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John Siracusa perspective on Mac Pro Successor
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I have argued in the past that Apple was never a part of the moon race. As a company, it doesn’t provide the fastest, biggest, loudest, gas guzzling machines on the planet to get you to the moon. That has never been a part of Apple history, and I don’t think it will be a part of their future.”
I typically disagree with Jeremy on this point, because I believe that Apple has delivered some really serious workstations, particularly during the Intel era. I make some points about Macs being built with the fastest components available at the time of their launches; he makes some points about Macs not getting the same speed bumps that PCs do and having less expansion and worse GPUs. We end up kind of talking past each other.
Let me approach this conversation another way:
What is the point of a tower with dual Xeons, a 980W power supply, eight RAM slots, 4 PCIe slots, 4 hard drive bays, 2 optical bays, and a stack of heatsinks and fans, if not to be big and loud and guzzle gas and take you to the moon?
Why sell a Mac workstation at all if it’s not suited to big CPU/GPU/memory/storage/throughput needs?
For the sake of argument, I can agree that Apple doesn’t need to be the absolute fastest on the market — but gadzooks, Apple hasn’t been this far behind on high-end performance since the G5 clock speeds stalled eight or nine years ago.
[Craig Seeman] “The company that has pushed the envelope in the past has had to wait for a new envelope to push.”
What company is that — Intel? They’re the brains behind Xeon and Thunderbolt, right?
If Apple’s big advantage is that the build the whole system, hardware and software, what are they waiting for? Why aren’t they designing and building the Xeon/Thunderbolt motherboard?
I have a lot of respect for Apple’s other products. They’re truly well-designed. They’ve elevated miniaturization to an art form. But given that power and size are inversely proportional, I don’t understand the call from so many here for a smaller and less capable workstation. (Rack mounting is a red herring — the Z8x0 rack mounts and holds more stuff than the Mac Pro.)
[Craig Seeman] “Some might argue about the long interim period between 2010 to the present but once Thunderbolt arrived in 2011 I suspect Apple decided to steer in that direction and, for reasons we can all speculate about, decided the next MacPro would have Thunderbolt to maintain the peripheral ecosystem.”
I do see where you’re going with this, but it seems to ignore the fact that Apple will gladly sell you a new Mac Pro today — and it doesn’t have Thunderbolt.
I just don’t see how it’s better for Apple’s customers to have the option of a purchasing an out-of-date workstation without Thunderbolt instead of an otherwise-current workstation without Thunderbolt. Put another way, even if no Thunderbolt is a given, why must the rest of the machine languish with 2011 specs?
I honestly feel badly for everyone here who is stuck waiting on on the Mac Pro of the Future. I think that you are being under-served by your preferred vendor, and I sincerely hope that the wait proves worthwhile.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Walter,
Welcome back. Your perspective and insight (and court comportment) have been missed.
Franz.
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Thank you, Franz!
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
I think when it really comes down to it, many people are looking for a powerful platform with latest, fastest, and multiple connections that runs OSX. I would think that everyone here would be fine running OSX on a sanctioned and supported HP Xbox if that were available.
Michael
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[Walter Soyka] “What company is that — Intel? They’re the brains behind Xeon and Thunderbolt, right?
If Apple’s big advantage is that the build the whole system, hardware and software, what are they waiting for? Why aren’t they designing and building the Xeon/Thunderbolt motherboard?”
They may have to, at least going forward. Intel has said they’re going to wind down their motherboard business.
Until the new MacPro is released we won’t know the path taken but there may well have been some quandary over “wait for Intel” vs “let’s do it ourselves because we’ll have to eventually.”
[Walter Soyka] “Apple will gladly sell you a new Mac Pro today — and it doesn’t have Thunderbolt.”
I’m not sure if they’re glad. They certainly have no interest in doing what appears to be minor changes for EU market for a few months. I’ve said before it’s more like they’ll sell you one if they have to but they don’t want to sell new machines that may be in services for years without Thunderbolt. In other words given their options, they’d rather gamble on pent up demand rather than to have updated to Sandy Bridge Xeons in 2012.
[Walter Soyka] “I honestly feel badly for everyone here who is stuck waiting on on the Mac Pro of the Future. I think that you are being under-served by your preferred vendor, and I sincerely hope that the wait proves worthwhile.”
No arguments from me there. I had to update my 2008 MacPro with an ATI 5770 even thought the 5770 & 5870 are not officially compatible. Apple certainly could have gotten more money from me if they had a MacPro worth updating to. I’m also consulting some customers in the EU who must have a new MacPro NOW for their business and would settle for the 2010/2012 pitiful version and they can’t even get that. Apple has “gladly” decide NOT to sell them a MacPro.
