It's gotta have an internal PSU because the mythical xMac could be desktop mounted or floor mounted or even stacked side by side in a renderfarm like arrangement.
If you are doing a render farm I have a hard time seeing an XMac fitting in. On the other hand the storage thing is also debatable. Many a server farm has been built on Mini hardware and the external supply is often seen as an advantage for the platform. lets face it a quick unplug beats most power supply swaps.
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Since the GPU is rapidly becoming another important computer resource we need to accommodate the larger Nvidia and ATI GPU. In 5 years the GPU's importance will rival that of the CPU.
One of the reasons I want an XMac is to get a desktop class GPU, however I don't see a small platform like this being suitable for the top end 300watt GPU boards. Slapping in a huge power supply to support a potential bleeding edge GPU is expensive and goes against the idea of keeping the XMac price competitive. Given that a discrete GPU in the 100 watt range isn't exactly a performance slouch. Even a 100 watt GPU is pushing it just form the thermal management standpoint.
As to the GPU's importance in five years, it is a mixed bag. The GPU manufactures can not become to general in their architectures because that slows things down. What GPU's are good at (mostly parallel floating point computations) will always be of value to a small segment of the market.
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3 drive bay slots would be ideal although I went conservative with two because that gives you redundancy. 3 drives gives you redundancy with parity which is nice or you can have a boot drive or bulk storage drive mirrored. I think xMac should be built to be relatively quiet and ideal for networks.
I was thinking along the lines of stacking the drives and I'm thinking three high would be about the height of the Mini. This using the smaller laptop sized drives.
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Actually Wifi/Bluetooth should be built in. I really can't see a computer being sold without these technologies as I myself rely on BT for my Apple BT keyboard and Magic Mouse.
Blue Tooth yes, for many though WiFi would be a waste of resources.
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Oh I also forgot USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps is a must. Light Peak will take years to gather momentum and we'll need USB 3.0 to fill in the gap until LP is mature and well supported with peripherals.
The whole concept of External SATA rubs me the wrong way. As to USB3.0 that will come when Intel had it built into the chips sets. As such it might be a ways off. In any event USB3.0 is end of the line technology. Light Peak could take off faster than you might think if it works as well as an optical interconnect should work.
No doubt there is some market for an XMac beyond cannibalizing Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro sales,
I don't think one person at Apple is seriously concerned about that. Sales are sales and if a new device can cause flurry of buying it is still profits coming in even if the Mini or the pro looses a bit.
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but I'm not convinced that it's large enough to justify the costs. I would guess that over 95% of XMac sales would be cannibalizing sales of existing Macs.
I seriously doubt that. Look at it this way, a person walking into an Apple store to switch over will often be confused and wonder where the PC chassis is. There is a certain expectation from the former PC crowd as to what a PC should look like, so an XMac would eases sales to new customers.
The second issues is that people needing low cost expandable solutions often have to go the Linux / PC motherboard route. Or if really desperate they go for a Windows PC. This is sales Apple never sees. Like it or not suitability for a task is often determined by hardware, not so much software. Granted most people buy Mac hardware for the software, but the lack of the right chassis often drives people away from the platform.
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Keep in mind that Intel will be releasing quad-core 35W processors in Q1 2011. They will make for screaming fast Mac Minis.
Well yes if they actually make it into a Mini. Remember Mini has always lagged technology wise so it could be a year or more before those CPU's end up in a Mini. Even then without a suitable GPU the Mini would end up again with loop sided performance due to a second rate GPU. Remember XMac is about over all system performance.
Besides all of that the box is just to small for some of the goodies we want to see in XMac. When you write about a screaming fast Mini, it tells me you are missing what is being asked for here.
Perhaps the XMac advocates would be kind enough to indicate which features of a single-cpu Mac Pro they propose to do without.
The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
The massive power supply.
The optical drive.
The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.
The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
The massive power supply.
The optical drive.
The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.
Dave
6. All those PCI-E slots. 1 or 2 is enough. (edit: didn't fully read #5)
6. All those PCI-E slots. 1 or 2 is enough. (edit: didn't fully read #5)
7. Support for 8 DIMM slots. 4 will do.
Yes basically two banks be that sets of two or three (depends upon the chip set). In any event one bank for Apple to fill and one for the user. Standard DIMMS too, no server grade hardware here.
Ok, I have clearer picture now. Thanks. So the general idea is a headless Mac with desktop-grade parts -- as opposed to the laptop-grade parts in the Mini and iMac and the server-grade parts in the Mac Pro.
This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
Ok, I have clearer picture now. Thanks. So the general idea is a headless Mac with desktop-grade parts -- as opposed to the laptop-grade parts in the Mini and iMac and the server-grade parts in the Mac Pro.
This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
I agree about the DVD drive, too much software still comes on optical media and I still find myself making DVD, be it video or data backups. They make slim drives for SFF computers that are inexpensive and appropriate for use in a machine such as the hypothetical xMac.
