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Let's rev up some excitement for the 2013 Mac Pro!

Need a new Mac.. but.. what one ?????

By reading this forum I understand I'm not the only one in this position...

I have a 2007 Mac Pro (2x Dual Xeon 2,66) *
and a 2009 iMac Intel i5 2,66 Ghz

* This one also has Blackmagic card, an eSata adapter.. etc...

I am using the latter most often because it seems faste.
I mainly do video jobs.. at present for example i am working with multicamera with 4 synced HD cameras.... And somehow I can manage it.. but the machine (iMac) is really at it's limits...
Also it takes ages to render long projects (like a 1 hour TV show) if there is some grading or so...

So.. I need a new machine.. but what ???

The present iMacs seems just to be very similar to mine... not so old
I'd really like a MacPro but the top model... 4.000 € or so.. doesn't have a thunderbolt.. my machine will be old before I buy it.. Probably it will be posible to buy an extra PCI card in the future.. but.. this is ridiculous...

To work seriously I am prepared to spend 3000-4000€.. but .. what should I buy?

People talk of new iMacs in October.. nothing is here yet
New MacPros in 2013 (when? Can't ait.. need them now)

Maybe the best solution is to look for an old/used (2010) top level Mac Pro ?
 
goMac said:
Huh? That's about as much upgradability as it had before. The hard drives on the current iMac aren't upgradable without a lot of work either. Replacing the drive in a current iMac involves reaching areas of the machine that aren't screwdriver accessible.
Click to expand...

We have a 21.5 iMac at work (I work for the Army) the PS went tits up about 3 months ago I spent a glorious 25 minutes replacing the PS.

iMacs aren't all bad just not for me like SRAM, Shimano,Honda, Nissan, Kawasaki,Trek, and livestrong

----------
siroma said:
By reading this forum I understand I'm not the only one in this position...

I have a 2007 Mac Pro (2x Dual Xeon 2,66) *
and a 2009 iMac Intel i5 2,66 Ghz

* This one also has Blackmagic card, an eSata adapter.. etc...

I am using the latter most often because it seems faste.
I mainly do video jobs.. at present for example i am working with multicamera with 4 synced HD cameras.... And somehow I can manage it.. but the machine (iMac) is really at it's limits...
Also it takes ages to render long projects (like a 1 hour TV show) if there is some grading or so...

So.. I need a new machine.. but what ???

The present iMacs seems just to be very similar to mine... not so old
I'd really like a MacPro but the top model... 4.000 € or so.. doesn't have a thunderbolt.. my machine will be old before I buy it.. Probably it will be posible to buy an extra PCI card in the future.. but.. this is ridiculous...

To work seriously I am prepared to spend 3000-4000€.. but .. what should I buy?

People talk of new iMacs in October.. nothing is here yet
New MacPros in 2013 (when? Can't ait.. need them now)

Maybe the best solution is to look for an old/used (2010) top level Mac Pro ?
Click to expand...

I was dead set on getting a new Mac pro about a month ago to replace my G5 quad which really is magical. After playing about and knowing what the Hackintosh the the quad replaced it were capable of, I bought a heavily modified 1,1. I will not spend 2+k on an old mac.
 
GermanyChris said:
We have a 21.5 iMac at work (I work for the Army) the PS went tits up about 3 months ago I spent a glorious 25 minutes replacing the PS.

iMacs aren't all bad just not for me like SRAM, Shimano,Honda, Nissan, Kawasaki,Trek, and livestrong
Click to expand...


And there isn't any evidence at this point that the new iMacs are any more complicated. I find it hard to believe that Apple would build non serviceable iMacs. If the hard drive or PSU died, could you really see Apple eating the cost for the entire machine?

Heck, even the Retina Macbook Pro has a replaceable drive.
 
goMac said:
And there isn't any evidence at this point that the new iMacs are any more complicated. I find it hard to believe that Apple would build non serviceable iMacs. If the hard drive or PSU died, could you really see Apple eating the cost for the entire machine?

Heck, even the Retina Macbook Pro has a replaceable drive.
Click to expand...

