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It is going to be the drivers or the flickering issues due to changing clock domains on idle. I would not say it is a heat issue.

Are we talking mobile? I have seen zero flickering issues on the desktops.
The only Mac Pro's I have ever seen overheat or even run hot are the ones that the owners have neglected cleaning dust out of. I have seen some severely gnarly internals.
 
Really? The 5000 series? I haven't heard that at all.

Yeah, this makes no sense to me. The NVidia GPUs were rife with problems, both drivers and hardware. My 8800 GT not only died, but when it was working, was constantly gimped by broken drivers in 10.6.X. Got an ATI GPU and the problems went away.

The ATI GPUs have been extremely solid.
 
I believe way back in 2007 there were issues with some X1900XT cards but then Nvidia had huge problems with reliability too with the whole range of Geforce cards used on MacBook Pro models so neither company has a spotless record. The AMD/ATI cards used currently are well proven so it sounds like mis-information. Apple seem to just use whichever company has the best option for them at the time and often the other manufacturer has been offered as a CTO upgrade anyway.

I also agree that unless neglected the Mac Pro cooling system is well designed and has been refined over the years.
 
Are we talking mobile? I have seen zero flickering issues on the desktops.
The only Mac Pro's I have ever seen overheat or even run hot are the ones that the owners have neglected cleaning dust out of. I have seen some severely gnarly internals.
On the desktop front. Without Optimus I do not consider AMD on the mobile front outside of APU-only builds.
 
On the desktop front. Without Optimus I do not consider AMD on the mobile front outside of APU-only builds.

Yeah, that is weird to never have experienced it (2600 XT, 4870, 5770, 5870). OS X is solid and Win 7 idle to fully clocked to extremely over-clocked. No flickers. Oh well.
 
What are the chances that any NVIDIA cards will then be compatible with 2010 Mac Pros...?

I'm hoping for one so I can utilise CUDA, but need one with mini display too!!
 
What are the chances that any NVIDIA cards will then be compatible with 2010 Mac Pros...?

I'm hoping for one so I can utilise CUDA, but need one with mini display too!!

Pretty high, I think. The reason why GT 120 didn't work in some Mac Pros was (AFAIK) because NVidia drivers required 64-bit EFI while some Mac Pros have 32-bit
 
My Mac Pro has never overheated and I don't have issues with my ATi video cards either. The article doesn't make any sense.
 
or they could just lower the imac pricing schedule to make room.

1. Lowering the iMac prices means lowering the Mini prices. Lowering the mini prices means drifting into the sub $500 range which probably puts pressure on Apple support and OS/Apps costs chargeback without cutting into margins.


2. Doesn't look like the iMac pricing is an issue.....

HP is looking to roll in around the same price point ($1,800 ) .....

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/14/hp-unveils-z1-all-in-one-workstation/

The iMac and "can't limbo any lower than $2,500" Mac pro are looking kind of limited.
 
To be honest, for a machine that starts at $1800, it looks to be a worse deal than the Mac Pro. All in one, doesn't seem to be a upgradable GPU, and one drive slot that seems limited to SSDs.
 
Sandy Bridge-EP isn't even out yet, and Ivy Bridge-EP won't be out until Q4'12 at the earliest, although we are most likely looking at H1'13 release. Even with some kindergarten thinking, one should realize that this rumor is as false as it can get.

I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. This has troll article written all over it.

GTX 285 has a TDP of 204W. It's the hottest of the non-Quadro GPUs at least.

Quadros aren't always that hot. Maybe the top ones are.


1. Lowering the iMac prices means lowering the Mini prices. Lowering the mini prices means drifting into the sub $500 range which probably puts pressure on Apple support and OS/Apps costs chargeback without cutting into margins.


2. Doesn't look like the iMac pricing is an issue.....

HP is looking to roll in around the same price point ($1,800 ) .....

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/14/hp-unveils-z1-all-in-one-workstation/


The iMac and "can't limbo any lower than $2,500" Mac pro are looking kind of limited.