I suspect that if Apple were to build an xMac, that they would use the same optical drive that they use for the Mini. There are great economies of scale in using the same part. What would be the compelling reason for using a different part.
Regarding the idea of not offering an internal optical drive in an xMac, I would be surprised if any xMac did not include at least all the features of the Mini -- unless we count an external power supply as a "feature."
Ok, I have clearer picture now. Thanks. So the general idea is a headless Mac with desktop-grade parts -- as opposed to the laptop-grade parts in the Mini and iMac and the server-grade parts in the Mac Pro.
Yes more or less. The idea is to get to higher performance than we see in the Mini while controlling costs. One key element here is a discrete GPU for better 3D and OpenCL performance. Again we want to control costs so I'm not pushing for NVidias hottest Fermi in the machine, but rather a modern GPU that runs at reasonable power levels. It shouldn't be to difficult to triple the GPU performance over what is in the Mini or likely to be there in the near future and yet keep thermals in check.
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This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
Done right the XMac could serve on the desktop and likewise in a rack as a computational/server node. in effect it would be similar to the way the Mini is used in these sorts of installations. It would lead to relatively high density if the box is kept small.
For a modern household the optical drive could sit out on a Wifi device or NAS and be usable from all computer in the house. Considering much as they get used in modern PC's it is a perfectly good approach. In any event I really believe that only a small minority use opticals on a daily or even monthly basis anymore.
Yes more or less. The idea is to get to higher performance than we see in the Mini while controlling costs. One key element here is a discrete GPU for better 3D and OpenCL performance. Again we want to control costs so I'm not pushing for NVidias hottest Fermi in the machine, but rather a modern GPU that runs at reasonable power levels. It shouldn't be to difficult to triple the GPU performance over what is in the Mini or likely to be there in the near future and yet keep thermals in check.
Done right the XMac could serve on the desktop and likewise in a rack as a computational/server node. in effect it would be similar to the way the Mini is used in these sorts of installations. It would lead to relatively high density if the box is kept small.
For a modern household the optical drive could sit out on a Wifi device or NAS and be usable from all computer in the house. Considering much as they get used in modern PC's it is a perfectly good approach. In any event I really believe that only a small minority use opticals on a daily or even monthly basis anymore.
Dave
For me, the whole concept of the xMac sounds reasonable, but I really suspect that it is a
simple acknowledgement that "power" users do not really want an iMac (lack of expansion, laptop GPU etc), but can not really afford a Mac Pro. However these people I suspect
want the equivalent of a commodity PC than runs OSX. Cheap fast, and still a "Mac".
An officially supported hackintosh as it were.
The Mac Pro is great, but because Apple insist in using server grade hardware, it costs an absolute bomb, for no real performance advantage. For me when the PPC PowerMac was around, apples where *Powerfull* *different*, thats all gone now, they are just a Xeon based PC. Lack of updates and inconsistent support of hardware (H.264 only on integrated GPUs???) make me wonder whether Apple have lost the plot somewhat.
For me, I'm thinking of getting an iMac and a NAS for my next machine (in order to get away from the need for multiple internal HDDs).
The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
The massive power supply.
The optical drive.
The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.
Dave
optical drives are cheap keep them in a desktop. We are a long way form replacing them with software downloads. at least in the USA
I accept the idea of a headless Mac with a desktop-grade processor (up to 65W), GPU, support for 16GB or more of memory, ExpressCard/34 slot, SD card slot, two Gbit Ethernet ports, LightPeak and an internal power supply. I have some difficulty accepting the idea that it needs more drive bays than the Mini. I have a lot of difficulty accepting the idea that it needs PCIe slots.
The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad. I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently. Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac. The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage. PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
I accept the idea of a headless Mac with a desktop-grade processor (up to 65W), GPU, support for 16GB or more of memory, ExpressCard/34 slot, SD card slot, two Gbit Ethernet ports, LightPeak and an internal power supply. I have some difficulty accepting the idea that it needs more drive bays than the Mini. I have a lot of difficulty accepting the idea that it needs PCIe slots.
The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad. I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently. Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac. The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage. PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
storage fixed to MB will be bad as some people will not want to send in a system with data on it.
Big time non-upgradeability will just make more people use MAC OS X86
For me, the whole concept of the xMac sounds reasonable, but I really suspect that it is a
simple acknowledgement that "power" users do not really want an iMac (lack of expansion, laptop GPU etc), but can not really afford a Mac Pro.
Well i don't consider the iMac to be a power users machine anyways but your point is taken. There are two things, besides raw performance, that drive me to a XMac; one is the lack of expansion bays for storage and the other is the choice of a video monitor. Even the video monitor argument is more difficult with the quality of screen currently in the IMacs.
Still there are numerous reasons for want a separate screen.
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However these people I suspect
want the equivalent of a commodity PC than runs OSX. Cheap fast, and still a "Mac".
An officially supported hackintosh as it were.
