Updated Mac Pro Benchmarks and Video of Internals

[drsmithy]

a xeon based one>?<

The only difference between the Core i7 920 and the quad-core Mac Pro's Xeon is ECC support.

So, like I said, if you're happy without ECC RAM, there it is.

[Umbongo]

excellent point, are there even any competitors atm?

The big vendors like Dell and HP haven't updated yet as they are waiting for Xeon parts to be released, unless you are happy with a "consumer" system. There are plenty of companies shipping workstations with i7 processors that will be no different than their eventual single socket Xeon systems aside from ECC support.

If Dell continue with their current price ideology then I'd expect something equal to the quad Mac Pros replacing the precision T3400 to cost $500-700 less than Apple's offering and include 3 years warranty so maybe $1000 less depending how you look at it. The other difference being the Dell will also probably be available with much more minimal specifications than the Apple models for those looking to cut costs.

DP systems will probably be of a similar price to Apple, though something with two 2.26GHz processors might be under $3,000.

[avkills]

The big vendors like Dell and HP haven't updated yet as they are waiting for Xeon parts to be released, unless you are happy with a "consumer" system. There are plenty of companies shipping workstations with i7 processors that will be no different than their eventual single socket Xeon systems aside from ECC support.

If Dell continue with their current price ideology then I'd expect something equal to the quad Mac Pros replacing the precision T3400 to cost $500-700 less than Apple's offering and include 3 years warranty so maybe $1000 less depending how you look at it. The other difference being the Dell will also probably be available with much more minimal specifications than the Apple models for those looking to cut costs.

DP systems will probably be of a similar price to Apple, though something with two 2.26GHz processors might be under $3,000.

Everytime I've custom configured a Dell to match a Mac Pro or a PowerMac (yes I've done it since then) the Dell was always more. And when I say match, I mean configured the way I want; nothing watered down.

-mark

[Master Chief]

1 - I've looked at the same benchmarks, and they OBVIOUSLY show that a much-lower clocked MP beats the pants out of the 2008 models. If this is not better, I don't know what it is. As for prices, they are competitively priced with any other branded PC out there...frankenmacs and acme chinese PCs don't count, of course.

Let's get to the bottom of this, and start by asking if you actually bought a new Mac Pro, like I did? The new MP is great, but also very much manufactured in China. Not to mention that mine didn't work very long, that is my power supply started to produce weird noises and the smoke came out of it. Yet I'm not mad, but boy was I disappointed.

2 - They ARE the fastest and most powerful machines in the world right now, regardless of whether you believe it or not as a PC fanboy. There is NO OTHER personal workstation that is faster than the new MPs, especially because there is NO OTHER PC using the newest chips.

Yes, the new MP's are the fastest Apple computers, but I'm afraid that I have bad news for you: we received three new motherboards today, all three support dual Xeon 5500's and can run at higher clock rates - this because of the over clock abilities.

Just keep reading the usual hardware sites, and you'll see what we found out today.

Again, negative comments are only admissible for those that can't or don't wanna afford it. The new MPs are the cream of the crop right now.

Not really, because I have one. And I also like it very much - despite the fact that the first one had to be replaced after a few days only. I'm also editor of a certain Mac magazine, so I'm a long time Apple user.

However, I am neither an Apple nor PC fan, but Apple PC's are just PC's too these days. And because of this it is fair that people try to compare hardware components, but I admit that the casing and mother/daughter boards are hard to compare with other hardware at this moment.

Yes, I did OC my 2008 MP, and that worked great - some of us need more power, to do more things in less time. You know efficiency... so that's why I look beyond the usual and standard hardware/settings. I tell you that can be a lot of fun.

Let's go back on-topic: It's great to have a great looking internal casing, as long as you don't have to pay a heavy price for it - I rather have a PC that works, and for a long time without any trouble (I'm not much of a case mod guy anyway).

The fact that you can't really upgrade your memory (memory limit for single CPU MP) and can no longer add that second CPU (for many people a deal breaker) which basically means that your benchmark results (hello) will most likely stay put forever

Think about this: Why are there two different systems? But since Apple didn't really sell that second CPU, really, I'm not surprised. Not at all.

[Umbongo]

Everytime I've custom configured a Dell to match a Mac Pro or a PowerMac (yes I've done it since then) the Dell was always more. And when I say match, I mean configured the way I want; nothing watered down.

-mark

Yes that was the case with the past Mac Pros even when Dell heavily discounted to clear old processors for the upcomming ones. Apple even advertised the fact when they introduced them. However Apple have changed the value now by putting in cheaper components and charging more. So the gap will likely close.

[sneezymarble]

Let's get to the bottom of this, and start by asking if you actually bought a new Mac Pro, like I did? The new MP is great, but also very much manufactured in China. Not to mention that mine didn't work very long, that is my power supply started to produce weird noises and the smoke came out of it. Yet I'm not mad, but boy was I disappointed.

Yes, the new MP's are the fastest Apple computers, but I'm afraid that I have bad news for you: we received three new motherboards today, all three support dual Xeon 5500's and can run at higher clock rates - this because of the over clock abilities.

Just keep reading the usual hardware sites, and you'll see what we found out today.

Not really, because I have one. And I also like it very much - despite the fact that the first one had to be replaced after a few days only. I'm also editor of a certain Mac magazine, so I'm a long time Apple user.

However, I am neither an Apple nor PC fan, but Apple PC's are just PC's too these days. And because of this it is fair that people try to compare hardware components, but I admit that the casing and mother/daughter boards are hard to compare with other hardware at this moment.

Yes, I did OC my 2008 MP, and that worked great - some of us need more power, to do more things in less time. You know efficiency... so that's why I look beyond the usual and standard hardware/settings. I tell you that can be a lot of fun.

Let's go back on-topic: It's great to have a great looking internal casing, as long as you don't have to pay a heavy price for it - I rather have a PC that works, and for a long time without any trouble (I'm not much of a case mod guy anyway).

The fact that you can't really upgrade your memory (memory limit for single CPU MP) and can no longer add that second CPU (for many people a deal breaker) which basically means that your benchmark results (hello) will most likely stay put forever

Think about this: Why are there two different systems? But since Apple didn't really sell that second CPU, really, I'm not surprised. Not at all.

Fantastic post. This was a pleasure to read.

Yes that was the case with the past Mac Pros even when Dell heavily discounted to clear old processors for the upcomming ones. Apple even advertised the fact when they introduced them. However Apple have changed the value now by putting in cheaper components and charging more. So the gap will likely close.

Maybe. Or, things might end up just as they have been in the past; with Apple offering a very competitively priced workstation. We'll have to wait and see.

[awulf]

For interest sakes, my Hackintosh seems to work reliably at 3.42GHz but anymore kernel panics start to happen. This is achieved by increasing the clock speed under the BIOS.

Added the Mac Pro results from the story and my MacBook Pro for a comparison :D

And here are the results:

[DoFoT9]

For interest sakes, my Hackintosh seems to work reliably at 3.42GHz but anymore kernel panics start to happen. This is achieved by increasing the clock speed under the BIOS.

Added the Mac Pro results from the story and my MacBook Pro for a comparison :D

And here are the results:

why does the 2.66ghz FLOGG your 3.4GHz hack?? or is the 2.66GHz an octo?? you dont specify..

acutally wait yes you do.. mybad, eyes are getting old :p

p.s. how much did u pay for that? in australian please :) im also here.

[awulf]

why does the 2.66ghz FLOGG your 3.4GHz hack?? or is the 2.66GHz an octo?? you dont specify..

acutally wait yes you do.. mybad, eyes are getting old :p

p.s. how much did u pay for that? in australian please :) im also here.

The longer the bar the better it is in this test. The 2.66GHz is my system at regular speed, 3.42GHz is when its Over Clocked to the maximum stable speed.

Go to page 3 of this thread there I have put up a PDF of the whole system including cost of parts.

[DoFoT9]

The longer the bar the better it is in this test. The 2.66GHz is my system at regular speed, 3.42GHz is when its Over Clocked to the maximum stable speed.

lol yes i know the 2.66ghz is the standard clock. the 2.66 octo seems to flogg your hackintosh.. id hate to see what an octo 2.93ghz would do to it in multitasking!

Go to page 3 of this thread there I have put up a PDF of the whole system including cost of parts.

aahh that was your PC, ill take a look at it!

[hiimamac]

why does the 2.66ghz FLOGG your 3.4GHz hack?? or is the 2.66GHz an octo?? you dont specify..

acutally wait yes you do.. mybad, eyes are getting old :p

p.s. how much did u pay for that? in australian please :) im also here.

You know, when you own a MacBook pro, have high end audio gear, editing software and can bud a pc that overclocks and run stable for 2-3 years, it sure is hard to not build a hack for $500 dollars and get near octo performance for 1/5th the price. Not bad for the cost of a drum pad really and the hack crowd has come a long way.

In fact, sort of hard to justify when Apple still doesn't use the i7 chips and lower clock speed. I suppose for me, I wonder what you can build that runs as quiet. That is worth the price, especially with audio production.

[DoFoT9]

You know, when you own a MacBook pro, have high end audio gear, editing software and can bud a pc that overclocks and run stable for 2-3 years, it sure is hard to not build a hack for $500 dollars and get near octo performance for 1/5th the price. Not bad for the cost of a drum pad really and the hack crowd has come a long way.

In fact, sort of hard to justify when Apple still doesn't use the i7 chips and lower clock speed. I suppose for me, I wonder what you can build that runs as quiet. That is worth the price, especially with audio production.

you write very confusingly!!!!!

i currently have a hack, it cost me $500 (australian, so way less then where you are) and its great! im all for building a hack if you want to! there is nothing wrong with it, however i dont know what your saying...why do drum pads come into it??

[awulf]

lol yes i know the 2.66ghz is the standard clock. the 2.66 octo seems to flogg your hackintosh.. id hate to see what an octo 2.93ghz would do to it in multitasking!


Yeah no doubt about that, considering the Mac Pro 2.66GHz Octo is AU$8449, you'd hope it would beat my $1653 system. I also think the 2.26GHz Octo (AU$5899) would beat my system a fair bit in some other benchmarks that could utilise the 16 virtual cores better. Also imagine over clocking the Octo Mac Pros, what results that'll give! Only a matter of time before someone figures out how to do it.

[DoFoT9]

Yeah no doubt about that, considering the Mac Pro 2.66GHz Octo is AU$8449, you'd hope it would beat my $1653 system. I also think the 2.26GHz Octo (AU$5899) would beat my system a fair bit in some other benchmarks that could utilise the 16 virtual cores better. Also imagine over clocking the Octo Mac Pros, what results that'll give! Only a matter of time before someone figures out how to do it.

yea the prices are pretty rediculous but thats what you get i guess... cant change it.. they are the only computers available in their class at the moment, no other company in the world currently sells them!!

its virtually impossible to overclock an apple computer, basically because of the locked multipliers and harder to access EFI

[awulf]

In fact, sort of hard to justify when Apple still doesn't use the i7 chips and lower clock speed. I suppose for me, I wonder what you can build that runs as quiet. That is worth the price, especially with audio production.

You could build yourself a really silent i7 Hackintosh:
Firstly you need a silent case, the Lian Li P60F I have is very silent, but you can get better. I have a friend with the Antec 900 (http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=MjM=) its dead silent.

Then you need a silent Power supply, most quality ones these days are including the one I used (Seasonic S12 Energy+ 650W).

Then you will remove the heat sink fan from the i7 and the Graphics card and replace them with passive heat sinks.
For most graphics cards: Artic Accelero S1 Rev.2 (http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105&language=en) (I have ordered one)
For the i7: Cooler Master Hyper Z600 (http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=detail&tbcate=1&id=4509)

[fafner]

MAc PRO machines are expensive, but they are designed for PRO users. Those who gets paid $100 /h and then an expensive machine is not much.

I just bought an Dell T7400 they start at $1500 but my machine ended at $7500 (2xX5460, 16G, 2 SAS 300GB, 2 x FX3700) so PRO machines are expensive!

Pro users wants PRO support, the software we have installed are normally more expensive then the machine, and the support local computer support and infrastructure: backup, network, storage, etc is at least as expensive as the computer per year.

PRO users do not want hackintosh built different every time without support, they want reliable solid computers, that works. I cant call my software support hotline with a problem running a Hackintosh, they will just tell me -get a certified computer and come back.

[awulf]

MAc PRO machines are expensive, but they are designed for PRO users. Those who gets paid $100 /h and then an expensive machine is not much.

I just bought an Dell T7400 they start at $1500 but my machine ended at $7500 (2xX5460, 16G, 2 SAS 300GB, 2 x FX3700) so PRO machines are expensive!

Pro users wants PRO support, the software we have installed are normally more expensive then the machine, and the support local computer support and infrastructure: backup, network, storage, etc is at least as expensive as the computer per year.

PRO users do not want hackintosh built different every time without support, they want reliable solid computers, that works. I cant call my software support hotline with a problem running a Hackintosh, they will just tell me -get a certified computer and come back.

That is fair enough. I'm also not debating the Pro-ness of the Dual CPU Mac Pros, I think they are excellent machines and you do get what you pay for.

But the single CPU machine is just an i7 with ECC, and has less memory support than most regular i7 machines, with a maximum of 8GB of RAM in a Dual-channel configuration. Rather than the "Consumer's" maximum of 24GB in Triple-channel. So a pro would step up to the Dual CPU configuration (since money isn't an issue apparently). Thus the low end Mac "Pro" is targeted for consumers who love to spend lots of money (AU$2500) on a pretty case/ apple tax.

Network, backup, storage, software works the same on a Hackintosh as on a normal Mac, its basically the same thing minus the EFI, but you add on the EFI on the EFI partition on the hard drive, or purchase an EFI-X rather than having it on the Firmware chip.

But I understand for a large business with an unlimited budget and corporate leaders who know nothing about computers will go "oh, nah, not the same thing, doesn’t have the Apple logo on it"

[Flavioparentiq]

MAc PRO machines are expensive, but they are designed for PRO users. Those who gets paid $100 /h and then an expensive machine is not much.

