Apple Updates MacBooks and Mac Pro Desktop With Haswell, "Unified Thermal Core"
MojoKid writes with more detailed information on the new hardware Apple announced earlier today at WWDC "On the hardware side, Apple is updating its two MacBook Air devices; both the 11-inch and 13-inch versions will enjoy better battery life (up to 9 hours and 12 hours, respectively), thanks in no small part to having Intel's new Haswell processors inside. They'll also have 802.11ac WiFi on board. Both models have 1.3GHz Intel Core i5 or i7 (Haswell) processors, Intel HD Graphics 5000, 4GB of RAM, and has 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. Arguably the scene stealer on the desktop side of things is a completely redesigned Mac Pro. The 9.9-inch tall cylindrical computer boasts a new 'unified thermal core' which is designed to conduct heat away from the CPU and GPU while distributing it uniformly and using a single bottom-mounted intake fan. It rocks a 12-core Intel Xeon processor, dual AMD FirePro GPUs (standard), 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory (60GBps), and PCIe flash storage with up to 1.25GBps read speeds. The system promises 7 teraflops of graphics performance, supports 4k displays, and has a host of ports including four USB 3.0, two gigabit Ethernet ports, HDMI 1.4, six Thunderbolt 2 ports that offer super-fast (20Gbps) external connectivity."
Define cylindrical. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/NeXTcube.jpg
ôó
I wonder the fan is powerful enough for tassels
That looks like a cube
The images show four quad-ranked regiestered DIMMs. This is not consumer stuff.
..PCs will still be more economical, more powerful, more easily upgraded, and uglier.
Some things never seem to change.
-Lod
With so much in such a small space/size and an unusual factor as well, I have a very bad feeling about your ability to upgrade practically any parts in this thing.
Yup, it's on the back. I find this quite strange as they've evidently put form over function, yet still trumpet user friendliness as a core design ethic.
should have at least 2 build in HDD / SDD ports just one is to small for a system like that.
And why not e-sata that is free and does not eat up bandwidth like a HDD on TB will.
Apple took their 'rounded corners' patent way too serious...
i dub thee the iDildo.
i hear goatse man approves.
yet another product very well engineered to fix a problem that nobody ever had - an office with just enough room to fit a smallish cylinder and nothing more.
4Gb or RAM? That's really not a lot today. As for the desktop, the whole point is expandability, but that seems pretty limited with this one. Might have another Cube on our hands.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Looks like it'll be great fun for pets and kids alike to roll around on the floor.
You turn off your computers ?
I wanted to like the new Mac Pro but it makes no sense to me.
Internal FLASH only - that's fine for a MacBook Air, but aren't the target users for this video editors?
Limited RAM - only 4 ram slots. The old one had 8.
Cylindrical - Great, now nothing fits next to it
Exhaust from the top - Can't put anything on top and if you spill a drink on it, it goes straight into the machine.
What are the pluses to this design? Hopefully it runs quiet but beyond that???
This is the new Cube. I wonder if this will be the final Mac Pro - "Well, nobody bought it so it's obvious there's no market here..."
If you can't get this right, can you get anything right?
Ram is upgradable
Then, it has 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports running at 20gbps managed by 3 controllers.
Get whatever external enclosure you want and run whatever you want. Raids, Video cards, etc..
The shorter answer would be no. Its not expandable, an incompatible rare expensive *external* interface is simply not a solution. Although I do find it somewhat ironic that you could argue that a raspberry pi costing $25 is upgradable too :).
Most Mac users I know dual boot Windows and OS-X.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Since when is rebooting the same thing as turning off ones computer? ... Let alone require the power button every time.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Only 4 GB of RAM for the Air? Even your bottom-barrel throwaway laptop from Walmart tends to have at least 4 GB of RAM, let alone a laptop you're going to be paying $1K for.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Who cares, really? Normally, I should be excited by this set of announcements, but I'm not now. Why? Because Apple is complicit in the largest expansion of government surveillance power in my lifetime... that we know of, at least. (That is, unless you believe their technicality-laden denial with wording nearly identical to several other of the named companies.) Every desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, and personal music player currently in my household is an Apple product, but until we get this sorted out, I'm not buying any more of their gear. And I'm recommending that family and friends do the same.
