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The Future of Apple's Pro Desktop Line
SB_SamuraiSam writes "WWDC is drawing nearer and ArsTechnica has a thorough look at what they think Apple's plans are for their future Pro desktop line. It's a decent read. As always Ars has a competent pulse on Apple and is more reasonable than purely speculative. From the article:
I think Apple's CPU choice is clear cut. Strange as it sounds, the Xeon 5100 series is the best fit for the Mac. If Apple wants to keep the Quad name alive, it's the only option. Dual CPU configurations are not possible with anything else in Intel land, so if Apple wants to offer two CPUs and four cores, Xeon is the only game in town. With the benchmarks we have seen, the Core 2 Duo is a clear winner for Intel, outperforming anything AMD has to offer. The Xeon? With its faster FSB and different memory, it's even faster than the Core 2 Duo."
It's pretty interesting how things have developed for Apple... It looks like Windows will be faster on an Apple machine than on any other factory-built desktops.
It seems to me that Apple might as well hold off on releasing the Pro line until CS3... I've talked to a few designers, and they are all holding out for CS3 to make the upgrade, since they work so frequently in these applications, and they take a big performance hit on the new hardware.
I think Ars made wonderful points and a well informed prediction. However, though this article is a few months old, I think that the principles behind it will still be in effect for Intel's upcoming lines, namely that a motherboard setup with a multi-core chip is in general cheaper than a roughly equivalently configured multi-chip one, and still for most applications the multi-core configuration will result in greater performance.
Falun Dafa is good!
Pure speculation here, but what's preventing Apple from using an Opteron in their Pro lines? Last I heard, AMD had the competitive edge in the high-end/server market...
Personally, I'm waiting on an Intel XServe.....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'm guessing that apple will make their new lineup similar to their current one. A single dual-core for the low end(conroe), a faster single dual core for the midrange (conroe) and dual dual-core or the high end (woodcrest).
Apple desperately needs to update their powermac line; its embarassing when compared to any current PCs.
Apple:
Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processor
512MB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB GDDR SDRAM
$2,499.00
Dell XPS 700:
Dual-core 3.0ghz Pentium D
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
320GB Serial ATA Harddrive
16x DVD-ROM
16x Dual-Layer DVD+/-R/RW Dvd burner
Dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS in SLI
20 inch UltraSharp(TM) 2007FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
$2503
For $4 more, you get a faster processor, 4 times the memory, more harddrive space, dual optical drives, SLI, and a 20" LCD. Apple has done a good job of making sure that they add a lot of mac only accessories (or gimmicks depending on your point of view) that make direct comparisons to a PC harder. Stuff like backlit keyboards with light sensors, integrated webcam, frontrow, firewire, small formfactor, etc.
On a tower, things like expandibility, quiet operation, and size are pretty important and apples last workstation was fairly poor by that standard. The powermac looks nice, but 2 harddrive bays and 1 optical bay aren't going to cut it in such a large case.
Apple's brand is strong enough to command some premium, but they certainly are immune to market pressure and may need to realign their pricepoints. Mac minis need to start at $500, imacs at $1000, and Mac pros at $1500. Notebooks should start at $800 and $1500 respectively.
they will have Xeon 5100s in the high end ones. The core 2 extreme can not run in a dual socket for 4 core configuration. Apple at this point cant afford to skip on a 4 core workstation.
Here's a heaping pile of salt for you:
Your suspicion is based on the erroneous assumption that all "creative pros" are people who work in graphic design, publishing, web design, etc.
Let's not forget that filmmakers are "creative pros" and a lot of them are using Final Cut Pro Studio and Shake. Musicians are "creative pros" and a lot of them are aready using UB versions of Garageband or Logic. Ableton Live is also already Universal Binary, and very widely used by laptop musicians and DJs.
In fact, a lot of musicians are even using Final Cut Pro Studio, because they loved Soundtrack Pro and their only option to upgrade was an attractively priced crossgrade offer to FCP Studio.
There are many professional creatives already working on Intel Macs to earn their daily bread.
So let's stop acting as if design pros are the only pros who are "creative". They didn't invent creativity, and judging by the current state of the majority of the web, they're not the final word in it either.
Having owned Macs going all the way back to the beginning this is the first time I have ever been faced with Apple coming out with weaker machines than they already are shipping. This whole Intel mess with Apple is enough to make me sick enough to my stomach that I am faced with the first in my life feeling of moving beyond Apple.
People like you - the PowerPC devotee - make me embarrassed to be a 20+year Mac user.
Wasn't your Quad worth the money you paid for it when you bought it? You do realize Apple has to keep revving it's product line, don't you?