I just bought an Dell T7400 they start at $1500 but my machine ended at $7500 (2xX5460, 16G, 2 SAS 300GB, 2 x FX3700) so PRO machines are expensive!

Pro users wants PRO support, the software we have installed are normally more expensive then the machine, and the support local computer support and infrastructure: backup, network, storage, etc is at least as expensive as the computer per year.

PRO users do not want hackintosh built different every time without support, they want reliable solid computers, that works. I cant call my software support hotline with a problem running a Hackintosh, they will just tell me -get a certified computer and come back.

Of course I agree with you.
But the more I read the thread, the more I understand that most of the users (non pro) won't get any of the argument you put on the table and will just keep on saying that there is cheaper stuff with same stability, that ecc is not useful, that you can build a dell for less $$ and hardware equivalent (please stop those post!! We use OSX at work and have more the 10000$ software on this os!) or that you can build yourself a custom system... without considering elements like the fact that pro DON'T HAVE TIME to open a box, even if THEY DO KNOW ABOUT COMPUTER. (And there are many others elements i won't repeat but that can be found on previous posts)

It is totally useless to try to justify a 6000$ computer's expense to a person who's not earning anything from his machine, and probably using a cracked version of cs4 suite, fcp, maya.

[xbjllb]

well you'll be repeating yourself a lot more over the next few years. apple WONT be incorporating BluRay for a good.... 3-4 years.

optical media is (slowly) being outdated. solid-state is the way to go. HD is the way to go. apple knows this. they are riding it out.

in 5 years we will be saying "pfft you have BluRay, how old!"

Yet again, the constant rationalization for a woeful lack of competitive cutting edge technology with the ludicrous claim that Apple is ahead of the curve instead of far behind what its high-end content creators needed last year.

Apple takes that long, and it will be in the Amiga graveyard where it will belong.

:apple:

[xbjllb]

MS IS DEAD. DELL IS DEAD. BLU-RAY IS DEAD.

The only thing dead around here is your brain.

:apple:

[AidenShaw]

3 - Blu-ray [edit] is a BORNDEAD technology, as others have already explained. So unless you wanna be stuck with a deluxe backup solution (as useful as HD-DVD for that matter), they serve no other purpose than to make a machine more expensive and full of DRM hurt. And no, I don't wanna watch slightly better movies on a computer screen.

Still relevant to your Blu-ray rants:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=7252115&postcount=99

Blu-ray [edit] is DEAD. Unless you wanna watch "HD" movies in a 13" screen, of course.

You don't understand the issue - it's not whether the 13.3" screen is ideal for seeing full 1080p quality.

The issue is that we're buying BD movies for our home systems, and we can play them on our Windows machines just fine.

Apples can't play them, though. Are we supposed to buy both BD discs and DVD discs just because of Apple's pig-headedness? Or are we supposed to buy Windows systems from other companies if we want to play BD discs? (The latter works for me. ;) )

By the way, I'd rather watch a 1920x1080 BD movie scaled *down* to fit the 13.3" 1280x800 screen, rather than the 640x480 (or sometimes 720x480) DVD movie scaled *up* to fit!

And, of course, the video professionals and amateurs would like to author Blu-ray titles on their Macs, but that's another discussion entirely.


(reference to "HOWEVER, bluray movies are best watched on a big screen, 40"+ LCDTV or plasma TV.") A tiny fraction of the world's population has a 40" screen, or even plans to buy one.

Perhaps you should look and see that 10 of the top 16 bestselling TVs at Amazon are 40" or larger.... In fact, 6 of the top 16 are 52" sets. http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172659/ref=pd_ts_e_nav

And, while you're at Amazon, notice that 3 of the top 5 selling "DVD" players are actually Blu-ray players! http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172514/ref=pd_ts_e_nav


BD's [edit] adoption rate is so dragged that it can't even be compared to music CDs or DVDs in the past.

Fortunately, your opinion doesn't match up with the facts about Blu-ray.

Blu-ray Sales on the Rise in Japan
March 6, 2009 by Josh Dreuth

According to a recent report from GfK Marketing Services Japan Ltd (GfK Japan), sales of Blu-ray Disc recorders increased by over 800% last year in Japan. In 2007, only 160,000 Blu-ray Disc recorders were sold in the country, but that number jumped to 1.34 Million units in 2008, representing a huge uptake in adoption of the high definition format.

The overall optical disc market decreased by 1%, but DVD recorders dipped by 26% as the format gives up ground to Blu-ray. Last year, Blu-ray recorders represented 37% of all optical recorder sales (53% of revenue), and that number is expected to grow substantially this year.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2469


and

Blu-ray is being adopted faster than DVD
January 3, 2009 by Mike Ferro

It was a stellar holiday season for Blu-ray with movies like The Dark Knight breaking records. According to two research firms, Blu-ray movies and players were top on most holiday shopper's list. This is pretty much what I predicted a few months back when I compared Blu-ray as this year's Tickle me Elmo.

According to DVDFile, surveys conducted by both, Greenfield and Zogby International, Blu-ray players and movies were ranked high on holiday shopper's lists. In the survey conducted by Greenfield, it also indicated that Blu-ray players were number one on the list of HD TV owners. The survey conducted by Zogby revealed similar results ranking Blu-ray players as second on the list after HD TV.

I indicated that there will be a strong correlation between HD TV adoption and Blu-ray, and these two studies definitely show this to be true. Blu-ray sales are starting to eat away at DVD sales, similarly to how DVD sales ate away at VHS sales over 10 years ago. According to Richard Greenfield, analyst for Pali Capital, indicated that results for 2008 are expected to show a decrease in DVD sales by 6%. This is in contrast to original predictions of flat sales for the year.

Greenfield also indicated that the adoption rate for Blu-ray is much faster than DVD was. He states, "Interestingly, two years into the standard DVD cycle, the DVD installed base was only 1.2 million and players were not nearly as inexpensive as $129 on Black Friday." As indicated before, Blu-ray sales are twice of that of DVDs at the same point in its life.

I predict that the Blu-ray adoption rate is actually much faster than twice that of DVDs when you consider out of the two years on the market, only one year was really spent as the sole format. The first year was spent battling it out with HD-DVD splintering the market in half while leaving many on the fence. [B]This holiday definitely showed that consumers have made the jump to Blu-ray.

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.cfm?ID=18670


and

Blu-ray Dominates Christmas Sales
Jan 5, 2009 by Scott Nichols

Back before Thanksgiving I predicted that Blu-ray sales would suffer during the holiday season due to the high cost of both the player and HDTVs combined with the current economic recession, among other reasons. But after seeing the report from the British Video Association declaring Blu-ray sales have risen almost 400 percent for the 2008 holiday season over the same period of time last year, it is clear that I was wrong.

Across the whole holiday season 3.7 million Blu-ray units were sold in Britain, and that doesn't include sales of Sony's Playstation 3 console, which also plays Blu-ray movies. A large contributing factor to the rise in Blu-ray sales was the release of the movies The Dark Knight and Mama Mia on Blu-ray. The Dark Knight sold almost 300,000 copies in its first few weeks, becoming the fastest selling Blu-ray title to date. Mama Mia was no slouch either selling 5.1 million copies by year-end.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/156327/blu_ray_holiday_sales.html?tk=rss


Not bad for a stillborn technology !

[DoFoT9]

Yet again, the constant rationalization for a woeful lack of competitive cutting edge technology with the ludicrous claim that Apple is ahead of the curve instead of far behind what its high-end content creators needed last year.

Apple takes that long, and it will be in the Amiga graveyard where it will belong.

:apple:

not last year, the high-end creators would have been using BluRay burners, media and HD video a good 5 years ago (at least).

not sure why apple hasnt incorporated it into the OS, its very odd..has to be something deeper

[DoFoT9]

Yet again, the constant rationalization for a woeful lack of competitive cutting edge technology with the ludicrous claim that Apple is ahead of the curve instead of far behind what its high-end content creators needed last year.

Apple takes that long, and it will be in the Amiga graveyard where it will belong.

:apple:

not last year, the high-end creators would have been using BluRay burners, media and HD video a good 5 years ago (at least).

not sure why apple hasnt incorporated it into the OS, its very odd..has to be something deeper

[awulf]

not last year, the high-end creators would have been using BluRay burners, media and HD video a good 5 years ago (at least).

not sure why apple hasnt incorporated it into the OS, its very odd..has to be something deeper

Possibly the High Definition Content Protection (HDCP), it’s a horrible DRM that wont allow non HDCP compliant hardware display movies, such as Apple's Cinema Display. Screens from Dell support it BUT you must change the screen to the equivalent 1080 resolution or lower. Its such a pain, a horrible horrible pain. And you know what, HDCP is not preventing piracy/ripping but encouraging it, because it has been circumvented. Only way to play a Blu-ray movie on a Mac or Linux system or non HDCP compliant windows system is to rip it to the hard drive first. And if you want to play it on your non HDCP compliant HD TV, you could burn it back to blu-ray without the protection.

Maybe Apple is waiting for them to drop HDCP, the DRM that makes everything a pain.

[DoFoT9]

Possibly the High Definition Content Protection (HDCP), it’s a horrible DRM that wont allow non HDCP compliant hardware display movies, such as Apple's Cinema Display. Screens from Dell support it BUT you must change the screen to the equivalent 1080 resolution or lower. Its such a pain, a horrible horrible pain. And you know what, HDCP is not preventing piracy/ripping but encouraging it, because it has been circumvented. Only way to play a Blu-ray movie on a Mac or Linux system or non HDCP compliant windows system is to rip it to the hard drive first. And if you want to play it on your non HDCP compliant HD TV, you could burn it back to blu-ray without the protection.

Maybe Apple is waiting for them to drop HDCP, the DRM that makes everything a pain.

excellent points, jobs himself said "BluRay is a bag of hurt" (or something like that), the reasons you stated must be the answer.

i knew HDCP limited playback, but not on that level!! thats terrible, it sure does encourage ripping the movies (whether it be for archival purposes or illegal purposes).

apple dropped DRM on their mp3's in itunes, maybe they want Sony etc to drop the HDCP from BluRay, as hard as that may be to actually do. maybe they are developing some kind of software fix as we speak to decrypt it all??

[BenRoethig]

In fact, sort of hard to justify when Apple still doesn't use the i7 chips and lower clock speed. I suppose for me, I wonder what you can build that runs as quiet. That is worth the price, especially with audio production.

The Core i7 and the Xeon 3500 (which Apple uses) are the same bloomfield chip and use the same x58 motherboards. The Xeon version has ECC support enabled there are no other differences, price included.

[diamond.g]

excellent points, jobs himself said "BluRay is a bag of hurt" (or something like that), the reasons you stated must be the answer.

i knew HDCP limited playback, but not on that level!! thats terrible, it sure does encourage ripping the movies (whether it be for archival purposes or illegal purposes).

apple dropped DRM on their mp3's in itunes, maybe they want Sony etc to drop the HDCP from BluRay, as hard as that may be to actually do. maybe they are developing some kind of software fix as we speak to decrypt it all??

If you have HDMI you have HDCP. It is apart of the hardware. The software DRM for BD is AACS. That has been broken. HDCP has not (well not without a device in the middle but either way it isn't defeated in software). BDA also has BD+ which is an even stricter version of DRM (thanks FOX). So it is less likely that we will see the DRM go away (no more likely than the DRM in iTunes movies going away).

[awulf]

If you have HDMI you have HDCP. It is apart of the hardware. The software DRM for BD is AACS. That has been broken. HDCP has not (well not without a device in the middle but either way it isn't defeated in software). BDA also has BD+ which is an even stricter version of DRM (thanks FOX). So it is less likely that we will see the DRM go away (no more likely than the DRM in iTunes movies going away).

A program called AnyDVD HD in windows circumvents the HDCP, AACS and BD+. Thus allowing any windows PC to play blu-ray. If only they made a mac version.

[diamond.g]

A program called AnyDVD HD in windows circumvents the HDCP, AACS and BD+. Thus allowing any windows PC to play blu-ray. If only they made a mac version.
Interesting. It looks like the app basically encapsulates those requirements and then passes the unencrypted stuff along. They seemed interested in a Mac version. We will see. I do wonder if it would still require BD player software to playback the disk without re-encoding it.

[cisco0623]

In regards to the Blu Ray discussion going back and forth - I both agree and disagree with BRLawyer here.

Blu Ray is not dead. Its actually doing well.

I agree its dead with Apple. Seeing how they like to do things they will probably skip it because they would much rather their users be on itunes paying to d/l 1080p content in the future. The way broadband bandwidth and speed is exploding (Verizon fios is insane out here - I love it) its only a matter of time before streaming such high def content is easy on a massive scale. Maybe as a means of data storage its useful in their eyes. Microsoft feels the same way. Their xbox live service is what they are banking on.

I think in the future media on demand will be the primary medium of consumers watching movies, but just not yet and so many are used to going to a store and buying a disc that I think Blu ray will be fine, but unfortunately Apple may never adopt it in their machines.

[AidenShaw]

I agree its dead with Apple. Seeing how they like to do things they will probably skip it....

I suspect that the new post-Jobs Apple won't be so dogmatic about things - I'll wager an xMac that we'll see a Blu-ray announcement from Apple by 1 July.

If Apple only wants to sell to the tiny, tiny fraction of people with 50 Mbps FIOS - then Apple's current path is sound, as long as Apple's planning to sell/rent/stream 50 Mbps 1080p movies to match BD bitrates.

[cisco0623]

I suspect that the new post-Jobs Apple won't be so dogmatic about things - I'll wager an xMac that we'll see a Blu-ray announcement from Apple by 1 July.

If Apple only wants to sell to the tiny, tiny fraction of people with 50 Mbps FIOS - then Apple's current path is sound, as long as Apple's planning to sell/rent/stream 50 Mbps 1080p movies to match BD bitrates.

good points

Perhaps their view will change post Jobs. Also is it easier to license blu ray now with less requirements? (cheaper too?) but either way in the long run you know they want people streaming! You don't need 50mbps fios for that either. So many people I know have xbox and dsl or 6mb cable and they download the movies and watch them later on etc.

[AidenShaw]

Perhaps their view will change post Jobs.

Not "will change", but "is changing".