Most Mac users I know dual boot Windows and OS-X.
You know some very unusual users.
According to Apple's website:
Not only does it feature a state-of-the-art AMD FirePro workstation-class GPU with up to 6GB of dedicated VRAM — it features two of them.
As a Mac user in a Mac-based office, the third of such I've worked in (I'm in the Bay Area) that seems quite unusual. I'd say less than 20% of the Mac users I know duall boot.
You cannot add it later. You have to configure to order.
The Air had 2 or 4GB CTO (configure to order) 2 years ago, 4 or 8GB CTO this year and I think last year was 4GB or 8GB CTO also.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You turn off your computers ?
Most Mac users I know dual boot Windows and OS-X.
And using the "Restart" menu option works just fine for rebooting. Why is the power button needed?
I believe the power button is on the back of the Mac mini and iMacs.
When this story came out I posted that it sounded like Intel was targeting MacBook Air first and foremost and were banking on that other devices could follow from that a well-received deployment there.
My post was immediately modded down to -1. With determined fracking, you'll be able to find it.
In the one CPU config. That is, one CPU socket package, 6 or 8 cores. If you got the two CPU socket version with 12 cores, you got 8 RAM slots.
The model pictured is one with a single CPU socket and has 4 DIMM slots. It's quite possible that the two CPU socket version of this Mac Pro will have 8 RAM slots also.
I checked, there is no 12 core version of Xeon E5, so presumably to get the 12 cores on this one will use two packages as the last one did.
I don't have any problems putting stuff next to cylinders. I have a coffee cup on my desk, it isn't causing any untoward issues.
This thing has no HDDs. No amount of flash would be enough for video editors, and not even 4 internal HDDs would either. So you will use a Thunderbolt external HDD or RAID array. I just hope those get somewhat cheaper soon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Is it just me, or does the Mac Pro look like a really fancy garbage can? That's the first thought I had when I saw the pictures in the article.
It "rocks" a 12-core Intel Xeon processor
sigh
should have at least 2 build in HDD / SDD ports just one is to small for a system like that.
There are 6 thunderbolt 2 ports.
And why not e-sata that is free and does not eat up bandwidth like a HDD on TB will.
Thunderbolt 2 is 6+ times faster than e-sata.
In addition the 'not yet' Mac Pro has NO, i.e. nada, PCI, PCIe or any other high bandwidth high clock rate expansion ports !
Technically, each Thunderbolt port should be just as capable as a 4x PCIe. Presumably, Thunderbolt 2 can do a 8x since it uses both lanes, but this is speculation on my part.
The thing that I don't understand is the ports and power cord are all on the same side - along with the power button. That seems awkward.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why is the power button needed?
For forcible power-cycling, but if you're doing that a lot, you have bigger problems (or are doing development, especially kernel-mode code development).
(And if you want to power the machine down, rather than reboot, the "Shut Down..." menu option handles that.)
I believe the power button is on the back of the Mac mini and iMacs.
Correct for the iMac, as I remember; I'm not sure about the Mac mini, but I could easily believe it to be the case.
Notwithstanding the rest of your idiocy, Apple has no manufacturing plants in Costa Rica, or anywhere else in Central America. I doubt they have anything in S. Am. either. In point of fact (and as much as I hate to defend them) they're bringing production back to the US.
Now all of you Mac addicts and the haters, go eat a bag of dicks.
Back in the days they had these keyboards: ... which you could turn the computer on with.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Apple_Macintosh_ADB_Keyboard.jpg
Maybe you still can?
It's a cylinder... where's the "back"? :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
From the NYT coverage: “You can watch the entire trilogy of ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” on a single charge, Mr. Schiller said.
Two incredibly boring hipster co-opted concepts combined in one sentence.
