Lets wait…

[Frank Gothmann]

[Ben Holmes] “It’s not true to say that everything is there for a new type of Mac Pro. There is no solution to the ‘monitor out’ requirements of Thunderbolt for machines with high end gfx cards. Smaller alternatives to SATA drives are still a little too expensive to be widely used – and warrant a shrinking of the drive bays (unless you want to put notebook drives in a Mac Pro), and most people still want to run cards on a PCIe bus. In addition, new generation server chips (which have a much larger die than desktop equivalents) are not available yet in large quantities as the yields are lower on these chips. Apart from USB3 – what compelling new technology exists to warrant a change to the Mac Pro? And given the slow update cycle of large server grade chips – what newer chips exist to put in what has always been a server class machine? If you want desktop chips, Apple are happy to sell you an iMac. I think they’re very good value.”

Asus offers a motherboard with Thunderbolt and PCIe3 including support for video out via TB. If they can do it I am sure Apple can, too (and even if there had been no TB, the outdated rest has nothing to do with that). No need for smaller drives, Sata 6G would have been just fine. Xeon E5s are out there and shipping in quantity. We can buy the entire range of HP’s z820s including the biggest model with dual 3.1 E5s today with 24 hour delivery from our VAR. With USB3 and lots of PCIe3 slots. And they cost pretty much the same than the “new” Mac Pro.

——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Craig Seeman]

[Gary Huff] “I think Pogue is full of shit.”

I hope so. I was thinking if there’s no MacPro, I’d be looking at the next iMac update. If that’s not going to happen then I have no desktop to update to.

[Craig Seeman]

Please post a link to such Asus desktop.
It’s nothing I’ve heard of.
Thunderbolt carries the GPU out as well.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Craig Seeman] ” I was thinking if there’s no MacPro, I’d be looking at the next iMac update. If that’s not going to happen then I have no desktop to update to.”

So you’ve essentially moved from “waiting/hoping for potential Mac Pro update” to “waiting/hoping for potential iMac update”.

——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Frank Gothmann]

[Craig Seeman] “Please post a link to such Asus desktop.
It’s nothing I’ve heard of.
Thunderbolt carries the GPU out as well.
“

I said motherboard.
Here we go:
https://event.asus.com/2012/mb/P8Z77_Series_Motherboards/Thunderbolt_landing.htm

And no, gpu out via TB isn’t that easy if there is also PCIe connectivity on the motherboard. But Asus did it. There is an add on card if you need video out via TB, without this card TB will simply connect at full speed to other external IO but not support display.

——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Walter Soyka]

[Ben Holmes] “But bear in mind my interpretation of this move has just as much basis in fact as the idea that the Mac Pro is dead – in other words it’s all conjecture.”

You’re right. It is all conjecture.

We don’t know if the Mac Pro is dead or not — and that’s my continuing problem with Apple.

No one questions whether there will be another Z-series or another Precision series — but then again, HP and Dell don’t declare themselves post-PC companies or release “new” workstations with two year old technology.

Apple is continuing to spread FUD about themselves. It’s hard to recommend Apple-based solutions when they themselves are whipping up this much volatility around their offerings.

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

[Tim Wilson]

[Frank Gothmann] “without this card TB will simply connect at full speed to other external IO but not support display.”

I’m not speaking about Craig, but a bunch of Mac people are so focused on Thunderbolt that they’re missing a key point: it solves a problem that many people just don’t have.

I/O, cool. It’s not a complete solution, because so many devices have more than one interface, but hey, that’s fine.

But one reason to prefer a PC is that there are so many more options, more powerful and flexible, than Thunderbolt can offer. Insisting that a motherboard doesn’t meet your requirements unless it has a lesser-performing connection, to a lesser-performing monitor — sad. Apple’s best desktop monitor has fewer colors than my laptop. I’m just not in a hurry to connect to it.

So yeah, I’m looking forward to Thunderbolt eventually, but I’m also in no hurry to buy devices that only use Thunderbolt.

Why? It’s dandy. It’s adorable. Seriously, cute as a button. And fast enough for being as cute as it is. But it doesn’t solve any problems that I have that can’t also be solved other ways.

I’m usually missing something — what am I missing here?

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “We don’t know if the Mac Pro is dead or not — and that’s my continuing problem with Apple.”

I’ll take that in a slightly different direction. Let’s say David Pogue’s comment’s about 2013 are accurate and both MacPro and iMac (we now have to include that given his article) are still alive.

If I need a Mac desktop I’m given the choice of buying a MacPro with aging technology at an uncompetitively high price relative to performance or an iMac which hasn’t been updated in over a year. It’s like having to buy a NuBus Mac knowing that new technology will be replacing it within a year and that other computers with current processors are already faster.

With changes so far away on systems aging they could have bumped the MacPro to Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 and iMac to Ivy Bridge i7 and added USB3, without doing other major changes.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Tim Wilson] “So yeah, I’m looking forward to Thunderbolt eventually, but I’m also in no hurry to buy devices that only use Thunderbolt.

Why? It’s dandy. It’s adorable. Seriously, cute as a button. And fast enough for being as cute as it is. But it doesn’t solve any problems that I have that can’t also be solved other ways.

I’m usually missing something — what am I missing here?”

Not sure if you miss anything. I am with you, which is why I don’t care if the HPs have TB connectivity or not. And I guess a lot of people here could have lived with a decent Mac Pro update that left out TB but went with E5s, USB3, PCIe3 and modern GPUs.

——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Craig Seeman]

[Ben Holmes] “what compelling new technology exists to warrant a change to the Mac Pro?”

Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 and SATA III. Granted it would be an interim solution until the major changes can be engineered (next year) but at least that would a more viable speed bump.

Also moving iMac to Ivy Bridge and USB3 should have been fairly simple for an iMac that’s also gone beyond the past upgrade cycle.