Daniel Eran Dilger
The availability of Intel's latest Xeon E5 workstation-class chips next week was reported by British site The Inquirer.
The new Xeon E5 chips incorporate the Sandy Bridge micro architecture that first appeared in MacBook Pros and iMacs early last year, followed by a mobile variant used by Apple in the MacBook Air last summer.
Apple's latest Mac Pro models currently use Intel Xeon Bloomfield or Gulftown processors based on the Nehalem and closely related Westmere microarchitectures.
The latest release of OS X 10.7.3 Lion included support for AMD's high end Tahiti graphic cards, which are expected to arrive in the market around the same time as Intel's new Xeon chips.
However, people famliar with the matter have said that Apple's management, as far back as last May, were in limbo over whether to put any additional resources toward the Mac Pro product line.
Internal discussions at Apple were said to focus on the fact that sales of the high-end Mac Pro workstations have dropped off so considerably that the desktop machines are no longer particularly profitable for the company.
Bon Adamson
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
AppleInsider Staff
Amber Neely
67 Comments
Any word on the pricing? With the decline of the desktop and workstation it might finally behoove Apple to lower the entry price a bit.
It would be nice if they would at least announce if they were going to continue this line. My 2007 Mac Pro is no longer supported by Mountain Lion. I would love to buy a new one but refuse to spend $3000 on 2010 technology. At least announce your plans so folks can figure out what their next steps are. iMac does not do it for me, I need RAM and multiple hard drives.
I personally think Apple would be making a big mistake not offering their Pro customers and upgrade path to Sandy Bridge Xeon. There are a lot of creative professionals in Music, Video, Graphics, etc. that would likely migrate to PC platforms...
The Mac Pro is really outdated technology for a workstation. I'd much rather see Apple take something line Sandy Bridge E and make a thoroughly modern and forward looking desktop computer. The Mac Pro was the right approach ten years ago but it isn't the product to base the next ten years of development upon.
So yeah I hope Apple uses this chip, I just hope that it is in a modern implementation that completely leverages the technology they have available these days. Oh and please do it at a reasonable price point.
I personally think Apple would be making a big mistake not offering their Pro customers and upgrade path to Sandy Bridge Xeon. There are a lot of creative professionals in Music, Video, Graphics, etc. that would likely migrate to PC platforms...
One might figure that with Apple's profitability they could afford to carry one piece of hardware that doesn't make a huge profit. I'd sure hate to see the Mac Pro line die, although I don't have much use for one since the top-of-the-line iMac is enough for me. It's just that the Mac Pro seems like such a wonderful design. I suppose that isn't enough reason to keep the Mac Pro around if not enough people are buying it. What a shame if Apple discontinues it. Now that Apple is getting into the enterprise, it might have some chance of getting better sales. \