Despite the redesign, I'm not so sure they'll really try to push it any more towards the general consumer. Though having one on display in an Apple store could turn some heads.
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The Mac Pro Criticism
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Despite the redesign, I'm not so sure they'll really try to push it any more towards the general consumer. Though having one on display in an Apple store could turn some heads.
I am one of those mainstream/prosumer buyers. This is a TCO fail. We hang on to our machines longer than 36 months. Moving my HDs means I would need to add 2 additional TB HD enclosures - Price those lately?
Failure in Total Cost of Ownership - I think so. It's also hard for me to see how I personally would migrate my current environment in any straightforward way. To wit:
Two internal 2TB 3 1/2" HDD
Two internal SSD
Two monitors - one Apple 30" and one NEC 271W, both through Dual Link DVI.
I guess the external Pegasus is a possibility - it appears to be one of the better TB external storage options, but can you buy one unpopulated and does it support BootCamp and does it support multiple non-RAID devices? The smaller Pegasus unit only accepts 2 1/2" drives, so that's no good.
Monitor adaptors ... who knows. I use an Apple TB to dual link adaptor on my Apple laptop and IMO it's a piece of cr*p.
So cost aside (no minor issue), I have no idea how to get there. I don't know that Apple did itself any favors with this pre-announcement.
Two internal 2TB 3 1/2" HDD
Two internal SSD
Two monitors - one Apple 30" and one NEC 271W, both through Dual Link DVI.
I guess the external Pegasus is a possibility - it appears to be one of the better TB external storage options, but can you buy one unpopulated and does it support BootCamp and does it support multiple non-RAID devices? The smaller Pegasus unit only accepts 2 1/2" drives, so that's no good.
Monitor adaptors ... who knows. I use an Apple TB to dual link adaptor on my Apple laptop and IMO it's a piece of cr*p.
So cost aside (no minor issue), I have no idea how to get there. I don't know that Apple did itself any favors with this pre-announcement.
Exactly. It looks like another Jony Ives wet dream, looks before function. Rather than a powerful machine that can be configured for users including enthusiasts,power users, gamers, photographers, video/film editing, and others it looks like the new Mac Pro is designed for two primary users;
1. Video editing or other multicore uses with external raid boxes.
2. Rich guys who want their friends to exclaim, "Dude what is that awesome looking thing on your desk!". Just a single Mac Pro with only a TB Cinema plugged into it will look oh-so fabulous and surf the net like a big dog.
I agree and have been posting this. Matching peripherals makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if they were out to "wow" us with an all black lineup and a lower starting price (with cheap GPU's) for the Prosumers. Surely they would love to reboot the dying desktop market.
Intel explicitly did not plan for volume TB v2 controller production until 2014. It is quite possible. Did not Xeon E5 ship on time last year. Q4 2011 quickly became Q1 2012 announcement. Which then become Q2 volume shipping. The current IOchipset associated with haswell had a USB bug in it... not going to clear up till this month after Haswell (v3 ) launch.
Intel never has bugs in a brand new product updates and ship precisely on projected timelines? Not really. It happens. Bugs and problems so bad as to push the Mac Pro into 2014? Probably not.
there is decent chance they this "why don't you hold and wait" is similar to 2012's "why don't you hold and wait" and that attempting to manage expectations that the gap isn't going to be short. While not a year delta this time, it is probably not coming in next couple of months. They are still giving themselves until Dec 31 as a hard deadline to get this out the door.
A year ago Intel's projects for E5 v2 was max 10 cores and TB v2 around 2014. ( go back and look at old 'roadmaps' from 2011 and early 2012 and for TB http://www.anandtech.com/show/5405/the-first-thunderbolt-speed-bump-likely-in-2014 ). In the video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3TGVlyEYurQ#t=70s
the Intel rep says this is early prototype silicon. Intel is just getting past the first couple rounds of first silicon phase back in March. That is about where would expect to be in March if targeting late December or January.
That v2 is just same bandwidth, different allocation that may go quicker.
The Mac Pro can ship without the 12 core. Especially, if it is a BTO config ( which it probably is. ). If quirks in TB v2 controllers show up in real-world testing then the Mac Pro will have to slide.
Neither one. It may be a vanity product for a subset of the buyers. But if the Mac Pro is dependent upon them for survival it is probably dead. Mac Pro has to deliver real work value to sell in numbers sufficient to stay viable.
The notion of "demonstration products"... Jobs throw that notion out the window when he got back. That was part of the ineffectual silliness of the 90's that ran the company into the ground.
That appears the same bonehead move that got the SNAFU iMac committed to its launch process last year. Instead of the ship when ready. There is a balance to being too aggressive and pushing folks to tighter deadlines. Being burnt by the iMac clusterf*ck last year, I doubt Apple is going to do that again this year.
