They said Dual FirePro's would be standard. I'm sure they will be using the low end models for the entry model.
They might. The website states something like "dual GPUs" first and "FirePro workstation-class" later on. There seems to be some room for Apple to include consumer cards that are of a higher quality than usual consumer cards. Think of server-grade disks in the Time Capsule (hakcintosh community has discovered that some ordinary AMD graphics cards are seen as being FirePro). There still is no certainty it will actually use the W9000 nor that there will be either 1 or several models (like with all current Macs). I think they'll stick to multiple models with each their own upgrade options. It probably will only be the hardware that is changing.
We've only gotten a sneak peek which seems to be meant to show that they still care about the Mac Pro and they want to address the biggest complaint people had: it not being very powerful compared to the competition (some configurations of MBP and iMac could even outperform some Mac Pro configs). I think they've done quite a good job with that though, whether you like the more modular setup and the design or not.
I'm not saying TB is slower than anything (except PCIe), I'm saying that while useful, it's not a replacement for PCIe yet.
That entirely depends on your requirements/the device(s) you want to use. When you want to use 8 disks in RAID you already had to use some sort of external enclosure to accomplish that. Those where usually hooked up to some kind of SATA/SAS card. For this scenario nothing changes except for requiring a new enclosure (that uses TB) or something like an eSATA-TB adapter. These kind of setups have never been cheap anyway and TB will be fine for most (if you want to use 8 disks you usually do so because of storage space, not because of performance).
I'm merely asking for the option, I don't mean to say we shouldn't use thunderbolt. Clearly thunderbolt is awesome technology, the market just hasn't matured to that point.
The problem is that there is no push to start using Thunderbolt. If you put SATA connections for 8 disks in the machine and the ability to add 6 PCIe cards then almost nobody will buy Thunderbolt devices. It also doesn't solve some of the problems Apple may have come across. By omitting those SATA ports and making it as compact as possible they are definitely taking a risk but it is also probably the only way to actually get people and companies to start using Thunderbolt. Any other way of getting people hooked up to Thunderbolt has similar issues.
Let's not forget that there also some advantages to the more modular setup they seem to be after. There are many who buy something like a microscope or an analyser with additional peripherals. Both the microscope/analyser and the peripherals cost a fortune and most are not willingly to replace it every 3 years, in some cases it has to last 10 years. It is much easier to do that with something like Thunderbolt. It also allows you to buy an expensive Mac Pro or a Mac mini and still use it. In general it makes Macs more modular and allows the customer to move between them. There is more flexibility. It makes things easier for the user as well. In a medium to large company there is an IT department to assist you but there isn't any for the smaller companies. They have to hire people which can cost quite a lot of money. If things are as easy as plug in a cable they don't have to.
Clearly USB Audio has come a long way since last I looked. I stand corrected, this is a viable and inexpensive solution to the fact that this $2500+ computer has basically no audio capabilities...
Yep, there are now many audio devices that use USB. That might very well be the reason for not including audio in the Mac Pro. From what I've seen most users are already circumventing the audio in Macs either by using the optical line out or by using some USB audio device. Why put in audio capabilities if people circumvent it anyway?
That's my whole point: I'll accept TB and TB2 are great, but they're not a replacement for PCIe.
TB/TB2 is PCIe but in a different form. Neither TB/TB2 nor PCIe is the solution to everything. There are some USB devices that are cheaper than their PCIe counterparts but do the same job for example.
There is a huge reason to put the parts in the SAME CASE as the CPU, and that need can exist with the need to have the ability to put them outside the case as well.
And there are also huge reasons not to put everything in the same case as the CPU
Apple and every other vendor has to make those choices. This time Apple choose to put the basics in the same case and let the user plug in everything else. There are some advantages and there are some disadvantages. Just like the previous versions this Mac Pro won't be for everybody. This is something quite a lot of people are forgetting.
