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Drool....

As long they don't start becoming self aware, I'm all for it.

I heard these machines were slow.

4 core drool x 2

Clearly, Apple has demoted the Mac to third-class citizen behind the iPhone and iPod. This major architectural overhaul – along with the soon-to-be-released Leopard — is proof!

"Clearly, Apple has demoted the Mac to third-class citizen behind the iPhone and iPod."

Yeah, your name is appropriate. Forget that Mac sales will be at an all-time high this quarter. Forget that the amount of revenue from Macs is actually increasing as a percentage over other non-Mac revenue for Apple. Don't let facts get in the way of a good fanboy whining session.

Then again you could just be joking.

No, no, you have it all wrong. You WANT the Mac Pro to become self-aware, so it can finish all that work for you! Just don't let it sprout legs and come after you with a hack-saw...

As for reality: This 3.2GHz box is made to eat HD content for breakfast. Man that would be a nice Mac Pro workstation. Full video rendering while I build projects - lovely.

These high performance computers will clearly cause global warming! AMD scientists are in complete consensus that Penryn processors emit CO2 while running at 3.2 GHz.

Apple must provide leadership in this area and upgrade their entire Mac Pro line of computers to low-power 8-bit microprocessors running at 1 MHz.

This performance level is more than adequate for the unwashed masses of ignorant computer users living in the red states. Only elite citizens such as myself should have access to 45 nm Penryn technology.

I hope these are released before macworld, but I have my doubts we will see any new hardware before the holiday season.

I really have been waiting for this. I hope they get rid of that giant cheese grater box though... those things are way too big for my liking.

Perhaps something in a smaller cube shape?

Macromancer: I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm from Whiner. I know because I took a class in sarcasm in college. The professor constantly rolled his eyes and mocked us. I learned a lot about real life in that class.

Yawn! Faster processors? So 1990's.

I'm hoping that we see a redisigned enclosure:

a. We've had these silver boxes for ages, it's time they changed
b. I don't like them, they're too frickin big.

As well as a nice new MacPro form factor, how's about adding a 'Mac" that sits above the iMac which is custumisable... but below the MacPro which takes up half of your living space?

Just a thought.

From what the rumors say, the top machine will cost upwards of $4,000, add a must 500GB HD (x2) and sufficient RAM, upgrade the mediocre video card and you are looking at $5,000+/-. Look for the mid and low end Mac Pro to get a lame upgrade and continue to be too expensive.

Apple continues to have a huge gap not offering accessible tower at competitive prices. Not everyone needs a workstation class computer. The average professional and gamer can not afford these prices. The iMac? With its less than stellar mobile chips, not-for-everyone shiny display and lame video card (no upgrade) is not an option.

Lower prices due to economys of scale promised when Apple joined the "Dark Side" have only translated in much higher prices and fewer options.

Trust me... My Mac Pro (3 GHz dual-core x 2 Xeon 5160 processors) is plenty fast enough with 16 GB RAM.

I personally am hoping for a Xserve update. Anyone think these processors are what Apple is waiting for to update the Xserve?

It's time for a re-design of the enclosure. These beasts are too big and heavy, they could be streamlined.

@Debabelizier

You hit the nail on the head!

Give me a computer that's less than $3K that I can easily upgrade!

@Hyperbilirubinemia

You just have to get used to it, too many MDN posters are intellectually challenged!

Damn!
guess I'll just have to wait 'til mid-November to pick up a new hot MacPro.

I'd love to have an Intel-based Mac Pro, but I can't justify spending $4000 on a new computer. And I won't ever buy an iMac. I'll just keep holding on to my Power Mac Dual 2.0ghz G5 for a couple more years. I can add more memory and upgrade the hard drive.

Come on Apple. You need to see a consumer level tower. One with desktop CPU's not Xeons. Many of us do not want iMacs.

It sucks. I'm an Apple Select Developer and I'm afraid I've got a $500 discount for Pro level hardware but I still can't justify the cost of a Mac Pro. Unless Apple surprises us and comes in under $2000 to start.

The MacPro is upgradable and easily accessible. You can install two optical drives and four hard drives as well as multiple cards, all on top of multi-processor/multi-core goodness. And it runs quietly thanks to an intelligent airflow design - just the HDD clicking away. Now correct me if I am wrong, but Apple finally answered the demands of power users with the most recent MacPro configuration and now its...too big.