Well sorta. I personally don't want a big box PC with lots of air inside. Instead I want something a bit on the small side. Even if it takes 4 to 6 times the space of a Mini it would still be small compared to many PC housings. To use terms everyone here is likely to know, it should be 1 to 2U high and a quarter rack width. In other words 4 of them should sit side by side on a shelf in a 19" rack.
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The Mac Pro is great, but because Apple insist in using server grade hardware, it costs an absolute bomb, for no real performance advantage.
I have to object to this one, for many uses that server grade hardware is very important in the Mac Pro. At least to people that need it. The problem is I don't need a machine like that right now.
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For me when the PPC PowerMac was around, apples where *Powerfull* *different*, thats all gone now, they are just a Xeon based PC.
The funny thing here is that the PPC machines really weren't all that powerful, especially late in the G5 game. They did handle Floating Point well but that is of limited value on a Mac.
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Lack of updates and inconsistent support of hardware (H.264 only on integrated GPUs???) make me wonder whether Apple have lost the plot somewhat.
Well I actually have to agree here. Apple should be doing what ever it can to spread out hardware acceleration of H.264. They seem to be real slow with OpenGL support too.
As an aside they aren't doing enough to incorporate OpenCL acceleration into Mac OS/X components either. Maybe somebody should send Steve an E-Mail
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For me, I'm thinking of getting an iMac and a NAS for my next machine (in order to get away from the need for multiple internal HDDs).
B.
Interesting because I've been thinking about that myself. Which way are you going? I was actually thinking about a DIY Linux solution. Then again the XMac could potentially serve as a home NAS solution while at the same time serving as a personal node. A Mac Pro could do this also but of course in the home the price becomes an issue. In some cases I think XServe would be a good choice but again a Linux based 1U serve can be darn cheap.
I accept the idea of a headless Mac with a desktop-grade processor (up to 65W), GPU, support for 16GB or more of memory, ExpressCard/34 slot, SD card slot, two Gbit Ethernet ports, LightPeak and an internal power supply. I have some difficulty accepting the idea that it needs more drive bays than the Mini.
More than one??????? if that is what you actually mean then you simply are at odds with what we are asking for here as the ability to internally expand storage is exactly what we are asking for. More so it is more important now than any time in the past as the use of the PC to serve media has increased and especially as software installs have become more massive.
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I have a lot of difficulty accepting the idea that it needs PCIe slots.
I'm mixed on the PCI-Express slots. There are however good arguments for such slots as they allow for sale to the business and technical markets.
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The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad.
I don't believe that is the trend at all in desktop or laptops. In reality the trend is to ever expanding storage needs as the need for room on the PC increases to allow for support of things like iPad. Besides Apple knows that storage on the personal PC is important to the media content business it is very much a part of.
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I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently.
That would be extremely ugly in my mind. At least if it is the only memory possible. I do believe a hybrid approach may be taken to allow Apple to have extremely fast component near the CPU. Especially if some of the new storage technologies take off, some of the Phase Change components are extremely fast so you would want to take advantage of that and keep them close to the CPU. This would not however solve the demands that users are placing on system storage, something that I see as getting worst instead of better as people make fuller use of their computing hardware.
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Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac.
It directly enables their other businesses. What other business case can you make?
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The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage.
This is the same BS we hear every time this subject is brought up. As has already been pointed out the Mac Pro is way to expensive. External storage is simply unacceptable.
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PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
More BS! The Mac Pros are expensive because they use expensive parts. Just look at the cost of the individual parts from Intel. Little of that is expense is related to the expansion slots though. Also because of the low volume Apple isn't likely getting the discounts they get on laptop parts.
The reality is that Apple should be able to deliver a respectable XMac for around $1200 to $1500 for the base model. This would be for a six core machine running a reasonable desktop graphics processor. This machine would have at a minimum 3 laptop sized disk bays but ideally six.
Make a chassis that is about twice the height of a Shuttle PC and about half again as deep to make sure there is room for the larger video cards.
dual core i5 with a quad core i7 BTO (i7 860 would work)
1 2.5" drive slot w/SSD as boot drive
2 3.5" drive slots for storage discs (1 1TB drive included in price, BTO for 2 2 TB drives)
optical drive
Bluetooth/WiFi both built in
ATI 5000 series videocards (2 x16 pcie slots avaiable for Crossfire if Apple will tie this in with the launch of Steam on OSX and push the gaming capability of the new system)
Price will need to be something that balances out with adding in a Cinema display. If performance would be better than the top end iMac it can be a bit more expensive for the pairing, but no way should it be more expensive for both than the iMac if the performance is equal. The 24" Cinema Display is currently $900. When $1700 can get you a 27" iMac, not a lot of reason to go xMac. So a revamped IPS Cinema Display with a more aggressive pricing will be needed as well.
I would like to see an honest desktop. That is a computer that fits properly on a desk. Not a tower lying on its side. A desktop computer with all the goods inside, with room for a monitor on the top. Saves space and you don't have to kill your back to use the optical drive, like you would with a Mac Pro on the floor. The mini, while cute, is too small. Something no one seems to do anymore, is put good speakers, or any speakers, in a desktop.