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
Re:Only 4GB of RAM? 4gb is small for pro apps / running lot's of them at the same time.
Which is done with the reboot option from within the OS, generally. The point was that most computers default to automatically sleeping in a reasonably short time and this has actually worked reliably for the last 5-10 years, so its fairly common to not actually turn a computer entirely off.
My desktop sleeps at five watts. Parasitic draw when entirely off is 1.5 or so. That's just short of 31 kWh in a year. At my electric rates, that means leaving it asleep rather than off for an entire year would add all of $6 to my electric bill. As it's certainly not off/asleep for all that time, the real-world impact is closer to $2-3. Even with a nice SSD, boot is a 30-45 second thing where the longest part of waking from sleep is waiting for my monitors to realize what's happened and turn on.
The cost of a smoothie every year in exchange for convenience every time I return to my computer? Yeah, worth it.
Also, most Mac users don't dual-boot unless they're gaming. VirtualBox works just as well for 95% of uses and adds a lot of features you don't get with bare metal installs like snapshots, plus Parallels and Fusion exist for those with more specific needs who can't get away with VirtualBox. I'll agree that many serious users of Intel Macs run Windows in some form, but the dual boot versus virtualized split has been shifting more and more towards virtualized over the years.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Am I the only one who saw the new Mac Pro and thought it looks like an ashtray or a rubbish bin?
Yes. some of us don't like paying extra money to the utilities. I guess that's why we don't buy overpriced designware either.
My wife is an architect and she likes the mac desktop, but she needs to run windows only cad software.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Haswell Xeon E5s don't ship until next year. This would be an Ivy Bridge Xeon E5, unless Apple is going to be super super special.
With so much in such a small space/size and an unusual factor as well, I have a very bad feeling about your ability to upgrade practically any parts in this thing.
The good news: it's a very modular design, and it looks well-engineered.
The bad news: its parts are totally nonstandard, so you will only get the upgrades that Apple wants you to have, at the prices Apple wants to charge.
Of course, maybe some third party will figure out how to make the parts and sell them to you... If so, Apple will shut them down hard. It has happened before.
I'll give them this: that looks like it will set a new record for crazy powerful computing hardware in a small package, and I'll bet it will actually be quieter than older "wind tunnel" PowerMacs. But if I'm spending my own money, I don't want one.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The Mac Pro has always been about dick-waving more than anything. They pack in random high end technology and then say "Oh look how much more power than a PC it is!" Never mind if any of it is needed or wanted. The thing is just an expensive, not very customizable, workstation as it always has been. Now they want to make it look different to try and sell people on how nifty it is.
It wasn't fashionable to have a power button on the visible side? Also not fashionable on the top I suppose.
I'm really curious to see the benchmark comparisons between the previous MacBook Air with the 1.8GHz dual core i5-3427U (Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz) and the new MBA with a 1.3GHz dual core i5-4250U (Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz).
Then I guess it's a good thing this thread is talking about their lowest-end consumer laptop and not their desktop workstation aimed at professionals, wouldn't you agree?
Incorrect. A single x1 PCI Express 3.0 lane does 8Gb/s. Thunderbolt 1.0 has two 10Gb/s lanes, while 2.0 is exactly the same, except it can aggregate two lanes to deliver a single 20Gb/s connection, just like PCI Express has done all along.
Assuming each of those ports actually connects full speed to the main system (I'm fairly certain it doesn't, because no one will use it that way, but it could), that's essentially 12 PCI x1 lanes to play around with. That's not horrible, given you already have the two GPUs accounted for. Of course, those are your GPUs for life, but they'll be decent for awhile yet.
And the GPUs are the reason there's not likely full 6-channel Thunderbolt to/from the main board. You've seen an HDMI port, but no others... that's because you're expected to hook your main monitors (and anyone using a system like this with only one monitor is a fool) to Thunderbolt ports. So, in a basic configuration, you'll probably eat two of those right away. And there's a pretty good chance the system has a cross point switch that allows the DisplayPort connection directly from each GPU to be routed directly to one of the Thunderbolt ports, and put it into DisplayPort mode. DisplayPort already supports full 60p 4K displays, no need to wait for a Thunderbolt monitor or live on HDMI alone (1.4 supports 4K at 24p).
