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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

MacRumors: Apple's New 8-Core Mac Pro Shows Up in Benchmarks

M Most said:
You mean they're going to release a machine that doesn't really work very well, then 2 years later make it work the way people expected it to?

Sorry, just kidding....... :001_unsure:
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Yes - but they are going to send you new upgrade parts every few months for free!! :smiley:
 
Alan McConnell said:
Based on what we've seen and heard so far I think it's possible that Apple is looking to do to the Mac Pro lineup what they did with FCX. If so, any predictions that are based on the existing Mac Pro lineup could be pretty far off.

FCX was more consumer-focused, and lower priced, than anyone expected, and it wouldn't surprised me at all if Apple views the new Mac Pro the same way.
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That's software, and Apple has a track record for many years giving software away for free with Macs (i.e. iLife) or pricing it very low (i.e. iWork, Aperture, OS X upgrades compared to Windows pricing, and now FCPX and Logic). Final Cut Studio and Logic were the only apps Apple sold at some kind of premium price. It made sense for them to drop the price of those because Apple typically makes the vast majority it's money off hardware (Macs, iPods, iPhones, iPads), not software. It's the same concept that Blackmagic Design is using with DaVinci Resolve, by giving Lite away for free and selling the full version for only $1,000 so you buy their hardware. So you're thinking of it backwards. They've already slashed prices (software) and want you to buy the hardware at a normal price.
 
I will go with Mark on this one that the starting price will be $1999. Remember that it's a single CPU system now. It is not targeted at as high end of a user as the previous models were. They are now aiming for more of the mainstream market.

Expect worse performance in multiple areas, all of which could be remedied if they allowed 1 x16 Gen 3 pcie slot for the use of an expander. Say goodbye to cuda and full bandwidth for specialized cards. I wanted a new Mac Pro, but wanted a 3-4U rackmountable system that had Gen 3 pcie slots, with an on mobo GPU for it's thunderbolt ports.

I can't even begin to explain how disappointed the new system makes me feel. Definitely a step sideways.
 
Alec Morris said:
It's in apples best interest to make these as affordable as possible IMO. $2500 base, $6000 maxed out.

Why? Because they're coming out with a UHD TV, potentially next year. Yes, I'm sure they'd like to make money on the mac pros. But the market for them is pretty small. An Apple TV, however, will have a massive market. How do you get people to buy into UHD? Available content, and lots of it. We already saw 3DTV's have a rough time because of a dearth of content.

Not much is finished at 4K now. How do you change that? Make an affordable 4K finishing machine for the pros a year before you launch your tv. Then you can offer a large catalog of UHD content via iTunes for your brand new UHDTV, for which you can charge a lot. $15 for an SD movie, $20 for HD, $30 for UHD. Theyll have a commercial showing how great 4K Netflix looks on the Apple UHDTV as well.

Suddenly they've taken over the TV market the same way they did the cell phone market. If they have to lose some profits in the niche pro computer market to accomplish that then so be it.

That's my conspiracy theory anyway.
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I'll say it again... Apple doesn't have a history or that (ever) and doesn't need to. People will buy it regardless. There's a lot of people that are committed to OS X and will buy it because there's no other option (unless they go iMac or Hackintosh). Apple's best interest has always been maximizing gross margins on its hardware products. Why would they change that now?

I think you've got it backwards. What Apple would likely do, if they were to have a lower price on something, is sell a 4K TV at a lower price to get them into consumers' homes. With 4K displays in consumers homes content creators will need that new powerful Mac Pro to create more content as quickly as possible. But those 4K TV's won't be the cheapest. Apple will do what they've always done... make a product that has some kind of mass appeal (design, new features no one else has, etc) with a premium price and people will still buy it. Steve Jobs said that Apple wouldn't release a TV because they couldn't do anything new. Then before he passed away he said they finally cracked it. So there's something new that Apple will do with TV's that will make people buy it and pay more for it... just like all their other products.

This thought of Apple making Mac Pros as "affordable as possible" or at a much lower margin than all other Apple products is wishful thinking and works complete opposite of what Apple has always done. Apple doesn't work that way. Never has.
 
Steve Freebairn said:
I will go with Mark on this one that the starting price will be $1999. Remember that it's a single CPU system now. It is not targeted at as high end of a user as the previous models were. They are now aiming for more of the mainstream market.
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It may be single CPU, but it's Xeon, which is a workstation/server class CPU, which means professional use. These CPUs sell for up to $2700, just for the CPU. They aren't the mainstream consumer Core i7 and i5, or even the i7 Extreme CPUs. So of course it's targeted at the high end user, just like the current single CPU Mac Pros in the Apple Store. The mainstream market is the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and iMac user. High end is the Retina MacBook Pro (which could be mainstream as well) and the Mac Pro.
 
