My dream Mac Pro

[pianoman88]

I currently own an 8-core Mac Pro that I use for music production. My dream 2013 Mac Pro would ...

have a new case, similar to the NEXT with an external power supply
support Thunderbolt for all I/O
4 PCI express slots slots
support 64 GB RAM
have a single 12-core CPU with the option to install a second chip on the board.

Nothing impossible assuming that Intel gets their chipsets in order.

Like I said, my dream Mac Pro

 

[iNeedAMacPro]

I currently own an 8-core Mac Pro that I use for music production. My dream 2013 Mac Pro would ...

have a new case, similar to the NEXT with an external power supply
support Thunderbolt for all I/O
4 PCI express slots slots
support 64 GB RAM
have a single 12-core CPU with the option to install a second chip on the board.

Nothing impossible assuming that Intel gets their chipsets in order.

Like I said, my dream Mac Pro

Now it's 2013? I'm praying there will be a 2012 Mac Pro

 

[Chrisg2014]

My dream Mac Pro would have all that and could make me a sandwich!

 

[CaptainChunk]

I currently own an 8-core Mac Pro that I use for music production. My dream 2013 Mac Pro would ...

have a new case, similar to the NEXT with an external power supply
support Thunderbolt for all I/O
4 PCI express slots slots
support 64 GB RAM
have a single 12-core CPU with the option to install a second chip on the board.

Nothing impossible assuming that Intel gets their chipsets in order.

Like I said, my dream Mac Pro

Hmmm...

1. Apple already tried doing a NeXT-inspired case with the G4 Cube. It flopped...HARD. And an external 980W power brick sitting on the floor? No thanks.

2. Thunderbolt for all I/O? In its current state, it's pointless to use internally. Not to mention, nobody makes TB-native internal drives. TB, FW800 and native SATA-6G are what we we'll likely see.

3. Current Mac Pros already have 4 PCIe slots. Some of us would actually like to see more than that.

4. 2009-10 DP Mac Pros already support 64GB of RAM. OWC also has memory kits that push this limit even higher using registered modules.

5. It's impossible for the next Mac Pro to have 12 cores on one CPU if Apple uses the upcoming SB-E5 Xeons (most likely scenario). They top out at 8 cores on a single chip.

 

[thekev]

Now it's 2013? I'm praying there will be a 2012 Mac Pro

It wouldn't make sense for mac pros to simply skip a 2012 model, but his anticipated specs do for the most part suggest a timeline beyond the current year. if they come out with something new I'm buying right away. I'd rather not get stuck again considering a new machine late in a refresh cycle.

5. It's impossible for the next Mac Pro to have 12 cores on one CPU if Apple uses the upcoming SB-E5 Xeons (most likely scenario). They top out at 8 cores on a single chip.

He said 2013 . I doubt we'll see 10 core chips before the die shink on haswell at least in this socket type. Of course this is simple speculation. 64GB of ram option on the single socket is entirely possible by 2013 assuming that year has a model.

 

[Umbongo]

It wouldn't make sense for mac pros to simply skip a 2012 model, but his anticipated specs do for the most part suggest a timeline beyond the current year. if they come out with something new I'm buying right away. I'd rather not get stuck again considering a new machine late in a refresh cycle.


He said 2013 . I doubt we'll see 10 core chips before the die shink on haswell at least in this socket type. Of course this is simple speculation. 64GB of ram option on the single socket is entirely possible by 2013 assuming that year has a model.

Ivy-Bridge-EP is 10-core . You can run 64GB on a single LGA 2011 socket now with unbuffered 8GB DIMMs. If RDIMMs work then it will be higher.

 

[thekev]

Ivy-Bridge-EP is 10-core . You can run 64GB on a single LGA 2011 socket now with unbuffered 8GB DIMMs. If RDIMMs work then it will be higher.

Heh..perhaps it'll be a firmware upgrade and dropin again. I'll most likely be purchasing a new computer soon. Also is that even this year? Note that the current single socket mac pros take 4 DIMMs so you can get 32 vs 64 on the dual socket model. 32 may be enough to contain everything for me. I want to get away from enough ram and have enough that the computer doesn't even touch swap space when dealing with 3d modeling with large texture files, and 32 bpc workflows in photoshop, among other things. I'm actually hoping to see Adobe expand significantly on their 32 bit setup. Floating point data rather than clamped can work much nicer. The older style of image processing really was designed for a time before computers were this powerful.