It sounds closer to a mac pro build stuffed behind a display. I kind of wonder how that will work.
 
HP is looking to roll in around the same price point ($1,800 ) .....

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/14/hp-unveils-z1-all-in-one-workstation/
I especially like the concept of not only the machine being fully accessible internally, but even done in style by lifting the back of the machine with a gas pressured spring. Reminds me of the first flatscreen iMacs, only done with more 'class'... :D

The iMac and "can't limbo any lower than $2,500" Mac pro are looking kind of limited.
Indeed! Hopefully that machine will have a good hit on the market, giving Apple some serious competition...
 
Sandy Bridge-EP isn't even out yet, and Ivy Bridge-EP won't be out until Q4'12 at the earliest, although we are most likely looking at H1'13 release. Even with some kindergarten thinking, one should realize that this rumor is as false as it can get.

The rumor is kind of odd, it might mean desktop Ivy Bridge cpus the same as in the iMac but the Extreme which usually have 2 more cores (990X), so a single 6 core. but then one would ask why didn't Apple introduce a single cpu based on the Sandy Bridge E already out, is its performance not that higher than the current xeons?
 
The rumor is kind of odd, it might mean desktop Ivy Bridge cpus the same as in the iMac but the Extreme which usually have 2 more cores (990X), so a single 6 core. but then one would ask why didn't Apple introduce a single cpu based on the Sandy Bridge E already out, is its performance not that higher than the current xeons?

There is no extreme for the ones in the iMac and the Ivy Bridge versions are just quad core still. Ivy-Bridge-E and EP aren't even on Intel's latest roadmap slides which covers up to and including the first half of 2013. So from what is known now no Ivy Bridge LGA 2011 processors (or no Ivy Bridge 6, 8 and 10 core processors) until the second half of 2013.

Just someone not really understanding what they are talking about and piecing together some odd ideas about Mac Pros to get hits/attention.

intelhaswelllaunchdate_dh_fx57.jpg
 
I especially like the concept of not only the machine being fully accessible internally, but even done in style by lifting the back of the machine with a gas pressured spring. Reminds me of the first flatscreen iMacs, only done with more 'class'... :D


Indeed! Hopefully that machine will have a good hit on the market, giving Apple some serious competition...

Note how even in that article you still have comments from people claiming they copied Apple and that this represents an ugly imac :rolleyes:. They look like they gave it some cool features. I'm just wondering what the machine is like in price/quality once fully configured. It's aimed at their workstation market, but it needs a good price to performance ratio there. No one in that market really requires an all in one, so if this pushes the TCO up, I can't imagine it would do that well.
 
Ivy-Bridge-E and EP aren't even on Intel's latest roadmap slides which covers up to and including the first half of 2013. So from what is known now no Ivy Bridge LGA 2011 processors (or no Ivy Bridge 6, 8 and 10 core processors) until the second half of 2013.

Given Intel's roadmap slides from about a year ago were 5-6 months wrong for Sandy-Bridge EP perhaps it is more lack of credibility why the Ivy Bridge upgrade has been left off. This has been a blunder of a launch from the perspective of roadmap accuracy.


Just someone not really understanding what they are talking about and piecing together some odd ideas about Mac Pros to get hits/attention.

More than that I think. They are deliberately picked out elements that cause conflicts ( AMD/ATI vs. Nvidia ). (implicitly CUDA vs. the Apple backed OpenCL ). Implications of "Ivy Bridge" desktop CPU vs. 'old' Sandy Bridge Xeons ....
As stated, this rumor was kindergarten wrong in very straightforward ways to anyone who has even read the discussions around the previous rumors.
 
