"Glad I didn't wait for Nehalem Mac Pro" Thread (with POLL)

[netdog]

I got an early 2008 Octo 2.8 for £1699 when they were launched, even though at the time, it seemed like with the Nehalem architecture shift coming in a year so I considered getting by with my iMac until this new machine came that was to deliver speed boosts of 50% when doing things like rendering video. It was more of a want than an absolute need purchase, but I pulled the trigger anyway. And what a powerful beast it is.

Now, nothing against the new Mac Pros from a technical standpoint. They seem great, and the octos are no doubt going to be flame throwers when rendering.

Still, at these prices, I think that I would probably still buy my machine today rather than paying £1900 for a 2.66 4-core, £2500 for a 2.26 Octo, or almost £4600 for a 2.93 Octo. ACK! I know that the £ has dropped and that the chips cost more, but the Nehalem lineup is making my trusty Penryn look like an absolute bargain, and in the past year I have taken all my video off of tape and rendered it for digital storage. While the new ones might do this faster, all in all I am incredibly satisfied with the Penryn and find myself with no envy at all.

[Wiska]

Me too. The 2.8Ghz 8-core is already quite a beast, so I've had it for over a year now, and it still seems "high end" to me.

My next Mac Pro purchase will be 32-core and at least 3.6Ghz, and that'll be at least another three years away. :)

[peskaa]

I bought a 2.8/8, 4GB RAM, 8800GT, 1.32TB of hard drive space and AppleCare for £1750 back in March 2008 (student discount). Compared to what Apple are offering today, I'm pretty happy. My only change is going to be a 4870 to replace the 8800GT.

I won't replace this Penryn until 2011, and I hope by then the economy will have sorted itself out.

[Tesselator]

I like the new machines! I hate the prices. All around!

It's just too silly! We're paying more for a lower clock speed. The new processor architecture makes up for the drop in clocks but our average computing experience will be slower in general with a little better performance at some (few!) intensive tasks. And they want more money for THAT??? I think they're blowing it myself. Roll-yur-own hackintoshes and dell type prefab kits are a lot cheaper aren't they? I guess you can get a fast i7, overclock the crap out of it, have more ram, and a MUCH faster computing experience - at a fraction of the price. I betcha anything their sales drop like a rock. Too bad too.

Maybe they'll nip it in the bud by offering everyone who buys within the 1st 6 months a $400 rebate. :D

[Weepul]

Needs a "wish I hadn't waited, will look for a 2.8 now" option, which is what I might end up doing, maybe.

[Quu]

I'll probably go with a Hackintosh at those prices :p

[Nalp2010]

The new prices/exchange rate will kill the octo-Mac Pro for the home user (in the UK) with even the basic configs coming in at £2500 and more. I love my octo-Pro 2008 more now because I simply could not justify the purchase of a new Pro at current prices. :)

[Gloor]

I agree, I was actually thinking of selling this machine and pay a little extra to get nehalem but now I'm not gonna do that as I would pay a lot more. I think that my penryn will unleash more power with SL so I think I have few years of powerfull machine. I hope that by the time I'm ready to buy next one Apple will take the prices back to what it was. Quad as a default now is a joke.

[netdog]

Needs a "wish I hadn't waited, will look for a 2.8 now" option, which is what I might end up doing, maybe.

I realized that I forgot to include that just as I pushed the post button and I can't find a way to edit it. Moderators?

Even so, I think that you are one of the few judging by what is being said on this board. Still, enjoy your Nehalem MP. It will be mighty!

[robinp]

Needs a "wish I hadn't waited, will look for a 2.8 now" option, which is what I might end up doing, maybe.

Yes completely agree, or in my case, a 3.2 harpertown

[Tesselator]

I realized that I forgot to include that just as I pushed the post button and I can't find a way to edit it. Moderators?

Even so, I think that you are one of the few judging by what is being said on this board. Still, enjoy your Nehalem MP. It will be mighty!

