If nothing else the Mac Pro needs an update because it's almost a year and a half old and it's stock specs are anything but pro. 1GB of stock RAM is an embarrassment when $800 PCs are shipping with 3GB. The same holds for shipping a "pro" machine with a 250GB HD and a video card that was considered low end back in mid 2006 when the Mac Pro first shipped.
............................................
"Bargain Basement" PC's using "BB" RAM. Apple keeps RAM, and other options to a minimum to cut costs to the consumer. You can't compare a tandem Quad core processor Mac Pro to a "BB" Single Processor PC with 3GB of RAM, and think your argument holds water. Minimizing the Stock Specs are what keep the High Performance parts of a Pro workstation affordable to many consumers such as myself.
"Bargain Basement" PC's using "BB" RAM. Apple keeps RAM, and other options to a minimum to cut costs to the consumer. You can't compare a tandem Quad core processor Mac Pro to a "BB" Single Processor PC with 3GB of RAM, and think your argument holds water. Minimizing the Stock Specs are what keep the High Performance parts of a Pro workstation affordable to many consumers such as myself.
It's also a lot of "theoretical" whining that trys to compare hardware that won't run OS X to that which will. While I understand you can hack OS X to run on any PC, I would never want to do that. I find it difficult to think of separating Apple's software from its hardware. Any discussion of hardware that in the real world does not legally run OS X seems rather moot.
Mac Pros Penryn Xeons, hopefully nVidia cards [new Quadro something] or 8600GT 512MB standard, 8800GTS[X?] 640+MB option........? By early next year after the Christmas/Holiday season madness now descending upon us.
AMD FireStream? 9170: Industry's First GPU with Double-Precision Floating Point
AMD FireStream 9170 Specifications
Features
* Powered by next-generation ATI GPU from AMD
* Parallel processing architecture with 320 stream cores
* Up to 500 GFLOPs single precision performance
* 2GB GDDR3 on-board memory
* Double Precision Floating Point
* PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
* < 150W power consumption
* Memory export
* BIOS settings optimized for stream processing
* API and OS Support
* Windows XP, XP64
* Linux 32 and Linux 64
System Requirements
* PCI Express® based server or workstation with available x16 lane graphics slot
* 500W or greater power supply
* 512MB of system memory
Optimized for Computation
* Double-precision floating point for scientific and engineering codes
* 2GB on-board memory
* 320 stream cores drive up to 500 GFLOPS single-precision performance
* Asynchronous DMA, allowing data transfers without interrupting streams processor or CPU
Accelerating data-parallel algorithms in a variety of applications
* Seismic processing
* Financial analysis
* Engineering analysis
* Rendering
* Computational chemistry
* Genetic research
* Physics
* Video editing
* Security
AMD Warranty and Support
* Enterprise-level support
* Three year limited product repair/replacement warranty
* Toll-free phone and email access to technical support team
AMD FireStream stream processors deliver the tremendous parallel processing power of the GPU to compute-intensive applications for scientists, engineers and consumers. Using this leading-edge technology, developers can dramatically increase the performance of their critical algorithms, allowing users to get faster results or work on larger problems.
AMD leverages its expertise in CPUs, GPUs and software to deliver stream processing hardware solutions along with a comprehensive software development stack. Fortune 1000 companies, leading software developers, and academic institutions are demonstrating today that stream computing is the key to tremendous performance in a variety of applications.
The AMD FireStream 9170 provides the industry's first double-precision floating point capability on a GPU. With 2GB GDDR3 memory on board and single-precision performance of up to 500 GFLOPS, it is ideal for the most demanding compute-intensive, data-parallel tasks.
Using ground-breaking 55nm process technology, even this large-memory board consumes less than 150W, making it easy to deploy in a variety of server and workstation packages.
AMD FireStream SDK: Open systems approach drives adoption
The AMD FireStream SDK delivers all the tools developers need to create and optimize applications on stream processors. Developers can begin with Brook+, an AMD-enhanced and supported implementation of Brook, the popular open-source C-level language and compiler.
Forget it. AMD has lost it. All of what you posted is irrelevant to their plight.
