If The Mac Pro is Dead - What next?

[Tutor]

... .

I don't want to endlessly argue about whether a Pro is coming or not.

Let's assume the Mac Pro is Dead. Finitto. Over. Now what?

... .
Sounds like an opportunity waiting to happen for someone.

These are examples of some of the things what we could be speculating about if systems were never EOL'ed.
1) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_AMIGAmini.aspx,
2) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx, and
3) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_VICmini.aspx. Or
4) http://www.google.com/search?q=mac+...UJcq2twfY_MjOBw&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1063&bih=853

Frightening isn't it? How about a Sandy Bridge E5 Mac IIfx? Now I'm really scared. But how about a Mac Semi, Hemi, Demi Pro aka iMac? Now that's the most frightening of all.

 

[xgman]

These are examples of some of the things what we could be speculating about if systems were never EOL'ed.
1) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_AMIGAmini.aspx,
2) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx, and
3) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_VICmini.aspx. Or
4) http://www.google.com/search?q=mac+...UJcq2twfY_MjOBw&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1063&bih=853

Frightening isn't it? How about a Sandy Bridge E5 Mac IIfx? Now I'm really scared. But how about a Mac Semi, Hemi, Demi Pro aka iMac? Now that's the most frightening of all.

It's not specifically the Mac Pro as such, just the modular "Pro" setup or at this point Pro "anything" other than the laptop, that is of concern.

 

[Mike Valmike]

Hackintosh.
If you're into any serious video editing or anything else that requires the power of the Mac Pro, then a PC is the only way to go. But let's face it, OS X is still much more preferred than Windows, even if you have a PC. So.. hackintosh.

I'd like you to be wrong, but the evidence I can point to right now suggests that you are right. Ah, well.

 

[scottsjack]

People who saying that Apple want to discontinue Mac Pro because of poor sales and because it is overpriced are really unintellegent noobs who never owned Mac Pro and does not know why is made for and they use computers only for browsing Internet and listen to ther overlycompressed 64k mp3 music. No offence but that what i am thinking.....

Mac Pro are made for proffesionals who need a powerful computer which can handle their tasks.
Mac Pros is not just faster and can do awrything fester there are many tasks which can be acomplished only with Mac Pros or similar workstations from other manufactors , u won't be able to do that with any other consumer computer. ( just put in that way that u can reach a moon only by a rocket u cannot get their by bicacle)
I know that Mac Pros a very popular with a proffesional musicians and studios 90% of them uses Mac Pros and probably other 10 % is filed with Dells or HP workstations similar to Mac Pro

Some people claims that Mac Pros has a limited sales and yes ofcause they do probably for 1 Mac Pro there sold 100 MacBook Airs but it is still extremely profitable market for Apple and in addition do not forget that Mac Pro is more expansive then Airs so Apple get more profit out of singel MacPro

p.s. So in conclusion: Children if u own an Air and u are happy with it and it does awrything what u need so be it but please don't post any crupp on Mac Pro that it is discontinued or it is over priced or it is unnecessary powerful and etc....

Your post doesn't make a lot of sense relative to the current question. Essentially you're saying that because you really like Mac Pros and because they are powerful machines they won't be discontinued. I doubt if Apple cares that much that you and I love our Mac Pros. More likely the question is how, and if, the Mac Pro line fits into Apple's future content providing, cloud hosting, media consuming business model.

 

[Davi-T]

Hackintosh in a MP case.

Worst case scenario: MP case running Windows

Best case scenario: Apple introduces "The New MacPro" and I can stop checking this site every damn day to see if Apple has updated them.

 

[G4er?]

1) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_AMIGAmini.aspx,
3) http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_VICmini.aspx. Or

Sure wish Apple would have made the mini case tall enough for two hard drives and an optical drive.
Does anyone know if the mini guts will fit in the Amiga case?

 

[tamvly]

If the MP is discontinued ... Tutor is going to have a lot more e-mail.

