You completely didn't get what was getting at. I was trying to get it the wire mess connecting external hard drives, video cards (if ever possible), and other thunderbolt devices as a result of not having an iMac.
If you are saying what I think you're saying then it sounds pretty OCD to not want any cables and to use a picture of that Dell to suggest a Thunderbolt device connected to your Mac turns it into that Dell.
My lovely new 27" iMac has a power cable, Kensington lock cable, two USB cables, Ethernet and I doubt feel it's resembling that Dell. They do include those ports for a reason, right?
If you want to compare like with like the current iMac is a lot thinner than that.
It's lower in cubic volume yet doesn't save any desk space. Brilliant design. The footprint of the stand remains the same. In fact if you used it with an arm to free up desk space, that is no longer an option. That means in a small percentage of use cases, the new one effectively takes up more usable space. The panel depth makes no functional difference and doesn't alter the number of required cords, so why are you posting such a silly strawman?
You completely didn't get what was getting at. I was trying to get it the wire mess connecting external hard drives, video cards (if ever possible), and other thunderbolt devices as a result of not having an iMac.
Apple would do well to make sure that the new Pro is readily adaptable to rack installations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimDreamworx
Just let it fit into a 19" rack mount without needing to saw off the handles!
Do you think many people are going to use them as servers? There are much more economical and better server configurations available.
I see them mainly as video editing workstations which don't often involve rack mounting. I'm not against rack mountable design but I would prefer to use it as a tower as it has less footprint that way.
I expect it will continue to use X79, and I haven't read about any replacements to this.
The HP z820 uses X79 for Sandy Bridge but anyway, the C600 series isn't any better - USB 2, PCIe 2, only 2 SATA 6G ports. If Apple wanted to add things like USB 3 themselves, why did they wait until Intel did it for the laptops/iMac?
drifting off into hyperbole (2 year old architecture:rolleyes: when sandy bridge EP workstations didn't ship until early Q3 2012).
I was about to write 1 year but decided to call it like it is. It doesn't matter when the Xeons arrived, the fact is the 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture was introduced in February 2011. It is now February 2013 and we've had 22nm Ivy bridge and we're moving onto 22nm Haswell. The 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture is 2 years old and Apple should skip it and go with Ivy Bridge so that it's just a 1 year old architecture.
Estimate was 10 months from September, which is July. If Apple releases a 32nm Sandy Bridge Xeon in March or so, HP will come out with 22nm Ivy Bridge Xeon 4 months later. That's a stupid thing to do and doesn't qualify as 'really great'.
I don't get why you'd prefer Sandy Bridge, wouldn't you rather have an Ivy Bridge Xeon? It's been 2.5 years, another 3-4 months surely wouldn't be a disaster to get the latest CPUs and potentially a new chipset.
It's lower in cubic volume yet doesn't save any desk space. Brilliant design. The footprint of the stand remains the same. In fact if you used it with an arm to free up desk space, that is no longer an option. That means in a small percentage of use cases, the new one effectively takes up more usable space. The panel depth makes no functional difference and doesn't alter the number of required cords, so why are you posting such a silly strawman?
A straw man is when you don't address your opponent's actual argument, but mock up a version of it you prefer and attack that instead. I wasn't attacking anyone's argument, merely pointing out that if you update the Dell in that picture you need to update the iMac too, so I don't know what you meant by my "posting a silly straw man."
As for increased thinness not being a value, I disagree. If you look at it in purely practical terms you may be right, though there are benefits in terms of using fewer materials and corresponding lower shipping costs and (potentially) prices. But the whole thing with Apple is that they are an integration of technology and the liberal arts (remember Steve and his street sign?). Logically such a company would not draw a sharp distinction between practical values and aesthetic values - it's all just Apple values. In other words the new iMac is better than the old one simply because it is more beautiful, and that's just as important as having a faster processor.
The reason for the Mac Pro isn't to have a big box but rather to have high performance. A big box is not needed these days to bring high performance work stations to the user community. However to effectively decrease the size of the Mac Pro they have to design it that way. This should be pretty obvious, if you expect to shrink the Mac Pros case you need to design out those things that result in today's current big case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
It may in fact be smaller and cheaper, but to try and design it that way on purpose kind of goes against the whole raison d'etre for the Mac pro in the first place.
