Gluttons for Punishment!

[fw3857]

Many here remain sadly mistaken as to the future of their beloved Mac Pros.

As I said some 14 months ago (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/846591/), there will be no new Mac Pros.

The IT guys were in denial about the imminent death of the xServe, and many of you Workstation guys are in denial about the end of slots/bays.

Please try and accept the fact that the 2011 iMac and the 2011 Mac Mini will be the only new desktop machines for Mac OS X.

Thunderbolt is the writing on the wall many refuse to see.

You must change your workflow to adapt, or die.

 

[fw3857]

Best Case: the 2011 'iMac Pro'

Hexa Core i7
2x Thunderbolt Ports
Optional Anti-glare Display

 

[Umbongo]

You don't understand thunderbolt at all if you think it means the loss of the Mac Pro from Apple's line up. Stop posting this drivel here.

 

[philipma1957]

You don't understand thunderbolt at all if you think it means the loss of the Mac Pro from Apple's line up. Stop posting this drivel here.

If t-bolt allows booting. An iMac with 16gb ram at-bolt lacie raid0 with intel 510 ssd's as your boot drive. With a 6 drive promise t-bolt in a raid6.

would greatly reduce macpro sales. It may not kill the mac pro off but the game will be changed.

I would have purchased the above setup over my quad core 2.8 2010 model. But having purchased the quad 2010 it is better then the imac setup above. Which no one knows if it will ever happen (the above Imac setup that is)

 

[Umbongo]

If t-bolt allows booting. An iMac with 16gb ram at-bolt lacie raid0 with intel 510 ssd's as your boot drive. With a 6 drive promise t-bolt in a raid6.

would greatly reduce macpro sales. It may not kill the mac pro off but the game will be changed.

I would have purchased the above setup over my quad core 2.8 2010 model. But having purchased the quad 2010 it is better then the imac setup above. Which no one knows if it will ever happen (the above Imac setup that is)

Storage I/O may have long been the bottleneck in many a work flow, it is not the the ultimate fix to it. I/O doesn't matter if it takes me twice as long to process a task because of midrange processors rather than high-end ones.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Apple have already priced up the Mac Pro into the professional region (rather than the prosumer region for the gen 1 and gen 2 Mac Pros). It doesn't cost them that much to update the Mac Pro. The case is already incredibly well engineered to the point that they'd only ever need minor modifications (such as adding a thunderbolt port or two) which likely wouldn't require retooling.

Designing a new logic board that uses the latest Intel tech will not cost them that much - if anything it'd be even cheaper than a company like Asus because Intel likes to work with them. If companies like Asus can sell a motherboard (the only real proprietary part that Apple would have to work on) for a couple of hundred dollars likely in smaller quantities than Apple's Mac Pros then Apple can spend comparatively little of their total R&D budget to quietly update Mac Pros once every year or two.

Getting rid of the Mac Pro would make bad business sense. Mac Pros right now have a very high profit margin compared to gen 1 and 2 Mac Pros and the competition. Mac Pro buyers that are not businesses are the kind of people that can afford to spend a lot of money on Apple products and are more likely to purchase additional computers/phones/tablets/displays. Pushing these users away to competing operating systems would not make good business sense.

All in all, streamlining the server products into existing product lines (Mac Mini and Mac Pro) makes very good business sense. Upping the profit margin on Mac Pros to sell fewer at a higher profit whilst also encouraging prosumers to buy top end iMacs makes very good business sense. Reusing an existing case with cheaply developed newer logic boards with minimum outlay for new models makes very good business sense. Forcing professionals and business/corporate purchasers out does not.

 

[philipma1957]

Storage I/O may have long been the bottleneck in many a work flow, it is not the the ultimate fix to it. I/O doesn't matter if it takes me twice as long to process a task because of midrange processors rather than high-end ones.

Of course. I see your point. Many macpro users don't need a quad 2.8 12gb ram they need a hex 3.33 with 24gb ram or a dual quad or a dual hex. with 32gb or more ram.


