My Mac pro is used every day, and as far as upgrading goes, it's still quite fast -- a machine like this has a longer upgrade cycle than the integrated desktops Apple sells. I'm sure I'd buy another -- presuming they are available -- in a year or so.
My Macpro has six monitors and four TB class HDs. While you might be able to do that at some point in the future with the new fast links, I really don't look forward to drives and display units all over the place.
Oh well. I guess it'll be time to go back to the PC world, where you can still get high powered desktops. I suppose It'll be Hackintoshes for me. Normally I wouldn't even consider such a thing, but if Apple won't supply the hardware, I guess I'll have no choice.
I payed $4,200.00 for my 8 core MacPro in 2007. It still chops through data like a hot knife through butter. If Apple discontinues the line I won't have a chance to buy the hewer model and there for will be forced to eBay it for the last model made. \ Hmm.
The vast majority of people just don't need them. The pro laptops and upper end iMacs have more power than all but the most demanding video editors might need. They run basically any video game well too. Still, there's no question the Mac Pro provides power that high end prosumers and professionals can't get elsewhere on the Mac platform.
I have high end iMacs, 17'' Macbook Pros and Mac Pro, and those other computers can't even compare to Mac Pro (even couple of generations older, it's still faster and more capable machine than newest Macbook Pros).
I do software development mostly, but I do an occasional video and lots of image processing, but everything is so fast on Mac Pro it's such a joy to use. It does everything you throw at it without a glitch. That computer always puts a smile on my face. I'll be really sad if they actually discontinue Mac Pros too.
I'd like to see Apple go to a mini-tower form factor and knock $1,000 off the list price. The main problem with sales are two-fold 1) none of the top MCAD/EDA, GIS, or Imaging Apps are certified for MacOS and 2) it's too damn expensive to sell in volume. I still feel strongly that Apple needs a machine for the high-end professional, but the price they charge significantly limits it's volume. Change the form factor, cut the price and you have a viable product.
Apple doesn't really care about those kinds of markets. They are a gadget company now. Let Microsoft service the "high end" professionals.
Apple makes most of its money selling to Grandmas.
The wife (grandma) and I (grandpa) have a lot of gadgets: 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, MBP, MBA, MB, 2 MacMinis, few iPods, etc. Also a G3 BW, Quadra 700.
I also have a 6-core MP that I bought when by PowerMac DP died. It has 10gb of ram, 3 hard drives, a BR R/W drive. I do some high end computing and it handles that with ease. I am sure that there will be proc upgrades available if Apple discontinues, perhaps even a TB card (I know, I know).
By your admission, more work is being done on the GPU, so surely that should be more reason to have it accessible in some kind of standard PCIe slot inside iMacs?
I don't think that necessarily follows. The key thing is to rewrite their Pro apps to use the GPU more. Then even a midrange, non-removable GPU in a iMac should be able to do what used to take 12 Xeon cores.
mac pros are very important for a market share. If they discontinue it they will lose apple customers. Myself, i'm an avid gamer, and to me the mac pro is the only viable option. other macs are bargan computers that lack future proofing for gaming and don't have the performance of a mac pro either. If i have to get an imac with a mobile GPU in it to game, i'm gonna have to go the hackintosh route istead so i can keep my high end hardware.
I've owned a MacPro (2008) and would love to put a better graphics card in it to play games under bootcamp. Everything I look at them they always seem overpriced.
I'm a missing something, is there a cheaper option then buying one from Apple?
True, but the Mac Pro isn't supposed to get the vast majority of the sales, either. And the iMac has mobility graphics. Some people need what's in the Mac Pro, and for them, the iMac simply doesn't cut it. The Mac Pro is for them, so they don't *have* to defect to Windows.
Having a limited, high priced product in your catalog is not an abnormal thing. Nikon and Canon sell mostly $120 point & shoot cameras. But they also sell $8,000 EOS 1Dx II or Nikon D3s full frame digital pro cameras, which sell in limited quantities compared with the amateur market. Even Hyundai has the Equus, which sells for $60,000 where as the dealers sell mostly Sonatas and Elantras for $16,000-25,000. The high end model gives the company an upgrade path so it does not lose the customer as they gain more wealth and aspire to a higher-end product. Professionals need the rugged durability of the Mac Pro line. Apple needs to keep the Mac Pro to keep its toes in the high-end market and keep their broad array of products available to even small segments of the user base. Steve Jobs was the antidote to the "bean counter" non-creative-thinking corporate CEOs that almost sank Apple in the early '90s. Jobs knew what both average consumers and the pro needed. I hope the new CEO at Apple has the sense to keep Job's vision of a deeply integrated company and not succumb to small thinking that will sink Apple in the future.