GPU's won't save them. Barcelona has crapped out so far. Now the consumer version, Phenom, is also crapping out, being released at lower speeds than AMD said it would be.
No, if they want to get back into it, they will have to show something significent soon, before Intel buries them altogether.
Will the new chips be pin compatible with the existing mac pros?
Yes, they are, but that doesn't mean that you'd want to swap your existing CPU for a new one because (a) you'd be shoe-horning it into a slower bus (the 3.2GHz Xeon uses a 1600MHz vs 1333MHz bus), (b) there's most likely a lot of new chipset support on the logic boards to support all the new features, and (c) swapping it out would in all likelihood void your warranty.
In reading over the article this thread is based on again, I notice the Dual Core Xeons will be offered at up to 3.4GHz. This feeds my imagination into the idea that a 3.4GHz Quad Mac Pro may be offered in the middle of a pair of slower 8 Core systems putting Eight 3.2GHz cores on top and Eight 2.8GHz cores on the bottom.
Eight Cores @ 3.2GHz for say $3,999 = 25.6GHz total @ $639.50/core pair - $1,279 x 2
Four Cores @ 3.4GHz for say $3,599 = 13.6GHz total @ $1,172/core pair - $1,172 x 2
Eight Cores @ 2.8GHz for say $2,999 = 22.4GHz total @ $398.50/core pair - $797 x 2
I guess this makes no sense unless many only think they need 4 cores with maximum power per core.
I guess a lot of you wouldn't like these prices. The wild fact is that the Dual Core 3.4GHz model is only about $100 less than the Quad Core 3.2GHz model - each - while the Quad Core 2.8GHz pair are about $1,000 lower in cost to the manufacturer.
Purely a speculative guess. But I thought I'd throw that out there as a possibility since we've all got nothing left to do but guess what the line up will be. \
I'm thinking many may think the Quad 3.4GHz model would give them more power for a lot of applications that are not yet multithreaded or at least not for more than two cores today. This is just a total speculative post based on the fact that I just had a can of new Diet Pepsi MAX and am not going to sleep any time soon.
Forgive my total wild guessing speculation that has nothing to do with any inside information whatsoever.
Forget it. AMD has lost it. All of what you posted is irrelevant to their plight.
GPU's won't save them. Barcelona has crapped out so far. Now the consumer version, Phenom, is also crapping out, being released at lower speeds than AMD said it would be.
No, if they want to get back into it, they will have to show something significent soon, before Intel buries them altogether.
Which will happen when Nehalem comes out.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
Surely you saw the clock speeds and prices. The highest priced Barcelona chip is $400. Like I said earlier they are unable to compete at the mid and high end processor market.
Now that Penryns are out you can expect price cuts on the Barcelona chips. Until they can produce chips that they can fetch a premium price for, AMD are going to really struggle financially. Can they survive?
If nothing else the Mac Pro needs an update because it's almost a year and a half old and it's stock specs are anything but pro. 1GB of stock RAM is an embarrassment when $800 PCs are shipping with 3GB. The same holds for shipping a "pro" machine with a 250GB HD and a video card that was considered low end back in mid 2006 when the Mac Pro first shipped.
Apple appears to have no clue about desktop computers whatsoever. They have a great idea for a miniature computer (Mac mini) and then make it so small that its performance is seriously restricted and its price far too high for what you get. The iMac is a nice box for those who like having Steve Jobs choose a display for you, but the current generation is a prime example of style over substance. The specs for everything but the CPU are decidedly low end while the price is typical Apple. Unfortunately the reliability has been anything but typical Apple so the current iMac is to be avoided.
C'mon Apple you've proven that you can make fantastic notebook computers and sell them like hotcakes. It should be simple to make a decent desktop at a competitive price.
You are probably right, but, since Apple is setting sales records for desktops what you want won't happen. Apple doesn't seem to care and as long as they continue to sell their desktops at this pace, well....
What do you think the chances are that Apple will use the new 45nm chips in Mac Mini and iMac's? And would Apple do it at the same time as in the Mac Pro or wait until the dust (MacPro) clears?
I wonder if the new chips (using less power) mean that the Nano is in the near future.
