This is an honest question, not a criticism, to the people who are disappointed with the Mac Pro offering: is a two-processor, 12 core machine at 3 GHz with 64 GB of RAM and 4 storage bays (up to 1 TB HDD, up to 512 GB SSD per bay) not enough workstation for you? If not, what do you use your workstation for, and what are your needs?
I ask because that seems like a hefty machine to me. The max specs on the Mac Pro are almost as much as the development nodes in the cluster I have access to, and those nodes host about 10 developers per node.
One of the biggest shortcomings is the inability to get a modern top-of-the-line graphics card in an official supported Mac Pro configuration. I know people with heavily GPU-dependent workflows that have switched to Windows workstations for this purpose specifically.
I think there's two factors here. First, the cost. If you're only going to offer 2-year-old hardware, it's hard to justify keeping the same price (especially when the base price was a bit high to begin with). Second, the Mac Pro is lacking hardware that would allow it to be future-proof (SATA III, USB3, Thunderbolt, new socket, etc). Basically, you're buying a dead-end of a computer at this point.
It's a reasonable question. My answer is: Thunderbolt.
The only Apple display that can simulate pixel-for-pixel an iPad Retina display is the (discontinued) 30", and only in landscape orientation. The only way to test a Retina Mac app today (short of buying a new Macbook Pro) is to view it double-size.
I know bigger-than-15" Retina displays would be super-expensive today, but I assume the eventual Retina external displays will be (like the current 27" display) Thunderbolt-only, and that Thunderbolt requires CPU/chipset support (right?), which makes it sound to me as though no current Mac Pro will ever show (correctly-sized) Retina content.
That's not a dealbreaker for me today, but Mac Pro buyers tend to buy them to last for several years. Nobody really wants to pay more for a new expandable machine that only supports an end-of-life expansion port. A Thunderbolt Mac Pro would at least stand a good chance of being Retina-upgradeable (with a new graphics card).
True, but Thunderbolt is the newer technology. I recognize there might be some bias going on here, but the truth is that buying a display port display right now feels a bit like buying a S-VGA CRT to me.
I just recently bought the Display Port model. I just couldn't justify the additional expense of upgrading my MacBook to a Thunderbolt-supporting model.
It wouldn't be as bad, if it could easily be daisy-chained off a Thunderbolt monitor.
Unfortunately it appears that you need another Thunderbolt device after a Thunderbolt monitor, before you can connect a display port monitor.
I ask because that seems like a hefty machine to me. The max specs on the Mac Pro are almost as much as the development nodes in the cluster I have access to, and those nodes host about 10 developers per node.