Is the Mac Pro future proof?

[ChillFactor]

Hello,

Will I be able to put in the intel 8-core 45 nm processors when they come out into a Mac Pro, thus creating a 16-core computer? Is the Mac Pro's motherboard capable of using these processors?

 

[Scarlet Fever]

i would doubt it.

what do you do that will require 16 cores and a 45nm chip? theres a thread around here where the OP asks if they can put 32GB RAM into his Mac Pro, and he does more work on his computer than about 90% of the MR population combined. Unless you plan on curing cancer, the 2.0GHz Mac Pro will be more than adequate.

 

[Cabbit]

Hello,

Will I be able to put in the intel 8-core 45 nm processors when they come out into a Mac Pro, thus creating a 16-core computer? Is the Mac Pro's motherboard capable of using these processors?

Not likely intel change there CPU socket very often and sometimes the just use the same socket but a diffrent voltage that the motherboard dosnt support or a unsupported bus speed. Intel do this for two reasons, marketing to sell more motherboards and chipsets to support there new chips and the second reason being the few cases there is a real technical reason like requireing more pins for memory and extra power to the chip.

 

[akadmon]

I don't know about CPU ugradability. All I can say is that the present has not caught up to the Mac Pro, not even close. It will be a few years before consumer level apps (iLife 2012, which by then will be have all the features today's pros pay thousands of dollars for) will start approaching CPU limits of this wonderful machine.

For most people (the discerning non-pro users with a little extra cash to spend right now) Mac Pro is an excellent investment. I personally will not feel the need to buy a new computer for at least the next 5 years, I'm sure of that.

 

[MikeDTyke]

I don't know about CPU ugradability. All I can say is that the present has not caught up to the Mac Pro, not even close. It will be a few years before consumer level apps (iLife 2012, which by then will be have all the features today's pros pay thousands of dollars for) will start approaching CPU limits of this wonderful machine.

For most people (the discerning non-pro users with a little extra cash to spend right now) Mac Pro is an excellent investment. I personally will not feel the need to buy a new computer for at least the next 5 years, I'm sure of that.

I'll second this, i even went for the slower 2GHz box as the thing that bugs me the most is not the straightline speed of one app, it's running several pretty hungry apps at the same time. Spent the extra on Memory and striped disks.

It's also the most future proof, in 6 months time i'll check the prices of the quad core chips, once they hit a sweet spot then i'll upgrade it. In the meantime 4 Gigs of ram and 1.5Terabytes of storage is pretty sweet.

M.