I think the iMac will get the Penryn in its next update, but that won't be until February or March. If the iMac continues to use the mobile processor then Apple is going to want to use them all for the MacBook Pro to keep ship dates to a minimum. This will give Intel time to increase production so when the iMac is updated there will be enough to keeps its ship dates to a minimum.
The Mac mini is a tough one to predict. Since it is an entry level Mac I think Apple will intentionally keep it behind the times. I see Apple giving it 802.11n with a faster processor in its next update, then Santa Rosa with a Merom processor in the following update.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
You're talking about the tail wagging the dog.
It doesn't make the slightest difference how well the ATI division does. AMD's main business is CPU's. If they lag there for too much longer, they won't have the R&D money to keep either division up and running.
The only reason why AMD had such a good 2 years was because Intel had slipped, not because they did wonderfully themselves.
It's not likely that Intel will do that again.
Intel doesn't need to have competing graphic chips on the high end. They already supply about half the worlds graphics on their chipsets.
Besides, I DON'T think that anyone at Intel working on graphics would agree with you. Their new leading edge work in graphics is quite well known—even to those working at Intel!
but when you select a Harpertown the "ship date" goes from "7 days" to "Call for availability".
Note that the 2.33 GHz Harpertown is $79 cheaper than the 2.0 GHz Woodcrest!
Alienware's QX6950 system says "31 December" for shipping.
As I posted recently, the HP/Lenovo shipping dates of December to January don't bode well for early shipments. There will probably be a few getting out sooner, but I doubt that volume shipments will happen much before MWSF.
Which means that a MWSF announcement for the Mac Pro revision might not be "late".
This post makes me begin to believe Apple will wait until the Tuesday January 15 SteveNote to announce the new Penryn Harpertown Mac Pro line. I was really hoping for tomorrow. But all signs point to extremely limited supply of top speed Harpertown processors at this time thus making it premature to expect many top speed Penryns to ship much before MWSF in any sort of credible quantity.
If Apple announces a new line tomorrow that they can't ship in serious quantity this month or probably even next month, they will kill all sales of the current Mac Pro line to those who need something now and/or who don't watch the business like we do. Plus they would piss off all the early orderers like us for being so slow when it's really Intel who is still just ramping up production of the whole line.
I wish I were wrong about this. Nothing would make me happier than for a secret supply of lots of 3.2GHz Harpertowns to have been stockpiled by Apple already. But that is highly unlikely. Oh well. I guess I'll just order a couple of 4GB ram kits for my Quads to tide me over.
Thursday is probably the drop dead day for this to happen in November. December seems unlikely as Apple has no history of ever introducing anything new during the holiday season. On a positive note, this year's MacWorld is being held another week deeper into January so top speed yields in quantity should be seriously rolling off the line in Arizona by then so Steve can say shipping TODAY.
Thursday is probably the drop dead day for this to happen in November. December seems unlikely as Apple has no history of ever introducing anything new during the holiday season. On a positive note, this year's MacWorld is being held another week deeper into January so top speed yields in quantity should be seriously rolling off the line in Arizona by then so Steve can say shipping TODAY.
Well that stinks. Hopefully Apple has some magic up their sleeves. I don't want to have to buy a current MacPro tomorrow, or Thursday for that matter.
This post makes me begin to believe Apple will wait until the Tuesday January 15 SteveNote to announce the new Penryn Harpertown Mac Pro line.
Nooooooo Multimedia!!!!!
I hope this week. Oh well. Maybe indeed will be at MWSF. At least we can hope for a new look for MacPro and ACDs.
My Quad G5 has been a lemon. Apple already promised a new replacement machine when a problem occurs again, I am pretty sure at any moment I'll have an issue. I was only hoping I could get one of the new machines instead the current ones.
Anyway, good to see you here. The folks at MacRumors miss you.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
Intel competes only marginally with nVidia and likewise the ATI segment of AMD. Firestream is nice...of course with Direct3D still single precision FP it'll be a while before double precision GPUs make a difference in its PRIMARY market as opposed to niche uses within HPC.
