriced, they obviously decided it wasn't catching on so now they're a dime a dozen in the discount bin and generally only marginally more expensive than SD DVDs. I can buy Lord of the Rings in Blu-Ray much cheaper now than I bought it originally on SD DVD. So before Blu-Ray dies SD DVDs would have to die first.
Also, as much as studies show that people can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC) and CD quality, Steve and Apple could have done a lot to hasten the death of CDs by providing equivalent quality, which they still haven't done. Even though it's a technicality for most it's still a degradation when there needn't be. They also tried to encourage us to buy from iTunes when the quality was only 128 kbps and the difference between that and CD is like day and night to me, even on my B&W MM-1 computer speakers.
I look forward to watching Blu-Ray lord of the Rings and Mylene au Stade de France via an external BD drive on my 15" retina when I get one. I guess that means I won't need one in my Mac Pro! :P
PS. I really do use my Mac Pro for work and not just as a glorified and extremely overpriced TV...
I bought the Mac Pro used and found a used W3690 for a ridiculously low price on eBay and ended up with a sub $2000 Mac Pro that flat out rocks. Flashed my own Radeon 6870 to replace the worthless GT120. Total cost still under $2000. Dropped in a SATA 6G PCIe HBA card with two Plextor M3 Pro SSDs, that finally pushed the price over $2000. My Mac Pro is still cheaper than a top of the line iMac, and it blows it away on performance.
NONE of those upgrades would have been possible with any of Apple's other toy hardware. And all of the upgrades were fairly easy except for fitting two SSDs in the optical bay and splitting the optical SATA power. If Apple removes the optical bays, that's less room for SSD/HDD expansion, making for less versatile towers.
Some will say internal storage on towers is no longer the in thing. I say it's nice to have a single, fully self-contained tower on my desk without a rat's nest of cables or a brood of slow external enclosures. My Mac Pro looks cleaner and takes up less space than plenty of "thin" iMac setups I've seen, with all the external superdrives and HDDs required on an iMac. Add the cost of Thunderbolt external enclosures to the iMac, and my Mac Pro looks even cheaper.
Getting a bit OT, but as much as I wish Blu-Ray and DRM would die a painful death I think it still offers something that is unavailable (or at least very difficult to find) elsewhere. That is, the very best picture quality and data rates available. Many of us have high resolution 1080p or more displays and TVs and SD tends to look very flakey on them. If I want to watch Lord of Rings Extended Edition in Blu-Ray quality, I either buy the box-set set or download some 300 Gb from a torrent site (if available). I certainly can't download it from iTunes.
The latter isn't really worth doing, not only because it would take a good while but because I can't be bothered finding space to store and back up that much data. Where Blu-Ray used to be overpriced, they obviously decided it wasn't catching on so now they're a dime a dozen in the discount bin and generally only marginally more expensive than SD DVDs. I can buy Lord of the Rings in Blu-Ray much cheaper now than I bought it originally on SD DVD. So before Blu-Ray dies SD DVDs would have to die first.
Also, as much as studies show that people can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC) and CD quality, Steve and Apple could have done a lot to hasten the death of CDs by providing equivalent quality, which they still haven't done. Even though it's a technicality for most it's still a degradation when there needn't be. They also tried to encourage us to buy from iTunes when the quality was only 128 kbps and the difference between that and CD is like day and night to me, even on my B&W MM-1 computer speakers.
I look forward to watching Blu-Ray lord of the Rings and Mylene au Stade de France via an external BD drive on my 15" retina when I get one. I guess that means I won't need one in my Mac Pro! :P
PS. I really do use my Mac Pro for work and not just as a glorified and extremely overpriced TV...
There is still a signifcant quality difference between streaming media and optical media. Certainly for BD versus iTunes streams. And AAC versus CD, those studies showing that people cannot tell the difference must have been rigged. Maybe if the right music was selected for comparison, the difference might not be noticable, but in general there is a clear difference. The spatial quality of music recordings suffers tremendously with any lossy compression codec that I've tried.
1. Who here has replaced a faulty Xeon CPU?
2. Who here has upgraded the CPU in their MP?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
I bought the Mac Pro used and found a used W3690 for a ridiculously low price on eBay and ended up with a sub $2000 Mac Pro that flat out rocks. Flashed my own Radeon 6870 to replace the worthless GT120. Total cost still under $2000. Dropped in a SATA 6G PCIe HBA card with two Plextor M3 Pro SSDs, that finally pushed the price over $2000. My Mac Pro is still cheaper than a top of the line iMac, and it blows it away on performance.
