...and Wizard...and myself have covered (and coveted...) such a beast for years now. The price of the 'mid tower/mid-tower/Cube etc' has been well covered and is pretty much consensus given the odd punch up.
But yes, price it £1295 (top end iMac without monitor) -ish and it would walk out the stores. It would turbo boost 'Pro' sales.
But this is Apple.
But I suppose they made the entry 13 inch Air cheaper...
Like I say, start lobbying Tim Cook now.
Does he have email?
Really, should get all the X-Mac folk to petition him for the said machine. Same case. Lower prosumer/gamer/entry workstation spec. (HP 'workstations' start at £700+? Exactly...so an Apple one starting at £1295 with an astonishing 1/8th volume - saving on materials... - should be possibly even with Apple tax.)
That doesn't mean this doesn't represent a solution. It's just not the ideal solution in terms of storage. Ideally 90% of the market for that specific machine (not 90% of consumers) would have their primary storage needs solved internally with only backups pushed out of the box.
I felt that way too, until I thought about it for a while. Now I don't really understand what difference it makes whether the storage is internal or external?
In a laptop it matters, since external storage affects portability. I even get the objection in the case of an all-in-one like the iMac because it's a device that sits on a desk in a home or office and people want it to look tidy. But when we're talking a production tool, what difference does it make? There's no advantage in speed or convenience to having the drives built in, and looking pretty isn't a really a priority.
I'm not saying the new design is better in this respect, just that it seems like a "shrug -- who cares?" issue.
Am I missing something? Is there some benefit to having the drives in the same box as the CPU?
EDIT: Never mind, I later saw your explanation of your concerns. It SEEMS like you're comparing the liabilities of cheap outboard RAID arrays to the reliability of the old Pro's internal JBOD. The benefits you describe derive not from the drives being internal, but from the fact that there's no array to maintain. Couldn't the same benefit be achieved with an outboard JBOD?
If you want more than in the new souped up Hot Rod Mac Pro.
Hook it up to a Pegasus. A render farm.
Presumably these are the 'serious' pros that have access to 'serious' jobs demanding serious output?
Clearly. If you want more. You'll pay for it. Out of the box the Mac Pro can be configured 'upto' quite teh powerhouse.
Having said that. Will this cut down in bloat and materials be reflected in the Pro's price?
eg dropping the optical drive and Apple upped the price of £100 of the entry iMac. Will the Pro get the price cut it needs to get a true entry price for the workstation and deliver the mythical Mac Pro pricing people want?
I guess it depends on what kind of volume they need for the line to be viable. This isn't going to carry the highest profits even in the context of Macs. It's not a realistic goal. It should however be able to move in at least steady numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by v5v
I felt that way too, until I thought about it for a while. Now I don't really understand what difference it makes whether the storage is internal or external?
In a laptop it matters, since external storage affects portability. I even get the objection in the case of an all-in-one like the iMac because it's a device that sits on a desk in a home or office and people want it to look tidy. But when we're talking a production tool, what difference does it make? There's no advantage in speed or convenience to having the drives built in, and looking pretty isn't a really a priority.
I'm not saying the new design is better in this respect, just that it seems like a "shrug -- who cares?" issue.
Am I missing something? Is there some benefit to having the drives in the same box as the CPU?
It adds at least $500 for a decent JBOD box. They all add some noise. The cheap ones are terrible in that regard. Not all of them are seamless, as you're placing the device behind another layer hooked up through whatever port multiplier. Thunderbolt also isn't the same as SATA or PCI. The certifications are totally different. You must be able to unplug it without causing kernel panics. With a PCI card, the card stays in all the time. It's not here nor there. I'm just listing it for some people on here who claim it's the same thing who may also be reading the thread. You need a backup anyway, so this is yet another box. I dislike that it tries to save space on one, yet expands space and costs on another. It also wastes available bandwidth ports that are there either way, as they're part of the chipset. At this point the imac actually has greater storage capacity internally. It's just one of those things that in the end may cost more while not really accomplishing the space saving goals with the possible exception of facilities that rely solely on centralized storage. What I mentioned was a JBOD solution not including drives. A decent raid would cost more.
Most of the potential gains here are in gpu performance, which others have already mapped out. Workstation drivers are nice if they provide better OpenGL stability. I hope to see that. The potential x86 speeds won't change that much compared to the current line, although overall it's arguably a very nice net gain as long as you can take advantage of some of the improvements. I know Marvin came up with price estimates. I'm skeptical whether it will really go that high, as the only 12 core options would be a max gain of maybe 15% from the 12 cores we have now. GPUs are a much bigger deal here, and it comes down to how well drivers are optimized. With the more expensive workstation gpus, you're typically paying for drivers and video ram. The quality of the drivers determines whether or not they are worth the extra cost much more than the hardware itself. Admittedly I'm still somewhat excited to see that.
For everyone else who can't afford it, there will be tower-shaped (a la Airport Extreme) Mac Mini.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Why would they do that?
Because there needs to be change for the sake of change. Otherwise the line is "stale."
Besides, a vertical format will place the antennas higher which is more important to wireless range and speed than where the device itself is physically situated, as evidenced by the new AirPort.
/s
I actually would not be at all surprised if a new mini DID adopt that form. I'm not saying it will, just that it seems plausible.
For those that are Apple developers, the Foundry/Pixar lunchtime talk mentioned in the keynote, 'Painting the Future', is now up on the developers website…
Yes, it is. That's why I think of it as a Mac Mini Pro.
