“Ever wonder why there has been a massive slowdown in PC growth? Don’t blame Windows 8, blame Apple!” John C. Dvorak screams for PC Magazine.
“Apple has been the leader in tech and there is no indication that anything has changed. Dell is no leader, nor is Microsoft, Lenovo, or IBM,” Dvorak whines. “It’s Apple. And Apple went too long without showing something new, thus the desktop market slowed down.”
“So it finally rolls out what appears to be a spectacular desktop machine capable of delivering a whopping seven teraflops of processing power. This is obviously the future king of all multimedia work, especially video editing, which needs all the help it can get. I would also assume that sort of power would make any Adobe application pop. No waiting!” Dvorak yells. “The machine maxes out with 12 cores of Xeon E5 power and a souped-up RAM subsystem that will peak at 60 gigabytes per second bandwidth. It’s a total butt-kicker that has no peer today.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shakey premise from the bloated gasbag, but positive nonetheless.
(PCs are trucks, tablets and smartphones are cars. The PC slowdown has nothing to do with Apple not showing the makers of crappy Windows PCs what to do for too long.)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Apple’s new Mac Pro would rank as the 8th most powerful supercomputer on planet Earth in 2003 – June 10, 2013
I can’t believe how imposingly beautiful that thing is. I want to pop the top on it and drink it.
The new Mac Pro emphasizes the trucks concept. So, you can plug whatever trailer (peripherals) you need acording to your use case. Simply awesome!
Exactly, I don’t need one, but looking at it… I want one. For xmas.
I think it looks like a racing slick tire. And it IS racy.
Dvorack always scares me when he starts to make sense in an article. It’s like something’s got flopped in the Universe.
I’m starting to understand that Dvorak is not a complete fool after all, but an entertainer that “reads” a crowd well. He sees what is happening, how the wind is blowing, and positions himself accordingly. His acerbic criticisms over the years have stung some of us, but he was largely right in the main, and lately the acidity is instead eroding the flesh of timid, puffy-faced box makers gone sterile after a generation of obeisance to a bloated, dozing overlord—Microsoft.
Totally. I figured this out when arguing with Enderle years ago. The opinions they spout are very carefully targeted and deliberate, and not necessarily their real thoughts. They exist to entertain and keep themselves in business as entertainers, much the way Rush and other TV & radio personalities do.
That does make sense. At least Dvorak occasionally has something worth reading unlike some of the newer Apple trolls.
NerdB, that’s a wonderful comment that gave me a solid inside chuckle.
Just glad Apple’s still building trucks.
Apple has designed a Fusion Core!!!! Warp Factor Nine!!
I think this is more like the engine pulling a train. It could be like a tandem semi pulling 2 or 3 trailers vs a pickup truck. But with it’s power to move and deliver massive data, I am thinking it is more like a train!
I like that metaphor, JT, especially if they will be able to link multiple MacPros together via TB2 for automatic sharing of monster tasks. Imagine a 4x8x2 grid of MacPros running rendering – a 448 Tflop supercomputer that would fit underneath a typical fold-up table.
Well, you know what they say about a broken clock: you should probably throw it away. . . even if he is right.
It will be cool to see these actually popping up on the desks of multi-media studios instead of the floor on under the desk.
At only 10 inches tall and 7.5 inches wide, they certainly will be.
The G4 Cube of 2013.
Except the G4 Cube was no powerhouse, even when it was released… The G4 Cube was more like the good-looking but too-expensive predecessor of the Mac mini.
Possible for a Mac mini in this form factor only shorter to appear next? I guess it depends on how much vertical board space is necessary. Though I suppose if you use notebook ram that may still allow the vertical height to be shortened. And either on board graphics or just a single gpu should suffice. Kind of reminiscent of the new mothership campus from the plan elevation?
It wasn’t a powerhouse but it was positioned between the iMac and PowerMac of the day.
My post actually referred to the beauty and size of it. iMacs are gorgeous, too, but a totally different beast.
When I can get one, it will sit right on my desk….so that I can marvel at this engineering feat!
What I want to know, is can I buy three and pop them together to make a supertubuter? (“Soo-per-too-byoot-er)
Yes, most excellent. There’s gotta be a lot of scientists, aerospace and NASA type drooling all other this too. Now when, pray tell, will this unit be released in the fall for our accumulating pleasure? Save up everyone and save deep.
By “too long” does he mean since last fall, when Apple introduced the new razor-thin iMac?