Some PC makers have slim-line desktops that can run vertical or horizontal. Still no built-in sound. Making a horizontal design (VCR-ish) in size, lends it to be a so-called Media Center machine, and not just a computer. This could allow for HDMI and Blu-Ray.
Perhaps Apple would not fear making a version with the newest AMD CPU.
Steve seems to like the AIO because it has fewer pieces and wires. So put the speakers in the box, just as you do with the iMac.
With the short life-cycle of most computers, it seems foolish to insist on purchasing a new computer and monitor every six or so years. Apple has enough of their own money. They don't need poor folks like me to drop $1200 on an iMac every six years.
If RI does not come, this is my last Mac. Apple does not make any screen I can see without a struggle. I am not interested in the mini. Apple also seems to steer clear of HDMI, a potential option for those of us with low vision.
I would like to see an honest desktop. That is a computer that fits properly on a desk. Not a tower lying on its side. A desktop computer with all the goods inside, with room for a monitor on the top. Saves space and you don't have to kill your back to use the optical drive, like you would with a Mac Pro on the floor. The mini, while cute, is too small. Something no one seems to do anymore, is put good speakers, or any speakers, in a desktop.
Apple stopped doing pizza box style desktops b/c Steve thought they were inelegant. At least that appears to be the thinking and would fit with Apple's designs over the last decade. Apple has done what they can to make the computer smaller and smaller and remove as many cables as possible. The only one that really is a "Hi! I'm your computer!" is the Mac Pro. The iMac is just a giant monitor that happens to be an awesome computer too
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
Some PC makers have slim-line desktops that can run vertical or horizontal. Still no built-in sound. Making a horizontal design (VCR-ish) in size, lends it to be a so-called Media Center machine, and not just a computer. This could allow for HDMI and Blu-Ray.
If it's a media center, why would it include speakers? You're going to output to much better ones than would be in your system.
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
Steve seems to like the AIO because it has fewer pieces and wires. So put the speakers in the box, just as you do with the iMac.
Again with the "elegance" view. Speakers are in the iMac b/c it IS an all in one and you will be sitting right in front of it. A Media Center/set top box will be over by the TV, hooked up to it and providing much better sound.
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
With the short life-cycle of most computers, it seems foolish to insist on purchasing a new computer and monitor every six or so years. Apple has enough of their own money. They don't need poor folks like me to drop $1200 on an iMac every six years.
I have some friends that have monitors go out every year or 2 on them and some who have used the same monitor for 10 years. 6 years seems like a pretty reasonable lifespan for a monitor.
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
If RI does not come, this is my last Mac. Apple does not make any screen I can see without a struggle. I am not interested in the mini. Apple also seems to steer clear of HDMI, a potential option for those of us with low vision.
How does HDMI help those with low vision? DisplayPort can output sound now too, so you can use a DP>HDMI cable and plug right into a TV or other monitor if desired. I know in Windows there is an option to increase the DPI of text on the screen, is there no similar option in OSX? I'm one of the only people in my family who doesn't wear glasses, so I'm perfectly happy w/my 22" 1680x1050 monitor. A screen like the one on the iMac would be great for me, but I would need a new computer desk as there isn't space between 2 shelves on it for anything larger than what I have now
My guess is that the Mac Pro will stay work station class for some time. After all there is a considerable market for a no holds bared Mac Pro. A simpler Mac desktop could fill a lot of holes in Apples line up. Especially if priced right. Apple continued expansion in market share would be helped greatly by a reasonably priced desktop machine to fill the performance void between the Mini and Mac Pro.
In other words to keep momentum Apple needs more desktop and laptop models.
Dave
I agree with the thrust of the post. The Mac Pro can do what it likes. With it's 'pretend' Workstation title. (ie with PC machines that have better bang for the buck going at less than half the price of Apple's entry level 'Workstation.') Add in the rumoured 27 inch monitor and you're looking for a lot of money. Buy a quad core iMac instead.
As for the mythical desktop and elusive X-Mac. I take your point for Apple to offer more choice to keep up their market momentum. We're not talking about a million desktop models. Just a humble one for us veteran X-Mac fans who remember when Apple's Mac Pro was affordable to human beings (ie the 'rest of us') back in the G3 days...
Comments
Here's my reasoning behind the specs given.
It's gotta have an internal PSU because the mythical xMac could be desktop mounted or floor mounted or even stacked side by side in a renderfarm like arrangement.
If you are doing a render farm I have a hard time seeing an XMac fitting in. On the other hand the storage thing is also debatable. Many a server farm has been built on Mini hardware and the external supply is often seen as an advantage for the platform. lets face it a quick unplug beats most power supply swaps.
Since the GPU is rapidly becoming another important computer resource we need to accommodate the larger Nvidia and ATI GPU. In 5 years the GPU's importance will rival that of the CPU.
