New Info on the Mac Pro!

[Takuro]

Machine Name: Mac Pro

 

Availability: In stores now!

 

Enclosure Type: Almost exactly the same as a G5 case on the outside. The inside has undergone huge changes, however, to compensate for new hardware. There is an extra optical drive expansion bay for future Blu Ray drive upgrades. The power supply has shifted to the top of the case.

 

 

Operating System: OS X 10.4 Tiger

 

Processor: Dual Intel Xeon (codename "Woodcrest") processors available in 2.0, 2.6, and 3.0 Ghz configurations. 64-bit processing with 4MB shared L2 cache.

 

Ram: Up to 16GB of ram (8x 2GB) can be installed. Ships with a minimum of 1GB. Requires special RAM that is sandwiched between two heatsinks.

 

Hard drive: Stores up to 4 hard drives for up to 2 TB of storage (4x 500GB drives.) Low-end model ships with 160MB HD. Harddrives available in 160, 250, and 500GB varients.

 

Optical drives: Standard 16x DVD+/-RW SuperDrive.

 

Graphics cards: (All PCI-e. Up to 4 GFX cards can be installed at once)

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, ATI Radeon X1900 XT

 

Additional hardware: Ships with Apple keyboard and Mighty Mouse (not wireless.)

 

Overview: The new Mac Pro is clad in the same aluminum housing as its PowerPC predecessor. At first glance, it is almost indistinguishable compared to a G5. However, under the hood it is 1.6-2.1x more powerful than the high-end quad-core G5 computers. Even the low-end model can beat the pants off a PowerPC box.

 

This is the most highly customizable Mac to date. Not only can you choose which graphics card you want (provided Apple supports it), but you can choose the number of cards installed. You can have up to 4 hard drives and 4 video cards installed at once with up to 8 sticks of 2GB ram!

 

Although the first machines don't use Blu-Ray technology, there is an expansion bay for a Blu Ray RW drive in the future. Once Blu-Ray drives become affordable and more commonplace, they will become standard on all Mac Pro systems.

 

Apple's next generation operating system, OS 10.5 "Leopard," is only be avaiable as a developer preview and is not preinstalled on the first wave of commercial Mac Pro machines. Leopard is also expected to usher in new features supporting Blu-Ray disc burners/readers, as well as full support for 64-bit applications to make the most of the Mac Pro's hardware. OS X Leopard will be available in Spring 2007. At that time, the Mac Pro may feature a redesigned case that distinictively marks its evolution away from it's PowerPC cousin.

 

More information:

- Deconstruction of the Mac Pro (Credits to Mash for finding this article)

- Apple's Official Mac Pro Page (Extensive info)

- Apple Store Mac Pro Page (Get a custom Mac Pro built-to-order)

[Chrysaor]

Processor: Intel Core II Duo (codename "Conroe"), available in dual-core and quad-core configurations 

 

Basic Information: Appearing for the first time at Apple's World Wide Developer Convention 2006, the new Mac Pro will feature a redesigned case that clearly sets it apart from it's PowerMac cousin. Like it's PowerPC counterpart, it will be available in dual-core configurations for low and medium performance, as well as quad-core (dual Conroe) configurations for high performance.

 

Conroe is not SMP capable, it can not be used in a dual processor motherboard. 

Woodcrest is the SMP capable equivalent of Conroe, which will probably be used in Mac Pro as a quad (dual dual) processor.

[salax]

All this news (if proven right) are exciting!

 

What no one seems to know is the expandability of this beast. The only thing that mostly concerns me is the matter if it will follow on the G5 PCI-express architecture, or if it will finally have regular PCI ports for us to plug in all the cards we have waiting for Mac use.

Only time will tell i guess..

[Pippin]

I can't wait to see the new case.

[gwprod12]

What exactly is the source of this information?

[Takuro]

http://thinksecret.com is where I got the bulk of the information.

 

It looks as if the Mac Pros might have Tiger preinstalled after-all. I'm not sure if this will open up a new world of drivers to us, especially if they're heavily reliant on EFI. :glare:

[Colonel]

If the Mac Pro is being released in August and is going to run Leopard, wouldn't that mean that Leopard would be coming out early?

