As my username says I take great pride in keeping old stuff viable, you can only do that if the computer is upgradable which sorta eliminates the nMP. I will admit however the nMP and the riMac are beyond sexy!!!
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Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?
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As my username says I take great pride in keeping old stuff viable, you can only do that if the computer is upgradable which sorta eliminates the nMP. I will admit however the nMP and the riMac are beyond sexy!!!
While I will grant there's definitely a trend towards closed systems that's incompatible with constant upgrades the minority such as ourselves will do... the nMP doesn't seem to me to model to eliminate that option for you. You can upgrade the RAM and processor trivially. The storage is also easily upgradeable, albeit to a more expensive form than 2.5" SSDs. All that leaves are the GPUs. While it seems safe to say we'll see fewer options compared to the unflashed PCIe slot GPU options available for previous Mac Pros, at the very least if you do digging I expect you'll be able to buy the parts off eBay or whatnot.
I do think we'll see cards available used and if we do I'll consider, I'm patient. My Z600 will last until things sort themselves out.
That sorta eliminates all macs. I figure at this point, my choice is one more mac, or no more macs.
With Thunderbolt, I'm pretty sure the Mac Mini now is the xMac.
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Since OS X that hasn't really been true. Unless you did MSSQL.
Except that by tradition the xMac would be able to at least be the equivalent of the top-end 27" iMac less the screen. Many would also like the xMac to be easily user upgradeable for at minimum RAM and storage, and more favorably for GPU and maybe even CPU.
As it is mini is really a laptop in a box. My 2012 MBP 2.3 i7 and 2012 mini 2.3 i7 are really the same computer. The MBP has a switchable, better GPU that the mini desperately needs and has an ODD.
Yeah, I preferred MSSQL to Oracle. I liked the .NET integration and I never took to TOAD as well. At the end it really didn't matter. But the databases kept large corporations entrenched in PCs. Even today I imagine the thought of switching over is more work than any manager wants to put up with...but I could see them giving nMP a try at home.
You're over estimating the demand for the nMP. The nMP doesn't bring anything new except it's form factor. It doesn't do anything differently or better than any other xeon based system beside running OS X. And even that is an artificial constraint.
And OS X is also starting to lose its shine. Every new version brings more and more bling, which impact performances, while the underlying system is starting to show its age, especially the filesystem.
Myself, I can't justify the expense of buying another Apple computer for OS X anymore and neither for Adobe software suite. I already replaced my iMac with a System76 linux laptop and installed Adobe CC on my Dell XPS desktop.
Nah, this is the end of the road for me when it comes to Apple. I'm taking my business elsewhere. Goodnight and goodluck!
And OS X is also starting to lose its shine. Every new version brings more and more bling, which impact performances, while the underlying system is starting to show its age, especially the filesystem.
Myself, I can't justify the expense of buying another Apple computer for OS X anymore and neither for Adobe software suite. I already replaced my iMac with a System76 linux laptop and installed Adobe CC on my Dell XPS desktop.
Nah, this is the end of the road for me when it comes to Apple. I'm taking my business elsewhere. Goodnight and goodluck!
That is pretty much my feeling too. In 2014 I bought three 2012 Macs. Despite some recent hardware advances 2012 was to me the best year for Macs as usable computers.
I am still building up my 2012 Mac Pro so I still have some love for OS X, but I have lost faith. When you lose faith in a religion it's all but over.
I am writing this on a 2012 MBP running Windows 10. The latest build with updates is getting really nice. Having a lack of fading, whooshing and rubber-banding it has the feel of an adult's operating system.
I hear you. For me after years of listening to the fans and feeling the heat, I can appreciate how quite this machine is under normal use. I also like the trade off between power and energy consumption.
I'm not the hobbyist I once was either. I just want a nice machine capable of doing what I need it to do. I love that it's small and portable. Even if they update this soon, I see myself holding on to this one for at least 3 years. So that's not bad amortization in price over 4 years.
