The new Mac Pro is the xMac

[NorCalLights]

3d rendering in my case. You can get very expensive software for that, but the hobbyist software is very powerful and it is also very inexpensive.

My software needs CPUs for that. 12 cores is enough for TODAY, in my case. The problem becomes what happens 24 months from now. We can get 16 cores TODAY, via Dell or HP.

You are too hung up on specs, and you are judging the performance before anyone outside of Pixar or The Foundry has used the machines (and you're ignoring their glowing reviews).

If, when the Mac Pros are released, you believe that they do not offer the performance you need, buy something else. But don't just buy a different computer because it "has more cores."

And I will point out that any 3D rendering software worth its salt supports farming. In 3 years if you are hurting for processing power, grab a Mac Mini (or two, or ten), throw it in a closet somewhere, and render away.

 

[linuxcooldude]

You are too hung up on specs, and you are judging the performance before anyone outside of Pixar or The Foundry has used the machines (and you're ignoring their glowing reviews).

If, when the Mac Pros are released, you believe that they do not offer the performance you need, buy something else. But don't just buy a different computer because it "has more cores."

And I will point out that any 3D rendering software worth its salt supports farming. In 3 years if you are hurting for processing power, grab a Mac Mini (or two, or ten), throw it in a closet somewhere, and render away.

Not only that, but modern GPU in graphic cards can contain thousands of streaming cores.

 

[theluggage]

Read it yourself. In the fancy scroll infographic is says "features", as in "it features dual FirePro graphics" which means options.

...and on the "Graphics" page of said annoying infographic, top-left, it says "Dual GPUs Standard" in large, friendly letters. "As standard" was also emphasised in the keynote speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCyE5qqraBY at around 4:50).

So yeah, they're not committed to anything yet but they've gone out of their way to say it will have dual GPUs as standard so it will be a U-turn if it doesn't.

 

[ssgbryan]

Not only that, but modern GPU in graphic cards can contain thousands of streaming cores.

Which matters not one bit if the software I use doesn't take advantage of them.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Which matters not one bit if the software I use doesn't take advantage of them.

It took forever for software developers to finally support 64 bit processors. It also took them just as long to support multicore processors. Why should I think any different for them to finally support GPU's?

 

[ssgbryan]

You are too hung up on specs, and you are judging the performance before anyone outside of Pixar or The Foundry has used the machines (and you're ignoring their glowing reviews).

If, when the Mac Pros are released, you believe that they do not offer the performance you need, buy something else. But don't just buy a different computer because it "has more cores."

And I will point out that any 3D rendering software worth its salt supports farming. In 3 years if you are hurting for processing power, grab a Mac Mini (or two, or ten), throw it in a closet somewhere, and render away.

I am not hung up on specs, I am hung up on a concept called "TCO" aka Total Cost of Ownership. It's all the rage....

The life cycle of my computers is 5 years. Then they are moved to my render farm. Because I am on that cycle, I buy as much horsepower as I can get. The problem is that the iCan looks to top out where the current Mac Pro is today. That won't look so good 5 years from now.

I don't care what Pixar or the Foundary thinks about them - I don't have their budget. It is easy to rant about performance when you aren't paying for them.

As far as render farming, for the price of a Mac Mini, I can get at least 3 Dell Precision 690s off lease (I paid less than $300 for my first one - they go for about the price of a netbook nowadays.)

----------

It took forever for software developers to finally support 64 bit processors. It also took them just as long to support multicore processors. Why should I think any different for them to finally support GPU's?

I know, I lived through the 16-bit to 32-bit transition already. I am not expecting the software in my pipeline to take advantage of the GPU for at least 2 to 3 iterations - there are other, more high-priority issues to be dealt with.

 

[cobie8]

[/COLOR]Consider this. I just got my mother board replaced on a 2011 MBP. This includes CPU, GPU and all the support logic. It cost me $210, plus $100 in labor. For whatever reason (I think this computer was a lemon and had the problem from the beginning (a GPU problem) which Apple recognized) this is surely coming in at cost.

$200 for the motherboard. Apple knowns how to drive component costs down.

