At what point should we actually start worrying?

[mrxak]

All the death of Mac Pro threads and rumors and whatnot are obviously premature. I don't want to have a debate here about whether or not it's going to happen. Personally, I believe we'll see new Mac Pros soon.

What I want to do, though, is figure out is when it would become clear that Apple isn't bringing out a new Mac Pro line if that's what's going to happen. Knowing that, perhaps we can work backwards and figure out when we might expect Apple to start shipping new Mac Pros.

I haven't been following the news closely enough with regards to parts and such to figure out what all needs to come together. I'm sure several people here have more up-to-date specific information.

Knowing what we know about Apple's past release cycles, what parts we expect Apple to use, and whatever information that's out there about Intel CPUs, NVIDIA/AMD GPUs, etc., what date in the future can we use with reasonable certainty as a hypothetical end date for the Mac Pro line, where either new ones will have already come out, or never will?

Are we talking sometime in the next couple weeks? Sometime in June? Even later? I know, I know, it won't be until Apple announces as such, but that's not useful, and I believe we're smarter than that. Let's really dig into history and current information from vendors so we can decide just how much we ought to be worried now, and when we should be worried more.

Again, this is not a debate topic over the fate of the line, this is a speculation topic on parts and timing. What are the most likely configurations for a new Mac Pro? When are those parts likely to be shipping in enough quantities for Apple to start building and make an announcement? How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait after Apple is likely to have something ready?

 

[Bubba Satori]

Nobody knows.

If you have to get one now, try to get the best deal you can get in the refurb store.
If you don't need it now, wait for a couple of months.
If you've used W7 and are ok with it, take the $2,500 of the base Mac Pro, go to New Egg
and build a screaming fast, maxed out with the most specs Sandy, not Ivy, Bridge i7 box.
You'll be stunned at what what $2,500 can by you these days.
Oh and you'll have around $1,000 left over.

I wish I, or anybody else here, could answer all of your questions for you,
but in all honesty, we can't.

Hth and good luck whatever you decide to do.

 

[JesterJJZ]

If WWDC rolls past and they don't even bring it up, I think it's safe to say we have a problem...

 

[Jst0rm]

Aside from the wait I don't thinks we have a problem until apple says this product will be discontinued. If they do I will move to windows painfully and never look back. I will never give apple my money again.

 

[rrgjl]

Exactly like jst0rm said.
They will announce either way; be it discontinuation or the launch of a new version.

 

[tony3d]

Aside from the wait I don't thinks we have a problem until apple says this product will be discontinued. If they do I will move to windows painfully and never look back. I will never give apple my money again.

Same here. I'll move my phone, and tablet over, and that will be that.

 

[xgman]

Sorry, but I'm already worried. The guys on the Insanely Great Mac Blog did a video blog this week on all the new macs that are due out. When they got to the Mac Pro, they just laughed.

 

[Nostromo]

Generally, you don't need a reason to worry.

If you enjoy it, just worry

 

[Tutor]

Nobody knows.

If you have to get one now, try to get the best deal you can get in the refurb store.
If you don't need it now, wait for a couple of months.
If you've used W7 and are ok with it, take the $2,500 of the base Mac Pro, go to New Egg
and build a screaming fast, maxed out with the most specs Sandy, not Ivy, Bridge i7 box.
You'll be stunned at what what $2,500 can by you these days.
Oh and you'll have around $1,000 left over.

I wish I, or anybody else here, could answer all of your questions for you,
but in all honesty, we can't.

Hth and good luck whatever you decide to do.

I completely agree with JesterJJZ and everything you propose, except that I would recommend that if he's going the self-build route that he consider Ivy Bridges (if he's not going to be clock tweaking very much or he's going to be using one of the Corsair self-contained H2O cooling units) and spending about $300 more. The Ivies tend to run hotter than the Sandies, but clock for clock, he'll get greater performance for not much more money (5% to 15% increase in CPU performance and 20% to 50% increase in integrated GPU performance). For instance, for about $2800 (under $2400 if he's not interested in gaming and chooses to rely on the integrated graphics), he could purchase the following and build a 3.5 GHz base - all cores (minimum) / turbo 3.9 GHz (minimum) - quad core. clock tweakable IvyBee in a tower case with self-contained H20 cooling, powered by a 1200 Watt PSU, displaying video thru an ultra fast Radeon 7970, moving data between 32 gigs of 1866 MHz ram and a 500 gig 10,000 rpm Velocirapter, Blu-Ray and/or an ultra fast 120 gig OWC PCI SSD card.