I've recently bought PC laptops in the $400-1,200 range that seem to only last 1-2 years tops. (My high dollar Samsungs being the worst offenders.) No matter the brand or price. I buy on average 3-4 computers a year for my company. My nMBP is around year and half old and still going strong but doesn't get nearly the traffic my PCs do.
Only time will tell who was right and who was wrong.
Well, for me, the "shine" with Apple went dim around the time Apple switch to intel chips. But, I guess, I still wanted their products because they introduced the iPhone, which I got when it was first released in 2007. And then I needed to upgrade my 12" Powerbook and got a 2007 iMac.
The construction, ever thinning design of the unibody notebooks when Apple introduced them were also drool worthy. So much so that I got another Mac--a mid-2010 15" MBP. It was to "upgrade" the 2007 iMac. But, when I compared them side by side, using real world test, I don't think my new 15" MBP was that much faster. I think I used handbrake. The MBP was like a few seconds faster. I'm not kidding. Oh, well, I thought! It's a portable. I convinced myself that I had made a good $2500 choice. This is my future, anyway.
Getting to the inside and opening up the mid-2010 15" MBP compared to my 12" Powerbook is also magically easier.
But to go back to Apple switching to intel--the "shine" of apple and reason why I kind of joined the "cult" of apple was because it was different. Well, the new intel macs are the same with premium externals and premium design. Unlike the non-workstation PC competitor that cookie cuts everything to the lowest common dominator and expect everyone to buy into it. Apple was at least using a very expensive cookie-cutter, hiring good designers and expecting everyone to buy it and a well, reasonable price. You still can't buy Apple Quality. I don't even think Razer notebooks are up to bar. They're made of the same stuff and as thin and looks the part but when you clook at the pictures, one can see the difference of how that $2000 14" Razer notebook is built compared to the 15" rMBP, let's say. The rMBP, in my opinion, is still more exquisitely built. Just look at them side by side. Yet, because the Razer is thin and looks like a "Macbook" Razer is asking for "MBP" price. And, I'm willing to bet the keypad on that Razer flexes????
This is the Apple-dilemma of today! And why I think the "shine" has gone dimmer. Not only is Apple using the same chips as say Ugh... Razer. Intel chips. But Steve Jobs is dead. PowerPC is dead and Steve Jobs is dead.
It's no longer "Think Different"
But, "Think Inside" or "Think Outside the Box"
or "Think Alike"
It doesn't matter anymore what word follows "Think"
It's dead!
Well, the Mac mini has always been the 13" MBP in a box, at least for the last couple of years, with a small amount of bleedthrough into the 15" territory. The socket change on Haswell is what gimped the mini this revision (no quad-core i7 and Iris Pro like the 15" MBPs.)
The xMac really though is *everyone's "I wish Apple would do X" mac, though, and that doesn't necessarily line up. Some people just want the Mini with a discrete GPU (To me, the most realistic and most useful use case that isn't being addressed.) Some people just want an iMac without the screen. Some people want the iMac without the screen plus a full-size GPU. Some people just want an iMac except with more internal expansion, et al.
Totally agree that the Mac Mini requires a better graphics card.
Ever thought to attach an eGPU to your Mac Mini over Thunderbolt? Works flawlessly.
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Totally agree that the Mac Mini requires a better graphics card.
Ever thought to attach an eGPU to your Mac Mini over Thunderbolt? Works flawlessly.
Wow, that is far better than my 2012 Mac Pro gets! Even though the CPU was upgraded to a W3690 and it has plenty of RAM and an SSD boot it is still plagued with its original HD 5770.
It is one of those dilemmas that occurs with computers. I want a better GPU but in all reality do not need one. But I sure want one!
I was in the same boat, so I went for an upgrade but not the absolute top upgrade. Working out very well. HD 7970 is a big improvement over the HD 5870 and it didn't break the bank. Plus when I get the urge to take it up a notch theres plenty of room to grow.
Totally agree that the Mac Mini requires a better graphics card.
Ever thought to attach an eGPU to your Mac Mini over Thunderbolt? Works flawlessly.