There is absolutely NOTHING that the new Mac Pro can do functionally that an ordinary 1U server can’t do today. There’s probably a 100 different Xeon E5 servers on the market right that can accept two GPU cards and a PCIe SSD card.
The only innovation is the small size, which has little value to most professional users.
Plus, two GigE ports for a 7 TFLOP computer?
Yeah right it’s just like all the others out there everyone can see that now if it had a toothbrush holder that would be innovative I guess in your world.
Why don’t you make your own computer?
1.) There aren’t currently any Xeon servers with PCIe SSD capability built in. You’d have to purchase a separate card in which the options are limited at best. Having this available on the desktop computer and a (by all accounts so far a popular one) will push the industry for PCIe to become more standard. Thus a great win for everyone in that regard.
2.) I can’t sit a 1U server on my desk at work and edit video from it. It would be loud, it would be hot, it would be unrealistic accounting size even if it is just 1u.
Does this thing do anything different than any other computer at a basic level in the last 6 years? No, it’s a computer. You run applications on it, get work done, use a keyboard, use a mouse, use other peripherals etc…
However what this does do is open the door to harness power which before only found in server rooms/racks making it impractical and unfeasible to use for applications that could really benefit from that kind of power like video editing and photo editing.
It also does something else – it runs the best operating system currently available. 😉
Michael Perry – Exactly – WOW someone with a brain out there thanks for your comment!
Agree with several of your points, but the catch is that you’re still going to have to have that 1U Rack … For disk storage at high I/O rates: a 1Gig Ehternet connection will bottleneck. Sure, you can try to keep everything on your PCIe SSD…but that gets increasingly expensive.
-hh
Not sure I agree with you there. Perhaps on performance but if you are running a studio you need quiet! I understand this unit is extremely quiet (we’ll see just how much soon enough, I guess) but compared to most 1U units the comparison is totally sided towards this Mac Pro. 1U units tend to have very high pitched fans and make more noise than a banshee — even after you put them in soundproof cabinets.
No, I think the basic difference here is computer room vs desk. Pretty basic but important.
My guess is that 10Gig Ethernet will be provided via the Thunderbolt bus should the owner want it. The 1Gbps ports are there to allow quick and easy connectivity, but Thunderbolt is really what this machine is about.
Anyone can make a big device, hardly anyone can make a small one without compromising.
Apple are leagues ahead of the competition because tey can make big things very small and make them faster and more powerful than their bigger counterparts.
Only Apple can do this and create something so beautiful.
Am I the only one old enough to note that this looks like a Cray supercomputer?
Yes.
It looks like Vaders helmet.
I started to remember the Cray computer when I saw the Apple site and show it form the top down. Cray used to build their computers in a cylinder shape for short distances, but Apple does it for save space.
Also, it is a remainder of the cube.
this was my first thought except i thought the cray had benches around it (it was a bit bigger than this mac!!), and there was an opening to walk into the interior i think. looking down on it i think it was shaped like a capital letter “C”. also that cray had a fluid for cooling that was chemically similar to blood i think.
Dude, the liquid was Freon.
Lol!
Nope, the Cray 2 was cooled by Fluorinert. Remember the rat scene in The Abyss? Same stuff.
Yup, but Cray 1 used Freon 🙂
Sadly, you’re not the only one old enough to remember Cray – but Cray computers were actually much more angular and large enough to accommodate a naugahyde seating bench.
Actually, it’s also a little like they started from a Silicon Graphics workstation, but made the round casing part of the function of the machine for cooling rather than just a cosmetic curved front door.
On that level, this is probably the first Mac Pro that actually goes back to the levels of balls-out innovation that used to come out of SGI back in the day. The difference being that Apple has a mass market and can buy a lot of components at prices that SGI could only ever have dreamt about under the influence of alcohol.
What he’s saying is the pc market slowed down because apple’s part of the pie slowed down. Every major tech release is “innovating” by using the foundation that apple has created. It’s showing how timid every other tech leader is of releasing major products because no one truly knows the wants of the masses, or, how the appease the masses like apple does. It has Samsung green with envy because they can create a level of the popularity and fan love but lack the festivities and breathtaking appeal of their apple counterparts when those releases come. And when Microsoft wants to “force” “improvements” upon their install base, like it would appear apple has been doing, they fail understand the depths that apple goes to when they conceptualize products. Anyone can create products and change the world but it takes something special to awe and inspire.
