I would actually prefer a Sandy Bridge E CPU as the entry model. Something like the 6 core 3930K. Sure, the 3770K is nearly as fast as the 3930 in many uses, but the 3930 beats it in applications that like cores and applications that I actually use.
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Is the current quad-core Mac Pro even worth buying?
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I would actually prefer a Sandy Bridge E CPU as the entry model. Something like the 6 core 3930K. Sure, the 3770K is nearly as fast as the 3930 in many uses, but the 3930 beats it in applications that like cores and applications that I actually use.
If you look at the current Mac Pro line up the amount of processing power you get goes up linearly with price. The current single CPU Hex-Core 3.3GHz has similar performance on real world application benchmarks to the slightly cheaper Dual Quad-Core. So the buyer can decide what is most appropriate for their needs based on the applications they use.
Apple are unlikely to make a Dual Processor configuration the entry level as it pushes the price up to much. Hex-Core is possible, but would bump up the entry level price by 15% or so based on intels Xeon pricing.
Apple will definitely want to have a 16-Core configuration, how else can they write exciting marketing!
Whilst i'd love to see a core i7 based tower as well, it won't happen.
Changing base spec to an i7 would mean different board, chipset, etc - doubling hardware manufacturing costs, effectively - to include a box they won't be able to sell for as much (i.e., margins will go down significantly).
I doubt you'll see a non-xeon mac pro any time soon.
Apple couln't sell an ivy mac pro? i doubt that
Well I think you have a point there. On the other hand I think many customers would prefer a upgradable Mac Pro case and a panel of their choice over an glossy iMac. At the moment customers don't have any choice.
Still it would be the E5-1620 a 300$ CPU which would make the entry MacPro really cheap.
http://ark.intel.com/products/64621...5-1620-(10M-Cache-3_60-GHz-0_0-GTs-Intel-QPI)
And if apple starts making fair prices we would see a E5-1650 for 600$, an 300$ upgrade, in our system. That would be my choice.
http://ark.intel.com/products/64601...5-1650-(10M-Cache-3_20-GHz-0_0-GTs-Intel-QPI)
Well I think you have a point there. On the other hand I think many customers would prefer a upgradable Mac Pro case and a panel of their choice over an glossy iMac. At the moment customers don't have any choice.
Still it would be the E5-1620 a 300$ CPU which would make the entry MacPro really cheap.
http://ark.intel.com/products/64621...5-1620-(10M-Cache-3_60-GHz-0_0-GTs-Intel-QPI)
And if apple starts making fair prices we would see a E5-1650 for 600$, an 300$ upgrade, in our system. That would be my choice.
http://ark.intel.com/products/64601...5-1650-(10M-Cache-3_20-GHz-0_0-GTs-Intel-QPI)
Apple aren't in the business of giving consumers a choice, quite the reverse!
Using an E5-1620, listed at $294, in place of the current Quad-Core X3530, which is also listed at $294, would not make the enter Mac Pro "really cheap", it would imply a similar price to the current model. It would also only perform marginally better that the current 27-inch iMac with the i7 BTO option, but at much higher cost (if you include the price of a 27-inch display to make the two comparable).
The E5-1650 would be much more than a $300 upgrade, maybe as much as $750.
The pricing is based on a pricing model that works on the basis of a markup on component prices to maintain their profit margin. All manufacturers do this. So you can assume that the difference in the CPU prices from Intel will translate into a much larger price difference in the price Apple charge. A markup of 150 to 250% markup would be expected.
Both are current prices, not launch prices. It would mean a MacPro under 2000$ for sure.
I would happy pay more for being able to choose my own panel and for being able to change single parts on my computer easy without loosing warranty. More HD space, desktop graphic card, etc.
I seriously don't get it. Can you please explain me the last part.