It's not a mini tower for joe average to tinker with in his basement just because he "doesn't like" all-in-ones. It's a professional grade machine.
This idea that "professional grade" computers have to look a certain way has to die. It is what has gotten the current Mac Pro into so much trouble sales wise. The idea that a professional machine needs to be a huge empty box really makes no sense at all. Professional machines, whatever that means, need to be high performance machines first and foremost. It would make far more sense for Apple to design a machine around that goal than to try to build a big box to satisfy those that need a big box to show off.
This is nonsense, the Mac Pro is no more a pro grade machine than anything else Apple sells. If a professional can put a Mini to good use then it is a pro grade machine.
This whole idea that a Machine needs a certain appearance to be considered to be a pro machine is ridiculous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
The Mac Pro isn't, and never has been, a "desktop". It's a Pro grade machine. The Mac/iMac is the only "desktop" class machine that Apple has ever sold.
[...]The idea that a professional machine needs to be a huge empty box really makes no sense at all. Professional machines, whatever that means, need to be high performance machines first and foremost. It would make far more sense for Apple to design a machine around that goal than to try to build a big box to satisfy those that need a big box to show off.
The reason it was designed as a big box was so that it could have big fans and if configured with multiple hard disks there was plenty of circulating air to cool them. Also the large aluminum case is a practical heat dissipation feature. You also need a big case for a heavy duty power supply. Take for example the old Xserve which was a small enclosure. The fans were high speed and very noisy. The Mac Pro was designed as a workstation and therefore needs to be quiet which is perfect for creative work environments. The big fans spin more slowly hence less noise. The Pro will last a long, long time because of the excellent cooling features.
The problem is one of perception. People on this forum have this belief that a computer has to look a certain way to be considered a "professional machine".
The fact of the matter is that it is targeted at high end professionals and is not expected to be a high volume consumer product.
Therein lies the problem, a machine targeted to a shrinking group of users has no future. This is why Apple needs to refactor the concept of what a Mac Pro is so that they can actually drive sales to a level that supports development. Like the XServe the Mac Pro won't stay around to support a tiny minority of users.
The Mini is the entry level desktop. The iMac is the mainstream desktop. The Pro is the high end desktop/workstation computer intended to meet the needs of only a tiny percentage of the population. There really hasn't been a distinction between 'high end desktop' and 'workstation' for quite a while.
The iMac isn't really a desktop machine as many would define it. IMac muddies the line up because people point to it as a midrange machine but that is only useful to a limited number of people seeking a desktop machine. For many of us the desktop is a platform upon which you configure the machine for specific uses, the iMac isn't suitable for such uses. Thus Apple has this gaping hole though which a lot of sales fall. The fact of the matter is the Mac Pro is way to expensive to do duty in place of normal desktop installations.
Yeah, I remember. But to the consumer it's never been presented as a desktop alternative, that was my only point.
I just find it sad that the minute this rumour raises it's head, there are half a dozen comments by people who are basically expecting an "X Mac" mini-tower (that Apple has never made and never should make). You do not need a Mac Pro for an "iPhoto server" for instance.
Apple needs to make desktops that sell in large volumes, that is the motivation for the XMac.
It's the same tired old crap over and over again from people who think Macs are just like PC's, and that they should be like PC's because of course *everyone* want's to be able to swap graphics cards, etc. etc. blah-blah-blah.
This is evidence that you simply don't grasp what people are asking for. Nobody here wants a Mac Pro or XMac for that matter that looks like a run of the mill PC. What we are looking for is cost effective solutions to real user problems. One of these issues is expandability especially when it comes to secondary storage or PCI Express cards.
If they do finally make what these people want, IMO it would be evidence of Apple's decline because it's placing consumerism over professional well-deisgned products if they go that direction.
That is just plain ignorant and show a considerable lack of understanding when it comes to the needs of professional users. A well designed desktop is capable of supporting a wide array of user needs in a cost effective package. Nothing in Apples desktop lineup fills that role.
I honestly hope that whatever they come up with, that it still costs $3,000 for a good configuration.
Well you are showing your colors here. Apparently the Mac Pro is all about snob appeal to you.