 

[maflynn]

I think a smaller enclosure that is also fairly quiet would be on my list. I'm not sure how noisy the current MPs are but when I owned one, it was a tad loud.

I think apple can shrink the case down without sacrificing expandability, though I do love the classic and clean lines of the case

 

[CaptainChunk]

He said 2013 . I doubt we'll see 10 core chips before the die shink on haswell at least in this socket type. Of course this is simple speculation. 64GB of ram option on the single socket is entirely possible by 2013 assuming that year has a model.

True. But I certainly hope we're not waiting till 2013 for a new Mac Pro..

 

[Bwa]

Interesting... but I hope for something a bit different

- 128--256 GB of RAM ceiling
- 8x2.5" HD bays instead of 3.5"
- No optical
- Case that will fit in 19" x 3U or less space
- 4x PCIe slots with two double-wide slots
- Better video cards; support two 4 GB cards; 4 displays per card
- 10gigE (x2) copper
- redundant power supplies (2x)
- 16 cores at the high end.

Somewhere around $12,000 nicely equipped (e.g., 8x512 GB SSDs, 96 gb of RAM) would be nice.

No, I don't expect Apple to ship this, but man I'd really like to have this system.

 

[rawdawg]

..... my dream mac pro would be anything at all... i am so disappointed in apple.

 

[goMac]

Just so we're all clear, I'm pretty sure the NeXT cube was either larger than the Mac Pro or at least gives it a very good run for it's money.

Just imagine a Mac Pro sized cube on your desk. No thank you.

The cube form factor was chosen for it's iconic look, not because it was useful. There is a reason the cube form factor has never caught on.

 

[ibarrett94]

Interesting... but I hope for something a bit different

- 128--256 GB of RAM ceiling
- 8x2.5" HD bays instead of 3.5"
- No optical
- Case that will fit in 19" x 3U or less space
- 4x PCIe slots with two double-wide slots
- Better video cards; support two 4 GB cards; 4 displays per card
- 10gigE (x2) copper
- redundant power supplies (2x)
- 16 cores at the high end.

Somewhere around $12,000 nicely equipped (e.g., 8x512 GB SSDs, 96 gb of RAM) would be nice.

No, I don't expect Apple to ship this, but man I'd really like to have this system.

At first I was like wow this guy must be sarcastic as hell, but then I clicked the link in your signature and was like "ohhhhh its that guy with the epic office I have seen all across the web." Then I believed his dream mac pro wasn't sarcastic.....

 

[thekev]

I think a smaller enclosure that is also fairly quiet would be on my list. I'm not sure how noisy the current MPs are but when I owned one, it was a tad loud.

I think apple can shrink the case down without sacrificing expandability, though I do love the classic and clean lines of the case

The Lenovo C20s would be an example of such a design. They're quite expensive, and they're designed so that they can fit in a rack. I don't know what they're like on noise. The mac pros are pretty silent. I'm not sure what model you saw. The earlier G5s, especially water cooled models were sometimes loud as the fans would ramp up under load. I haven't experienced this with mac pros unless you have a noisy hard drive, which is possible on any computer. I don't doubt you. I just haven't experienced it personally.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380537,00.asp

Interesting... but I hope for something a bit different

- 128--256 GB of RAM ceiling
- 8x2.5" HD bays instead of 3.5"
- No optical
- Case that will fit in 19" x 3U or less space
- 4x PCIe slots with two double-wide slots
- Better video cards; support two 4 GB cards; 4 displays per card
- 10gigE (x2) copper
- redundant power supplies (2x)
- 16 cores at the high end.

Somewhere around $12,000 nicely equipped (e.g., 8x512 GB SSDs, 96 gb of RAM) would be nice.

No, I don't expect Apple to ship this, but man I'd really like to have this system.

Well on the 2.5" bay thing, there are some units from PCs where you can fit so many 3.5" drives or more with 2.5" drives. I don't think they'd rule out the ability to use 3.5" form factors just yet especially with that kind of thing available.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Dream Mac Pro...

