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Pretty amazing Thunderbolt demo.
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What I think it will mean will be a new alternative to the MacPro at a lower cost entry point.
Xeon 6 through 16 cores.
Two 16 lane PCIe for GPU and another demanding card.
3 or 4 Thunderbolt ports.
SSD boot and one other internal HD.
Rack Mountable.
Cost of entry similar to the higher end iMacs for the base model.Results in much greater sales than MacPro ranging from those who want headless iMacs, rack mount units, CPU and GPU for the power user.
I’m not saying everyone will like this but it’ll have a wider reach and lower manufacturing costs.
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[Craig Seeman] “What I think it will mean will be a new alternative to the MacPro at a lower cost entry point… Xeon 6 through 16 cores”
I don’t think there’s a lot of room for a price drop without sacrificing margin. Xeons are just plain expensive. Current-generation 6-cores run around $1,000, don’t they?
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 Soyka] “I don’t think there’s a lot of room for a price drop without sacrificing margin. Xeons are just plain expensive. “
Drop the Optical Drive, drop the hard drive and PCIe expansion for the most part. It may drop the price a bit. If Apple can drop the base price from $2500 to $2000 anticipating increased volume, they may make more. If they anticipate increased volume it may mean lower component costs. Also anticipate increased sales on Thunderbolt monitors . . . or are they going to buy those from Dell or HP.
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[Walter Soyka] “Current-generation 6-cores run around $1,000, don’t they”
Actually even more where I live, around 1.800 dollar for the top end X5690.
I don’t see how you could have decent cooling in a smaller box. HP even puts water cooling into its dual cpu machines equipped with the 3.4Ghz model. -
[Frank Gothmann] “HP even puts water cooling into its dual cpu machines equipped with the 3.4Ghz model.
“After Apple’s innumerable issues with the water cooled dual 2.7ghz G5s, thousands of which leaked an required replacement, I doubt you’ll be seeing a water cooled Mac again anytime soon.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “I doubt you’ll be seeing a water cooled Mac again anytime soon.”
Oh, I agree. But the point is that keeping these cpus cool is not something that can be done with a much smaller case and passive cooling. Plus there’s the ram and gpu as well that require good airflow. It’s those parts that take up space, not an optical drive, a bunch of hard drives or a few pci slots more or less.
A workstation class processor and architecture requires a workstation enclosure. -
[Dave Helmly] “just a quick note to say thanks for posting the link. “
🙂 That’s funny, I’d like to thank YOU for posting the link, which really means thanks for putting together the demo.
[Dave Helmly] “I should mention for our Mac Users, that I ran the same test on Macbook Air using 10.7 and it kicked @ss. I edit a lot on both platforms and both sides should be impressed. “
Great to know. I wasn’t hung up in the OS as the computer you used allowed me to work with either Mac or Windows in the same configuration. Not too shabby! If this works in an OSX environment as well, I’m all for it as I will probably try and stick with OSX, as long as I can still get the job done with it.
[Dave Helmly] “I should mention that getting the stuff to run on windows TB requires Windows drivers for each device (same as mac) so you can’t simply connect a TB device and have it work (with the exception of the Apple TB 27” display) . “
That makes sense, as it really is PCIe just sitting outside of the computer. All/most PCIe cards require drivers.
[Dave Helmly] “I refer to this as THUNDER WARS”
Mind if we steal that?
Jeremy
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[Christian Schumacher] “Does MacBook Pro battery ring a bell? And did you say MacPro? Isn’t it what was unnecessary here in the first place?”
Yes. MBP battery rings a bell. That came after the exploding battery situation. I had two of those things expand beyond their usefulness (I have pictures) for my old user replaceable laptop. If this battery works better, and I can’t replace it myself, then great. I hope it does work better so that it doesn’t need replacing, but that’s just me.
Yes, MacPro does not have a proprietary hard drive temp sensor. That’s true today.
My view is that Apple does this for a reason that is not conspiratorial. It might not be the most user friendly, but I don’t think there’s a mad conspiracy to hide the hard drive and battery of certain units. It’s just they way they work, and Apple has had this ethos for a long time. The high capacity bigger hard drives turn in to a furnace, and if Apple needs that senor to protect their design, then I guess that’s they way it is, same with the MBP battery. I am sure there’s “good” or logical reasons from an engineering standpoint.
Jeremy
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[Frank Gothmann] “there’s the ram and gpu as well that require good airflow. It’s those parts that take up space, not an optical drive, a bunch of hard drives or a few pci slots more or less.
A workstation class processor and architecture requires a workstation enclosure.”Do keep in mind that Intel has worked hard to lower the power consumption needs of processors at every level, which has enabled them to produce cooler-running and much more efficient computers in recent years.
In addition, the current crop of hard drives are also virtually cool to the touch, thus requiring far less cooling as well.
So, I think the footprint for future Mac workstations, if there are any, may be significantly smaller than the current towers we’ve grown used to.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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Agreed, the new Xeons peek at around 110 w which is lower than previous generations, but two times 110 plus, as Craig Seeman suggested, expansion for two possible GPUS still means an 600-800w power supply. And that’s a lot of heat for a little box to cope with.
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