-Dave Haynie
Ahhh .. you must be one of those "poor people" I hear so much about ? ;-)
But then you could always make use of the power saving functions computers have had for the past 15 years or so :-)
People don't seem to realize that Thunderbolt is external PCIe, it is not USB or Firewire or SATA. 6 ports gives you 6 PCIe 4x slots at 20Gbs which places it between PCIe 3 and 4. What PCIe card requires more?? Video cards made in the last few years and what else? Users with freaky needs shouldn't be using a mac.
If you need PCIe cards then you get an external box; that is, if you don't just buy a new thunderbolt device. I never used my slots... except I upgraded video... hacked in 4 more cpus... upgraded the HDs every 3 years... I've done IT for macs in video: PCI cards almost always suck unless you NEVER touch the system once it is stable. Thunderbolt drivers have a better chance of being supported.
My mac pro sits on the desk because I don't want hair and dirt in the computer. I would prefer a small computer on the desk over the giant cheese grader blocking the window. I'd have built a PC tower but getting one to run as quietly and not look like crap (since I see it all day) was not worth it; plus hacking it... At this point I'm close enough to just go linux after I finish migrating to GIMP from photoshop. I don't do video anymore, but this mac would be ideal. A linux box is more likely this time, but it's temping to put it off again.
A lot of pro video people insist on having a preview TV and with HDMI out... Serious pros have RAID boxes they will use until justifying buying a new thunderbolt RAID. Having a fast system HD is really nice.
My only complaint is SSD RAID support. I won't give up my RAID 10. HDs at least give warning, SSD can have 1 chip blow the whole thing instantly. Sure, external RAIDs are ok, but losing the system HD is some serious downtime.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
ound the fan. Or if they just got rid of the heat sink and put in a hot water pot instead.
-- Jimtown Kelly
I sure hope they release a smallish 4k display (sub 30") for a reasonable price ($1.5k).
I'm not going to buy one of their machines, but I might buy a monitor or two from them if they get the specs right.
In terms of opening, it depends on the case. There are some very easy no-tools PC cases out there. All Dell servers, for example, are just a lever to open (I mention them since we buy a lot).
However that aside easy of upgradeability isn't about how easy you can get the side off, I mean really if a thumb screw vexes you, you are being silly. It is about component availability and this has always been a massive Mac problem. Things like custom powersupplies, custom video card BIOSes, that sort of thing, and of course fuck-all available from Apple. When you get a PC, particularly a high end one, you've got all kinds of options. With a good manufacturer, they will sell you the stuff, as well as your ability to get it aftermarket. Like with a Dell workstation Dell will sell you, after the fact, addon processors, memory, GPUs, HDDs, SSDs, RAID controllers, HBAs, network adapters, power supplies, and so on for your system. All of them come with full warranty support though Dell, of course.
They don't have what you want, or don't have it for a good price? No problem, you can get it all aftermarket. Nothing special needed, buy the regular stuff from any vendor.
You can really upgrade the hell out of a PC, and keep doing it, if you want. I haven't bought a new desktop in like 8 years, yet it is still very much top of the line. What happens is I just replace components as needed. I get a new GPU every 18ish months, new HDDs if I run out of space or if something is faster enough to catch my interest (like my SSD), a new audio card when I see one with features I want, a new motherboard/CPU every 2ish years, new RAM if the motherboard needs it, new PSU should power requirements change (hasn't happened) and a new case never because I like mine. So even when the core, the CPU and motherboard, get upgraded it isn't a new system. I can keep the case, PSU, GPU, sound card, drives, and all that jazz.
Now I'm not saying this is how people should do it, but that is a demonstration of what real upgradeability means. It is the ability to upgrade any component when a new one comes out more or less, and to do so with anything as much as needed. Not the ability to take the case off and put in more RAM.