I see the mac pro user being reduced to a more hi end machine. For myself I am glad I grabbed the quad 2010. I may swap out the cpu and drop in a hex this summer. Or I may sell it and upgrade to a new mac pro when it come out in the fall or winter or 2012.

I consider myself lucky to have been pushed into buying a mac pro. I know I would have went the iMac t-bolt route if it was available. I never would have had a mp and now that I own 3 macs a 2009 macmini an 2009 iMac and a 2010 macpro. I am happy to have the knowledge of owning and using a mac pro vs a twin iMac user..

 

[goMac]

The IT guys were in denial about the imminent death of the xServe, and many of you Workstation guys are in denial about the end of slots/bays.

Please try and accept the fact that the 2011 iMac and the 2011 Mac Mini will be the only new desktop machines for Mac OS X.

Thunderbolt is the writing on the wall many refuse to see.

You must change your workflow to adapt, or die.

Oh jees, not again...

Wasn't the same thing said before the 2010 Mac Pros came out?

I recall the same nonsense around FW800... Sigh.

 

[Johnf1285]

I would adapt. I'd build a pc as my main rig, keep my cinema display and maybe get an iPad/Macbook Air to quell my thirst for Apple. It would be a dumb idea on Apples part. I don't think I could go back to the iMac after using the Mac Pro. They run way too hot and they're a pain to open up.

 

[derbothaus]

Will the iMac have PCI slots? Dual NIC's? Handle 64GB Memory? Have 6 Internal SATA connections for up to 6x 3.5" HDD's? It would make sense only then. TB is not a game changer. It's nice and a good follow up to FW800 but I hate dealing with "sleeping" externals and the spin up spin downs. I can control the sleep state much better without 3rd party controllers mucking things up.

 

[gglockner]

I think we've had this thread before. I give a 50-50 chance of a new MP. If not, then there will be a beefy iMac Pro that will be suitable for many current Mac Pro users.

 

[100Teraflops]

I hope fw3857 is wrong, but the analogy does make sense.
If fw3857 is right that all-in-ones will be refreshed with the sole intent to replace the Mac Pro and I do not desire an all-in-one, then I may be wasting my money since Apple chooses to 'phase out' older equipment after a refresh, let alone a discontinuance of a product. I want factory support, as I do not understand computer programming and to be very honest, I do not understand the assembly process of cpus, motherboards etc.. Anyone disagree with my analogy?

I am checking with competitors such as HP and Dell, but the machines I have researched do not have the extra expansion slots for hard drives like the Mac Pro. Anyways, I want to use a different OS, as I am a Vista surviver! LOL

 

[Whaditis]

Everything is going "Post Pc" and the upcoming iMacs will cover the heavy users so the Mac Pro will become less and less of a priority for Apple until it ceases to exist.

Give it a couple of more years as cloud computing becomes more of a reality.

Times are changing.

 

[littlewaves]

Surely in Steve's "post-pc" world where PCs are 'like trucks' then in the long run (and I mean LONG run) it's the iMac that will disappear?

Once everyone is carrying around a fast enough ipad that they can hook up to their living room TV surely an iMac will be totally redundant for the majority of its userbase.

If the PC of the future is a truck then the Mac Pro is the truck. We'll probably see fewer and more expensive models only with insane processors that almost nobody needs but then that's really always been the user base of the Mac Pro. People who really need that extra horse power for Final-Cut Pro projects and video/3d rendering

Anyone who only needs to run photoshop or in design has long been able to get away with an imac or less and these are probably just the sort of apps that will go 'cloud' so then they'll be able to get away with an ipad.

anyway just my thoughts. I'm certainly sure we'll see a new imac imminently and probably not a new MP until end of the year when the Sandy Bridge Xeons come out

 

[Pressure]

The problem with the iMac is that it only has 1 Central Processor Unit, whereas the Mac Pro has 2.

It may not be needed for the majority but the professionals need it.