For all we know Apple is punching out Intel in some back room screaming “why didn’t you give us that motherboard last year.”
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I have argued in the past that Apple was never a part of the moon race. As a company, it doesn’t provide the fastest, biggest, loudest, gas guzzling machines on the planet to get you to the moon. That has never been a part of Apple history, and I don’t think it will be a part of their future.”
Apple has been part of the moon race though. I remember in the 90’s Apple had ads with snails carrying intel chips and when the G5 launched Apple proclaimed it the “world’s fastest personal computer”. Apple dosen’t always have the fastest horse in the stable but when they do they aren’t afraid to let everyone know.
Even though the car analogy isn’t perfect I do think there is merit for having a halo product. The iPod cast a halo over Apple at a time when the company didn’t have very much else to crow about and FCP Legend’s success in Hollywood gave Apple cache beyond the pro market. Whatever Apple does with this future MacPro product there is a lot hanging on it (unfairly or not).
-Andrew
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[Andrew Kimery] “Apple has been part of the moon race though. I remember in the 90’s Apple had ads with snails carrying intel chips and when the G5 launched Apple proclaimed it the “world’s fastest personal computer”. Apple dosen’t always have the fastest horse in the stable but when they do they aren’t afraid to let everyone know.”
This discussion was had two years ago on this thread. Walter S mentioned some sort of tank advertisement.
Apple is not in the speed game, if that was so, they would have updated the MacPro to the latest hardware and dealt with it, and really all you have to do is look at the i7 offerings, more on that later.
Yes, when they do release new hardware, it is just as fast as HP or the beige box stores, but I can pretty much guarantee that the box won’t do as much. It will have less PCI slots, it will have less internal expansion, it will have less room for multiple GPUs, it will have less cores. This is not to say the MacPro is a slouch, but when you compare it dollar for dollar, feature for feature, it will be “hobbled” or at least it won’t be the fastest sky rocket in the aviation community.
Look at Apple’s current i7 offerings, then look at intel’s i7 offerings. There are faster i7s available, there are 6 core i7s available. Are they in Apple hardware? No, they are not. They would be if Apple really wanted to play the speed game.
Jeremy
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[Walter Soyka] “I typically disagree with Jeremy on this point, because I believe that Apple has delivered some really serious workstations, particularly during the Intel era.”
And, I will not disagree that Apple has delivered fast workstations.
They do not deliver the fastEST work stations nor do they care about having the fastest clock speeds, number of cores, number of PCI slots, number of RAM compartments, etc.
Look at the current i7 offerings for proof.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “They do not deliver the fastEST work stations nor do they care about having the fastest clock speeds, number of cores, number of PCI slots, number of RAM compartments, etc.”
They had advertisements about their G5 workstations claiming they were the fasted personal computers in the world.
I suppose the takeaway there is that they said “personal computer” and not workstation. So I guess they weren’t even in the workstation game then. If the next Mac Pro isn’t a workstation, I guess they’re just returning to their roots? 🙂
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Michael Hancock
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[Craig Seeman] “I’ve said before it’s more like they’ll sell you one if they have to but they don’t want to sell new machines that may be in services for years without Thunderbolt. In other words given their options, they’d rather gamble on pent up demand rather than to have updated to Sandy Bridge Xeons in 2012.”
Look at your 5-year old Mac Pro — the machines Apple are selling today may well be in service for years without Thunderbolt, modern Xeons, or USB 3.0…
That said, I do understand your thinking here. I’ll assume you’re correct. The thing is — I don’t care what’s good for Apple. I care what’s good for me (an Apple customer). I also like to think that Apple cares what’s good for me (an Apple customer).
There is always something newer and better around the corner. Why not wait until optical Thunderbolt comes out? If you’re going to wait that long, why not optical Thunderbolt 2.0? This is like some kind of reverse Osborne effect [link].
Coming back to the issue of trust that underscores this entire forum, I’d feel a lot better building a business on Apple products if they were a bit more consistent in offering competitive products.
[Craig Seeman] “For all we know Apple is punching out Intel in some back room screaming “why didn’t you give us that motherboard last year.””
An alternative: for all we know, Apple was considering canceling the Mac Pro and never asked Intel for that motherboard last year, and have since reversed course.
I don’t really think it matters what the reason was, or who is yelling at whom in back rooms. All the other workstation vendors have current offerings, and Apple doesn’t. For the embarrassment of riches from Apple in the consumer space and professional portable space, the gaping hole in their professional lineup — and looking at recent history, the specter of holes like this appearing again and again — is hugely unsettling for a business built on high-powered Apple hardware.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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