Mac Pro refresh in June?

[chaosbunny]

Lion intoduction. Yep, great time to introduce new Mac Pros.

Nope, awful time for new Mac Pros. Anyone seriously working with Apple hardware will not upgrade to 10.7 immediately. The .0 releases are know to have several smaller bugs, plus you never know how certain software will behave under a new version of the OS. It takes a couple of .x updates before every piece of software is confirmed to work and all the bugs are ironed out.

 

[derbothaus]

^^ This. Don't care about saving the 29.99-149.00 that Lion will cost. I'd rather be able to have all my apps function and the ability to stay on 10.6.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I never upgrade until we have a .4 or .5 update.

 

[AlexMaximus]

The upcoming Mac Pro Update

Since Apple's new OSX Lion comes out soon, Apple is forced to do a silent upgrade on the Mac Pro. I agree with the upper posters, very unfortunately we will NOT see a major upgrade.
In my opinion the late 2011 MP will have Lion OSX together with a silent CPU bumb from 2,8 to 3,2 as a standard single Quad config and a CTO variant of 3,4 or something. The dual quad might see a similar silent bump in that range.
I am not sure about the Hex...
Since a major update of the Mac Pro will come in Q1/12, I seriously doubt that we will see Thunderbolt or anything that would cause major change in tooling and/or manufacturing. The big question will be that of a possible GPU upgrade. I doubt it since they will keep that card for the Q1/12 update, however it would be nice for sure.

To sum it up, we will see a silent cpu bumb togehter with OSX Lion and maybe something else like a larger HD as standard.. or more different SSD options. That will be it for 2011 folks..

 

[Bubba Satori]

Lion intoduction. Yep, great time to introduce new Mac Pros.

Nope, awful time for new Mac Pros. Anyone seriously working with Apple hardware will not upgrade to 10.7 immediately. The .0 releases are know to have several smaller bugs, plus you never know how certain software will behave under a new version of the OS. It takes a couple of .x updates before every piece of software is confirmed to work and all the bugs are ironed out.

I wasn't saying it was great time to buy new Mac Pros.
I meant that the Lion intro would be a great time for Apple to announce new Mac Pros.
Content creators are leaving the Mac Pro in droves for PC workstations that are a much better base value,
are updated more frequently and offer much better hardware options and customizability.

 

[Psychomacuser]

I wasn't saying it was great time to buy new Mac Pros.
I meant that the Lion intro would be a great time for Apple to announce new Mac Pros.
Content creators are leaving the Mac Pro in droves for PC workstations that are a much better base value,
are updated more frequently and offer much better hardware options and customizability.

Not gonna happen.. look for the SB Mac Pro possibly, MAYBE March 2012 or sometime in 2012. Apple doesn't really care about the Mac Pro as its a niche in their market.. Their main focus and bread and butter is: IPOD, Ipad, Ipad II, the laptops.. and to a lesser extent the mac mini, and imac.. I do believe mobile computing is going to supercede desktop computing. Its only a matter of time..

As for Lion? It won't be roaring with me anytime soon, as I don't trust something that is 10.x and not 10.x.x

 

[-hh]

I'm not sure why the "not with the Mac Pro" thing carries weight. Apple changed the name from "Power Mac" to "Mac Pro". Changing the name doesn't suddenly mean the entire product refresh rate horrifically shifts.

Except that in this case, the name-change did invoke a shift in refreshes. Here's the historical data:

Intel Mac Pros:
Today: 309 days & counting (10 months)
07/2010 511 days (17 months)
03/2009 420 days (14 months)
01/2008 279 days (9 months)
04/2007 240 days (8 months)
08/2006 292 days (9-10 months)

G5 PPC PowerMacs:
2005.10.19 (6 months)
2005.04.27 (6 months)
2004.10.19 (4 months)
2004.06.09 (10 months)
2003.08.18 (shipped) (2 months)

G4 PPC PowerMacs:
2003.06.23 (5 months)
2003.01.28 (5 months)
2002.08.13 (7 months)
2002.01.28 (6 months)
2001.07.18 (6 months)
2001.01.09 (6 months)
2000.07.19 (7 months)
1999.12.01 (2 months)
1999.10.13 (9 months)

G3 PPC PowerMac:
1999.01.05 (n/a)

Taking the averaging update info from the above:

G4: 9 updates in 53 months (jan99-Jun03) = ~5.9 months/update
G5: 5 updates in 27 months (Jun03-Oct05) = ~5.4 months/update
(FYI, averaging these two PPCs ... 14 in 80 months = ~5.7 months/update)

Intel: 6* in 67+ months (Oct05-today) = 11+ months/update

And the math indesputably shows, the Intel Mac Pro refresh rate has been "twice as long" as the history of the prior half decade of PPC PowerMac refresh rates before it.