[ampTK]

I really hope they go for woodcrest at least on the higer end versions, it's supposed to be a powerful workstation, not a regular consumer desktop.

 

Imagine a dual quad-core Mac pro as soon as january. mmmm... power

 

(copied form a different thread that went off-topic)

[DiaboliK]

it also said the macbook pro is getting a new case as well.

[ampTK]

probably with magnetic latching

[John the Geek]

It won't have standard PCI. Apple ditched that long ago, and once Apple "ditches the floppy" it's gone for good. You won't see anymore PCI. Faster forms of expansion are here to stay.

[Takuro]

Apple usually doesn't tend to introduce new hardware in its final physical form without saying "and this product is available starting today." In fact, they never really show products until they're done, which is what causes hype. This is an unveiling. Literally, you could walk in an Apple Store on August 12th and probably buy one of these things.

 

Here's what I forsee:

 

- Installed w/ Tiger, but definately Leopard-capable

- Come pre-packaged with Front Row and an Apple Remote

- The new case redesign will still have a front and rear "handle" (duh)

- It'll be mad expensive

[U.C.]

Maybe we'll see HD DVD/Blu Ray Recorders. BTW if we dont have PCI, then what. Most expansion cards except gfx are PCI. I dont belive it will come with Tiger. Probably Leopard.

[Caai]

Blu-Ray is more likely to be add since Apple is one of the board of directors, but since Blu-ray drives cost about $1000, I doubt Apple will add Blu-ray for this generation of Macs.. =(!

 

 

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/mar/10blu-ray.html

[Order2Chaos]

Maybe we'll see HD DVD/Blu Ray Recorders. BTW if we dont have PCI, then what. Most expansion cards except gfx are PCI. I dont belive it will come with Tiger. Probably Leopard.

 

 

Very true about the PCI expansion , the only alternative I can think of is PCI Express X1 but virtually nothing uses this little connector. Only thing I've seen so far is a crappy X1300 video card and some mobo companies use them for an audio riser. The PowerMac G5 has something called PCI-X slots which I don't think are compatiable with either PCI express or regular PCI.

 

 

I'm not particularly interested in Blu Ray myself , it's just too expensive at the moment and Double layer DVD media is finally starting to come down in price. You need some kind of special monitor to watch the new HD movies anyway or they will just look like regular dvd quality. It has something to do with DRM and the pure digital signal coming from the DVI port , don't want people making perfect copies of HD movies.

[drib]

Blu-Ray is more likely to be add since Apple is one of the board of directors, but since Blu-ray drives cost about $1000, I doubt Apple will add Blu-ray for this generation of Macs.. =(!

 

I remember many years ago (please correct me if I'm wrong)... Apple was (on of) the first to have an internal DVD burner in the PowerMac G4. At that time a retail DVD burner was about half the price of a complete PowerMac G4

[Caai]

You do and you don't need special monitors/televisions to watch Blu-Ray movies..

 

You see, movie studios have an option of adding a DRM Pure Digital Signal to their Blu-Ray movies which will require HDMI cables (Kinda like A/V cables (I Don't know if you can use DVI..)) and since only a few televisions have HDMI (Mostly plasmas and flat screens) thats where the special monitor/television kicks in...

 

So far, 2 or 3 movie studios have announced the Non-DRM Pure Digital Signal (Sony is one of them)

 

I really hope Apple adds a Blu-Ray burner, which can read and write Cds, DVDs, And Blu-Ray Disks (which ranges from 25 to 200 Gb of memory!!). The only problem is the cost. I mean a Blu-Ray burner cost about $900 and then a high definiton monitor for around $450, but wait.. do current Apple monitors support high definiton?

[chapel]

Blu-Ray/BlueRay/Blue Ray(and so on)

 

BR has alot of potential, atm the biggest disk size is 50GB for a dual layer disk. As well 25GB for single layer. Not up to 200GB, although Im sure they are looking at ways to do that, but I highly doubt they will be able to. The price is correct, but media is grossly overpriced. The fact that a single layer 25GB disk costs $25 dollars, is just not that great. You can pickup 25GB harddrives for cheaper than that, not that the application is the same, but the point of using disks for storage is that its supposed to be cheaper. Not super overpriced.