NONE of those upgrades would have been possible with any of Apple's other toy hardware. And all of the upgrades were fairly easy except for fitting two SSDs in the optical bay and splitting the optical SATA power. If Apple removes the optical bays, that's less room for SSD/HDD expansion, making for less versatile towers.
Some will say internal storage on towers is no longer the in thing. I say it's nice to have a single, fully self-contained tower on my desk without a rat's nest of cables or a brood of slow external enclosures. My Mac Pro looks cleaner and takes up less space than plenty of "thin" iMac setups I've seen, with all the external superdrives and HDDs required on an iMac. Add the cost of Thunderbolt external enclosures to the iMac, and my Mac Pro looks even cheaper.
Good post, thanks. Gives me some understanding what some people do with their MP. I agree on the cleanness of the MP compared to the iMac or Mini.
Getting a bit OT, but as much as I wish Blu-Ray and DRM would die a painful death I think it still offers something that is unavailable (or at least very difficult to find) elsewhere. That is, the very best picture quality and data rates available. Many of us have high resolution 1080p or more displays and TVs and SD tends to look very flakey on them. If I want to watch Lord of Rings Extended Edition in Blu-Ray quality, I either buy the box-set set or download some 300 Gb from a torrent site (if available). I certainly can't download it from iTunes.
Blu Ray is 25GB per layer of 50 GB for a long movie with lots of extras. To put it simply a 300GB file is a joke.
The latter isn't really worth doing, not only because it would take a good while but because I can't be bothered finding space to store and back up that much data. Where Blu-Ray used to be overpriced, they obviously decided it wasn't catching on so now they're a dime a dozen in the discount bin and generally only marginally more expensive than SD DVDs. I can buy Lord of the Rings in Blu-Ray much cheaper now than I bought it originally on SD DVD. So before Blu-Ray dies SD DVDs would have to die first.
The price of Blu Ray disc have come down because it is a market failure plain and simple. The supposed extra quality was never worth the extra expense. The fact of the matter is most people don't place their faces ten inches from the TV screen so they can justify the extra resolution.
Also, as much as studies show that people can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC) and CD quality, Steve and Apple could have done a lot to hasten the death of CDs by providing equivalent quality, which they still haven't done.
If people can't tell the difference the quality is equivalent.
Even though it's a technicality for most it's still a degradation when there needn't be. They also tried to encourage us to buy from iTunes when the quality was only 128 kbps and the difference between that and CD is like day and night to me, even on my B&W MM-1 computer speakers.
They didn't encourage anything, they had to work with the record companies. I'm not sure why Apple is still blamed for this.
I look forward to watching Blu-Ray lord of the Rings and Mylene au Stade de France via an external BD drive on my 15" retina when I get one. I guess that means I won't need one in my Mac Pro! :P
It is a 15" screen, do you really believe it will offer that much extra viewing pleasure over a regular 15" screen?
PS. I really do use my Mac Pro for work and not just as a glorified and extremely overpriced TV...
Yeah sure.
I find these attitudes with respect to Blu Ray puzzling at times. It is almost as if people are more concerned about the movie being Blu Ray than actually getting into the story being offered up. I mean really how do you suspend disbelief if you are concentrating on every artifact you see in the flick. At that point you aren't watching the movie but rather are watching the screen.
There is still a signifcant quality difference between streaming media and optical media. Certainly for BD versus iTunes streams. And AAC versus CD, those studies showing that people cannot tell the difference must have been rigged. Maybe if the right music was selected for comparison, the difference might not be noticable, but in general there is a clear difference. The spatial quality of music recordings suffers tremendously with any lossy compression codec that I've tried.
Yeah that's what I think, at least I want to think. :P I wasn't suggesting there isn't any quality loss. I was trying to argue that I want Apple Lossless in iTunes. It's certainly true that space and soundstage are the first things to go with compression. Most people don't notice it but compressed audio sounds very flat and lifeless in comparison, particularly anything under 256 kbps.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by z3r0
Base price for the Octane 3 was $8,000:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/sgi_unveils_personal_supercomputer_octane_iii
and it fits under your desk.
SGI bankruptcies were due to poor management and marketing.