Given Intel's roadmap slides from about a year ago were 5-6 months wrong for Sandy-Bridge EP perhaps it is more lack of credibility why the Ivy Bridge upgrade has been left off. This has been a blunder of a launch from the perspective of roadmap accuracy.
Intel appeared to be apprehensive about putting anything more than a quad core on a socket capable of dual channel memory access back with LGA 1156. That or they wanted to market hex-cores as a workstation socket only feature. :rolleyes:
 
Given Intel's roadmap slides from about a year ago were 5-6 months wrong for Sandy-Bridge EP perhaps it is more lack of credibility why the Ivy Bridge upgrade has been left off. This has been a blunder of a launch from the perspective of roadmap accuracy.

Oh quite possibly, but then Xeon cycles aren't short so the second half of 2013 seems perfectly feasible. 18 months is the average since Woodcrest. I suppose what makes it look a little strange is that Ivy Bridge will have come and gone in the consumer space by the time it comes to workstations and servers.
 
Oh quite possibly, but then Xeon cycles aren't short so the second half of 2013 seems perfectly feasible. 18 months is the average since Woodcrest.

Ivy Bridge is a "tick" ( shrink) cycle. That would be deeply strange for it to take anywhere near 18 months gap to do. Especially, since the targeted shrink process is coming on line now and would have been in flight for 12+ months. It will be on a relatively mature process when released. Primarily, Ivy Bridge is same architecture smaller and faster with some small tweaks.
Nothing there strongly motivates more than a 12 month gap.

Additionally, the 18 is average. if you look at "tock" to "tick" gaps they have been 12 months for the last 3 releases. A longer than 12 month gap between architectures (and new socket and integrated functionality) has much more credibility. A process shrink to the same socket ...... not.

I suppose what makes it look a little strange is that Ivy Bridge will have come and gone in the consumer space by the time it comes to workstations and servers.

It is not particularly strange when AMD keeps struggling to execute. To some extent Intel is parking these updates because not really feeling any heat.

----------

Intel appeared to be apprehensive about putting anything more than a quad core on a socket capable of dual channel memory access back with LGA 1156.

Anyone chip designer should be a bit apprehensive about more than two cores on per channel at these clock rates. It isn't going to scale very well to just keep piling up cores behind a memory choke point.

To keep the sockets smaller and the designs less complex the 4 core cap for mainstream CPU packages is probably going to be around for a extended period of time.
 
Xeon life cycles are much longer

Ivy Bridge E and EP will not appear in 2012, thats definite. As stated above, they are not even on the road map for 2013. Sandy Bridge-EP is delayed due to the chipset issues and possibly heat issues (150w TDP for the 8 core beasts). I think Kepler will appear in new Mac Pro, probably the new 660GTX. I think we will see the Mac Pro announced in march, shipping soon after. We have recently been told by our hosting vendor we can get new HP Gen8 Sandy Bridge EP servers (early) next month.
 
Ivy Bridge is a "tick" ( shrink) cycle. That would be deeply strange for it to take anywhere near 18 months gap to do.

Especially, since the targeted shrink process is coming on line now and would have been in flight for 12+ months. It will be on a relatively mature process when released. Primarily, Ivy Bridge is same architecture smaller and faster with some small tweaks.
Nothing there strongly motivates more than a 12 month gap.

Additionally, the 18 is average. if you look at "tock" to "tick" gaps they have been 12 months for the last 3 releases. A longer than 12 month gap between architectures (and new socket and integrated functionality) has much more credibility. A process shrink to the same socket ...... not.


It is not particularly strange when AMD keeps struggling to execute. To some extent Intel is parking these updates because not really feeling any heat.

Yeah ticks have been always been 12 months - if we consider Clovertown to Penryn and Nehalem to Westmere - but with the tock cycle getting longer and Intel's dominance I certainly won't be expecting Ivy Bridge EP within 12 months. 15-20 months before an update wouldn't be surprising in the least to me. Your last sentence basically sums it all up sadly - Intel wouldn't have waited 2 years if Bulldozer Opterons were a good alternative. If only the desktop and server markets would stop changing this would all be a lot easier to predict, but then I suppose less fun ;)
 
Hmmm

Does anyone else think Cult Of Mac is spelt just slightly wrong in this case? :D

Don't buy this crock of bull at all.
 
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