Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Looks like chips have been in the channel for a while and a embargo ending next week. Therefore Mac Pros could be announced at any time.
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/01/...ips-next-week/ ...into the light of a dark black night. |
Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Well my problems have been related to single directly connected drive, and varying the port hasn't mattered. IOW, If I try port 1 a bunch of times I get just as many random failures as port 2 - on either the drive or the Mac. Although strangely, if I start up a drive and it spins up but won't mount, and then I swap the port on the back of the drive or Mac, sometimes it will then mount. As if to taunt me a second time...
This is one of those "attention to detail" areas Apple never pays any attention to (sort of like the Finder quirks we've had all these years). With the mountain of cash they're sitting on now, I'll never understand why they don't hire a few people whose mission in life is to squash these usability annoyance bugs and add polish across the product-line. Insanity. They could solve all of these problems in 6 months probably. ...into the light of a dark black night. |
Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Not Mac Pro related per se but the addition of anti-reflective glass on iMac screens would address one major complaint of pro users regarding iMacs. Should they become more expandable in their next offering I fear that might signal the end...
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/02/...neration-imac/ ...into the light of a dark black night. |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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What kind of expandability could be added to an iMac to make it a suitable Mac Pro replacement?
All I can think of are more thunderbolt ports, USB3, and more on-board storage, but the storage would make the iMac much bulkier, and somewhat redundant considering the availability of thunderbolt. Maybe Apple should make their own external storage solutions, something like Drobos, in 2, 4, and 8 bay flavours? ......................................... |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Toronto
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Ninja Editor
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Dave, I should have been clearer, I was referring to the iMac in its traditional AIO form. Personally, I'd love a smaller, more affordable tower that has just enough room for extra internal storage.
Frank is probably right, user serviceable HDD, SDD, alongside the RAM would make an "iMac" upgradeable enough - setting aside the question of acceptable system performance. The other issue would be the display. Maybe these are reaching commodity levels. Certainly there are lost of cheap 27" and under panels out there. Many are TN, and not quite up the task of graphics work. But there are also relatively affordable IPS panel based displays, like Dell's u2711. Integrating the panel and it's circuitry might drive costs down a little more then. So, if you take about $500-700 worth of high quality display and add another $500-1000 worth of computer, you more or less get the iMac's current price range, plus a bit of a premium for the Apple-i-ness of it all. ......................................... |
Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Quote:
And don't get me wrong, if the new iMac had this level of expandability AND a much better (wide gamut) screen, plus the anti-reflective stuff, I'd at least consider it as a replacement. Especially if it could drive my existing monitor too. I'm not such a Mac Pro snob that I wouldn't consider switching IF the right conditions were met. But I don't think they'll go that far, and at the same time might still EOL the Mac Pro, which would piss me off. At that point I'd probably opt for the Macbook Pro with the best CPU / GPU combo and drive my big screen from that. ...into the light of a dark black night. |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Yah I just meant not soldered onto the board. Pop open a little hatch in the back, press a button to release, pull it out, put a new one in, close the hatch.
BTW I didn't realize until today Mac Rumors has subdomains for specific products so you can skip all the other stuff. http://macpro.macrumors.com/ ...into the light of a dark black night. |
Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Hate to say it but this makes me wish Apple licensed to HP for Workstations...
http://www.hp.com/united-states/camp...l#.T3txqu3Rj6s (click the product tour) pretty impressive although the industrial design is still more complicated than a Mac Pro. ...into the light of a dark black night. |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Toronto
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The real problem for the Mac Pro is that Print Publishing and Video Production now work largely on an iMac.
If you want to see a souped up Mac Pro in the future, somebody has to find a market for it other than Photoshop gurus in an age of RGB websites. Thunderbolt now essentially offers PCI expansion to the Mac Mini and iMac. So if the next iMac has a non-reflective display, 32 GB RAM, three PCI slots and Thunderbolt hard drive expansion: What are you going to use the Mac Pro for? |
Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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A couple of those are pretty big "ifs" though, aren't they?
I don't know what's going to happen. I can see the Mac Pro going away this year, and I can also see it staying around forever, getting updated once every 16-22 months (in other words, business as usual). |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Toronto
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1. Non-reflective displays are the current rumour du jour. That's really the only iffy part.
2. The current machines do 16GB, so I'm assuming the new chips will push that one further. 3. The expansion chassis for PCI cards have already been announced. 4. Thunderbolt arrives on PCs this month so hard drives are about to be more affordable. Your next iMac is a Pro machine, whether you know it or not. It's going to frustrate gamers and Photoshop gurus who want to change their GPU, but who else really does that? |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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The current iMacs support 32GB when you use 8GB modules, and together with an SSD, they can probably meet most memory intensive needs. Besides expansion, pros will probably want faster CPU and GPu combos. Dual CPUs are probably out of the question, but a 6 or even 8 core chip would be welcome.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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I think there's many that are picky, but a very great many that are simply finding a good quality IPS display to be sufficient for 90% of their needs. I see the iMac on desks all over print shops and graphics design shops. I'm told it calibrates well and doesn't shift too much, and people are mostly happy. Where I take some digital photography classes (the college recently updated its program descriptions to specifically note 'digital'; 'film' is only covered in a class under 'alternative processes' now) most of the instructors use an iMac or Macbook Pro. There's only one real orthodoxy on displays: IPS plus calibration. People seem very content to meet that standard. Some have new cinema displays, some have old Apple 30", some have Dell.
For me, I really would prefer the option of wider gamut, just to be sure I could see all of the potential output on some devices, but I know it probably wouldn't make a huge difference to the finished product - black and white inkjet, and chromogenic colour prints. So, with a constrained budget, I know, for me, a Mac Pro is out of the question. Is it better to go for a high quality monitor and a mac mini, or an iMac? I think it depends on how quickly we have to chew through files. ......................................... |
Sneaky Punk
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I think you'd have to be working with some very hefty files to bog down any of the modern Macs (MBA/Mini aside due to RAM limitations). The mini is a good option, as long as you can get by with 8GB of RAM. For me, I find iMac to have the sweet spot, since it reduces desk clutter, making it far easier to work with. Even with the current glossy screens you can buy anti-glare covers to fix reflection problems.
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