 

[GermanyChris]

If the MP is discontinued ... Tutor is going to have a lot more e-mail.

More email??

He's going to be famous!!

MacMan and TonyMac will get you walking and Tutor will get you running!

Build your own is better anyway

 

[getz76]

I know that Mac Pros a very popular with a proffesional musicians and studios 90% of them uses Mac Pros and probably other 10 % is filed with Dells or HP workstations similar to Mac Pro

More and more studios are running Windows for Pro Tools; the availability of hardware that can use old HD cards and the fact Windows outperforms Mac OS X in plenty of mixing scenarios has seen a huge defection to Windows in that space. Plenty are using Mac for as much marketing as usability. Same thing in the video space.

The same is happening with the new Pro Tools HDX cards. They are incompatible with Mac Pro 3,1 and early. Users are considering Windows because of the lack of a "new" Mac Pro.

 

[foodog]

Unless Apple tight controls the acceptable specs. I think that we see if they release or EOL, then if not, see what alternative up scaling Apple offers for IMac or mini or xMac, then if nothing . . . not sure. I suppose for most Professionals, it's settle down scale or Windows as Hackintosh will have limited appeal and may not even be supported if Apple doesn't update it's OS to new MP specs.

If Apple dictates the hardware to use then it could work. I remember the Apple clones and they were terrible.

 

[Yamcha]

Yup I suspect it might be dead, If they had plans to update they would have certainly done so last year.. Sandy Bridge based Xeon's were released sometime in 2011.. The current Mac Pro's still using Westmere..

I think the best alternative now would be a Hackintosh, which does perform very well.. I've built many in the past myself.. And I don't see why the current SandyBridge Xeon line up wouldn't work as It's using the same architecture..

 

[kromekat]

Yup I suspect it might be dead, If they had plans to update they would have certainly done so last year.. Sandy Bridge based Xeon's were released sometime in 2011.. The current Mac Pro's still using Westmere..

6th March 2012 wasn't it!?

 

[Yamcha]

Also I'm pretty sure the current SandyBridge iMac lineup will still be faster then the current Mac Pro's under most scenarios.. The only downside is less memory expandability & difficult to upgrade...

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6th March 2012 wasn't it!?

Yup, But thats for Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon Processors.. The Sandy Bridge Xeon based processors were released in 2011..

 

[Umbongo]

Also I'm pretty sure the current SandyBridge iMac lineup will still be faster then the current Mac Pro's under most scenarios.. The only downside is less memory expandability & difficult to upgrade...

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Yup, But thats for Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon Processors.. But the Sandy Bridge Xeon based processors were released in 2011..

http://www.barefeats.com/imac11b.html

The LGA 1155 Xeons were not a suitable replacement for the LGA 1366 Xeons used in the 2010 Mac Pro. We also don't know what Intel were telling partners. A 2011 LGA 2011 launch was strongly predicted for some time, Apple may have been expecting to be able to do a 2011 Mac Pro. We still haven't hit "shipping now" from most vendors on SB-EP workstations.

 

[mslide]

First, I'll admit that I know very little about the software that MP users (who really need all that power) use but...

I see a bunch of people suggest Hackintosh if the MP is discontinued. If the MP is discontinued, wouldn't that suggest that the software that MP users use would also go away? In which case, a Hackintosh wouldn't be a viable long term solution?

Why continue to make 'Pro' software for a platform that doesn't have 'Pro' hardware or is the iMac and Macbook Pro good enough to justify it?

 

[deconstruct60]

Your post doesn't make a lot of sense relative to the current question. Essentially you're saying that because you really like Mac Pros and because they are powerful machines they won't be discontinued. I doubt if Apple cares that much that you and I love our Mac Pros.

They do care if that love is manifested in more people buying more of them. You're right that it isn't basic emotion that is the crux of the matter here. However, it is misplaced to think that Apple doesn't want peopled to have an attachment to the device. They do care, but only in the context that money is transferred. That you love your 6 year Mac Pro and won't buy anything for the next 3-4 years.... Apple doesn't care about you. You don't really care about them either in a economic sense either. That you like your 4-5 Mac Pro and will buy another one ... they do care.