Just maintain fan speed. I use fancontrol for mbp8,2 since it still has proper sensors. I set nominal fan speed until temps reach 60*C and max fan speed at 80*C.

My guess is the GPU kicks in to supplement the CPU. I know launching Xcode will do that. For the most part, I never enable gfx switching because the dGPU will come on anyway. It does add to thermal cost when dGPU comes online, and on idle I see temps that don't go below 65*C on ambient 23*C. This is why I use my Mac Pro for more compute intensive exercises. My MBP has become more for Remote Desktop than anything.

 

[beelzebubba]

Observations from someone that's been doing mission critical, large scale audio production for quite a while ...

Software support is our biggest hurdle, not so much the hardware though it does have an impact. For one package in particular Avid seems to be perpetually behind in keeping up with hardware and software updates.

For high demand work this looks to be a nice box. I don't know if the picture people will be able to use it but from where we sit we like it. I've used Mac towers since they started building them. Most of our high end stations have used expansion chassis and external and network drives for years. Years. Lack of slots and drive bays won't be an issue because there weren't enough in the previous models which was the reason we used external peripherals. In fact we're going the other way be eliminating external cards in favor of native processing. A 12 core box will be dandy for this. Between 8 and 16GB is a normal RAM config for us depending on the job. If we can get that on a single stick no problem.

Internal slots and cards... We've been able to shuttle large track counts on and off the boxes not using internal slots for a couple years now. Up to 128 audio channels. We've been able over the last several years to replace costly dedicated cards and proprietary interfaces with a larger selection of lower cost, higher quality interfaces and be able to have more flexibility in the configurations. That's something that just wasn't possible when we were locked into card slots and expansion chassis. It's also more cost effective to scale and easier to reconfigure if need be.

Physical size... Most of out systems are either portable or need the capability to be portable. Configuring the current tower in a rack is not optimal. The cylinder doesn't look optimal either but it is lighter and smaller so that's a plus. A reduced noise output is a good thing. In some situations we can isolate the box but in some remote instances the box has to occupy the space in which we monitor and or mix. Sometimes that can be an issue. When you crunch that much audio the box can get a bit noisy.

We also have some Win 7 boxes used for the same app but the overwhelming majority of our productions and artists use Macs. So, is this a "professional level" system? I'll leave that for others to debate but for us working for a production company that grosses in the range of 10 figures a year it will work just fine. Of course your mileage may vary.

 

[Transeau]

I normally sit out on these types of threads... But...
I own an "Outside IT Management" company. I primarily deal with the medical field. However, a few years ago I picked up a few new clients. One is a well known movie studio. Along with three recording studios. So, here is my $0.02.


1) Lack of internal storage.. I can honestly say that a LOT of people that work with the "pro" boxes (mostly Mac Pro's, but I still see a few old Alpha's, SGI's and the like) have no idea what the boxes have in them, or what can be done to them. The recording studios all use fiber channel or just Ethernet with centralized storage. The movie studio has both internal and external. They only care about speed. As I see it, Thunberbolt 2 gives us a very nice upgrade path for massive and *FAST* storage. The internal storage is a non-issue for my clients.

2) Only 4 DIMMS? OMG so what? 64GB (4x16GB) is only $580. 128GB (4x32GB) is $1300. If you need that much memory, then is price really an issue? No, not in my field.

3) "Made Quite" is not a Pro feature? LOL okay.. I've been in no less than 12 studio "sound booths" that have the hardware in the room with them.

4) No Thunderbolt devices? Interesting. I just upgraded one of the recording studios with new iMac's and Universal Audio's "Apollo" with the Thunderbolt interfaces. They are pretty impressive and the engineers love them. They went with a Pegasus R6 (6x4TB, RAID10). No Fiberchannel for the iMac.

5) Legacy ports? Really? This is an issue? If you need firewire that bad, pick up a Thunderbolt display. It has 1394b on the back.

6) No PCIe? Isn't that Thunderbolt? In a "Pro" situation, most everything is 19" rack mount anyway. I've seen a few PCIe "accelerators" but with today's CPU power, that's a non-issue now.

