2012 Mac Pro Specs: Xeon E5, Thunderbolt, USB3, PCIE3

[tonymacx86]

Cult of Mac has published some info today on the Mac Pros, which seems to confirm the rumors on Socket 2011, Xeon E5.

Chinese site M.I.C. Gadget says it has all the details on the new Mac Pro, according to “field experts” that have talked to industry sources:

Here is the official word: SATA III/SAS connectivity is now native, which is always good for solid state drives. We expect Apple to be offering solid state drives as they are now, but with the fact being, that the SATA II is no longer a bottleneck. For boot drives, very good news, at 6GB/s.

Expect PCIE3 to be native as well. For your RAID arrays, video cards (professional or otherwise) this will be better than PCIE2 for scaling, though not better for performance in all cases. Also expect up to 40 lanes per socket, rather than the usual 36 of the previous generation.

Specs For New Mac Pro Revealed, Including Thunderbolt And Intel Xeon E5 [Rumor]
http://www.cultofmac.com/171911/specs-f ... -e5-rumor/

Original Source: http://micgadget.com/26895/upcoming-new ... w-mac-pro/

 

[tonymacx86]

For fun, after yesterday's 9to5mac leaked specs, we put together a totally speculative extension of the image's contents, based on current rumors. We also fixed a mistake in the original that didn't make sense in the ultimate config costing less then the best one The US prices shown are exactly as current models, not Australian conversion. Again- this is only based on rumor. Enjoy!

Our guesses:

Original:

 

[moodogg7]

VERY NICE!!! I'm stoked
I'm wondering what aspects of the new mac pros- we will be able to utilize for our hack pro's
I.E the utilization of SATA III native... will the USB3 drivers playing nicer .... Ive seen a few gigabyte socket 2011 mobos ... will that mean we will be-able to use those with possible DSTD's when i deiced to upgrade 1.5 years from now
does anyone know about blue-ray... last but not least... will we be able to grab a thunderbolt card and stick that bad-boy in our hacks pro's....

 

[Gordo74]

I don't think they'd put gtx 670's in the Mac Pro's. The 6xx series is SERIOUSLY gimped compared to the 5xx series when it comes to rendering and production work. I see them going low end for the basic (like a 520) and then Ati 7xxx for high end.

Also, on the iMac, I'd think they would continue their trend of using M variants for the video cards, rather than the desktop version.

 

[rahotz]

Frm my experience, any Xeon processor is terrible as a high performance machine, at least in terms of speed. Stability, yes.

 

[chorner]

Frm my experience, any Xeon processor is terrible as a high performance machine, at least in terms of speed. Stability, yes.

Uhhh, how do you figure? The Xeon is intended for (high load) server/workstation environments and is a multi-socket compatible CPU which is at the base, the exact same thing as the i7 counter part in just about every way. Mostly, you'll find them start at lower base MHz since you'll be putting 2 of them in the same machine where you're hopefully using the fact that there are many more cores versus raw clock speed to your advantage.

You're just a noobie. At least in terms of speed... really?

 

[eosman]

Could someone tell me if integrated graphics are required to have thunderbolt? I'm asking this because someone posted this as a requirement to have the display run over thunderbolt port.

As a side thought if we see the Mac Pros with thunderbolt this summer do you think we will see motherboard manufacturers like gigabyte and asus integrate it as well for the 2011 socket?

 

[Mate94]

Could someone tell me if integrated graphics are required to have thunderbolt? I'm asking this because someone posted this as a requirement to have the display run over thunderbolt port.

I don't think so. Just without integrated graphics you can't use the TB port as Displayport.

As a side thought if we see the Mac Pros with thunderbolt this summer do you think we will see motherboard manufacturers like gigabyte and asus integrate it as well for the 2011 socket?

Good question. I haven't heard about it.

 

[the_gael]

Frm my experience, any Xeon processor is terrible as a high performance machine, at least in terms of speed. Stability, yes.

I have used several Xeon processors in Hackintosh's and they overclocked beautifully so would not be concerned about any lack of speed.

 

[Solidww]

Gordo, why do you say the 6XX cards are gimped?