Re: Pretty amazing Thunderbolt demo.

Removing the opticals, extra sata ports, a few hard drives and pcie lanes might knock it down more than an inch and a half, but I know nothing about it really. To my eye, and looking at that case and removing some parts, it could be smaller, I don't think it'd be much cheaper, though.

[Walter Soyka] "Now I do recognize my sizzle core beast bias, so this is an honest, sincere question: do you think the market for a small machine with loads of compute power but not much else is larger than the market for a larger, more traditional, better balanced workstation system?"

I have no idea. I do think a smaller machine has appeal. No way it will be mini sized.

I've been perusing the fcp forum for years now. It is astounding to me the amount of people that use iMacs for their primary editing system, even over MacBook Pros. This is pre-thunderbolt (which actually brings much more professional connectivity/opportunity to iMacs than ever, and now they go up to quad core i7s, and if you stop and appreciate them, a really sweetly engineered machine). People have been making lower power CPUs work for a while, and i bet Apple knows it.

I agree that the bigger processors simply cost much more, so there's no betterr way to cut the overall cost except to put in cheaper processors. But, fitting in to the "lead by design" aspect of Apple, and the advent of Thunderbolt, I do think that ultimately the MacPro case isnt long for this world, and I think people will like it. There's not many people who say, "gee, I wish this thing was bigger, heavier, more loud and a little faster", beyond Walter and the Sizzle Cores. ;)

Plus, if you allow user GPU upgradability, you'll be able to squeeze more out of the box as CPU speed won't be as crucial for editorial.

Jeremy