1a) Most Tweakable Fast Quad Ivy - Intel Core i7 Processor i7-3770K 3.5GHz (Turbo 3.9 GHz) 5.0GT/s 8MB LGA1155 CPU, Retail - BX80637I73770K - $364.99 ( http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=I7-3770KBX ) or
1b) Least Tweakable Fast Quad Ivy - Intel Core i7 Processor i7-3770 3.4GHz (Turbo 3.9 GHz) 5.0GT/s 8MB LGA1155 CPU, Retail - BX80637I73770 - $316.99 ( http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=I7-3770BOX )
2) CORSAIR H80 (CWCH80) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - $99.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181016l )
3) ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - $239.99 - ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131821 )
4) Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower - $159.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129100 )
5) COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSC00-80GAD3-US 1200W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - $229.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...007657 50001333&IsNodeId=1&name=Cooler Master )
6) DIAMOND 7970PE53G Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - $469.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103201
7) G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL10Q-32GBZL - $319.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231529 )
8) 120GB OWC Mercury Accelsior PCI Express SSD $359.99 ( http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R120/ )
9) Western Digital VelociRaptor WD5000HHTZ 500GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Bare Drive bundled with: 1x LG Black 14X Internal Blu-Ray Burner with SW SATA - $324.98 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.937280 )
10) Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - OEM - $189.99 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116997 ).

BTW, prices of 3770k should soon fall to about $342 - $332.00 ( http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7-3770K.html ). See review @ http://www.techspot.com/review/523-ivy-bridge-intel-core-i7-3770k/ .
Of course, he could save some more money buy not going this high towards top of the line.

 

[a-bob]

Aside from the wait I don't thinks we have a problem until apple says this product will be discontinued. If they do I will move to windows painfully and never look back. I will never give apple my money again.

It's not that black and white for me. I'm an audio editor/sound designer with Pro Tools HD and an original MP (which is working wonderfully right now for Pro Tools 10) I need a workstation with PCIe slots...not an iMac. So if Apple decides to kill the MP and does not offer an alternative...then it's an HP workstation and Windows...but at least with an Apple laptop, iPhone and iPad. I love my MBP, iPad and iPhone and will stay with Apple for those products, but suppose would have to opt for a Windows workstation for professional work....unless Apple comes up with something like a Mac Mini Pro with external Thunderbolt expandable ram and PCIe hardware.

If I have to go to Windows for my workstation, then so be it. But I just can't imagine Apple handing over that market to the PC. What would Apple eventually use for their server farms...an HP and Win 7? If they would....then why wouldn't it be good enough for me?

 

[ColeHarris]

The biggest reason I think that Apple wont drop the Mac Pro is that many companies like Adobe, Autodesk, Sony and many others build software for pro workstations and if Apple stops making pro level workstations then why continue making software for OSX. This would intern have a huge effect on the people that use lower end computers to run high end software as they would no longer be receiving updates or even new releases. It also sends a huge message, if Apple drops the MP it would basically be them saying "we dont care about professionals anymore and are only interested in supplying products for consumers" this would be bad even for their consumer market.

Personally regardless of a new Mac Pro or not I'm switching to a Windows machine for my pro work, honestly I should have done so sooner its just a much better choice for many reasons. Currently I can build a machine for around $5,000 that would make even the highest end Mac Pro look like a toy and if in the future my machine becomes outdated its simply a matter of swapping out components which saves me even more money as I dont have to buy an entirely new machine.

I still love OSX though and will continue to use a my Macbook Pro and my iMac for day to day stuff. Anyways thats my 2 cents

 

[bpran]

End of Mac Pro

By the end of August 2012 (2 months after WWDC) ,
if there is no new Mac Pro, then there will be no more Mac Pro.

 

[Jst0rm]

It's not that black and white for me. I'm an audio editor/sound designer with Pro Tools HD and an original MP (which is working wonderfully right now for Pro Tools 10) I need a workstation with PCIe slots...not an iMac. So if Apple decides to kill the MP and does not offer an alternative...then it's an HP workstation and Windows...but at least with an Apple laptop, iPhone and iPad. I love my MBP, iPad and iPhone and will stay with Apple for those products, but suppose would have to opt for a Windows workstation for professional work....unless Apple comes up with something like a Mac Mini Pro with external Thunderbolt expandable ram and PCIe hardware.

If I have to go to Windows for my workstation, then so be it. But I just can't imagine Apple handing over that market to the PC. What would Apple eventually use for their server farms...an HP and Win 7? If they would....then why wouldn't it be good enough for me?

Lol. I too am a sound designer working on a 1,1 macpro with protools hd10

I'm actually running the native card but I had a hd2 before it. I can't open up the templates I want with the computer at this point. Yes I can work around but it's a drag. I wish sound miner v4 pro was windows based. That's the only thing holding me back. I think everything else has windows versions.

 

[Tiituli]

I would be surprised, if there wouldn't be something quite special announced by this summer! Just wait and see. And, if you want to do something useful meanwhile and not speculate in vain, start saving your money - until you know.

 

[Guezzwho]

It's not that black and white for me. I'm an audio editor/sound designer with Pro Tools HD and an original MP (which is working wonderfully right now for Pro Tools 10) I need a workstation with PCIe slots...not an iMac. So if Apple decides to kill the MP and does not offer an alternative...then it's an HP workstation and Windows...but at least with an Apple laptop, iPhone and iPad. I love my MBP, iPad and iPhone and will stay with Apple for those products, but suppose would have to opt for a Windows workstation for professional work....unless Apple comes up with something like a Mac Mini Pro with external Thunderbolt expandable ram and PCIe hardware.