I'd emphasize the bolded portion. I wonder what it costs configured. It could be many times that as shown. It also doesn't mention what kind of backplane/interconnect is used there or really any kind of detail. Anyway it's not really in line with something we should expect from Apple. This kind of stuff is ruled by Linux.
Quote:
Originally Posted by z3r0
SGI bankruptcies were due to poor management and marketing.
SGI bankruptcies were due to the ability to replace an uber expensive SGI workstation with a PC and a high end GPU.
Quote:
I have always stated that this is another lame attempt to foment for an xMac. I don't care if you want Apple to make a new cube with a few slots. That would make me happy and I would buy one.
But it pisses me off when this desire translates into "Apple should castrate the Mac Pro people use to make the xMac I want to buy because I don't give a shit about their needs".
Most of those pushing for an "xMac" want it to compliment Apple's Xeon workstations, not replace them. Basically we want a headless iMac with a full-sized video card. NOT a thin iMac, a fat-bottomed iMac sans screen.
Obviously we will never get an xMac because Apple's business model is disposable electronics. An xMac scares the sh!t out of them because users might actually upgrade it. Apple wants Macs to go from the store to the landfill in 3 years tops. The Mac Pro is the odd one out in their lineup, so my guess is that they make the next one thinner and less upgradable. Apple has proven that they don't care about alienating their professional user base, and that's what they'll do with the newest Mac Pro.
My guess is that Cook gets panic attacks when he thinks about us Mac users upgrading the CPUs or video cards in our Mac Pros. Apple are working to carefully gimp the next Mac Pro just enough so that it doesn't quite serve professionals' needs, but can still be sold at professional prices.
I can handle losing one optical drive but I hope it keeps one. I know Apple foresees an end to and indeed wants to kill the CD and DVD but I'm not ready to make that sacrifice. iTunes doesn't yet offer CD quality audio and if I buy a PC game chances are it'll come on a DVD. If you take Blu-Ray into consideration, optical media still has a longer life than Steve tried to have us believe.
One of the things I most love about the Mac Pro are that everything is internal, allowing for a very clean workstation. I don't have external drives and Apple's cheap-looking afterthought of an external CD/DVD clogging up my desk. If I've got a big tower for performance and heat-dissipation adding an optical drive doesn't make a huge difference.
Originally Posted by s.metcalf
…I'm not ready to make that sacrifice.
So don't! Grab an 18x external. Or even, as you said, a Blu-ray drive. Those are 8x now, right? I actually have a 6x in my Mac Pro.
"Wait, you?!"
Yeah, it's a BD-RE/HD DVD-ROM drive. Really I got it for the latter half of that, but I've lightly used it for both.
One of the things I most love about the Mac Pro are that everything is internal, allowing for a very clean workstation.
When the new model comes out, I think you'll feel firsthand what I said earlier about "current Mac Pro owners will hate it".
This thing won't have optical drives, and it's absolutely not going to have FireWire. I'm thinking at least four Thunderbolt to make up for that, four USB 3, and then whatever else.
I agree, though; I like that my setup is only screen, tower, keyboard, trackpad. I'd take an all-in-one over that, but you can't fit a Xeon behind a screen without it exploding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
This thing won't have optical drives, and it's absolutely not going to have FireWire. I'm thinking at least four Thunderbolt to make up for that, four USB 3, and then whatever else.
USB3 is going to displace the use of firewire more than thunderbolt. Firewire always had some points of superiority over usb, but the sustained speed should significantly outpace FW800. I'm not sure what meaningful advantages would be maintained by firewire outside of older devices. I'm not sure intel has any thunderbolt chips that currently support 4 ports out.
Quote:
I agree, though; I like that my setup is only screen, tower, keyboard, trackpad. I'd take an all-in-one over that, but you can't fit a Xeon behind a screen without it exploding.
I find them a bit limiting in some ways, but display technology continues to homogenize, so perhaps that will change.
2. Who here has upgraded the CPU in their MP?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
1. Who here has replaced a faulty Xeon CPU?
2. Who here has upgraded the CPU in their MP?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
I've only heard of doing it, myself. I remember reading tutorials about getting into the 2006 model, seeing blood on the hands of the guy tearing it down as he cut himself multiple times getting into the case…
And OWC offers a daughterboard exchange program, but has anyone even done that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
1. Who here has replaced a faulty Xeon CPU?
2. Who here has upgraded the CPU in their MP?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
Macrumors has a number of posts on that. It seems like a number of people with 2009 mac pros went for 6 core upgrades. When they first came out those cpus were around $1100 on newegg. A year later with no Sandy Bridge E in sight they were just under $600 while the 6 core mac pro remained $3800 minimum. I would personally call that an unusual circumstance. As for faulty cpus. I've seen dead logic boards, although I haven't personally seen any in mac pros. I've never seen a dead cpu.
