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New HP 420/620/820 Workstations now shipping

jrlcopy said:
Apparently I missed this but back in March HP announced their new workstations, and they just started shipping. So perhaps that means something is on the horizon for the mac pro?

Pretty sweet new version of their case and USB3! :)
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/product_pdfs/Z420_datasheet-highres.pdf

I use their 400 and 800 stations at work, I think I might buy a 420 for my apt.
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Guess I am warming up to the idea, in case the mp quits. Re-watched "The Fifth Element" the other day, and HP was listed in the credits for cgi.
 
Man those look nice. I wish my workplace would hurry up and replace our Dell T7400. About once a month I have to deal with a memory chip failure in my Dell, and it gets old after a while. To bad there is no way in he(( that my work would ever switch to Macs (I work in Government).
 
Same boat as you. Hp is my second to consider for a new workstation second to Boxx, but really hurt me to think in Windows again.

Maybe Apple will create a ImacPro as HP is doing with the Z1, but i really have the felling of Apple leaving behind the MacPro line.
 
jrlcopy said:
Apparently I missed this but back in March HP announced their new workstations, and they just started shipping. So perhaps that means something is on the horizon for the mac pro?

Pretty sweet new version of their case and USB3! :)
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/product_pdfs/Z420_datasheet-highres.pdf

I use their 400 and 800 stations at work, I think I might buy a 420 for my apt.
Click to expand...

Looks to me like you can configure them and order them, but they aren't shipping until April 20-something depending on the configuration.
 
I don't understand what is so sweet about that case. Both inside and out it looks like every other generic black PC case.
 
Don't get me wrong - I love the current MP case design. But it sits under my desk. So the only time I ever see it is before I sit down and when I get up. I could care less if anyone else finds it attractive.

If it comes down to pretty and slow vs. less pretty and very fast, it's not much of a choice really, IMHO.
 
They're not yet shipping. Site just quoted me April 21st, so soon, but not yet.

NAB seems like it might be the time Apple updates the Mac Pro. According to the NAB site, Apple will be in attendance but not an exhibitor, which at least leaves the door open to an announcement. I don't think they were an exhibitor last year when FCPX was announced.

It's getting a bit late to discontinue the Mac Pro (or at least leave towers completely). At this point, if discontinuing was the plan, they're keeping the thing on life support for no reason.
 
goMac said:
NAB seems like it might be the time Apple updates the Mac Pro. According to the NAB site, Apple will be in attendance but not an exhibitor, which at least leaves the door open to an announcement.
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Not really. Apple sends people to many of the major shows: CES , NAB , Cebit, etc. There is much hype that Apple doesn't do focus groups. That they magically spin product designs solely from their own minds with no input. That's not really true. They look alot at what other folks are doing. What folks did. What they think they did wrong. How it would be better or co-opted for another Apple product. Similarly with a sufficiently dense number of high budget players (like 6-8 digits of dollars ) around their they can easily do sidebar one-on-ones with a select few. Frankly that is bigger value add of gathering the large group of folks in one place. Again one tactic would be to get feedback on other folks products from customers ( I like xxx on the yy product .... ) in addition to just Apple products. Note that talking about other people's products in the pipeline means you don't have to talk about yours. ( fully flush your competitors issues into full view and leave all of your pending ones hidden. )



Besides, they should have folks around to help those that are using Macs to demo their 2nd/3rd party products at the show. It is one thing to not get a booth and quite another to not help smooth out the logistics of the presentations being made with your products. [ For example "Apple store within a store" at Best Buy and other retail shops. Versus ad hoc retailers with random Mac presentation. ] It is Apple's way of presenting without presenting.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Apple letting their partners (software/hardware) shine in these shows without dominating the dialog with a mega-dog-and-pony show. If an Apple product is being used in the demo then get "product placement" recognition without having engage a major production staff of their own.



It's getting a bit late to discontinue the Mac Pro (or at least leave towers completely).
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It is not late at all. HP is still not delivering boxes. Neither is Dell. Neither is Boxxx. Late will be many, many weeks after one of the major competitors has actually done something; not talked about doing something.




At this point, if discontinuing was the plan, they're keeping the thing on life support for no reason.
Click to expand...

Once they announce an end date there will be an end date. With no end date if someone needs to buy one in a month or two and still haven't down the announcement they can buy. There is likely some reduced number of folks buying them.
 
Y*a*w*n

ok so...........yet ANOTHER pc vendor builds yet ANOTHER high-end tower with all the latest & greatest gizmos, and hypes it up on it's website as the best thing since sliced bread........... d U h

Can someone p u h l e e z explain to me just exactly how this is different or news ????
 
SmurfBoxMasta said:
ok so...........yet ANOTHER pc vendor builds yet ANOTHER high-end tower with all the latest & greatest gizmos, and hypes it up on it's website as the best thing since sliced bread........... d U h

Can someone p u h l e e z explain to me just exactly how this is different or news ????
Click to expand...

Because these are the first workstations to be shipping with the newest Xeons, which are suitable to go into the mac pro, the Sandy Bridge E5s.
 
deconstruct60 said:
It is not late at all. HP is still not delivering boxes. Neither is Dell. Neither is Boxxx. Late will be many, many weeks after one of the major competitors has actually done something; not talked about doing something.
Click to expand...