Jobs is gone, today the Iphone gets MMS and copy-and-paste.

Coincidence? No.

[pohl]

Not "will change", but "is changing".
Jobs is gone, today the Iphone gets MMS and copy-and-paste.
Coincidence? No.

They do coincide, hence it is a coincidence. Sure, you meant "Mere coincidence? No". But I still think there's no reason to think that it's anything more than coincidence. Unless you've got some evidence that Jobs had a personal mission to deprive users of C&P. I think it's more likely that they didn't want to ship it until they were sure it wasn't half-assed. That was what held back doing color in NeXTStep back in the day: despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he held it back until they could do 32 bit color, of which 8 was transparency. It's perfectly consistent with his personality from my perspective.

[AidenShaw]

It's perfectly consistent with his personality from my perspective.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.", from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)

In other words, pursuing the "best" solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective.

(http://www.famous-quotes.net/Quote.aspx?The_perfect_is_the_enemy_of_the_good)

[Tarkio]

"The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.", from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)

In other words, pursuing the "best" solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective.

(http://www.famous-quotes.net/Quote.aspx?The_perfect_is_the_enemy_of_the_good)

"There was an old man from Natucket..." - Author unknown.

In other words, perfection is only as good as man's personal reach.

[Goona]

Blu-ray is a useless gimmick, once I first watched a blu-ray film, I was unimpressed, what's so special about it, I'll stick to dvd's.

[AidenShaw]

In other words, perfection is only as good as man's personal reach.

That was what held back doing color in NeXTStep back in the day: despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he held it back until they could do 32 bit color, of which 8 was transparency.

And what happened to NeXT ? Epic fail.

There's something about causing "wailing and gnashing of teeth" in your customers that is not a good long-term business model.

And, by the way, there's a recent example where Apple has screwed up by "not waiting for 'better than good'".

Apple should never have sold any Yonah systems - they should have waited for Merom before selling Intel boxes.

Now, when Snow Leopard comes out and isn't supported on the older 32-bit only Yonah Apples - the heavens will part with the wails of the injured fanboys.

Why didn't The Steve wait a few months, and have only 64-bit Intel chips in the lineup?

[AZREOSpecialist]

But as a buyer that is irrelvent to me. If I can build a system that has the exact same features and performance to me as a Mac Pro would but for $1000 less then the Mac Pro is "overpriced" from my perspective. Why do I care if Apple are the same price as Dell or HP if all of them are charging $1,000 more for the same hardware I can easily obtain?

Because you are not Apple's competition, Dell and HP are. If you can build the same Mac Pro configuration for $1,000 less using off-the-shelf parts, then go for it, but your hardware won't be supported by Apple and you could lose your entire investment if Apple changes its OS in a way that breaks your hardware. No business in its right mind would take the approach you are suggesting by purchasing totally unsupported hardware.

There are two types of Mac Pro users -- those who buy them as status symbols but don't really need it, and those who actually use the machines as business tools to make money. For the latter, the Mac Pro is still a good investment because the cost will be amortized over several years while the machine is used to create far more income than it costs. For the former, however, the Mac Pro is obviously "overpriced" because it's becoming more and more difficult to justify the Mac Pro as an ego buy.

When I had a design studio in Seattle, my paltry $5,000 Mac Pro investment allowed me to generate over $150,000 my first year. I could never justify spending that kind of money for something that would just sit on my desk as a status symbol. Today I'm a successful real estate agent, and even though I desperately want a Mac Pro because it would be "cool", I could never justify the purchase because it won't be used to generate income. An entry level iMac is enough for someone in my business.

It all depends on your perspective. I think Apple has done its homework and knows that more Mac Pros end up in the hands of professionals who can use the additional horsepower and can justify the added expense versus those who just want to have bragging rights.

[AZREOSpecialist]

I already have an i7 system as you can see in page 3 of this thread, a Hackintosh just as fast as the Mac Pro Quad 2.66GHz.

That's a good solution for you, but not for the vast majority of Mac buyers who want a product that won't be broken with the next OS update... or Mac buyers who use their machines to generate income... or Mac buyers who want support from Apple... or Mac buyers who aren't technically savvy and want something that just "works".

Hackintosh, now that's a word that inspires confidence...

[AZREOSpecialist]

The big vendors like Dell and HP haven't updated yet as they are waiting for Xeon parts to be released, unless you are happy with a "consumer" system. There are plenty of companies shipping workstations with i7 processors that will be no different than their eventual single socket Xeon systems aside from ECC support.

If Dell continue with their current price ideology then I'd expect something equal to the quad Mac Pros replacing the precision T3400 to cost $500-700 less than Apple's offering and include 3 years warranty so maybe $1000 less depending how you look at it. The other difference being the Dell will also probably be available with much more minimal specifications than the Apple models for those looking to cut costs.

DP systems will probably be of a similar price to Apple, though something with two 2.26GHz processors might be under $3,000.

Perhaps, instead of speculating, we should wait until Dell actually announces a Xeon-based product and then we can compare?

Everyone was talking about how Dell was going to have a viable competitor to the MacBook Air with their Adamo system... now that it's been announced, we can see that it's nothing of the sort and the MacBook Air is a much better buy.

[AidenShaw]

....we can see that it's nothing of the sort and the MacBook Air is a much better buy.

Actually, the MacBook Air sucks big time if you want 3G builtin, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 GiB of RAM, eSATA, multiple USB ports or Blu-ray.

The Adamo has those... MBA - not.

Also, the MBA is rather fat compared to the Adamo.

[AZREOSpecialist]

I suspect that the new post-Jobs Apple won't be so dogmatic about things - I'll wager an xMac that we'll see a Blu-ray announcement from Apple by 1 July.

If Apple only wants to sell to the tiny, tiny fraction of people with 50 Mbps FIOS - then Apple's current path is sound, as long as Apple's planning to sell/rent/stream 50 Mbps 1080p movies to match BD bitrates.

Yes, the absence of Blu-Ray is because Steve Jobs doesn't like it... yes, it's exactly these types of decisions that have lead to Apple's success since Jobs re-took the helm. NOT!

COME ON PEOPLE! This has nothing to do with Jobs. If anything, Jobs would be all for it given his involvement at Pixar and Disney. Disney is a big supporter of Blu-Ray. There are other business-related reasons for not doing this that we aren't privy to.

Steve Jobs would sell you a computer that ran on horse ***** if he could to make money. Business is business.

[Eidorian]

And what happened to NeXT ? Epic fail.

There's something about causing "wailing and gnashing of teeth" in your customers that is not a good long-term business model.

And, by the way, there's a recent example where Apple has screwed up by "not waiting for 'better than good'".

Apple should never have sold any Yonah systems - they should have waited for Merom before selling Intel boxes.

Now, when Snow Leopard comes out and isn't supported on the older 32-bit only Yonah Apples - the heavens will part with the wails of the injured fanboys.

Why didn't The Steve wait a few months, and have only 64-bit Intel chips in the lineup?Oh goodie this takes me back. They wanted those systems that trashed the G5 out and fast. They made a quick buck on those 32-bit machines.

Conroe/Merom would have been a better launch for the consumer and maybe even the iMac but that's not how it turned out. :rolleyes:

[AZREOSpecialist]

Blu-ray is a useless gimmick, once I first watched a blu-ray film, I was unimpressed, what's so special about it, I'll stick to dvd's.

... did you schedule your Lasik surgery yet?

[AZREOSpecialist]

Actually, the MacBook Air sucks big time if you want 3G builtin, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 GiB of RAM, eSATA, multiple USB ports or Blu-ray.

The Adamo has those... MBA - not.

Also, the MBA is rather fat compared to the Adamo.

MacBook Air is thinner at its thinnest point, and only .1" thicker at its thickest point, weighs 25% less, has a 30% faster CPU, and costs $200 less. I suppose you have to pick your battles.

[pohl]

And what happened to NeXT ? Epic fail.


LOL, right. What actually happened is that they acquired Apple for a negative 450 million. :rolleyes:

[xbjllb]

Blu-ray is a useless gimmick, once I first watched a blu-ray film, I was unimpressed, what's so special about it, I'll stick to dvd's.

Try watching it on something other than a Lloyds 13" black and white set, try wearing your glasses, or try using something called eyesight.

:apple:

[xbjllb]

Yes, the absence of Blu-Ray is because Steve Jobs doesn't like it... yes, it's exactly these types of decisions that have lead to Apple's success since Jobs re-took the helm. NOT!

COME ON PEOPLE! This has nothing to do with Jobs. If anything, Jobs would be all for it given his involvement at Pixar and Disney. Disney is a big supporter of Blu-Ray. There are other business-related reasons for not doing this that we aren't privy to.

Steve Jobs would sell you a computer that ran on horse ***** if he could to make money. Business is business.

Like I've said, it comes down to DRM and how hard it is to pirate Blu-ray discs and movies. Steve-o thinks everything created and sold by everyone else should be free because easy ripping has been very, very good for Apple's market share.

And the pirates are behind him 1000% and will go to every possible ridiculous length to justify his shortsightedness.

In the meantime, "high-end" Apple computers sales are crashing because they are overpriced relatively outdated crap without Blu-ray capability.

It's called cutting off your dick to spite your nuts.

It's time for Apple to grow up and leave the kiddie piracy behind. At least as far as their high end market is concerned.

:apple:

[Umbongo]

There are two types of Mac Pro users -- those who buy them as status symbols but don't really need it, and those who actually use the machines as business tools to make money.

No there are more types of buyer than that and this forum has clearly shown it over the past two and a half years. The Mac Pro has been a consideration for many people purely because of the limitations of Apple's other desktops. It may be a small vocal subsection that are disappointed by the new pricing but to write off what is a price increase, regardless of Apple's reason, as being insignificant because those who need a Mac Pro can afford it is rather unfair in my opinion. If any of the other lines had seen such pricing differences there would be far more outrage.

It all depends on your perspective. I think Apple has done its homework and knows that more Mac Pros end up in the hands of professionals who can use the additional horsepower and can justify the added expense versus those who just want to have bragging rights.

I agree that Apple probably have got this right for themselves. They have blunders from time to time but even if this is I doubt it would seriously impact their business heavily as Mac Pro sales are a small portion.


Perhaps, instead of speculating, we should wait until Dell actually announces a Xeon-based product and then we can compare?

Where is the fun in that? ;)

[mchalebk]

There are two types of Mac Pro users -- those who buy them as status symbols but don't really need it, and those who actually use the machines as business tools to make money. For the latter, the Mac Pro is still a good investment because the cost will be amortized over several years while the machine is used to create far more income than it costs. For the former, however, the Mac Pro is obviously "overpriced" because it's becoming more and more difficult to justify the Mac Pro as an ego buy.
This is ludicrously simplistic, insulting and just plain wrong. There are many reasons why someone might buy a MacPro other than to make money. If you think the only reason (besides business) is as a “status symbol”, you have no clue. What if you need multiple hard drives, but don’t want a stack of externals? You need a MacPro. What if you do video rendering? You don’t have to be a Pro to appreciate the power that a MacPro gives you.

Some of us have reasons for wanting a MacPro that have nothing to do with status, ego or making money. It would be appreciated if you could abstain from making grossly inaccurate generalizations in the future.

[Goona]

MacBook Air is thinner at its thinnest point, and only .1" thicker at its thickest point, weighs 25% less, has a 30% faster CPU, and costs $200 less. I suppose you have to pick your battles.

Don't make me laugh, the Adamo looks like a brick compared to the Air, go and watch some of the side by side pictures, it doesn't even look thinner.

[awulf]

Because you are not Apple's competition, Dell and HP are. If you can build the same Mac Pro configuration for $1,000 less using off-the-shelf parts, then go for it, but your hardware won't be supported by Apple and you could lose your entire investment if Apple changes its OS in a way that breaks your hardware. No business in its right mind would take the approach you are suggesting by purchasing totally unsupported hardware.



The hardware will not "break", it will just not boot into Mac OS X.
Before updating can check out on forums to see if it works, not like the latest OS update is a must. The latest OS updates have rendered some Apple Macs "broken" in the past, search this forum and you shall find.
The probability is that it will continue to work, if not, hack updates will be imminent.



There are two types of Mac Pro users -- those who buy them as status symbols but don't really need it, and those who actually use the machines as business tools to make money. For the latter, the Mac Pro is still a good investment because the cost will be amortized over several years while the machine is used to create far more income than it costs. For the former, however, the Mac Pro is obviously "overpriced" because it's becoming more and more difficult to justify the Mac Pro as an ego buy.


No there are more types, the types who:

Wants more than 1 hard drive, and doesn’t want a bunch of slower external ones.
Who likes to upgrade their machine when the time comes; better graphics, better CPU.
Likes to dual screen
Wants more performance than from a Mac mini and wants to use their own monitor.


There are plenty of these types around. I was happy to buy the low end Power Macs in the past since they were reasonably priced, but the current low end Mac "Pro" is not. If it were not for the Hackintosh, I would have bought a second hand Mac Pro.


When I had a design studio in Seattle, my paltry $5,000 Mac Pro investment allowed me to generate over $150,000 my first year. I could never justify spending that kind of money for something that would just sit on my desk as a status symbol. Today I'm a successful real estate agent, and even though I desperately want a Mac Pro because it would be "cool", I could never justify the purchase because it won't be used to generate income. An entry level iMac is enough for someone in my business.

I finally understand for a Pro who makes a lot of money with their machine the relative cost of the machine is negligible. Although if *I* were a Pro who'd need the *single CPU* Mac Pro, I'd still get the Hackintosh, I don't know, I just couldn't throw AU$2500 out the window, so much more I could do with that.


It all depends on your perspective. I think Apple has done its homework and knows that more Mac Pros end up in the hands of professionals who can use the additional horsepower and can justify the added expense versus those who just want to have bragging rights.

I think you are right, most consumers will be fine with an all-in-one or a laptop.
The Pros will go with the top notch Mac Pro.
The technical enthusiasts who want a Mac will either settle with an all-in-one or shell out a lot of cash on the low end Mac Pro. And if Apple did make a Consumer tower, some sales would be lost from the low end Mac Pro, which should have a huge profit margin at the moment.