One of the reasons I want an XMac is to get a desktop class GPU, however I don't see a small platform like this being suitable for the top end 300watt GPU boards. Slapping in a huge power supply to support a potential bleeding edge GPU is expensive and goes against the idea of keeping the XMac price competitive. Given that a discrete GPU in the 100 watt range isn't exactly a performance slouch. Even a 100 watt GPU is pushing it just form the thermal management standpoint.
As to the GPU's importance in five years, it is a mixed bag. The GPU manufactures can not become to general in their architectures because that slows things down. What GPU's are good at (mostly parallel floating point computations) will always be of value to a small segment of the market.
3 drive bay slots would be ideal although I went conservative with two because that gives you redundancy. 3 drives gives you redundancy with parity which is nice or you can have a boot drive or bulk storage drive mirrored. I think xMac should be built to be relatively quiet and ideal for networks.
I was thinking along the lines of stacking the drives and I'm thinking three high would be about the height of the Mini. This using the smaller laptop sized drives.
Actually Wifi/Bluetooth should be built in. I really can't see a computer being sold without these technologies as I myself rely on BT for my Apple BT keyboard and Magic Mouse.
Blue Tooth yes, for many though WiFi would be a waste of resources.
Oh I also forgot USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps is a must. Light Peak will take years to gather momentum and we'll need USB 3.0 to fill in the gap until LP is mature and well supported with peripherals.
The whole concept of External SATA rubs me the wrong way. As to USB3.0 that will come when Intel had it built into the chips sets. As such it might be a ways off. In any event USB3.0 is end of the line technology. Light Peak could take off faster than you might think if it works as well as an optical interconnect should work.
Dave
No doubt there is some market for an XMac beyond cannibalizing Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro sales,
I don't think one person at Apple is seriously concerned about that. Sales are sales and if a new device can cause flurry of buying it is still profits coming in even if the Mini or the pro looses a bit.
but I'm not convinced that it's large enough to justify the costs. I would guess that over 95% of XMac sales would be cannibalizing sales of existing Macs.
I seriously doubt that. Look at it this way, a person walking into an Apple store to switch over will often be confused and wonder where the PC chassis is. There is a certain expectation from the former PC crowd as to what a PC should look like, so an XMac would eases sales to new customers.
The second issues is that people needing low cost expandable solutions often have to go the Linux / PC motherboard route. Or if really desperate they go for a Windows PC. This is sales Apple never sees. Like it or not suitability for a task is often determined by hardware, not so much software. Granted most people buy Mac hardware for the software, but the lack of the right chassis often drives people away from the platform.
Keep in mind that Intel will be releasing quad-core 35W processors in Q1 2011. They will make for screaming fast Mac Minis.
Well yes if they actually make it into a Mini. Remember Mini has always lagged technology wise so it could be a year or more before those CPU's end up in a Mini. Even then without a suitable GPU the Mini would end up again with loop sided performance due to a second rate GPU. Remember XMac is about over all system performance.
Besides all of that the box is just to small for some of the goodies we want to see in XMac. When you write about a screaming fast Mini, it tells me you are missing what is being asked for here.
Dave
Perhaps the XMac advocates would be kind enough to indicate which features of a single-cpu Mac Pro they propose to do without.
- The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
- The massive power supply.
- The optical drive.
- The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
- Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.Dave
- The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
- The massive power supply.
- The optical drive.
- The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
- Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.Dave
6. All those PCI-E slots. 1 or 2 is enough. (edit: didn't fully read #5)
7. Support for 8 DIMM slots. 4 will do.
6. All those PCI-E slots. 1 or 2 is enough. (edit: didn't fully read #5)
7. Support for 8 DIMM slots. 4 will do.
Yes basically two banks be that sets of two or three (depends upon the chip set). In any event one bank for Apple to fill and one for the user. Standard DIMMS too, no server grade hardware here.
Dave
This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
Ok, I have clearer picture now. Thanks. So the general idea is a headless Mac with desktop-grade parts -- as opposed to the laptop-grade parts in the Mini and iMac and the server-grade parts in the Mac Pro.
This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
I agree about the DVD drive, too much software still comes on optical media and I still find myself making DVD, be it video or data backups. They make slim drives for SFF computers that are inexpensive and appropriate for use in a machine such as the hypothetical xMac.
Regarding the idea of not offering an internal optical drive in an xMac, I would be surprised if any xMac did not include at least all the features of the Mini -- unless we count an external power supply as a "feature."
Ok, I have clearer picture now. Thanks. So the general idea is a headless Mac with desktop-grade parts -- as opposed to the laptop-grade parts in the Mini and iMac and the server-grade parts in the Mac Pro.
Yes more or less. The idea is to get to higher performance than we see in the Mini while controlling costs. One key element here is a discrete GPU for better 3D and OpenCL performance. Again we want to control costs so I'm not pushing for NVidias hottest Fermi in the machine, but rather a modern GPU that runs at reasonable power levels. It shouldn't be to difficult to triple the GPU performance over what is in the Mini or likely to be there in the near future and yet keep thermals in check.