My concern as I said in my previous post and as Marvin also mentioned is just how far Intel is letting the Xeon line fall behind their Core line. They are a couple of generations behind now. In April Intel will release their Haswell Core i7. I haven't really read a lot about it and perhaps it really is not very different from Ivy Bridge. The main advantages seem to be in power savings and better graphics which would matter far more on a Macbook than a Mac Pro. But even Ivy Bridge for Xeon is months away. I don't know why Intel let the Xeon line fall 2 generations behind their Core line but it is troubling.
I don't know if I speak for just myself or many others. But I think an entry level Mac Pro with an extreme edition Core i7 would more than meet my needs. 6 real and 12 virtual cores along with a Nvidia GTX 690 with around 32GB of DDR3 Ram would be a fast machine. I think the reason many people buy the entry level Mac Pro over an iMac has more to do with expansion and upgrading features later on so I don't think that would be a problem. But, since the Core i7 seems to get so many more frequent updates it might be a problem a year from now when the next batch of Core i7 are ready and the Xeons are not. They couldn't really only upgrade the entry Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro isn't, and never has been, a "desktop". It's a Pro grade machine. The Mac/iMac is the only "desktop" class machine that Apple has ever sold.
Mac Pros belong to what's commonly called "workstation class" machines: expensive, powerful. People who use their Macs for asset creation and need either the extra cores and/or expansion capabilities.
For these users, something like dual-link HD-SDI is probably a more important connector than, say, Thunderbolt.
Actually, I consider the Mini to be the desired x-Mac. What are the characteristics of the xMac that people want? Expandability and low price. The Mini is clearly low priced and with Thunderbolt has expandability galore.
Granted, adding a high end video card is somewhat expensive at this point, but it's possible with some of the expansion boxes.
The Mini has been improved vastly over the years as processor performance has increased however it is hardly the expandable machine people are looking for. For one access to the disk drives suck. It is Internal expansion of secondary storage that many see as a significant shortcoming of the Mac Mini. Before you try to trot out TB, I know all about TB and as such can say without hesitation it is no place for your secondary storage. Backup and TIme Machine drives can hang off TB fine but it is less than in deal for working storage.
Mac Pros belong to what's commonly called "workstation class" machines: expensive, powerful. People who use their Macs for asset creation and need either the extra cores and/or expansion capabilities.
For these users, something like dual-link HD-SDI is probably a more important connector than, say, Thunderbolt.
That is not always the case. I have never owned an iMac. I own a Mac Pro now and before that several from the Power Mac line not because I am rendering video all day long but because I think of them as the most future proof Mac I can buy. A good example was my G4 quicksilver which came with a 867MHz processor. About a year and a half after I bought it I added a Dual Core CPU I bought from Macsales.com that I clocked at 1.4GHz which was a tremendous boost. I later added a USB2/Firewire card, and some other expansion cards to keep it up to date. I also upgraded the graphics card to a much faster ATI card which again really kept it feeling new and fast. That was probably my favorite Mac I ever owned because I was able to use it for so long while still keeping it mostly up to date. You can't do that with an iMac. Aside from RAM, what you buy is what you will use until it dies.
Unfortunately even the Mac Pro now doesn't seem to offer the same level of upgrades as the old G4 Power Macs either. Every time Intel makes any change, the socket changes as well meaning you can rarely if ever upgrade the CPU. But at least you can still replace or upgrade the hard drives easily and add PCI cards unlike the iMac.
The other reason I don't want an iMac is I have my own displays. One of which is a gorgeous 30" NEC display. I don't need a computer with a built in display.