More likely the question is how, and if, the Mac Pro line fits into Apple's future content providing, cloud hosting, media consuming business model.

This is falling into a very similar trap with different label. Instead of emotion it is some other secondary artifact. Apple's future is in sell more stuff. Revenues and profits going up year over year. That's what they are interested in. The additional businesses of content providing , cloud hosting , streaming are simply additional revenue sources that Apple is interested in. They are tangentially related to Mac Pros. The Mac Pro fate is far more dependent upon users buying them than these other "value added integration" services. They are "value added integration" services for a Mac Pro as much as other Apple and non-Apple boxes. (iCloud works with Windows also for the most part. )

If Mac Pro growth rates start to match those of rest of its Mac cohorts then it will probably stick around. If it doesn't then it will probably get axed.
Dragging in secondary stuff is a distraction. Apple is a large, multinational company. The belief that they can't walk and chew gum at the same time is deeply misplaced.


The bulk of iTunes Store, Apps Store , and the other XXX stores (except the Mac App Store ) are non OS X users. Over 90% of all the PCs out there are non OS X devices. The iPod, iPhone , and iPad would have never been as successful as they were if they were Mac only peripheral devices. They were created and marketed to be sucessful by themselves. If there are Mac halo effects that was just icing .... not the cake.

 

[deconstruct60]

I see a bunch of people suggest Hackintosh if the MP is discontinued. If the MP is discontinued, wouldn't that suggest that the software that MP users use would also go away?

No. For the most part, the vast majority of the software works just fine on other Mac models. Two quick examples from Autodesk:

Smoke
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=14961350

lists various Mac models

3Ds Max
http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/system-requirements/
primarily lists using a virtual machine.


There will be some subset of workloads that would drop off because the underlying hardware isn't quite fast enough where there are tight deadline or resource constraints. However, the software itself doesn't have those constraints.

As long at least 70% of the folks still buy it, most of these higher priced titles would stick around. (especially the titles that don't have significant growth rates regardless of platform. Even more so for the titles with slowly shrinking or stagnant number of deployed seats. ).

Why continue to make 'Pro' software for a platform that doesn't have 'Pro' hardware or is the iMac and Macbook Pro good enough to justify it?

Because in most of these discussions about "Pro" it really isn't about people using the software to make money. It is a 'wrap myself in the flag' tactic folks engage to make their substantially smaller niche of the folks making money in an area, have the air of increased importance.

In which case, a Hackintosh wouldn't be a viable long term solution?

Long term viability would rest far more in the nature of the hacks and weather those hacks/kludges expose problems in the software.

Even short term, they are not likely to get support from the software vendor. (unless there is some expensive support contract that comes with the software). Running software on equipment outside the system requirements typically gets a dim view from vendors who are tasked with high cost support queues.

 

[getz76]

I think the best alternative now would be a Hackintosh, which does perform very well.. I've built many in the past myself.. And I don't see why the current SandyBridge Xeon line up wouldn't work as It's using the same architecture..

Unless they need Logic or Final Cut, I think most will just go to Windows.

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Because in most of these discussions about "Pro" it really isn't about people using the software to make money. It is a 'wrap myself in the flag' tactic folks engage to make their substantially smaller niche of the folks making money in an area, have the air of increased importance.

It is hard to get Pro Tools HD or HDX cards into an iMac or a MacBook Pro. It is also tough to get three proper monitors running for using Media Composer or FCP without a Mac Pro. It is also though to use a proper monitor on an iMac for critical print and video. And until recently, it was rather tough to have a proper scratch disk in anything besides a Mac Pro (and even now, the cost on an iMac is prohibitive).

It is not just about processing power. Even non-HD Pro Tools is much better on a Mac Pro because of the storage options.