This generally makes sense to me -- except for eliminating the optical drive. I'm a big fan of eliminating internal optical drives from laptops, but not yet from desktops. Perhaps three to five years from now.
Done right the XMac could serve on the desktop and likewise in a rack as a computational/server node. in effect it would be similar to the way the Mini is used in these sorts of installations. It would lead to relatively high density if the box is kept small.
For a modern household the optical drive could sit out on a Wifi device or NAS and be usable from all computer in the house. Considering much as they get used in modern PC's it is a perfectly good approach. In any event I really believe that only a small minority use opticals on a daily or even monthly basis anymore.
Dave
Yes more or less. The idea is to get to higher performance than we see in the Mini while controlling costs. One key element here is a discrete GPU for better 3D and OpenCL performance. Again we want to control costs so I'm not pushing for NVidias hottest Fermi in the machine, but rather a modern GPU that runs at reasonable power levels. It shouldn't be to difficult to triple the GPU performance over what is in the Mini or likely to be there in the near future and yet keep thermals in check.
Done right the XMac could serve on the desktop and likewise in a rack as a computational/server node. in effect it would be similar to the way the Mini is used in these sorts of installations. It would lead to relatively high density if the box is kept small.
For a modern household the optical drive could sit out on a Wifi device or NAS and be usable from all computer in the house. Considering much as they get used in modern PC's it is a perfectly good approach. In any event I really believe that only a small minority use opticals on a daily or even monthly basis anymore.
Dave
For me, the whole concept of the xMac sounds reasonable, but I really suspect that it is a
simple acknowledgement that "power" users do not really want an iMac (lack of expansion, laptop GPU etc), but can not really afford a Mac Pro. However these people I suspect
want the equivalent of a commodity PC than runs OSX. Cheap fast, and still a "Mac".
An officially supported hackintosh as it were.
The Mac Pro is great, but because Apple insist in using server grade hardware, it costs an absolute bomb, for no real performance advantage. For me when the PPC PowerMac was around, apples where *Powerfull* *different*, thats all gone now, they are just a Xeon based PC. Lack of updates and inconsistent support of hardware (H.264 only on integrated GPUs???) make me wonder whether Apple have lost the plot somewhat.
For me, I'm thinking of getting an iMac and a NAS for my next machine (in order to get away from the need for multiple internal HDDs).
B.
- The workstation / server grade CPU and the associated high cost chipsets.
- The massive power supply.
- The optical drive.
- The massive case. This is actuall very significant as the Pro is more of a floor top computer than a desk top.
- Drastically reduce the number of Bays in the machine. Be that drive space or expansion card space.
Those are things that hit me off the top of my head. The idea here is that Apple could potentially save a lot of money for us by designing a more mainstream desktop computer. A small compact motherboard running cooler desktop parts would go a long way to delivering a lower cost machine. The only expandability I care about is disk drives and possibly one slot.Dave
optical drives are cheap keep them in a desktop. We are a long way form replacing them with software downloads. at least in the USA
The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad. I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently. Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac. The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage. PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
I accept the idea of a headless Mac with a desktop-grade processor (up to 65W), GPU, support for 16GB or more of memory, ExpressCard/34 slot, SD card slot, two Gbit Ethernet ports, LightPeak and an internal power supply. I have some difficulty accepting the idea that it needs more drive bays than the Mini. I have a lot of difficulty accepting the idea that it needs PCIe slots.
The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad. I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently. Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac. The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage. PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
storage fixed to MB will be bad as some people will not want to send in a system with data on it.
Big time non-upgradeability will just make more people use MAC OS X86
For me, the whole concept of the xMac sounds reasonable, but I really suspect that it is a
simple acknowledgement that "power" users do not really want an iMac (lack of expansion, laptop GPU etc), but can not really afford a Mac Pro.
Well i don't consider the iMac to be a power users machine anyways but your point is taken. There are two things, besides raw performance, that drive me to a XMac; one is the lack of expansion bays for storage and the other is the choice of a video monitor. Even the video monitor argument is more difficult with the quality of screen currently in the IMacs.
Still there are numerous reasons for want a separate screen.
However these people I suspect
want the equivalent of a commodity PC than runs OSX. Cheap fast, and still a "Mac".
An officially supported hackintosh as it were.
Well sorta. I personally don't want a big box PC with lots of air inside. Instead I want something a bit on the small side. Even if it takes 4 to 6 times the space of a Mini it would still be small compared to many PC housings. To use terms everyone here is likely to know, it should be 1 to 2U high and a quarter rack width. In other words 4 of them should sit side by side on a shelf in a 19" rack.
The Mac Pro is great, but because Apple insist in using server grade hardware, it costs an absolute bomb, for no real performance advantage.