Dual 8-Cores
1600 MHz RAM
ATi Radeon HD 7970

 

[iNeedAMacPro]

My Dream Mac Pro:

Released in March 2012

lol

 

[Bwa]

At first I was like wow this guy must be sarcastic as hell, but then I clicked the link in your signature and was like "ohhhhh its that guy with the epic office I have seen all across the web." Then I believed his dream mac pro wasn't sarcastic.....

No sarcasm.

Well on the 2.5" bay thing, there are some units from PCs where you can fit so many 3.5" drives or more with 2.5" drives. I don't think they'd rule out the ability to use 3.5" form factors just yet especially with that kind of thing available.

Yes, but my goal was to get 8 SSDs into a small space. As you note, this could be accomplished in a variety of ways. I would expect a new chassis to minimally put the 4x3.5" bays in front of the power supply and drop the optical bays. Doing this would also cut 1+" of height from the chassis, thus making it short enough to fit into a rack on its side. This would be a huge improvement for those wanting to put the Mac Pro into an environment with other rack stuff (be it audio or telco), even though the thickness is on the order of 5U as it stands now.

But I'm tired of spinning disk and just want SSDs. So I'd love to see a solution that provides 8 internal SSDs. I don't want to pay for them, but a street price of $600 for 512 GB is starting to get exciting given the I/O characteristics. I am more interested in iops than capacity at this point.

 

[not1lost]

I need a Workstation NOW

Now that I have been convenced that I should switch to Mac and then convinced that I should get a Mac Pro - started to order one... then came here and the buyers guide page says "Dont Buy" Update coming soon.... Crap! I hate waiting and now it makes me want it even more..... I went as far as pulling the plug on my Dell XPS 8300 then slapped it a couple times.... Now I'm trying to do what little I can on this iPad... as much as I love my iPad this is getting to me... and I dont even want to plug the Dell back in... when when when will there be an upgrade so I can get one??? Do I sound desparate? I AM!

 

[gabicava83]

Now that I have been convenced that I should switch to Mac and then convinced that I should get a Mac Pro - started to order one... then came here and the buyers guide page says "Dont Buy" Update coming soon.... Crap! I hate waiting and now it makes me want it even more..... I went as far as pulling the plug on my Dell XPS 8300 then slapped it a couple times.... Now I'm trying to do what little I can on this iPad... as much as I love my iPad this is getting to me... and I dont even want to plug the Dell back in... when when when will there be an upgrade so I can get one??? Do I sound desparate? I AM!

Very desperate.

No one on here knows when it's coming out, even if there really is one coming out.

Your Dell isn't that bad, plug it in, get on with what you do and if the Mac Pro comes out, get it. Dell's are descent machines for the majority of people and Windows 7 (if you're using it) isn't that bad at all.

If it doesn't come out, I guess you're really going to struggle

Seriously, be patient, you're going to stress yourself out.

 

[thekev]

Now that I have been convenced that I should switch to Mac and then convinced that I should get a Mac Pro - started to order one... then came here and the buyers guide page says "Dont Buy" Update coming soon.... Crap! I hate waiting and now it makes me want it even more..... I went as far as pulling the plug on my Dell XPS 8300 then slapped it a couple times.... Now I'm trying to do what little I can on this iPad... as much as I love my iPad this is getting to me... and I dont even want to plug the Dell back in... when when when will there be an upgrade so I can get one??? Do I sound desparate? I AM!

None of the others that I've seen have shipped a machine based on Sandy Bridge E. Apple won't ship anything until everything they would use in an updated machine is available, including appropriate drivers.

No sarcasm.


But I'm tired of spinning disk and just want SSDs. So I'd love to see a solution that provides 8 internal SSDs. I don't want to pay for them, but a street price of $600 for 512 GB is starting to get exciting given the I/O characteristics. I am more interested in iops than capacity at this point.

Were you looking for a raid solution or just trying to fit a lot of individual drives with ssd speeds? They couldn't all run at native speed simultaneously within a mac pro. It just doesn't have that kind of bandwidth. If you don't want to deal with raid setups and just want single volumes with a lot of bandwidth, that could make sense I guess. It's quite a lot to pay though.