I think the same of the old one. The quad-i7 Mini was around the same performance as the entry Pro. All it had on top was a dedicated GPU, slots and storage bays and a whole heap of space used for an inefficient cooling system. All computers from the iPhone to the Mac Pro to server blades have more things in common than they have differences. It's what people do with them that's important.
you don't know that the two GPUs are 275W devices in the new Pro.
They have to be around that TDP given the number of stream processors. A 2013 iteration might save some power but nowhere near 150W it would need to fit in the old limit.
As in more expandable I mean 2 x16 PCIe 3.0 and 2 x4 PCIe 3.0 slots and 2 x2.5 TB2 ports vs 2 dedicated x16 GPUs and 6 x2.5 ports. Hell yes that's a lot more expandable.
If you configure it the same way, the two x16s are already used for GPUs in the original so that only leaves you 2 x4 PCIe 3 and you couldn't have TB on top as you only have 40 lanes. The lanes aren't changing from one machine to the next, all this machine is doing is dictating that two fast slots stay inside for graphics and the remaining lanes are divided between 6 ports that can be daisy chained up to 36 devices.
It takes the step that all Apple devices do by limiting user-configurability in order to improve the efficiency of the design based on what most people do with the machines anyway and you'll probably get more performance-per-dollar this way.
Given that there are 16 bay expansion chassis for PCI 2.0 x8 slots you can have 32 from the two PCI 3.0 x4 slots and still have another 12 from the TB2 ports for 44. That's with both x16 slots occupied by GPUs.
I don't think you have the TB as mentioned above but even the boxes are fairly expensive:
A 16-bay there is $4500 so $9000 to match the number of devices of the entry Mac Pro. That's not even taking into consideration that TB is plug and play so you can keep a ton of peripherals in a cupboard most of the time and just take them out when needed.
the only 12 core options would be a max gain of maybe 15% from the 12 cores we have now.
Not vs the current Mac Pro. I estimate 50% improvement in CPU over the current Pro, which is 2 or more generations back. They might be able to clock it higher based on the cooling solution. The single heatsink cools 3 parts so for CPU-only tasks, they can probably clock it up a bit.
For those that are Apple developers, the Foundry/Pixar lunchtime talk mentioned in the keynote, 'Painting the Future', is now up on the developers website…
Come see the new Mac Pro in action…!!!
Cool demo…!
Foundry guy (and original creator of Mari while at Weta) says he gets emails all the time from customers asking what machine/config to get to best use Mari; now he can unequivocally say the new Mac Pro…
Pixar guy (shader/texture artist) says, and demos, how he can use Mari with the new Mac Pro to handle 10GB, 20GB & larger amounts of data; interacting with it in real time 'like butter'… Recounts how most models have multiple channels (color, specularity, displacement, etc.) and each channel is running about 500 textures… Oh yeah, the textures are each 8K x 8K in size… Never know when an extreme close-up might be needed… Again, rotating the model around in real time while painting with these huge textures; and not just on a single channel at a time…
Long story short; bitch & whine all you want about 'only one CPU, no internal secondary storage, no internal PCIe expansion slots', the new Mac Pro is a serious machine that means serious business…!
WELL worth going over to the Apple site and registering for a free developer membership ( I THINK they still do that) to watch this demo…!!!
There will be no mac pro server room with these goofy things...No reasonable shelving accommodations, cooling would be a nightmare and thats just the top two - in a real data center enviornment, everything that could be moved from OSX to Windows or Linux should be, and if something absolutely _MUST_ run on OSX Server, Minis would be a better option - and can do just about any server task fairly well...and if you want a render node/farm, you would be insane to buy these, you cant swap out the GPUs, you cant add Tesla (Hell you cant use any Nvidia parts) Give me $6000 at HP+Newegg and I will build you something far better than the Mac Pro sexy trash can edition...
I think Apple wants to kill the Pro so they are doing this to push the remaining Pro users to something else...two years and there will be no headless desktop other than the Mini.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777
In reality, Mac Pro server rooms will be interesting to watch.
The shelving will be 7" wide, and the machines placed with the back panel facing outward. I imagine the shelves will have to slide out to swap components.
On the other hand, the power supply is internal, which is a significant problem for server farms.
I really did think that the new Pro would have been more rack-friendly, given that the Xserve was discontinued.
I estimate 50% improvement in CPU over the current Pro, which is 2 or more generations back. They might be able to clock it higher based on the cooling solution. The single heatsink cools 3 parts so for CPU-only tasks, they can probably clock it up a bit.
I was basing it on a likely very conservative clock speed. I'm not sure how ivy will work out. With Sandy the 1600s chips didn't go past 6 cores. The 8 cores were at least 2600s (when I say 2400s it's me rambling things off the top of my head) chips, the type that are made for dual socket machines. The 2687 is as fast as it gets. Two of them here geekbenched 45000. That is somewhat faster than I remember from other similar tests. I don't regard geekbench as a great measure of performance. I'm just using it because it's quick to look up. I guess it depends on how they're clocked. I'm just speculating as I wouldn't end up buying a maxed one anyway.