3 months ago I couldn't see Apple building a notebook with soldered RAM and proprietary Hard drive...
 
GermanyChris said:
3 months ago I couldn't see Apple building a notebook with soldered RAM and proprietary Hard drive...
Click to expand...

How so? Three months ago, they'd already been selling the Macbook Air with soldered RAM and proprietary drive for almost four years.
 
theSeb said:
I am not normally one of the posters that throws their hands up in the air and predicts doom and gloom, but this form over function obsession that Steve Jobs left behind is now getting stupid. The iMac did not need to be thinner. It does not need slow and small capacity 2.5" drives. This is meant to be a bloody desktop.
Click to expand...

If the iMac goes to a laminated screen it will be thinner. Overly glossy screens is one of the biggest factors moan and groan about. If going to a somewhat less reflective laminated screen then the thinnes is just a side effect. Thinner is based on relative to what it was. A drop of 0.1" is thinner.

2.5" drives. Standard format SSD are 2.5" and 1TB HDDs are coming online in that form factor. It really isn't a big loss to loose 3.5" if the additional space is used for something productive (cooling , etc. ) Sure it doesn't maximize storage capacity but the current iMacs aren't really constrained to internal capacity anymore.

Thinness for thinness sake is bad. But the general trends in technology allow for the same (or better) performance in a smaller space.
 
deconstruct60 said:
If the iMac goes to a laminated screen it will be thinner. Overly glossy screens is one of the biggest factors moan and groan about. If going to a somewhat less reflective laminated screen then the thinnes is just a side effect. Thinner is based on relative to what it was. A drop of 0.1" is thinner.

2.5" drives. Standard format SSD are 2.5" and 1TB HDDs are coming online in that form factor. It really isn't a big loss to loose 3.5" if the additional space is used for something productive (cooling , etc. ) Sure it doesn't maximize storage capacity but the current iMacs aren't really constrained to internal capacity anymore.

Thinness for thinness sake is bad. But the general trends in technology allow for the same (or better) performance in a smaller space.
Click to expand...
If everything you say is true, then I, for one, welcome the new iMac. However, I would still prefer the flexibility of at least a 2 or 3 TB internal drive along with an SSD for OS and applications.
 
theSeb said:
If everything you say is true, then I, for one, welcome the new iMac. However, I would still prefer the flexibility of at least a 2 or 3 TB internal drive along with an SSD for OS and applications.
Click to expand...

"... The Seagate Enterprise Value HDD, also known as the Constellation CS, .... in a 2.5-inch, 7,200RPM SATA design ....
Standard Models: ST3000NC002 (3TB), ST2000NC001 (2TB), ST1000NC001 (1TB) ... "
http://www.storagereview.com/seagat...ies_enterprise_value_capacity_and_performance

If willing to spend money on it you can. Media density is the primary metric keeping HDDs ahead of SSDs. It is not a problem if just wait a year or two for a higher density 2.5" drive. It will come.

If it is race to get max capacity on a signal drive as soon as possible then 3.5 has some upside. Otherwise RPMs or just "much larger than affordable SSDs' the 2.5" is increasingly a viable option.
 
deconstruct60 said:
"... The Seagate Enterprise Value HDD, also known as the Constellation CS, .... in a 2.5-inch, 7,200RPM SATA design ....
Standard Models: ST3000NC002 (3TB), ST2000NC001 (2TB), ST1000NC001 (1TB) ... "
http://www.storagereview.com/seagat...ies_enterprise_value_capacity_and_performance

If willing to spend money on it you can. Media density is the primary metric keeping HDDs ahead of SSDs. It is not a problem if just wait a year or two for a higher density 2.5" drive. It will come.

If it is race to get max capacity on a signal drive as soon as possible then 3.5 has some upside. Otherwise RPMs or just "much larger than affordable SSDs' the 2.5" is increasingly a viable option.
Click to expand...

Very impressive. I didn't know such beasts existed.
 