Correct, it's a Xeon, but only one of them. I can guarantee that the 1 processor is slower than if you had 2 of that same processor :) I want the machine to be aimed even higher than it is. The current Gen Mac Pro with 1 Xeon is too low of a level to aim for in Apple's product range. Sure, it should exist, but there are people out there, myself included, that need the absolute fastest systems, and unfortunately, that won't be true for this next system.
 
Steve Freebairn said:
Correct, it's a Xeon, but only one of them. I can guarantee that the 1 processor is slower than if you had 2 of that same processor :) I want the machine to be aimed even higher than it is. The current Gen Mac Pro with 1 Xeon is too low of a level to aim for in Apple's product range. Sure, it should exist, but there are people out there, myself included, that need the absolute fastest systems, and unfortunately, that won't be true for this next system.
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I don't understand your argument. They currently have single CPU Xeon Mac Pros in the Apple store starting at $2,499. That's still aimed at the high end user, as all Mac Pros are. They'll just have it configurable to up to 12 cores, 64GB RAM, dual GPUs with 6GB RAM. If you're saying that it's not aimed at the high-end user because it's not dual CPU, then I understand what you're trying to say, but the only people that really need 6 cores or more are professionals, which I say constitutes a high-end user. Non-high-end users would just buy a MacBook Pro, iMac, or Mac Mini, but even some of those are pros and high-end users. Depends on the applications and needs.
 
M Most said:
You mean they're going to release a machine that doesn't really work very well, then 2 years later make it work the way people expected it to?

Sorry, just kidding....... :001_unsure:
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Heh. Not that extreme, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they release a machine that leaves professionals slightly disappointed because Apple is targeting a user closer to the "mainstream" side of the spectrum. Steve's posts are exactly what I'm getting at.
 
Steve Freebairn said:
It's been a long day, so I'm probably not explaining myself very well. Simply put, the new Mac Pro feels like it goes to 8, and I want it to go to 11. I want a faster machine to run OS X, and the future is bleak.
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Oh I agree with you there. I wish it were 24-core, up to 128GB RAM, and had PCIE slots. Had they just come out with a revised Mac Pro with Thunderbolt, USB3, and no 5.25 bays it would have still been smaller and I would have been happy.
 
The machine that Steve Freebairn is asking for is one that we all dream about. It simply gets out of the way and does it's work effortlessly. It would make working with large cinema files on set and in post exponentially easier. It remains to be seen how well the top config of the new Mac Pro performs. My guess is it will be impressive....to 95% of the people who try it. For that other 5%, guys like Steve Freebairn and others who are trying to eek out every last ounce of power out of their computers, I suspect there will be varying degrees of disappointment. The world moves faster, we want our computers to process faster. I'd like my computers to process faster so I can spend more time with my family.
 
What are the chances of Apple updating the current MacPro alongside the new one? I know the immediate response is fat chance, but they kept the classic MBP going alongside the Retina. I just got a 2012MP but I would welcome an upgraded model.

I never thought the day would come that I wished Apple would license OSX out to other hardware makers, even if it was only say HP or Dell.
 
Steve Freebairn said:
It's been a long day, so I'm probably not explaining myself very well. Simply put, the new Mac Pro feels like it goes to 8, and I want it to go to 11. I want a faster machine to run OS X, and the future is bleak.
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When Apple thinks about the "Creative Professional" - they are not really focused on DITs and hadrcore DEY (Do Everything Yourself) filmmakers you find on Reduser. I think they are looking at a broader bucket of folks - graphic designers, editors, all the folks creating and editing content for the web, etc. etc. - the PC market is in the TOILET - big time - so I think they are trying to make a new type of "desktop" - targeting the "creative profesional" - but not the top 10% of creative professionals. The new MacPro is gonna rock Photoshop, CAD applications and NLEs - which don't really need all the firepower high-end content creators and DITs want and need.

I'm with you Steve - I want a machine that goes to 11. Or even 12. I want it to run OSX. I want Thunderbolt 2. I want gen 3 PCIe slots. And I want it to cost $500 :)

But simply put - a machine that "goes to 8" - AT THE RIGHT PRICE - is most likely going to serve 90% of the broad bucket of "creatice professionals" out there.

This product will FAIL if it is not at an aggressive price point. Apple knows that.