About zero rational reason Apple has to recoup R&D costs in less than even 2-3 quarters with ridiculous stock pile of cash they have. Apple isn't poor. If it takes 1-2 years to fix the Mac Pro market after damaging it for 2+ years than can afford to do that.
If the Mac Pro is now down to being highly dependent upon folks chirstmas bonus or year-end-tax-bonus to provide enough "value" to be bought, it is doomed long term. Fad buyers aren't to do high year-over-year growth at this price point.
the Mac Cube had fad buyers.... it lasted a year. This might last a bit longer than a year it will die too if it is primary being bought on "oh shiny, my precious" motivations.
The Mac Pro is the most Pro mac yet. Here is why.
I've seen so much critisism online about this New Mac Pro. It just doesn't make any sense. I think people are getting confused with who the Mac Pro is really for. It's for Pros. Not for the dude that shoots a video on his 5D and uploads it to youtube and calls himself a filmmaker. The people that buy these computers are huge studios. South Park, Paramount, Sony Image works, Weta. And they buy them in bulk. Not Johnny filmmaker who wants to load it up with internal storage and use it as a media server / finalcut machine. I'm not saying Johnny Filmmaker can't buy one of these. But when Apple is designing them they are designing for the big leagues. It just so happens other people buy them for their prosumer use as well. But ultimately the prosumer should be buying the iMac and Macbook Pro.
As a professional editor, this new Mac Pro makes so much sense to me. I don't use internal storage, I don't need an attached monitor. I like that it's smaller. I don't need internal PCI expantions since everything is done externally with rackmounts. I don't need more harddrive space since all our storage is done on a server or on external raids.
Anyway, I go more into my rant about how awesome this thing is on my blog you can check that out if you're interested in my experience in the professional market using these computers.
I've seen so much critisism online about this New Mac Pro. It just doesn't make any sense. I think people are getting confused with who the Mac Pro is really for. It's for Pros. Not for the dude that shoots a video on his 5D and uploads it to youtube and calls himself a filmmaker. The people that buy these computers are huge studios. South Park, Paramount, Sony Image works, Weta. And they buy them in bulk. Not Johnny filmmaker who wants to load it up with internal storage and use it as a media server / finalcut machine. I'm not saying Johnny Filmmaker can't buy one of these. But when Apple is designing them they are designing for the big leagues. It just so happens other people buy them for their prosumer use as well. But ultimately the prosumer should be buying the iMac and Macbook Pro.
As a professional editor, this new Mac Pro makes so much sense to me. I don't use internal storage, I don't need an attached monitor. I like that it's smaller. I don't need internal PCI expantions since everything is done externally with rackmounts. I don't need more harddrive space since all our storage is done on a server or on external raids.
Anyway, I go more into my rant about how awesome this thing is on my blog you can check that out if you're interested in my experience in the professional market using these computers.
Bulk relative to what? They not buying 100's of thousands per year.
This is the similar narcissistic perspective on FCPX threads of excising lots of folks who make a living at something from being "Pro" to reclassify just a subniche as being the whole market. If not editing on tape then not a Pro.
Yes this is designed for the folks in large groups that share very large files. But is that really the core Mac Pro user base ? If so is it a sustainable core?
I do think that the "one-man-show" who stuffs everything into a single box to make the cables disappear is problematic to base the Mac Pro market. There needs to be a mix of professional who use the Mac Pro as a tool on both sides. The mega corps... they have their own stuck-on-sunk-costs myopic outlooks too ( e.g., much of the FCPX brouhaha ).
Centralized storage just happens not to be one of them. Big and lumbering corp... they are likely have OCD fixation on something.
Maybe for film people this is a great machine (although I am dubious about that given the smaller RAM and SSD upgrade options), but for pro audio people it is not at all what we wanted. Perhaps if they release Logic Pro X with some massive support for OpenCL, but that's questionable.
Hehe, what you don't know is that I'm a microrobotics specialist... Did you notice the mosquito which flew by a few minutes ago? It was equipped with WiFi and HD Video so I could hack in and check your system profile while watching you sit underwear clad in front of your system. Dude, at least put on a t-shirt! Gaaah!
I didn't know they were in Huntsville, Alabama no. But I've taught from and used a fair number of them. Whatever happened to them, are they still building electronics?
I didn't know they were in Huntsville, Alabama no. But I've taught from and used a fair number of them. Whatever happened to them, are they still building electronics?
You haven't seen the criticism because you weren't here the last time the Mac Pro was "upgraded".
I am a "prosumer" - I didn't buy the iMac because the iMac has been judged and found wanting for what I do (3D art). It simply doesn't have the horses to do what I do.
I got my Mac Pro at the end of 2007 - please compare a 1,1 Mac Pro with a Mid 2007 iMac. After I get my 5355's installed, my 2.1 will out perform the latest iMac.
