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new case maybe? I love my macpro

OMG-OMG-OMG
Will be saving my pennies starting....now!

Sep 24, 09 - 10:01 am Comment from: thethirdshoe

That'll make them snappier!




Sorry. Had. To. Do. It.

i always liked the pro but the BIG ass case is just too much. I hope Apple will get this inline with the rest of the sleek style Mac cases someday.

Sep 24, 09 - 10:17 am Comment from: Escaport

I was about to buy one today. Crap, guess I'll have to wait.

On the current Mac Pro the processor sled pulls out, and the processors can (I think) be removed. I wonder if the next generation of chips will be able to be plug-and-play upgrades. If so, the current case design becomes even more perfect, and wouldn't need changing for another decade. That said, I suppose it's about time for a change of scenery. The shape is over 5 years old.

Has anyone heard any rumors of infrastructure (ie., motherboard, RAM, etc.) evolution for the next generation? Or are we looking at strictly processor upgrades for the time being?

Sep 24, 09 - 10:33 am Comment from: DLMeyer

Escaport ... I've been waiting for over 6 months. Gave in when there was no announcement on Tuesday. Spent yesterday trying to get the new one up and running with the stuff from my dual-G5's accounts in place.
That didn't happen.
Could not convince the new system to recognize ANY systems on our home LAN. Worse, the new one only has FireWire 800 ports, nothing for FireWire 400. Now, I certainly recognize that the two will talk to each other - IF you can get the wire in place! My car is in the shop today, so I can't get an 800/400 wire anytime soon. It takes a while to run a GB through a skinny USB port to a thumb drive.
The new one put out 2k of 'F@H work' in half a day, the Dual G5 did about 200. I'll have a better picture this time next week, but even 10x would be nice.

Mac Pros are too big and too expensive for many consumers. Given rapidity in advances in hardware design there is little practical advantage for the average home user to purchase this machine.

Maybe Apple draws a significant profit from these Mac behemoths, but I prefer Apple to update the iMac and MacBook models and share the wealth of advanced computing with the largest group of Mac users who do not routinely work with mathematical modeling or commercial film editing.

C'mon, Apple, Intel has the chips - put them in the hands of the common man and woman.

A MacPro is good for things other than mathematics,

They are set up nicely to run VM's (multiple operating systems)

And have the upgrade capacity so that when ram and HD gets cheaper, you can really load up. and you can always swap out the video.

With these new generation Xeon chips, might be able to keep a MacPro hopping for 5+ years!

Sep 24, 09 - 11:02 am Comment from: HotinPlaya

@Hooray
"Mac Pros are too big and too expensive for many consumer"

uuummm, maybe thats why they call them Mac Pro's ??

@DLMeyer:

You know Migration Assistant works using just an ethernet cable, right? Also, using a gigabit ethernet port and cable will be significantly faster than having the bottleneck of the FW400 you apparently plan on using from the G5 PowerMac.

Even if you have an out-of-date version of Migration Assistant on the G5, you can still enable file sharing on it and just swap files back and forth via either a direct ethernet connection or via your home network.

No need to fret. =]

Sep 24, 09 - 11:29 am Comment from: Escaport

@DLMeyer

Doesn't the G5 have 800 ports as well? My wife's G4 PB 1.67 had 800 to go to her new iMac. Migration Assistant worked really well.

I don't understand why Apple puts the Xeon, which was clearly designed for servers, into its highend desktop workstation. Wouldn't the Core i7 be better? I know that the newer Xeons are taking on some of the i7 architecture, and maybe the new Xeons actually out perform the i7, but I would still like some official explanation why Apple is using Intel's "server" processor in my favorite workstation.

Sep 24, 09 - 11:45 am Comment from: BlackWolf

@DLMeyer

Does not the Pro have multiple HD slots? Plug and play mí amigo.

Sep 24, 09 - 11:51 am Comment from: flappo

i went from an imac to a pro

wowzers - teh snappee™

the best bit is expanding the hd's

piece of cake !

@Spark the Xeon (Nehalem) in the new Mac Pros is the i7.

@Jeff,

i7s and Xeons both use the Nehalem architecture, but they are not the same.

Sep 24, 09 - 12:49 pm Comment from: Lurker_PC

As a relative new user to Apple computers - November 2005 - my first Apple machine was more than I really needed. A Dual 1.8, PowerMac G5. Recently one of my machine's processors bit the dust and my machine is now a Single 1.8 PowerMac G5. (To be fair and honest, I never had a processor fail on any of my home built Windows machines back in the day but Apple deserves a lot of credit for building a machine where one can simply pull out a processor.) My 1st generation MacBook is now more powerful than my PowerMac.

