When Apple released the revised Mac Pros during the week they caused quite a bit of a stir, not so much because of what the new systems contained, but more because of the timing. With Apple’s annual Macworld keynote only a week away, the announcement of the new professional machines whet peoples appetites for what might be announced next week if the company was rolling out it’s high end systems a week earlier. Excitement over macworld aside, the new mac pros are very interesting for a number of reasons.
Firstly, they offer an incredible level of power in the default configuration. What was considered the ultimate high end only a generation ago is now standard across the line. Apple’s decision to offer 8 core as standard on it’s pro machines was certainly an interesting move, which I’ll discuss a bit more in a moment. Other wise though, for professionals, especially if you are doing anything that can take advantage of multiple processors, such as 3d rendering or video processing, these new systems are screamers, and a steal for the price of the entry level considering what you are getting.
On the high end, processor speed aside, there are some interesting new performance options including a new high speed disk format, Serial Attached Storage. This allows you to build a system with a very high performance disk set-up without having to have external storage. The new high end graphics card, while very expensive, looks to provide serious workstation level 3d power to the new systems too, although the quality of the drivers may affect this, and we will have to wait for some third party performance testing before the actual speeds can be determined.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about these new systems though, is their positioning in Apple’s line-up. The decision to go all 8 core across the line (apart from a build to order option to ‘”downgrade” to a quad core”) leaves a significant gap between Apple’s consumer and semipro iMacs. Previously there was a pretty consistent ramp up in terms of power across Apple’s product line, starting with the mac mini all the way up to the top end mac pro, but now there is a huge performance jump from the top end iMac to the entry level mac pro. The reason I think this is significant, is because it now leaves room in Apple’s line up for the much sought after mythical mid range tower. There are plenty of people who need the expandability of a tower but don’t need the performance of a mac pro, especially with dual quad core Xeons. A smaller, mac pro like enclosure with a core 2 duo chip, or even a dual core xeon, would slot in nicely between the high end imac and the entry level mac pro, and I think this may well just happen, perhaps not at next weeks expo, but maybe at some stage this year.
As Apple expands it’s mac presence in the market place and continues to grow its market share, the semi-pro tower segment, traditionally adopted by gamers and corporations is a huge untapped market for Apple. It may never happen, but I genuinely feel Apple has positioned its mac pro line in such a position in the companies product line up to allow this to happen.
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