Don't own a Mac Pro but I'm a power user who unfortunately will never have the machine I need most :mad: I'd like to see 6-core processors the minimum. Some added features like:

-4 Thunderbolt ports (This should have been thrown in already or maybe a BTO card under options)
-5 USB 3.0 ports (Its embarrassing that USB 3.0 isn't standard in the Mac Pro...come on...)
-4 Firewire 800 ports
-12GB's of RAM stock (come on 6GB's just seams meh even if you can upgrade throw this in!)
-Possibly better SSD options?
-Blu-ray burner...sorry Apple but allot of power users use your machines for serious film editing and outputting to 480p DVD's in 2013 is gonna be a joke.
 
Yes, at this point a Blu-Ray burner would make sense. And maybe an Apple Blu-Ray Player. Nobody except for me and about a dozen other people are going to start amassing collections of Blu-Ray discs to watch on our Mac at this point. Apple has waited long enough with that.
 
It actually wouldn't entirely surprise me to see the optical drives cut, or at least trimmed back down to one.
 
Less user serviceable? Ever swapped Hard Drive's on the original iMac? iMac's are more often than not terrible for user repair. There are some exceptions but they are not the norm.
After all the licensing fun I have had in the past year with the App Store I really wish physical media was not going away. What a compromised joke of a system. My life has been made 20 times more frustrating with their new distribution model.
 
i find that usb keys have replaced recordable optical media, at least, in my home.

its what, $9.99 for a 16gb key?

I don't consume finished media like an average consumer, because i'm not an average consumer. I do more content creation than consumption - and having stacks of hard drives, keys and/or (eventually) SSD's beats cd/dvd every day of the week - at least for me.
 
I can't wait to see what the design is like. My guess is it's going to be a really crazy form factor... Something kind of between an XServe and a Mac Mini ... eliminating the optical drives but retaining 4 bays of 3.5" HDD storage.
 
The Philster says
"Blu-ray has come with issues unrelated to the actual quality of the movie that make [it] a complex and not-great technology…So for a whole plethora of reasons, it makes a lot of sense to get rid of optical discs in desktops and notebooks.
Click to expand...

With comments like these, it makes me very concerned about the "updated" Mac Pro 2013.

Seriously Phil, I have a plethora of reasons why distributing HD video via YouTube and USB does not make sense.

I guess a 5.25"less Mac Pro, with 3rd party USB BD drive sitting on top, will be the latest "innovation" from Apple.

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :eek:
 
Been reading through this thread with interest. I have a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 and am desperate to upgrade. I'm pretty impressed with how much my ancient machine can still do and what it can run, however I'm pushing it to its limit every day now. Like some others have commented, having waited this long I suppose holding out until 2013 is just something I'll have to grin and bear, however the little evidence we have suggests we'll be well into 2013 before there's any sign of the new model. :mad:

There is one glimmer of hope. Having just updated the iPad, iPhone and iMac you'd hope there'd be some time in their packed scheduled to let the works experience kid design a new Mac Pro for those of us who want/need to upgrade yesterday. I suppose the rest of the design department will be working on the Apple television or sitting in the corner feeling smug.

Not that I'm getting annoyed or anything...

Feel sure that the optical drives will go. I hope that we get SSD and not necessarily a fusion drive (although that wasn't the worst idea in the world). Most Pros don't care what the machine looks like and the cheese grater still looks cool even after all this time. So I hope they're not spending all these months (years!) just making some component 0.00001 inches thinner. :rolleyes:
 
Hitchophilia said:
Seriously Phil, I have a plethora of reasons why distributing HD video via YouTube and USB does not make sense.

I guess a 5.25"less Mac Pro, with 3rd party USB BD drive sitting on top, will be the latest "innovation" from Apple.

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :eek:
Click to expand...

I don't think Apple disagrees, considering that FCPX supports Bluray output. Apple just doesn't see a reason to put Bluray on board or support playback.
 
I have a giant amount of money set aside from a freelance job I'm doing. If there were a new Mac Pro I would SO order it right now. Considering a 2010 or refurb in the meantime. Curious to see how this plays out.
 
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