 

[wallysb01]

Also I'm pretty sure the current SandyBridge iMac lineup will still be faster then the current Mac Pro's under most scenarios.. The only downside is less memory expandability & difficult to upgrade...

Eh, depends on what you mean by "most"? Clock for clock, sandy bridge i7s are faster than Xeon Westmeres. That's true. And it makes the iMacs faster for many "normal" things that don't utilize more than 1 or 2 cores.

But clock for clock ivy bridge i7s and sandy bridge xeons will be about the same. So those E5 1660 will in many ways be the ivy bridge 3770K but with 2 more cores, 7 more MB of L3 cache, and quad channel memory with higher maximum memory capabilities. This will make the hopefully 2012 Mac Pro just as fast to WAYYYYY faster than the 2012 iMac at just about everything.

Take a look at this article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k

In the comparisons the i7 39xx are essentially the Xeon 16xx.

If both the Mac Pro and the iMac are updated in the coming months, the iMac will have to wait for haswell to again regain the "faster at single threaded stuff" crown.

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First, I'll admit that I know very little about the software that MP users (who really need all that power) use but...

I see a bunch of people suggest Hackintosh if the MP is discontinued. If the MP is discontinued, wouldn't that suggest that the software that MP users use would also go away? In which case, a Hackintosh wouldn't be a viable long term solution?

Why continue to make 'Pro' software for a platform that doesn't have 'Pro' hardware or is the iMac and Macbook Pro good enough to justify it?

Also, because OSX runs on top of Unix, research software will probably keep up even if OSX itself officially support the future xeons.

 

[deconstruct60]

It is hard to get Pro Tools HD or HDX cards into an iMac or a MacBook Pro.

You have drifted into hardware. But still not technically true.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/en422319?popup=true

Note the approved list of laptops on that page. The only thing this is waiting on is for the TB based PCI-e expansion boxes to come online. The fact that could run the system in a subset of modes through an ExpressCard slot is indicative that it isn't a bandwidth busting issue.

The software aspects of that stack don't have those constraints. Again it is a "wrap flag" and misdirect away from the substantially smaller niche pointing at.

There will be hardware+software combination that are more highly restrictive hardware because it those minimally require there to be PCI-e 8x cards. For PCI-e 4x cards it is doable but perhaps not desirable in higher workload contexts.

There is nothing that precludes Avid from taking the older PCI-e based design for the HD model and wrapping it in a TB container box and shipping that. Refactoring the HDX design for some slightly more limited space/power requirements would probalby only take a little bit of work ( so them not qualifying expansion boxes is fine. With some work AVID could ship their own expansion box and pocket the profits.... they certainly are hard up for cash and revenues so not exactly a risky move on their part. )

It is also tough to get three proper monitors running for using Media Composer or FCP without a Mac Pro.

Again dragging in hardware. Most often legacy hardware with non mainstream adapters and/or components.

It is not just about processing power. Even non-HD Pro Tools is much better on a Mac Pro because of the storage options.

yet again .... more disk capacity (more hardware) as being the blocker.

As I said. There are some workloads that will drag in some hardware subsets that present a problem. In the vast majority of cases are not all of the contexts where the software is used though.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I agree with much of what you say, especially regarding iMacs, so I'm just addressing where I disagree.

I think a typical pro user or even prosumer, doesn't want to be bothered with researching point release updates and their effect on particular Hackintosh hardware, or trying to recover after a failed update using a 15" MB Pro, or reinstall user accounts, or recover off an external boot drive. Goodness, this isn't a major hardware failure to recover and restore from, it's just a regular OS update.

I'd wager this typical pro user likely is not an OSX Wizard and he doesn't want to be. He's a Photoshop Wizard, or an Avid Wizard, or maybe an Adobe Premier Wizard, etc. Mid to long term, the OS he's using isn't that important, he'll discover he can get workstation hardware from HP or whoever on a Windows OS that gives him the access to his favorite app w/o worrying whether each update will set him back a day or three in his work/hobby.

