Apple’s Next Pro Mac
Next month is Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. The primary focus of the annual soiree is expected to be on the next iteration of OS X aka Leopard. While OS X is the reason the developers are there, hardware introductions are also common at WWDCs. The conference, coupled with Apple’s revised timeline for the switch to Intel, has people expecting a new Intel powered PowerMac…or Mac Pro… whatever, Apple’s new high end tower system.
There will be a lot to miss about the old G5 based PowerMacs. The machine looked nice fully clad in aluminum, was very easy to get into and work on and, in a pinch, made an excellent spaghetti strainer.
Even good things must go, so the question is what do you most want to see out of a new pro level Mac? There is, naturally, a decent chance that the machine will look precisely like the PowerMac it replaces. The Intel based machines developers first got their hands on were G5 towers with a different set of guts after all. Assuming Apple leans to the MacBook type redesign instead of the MacBook Pro non-redesign protocol there is room for some aesthetic improvement.
While some find the colander part of the tower appealing, most find it annoying. Commonly referred to as the “cheese grater” style it hasn’t won many people over. Any redesigned tower would certainly have that design decision rethought. Trying to out think Ives and company on the best way to get air in the machine while keeping the box looking professional, and slightly hip, is like trying to out math Newton. All one can really hope for is that Mr. Ives looked at a Jaguar instead of a kitchen implement before setting drafting pen to paper.
A name change is also likely. The first Power Mac was introduced in March of 1994 and was powered by a PowerPC chip made by Motorola. With that in mind the “Power Mac” moniker was a natural fit and a great name. Apple has eschewed the notion of great names lately. While no one can predict the name of the next Apple pro level computer “Mac Pro” seems unavoidably likely.
Once design matters have been addressed, technical specs are on the table. Which chips Apple decides to go with is a source of constant rumors and, in truth, it doesn’t really matter. As long as the chip is at least a little faster and has a different name than the one powering the iMac those for whom time is money and those who require high end Apple coolness will buy the machines (which, lately, haven’t amounted to a lot of people).
Other specs, front side bus, hard drive space, amount of preinstalled memory will be more interesting. Apple made a definite jab at the value play with the MacBook but one wonders if that is the beginning of a trend or a one-time anomaly. In any case, the new system will be pitted immediately against the closest Dell system, coupons will be accounted for and everyone will say the Mac’s video card is substandard, because that is what they always say.
Forced to guess, one could do worse than look at the current Power Mac’s specs and expect only an incremental improvement. The SuperDrive, a 320 GB hard drive, and a capable, though complainable, video card. Bluetooth and Airport seem less likely inclusions for reasons of corporate security.
Finally, the one thing that really needs to be changed about the next pro-level Mac: the number of USB ports on the front of the machine. Currently there is one FireWire port and one USB port. A single FireWire port is plenty for most users, but having to crawl behind the machine to access a third USB port (if you count the free one on the keyboard) is a lot to ask with the amount of real estate available on the front panel. It is a constant game of unplugging the iPod cable to use the USB key or yanking the digital camera cable out to sync your non-Bluetooth cell phone, and a game consumers shouldn’t have to play.
But Apple exists to please you, what do you want to see in the next pro-level Apple desktop?
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(Further reading around reveals that Merom will be ~35W TDP, up to 2GHz. Apple would have to heftily overclock them to get Mac Pro-worthy performance. I fully expect them to feature in Apple’s more compact computers, however.)
Ben, the Merom line can either be a single or dual-core and not limited to a single core as you are thinking. Yes, it shares with Conroe and Woodcrest the fundamental of the new Intel Core Microarchitectures, just differing implementations of the cache sizes, core clock speeds, FSB throughputs, etc.
ALL of those lines (Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest) can support multi-cores since that is part of that fundamental design.
Only the Woodcrest will dare climb above the dual-cores of Conroe or Merom. That is why this is the Server version of Core 2 architecture.
I don’t mind one bit if Apple will eventually use the Woodcrest (Xeon) line for the high-end Mac Pro, but surely they will use that line for the Mac Server Pro (XServe).
Ben, the Merom line can either be a single or dual-core and not limited to a single core as you are thinking.
This was not what I was thinking. I do actually take the time to find out the nature of the processors I’m talking about. Merom is the successor to the current Core Solo/Duo.
However, support for multiple physical processors is a separate issue from whether or not a cpu is multi-core. Decent multi-processor support requires extra circuitry, circuitry which Merom will almost certainly not have as it is a laptop processor, designed for power efficiency.
You should note that Woodcrest is not just a server but also a workstation part, and also that there is nothing hugely magical or different about non-mainframe server processors nowadays (realise that both intel and amd have now converged their server architecture with their laptop architectures).
If Apple introduce several different desktop computers, that is a different issue and no doubt there is a market for an upgradeable desktop making use of non-workstation level components. Indeed in my opinion it would be extremely foolish not to offer this sort of thing as not everyone wants a compact-but-hardly-upgradeable iMac, nor to pay for workstation computing power best suited for geneticists and film studios.