A post from Feb 2008 asking for a mid-range tower.
We should call it 'Mac'
Mac Mini < Mac < Mac Pro
Those Mac tower users (like me: dual G5), who can be lumped into the category of "prosumer", will eventually move to either the iMac line or Minis linked by Xgrid.
I think Apple calling their towers "Pros" signals that they are targeting people who make a living from using their computers ("Pro"fessionals). Hence, the high cost. So those complaining about cost are probably out of luck.
It used to be that a power user, like myself, had to get a tower to have adequate power and storage for the occasional intensive personal project (in my case, making videos). However, nowadays that can be done with a high-end iMac, which is in fact my next planned purchase.
Having made a video recently with the latest low-end iMac, I can confirm that it was up to that task; something that used to but no longer requires a tower.
I run a studio with four edit suites, all running Final Cut Studio on a fiber network with shared/ managed storage. We were using Final Cut Server as well, but since future friendly software is essential for archived projects, we have moved away from FC server software for project management. This decision was made instantly after Apple end-of-life'd the FC Server.
Our artists use professional high-end compositing and 3D software to create HD material for broadcast. For us, the Mac Pro is true to it's name. It is a reliable, essential tool in our professional workflows. A mac mini design, will not support the fiber cards that we require, or the video card upgrades that we use for heavy lifting on graphics. Thunderbolt will not adequately address our needs for multiple displays in conjunction with the networked storage as well.
If Mac Pro is abandoned, our entire business, and many others in production will be forced to abandon Apple products and workflows. This has already begun (in haste IMHO) with a sort of exodus after the release of Final Cut X - which despite claims to the contrary, is not a viable professional tool for anyone that's not a one-man, one-computer business.
It's my hope that Apple will announce an adequate Mac Pro replacement in the future, and for the love of professional, perhaps even a roadmap to ease our minds. This year has been a scary one for Mac-based post production people.
This is my sentiment too. I'm afraid that if Mac Pro disappears too, real pro users will be forced to go with PC route, and in the long run this can only be damaging to Apple.
Another person who doesn't understand the pro market.
This article comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who can stop fellating their iDevice long enough to see the writing on the wall.
I could easily say another smug AppleInsider retort designed to belittle rather than uplift the conversation. I actually don't use any iDevices. I enjoy my macbook pros because they are a good combination of attractive hardware coupled with a pretty good operating system.
I find it interesting that you so-called pros just sit and complain about every little thing. If you are so professional, you should be remaining agile with things that make you money. If it takes a move to Windows, and better hardware to allow you to work better/faster/cheaper, then so be it. Complaining on this particular forum will only reach as the other complainers.
After having had nothing but the top of the line Macs since day one including the II fx and Quadra 840 and so on through to Mac Pros ... as of this year I sold mine and got a couple of MBPs with i7 and an i5 and LCD Cinema Displays. OK I missed the Pro at first and I do notice less power but all in all I love the ability to work at a desk or on the go ... There is no going back for me as long as Apple keep the top end MBPs coming. That said I am a one man show and my heart goes out to the production departments with high end requirements not met by MBPs.
If you're running a server and are serious about your data, ECC is sufficient reason of the Xeons. The single CPU config often had faster chips which worked better for computationally expensive tasks such as database queries which do not naturally scale across threads.
That stated, many of the non-Xeon Sandy Bridge chips do actually support ECC. I think that Apple has disabled this feature in the iMacs to promote Mac Pro sales.
I find this to be an interesting response. In many (most?) cases, databases are IO/memory limited, not CPU bound.
I'd like to see Apple go to a mini-tower form factor and knock $1,000 off the list price.
You really need the larger enclosure for heat dissipation. Without it you are going to have to compromise on either power or noise. Smaller cases need more fans, faster fans, and more air conditioning. Have you ever been inside a professional data center? Freezing cold and you need to bring some ear plugs or risk damaging your hearing. A mini tower might be ok for the entry level workstation, but if you plan on maxing it out, it just won't work.