Only downside is the cost of the Thunderbolt chassis. It's a pretty good alternate option though, considering GPU power is the only place the mini has always been historically weak (and will likely continue to be.)
To be correct, no, my Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 with W3690 is still better than the Mac Mini 2012, because of having 6 cores, and direct attached internal GPU. Pls see below the same Unigine Heaven test with my Mac Pro.
When i get a better Thunderbolt to PCI-Express adapter the Mac Mini will have ~1850 points or more in Unigine Heaven with the eGPU GTX 770. At the moment i got only this adapter: http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4L V2.1.html (~ 350 MB/S) because of PCI Express-Card-Restriction.
When i get this: http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/6621-us$199-firmtek-thundertek-px-10gbps-tb1.html it will be ~ 800 MB/S.
However, the Mac Mini with a real GPU is a great machine. OpenGL/Graphics are 500 - 600 % faster than with the crappy Intel HD 4000 iGPU, plus CUDA support, plus OpenCL support.
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Yeah, I preferred MSSQL to Oracle. I liked the .NET integration and I never took to TOAD as well. At the end it really didn't matter. But the databases kept large corporations entrenched in PCs. Even today I imagine the thought of switching over is more work than any manager wants to put up with...but I could see them giving nMP a try at home.
It hurt reading that. MSSQL is possibly the worst database for medium-high workloads, but I hear that 2012 has been behaving better. I'll never forgive that transaction locks keep appearing in Dynamics and AX, though possibly it was due to the code being crap to begin with. Oracle in general runs much better if you know how to keep up the maintenance, but it is also very expensive. All that being said MySQL, or any of the latest open source forks, do surprisingly well and are very stable especially for costing nothing.
At least DB2 isn't a thing in your life. STAY AWAY!
Intel chips were the saviour of the mac. If you don't understand that then there is no help for you.
The very reason we can't upgrade macs is ( for the most part ) the best reason to use them. They rarely fail in the same way a PC does. Sure if you want to spend your time fixing driver issues and trying to work out why that new sound card is not playing nice with the Raid card then you want to work in IT. Not Design and graphics work.
I turn on my macs - work all day every day and they never go wrong. Sure I have crashes... but 99% of the time that is 3rd party app crashes like adobe or Autodesk products.
Power PC chips were horribly over priced / underpowered - ran hot and massively under developed. Intel chips allowed for developers to easily port applications.
In order to make something shine, you need to polish it. But currently OS X does get very little polishing. It's really hard to distinguish if a new feature is an enhancement or patchwork.
When looking at the apple financials you see that all Macs just account for 9% of the revenue. So it's easy to understand, why Apple puts its focus on iOS. Simply follow the money.
However, the situation does not look any better on the other sides.
Windows is not bad, but it is still far away from being a joy to use.
Linux Desktops are competing with each other, instead of bothering to ask what the user really wants.
ChromeOS - come on, who do you want to fool?
I think, the desktop has been neglected for a long time. Nowadays everybody seems to think there is no money to be made in the desktop. I really hope we will see something soon which proves them wrong.
LOL. One of my first gigs was getting data out of a FoxPro database. Complete nightmare. Heck, I remember when business were using Excel as databases. Crazy.
I can't speak for the transactional locks as much. Usually those were covered with DB wrappers in the data layer. Oracle used to spin all day long on large queries that utilized organizational structures where a manager is also an employee of another manager. Fun times.
Couldn't have done it without using views.
They're not really competing with each other. The reason there are so many is because they're asking people what they want and making them.
Yes they are. In terms of getting applications to certify on top of them they will pull out the "my list is longer than your list" . The OS doesn't matter as much. Broad spectrum users deal with Apps, not OS. Linux's "compile it from scratch open source " crowd often just masks the disconnect more than anything else.
They are asking different subsets of people and doing what the different subsets want. Kind of like a restaurant district where they all serve food but there are Chinese , Indian , Italian , etc. focused restaurants. Too many chiefs with too many different priority orderings.
If it was the same set of folks all asking for the exact same things there would be tons more convergence in the Linux space. There isn't.
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