Will Apple release a Mac Pro "mini" ?

[Bastien Tribalat]

There are lots of rumors on the internet that claim that the iMac line will be upgraded in April with Sany Bridge processors and the famous Thunderbolt connector...
That might be great. I've also heard that they might change screens sizes (might be the return of a 24 inches screen ?)...

All that is great but what about the BIG rumor that is around for YEARS that say that Apple will release a smaller Mac Pro ?
For me, it would be great. It would be my dream computer. An iMac in a micro ATX sized case would be a draming machine ! Why ? Tweaking ! Installing a Red Rocket ! Changing video cards ! All the good stuff of the Mac Pro in a smaller case and at a smaller price.
To be it would be a nice idea to have Sandy Bridge options, 3 PCI Express ports (one for a graphics card, two others for other cards), enought room to fit 2 HDD and only one Super Drive.

I think it could be a great value.
Is it only some kind of dream or is it reasonnable to think that Apple might try to release that kind of machine ?

 

[Andrew Gentle]

That sounds quite appealing to me as well. Apple think they have the market covered, though. The think that anyone who might be wanting to install their own PCIe cards should be getting a Mac Pro and everyone else should be using iMacs. This works in theory except that the Mac Pro is often prohibitively expensive. If they saw a gap in the market for a smaller Mac Pro then I think they would sell a few of them. They wouldn't want to cannibalise the Mac Pro sales but I think that instead, the people who'd buy a Mac Pro Mini would be the people who would have otherwise bought MacBook Pros.

Of course, if we could get a Thunderbolt Red Rocket, we just as easily stick with MacBook Pros.

 

[Jay Gannon]

I would love an Intel Cube!

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i would love 2 more pcie slots, 2 thunderbold slots, 2 more harddrive slots, 1 extra place for the os on a ssd and enough power to use the pcie slots

 

[IAN SUN]

I would love an Intel Cube!

Isn't that called a Mac Mini ; )

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Apple definitely needs a desktop-class system with a single multi-core desktop-class CPU. While it doesn't exist within their product pricing, they have a huge gap in their product line-up. People have been hoping for this ever since they shipped the first Mac Pro towers. The same rumors cycle over and over again. We all want it, but at this point I doubt we'll ever see it.

And if they can give us 3, maybe 4, ThunderBolt ports on an iMac, then I think a lot of people wouldn't care about a cube or other desktop Mac anymore. We all know that an iMac refresh with Sandy Bridge (and now ThunderBolt) is imminent. Probably within the next 30 to 45 days. I'm just worried that Apple is going to botch it and give us a single Thunderbolt port....

When Intel releases their new workstation/server chipsets and new Xeons later this year, I'm hoping for a major update to the Mac Pro. This 4 slot bullshit and non-rack-mountable form factor crap has to stop.

 

[Andrew Gentle]

And if they can give us 3, maybe 4, ThunderBolt ports on an iMac, then I think a lot of people wouldn't care about a cube or other desktop Mac anymore. We all know that an iMac refresh with Sandy Bridge (and now ThunderBolt) is imminent. Probably within the next 30 to 45 days. I'm just worried that Apple is going to botch it and give us a single Thunderbolt port....

One of the strengths of Thunderbolt is that it can be daisy chained. For now, 10 Gbps full duplex transfer speed should be enough for 95% of applications. You'll probably run into disk speed / northbridge / processor speed bottlenecks before you max out your Thunderbolt bus for most editing and rendering tasks, even with a couple of RAIDs and a Red Rocket connected. I think one port will do for a few years. In three years or so when the other hardware has caught up they should throw a few more ports in.

 

[Albert Astorga Zepeda]

Apple definitely needs a desktop-class system with a single multi-core desktop-class CPU. While it doesn't exist within their product pricing, they have a huge gap in their product line-up. People have been hoping for this ever since they shipped the first Mac Pro towers. The same rumors cycle over and over again. We all want it, but at this point I doubt we'll ever see it.

And if they can give us 3, maybe 4, ThunderBolt ports on an iMac, then I think a lot of people wouldn't care about a cube or other desktop Mac anymore. We all know that an iMac refresh with Sandy Bridge (and now ThunderBolt) is imminent. Probably within the next 30 to 45 days. I'm just worried that Apple is going to botch it and give us a single Thunderbolt port....

When Intel releases their new workstation/server chipsets and new Xeons later this year, I'm hoping for a major update to the Mac Pro. This 4 slot bullshit and non-rack-mountable form factor crap has to stop.

I Do agree its BS but Guess What It will not STOP in fact I suspect it will get worse with the introduction of LP/TB. I too would love to see a REAL Mac Pro Tower. with the Standard Number of PCI Slots.

 

[a kines]

My first thought after hearing about the Thunderbolt laptops was that the next Mac Pros would be more like Mac (not so)Mini's with multiple cores and multiple Thunderbolt spigots. Then they sell a TB to PCIe card chassis and similar hubs for Display and Data I/O. It's somewhat modular (not unlike a product we've heard of from around these parts) and it's easier to rack mount.
Goodbye to the not enough card slot complaints and the size problem.