I would hate to set up a cluster of iMac's instead of Mac Pro's for rendering.

 

[fw3857]

The key disconnect here is what we want/need versus what Apple will give us.

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core? Why develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution when you can put the entire line on the same integrated chipset? Why develop a large tower that takes up too much countertop room at the Apple Store? Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile? Why develop at all for an ever shrinking group of users? And so on.

Apple is oriented towards tightly integrated products that encourage the user to replace them on a regular basis. The Mac Pro has no future in this plan.

I would argue that 2011 is the transition year between old and new for the entire product line. 2012 will see the end of Apple built-in/branded optical drives, sata drives, firewire, ethernet, and 'normal' mice.

Use the Macbook Air and iPad for your crystal ball, instead of your fantasies.

 

[scottsjack]

The key disconnect here is what we want/need versus what Apple will give us.

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core? Why develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution when you can put the entire line on the same integrated chipset? Why develop a large tower that takes up too much countertop room at the Apple Store? Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile? Why develop at all for an ever shrinking group of users? And so on.

Apple is oriented towards tightly integrated products that encourage the user to replace them on a regular basis. The Mac Pro has no future in this plan.

I would argue that 2011 is the transition year between old and new for the entire product line. 2012 will see the end of Apple built-in/branded optical drives, sata drives, firewire, ethernet, and 'normal' mice.

Use the Macbook Air and iPad for your crystal ball, instead of your fantasies.

OK, so you can't afford a Mac Pro or your wife won't let you buy one. Get off it.

 

[jonnymo5]

Steve will always make sure Pixar has some nice new Mac Pros.

When Apple stops selling FCP I will start worrying about the MP being discontinued. Considering they are increasing their small business support and that is a key demographic for Mac Pro purchases I wouldn't toss in the towel just yet.

 

[chrono1081]

Can we wasteland this thread and others like this? Its so annoying hearing "ZOMG THE MAC PROZ WILL BE DISKONTINU3D" when absolutely NO evidence supports this, not to mention Apple keeps bringing out new ones with awesome features.

Just because iMacs sell more then Mac Pro's doesn't mean that Apple is going to discontinue the Mac Pro. Xserves were discontinued because if I remember the number correctly only 12,000 were sold in a year.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

The key disconnect here is what we want/need versus what Apple will give us.

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core? Why develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution when you can put the entire line on the same integrated chipset? Why develop a large tower that takes up too much countertop room at the Apple Store? Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile? Why develop at all for an ever shrinking group of users? And so on.

Apple is oriented towards tightly integrated products that encourage the user to replace them on a regular basis. The Mac Pro has no future in this plan.

I would argue that 2011 is the transition year between old and new for the entire product line. 2012 will see the end of Apple built-in/branded optical drives, sata drives, firewire, ethernet, and 'normal' mice.

Use the Macbook Air and iPad for your crystal ball, instead of your fantasies.

You've proven yourself to be acting like a 'forum troll' since you haven't actually read a single other person's post here.

Why would they need to develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution? Xeon processors are virtually the same as Core i7 processors. They use motherboards with Intel chipsets - they really have very little work to do apart from make an EFI that boots with an Apple logo and Apple sound. They're not going to release a PCIe Thunderbolt solution, they'll wait until the Sandy Bridge based Xeons come out and will then use Intel's motherboard solution that includes a Sandy Bridge chip on it. 99% of Apple's user base is not mobile. They can develop for the 'shrinking group of users' that use Mac Pros because it costs them very little to do so since they use what are pretty much off-the-shelf parts from Intel and put them into a case that was originally designed about a decade ago. The Mac Pro is easy money for them and it has a far bigger purchase base than you think because of corporations and businesses that buy them - i.e. the least vocal of all purchasing bases especially on forums. Due to the high markup on Mac Pros compared to previous generations, Apple make a huge amount of profit on them - they make roughly $1000 minimum profit on each Mac Pro - more on the dual processor models. That is probably the equivalent to the profit on three MacBook Airs. The Mac Pro is easy money for Apple. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[ActionableMango]

Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile?