Outstanding post. I wish I had said that.
How long before some Asian manufacturer starts cranking out lookalike wastebaskets. I’ll buy one.
A desktop computer that needs expansion boxes and cords for all PCI cards and storage? No thanks.
I could almost say that my dream has come true, but I never dreamed of this. I feel like a kid at computer camp, or Christmas in Amsterdam.
It will go nicely with my imposing Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate Soft Tactile Mechanical Keyboard, a splendid presentation that could only be improved by adding 2 Stealth displays.
If this & iOS 7 can’t convince Wall Street then don’t worry about them, Apple just needs to take care the market itself with an amazing advertising and juicy plans to attract more customers buying its products , then AAPL will re-bounce itself.
You don’t actually think Wall Street would be impressed with a cylindrical-shaped computer? Seriously. You do realize that almost no one buys Mac Pros anymore. How many of these do you think Apple can sell in a quarter? 5,000 maybe. Do you really think investors are going to be cheering in the streets over those sort of numbers? Any investor looking at the new Mac Pro will realize it’s worth about zero on the revenue scale. Heck, even Mac users are already hating it because they can’t load it with their old cards and storage.
iOS 7 certainly will not impress Wall Street. Why? Because it won’t help Apple sell more iPhones or iPads. Wall Street has no interest in the tech side of computing. Wall Street is all about unit sales and profit margins. There’s not one thing Apple showed at WWDC that will impress Wall Street. Practically everything Apple does now is “meh” to investors.
As you stated, Apple shareholders can only hope consumers continue to buy Apple products in slightly increased numbers and possibly hope Apple can increase profit margins to previous levels, at best. However, don’t expect Apple to re-bounce its share price to any great degree. Apple isn’t doing the proper moves for that to happen. Only an entirely new revenue stream will do that.
So many douchebags already talking shit on a computer they haven’t used yet. And, as happens EVERY SINGLE TIME, these guys will either change their tune when they use it or praise Dell for making one with a toaster oven. Idiots.
And Apple after years doesn’t even have a set delivery date, demo or cost. If this thing is too expensive people are going to make a run on existing Mac Pros. We’ll have to wait and see.
You do realize this new Mac Pro isn’t rectangular. Desktop computers like books are supposed to be rectangular. How would you feel if somebody handed you a circular book to read? It would shock and appall your senses. You wouldn’t just shrug and say OK. You would refuse to read the book because it doesn’t feel quite right in your hands. You’d say, “Normal people don’t read circular books because they’re too hard to read.” A circular computer will breed hate and contempt because… because they’re too different.
Are you the same guy who swore, six years ago, that he would never buy an iphone until it came with a physical keyboard? After all, normal people don’t type on glass.
I think you missed the sarcasm
Those idiot either ignorance or rush to judgement then don’t worry about those bullied shit, who cares about them.
My thoughts are, iBook didn’t kill the PC industry, if I were Apple, I would be upset spending tons of money and research to produce a beautiful computer and every other maker and their mother copy it, not even a quality copy!
I loved the old look of Mac Pro, but I might like how the new one looks when I see it in person!
I mean apple didn’t kill the PC industry, didn’t mean to say iBook, typo!
When something this delicious comes out in the open, so do the cockroaches… Haters gotta hate – remember the hate on the iPad? LOL! Based on the avalanche of nasty comments, this shiny black demon of monstrous power is gonna be enormously popular…
It will be subtly different this time.
The Mac Pro lies in a pro market, the iGadgets in a consumer market. Everybody and his idiot brother considers themselves experts on consumers and their desires, since they belong to that group themselves. They can pontificate convincingly.
With pro products that advantage disappears, so they are subdued and will use red herrings instead, deluding no one.
When it comes to pros, they won’t mince words and waste anyone’s time because their peers will crush them. Professional means professional. They have standards. At least in the computing trades. Journalism, not so much, any more.
I love how apple forgot the amount of pros who rely on CUDA.
Only if you’re using NVIDIA. OpenCL effectively does the same and is architecture-neutral.
=:~)
They didn’t forget. They just didn’t care. You want CUDA, get it from a company that supports it. Now go away, we don’t need you. Apple has probably decided that CUDA isn’t necessary. Whether Apple sells 5,000 or 5,100 Mac Pros per quarter, it really isn’t going to make much of a difference to them.
This is a step forward for humankind! It will be decades before they can come out with a better one !!!
They’re already working on the Doze version in China and Korea.