That's a good solution for you, but not for the vast majority of Mac buyers who want a product that won't be broken with the next OS update... or Mac buyers who use their machines to generate income... or Mac buyers who want support from Apple... or Mac buyers who aren't technically savvy and want something that just "works".

Yes it is indeed a good solution for me.
Mac buyers who aren't technically savvy and want "just works" will go for the all-in-one.
Mac buyers who aren't technically savvy and want a value for money tower, will still try out the Hackintosh, if they know about this solution.


Hackintosh, now that's a word that inspires confidence...

Can call it Mac Clone if you prefer :cool:

[AZREOSpecialist]

This is ludicrously simplistic, insulting and just plain wrong. There are many reasons why someone might buy a MacPro other than to make money. If you think the only reason (besides business) is as a “status symbol”, you have no clue. What if you need multiple hard drives, but don’t want a stack of externals? You need a MacPro. What if you do video rendering? You don’t have to be a Pro to appreciate the power that a MacPro gives you.

Some of us have reasons for wanting a MacPro that have nothing to do with status, ego or making money. It would be appreciated if you could abstain from making grossly inaccurate generalizations in the future.

The last time I checked, this was an open forum to express opinions. It would be equally appreciated if you could abstain from telling others what to say or think.

Using your own words, if you "need" multiple hard drives but don't "want" a stack of externals, then isn't your desire for a Mac Pro a "want" and not a "need"? And what if you do video rendering? As a hobbyist, the iMac doesn't afford you enough processing power to do this? Is it also a "need" for a hobbyist to require his video be rendered at the fastest possible speed at a proportionally higher cost, or can you get by with less? In my opinion, these are still ego purchases because it still seems that you simply can't live without the biggest and the best even though a less expensive, albeit less perfect product would suit your requirements just fine.

If the iMac can give you 75% of what you want at 35% of the cost, it doesn't make sense to spend 2x-3x the price for that extra 25%. But if that last 25% is such a big deal for you, then you will find a way to justify the purchase and pay Apple what it's asking. It's all about whether you can justify the purchase, and that was the point I was trying to make.

Apple seems to think, and probably with good cause, that the majority of its Pro users can justify the purchase. Whether that justification is for financial or emotional reasons is up to the individual buyer.

[AZREOSpecialist]

Don't make me laugh, the Adamo looks like a brick compared to the Air, go and watch some of the side by side pictures, it doesn't even look thinner.

I agree, Dell couldn't design its way out of a paper bag. I'll take a breath of fresh Air any day! :)

[BenRoethig]

I suspect that the new post-Jobs Apple won't be so dogmatic about things.

I wouldn't hold by breath until he officially retires and even then remember that we are talking about Steve's hand picked people and Ive's still the lead designer.

I'll wager an xMac that we'll see a Blu-ray announcement from Apple by 1 July.

They announced it on March 3rd, they're just charging $1000 more for it than they used to.

[mchalebk]

The last time I checked, this was an open forum to express opinions. It would be equally appreciated if you could abstain from telling others what to say or think.
I’m sorry, but when you express an opinion that is clearly inaccurate and insulting to others, I don’t believe I’m out of line by asking that you “abstain from making grossly inaccurate generalizations.”

Using your own words, if you "need" multiple hard drives but don't "want" a stack of externals, then isn't your desire for a Mac Pro a "want" and not a "need"? And what if you do video rendering? As a hobbyist, the iMac doesn't afford you enough processing power to do this? Is it also a "need" for a hobbyist to require his video be rendered at the fastest possible speed at a proportionally higher cost, or can you get by with less? In my opinion, these are still ego purchases because it still seems that you simply can't live without the biggest and the best even though a less expensive, albeit less perfect product would suit your requirements just fine.
Just because something is a “want” and not a “need” does not make it an “ego purchase”. This is the kind of unwarranted conclusion I’m referring to. There is no basis in fact for this conclusion and the way you state it is an insult to people who may have legitimate reasons for buying a pro-level machine that are not based on making money.

If the iMac can give you 75% of what you want at 35% of the cost, it doesn't make sense to spend 2x-3x the price for that extra 25%. But if that last 25% is such a big deal for you, then you will find a way to justify the purchase and pay Apple what it's asking. It's all about whether you can justify the purchase, and that was the point I was trying to make.
My point is that it’s not an “ego” thing to want to pay a premium for that “extra 25%”. In addition to gaining extra capability, you can also gain a computer that will do its job for a longer period of time. Some of us don’t like to buy a new computer every few years. If I spend more now, it means I’ll likely get more years out of the machine, which means it will be worth the extra money.

, Apple seems to think, and probably with good cause, that the majority of its Pro users can justify the purchase. Whether that justification is for financial or emotional reasons is up to the individual buyer.
The problem with your conclusions is that you cannot grasp the fact that there are reasons other than “financial or emotional” that factor into the decision to buy a machine like the MacPro. There are a great many practical reasons why someone might want or need a MacPro that have nothing to do with status or making money. Just because you don’t understand that is no reason to insult these people by claiming they’re making an “ego purchase”.

[AidenShaw]

They announced it on March 3rd, they're just charging $1000 more for it than they used to.


A crippled, humonguous Mac Pro with an outrageous price tag is not the xMac.

Think mid-priced, mid-sized, mid-tower with desktop chips - that's an xMac.

You can't put a 4 cylinder engine in a Hummer and call it a compact !!

[BenRoethig]

A crippled, humongous Mac Pro with an outrageous price tag is not the xMac.

The only thing crippled is that Ive wouldn't make it wider for two extra DIMM slots. Its as capable as any high end desktop/low end workstation on that market. It just costs twice as much. When it comes to size, its very close to studio XPS 435.

Also, the original term for xMac was a workstation above the PowerMac which the Mac Pro is.

Think mid-priced, mid-sized, mid-tower with desktop chips - that's an xMac.

You can't put a 4 cylinder engine in a Hummer and call it a compact !!

What you seem to want is the Mac version of a middle end mATX machine. Sort of a modern equivalent to the cube.

[AidenShaw]

The only thing crippled is that Ive wouldn't make it wider for two extra DIMM slots. Its as capable as any high end desktop/low end workstation on that market.

8 GiB RAM support is "crippled". Lack of full tri-channel support is "crippled".


When it comes to size, its very close to studio XPS 435.

Yes, it's about the same size as the humonguous Dell Studio XPS 435.

They both are about twice the size of the "Studio XPS" though...


What you seem to want is the Mac version of a middle end mATX machine.

No, a small mid-tower ATX like the Studio XPS would be fine.

- 36 x 17 x 44 cm (compared to 51 x 21 x 48 for MP).
- 5 disk bays - 3 3.5" + 2 5.25" (compared to 4 + 2)
- $799 with 2.66 GHz Nehalem quad, 3 Gib (compared to $2499)

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studioxps-435mt?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs


Sort of a modern equivalent to the cube.

You almost made me throw up a little.... ;)

[GodWhomIsMike]

Is there a way to still buy the 2008 (8-core) Mac Pro? I'd love to snag one at ~ $2100 and be able to add Apple Care to it.

[drsmithy]

What you seem to want is the Mac version of a middle end mATX machine. Sort of a modern equivalent to the cube.

No. The Cube was an overpriced fashion accessory.

What people want is a machine that sits between the Mac Mini/iMac, and the Mac Pro. Most seem like they would be happy with "half a low-end Mac Pro":

Core i7 920 CPU
3-4 DIMM slots
2 hard disk bays
1 optical drive bay
2-3 expansion slots (x16, x8, x4 or x1 - all mechanically x16)
$1299


Machines like that would walk off the shelves faster than Apple could ever hope to manufacture them, even at that relatively high price. Of course, they'd also slaughter higher-margin, low-end Mac Pro sales, which is why it hasn't happened.

[BenRoethig]

Yes, it's about the same size as the humongous Dell Studio XPS 435.

They both are about twice the size of the "Studio XPS" though...

And twice the capability in some areas. You get half the number of hard drives and only one x16 (regular height) slot and 3 x1 slots. In a lot of ways, the Studio XPS is trying to simulate an i5 setup by not using the i7/x58 combo to their potential.

No, a small mid-tower ATX like the Studio XPS would be fine

Its Micro ATX. Four expansion slots instead of seven.

[BenRoethig]

No. The Cube was an overpriced fashion accessory.

What people want is a machine that sits between the Mac Mini/iMac, and the Mac Pro. Most seem like they would be happy with "half a low-end Mac Pro":

Core i7 920 CPU
3-4 DIMM slots
2 hard disk bays
1 optical drive bay
2-3 expansion slots (x16, x8, x4 or x1 - all mechanically x16)
$1299


Machines like that would walk off the shelves faster than Apple could ever hope to manufacture them, even at that relatively high price. Of course, they'd also slaughter higher-margin, low-end Mac Pro sales, which is why it hasn't happened.

I think it would do well with the medium end mATX crowd, but honestly to me, it would be a slight improvement over the cube. You'd also probably have to deal with the SFF C2Qs instead other i7.

[AidenShaw]

Let's look at the Studio XPS in comparison:


Dr. Smithy's xMac Dell XPS Studio
--------------------- --------------------------
Core i7 920 CPU Core i7 920 CPU
3-4 DIMM slots 6 DIMM slots
2 hard disk bays 3 hard disk bays
1 optical drive bay 2 optical bays
2-3 expansion slots 4 slots
(x16, x8, x4 or x1, (1 x x16, 3 x x1,
all x16 sockets) 1 x x16, 3 x x1)
$1299 $799



Machines like that would walk off the shelves faster than Apple could ever hope to manufacture them, even at that relatively high price. Of course, they'd also slaughter higher-margin, low-end Mac Pro sales, which is why it hasn't happened.

I can't imagine that Apple wouldn't make more total profit with the mini-tower. Sales of the quad MP can't be very good.

By the way, don't hope for 4 DIMM slots. If you have 3 or 6, you can run full tri-channel. With 4, the 4th slot is unbalanced. Not a huge hit, and once 4 GiB DIMMs are out you'll be able to do 12 GiB with 3 DIMMs (but probably cost a fortune at first).

[purfledspruce]

This is ludicrously simplistic, insulting and just plain wrong. There are many reasons why someone might buy a MacPro other than to make money. If you think the only reason (besides business) is as a “status symbol”, you have no clue. What if you need multiple hard drives, but don’t want a stack of externals? You need a MacPro. What if you do video rendering? You don’t have to be a Pro to appreciate the power that a MacPro gives you.

Some of us have reasons for wanting a MacPro that have nothing to do with status, ego or making money. It would be appreciated if you could abstain from making grossly inaccurate generalizations in the future.

The previous Mac Pro was the cheapest computer around. I figure it would last for at least 6+ years for desktop use, what with its speed and its higher-quality parts. If you amortize $2699 over six years and compare that cost to buying 2 or even 3 PCs, your per month cost is significantly lower with the Mac Pro. It can be as much as 25% cheaper depending on how long you expect the Pro to last, or what your experience with PCs is (mine is that they last 2.5 years, but YMMV.)

And that's not even including the time loss dealing with viruses, spyware, reinstalls, upgrades, and data transfer and program installations when buying a new computer, all of which take longer on PCs than on Macs.

Too bad Apple changed the equation by $500++, the new computer is not close to the value that the previous generation had...

[AidenShaw]

You get half the number of hard drives and only one x16 (regular height) slot and 3 x1 slots.

Umm, the XPS has 5 drive bays - you can put an optical and 4 3.5" drives in it. (you'll need a SATA controller for the 5th drive, there are 4 SATA ports on the mobo).

The majority of popular consumer cards are PCIe x1 - so that's reasonable in a $799 system.


In a lot of ways, the Studio XPS is trying to simulate an i5 setup by not using the i7/x58 combo to their potential.

It's $799 - sounds like a great value.

If I want SLI/Cross
fire I'll get a different system.


Its Micro ATX. Four expansion slots instead of seven.

Actually it's neither - Dell uses custom form factor boards in most of its systems. Only in a few low end systems do they put standard ATX boards.

(And, by the way, ATX specifies dimensions and connections - not the number of slots. ATX boards can have up to 7 slots - including 4.

http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/atx.htm )

[drsmithy]

I think it would do well with the medium end mATX crowd, but honestly to me, it would be a slight improvement over the cube. You'd also probably have to deal with the SFF C2Qs instead other i7.

It would become a cornerstone of Apple's presence business market. While, as others have said, the maths are different if you're using the hardware to generate income, no finance department enjoys paying $2500 for a task ~$1000 worth of hardware could do just as well.

I also fail to see any reason why this machine would need to use Core 2 instead of i7. Particularly at the price point I specified (which is significant higher than the Dell equivalent, but I figure lots of people will be prepared to pay a 50% "Apple tax").

[BenRoethig]

It would become a cornerstone of Apple's presence business market. While, as others have said, the maths are different if you're using the hardware to generate income, no finance department enjoys paying $2500 for a task ~$1000 worth of hardware could do just as well.

I also fail to see any reason why this machine would need to use Core 2 instead of i7. Particularly at the price point I specified (which is significant higher than the Dell equivalent, but I figure lots of people will be prepared to pay a 50% "Apple tax").

The Mac Pro SP uses the Xeon 3500 which is the i7 with ECC support enabled. Differentiation of lines. Besides, the majority of potential buyers of a smaller mid-grade machine aren't going to be in the high end i7 market but rather want a bit of power on a budget. Most i7 class users are looking for a full tower.

[AidenShaw]

The Mac Pro SP uses the Xeon 3500 which is the i7 with ECC support enabled. Differentiation of lines.

It amazes me how so many people defend Apple's shenanigans to boost margins and segment (that is, upsell) to higher profit systems.

In the rest of the world, it seems that customers try to get what the want, and at a good value.


Besides, the majority of potential buyers of a smaller mid-grade machine aren't going to be in the high end i7 market but rather want a bit of power on a budget.

Earth to Ben - Dell is selling the Core i7 for $799 - that's a "bit of power on a budget" in my book.

The mini-tower will be for people who want more power than the laptop-based systems.


Most i7 class users are looking for a full tower.

Link?