[SIZE=14px]My concern as I said in my previous post and as Marvin also mentioned is just how far Intel is letting the Xeon line fall behind their Core line. They are a couple of generations behind now. In April Intel will release their Haswell Core i7. I haven't really read a lot about it and perhaps it really is not very different from Ivy Bridge. The main advantages seem to be in power savings and better graphics which would matter far more on a Macbook than a Mac Pro. But even Ivy Bridge for Xeon is months away. I don't know why Intel let the Xeon line fall 2 generations behind their Core line but it is troubling. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]I don't know if I speak for just myself or many others. But I think an entry level Mac Pro with an extreme edition Core i7 would more than meet my needs. 6 real and 12 virtual cores along with a Nvi<span style="line-height:17.984375px;">dia GTX 690 with around 32GB of DDR3 Ram would be a fast machine. I think the reason many people buy the entry level Mac Pro over an iMac has more to do with expansion and upgrading features later on so I don't think that would be a problem. But, since the Core i7 seems to get so many more frequent updates it might be a problem a year from now when the next batch of Core i7 are ready and the Xeons are not. They couldn't really only upgrade the entry Mac Pro. </span>
[/SIZE]
Agreed about the Xeons. It is a small market compared to mobile CPUs, so there's no price break for volume. As for the Core i7, its a fast chip, but I need the extra cores for global illumination algorithms. There's research into doing Monte Carlo on GPUs, but currently, radiosity software uses CPU cores, lots of them. And four ain't enough. The more the better!
I wish people would stop asking for a smaller tower. This is a workstation not a desktop, workstations are trucks.
Even Detroit had to focus on making trucks more economical to run.
Workstations are certified platforms, with near server specs for reliability. When you use workstations for 99.999% uptime on things like rocket, and satellite control you need a solid platform.
So you are saying a smaller platform can't have similar up times? If so you just look foolish.
Or any other heavy level effort. Apple's desktops are the Mini and the iMac and I do not think they are ever going to make a cheap desktop that's upgradable.
What is with people's focus on cheap. An expandable desktop in the $1500 range is not cheap if you look at what is available in the PC world. Frankly many of us would be happy with an Apple desktop that had an entry price around $1500 that was of decent value. That isn't cheap but it would be a platform that solved far more user needs than the Mac Pro.
It is my sincere hope they don't lower the bar, I'm very happy with the current design.
Why do people associate a change in the case/chassis with lowering the bar? The current Mac Pro is a joke of a machine stuffed into a case designed for very hot PowerPC chips. It is not a modern solution to a power user machine.
I'd be thrilled if they added the latest IO (USB3, SATA 3 or 3.5, ThunderBolt) This workstation should be a measure of the highest order, not a dumbed down desktop. It's a heavy lifting beast, wrapped inside a candy coated shell and I for one would not want it any other way.
There has to be a medical definition for this sort of mentality but I'm not sure what it is. The fact of life here is that the current Mac Pro case is no longer needed to deliver professional level performance. Further its huge size removes it from consideration in areas where rack mounted equipment is used.
Please do not screw with excellence.
If the Mac Pro was the machines of excellence that you imply we wouldn't be dealing with the declining sales that the platform is seeing. In reality the current Mac Pro is a dinosaur.
Comments
If you are saying what I think you're saying then it sounds pretty OCD to not want any cables and to use a picture of that Dell to suggest a Thunderbolt device connected to your Mac turns it into that Dell.
My lovely new 27" iMac has a power cable, Kensington lock cable, two USB cables, Ethernet and I doubt feel it's resembling that Dell. They do include those ports for a reason, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
If you want to compare like with like the current iMac is a lot thinner than that.
It's lower in cubic volume yet doesn't save any desk space. Brilliant design
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
You completely didn't get what was getting at. I was trying to get it the wire mess connecting external hard drives, video cards (if ever possible), and other thunderbolt devices as a result of not having an iMac.
Well.....i did miss your point then! :-)
++++++
Apple would do well to make sure that the new Pro is readily adaptable to rack installations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimDreamworx
Just let it fit into a 19" rack mount without needing to saw off the handles!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
If you want to compare like with like the current iMac is a lot thinner than that.
your right but i was just comparing to the iMac in the picture.......the Dell image is from about 5 years ago. i wasn't touting the Dell at all......
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
++++++
Apple would do well to make sure that the new Pro is readily adaptable to rack installations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimDreamworx
Just let it fit into a 19" rack mount without needing to saw off the handles!
Do you think many people are going to use them as servers? There are much more economical and better server configurations available.