7) Single CPU only.. I'm not sure on this one yet. In general I don't think this is a big deal. 12 core is pretty nice. 24 even better for rendering. But again, if you are doing work that needs more, wouldn't you have the money for a nice little Mac Pro farm?

To be honest, I would bet that most of the people complaining about any of these things simply don't need them anyway. I don't.. I'm happy with my iMac. I would Love a Mac Pro, but honestly it doesn't offer me anything that I don't already have or need. But that's me. I don't do animation or video editing. I do audio mixing on the side, but still, nothing the iMac can't handle.

 

[barkmonster]

Back in the G5 days the entry level Power Mac started at only £1099 and there were still complaints about it being too expensive.

I think that was purely the psychological effect of a 4 figure price because the Blue & White G3 was only £999 a few years earlier

The thing with the Mac Pro is, we can all speculate about how much Apple's custom design is worth but the basic fact remains, we know it's only a 1 CPU system, we know it has no internal expansion apart from 4 RAM slots and we know it's intended to be paired with modular expansion and storage systems via Thunderbolt so the pricing should reflect what a Mac Pro would cost - the price of the third party stuff needed to add back the PCIe slots and drive bays.

 

[ElderBrE]

I normally sit out on these types of threads... But...
I own an "Outside IT Management" company. I primarily deal with the medical field. However, a few years ago I picked up a few new clients. One is a well known movie studio. Along with three recording studios. So, here is my $0.02.


1) Lack of internal storage.. I can honestly say that a LOT of people that work with the "pro" boxes (mostly Mac Pro's, but I still see a few old Alpha's, SGI's and the like) have no idea what the boxes have in them, or what can be done to them. The recording studios all use fiber channel or just Ethernet with centralized storage. The movie studio has both internal and external. They only care about speed. As I see it, Thunberbolt 2 gives us a very nice upgrade path for massive and *FAST* storage. The internal storage is a non-issue for my clients.

2) Only 4 DIMMS? OMG so what? 64GB (4x16GB) is only $580. 128GB (4x32GB) is $1300. If you need that much memory, then is price really an issue? No, not in my field.

3) "Made Quite" is not a Pro feature? LOL okay.. I've been in no less than 12 studio "sound booths" that have the hardware in the room with them.

4) No Thunderbolt devices? Interesting. I just upgraded one of the recording studios with new iMac's and Universal Audio's "Apollo" with the Thunderbolt interfaces. They are pretty impressive and the engineers love them. They went with a Pegasus R6 (6x4TB, RAID10). No Fiberchannel for the iMac.

5) Legacy ports? Really? This is an issue? If you need firewire that bad, pick up a Thunderbolt display. It has 1394b on the back.

6) No PCIe? Isn't that Thunderbolt? In a "Pro" situation, most everything is 19" rack mount anyway. I've seen a few PCIe "accelerators" but with today's CPU power, that's a non-issue now.

7) Single CPU only.. I'm not sure on this one yet. In general I don't think this is a big deal. 12 core is pretty nice. 24 even better for rendering. But again, if you are doing work that needs more, wouldn't you have the money for a nice little Mac Pro farm?

To be honest, I would bet that most of the people complaining about any of these things simply don't need them anyway. I don't.. I'm happy with my iMac. I would Love a Mac Pro, but honestly it doesn't offer me anything that I don't already have or need. But that's me. I don't do animation or video editing. I do audio mixing on the side, but still, nothing the iMac can't handle.

I like this "case study".

We all keep posting about what _I_ wanted and needed, and since it doesn't fit what _I_ wanted, it's a consumer computer, not for Pros, when this machine is anything but a consumer computer, it's not even a Pro computer, it's a studio computer built with studios in mind, not freelancers.

This is good for them, and bad for those who had hoped to have a more customizable workstation for the next few years. Those of us who wanted that, well, we don't have an offer from Apple now (awaiting final announcement of course), but that doesn't mean this isn't a pro computer. It only means it's not meant for _my_ needs.

There are just so many case studies, some where this machine will fit perfectly (ie. my old video editing studio would be one, I was the only one always requesting new components and ended up leaving) and some where this just won't work.