Foundry guy (and original creator of Mari while at Weta) says he gets emails all the time from customers asking what machine/config to get to best use Mari; now he can unequivocally say the new Mac Pro…
Pixar guy (shader/texture artist) says, and demos, how he can use Mari with the new Mac Pro to handle 10GB, 20GB & larger amounts of data; interacting with it in real time 'like butter'… Recounts how most models have multiple channels (color, specularity, displacement, etc.) and each channel is running about 500 textures… Oh yeah, the textures are each 8K x 8K in size… Never know when an extreme close-up might be needed… Again, rotating the model around in real time while painting with these huge textures; and not just on a single channel at a time…
Long story short; bitch & whine all you want about 'only one CPU, no internal secondary storage, no internal PCIe expansion slots', the new Mac Pro is a serious machine that means serious business…!
WELL worth going over to the Apple site and registering for a free developer membership ( I THINK they still do that) to watch this demo…!!!
I don't personally use Mari, but they made the exact same claims a year ago. In fact that's how they marketed the software from the start. It was designed for pelting huge textures. Pixar probably runs more maya seats than anything. I doubt they are houdini heavy there. Maya's maximum texture map size is 8k. These things have to deform uses pixar's version of subdivision surfaces and would be projected based on their normals, so they have to hold up to a lot more than a single still image that you view as is. It's not just closeups but the amount of torture the textures would naturally take. Anyway I guess the new aspect would be that it runs on Macs and OpenCL. It used to be a CUDA only application. It is not the only machine in the world that can match what you just described, not to say it isn't impressive, and I suspect you would want such a workstation for that kind of application. Like I said, I don't use Mari. It's a $2000 texture painting app. The target market is obvious.
They may very well change their minds on that one. At least for the SSD slot.
With every technological advance a few Luddites try to ruin it for everybody.
I don't know about that. Apple has been very responsive to customers. I could see three or so variants of the "Tube" to cover a wide array of professional users.
Dream we can.
Interestingly this comes close to what an XMac could be, plug in a 55-85 watt desktop processor and a couple of 75 watt GPUs and you have the basic idea down. Actually one 75 watt GPU would be pretty good considering most desktop processors these days have their own GPU. Built that way this machine would have been very close capability wise to what I imagined an XMac should be. The goal for XMac was or is a half decent GPU coupled with a good desktop grade processor which this chassis could easily support.
If you take the released materials at face value this isn't in Apple release plans. I could see them scraping the current Mini for a machine built in this platform concept. Shrink the height of the machine and lighten the heat sink for mobile chips or low end desktop chips and Bingo a new Mini.
From your lips to Apple's Space Ship.
That's my thought ever since laying eyes on this iTube. Both technically and asthetically it's a beautiful design, but somehow it strikes me not as a pro machine, but as almost exactly what Apple should be making as their high end consumer desktop. A quiet and compact desktop machine for the masses. A non-upgradable GPU is usually fine as long as it's not underpowered from the beginning, as is the case with the Mini and even many iMacs until recently. Even the stock GPU on some recent Mac Pros is unable to smoothly render OS X GUI graphics, lol. They try pulling that with this iTube, it will bite them in the arse.
Having a few days go perseverate over this new Mac Pro, I find myself wondering if Apple gave up the internal expansion/upgradability for the one feature they didn't talk about at its intro: price. This new Mac Pro could be the machine that finally scales from the needs of home enthusiasts to hardcore workstation users. If Apple can offer a sub-$2000 Mac ProTube with a quad-core Xeon, single 79xx GPU, and PCIe SSD, the motive for this new design then snaps into focus. It's also notable that even though the Mac Pro tower could be purchased with a single Xeon it was designed (and priced) around two power-hungry Xeons.
/dreaming
Ok, back in reality, even a single Xeon is too expensive for Apple to hit a sub $2K price point. They would need to build an i7 version with a whole new logic board. Apple already did that and it's called a "Mac Mini". Apple's product managers dream nightmares of an invincible xMac cannibalizing their overpriced iMac sales.
BTW I must say this tube thingie is a work of art and it's hard to believe even some fanbois are trashing its design. Just wait until you see it person - the polished dark metal strikes the perfect mix of elegance and badassery. The lines and stance suggest some dark power resides within, a power so confident it need not assert brand by putting any sort of logo in view. If this is Ive unchained from Steve Jobs's artistic micromanagement, Apple's products are about to rock at a whole new visual level.
That's my thought ever since laying eyes on this iTube.
Even back when it was a cube, am I right? :rolleyes:
Even the stock GPU on some recent Mac Pros is unable to smoothly render OS X GUI graphics, lol.
Utter frippery.
Ok, back in reality...
Took you long enough; been months since you made those claims.
...even a single Xeon is too expensive for Apple to hit a sub $2K price point.
I disagree. What will make it too expensive, I think, is the fact that they're using dual FirePro W9000s. Those are $2,399 a pop. Well, at least the highest-end Mac Pro uses those.
I think Apple wants to kill the Pro so they are doing this to push the remaining Pro users to something else...two years and there will be no headless desktop other than the Mini.
That's a lot of R&D money to spend on such an elaborate scheme when all Apple has to do to kill the Mac Pro is...kill the Mac Pro. Still, your post raises a good point: even after Apple presented their new Mac Pro, pros still have no freakin' clue about Apple's intentions. The product is out there and Mac users are left to figure it out on their own.
I generally don't like WWJD posts (What Would Jobs Do?), but Jobs would have used the introduction of a new Mac Pro to make Apple's plans for the Pro market crystal clear. He would have redefined Apple's entire pro user strategy at the Mac Pro launch. Apple doesn't seem to have anyone who can throw down a new vision for Mac users, and that's fatal to a company that was always about product gestalts rather than hardware specs.