[BenRoethig]

It amazes me how so many people defend Apple's shenanigans to boost margins and segment (that is, upsell) to higher profit systems.

In the rest of the world, it seems that customers try to get what the want, and at a good value.

I'm not, the quad Mac Pro is $800-1000 overpriced.


Earth to Ben - Dell is selling the Core i7 for $799 - that's a "bit of power on a budget" in my book.

$799 is nearly at cost with the cheapest components they could find.

The mini-tower will be for people who want more power than the laptop-based systems.[/quote]

A SFF core 2 quad wouldn't be more power? They seem to be good enough for HP Voodoo's firebird gaming system. What if you want less or more power or a machine that is a little more quiet? With a core i7 in a small case you really don't have any of those options, its 2.66ghz or bust.

Link?

You've been around the cultists too long, you're starting to pick up their mannerisms. There's not going to be a detailed database of all i7s sold and how they're going to be used. The question is why would anybody want a 130w CPU in a shoebox like that, the fan would be going constantly as the case isn't designed to cool it.

[drsmithy]

The Mac Pro SP uses the Xeon 3500 which is the i7 with ECC support enabled. Differentiation of lines.

They'd be differentiated by the "Xeon" name, greater internal expansion capacity, substantially higher bus bandwith (eg: four full x16 slots), and the like, just like every other vendor does for their "pro" workstations.

Besides, the majority of potential buyers of a smaller mid-grade machine aren't going to be in the high end i7 market but rather want a bit of power on a budget. Most i7 class users are looking for a full tower.

I disagree. I think a machine that can take two hard disks and has a replaceable video card, would easily capture the vast bulk of people who aren't happy with either a Mac Mini or an iMac. A couple of extra expansion slots is some gravy to get most of those who would be left.

The problem Apple has is that most people buying the Mac Pro, aren't doing so because it has 8 cores and gobs of bus bandwidth. They're doing it because they want only a bit more power than an iMac and/or want to attach multiple monitors (the latter is certainly the only reason we buy Mac Pros for our radiologists - for everything else they do, a Mini would be sufficient). Hence, a machine that provided that, would have a very noticable negative impact on Mac Pro sales.

[AidenShaw]

I'm not, the quad Mac Pro is $800-1000 overpriced.

And at least 50% larger than it needs to be.



$799 is nearly at cost with the cheapest components they could find.

Dell can't afford cheap components. The Intel CPU, disks, memory, chipset are the same name brands that Apple uses.

Dell doesn't spend a lot of money on making the inside of the case a thing of beauty - which is fine by me.[/QUOTE]


A SFF core 2 quad wouldn't be more power? They seem to be good enough for HP Voodoo's firebird gaming system.

I'm not, the quad Mac Pro is $800-1000 overpriced.




$799 is nearly at cost with the cheapest components they could find.

The mini-tower will be for people who want more power than the laptop-based systems.

A SFF core 2 quad wouldn't be more power? They seem to be good enough for HP Voodoo's firebird gaming system. What if you want less or more power or a machine that is a little more quiet? With a core i7 in a small case you really don't have any of those options, its 2.66ghz or bust.



You've been around the cultists too long, you're starting to pick up their mannerisms. There's not going to be a detailed database of all i7s sold and how they're going to be used. The question is why would anybody want a 130w CPU in a shoebox like that, the fan would be going constantly as the case isn't designed to cool it.[/QUOTE]

[AidenShaw]

I'm not, the quad Mac Pro is $800-1000 overpriced.

And at least 50% larger than it needs to be.



$799 is nearly at cost with the cheapest components they could find.

Dell can't afford cheap components. The Intel CPU, disks, memory, chipset are the same name brands that Apple uses.

Dell doesn't spend a lot of money on making the inside of the case a thing of beauty - which is fine by me.[/QUOTE]



A SFF core 2 quad wouldn't be more power? They seem to be good enough for HP Voodoo's firebird gaming system.

Why introduce a new line of computers at Apple, and use a processor that's nearly EOL?

Apple would be crazy to not use Nehalem, since the new SSE4.2 instructions do so much for Apple's media users in speeding up encoding/decoding and other media tasks.


What if you want less or more power or a machine that is a little more quiet? With a core i7 in a small case you really don't have any of those options, its 2.66ghz or bust. ... The question is why would anybody want a 130w CPU in a shoebox like that, the fan would be going constantly as the case isn't designed to cool it.

How insulting to Dell that you claim that "the case isn't designed to cool it". Dell systems on the whole have impressively quiet cooling (based on using many of the mid-range and upper systems - there may be some $399 Costco specials that aren't as quiet).

The reviews of the Studio XPS mini-tower all comment on how quiet the system is (although a few people also noted that the power-on test of the fans is impressively loud).

[BenRoethig]

And at least 50% larger than it needs to be.

Only if you're at the lower end of the tower spectrum.

They'd be differentiated by the "Xeon" name, greater internal expansion capacity, substantially higher bus bandwith (eg: four full x16 slots), and the like, just like every other vendor does for their "pro" workstations.

Most power users are smart enough to know the only difference between core and xeon 3000-series is marketing. Also, it doesn't have x16 slots, it has four x16 connectors two of which are x4 slots.

I disagree. I think a machine that can take two hard disks and has a replaceable video card, would easily capture the vast bulk of people who aren't happy with either a Mac Mini or an iMac. A couple of extra expansion slots is some gravy to get most of those who would be left.

I would agree with that. Such a machine would please your average mini-tower user.

The problem Apple has is that most people buying the Mac Pro, aren't doing so because it has 8 cores and gobs of bus bandwidth.

They're not doing so because the quad core is astronomically overpriced to what you get and the 8-core is now priced similar to Dell's margins where it used to be a bargin.

They're doing it because they want only a bit more power than an iMac and/or want to attach multiple monitors (the latter is certainly the only reason we buy Mac Pros for our radiologists - for everything else they do, a Mini would be sufficient). Hence, a machine that provided that, would have a very noticable negative impact on Mac Pro sales.

Well, the mini now has the same connectors and capabilities of a Mac Pro. But I know what you're talking about, the more or less average "Best Buy/Staples" type user who wants something without the attached monitor or mobile platform. One of many segments under served by Apple.

[apple4mark]

Apple is Apple!

Dell is Dell!

There's a different in wanting either, I'm glad I bought a Refurb x2 2.8ghz Mac pro last October and put a Nvidia 8800GT, 8 gig ram and 4x 500gb HD.

The things fly and it does what I want it to do with my work and I haven't looked back since.

A Mac pro is a professional equipment for professional people and we are happy to pay for equipment that will do the job.

Why you lot debating over cost, this is better, oh no, that one better, yeah but you get this for X and that for X huh?

[AidenShaw]

Why you lot debating over cost, this is better, oh no, that one better, yeah but you get this for X and that for X huh?

The debate isn't "go buy a Dell" - it's why does Apple have this

...... h u g e ........ g a p i n g .......... h o l e .....

in the Apple product line between the Mini and the Mac Pro?

The Dell we're talking about is simply a proof point that Apple could design a $900 to $1100 mini-tower/mid-tower using desktop parts to fill the hole.

The Dell is $799 - add a 25% Apple tax for a designer case using the same internals.

[DoFoT9]

The debate isn't "go buy a Dell" - it's why does Apple have this

...... h u g e ........ g a p i n g .......... h o l e .....

in the Apple product line between the Mini and the Mac Pro?

The Dell we're talking about is simply a proof point that Apple could design a $900 to $1100 mini-tower/mid-tower using desktop parts to fill the hole.

The Dell is $799 - add a 25% Apple tax for a designer case using the same internals.

to us it may be a hole, to apple - there is a thing called the iMac.

[AidenShaw]

to us it may be a hole, to apple - there is a thing called the iMac.

A "thing" that to many people is not worth mentioning - a laptop built into a monitor is not wanted by a sizeable group of (non-)customers.

[AidenShaw]

The reviews of the Studio XPS mini-tower all comment on how quiet the system is (although a few people also noted that the power-on test of the fans is impressively loud).

I was just given some "end of quarter" budget that "has" to be used, so I bought six of the Studio XPS mini-tower systems.


Intel® Core™i7-940 Processor(8MB L2 Cache, 2.93GHz)
12GiB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
750GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads/Writes 6X BD and Reads/Writes to DVD/CD)
ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB
24 inch Ultrasharp™ 2408WFP Digital Flat Panel
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate SP1 64-bit
PowerDVD Blu-ray player
Roxio Creator 10.2 Premium Blu-ray edition
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell 19 in 1 Media Reader with Bluetooth
Dell 1505 WLAN PCIe card with 802.11n mini-Card & external antenna
3 yr Next Business Day service + Complete Care

Price was just slightly over the starting price for the quad 2.66 Mac Pro (Dell does have sales and discounts). Mac Pro config that's close is $4525 (for 8 GiB instead of 12 GiB, no Blu-ray (D'oh), but LED backlight 24" instead of CCFL).

[DoFoT9]

A "thing" that to many people is not worth mentioning - a laptop built into a monitor is not wanted by a sizeable group of (non-)customers.

its worth mentioning - APPLE THINKS it fits in their lineup, who cares what you THINK the linup should be like, who cares what i THINKS it should be like??

[Tesselator]

For interest sakes, my Hackintosh seems to work reliably at 3.42GHz but anymore kernel panics start to happen. This is achieved by increasing the clock speed under the BIOS.

Added the Mac Pro results from the story and my MacBook Pro for a comparison :D

And here are the results:

162723

So the Corei7 with it's 4 cores is doing very well against an 8 core Mac when you overclock it huh? And it's right on the money with the mac equivalent quad at normal speeds. Sweet.

[Tesselator]

The debate isn't "go buy a Dell" - it's why does Apple have this

...... h u g e ........ g a p i n g .......... h o l e .....

in the Apple product line between the Mini and the Mac Pro?

The Dell we're talking about is simply a proof point that Apple could design a $900 to $1100 mini-tower/mid-tower using desktop parts to fill the hole.

The Dell is $799 - add a 25% Apple tax for a designer case using the same internals.

Exactly right!


its worth mentioning - APPLE THINKS it fits in their lineup, who cares what you THINK the linup should be like, who cares what i THINKS it should be like??

Apple cares! They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find out what we think and then they spend millions trying to meet those expectations.

[Sehnsucht]

Please note that this report describes only one set of tests using one program.

Unless you are running Cinebench, and using scripts similar to those in the bench, this information may be very misleading.

It would be foolish to make purchasing decisions based on this limited report.

Look at more benchmarks, like the ones at BareFeats http://www.barefeats.com/nehal04.html.

Don't worry, I don't think anybody's going to out and "impulse-buy" a Mac Pro after reading one measly little benchmark chart on MacRumors. ;)

The debate isn't "go buy a Dell" - it's why does Apple have this

...... h u g e ........ g a p i n g .......... h o l e .....

in the Apple product line between the Mini and the Mac Pro?

The Dell we're talking about is simply a proof point that Apple could design a $900 to $1100 mini-tower/mid-tower using desktop parts to fill the hole.

As you pointed out earlier, the iPhone got MMS and copy & paste because The Steve is out of the picture...temporarily or for good, who knows. As soon as the latter turns out to be the case, Apple will make their mini-tower and it will be amazing. :D

The Dell is $799 - add a 25% Apple tax for a designer case using the same internals.

Yep, but Dell keeps accidentally shipping their systems with Windows. :cool: In terms of success, the Apple mini-tower will be the iPod of the Mac lineup. If they'd just hurry the ****** up and produce it! :)

Not that I'd actually buy a mini-tower or anything...there is a fully loaded 8-core Mac Pro out there somewhere with my name on it. :D

[drsmithy]

Actually it's neither - Dell uses custom form factor boards in most of its systems. Only in a few low end systems do they put standard ATX boards.

Most Dell systems use the BTX standard.

[AidenShaw]

Don't worry, I don't think anybody's going to out and "impulse-buy" a Mac Pro after reading one measly little benchmark chart on MacRumors. ;)

If you read some of the posts here, it looks like some people who have decided to buy an MP are making their configuration decisions based on this one chart, though.


Yep, but Dell keeps accidentally shipping their systems with Windows. :cool:

You mean you keep checking that "OS X 10.5 Leopard" box under the operating system selection on the Dell build-to-order page, and they still ship them with Vista? That needs to be fixed.


Most Dell systems use the BTX standard.

The Studio XPS 435MT ("435 mini-tower") is not a BTX system.

One key design feature of BTX boards is that the layout is "reversed". If you set the mobo down flat on a table with the ports in the back:
BTX has the ports and CPU on the left side, PCIe slots on the right.
ATX has the ports and CPU on the right, with PCIe slots on the left.


The Wikipedia entry on BTX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTX_(form_factor)) states that:

BTX's thermal design specifies a particular processor location at the front of the board, where a special case ventilation duct is located. It places the northbridge behind the processor, and memory DIMMs beside the northbridge, arranged parallel to front-to-back airflow.

Unfortunately, this is not possible for processors with an integrated memory controller (on-die northbridge), such as the Athlon 64 and Intel Core i7.[3]

[drsmithy]

The Studio XPS 435MT ("435 mini-tower") is not a BTX system.

I didn't say it was, I said "most Dell systems use BTX". ;)

I was actually thinking mainly of the Optiplex systems, but I assume the (non-Core i7, apparently) other desktops are the same, these days.

[AidenShaw]

I didn't say it was, I said "most Dell systems use BTX". ;)

I didn't say that you said it was. ;) ;)


I was actually thinking mainly of the Optiplex systems, but I assume the (non-Core i7, apparently) other desktops are the same, these days.

OptiPlex 960 mini-tower systems are BTX-like, but don't look strictly compliant. The smaller ones might be BTX-like as well, but not sure if they match smaller form factor BTX specs.

Dell Inspiron desktops look ATX-like. Dell workstations are definitely unique.

At any point, it's basically moot since Intel abandoned BTX a few years ago. Newegg sells exactly zero BTX motherboards.

[mjteix]

Here are some of the next desktop cpus/price cuts from Intel.

- Core i7 at 3.06 and 3.33GHz...