I see them mainly as video editing workstations which don't often involve rack mounting. I'm not against rack mountable design but I would prefer to use it as a tower as it has less footprint that way.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/152825/future-of-mac-pro/160#post_2266617
The HP z820 uses X79 for Sandy Bridge but anyway, the C600 series isn't any better - USB 2, PCIe 2, only 2 SATA 6G ports. If Apple wanted to add things like USB 3 themselves, why did they wait until Intel did it for the laptops/iMac?
I was about to write 1 year but decided to call it like it is. It doesn't matter when the Xeons arrived, the fact is the 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture was introduced in February 2011. It is now February 2013 and we've had 22nm Ivy bridge and we're moving onto 22nm Haswell. The 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture is 2 years old and Apple should skip it and go with Ivy Bridge so that it's just a 1 year old architecture.
HP announced them in March 2012:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/06/hp.z420.z620.z820.hint.plans.for.others/
Here's a review from late May 2012:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5846/hp-z420-workstation-review-competition-heats-up
It doesn't make sense that Intel would make HP wait 2 years for a new model. They sampled them late last year:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2204751/idf-bryant-says-intel-is-sampling-ivy-bridge-xeon-e5-and-e7-chips
Estimate was 10 months from September, which is July. If Apple releases a 32nm Sandy Bridge Xeon in March or so, HP will come out with 22nm Ivy Bridge Xeon 4 months later. That's a stupid thing to do and doesn't qualify as 'really great'.
I don't get why you'd prefer Sandy Bridge, wouldn't you rather have an Ivy Bridge Xeon? It's been 2.5 years, another 3-4 months surely wouldn't be a disaster to get the latest CPUs and potentially a new chipset.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
It's lower in cubic volume yet doesn't save any desk space. Brilliant design
A straw man is when you don't address your opponent's actual argument, but mock up a version of it you prefer and attack that instead. I wasn't attacking anyone's argument, merely pointing out that if you update the Dell in that picture you need to update the iMac too, so I don't know what you meant by my "posting a silly straw man."
As for increased thinness not being a value, I disagree. If you look at it in purely practical terms you may be right, though there are benefits in terms of using fewer materials and corresponding lower shipping costs and (potentially) prices. But the whole thing with Apple is that they are an integration of technology and the liberal arts (remember Steve and his street sign?). Logically such a company would not draw a sharp distinction between practical values and aesthetic values - it's all just Apple values. In other words the new iMac is better than the old one simply because it is more beautiful, and that's just as important as having a faster processor.
Is no one else worried about what Apple are going to do with it?
Are we going to see the (pointlessly) smallest, thinnest Mac Pro ever with no ODD?
The reason for the Mac Pro isn't to have a big box but rather to have high performance. A big box is not needed these days to bring high performance work stations to the user community. However to effectively decrease the size of the Mac Pro they have to design it that way. This should be pretty obvious, if you expect to shrink the Mac Pros case you need to design out those things that result in today's current big case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
It may in fact be smaller and cheaper, but to try and design it that way on purpose kind of goes against the whole raison d'etre for the Mac pro in the first place.
It's not a mini tower for joe average to tinker with in his basement just because he "doesn't like" all-in-ones. It's a professional grade machine.
This idea that "professional grade" computers have to look a certain way has to die. It is what has gotten the current Mac Pro into so much trouble sales wise. The idea that a professional machine needs to be a huge empty box really makes no sense at all. Professional machines, whatever that means, need to be high performance machines first and foremost. It would make far more sense for Apple to design a machine around that goal than to try to build a big box to satisfy those that need a big box to show off.
This is nonsense, the Mac Pro is no more a pro grade machine than anything else Apple sells. If a professional can put a Mini to good use then it is a pro grade machine.
This whole idea that a Machine needs a certain appearance to be considered to be a pro machine is ridiculous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
The Mac Pro isn't, and never has been, a "desktop". It's a Pro grade machine. The Mac/iMac is the only "desktop" class machine that Apple has ever sold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
[...]The idea that a professional machine needs to be a huge empty box really makes no sense at all. Professional machines, whatever that means, need to be high performance machines first and foremost. It would make far more sense for Apple to design a machine around that goal than to try to build a big box to satisfy those that need a big box to show off.