 

[jncoanalog]

The term "professional" is completely ambiguous these days. What you need as a "pro" is different than what some other "pro" needs. So this argument is mostly pointless. My guess, though, is that this machine is geared more towards the small business/single man band type of customer (like FCPX). I don't see many bigger studios/post houses entertaining this as an option. We'll see though.

Well, the term 'professional' was never unambiguous to start with... What the hell is a professional?

My uncle is a 'professional' lawyer, so his 'professional' computer is a Macbook Air (which satisfies all his computing needs + a lot more);
my cousin is a 'professional' video director/editor, so his 'professional' computer is a 2008 17" Macbook Pro (which doesn't satisfy ALL of his computing needs, he just doesn't have the money/needs to justify buying a current MacPro. So let's ask him how he feels about the new MP when we know its price shall we?);
I myself am a 'professional' designer, currently in charge of project management for a software/web development agency, so my day-to-day 'professional' computer is an iPad Mini (hoooo, the horror, the shock ) plus a 13" MacbookPro hooked up tho a 27" Thunderbolt display from time to time.

My guess - just like handsome pete - is that "this machine will be geared towards the small business/single man band type of customer".
But I would also guess that what will be shifting towards this kind of "small business/single man band" is not only this machine but Apple itself, and much more importantly... the whole world!

I would guess most of you (my cousin and most of his 'supposedly Pro-video-friends' included) missed the really important part of the FCPX release... Today, we don't need to master over-complicated technicalities, computers are here to simplify them.
Just as an example, as a consumer of all kinds of video, I really don't care if the director/editor was a 'professional', an amateur, or a prosumer. I certainly don't care if he/she used a MacPro, an iPad, or an HP Slimline HTPC to edit his/her footage. I don't even care if he/she used an iPhone, a Canon 7D or a small point-and-shoot as his/hers capturing device... all I care is the quality of the final product (the video itself).
The video business is just an example, you can extrapolate that to all kinds of 'areas' that supposedly require lots of computational power... design, engineering, software development, etc, etc, etc. The shift of focus from hardware to software (should have) started long ago, you've just been missing it... [see Lev Manovich's Avantgarde as Software, for example]

While I can perfectly see its flaws (at least the ones that we already know of), I also see this new MacPro as a really visionary item. Not only in terms of what computers will become, but more importantly in terms of where the world is heading to (or should be at least)...

Just my 2c

 

[NorCalLights]

The problem is that the iCan looks to top out where the current Mac Pro is today. That won't look so good 5 years from now.

That's an insane comment. Clearly, the new Mac Pro is far more powerful than the current Mac Pro.

I have a really difficult time seeing your problem here. When I need a new computer, I buy the highest-performing computer I can afford. I don't spend any energy worrying about computers that don't exist. And then I keep that computer until I can afford a computer that performs better (a cycle that usually takes me about 5 years as well).

 

[orlondo]

I can be completely wrong but I believe the starting price will be $1,999.

I find this highly improbable.

Take a look at Apple's pricing history for the Mac Pro, especially the jump from the 2008 to 2009 models with the switch from a dual E5462 to dual E5520. At release, the E5462 had a 1k unit price of $800+ (wasn't sold to non-OEMs; the price would be higher than the E5440 which was also a 2.8GHz and had a 1k unit price of ~$750) and the E5520 had a 1k unit price of around $380.

Despite having a decrease in almost $1,000 in just the CPUs, the price for the base dual-socket rose from $2799 to $3299. Beyond the CPUs and motherboard, not much would have changed between the 2008 and 2009 models that would warrant such a cost increase.

Given that the base Mac Pro will have dual workstation-class graphics cards (my guess is FirePro W5000), a PCIe SSD (I'm guessing ~500GB), and a E5-26xx v2 Xeon (wont be the bottom, my guess is a E5-2650v2), there would be no way to price the Mac Pro at $1999. I would be shocked if it is less than $2999.

Getting larger amounts of RAM, 64GB+, you'll be paying the premium for the higher density 16GB DIMMs

They could get it down to $1999 if they skimped heavily on everything. The GPUs could be W600s, use a quad core E3-12xx v2 Xeon, go as low as a 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, etc. I find it hard to believe Apple would do that given how little of a gap there would end up being between it and the iMac--the only difference between a i7-4770 and a E3-1245v2 beyond the support for ECC RAM, for example.

