He's right. Apple could do with an ego-reality-check right now.
Why? Give me one material reason why. The industry trend is away from internal expansion cards; away from desktops; away from large machines. Laptops are now capable professional machines for many jobs that used to require top-end desktops. which means iMacs are, which means that the market for a machine that actually requires a large case is shrinking inexorably. As a product's market shrink, the profit per unit has to go up to justify continued production. But the cost of production has come down, so you can get a Mac Pro for much less in 2009 dollars than a PowerMac 9600 cost, or a PowerMac 8600, or for that matter a Mac IIfx.
If you want them to be punished for not making your cheap, headless Mac then you are going to be yelling at clouds for the next while. Right now I dare you to point to one actual metric the executives can look at and measure against industry trends that should cause them to put on sackcloth and ashes and repent their sins to Lemon Bon Bon. Because I honestly don't see any.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
A few bad quarters of slowing sales may cause them to rethink the path they are going down.
They will deserve a few bad quarters of slowing sales when they actually earn them.
By corollary, the relatively good quarters that they have actually been enjoying may cause them to affirm their current course (although I hope they're checking to make sure that there are sound and sustainable reasons for those good quarters unlike the idiots on Wall Street, but that's for another forum).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
We can postulate about what Apple deserve. But if they were complaining about Mac Pro sales before this update...then they'll have to jack the prices up even more to compenstate as their market for them shrinks.
Actually, I'm not postulating about what they "deserve." I'm looking at where they actually are (profitable, thriving, sitting on a mountain of cash), how they're doing relative to the industry (very well and improving), and concluding from there that they feel pretty comfortable with their position and feel no need to do anything radical. It's a matter of observation, not judgment.
I agree that the price for the Mac Pro will go up as the market shrinks. I agree that the market for the Mac Pro is shrinking. Apple have already solved that problem: They're shipping the machines that an increasing number of people would rather have, and people have responded by buying them in record (for Apple) quantities, even through a recession.
Keep in mind these new cpu's have hyperthreading. So if you get a 2.26 you are getting 16 virtual cores. If I were you, I'd go with the new 8 core 2.26... it is going to last you much longer with snow leopard's GCD and OpenCL. Also the new cpu's offer virtualization... so better compatibility with VMWare running windows if that is a factor to you. It is to me because I have to test ie6 against web apps.
Did you retract this recommendation? 2.26, 2.66, 2.8 are the options on the table. 2.8 is too pricey right now. 2.66 represents a little increase and 2.26 is a 1K savings. What is the practical difference in performance and are there any long term (oxymoron I know) considerations for shelf life.
Did you retract this recommendation? 2.26, 2.66, 2.8 are the options on the table. 2.8 is too pricey right now. 2.66 represents a little increase and 2.26 is a 1K savings. What is the practical difference in performance and are there any long term (oxymoron I know) considerations for shelf life.
Directly spoken: I want Apple to fail to prove that I am right.
You really think that the Mac Pro is such a big seller that they will get worried about low sales? The last generation had low sales as well.
Most people who buy the Mac Pro for business reasons, which is the bulk of the people who buy the Mac Pro, probably want Apple to go even further into the high end with the product - with SLI graphics cards, huge numbers of memory slots, faster/more expensive processors (like the xeon 5580), etc.
I followed some of the line of your questions, but I don't remember exactly right now.
Are you comparing a dual cpu 2.26 machine, and a dual cpu 2.8 machine (old), to a single cpu 2.66 machine?
Or am I missing something here?
I currently have on order a 8-Core Mac Pro with two 3.0GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon and this is not available if I go with the state of the art. If I upgrade to 2.66 it increases my price by about $400 or if I go with the 2.26 I save $1K. Graphics card in my order is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 and this is no longer available if I upgrade. Everything else is a plus (memory drive speed, etc.) (eventually I will run 2 monitors.)
Current Apple base price offering below:
8-core Mac Pro ($3,299):
two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache
6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately)
four PCI Express 2.0 slots
five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse
I currently have on order a 8-Core Mac Pro with two 3.0GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon and this is not available if I go with the state of the art. If I upgrade to 2.66 it increases my price by about $400 or if I go with the 2.26 I save $1K. Graphics card in my order is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 and this is no longer available if I upgrade. Everything else is a plus (memory drive speed, etc.) (eventually I will run 2 monitors.)
Current Apple base price offering below:
8-core Mac Pro ($3,299):
two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache
6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately)
four PCI Express 2.0 slots
five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse
Ok. I get it now.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I don't know what you're doing with the machine, so it's difficult to know what's most important to you.
If you're not doing much 3D graphics work on big models, then the 120 card will be fine. Of course, OS 10.6 will leverage that graphics card more than ever before, so the best card will get you more processing power. A slower machine may even, on certain apps, be more powerful than a faster machine, because those apps may better leverage that faster board in 10.6 and beyond. he older 3.0 GHz machine could also use that 4870 board. It would then help its performance later on. You can add this board later, and still use the 120 in another slot.
