Hacker News Reader

Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

As someone who hasn't been following the news in these last few days, I got very depressed after reading this headline - which of course (silly me) turned out to be complete and utter sensationalistic bullshit.

I agree the silent almost-not upgrade is not a good sign, but it may simply be due to the release schedule of Intel's server chip. Anyway, the Mac Pro still exists and it's still a good machine. By these standards I have an ancient 2008 Mac Pro and it's absolutely good enough for anything I can throw at it.

View on HN

It was true that the Mac Pro didn't receive any updates in the prior two years because there simply wasn't a new Intel chipset to update to...

But Intel's Sandy Bridge Xeon chipset and new E5 processors have now been put for a few months, with Dell's Precisions and other workstations now using them.

Maybe there is a bigger update in the works and Sandy Bridge wasn't worth the investment, so Apple is holding out for the next step. I don't know Intel's roadmap. But I do know Apple has no problems throwing out products it deems superfluous, so I've been worried about the Mac Pro's future for quite a while. As a multi-screen kind of guy, I will definitely leave the platform once the only upgrade path left is the iMac.

The headline wrongly suggests that the Mac Pro was canceled. It wasn't.

I'd mention the new high end hdpi display has 3 additional outputs. Two thunderbolt / displayport, one hdmi, for a total of four.

"As a multi-screen kind of guy, I will definitely leave the platform once the only upgrade path left is the iMac."

You can connect two external screens to an iMac, making a total of three screens.

http://gigaom.com/apple/new-27-inch-imac-supports-dual-exter...

I want my display and my computer separate. I want to connect non-Apple displays. Sometimes I want more than three screens. I want to be able to upgrade my graphics card, which I have done on my Pro 2 times. I'd love to be able to chain an arbitrary number of Thunderbolt displays together trading refresh rate for real estate but that's just not how it works, in fact it will probably never work this way.

Buy a 3-slot Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis, fill it with top-end Mac-compatible video cards, and connect it to a Mac Mini via Thunderbolt.

I think you can daisy-chain six of these Thunderbolt-PCIe boxes, which would give you, what 36 monitors?

And not thunderbolt monitors, they'd be whatever the gfx cards you use support, so probably DVI or HDMI or DisplayPort.

It's a good idea but the Mini isn't really in the same category as far as processing power and memory capacity go. And this extension chassis is ridiculously expensive for no reason. Still, it's a good alternative if/when the Pro goes out.

Yes, as I note elsewhere, what might be nice would be a "MacMini Pro", with appropriate CPUs, RAM slots, reasonable default graphics, and a couple hard drive/SSD slots, in a sleek, compact box with adequate power supply and cooling.

I'm sure Apple could produce extension chassis at a lower price point than 3rd parties, if they wanted to, but I doubt they want to get into that business.

Yes. Headless Macs are important for those who need high end displays. Depending on your needs, Apple really never was in that market.

Apple's displays are now all glossy, have dropped from 16:10 to 16:9, and most have such color inconsistency across the panel that they're impossible to calibrate. An iMac without a yellow band somewhere on the screen is like a unicorn these days.

"Yes. Headless Macs are important for those who need high end displays. Depending on your needs, Apple really never was in that market."

They were, but it's been a while. Quadra 840AV (1993) , PowerMac 9600 (1997).

At the time, if you wanted multiple screens, the Apple Macintosh platform provided flexibility that you couldn't get on the Windows NT side. Competitors were Silicon Graphics, Sun, and NeXT, but their workstations were way more expensive.

It's obvious that Apple has moved more towards consumers, and financially, it has worked for them. But I too would like Apple to give some love to professional desktop users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Quadra_840AV

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_9500

Reply on news.ycombinator.com