In terms of network storage I suppose... But what? OS-X can't act as an iSCSI initiator so you can't use any of the nice high end iSCSI arrays (like an Equallogic) or something. No 10gig so no FCoE. Apple doesn't make storage arrays and nothing else seems to support AFP. So... You buy a Windows server and use CIFS? Last I tried, CIFS performance wasn't great on the Mac, but whatever.
Macs really aren't that well designed for network storage on account of not having anything out there for them. I mean generally for network storage you either want a NAS that speaks the protocol your OS likes, and for OS-X that's AFP which is not popular, or for higher performance/lower latency you hook up using iSCSI or FCoE. iSCSI is real popular because gig (and bonded gig) are options and you can run it over your regular network, even over the Internet if necessary. Most OSes (Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, VMWare) can act as initiators and talk to an iSCSI target (most of them can be targets too if you want), but not OS-X, it has no iSCSI support.
I mean they'll talk to a CIFS share if you are just looking for a place to put stuff, but given the lack of space I presume you are talking about networked storage in a high performance capacity, using it online like local storage. That really only works well with high performance stuff and that they do not seem to have.
that cylinder sure looks like it could serve as a small trash can and could be easily mistaken for one.
Disclaimer... while I have been an Apple user for a long time, I do get a lot of milage from other hardware and operating systems. I wouldn't call myself a fan boi.
I bought the G5 Power Mac within a month of its release. This is pretty much the same case that is the current Mac Pro. I was totally disappointed. It had a lot of great features, but it was freakin' HUGE.
Over the years, I've hoped that Apple would get their desktop case down around a Micro-ATX form factor, but they never did. An obvious design flaw was ignored by The Steve for umpteen years. This new case seems like an extreme reaction to the size issue- which is great. It's tiny. There's some great engineering in there. But unless this new soda can is priced to sell, this is a play straight out of Apple's 1992 playbook. It isn't 1992, and that play didn't work so well the first time around. If they want to pull that shit, they need to fit 4-6 of them in a 2U form factor and get back into the server market.
In today's economy, is it feasible to price your products out of reach for an average consumer? Maybe I'm just envious because I know I will never be able to afford one of these things. It's not like I have the same job I had when I bought that monstrous G5.
Folks,
I just read ten posts above about lack of upgradability.
Who cares!?
It's not a big deal. The days of upgrading your pc every few years are over. Two years after buying this machine, Apple will release a newer version. The newer version will be so much better (faster bus, etc), that the older one will be left in the dust and on ebay for $499.
Things have been headed this way for a long while now. Why upgrade when it's only a little more to get a new machine with the best and latest/greatest hardware inside? This argument didn't hold as much weight in the past when the computer ecosystem moved slower. These days though, we move faster.
I like upgrading because it's an interest of mine to spend/waste my time getting things as fast and cool as possible, but honestly, this is more for fun than anything. If my professional life depended on a few more GB/s, I would drop down the money and upgrade at every chance I have.
Max out the ram and other options when you buy it, and make the most of it until there's a new model.
Yes, the Mac Pro's used to be rather upgradable. I upgraded my drives many, many times and it was much easier than any PC and I upgraded my video card by buying a standard Windows video card and flashing it to work with Mac.
While the new Mac Pro looks great, but I'm a little worried about expandability in this regard with the Mac Pro. I mean, I guess with dual GPU's you might not really want to upgrade the video card, as it would get quite expensive and they probably perform great to begin with. I can see not needing a CD-ROM. The only thing I use mine for ever currently is ripping music CDs to lossless. However, you are definitely going to want to add hard drives and popping on four thunderbolt connected drives, the same amount of slots as the Mac Pro had before, is going to get ugly fast.
What they really should do is offer a second version of the same case as another product, with a power supply and four or five hard drive slots. It should as an option automatically put them in a RAID and even include wifi so it becomes a NAS. Then you can just have two of these things connected together locally via thunderbolt or separately over wifi or LAN instead of a mess of external drives.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
My wife is an architect and she likes the mac desktop, but she needs to run windows only cad software.
