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New Mac Pro release date, rumours and leaked images
- Thread starter Michaelgtrusa
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I love my Mac Pro. I wish I would have ordered one of the $2500 12-cores, big mistake missing that one.
Love real desktop Macs or not I have to say that the MacRumors Mac Pro forums strikes me as pretty sad these days. The forum mainly consists of 1) sad Mac Pro enthusiasts waiting for the machine that probably will never come, 2) people trying to get modern video cards working on the Mac Pro's ancient architecture and 3) users attempting to bring the Mac Pro somewhat current by getting USB 3 to work. That's the same USB 3 that can be found on $500 PC laptops.
Very sad.
Love real desktop Macs or not I have to say that the MacRumors Mac Pro forums strikes me as pretty sad these days. The forum mainly consists of 1) sad Mac Pro enthusiasts waiting for the machine that probably will never come, 2) people trying to get modern video cards working on the Mac Pro's ancient architecture and 3) users attempting to bring the Mac Pro somewhat current by getting USB 3 to work. That's the same USB 3 that can be found on $500 PC laptops.
Very sad.
Over the entire history of the Mac Mini there have only been two relases that had a discrete GPU (and one of those was a PPC version where integrated graphics wasn't even a option). It just isn't part of the Mini's track record at all. If there comes a point where Intel manages to shrink the chipset+CPU+GPU that a mini needs into a single chip then perhaps.
More likely a Broadwell ( shrink after Haswell) will see some iGPU options that make the extremely limited dGPU a Mini has a not really an issue; Intel GT3+ graphics.
For 2013 though, No. An updated Mac Pro is more likely. Primarily because Apple has largely pointed at an updated Mac Pro (within the constraints of not being able to specifically talk about future products).
That's the least likely. Over time the "gap" between Mini/iMac and Mac Pro that has workloads not effectively covered by either group is going to shrink. There is little reason to introduce a product only to squeeze it out of existence in a couple of years.
Dang it, I'm about to order another $10,000 maxed out Mac Pro. And I bet as soon as it arrives and I finish setting it up, the new Mac Pro will be announced.
I just feel like a chump spending so much money on a desktop that has slower ram and lesser video capabilities than some laptops.
I've actually attempted to talk my bosses in to letting me order iMac's instead because they are reasonable contenders against the Mac Pro and much cheaper. For most of our workflows we render to a farm anyway so the local horsepower is only for the ability to have every app open all the time.
I just feel like a chump spending so much money on a desktop that has slower ram and lesser video capabilities than some laptops.
I've actually attempted to talk my bosses in to letting me order iMac's instead because they are reasonable contenders against the Mac Pro and much cheaper. For most of our workflows we render to a farm anyway so the local horsepower is only for the ability to have every app open all the time.
There is no good reason to delay until September. Due to a lack of an up-to-date design Mac Pros are currently barred from EU Markets. Waiting till September to fix that is a horrible idea to actually do with deliberate effort. Intel has already announced that the Xeon 3500/3600 processors being used in current offerings is being retired from the retail market in September. Again if wanted to destroy the Mac Pro competitive standing in the market, you really couldn't do much worse than wait till September to replace.
There are numerous rumbling pointing to the iPhone coming back to WWDC timeframe announcements. If that happens synching with WWDC doesn't make much sense. If it is just going to be a press release rollout then anytime, preferably sooner to availability date, is better rather than yet another extended delay. The latter only reinforces just how seriously unable to hit deadlines they are with this product.
Furthermore, it is unlikely if Intel is doing a formal release of E5 v2 in July that they will allow Apple to get up on stage and do a dog and pony show with performance specifics a month (or so ) before that date. ( The single example where Apple shipped Xeons early by 2-3 weeks isn't likely to fly with Intel now. )
If real volume shipments of E5 v2 won't actually happen til Q4 ( a 2-3 month delay similar to last year's E5 gap between introduction and shipping systems ) then Apple could do WWDC only with Sandy Bridge versions. They could follow with Ivy Bridge (v2) updates in Jan-Feb 2014 which should have been where they more optimally targeted for a 2013 release to avoid the EU Market withdrawal embarrassment. With Intel's drifing release schedule for E5's it may not make sense for Apple to tightly couple to Intel's schedule. Getting Mac Pro back onto a more reliable update schedule is more important that doing concurrent dog-and-pony shows with Intel.
So far though, Intel is sticking with their sometime in Q3 pitch.
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013032101_Launch_schedule_of_Intel_Xeon_processors.html
If 2600 are being targeted at "same time" as 1600 then it is likely mid-late Q3 if earlier timelines which had the 1600 in mid-late Q3 have some weight. Haswell has slide the E5 v2 out to later dates but at least it doesn't look like it will be a whole quarter of dates.
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Depending on what software you use and the type of work you do, the combination of an external Thunderbolt box with an iMac isn't a terrible option if you're not rendering locally. It wasn't right for my needs last time I evaluated... and I already own 27" monitors that work really well.
I was looking at picking up a 3.33 6-Core a few days ago, but just can't pull the trigger. I really should be getting a 12-Core machine for the work I do, but the upgrades I'll need to buy for a brand new machine keep holding me back. If it shows up on the refurb store again then maybe I will.
Right now I'm holding until NAB to see what's out there, better assess where the market overall is heading, and see what new creative solutions (if any) will be announced. I was really considering a PC box awhile back, but overall software and plugin upgrade/crossgrade costs kept me from doing it at the time. Being forced back into a Windows environment didn't help at all. I mainly work with Adobe products (mostly After Effects), so the Windows/PC side isn't something I can totally ignore. Would like to start doing more 3D work (C4D) and will need a fairly beefy machine to really handle that well, unfortunately.