No sweat either way for me but I think it's a good chunk. We were all waiting for faster workstation class machine offerings at close to the same price as the last generation. Instead we're offered a box that profiles more like a server - slower editing - faster bulk processing - and are charged too much at the same time.

I guess it's a good idea to tell Apple?!? http://www.apple.com/feedback/


.

[HyperSnake]

Me too. The 2.8Ghz 8-core is already quite a beast, so I've had it for over a year now, and it still seems "high end" to me.

My next Mac Pro purchase will be 32-core and at least 3.6Ghz, and that'll be at least another three years away. :)

The time of having the most Ghz are over, Ghz will go down and cores will go up, so you really shouldn't expect a 32-core 3.6Ghz machine until in 10 or 20 years. Expect a 32-core 1.8 ghz machine in 5 years instead

[netdog]

The Hackintosh seems to be the biggest winner with yesterday's announcements.

[xUKHCx]

The Hackintosh seems to be the biggest winner with yesterday's announcements.

Don't you think it is a bit much to make such a statement after 59 minutes and only 23* people voting in a thread with a title that those who are happy probably won't visit (thus making the results of the poll more than a little biased anyway).


* And the difference between your statement being backed up by the bias facts and not is marginal at best.

[Tesselator]

The time of having the most Ghz are over, Ghz will go down and cores will go up, so you really shouldn't expect a 32-core 3.6Ghz machine until in 10 or 20 years. Expect a 32-core 1.8 ghz machine in 5 years instead

Not really true. We can put together a 32 core 1.8 right now for about the same as they want for a Mac Pro. (It's only 2 blades if you count virtual and 4 in you don't)

We should be seeing clock rates stay the same 2.4 ~ 3.2 and the number of cores increase for roughly the same cost.

I think this is why people are sore. They saw the clock go down, number of cores go up, and the prices shoot WAY up.

[netdog]

Don't you think it is a bit much to make such a statement after 59 minutes and only 23 people voting in a thread with a title that those who are happy probably won't visit (thus making the results of the poll more than a little biased anyway).

I'm going by what I am reading. The Penryn was somewhat reasonable as a purchase for the home if you needed the horsepower. With these, non-corporate users seem to be stating in a lot of threads that the new lineup and pricing are making them think instead about a Hackintosh.

[xUKHCx]

I'm going by what I am reading.

Where, on these forums?

[netdog]

Yep. Right here at MacRumors.

[kevink2]

The question didn't include anything that fit me. I bought mine a year ago, wouldn't have wanted to wait another year (and even then I was lucky I wasn't eligible until a year ago for my $1000 assistance from work, or I would have bought the previous model in the previous September). You can't postpone too much, forever, or are people waiting for the next major refresh in 12-16 months?

[lewchenko]

Its a frustrating position now...

1) You have waited all this time for an over priced update.

2) You now cant afford the new updated machines, and feel sick at the thought of paying so much money for the base line quad core machine.

3) You try and hunt down a 2008 machine for a realistic price, kicking yourself for not buying one last year, and then kick yourself again for the fact that the 2008 machine is using year old tech... at practically full price.


So the only option I can see is not to buy.. Look into alternatives. I was torn between a top end iMac and a lower end Mac Pro. Neither are now attractive options unfortunately.

[Rt&Dzine]

The 8GB limit on the quad core bothers me (unless we find out it can handle more). So I'm glad I didn't/couldn't wait. Also I like to buy refurb so I would have to wait even longer.

EDIT: But the new Quad is undoubtably faster than the 2008 Quad.

[mdk100]

Ah, a gloating thread...never seen one of those on the internet before!

I'm pretty happy with my post-MacWorld purchase of the 8/2.8 Mac Pro. They're still available on Amazon, so I encourage anyone interested to go there or check the refurb store on Apple. My view from looking at the performance specs on Apple.com for the new Mac Pro is that the big differences are very application specific. The Aperture performance delta is pretty minor (10-20%). Unless you're a professional who needs specific speed increases in certain tasks, the 2008 remains a great platform. It's certainly a good platform for a high-end consumer, like me, that just wants to handle HDV occasionally and a few other intensive tasks, while having a long upgrade life.