Once the new Xeons ship, what's the point of keeping the Mac Pro around? No one will buy it at those prices, and Apple has to dedicate manufacturing and shipping resources on it.

If the Mac Pro isn't cut by the time other makers start shipping in volume, it's doubtful Apple is going to abandon towers.

The only reason to keep it around at that point is to cleanly transition to a new machine.
 
ActionableMango said:
I don't understand what is so sweet about that case. Both inside and out it looks like every other generic black PC case.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If I am doing a Windows box, I am building my own unless I need the support/quick replacement service. The premium for that, though, can usually buy a replacement part if necessary.

Antec makes functional cases that are dead silent when set up correctly. I made several P180/182 boxes that came out beautifully. The new P280 looks like a decent case.
 
jrlcopy said:
Apparently I missed this but back in March HP announced their new workstations, and they just started shipping. So perhaps that means something is on the horizon for the mac pro?

Pretty sweet new version of their case and USB3! :)
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/product_pdfs/Z420_datasheet-highres.pdf

I use their 400 and 800 stations at work, I think I might buy a 420 for my apt.
Click to expand...

If you look very closely at the prices HP intends to fetch for the dualies, this may help explain why you haven't heard a peep from Apple (and may never hear that peep). $7,000+ for a dual E5-2660 [each 2.2 GHz -> 2.6 GHz -> 3.0 GHz (8 bins/steps) 8/16-cores 8GT/s-QPI] system with just 16 gigs of ram and a crappy video card. Sure, Apple has sold comparable systems for less than HP and Dell, but not for so much less as to cause dual 8-core 2.2 GHz systems to start flying out of the warehouse in exchange for over $6K. Even HP is still making Westmere systems, because dual Sandy Bridge E5s will be priced mainly for corporate/university users. I suspect that Ivy Bridge dualies will follow suit, priced mainly for the 1%.
 

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If the dualies are too expensive it does open the door to a single processor model only. In that case, that could scale all the way from i7s to single processor Xeons.
 
goMac said:
If the dualies are too expensive it does open the door to a single processor model only. In that case, that could scale all the way from i7s to single processor Xeons.
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True that. However, I suspect that it won't be snagging much change from many who already have (or buy) mid to high speed dual processor Mac Pro 2010s or 2009s upgrades to 2010s. Even the unadorned, used 2P 2009 Mac Pros may seem like bargains. Moreover, Apple's price advantage has not traditionally extended to the single core systems. You'll be paying for SB 6-cores closed what you can buy at the refurb store in the form of an equally as fast, if not faster, mid 2010 12-core at 2.6 GHz.
 
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Tutor said:
True that. However, I suspect that it won't be snagging much change from many who already have (or buy) mid to high speed dual processor Mac Pro 2010s or 2009s upgrades to 2010s. Even the unadorned, used 2P 2009 Mac Pros may seem like bargains. Moreover, Apple's price advantage has not traditionally extended to the single core systems. You'll be paying for SB 6-cores closed what you can buy at the refurb store in the form of an equally as fast, if not faster, mid 2010 12-core at 2.6 GHz.
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Yeah, the reason I think Apple may drop dual processors is Apple has never really been a huge contender in the ultra high end workstation market. For example, they never did 4 processor machines, and we're starting to get up into that same price range for dulies.

Apple for a long time didn't compete with the Opterons or the Xeons. The G3s and G4s were Pentium competitors, and pros were still happy. It's not unreasonable they might back off of the dual processor workstation market, offer i7s at the low end, Xeons at the high end, and adjust prices accordingly.

Or they could do something entirely different. Who knows!

I'd love to have dual processors, but if Apple only feels than can sell a single processor line, it's better than nothing. I guess my only concern is if Ivy Bridge i7s and Sandy Bridge Xeons can co-exist on the same board.
 
Tutor said:
If you look very closely at the prices HP intends to fetch for the dualies, this may help explain why you haven't heard a peep from Apple (and may never hear that peep). $7,000+ for a dual E5-2660 [each 2.2 GHz -> 2.6 GHz -> 3.0 GHz (8 bins/steps) 8/16-cores 8GT/s-QPI] system with just 16 gigs of ram and a crappy video card. Sure, Apple has sold comparable systems for less than HP and Dell, but not for so much less as to cause dual 8-core 2.2 GHz systems to start flying out of the warehouse in exchange for over $6K. Even HP is still making Westmere systems, because dual Sandy Bridge E5s will be priced mainly for corporate/university users. I suspect that Ivy Bridge dualies will follow suit, priced mainly for the 1%.
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In all fairness that is the 820 and the E5-2660s. I think the 620 with E5-2650's is most likely the better comparable to what we'll see available with the Mac Pro. That will probably drop the price by at least $1000, but I can't seem to get back to the configure page on hp's website right now.
 
JesterJJZ said:
Wasn't there a G5 quad right before the Intel transition?
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There was but it was a dual processor dual core.

Xeons are capable of being used in 4 processor configurations for 24 physical cores and 48 logical cores (on Westmere.) Those are waters that Apple has never waded into.
 
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