- Price cut on the 65W quad S series + new model
FWIW, I don't think that the S series will be EOL soon, and it will be replaced by the 65W Lynnfields late 2009/early 2010. Perfect cpu for SSFs (AIO or other small form factor).

Too bad those will probably never see the inside of a Mac.

----------------------------
Intel: Desktop CPU price schedule, April-July 2009 (US$)

CPU.....................................Old Price New price Reduction
April 19
Core 2 Quad Q8400 (2.66GHz)....N/A..........183.........N/A
Core 2 Quad Q8400S (2.66GHz)..N/A...........245........N/A
Core 2 Quad Q9300...................266...........213......19.92%
Core 2 Quad Q9550S.................369...........320......13.28%
Core 2 Quad Q9400S.................320...........277......13.44%
Core 2 Quad Q8200S.................245...........213......13.06%
May 31
Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)...............N/A...........999........N/A
Core i7-950 (3.06GHz)...............N/A...........562........N/A
Core 2 Duo E7600.....................N/A...........133........N/A
Pentium Dual-Core E6300...........N/A............84.........N/A
Celeron Dual-Core E1600............N/A............53........N/A
July 19
Core 2 Quad Q8300...................183...........163......10.93%
Core 2 Duo E7500.....................133...........113......15.04%
Pentium Dual-Core E5400............84.............74......11.90%
Pentium Dual-Core E5300............74.............64......13.51%
Celeron Dual-Core E1500.............53............43......18.87%
--------------
source: Digitimes

[Anuba]

to us it may be a hole, to apple - there is a thing called the iMac.
...which is essentially a gargantuan laptop, not just technology-wise but Apple themselves apparently don't think it qualifies for a "desktop".

My iMac 24" broke down a few weeks ago and I thought I'd make use of the ludicrously expensive AppleCare plan for the first time. Since I'm used to Dell doing on-site repairs the next business day for less money than AppleCare costs, I expected the same from Apple except that the repair dude would have a pin-striped suit and white gloves, like the famed Rolls-Royce mechanics. So I call up Apple Support and talk to this snooty chick who explained that they don't do on-site repairs on iMacs. "But the AppleCare contract says on-site repairs of desktop computers, and that's what I paid for, or so I thought", I said. "Yes, but the iMac isn't a desktop model". "Well", I said, "let's see. It weighs like 30 pounds, it's huge, it has no battery, no built-in keyboard or trackpad, and it's got a non-detachable desktop stand, so it sure as **** can't be a laptop now can it?" But the girl just kept going on about how Mac Pro is the only thing they repair on location and that I have to drag the iMac about 60 miles, where the nearest authorized Apple service center is. I guess that's the "care" part of AppleCare...

Anyway... the iMac is non-expandable which defeats the purpose of a desktop computer as far as most users are concerned. What people want is simply a decently priced Apple desktop machine that you can stick a couple of cards in. Apple has completely skipped over the consumer desktop line of processors from Intel. The style of processor that the lion's share of Dell's product lineup is based on... XPS gaming machines, Dimension/Studio/Vostro desktops and so forth. Apple have the iMacs, Macbooks and Mac Minis with portable-grade processors, then nothing, then the full-blown Xeon line for business users and professionals, which is a huge jump in price, moreso than performance. And by their own admittance (see my AppleCare story above) they don't have a consumer desktop model, period.

[-hh]

The hardware will not "break", it will just not boot into Mac OS X.
Before updating can check out on forums to see if it works..



The hardware 'not breaking' is a moot point. Afterall, the whole purpose of having a computer is to run Applications (via its OS) ... because otherwise, its merely a very expensive space heater.

And the idea of letting the other guy go first has its limitations. For example, while the community can be helpful, they're not under any particular obligation to find out if it works, etc.

Bottom line is that a Hackintosh can be a fine hobby, but realistically, its not for business.


No there are more types, the types who:

Wants more than 1 hard drive, and doesn’t want a bunch of slower external ones.
Who likes to upgrade their machine when the time comes; better graphics, better CPU.
Likes to dual screen
Wants more performance than from a Mac mini and wants to use their own monitor.


Desire for DIY upgrades merely points again to the hobbiest who wants to play with a toy, not someone who merely relegates the PC as a tool to get a job done.

Insofar as multiple HDs, Firewire800 is available on all desktop Macs today, so there's no excuse to use USB. And while FW800 isn't quite as fast as SATA (internal or external), the reality is that the bottleneck is in the HD's themselves: even for the fastest tests (sustained reads), the performance bottleneck passes from FW800 to the HD itself when you go from the faster outermost tracks to the slower innermost tracks. The bottom line is that while FW800 has now been pushed to its limits, its not the "DOG" that everyone wants to claim that it is: just go read through the comparison test benchmarks on barefeats.com yourself...you'll find that they average out to roughly a 20% advantage for eSATA, but that eSATA slows down by 40% as the disk fills up. Also note that when it comes to random r/w, both are well below their theoreticals because the drive is the bottleneck...not the I/O protocol.

For dual screen, the iMac can do it. And the iMac has the "more power than the mini" that is desired. Two birds killed with one stone.

There are plenty of these types around. I was happy to buy the low end Power Macs in the past since they were reasonably priced, but the current low end Mac "Pro" is not.

See one of my older posts that incorporates present-value calculations versus historical prices of Mac Pros and PowerMacs. The short bottom line is that while they have been bumped up some, its not really as dramatically higher as many people try to suggest.

I finally understand for a Pro who makes a lot of money with their machine the relative cost of the machine is negligible. Although if *I* were a Pro who'd need the *single CPU* Mac Pro, I'd still get the Hackintosh, I don't know, I just couldn't throw AU$2500 out the window, so much more I could do with that.

No Pro worth his salt will take that risk because the risk is unnecessary, and the downside loss is too high. To fly fast & low without the safety net of a solid OEM warranty is a primer on just how to wreck your business. If you're willing to bet your entire business on AU$2500, what you're really saying is that you don't really have a business to lose.


-hh

[Goona]

...which is essentially a gargantuan laptop, not just technology-wise but Apple themselves apparently don't think it qualifies for a "desktop".

My iMac 24" broke down a few weeks ago and I thought I'd make use of the ludicrously expensive AppleCare plan for the first time. Since I'm used to Dell doing on-site repairs the next business day for less money than AppleCare costs, I expected the same from Apple except that the repair dude would have a pin-striped suit and white gloves, like the famed Rolls-Royce mechanics. So I call up Apple Support and talk to this snooty chick who explained that they don't do on-site repairs on iMacs. "But the AppleCare contract says on-site repairs of desktop computers, and that's what I paid for, or so I thought", I said. "Yes, but the iMac isn't a desktop model". "Well", I said, "let's see. It weighs like 30 pounds, it's huge, it has no battery, no built-in keyboard or trackpad, and it's got a non-detachable desktop stand, so it sure as **** can't be a laptop now can it?" But the girl just kept going on about how Mac Pro is the only thing they repair on location and that I have to drag the iMac about 60 miles, where the nearest authorized Apple service center is. I guess that's the "care" part of AppleCare...

Anyway... the iMac is non-expandable which defeats the purpose of a desktop computer as far as most users are concerned. What people want is simply a decently priced Apple desktop machine that you can stick a couple of cards in. Apple has completely skipped over the consumer desktop line of processors from Intel. The style of processor that the lion's share of Dell's product lineup is based on... XPS gaming machines, Dimension/Studio/Vostro desktops and so forth. Apple have the iMacs, Macbooks and Mac Minis with portable-grade processors, then nothing, then the full-blown Xeon line for business users and professionals, which is a huge jump in price, moreso than performance. And by their own admittance (see my AppleCare story above) they don't have a consumer desktop model, period.

Why didn't dell send someone to my house when my Inspiron laptop broke?

[AidenShaw]

Why didn't dell send someone to my house when my Inspiron laptop broke?

Beats me - looks like InHome service is the default now - even on $850 laptops.

[drsmithy]

Insofar as multiple HDs, Firewire800 is available on all desktop Macs today, so there's no excuse to use USB.

This is just another example of Apple's passive-agressive relationship with cabling. They tout that you only need a single cable for an iMac, but then expect you to end up with a desk covered in spaghetti for external drives.

You see the same thing in their laptop line, and the refusal to build a docking stations, instead choosing to do silly things with proprietry connectors and cables for monitors so that there are "fewer cables to plug in".

you'll find that they average out to roughly a 20% advantage for eSATA, but that eSATA slows down by 40% as the disk fills up.

I'm not quite sure why you'd think eSATA vs FW800 would make any difference in this instance.

For dual screen, the iMac can do it. And the iMac has the "more power than the mini" that is desired. Two birds killed with one stone.

No. You can connect a second screen to the iMac, but you cannot do "dual screen". If you already own screens, if you want two identical screens, if you want screens in portrait mode, if you need to use screens that meet some third party certification, etc, etc. In all these cases, the iMac is insufficient.

No Pro worth his salt will take that risk because the risk is unnecessary, and the downside loss is too high. To fly fast & low without the safety net of a solid OEM warranty is a primer on just how to wreck your business. If you're willing to bet your entire business on AU$2500, what you're really saying is that you don't really have a business to lose.

Not everyone whose "requirements" are only met by a Mac Pro, is running a business. For example, all the stuff I want a computer for, a Mac Mini or iMac cannot do. Therefore, I need to own two PCs (or a Hackintosh). A mid-range Mac tower should be an instant buy for my household, even if it cost nearly as much as two separate computers on its own (simply for the convenience factor).

Even in the business case, for someone buying, say, 50 machines, then the difference between a $2500 Mac Pro and the $1200 a possible mid-range tower should cost starts to count as real money.

[BenRoethig]

...which is essentially a gargantuan laptop, not just technology-wise but Apple themselves apparently don't think it qualifies for a "desktop".

My iMac 24" broke down a few weeks ago and I thought I'd make use of the ludicrously expensive AppleCare plan for the first time. Since I'm used to Dell doing on-site repairs the next business day for less money than AppleCare costs, I expected the same from Apple except that the repair dude would have a pin-striped suit and white gloves, like the famed Rolls-Royce mechanics. So I call up Apple Support and talk to this snooty chick who explained that they don't do on-site repairs on iMacs. "But the AppleCare contract says on-site repairs of desktop computers, and that's what I paid for, or so I thought", I said. "Yes, but the iMac isn't a desktop model". "Well", I said, "let's see. It weighs like 30 pounds, it's huge, it has no battery, no built-in keyboard or trackpad, and it's got a non-detachable desktop stand, so it sure as **** can't be a laptop now can it?" But the girl just kept going on about how Mac Pro is the only thing they repair on location and that I have to drag the iMac about 60 miles, where the nearest authorized Apple service center is. I guess that's the "care" part of AppleCare...

That is rather annoying. When the motherboard my ibook broke (several times) I got a box shipped to be next day at their expense and it was back in my hands within 3-4 days. With the iMac, its make an appointment that's convenient for the nearest Apple store, drive 100 miles round trip at my expense (thank God Madison opened or it would have been 180), have them do additional repairs without then even notifying you (good or bad depending on whether I get a bill), wait a week for the store to get parts in where the service center had everything on hand and then make another close to 4hr 100mile trip at my expense. Would it be too much to certify the best Buy people in AppleCare? They're two minutes away.

[Anuba]

Why didn't dell send someone to my house when my Inspiron laptop broke?
Because... you didn't pay extra for CompleteCare, I suppose? Or whatever it's called on the consumer side of things (CompleteCare is for businesses I think).

I run a small business and need my desktop and my laptop 24-7, so I got Dell's CompleteCare plan for both of them. I discovered that you can get insane deals if you talk to a sales rep rather than order online... the last time I updated my tiny 'machine park' I got about 10% off on the two computers, plus I got CompleteCare, business support and some insurance thingy thrown in for free. If I have some issue with a machine I call a number and the next day a guy shows up and replaces whatever parts they think might be causing the problem, no questions asked. I've had motherboard issues on one of the machines, and CompleteCare was definitely a lifesaver... I just called a number one afternoon, the next morning a guy showed up and replaced the motherboard, wham bam - almost no downtime and very convenient.

For the next update cycle, due this summer, I've seriously been considering replacing the Dells with a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro 17", but I'm a little hesitant.

First off, in terms of service I'll be going back to the stone age, even if I get the AppleCare plan. If the MBP breaks down I have to get on a train to Stockholm (because Apple are too aloof to repair laptops on location), leave it at some service center and go back and pick it up a couple of days later. If the same thing happens to the Mac Pro, I'll actually have to do the same thing because apparently I live about 6 miles outside whatever radius Apple can be arsed to cover around any given service center. So AppleCare is just a rudimentary and lame warranty extension in my case, and I'd be looking at several days of downtime I really can't afford.

Then there's the cost... I'd be paying a serious amount more for the Macs, not just because of the 25% Apple tax but also because I seriously doubt AppleStore is Dell-style friendly and would give me 10% off and throw in AppleCare for free. Apple is more like the Soup Nazi in that respect. I keep trying to get myself to buy the "Porsche argument" (i.e. that the premium pricetag on Apple's machines is justified for various reasons), but a Porsche is handmade in Germany, whereas an Apple computer is mass manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop, probably next door from where they make Wal-Mart Durabrand boomboxes... and a Porsche is built with exclusive parts all the way, whereas an Apple computer under its glorious aluminium enclosure has the same dime-a-dozen components as any given Dell/Gateway/HP/ASUS/Acer box.

Then there are some minor technical issues as well, such as BootCamp being flakey. Apparently, firewire audio works very poorly under BootCamp because Apple's keyboard driver is causing a huge amount of DPC spikes, resulting in massive audio dropouts. Or the fact that the MBP allegedly gets smoking hot when running Vista or Windows 7. If Macs are crippled PCs I can't do my work on them.

So yeah, I'm really not sure what to do. The industrial design sucker in me wants to go Apple across the board, and punish Dell for their lack of interest in nice design and their fascination for plastic, but the rest of me is vehemently against rewarding Apple for their crappy service and raw, predatory greed. The vibe they give me is that it won't be long before the power cable costs extra. I wonder if Gene Simmons, the greediest extortionist in showbiz history, is secretly running Apple...