Face it - Intel's latest offerings are a better than the 970FX, which is a several-year-old design. The Core 2 has longer legs than the G5 in any form.
Apple's done it's users a favor by moving to a faster, less expensive, more readily available microprocessor part. They've also done users a favor by producing an easily-portable OS and gracious backwards compatibility.
You may pine for the days when you could argue the vagaries of microarchitectures you don't understand on Slashdot, but some of us actually have work to do and look forward to faster, more productive machines - and don't mind paying a few extra dollars for Apple design and the Mac OS. We like the relative simplicity Apple has brought to the x86 platform and we'll enjoy using our faster machines while you moan about your "Four by four monster style" PowerPC.
Go complain up a rope.
I use Quad G5 desktop.
The problem is Applications. I keep monitoring Applications CPU usage, I see many of them use single CPU, mencoder like open source stuff uses single CPU while iDVD happily uses all 4 CPUs (360% CPU usage)
Legendary mac shareware uses single CPU while saving TIFF files. To use all CPUs you need professional applications and they are expensive.
Photoshop CS, AVID comes to mind.
Games are just beginning to use SMP and can't expect 4 CPU.
There is advantage of Quad CPUs but don't expect too much.
Also as a person used Xeon systems, Xeon is not a top of the line game/ordinary application performer. It is optimised for corparate/server usage from the start.
.. except that Cell is completely unsuitable for use as a desktop CPU.
For games consoles with dedicated software? Perhaps.
For scientific computing and HPC? Sure.
As an off-board number cruncher and accelerator chip? Yup.
As a desktop? Heck no, a multi-core x86 or indeed PPC knocks it in to a cocked hat.
BTW, I own both a dual 2GHz G5 and a dual-1.8 iMacIntel. The intel box smokes the G5 by a long distance.
"The avalanch has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh
As a 20 year Mac user myself, I want to agree with you except for one thing.
I bought a Mac Mini specifically for FrontRow and specifically so I could stream my video collection from iTunes, and I have never been more embarrassed or dissatisfied with a piece of Apple hardware in a very very long time.
The *only* thing this machine is doing is running iTunes & FrontRow.
More often than not iTunes is pegged at 100% CPU that the entire machine becomes so unstable that I have to pull out the power cord because I can't even shut the machine down gracefully!
2x faster my ass. My older 800MHz iMac G4 was more stable and faster than this Intel crap.
Umm... you apparently haven't been paying attention since 2005. Intel rearranged their ship dates months ago. Xeon 5100 series (aka Woodcrest, aka Core 2 Server) is already shipping and available.
Core 2 Xeons (Xeon 5100 series) are available now. You can go online and buy them. Er, well, most e-tailers are out of stock, but OEM's always get first pick. Go to this page and click auto-notify: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16819117100
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
I am getting sick of pure mac zealots praising Intel since WWDC announcement.
.Mac service and you claim the parent being "devotee".
= userpage&username=Ilgaz
= teamstats
I also see you pay $100 yearly to
Apple does not announce professional workstation line because there is NOTHING from x86 (Intel) to have Quad G5 specs right now.
People becoming Intel fanatic after WWDC calling concerned Quad G5 owners make me sick indeed.
You call a 64 bit, RISC processor having vector processing unit several year old design... When will Intel reach Altivec specs? SSE3?
Please don't comment about professional workstations, they have nothing to do with your consumer grade shareware applications or games.
Did you watch World Cup Excerpts? Quad G5 is designed for such usage and those people using them does not come to slashdot to comment.
Apple kinda gave up the computer business, they offer stylish Intel whiteboxes with some stylish OS to keep the "computer company" image. You really want the truth? Quad G5 is the LAST true Macintosh coming from Apple.
Rest are locked down, DRM chip having Intel white box crap. You use x86 generic computer and you can't even decide what brand of x86 to use.
Want more truth? I bet you bought a "macbook" pro (!), there is a multiplatform game in hand "World Of Warcraft" which is coded by Blizzard. Use bootcamp , run game on both OS'es and compare fps.
Also read some sites like http://www.power.org/about/faq/ before claiming PowerPC is old arch.
Oh check this too: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype
As there are no Mactel folding@home right now, I wonder how Team Mac OS X is number 11 with these "old" CPUs
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype
I'm willing to hazard a guess on the nature of the redesigned enclosure.
Have you noticed how Apple likes a certain symmetry between applications (iTunes brushed aluminum, Safari brushed aluminum) and the Pro enclosure (G5 brushed aluminum)? Apple seems to be experimenting with a lighter, smooth metal theme as seen in the current Mail.app. I hereby conjecture that the new Pro Mac enclosure will likewise be a very light-colored, smooth metal with a similar look.
