This is most likely a frequently asked question on all kinds of Apple products - do I buy now or wait?
I've been coveting a Mac Pro for a while now. Theres 12 months 0% finance up until January 15th and I've been thinking about it.
What I'm wondering though - is there an update looming on the horizon? Additional SSD storage / ram perhaps? Should I go for it, or wait it out?
The pieces are in place to do a minor refresh of the nMP, however, no one knows if Apple will refresh it at this point or wait for something more substantial. And if they do refresh it, it could be tomorrow or 6 months from now.
And while some might disagree with me, a refresh right now might sound good on paper but results wise, it will offer very little at all...
- The latest Haswell CPU benchmarks used in a refresh are anywhere from 5% better to somewhat worse than the Ivy CPUs in the current model, with Anand concluding it had a 3% benefit on average. The v3 4/6-core options cost the same as the v2 so there won't be any cost savings either. If you plan to go 8-core, there is a new somewhat cheaper 8-core (saving ~$500 after Apple margins) and on the high-end there maybe more cores available but Intels prices are extreme ($4500 cost on the 18-core CPU)
- DDR4 is required by Haswell which has no real-world benefit but may actually cost more depending on the supply of ECC DDR4 at the time of a refresh
- AMD's latest Tonga/Hawaii FirePro GPUs offer about a 15% improvement on average, but they apparently run hotter, so it's hard to say if there would be any benefit after downclocking to meet the nMPs thermal constraints. It's very likely they would include more VRAM, but I'm not aware of any OS X application that is currently constrained by today's configs. And then, of course, there's the fact that very few applications are actually able to fully leverage one or both GPUs now anyway. If you're among the elite few, or plan to game, you'll want to pay close attention to the specific benchmarks that apply to your workflow to evaluate the potential for improvement... Just keep in mind the whole downclocking thing might negate some of the gains.
- There's no new I/O technology at this point. While USB3 would now be native to the chipset vs discrete, there's no significant performance gains to be had.
- There's no newer or faster SSD technology at this point. The only thing Apple could do in this dept. would be to add a second SSD which would be a nice option, but there's no guarantee they will do this now.
In my opinion, all of this adds up to a refresh that will be disappointing in benchmarks and be very unlikely to meet most people's expectations. I use to think this was reason enough for Apple to skip Haswell and wait to refresh the nMP when Broadwell EP lands. However, the recent refresh to the Mac Mini proves it's not beneath them to release a product refresh thats disappointing in nearly every way.
So I don't really know what they will do. However, I do know that if you have a need for a nMP, the pricing deals you can find at B&H or the refurb store are pretty decent, and you know you're getting a solid performer. If you wait, you may get rewarded with an incremental refresh or you may be left wondering when it's coming for months.