And, presumably, can't do so in VMware Fusion or Parallels Workstation (which avoid the reboot and the "can't run your OS X apps and your Windows apps at the same time") or doesn't want to spend the money for them. (Yes, I can imagine that there are apps that don't work well enough in a simulated Windows box, for whatever reason.)
There could be room for a 2nd package.
But I didn't know about the E5 V2. Maybe you're right and Apple is using that. E5-V2 has 4 DDR3 memory channels, Apple would only have to put two DIMMs on a memory channel to have 8 DIMM slots. They have two DIMMs on a memory channel in the current MacPro.
But I suppose it's more likely Apple is going to just stick with 4 DIMM slots, given that memory per DIMM availability probably has at least doubled since Apple selected 8 DIMM slots for the last Mac Pro (2010? 2008?).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Traditionally? I don't think the question has an answer with that word in it. For me specifically:
Six monitors; USB microscope; scanner; MIDI control surface; PowerMate; 16-channel, 4-bus mixer; USB expander; 4 SDRs, 2 by USB and 2 by ethernet; USB guitar/bass input; kbd; mouse; trackpad; HD recorder; DSLR; TDS2000C digital storage oscilloscope; drawing tablet; Marantz AV7005; AC controller; 16-channel security DVR; PS3; occasionally an iPad, and on the other side, a honkin' big UPS and a router. And technically speaking, I suppose, all the other Macs on my network as well (3.)
And I'd be willing to bet that the next workstation owner over -- of any brand -- has a setup that looks almost completely different. :)
This is very much like borg technology it seems, though it lacks the green glow. But actually this is a pretty nice prosumer device. I suspect that the entry level machine with 4 cores will be what Apple is keen to sell, I suspect the low end spec machine ( similar to current low spec on the Apple store) but probably a few hundred dollars cheaper. This will allow apple to sell more Apple Displays too. I actually think this is a clever strategy to get people who want to play high end graphics intense games. As far as expandability, I also think those days are over. The daisy chaining ability would reduce the actual number of wires at the back too. Pretty sure there is some kind of tower of Thunderbolt external adapeter drives you can sit next to it. No doubt a third party will create a matching cylinder that you can slide other things into like SDDs graphics cards drives etc and only needing one cable into the main cylinder.
and your home is burgalarized
Burgalarized? Is that some sort of deliberate, ironic mangling of the langauge?
'Burgled' works just fine.
You are clearly not in the United States. He actually meant "burglarized" not "burgalarized." "Burgled" is chiefly used in the UK and maybe Australia.
In the United States none of our homes are burgled, but sadly many are burglarized. However, they never steal our current generation Mac Pro's because the thieves all assume they are industrial usage cheese graters.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Looking forwards to Finder Tabs. I use a Mac at work and Linux at home and find the tabs in Dolphin and Konquerer a pretty much essential aspect of any gui filesystem work. (Mostly I like CLI but sometimes you have to accept that clicking and dragging really is quicker). Just like multiple desktops, Apple are a few years behind but doing well to pick up the useful bits. Speaking of which, I hope they've dropped the absurd restrictions in moving windows between multiple monitors and workspaces.
No touch for the macbooks? I was hoping they would have a highres 18" laptop that i can install W8 on.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Performance.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Great, now apple will sue every brewery for their innovative design of the beer can. Guess beer will have to come in milk cartoons soon.
HTTP/1.1 400
Since a major feature of the new Mac Pro is 4K output, I'm hoping this is an indication that there will be matching 4K Cinema Display for it.
Apple is known for having the highest quality displays, and a 4K Apple display would be amazing!
I have a copy of VMware Fusion for her mac but she found it very slow running revit, and the display provided by vmware does not provide all the features required by revit.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
> Internal FLASH only - that's fine for a MacBook Air, but aren't the target users for this video editors?