While AMD Stream + Opteron kills a plain Core 2 for pure FP there's no reason that an Intel system can't also be paired with a SPU...like a nVidia Tesla.
As to whether Intel COULD produce double precision SPUs...why on earth do you think Intel CAN'T if they had some great desire to do so? There simply is no need given ATI and nVidia fill that niche effectively.
About the only thing that AMD has going for it is that Barcelona scales a heck of a lot better than Xeon until I guess Nahelm. I don't think Penryn is supposed to help here but I wasn't paying attention to that since...well...heck, I don't care THAT much about scaling.
Comments
Only a 600 Mhz frontside bus? Am I missing something here?
i think u r missing 1, it is 1600 Mhz or 1333 Mhz front side bus
If nothing else the Mac Pro needs an update because it's almost a year and a half old and it's stock specs are anything but pro. 1GB of stock RAM is an embarrassment when $800 PCs are shipping with 3GB. The same holds for shipping a "pro" machine with a 250GB HD and a video card that was considered low end back in mid 2006 when the Mac Pro first shipped.
............................................
"Bargain Basement" PC's using "BB" RAM. Apple keeps RAM, and other options to a minimum to cut costs to the consumer. You can't compare a tandem Quad core processor Mac Pro to a "BB" Single Processor PC with 3GB of RAM, and think your argument holds water. Minimizing the Stock Specs are what keep the High Performance parts of a Pro workstation affordable to many consumers such as myself.
"Bargain Basement" PC's using "BB" RAM. Apple keeps RAM, and other options to a minimum to cut costs to the consumer. You can't compare a tandem Quad core processor Mac Pro to a "BB" Single Processor PC with 3GB of RAM, and think your argument holds water. Minimizing the Stock Specs are what keep the High Performance parts of a Pro workstation affordable to many consumers such as myself.
It's also a lot of "theoretical" whining that trys to compare hardware that won't run OS X to that which will. While I understand you can hack OS X to run on any PC, I would never want to do that. I find it difficult to think of separating Apple's software from its hardware. Any discussion of hardware that in the real world does not legally run OS X seems rather moot.
No they're not. They're making great strides at the high end.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...121775,00.html
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...121853,00.html
http://ati.amd.com/products/streamprocessor/specs.html
AMD FireStream? 9170: Industry's First GPU with Double-Precision Floating Point
AMD FireStream 9170 Specifications
Features
* Powered by next-generation ATI GPU from AMD
* Parallel processing architecture with 320 stream cores
* Up to 500 GFLOPs single precision performance
* 2GB GDDR3 on-board memory
* Double Precision Floating Point
* PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
* < 150W power consumption
* Memory export
* BIOS settings optimized for stream processing
* API and OS Support
* Windows XP, XP64
* Linux 32 and Linux 64
System Requirements
* PCI Express® based server or workstation with available x16 lane graphics slot
* 500W or greater power supply
* 512MB of system memory
Optimized for Computation
* Double-precision floating point for scientific and engineering codes
* 2GB on-board memory
* 320 stream cores drive up to 500 GFLOPS single-precision performance
* Asynchronous DMA, allowing data transfers without interrupting streams processor or CPU
Accelerating data-parallel algorithms in a variety of applications
* Seismic processing
* Financial analysis
* Engineering analysis
* Rendering
* Computational chemistry
* Genetic research
* Physics
* Video editing
* Security
AMD Warranty and Support
* Enterprise-level support
* Three year limited product repair/replacement warranty
* Toll-free phone and email access to technical support team
AMD FireStream stream processors deliver the tremendous parallel processing power of the GPU to compute-intensive applications for scientists, engineers and consumers. Using this leading-edge technology, developers can dramatically increase the performance of their critical algorithms, allowing users to get faster results or work on larger problems.
AMD leverages its expertise in CPUs, GPUs and software to deliver stream processing hardware solutions along with a comprehensive software development stack. Fortune 1000 companies, leading software developers, and academic institutions are demonstrating today that stream computing is the key to tremendous performance in a variety of applications.
