Logic behind 2012 Mac Pro

[rawweb]

Desiring some information/speculation on why Apple did what they did with Mac Pro in 2012.

In early 2011 they retooled the MacBook Pro line to include thunderbolt and again in 2012 to include USB 3. They completely refreshed the form factor for the retina models later that same year...

So...with Thunderbolt already around for more than a year, why didn't they press a new logic board into service in 2012? PCIe3.0, SATA III, and thunderbolt were all readily available in 2012 (and somewhat in 2010). I can understand not including Thunderbolt, since expansion is available internally. But how hard would it have really been to machine a new LB?

Is it because 6,1 was likely already well into development and changing the configuration of 5,1 would have perhaps been detrimental to parts inventory/future sales?

 

[ActionableMango]

Yes almost certainly it was just to placate Mac Pro buyers with a simple spec bump model until they could get the new Mac Pro released.

A heck of a lot of us would have loved a truly updated cMP with Thunderbolt in 2012.

 

[MacVidCards]

Yeah, it's bad enough that a 2009 can be upgraded to pass up the 2013. (especially dollar for dollar)

If they had put PCIE 3.0 and USB 3.0 in the 2012 they never would have sold any 2013, except for receptionist desks at post houses.

Knee cap the old to make the new one look better.

 

[rawweb]

Yeah, it's bad enough that a 2009 can be upgraded to pass up the 2013. (especially dollar for dollar)

If they had put PCIE 3.0 and USB 3.0 in the 2012 they never would have sold any 2013, except for receptionist desks at post houses.

Knee cap the old to make the new one look better.

LOL

 

[Fl0r!an]

When Apple came up with their first Thunderbolt Mac, I immediately asked myself how they plan to combine video and data signals on a MacPro. Even today there's no standard way to do this internally: PC motherboards with Thunderbolt will output the video signal of the iGPU (which doesn't exist on Xeons) or need to have the DisplayPort signal externally routed (like the Asus ThunderboltEX does), which obviously is a rather ugly thing Apple would never do.

So, I guess they came to the conclusion that there's no "Apple like" way to do this without custom GPUs, which have their video outputs routed internally. This meant a huge redesign, so they had the keep selling the 5,1 for a few more years until it was done...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

When Apple came up with their first Thunderbolt Mac, I immediately asked myself how they plan to combine video and data signals on a MacPro. Even today there's no standard way to do this internally: PC motherboards with Thunderbolt will output the video signal of the iGPU (which doesn't exist on Xeons) or need to have the DisplayPort signal externally routed (like the Asus ThunderboltEX does), which obviously is a rather ugly thing Apple would never do.

So, I guess they came to the conclusion that there's no "Apple like" way to do this without custom GPUs, which have their video outputs routed internally. This meant a huge redesign, so they had the keep selling the 5,1 for a few more years until it was done...

But what would stop them of just putting a bunch of thunderbolt ports that connect to some base garabage video card (like on a macbook) on the motherboard, and then the PCI cards can have discrete thunderbolt or whatever connections that work just for video. It would have been fine. I'm not sure that would have been 'unapple'? It's kind of like the design on the 15" (not quite, but kinda).