Well in many ways but certainly not price. I can actually see this machine as being very affordable to manufacture so it certainly could be priced surprisingly low. Low for a machine with workstation hardware like this. It just won't be in XMac territory without extremely low cost GPU and CPU options.
Caveat.
It needs a prosumer config' priced around £1295-1495.
Even that is expensive in dollars.
8 gigs of ram. SSD. i7. Nvidia 7xx card.
Home run Apple.
Home run if they step up to bat!
I could see them though refactoring the Mini to better fill that middle of range roll that is left open currently.
Start your lobbying of Apple right now if you want that machine.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Release time is in a few months, I'm figuring September / October time frame. When the machine launches I'm expecting a family of devices to go with it. Displays and disk arrays for one. So maybe we shouldn't lobby too hard until Apple has played all of its cards.
One thing though Apple really needs to make sure that second PCI Express SSD card slot is active. That little extra would make for a far more interesting machine. I do wonder though if they have enough lanes available. That is most certainly worth lobbying for right now.
Ok, back in reality, even a single Xeon is too expensive for Apple to hit a sub $2K price point. They would need to build an i7 version with a whole new logic board. Apple already did that and it's called a "Mac Mini". Apple's product managers dream nightmares of an invincible xMac cannibalizing their overpriced iMac sales.
BTW I must say this tube thingie is a work of art and it's hard to believe even some fanbois are trashing its design. Just wait until you see it person - the polished dark metal strikes the perfect mix of elegance and badassery. The lines and stance suggest some dark power resides within, a power so confident it need not assert brand by putting any sort of logo in view. If this is Ive unchained from Steve Jobs's artistic micromanagement, Apple's products are about to rock at a whole new visual level.
You really are clueless with this repeated i7 nonsense. Did you note that the $800 mini uses a cpu that costs more than the one in the base mac pro option? Arguably the discrete gpu is an additional cost, but they're closer than you might think. An "i7" version would have one cpu option. It's the same one used in the top spec imac. I'm not sure whether it would improve volume discount, as I don't think that is exactly the most popular imac option. Below that you move into i5s. If you mean Sandy Bridge E i7s, they cost the same amount and kill any savings derived from the reuse of whatever parts. Where are you deriving your cost savings or your evidence that the price of these machines is tightly coupled with construction costs as opposed to broader pricing strategy? As for designs, aesthetics mean very little to me.
There will be no mac pro server room with these goofy things...No reasonable shelving accommodations, cooling would be a nightmare and thats just the top two
Have you no imagination? I can imagine some very reasonable racking arrangements for these machines. Cooling would be a snap in a real server room with ventilation into the cabinet racks.
- in a real data center enviornment, everything that could be moved from OSX to Windows or Linux should be,
So much hot air. Many would tell you that real data centers run IBM equipment which makes about as much sense as your statement.
and if something absolutely _MUST_ run on OSX Server, Minis would be a better option - and can do just about any server task fairly well
Rationally this isn't a machine for server duty, at least not traditional server duty. The twin high performance GPUs pulls it completely out of the common server category.
...and if you want a render node/farm, you would be insane to buy these, you cant swap out the GPUs, you cant add Tesla (Hell you cant use any Nvidia parts) Give me $6000 at HP+Newegg and I will build you something far better than the Mac Pro sexy trash can edition...
Baloney. The whole idea behind this machine. Is to step away from old world ways of doing things and look towards the future. That future does not include NVidia or frequent GPU upgrades of the past. Te reality is this by the time a GPU upgrade is worthwhile it is time to upgrade the rest of the machine.
More so this machine is mostly GPU to begin with. The CPU can almost be seen as an after thought, as such a new machine really is the GPU upgrade you are looking for. Really look closely at this machine, over two thirds of the hardware is dedicated to GPUs and the support of those GPUs. Each year or two (depending upon how fast viable GPUs come along) the Mac Pro effectively becomes your GPU upgrade.
I think Apple wants to kill the Pro so they are doing this to push the remaining Pro users to something else...two years and there will be no headless desktop other than the Mini.
That is certainly an example of the power of negativity. I on the other hand see this differently. This machine could easily become one of Apples best selling machines in history. It is all based on finding the right price points. This machine has the potential to be priced at very disruptive price points. So in a few months we will see just what Apple has in mind marketing wise, I'm certain killing the Mac Pro though isn't in the cards.
I generally don't like WWJD posts (What Would Jobs Do?), but Jobs would have used the introduction of a new Mac Pro to make Apple's plans for the Pro market crystal clear. He would have redefined Apple's entire pro user strategy at the Mac Pro launch. Apple doesn't seem to have anyone who can throw down a new vision for Mac users, and that's fatal to a company that was always about product gestalts rather than hardware specs.
This was a sneak peek. That is all. Nothing more.
The real introduction will be later this year and that is when Apple will present its position clearly. We will have to wait and see.
You really are clueless with this repeated i7 nonsense. Did you note that the $800 mini uses a cpu that costs more than the one in the base mac pro option? Arguably the discrete gpu is an additional cost, but they're closer than you might think. An "i7" version would have one cpu option. It's the same one used in the top spec imac. I'm not sure whether it would improve volume discount, as I don't think that is exactly the most popular imac option. Below that you move into i5s. If you mean Sandy Bridge E i7s, they cost the same amount and kill any savings derived from the reuse of whatever parts. Where are you deriving your cost savings or your evidence that the price of these machines is tightly coupled with construction costs as opposed to broader pricing strategy? As for designs, aesthetics mean very little to me.