I'd like to get a new Apple desktop. The Mac Pro is more than I need. I would like the power and speed of the iMac but already have a nice 24 inch monitor. Therefore, I will be getting a Mac Mini in the February timeframe. Apple, I would gladly pay more than an equipped Mac Mine for a headless iMac but not as much as a Mac Pro. If only you would listen. Oh well.

Peace.

Sep 24, 09 - 12:50 pm Comment from: Lurker_PC

Oops - Mini - not Mine

Peace.

@ HotinPlaya,

The point is, the average consumer does not need 4TB of storage and 16GM RAM all in a box the size of small refrigerator. The iMac and MacPro could share the same technological advances, but on a smaller scale with iMac and MacBooks. An iMac with up to 1TB storage, 4GB RAM, and faster CPU would be great. Throw in USB 3.0 and a24-inch LED monitor and I'll buy it.

Sep 24, 09 - 01:35 pm Comment from: DreamTheEndless

@Spark -

Intel has a pro line and a consumer line. (And a budget line, but we won't get into that as Apple doesn't use them.)

The pro line, Xeon, is used in servers and pro-workstations. Dell and HP sell Xeon equipped pro workstations too. The Xeon differs from the consumer line in that the amount of cache it can have is much much higher, and you can use more than one Xeon in a single machine.

The consumer line, formerly Pentium, now Core, has a smaller cache and allows only 1 physical processor per machine.

Sep 24, 09 - 01:56 pm Comment from: Spark

@DTE
Thanks... that is a key differentiation that I could not find elsewhere. So, while the i7 is a multicore processor, they cannot be ganged up into a multi-CPU computer. Is that right? If that is the case it explains everything.

Spark: So, while the i7 is a multicore processor, they cannot be ganged up into a multi-CPU computer. Is that right? If that is the case it explains everything.

Yes, that is the main point. Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL in Snow Leopard are signs that Apple is absolutely serious in wringing every bit of performance from multiple CPU cores and even multiple graphics cards (even the MacBook Pros have dual GPUs nowadays).

The Xeon also has higher memory throughput and supports RAM error detection and correction, which may not matter for playing games but it certainly does on most lines of actual work where the accuracy of the results must be reliable.

And since Apple is interested primarily in the multi-socket version of the Mac Pro, the single-socket version is basically just a byproduct for which it wouldn't make much sense to introduce an entirely separate CPU line.

Apple only uses mobile and server chips from Intel at this time, and given their disinterest in selling cheap gaming PCs, it wouldn't make much sense to introduce the desktop chips in addition.

Sep 24, 09 - 04:23 pm Comment from: Spark

@ping
"Apple only uses mobile and server chips from Intel at this time, and given their disinterest in selling cheap gaming PCs, it wouldn't make much sense to introduce the desktop chips in addition."

I though Apple was using the desktop versions of the Core 2 Duos in the iMac.

Sep 24, 09 - 04:25 pm Comment from: Spark

MDN: If you are only going to let me post every 60 seconds, you need to provide a way to edit original posts.


though = thought

Spark: I though Apple was using the desktop versions of the Core 2 Duos in the iMac.

Nope. All Macs except the Pro run mobile Intel chips, which is the reason why both the Mac mini and the iMac are very power-efficient compared to desktop PCs which use the cheaper desktop versions.

Given the fresh release of the mobile i7 CPUs, we can expect the new iMacs (and, more importantly, the MacBook Pros!) to get quadcore hyperthreading processors with effectively eight cores and even in single-thread mode very high performance through the "turbo boost" feature.

Good times!

Sep 24, 09 - 05:29 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Various, these are things I understand ... but ...!
Yeah, you'd think the Ethernet would be all you needed - especially when the new model has TWO ports on its backside. But ... it wasn't happening. This afternoon I discovered that it eventually HAD happened - mostly - and I could now proceed.
Yeah, my dual-G5 speaks FW-800 (I'm told), but all the ports are the FW-400 variety and the plugs are not compatible. What can I say? There are MORE of them (and more USB ports, as well).
The old computer will soon have a new user. They would not be happy if it arrived sans a boot disk. And, since I CARE for them ... they will get the boot disk. Significantly slimmed of extraneous content, but with the latest available software.
Thanks for the suggestions!

I would so love to see the use of Lucid's ingenious Hydra 200 technology in Apple's forthcoming hardware. Look it up...