I have to disagree. I don't see many of those studios adopting to this new machine at all. Lack of Standard GPU upgrades, 4 RAM slots, etc. Too much limitation. Granted, hey usually don't upgrade these on their own, but buy them from vendors who do.
I agree that storage isn't an issue, but the others may be. Also, it depends on what kind of software/support agreements these major players have. I work for a major network, and we're limited in our upgrades because of trying to stay Avid certified. We have to stay Nvidia, and the last time weather Avid guys in the wouldn't certify more than 12gb of ram, which sucks since we use AE lot. Hopefully that will change now that we're upgrading our Isis, migrating to Interplay, and our version of media composer.
Honestly I see this much more suited for the small studio/one man band FCPX user.
Exactly. It's a video production computer. For the rest of us it's not so great. An ultra-specific machine, now that's a great way to sell a bunch of them!
A) Apple is literally the biggest, most succesful computer company right now (sounds weird to say it I know). I think it is possible they have a little juice with Intel.
B)Apple has piles of money, but you can't run a business as just a big pile of money with no distinctions between departments. Both for managerial and legal reasons.
C) I kind of agree with you on that. I think in an ideal world Apple needs to deliver by holiday season to maximize returns. But we know they will sell these hand over fist so long as the price point is not prohibitive and it does not have major teething issues.
D) I disagree. The Mac Pro is certainly the flagship product of their computing line. IOS devices are a larger part of their revenue so logically that would make the 5 or iPad mini the "Flagship".
I kind of think of any product or division of a company that doesn't pull the same weight as the others as "vanity". Not that people buy it out of vanity, rather that the company feeds it's ego (or honors their origins) by maintaining a product line.
I do gotta add that I am disappointed with the 12-core MAX config. And the detail in the ad copy that it can be configured "up to 12 cores".
However that also gives the Mac Pro team the wiggle room they need to get it on shelves.
EG:
They may only be able to sell 6 or 8 core versions initially until the full monty 12 core is up and firing on all cylinders. That would truly suck though. I would have a hard time ditching my current 2010 mac pro for a new Mac pro of less cores. Sure it may bench faster, but...its a guy thing.
Pro users have different needs on their Mac Pros in terms of storage. Some may need the extra internal storage or PCI expansions and some may not as you mentioned. The new Mac Pro 2013 uses the flash SSD as storage and you may need some kind of backup storage like cases of crashes/repairs. Or after you've updated your OSX there are glitches or some apps stop working and you want to revert to your previous settings. And a Mac tech guy told me for repairs/crashes it's harder to recover files from a flash ssd compared to regular SATA hard drives. Though the flash SSD is way faster and the new technology now. And the new 2013 Mac Pro may work well for some or others would still stick to the current tower Mac Pro.
Price of the 2013 Mac Pro may also be the deciding factor to some users. And as your needs grow, and may need the external expansion, the cost of expansion also comes into play.
I agree completely. It's graphics overkill. Not sure why one of the sides of the triangle couldn't be for another processor instead of the second graphics card. But then one couldn't reconfigure it later on.
This new Mac Pro feels very disposable to me, something that can't really grow with my needs over the years. It's like a more powerful headless iMac, which we all wanted, but with all the iMac's limitations and none of the old Mac Pro's benefits. Thus it feels like it's going to be a waste of money.
Frustrating. I want to like it but can't.
Well, I agree the 30" ACD DVI may be toast although I'm thinking the PA271 may connect via the DisplayPort ~ mini DisplayPort cable I'm currently using with my MP 4,1. If not, I'll connect it to a cheap 'windows' machine since I don't much care for Bootcamp anyway. My current HD's will need to be migrated to a USB 3.0 external(s) but since my current drives are so damn slow, I'll welcome that expense.
Currently, I back up all of my files to cloud based servers so my 'external' storage needs are not what they used to be. In fact, I'm certain that Time Machine will eventually go to the iCloud and at that point I'll simply need a bootable back-up.
As it stands now I remain interested although if it gets too crazy ($) I'll just raise a white flag and buy whatever updated iMac is available at the time of the Mac Pro release.
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And none of that is going to get bugs in Intel's circuitry or process fixed any faster. It is a whole lot of crotch grabbing smack talk misdirection. It didn't help get the iMac out faster either. There is a huge spectrum of things that Apple doesn't have control over.
By the holiday season the Mac Pro would have been dead to the EU markets for over 7-8 months. That is the majority of a year. No "Santa bought you a Mac Pro" is going to make up for withdrawing from a major market for a year. Mac Pro year-over-year sales are more likely to be down for calendar 2013.