I'd like to side step the processor discussion a bit to question build costs. I'm really seeing this as an easy to produce machine. Extrusions certainly have their costs associated with them but that is offset somewhat by the chips needing cooling solutions anyways. The single fan and other features would cut parts costs but also assembly costs. I'm seeing a machine that Apple will be able to build very cost competitively maybe even at a significant advantage over traditional systems.
So even with the custom extrusion and other unique parts, I can see this machine being cheaper than some alternatives. You look at a standard PCI Express based GPU card these days and you see huge heat sinks and often multiple fans to try to keep the chips cool in traditional PC enclosures. All of this structure goes away. The same thing happens to the CPU cooling apparatus. Three sets of cooling hardware replaced with one heat sink and a fan. A piece that also takes on other structural duties. In the end I could see this machine impacting cost to produce by hundreds of dollars. The savings should be enough to allow Apple to price the machine very competitively while retaining nice margins.
This is why I'm optimistic about pricing. The Mac Pro won't be cheap but I see an opportunity here to surprise people. This machine could be more affordable than people think.
Comments
Quote:
Huh, I could swear I covered this days ago…!
...and Wizard...and myself have covered (and coveted...) such a beast for years now. The price of the 'mid tower/mid-tower/Cube etc' has been well covered and is pretty much consensus given the odd punch up.
But yes, price it £1295 (top end iMac without monitor) -ish and it would walk out the stores. It would turbo boost 'Pro' sales.
But this is Apple.
But I suppose they made the entry 13 inch Air cheaper...
Like I say, start lobbying Tim Cook now.
Does he have email?
Really, should get all the X-Mac folk to petition him for the said machine. Same case. Lower prosumer/gamer/entry workstation spec. (HP 'workstations' start at £700+? Exactly...so an Apple one starting at £1295 with an astonishing 1/8th volume - saving on materials... - should be possibly even with Apple tax.)
Lemon Bon Bon.
And Kudos for dragging the 'pro' crowd (well, the % rump of them that are squealing at this revolution...) into the new millenium.
Taking the storage outside. Focus on Computation.
Hook me a Darth Pro upto a Pegasus TB 2.0?
Drools....
...den ders dem...geeze...4k displays or 'display' coming...an'....
Wut's dat? 2 external cables?
3 if yer still wants yer optical...
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
That doesn't mean this doesn't represent a solution. It's just not the ideal solution in terms of storage. Ideally 90% of the market for that specific machine (not 90% of consumers) would have their primary storage needs solved internally with only backups pushed out of the box.
I felt that way too, until I thought about it for a while. Now I don't really understand what difference it makes whether the storage is internal or external?
In a laptop it matters, since external storage affects portability. I even get the objection in the case of an all-in-one like the iMac because it's a device that sits on a desk in a home or office and people want it to look tidy. But when we're talking a production tool, what difference does it make? There's no advantage in speed or convenience to having the drives built in, and looking pretty isn't a really a priority.
I'm not saying the new design is better in this respect, just that it seems like a "shrug -- who cares?" issue.
Am I missing something? Is there some benefit to having the drives in the same box as the CPU?
EDIT: Never mind, I later saw your explanation of your concerns. It SEEMS like you're comparing the liabilities of cheap outboard RAID arrays to the reliability of the old Pro's internal JBOD. The benefits you describe derive not from the drives being internal, but from the fact that there's no array to maintain. Couldn't the same benefit be achieved with an outboard JBOD?
If you want more than in the new souped up Hot Rod Mac Pro.
Hook it up to a Pegasus. A render farm.
Presumably these are the 'serious' pros that have access to 'serious' jobs demanding serious output?
Clearly. If you want more. You'll pay for it. Out of the box the Mac Pro can be configured 'upto' quite teh powerhouse.
Having said that. Will this cut down in bloat and materials be reflected in the Pro's price?
eg dropping the optical drive and Apple upped the price of £100 of the entry iMac. Will the Pro get the price cut it needs to get a true entry price for the workstation and deliver the mythical Mac Pro pricing people want?
Price will be interesting variable methinks.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
Price will be interesting variable methinks.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I guess it depends on what kind of volume they need for the line to be viable. This isn't going to carry the highest profits even in the context of Macs. It's not a realistic goal. It should however be able to move in at least steady numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by v5v
I felt that way too, until I thought about it for a while. Now I don't really understand what difference it makes whether the storage is internal or external?
In a laptop it matters, since external storage affects portability. I even get the objection in the case of an all-in-one like the iMac because it's a device that sits on a desk in a home or office and people want it to look tidy. But when we're talking a production tool, what difference does it make? There's no advantage in speed or convenience to having the drives built in, and looking pretty isn't a really a priority.
I'm not saying the new design is better in this respect, just that it seems like a "shrug -- who cares?" issue.
Am I missing something? Is there some benefit to having the drives in the same box as the CPU?