I hope someone makes a semi transparent case for that bad boy!
Also I hope Apple make matching black keyboards, mice, trackpads and retina cinema displays!
A semi-transparent case would have to be glass or plastic, which would compromise the cooling system. It’s aluminum and black for a practical reason.
But it would look incredibly kewl! I have never seen more elegantly techy computer innards. It’s a geek work of art.
The price is my big concern and is the last real barrier from me getting one small black tekkie supercharged cylinder.
But seriously doing a small research:
2 FirePro 6 GB (Apple say is standard -? ): 1500 x 2 = $3000 I guess this is something between the current FP 8000 3.23 TFlops, 4 GB memory ($1300) and the top of the line FP 9000 that produces 4 TFlops and has 6 GB. Scary price… I can’t deny it.
An Apple industry leading SSD = 256 GB 500 – $1000
One XEON E5 = $900 (3.3 MT – ST 3.5 GHZ)
3 TB internal interfaces, 4 FW800, 4USB, at least 8 GB ECC memory plus Apple proprietary hardware = ??? Lets say $1000 – 2000
The gran total might be hypothetically around $6000 – $7000.
My hope is Apple creates a reasonably priced entry level Mac Pro with only one FirePro but then would that make sense from my fully upgraded iMac 27 ???
Can CUDA be utilized via an external tb2 enclosure?
I Ike that the MacPro will continue using EEC RAM, FireWire and have dual pro-level GPUs.
I understand some of their decisions. Essentially, those who need expansion pay for it, those who don’t get the base model. My only concern is if it can run Windows 7 and Solidworks under boot camp. Other pro users will have different needs, of course.
No FireWire. The TechCrunch article was incorrect. Those aren’t FireWire ports. They’re USB 3 ports.
Thank you Apple for continuing to produce “trucks”.
We’re back to the “all style, no substance” Apple that most of us hoped we’d never see again. The new Mac Pro is the biggest disappointment imaginable. It is a rank lie to call it “expandable” when there is no way to expand it except by adding very expensive peripherals just so we can attach all the drives we once stored internally, so we wouldn’t have a cluttered work area. And all those internal drives will have to now be mounted in cases and plugged into a Thunderbolt/Firewire. And how are we supposed to Migrate with no ability to natively attach our old Mac Pro to the new…wi-fi…ethernet? And wait about a week for a 3TB drive to transfer data to a SSD that will be 1/3 the size (and 5 times the cost)!
This is as stupid as Apple gets. I’ll keep my old Mac Pro and live with Lion as the dead end OS.
This company really needs a wakeup call. They are not addressing the established Pro base at all. Wall Street is right: there’s no “there”, there!
+1. Not only that, we will now have to use cords to connect our devices that can be easily disconnected accidentally. No thanks Apple. You F’ed up yet again
You dont build a new system looking backwards. This will be the catalyst for a whole range of other devices that complement it. The current crop will become dated instantly and that will drive change and progress.
Definitely my Next Desktop. I’ll get at least one for my Brother if he”ll share. If he won’t I’ll buy 2. At 10″ by 7″ inches, (Somebody tell me if I’m wrong) it’s maybe 3X bigger than a 16 oz. soda can. I can’t wait to see this beautiful powerful beast of a MAC in person. Every PC box maker in the world are shaking in their boots. If it’s priced under $2500 bye bye PC.
no way is this priced at under $2500. Lucky if its under 3500. Apple is one thing and thats not cheap
WOW. If Dvorak likes the upcoming Mac Pro cylinder… I don’t care!
Personally, I like the little thing, despite the fact that it is not quite ‘pro’ and that its shape invites insult. Today I’m writing up an article about how to make it look like a nuke cooling tower on fire. Fun for the whole family. Run for your life 😀
A sad but true, and shameless, admission by Dborak that the rest of the industry doesn’t know where to ho unril Apple shows them the way.
So, if Apple stagnates in a product category, nobody can get ahead and take leadership?
Pathetic!
“Standing O” as in, “O Crap, Apple is again forcing us to buy new adapters and cables and docks”. Apple just screwed over anyone who uses DVI, PCI, SATA, eSATA, Firewire, and USB 2 devices. None of those are obsolete technologies, folks.
THE WHOLE POINT of a tower workstation is to allow the professional complete flexibility in plugging in anything you want, WITHOUT the hassle of external docks.