It happens very infrequently on Dell equipment anyways. That would be either the logic board or CPU going dead. With modern CPUs it is much much harder to kill them by overheating, so that failure mode is not common anymore. I've heard of Mac Pros going dead it is not however a common thing.
It will be most interesting to see where Apple goes processor wise with the 2013 Mac Pro. Something's that Intel had posted about Xeon Phi seems to have fallen off the radar, at least I can't find the references on Intels sight anymore. So maybe a Phi based Mac Pro with supercomputing type networking is in the wings. The chip I'm talking about is not the currently released Phi processors but rather a Xeon derived chip with the super computing networking built in. Or maybe not, the point here is that Apple has more choices for the Mac Pro than ever before. Everything is on the table from memory architecture to secondary storage.
Originally Posted by wizard69
Apples obvious problem here is simply this, how many pros actually use Optical drives a lot. The answer is not many in my opinion though we will get a few pipping in any moment saying that they do. The problem is they are the very few that do, so does Apple redesign the Mac Pro and specifically accommodate the few by supporting a dying technology?
Seriously! They can just get one of these and quit whining about how they "need an optical drive".
Yes, that's a 1-15 duplicator.
You know I've avoided Blu Ray as much as I possible can. I see no reason to support the mental illness that brought that hardware to market.
A younger me would have just out and said that, too.
It will be most interesting to see where Apple goes processor wise with the 2013 Mac Pro. So maybe a Phi based Mac Pro with supercomputing type networking is in the wings.
I_want_to_believe.png
When it is released, what Apple means when they say "the 2013 Mac Pro" is a lot more important than people think. What that means extends downward through all of Apple's products.
There is much speculation surrounding the 2103 Mac Pro. However I can see the gap widening between the world of Pro hardware and consumer hardware. It will be more interesting to see what the 2013 Mini will be like. More so it will be very interesting if Apple can deliver a 64 bit ARM platform in 2013.
64 bit ARM would allow them to massively accelerated iOS development and features. This would lead to even faster split between consumer and more professional devices.
Blu-rays have awesome image quality and can support 3-d. Sorry you don't appreciate that but many folks obviously do.
The most prevalent form of mental illness in this forum is the inability to accept that things that aren't personally useful aren't automatically stupid and need to be disparaged.
Great thread...
Getting a bit OT, but as much as I wish Blu-Ray and DRM would die a painful death I think it still offers something that is unavailable (or at least very difficult to find) elsewhere. That is, the very best picture quality and data rates available. Many of us have high resolution 1080p or more displays and TVs and SD tends to look very flakey on them. If I want to watch Lord of Rings Extended Edition in Blu-Ray quality, I either buy the box-set set or download some 300 Gb from a torrent site (if available). I certainly can't download it from iTunes.
The latter isn't really worth doing, not only because it would take a good while but because I can't be bothered finding space to store and back up that much data. Where Blu-Ray used to be overpriced, they obviously decided it wasn't catching on so now they're a dime a dozen in the discount bin and generally only marginally more expensive than SD DVDs. I can buy Lord of the Rings in Blu-Ray much cheaper now than I bought it originally on SD DVD. So before Blu-Ray dies SD DVDs would have to die first.
Also, as much as studies show that people can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC) and CD quality, Steve and Apple could have done a lot to hasten the death of CDs by providing equivalent quality, which they still haven't done. Even though it's a technicality for most it's still a degradation when there needn't be. They also tried to encourage us to buy from iTunes when the quality was only 128 kbps and the difference between that and CD is like day and night to me, even on my B&W MM-1 computer speakers.
I look forward to watching Blu-Ray lord of the Rings and Mylene au Stade de France via an external BD drive on my 15" retina when I get one. I guess that means I won't need one in my Mac Pro! :P
PS. I really do use my Mac Pro for work and not just as a glorified and extremely overpriced TV...
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
1. Who here has replaced a faulty Xeon CPU?
2. Who here has upgraded the CPU in their MP?
Even though it's possible I've never come across someone that actually did either/both.
macpro4,1 2.66 GHz quad-core W3520 upgraded to macpro5,1 3.46 GHz hexa-core w3690.