The reason it was designed as a big box was so that it could have big fans and if configured with multiple hard disks there was plenty of circulating air to cool them. Also the large aluminum case is a practical heat dissipation feature. You also need a big case for a heavy duty power supply. Take for example the old Xserve which was a small enclosure. The fans were high speed and very noisy. The Mac Pro was designed as a workstation and therefore needs to be quiet which is perfect for creative work environments. The big fans spin more slowly hence less noise. The Pro will last a long, long time because of the excellent cooling features.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Of course it's a desktop. So what?
The problem is one of perception. People on this forum have this belief that a computer has to look a certain way to be considered a "professional machine".
The fact of the matter is that it is targeted at high end professionals and is not expected to be a high volume consumer product.
Therein lies the problem, a machine targeted to a shrinking group of users has no future. This is why Apple needs to refactor the concept of what a Mac Pro is so that they can actually drive sales to a level that supports development. Like the XServe the Mac Pro won't stay around to support a tiny minority of users.
The Mini is the entry level desktop. The iMac is the mainstream desktop. The Pro is the high end desktop/workstation computer intended to meet the needs of only a tiny percentage of the population. There really hasn't been a distinction between 'high end desktop' and 'workstation' for quite a while.
The iMac isn't really a desktop machine as many would define it. IMac muddies the line up because people point to it as a midrange machine but that is only useful to a limited number of people seeking a desktop machine. For many of us the desktop is a platform upon which you configure the machine for specific uses, the iMac isn't suitable for such uses. Thus Apple has this gaping hole though which a lot of sales fall. The fact of the matter is the Mac Pro is way to expensive to do duty in place of normal desktop installations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
Yeah, I remember. But to the consumer it's never been presented as a desktop alternative, that was my only point.
I just find it sad that the minute this rumour raises it's head, there are half a dozen comments by people who are basically expecting an "X Mac" mini-tower (that Apple has never made and never should make). You do not need a Mac Pro for an "iPhoto server" for instance.
Apple needs to make desktops that sell in large volumes, that is the motivation for the XMac.
It's the same tired old crap over and over again from people who think Macs are just like PC's, and that they should be like PC's because of course *everyone* want's to be able to swap graphics cards, etc. etc. blah-blah-blah.
This is evidence that you simply don't grasp what people are asking for. Nobody here wants a Mac Pro or XMac for that matter that looks like a run of the mill PC. What we are looking for is cost effective solutions to real user problems. One of these issues is expandability especially when it comes to secondary storage or PCI Express cards.
If they do finally make what these people want, IMO it would be evidence of Apple's decline because it's placing consumerism over professional well-deisgned products if they go that direction.
That is just plain ignorant and show a considerable lack of understanding when it comes to the needs of professional users. A well designed desktop is capable of supporting a wide array of user needs in a cost effective package. Nothing in Apples desktop lineup fills that role.
I honestly hope that whatever they come up with, that it still costs $3,000 for a good configuration.
Well you are showing your colors here. Apparently the Mac Pro is all about snob appeal to you.My concern as I said in my previous post and as Marvin also mentioned is just how far Intel is letting the Xeon line fall behind their Core line. They are a couple of generations behind now. In April Intel will release their Haswell Core i7. I haven't really read a lot about it and perhaps it really is not very different from Ivy Bridge. The main advantages seem to be in power savings and better graphics which would matter far more on a Macbook than a Mac Pro. But even Ivy Bridge for Xeon is months away. I don't know why Intel let the Xeon line fall 2 generations behind their Core line but it is troubling.
I don't know if I speak for just myself or many others. But I think an entry level Mac Pro with an extreme edition Core i7 would more than meet my needs. 6 real and 12 virtual cores along with a Nvidia GTX 690 with around 32GB of DDR3 Ram would be a fast machine. I think the reason many people buy the entry level Mac Pro over an iMac has more to do with expansion and upgrading features later on so I don't think that would be a problem. But, since the Core i7 seems to get so many more frequent updates it might be a problem a year from now when the next batch of Core i7 are ready and the Xeons are not. They couldn't really only upgrade the entry Mac Pro.
Mac Pros belong to what's commonly called "workstation class" machines: expensive, powerful. People who use their Macs for asset creation and need either the extra cores and/or expansion capabilities.
