Thursday, February 7th 2013
Mac Pro Gets Updated This Spring, Powered by Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon
Apple's high-performance desktop Mac Pro will get its long overdue specifications overhaul this spring. The Mac Pro is being pulled off shelves in Europe due to lack of compliance with local regulations; but a French retailer believes the pull out is temporary, and that a new, rehashed Mac Pro will be reintroduced in Spring (March-April). The new Mac Pro pole-vaults Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon processor line to Intel's next-generation Xeon "Ivy Bridge-EP" dual-socket processors, SSDs being standard equipment, and the latest generation NVIDIA GeForce or AMD Radeon graphics cards. It's also quite likely that Apple to refresh its display lineup to support higher resolutions.
Source:
X-bit Labs
115 Comments on Mac Pro Gets Updated This Spring, Powered by Ivy Bridge-EP Xeon
www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176552
For starters, while there are a lot of users that spend thousands every year on hardware, those same users also pad the expenses by sellling rather modern hardware they are replacing to other users. Suddenly going from a GTX580 to a GTX680 only costs $1-200 for a pretty nice performance bump. On top of that, not everyone pays out the ass for top of the line systems to play console ports at 200fps. The most popular games (based on topics and observation) on TPU are The Witcher 2, Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and DayZ. Of those, most of them have PC versions that fully support modding and/or have DX11 support. A few are even PC exclusives (for the time being in some cases).
Nextly, people like Windows (primarily 7) because it does everything well enough. It's a jack of all trades OS that is hugely common and allows for you to do whatever you want. Games? Go for it. Editting? Go for it. Graphic Design? Shine on you crazy diamond. OSX on the other hand, can do a few things very well, but has almost no support in other areas. The reason Games are so common for TPU users, is because if you buy a $3-400 GPU, why wouldn't you play a lot of games? It doesn't make sense to have that hardware if you're not going to use it. Microsoft has been trying to get into the Tablet market, but who the hell hasn't? You can buy tablets at Rite Aid for god sake...
The next-gen of consoles killing PC gaming? Never happen. PC Gaming will never die, as long as it offers the freedom to customize that consoles absolutely do not. Also, software sales for PC games have been trending upwards for years, and for the past few years console software sales have trended down. All a new generation of consoles will do is get consumers to buy a new console and maybe a few games this year. The people who play consoles a lot will never be PC Gamers anyway, so it won't exactly hurt sales on the PC side of things. I'd rather spend a few hundred every couple years upgrading my PC and buying software for dirt cheap than pay full price for games and a single investment of a few hundred dollars. Especially when PC allows for upgrades, higher resolutions, and increased image quality thanks to things like MSAA and FXAA.
On top of that, the digital distribution on consoles is garbage. PSN is a pile of crap, I'll admit that. Xbox Live is okay, but when you're paying monthly just to use the service you're essentially overpaying for every aspect of the service. If Steam charged monthly nobody would use it--okay, maybe they would, but nobody compares when it comes to Steam Sales. When exactly did he point that out? Everything I've read has him pretty optimistic about the future of the PC as a platform, to the extent of him expanding PC presence to the living room with small cost-effective HTPC's. Free and Open is ideal, but that's what PC Gamers are all about. Steam is DRM, I'll admit that, but it also offers more tools and better functionality than any other platform out there. Things like Steam Workshop and Steam Green Light are leading to amazing things in the world of PC Gaming, what does Xbox Live or PSN have by comparison?
I don't think the problem with PC gaming is that it's dying, it's just that it's not growing as quickly as consoles and therefore seems like a shrinking marketshare.
Economically, on the supply side the curve will go up. If prices goes up then supply will go up. This is what is happening on the console market right now. There is a shift in the equilibrium to the right because of higher demand and higher prices. If you ever wonder and kept complaining about why developers shifted their resources to making console games first. They will go where it will most benefit them and it's all about $$.
The other factor in the reduction of market share for PC is that console is considered inferior goods. Since 2008, it is a better economic choice for most people. Inferior goods have an inverse effect compared to market trend. People with no jobs, less money, that has a ton of free time on their hands will want a $300 console to entertain them instead of a $1000 computer. I was out of the job for a few months along with a few friends and this was a no brainer decision. We were not broke, it's just wise not to waste money when you're in between jobs in a tough economy.
what is ironic is that a lot of people hate apple because they are a walled garden. now that microsoft is moving rapidly in that direction will those same haters jump to linux where gabe and the entire valve/steam enterprise is putting their chips?
PC already has some of the best and most talented Indie Developers in the industry. With games like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, The Binding Of Isaac, Jamestown, The Legend of Grimrock, Natural Selection 2--the list goes on and on. Sure a lot of these games have appeared on consoles, but most of them started on the PC, and really shine there. You're taking his words out of context. He said that when Windows 8 was ready to release and Microsoft had their own "App Store" built into it, he feared it meant Microsoft would lock other companies out of distributing apps through Windows. If that were the case Steam would pretty much cease to exist, and would be forced to move to a different OS or develop their own. None of that ended up happening so as far as we know Steam is secure on Windows.
As for more development for games on Linux than Mac, that's because Mac-users generally aren't gamers. There are plenty of tech-loving individuals that want to use Linux but are stuck with Windows because Linux has literally no support for games. On top of that, to make Steambox cost-effective they need to cut out anything that adds to cost--like an operating system from a third party. It will also allow them to work with a more streamlined PC Operating System, a customized version of Linux dedicated to running games is a lot more ideal than a bloated general purpose operating system like Windows.
I remember people said PC Gaming was dead when the Xbox 360 launched, and after 7-8 years the revenue has continued to go up.
I can't even find myself recommending macs to people who only surf the web, because I am afraid that they might try and do something they know a PC can do, that a mac can't, and be disappointed.
this new mac pro is pretty sweet and part for part only costs about $400 more than a PC if you built it yourself. now obviously OSX costs a little bit more than Windows 8, the build quality of the mac pro is very good and the first year of support that comes with the purchase is considered the best in the industry. those three things alone make a big difference to someone considering this or a pc.