On the high-end, 12 core Xeon, dual W9000s, 1GB SSD, 64GB RAM, etc, I would expect it to go beyond $8k. You're looking at least $1,500 for the 1k unit price on the Xeon and $3300 for each of the W9000s.

 

[deconstruct60]

Which matters not one bit if the software I use doesn't take advantage of them.

Which won't matter much if the OS libraries those apps leverage them transparently. If Apple dumps more of the standard graphics workload off the CPU onto the GPUs there is no major rewrites required.

----------

It took forever for software developers to finally support 64 bit processors. It also took them just as long to support multicore processors. Why should I think any different for them to finally support GPU's?

Because by OS X 10.9 and the whole Mac 2013 refresh all Macs sold will be OpenCL capable. That roughly 14M/year of Macs that can leverage your OpenCL capabilities.


One reason software has slow roll out is that most deployed systems( and users ) don't have the underlying foundation. If vast majority of folks have 2 cores not going to get 6-8 core optimized from a wide spectrum of software vendors. Similarly if 50% of all Macs have less than 2GB memory in them and running 32 bit kernel mode then most won't be in big hurry to get to 64 bit ( to soak up more space to address less than 2GB ? not a big winner).

 

[deconstruct60]

I find this highly improbable.
....
Given that the base Mac Pro will have dual workstation-class graphics cards (my guess is FirePro W5000), a PCIe SSD (I'm guessing ~500GB), and a E5-26xx v2 Xeon (wont be the bottom, my guess is a E5-2650v2), there would be no way to price the Mac Pro at $1999. I would be shocked if it is less than $2999.

There is not good reason to tag entry level SSD at 512GB. The rMBP 15" starts at 256GB. The Mac Pro entry level could start there too. (that's probably about $300 drop in price using Apple prices right there. for rMBP it is a $300 jump from 256 to 512GB )

If price point is an issue there is a about zero reason not to use a E5 1620 v2. There aren't very many good reasons at all to use E5 2600s except as BTO options. The E5 1600 are designed for single package. This is a single package system. If don't want to send the pricing out of whack you use single package products.

The 1620 v2 is probably around $300. The E5 2650 v2 is probably around $1150. A whopping $850. ( so far have saved $1,150 in components ).

The W5000 are weak. There are 7 video outputs to drive here. The W5000 only supports 3 displays ( maybe there are used internal links but have doubts. ). Despite how AMD couches it , this is a entry level card. The iMac BTO GT680MX beats it. Not sure how Apple sells a Mac Pro with a card that the "mobile" iMac GPU puts in the rear view mirror.

If not spending crazy money on E5 2600's can much more easily afford W7000's which actually can support 6 displayport output.... funny that ... the Mac Pro has 6 displayport outputs.

There is little reason why Apple can't come in under $2699 (presuming mimiize RAM as usual 2GB DIMMs this time though). Depending on how much of the excessive profit margin the squeeze out of the W7000 street prices they can hit their standard $2499 price point.

Getting larger amounts of RAM, 64GB+, you'll be paying the premium for the higher density 16GB DIMMs

For 32GB DIMMs. 16GB DIMMs aren't that bad.

It's current 1333 memory but relatively speed bump increases would impact both.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory

4 x 4GB ===> $172
1 x 16GB ====> $197

Not a huge gap for those density differences anymore.

They could get it down to $1999 if they skimped heavily on everything. The GPUs could be W600s, use a quad core E3-12xx v2 Xeon,

No need for a E3 1200. Can get into the reasonable range with an E5 1600 offering. A W5000 would be a joke. Lower is even a bigger joke.

go as low as a 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM,

256GB SSD is not low. ( only if do apples-to-oranges and put it next to current 1TB HDDs ). That isn't probably the lowest point. If Apple can get hands on 4 x 2GB DIMMs they'll use those. But 4GB DIMMs maybe as small as they can get. If so price is up a bit from old $2,499 to pay for that.