It adds at least $500 for a decent JBOD box. They all add some noise. The cheap ones are terrible in that regard. Not all of them are seamless, as you're placing the device behind another layer hooked up through whatever port multiplier. Thunderbolt also isn't the same as SATA or PCI. The certifications are totally different. You must be able to unplug it without causing kernel panics. With a PCI card, the card stays in all the time. It's not here nor there. I'm just listing it for some people on here who claim it's the same thing who may also be reading the thread. You need a backup anyway, so this is yet another box. I dislike that it tries to save space on one, yet expands space and costs on another. It also wastes available bandwidth ports that are there either way, as they're part of the chipset. At this point the imac actually has greater storage capacity internally. It's just one of those things that in the end may cost more while not really accomplishing the space saving goals with the possible exception of facilities that rely solely on centralized storage. What I mentioned was a JBOD solution not including drives. A decent raid would cost more.
Most of the potential gains here are in gpu performance, which others have already mapped out. Workstation drivers are nice if they provide better OpenGL stability. I hope to see that. The potential x86 speeds won't change that much compared to the current line, although overall it's arguably a very nice net gain as long as you can take advantage of some of the improvements. I know Marvin came up with price estimates. I'm skeptical whether it will really go that high, as the only 12 core options would be a max gain of maybe 15% from the 12 cores we have now. GPUs are a much bigger deal here, and it comes down to how well drivers are optimized. With the more expensive workstation gpus, you're typically paying for drivers and video ram. The quality of the drivers determines whether or not they are worth the extra cost much more than the hardware itself. Admittedly I'm still somewhat excited to see that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by createrio
For everyone else who can't afford it, there will be tower-shaped (a la Airport Extreme) Mac Mini.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Why would they do that?
Because there needs to be change for the sake of change. Otherwise the line is "stale."
Besides, a vertical format will place the antennas higher which is more important to wireless range and speed than where the device itself is physically situated, as evidenced by the new AirPort.
/s
I actually would not be at all surprised if a new mini DID adopt that form. I'm not saying it will, just that it seems plausible.
For those that are Apple developers, the Foundry/Pixar lunchtime talk mentioned in the keynote, 'Painting the Future', is now up on the developers website…
Come see the new Mac Pro in action…!!!
I think the same of the old one. The quad-i7 Mini was around the same performance as the entry Pro. All it had on top was a dedicated GPU, slots and storage bays and a whole heap of space used for an inefficient cooling system. All computers from the iPhone to the Mac Pro to server blades have more things in common than they have differences. It's what people do with them that's important.
They have to be around that TDP given the number of stream processors. A 2013 iteration might save some power but nowhere near 150W it would need to fit in the old limit.
If you configure it the same way, the two x16s are already used for GPUs in the original so that only leaves you 2 x4 PCIe 3 and you couldn't have TB on top as you only have 40 lanes. The lanes aren't changing from one machine to the next, all this machine is doing is dictating that two fast slots stay inside for graphics and the remaining lanes are divided between 6 ports that can be daisy chained up to 36 devices.
It takes the step that all Apple devices do by limiting user-configurability in order to improve the efficiency of the design based on what most people do with the machines anyway and you'll probably get more performance-per-dollar this way.
I don't think you have the TB as mentioned above but even the boxes are fairly expensive:
http://www.magma.com/catalog/basic-pcie-expansion
A 16-bay there is $4500 so $9000 to match the number of devices of the entry Mac Pro. That's not even taking into consideration that TB is plug and play so you can keep a ton of peripherals in a cupboard most of the time and just take them out when needed.
Not vs the current Mac Pro. I estimate 50% improvement in CPU over the current Pro, which is 2 or more generations back. They might be able to clock it higher based on the cooling solution. The single heatsink cools 3 parts so for CPU-only tasks, they can probably clock it up a bit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRonin
For those that are Apple developers, the Foundry/Pixar lunchtime talk mentioned in the keynote, 'Painting the Future', is now up on the developers website…
Come see the new Mac Pro in action…!!!
Cool demo…!
Foundry guy (and original creator of Mari while at Weta) says he gets emails all the time from customers asking what machine/config to get to best use Mari; now he can unequivocally say the new Mac Pro…
Pixar guy (shader/texture artist) says, and demos, how he can use Mari with the new Mac Pro to handle 10GB, 20GB & larger amounts of data; interacting with it in real time 'like butter'… Recounts how most models have multiple channels (color, specularity, displacement, etc.) and each channel is running about 500 textures… Oh yeah, the textures are each 8K x 8K in size… Never know when an extreme close-up might be needed… Again, rotating the model around in real time while painting with these huge textures; and not just on a single channel at a time…
Long story short; bitch & whine all you want about 'only one CPU, no internal secondary storage, no internal PCIe expansion slots', the new Mac Pro is a serious machine that means serious business…!
WELL worth going over to the Apple site and registering for a free developer membership ( I THINK they still do that) to watch this demo…!!!
There will be no mac pro server room with these goofy things...No reasonable shelving accommodations, cooling would be a nightmare and thats just the top two - in a real data center enviornment, everything that could be moved from OSX to Windows or Linux should be, and if something absolutely _MUST_ run on OSX Server, Minis would be a better option - and can do just about any server task fairly well...and if you want a render node/farm, you would be insane to buy these, you cant swap out the GPUs, you cant add Tesla (Hell you cant use any Nvidia parts) Give me $6000 at HP+Newegg and I will build you something far better than the Mac Pro sexy trash can edition...
I think Apple wants to kill the Pro so they are doing this to push the remaining Pro users to something else...two years and there will be no headless desktop other than the Mini.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777
In reality, Mac Pro server rooms will be interesting to watch.