My feeling though is that Nehalem offers much upside as time goes on.
One area that's interesting is that being at the very beginning of the curve, the chips, which likely will be replaceable, as they are in the older machines, are the slowest that Intel will be offering during the current "Tock". When 32 nm arrives next year, they can be popped out (more easily hopefully, than in the older machines, as it appears), and newer, faster 6 core (and possibly 8 core as some hints from Intel lately have been giving us (no, not Becton) chips can be put in.
Also, the older machines have two Express bus 2 slots and two Express 1 slots. The new machine has four Express 2 slots. Two of those are 16 electrical lanes. The older only had one 16 lane slot.
Hyperthreading, for well threaded apps, has been shown to give a 10 to 30% boost in processing.
Money can be tight right now, so it's a tough decision I know.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I ordered the 4870 upgrade card for my last-gen mac pro. I think it will be quite nice - do you know if the 8800 and 4870 can both be in there at the same time?
HP, Dell and other Tier1 Workstations with similar configs. I'm not too sure they're going to be at 2499 for a similar config.
Apple's used the same case for 5 years and the mobo doesn't appear to have a lot of customization.
We'll see if their pricing cuts muster or not.
Current single CPU workstations from HP and Dell based around a core 2 duo and the x38/48 aren't priced much higher than desktop systems, so I would expect the Quad core Mac Pro to be significantly more expensive than the competition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978
You really think that the Mac Pro is such a big seller that they will get worried about low sales? The last generation had low sales as well.
Not too long ago the PowerMac was one of Apple's better selling models. Then again, you could afford one without a Hollywood budget.
Current single CPU workstations from HP and Dell based around a core 2 duo and the x38/48 aren't priced much higher than desktop systems, so I would expect the Quad core Mac Pro to be significantly more expensive than the competition.
I ordered the 4870 upgrade card for my last-gen mac pro. I think it will be quite nice - do you know if the 8800 and 4870 can both be in there at the same time?
If the card is from the 2008 model, I don't see why not. Earlier models, likely not, but maybe. Yeah, I know, that's not me, being so equivocal and all.
If the card is from the 2008 model, I don't see why not. Earlier models, likely not, but maybe. Yeah, I know, that's not me, being so equivocal and all.
Yeah - my machine/card is the same as the one McPhee is ordering - the 8x3GHz from last summer.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I don't know what you're doing with the machine, so it's difficult to know what's most important to you.
If you're not doing much 3D graphics work on big models, then the 120 card will be fine. Of course, OS 10.6 will leverage that graphics card more than ever before, so the best card will get you more processing power. A slower machine may even, on certain apps, be more powerful than a faster machine, because those apps may better leverage that faster board in 10.6 and beyond. he older 3.0 GHz machine could also use that 4870 board. It would then help its performance later on. You can add this board later, and still use the 120 in another slot.
Thank you for your perspective. I talked with the Apple store rep that helped me spec the machine. He does the same kind of work I do so his perspective on the contrast of systems was valuable to me. Given the cost savings ($1000) I went with the 2.26 processor confident it will outperform the one I had on order. I will be doing a ton of Photoshop, Flash, AfterEffects Final Cut, InDesign, etc. and some 3D sculpting/character development but not likely fully rendered modeling. I up my graphics card to 4870 and will be up my ram to 8G after it arrives. Everything else is a plus and I saved $700 on my original order. This should be a better foundation than the one I first ordered.
Those are the 5000-series dual socket machines, the same class as the 8-core. Price the Precision T3400.
The Precision T3400 is a Core2Duo machine. Why do you care that it is less expensive than a Xeon machine? If Apple made a machine like the T3400, it would also be cheaper than the Mac Pro.
Comments
Here is a benchmark I found while looking up turbo on these chips.
http://it.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=532
The new Xeon 5570 outperforms the "old" 5450 by 119%!!!
Screw! I didn't get to your post, and didn't see this. I wrote about turbo mode in mine too.
Yeah. I read that a while ago. Good article.
He's right. Apple could do with an ego-reality-check right now.
Why? Give me one material reason why. The industry trend is away from internal expansion cards; away from desktops; away from large machines. Laptops are now capable professional machines for many jobs that used to require top-end desktops. which means iMacs are, which means that the market for a machine that actually requires a large case is shrinking inexorably. As a product's market shrink, the profit per unit has to go up to justify continued production. But the cost of production has come down, so you can get a Mac Pro for much less in 2009 dollars than a PowerMac 9600 cost, or a PowerMac 8600, or for that matter a Mac IIfx.