This Mac Pro is a future bet. I think they already know that 2013 is a bust. Between invoking the Osborne Effect , walking away from a subset of current Mac Pro owners ( who need easy acces to bulk storage) , and late arrival of anything new to offer (coupled to having to withdraw from the market), Mac Pro sales in 2013 are going to suck. It isn't going to matter if time shift the sales that could/should have happened in March-September and squeeze them all into Nov-December.
Apple probably will make a big deal about the rapid adoption by the new Mac Pro's buyers a couple of weeks or month after it ships. If send sales into the absolute deepest crapper you can find, sure sales increase double or triple digit percentage points once stop doing that.
The initial sales don't really mean squat. The backlog of folks that have deferred purchases for a long time is going to highly skew the data hiding whether this is a sustainable product or not.
Absolutely not. rMBP 15". It was done first without languishing for years. The Mac Pro looks "super duper" because its comparison point to the previous generation model at the entry level is mired in 2009 technology. That's 4 years ago. That is two Moorse' Law cycles ago.
There is as large spectrum of the 2013 Mac Pro features that just bring it up to parity to what competitors have been shipping for over a year. The packing and design compromises are radically different but most of the technology capabilities are over a year old. 12 cores? Folks have been running 16. 7 TFLOPs ? Plop down the money and do the same thing for last 6 months with effectively the same card. ( drop the FirePro label and shrink the VRAM and it has been 12 months. )
I suspect you have a deeply misguided metric of pulling the weight. The weight isn't revenue. The weight is growth. If the Mac Pro's growth is just as limited over the next 1-2 years as it has been over the 2008-2010 time frame, the product will be dead in 2-3 years. It will go right back to getting few to no update and it highly doubtful anyone is going to reverse the death sentence a second time.
The 12 core processor is going to cost too much for most users. It isn't even wiggle room. I doubt it is even part of the "good, better, best" configurations at all. Even more so if there is only "good, best" standard configurations. ( with upper with more BTO variety which incudes the 12 core)
Not. First, the number of cores is probably going to start at 4, not 6. More likely you are going to see a
"good" E5 1620 v2 ( 3.7GHz 4 cores )
"better" E5 1650 v2 ( 3.4GHz 6 cores )
"best " E5 1660 v2 ( 3.6Hz 6 cores )
There will be BTO options for E5 2600 with 10 and 12 cores that are higher priced. The W9000 BTO somewhat likely to bundled with those. But what has primarily been dropped from the market is the dual CPU package Mac Pro. That is gone. So it is highly likely Apple will focus no the CPUs that would go into the evolutionary equivalent to the current single package Mac Pro.
There is a small subset of folks with money to burn that will opt for the substantive GHz vs core count vs. price trade off that the 12 core model will present.
If Apple "has to use" the E5 2600 offerings across the board due to their lower TDP then this design is deeply flawed. If Apple is even remotely trying to have competitive pricing they'll need at least some E5 1600 offerings in the line up.
No, that is a vanity thing. Don't throw all males into the group that just buying things on their spec porn attributes.
http://www.intergraph.com - They're into providing enterprise engineering software and geospatially powered solutions to the public safety and security, defense and intelligence, government, transportation, photogrammetry, utilities and communications industries.
From what I've heard, Apple barely makes any profit on the Mac Pro. So I think they will keep making them as long as it's helping them sell their software. It's going to be a very interesting next 10 years in the desktop computing world. I imagine a lot of players in the super quad computer xeon world will start to disapear as other options like iMacs and Macbook Pro's get powerful enough. Apple probably only continues to make this thing to keep the big studios and prosumer in their Apple eco system. Because like the company I work for, we are likely switching to Premiere or Avid next year, but we'll still be all MacPros. And I imagine in a few more years when we become an Adobe house, It might start making more sense to move away from Apple. Although a base model mac pro is still cheaper than a Dell with the same specs.
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I think Apple would rather a prosumer buy an iMac and Macbook pro anyway. Their profit margen on the MacPro is very low compared to their other computers. But these new MacPros look cool, sit a designer in front of it, plug him into the network and give him a monitor and now his renders go twice as fast. Which means we can do more revisions on our trailers in a day and get things even looking better. It should be fun.
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Doesn't SSD also have a certain life also? On my bootcamp on my MacPro I use an SSD and it's been slowly dying. Giving me memory errors here and there. I wonder how easily this new SSD will be to replace in the new mac pro.
lol. No more than 12gb of ram? That's crazy? I think Avid certification needs a huge refresh. That's like with some of our clients specs for deliveries, you can tell they're clearly outdated
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Don't worry, Apple will probably refresh Logic next and call it LogicProX which will just be GarageBand Pro. That will have all sorts of OpenCL capabilities
Pardon my ignorance - is multi-threading dead ?
I was under the impression, that 3D and video rendering greatly benefit from the amount of physical cores, has this been changed ?