However the PowerMac’s direct descendent will be the one that inherits its mantle as the professional level machine packing the greatest punch. And in my view, Woodcrest is the only processor on intel’s roadmap that adequately fits the bill, since such a computer will surely include support for more than one physical processor.
Apple would have to heftily overclock them to get Mac Pro-worthy performance. -Ben
Most modern CPU designs allow roughly 3dB (or twice the measurement unit - as power dissipation, for example) of overhead. Yeah, Apple can slightly overclock these babies but I doubt they will do that for the enclosure’s heat convection profile is designed per the CPU’s and other components’ thermal envelopes. Tweaking the CPU thermal envelope will only confound the mechanical team at Industrial Design and delay the launch. Let’s not mention that, ok, Ben? I want to see the new Mac Pro babies next month.
These babies are designed not from a core clock speeds anyway but rather total system efficiency. Most of the bottlenecks, as known, is the latency transfer between the CPUs FSB and main memory, and to a lesser degree, the core transfer latency with its built-in cache memory.
Intel has gone overboard to address these two issues with Core 2 Microarchitecture and we will see for sure if the Intel ads are correct or that Intel needs to go back to the drawing board.
Apple would have to heftily overclock them to get Mac Pro-worthy performance.-Me
I do apologise, my use of the word ‘would’ was intended to imply that their doing so is pretty much OOTQ.
Decent multi-processor support requires extra circuitry, circuitry which Merom will almost certainly not have as it is a laptop processor, designed for power efficiency. -Ben
You are most correct, Ben. But asking Apple to place two “physical” CPUs on the Mac Pro line is wishful thinking. Apple was forced to designed a dual-G5 to the PowerMac line because of apparent and obvious throughput deficiency compared with then-current Intel/AMD processors. Apple was not obligated just because we Pros wanted it (and not too bad I have to admit since I am using one as I write).
Believe me, they will not give us that bragging power again for the reason of economics of these Core 2 designs - enough brute power for most Pros. Also, there is no stopping Intel in designing “drop-in” socket-compatible 4-cores or 8-cores Core 3s in the future.
Multi-“physical” CPUs will be reserved to the server line as I mentioned for the thermal envelope of those will require a constant <70’F or 22’C external temp. Not all of us are blessed with an Icelandic or Nordic kind of climate. The Mac Pro has to work at ambient temperature as above.
I’ll have to see that to believe it. Workstations in any environment commonly have multiple physical CPUs.
Although now I think of it, I accept that the advent multicore processors makes the very notion of multi-processor boxes somewhat obsolete. However, AMD has made it plain it doesn’t agree, and I would personally think that this vision will not be complete for quite a number of years.
So I hereby bet you that the intel PowerMacs (or whatever they’re called, the PowerMac successor anyway) has multiple CPUs. Do you accept?
Not all of us are blessed with an Icelandic or Nordic kind of climate. The Mac Pro has to work at ambient temperature as above.
I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here. Apple has been pulling off thermal marvels with its fusion-inducing G5 products for years; any next-gen intel processor should be an engineering delight in comparison.
Also, there is no stopping Intel in designing “drop-in” socket-compatible 4-cores or 8-cores Core 3s in the future.
No need to wait for Core 3, my good friend. And yes, Kentsfield is socket-compatible with Conroe
Kentsfield is socket-compatible with Conroe -Ben
Bingo! Apple does not need to place multi-CPU architecture after all. Thanks, Ben for the link.
As for the climate wonders that the G5 tolerates, well you only have to look at the face of the G5 tower - mega perforations and two HUGE fans pushing HCF of air volume onto a carefully constructed airflow ducting. It sure looks wonderful to behold. But…do you think Apple moved to the relatively cooler Intel architecture just to have these types of engineering headaches? I don’t think so. Each of those additional mechanicals cost $$$ and do we really want to shell out too much $$$ to Steve for a decent Mac Pro? This is the principal reasons for abandoning the PPC architecture in the first place, wasn’t it? Well, then, behold we will have a much simplified (in mechanical engineering lingo) Mac Pro machine.
But don’t worry. It will still have all the niceties we’ve come to expect on a Pro level machine from Apple - expandability, ease-of-(give your token here), beauty to behold, etc…
So I hereby bet you that the intel PowerMacs (or whatever they’re called, the PowerMac successor anyway) has multiple CPUs. Do you accept? -Ben
On the higher-end model…I can give you a “maybe” but I am leaning more towards a “no”. As for the lower-end models - a certain “no”, multicores exclusively.
I have some nice tidbits, re:the new Mac Pro, in my blog. Check it out.
I ope it costs less then a kings ransom. Maybe a duke will do… I hope that in the new OS Safari is worked on. It’s a pain to keep Firefox handy because so many sites say browser not supported.
The one thing I do like about my Power PC is that I don’t have to push the AC up 15 degress when I turn it on… Like my Dell