On the high-end, 12 core Xeon, dual W9000s, 1GB SSD, 64GB RAM, etc, I would expect it to go beyond $8k. You're looking at least $1,500 for the 1k unit price on the Xeon and $3300 for each of the W9000s.

The 12 core Xeon E5 is probably closer to $1,800-2,200 .

The street price for joe blow for the W9000 is $3,300. I don't think Apple is going to sell them quite so high because I think they are going to make a deal with AMD for volume. W9000 are priced so crazy high few vendors want validate with them because few people buy them. There is a ridiculous amount of margin built into those. Like 2x as high as what Apple applies. If Apple makes the cards they don't have to charge 80-150% markups. Even something like split the 80-150% with AMD ( so Apples is 40-75% and then reduce to the corporate norm of 30% and drop the rest off the price). AMD gets a base level volume of sales because Apple buys a bulk of GPU packages and makes the boards themselves.

The 1TB PCI-e SSD is probably crazy priced. that would probably go over $8K. Same for the Apple RAM ... price blow out for 4 x

 

[Cisco_Kid]

As an actual professional, that uses these machines, I'm getting really sick and tired of seeing people assume what it is that I need or want to implement in my business. Particularly when they clearly have no idea what a professional workflow is like.

Bingo, well said mate.

This new MacPro will fit nicely in my lab, and additional storage will be where it belongs, centralized in a server rack two floors down.

 

[Eric Best]

Portablity

I'm interested in its portablity. Most places I would want to use it have either a monitor or a television, so I don't need a screen. Just throw it in a sack and take it with me! I will be interested in comparing its price against a high spec Macbook Pro.

 

[tevion5]

I can be completely wrong but I believe the starting price will be $1,999.

I'm glad someone else shares my suspicion. I think this will be the cheapest Mac pro to date. That will be the real bomb.

 

[MacVidCards]

$1,800 for entry level is where it needs to be.

You can't strip out utility and value and not pass savings to customer. Would be like selling a car without back seat and wheels and demanding full price anyway.

 

[thekev]

They could get it down to $1999 if they skimped heavily on everything. The GPUs could be W600s, use a quad core E3-12xx v2 Xeon, go as low as a 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, etc. I find it hard to believe Apple would do that given how little of a gap there would end up being between it and the iMac--the only difference between a i7-4770 and a E3-1245v2 beyond the support for ECC RAM, for example.

On the high-end, 12 core Xeon, dual W9000s, 1GB SSD, 64GB RAM, etc, I would expect it to go beyond $8k. You're looking at least $1,500 for the 1k unit price on the Xeon and $3300 for each of the W9000s.

The E3s aren't going to happen pretty much ever. They aren't any less expensive than a 1620, and they require a different board design. It wouldn't make any kind of sense to expand the components needed when there are more logical alternatives available. I don't see W600s either. I'm aware of Apple's history on the line, but I'm not sure what you propose would sell at all. Also I don't think looking at the current retail price of W9000s is an appropriate place to start. It has been out more than a year. You'll see some kind of price shakedown in there. I'm not sure they could sell enough at that price to remain committed to the line. Overall your theory sounds like it would propagate many of the problems the line already theoretically has in terms of viability. They always charge a fortune for ram upgrades, but like always third party memory will be an option. I could see the 1TB ssd being around $1000.

 

[deconstruct60]

The E3s aren't going to happen pretty much ever. They aren't any less expensive than a 1620, and they require a different board design.

Not just a different board design but a board design that looses 24 PCI-e v3.0 lanes ! There is basically enough lanes left to run one workstation GPU card and one TB controller. Let alone one more GPU/GPGPU and two more Thunderbolt controllers.

So no cost savings and huge bandwidth loss. The E3 would have a better fit for a smaller box with a single slot that had one TB controller. But that is not the direction they went in. The reason to use an E3 is that it gets you a "almost free" 2nd GPU in the CPU package. Can use that to drive a single TB controller. At least some storage expansion would need to be done inside the box leveraging the chipset's SATA lanes. That is going to choke when TB v2 controller goes full blast.

