Looking for some "Leaks" on what/when Apple is releasing the next "16 core" (sarcastic joke) machine? Last time I bought the "latest" Quad core Power Mac G5, (my current machine), two weeks later the Mac Pro came out.

I've just gotten the approval from my work that we can upgrade. I've spec'ed out the 8 core, but then thought, "Maybe there is another upgrade due"? Any rumours, speculations, guesses, or should we just buy now? Same with the Macbook pro.

"Trying to stay ahead of the game"

the computer industry has about a 6 month turnover, apple tends to bump things every 6 months, and update every 12. The larger updates happen around big apple industry events like macworld and WWDC.

Buy the best you can get now and be happy with it, there'll always be a new machine just around the bend.

I would advise you to hold on until after Macworld in January, where Apple could possibly announce new hardware.

Yes, good advise guys, thanks, but it hurts! haha "It's like your father gives you a brand new Ferrari for your 16th birthday, but your birthday isn't until next month so you don't get the key!"

Hi Gary,

Our company is also waiting untill Macworld in January to upgrade to a Mac Pro... so let's hope together that Apple does this ;-)

The Mac Pro hasn't been really upgraded since August 2006, and to many pro's this is a very long time, and many were expecting the upgrade already in november.

In '94, I paid $600 for a 16Mb chip of RAM for my computer...one week later, they had come down to $300. It's not a new phenomenon, you just have to get used to it when dealing with technology.

The Mac Rumors website has a buyers guide section that keeps track of Mac updates and has recommendations on when to buy.

Right now it's recommending DON'T BUY on the Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, iPhone and Xserve. http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

I am in the same boat...the Mac Pro has not been updated for a long time and I am going to wait until the next revision. Like Theodore says, the MacRumors guide is usually a safe bet. My roommate also works for Apple, and is "expecting" the Pro machines to be updated during Macworld.

Good to hear. I'm looking to convert to a Mac Pro too. Decided to wait out for another 2 weeks to see what happens.

Don't feel bad about waiting a couple of weeks. If you do, go over to macrumors.com and read the posts of those that have been waiting for the update since last September, assuming that it wold happen any day.

Macworld, with the keynote scheduled for January 15th, is the safest bet at this point in time. Since the current models are so old (relatively speaking, compared with Apple laptops and iMacs), unless you need a new MacPro right now, it would be a very good idea to wait two more weeks.

- Martin

That's rather painful.

I need to design, have built, shipped, and assemble into a workflow with other hardware and another mac by Feb 15th... was planning on buying by Jan 5th.

Ouch!

It sounds like it's worth waiting, but it may put me into a situation. The Feb 15th deadline is a hard deadline. :\

C

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that apple announces consumer products in the winter, and pro in the summer.

Gary,

While rumors abound it's quite possible that the next iteration of the MacPro won't be a quantum leap in performance.

Based on Apple's history of hardware releases - even within the past 6 months - the "new" MacPro will most likely only be a step-up faster than the current versions being offered.

If you currently have a G5 and were to purchase a current Octo-Core MacPro that most certainly *would* be a significant jump in computing power, versatility and capabilities. However if you had a current MacPro and were considering waiting for the "new" version you'll most likely be disappointed that it won't be as great a performance increase as most are hoping.

BUT, having said that, there are enough rumors (and let's be very clear about this: 90% of Apple-based rumors end up being way off the mark) to suggest that the next iteration of MP's *might* include a true 16-core mainboard. Now that would be a significant performance jump compared to the 8-core machine, especially when you consider that Leopard was designed from the ground-up to take advantage of multi-core, multi-threading, multi-pipeline memory allocation much more than Tiger was ever able to do.

My advice: If you need to upgrade now because you want/need the added capabilities of the MacPro that the G5 simply doesn't offer, you'll be more than satisfied with the current 8-core machine (make sure you get a minimum of 4GB of RAM). If you can wait until next month to see if the 16-core rumors have any validity, that would be worth waiting for.

I personally am more waiting for more bang for the buck then at this moment (some rumors say the Mac Pro modells will START at 8 cores, although, like you said, Robert, only rumors...) and especially some more base RAM and maybe lower prices on the cinema monitors too.

Looking forward to the switch!

As I say, rumors abound - just like the one that Apple will introduce a 40" inch ACD (really?!!), but it wouldn't hurt to wait until later this month to see what exactly lands at our feet. Either way, you'll be very happy with any MacPro vs. a G5 - especially since Leopard will be on-board which will make you really happy when you see how much less time it takes for renders or Compressor encodes.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading on various sites, 45 nm versus current 65nm Penryn, cooler running, more effecient chips, rumoured Blue Ray, 1666 FSB, .............. "Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, I'm counting processors......" Can anyone comment on the Mac Pro RAID card? I intend on filling all the slots with 750 GB HD's and was wondering if the extra $1000 is justified (or just go through the Leopards software in Disk Utilities?)

Gary,

As you probably know by now, the "new" MacPro is just an incremental step-up from the "old" one, and of course no Blu-Ray options yet. (I still believe it will be at least another year before that happens)

However if you haven't already purchased your new system, check eBay late today; we'll be posting one of our 8-Core systems which will be completely ready out-of-the-box for and HD edit suite.