While the new machine’s performance cannot be denied, and many Pro users will just plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for the docks that will enable their legacy peripherals to work, Apple had better hope that Thunderbolt accessories become more plentiful & cost effective in the very near future. Think about it. Anyone with today’s Mac Pro can’t even plug in the current Apple USB keyboard into the new Mac Pro without an adapter, not to mention the many personal trackballs and unique input devices that Pros use. Instead now Pro users are already looking at the slim pickings for Thunderbolt docks with chagrin.
Another puzzling thing is that, while the new Mac Pro finally has the GPUs to do serious 4k video editing, and Apple seems to be working on upgrading FCP to handle it, Apple did not announce:
– Thunderbolt-connected optical drives (Blu-Ray remains one of the best means of distributing cinema-length 4k video)
– a 4k resolution Thunderbolt display
MDN users, do please recommend what a current Mac Pro users should do with all one’s existing hard drives when attempting to upgrade to the latest Mac Pro. Apparently Apple thinks we’re going to take our current Mac Pros that DO NOT support Thunderbolt or USB 3, then transfer all our data onto flash drive of unknown size via ethernet file sharing, then throw away all our old hard drives? Or does Apple think pros will be dumb enough to sign up for the damn iCloud service? Or maybe Apple thinks we want to drop $200 a piece on LaCie Thunderbolt-equipped eSATA drive enclosures PLUS $50 on a new cable so that we can attach our $200, 2TB hard drives to the new Mac Pro?
Not well thought out, Apple. Clearly Apple has lost touch with the real world connectivity issues that pros face. More stupid forced obsolescence rammed down our throats. Nobody would have complained if the new cylinder was half as big as the old Mac Pro but supported at least some internal expansion and legacy Firewire and USB 2 connectivity.
“Apple just screwed over anyone who uses DVI, PCI, SATA, eSATA, Firewire, and USB 2 devices. ”
– DVI: HDMI-to-DVI adapter, $2.50.
– FireWire: Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter, $30.
– USB2: USB2 plugs right in to one of the four USB3 ports.
Do you even read what you’re writing?
Steve, you honestly think this is a comprehensive list? This isn’t even scratching the surface. I’m not even as much of a power user as those guys running fiber channels, but here’s a quick inventory of what’s hooked up to my old Mac Pro at this very second that cannot be directly plugged into the new Mac Pro without additional investment:
– 4 internal SATA hard drives
– 1 internal SATA SDD
– 2 external eSATA drives
– Firewire 400 link to external amplifier
– Toslink audio out to another external amp
We also hook up NAS, Firewire 800 gear, and all manner of client drives as well. The 6 USB3 ports will have to be hot swapped, just as we have to with USB2 cables today. Bottom line, until monday, Apple gave professional users ZERO time to prepare for an all-thunderbolt world.
I am sorry, but Apple’s new “Pro” is not a workstation by connectivity standards. Maybe this year peripheral manufacturers will suddenly spool up their TB models and competition will suddenly drop prices, but i strongly doubt it. At the present, for many (not all) professionals, TB represents a very real cost and logistical barrier to adopting the new machine. Like me, they will hang on to their old big aluminum boxes for a couple more years at least because existing peripherals require it, and there are no effective TB docks that offer the connectivity the old Mac Pro did.
At the very least, Apple should offer one workstation with an internal SATA and/or eSATA port for goodness sakes!
Let me get this straight, Dvorak contends it is Apple’s fault that all other manufacturers suck. Well, I am not certain it is Apple’s fault, but I agree the other manufacturers suck.
I have mixed feelings with this. Thunderbolt can daisy-chain, so you can put a lot of peripherals on the chain with only a single cable – stuff you don’t get into much (hard drive boxes, etc.) all disappears from view.
Cheap Thunderbolt adapters are available for USB, eSATA, Firewire.
Third-party hardware manufacturers (if they are smart) will be able to design some really amazing stuff to go with this. Imagine a round, conical matching base for this machine that can hold 2, 3, and/or 4 (RAIDable) drives, a connection hub (firewire, thunderbolt, USB ports), and an optical drive. Won’t be cheap, but it will be quite upgradeable, will obviate the need for lots of connection cables (for those who choose to avoid them), and will look cool as hell. It will basically be the other half of the new Mac Pro that people are missing. Honestly, if they were smart, Apple would create it themselves, since it would also be a handy peripheral for iMacs in those departments that use them.
I was shocked at first because this was so unexpected… But look at the last picture. Doesn’t this look like something from the Borg? 🙂