The AMD FireStream 9170 provides the industry's first double-precision floating point capability on a GPU. With 2GB GDDR3 memory on board and single-precision performance of up to 500 GFLOPS, it is ideal for the most demanding compute-intensive, data-parallel tasks.
Using ground-breaking 55nm process technology, even this large-memory board consumes less than 150W, making it easy to deploy in a variety of server and workstation packages.
AMD FireStream SDK: Open systems approach drives adoption
The AMD FireStream SDK delivers all the tools developers need to create and optimize applications on stream processors. Developers can begin with Brook+, an AMD-enhanced and supported implementation of Brook, the popular open-source C-level language and compiler.
Forget it. AMD has lost it. All of what you posted is irrelevant to their plight.
GPU's won't save them. Barcelona has crapped out so far. Now the consumer version, Phenom, is also crapping out, being released at lower speeds than AMD said it would be.
No, if they want to get back into it, they will have to show something significent soon, before Intel buries them altogether.
Which will happen when Nehalem comes out.
Will the new chips be pin compatible with the existing mac pros?
Yes, they are, but that doesn't mean that you'd want to swap your existing CPU for a new one because (a) you'd be shoe-horning it into a slower bus (the 3.2GHz Xeon uses a 1600MHz vs 1333MHz bus), (b) there's most likely a lot of new chipset support on the logic boards to support all the new features, and (c) swapping it out would in all likelihood void your warranty.
The nails are starting to be pounded into AMD's coffin!
AMD will be around until there's another x86 desktop chip provider to prevent Intel from getting investigated for anti-trust. Intel lets AMD survive.
Eight Cores @ 3.2GHz for say $3,999 = 25.6GHz total @ $639.50/core pair - $1,279 x 2
Four Cores @ 3.4GHz for say $3,599 = 13.6GHz total @ $1,172/core pair - $1,172 x 2
Eight Cores @ 2.8GHz for say $2,999 = 22.4GHz total @ $398.50/core pair - $797 x 2
I guess this makes no sense unless many only think they need 4 cores with maximum power per core.
I guess a lot of you wouldn't like these prices. The wild fact is that the Dual Core 3.4GHz model is only about $100 less than the Quad Core 3.2GHz model - each - while the Quad Core 2.8GHz pair are about $1,000 lower in cost to the manufacturer.
Purely a speculative guess. But I thought I'd throw that out there as a possibility since we've all got nothing left to do but guess what the line up will be.
I'm thinking many may think the Quad 3.4GHz model would give them more power for a lot of applications that are not yet multithreaded or at least not for more than two cores today. This is just a total speculative post based on the fact that I just had a can of new Diet Pepsi MAX and am not going to sleep any time soon.
Forgive my total wild guessing speculation that has nothing to do with any inside information whatsoever.
AMD will be around until there's another x86 desktop chip provider to prevent Intel from getting investigated for anti-trust. Intel lets AMD survive.
Even folks I know that work for Intel wouldn't make such a false claim.
AMD has been expanding it's chip capacities. It's hard to take over the market if you can't produce enough to grow your market share.
Forget it. AMD has lost it. All of what you posted is irrelevant to their plight.
GPU's won't save them. Barcelona has crapped out so far. Now the consumer version, Phenom, is also crapping out, being released at lower speeds than AMD said it would be.
No, if they want to get back into it, they will have to show something significent soon, before Intel buries them altogether.
Which will happen when Nehalem comes out.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
Regarding Barcelona:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...name=Barcelona
Surely you saw the clock speeds and prices. The highest priced Barcelona chip is $400. Like I said earlier they are unable to compete at the mid and high end processor market.
Now that Penryns are out you can expect price cuts on the Barcelona chips. Until they can produce chips that they can fetch a premium price for, AMD are going to really struggle financially. Can they survive?
If nothing else the Mac Pro needs an update because it's almost a year and a half old and it's stock specs are anything but pro. 1GB of stock RAM is an embarrassment when $800 PCs are shipping with 3GB. The same holds for shipping a "pro" machine with a 250GB HD and a video card that was considered low end back in mid 2006 when the Mac Pro first shipped.