No, we're not buying one of the "new" MacPro's we're simply getting rid of a system we don't need anymore.

the "new" MacPro is just an incremental step-up from the "old" oneTo me, twice the number of CPU cores, a 1,600MHz frontside bus, and much much better graphics card options represent a pretty significant step up. I am still going to wait until 1/16 - there's going to be an Apple "Final Cut Pro" event, and of course it gives me a chance to review any updates presented during the keynote speach next Tuesday before I buy.

So it's been a long wait for me, but I am glad I resisted the temptation.

- Martin

8-core (2xquad 2.8Ghz to 3.2Ghz) on the full mac pro line released today...up to 4Tb of storage...up to 32Gb of RAM!

My head is spinning in anticipation ............... MW is only a week away. So many rumors and "wishes".......... (As I sit here and wait for my Power Mac G5 quad to render this 94 GB file!) ...........

With all the speculations, no one guessed that the 8th January 2008 was the new Mac Pro's day.

But I would hold off any buying until the 15th January 2008...

There might be more surprises coming up.

As this is only my second Mac (long time ex-pc user here), I've decided to wait until after Mac World. What more "Surprises" can there be though? Still wondering if the optional RAID card is a good idea (I'm currently using a 5 bay external RAID 0 enclosure vis eSATA) and was just going to use this with the new MP. Anyone have experience with this card? I've opted to upgrade the RAM to 8 GB and cut corners on the processor and get the 3.0 instead of the 3.2. (Hard to believe one can spend $24,000 if they were to build a true "Dream System!") haha

If you need to raid, don't trust the software raid...I've lost way too much data (all backed up elsewhere, but terrabytes of data) using the software raid. If you are looking to raid stuff, get the card...HW raid will always be better than SW raid in my experience...I've used a variety of both.

seems like they would have waited to release the new mac pro till the event.
anyone think they still might announce more more features to the mac pro at the expo?

Thanks Cole, I agree ......... "Think I just wanted someone else to agree to help justify spending another $1000 ....... so when the boss asks if it was really necessary, I can look them straight in the face and say, OF COURSE!" ;)

Gary, I would strongly *not* recommend the internal RAID card for the sole purpose of creating a RAID for the MacPro.

Apple has always done a fantastic job of creating glossy ad campaigns that make you think (and hope) that all they claim is real. And while the internal RAID card will do exactly what it's supposed to, you will not attain anywhere near the level of throughput performance that they claim. Not only that, but in order to get even close to their projected performance numbers would mean you'd have to use all 4 drives together - which means your OS would also be on the array! It's a disaster waiting to happen when the OS is made part of any array, internal or not.

If you want a real hardware RAID setup, then an external eSATA (JBOD or Infiniband only), SCSI or Fiber array is the only way to go. The reasons are too numerous to mention here.

However, there is one major benefit to adding the internal RAID card in a MacPro: It allows you to use SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives, which spin at 15,000rpm. Very expensive drives, yes, however if your boot drive was SAS and every other drive was also they would be the most perfect setup for not only a very fast and responsive system but the most natural place to put small, constantly changing files such as renders, waveform/thumbnail cache and stills to be used in video projects and keep these files *separated* from the main array. This prevents a highly fragmented array which over time will slow it down and make problems in fixing directory issues. That, is the only reason to get the RAID card.

seems like they would have waited to release the new mac pro till the event.
anyone think they still might announce more more features to the mac pro at the expo?

No actually I don't... maybe they will anounce a configuration option for a Blue Ray burner, or/and Blue Ray support for DVD Studio Pro, but bringing out a new model a week after officially updating it... no.

Robert,

That is great advice about moving the ..."small, constantly changing files such as renders, waveform/thumbnail cache and stills to be used in video projects" ...to a fast array.
That is one of the things I find most troublesome when media drives
begin to get alot of activity...those tons of render files etc. fragment
the disk and ultimately degrade the performance.

Thanks!

Robert,

That is great advice about moving the ..."small, constantly changing files such as renders, waveform/thumbnail cache and stills to be used in video projects" ...to a fast array.
That is one of the things I find most troublesome when media drives
begin to get alot of activity...those tons of render files etc. fragment
the disk and ultimately degrade the performance.

Thanks!

Actually what I said (just to be sure it's not being taken out of context) is *not* to put those files on the array, but instead to keep them on a single, stand-alone but fast internal drive. It's these highly fragmented files that will cause any array to slow down which you obviously want to prevent.

No actually I don't... maybe they will anounce a configuration option for a Blue Ray burner, or/and Blue Ray support for DVD Studio Pro, but bringing out a new model a week after officially updating it... no.

In order for DVDSP to support BR it would take more than just a simple update but rather a complete re-work of the entire application, not to mention Compressor would also need to be drastically updated/changed to support all the BR encoding options.

That means Apple would have to introduce version 5 of DVDSP as a stand-alone application outside the current offering of the FCS suite of programs. While it's impossible to know until next week what will happen, I think it highly unlikely that Apple will offer a new version of DVDSP outside of the FCS suite, and we've got another year and a half (minimum) before Apple announces end of life for FCS2. But who knows, maybe they'll announce FCS2.5 with BR. We'll all wait and see, won't we?