New Mac Pro line anytime soon?

[Lionel Riem]

Hey guys,

My good ol' Mac Pro (2006) is starting to suffer from old age and is showing signs of CPU osteoarthritis. Just the other day I lost a bunch of RAM without reason. I think it's time I change computer but the "current" Mac Pro line is quite old now. For that price, I can get a much more faster and recent gear from HP or DELL or DIY. Since most of my workflow is Adobe-based, I think I could handle the switch to PC, but if I can stick with a Mac Pro, I'd prefer that.

Do anyone has any idea about an upcoming refresh of the current Mac Pro line? Or would an iMac do the job today with Thunderbolt and external PCI housing? I'll still need a Red Rocket and an NVidia Quadro. I'm mostly doing Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Thanks for your help!

Lionel

[Jarek Zabczynski]

In the same boat here. If they release a Sandy Bridge Mac Pro it will be between now and WWDC in June. I've also heard speculation of holding off till Ivy Bridge Xeons come out towards the end of the year. Anything is possible I suppose. I hate Windows with a passion. I might have to go Hackintosh if the Mac Pro gets axed though.

[Demetri Zuev]

After this year's NAB I'm really excited about the concept of MacBook Pro paired with external RedRocket enclosure via Thunderbolt.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was 100% sure that I'll get a tower...

[Shane Betts]

The only really reliable knowledge is that all current Mac Pro users want an update. As to whether Apple give a shit, that is still a mystery.

[Josh Beadle]

"Superman no here today"

[Scott Crawley]

Lol

The only really reliable knowledge is that all current Mac Pro users want an update. As to whether Apple give a shit, that is still a mystery.

[Scott Crawley]

If it were possible to stuff more RAM in a laptop I might be thinking that way also.

There is also a little card that BMD has waiting in the wings that promises to deliver 4k playback in real time for under $600, though I am uncertain, even doubtful that it will handle R3D. The site doesn't mention it specifically. http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/decklink4k/ Does anyone know the answer to that question?

When folks keep saying there will be no new Mac Pro my mind keeps wandering over to the BMD page for this card. They announced it ages ago it seems, but still have not released it. What are they waiting for, new Mac hardware that it was designed to work with perhaps?

After this year's NAB I'm really excited about the concept of MacBook Pro paired with external RedRocket enclosure via Thunderbolt.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was 100% sure that I'll get a tower...

Edit: I guess it is only reasonable to presume that R3D is not supported by the card. It is editing software centric and doesn't appear to concern itself with camera codecs.

[Scott Brown]

I'm wondering if the Ivy Bridge Xeons are worth the wait and the massive price differential - the newly released Ivy Bridge i7 CPU's are certainly fast and now include USB3 & Thunderbolt support. Interestingly, the benchmarks for Ivy Bridge CPU's are not as impressive as I'd hoped and on average we're looking at about a 10% performance increase over Sandy Bridge.

I think we're almost at the stage where "standard" desktop and laptop computers are powerful and capable enough to handle virtually whatever we throw at them, perhaps making the concept of the Mac Pro redundant.

Scott

[Scott Crawley]

I think we're almost at the stage where "standard" desktop and laptop computers are powerful and capable enough to handle virtually whatever we throw at them, perhaps making the concept of the Mac Pro redundant.

Nah, that won't happen. We will likely be throwing more at them before they are capable. The next crop of machines may be able to handle 4k just in time for Red to give us 6k, and so on...

Even if computers manage to exceed the current demand for horsepower, we will very quickly make use of it and then demand more. It's in our nature. Will the cycle ever end?

[Lionel Riem]

I think we're almost at the stage where "standard" desktop and laptop computers are powerful and capable enough to handle virtually whatever we throw at them, perhaps making the concept of the Mac Pro redundant.

I agree. But I can't help but wonder how an iMac with full options would cope with 5K R3D footage in After Effects, even with a Red Rocket connected through Thunderbolt. The added CPU-power of a dual Xeon must count for something, right?