[im2fast]

to us it may be a hole, to apple - there is a thing called the iMac.

Tough part about the Imac is the lack of upgrading a video card, ram (yeah, only 8 gigs on a single quad machine), internal hard drives and optical drives. A top of the line Imac would do me just fine...today. But what of tomorrow?? And what exactly will a 2.66 nehalem quad give over the previous quad processors? I wouldn't be getting a Macpro for status nor for making a living from it. My G4 tower is just too far behind and I need/want a machine that can last me five or so years.

[Goona]

I got that Inspiron in 2005 with 3 years warranty bringing it to over 2000 dollars, when it started overheating and I called them, they made me ship it back to them, didn't send anyone to my house to fix anything. I'm in Canada.

[AidenShaw]

Tough part about the Imac is the lack of upgrading a video card, ram (yeah, only 8 gigs on a single quad machine...

There are no quad Imacs - they're duals.

Apple's cheapest quad is $2499, Dell's cheapest is $489 (with a Core i7 for $799).

[Tarkio]

Tough part about the Imac is the lack of upgrading a video card, ram (yeah, only 8 gigs on a single quad machine), internal hard drives and optical drives. A top of the line Imac would do me just fine...today. But what of tomorrow?? And what exactly will a 2.66 nehalem quad give over the previous quad processors? I wouldn't be getting a Macpro for status nor for making a living from it. My G4 tower is just too far behind and I need/want a machine that can last me five or so years.

If you have to ask you might as well save money and buy a PC :D

I'm upgrading from a 733mhz SP G4 w/original ACD. It still works perfectly and I've been a happy camper for years, but all good things come to an end.

I just ordered a new MP 8-core 2.26 w/12GB RAM (6x2GB), Radeon HD 4870 and 30" ACD. Did I pay too much? Sure I did! But this machine will be perfect for my needs, and I'm so excited I could spit!

(It helps that my company gives 1-year interest-free computer loans, and my company discount saved me about $500.)

[im2fast]

There are no quad Imacs - they're duals.

Apple's cheapest quad is $2499, Dell's cheapest is $489 (with a Core i7 for $799).

Sorry, I was referring to the macpro as the quad.

[awulf]

The hardware 'not breaking' is a moot point. Afterall, the whole purpose of having a computer is to run Applications (via its OS) ... because otherwise, its merely a very expensive space heater.

And the idea of letting the other guy go first has its limitations. For example, while the community can be helpful, they're not under any particular obligation to find out if it works, etc.

Bottom line is that a Hackintosh can be a fine hobby, but realistically, its not for business.


There will be at least 1 person who will report it on the net before you can even think about upgrading, also in a business environment you don't upgrade instantly, you see the outcomes and test it on a test machine. And Im confident enough that it WILL continue to work.


Desire for DIY upgrades merely points again to the hobbiest who wants to play with a toy, not someone who merely relegates the PC as a tool to get a job done.

Insofar as multiple HDs, Firewire800 is available on all desktop Macs today, so there's no excuse to use USB. And while FW800 isn't quite as fast as SATA (internal or external), the reality is that the bottleneck is in the HD's themselves: even for the fastest tests (sustained reads), the performance bottleneck passes from FW800 to the HD itself when you go from the faster outermost tracks to the slower innermost tracks. The bottom line is that while FW800 has now been pushed to its limits, its not the "DOG" that everyone wants to claim that it is: just go read through the comparison test benchmarks on barefeats.com yourself...you'll find that they average out to roughly a 20% advantage for eSATA, but that eSATA slows down by 40% as the disk fills up. Also note that when it comes to random r/w, both are well below their theoreticals because the drive is the bottleneck...not the I/O protocol.

For dual screen, the iMac can do it. And the iMac has the "more power than the mini" that is desired. Two birds killed with one stone.

So you are saying Apple should axe the Mac Pro all together, and release a Dual Xeon iMac Pro?

An i7 blows the iMac out of the water when it comes to performance, you can also stick in much better graphics for little cost (like I have done), and as you can see with benchmarks above its on par with the Quad Core Mac pros.

I personally prefer all drives in one box, current I have 4 hard drives, so I would need either 3x external cases, which in turn have 3x power bricks and 3x FireWire 800 connections, which you would have to daisy chain, but this would also lower the speed that the hard drives can be accessed.
Alternatively you can get one of those Network hard drive centres to store all 3 hard drives, but over a network its a tad slow and not great for booting from (2nd hard drive of mine has windows installed).

With the two monitors thing, I was once at a company where if you wanted dual screens, the screens had to be identical because it can apparently cause eye strain. Either way I prefer having identical monitors.


See one of my older posts that incorporates present-value calculations versus historical prices of Mac Pros and PowerMacs. The short bottom line is that while they have been bumped up some, its not really as dramatically higher as many people try to suggest.

Maybe you're right, but at least in Australia the new Pros have increased in price way more than PCs, which continue to fall in price.


No Pro worth his salt will take that risk because the risk is unnecessary, and the downside loss is too high. To fly fast & low without the safety net of a solid OEM warranty is a primer on just how to wreck your business. If you're willing to bet your entire business on AU$2500, what you're really saying is that you don't really have a business to lose.

Well the PC hardware is just as good as the mac hardware, its all the same crap from China, so really its just the Hacking of the software that's the issue, and I'd be confident enough that It does work (since it obviously does) and I am personally technically capable of making it work, and I did say "I would" not "I recommend it to an artsy person who knows nothing about computers". If you want hardware warranty from the same place, an i7 Dell would do the trick.

For a large business with many computers, or maybe a University/School with lets say a lab of 24, who have test machines and IT people on hand.
24x AU$4,499 for a lab of low end basic Mac Pros: AU$107,976
24x AU$2,000 for a beefed up i7 Hackintosh (inc OS X license): AU$48,000
That's a saving of AU$59,976!

[Sehnsucht]

If you read some of the posts here, it looks like some people who have decided to buy an MP are making their configuration decisions based on this one chart, though.

Sad, isn't it? :D


You mean you keep checking that "OS X 10.5 Leopard" box under the operating system selection on the Dell build-to-order page, and they still ship them with Vista? That needs to be fixed.

I know. They really need to get it together, don't they? ;) :D

[DoFoT9]

Apple cares! They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find out what we think and then they spend millions trying to meet those expectations.

they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find out what the MAJORITY think, which in this case would be 'n00by' users - you know, the people that like the look of things and all that rather then the power of it. sure other factors come into it, but apples an innovation company not a power (CPU grunt power) type of company.

...which is essentially a gargantuan laptop, not just technology-wise but Apple themselves apparently don't think it qualifies for a "desktop".

yea it pretty much is, and i scold them for it.. but they are doing what the majority wants..

My iMac 24" broke down a few weeks ago and I thought I'd make use of the ludicrously expensive AppleCare plan for the first time. Since I'm used to Dell doing on-site repairs the next business day for less money than AppleCare costs, I expected the same from Apple except that the repair dude would have a pin-striped suit and white gloves, like the famed Rolls-Royce mechanics. So I call up Apple Support and talk to this snooty chick who explained that they don't do on-site repairs on iMacs. "But the AppleCare contract says on-site repairs of desktop computers, and that's what I paid for, or so I thought", I said. "Yes, but the iMac isn't a desktop model". "Well", I said, "let's see. It weighs like 30 pounds, it's huge, it has no battery, no built-in keyboard or trackpad, and it's got a non-detachable desktop stand, so it sure as **** can't be a laptop now can it?" But the girl just kept going on about how Mac Pro is the only thing they repair on location and that I have to drag the iMac about 60 miles, where the nearest authorized Apple service center is. I guess that's the "care" part of AppleCare...

thats a sad story.. most people drive that distance everyday to go to work, or to get an education (like me).

at least u get the repairs for free, they should rebate you fuel haha.

Anyway... the iMac is non-expandable which defeats the purpose of a desktop computer as far as most users are concerned.

burt - most users are n00bies. its expandible in their eyes (HD + RAM= yay to them)

What people want is simply a decently priced Apple desktop machine that you can stick a couple of cards in. Apple has completely skipped over the consumer desktop line of processors from Intel. The style of processor that the lion's share of Dell's product lineup is based on... XPS gaming machines, Dimension/Studio/Vostro desktops and so forth. Apple have the iMacs, Macbooks and Mac Minis with portable-grade processors, then nothing, then the full-blown Xeon line for business users and professionals, which is a huge jump in price, moreso than performance. And by their own admittance (see my AppleCare story above) they don't have a consumer desktop model, period.

while i will admit to everything you just said there, you need to know that apple doesnt roll like that! how did they get to where they are now?? by NOT going with the flow and the norms of what we expect..

Tough part about the Imac is the lack of upgrading a video card, ram (yeah, only 8 gigs on a single quad machine), internal hard drives and optical drives. A top of the line Imac would do me just fine...today. But what of tomorrow?? And what exactly will a 2.66 nehalem quad give over the previous quad processors? I wouldn't be getting a Macpro for status nor for making a living from it. My G4 tower is just too far behind and I need/want a machine that can last me five or so years.

to begin -- its only dual core (a fast one but :) ).

i dont actually think you know apples line up at all, give apple.com another look..

There are no quad Imacs - they're duals.

Apple's cheapest quad is $2499, Dell's cheapest is $489 (with a Core i7 for $799).

your point??

[Skriabin08]

Looking at those results, I'm glad I plumped for the older 8x2.8 machine, not only is it cheaper by a considerable margin, it's not too far behind in benchmarks of the new 8x2.26 machine.

New 4x2.66 = £1900, New 8x2.26 = £2500

My New 8x2.8 = £1550.

I then upgraded to 8GB RAM, and an 8800GT, which only cost £250, bringing the total to £1800, as I already have a 1TB HDD to add in from my old PC.

I'll run cinebench on my system to get some performance numbers from it, but for me the new Mac Pros just don't offer good value for money. :(

I do understand that the value of sterling has dropped, but not all that much against the dollar (1.395 at the moment, and it has been down to the 1.40ish mark before..), and the component costs are actually cheaper for the new Macs (read any number of existing threads for that - I don't need to post all the numbers yet again..), so I don't understand the massive price-hike..

Where can you get that last generation Mac Pro 2.8 Ghz model for only £1550 ?????:)

[wilderkun]

Does anybody know what the stars would be for ripping a DVD on handbrake using the dual quad 2.26?
On my quad 3ghz mac pro I was getting about 70 frames a second. What could I excepect? I saw 277 fps somewhere earlier but I'd like to know for sure.
Thanks

[Mattww]

Does anybody know what the stars would be for ripping a DVD on handbrake using the dual quad 2.26?
On my quad 3ghz mac pro I was getting about 70 frames a second. What could I excepect? I saw 277 fps somewhere earlier but I'd like to know for sure.
Thanks

I'm trying to find this out as well - trying to decide between getting a Quad 2.66 or paying the extra for the 8-Core.

[Flavioparentiq]

If anyone has question or want me to do some custom tests, well, i'm here posting from the new pro, my specs are:

2 x 2,66ghz nehalem
16 gb ram
2tb hard
radeon hd graphic card.

Let me know

[drsmithy]

For a large business with many computers, or maybe a University/School with lets say a lab of 24, who have test machines and IT people on hand.
24x AU$4,499 for a lab of low end basic Mac Pros: AU$107,976
24x AU$2,000 for a beefed up i7 Hackintosh (inc OS X license): AU$48,000
That's a saving of AU$59,976!

Or, to look at it another way, well and truly enough to hire someone solely to keep the Hackintoshes running. ;)

[Tesselator]

Apple cares! They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find out what we think and then they spend millions trying to meet those expectations.
they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find out what the MAJORITY think, which in this case would be 'n00by' users - you know, the people that like the look of things and all that rather then the power of it. sure other factors come into it, but apples an innovation company not a power (CPU grunt power) type of company.

They're not that stupid. Any social scientist with even one working neuron in their head knows a control group is needed. n00b group-think is handed to them by the over-vocal and those who actually know what they're doing and what they want (stress the later). They also operate within a design theme at the same time. This is pretty standard stuff. Apple would have to be full of nincompoops not to also do so themselves.

[DoFoT9]

They're not that stupid. Any social scientist with even one working neuron in their head knows a control group is needed. n00b group-think is handed to them by the over-vocal and those who actually know what they're doing and what they want (stress the later). They also operate within a design theme at the same time. This is pretty standard stuff. Apple would have to be full of nincompoops not to also do so themselves.

hahaha nincompoops, havent heard that word for a while!!

well apple must be stupid with zero neurons, because i see a lot of people complaining - either that or the majority of users are low power, 'i want a really good looking computer' type people.. its either your way or mine :p

[Tesselator]

hahaha nincompoops, havent heard that word for a while!!

well apple must be stupid with zero neurons, because i see a lot of people complaining - either that or the majority of users are low power, 'i want a really good looking computer' type people.. its either your way or mine :p

I dunno. There are 3rd & 4th options too:

3. They let greed get the better of them. Or they're actually facing some financial trouble we're not aware of and need to soak us because of it.
4. They f__ed up. They thought they could get away with comparing the new ones with the faster clocked higher priced older ones and therefrom would we simply forget how the market works and accept massive price-hikes.

I'm guessing it's No. 4. :D

[DoFoT9]

I dunno. There are 3rd & 4th options too:

3. They let greed get the better of them. Or they're actually facing some financial trouble we're not aware of and need to soak us because of it.
4. They f__ed up. They thought they could get away with comparing the new ones with the faster more expensive older ones and therefrom would we simply forget how the market works and accept massive price-hikes.

I'm guessing it's No. 4. :D

number 3 should be 3 and 4, number 4 should be 5... silly!! ;)

i guess we will never really know what is happening..maybe in 10 years time

Jobs Jr. --"hey everybody, remember the iMacs? *everybody nods* well yea, the reason we bought out so many versions at such high prices was because..."

but yea.. anyway

[Tesselator]

Jobs Jr. --"hey everybody, remember the iMacs? *everybody nods* well yea, the reason we bought out so many versions at such high prices was because..."...we were possessed by the devil?

[DoFoT9]

...we were possessed by the devil?

thats odd, i dont remember Gates working for apple :confused:

he does own half of them but, so maybe thats it!