I have a 2006 Mac Pro that I have steadily upgraded over the years and it still works great I love it. With the announcement of Mountain Lion the life of my Mac Pro is pretty much over. I an currently using a 3 display Setup (via 5770 HD) and multiple eSATA devices. I would not consider myself a Prosumer I simply require the expandability that a tower offers. I wish Apple would release "Mac" a consumer tower, basically rip the display off the iMac. I do not want or need a display on my computer I just need to keep my current setup alive. Apple if you kill the Mac Pro please give us a tower form factor with the same expandability as the Mac Pro.
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I can't think of any Mac Applications that have been written (3rd party), or any key Apple services (iCloud, etc) that are going to absolutely require Mountain Lion for compatibility. To me, right now, Mountain Lion looks like a "bells and whistles" OS with a bunch of iOS-like features added to Lion. Apple has said you will need Lion for iCloud compatibility however, and all of the 2006 machines can run Lion just fine.
So right now, there is nothing compatibility-wise that you would have trouble with, with the inability to run Mountain Lion. By no means does this make a 2006 Mac Pro an obsolete machine, just that it can't run Mountain Lion. It still can run the full host of 2012 Mac software titles, including the Adobe CS6 Suite.
So right now, there is nothing compatibility-wise that you would have trouble with, with the inability to run Mountain Lion. By no means does this make a 2006 Mac Pro an obsolete machine, just that it can't run Mountain Lion. It still can run the full host of 2012 Mac software titles, including the Adobe CS6 Suite.
What about a mini display port replacement
Another improvement would be to ditch the mini display port.
When you look at reviews at Apple's website, this port has no future. Not only do you need an adapter for larger displays (which just adds more stuff hanging around the computer), it is also expensive and does not work well. Problems are experienced by many users using high end monitors. And this should not happen when connecting them to a high end (and high price) machine like the Mac Pro.
Large displays are no longer an option, but almost standard for users who buy a Mac Pro.
Remember the older, but better all-in-one cable that came with the original cinema displays? Great performance and no clutter.
Kill the mini-display port, and get us something serious and reliable to connect large displays (27" and 30") to the Mac Pro.
Another improvement would be to ditch the mini display port.
When you look at reviews at Apple's website, this port has no future. Not only do you need an adapter for larger displays (which just adds more stuff hanging around the computer), it is also expensive and does not work well. Problems are experienced by many users using high end monitors. And this should not happen when connecting them to a high end (and high price) machine like the Mac Pro.
Large displays are no longer an option, but almost standard for users who buy a Mac Pro.
Remember the older, but better all-in-one cable that came with the original cinema displays? Great performance and no clutter.
Kill the mini-display port, and get us something serious and reliable to connect large displays (27" and 30") to the Mac Pro.
Its not exactly a "much higher cost" and its certainly not comparable at that point. The 27" iMac with the i7 is $2199, the base Mac Pro will likely stay at $2499. Then you add a display, which for many users just some simple $300 27" LCD will be fine, or in many cases ways better thanks to matte options. So you're looking at $600 there. But, its not really equivalent. You're paying an extra $600 for machine which can do much, much more in terms of customizability, possible upgrades and capability. Its hard to put a number to that, but $600 doesn't sound like too much.
They already dropped it to a $300 cpu starting from 2009 on, and yet the cost of entry remained the same. I kind of wonder what percentage of mac pro purchasers still buy something around the $2500-$3k realm.
Displays encompass a huge range in terms of features and price points. Quality has homogenized to a degree compared with what it was a few years ago. Anyway Apple took a nice display panel, and implemented it with a weird overall design. There are a lot of things they could improve, but they have their own design priorities. I care about functionality over everything, and I don't care how it looks.
How many times do we have to mention this? in "real world" the hex dominates the 8-core. Rules it in real world actually. They have similar results in synthetic when all cores on that 8 can be used. Which is rare. Please stop reversing things. Real world means a mix of single thread and multi-thread as current SW is written. 2.6 vs. 3.6GHz on single. The hex has 1GHz on the 8-core for that and scores higher in synthetic geekbench as well. The 8-core is never a good deal unless you need more than 32GB or memory.
These cheap displays are junk and a waste to use with a Mac Pro. Sure, they don't reflect glare, but their colors and contrast are - to quote "Apocalypse Now" - "The Horror"!