Taking out an eSATA card today I was looking at how much space was devoted to cards. Set Jonny Ive onto a Mac Pro design brief and tell him that he can replace that space with a bunch of Thunderbolt ports as well as some legacy USB, FW and maybe eSATA.

I don't know enough about Thunderbolt to know if this is feasible or desirable but I would want to know someone tried it first.

 

[Chuck Z]

The fabled xMac is a fantasy.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

One of the strengths of Thunderbolt is that it can be daisy chained. For now, 10 Gbps full duplex transfer speed should be enough for 95% of applications. You'll probably run into disk speed / northbridge / processor speed bottlenecks before you max out your Thunderbolt bus for most editing and rendering tasks, even with a couple of RAIDs and a Red Rocket connected. I think one port will do for a few years. In three years or so when the other hardware has caught up they should throw a few more ports in.

I disagree. There should be enough PCIe channels to run a Red Rocket, an external graphics card and a RAID through Thunderbolt, which in total would require at least two or three ports. Three or four would be ideal for future expandability.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I disagree. There should be enough PCIe channels to run a Red Rocket, an external graphics card and a RAID through Thunderbolt, which in total would require at least two or three ports. Three or four would be ideal for future expandability.

Exactly. A single Thunderbolt port has dual 10Gbps bi-directional channels or up to 20Gbps in bonded fashion. It's roughly the same bandwidth as a PCIe 2.0 X4 slot. The maximum bandwidth usable by the RED Rocket would saturate a single Thunderbolt connector.

I'm hoping the next revision of 17" Macbook Pro will dump the ExpressCard port in favor of another Thunderbolt port or two. Of course, I hope that there's a good selection of Thunderbolt peripherals on the market before that happens.

If Apple doesn't have at least two TB ports, hopefully 3, on the next 27" iMac, then they're screwing up. Hope there's 3 or even 4 of them on the next Mac Pro.

 

[Tim Hole]

Apple will do what they do best. Offer something incredible and then cripple it just enough to disappoint.

 

[Albert Astorga Zepeda]

LP is 10Gbps NOT 10 GBps BIG Difference

LP is 10Gbps NOT 10 GBps BIG Difference

Exactly. A single Thunderbolt port has dual 10Gbps bi-directional channels or up to 20Gbps in bonded fashion. It's roughly the same bandwidth as a PCIe 2.0 X4 slot. The maximum bandwidth usable by the RED Rocket would saturate a single Thunderbolt connector.

I'm hoping the next revision of 17" Macbook Pro will dump the ExpressCard port in favor of another Thunderbolt port or two. Of course, I hope that there's a good selection of Thunderbolt peripherals on the market before that happens.

If Apple doesn't have at least two TB ports, hopefully 3, on the next 27" iMac, then they're screwing up. Hope there's 3 or even 4 of them on the next Mac Pro.

it has been said here again and again. there is a Huge Diference between Gbps and GBps. Like Jeff Said it would only take 4 lanes of a PCIe Slot to saturate LP. PCIe 3.0 is Around the corner and that will be twice as fast. so no LP will not solve all of the world's problems. much less all of ours... some but not all. and that it is dependent in how apple implements it.

 

[fALk Gärtner]

"We are a mobile product company" - Steve Jobs

--- just saying

(I strongly believe we will see the demise of the Mac as a production platform in the coming 24 month - too many writings on the wall (xserve, lacking updates for proapps across the line, update frequency for tower getting longer and longer etc. etc.) - boy would I love to be wrong)

 

[a kines]

"We are a mobile product company" - Steve Jobs

When/where did he say this?

 

[keith morton]

(I strongly believe we will see the demise of the Mac as a production platform in the coming 24 month - too many writings on the wall (xserve, lacking updates for proapps across the line, update frequency for tower getting longer and longer etc. etc.) - boy would I love to be wrong)[/QUOTE]

Don't worry, you are

 

[L. Langer]

When/where did he say this?

He said something to that effect -though it's open to literal or figurative interpretation- when he unveiled the iPad 2.

 

[Jay Gannon]

"We are a mobile product company" - Steve Jobs

--- just saying

(I strongly believe we will see the demise of the Mac as a production platform in the coming 24 month - too many writings on the wall (xserve, lacking updates for proapps across the line, update frequency for tower getting longer and longer etc. etc.) - boy would I love to be wrong)

As someone who has dealt with the corporate purchasing side of Apple on some huge orders I do think your wrong, have they scaled down? Yes but they won't walk away from the coroprate Market and that Market needs workstations.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Apple must robustly serve the content creation sector as a means of protecting their market share downstream.

In fact, I see them making it easier for people to create content that then gets propagated and monetized throughout their itunes infrastructure.

The Pro market is very stable-- workstations are capital investments and companies typically try to amortize their costs over several years. This has the effect of curtailing demand for Pro gear, diminishing its slice of the pie and lengthening the product cycle.

Hence, Apple serves this sector relative to demand. Plus, the center of gravity of innovation is seemingly shifting away from brute force hardware increases to software improvements of late. I'm very excited about FCP.