They always charge a fortune for ram upgrades, but like always third party memory will be an option. I could see the 1TB ssd being around $1000.

I'd expect a higher price.

But like high margins on RAM upgrades, that only spurs a 3rd party replacement options. Depending upon what quirks their PCI-e SSD controller has it may take a couple of months but eventually they'll be replacements. If it really just a primarily a NGFF format factor card

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6293/...end-to-proprietary-ultrabook-ssd-form-factors

and with a flash controller with minor Apple tweaks to the firmware for their Flash chip choices then it shouldn't take long.

Storage and RAM are going to have open markets.

 

[Macsonic]

My Wish List is that Apple could have provided us a Choice and still offered the traditional tower with internal expansion AND also offer the new 2013 cylinder Mac Pro. That would have been a Win-Win situation for all and minimized the heated debates. Like when the Retina MacBook Pro was released, we still have the choice to get the classic, non-retina MBPro. Years ago when the G4 Cube was launched, users still had the choice of getting the tower PowerMac G4. Sadly, right now no option was available.

 

[deconstruct60]

My Wish List is that Apple could have provided us a Choice and still offered the traditional tower with internal expansion AND also offer the new 2013 cylinder Mac Pro.

If they had it would likely not what you are thinking. The single package model would have been this new Mac Pro. The tower would likely only be the dual package model. The prices would not overlap ( just as did not overlap in the current and previous Mac Pro offerings). The price on the dual entry point would might even go up to cover the cost of the embedded GPU to cover the infrastructure for one TB socket.

Apple is going to move to just one Docking station/display format and that is Thunderbolt. So the display port three headed hydra is likely going to disappear.

Apple's design context is that of a fully usable system. That means Mac Pro + "Display" product. You don't have to buy their display but the Mac Pro is going to be designed to be used with it. ( Now whether the 'display' is optimized for the Mac Pro that isn't quite as true with the dangling MagSafe cord. But perhaps they'll fix that with another screen size variant. )

That would have been a Win-Win situation for all and minimized the heated debates.

Likely would not cut off debate. You'd still have

a. xMac folks who wanted a tower to engage in iMac fratricide.

b. Tower purists complaining about the embedded GPU in their tower. ( and maybe about loss of slot if daughercard inserted vertically ).

c. single package folks still smarting about stuffing > 2TB into the new form factor.

d. folks claiming "FAIL" on the cylinder form factor because it is new and unproved.

e. folks complaining about prices they don't know. ( "if firepro drives up single package entry point to $3,099 then the dual tower has to be $1,000+ higher ).

f. The AMD vs. Nividia for embedded GPUs would still be mixed in.

Like when the Retina MacBook Pro was released, we still have the choice to get the classic, non-retina MBPro.

Not really. the MBP 17" was traded for the rMBP 15".

Yes there is a temporary logjam with the 13" laptop space. That is in part because the MBP 13" was ( still is ? ) the best selling Mac model. Killing it off is suicidal until have a viable replacement. In contrast, the Mac Pro is the worst selling Mac model. It would be pretty easy just to cancel the whole thing.

That said by 2016 there probably will be just one 13" model. The rMBP 13" will either kill off the MBA 13" or MBP 13" in the next 16 months. 12-16 months after that the other one will probably be gone unless growing user demand for both remaining survivors lifts them both.

Other examples

MBA 11" traded for MacBook at $999 price point.

MBA 13" eventually tranded for XServe. There was some overlap between the two 2008 intro for MBA and 2009 last refresh for XServe


In general Apple has kept the number of Mac product offerings relatively constant. So introducing X means the exit of Y .

Conceptually the cylinder and tower could fall under same general product line ( e.g. 13" , 15" , 17" laptop ), but the differences and tech trends following are different between the two.

Years ago when the G4 Cube was launched, users still had the choice of getting the tower PowerMac G4.

The Cube ended in failure within a year. Apple isn't going to repeat that? Part of that failure was fratricide generated by selling a "last year's PowerMac" up against the Cube also with last years processor at roughly the same price. All that happened is those two effectively killed each other off. Apple got away from "last years power mac" ( iPhone 4 during iPhone 4S style ) and the Cube died.