This? Really? That's nonsense. Apple can live without the Mac Pro quite well.
Without a proper SERVER, however? They'll never get market penetration. Whatever the Mac Pro becomes, it needs to be more servery.
"But Apple doesn't care about Mac marketshare!"
Steve didn't care.
Tim. Cook. Does. Watch him at the beginning of the iPhone 4S announcement. He actually BROUGHT UP marketshare. If that's not obvious enough for you, watch the way he presents that section. The subtleties of his… know what, if you're not convinced by him bringing up marketshare, there's no way you'd catch the subtleties of how he presents that section.
I have a Mac Pro with 12 cores and 32GB's of RAM. I use it to do the work of about 10 PC's. I run VMWare Fusion on it and can simulate an entire PC lab in this one box. i.e. Server 2008, Multiple Win7 clients, Ubuntu servers, etc. This is why I bought it.
If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro than they must make Lion run in VMWare's vSphere / ESX. This would allow the server crowd to use it like a virtual XServe. The workstation crowd can get a power HP workstation and run Lion at almost full bore.
I have thrown everything I can at this box and have yet had it slow down. It remained response even with about 8 Virtual Machines each with heavy loads plus Digital rendering humming way and Handbrake cranking 64bit using all remaining resources. It was still very responsive to loading web pages, etc.
So nice to have a machine faster than I am and that can do amazing things. Scientists, Programmers (big apps like Wolfram's Mathmatica), Engineers, CAD users, 3D Animation, etc. They all need the power of a Mac Pro. Video editors and photographers may not need it quite so much but they still like them.
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
Not worried about Thunderbolt support, there's not a big choice in accessories. I am looking forward to dropping in an eSATA PCIx card and plugging in a 5 bay external enclosure and using Ten's Compliment's Z-410 (ZFS for OS X) and doing that instead of a Thunderbolt drive. Cost quite a bit less and will be scalable fast storage. If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work. Short of the Promise drive array, I don't see other options and that solution is crazy expensive. For a few hundred bucks I can go the Z-410 route and switch to Thunderbolt later when it's more affordable.
If Apple drops the Mac Pro without making another high end alternative I will be throwing Logic and Apple out the door and get a PC with Pro Tools HD...
That goes for the rest of the pro audio marked using Mac as well....
Yeah, and I will dump all my iToys with it......
How does a Mac mini with MacBook Pro internals sound?
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
THIS, so much this.
Quote:
If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work.
I believe Thunderbolt has to be on the motherboard and know Thunderbolt has to have all options of the port available to it.
So you're not gonna be able to buy PCIe cards for it like you would USB or FireWire; it has to have the graphics capabilities.
Now, Apple somehow swinging new graphics cards that use Thunderbolt ports instead of Mini DisplayPort and managing to make that work isn't? completely? out of the question, but it's something of a long shot.
Apple actually putting Thunderbolt on an upgradable part, though? That's the shot in the arm the port needs to have MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pros upgrading their Mac Pro graphics cards and buying tens of millions of Thunderbolt accessories. It's exactly what Apple needs to do to get Thunderbolt adoption rates through the roof. Whether they'll do it is left to be seen.
Something will have to happen VERY quickly, though. The Mac Pro can't keep going without Thunderbolt forever, and Tim Cook has expressed that he wants the Mac's marketshare to climb, and that can't be done without a new server/Mac Pro/something.
I have a Mac Pro with 12 cores and 32GB's of RAM. I use it to do the work of about 10 PC's. I run VMWare Fusion on it and can simulate an entire PC lab in this one box. i.e. Server 2008, Multiple Win7 clients, Ubuntu servers, etc. This is why I bought it.
If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro than they must make Lion run in VMWare's vSphere / ESX. This would allow the server crowd to use it like a virtual XServe. The workstation crowd can get a power HP workstation and run Lion at almost full bore.
I have thrown everything I can at this box and have yet had it slow down. It remained response even with about 8 Virtual Machines each with heavy loads plus Digital rendering humming way and Handbrake cranking 64bit using all remaining resources. It was still very responsive to loading web pages, etc.
So nice to have a machine faster than I am and that can do amazing things. Scientists, Programmers (big apps like Wolfram's Mathmatica), Engineers, CAD users, 3D Animation, etc. They all need the power of a Mac Pro. Video editors and photographers may not need it quite so much but they still like them.
