New Mac Pro? I’m waiting patiently

[Michael Gissing]

Shawn, overpriced is a matter of direct comparison of hardware performance. Nothing about how the eye may behold, just a side by side grunt for dollars comparison. I have WIN, Mac and Linux in my post facility so I can directly compare OS and hardware.

First rule for me is not to allow WIN machine online. Networked yes, but off the Internet. Forget all the updates and anti virus bloat. Run it lean and don’t bloat registries. Same rule for the Mac, although I have to allow it online for some updates. Reliability is managed. I see no difference between my WIN boxes or a MacPro in reliability. There is however a difference in the cost of upgrading hardware so I am forced to try to get more mileage from the Mac.

Linux on the office machine is the internet gateway. There are eight machines networked all up.

[Shawn Marshall]

Michael, I would concede that Macs are probably priced higher than similarly-configured Wintel machines, but saying they’re OVERpriced is a subjective assessment. Overpriced is a pejorative term, and I maintain that it’s a matter of opinion. Your opinion is that Macs are overpriced compared to Windows hardware, and that’s fine, you’re entitled to that opinion.

My opinion is that there’s more to a workstation than raw processing power, graphics cards, expandability, etc. I like OS X. I’m comfortable in OS X. I like being able to browse the web and check email on my Mac Pro while I’m rendering a 3D frame in C4D or a generating a RAM preview in After Effects. That works for me, in our studio. I’d rather work on a Mac that’s a little slower than give up OS X for a faster Wintel machine. Now at some point, if Apple dumbs down OS X to something I can’t use professionally then we’ll revisit Windows and all of the hassles that will be involved in changing over all of our software.

My opinion is that, in the grand scheme of our business, Mac Pros are priced fairly. Sure, I wished they were closer to $3000 like the top-end models used to be ten years ago, but that premium is worth it to me to be able to reliably run OS X on an 8 or 16-core workstation.

As I wrote earlier, I could live with Apple licensing OS X to other hardware builders. Our first personal Mac was a Mac iici circa 1994, but our first workstation was one of the short-lived Mac clones, a Umax Supermac circa 1997. Back then, just starting out, we couldn’t afford a real Mac. Times have changed.

Cheers.

Shawn

[Dustin Parsons]

I’m waiting too. The prospect of having to use Windows is just terrifying.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “I’ll say it here and now… I have heard from two reliable sources, unofficially, that the MacPro will not be updated. “

Just curious, but were these reliable sources in sales and work at places that (perhaps) sling Windows boxes? 😉

[Shane Ross]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Just curious, but were these reliable sources in sales and work at places that (perhaps) sling Windows boxes? ;)”

Nope.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[John Moffat]

iMac with a matte screen… iMac Pro 🙂

BTW… Didn’t apple change the internals of the current iMac making it possible to change the graphics card? i.e. it is no longer soldered onto the motherboard.

[Frank Gothmann]

What amazes me most with this whole affair is how well Apple’s propaganda machine along with its cute blue screen of death icons has worked with so many Mac people. The prospect of using windows seems to a lot of folks here like heaven falling.
There is so much misinformation out there with regards to stability, compatibility, potential issues, maintenance, paired with ancient myths and experience from 10 years ago, it’s unreal.
After a few month of working in win7 I honestly don’t want to go back to OSX. I find it as stable (if not more in mixed network environments), more flexible and overall faster… to the point where I am seriously considering ditching my private Macbook Pro for an HP Laptop.

[Steve Connor]

[Frank Gothmann] “What amazes me most with this whole affair is how well Apple’s propaganda machine along with its cute blue screen of death icons has worked with so many Mac people. T”

That’s insulting our intelligence I’m afraid, suggesting people like me prefer Macs because of marketing. I know Win 7 is good and that PC boxes can be faster and cheaper, I just prefer working in an OSX environment.

Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television

[Frank Gothmann]

I wasn’t pointing at you obviously but you cannot deny that there are a of myths floating around Mac people when faced with windos or when in a discussion about windows. Macs being more stable, more secure, easier to use, less hardware conflicts, its all just copied from the Mac, it just works etc.
You are a power user on the Mac and you would be on a windows box within a short period of time, basically because of the work that you do. It requires knowledge of certain soft- and hardware aspects that a lot of people never deal with.
I know quite a few people that are as hopeless on a Mac as they were on windows. Their windows machines were slow, cluttered, misconfigured, some stuff corrupt – which is why they switched in the first place hoping to find redemption. Looking at their Macs now a while later, they are as slow, cluttered, misconfigured and corrupt.
But just out of curiosity – what is it that you prefer in OSX compared to windows beyond just being used to it more?

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
It seems to me likely that any future Mac Pro introduced in 2012 would need to have the latest iteration of Thunderbolt built in – there’s a new Intel TB chip due at the same time as the first Ivy Bridge CPUs.

However when I went to check it seems that Intel has made two recent TB pronouncements:
i) Optical TB interconnect will be coming later in 2012, date unannounced.
ii) The desktop TB variant due to be shipped ‘real soon now’ with Ivy Bridge has been axed, only the laptop version will be produced.

The latter announcement might be because Apple have said they don’t want it… ;-(
The former announcement – no date in the frame – might lead one to suspect that no Mac Pro replacement is likely until Intel get to ship a full optical TB solution, with possibly a new TB chipset better suited to the specifics of the Mac Pro replacement architecture….

i) https://www.engadget.com/2012/03/13/optical-thunderbolt-this-year/
ii) https://www.istorya.net/forums/computer-hardware/489711-intel-cans-3-4w-tdp-cactus-ridge-thunderbolt-chip.html