New "picture" of 2013 Mac Pro

[Krevnik]

I see your point(s). I should mention - you buy a new device, under warranty it has a flaw and the end result is you get a "used" device in its place. That is pretty much what is happening. I suppose starting with a used or refurb then makes far more sense if the warranty is really not about repair or replacing your purchased device but a simple swap. Imagine that for cars, cameras and more...you know that would cause quite an uproar.

You have to very specifically define used here. And we have to determine when a phone stops being your phone after a repair. What part of the phone makes it yours? Is it the case? The battery? The logic board? Is it still yours if I replace any of the three? Is it still yours if I replace all of it, but still call it a repair?

Refurb aren't completely from used parts, and the pieces that wear and tear are replaced with each one (case & battery). Is it still used because the logic board was in operation for a month or two?

This sort of determination is irrational, and that's fine, but not everyone makes that determination the same way. But as ActionableMango points out, your defective device you are giving them is used. Is getting a "used" device with the wearing parts replaced with new that bad? Why?

Mr Smith - sorry your 2000 dollar camera had a faulty lens flange. Here, let us give you this "good as new" used camera in its place. I suggest taking your Acura over to the dealer so they can swap it out for a "previously owned" car in its place.

If it was a warranty repair, I'd have no problem taking the refurb camera. It has attention given to it no "used" device gets.

Cars are different, but they have a lot of parts that wear down involved. If I don't mod my car, and the replacement could be confirmed to have equal or fewer miles on the wearing parts, sure. But it is nearly impossible to guarantee that with a car. They are also a lot cheaper to repair piecemeal for the manufacturer, just due to shipping costs alone of parts and supplies. Shipping whole cars for replacement is expensive.

With a heavily modified Mac Pro, I'd prefer repair too. Although the new Mac Pro is easier to simply swap out, as the modifications are more likely external now. I'd wager that they will still repair in the case of bad RAM or SSD, but replace in all others.

 

[Old Muley]

We are in the market for a new Mac sometime after the new year to replace our 5-year-old iMac. I've been fully expecting to get another iMac, until my wife saw the new Mac Pro. She said it looked "cute" and I should get it. So now I'm going to save that little suggestion in my memory, and when it's time to purchase I can remind my wife that the Mac Pro was her idea.

 

[diane143]

go with imac...or mac mini...

Most likely a Mini, unless I can get a refub on an older model. Too bad, I've had full size Macs for a very long time and will miss the expandability.

 

[jumpman25]

I still think this thing will have major problems with overheating. Have you ever felt the amount of heat a top of the line video card puts out when under full load (folding for example)? Imagine folding 2 video cards + a 150w CPU. It's just such a ridiculous amount of heat in that tiny area. Are they putting some sort of industrial 10,000 rpm fan in this thing?

 

[ActionableMango]

I still think this thing will have major problems with overheating. Have you ever felt the amount of heat a top of the line video card puts out when under full load (folding for example)? Imagine folding 2 video cards + a 150w CPU. It's just such a ridiculous amount of heat in that tiny area. Are they putting some sort of industrial 10,000 rpm fan in this thing?

Apple has had overheating problems in the past. They've even resorted to factory underclocking, which sounds like a last ditch solution. They've even done that in a "Pro" product. Hopefully they learned their lesson from that and will not be repeating it.

That being said, the new Mac Pro has a pretty big fan on the top and it is working with a nice, straight, unrestricted airflow in the natural direction of heat rising. Also, the inner core frame appears to be acting as a giant heat sink.

 

[freejazz-man]

Yeah, it seems like some effort went into that as opposed to the 1,1 of the mac pro that had air circulating sideways through chambers while the gfx pulled air in the opposite direction.

 

[theSeb]

Apple has had overheating problems in the past. They've even resorted to factory underclocking, which sounds like a last ditch solution. They've even done that in a "Pro" product. Hopefully they learned their lesson from that and will not be repeating it.

That being said, the new Mac Pro has a pretty big fan on the top and it is working with a nice, straight, unrestricted airflow in the natural direction of heat rising. Also, the inner core frame appears to be acting as a giant heat sink.

It has been at least 4 years since Apple under clocked CPUs on purpose

 

[d-m-a-x]

It has been at least 4 years since Apple under clocked CPUs on purpose

been 4 years since they updated the mac pro

 

[ActionableMango]

It has been at least 4 years since Apple under clocked CPUs on purpose

2 years ago the iPhone 4S was underclocked a whopping 20%. The 1GHz CPU ran at 800MHz.

