When quad core chips come out, then the Mac Pro will be cheaper

[LoveMacMini]

Now for those of you who think quad core chips are a far way away, all I can say is that they will defintly be shipping by the time WWDC 07 roles around.

Now the Mac Pro's right now are dual socket systems, each socket having a dual core. So yes in essence it's a quad core system.

When the quad core chips come out, WWDC 07 will bring in the new fastest mac ever created with 8 cores, but at the same time i think they will introduce a sku for the rest of us.

a single socket mac pro!

it makes sense since you'll still be able to call it a quad, and if they let you BTO it with a dual core instead of a quad core chip it will be even chaper.

 

[Zwhaler]

8 cores is highly unnessessary, if anything they will simply replace the two dual core chips with one quad core chip.

 

[Sun Baked]

Don't count on the current machine becoming the new low-end tower.

If would be nice to see the price drop to $1999 or $1499, or the expected $1799.

But Apple may just smite the current machine when the quad-cores arrive.

 

[Zwhaler]

I don't think so. Most likely is a price drop, and then maybe an eventual upgrade to the quad core chips.

 

[cube]

The first quad cores will be hot because they will consist of two bonded CPUs.

It's not evident Apple will use this.

 

[milo]

Apple will certainly use quad core chips in the Pros, and hopefully in the cheaper models as well. I think apple will likely have 8 and 4 core versions of the Pro, probably BTO options.

There are certainly users who would kill to have 8 cores and more, they're hardly unneccessary for power users.

 

[LoveMacMini]

8 cores may seem crazy now, but for the people doing 1080p video editing they just say "bring it bitch"

 

[milozauckerman]

Being one step behind the technological curve will never be an acceptable low-cost solution in the Intel world, given that Intels consumer (Core 2 Duo) line will be progressing at the same rate as the server line. (And still won't solve the problem of $200/GB memory.)

"Wait six months, and you'll be able to get it for the price of a brand-new mid-range PC!" = "wait six months and you can pay a premium for something that's six months closer to being obsolete"

 

[LoveMacMini]

the price of fb-dimm will fall especially in 2008 when amd servers will start using it.

right now it costs a lot simply because there isn't a lot of it being made.

 

[MovieCutter]

8 cores may seem crazy now, but for the people doing 1080p video editing they just say "bring it bitch"

Bring it bitch...

 

[DMPDX]

8 cores is highly unnessessary, if anything they will simply replace the two dual core chips with one quad core chip.

We were saying that 4 cores would be un nessessary not too long ago, but look at us now. were at the second generation quad core apple computer and we still are wanting more. On intels road map the chips are gaining cores every year. Why would you want to have less power, if more was possible and on its way??
-dsm

 

[LoveMacMini]

8 core chips are coming out by 2008, which might seem like a long time, but if you think about it from an industry perspective .. we're doubling the amount of cores we have almost every 2 years (moores law lives!)

 

[zap2]

I'd bet Apple keeps the similar idea for chips... the high end Mac gettting 2 chips.. with how ever many Cores intel is putting i them(4 per chip(8 cores.. 8 per chip(16 cores ect) with the Mini, iMac MB, MBP getting one chip, with 4 cores 8 cores per chip. As for

"8 cores is highly unnessessary, if anything they will simply replace the two dual core chips with one quad core chip." As for that comment, Apple can't say that because companys like Dell, HP ect with have 8 cores(2 chips wth 4 cores on each in one PC)

 

[spicyapple]

8 cores is highly unnessessary, if anything they will simply replace the two dual core chips with one quad core chip.

I knew someone from work who got angry when machines were selling with 128MB of RAM. He was all angry, muttering why anyone would need that much RAM.

 

[quruli]

8 core chips are coming out by 2008, which might seem like a long time, but if you think about it from an industry perspective .. we're doubling the amount of cores we have almost every 2 years (moores law lives!)

The MacPro will not be cheaper when quad cores come out. I think Apple will add the option to have quad cores until the cost of the chips come down. The cores we have may be doubling, but so is the price. Dual cores are just now catching on big time after having been out for a few years.

There is no sense in having quad cores+ if applications aren't optimized to take advantage of it. What developers need to do is train applications to sense the number of available processors or cores and adjust processing based on that.

This way no matter how many cores we end up with down the road application can easily and seamlessly take advantage of them.

Anyhow, the correlation that you are trying to make is false as you are assuming the following:

1: Apple will want to make all machines are quad, because all machines in the current Mac Pro line are quad core.

2: You praise the coming of quad core, yet slip in the thought of having a BTO option of a single dual core when that isn't an option now. So you are saying Apple will move backwards so that some of you can have your low cost Mac Pro.

This will not happen, and you should really try to make sense when you are proposing such ideas.