I'd highly suggest returning the machine to Apple for repairs, there is clearly something wrong. Right this moment, I am encoding a 4 GB .MOV (MPEG-4 and AAC) to DVD Format with FFMpegX, have iTunes running on Shuffle playing my music, typing this from inside Camino, talking to friends on Adium and using X-Chat Aqua,Coreduotemp monitoring my CPU temp, and it is still running comfortably. Are you using the Core Solo or Duo? How much RAM is in it? I have the Core Duo Mini w/ 1 Gig of RAM. My Mom's 20" iMac Core Duo w/ 2 GB of RAM knocks the socks off of my old Powermac G4 1.4 GHz (upgraded with Mercury Extreme processor). Have you tried re-installing OS X? Trust me, it is not normal for your Mini to be acting like that. Yesterday, I had FFMpegX encoding another file and was using FrontRow to watch videos at the same time and it worked fine.
It looks like Windows will be faster on an Apple machine than on any other factory-built desktops.
There's no evidence for this. You can buy a Dell or HP that has the exact same components as a Mac Pro.
A Woodcrest system should have very similar power consumption to a 4x4 system. For example, check out AnandTech's comparison.
I love my Albook but would love to buy a new Intel Mac. However I upgraded my PC for work and gaming so my computer spending is shut down for now.
I'll probably wait to see if Apple is going to use the Core 2 Duos in any of their machines (iMac, Mac Pro, etc) and wait for a second revision of those before making the plunge. By then I'll have more money saved up, more apps will be native/universal, and I'll have the new chip as well.
Please don't comment about professional workstations, they have nothing to do with your consumer grade shareware applications or games.
I believe that there are more professional workstations using intel products than that of the G5. I would even venture a guess that there are more workstations running SPARC than either x86 or POWER, because of the age of the SPARC and scientists don't always upgrade their computers. At least that is what I have observed.
I haven't used an Apple product for quite a while. Our lab has been using intel based motherboards due to the cost savings and performance when compared to Apple's offerings.
A very small number of the physicists (here) still used the Mac Pros, but its mainly because they can port their Unix based code to console OS X and have a nice GUI. Their programs may take advantage of the Altivec specs, but I don't think it's a feature they can't do without. I will say that one of the physicists in question has no desire to change, simply because what he has works and not because of any deficiencies of the Intel platform.
We tend to use FPGAs to perform accelerated calculations, so the existance of Altivec within a CPU is a non-issue. FPGAs are far more flexible. By that I mean while it can be used to accelerate vector calculations, I tend to use them for General I/O that interface with our lab/flight components. This flexibility gives us more bang for the buck, and VHDL experience can be used in both computational domains (Math & I/O).
On the x86 side of things, I've been interested in the Opteron line from AMD, since there is a FPGA available that will operate within the other CPU slot. Does anybody know if such a thing exist for Xeon line? Since I am mostly in the I/O arena, I uses PCI based FPGA boards.
Quad G5 is designed for such usage and those people using them does not come to slashdot to comment.
Well we never get moderated to more than 1 or 2...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
It's not necessarily "bungling," either. Apple simply did not spend enough money with IBM for it to be worth it to IBM to spend R&D on Apple products. IBM can expect Microsoft to buy as many as 50 million XBox360 CPU's over the next five years. Sony may buy as many as 50 million Cell processors over the next five years.
How many G5's has Apple bought? Three million? There's no 3GHz G5 because Apple's orders would not cover IBM's investment in creating it.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Just because you made that sentence by rearranging words I used, that doesn't mean it's what I said. But I'll answer your objections anyway. I know more than a few professionals who use Garageband as a "sketchpad" for Logic. Logic reads Garageband files, and if you're a Logic Pro user (as I am), you don't want to have to carry your valuable dongle around 24/7, so in a pinch you get an idea down in Garageband and finesse it later in Logic. In case you haven't noticed, "real" musicians also use Casio SK-1 keyboards, Nintendo GameBoys, and toy pianos. John Cage even composed for toy piano. Don't let your prejudice of Garageband as a mass-market toy cloud the fact that real-world professionals are using it to do something remunerative. As for Final Cut Pro, using it is not "the norm" with recording musicians, but many pros who do audio editing on OSX prefer the workflow of Soundtrack Pro to other available options (e.g. Peak), and have bought into the crossgrade just to get Soundtrack Pro. The rest of FCP Studio they'll probably never touch. Go search Apple's Soundtrack forums for the terms "upgrade" and "crossgrade" if you require evidence of people who've made the switch. "Real" musicians also use Roombas, cordless drills, ball bearings, and bicycle chains to make music that ends up on albums you buy. Just because something like Final Cut Pro isn't ostensibly meant for musicians doesn't mean some of them aren't using it anyway.