If you want them to be punished for not making your cheap, headless Mac then you are going to be yelling at clouds for the next while. Right now I dare you to point to one actual metric the executives can look at and measure against industry trends that should cause them to put on sackcloth and ashes and repent their sins to Lemon Bon Bon. Because I honestly don't see any.
A few bad quarters of slowing sales may cause them to rethink the path they are going down.
They will deserve a few bad quarters of slowing sales when they actually earn them.
By corollary, the relatively good quarters that they have actually been enjoying may cause them to affirm their current course (although I hope they're checking to make sure that there are sound and sustainable reasons for those good quarters unlike the idiots on Wall Street, but that's for another forum).
We can postulate about what Apple deserve. But if they were complaining about Mac Pro sales before this update...then they'll have to jack the prices up even more to compenstate as their market for them shrinks.
Actually, I'm not postulating about what they "deserve." I'm looking at where they actually are (profitable, thriving, sitting on a mountain of cash), how they're doing relative to the industry (very well and improving), and concluding from there that they feel pretty comfortable with their position and feel no need to do anything radical. It's a matter of observation, not judgment.
I agree that the price for the Mac Pro will go up as the market shrinks. I agree that the market for the Mac Pro is shrinking. Apple have already solved that problem: They're shipping the machines that an increasing number of people would rather have, and people have responded by buying them in record (for Apple) quantities, even through a recession.
Mac Pro Quad w/Xeon 3500 pricing
compared to
HP, Dell and other Tier1 Workstations with similar configs. I'm not too sure they're going to be at 2499 for a similar config.
Apple's used the same case for 5 years and the mobo doesn't appear to have a lot of customization.
We'll see if their pricing cuts muster or not.
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
A few bad quarters of slowing sales may cause them to rethink the path they are going down.
Keep in mind these new cpu's have hyperthreading. So if you get a 2.26 you are getting 16 virtual cores. If I were you, I'd go with the new 8 core 2.26... it is going to last you much longer with snow leopard's GCD and OpenCL. Also the new cpu's offer virtualization... so better compatibility with VMWare running windows if that is a factor to you. It is to me because I have to test ie6 against web apps.
Did you retract this recommendation? 2.26, 2.66, 2.8 are the options on the table. 2.8 is too pricey right now. 2.66 represents a little increase and 2.26 is a 1K savings. What is the practical difference in performance and are there any long term (oxymoron I know) considerations for shelf life.
Thanks!
Did you retract this recommendation? 2.26, 2.66, 2.8 are the options on the table. 2.8 is too pricey right now. 2.66 represents a little increase and 2.26 is a 1K savings. What is the practical difference in performance and are there any long term (oxymoron I know) considerations for shelf life.
Thanks!
2.66 single cpu vs dual for the others?
2.66 single cpu vs dual for the others?
Can you expound? Your question leaves me questioning...
Directly spoken: I want Apple to fail to prove that I am right.
You really think that the Mac Pro is such a big seller that they will get worried about low sales? The last generation had low sales as well.
Most people who buy the Mac Pro for business reasons, which is the bulk of the people who buy the Mac Pro, probably want Apple to go even further into the high end with the product - with SLI graphics cards, huge numbers of memory slots, faster/more expensive processors (like the xeon 5580), etc.
Can you expound? Your question leaves me questioning...
I followed some of the line of your questions, but I don't remember exactly right now.
Are you comparing a dual cpu 2.26 machine, and a dual cpu 2.8 machine (old), to a single cpu 2.66 machine?
Or am I missing something here?
I followed some of the line of your questions, but I don't remember exactly right now.
Are you comparing a dual cpu 2.26 machine, and a dual cpu 2.8 machine (old), to a single cpu 2.66 machine?
Or am I missing something here?
I currently have on order a 8-Core Mac Pro with two 3.0GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon and this is not available if I go with the state of the art. If I upgrade to 2.66 it increases my price by about $400 or if I go with the 2.26 I save $1K. Graphics card in my order is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 and this is no longer available if I upgrade. Everything else is a plus (memory drive speed, etc.) (eventually I will run 2 monitors.)
Current Apple base price offering below:
8-core Mac Pro ($3,299):
two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache
6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately)
four PCI Express 2.0 slots
five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse
I currently have on order a 8-Core Mac Pro with two 3.0GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon and this is not available if I go with the state of the art. If I upgrade to 2.66 it increases my price by about $400 or if I go with the 2.26 I save $1K. Graphics card in my order is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 and this is no longer available if I upgrade. Everything else is a plus (memory drive speed, etc.) (eventually I will run 2 monitors.)
Current Apple base price offering below:
8-core Mac Pro ($3,299):
two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache
6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately)
four PCI Express 2.0 slots
five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse
Ok. I get it now.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I don't know what you're doing with the machine, so it's difficult to know what's most important to you.