 

Im not sure if Apple will ship their new systems coming up with BR, but Apple is all about new and emerging technology. Everything they do is about the cutting edge, and I wouldnt be surprised if they did have a desktop system with BR. On a side note to that potential, Apple is the de-facto video production platform, and BR is the future of digital video, so it only makes sense that they would support it in full force. I just hope they will support HD DVD as well, because I honestly dont see BR winning, but weirder things have happened.

 

As far as BR requiring a special monitor. That is correct but not correct. At the base level if the content producers(movie makers) decide to protect their media using the next gen solution on BR or HD DVD, it requires a digital link to the display and the display needs to be certified for said technology. Now atm HDMI is the proper connection for said DRM solution, but that doesnt mean it is the only way to go about it. To be technical, DVI could be used as well, the system just have to be setup that way, the monitor needs to be certified as well as the video card and the connections in between. I dont know what Apple plans on doing, but I know that they could easily fully support proper high definition media on their imac and laptop lines as well as their future desktop lines. Also I wanted to let you know, that atm no studios that I know of are using the DRM on the next gen media just yet. They are expected to use it in full force though by 2010. Expect your media consumer lives to change drastically then.

 

PCI-Express

 

I can almost bet that Apple will be using PCI-E(xpress) on their next desktop variation. The current imacs are using it if I recall correctly. It only makes sense, considering that Intel is one of the main proponents of PCI-E and it enables a fast latency free bus for add in cards. Maybe Apple will give add in card developers the spark they need to stop making PCI ones. There are PCI-E to PCI converters, so not everything is lost yet.

 

PCI-X is what was used in previous desktop incarnations. Its a faster variation of PCI, but not to the same level as PCI-E. As far as I know, it was a 64bit bus vs 32bit that PCI has, but do no quote me.

 

 

I am very excited for what is coming out, I want to see what conroe and potentially woodcrest can do in OS X. They are a huge leap in cpu design, and if all things go well, will make Apple the speed leader once again. Remember when they always said *insert application here* was faster than on the PC(windows). Well that could be true again. Bye bye PowerPC.

[Bearcat]

I am very excited for what is coming out, I want to see what conroe and potentially woodcrest can do in OS X. They are a huge leap in cpu design, and if all things go well, will make Apple the speed leader once again. Remember when they always said *insert application here* was faster than on the PC(windows). Well that could be true again. Bye bye PowerPC.

 

Hi chapel,

 

In terms of speed, my MBP at 2.0 ghz easily beats my Pentium D 920. (Don't have the actual numbers right now, but I was surprised). This indicates the Core architecture is much faster or can do more in a clock cycle.

 

Anyways, I ran a test on a 2.67ghz Woodcrest system, and clock for clock they are faster then the CoreDuo "Yonah" chips.

 

Per core, the Woodcrest was 74% faster running on a clock that was only 33% faster.

 

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...9554&st=18#

 

cheers

[Caai]

Actually they are 200 GB Blu-Ray. Since I can't find the original article, here

 

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/12/tdk-har...b-blu-ray-disc/

 

I Actually remember when CDs where $25 for 20 disks... In due time, the cost of Blu-Ray players and Media will go down just like Cds & DVDs did.

[Ouch]

There aren't enough diodes to go around to make the blue ray drives - even if there were they are too expensive at the moment and there is no use for them at the moment - give it another 6 months are we might start seeing them appear - but i don't see them in the Mac Pro.

[bluedragon1971]

Very true about the PCI expansion , the only alternative I can think of is PCI Express X1 but virtually nothing uses this little connector. Only thing I've seen so far is a crappy X1300 video card and some mobo companies use them for an audio riser. The PowerMac G5 has something called PCI-X slots which I don't think are compatiable with either PCI express or regular PCI.

 

While the original PowerMac G5's had PCI-X slots, the current ones (since the quad was released) have PCI Express. They don't have any standard PCI slots though, so I don't see why Apple would go back to including them on newer machines.