If I have to go to Windows for my workstation, then so be it. But I just can't imagine Apple handing over that market to the PC. What would Apple eventually use for their server farms...an HP and Win 7? If they would....then why wouldn't it be good enough for me?

I've been working with Protools since protools 3. The last couple of years I've been working on both platforms (OSX and Windows) and am confident enough to jump from OSX to Windows if needed.
I don't see any negative things anymore in windows that would make it less pro.
So if Apple would cancel the MP, I will definitely switch my whole HDX set to windows. I just like working in OSX so much more!

 

[a-bob]

I wish sound miner v4 pro was windows based. That's the only thing holding me back. I think everything else has windows versions.

Wow...didn't realize that SM v4 was not available for windows. That could be a deal breaker. Behind Pro Tools, SM is one of the most important pieces of software for me.

I don't see any negative things anymore in windows that would make it less pro.

Totally agree. I worked with PT/Windows a number of years ago and while in the software, Pro Tools worked exactly the same as the Mac version. It's just when you leave that environment it's just not as hospitable as the Mac OS. Win 7 is a big improvement though.

 

[derbothaus]

Less pro. More pro. Really? Windows is fine but it is still Windows with lovely goodies like to export something you need to choose the import menu and 12 window deep system options. That has not changed. I see no difference really between Vista and 7. I had no issues with either. Why is it hive minded that 7 is so much better? They all work. They are all still Windows.

 

[Jst0rm]

Wow...didn't realize that SM v4 was not available for windows. That could be a deal breaker. Behind Pro Tools, SM is one of the most important pieces of software for me.



Totally agree. I worked with PT/Windows a number of years ago and while in the software, Pro Tools worked exactly the same as the Mac version. It's just when you leave that environment it's just not as hospitable as the Mac OS. Win 7 is a big improvement though.

Sound Miner HD works for windows but it is a different engine and not as high end as the smv4pro is. Hopefully they will get it all working well. Aside from that I think I have maybe 2 plug ins that I couldnt port over and that does make me sad as I buy tools and I like to use all of my tools.

Not to mention the HUGE install base of macs in the industry and working thru certain unknown headaches by not working in the conformed systems. Go look at universals machine room and you will see countless macpros all lined up ready for a beating.

----------

I would be surprised, if there wouldn't be something quite special announced by this summer! Just wait and see. And, if you want to do something useful meanwhile and not speculate in vain, start saving your money - until you know.

Do you know something you would like to share with us?

At any rate the total blackout is ********. We arent talking college kids getting surprised buttsexed over a new ipad or macbook. We are talking about business and does business and likes to know certain information. Apple taking the stance of "we dont discuss rumors" is total **** I would expect from a 17 year old prom queen not a company that wishes to cater to professionals.

How would the 90's and early 00's looked to apple without the creative professional? If apple wants to **** with me then they should expect to lose my halo effect AND all of my other purchases.

This is exactly how I feel about the situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWVxI6XZAuE

 

[salmoally]

At any rate the total blackout is ********. We arent talking college kids getting surprised buttsexed over a new ipad or macbook. We are talking about business and does business and likes to know certain information. Apple taking the stance of "we dont discuss rumors" is total **** I would expect from a 17 year old prom queen not a company that wishes to cater to professionals.

You kind of sound like the 17 year old prom queen here. If your business requires roadmaps etc why would you choose Apple as your computer supplier who have always been known to be super secretive. Deal with it and wait or move to Windows "Mr Professional".

 

[Jst0rm]

You kind of sound like the 17 year old prom queen here. If your business requires roadmaps etc why would you choose Apple as your computer supplier who have always been known to be super secretive. Deal with it and wait or move to Windows "Mr Professional".

oh internet screen name...

Either way I will deal with it. I am hoping for not as secretive apple in the future. Of course I would expect someone I dont know or care about to come to apples defense but if they drop the macpro it will cost them $. I will make sure of that. Is it enough to really effect them? No of course not but as a consumer I can only vote with my wallet.

As for you, a non pro, i wouldn't expect you to care about the macpro one way or the other. I come here everyday looking for more news on the subject and i am fully versed in what information I need to be looking for. If you dont like how I will deal with the situation then tough cookies.

 

[laserbeam273]

I still don't see why they'd add 4K RED support to FCP X then drop Mac Pros. I mean, really? Is there even a single person out there that'd pay so much to get RED gear then try edit it with an iMac? If they were planning on dropping the Mac Pro, they wouldn't be baiting the pros with updates like that. That's just stupid.

 

[iAmRod]

Why should any worrying be done? Worrying won't change a thing and it causes stress... don't worry, just be HAPPY!

You'll find a way.

 

[ClassObject]

You should start worrying tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.

 

[goMac]

When Apple says they've discontinued it. If it's discontinued, then it's not going to be on the store any more. As long as it's in the store, it's not discontinued.

Or if you want to be like a lot of people here, ALL THE TIME. FREAK OUT. NO. MORE THAN THAT. FREAK OUT MORE THAN THAT. ALL THE TIME FREAKOUT FOREVER.

People have such short memories. The exact same worrying was done around the 2010 release.

 

[Whargoul]

At what point should we actually start worrying?

About 300 days ago.