Will Apple Ever Update the Mac Pro?

[tonymacx86]

It's been a while since the last Mac Pro update. A long while.

http://lowendmac.com/macpro/mac-pro-2010.html

Will Apple ever update the Mac Pro?

 

[theDazzler]

Edit: Are we talking the case itself or the hardware? If its the hardware, then I would imagine yes.


I would imagine not or at least very little. Very minimal and clean design like this will most likely never go out of style or be an eyesore.

 

[seittit]

they're waiting on being able to build a machine that Tonymacx86 forums users can't outperform for $2000 less

 

[fenix1993]

Hopefully that minitower Mac will be cheaper than the iMac. I'd buy it.

And these are the things we get without Steve Jobs being around.. we can see that he hated minitowers.

Until they come out with that though.. well, I'm building my modern PowerMac with all Intel components. Don't get much more professional than a PowerMac i3. :3

 

[pwalth21]

As a side note, for a six year old computer, it still is better-looking than 99% of PC cases out there

The design didn't change much at all from the G5 so really they've had the same design for almost 9 years. I agree it looks a lot better than most PC cases, but I think apple needs to make a change. I hope that they don't phase out the Mac Pro line completely. It would be a shame to have the Mini be the only option for a true apple desktop computer.

 

[pwalth21]

That is definitely true. I just know from their numbers the drop off in sales of the Mac Pro is pretty staggering. I'm sure a large part of that is the fact that the guts of it haven't been updated in 1.5 years. That and the hackintosh community

 

[tom.humphrey]

I think if they brought out a desktop in-between the mini and the pro that outperformed my hack I think I'd be tempted to buy one personally. But it would need to include thunderbolt and usb 3.0 functionality.

 

[rchristof]

Apple Inc. has all but officially abandoned it's 'pro' market, in favor of consumer market saturation for portable devices. In addition to the inherent limitations of even the newest MacPro hardware, the 15" MBP lost the express-card slot a generation ago, and the abysmal implementation of FCPX has sent SCADS of professional FCP users out there to jump ship back to AVID or to Adobe Premier for their NLE's and post production, including Atlanta's Biscardi Creative and reality-TV giant Bunim/Murray Productions:

Biscardi:
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article ... r-its-been

Bunim/Murray:
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article ... ld-editing

As a pro user myself, I HOPE apple does one or both of 2 things: Make a thoughtful and powerful update to the MacPro*, and FINALLY release their software to be 'officially' installed on 3rd party hardware.

*I'd like to see this MacPro update include:
- easily-rackmountable chassis
- Latest/fastest multi-core/thread processors
- eSATA on board (separate bus)
- USB3 on board (separate bus)
- at least 2 sepearte USB/FW buses
- lightpeak/thunderbolt integration
- 10GbE support on 2 ports minimum
- at least 6 PCIe slots, all Rev.3 16x
- MUCH more native graphics card support (Nvidia Fermi, CUDA)
- Native bluray support

Will this happen, either one, probably not. I operate an 8-core MP now, but my next machine will be based on the SR-2 board, 12-core i7 970. I NEEED all 7 of those PCIe slots, and now I'm playing musical chairs based on the gig, sometimes having to go without due to the limitations.

 

[telgeorge]

I must agree Apple no longer seem interested in the Professional community - the software they produce such as Final Cut Pro X and Aperture are not suitable for professional use. Apple have historically dictated to the consumer what they would get this approach does not work with Professionals thank god for Adobe

 

[rchristof]

I NEEED all 7 of those PCIe slots, and now I'm playing musical chairs based on the gig, sometimes having to go without due to the limitations.

I'm not doubting you, but I would LOVE to know what you would use 7 PCIe slots for? I don't think I have heard of someone needing quite so many before!

1 - Blackmagic Design video card
2 - Mini-SAS RAID HBA
3 - RED ROCKET video accelerator
4 - Nvidia Quadro 4000 video card (CUDA)
5 - Nvidia Quadro 4000 video card (CUDA+GUI)
6 - 5 - Sonnet QIO media reader
7 - FW/eSATA/10GbE card