Apple appears to have no clue about desktop computers whatsoever. They have a great idea for a miniature computer (Mac mini) and then make it so small that its performance is seriously restricted and its price far too high for what you get. The iMac is a nice box for those who like having Steve Jobs choose a display for you, but the current generation is a prime example of style over substance. The specs for everything but the CPU are decidedly low end while the price is typical Apple. Unfortunately the reliability has been anything but typical Apple so the current iMac is to be avoided.
C'mon Apple you've proven that you can make fantastic notebook computers and sell them like hotcakes. It should be simple to make a decent desktop at a competitive price.
You are probably right, but, since Apple is setting sales records for desktops what you want won't happen. Apple doesn't seem to care and as long as they continue to sell their desktops at this pace, well....
What do you think the chances are that Apple will use the new 45nm chips in Mac Mini and iMac's? And would Apple do it at the same time as in the Mac Pro or wait until the dust (MacPro) clears?
I wonder if the new chips (using less power) mean that the Nano is in the near future.
I think the iMac will get the Penryn in its next update, but that won't be until February or March. If the iMac continues to use the mobile processor then Apple is going to want to use them all for the MacBook Pro to keep ship dates to a minimum. This will give Intel time to increase production so when the iMac is updated there will be enough to keeps its ship dates to a minimum.
The Mac mini is a tough one to predict. Since it is an entry level Mac I think Apple will intentionally keep it behind the times. I see Apple giving it 802.11n with a faster processor in its next update, then Santa Rosa with a Merom processor in the following update.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
You're talking about the tail wagging the dog.
It doesn't make the slightest difference how well the ATI division does. AMD's main business is CPU's. If they lag there for too much longer, they won't have the R&D money to keep either division up and running.
The only reason why AMD had such a good 2 years was because Intel had slipped, not because they did wonderfully themselves.
It's not likely that Intel will do that again.
Intel doesn't need to have competing graphic chips on the high end. They already supply about half the worlds graphics on their chipsets.
Besides, I DON'T think that anyone at Intel working on graphics would agree with you. Their new leading edge work in graphics is quite well known—even to those working at Intel!
A link:
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=3101&p=6
It's quite possible that in a year or so we will see products from Intel that will eclipse anything Nvidia or AMD is doing.
And, not everyone thinks that AMD's strategy of combining the cpu with the gpu is such a good one. That's their MAIN graphics strategy.
So who has the ones that are supposedly shipping now? That way my question.
Link to the page this quote is from over at MacRumors. Moderators - If this is not allowed, please PM me and it won't happen again.
HP has them as options on the DL3x0G5 systems:
Woodcrest
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5110 (1.60GHz, 1066 FSB) Processor [Subtract $230.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5120 (1.86GHz, 1066 FSB) Processor [Subtract $100.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5130 (2.0GHz, 1333 FSB) Processor
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5140 (2.33GHz, 1333 FSB) Processor [Add $180.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5148 LV (2.33GHz, 1333 FSB) Processor [Add $350.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5150 (2.66GHz, 1333 FSB) Processor [Add $480.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5160 (3.00GHz, 1333 FSB) Processor [Add $670.00]
Clovertown
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5310 (1.60GHz, 1066 FSB) Processor [Subtract $180.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5320 (1.86GHz, 1066 FSB) Processor [Subtract $80.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® L5320 (1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB) Processor [Subtract $30.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5335 (2.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 2x4MB L2 cache) Processor [Add $20.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5345 (2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 2x4MB L2 cache) Processor [Add $121.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® X5355 (2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 2x4MB L2 cache) Processor [Add $470.00]
Harpertown
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5405 (2.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Subtract $179.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5410 (2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Subtract $79.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5420 (2.50GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Add $21.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5430 (2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Add $121.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5440 (2.83GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Add $371.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® E5450 (3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 80W) Processor [Add $771.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® X5450 (3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB,120W) Processor [Add $621.00]
Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® X5460 (3.16GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 120W) Processor [Add $1,071.00]
but when you select a Harpertown the "ship date" goes from "7 days" to "Call for availability".
Note that the 2.33 GHz Harpertown is $79 cheaper than the 2.0 GHz Woodcrest!
Alienware's QX6950 system says "31 December" for shipping.