But...the problem with this observation is that it isn't particularly relevant because today, Apple is using Intel CPUs and is thus reliant upon Intel's development cycles.


-hh

 

[ActionableMango]

Intel: 6* in 67+ months (Oct05-today) = 11+ months/update

Going by your average, we are just about due then.

 

[JollyJoeJoe]

It's all up to Intel. The quad core sandy bridge Socket 1155 Xeons are already out. So that can be used for a single processor Mac.

The dual socket/CPU replacement can only come in Q1, 2012 and apple will probably adopt the new Sandy Bridge-E 6 core procs sometime around Feb - April unless it decides to wait for ivy bridge then the update will be in 2012 Dec or thereabouts, considering that we will only be seeing mainstream ivy bridge procs for the first 3Q of 2012, then an ivy Bridge hex core or 8-core Mac Pro can only come out in Q4 2012 or later.

 

[grapefruitx]

Thunderbolt

Does anyone else see that Thunderbolt could herald a paradigm shift here.
You don't have to have all that internal drive space, just a CPU some memory and TB ports, as i understand even graphics could be a different box.

It would be uncharacteristic of Apple to do anything so flexible, but one could envisage a product family that would encompass scaleable (upgradable) modules for multi display High end graphics, or or home to large office servers.
depending what you plug in.

 

[srf4real]

BestBuy is still out of stock, two weeks now on the base MP. Less than a week to Keynote. I'm hoping for a silent i7 quad bump and standard ram to increase, with Lion installed next week. Either that or BB is phasing out the MP which doesn't make sense considering that the genius bar is moving into the store.

 

[philipma1957]

Does anyone else see that Thunderbolt could herald a paradigm shift here.
You don't have to have all that internal drive space, just a CPU some memory and TB ports, as i understand even graphics could be a different box.

It would be uncharacteristic of Apple to do anything so flexible, but one could envisage a product family that would encompass scaleable (upgradable) modules for multi display High end graphics, or or home to large office servers.
depending what you plug in.

IT IS A NICE IDEA, but Apple may not be able to control the hardware as much as they would like to do. I like it a lot so I think Apple won't do it.

 

[ActionableMango]

Does anyone else see that Thunderbolt could herald a paradigm shift here.
You don't have to have all that internal drive space, just a CPU some memory and TB ports, as i understand even graphics could be a different box.

Yes, I've thought about it and it's horrifying. I much prefer expansion devices to be internal (slots) and storage to be internal (HDD sleds). Throwing that stuff on an external TB port means a rat's nest of daisychained wiring, mismatched external enclosures, a plethora of AC/DC power adapters, little cooling fans on everything.... ugh.

I like having all that crap inside the case.

 

[nanofrog]

...BB is phasing out the MP which doesn't make sense considering that the genius bar is moving into the store.

Actually, it does make sense that Best Buy wouldn't keep the MP in stock, as there's not that many of them sold by brick and mortar locations (most buy online).

Laptops and devices OTOH sell like mad, and BB will want to focus on this area of Apple's products as there's high enough sales volume = profit in it for them.

In terms of the Genius Bar, they should still be able to diagnose and repair a MP that's brought in.

 

[derbothaus]

BestBuy is still out of stock, two weeks now on the base MP. Less than a week to Keynote. I'm hoping for a silent i7 quad bump and standard ram to increase, with Lion installed next week. Either that or BB is phasing out the MP which doesn't make sense considering that the genius bar is moving into the store.

I did not know Best Buy and Apple partnered up. Not a fan of big stores though. I buy from small dealers to keep the cash in the hands of my neighbors.

 

[scottsjack]

Yes, I've thought about it and it's horrifying. I much prefer expansion devices to be internal (slots) and storage to be internal (HDD sleds). Throwing that stuff on an external TB port means a rat's nest of daisychained wiring, mismatched external enclosures, a plethora of AC/DC power adapters, little cooling fans on everything.... ugh.

I like having all that crap inside the case.

I totally agree. For most of us on this forum a big box with everything inside is the perferred way to build a powerful computer. Sure, we're only a small segment of the market but for us a tower computer works best.