I have to object to this one, for many uses that server grade hardware is very important in the Mac Pro. At least to people that need it. The problem is I don't need a machine like that right now.
For me when the PPC PowerMac was around, apples where *Powerfull* *different*, thats all gone now, they are just a Xeon based PC.
The funny thing here is that the PPC machines really weren't all that powerful, especially late in the G5 game. They did handle Floating Point well but that is of limited value on a Mac.
Lack of updates and inconsistent support of hardware (H.264 only on integrated GPUs???) make me wonder whether Apple have lost the plot somewhat.
Well I actually have to agree here. Apple should be doing what ever it can to spread out hardware acceleration of H.264. They seem to be real slow with OpenGL support too.
As an aside they aren't doing enough to incorporate OpenCL acceleration into Mac OS/X components either. Maybe somebody should send Steve an E-Mail
For me, I'm thinking of getting an iMac and a NAS for my next machine (in order to get away from the need for multiple internal HDDs).
B.
Interesting because I've been thinking about that myself. Which way are you going? I was actually thinking about a DIY Linux solution. Then again the XMac could potentially serve as a home NAS solution while at the same time serving as a personal node. A Mac Pro could do this also but of course in the home the price becomes an issue. In some cases I think XServe would be a good choice but again a Linux based 1U serve can be darn cheap.
Dave
I accept the idea of a headless Mac with a desktop-grade processor (up to 65W), GPU, support for 16GB or more of memory, ExpressCard/34 slot, SD card slot, two Gbit Ethernet ports, LightPeak and an internal power supply. I have some difficulty accepting the idea that it needs more drive bays than the Mini.
More than one??????? if that is what you actually mean then you simply are at odds with what we are asking for here as the ability to internally expand storage is exactly what we are asking for. More so it is more important now than any time in the past as the use of the PC to serve media has increased and especially as software installs have become more massive.
I have a lot of difficulty accepting the idea that it needs PCIe slots.
I'm mixed on the PCI-Express slots. There are however good arguments for such slots as they allow for sale to the business and technical markets.
The trend is not toward greater expandability and upgradeability. The trend is toward non-upgradeability, such as we started to see in the MacBook Air with the memory and which we see in full with the iPad.
I don't believe that is the trend at all in desktop or laptops. In reality the trend is to ever expanding storage needs as the need for room on the PC increases to allow for support of things like iPad. Besides Apple knows that storage on the personal PC is important to the media content business it is very much a part of.
I believe five years from now, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and all laptops will have both memory and SSD storage permanently soldered to the motherboard. It will be a huge advantage for Apple because it will lower production costs and result in some people buying new machines more frequently.
That would be extremely ugly in my mind. At least if it is the only memory possible. I do believe a hybrid approach may be taken to allow Apple to have extremely fast component near the CPU. Especially if some of the new storage technologies take off, some of the Phase Change components are extremely fast so you would want to take advantage of that and keep them close to the CPU. This would not however solve the demands that users are placing on system storage, something that I see as getting worst instead of better as people make fuller use of their computing hardware.
Therefore, I think Apple would not see a good business case for including a lot of expandability in an xMac.
It directly enables their other businesses. What other business case can you make?
The few people who need extra drives could either get a Mac Pro or use external storage.
This is the same BS we hear every time this subject is brought up. As has already been pointed out the Mac Pro is way to expensive. External storage is simply unacceptable.
PCIe slots are a tech support nightmare for Apple, which is one of the reasons the Mac Pros are expensive.
More BS! The Mac Pros are expensive because they use expensive parts. Just look at the cost of the individual parts from Intel. Little of that is expense is related to the expansion slots though. Also because of the low volume Apple isn't likely getting the discounts they get on laptop parts.
The reality is that Apple should be able to deliver a respectable XMac for around $1200 to $1500 for the base model. This would be for a six core machine running a reasonable desktop graphics processor. This machine would have at a minimum 3 laptop sized disk bays but ideally six.
Dave
2011 xMac
Small Chassis w/Internal PSU
Quad Core Intel processor (Non Xeon)
One double sized PCI-Express GPU slot
Two 2.5" drive bays.
Four USB ports
One Light Peak port
One Gigabit Ethernet port
One Mini PCI slot
No optical drive
No floppy drive
Bluetooth/Wifi optional (on Mini PCI)
$1099
Make a chassis that is about twice the height of a Shuttle PC and about half again as deep to make sure there is room for the larger video cards.
dual core i5 with a quad core i7 BTO (i7 860 would work)
1 2.5" drive slot w/SSD as boot drive
2 3.5" drive slots for storage discs (1 1TB drive included in price, BTO for 2 2 TB drives)
optical drive
Bluetooth/WiFi both built in
ATI 5000 series videocards (2 x16 pcie slots avaiable for Crossfire if Apple will tie this in with the launch of Steam on OSX and push the gaming capability of the new system)
Price will need to be something that balances out with adding in a Cinema display. If performance would be better than the top end iMac it can be a bit more expensive for the pairing, but no way should it be more expensive for both than the iMac if the performance is equal. The 24" Cinema Display is currently $900. When $1700 can get you a 27" iMac, not a lot of reason to go xMac. So a revamped IPS Cinema Display with a more aggressive pricing will be needed as well.