Well now you're just making stuff up. Why have any desktops if 99%+ of the user base is mobile?

Probably because 99%+ of the user base isn't mobile.

 

[goMac]

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core?

What? The Xeon and the Core take identical instruction sets. There is no such thing as "developing for Xeon."

Troll is a troll.

 

[rmitchell248]

Many here remain sadly mistaken as to the future of their beloved Mac Pros.

As I said some 14 months ago (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/846591/), there will be no new Mac Pros.

The IT guys were in denial about the imminent death of the xServe, and many of you Workstation guys are in denial about the end of slots/bays.

Please try and accept the fact that the 2011 iMac and the 2011 Mac Mini will be the only new desktop machines for Mac OS X.

Thunderbolt is the writing on the wall many refuse to see.

You must change your workflow to adapt, or die.

Best Case: the 2011 'iMac Pro'

Hexa Core i7
2x Thunderbolt Ports
Optional Anti-glare Display

The key disconnect here is what we want/need versus what Apple will give us.

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core? Why develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution when you can put the entire line on the same integrated chipset? Why develop a large tower that takes up too much countertop room at the Apple Store? Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile? Why develop at all for an ever shrinking group of users? And so on.

Apple is oriented towards tightly integrated products that encourage the user to replace them on a regular basis. The Mac Pro has no future in this plan.

I would argue that 2011 is the transition year between old and new for the entire product line. 2012 will see the end of Apple built-in/branded optical drives, sata drives, firewire, ethernet, and 'normal' mice.

Use the Macbook Air and iPad for your crystal ball, instead of your fantasies.

it was just a matter of time before this guys showed back up. I am saving this thread to bring up when the next mac pro comes out ... go away

 

[nanofrog]

The problem with the iMac is that it only has 1 Central Processor Unit, whereas the Mac Pro has 2.

It may not be needed for the majority but the professionals need it.

I would hate to set up a cluster of iMac's instead of Mac Pro's for rendering.

Core counts per die are increasing though, and it won't be too much longer before we see 8 cores on one die (makes SP workstations or nodes on a cluster more likely.

And then there's clusters to consider, as they're getting cheaper to implement. Thus it's actually going to be cheaper and increase performance per user than what would be possible on a stand-alone DP system (when is the question per specific usage, but it will get if both the cost/performance ratio of servers continues to increase, and particularly as fast networking tech gets cheaper).

I'm not saying the workstation market is going to dissappear (not by any means - I do expect it to shrink in terms of DP systems produced as workstations though), but the Mac Pro may, depending on it's sales volume (when it's too low to remain profitable at whatever their desired margin is at the time). Unfortunately, Intel's parts are going to increase in price, and given Apple's margins, it's not unlikely this will have a negative effect on the sales volume. Eventually to the point that even professionals will have to consider other alternatives (i.e. other vendors with lower margins, or clusters using either an iMac or even future version of the Mini as a node if sticking with an OS X environment).

It is very much in Apple's interests to streamline it's R&D. Why develop for Xeon when you can put the entire line on Core? Why develop a custom Thunderbolt PCIe solution when you can put the entire line on the same integrated chipset? Why develop a large tower that takes up too much countertop room at the Apple Store? Why develop a third desktop Mac when 99%+ of the user base is mobile? Why develop at all for an ever shrinking group of users? And so on.

The Xeons and other parts based on the same architecture don't differ that much (and even new architecture, tends to carry over and/or adjusts portions from the previous design). They just adjust things like core counts, memory controllers (enable ECC support, as it actually exists in all the LGA1366 parts for example), and so on (i.e. enable/disable features in the CPU controller for the same socket; elliminate it from the smaller socket parts to keep the die smaller = more dies per wafer = cheaper). Such changes are systems engineering in order to differentiate moble, consumer desktop, and enterprise parts.

But totally different designs, they are not.

 

[mlts22]

Don't feed the troll.