For these users, something like dual-link HD-SDI is probably a more important connector than, say, Thunderbolt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Actually, I consider the Mini to be the desired x-Mac. What are the characteristics of the xMac that people want? Expandability and low price. The Mini is clearly low priced and with Thunderbolt has expandability galore.
Granted, adding a high end video card is somewhat expensive at this point, but it's possible with some of the expansion boxes.
The Mini has been improved vastly over the years as processor performance has increased however it is hardly the expandable machine people are looking for. For one access to the disk drives suck. It is Internal expansion of secondary storage that many see as a significant shortcoming of the Mac Mini. Before you try to trot out TB, I know all about TB and as such can say without hesitation it is no place for your secondary storage. Backup and TIme Machine drives can hang off TB fine but it is less than in deal for working storage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Mac Pros belong to what's commonly called "workstation class" machines: expensive, powerful. People who use their Macs for asset creation and need either the extra cores and/or expansion capabilities.
For these users, something like dual-link HD-SDI is probably a more important connector than, say, Thunderbolt.
That is not always the case. I have never owned an iMac. I own a Mac Pro now and before that several from the Power Mac line not because I am rendering video all day long but because I think of them as the most future proof Mac I can buy. A good example was my G4 quicksilver which came with a 867MHz processor. About a year and a half after I bought it I added a Dual Core CPU I bought from Macsales.com that I clocked at 1.4GHz which was a tremendous boost. I later added a USB2/Firewire card, and some other expansion cards to keep it up to date. I also upgraded the graphics card to a much faster ATI card which again really kept it feeling new and fast. That was probably my favorite Mac I ever owned because I was able to use it for so long while still keeping it mostly up to date. You can't do that with an iMac. Aside from RAM, what you buy is what you will use until it dies.
Unfortunately even the Mac Pro now doesn't seem to offer the same level of upgrades as the old G4 Power Macs either. Every time Intel makes any change, the socket changes as well meaning you can rarely if ever upgrade the CPU. But at least you can still replace or upgrade the hard drives easily and add PCI cards unlike the iMac.
The other reason I don't want an iMac is I have my own displays. One of which is a gorgeous 30" NEC display. I don't need a computer with a built in display.
Agreed about the Xeons. It is a small market compared to mobile CPUs, so there's no price break for volume. As for the Core i7, its a fast chip, but I need the extra cores for global illumination algorithms. There's research into doing Monte Carlo on GPUs, but currently, radiosity software uses CPU cores, lots of them. And four ain't enough. The more the better!
The baloney is rather deep these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elderloc
I wish people would stop asking for a smaller tower. This is a workstation not a desktop, workstations are trucks.
Even Detroit had to focus on making trucks more economical to run.
Workstations are certified platforms, with near server specs for reliability. When you use workstations for 99.999% uptime on things like rocket, and satellite control you need a solid platform.
So you are saying a smaller platform can't have similar up times? If so you just look foolish.
Or any other heavy level effort. Apple's desktops are the Mini and the iMac and I do not think they are ever going to make a cheap desktop that's upgradable.
What is with people's focus on cheap. An expandable desktop in the $1500 range is not cheap if you look at what is available in the PC world. Frankly many of us would be happy with an Apple desktop that had an entry price around $1500 that was of decent value. That isn't cheap but it would be a platform that solved far more user needs than the Mac Pro.
It is my sincere hope they don't lower the bar, I'm very happy with the current design.
Why do people associate a change in the case/chassis with lowering the bar? The current Mac Pro is a joke of a machine stuffed into a case designed for very hot PowerPC chips. It is not a modern solution to a power user machine.
I'd be thrilled if they added the latest IO (USB3, SATA 3 or 3.5, ThunderBolt) This workstation should be a measure of the highest order, not a dumbed down desktop. It's a heavy lifting beast, wrapped inside a candy coated shell and I for one would not want it any other way.
There has to be a medical definition for this sort of mentality but I'm not sure what it is. The fact of life here is that the current Mac Pro case is no longer needed to deliver professional level performance. Further its huge size removes it from consideration in areas where rack mounted equipment is used.
Please do not screw with excellence.
If the Mac Pro was the machines of excellence that you imply we wouldn't be dealing with the declining sales that the platform is seeing. In reality the current Mac Pro is a dinosaur.