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
Not worried about Thunderbolt support, there's not a big choice in accessories. I am looking forward to dropping in an eSATA PCIx card and plugging in a 5 bay external enclosure and using Ten's Compliment's Z-410 (ZFS for OS X) and doing that instead of a Thunderbolt drive. Cost quite a bit less and will be scalable fast storage. If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work. Short of the Promise drive array, I don't see other options and that solution is crazy expensive. For a few hundred bucks I can go the Z-410 route and switch to Thunderbolt later when it's more affordable.
Apple should use you as an ad for high end computing! What a great set up you have there.
I don't need the processing power of the Mac Pro but the Mac Pro is the only Apple computer I am interested in buying. Why? Because the mini is limited in what it doesn't offer or allow and the iMac forces limitations on me with the built in screen.
Comments
My Macpro has six monitors and four TB class HDs. While you might be able to do that at some point in the future with the new fast links, I really don't look forward to drives and display units all over the place.
Oh well. I guess it'll be time to go back to the PC world, where you can still get high powered desktops. I suppose It'll be Hackintoshes for me. Normally I wouldn't even consider such a thing, but if Apple won't supply the hardware, I guess I'll have no choice.
The vast majority of people just don't need them. The pro laptops and upper end iMacs have more power than all but the most demanding video editors might need. They run basically any video game well too. Still, there's no question the Mac Pro provides power that high end prosumers and professionals can't get elsewhere on the Mac platform.
I have high end iMacs, 17'' Macbook Pros and Mac Pro, and those other computers can't even compare to Mac Pro (even couple of generations older, it's still faster and more capable machine than newest Macbook Pros).
I do software development mostly, but I do an occasional video and lots of image processing, but everything is so fast on Mac Pro it's such a joy to use. It does everything you throw at it without a glitch. That computer always puts a smile on my face. I'll be really sad if they actually discontinue Mac Pros too.
Apple doesn't really care about those kinds of markets. They are a gadget company now. Let Microsoft service the "high end" professionals.
Apple makes most of its money selling to Grandmas.
The wife (grandma) and I (grandpa) have a lot of gadgets: 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, MBP, MBA, MB, 2 MacMinis, few iPods, etc. Also a G3 BW, Quadra 700.
I also have a 6-core MP that I bought when by PowerMac DP died. It has 10gb of ram, 3 hard drives, a BR R/W drive. I do some high end computing and it handles that with ease. I am sure that there will be proc upgrades available if Apple discontinues, perhaps even a TB card (I know, I know).
By your admission, more work is being done on the GPU, so surely that should be more reason to have it accessible in some kind of standard PCIe slot inside iMacs?
I don't think that necessarily follows. The key thing is to rewrite their Pro apps to use the GPU more. Then even a midrange, non-removable GPU in a iMac should be able to do what used to take 12 Xeon cores.
mac pros are very important for a market share. If they discontinue it they will lose apple customers. Myself, i'm an avid gamer, and to me the mac pro is the only viable option. other macs are bargan computers that lack future proofing for gaming and don't have the performance of a mac pro either. If i have to get an imac with a mobile GPU in it to game, i'm gonna have to go the hackintosh route istead so i can keep my high end hardware.
I've owned a MacPro (2008) and would love to put a better graphics card in it to play games under bootcamp. Everything I look at them they always seem overpriced.
I'm a missing something, is there a cheaper option then buying one from Apple?
True, but the Mac Pro isn't supposed to get the vast majority of the sales, either. And the iMac has mobility graphics. Some people need what's in the Mac Pro, and for them, the iMac simply doesn't cut it. The Mac Pro is for them, so they don't *have* to defect to Windows.
Having a limited, high priced product in your catalog is not an abnormal thing. Nikon and Canon sell mostly $120 point & shoot cameras. But they also sell $8,000 EOS 1Dx II or Nikon D3s full frame digital pro cameras, which sell in limited quantities compared with the amateur market. Even Hyundai has the Equus, which sells for $60,000 where as the dealers sell mostly Sonatas and Elantras for $16,000-25,000. The high end model gives the company an upgrade path so it does not lose the customer as they gain more wealth and aspire to a higher-end product. Professionals need the rugged durability of the Mac Pro line. Apple needs to keep the Mac Pro to keep its toes in the high-end market and keep their broad array of products available to even small segments of the user base. Steve Jobs was the antidote to the "bean counter" non-creative-thinking corporate CEOs that almost sank Apple in the early '90s. Jobs knew what both average consumers and the pro needed. I hope the new CEO at Apple has the sense to keep Job's vision of a deeply integrated company and not succumb to small thinking that will sink Apple in the future.