 

[gabicava83]

No sarcasm.

Yes, but my goal was to get 8 SSDs into a small space. As you note, this could be accomplished in a variety of ways. I would expect a new chassis to minimally put the 4x3.5" bays in front of the power supply and drop the optical bays. Doing this would also cut 1+" of height from the chassis, thus making it short enough to fit into a rack on its side. This would be a huge improvement for those wanting to put the Mac Pro into an environment with other rack stuff (be it audio or telco), even though the thickness is on the order of 5U as it stands now.

But I'm tired of spinning disk and just want SSDs. So I'd love to see a solution that provides 8 internal SSDs. I don't want to pay for them, but a street price of $600 for 512 GB is starting to get exciting given the I/O characteristics. I am more interested in iops than capacity at this point.

why don't you just use an external solution, instead of having it within the pro?

Those disks on any kind of RAID will not be of benefit at the moment, as you're going to saturate the bandwidth before you get the full benefits.

Really depends on what you're looking to do. That's a hardcore setup.

You'd normally see that when you have a large VDI setup where the IO is crucial, even then you'd need a lot to hammer through all of that.

 

[Bwa]

why don't you just use an external solution, instead of having it within the pro?

Those disks on any kind of RAID will not be of benefit at the moment, as you're going to saturate the bandwidth before you get the full benefits.

Really depends on what you're looking to do. That's a hardcore setup.

You'd normally see that when you have a large VDI setup where the IO is crucial, even then you'd need a lot to hammer through all of that.

I already have an external 8-drive SAS solution for my Mac Pro. It does 1 gbyte/sec. It's great. I also have another 16 hard drives on my Mac Pro (iSCSI and eSATA). Boot is SSD and some other SSDs for other things.

I think I could live with 4 TB logical capacity on something that has high throughput and 20 TB external iSCSI for back-ups.

Anyway, it's a dream thread, so I posted my dream. I'm not sure it's a place to argue about whether or not it makes sense!

 

[gabicava83]

I already have an external 8-drive SAS solution for my Mac Pro. It does 1 gbyte/sec. It's great. I also have another 16 hard drives on my Mac Pro (iSCSI and eSATA). Boot is SSD and some other SSDs for other things.

I think I could live with 4 TB logical capacity on something that has high throughput and 20 TB external iSCSI for back-ups.

Anyway, it's a dream thread, so I posted my dream. I'm not sure it's a place to argue about whether or not it makes sense!

BWA, you're totally right, it's not a place to 'discuss' (not argue ) whether it makes sense or not. [apologies, was at work and had the analytical hat on] sounds great and what an awesome tool !!!!

Now, can I dream in you teaching me how to make the kind of money that can afford your office and these kind of toys?!

 

[deconstruct60]

Hmmm...
.....
3. Current Mac Pros already have 4 PCIe slots. Some of us would actually like to see more than that.

Lots of Thunderbolt sockets and numerous PCIe slots are mutally conflicting points.

I suspect the number of people who wish the Mac Pro fit inside a standard rack are substantially greater than those who want more PCI-e slots.

Conceptually it is doable (more than 4 and nevermind case size), but makes requiring two E5. I don't think Apple is going to skew the whole design around a two E5 Xeon set up.

Without the additional PCI-e lanes from the processor package what essentially pushing for is a bigger storage locker for cards. Not performance.

5. It's impossible for the next Mac Pro to have 12 cores on one CPU if Apple uses the upcoming SB-E5 Xeons (most likely scenario). They top out at 8 cores on a single chip.

Not impossible, just unlikely. There are 10 core E7's that are already out on the market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_microprocessors#.22Westmere-EX.22_.2832_nm.29

 

[BrianAllan]

My dream Mac Pro...

My dream Mac Pro consists of dual quad-core i5 2500k cpu's , 16gb of RAM (expandable to 32, for the "future"), 3 PCI slots and some drive bays.

Of course there can be a build option for the Xeon models. The performance gap between the MacPro's and the iMac's is so large that there could be an additional MacPro model aimed at those of us who need expandibility, performance, serious graphics cards, serious monitors, and don't have $3500 for a desktop. I'm a graphic/web designer who needs some power, but not Xeon power.