EDIT: Oh yeah, 4 RAM slots to allow for 16GB
Some PC makers have slim-line desktops that can run vertical or horizontal. Still no built-in sound. Making a horizontal design (VCR-ish) in size, lends it to be a so-called Media Center machine, and not just a computer. This could allow for HDMI and Blu-Ray.
Perhaps Apple would not fear making a version with the newest AMD CPU.
Steve seems to like the AIO because it has fewer pieces and wires. So put the speakers in the box, just as you do with the iMac.
With the short life-cycle of most computers, it seems foolish to insist on purchasing a new computer and monitor every six or so years. Apple has enough of their own money. They don't need poor folks like me to drop $1200 on an iMac every six years.
If RI does not come, this is my last Mac. Apple does not make any screen I can see without a struggle. I am not interested in the mini. Apple also seems to steer clear of HDMI, a potential option for those of us with low vision.
I would like to see an honest desktop. That is a computer that fits properly on a desk. Not a tower lying on its side. A desktop computer with all the goods inside, with room for a monitor on the top. Saves space and you don't have to kill your back to use the optical drive, like you would with a Mac Pro on the floor. The mini, while cute, is too small. Something no one seems to do anymore, is put good speakers, or any speakers, in a desktop.
Apple stopped doing pizza box style desktops b/c Steve thought they were inelegant. At least that appears to be the thinking and would fit with Apple's designs over the last decade. Apple has done what they can to make the computer smaller and smaller and remove as many cables as possible. The only one that really is a "Hi! I'm your computer!" is the Mac Pro. The iMac is just a giant monitor that happens to be an awesome computer too
Some PC makers have slim-line desktops that can run vertical or horizontal. Still no built-in sound. Making a horizontal design (VCR-ish) in size, lends it to be a so-called Media Center machine, and not just a computer. This could allow for HDMI and Blu-Ray.
If it's a media center, why would it include speakers? You're going to output to much better ones than would be in your system.
Steve seems to like the AIO because it has fewer pieces and wires. So put the speakers in the box, just as you do with the iMac.
Again with the "elegance" view. Speakers are in the iMac b/c it IS an all in one and you will be sitting right in front of it. A Media Center/set top box will be over by the TV, hooked up to it and providing much better sound.
With the short life-cycle of most computers, it seems foolish to insist on purchasing a new computer and monitor every six or so years. Apple has enough of their own money. They don't need poor folks like me to drop $1200 on an iMac every six years.
I have some friends that have monitors go out every year or 2 on them and some who have used the same monitor for 10 years. 6 years seems like a pretty reasonable lifespan for a monitor.
If RI does not come, this is my last Mac. Apple does not make any screen I can see without a struggle. I am not interested in the mini. Apple also seems to steer clear of HDMI, a potential option for those of us with low vision.
How does HDMI help those with low vision? DisplayPort can output sound now too, so you can use a DP>HDMI cable and plug right into a TV or other monitor if desired. I know in Windows there is an option to increase the DPI of text on the screen, is there no similar option in OSX? I'm one of the only people in my family who doesn't wear glasses, so I'm perfectly happy w/my 22" 1680x1050 monitor. A screen like the one on the iMac would be great for me, but I would need a new computer desk as there isn't space between 2 shelves on it for anything larger than what I have now
My guess is that the Mac Pro will stay work station class for some time. After all there is a considerable market for a no holds bared Mac Pro. A simpler Mac desktop could fill a lot of holes in Apples line up. Especially if priced right. Apple continued expansion in market share would be helped greatly by a reasonably priced desktop machine to fill the performance void between the Mini and Mac Pro.
In other words to keep momentum Apple needs more desktop and laptop models.
Dave
I agree with the thrust of the post. The Mac Pro can do what it likes. With it's 'pretend' Workstation title. (ie with PC machines that have better bang for the buck going at less than half the price of Apple's entry level 'Workstation.') Add in the rumoured 27 inch monitor and you're looking for a lot of money. Buy a quad core iMac instead.
As for the mythical desktop and elusive X-Mac. I take your point for Apple to offer more choice to keep up their market momentum. We're not talking about a million desktop models. Just a humble one for us veteran X-Mac fans who remember when Apple's Mac Pro was affordable to human beings (ie the 'rest of us') back in the G3 days...
However, Hmurchison said it best...
2011 xMac
Small Chassis w/Internal PSU
Quad Core Intel processor (Non Xeon)
One double sized PCI-Express GPU slot
Two 2.5" drive bays.
Four USB ports
One Light Peak port
One Gigabit Ethernet port
One Mini PCI slot
No optical drive
No floppy drive
Bluetooth/Wifi optional (on Mini PCI)
$1099
Amen.
Lemon Bon Bon.