 

http://www.apple.com/powermac/pciexpress.html

[Takuro]

The Mac Pro will most likely come with a standard SuperDrive like the G5 has. The Blu Ray technology won't catch on quickly enough to have a major role in the first wave of Mac Pros, but it will most definately become a an implemented technology in a future model. You can count on that.

 

Less than one month until the unveiling. I'm starting to save up so I can buy a 2nd-generation Mac Pro. Never buy 1st-wave machines since they have all the bugs. And again, referring to my above statement: I want to hold off buying one until Blu Ray technology becomes more commonplace.

[Bart86]

I didnt think they were ready to release Leopard. I'm thinking it will come with 10.4.8 which will basically be 10.4.7 with an EFI enabled kernel and drivers?

[Caai]

It looks like people got their wish, Apple will use Intels Xeon 5100 series for their Mac Pro (Aka Woodcrest which will be Intel's fastest chip for personal computer.) Also, this might be the lineup Apple will use for their Desktops and Laptop

 

Macbook = Yonah

iMac = Conroe

Macbook Pro = Merom

 

 

Apple Computer has selected dual-core Xeon server processors from Intel Corp. to power its next wave of high-performance professional Mac Pro desktops, AppleInsider has confirmed.

 

The 64-bit chips -- formerly code-named "Woodcrest" and officially unveiled by Intel last month as the Xeon 5100 series -- pack a 4MB L2 cache and run at speeds of up to 3.0GHz on a 1333MHz front-side bus.

 

Though the chips are almost architecturally identical to Intel's upcoming line of Core 2 Duo Extreme desktop processor (code-named "Conroe"), they differ in that they'll utilize the company's new Land Grid Array (LGA) 771 socket and also allow for multiple processor configurations.

 

Apple plans to take advantage of Woodcrest's multi-processor capabilities by offering versions of its upcoming Mac Pro professional desktops that will sport two of the dual core chips, people familiar with the Mac maker's plans have said. The new systems, which will succeed the Power Mac G5 at the forefront of the company's product matrix, will also be available in a single processor configuration for a substantially reduced cost, those people have since revealed.

 

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is expected to showcase the new computers early next month as he demonstrates Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" -- the company's next-generation operating system -- during the annual Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Calif.

 

The new Mac Pro desktops will represent the last of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's personal computer systems to transition from IBM's PowerPC-based processors to Intel's chips. And sources who have crossed paths with pre-production units claim they will rival, if not exceed in speed, the most powerful personal computer systems on the market today.

 

As Apple began development of the Mac Pro last October, it turned to Intel's Oregon division for the expertise in constructing a logicboard capable of housing a dual-processor Woodcrest configuration (or in other words, a graphics powerhouse sporting a total of four cores of processing power). Initially, it appeared that the two companies had aspirations of developing a radically compact board design, but they later settled on one approximately the same size as those found in Apple's current Power Mac G5 systems.

 

In addition to being the fastest of Intel's chips suited for a personal computer system, Woodcrest is also the first family of microprocessors to utilize Intel's "Core" microarchitecture. The architecture includes an advance cache technology that allows one core of a dual-core processor to use the entire memory reservoir while the other core is idle. It also supports a feature called "Smart Memory Access" that can hide memory latency and bottlenecks, as well as "Wide Dynamic Execution," which widens the execution core and allows for more instructions per cycle.

 

Apple's decision to base the Mac Pro on Woodcrest rather than Conroe may also help the company further diversify its four primary Mac product lines as the holiday shopping season rolls around -- offering the potential for each line to differentiate itself from the others via a unique Intel chip variant.

 

Specifically, Apple may choose to updates its iMac consumer desktops with "Conroe" processors and its MacBook Pro professional notebooks with "Merom" chips, while continuing to build the consumer-oriented MacBook around "Yonah." Of course, Apple will also continue to offer its entry-level Mac mini desktop, which is currently available with either a dual-core and single-core "Yonah" chip.

 

Apple last updated its Pro desktop computers in October of 2005, when it introduced the Power Mac G5 Quad along with updated Power Mac G5 Dual models.

 

~ Apple Insider