You know the reality - if you really wanna an 11+ machine that runs OSX, TB2, PCIe, etc. - you gotta hack it > http://www.asus.com/News/22a1IgaOOVSdTMoM
 
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Paul Russell said:
Xeon is nothing. My supermicro board has two of them and still doesn't go fast enough :-)
Apple has given up the pro market, but the die hards refuse to admit it.
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No. They have not "given up" on the "pro market". They will, over the next few years, completely dominate the creative professsional content creation market. I'll be shocked if the stock doesn't hit $700 before the end of next year. Pretty sure Microsoft is gonna have a really tough road now that they are going to try to compete with all their best OEM customers.

They just think different with respect to what the pro market really needs.
 
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Jarek Zabczynski said:
I never thought the day would come that I wished Apple would license OSX out to other hardware makers, even if it was only say HP or Dell.
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Well that will NEVER happen. The ONLY way I could see that happening - is if APPLE purchased and 100% owned and controlled a boutique PC manufacturer - like BOXX - and let them manufacture machines that go to 11+ for the top, high-end professionals.

I doubt it will happen, but it's not insane - most people do not know that FILEMAKER is 100% owned by CLARIS. And CLARIS is a 100% owned subsidiary of APPLE, INC.

So ... maybe not as insane as you might think for Apple to own a BOXX type PC maker as a subsidiary - and license OSX to themselves :)

It is far more realistic that you will see lower than anticipated prices on the new MacPro in a Can.

Microsoft made an OS and sold it to every device manufacturer they could. Almost every device manufacturer became a customer. Now they want to be a device manufacturer. APPLE is a device manufacturer with OS that nobody else can use (legally) on any device that isn't made by APPLE. Who do you think is in a better position?
 
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Mike Halper said:
Final Cut Studio and Logic were the only apps Apple sold at some kind of premium price.
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When Final Cut Studio 2 was released, it was the first package around about 1000 dollars that had a professional grading package in it, that previously costed 25.000 dollars. When Apple bought Logic, they offered it first at 500 dollars, when at that time, most DAWs where 1000 or 2000 dollars.

So in a sense, Apple's professional software has ALWAYS been at cheap prices, even when they costed a lot more then now. It's just that they have gotten crazily cheap the last years.

And about that performance of the new Mac Pro...

Both Black Magic has got access to a prototype, and the guys that made Marri, the 3D texturing program used by Pixar.

Both of those companies said things along the line of "one of the fastest computers they tested their programs on".

I believe their statements that are based on experience a lot more then people here that are guessing based on some specs on paper. If there is something that Apple has proven, it's that their solutions and products are always MORE then the specs on paper.
a Mac with a slower processor is often faster then a Windows computer with a faster processor, an iPhone feels a lot faster than a lot of Androids with faster specs, etc. etc. ...
Do not underestimate Apple's talent of tightly integrating components and software and matching them all up to eachother to give you a very fast experience.
 
M Most said:
Well, I did say that this always turns into a religious argument. Seems I probably should have said "ridiculous religious argument....".

As for costs, it's not realistic to base predictions of pricing of new devices on that of old devices, particularly when you're only talking about individual components. You're ignoring the cost of manufacture, case, number of separate pieces (such as disk drives, peripheral connectors, SATA bus, video, numerous fans, etc., etc.) and numerous other things that impact the overall pricing of a product. The new design eliminates a number of things I just mentioned, takes a rather expensive metal case and replaces it with something that is likely considerably less costly in spite of its new design, minimizes the number of different connectors that are internally supported, reduces the number of fans to one, and is going to be built at a time when memory is cheaper than it has been for quite some time. Even the video is being replaced by a less dedicated monitor transport (Thunderbolt). And I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that Apple is getting pricing from Intel that others would likely envy. I'm not going to make any prediction on what the pricing will be on these machines, but Apple knows quite well what the market will bear and is not about to shoot themselves in the foot with a new flagship product.
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mike, I don't get you..oh hang on, you're the guy who thought the renouned and well respected BBlist was a scam and posted about it without checking..its where I bought all my lenses..anyway, yes, I had a little rant above..i just wasted a load of my precious time with pointless apples bullshit.. again. they surpassed themselves..a machine whose DVD player can't read DVDs..coolio!!..I don't think apples lack of hardware support is ridiculous, I think its shoddy. religious? im an anti-theist, and atheist.. and above all, a rationalist. It can be easier to get a hackintosh working at times than bootcamp..which about sums it up for me. I need multiple OS's in one machine to get by..buying a machine that's likely gunna struggle to ever be upgraded GFX wise, is my first problem.., which is based on a rational, not religious thoughts..why pay over the top prices for less hardware
 
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a lot of us have already moved on... this was my first system, 16 cores, 32 threaded.

built a second one 6 core 12 threaded, 22k geekbench score, cost less then 4k to build. machine is def a 11 in my book as well.
 
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