Those people might be using one of those 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports, or perhaps a USB 3.0 port, while enjoying a quickly-loading environment and lightning-fast SSD working space.
> Limited RAM - only 4 ram slots. The old one had 8.
I will agree that this does seem a bit odd; perhaps they expect swapping to not be a big deal on an SSD which claims the speeds they mention. This is the first time someone has ever complained about not having to buy 8 ECC FB-DIMMs.
> Cylindrical - Great, now nothing fits next to it
Are you so OCD that everything has to be Tetrisable or it doesn't fit?
> Exhaust from the top - Can't put anything on top and if you spill a drink on it, it goes straight into the machine.
Ok, IHBT.
Apparently no one should conserve energy... silly me.. forgot about all the nerd wars about keeping PCs needlessly turned on for lengthening your e-penis..
The problem is that 300M people saying "It's convenient and I don't care about 5W" sums up to 1.5GW, which is the output of a nuclear reactor.
Ever heard of peak oil and global warming? We'll have to save a lot of energy, so why not begin with the low hanging fruit?
Also, if you connect all your peripherals to a switchable power strip you can avoid parasitic draw for your computer, display, external hard drives, speakers...
Apple could improve thermal dissipation by using 24 carat gold instead of aluminium. Probably wouldn't make much difference in the unit price, percentage wise. . .
2 Mac Pros, MBP Retina, 2x Mac Minis, ATV, IPad 3. Nexus 4 phone (WTF?)
I think Apple is mocking their fanatics by showing that showing that they'll still buy a computer that looks like a generic trash can.... errr "cylindrical file". So, the in the future, the graphic designers/creative folks at companies will be throwing a fit when the nerds throw trash in their shiny new Mac Pro when walking by ("Sorry! Looked like a trash can!").
Each lane in PCI Express 3.0 does 8GT/s, not 8GB/s. That's just shy of 1GB/s.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Oops, I apologize - you had Gb not GB. Just poke my eyes out and call me stupid.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Except for Xsan, which Apple built for exactly that purpose:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xsan
http://help.apple.com/advancedserveradmin/mac/10.8/#apd77AAA155-4BEF-43E3-9F82-5E565CFBDE84
The hardware is typically Promise VTrac these days:
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_category.aspx?region=en-global&m=192&rsn=40&statistic=Mac
Well, it's round so I 'm not sure that it has a "visible side", but it still seems odd to put the bug ugly power cord at the same place as the USB and Thunderbolt plugs. Not to mention the power button. I know if I owned one, I'd have it rotated to make for easy access, which would have the power cord coming out and very visible.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I mean, I guess with dual GPU's you might not really want to upgrade the video card, as it would get quite expensive and they probably perform great to begin with.
If you get this, you better hope you don't want to upgrade the graphics card - there are no PCI-e slots for independent graphics cards. What you see is what you get.
If pictures of the new Mac Pro were posted on April 1, we'd think it was hilarious! Perhaps this is Apple pranking everyone?
The Haswell "Urn" is going to go down in history as the worst joke from the grave ever.
the Ash can could "well?" bury the Mac Pro
My wife is an architect and she likes the mac desktop, but she needs to run windows only cad software.
And, presumably, can't do so in VMware Fusion or Parallels Workstation (which avoid the reboot and the "can't run your OS X apps and your Windows apps at the same time") or doesn't want to spend the money for them. (Yes, I can imagine that there are apps that don't work well enough in a simulated Windows box, for whatever reason.)
Sometimes it's really convenient to just reboot and get to work, instead of launching an extra environment. Yes, virtualisation works, but unless one has to multitask between os-dependant applications, booting in another os is effective and efficient. And provides breaks and stuff.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
If we are going to have a slashvert, lets at least link to the product page.
I use Parallels Desktop to enable virtual machines on my 2010 entry-level MacBook Pro, and it was amusing to notice that I could operate a 40 track effect laden Cubase project on a virtualized XP with less latency than on my ex-desktop PC. I needed to finish a sound design project for a feature length indie film, and everything went really smoothly. I didn't do comparisons myself but at the time gathered from the net that Parallels performed better than VMware.