That "last years thing gimped down a bit on specs" only works in very high growth markets. Desktops were not high growth back in 2001 and certainly are not now. Desktops don't even drive the PC market anymore 10+ years later.

The other major difference between Cube era and now is that Apple has been telling developers/vendors for 2-3 years that they believe in OpenCL and Thunderbolt. That the Mac Pro 2013 bets huge on both shouldn't be a surprise.

Sadly, right now no option was available.

There is options. From "sneak peek" till new Mac Pro launch folks can choose to buy a current Mac Pro. At least there is a "change is coming" window.

The Mac Pro was on track to being canceled. That there is anything is an option. Spliting the volume between dual tower and new format would only both at greater risk of failure. Likewise cranking up the fraticide is tried overlapping single package model.... both entire line ups would be at risk.

The Mac Pro was not succeeding in current format. If it had been doing well ( as good or better than its mac cohorts ) from 2008-2010 it never would have gone into EU market withdrawal in 2013. There may have been a more gradual transition with 2012-2014 being the transitional years and 2014-2015 the transition to the new form factor, but it probably still would have come.

 

[Giuly]

• Removed 8 DIMM slot option (Prosumer)

That one's on DDR4's upcoming architecture of a single DIMM per channel. Quad-Channel Memory -> four DIMMs. DDR4 also has provisions for highly increased density, so the Mac Pro with 128GB RAM using four DIMMs is already around the corner (or at least 64GB get more affordable).

• 802.11ac standard (Prosumer)

As opposed to wireless FibreChannel for the Pros?

• Zippy lights that turn on when you rotate it around (Prosumer)

Real Pros know the exact position by heart and don't even have to look under the desk to plug stuff in?

• Removed all PCI card options (Prosumer)

Thunderbolt = External PCIe. SonnetTech will gracefully supply you with an Expansion Chassis for your Pro cards, which was stated by Phil Schiller in the keynote as a use-case for all those Thunderbolt 2 ports.

• Removed 2nd CPU option (Prosumer)

A) Xeon-E5 v2 starts with eight cores, and the only part that would fit into the 85W per CPU TDP of the old Mac Pro is a 10-Core that runs at 1.7GHz, B) you couldn't archive 12 cores with 2.7GHz each at 130W with two separate CPUs, as those would draw approx. 200W. Why? Ask Intel. C) One 12-core is probably less expensive than two hexa-cores because you remove on-chip redundancies that not only cost money but also draw energy, and one less CPU means less components on the logic board that draw power, produce heat and cost money, and ultimately a lower cost of the system.

• Removed all legacy ports (Prosumer)

There's an adapter for that.

• Made Quiet (Prosumer)

Real Pros prefer to work in noisy environments?

• Added extensive external ThunderBolt 2 ports (Prosumer)

Again, Thunderbolt = External PCIe. I though the removal of PCIe is for Prosumers, now suddenly extensive Thunderbolt 2 ports is, too, when it does just the same as the slots plus fancy 4K displays?

• Three monitors standard out of the box (Prosumer)

Do you have a projection of "Prosumers" using a triple 4K setup? Today, dual 27" 1440p is already borderline Pro. You can drive three of them right now, but very few people do, and from that I deduct that the same will hold true for 4K displays. Two 27" displays also cover most desks completely.

• Polished Darth Vader case (Prosumer)

Pros love gray plastic?

Things that concern the physical appearance and behavior like the noise level and lights around the ports are first and foremost a human thing and have nothing to do with who uses it or what he/she does with it on the screen.
Then there's stuff removed that's already wildly obsolete like FireWire800 because USB 3.0 is omnipresent, faster and cheaper, and Thunderbolt 2 is 25x faster.
I don't even understand your argument on 802.11ac because there isn't anything better. Nor the one on the dual CPU because a single CPU has lots of benefits over two equally fast CPUs.

Also, a Prosumer is a normal guy who buys Pro equipment (the Mac dictionary is just a triple-tap away and defines it as "someone who uses a $10,000 camera to make home movies of his dog"). If you look at Pro equipment and differentiate features on the level of Prosumer vs. Pro, then your metrics are a bit off.