It's not just CPUs, they've underclocked GPUs as well.

There is a pattern for Apple deciding on your behalf that they will prevent you from running at full speed in order to meet their goals for thinness, battery life, heat dissipation, and fan noise.

But I doubt they will do it for the new Mac Pro, even though they have done this on Pro products in the past. That beefy thermal core, huge fan, and thermal design all look like they will do the job to me.

 

[theSeb]

2 years ago the iPhone 4S was underclocked a whopping 20%. The 1GHz CPU ran at 800MHz.

It's not just CPUs, they've underclocked GPUs as well.

There is a pattern for Apple deciding on your behalf that they will prevent you from running at full speed in order to meet their goals for thinness, battery life, heat dissipation, and fan noise.

But I doubt they will do it for the new Mac Pro, even though they have done this on Pro products in the past. That beefy thermal core, huge fan, and thermal design all look like they will do the job to me.

I was referring to Intel CPUs, as I have not been following the iOS hardware in detail. I see that the latest Alienware laptops's firmware kicks in the down clock on the gpu earlier than other a manufacturers according to the Anandtech article. Sometimes these design decisions are a necessity, but I don't think the CPUs in the Mac Pro will be under clocked.

 

[BJonson]

Wow, that looks great in silver. Piano black was not doing it for me. White might be nice too.

 

[muziksculp]

Can we expect Apple to release the new Mac Pro Cylinder during Oct. ?

Or is that too ambitious ?

 

[Krevnik]

Can we expect Apple to release the new Mac Pro Cylinder during Oct. ?

Or is that too ambitious ?

I hope they do. My old 2008 just crapped the bed and the cost to repair is too high relative to its value if it was working. Already had to get a TB enclosure to access my drives while it is dead, and I'm just waiting for the refreshes to decide what to replace it with.

 

[fat phil]

Wow, that looks great in silver. Piano black was not doing it for me. White might be nice too.

Think again...

 

[MacScott]

I am one of those that liked Apple since the II because of a seeming encouragement to crack the case open, expand or change out what we wanted... Obviously they have been headed in the opposite direction for several years now, but this seems to complete that process.

 

[fat phil]

I am one of those that liked Apple since the II because of a seeming encouragement to crack the case open, expand or change out what we wanted... Obviously they have been headed in the opposite direction for several years now, but this seems to complete that process.

I hear ya, although having been a mac man since the early 90's who's also been a PC man, the truth is that Macs have never encouraged users to crack open the case and replace everything, not in the same way a regular PC box does.

I don't think that limiting user flexibility was ever the intention, but rather they wanted to contain the issues those same regular PCs encounter. It's not so bad these days, but you can probably remember what a bloody nightmare it was in the 90's and early naughties struggling with drivers and updates and incompatibilities. Never really had to go through that with a Quadro - a few headaches with SCSI adapters perhaps, but in general it was pretty smooth running from what I recall.

I'm in two minds over the new Mac Pro. On the one hand I love the looks, and I can really appreciate the footprint and heat venting, and I don't even mind that the internals may be a bugger to upgrade: I'm looking forward to seeing GPU manufacturers having a reason to start taking external GPUs seriously, which is all the more likely if other vendors *do* start copy-catting the design.

On the other hand though, even though I fall into the target demographic, and even if the benchmarks sing, and I have the dosh to spare when it comes out, I'm going to have a really tough internal struggle to spend $15k on a black box when comparing it to regular boxes. As much as I appreciate it, the mere fact that this is a purchase for serious business, means I have to put serious concerns first.

I REALLY want one, but I just don't know. Progress is a risky business, eh.

 

[TyPod]

Different colors for different models?

 

[ElectronGuru]

I REALLY want one, but I just don't know. Progress is a risky business, eh.

Great post. My thinking is that apple has imagined a new way of doing things, a new form of ecosystem between the base hardware and peripherals. The new CPU is like a pair of lungs, fitted with only the most heat generating components to work + a few support parts. The rest of the 'body' is whatever the buyer wants. But this model only works if those other parts are available. The big risk here is will the important 3rd parties also take the risk to complete the vision and will the customers plunk down the money to buy it all.

