The other shoe dropping? Apple rumored to be dropping the Mac Pro...
- Thread starter ullanta
- Start date
David W. Jones
Veteran
It makes sense. Apple makes much more money off consumers than professionals.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Absolutely unquestionably and without a doubt, Apple will discontinue the Mac Pro line. Been saying that for a couple of years. Apple's guiding philosophy is one of simplicity and focus, and they have said they are a "mobile products company". Things like an XServe and a Mac Pro tower just don't fit in with that philosophy.
I don't know if they'll provide one last refresh of the Mac Pro before discontinuing it, or if we've already seen the last of the Mac Pro. But for the future going forward, you can probably count on the MacBook Pro as their top-end professional offering, and plan on using Thunderbolt external accessories from third-party manufacturers to supply any expansion capability you need.
I don't know if they'll provide one last refresh of the Mac Pro before discontinuing it, or if we've already seen the last of the Mac Pro. But for the future going forward, you can probably count on the MacBook Pro as their top-end professional offering, and plan on using Thunderbolt external accessories from third-party manufacturers to supply any expansion capability you need.
Our new 2.5 GHz i7 dual quad core MacBook Pro runs most tasks faster than our 2009 dual quad core 2.26 GHz Mac Pro. The OpenCL GPU benchmarks are faster as well.
Thunderbolt is basically a PCI bus, and will support external cards/chassis.
It wouldn't surprise me, but it doesn't seem to affect my workflow very much.
Thunderbolt is basically a PCI bus, and will support external cards/chassis.
It wouldn't surprise me, but it doesn't seem to affect my workflow very much.
TheReverend
Well-known member
Thunderbolt does change the game. It brings internal computer speeds to external products. I personally mourn the death of the Mac Pro because it is an elegant beast, but truly in two years, I doubt that it'll be missed.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Just reinforces my move to a nice custom PC.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
You can always bolt the latest hardware of the shelf in an Apple tower and set up a Hackintosh.
But most people don´t really work in the OS (besides from copying a file from one folder to an other) but in applications like Premiere or Photoshop.
While editing you won´t see any difference if it runs on Windows or Apple OS anyway. So what´s the big deal.
Frank
But most people don´t really work in the OS (besides from copying a file from one folder to an other) but in applications like Premiere or Photoshop.
While editing you won´t see any difference if it runs on Windows or Apple OS anyway. So what´s the big deal.
Frank
arniepix
Well-known member
If you read the AppleInsider article, it's speculating on what the author thinks is a future possibility, albeit a very logical train of thought by someone who appears to be a close follower of Apple and it's sales trends. The MacRumors is playing down the speculation angle.
Don't forget that Apple is a publicly traded company, it's first obligation is to keep quarterly earnings up for the benefit of it's shareholders, not to make workstations for editors. Based on past history and simple logic, it's inevitable for Apple to EOL the Mac Pro line, the real question is whether they'll replace it with another pro workstation, or will they abandon the market.
Most people don't need the connectivity and expansion that a Mac Pro tower affords, including most of the people who buy them. If someone makes a PCIe expander for Thunderbolt, Apple will likely argue that those people that do need that kind of expansion can get it with an expander.
Given the decade long trend away from turnkey editing hardware to software based systems, and the increasing power of all of the "consumer" macs and the ever growing size of hard drives, what kind of economic sense does it make for Apple to continue to develop new workstations for a shrinking market? Even if you look at other users, like engineers and scientists and graphic designers, most of them don't need towers anymore, either.
When they EOLed the X-Serve RAID a few years ago, it was obsolete and over priced. Instead, Apple began selling RAID arrays from Promise that fit in the same product niche and work within the same X-SAN software environment.
When they EOLed the X-Serve a couple of years ago, it was over priced compared to similar featured hardware. Indeed, it's main selling point was that it ran Mac OS, probably not the most compelling feature for professional IT managers unless they were already running X-SAN.
I can only hope that there will continue to be a Mac OS solution for me as a post professional, but new tools are poised to emerge on Linux and Windows at very attractive prices that will let me serve my clients. As I've said elsewhere, I am not my tools. I am not an FCP button pusher, I am a creative professional who offers much more than that to my clientele.
Don't forget that Apple is a publicly traded company, it's first obligation is to keep quarterly earnings up for the benefit of it's shareholders, not to make workstations for editors. Based on past history and simple logic, it's inevitable for Apple to EOL the Mac Pro line, the real question is whether they'll replace it with another pro workstation, or will they abandon the market.