The shelving will be 7" wide, and the machines placed with the back panel facing outward. I imagine the shelves will have to slide out to swap components.
On the other hand, the power supply is internal, which is a significant problem for server farms.
I really did think that the new Pro would have been more rack-friendly, given that the Xserve was discontinued.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I estimate 50% improvement in CPU over the current Pro, which is 2 or more generations back. They might be able to clock it higher based on the cooling solution. The single heatsink cools 3 parts so for CPU-only tasks, they can probably clock it up a bit.
I was basing it on a likely very conservative clock speed. I'm not sure how ivy will work out. With Sandy the 1600s chips didn't go past 6 cores. The 8 cores were at least 2600s (when I say 2400s it's me rambling things off the top of my head) chips, the type that are made for dual socket machines. The 2687 is as fast as it gets. Two of them here geekbenched 45000. That is somewhat faster than I remember from other similar tests. I don't regard geekbench as a great measure of performance. I'm just using it because it's quick to look up. I guess it depends on how they're clocked. I'm just speculating as I wouldn't end up buying a maxed one anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRonin
Cool demo…!
Foundry guy (and original creator of Mari while at Weta) says he gets emails all the time from customers asking what machine/config to get to best use Mari; now he can unequivocally say the new Mac Pro…
Pixar guy (shader/texture artist) says, and demos, how he can use Mari with the new Mac Pro to handle 10GB, 20GB & larger amounts of data; interacting with it in real time 'like butter'… Recounts how most models have multiple channels (color, specularity, displacement, etc.) and each channel is running about 500 textures… Oh yeah, the textures are each 8K x 8K in size… Never know when an extreme close-up might be needed… Again, rotating the model around in real time while painting with these huge textures; and not just on a single channel at a time…
Long story short; bitch & whine all you want about 'only one CPU, no internal secondary storage, no internal PCIe expansion slots', the new Mac Pro is a serious machine that means serious business…!
WELL worth going over to the Apple site and registering for a free developer membership ( I THINK they still do that) to watch this demo…!!!
I don't personally use Mari, but they made the exact same claims a year ago. In fact that's how they marketed the software from the start. It was designed for pelting huge textures. Pixar probably runs more maya seats than anything. I doubt they are houdini heavy there. Maya's maximum texture map size is 8k. These things have to deform uses pixar's version of subdivision surfaces and would be projected based on their normals, so they have to hold up to a lot more than a single still image that you view as is. It's not just closeups but the amount of torture the textures would naturally take. Anyway I guess the new aspect would be that it runs on Macs and OpenCL. It used to be a CUDA only application. It is not the only machine in the world that can match what you just described, not to say it isn't impressive, and I suspect you would want such a workstation for that kind of application. Like I said, I don't use Mari. It's a $2000 texture painting app. The target market is obvious.
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Originally Posted by wizard69
They may very well change their minds on that one. At least for the SSD slot.
With every technological advance a few Luddites try to ruin it for everybody.
I don't know about that. Apple has been very responsive to customers. I could see three or so variants of the "Tube" to cover a wide array of professional users.
Dream we can.
Interestingly this comes close to what an XMac could be, plug in a 55-85 watt desktop processor and a couple of 75 watt GPUs and you have the basic idea down. Actually one 75 watt GPU would be pretty good considering most desktop processors these days have their own GPU. Built that way this machine would have been very close capability wise to what I imagined an XMac should be. The goal for XMac was or is a half decent GPU coupled with a good desktop grade processor which this chassis could easily support.
If you take the released materials at face value this isn't in Apple release plans. I could see them scraping the current Mini for a machine built in this platform concept. Shrink the height of the machine and lighten the heat sink for mobile chips or low end desktop chips and Bingo a new Mini.
From your lips to Apple's Space Ship.
That's my thought ever since laying eyes on this iTube. Both technically and asthetically it's a beautiful design, but somehow it strikes me not as a pro machine, but as almost exactly what Apple should be making as their high end consumer desktop. A quiet and compact desktop machine for the masses. A non-upgradable GPU is usually fine as long as it's not underpowered from the beginning, as is the case with the Mini and even many iMacs until recently. Even the stock GPU on some recent Mac Pros is unable to smoothly render OS X GUI graphics, lol. They try pulling that with this iTube, it will bite them in the arse.
Having a few days go perseverate over this new Mac Pro, I find myself wondering if Apple gave up the internal expansion/upgradability for the one feature they didn't talk about at its intro: price. This new Mac Pro could be the machine that finally scales from the needs of home enthusiasts to hardcore workstation users. If Apple can offer a sub-$2000 Mac ProTube with a quad-core Xeon, single 79xx GPU, and PCIe SSD, the motive for this new design then snaps into focus. It's also notable that even though the Mac Pro tower could be purchased with a single Xeon it was designed (and priced) around two power-hungry Xeons.
/dreaming
Ok, back in reality, even a single Xeon is too expensive for Apple to hit a sub $2K price point. They would need to build an i7 version with a whole new logic board. Apple already did that and it's called a "Mac Mini". Apple's product managers dream nightmares of an invincible xMac cannibalizing their overpriced iMac sales.
BTW I must say this tube thingie is a work of art and it's hard to believe even some fanbois are trashing its design. Just wait until you see it person - the polished dark metal strikes the perfect mix of elegance and badassery. The lines and stance suggest some dark power resides within, a power so confident it need not assert brand by putting any sort of logo in view. If this is Ive unchained from Steve Jobs's artistic micromanagement, Apple's products are about to rock at a whole new visual level.