A post from Feb 2008 asking for a mid-range tower.
We should call it 'Mac'
Mac Mini < Mac < Mac Pro
Those Mac tower users (like me: dual G5), who can be lumped into the category of "prosumer", will eventually move to either the iMac line or Minis linked by Xgrid.
I think Apple calling their towers "Pros" signals that they are targeting people who make a living from using their computers ("Pro"fessionals). Hence, the high cost. So those complaining about cost are probably out of luck.
It used to be that a power user, like myself, had to get a tower to have adequate power and storage for the occasional intensive personal project (in my case, making videos). However, nowadays that can be done with a high-end iMac, which is in fact my next planned purchase.
Having made a video recently with the latest low-end iMac, I can confirm that it was up to that task; something that used to but no longer requires a tower.
I run a studio with four edit suites, all running Final Cut Studio on a fiber network with shared/ managed storage. We were using Final Cut Server as well, but since future friendly software is essential for archived projects, we have moved away from FC server software for project management. This decision was made instantly after Apple end-of-life'd the FC Server.
Our artists use professional high-end compositing and 3D software to create HD material for broadcast. For us, the Mac Pro is true to it's name. It is a reliable, essential tool in our professional workflows. A mac mini design, will not support the fiber cards that we require, or the video card upgrades that we use for heavy lifting on graphics. Thunderbolt will not adequately address our needs for multiple displays in conjunction with the networked storage as well.
If Mac Pro is abandoned, our entire business, and many others in production will be forced to abandon Apple products and workflows. This has already begun (in haste IMHO) with a sort of exodus after the release of Final Cut X - which despite claims to the contrary, is not a viable professional tool for anyone that's not a one-man, one-computer business.
It's my hope that Apple will announce an adequate Mac Pro replacement in the future, and for the love of professional, perhaps even a roadmap to ease our minds. This year has been a scary one for Mac-based post production people.
This is my sentiment too. I'm afraid that if Mac Pro disappears too, real pro users will be forced to go with PC route, and in the long run this can only be damaging to Apple.
Another person who doesn't understand the pro market.
This article comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who can stop fellating their iDevice long enough to see the writing on the wall.
I could easily say another smug AppleInsider retort designed to belittle rather than uplift the conversation. I actually don't use any iDevices. I enjoy my macbook pros because they are a good combination of attractive hardware coupled with a pretty good operating system.
I find it interesting that you so-called pros just sit and complain about every little thing. If you are so professional, you should be remaining agile with things that make you money. If it takes a move to Windows, and better hardware to allow you to work better/faster/cheaper, then so be it. Complaining on this particular forum will only reach as the other complainers.
If you're running a server and are serious about your data, ECC is sufficient reason of the Xeons. The single CPU config often had faster chips which worked better for computationally expensive tasks such as database queries which do not naturally scale across threads.
That stated, many of the non-Xeon Sandy Bridge chips do actually support ECC. I think that Apple has disabled this feature in the iMacs to promote Mac Pro sales.
I find this to be an interesting response. In many (most?) cases, databases are IO/memory limited, not CPU bound.
I'd like to see Apple go to a mini-tower form factor and knock $1,000 off the list price.
You really need the larger enclosure for heat dissipation. Without it you are going to have to compromise on either power or noise. Smaller cases need more fans, faster fans, and more air conditioning. Have you ever been inside a professional data center? Freezing cold and you need to bring some ear plugs or risk damaging your hearing. A mini tower might be ok for the entry level workstation, but if you plan on maxing it out, it just won't work.
this will be the undoing of Apple.
This? Really? That's nonsense. Apple can live without the Mac Pro quite well.
Without a proper SERVER, however? They'll never get market penetration. Whatever the Mac Pro becomes, it needs to be more servery.
"But Apple doesn't care about Mac marketshare!"
Steve didn't care.
Tim. Cook. Does. Watch him at the beginning of the iPhone 4S announcement. He actually BROUGHT UP marketshare. If that's not obvious enough for you, watch the way he presents that section. The subtleties of his… know what, if you're not convinced by him bringing up marketshare, there's no way you'd catch the subtleties of how he presents that section.
