Looks like no new MacPro's until late March at very earliest

[mhschmieder]

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/12/15/det ... rs-leaked/

This is a good news/bad news situation for many of us.

I can't wait that long so will probably get an iMac after all.

But the next gen of MacPro's ought to be killer. I don't usually put much stock in rumours, with the exception of stuff like this where a chip is somewhat a known quantity with verifiable shipping numbers and dates.

[Frodo]

I wasn't looking for the new towers before Aug-Sept for some reason.

6 cores-- that's down from 8 Cores, but there are likely other enhancements to make up the diff. From the looks of things, there will still be a 32GB RAM limit from the 2x16 or 4x8 indication--- Which begs the question: will there actually be RAM sticks in 16GB denominations?? Wow. The price of current MacPro RAM in its largest designation makes me afraid-- very afraid! The potential horsepower makes me very happy!

[johnnytucats]

The 8-core Macs are actually two 4-core processors, are they not? I think the 6-core processors will result in 12-core machines.

[mhschmieder]

Yep; 12-core with 24-core virtual.

I'm so underpowered it's hard to judge, but I keep thinking memory is more often a bigger limitation than CPU horsepower, with the kinds of work most of us do in audio (especially when dealing with sample libraries).

In other words, I doubt any current offering would be challenged by most VI's, DAW's, and Libraries, from a CPU point of view. But there may be other areas that are, such as scientific computation/visualization, maybe video editing apps, etc.

[mhschmieder]

After spending a lot of time with specs last night, I came to the conclusion that the MacBook Pro line is likely to be updated in january, with the MacPro line following it by three months.

I'm changing my view on the 17" MBP (but not the others), after a more thorough comparison of specs and the likelihood that the next rev will be close to the i7 iMac that just came out. Or maybe the i5 due to heat issues. Once the specs are bumped, I think it will be good value, with the main differentiation being smaller screen, yet offset by eSATA functionality (via ExpressCard).

This is really the first time I have realised all the reasons why the MBP 17" is truly a pro system, and perhaps moreso even than the high-end iMacs. For one thing, I didn't know you can use a 7200 rpm drive in them. I'm hoping the next version goes up to 16 GB RAM.

As it stands, the current MacPro is going to be a hard sell for anyone who can hold out -- especially as the entry-level model is limited to 16 GB.