Even back when it was a cube, am I right? :rolleyes:
Utter frippery.
Took you long enough; been months since you made those claims.
I disagree. What will make it too expensive, I think, is the fact that they're using dual FirePro W9000s. Those are $2,399 a pop. Well, at least the highest-end Mac Pro uses those.
Quote:
Originally Posted by a_greer
I think Apple wants to kill the Pro so they are doing this to push the remaining Pro users to something else...two years and there will be no headless desktop other than the Mini.
That's a lot of R&D money to spend on such an elaborate scheme when all Apple has to do to kill the Mac Pro is...kill the Mac Pro. Still, your post raises a good point: even after Apple presented their new Mac Pro, pros still have no freakin' clue about Apple's intentions. The product is out there and Mac users are left to figure it out on their own.
I generally don't like WWJD posts (What Would Jobs Do?), but Jobs would have used the introduction of a new Mac Pro to make Apple's plans for the Pro market crystal clear. He would have redefined Apple's entire pro user strategy at the Mac Pro launch. Apple doesn't seem to have anyone who can throw down a new vision for Mac users, and that's fatal to a company that was always about product gestalts rather than hardware specs.
Even that is expensive in dollars. Home run if they step up to bat!
I could see them though refactoring the Mini to better fill that middle of range roll that is left open currently. Release time is in a few months, I'm figuring September / October time frame. When the machine launches I'm expecting a family of devices to go with it. Displays and disk arrays for one. So maybe we shouldn't lobby too hard until Apple has played all of its cards.
One thing though Apple really needs to make sure that second PCI Express SSD card slot is active. That little extra would make for a far more interesting machine. I do wonder though if they have enough lanes available. That is most certainly worth lobbying for right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
Ok, back in reality, even a single Xeon is too expensive for Apple to hit a sub $2K price point. They would need to build an i7 version with a whole new logic board. Apple already did that and it's called a "Mac Mini". Apple's product managers dream nightmares of an invincible xMac cannibalizing their overpriced iMac sales.
BTW I must say this tube thingie is a work of art and it's hard to believe even some fanbois are trashing its design. Just wait until you see it person - the polished dark metal strikes the perfect mix of elegance and badassery. The lines and stance suggest some dark power resides within, a power so confident it need not assert brand by putting any sort of logo in view. If this is Ive unchained from Steve Jobs's artistic micromanagement, Apple's products are about to rock at a whole new visual level.
You really are clueless with this repeated i7 nonsense. Did you note that the $800 mini uses a cpu that costs more than the one in the base mac pro option? Arguably the discrete gpu is an additional cost, but they're closer than you might think. An "i7" version would have one cpu option. It's the same one used in the top spec imac. I'm not sure whether it would improve volume discount, as I don't think that is exactly the most popular imac option. Below that you move into i5s. If you mean Sandy Bridge E i7s, they cost the same amount and kill any savings derived from the reuse of whatever parts. Where are you deriving your cost savings or your evidence that the price of these machines is tightly coupled with construction costs as opposed to broader pricing strategy? As for designs, aesthetics mean very little to me.
More so this machine is mostly GPU to begin with. The CPU can almost be seen as an after thought, as such a new machine really is the GPU upgrade you are looking for. Really look closely at this machine, over two thirds of the hardware is dedicated to GPUs and the support of those GPUs. Each year or two (depending upon how fast viable GPUs come along) the Mac Pro effectively becomes your GPU upgrade.
That is certainly an example of the power of negativity. I on the other hand see this differently. This machine could easily become one of Apples best selling machines in history. It is all based on finding the right price points. This machine has the potential to be priced at very disruptive price points. So in a few months we will see just what Apple has in mind marketing wise, I'm certain killing the Mac Pro though isn't in the cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
I generally don't like WWJD posts (What Would Jobs Do?), but Jobs would have used the introduction of a new Mac Pro to make Apple's plans for the Pro market crystal clear. He would have redefined Apple's entire pro user strategy at the Mac Pro launch. Apple doesn't seem to have anyone who can throw down a new vision for Mac users, and that's fatal to a company that was always about product gestalts rather than hardware specs.
This was a sneak peek. That is all. Nothing more.
The real introduction will be later this year and that is when Apple will present its position clearly. We will have to wait and see.
I'd like to side step the processor discussion a bit to question build costs. I'm really seeing this as an easy to produce machine. Extrusions certainly have their costs associated with them but that is offset somewhat by the chips needing cooling solutions anyways. The single fan and other features would cut parts costs but also assembly costs. I'm seeing a machine that Apple will be able to build very cost competitively maybe even at a significant advantage over traditional systems.
So even with the custom extrusion and other unique parts, I can see this machine being cheaper than some alternatives. You look at a standard PCI Express based GPU card these days and you see huge heat sinks and often multiple fans to try to keep the chips cool in traditional PC enclosures. All of this structure goes away. The same thing happens to the CPU cooling apparatus. Three sets of cooling hardware replaced with one heat sink and a fan. A piece that also takes on other structural duties. In the end I could see this machine impacting cost to produce by hundreds of dollars. The savings should be enough to allow Apple to price the machine very competitively while retaining nice margins.
This is why I'm optimistic about pricing. The Mac Pro won't be cheap but I see an opportunity here to surprise people. This machine could be more affordable than people think.