Most people don't need the connectivity and expansion that a Mac Pro tower affords, including most of the people who buy them. If someone makes a PCIe expander for Thunderbolt, Apple will likely argue that those people that do need that kind of expansion can get it with an expander.
Given the decade long trend away from turnkey editing hardware to software based systems, and the increasing power of all of the "consumer" macs and the ever growing size of hard drives, what kind of economic sense does it make for Apple to continue to develop new workstations for a shrinking market? Even if you look at other users, like engineers and scientists and graphic designers, most of them don't need towers anymore, either.
When they EOLed the X-Serve RAID a few years ago, it was obsolete and over priced. Instead, Apple began selling RAID arrays from Promise that fit in the same product niche and work within the same X-SAN software environment.
When they EOLed the X-Serve a couple of years ago, it was over priced compared to similar featured hardware. Indeed, it's main selling point was that it ran Mac OS, probably not the most compelling feature for professional IT managers unless they were already running X-SAN.
I can only hope that there will continue to be a Mac OS solution for me as a post professional, but new tools are poised to emerge on Linux and Windows at very attractive prices that will let me serve my clients. As I've said elsewhere, I am not my tools. I am not an FCP button pusher, I am a creative professional who offers much more than that to my clientele.
VGurcu
Well-known member
Like this?
http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
I doubt it. Here is my take. Mac Pro will be redesigned as a modular expansion system. Think it like a stackable mac mini:
Brain case will have the multiple core processors & memory sticks, plus a humble graphic card, with basic I/O module
PCie expansion box(like the one above) & Harddrive bays, additional I/o's will be supplied in additional separate cases that will perfectly sit on the brain module, {which may be a cube shaped}.
Why? Because there is no reason to throw away so much processing power needed by pros, as laptops & imacs have very limited space to provide these...
Note:I made similar predictions about the demise of mac pros in the past, now I officially retract it
My thought is that in its present form with use of the expensive CPUs, Barry is probably right.
However, I suspect that Apple may reinvent the MacPro as a less expensive, modular, compact system that maximizes the use of Thunderbolt technology.
Having owned 3 towers and a couple of MBPros over the last 10 years, and been a Apple fella since the Apple II. I would hate to see the demise of the tower. With the intro of the most recent tower architecture with 4 drive bays, I have managed to reduce the spaghetti on my desk by a considerable margin. Though, the best imacs and minis, have similar power to my two year old 8 core....said with disbelief.
Grant
Grant
ullanta
Veteran
Yes, I've recently switched the majority of my work to a macBook pro that's twice as fast as my old tower... now i get a lot more done in a lot more places! Docking via thunderbolt to something like my intensity would be great for when i'm coloring... but for everything else, I'm fine on the 17" screen so far... with an eSATA expresscard (and even the FW800) I'm not missing the 4 drive bays as much as I thought I would!
simonpwood
Well-known member
Ullanta - I'm also using a new MacBook Pro, and using a 3TB G-Drive connected with FW800. I see the G-Drive also has an eSata port - would I get noticeably improved performance if I used an eSata connection to the Express Card 34 slot instead of FW800? I'm generally editing with XDCAM 50mbs 1080p footage?
ullanta
Veteran
Are ypu editing multiple streams of video? Using more than one FW drive at a time? If neither of those, probably not. I get slightly better performance with eSATA when moving data from one drive to another (e.g., backing up, muxing DVDs, exporting "cuts only" video, etc)... but FW800 more than handles any single any single video stream (I never work uncompressed), and usually more; but with more than one video stream the data rate of the bus the drive is on is not the bottleneck with a single drive/RAID... it's either processing or thrashing of the drive. I like to use multiple drives and plan operations to use separate source and destination drives to prevent thrashing... I find this makes much more of a difference than using faster drives/raids. Most of my drives (or drive docks) work as either FW800 or eSATA... so if ever I have any issues with bus speed I cross busses (e.g., if reading from a FW400 drive I'll write to an eSATA drive).
A MacPro with two of the latest Intel server-class CPUs would be even faster.
simonpwood
Well-known member
arniepix
Well-known member
Yes, like that! Except, maybe with more than 4 slots!
Looks like it's not shipping yet, BTW.
But a 4 slot Mac Pro with a 4 slot expander would probably serve the needs of that handful of users who really do need that kind of expansion & processing power.