As I posted recently, the HP/Lenovo shipping dates of December to January don't bode well for early shipments. There will probably be a few getting out sooner, but I doubt that volume shipments will happen much before MWSF.
Which means that a MWSF announcement for the Mac Pro revision might not be "late".
This post makes me begin to believe Apple will wait until the Tuesday January 15 SteveNote to announce the new Penryn Harpertown Mac Pro line. I was really hoping for tomorrow. But all signs point to extremely limited supply of top speed Harpertown processors at this time thus making it premature to expect many top speed Penryns to ship much before MWSF in any sort of credible quantity.
If Apple announces a new line tomorrow that they can't ship in serious quantity this month or probably even next month, they will kill all sales of the current Mac Pro line to those who need something now and/or who don't watch the business like we do. Plus they would piss off all the early orderers like us for being so slow when it's really Intel who is still just ramping up production of the whole line.
I wish I were wrong about this. Nothing would make me happier than for a secret supply of lots of 3.2GHz Harpertowns to have been stockpiled by Apple already. But that is highly unlikely. Oh well. I guess I'll just order a couple of 4GB ram kits for my Quads to tide me over.
Thursday is probably the drop dead day for this to happen in November. December seems unlikely as Apple has no history of ever introducing anything new during the holiday season. On a positive note, this year's MacWorld is being held another week deeper into January so top speed yields in quantity should be seriously rolling off the line in Arizona by then so Steve can say shipping TODAY.
Thursday is probably the drop dead day for this to happen in November. December seems unlikely as Apple has no history of ever introducing anything new during the holiday season. On a positive note, this year's MacWorld is being held another week deeper into January so top speed yields in quantity should be seriously rolling off the line in Arizona by then so Steve can say shipping TODAY.
Well that stinks. Hopefully Apple has some magic up their sleeves. I don't want to have to buy a current MacPro tomorrow, or Thursday for that matter.
Even with the rumors that Apple is buying up all the 3.2GHz versions of the Xeons they possibly can, I'm HOPING we won't see something until Macworld.
Link to the page this quote is from over at MacRumors. Moderators - If this is not allowed, please PM me and it won't happen again.
This post makes me begin to believe Apple will wait until the Tuesday January 15 SteveNote to announce the new Penryn Harpertown Mac Pro line.
Nooooooo Multimedia!!!!!
I hope this week. Oh well. Maybe indeed will be at MWSF. At least we can hope for a new look for MacPro and ACDs.
My Quad G5 has been a lemon. Apple already promised a new replacement machine when a problem occurs again, I am pretty sure at any moment I'll have an issue. I was only hoping I could get one of the new machines instead the current ones.
Anyway, good to see you here. The folks at MacRumors miss you.
The FireStream isn't tied to AMD Chipsets. However, this and nVidia's solutions are two products Intel can't even produce.
If you'd prefer to prove me wrong, please let my friends at Intel know what you know and they don't.
Intel competes only marginally with nVidia and likewise the ATI segment of AMD. Firestream is nice...of course with Direct3D still single precision FP it'll be a while before double precision GPUs make a difference in its PRIMARY market as opposed to niche uses within HPC.
While AMD Stream + Opteron kills a plain Core 2 for pure FP there's no reason that an Intel system can't also be paired with a SPU...like a nVidia Tesla.
As to whether Intel COULD produce double precision SPUs...why on earth do you think Intel CAN'T if they had some great desire to do so? There simply is no need given ATI and nVidia fill that niche effectively.
About the only thing that AMD has going for it is that Barcelona scales a heck of a lot better than Xeon until I guess Nahelm. I don't think Penryn is supposed to help here but I wasn't paying attention to that since...well...heck, I don't care THAT much about scaling.
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091&p=10
Even with the rumors that Apple is buying up all the 3.2GHz versions of the Xeons they possibly can, I'm HOPING we won't see something until Macworld.
Ok, that's just crazy. What decent Mac fan doesn't want the new stuff NOW!
If they ship the Mac Pro tomorrow, I'd buy it.
They can save the ultralight for unveiling at MWSF, I already have a MacBook Pro.