Does Thunderbolt fortell the end of the line for the Mac Pro as we know it?

Thunderbolt will not only replace every cable out there but will replace the very slow USB 2.0 which surpasses it at 20X the speed. It will replace USB 3.0 which still hasn't taken off and yet it will surpass it at twice the speed. In the next 6 months we will be seeing alot of products with Thunderbolt ports.

Not even the remotest chance is going to cancel their Mac Pro line.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous and naive articles I've ever read on the subject of computers.

Do you SERIOUSLY think that animators are going to go from 12-core Xeon 32GB machines to quad-core i7's? Speed is everything in this industry.... computers don't exist on I/O ports alone.

And you guys are supposed to be the smart ones?

I have my reservations about Thunderbolt, and they're the same as I had for Firewire. Instead of writing them here, I'll refer you to here:

http://www.bill.eccles.net/bills_words/2011/02/what-i-dont-know-what-you-need.html

I think what the next MP could be is a sealed box with a form factor like the Mac Mini only larger.

It would come with a suitable range of high-end beefy CPUs and big amounts of RAM. Throw in some basic storage for the OS (maybe an SSD) with a

All the storage required for the video editing and stuff would come from external Light Peak hard disks and the video capture and processing and display kit could also come from Light Peak devices.

Ooh... speed of light... once they trade copper for Intel's original glass design, that is. Except for one problem: By the time Apple goes fiber optic, the internals in a Mac Pro will be running at speed of thought, rendering LightiningBolt so last-generation.

What are you Nucking Futs? The MacPro is going to be around for a long long time and it's not just the expansion that's important. There will be a Thunderbolt add-on card, if not from Apple from another vendor.

Professionals use MacPros, they are used in Hollywood to edit movies, in the studio to record music, engineers working with huge sets of data, etc. Developers with big apps that take half a day to compile, use 20+ MacPros to compile it in minutes.

Professionals, Scientists, Engineers, Artists, etc. Need MacPros! Even a quad core laptop is not good enough. The MacPro is not a desktop computer, it is a professional workstation class machine. The same pieces and parts cost more from Dell, HP, etc.

I bought a single MacPro instead of 5 PC's because with VMWare Fusion and enough disk space and RAM, I can virtualize an entire lab of virtual machines all interacting in virtual space in one machine! I use less power and space. I use this box heavily. A laptop or Mini system would not be able to do all this...

How many TB ports will the new mac pro have then, because we know that, 1) there aren't many TB devices right now, 2) If you daisy chain devices, highest speed becomes the slowest device, or if one device fails, everything downstream stops working.

I don't see this being better than having upgradable internals. Can you add RAM via TB? Use the latest greatest graphics card? No way. That seems like a pretty dumb article to me, has the writer ever assembled a PC? If he did, he'll know external ports =/= internal ports, the point of the MBP is be what every other Mac can't be and top of the line, why would Apple turn it into the Mac Mini?

SCSI hell all over again. I'm quite happy with my current Pro, thank you.

My interest in the Apple lineup is constranined to the Mac Mini, MacBook Pros and mobile devices. I can do all of my work within those constraints. These will already be relegated to "dongle hell" or more likely an integrated network architecture.

The Mac Pro is a elite device and it will most likely remain so with it's user upgradeable parts, slots and bays. I can't see them changing this because the premium charged for the privilege would be lessened.

I have a Mac Pro that I bought in late 2007. Before that, an iMac G5 iSight. The next Mac I buy will be a 27" iMac quad core, or whatever is made at the time. I remember reading way back about LightPeak then, now Thunderbolt, and thought how they could make an add-on box way smaller than the Mac Pro and have it for extra drive slots, possiblity of slots for internal cards for other types of hardware, maybe even additional memory if that is possible. The iMac would then be a Mac Pro but with a display. Anyways, just me daydreaming as usual. =)