At any rate, he's gearing up for a fight.
If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro than they must make Lion run in VMWare's vSphere / ESX. This would allow the server crowd to use it like a virtual XServe. The workstation crowd can get a power HP workstation and run Lion at almost full bore.
I have thrown everything I can at this box and have yet had it slow down. It remained response even with about 8 Virtual Machines each with heavy loads plus Digital rendering humming way and Handbrake cranking 64bit using all remaining resources. It was still very responsive to loading web pages, etc.
So nice to have a machine faster than I am and that can do amazing things. Scientists, Programmers (big apps like Wolfram's Mathmatica), Engineers, CAD users, 3D Animation, etc. They all need the power of a Mac Pro. Video editors and photographers may not need it quite so much but they still like them.
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
Not worried about Thunderbolt support, there's not a big choice in accessories. I am looking forward to dropping in an eSATA PCIx card and plugging in a 5 bay external enclosure and using Ten's Compliment's Z-410 (ZFS for OS X) and doing that instead of a Thunderbolt drive. Cost quite a bit less and will be scalable fast storage. If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work. Short of the Promise drive array, I don't see other options and that solution is crazy expensive. For a few hundred bucks I can go the Z-410 route and switch to Thunderbolt later when it's more affordable.
If Apple drops the Mac Pro without making another high end alternative I will be throwing Logic and Apple out the door and get a PC with Pro Tools HD...
That goes for the rest of the pro audio marked using Mac as well....
Yeah, and I will dump all my iToys with it......
How does a Mac mini with MacBook Pro internals sound?
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
THIS, so much this.
If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work.
I believe Thunderbolt has to be on the motherboard and know Thunderbolt has to have all options of the port available to it.
So you're not gonna be able to buy PCIe cards for it like you would USB or FireWire; it has to have the graphics capabilities.
Now, Apple somehow swinging new graphics cards that use Thunderbolt ports instead of Mini DisplayPort and managing to make that work isn't? completely? out of the question, but it's something of a long shot.
Apple actually putting Thunderbolt on an upgradable part, though? That's the shot in the arm the port needs to have MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of pros upgrading their Mac Pro graphics cards and buying tens of millions of Thunderbolt accessories. It's exactly what Apple needs to do to get Thunderbolt adoption rates through the roof. Whether they'll do it is left to be seen.
Something will have to happen VERY quickly, though. The Mac Pro can't keep going without Thunderbolt forever, and Tim Cook has expressed that he wants the Mac's marketshare to climb, and that can't be done without a new server/Mac Pro/something.
I have a Mac Pro with 12 cores and 32GB's of RAM. I use it to do the work of about 10 PC's. I run VMWare Fusion on it and can simulate an entire PC lab in this one box. i.e. Server 2008, Multiple Win7 clients, Ubuntu servers, etc. This is why I bought it.
If Apple discontinues the Mac Pro than they must make Lion run in VMWare's vSphere / ESX. This would allow the server crowd to use it like a virtual XServe. The workstation crowd can get a power HP workstation and run Lion at almost full bore.
I have thrown everything I can at this box and have yet had it slow down. It remained response even with about 8 Virtual Machines each with heavy loads plus Digital rendering humming way and Handbrake cranking 64bit using all remaining resources. It was still very responsive to loading web pages, etc.
So nice to have a machine faster than I am and that can do amazing things. Scientists, Programmers (big apps like Wolfram's Mathmatica), Engineers, CAD users, 3D Animation, etc. They all need the power of a Mac Pro. Video editors and photographers may not need it quite so much but they still like them.
This machine will last me at least another 5 years. Maybe much more. That's why they don't sell as many, they are too dang good!
Not worried about Thunderbolt support, there's not a big choice in accessories. I am looking forward to dropping in an eSATA PCIx card and plugging in a 5 bay external enclosure and using Ten's Compliment's Z-410 (ZFS for OS X) and doing that instead of a Thunderbolt drive. Cost quite a bit less and will be scalable fast storage. If Apple sells a Thunderbolt card, I would use it, but I think they need a Processor and chipset upgrade for it work. Short of the Promise drive array, I don't see other options and that solution is crazy expensive. For a few hundred bucks I can go the Z-410 route and switch to Thunderbolt later when it's more affordable.
Apple should use you as an ad for high end computing! What a great set up you have there.
Can't understand Apple at all.