If you're not doing much 3D graphics work on big models, then the 120 card will be fine. Of course, OS 10.6 will leverage that graphics card more than ever before, so the best card will get you more processing power. A slower machine may even, on certain apps, be more powerful than a faster machine, because those apps may better leverage that faster board in 10.6 and beyond. he older 3.0 GHz machine could also use that 4870 board. It would then help its performance later on. You can add this board later, and still use the 120 in another slot.
My feeling though is that Nehalem offers much upside as time goes on.
One area that's interesting is that being at the very beginning of the curve, the chips, which likely will be replaceable, as they are in the older machines, are the slowest that Intel will be offering during the current "Tock". When 32 nm arrives next year, they can be popped out (more easily hopefully, than in the older machines, as it appears), and newer, faster 6 core (and possibly 8 core as some hints from Intel lately have been giving us (no, not Becton) chips can be put in.
Also, the older machines have two Express bus 2 slots and two Express 1 slots. The new machine has four Express 2 slots. Two of those are 16 electrical lanes. The older only had one 16 lane slot.
Hyperthreading, for well threaded apps, has been shown to give a 10 to 30% boost in processing.
Money can be tight right now, so it's a tough decision I know.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I ordered the 4870 upgrade card for my last-gen mac pro. I think it will be quite nice - do you know if the 8800 and 4870 can both be in there at the same time?
It's really going to come down to
Mac Pro Quad w/Xeon 3500 pricing
compared to
HP, Dell and other Tier1 Workstations with similar configs. I'm not too sure they're going to be at 2499 for a similar config.
Apple's used the same case for 5 years and the mobo doesn't appear to have a lot of customization.
We'll see if their pricing cuts muster or not.
Current single CPU workstations from HP and Dell based around a core 2 duo and the x38/48 aren't priced much higher than desktop systems, so I would expect the Quad core Mac Pro to be significantly more expensive than the competition.
You really think that the Mac Pro is such a big seller that they will get worried about low sales? The last generation had low sales as well.
Not too long ago the PowerMac was one of Apple's better selling models. Then again, you could afford one without a Hollywood budget.
Current single CPU workstations from HP and Dell based around a core 2 duo and the x38/48 aren't priced much higher than desktop systems, so I would expect the Quad core Mac Pro to be significantly more expensive than the competition.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...c=MLB141&s=biz
are you looking at some different page than I am? These last-gen xeon prices look higher than Apple's last-gen Mac Pro prices.
I ordered the 4870 upgrade card for my last-gen mac pro. I think it will be quite nice - do you know if the 8800 and 4870 can both be in there at the same time?
If the card is from the 2008 model, I don't see why not. Earlier models, likely not, but maybe. Yeah, I know, that's not me, being so equivocal and all.
If the card is from the 2008 model, I don't see why not. Earlier models, likely not, but maybe. Yeah, I know, that's not me, being so equivocal and all.
Yeah - my machine/card is the same as the one McPhee is ordering - the 8x3GHz from last summer.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...c=MLB141&s=biz
are you looking at some different page than I am? These last-gen xeon prices look higher than Apple's last-gen Mac Pro prices.
Those are the 5000-series dual socket machines, the same class as the 8-core. Price the Precision T3400.
Ok. I get it now.
For me, the sweet spot is the dual 2.66 model with the 4870 card, which is a pretty damn good card, and much better than the 8800 series from Nvidia, which is why I ordered that.
I don't know what you're doing with the machine, so it's difficult to know what's most important to you.
If you're not doing much 3D graphics work on big models, then the 120 card will be fine. Of course, OS 10.6 will leverage that graphics card more than ever before, so the best card will get you more processing power. A slower machine may even, on certain apps, be more powerful than a faster machine, because those apps may better leverage that faster board in 10.6 and beyond. he older 3.0 GHz machine could also use that 4870 board. It would then help its performance later on. You can add this board later, and still use the 120 in another slot.
Thank you for your perspective. I talked with the Apple store rep that helped me spec the machine. He does the same kind of work I do so his perspective on the contrast of systems was valuable to me. Given the cost savings ($1000) I went with the 2.26 processor confident it will outperform the one I had on order. I will be doing a ton of Photoshop, Flash, AfterEffects Final Cut, InDesign, etc. and some 3D sculpting/character development but not likely fully rendered modeling. I up my graphics card to 4870 and will be up my ram to 8G after it arrives. Everything else is a plus and I saved $700 on my original order. This should be a better foundation than the one I first ordered.
Thanks again!
Yeah - my machine/card is the same as the one McPhee is ordering - the 8x3GHz from last summer.
Then it should be fine.
Those are the 5000-series dual socket machines, the same class as the 8-core. Price the Precision T3400.
The Precision T3400 is a Core2Duo machine. Why do you care that it is less expensive than a Xeon machine? If Apple made a machine like the T3400, it would also be cheaper than the Mac Pro.