I do agree that it would be nice to have a stand-alone computer positioned between the Mac mini and the MacPro that would be sized to accommodate a 3-1/2" HDD (or two) for extra capacity and speed, as well as the capability to install a graphics card.

I guarantee that if Apple had stuck with PowerPC, we wouldn't be talking about Macs with a 1600MHz bus and 12MB of L2 cache (at least, not as anything but a pipe dream, coming "sometime in the next 18 months, we promise...")

Big cases...little wimpy cases... oh pshaw..
Give me the iron.... big box with handles... suitable for footstool...
heavy enough to leave indents in the carpet... Who wants it on the work table anyhow? Need lots of room for screens. 8 at 3ghz.. now that is WOW! Big iron loves big cats... impatience is a virtue..I want it, and i want it now...

@ Wun Dum Gai: I just configured a Mac Pro with 20" Cinema Display for $2,799. Yeah, it's only quad-core, base memory and HD, and so on, but it is under $3K, and still expandable.

@ Jeff: I'll bet you'll be able to justify it when that G5 dies. LOL. Not that I hope it does, and my old G4 lasted me six years before I accidentally killed the motherboard installing RAM. Maybe I'm spoiled going from that G4 to an Intel iMac, but I've been well pleased with its performance in compile time. And, I've been able to use it just fine hacking up some fun embedded projects by hanging them off the USB, using the iMac as a cross-compiler. Now, if you need that Mac Pro for video or HPC, then I can understand, but for general Mac app development, the iMac is more than servicable.

As a home user, I bought the bottom powermac- the MDD867 7 years ago. It has been a fantastic home computer. I've increased the storage to (5) hard drives (one in the CD bay) and 1420 GB storage. That's more than you can squeeze into a spanking new iMac.

Configuring the current Macpros, the 2.0 ghz option seems reasonable- around $2000-. And, if you have a display or two already, it is a lot more muscle and expandability than the iMac for your dollar, and costs about as much as a tricked out iMac (a bit less, actually). The Pro level, in my experience has at least 2 years greater longevity than the iMac. (IOW try running photoshop and the new iApps on a 1ghz G4 iMac.

I would guess this update will bring the bottom Macpro to 2 dual 2.3 ghz processors. That's a nice machine.

When do the FunkyTown chips come out?

Yeah yeah yeah ... lovely ... but what's the graphics card?

Sweet machines... but must be sold at same price points as todays line or else I ain't interested.

Rin tin tin

Good news. Here's hoping that they come with some new video card options. How about some nVidia 8x00 support?

I also agree that a consumer tower, something the power of the iMac but upgradable, is a needed addition to the apple lineup.

Wonder when they will start offering a flash drive option.

Not that it matters yet, but when we get read/write capability with ZFS, if one of the drives offers faster access than the others will we still be able to specify that we want that one to be the OS boot drive?

It won't be long now til nVidia optimizes their new boards for the mac line first. Intel knows already whois on the cutting edge.
Firsties in the engineering and out out the production door

theyre not going to make a mac in between the mac pro and the imac. theres no need. but a low end mac pro or a high end imac.

@razor

@Ryan

The cutesy iMac sucks for a mid-professional (Graphics, CAD, etc.) and gamers, the Mac Pro is overkill and overly expensive. No corporation, professional nor gamer is going to consider either of them. Even the bottom Mac Pro model when equipped with a better video card and adequate RAM+Hard Drive will cost $3,000 plus.

Jeff makes a perfect argument. I am a self employed Architect who would love to upgrade every 2 years, but with Apple's options my only choices are to wait 4 years to upgrade or wait for Linux and buy a PC, which I would hate to do but will do when it is viable.

I love Macs, but making a living takes priority.

Oh, for Ryan, I'm not so sure switching to Intel was such a great idea: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2134418,00.asp

Yo Dextroamphetamine

No, no, you have it all wrong. You WANT the Mac Pro to become self-aware, so it can finish all that work for you!

My Mac Pro keeps sending me outside to check on its AE-35 antenna module. Should I worry?