As for big "mini" it seems good!
However, I myself would prefer:
8+ Ram slots
6+ Pcie slots, and a few more empty ones in the backpanel to use for cables and card-addons.
Hard disk space is irrelevant since I use five external 5-20 disk enclosures.
I have so far prefered 2 cpu, but with 6-8 cores in a single cpu it may not matter much as long as critical applications make use of GPU?
No.
Standard case dimensions, please.
Small, medium and large.
An i5, i7 and Xeon model, BTO with any peripheral the customer wants.
Otherwise don't bother.
I wouldn't be surprised if they announce that threre is No Mac Pro this year
You're the only one, then. For most speculative products this is usually true, but given that Apple confirmed firsthand that there WOULD be a new Mac Pro in 2013, for them to fail to deliver on that would be a significant issue.
There are 8 DIMM slots on the two package models now. With upcoming transition to DDR4 memory's point-to-point connections it is unlikely going to get models that go past four slots ( since there are four memory controllers currently in Xeon E5 ). There will be systems that add buffering logic but that will be additionally expensive.
Over time memory density is going up. The transition to DDR4 will probably bring a bump in memory prices but over medium term it should be reasonably affordable to put 128GB of memory into four DDR3 or DDR4 slots. There are a subset of folks that really need more than that but that is actually more than a two socket Mac Pro can provide at the moment ( in OS X. The OS caps out at 96GB and there aren't large mobs complaining about that. )
Very similar technology trend. PCI-e v3.0 that should show up in the new Mac Pro is 2x as fast as PCI-e v2.0 which is 4x as fast as what the initial Mac Pro started out with. There is little reason why modern cards can't do more. For example modern GPU cards can drive 4-6 monitors instead of just 1-2. External SAS/SATA cards in a x8 or x16 slots could drive 4-6 external disk boxes relatively easily.
Again there will be a small subset of folks who have a large collection of different (and likely legacy ) cards that don't use concurrently. PCI-e expansion boxes work in that smaller context and isn't really the mainstream of the Mac Pro market.
A single Xeon E5 has 40 PCI-e v3.0 lanes. That is about 20x the amount of bandwidth that Thunderbolt provides. Even in a x16,x16,x4,x4 configuration is a ton of bandwidth there. A more pressing issue is to not let a card use just a minor fraction of what the slot provides. Otherwise essentially wasting lots of bandwidth.
Intel so far has showed little interest in moving the E5 1600 series past 6 cores. The 8 & up cores are so far restricted to the two or more CPU package offerings. That likely will continue. There is a decent chance that Intel will merge a integrated GPU into the E5 1600 series at some point just as they have done with the more mainstream desktop core design ( Xeon E3 and basic Core i3 , i5, i7 ) offerings.
All the more likely if the software trend continues where "embarrassingly parallel" workloads are shifted to GPGPU via OpenCL as implicated above. Right now Intels iGPU isn't that great at GPGPU computations but that should change in an iteration or two. It would make more sense to allocate the larger transistor budget on those kind of cores rather than a 'large' x86 cores just to do a small incremental bump from 6 to 8 cores.
Not very realistic.
6 DIMMs slots is a total mismatch for a CPU that either has 2 or 4 memory controllers. 4 or maybe 8. The general trend though is to 4. With newer and upcoming processors supporting up to 32GB DIMMs, 128GB covers the vast majority of user needs right now. There is little need for dual ranked DIMMs slots unless deliberately trying to stick to smaller DIMMs sizes.
There is no cooling suitable for 3 PCI-e slots. The apparent ODD tray door on the front doesn't belong to anything. The power supply isn't very realistic. If drop the PCI-e slot count could space the drives a bit more so less likely to lead to problems.
There is almost zero reason Apple would go this route. Also doubtful they would stick the logo on the front like that. While the iMac and monitors do, the need for "front to back" ventilation would likely drive them to more pragmatically put it on the side (where it could also be used as an Wifi Antenna port if necessary).
Apple could slide a 1/3 scaled down model into the Mac Pro family if went to slightly different CPU and just one PCI-e slot but given the limited growth and previous marginal interest in the Mac Pro that doesn't seem likely to get much traction. I also doubt that would become as inexpensive as most folks hope when toss out these "smaller" Macs in part looking for proportional price reductions.
The Mac Pro case needs to meet some modern issues ( like MIMO wifi , 2.5" drives , the ODD jihad that Apple is on ) , but the overall volume doesn't need to change much.
Thanks all for your reactions so far.
The only one who really knows..... Captain COOK!
Again highly doubtful or realistic. Mansfield would like know more than Cook. ( or the "other" Hardware VP they have depending on how the work is split).
Like a high fraction of the limited industrial design team has likely seen it.
Etc. etc. It may not be 100's of folks but it is probably in the 10's folks know what is going on. Several of those outside of Apple.
Apple was not a one-man-show when Jobs was there and it isn't now.
I thought is was more along the lines of something the Pro's could use...... He does mention the Mac Pro, but he doesn't say the new something will be a Mac Pro... don't know just guestamating at this point lol
Yuck, awful...
Too much like any insignificant PC box, slapped on with an Apple logo...
Sigh..... this has been covered a ridiculous number of times. Apple PR directly implicated Mac Pro ( not something else ).
" ... Update: Apple PR has reached out and clarified that only the Mac Pro is expected to be next updated in 2013. .... "
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/1...c-pro-and-imac-designs-likely-coming-in-2013/
The only reason to keep going back to Cooks comments that were clarified months ago is to drudge up FUD.
It was Steve who wanted a *white* iPhone at all cost. And who went after Samsung for spite alone, whatever valid reasons existed.