I bought the Mac Pro used and found a used W3690 for a ridiculously low price on eBay and ended up with a sub $2000 Mac Pro that flat out rocks. Flashed my own Radeon 6870 to replace the worthless GT120. Total cost still under $2000. Dropped in a SATA 6G PCIe HBA card with two Plextor M3 Pro SSDs, that finally pushed the price over $2000. My Mac Pro is still cheaper than a top of the line iMac, and it blows it away on performance.
NONE of those upgrades would have been possible with any of Apple's other toy hardware. And all of the upgrades were fairly easy except for fitting two SSDs in the optical bay and splitting the optical SATA power. If Apple removes the optical bays, that's less room for SSD/HDD expansion, making for less versatile towers.
Some will say internal storage on towers is no longer the in thing. I say it's nice to have a single, fully self-contained tower on my desk without a rat's nest of cables or a brood of slow external enclosures. My Mac Pro looks cleaner and takes up less space than plenty of "thin" iMac setups I've seen, with all the external superdrives and HDDs required on an iMac. Add the cost of Thunderbolt external enclosures to the iMac, and my Mac Pro looks even cheaper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s.metcalf
Great thread...
Getting a bit OT, but as much as I wish Blu-Ray and DRM would die a painful death I think it still offers something that is unavailable (or at least very difficult to find) elsewhere. That is, the very best picture quality and data rates available. Many of us have high resolution 1080p or more displays and TVs and SD tends to look very flakey on them. If I want to watch Lord of Rings Extended Edition in Blu-Ray quality, I either buy the box-set set or download some 300 Gb from a torrent site (if available). I certainly can't download it from iTunes.
The latter isn't really worth doing, not only because it would take a good while but because I can't be bothered finding space to store and back up that much data. Where Blu-Ray used to be overpriced, they obviously decided it wasn't catching on so now they're a dime a dozen in the discount bin and generally only marginally more expensive than SD DVDs. I can buy Lord of the Rings in Blu-Ray much cheaper now than I bought it originally on SD DVD. So before Blu-Ray dies SD DVDs would have to die first.
Also, as much as studies show that people can't tell the difference between iTunes Plus (256 kbps AAC) and CD quality, Steve and Apple could have done a lot to hasten the death of CDs by providing equivalent quality, which they still haven't done. Even though it's a technicality for most it's still a degradation when there needn't be. They also tried to encourage us to buy from iTunes when the quality was only 128 kbps and the difference between that and CD is like day and night to me, even on my B&W MM-1 computer speakers.
I look forward to watching Blu-Ray lord of the Rings and Mylene au Stade de France via an external BD drive on my 15" retina when I get one. I guess that means I won't need one in my Mac Pro! :P
PS. I really do use my Mac Pro for work and not just as a glorified and extremely overpriced TV...
There is still a signifcant quality difference between streaming media and optical media. Certainly for BD versus iTunes streams. And AAC versus CD, those studies showing that people cannot tell the difference must have been rigged. Maybe if the right music was selected for comparison, the difference might not be noticable, but in general there is a clear difference. The spatial quality of music recordings suffers tremendously with any lossy compression codec that I've tried.
Good post, thanks. Gives me some understanding what some people do with their MP. I agree on the cleanness of the MP compared to the iMac or Mini.
Yeah sure.
I find these attitudes with respect to Blu Ray puzzling at times. It is almost as if people are more concerned about the movie being Blu Ray than actually getting into the story being offered up. I mean really how do you suspend disbelief if you are concentrating on every artifact you see in the flick. At that point you aren't watching the movie but rather are watching the screen.
There is still a signifcant quality difference between streaming media and optical media. Certainly for BD versus iTunes streams. And AAC versus CD, those studies showing that people cannot tell the difference must have been rigged. Maybe if the right music was selected for comparison, the difference might not be noticable, but in general there is a clear difference. The spatial quality of music recordings suffers tremendously with any lossy compression codec that I've tried.
Yeah that's what I think, at least I want to think. :P I wasn't suggesting there isn't any quality loss. I was trying to argue that I want Apple Lossless in iTunes. It's certainly true that space and soundstage are the first things to go with compression. Most people don't notice it but compressed audio sounds very flat and lifeless in comparison, particularly anything under 256 kbps.