If I didn't feel that way I would be using an iMac.

 

[xBerserker]

I finally just saved up for a Mac Pro upgrade. Looking at the 6 Core Model. But I'll await to see what happens on Monday with the Keynote. I'm still running a PPC Dual Core and it works fine, just a little slow at times. I could stick some more ram to get me by. If there isn't a major upgrade for the Mac Pro I'll wait until later this year I guess...

 

[zephonic]

So, anybody still betting on a June upgrade?

 

[Psychomacuser]

So, anybody still betting on a June upgrade?

for the 10000000 th time..... NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!

 

[srf4real]

So, anybody still betting on a June upgrade?

Yep, I'm hoping that silent upgraded base MP 512GB ssd with 2x TB, and a 3GB TB ready time machine are coming later this week. If not, I will probably buy the old MP this month and live to regret it. I need an intel chip badly.. current mini can not suffice and glossy screens are made for movies in the dark. I need to work on my machine, CS5.5 etc..

 

[bpeeps]

Yep, I'm hoping that silent upgraded base MP 512GB ssd with 2x TB, and a 3GB TB ready time machine are coming later this week. If not, I will probably buy the old MP this month and live to regret it. I need an intel chip badly.. current mini can not suffice and glossy screens are made for movies in the dark. I need to work on my machine, CS5.5 etc..

I'll congratulate you on your 2010 model in a few weeks.

 

[srf4real]

I can buy a dang top end iMac, put duct tape over the damn glossy display, and have a better computer for less money than the base MP. What? Yup.

I might BTO the 27" with 3.4GHz i7, 8GB SDRAM, upgrade to 2GB 6970 gpu. $2499. Duct tape, $3.50. 2 x TB.. who needs a mac pro? But my real issue is the tft lcd on the iMac. Not interested at all.

It just doesn't make any sense to me how Apple expects to sell another single Mac Pro with current specs to many people at all unless it's all about the expansion capabilities which are truly minor to me, especially with my own personal cloud data system, coming online by end of summer according to the keynote..

 

[nanofrog]

But my real issue is the tft lcd on the iMac. Not interested at all.

All of the LCD panels out there are TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display; usually represented by TFT as short-hand).

I suspect you're actually referring to TN (Twisted Nematic), which is the worst of the different panel types in terms of color accuracy. Fortunately, this type isn't used in any of Apple's monitors, including the iMacs (they use IPS based panels = In-Plane Switching).

It just doesn't make any sense to me how Apple expects to sell another single Mac Pro with current specs to many people at all unless it's all about the expansion capabilities which are truly minor to me, especially with my own personal cloud data system, coming online by end of summer according to the keynote..

The MP's advantage is the expandability and ability to run additional cores (above a consumer grade CPU). ECC to a much lesser extent, as that's only needed for specific situations (i.e. software based on recursive algorithms, such as scientific and engineering simulation applications; audio/visual suites don't, so ECC isn't actually a necessity, though it doesn't hurt if it's there).

Not everyone actually needs this of course, so it's the smallest market for Apple as a result. Those that truly need it will have to pay for it, while others can use other systems from Apple and save some money.

 

[Inconsequential]

Why is this thread still going??


Let me reiterate for you all

There are NO SANDY BRIDGE XEONS THAT WOULD FIT A MAC PRO OUT YET.

An update would be a single speed bump only and 133MHz barely closes the gap on the 2600K anyway so would be a waste of time.

If you need a Mac Pro now. Buy one now (but only if it's the Octo).

If you can wait. Wait.

Late 2011, Early 2012.

 

[-hh]

Going by your average, we are just about due then.

I'd like to think so, but the subtrend within the most recent Intel refreshes is substantially higher than ~11 months. Even though I'd really like to have a new Mac Pro today, I'm afraid that the real update isn't going to happen for another ~6 months. Not only would this be closer to being in line with the 'moving average' datapoints of 14 & 17 months, but it also appears to fit with the anticipated ETA of new Sandy Bridge CPUs from Intel.

Pragmatically, I suspect that the only real chance of a Pre-Christmas delivery would be if we start to see good rumors break within the next 30 days of things like beta Mac hardware running on Sandy Bridge "sample" chipsets.

Given my backlog of visual media projects for my home Mac system, its going to be a long, "Not Much Fun" summer while waiting for new hardware to de-bottleneck things.


-hh