There's a lesson here - don't get too caught up in the engineering specifics on this stuff. At this point in technology, it's all a tradeoff. The new Mac Pros have slower clock speeds, faster memory bandwidth - but it has a narrow impact on the overall performance portfolio. It's easy to be swayed by all the opinions on these forums - but you should buy what meets your needs. Might be a Mac mini or iMac, but if you go with a Mac Pro, you're getting the best desktop on the market...whether it's a 2008 or 2009. It's still vastly superior to anything else out there, and the positive side of this is that Apple is generally preserving your investment in these things, so resale value is pretty good (try that on a Dell). I'd be happy buying a 2008 model even today, as the performance and price points are still attractive.

[alphaod]

I want to buy the 2.66 Octo; a bit pricey however; originally I would have gotten the 3.0 Octo and I figured it would come down to around $3000 with a ADC discount, but the new one would cost $4500! That's just crazy.

However RAM isn't crazy expensive from Apple it seems. Other buyers don't forget you need to buy RAM in identical triples for triple channel support!

[mason.kramer]

Considering what's available as of yester, the 2006 Octo has been a sweet value.

The iMac updates are even worse.

The minis are decent.

This has been the worst refresh in years.

I don't assign all of the blame to Apple, however. Intel is increasing its prices in the absence of any serious competition. Apple has to pay $500-$800 per computer to Intel in the Nehalem generation. You can find cheap quad core i7's from Dell, but you can't find octo core ones.

[milo]

Your poll is missing an option - "Regretting that I waited".

[milo]

Its a frustrating position now...

1) You have waited all this time for an over priced update.

2) You now cant afford the new updated machines, and feel sick at the thought of paying so much money for the base line quad core machine.

3) You try and hunt down a 2008 machine for a realistic price, kicking yourself for not buying one last year, and then kick yourself again for the fact that the 2008 machine is using year old tech... at practically full price.


So the only option I can see is not to buy.. Look into alternatives. I was torn between a top end iMac and a lower end Mac Pro. Neither are now attractive options unfortunately.

Excellent post, I'm in exactly that boat. Alternatives are looking good now, and I bet you can guess which alternative I have in mind.

[jeffreyk]

I bought my Quad Core 2.8 GHz MP (with a total of 10GB memory: 2GB standard and the extra 8GB purchased from OWC) about 5-6 weeks ago and I cannot express how thrilled I am to have this powerhouse of a desktop machine. I also added the Dell 3007WFP-HC 30-inch monitor about two weeks ago as icing on the new MP Cake, as well. This is my first-ever Mac and the only regret is that I didn't make the switch sooner. I don't do heavy-duty graphics -- as I'm a writer -- but wanted the fastest and best machine I could afford to get me thru many years before even considering another upgrade. I feel I have that in my current Mac Pro. I hope the new machines are incredibly fast so those who waited to buy them have great machines to use for quite some time; but I have no regrets in getting my Mac Pro when I did.

[fernmeister]

Another early 2008 buyer. Had already waited for that upgrade and now glad to be looking back over a year's development and work with that machine.

There's a number of things I like about the new Mac Pro. But, for me, there's no compelling argument to look at an upgrade until all the apps I run have gone 64 bit, which seems a few years away.

[Nordichund]

Considering how prices are falling in the PC world I am surprised by how much the new Mac Pro costs. I bought an early 08 Mac Pro last February and I intend to keep it for at least another two years, hopefully three. It is a beast of a machine. I can't even begin to imagine the specs on a Mac Pro in 2012.

Another concern are the Apple monitors. I'm sorry I just cannot take the new 24" screen seriously. I thought Apple would have offered something for the pros when they released their new machine.

Apple are definately heading in a new direction. Not sure I like it though. Saying that the 2009 Mac Pro is a fantastic machine. Considering what computers cost ten years ago, it is a bargain.