A good display would be a 24" NEC for about $500 from B&H, for 27" you have to spend about $1100 to get a good one.
A Mac Pro with an external display of good quality will always be much more expensive than an iMac (by about 50%). This is why even the entry level model must have serious advantage in speed.
And, by the way, the iMacs are reaching their limits in what they can take in heat anyway. From what I heard, they are getting, really, really hot.
While a Mac Pro stays nice and cool, is expandable, and you don't have stacks of external hard drive, power bricks and all the cables on your desk.
The lack of sata 3 can be solved by getting a PCIe SSD card ( if you are rich you can have up to 2Gb) and this runs as fast of faster than sata 3.
That does not solve the sata 2 situation on the four main drive bays but if raid 0 will give fast enough speeds for most users.
From a display perspective I am using 2x Dell U2412M over DisplayPort (using a Mini-DP to DP cable no adapter) and they look amazing. They are IPS displays the same as the Apple displays albeit using a cheaper IPS panel but compared to really cheap TN panels they are amazing for $400 each.
Nope, we have a few rains in our department. They're really really well built machines. And yeah.
I mean, if you want a REAL workstation.
http://www.gamepc.com/
No one does it better than Game.
Displays are really quite difficult to measure by a single statistic. As I've mentioned, Apple has a lot of implementation issues with their displays. It's often seen as just a panel, but there are other factors. I haven't seen any brand that's consistently perfect on these things. I don't know if the heat is what causes some of the splotchiness I've seen develop over long term use. The PA241W seems nice, but Adobe rgb panels have their own issues. Unfortunately many of the really nice sRGB displays are no longer manufactured.
The hex is pretty awesome, but I am kind of hoping that we see some updates soon.
Well, I don't want to turn this into a display debate. What you need all depends on what you do, and this is an advantage of the Mac Pro over the iMac regardless of price. I need a workstation, but I don't need a a million dpi or what ever color accuracy, because maybe 80% of the time I'm in terminal or text editor. And when I do want to visually display what I work with its simple graphs and tables. So for me, a Mac Pro + a cheap display is certainly not a waste.
You may work in photography or film, and by all means get that $1000+ display, or get 6 of them, ultimately that's an advantage of the Mac Pro and also something that makes it difficult to do a simple cost comparison. It might be 50% more expensive once satisfying all of your needs, but the point is it CAN satisfy those needs, were as an iMac can not. Or at the very least you're not accounting for also paying for the display you need, as well as the iMac. Or the solution to use a 6 or 9TB RAID with an iMac vs a Mac Pro, or what ever else.
Exactly, Ivy Bridge will bring some improvements with heat/performance ratios, but not enough to really matter when it comes to an iMac. The problems really comes from GPUs. And what happens when more programs start making better use of GPGPU computing? Then the MacPro v. iMac gap will widen quite substantially.
If Apple could be bothered to deal with HW vendors then the gap will be gigantic. Otherwise PC's win! And will again destroy Mac's for speed like the Pentium vs. G4 days.
Totally agree: if you are not dependent on photography and video, you can go with a cheaper display.
But you might want to take a look at better displays even for text. Better displays are simply easier on the eyes.
The 24" NEC B&H offers is probably the best display deal out there right now. Too bad there's no 27" display of that quality level.
Wide gamut displays like the PA 271 W by Nec need higher end calibration equipment to run properly. The package for the 271 costs around $300, which needs to be calculated into the total monitor price.
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Which hardware vendors does Apple decline to deal with, resulting in a speed disadvantage for the Mac Pro?
Quote:
Originally Posted by righteye
No Photos of the inside probably a load of spaghetti wiring inside and a tin box.
Good to know of the alternatives, but lets face it the MP is beautifully made inside and out and for some that counts
Originally Posted by righteye
No Photos of the inside probably a load of spaghetti wiring inside and a tin box.
Good to know of the alternatives, but lets face it the MP is beautifully made inside and out and for some that counts