@Reality Check

What kind of freelancer can't afford a $3,000 business expense every two years? I bill that in a week.

Do you bill your clients in money or do you barter for eggs?

@Ernesto

Lets see...I have a life. Do you? When I buy a new tower I max it out with RAM, hard drives and best video card available. Additionally I have to upgrade my software(s) at least once a year as well as expand my back up drives to keep up with my archives.

The cheapest Mac Pro (which hasn't been upgraded in 15 months, which is pathetic) goes for $2,500. By the time you upgrade it to do what I need it to do I am close to $4,000.

1. I can't justify it every 2 years.
2. I won't justify it.

Rather than attacking me, try to see we have fewer options than ever at higher costs. Don't forget we continue to pay a very high premium for anything that relates to the Mac.

"No corporation ... is going to consider either of them."

You can't make that claim, unless you work with EVERY corporation and know what they will and will not buy.

A corporation that I freelance for is upgrading my dual G5 to a Quad Mac Pro. Matter of fact, they're purchasing six of them for their L.A. office alone.

We do high level creative stuff. That kind of write off is on par with our budgets. And if we're up for it, others are as well.

What kind of freelancing do you do ernesto? I would like $3000 per week too.

@Reality Check

Did you even read the article you posted about the Power6 processors? Those are enterprise server chips. IBM was doing great things back in the PPC days, too - it just didn't ever make it down to the desktop chips, and the couldn't make a decent performing low-power/dissipation to save their lives. PowerBook G5, anyone?

Quote:
Mauri said IBM will offer Power6 in several midrange systems that will appeal to both high-end enterprise customers as well as small and midsize businesses looking to run a single application within a smaller data center. In addition, IBM is giving customers who already use the Power5+ in a system the ability to upgrade to Power6.

In terms of pricing, Mauri said that the base price for a two-socket system will be about $60,000, although different configurations will change the price accordingly.

when will 45nm penryn chips come to the iMac? anybody?

Yeah, this is the same IBM that always used Intel CPUs instead of ther own raging infernos. I trust those clods as much as I do MicroSoft. I think Steve Jobs knows how to make these decisions.

What's up with that damn ringtone ad that you can't click out of. Death to MDN!!!!

just got 2, 8 core Mac Pros for the office with 30 in monitors and apple care

the only way to fly!!!

@ecrabb

I did read the article. The G5 was based on the Power5 chip from IBM. With the article I linked I wanted to show Intel was not necessarily the best path. We don't need a Power6 chip, but a G6, just as the G5, would have been a scaled down version of the high end one, an awsome one at that.

My argument (obviously not clear) was and is that during the PowerPC days we had very slow to come processor upgrades and, or so we were told, due to economys of scale the prices were high. The longest we went in that era was 9 months +/-. Well, Apple transitioned to Intel chips successfully. Other than the top model the Mac Pros have not been updated in 15 months +/- and the prices have not been dropped as they used to be if no upgrade was made in 6 months or so.

Where are the benefits of the economys of scale from the huge Intel market? Apple isn't even making the motherboards anymore, Intel is. Where are all the new products the new Intel platform promised? Why do we have fewer Video Card options now than we ever did? We should have access to thousands of formerly PC only products, after all for most of them it is simply a matter of writing the drivers. Why then don't we have more options?

All I have ever owned are Apple computers, I love them. I am however a rational and objective person with a long memory. I don't like what I see from Apple in terms of offerings, pricing, value.

Hey "Steve Ballmer"... look here: http://www.eofw.org/bench/
...Still my Mac (with basic standart config!) at the top! ))))))))))
And this result will just be replaced when the next buyers of NEW MacPro send their benchmark test!

How about a 2U rackspace?

I'm with those that are asking for a more condensed computer, physically. Workers don't like these extra big towers taking up space on their desks, and I refuse to let employees put them on or on roller trays just above dusty floors, with their intakes sucking up filth all day. (Our janitorial services leave much to be desired in cleaning and they don't want to be responsible for damage for moving computers to clean around them.)

The old G4's that the previous IT let them have on the floor were just coated with greasy thick dust on all the motherboards, RAM chips and insides. Even canned air wouldn't take it all off the boards. And I've seen towers on floors at people's homes just as gross.