If this allows some video or other hardware shop to do something radically better than they've done before (think: killer app), this will absolutely take off. Customers will buy a mac pro as an accessory to the package they already want. If its just another way to do the same thing, any such process will take much longer. You won't be in a hurry to dump the current setup and will seriously shop alternatives before doing so. But 'compelling' comes in many forms. If the price is low enough, we won't need peripherals or specs to pull us in.

Can't wait for launch day!

 

[Krevnik]

Great post. My thinking is that apple has imagined a new way of doing things, a new form of ecosystem between the base hardware and peripherals. The new CPU is like a pair of lungs, fitted with only the most heat generating components to work + a few support parts. The rest of the 'body' is whatever the buyer wants. But this model only works if those other parts are available. The big risk here is will the important 3rd parties also take the risk to complete the vision and will the customers plunk down the money to buy it all.

If this allows some video or other hardware shop to do something radically better than they've done before (think: killer app), this will absolutely take off. Customers will buy a mac pro as an accessory to the package they already want. If its just another way to do the same thing, any such process will take much longer. You won't be in a hurry to dump the current setup and will seriously shop alternatives before doing so. But 'compelling' comes in many forms. If the price is low enough, we won't need peripherals or specs to pull us in.

Can't wait for launch day!

This has been my thinking as well. The Mac Pro is being positioned as a sort of "Hub" you connect the parts you need. Developers for example, can use the CPU/GPU power, but may not need more storage beyond backups. And those should be server based for the most part with some form of source control.

Media-focused folks do need storage, but are interested in RAID. Other users may just want a single large-capacity drive for backup/etc, which shouldn't be internal anyways.

Optical drives? Those are becoming much more optional as well. I use a BD drive, but that's it. The stuff Apple includes isn't helpful to me. And that's really for a specific purpose. I don't need it 9/10ths of the year.

I'm really hoping there's a model that's affordable, but with enough power to keep my CPU-hungry crunching going fast. Attach a TB RAID to that for long-term storage (iTunes media/etc) and I'm happy. I've already had to buy the RAID box due to my 2008's failure, so at this point, I'm just waiting to see if my 2008 will get replaced with another Mac Pro or the refreshed iMac. Decisions, decisions.

 

[ActionableMango]

This has been my thinking as well. The Mac Pro is being positioned as a sort of "Hub" you connect the parts you need. Developers for example, can use the CPU/GPU power, but may not need more storage beyond backups. And those should be server based for the most part with some form of source control.

Media-focused folks do need storage, but are interested in RAID. Other users may just want a single large-capacity drive for backup/etc, which shouldn't be internal anyways.

Optical drives? Those are becoming much more optional as well. I use a BD drive, but that's it. The stuff Apple includes isn't helpful to me. And that's really for a specific purpose. I don't need it 9/10ths of the year.

I'm really hoping there's a model that's affordable.

With the exception of the CPU/GPU power, you've just described the Mac Mini.

 

[Krevnik]

With the exception of the CPU/GPU power, you've just described the Mac Mini.

Can't really disagree with that assessment. As I think it is intentional on the part of Apple. The 2013 Mac Pro is a souped-up Mac Mini in design. But a Mac Mini won't get my work done as fast as the 2013 Mac Pro or iMac can.

There are advantages to this approach, as well as disadvantages. In the end it is a trade off of one set of advantages for another. In my work, the desktop tower form factor winds up really meaning that it just eats a bigger footprint. Having a TB RAID independent is an advantage if the machine itself craps out. This last one I was made painfully aware of when the 2008 crapped out, and I was stuck waiting nearly a week before I could bring the RAID back online.

Those who prefer the type of modularity that a desktop tower provides are going to be put off by the 2013 model. No doubt about that. Price is a big question mark as well, and a concern I share. Some modularity of the desktop tower is simply moved into external enclosures (RAID), but some other things are going to be a lot harder to deal with, as being able to add USB3 or eSATA to existing Mac Pros is useful. Getting that functionality through dongles is not really better.

And yes, I could get away with a Mac Mini in my line of work if the CPU/GPU wasn't so underpowered. Even with a slow HDD, compiling projects is a CPU-bound exercise with 8 cores on the 2008. Even at work with a 12 core box, it is CPU-bound. Downgrading isn't a great proposition for me unless the Mac Pro price is simply too high, and then, I'd drop to the iMac instead.