[LeeG]

It has been nearly a year since the mac pro has been updated. Anyone have any guesses as to the next wave of towers? I am looking to buy on the next round, this spring, probably i7, no?

Any other predictions? Might we actually see bluray?

L

[Big Mac]

I guess it depends if the Core i7 Xeons are available in quantity by February-March. As for Blu-ray, I don't think Apple supports it as a computer solution, at least not now.

[Brien]

I'm really worried Apple is going to be too late to the Blu-ray party for it to matter. Up until October they still didn't ship a DVD burner in the entry-level machines.

[P]

Right now, everyone's waiting for the Christmas numbers on Bluray. If Bluray sells well, Apple will be more inclined to add it, and might accept the sort of crippling that MS added to Vista. If Bluray doesn't sell, then the BDA needs to do something to get sales rolling - including possibly playing ball with Apple about waiving the most inane of the requirements in the PVP and PAP specs. Personally, I'd be willing to give Bluray on the Mac a pass if it means messing up the OS as bad as Vista is.

[thechidz]

I dont think blueray is such a big deal. give me more upgrade options, or better yet a minitower

[Simon]

I agree BR is not such a big issue (yet). Its adoption has been lackluster and its implications for the OS can be severe (see what P said). Also from a business POV Apple's interest is probably lukewarm at best. They would certainly rather sell HD movies and shows through the iTS than jump through hoops to play back BR. I seriously doubt Apple is losing sales because a lack of BR. And should BR see wide adoption Apple can still reconsider.

Regarding i7 we can expect Xeon X/W55xx series Nehalems ("Gainestown" CPUs) in the next MP. They are a bit behind schedule but should ship in 1Q09. These quad-core CPUs clock in at 2.66-3.2 GHz, have 8 MB of L3 cache and TDPs of 95W (X series) or 130W (W series). The MP's cooling system can deal with that. They're really expensive though so I wouldn't expect any price cuts. The dual 3.2 GHz quad-core CPUs alone will cost Apple roughly $2500 after discounts. We'll see the X58 (Tylersburg) chipset with QuickPath Interconnect - that's part of the reason we now see reduced amounts of cache. The new QPI architecture with integrated low-latency mem controllers, DDR3 memory, and integrated low-latency L2 cache should help performance a lot. We will also see the reintroduction of SMT, an updated SSE4.2, and performance-enhanced dynamic power management. I can't find the link right now, but recent benchmarks showed up to 50% performance increase at the same clock when going comparing the previous Harpertown to the new Nehalem.

I'd expect to see this new MP in Feb or Mar. Possibly shortly before Intel officially ships Nehalem.

[justmetoo]

Originally Posted by Simon 

... recent benchmarks showed up to 50% performance increase at the same clock when going comparing the previous Harpertown to the new Nehalem....

Isn't it always a 50% performance increase???

[mduell]

I expect Apple to be slow on the uptake (again), but get a temporarily exclusive expensive high-speed model (again).

Originally Posted by P 

Right now, everyone's waiting for the Christmas numbers on Bluray. If Bluray sells well, Apple will be more inclined to add it, and might accept the sort of crippling that MS added to Vista. If Bluray doesn't sell, then the BDA needs to do something to get sales rolling - including possibly playing ball with Apple about waiving the most inane of the requirements in the PVP and PAP specs. Personally, I'd be willing to give Bluray on the Mac a pass if it means messing up the OS as bad as Vista is.

False dichotomy: XP plays Blu-ray.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by justmetoo 

Isn't it always a 50% performance increase???

No, not really. The Core -> Core2 upgrade wasn't anywhere near that. The Xeon Nehalems are looking awesome in terms of speed.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by justmetoo 

Isn't it always a 50% performance increase???

Umm, no.

I finally found the link.









With that preface, the fact that Nehalem is still able to post these 20 - 50% performance gains says only one thing about Intel's tick-tock cadence: they did it. We've been told to expect a 20 - 30% overall advantage over Penryn and it looks like Intel is on track to delivering just that in Q4. At 2.66GHz, Nehalem is already faster than the fastest 3.2GHz Penryns on the market today.

[P]

Originally Posted by mduell 

XP plays Blu-ray.

I know - provided the graphics driver is coded for it - and I had a comment about that in my response before deleting it to keep the response short. Either there is room enough in the driver model to meet the reqs for a protected video path, or the XP players will drop res if ICT is enabled (which we don't know, because no discs in production use ICT), but either of those options are unacceptable. ICT is obviously not OK, unless you're betting on the studios never enabling it, and a driver that messes up the display system is just as bad as modifying the kernel to do it - after all, the driver runs inside the kernel and can do pretty much what it wants.

Note: Dell always required Vista with Bluray drives. Now I think they only sell Vista, but back when both were options, XP was removed if you picked a Bluray drive.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Umm, no.

I finally found the link.

With that preface, the fact that Nehalem is still able to post these 20 - 50% performance gains says only one thing about Intel's tick-tock cadence: they did it. We've been told to expect a 20 - 30% overall advantage over Penryn and it looks like Intel is on track to delivering just that in Q4. At 2.66GHz, Nehalem is already faster than the fastest 3.2GHz Penryns on the market today.

Note that the difference for Xeons is likely to be more significant because of the switch from FB-DIMMs back to DDR3; H.264 encoding in particular is sensitive to memory latency.

[Ted L. Nancy]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Note that the difference for Xeons is likely to be more significant because of the switch from FB-DIMMs back to DDR3; H.264 encoding in particular is sensitive to memory latency.

mduell... with the title of the thread being being on my mind, I was motivated to read through your entire sig..

Do you still anticipate an update to the mini in '08 (and if so, why), or should we anticipate an update to your prediction ?

[Veltliner]

Looks like Sony becomes a little bit of a dictator with its winning Blu-Ray, and puts too many demands on computer hard-and software makers regarding copy protection etc.

It wouldn't be the first technology that got strangled by the monopolist behavior of its license holder.

So, Blu-Ray may not be the last word spoken in the hi-def disc market. And Apple may do the wait and see.

After all, the disc issue is the big gap in the hi-def technology. We have nice hi-def camcorders, and nice hi-def displays, but have problems to burn that footage to a disc that can be viewed universally.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Ted L. Nancy 

mduell... with the title of the thread being being on my mind, I was motivated to read through your entire sig..

Do you still anticipate an update to the mini in '08 (and if so, why), or should we anticipate an update to your prediction ?

Updated.

[Ted L. Nancy]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Updated.

Ha! Awesome.

[Northeastern292]

Originally Posted by thechidz 

I dont think blueray is such a big deal. give me more upgrade options, or better yet a minitower

Agreed. You shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for a desktop, monitorless Mac that is expandable.