That's entry level 15" MBP.
May he rest-in-peace...
MacPro shown at WWDC exudes a SteveEthos of superior engineering, access and performance. Strip away outer-shell, submerge in oil and enjoy!
Yes
But I suppose it's more likely Apple is going to just stick with 4 DIMM slots, given that memory per DIMM availability probably has at least doubled since Apple selected 8 DIMM slots for the last Mac Pro (2010? 2008?).
And, of course, the demand for RAM has remained perfectly static since then.
Sometimes it's really convenient to just reboot and get to work, instead of launching an extra environment. Yes, virtualisation works, but unless one has to multitask between os-dependant applications,
And some do. (I do development on cross-platform software, and it's Way Cool to be able to try stuff on various non-OS X OSes without having to reboot and not have my regular development/Web access/e-mail/etc. environment handy and without having to have other machine on which to do it. The downside is that, given that I want multiple versions of those OSes, about 1/3 of my "disk" is filled up with VMs....)
Let me introduce you to the SilverStone Fortress Mini. I have one under my desk, it takes standard components, screams quality, uses the same cooling principle and is near silent. Apple does not innovate nearly as much as some people think, but is quite adept at creating arquably valuable closed ecosystems, both hardware and software.
And you think a CAD package (which really needs GPU acceleration) is not one of those?
And you think a CAD package (which really needs GPU acceleration) is not one of those?
I think no such thing.
I thought of a better name for the new mac pro, the ICAN, A trash can that can!
Thomas
It is a Macintrash, after all.
unless one has to multitask between os-dependant applications
Playing music while you work is multitasking, and it depends on operating system-dependent audio drivers. Or can iTunes for Mac OS X seamlessly hand off to iTunes for Windows yet?
the allies have been doing active SigInt for decades
I thought sending SIGINT to modern GUI programs would just cause them to copy the selected text to the Clipboard.
You seem to think this is somehow an amusing contradiction, but it isn't. It was my entire point: I have not had to buy a complete new system in like 8 years, yet I still have current hardware. The reason is I keep upgrading pieces. There is almost nothing in it that is original. The case is, but that's it. Everything else has been replaced at least once, most things more than once. However that is doable. That's upgradability. When you can upgrade any component, without needing to upgrade the others.
I do not even know where to begin. Most of the nonsense involves not understanding how Mac Video/Audio workstations are used.
Some have correctly pointed out that external RAID0 is the only sane way to deal with TB scale video and and audio projects.
However the one that really gets me is the use of RAM and SSD on these configurations:
The SSD is for the OS and MAYBE the apps.
The new PowerMac supports up to 128GB of RAM. The SSD is NOT being used as a swap device. Like any other *NIX based system you can assign the backing store to ANY block device. On MacOS if you ever start seeing page swaps to disk, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. Add more RAM. Mavericks also supports heap compression, so instead of paging to a block device it compresses LRU'd heap objects to avoid knocking them out of ram. Even so, if you are thrashing the paging system on a Mac YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
As for ThunderBolt 2, it offers a PCIe link to arbitrary external devices. Who gives a rats ass if it cant support 16x PCIe 4. In most cases that might be interesting, the link speed is not as critical as being able to stream ~16GB/sec to another box that could have additional CPUs and GPUs. ThunderBolt links are transparent to PCIe. The idea is that there WILL be VERY expensive processing systems built that use the local link capability of ThunderBolt to allow a MacPro to do coordinate insane levels of parallel processing.
You people are still thinking INSIDE of the PC chassis. Think outside the beige box. PCIe to an external rack of CPU/GPU nodes seems like a really good idea for putting a crapload of processing power next to your desk.
I think perhaps you know far more Mac users than you realize... and fail to realize you have no idea what they do because you are unaware of their existence.
Nice, powerful machine, but what do you do with it now that all the pro and prosumer software is gone down the loo.
FCP anyone?