You don't need to be an OS X Wizard in order to maintain and set up a Hackintosh. You need to spend an hour looking up something, which for the money saved, and for time=money, still nets you a gain. Plus, it's not hard to put provisions in place to make the recovery from any unlikely disaster stupid easy and and fast. Do I think it's an ideal scenario, no. In my perfect world, Apple makes the iPods, the iPhone, the iPad, the AppleTV, and the MacBooks (Pro and Air respectively), and they provide a license for those wishing to set up a desktop with OS X to provide their own hardware. If they want to limit it on laptops to their own laptops, that's fine. But honestly, Apple's desktops all leave a lot to be desired where if I could take my copy of Lion and install it on a tower that I built, I'd have a screaming fast, super expandable machine. Until then, the Hackintosh is the next best thing.

 

[getz76]

You have drifted into hardware.

Why separate the two? We are talking about using a bit of hardware as a professional tool.

But still not technically true.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/en422319?popup=true

Magma chassis is limited and expensive. It is cheaper to buy a Mac Pro and stuff it with cards, especially if you want to run HD 4 or 5, which most professional studios are using. A Magma ExpressBox 4 is over $2,000 by itself and does not give the best performance. Not ideal. The ExpressCard solution is severely limited in most real applications. It is a expensive square peg in a round hole where the expandability of a Mac Pro is suited out of the box.

There is nothing that precludes Avid from taking the older PCI-e based design for the HD model and wrapping it in a TB container box and shipping that. Refactoring the HDX design for some slightly more limited space/power requirements would probalby only take a little bit of work ( so them not qualifying expansion boxes is fine. With some work AVID could ship their own expansion box and pocket the profits.... they certainly are hard up for cash and revenues so not exactly a risky move on their part. )

There's nothing to stop them, except the fact that the install base is more likely to move to Windows rather than buy an iMac or a Mac Mini.

Avid did have an expansion box in the past and stopped selling it because there were very few sales and supporting the product was a hassle.

Again dragging in hardware. Most often legacy hardware with non mainstream adapters and/or components.

Monitors being legacy hardware? If you want a three-display system with fast response time, which Mac in the current lineup makes the most sense? Does someone editing video want to use the screen on the current production iMac?

yet again .... more disk capacity (more hardware) as being the blocker.

It has nothing to do with capacity, it has to do with throughput to that capacity. Buy an iMac or a Mac Mini and you can now use Thunderbolt, which is nice, but rather expensive. A Mac Pro is actually more economical here. I have four drives in my Mac Pro; system/boot, audio, samples and backup. If I had to use FireWire it would be limiting (and is on my MacBook Pro). Start adding up the costs of outfitting an iMac with the proper Thunderbolt storage versus buying a Mac Pro and slapping in a couple of disks, and the Mac Pro comes out ahead on performance and price.

As I said. There are some workloads that will drag in some hardware subsets that present a problem. In the vast majority of cases are not all of the contexts where the software is used though.

I never said most people need a Mac Pro, but your statement regarding "flag wrapping" diminishes the niche that does exist and will need to be served. A Mac Pro in a studio these days is as much about marketing as it is about preference. It is definitely not about a need these days given the performance of Windows. The same can be said with Pro Tools HD.

I am not worried about the future. I hope Apple serves it, but they are not going to sell me on a machine with an integrated screen and non-user serviceable drives. I will happily move to Windows. It's just a tool and I am not a cheerleader.

 

[C. Alan]

I typicaly run a computer until it dies. I am not one of those who has to have the 'latest and greatest'. Because my Mac Pro is not in a production environment, I expect it will last at least 5 years, if not more. At that time if the Mac Pro is no longer available, I would more than likely go the Hachintosh route.

 

[Tutor]

This should make us all feel warm and fuzzy about what's to come: http://images.apple.com/finalcutpro/in-action/electric/ .

 

[MJL]

Apologies if it has been mentioned earlier (have only skimmed the thread) but how about making an OS X Server virtual machine (VMware) on a Mac Pro and then running that on another platform?