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Bigfoot · Oct 2, 2007, 06:52 PM

Anyone think a new Macpro could be introduced at the AES show this week?

mduell · Oct 2, 2007, 07:53 PM

Could, but why?
I expect them to be released 'silently' (without a media event) in early November.

MacosNerd · Oct 2, 2007, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Could, but why?
I expect them to be released 'silently' (without a media event) in early November.

Why silently when for the most part every other update to Apple's product line was with a media event.

Lateralus · Oct 2, 2007, 08:25 PM

Because the Mac Pro is Apple's only truly non-consumer product.

Take note of the fact that with the very few exceptions during the past 5 years, Apple has been shining the spotlight on the pro-level desktop updates about as much as they do on Xserve updates. ie; barely at all.

Simon · Oct 3, 2007, 06:27 AM

I'm expecting a low-key announcement any time now. At the latest in early November though.

Expect the new models to ship around mid November. Harpertown will be officially released Nov 11. Apple could be getting it earlier though (as with the X7900 and the Xeon X5365).

SierraDragon · Oct 3, 2007, 06:10 PM

I would not be surprised if Apple used new MPs to add the icing on to the Leopard release cake: "Here is our new OS and BTW look what it will do on our new MPs..."

-Allen Wicks

moshecatral · Oct 3, 2007, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by SierraDragon

I would not be surprised if Apple used new MPs to add the icing on to the Leopard release cake: "Here is our new OS and BTW look what it will do on our new MPs..."

-Allen Wicks

Man, I hope so. I have an iPhone rebate ready for Leopard. And some for a new Mac Pro when it happens.

Simon · Oct 4, 2007, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by SierraDragon

I would not be surprised if Apple used new MPs to add the icing on to the Leopard release cake: "Here is our new OS and BTW look what it will do on our new MPs..."

Definitely a possibility. What's Apple's marketing tag-line for Leopard? I always considered it geared mainly towards consumers, but a joint release with new MP would obviously go better with a more 'pro' image. Is Time Machine and Spaces 'pro' enough?

mrdinh · Oct 4, 2007, 08:04 AM

i thought the mac pro desk was just released last year...there is a new computer coming out already?...mac release new stuff every year?...

sorry, just switched from pc land...don't know how apple works.

P · Oct 4, 2007, 09:44 AM

People mean a refresh. Traditionally, Apple presented every minor clock bump as the next coming. Since the Intel switch, Mac Pro bumps have been silent - more like PC manufacturers do - while the laptops, iMac and iPod get more publicity. This means that to many people, there hasn't been a new Mac Pro for a very long time.

eggman · Oct 4, 2007, 11:26 AM

Also, there's conjecture that the next Mac Pro systems may be more than just a speed increase - for example, there's been speculation that the whole line may be upgraded to quad-core chips at a similar price point to the current models.

~bash $ · Oct 4, 2007, 01:35 PM

Truth is, the current gen of Mac Pros are pretty solid. DP, dual core, good board. The memory prices probably have not decreased dramatically enough (though they have decreased) to warrant the RAM bump, where the MBPs are all at 2 GB because it's economical to do so.

Simon · Oct 5, 2007, 05:49 AM

Originally Posted by ~bash $

Truth is, the current gen of Mac Pros are pretty solid. DP, dual core, good board. The memory prices probably have not decreased dramatically enough (though they have decreased) to warrant the RAM bump, where the MBPs are all at 2 GB because it's economical to do so.

Still there's enough room to improve. DP quad-cores, bigger disks, better GPUs (the 7300? common!) come to mind.

mduell · Oct 5, 2007, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by eggman

Also, there's conjecture that the next Mac Pro systems may be more than just a speed increase - for example, there's been speculation that the whole line may be upgraded to quad-core chips at a similar price point to the current models.

What part of going all quads isn't :just a speed increase"?

And frankly I'd be surprised if they didn't go all quad (2.5/2.83/3.0 quad will be the same as the Mac Pro launch 2.0/2.66/3.0 dual prices).

~bash $ · Oct 5, 2007, 08:18 PM

I know no one is outright refuting this, but some semblance of multiprocessor/multicore technology has been around for a long time. I remember when Micron was doing it in consumer PCs over 10 years ago. The problem at the time (that remained the problem through the G5s, as far as I can tell) had to do with lack of software support for the relatively rare mutliprocessor availability on a single workstation. We're getting into the ridiculousness again where more cores are going to automatically be equated with better performance -- it's just not true if your sw isn't being written to take advantage of it. Having said that, it's clear that the trend is here to stay, and people are writing software that takes advantage of parallel routines as much as possible, but it's certainly not a trivial task. The other thing is that not everything will benefit from parallelization, and these things haven't proven to scale exactly linearly.

Notice that iTunes isn't even being smart about utilizing multiple computational cores, when it could be, like Max (sbooth.org).

Simon · Oct 6, 2007, 01:04 PM

Apple looks set to pinch all Intel's top-bin Penryns - The INQUIRER

Looks like Apple will get preferential treatment from Intel (again).

Lateralus · Oct 6, 2007, 01:21 PM

The Inquirer? You'd might as well cite MacOSrumors.

Laurence · Oct 6, 2007, 02:06 PM

I've been thinking that since its been such a long time since there's been any update at all to the pro line, maybe it will be a more major update than might be expected. I realize that ZFS will not be ready in 10.5.0, but since full read/write support will likely be included in some update before 10.6 maybe the next Mac Pro will be ready in advance of the new file system. Its unlikely that bootable ZFS will arrive soon, but it might make sense to separate the core "Apple OS" sections of the boot drive off the HD completely. Is it possible that the new motherboards will have 8GB of some sort of flash RAM where the core OS will reside and automatically link /Library, /Users, and /Applications to the HD(s) This would eliminate the need for a bootable ZFS filesystem. This would also be very convenient for new users as even a complete reinstall of the OS would not necessarily require backing up the user space data. The flash RAM could be completely formated and the OS reinstalled without damaging any of the data on the HDs. This would allow any filesystem to be used for the HDs without all the complexity required for making the new filesystem bootable. It could also speed up most of the OS if the 8/16 GB of Flash RAM was on 4 slots on the motherboard in a striped RAID setup. This setup wouldn't require ZFS, but would work with ANY filesystem thus making it future-proof. I'm not sure how much 8-16 GB of fast Flash RAM would add to the price, but it couldn't be that much, could it? This would be great for the Mac Pros once ZFS became an option as each HD you added would just make the throughput of the data drives faster and the entire notion of multiple volumes mounting on the desktop would disappear. This would also protect the OS as nothing would be allowed to modify the Flash RAM except the "Apple certified" installers/updates. Third party kexts/frameworks would be kept completely separate from the core OS thus increasing stability of the entire OS. I realize that this is probably not as simple as I make it out to be, but it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities , right?