[Tesselator]

thats odd, i dont remember Gates working for apple :confused:

he does own half of them but, so maybe thats it!

Touché !

But from what I've been told MS hasn't owned an interest in Apple for 8 or 9 years now.

[AidenShaw]

Touché !

But from what I've been told MS hasn't owned an interest in Apple for 8 or 9 years now.


Report: Ballmer dishes on Apple (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10201068-37.html?tag=mncol)

Ballmer: "Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment - same piece of hardware - paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."

Spoken like a non-shareholder.

[DoFoT9]

Touché !

But from what I've been told MS hasn't owned an interest in Apple for 8 or 9 years now.

oh really?? i never knew that.. blasted M$ 'followers' have been using this against me for years!!! theyll get a talking too

Report: Ballmer dishes on Apple (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10201068-37.html?tag=mncol)
Ballmer: "Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment - same piece of hardware - paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."
Spoken like a non-shareholder.

yes it does doesnt it, he mustnt have tried out the OS - the ones he's making arent that crash hot :rolleyes:

[Tesselator]

oh really?? i never knew that.. blasted M$ 'followers' have been using this against me for years!!! theyll get a talking too


Yeah, apparently there was some kind of bail-out agreement between the two. When Apple got back up on their feet they bought back all the holdings. And the last of it was in like 1999 or 2000. I was making the same mistake in another thread here and 2 or 3 kindly gentlemen here informed me of the actual details.

It was about the time the 09 macs released if you wanna search for it.

[DoFoT9]

Yeah, apparently there was some kind of bail-out agreement between the two. When Apple got back up on their feet they bought back all the holdings. And the last of it was in like 1999 or 2000. I was making the same mistake in another thread here and 2 or 3 kindly gentlemen here informed me of the actual details.

It was about the time the 09 macs released if you wanna search for it.

oh wow, microsoft clearly doesnt know quality when they see it :rolleyes: hopefully it will come back to haunt them!!

ill have a search for the thread :) thanks

(*engage stalker mode*)

[polaris20]

With all the uproar over the new Mac Pro, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the EFI-X unit. I just priced out what is basically a headless iMac (2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 2 1.5TB hard drives, 8800GT) for $1050, including the EFI-X unit and a retail OSX disk. No hacking, no waiting for some online "community" to fix patches when a security fix comes out....it just works. You could easily do a Core i7 system for a little more, and have an amazing machine for $1300-$1400.

[drsmithy]

Yeah, apparently there was some kind of bail-out agreement between the two.

It wasn't a bailout in any sense of the word. It was a legal cease fire arrangement.

More information here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company).

In August 1997, Apple and Microsoft announced a settlement deal. Apple would drop all current lawsuits, including all lingering issues from the "Look & Feel" lawsuit and the "QuickTime source code" lawsuit, and agree to make Internet Explorer the default browser on the Macintosh unless the user explicitly chose the bundled Netscape browser. In return, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Office, Internet Explorer, and various developer tools and software for the Mac for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. The companies also agreed to mutual collaboration on Java technologies, and to cross-license all existing patents, and patents obtained during the five-year deal, with one another.

At the time, Apple had something like $4 billion in cash. $150 million in that context barely qualifies as a rounding error.

[AidenShaw]

At the time, Apple had something like $4 billion in cash. $150 million in that context barely qualifies as a rounding error.

Are you sure? According to Apple's 1997 10K, they claimed $508M in cash, and that was after the Microsoft deal.

One could assume that it was closer to $350M or $400M at the time of the deal with Microsoft. Not a rounding error.

(10K lists $1459M cash & equivalents, and $951M in debts - balance $508M)

[AZREOSpecialist]

... The problem with your conclusions is that you cannot grasp the fact that there are reasons other than “financial or emotional” that factor into the decision to buy a machine like the MacPro. There are a great many practical reasons why someone might want or need a MacPro that have nothing to do with status or making money. Just because you don’t understand that is no reason to insult these people by claiming they’re making an “ego purchase”.

We will agree to disagree then. I do believe the vast majority of Mac Pros are in the hands of developers and those who rely on their Mac Pros for a living -- designers, musicians, IT professionals, etc. Apple's target audience for the Mac Pro can justify spending the additional dollars.

The noise we are hearing about the new Mac Pros being overpriced is coming from a small minority of users who obviously can't justify spending the additional dollars. If they could, they wouldn't be complaining. For those who have issues with the price, I suggest buying a $99 ADC student membership to knock off at least 20% from the retail price. That's a significant savings. Even an educational discount will save you 10% on a Mac Pro. It's easy enough to qualify for either of these discounts.

I just configured a Mac Pro 2.93 GHz Octad w/ Radeon 4870, all other items standard, for $4,879 with the ADC student developer discount vs. $6,099 without.

[AidenShaw]

If it's on top of the desk, it's possibly an "ego purchase".

Most of the time I see Windows "desktop" computers on the floor under the desk - even mini-towers and small-form-factor systems.

Often though, the humongous PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro systems are on top of the desk - like Gucci/Lexus status symbols.

One friend who remodeled his home had a special cabinet built in his office to hid the printer, network connections, file servers and other computer bits - keeping them nicely out of sight.

But his PowerMac G5 (and now octo Mac Pro) is on top of the desk...

[polaris20]

If it's on top of the desk, it's possibly an "ego purchase".

Most of the time I see Windows "desktop" computers on the floor under the desk - even mini-towers and small-form-factor systems.

Often though, the humongous PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro systems are on top of the desk - like Gucci/Lexus status symbols.

One friend who remodeled his home had a special cabinet built in his office to hid the printer, network connections, file servers and other computer bits - keeping them nicely out of sight.

But his PowerMac G5 (and now octo Mac Pro) is on top of the desk...

Perhaps, but all value arguments aside, Apple really does make the nicest looking computers out there, IMO. Even IT buddies that hate Apple otherwise tell me that. ;)

so why hide it under the desk? :D

[AidenShaw]

so why hide it under the desk? :D

...so that you can use the desk as a desk?

And, for what it's worth, the cheese grater box has never done anything for me. Too big, too plain, too many holes.

[DoFoT9]

...so that you can use the desk as a desk?

And, for what it's worth, the cheese grater box has never done anything for me. Too big, too plain, too many holes.

its for keeping things coooool... (probably not) :rolleyes: :cool:

[dnadrifter]

Anyone willing to provide some advice?

I have been reading this thread and others and am having a hard time deciding which direction to go with the new Mac Pros or something else.

I will soon be buying a avchd camcorder and will want to edit some video...(family only). I am a hobbyist photographer and and work with fairly large RAW files in PS CS3/Bridge. Will probably upgrade to CS5 when it comes out. Besides that I am a fairly average computer user.

I currently have a 1.33 PowerBook G4....yes, it is very slow running CS3 with RAW files.

I need a new computer. I don't need it to be the fastest or the best, but I would like it to be comfortable and enjoyable to use for the above apps.

If I didn't hate the screen or keyboard of the new MacBook Pro...I would probably just buy that despite limitations in RAM and the inability to use multiple HDs etc.

The iMacs are cheap, but RAM is expensive just to get to 8 Gb, with the same limitations of a laptop.

It would be great to have a Mac Pro with the expandability of RAM, multiple HDs for scratch disks, back up, etc.

The upper end of what I want to spend is ~$2500...would rather spend $1500-2000.

That puts me at considering a new 2008 octo 2.8 and a new 2009 quad 2.66 at the upper end.

Are there any opinions between these two configurations given what I would be using it for or is there another option I should consider. I wouldn't mind buying refurbished, but am generally uncomfortable buying used computers.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[AidenShaw]

I currently have a 1.33 PowerBook G4....

You currently have a single core laptop that supports 1.25 or 2 GiB RAM max - which I assume that you have.

I would think that the 24" Imac at $1500 would be a huge improvement for you, and more than enough horsepower for what you are doing.

The Imac has 2 much faster cores, and 4 GiB of RAM standard. That's far more power, and at least twice as much memory as you now have. (and a faster desktop disk drive)

4 GiB DDR DIMMs are expensive now, but they'll rapidly come down in price - probably by half or more within a year.

If 4 GiB is a real problem, then upgrade to 6 GiB or 8 GiB as the prices fall.

If you can cope with the PowerBook now, the Imac will be a huge improvement - and is $1500 with 24" monitor.

[AZREOSpecialist]

With all the uproar over the new Mac Pro, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the EFI-X unit. I just priced out what is basically a headless iMac (2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 2 1.5TB hard drives, 8800GT) for $1050, including the EFI-X unit and a retail OSX disk. No hacking, no waiting for some online "community" to fix patches when a security fix comes out....it just works. You could easily do a Core i7 system for a little more, and have an amazing machine for $1300-$1400.

EFI-X currently does not support Core i7.

[dnadrifter]

If you can cope with the PowerBook now, the Imac will be a huge improvement - and is $1500 with 24" monitor.

Thanks for the input. No doubt anything will be a big improvement on what I am using now. Right now I am not doing any video, and from what I read this will require a bit more processing power than photos. In addition, because my PB is so slow rendering previews of a folder of say 150 raw images, I find myself not actually sitting down to do as much as would otherwise...so I am not sure I am coping. :-)

You bring up a good point about RAM going down...so I could get to 8 Gb without spending a fortune.

A few things that push me away from looking at an iMac.

I had started to get my heart set on have multiple internal drives for, scratch, apps, files, backup, etc.

I won't really use the screen anyway for photo stuff because I will be using my more calibration and eye friendly matte S-IPS monitor. I would just use the imac screen for toolbars.

I wish there was something in between the iMac and the new Mac Pros....

[AidenShaw]

I wish there was something in between the iMac and the new Mac Pros....

No one's ever said that before!

</sarcasm>


Where's Apple's Core i7 mini-tower? Come on Tim - Steve's gone, you can give everyone the mini-tower using desktop parts now!

[polaris20]

EFI-X currently does not support Core i7.

No, but it will very soon as it's currently in testing. Besides, even a regular Core 2 Quad would be impressive when compared to an iMac.

[123]

No hacking, no waiting for some online "community" to fix patches when a security fix comes out....it just works. You could easily do a Core i7 system for a little more, and have an amazing machine for $1300-$1400.

Actually, it is much worse. You're right, there's no community. You are at the mercy of Art Studios Entertainment (bunch of hackers) for updates, fixes, and support. For all we know, they could sell/close their company tomorrow. Apple might be interested.

Edit: They're also unprofessional (just have a look at the website), and sometimes arrogant (forum posts)

[macaliseme]

If it's on top of the desk, it's possibly an "ego purchase".

Most of the time I see Windows "desktop" computers on the floor under the desk - even mini-towers and small-form-factor systems.

Often though, the humongous PowerMac G5 and Mac Pro systems are on top of the desk - like Gucci/Lexus status symbols.

One friend who remodeled his home had a special cabinet built in his office to hid the printer, network connections, file servers and other computer bits - keeping them nicely out of sight.

But his PowerMac G5 (and now octo Mac Pro) is on top of the desk...

For me, the reason why my I used to have my PC desktop on the desktop was because on the floor it was a dust magnet; I'd sooner have it up on the desk where it didn't attract as much dust.

As for the comparison; I see PC users treat their PC tower as if it were some giant phallic symbol they need on display. Its a computer - not a sex aid.

[AidenShaw]

As for the comparison; I see PC users treat their PC tower as if it were some giant phallic symbol they need on display. Its a computer - not a sex aid.

I guess that puts some Mac Pro owners on the same level as the adolescent gamers with their lucite cases and LED fans. :eek:

[polaris20]

Actually, it is much worse. You're right, there's no community. You are at the mercy of Art Studios Entertainment (bunch of hackers) for updates, fixes, and support. For all we know, they could sell/close their company tomorrow. Apple might be interested.

Edit: They're also unprofessional (just have a look at the website), and sometimes arrogant (forum posts)

Perhaps, but if something happens to them, the computer is still quite usable as a Linux machine. I think it's a cool idea, and I doubt they'll be the last to do it.

[DoFoT9]

I guess that puts some Mac Pro owners on the same level as the adolescent gamers with their lucite cases and LED fans. :eek:

there is NOTHING wrong with having a beefed up computer - just like there is nothing wrong with having a beefed up car, or something similar to that.

[AidenShaw]

there is NOTHING wrong with having a beefed up computer - just like there is nothing wrong with having a beefed up car, or something similar to that.

We were talking about the PC/MacPro as a phallic/status symbol thrusting from the top of the desk.

...and I've never seen evidence that an LED fan "beefs" up a computer, the benchmarks don't show that. :cool:

[macaliseme]

We were talking about the PC/MacPro as a phallic/status symbol thrusting from the top of the desk.

...and I've never seen evidence that an LED fan "beefs" up a computer, the benchmarks don't show that. :cool:

Its just that I've met so many people who claim they need a tower when in reality it is nothing more than a phallic symbol of power sitting on their desktop as a focal point in their office - the 'look at me and my powerful computer! aren't I just the most coolest person!".

How many people do you see claiming they need a tower, dismiss iMac's, claim that the Mac Pro is expensive then purchase a cheap Dell computer - all based in a false requirement? I've seen it so oftern is makes me laugh every time. Then again, there is an idiot born every minute.

[DoFoT9]

We were talking about the PC/MacPro as a phallic/status symbol thrusting from the top of the desk.

...and I've never seen evidence that an LED fan "beefs" up a computer, the benchmarks don't show that. :cool:

i meant beefed up as in pimping lol, get with the times- your outa the loop!

[Plutonius]

Its just that I've met so many people who claim they need a tower when in reality it is nothing more than a phallic symbol of power sitting on their desktop as a focal point in their office - the 'look at me and my powerful computer! aren't I just the most coolest person!".

How is it a symbol when it sits at home or in the office under a desk ? Unlike a car which people are always showing off, nobody is going to see the desktop computer (or even care about it). People have their own reasons for getting a tower and a symbol is not even on the list.

[mchalebk]

We will agree to disagree then. I do believe the vast majority of Mac Pros are in the hands of developers and those who rely on their Mac Pros for a living -- designers, musicians, IT professionals, etc. Apple's target audience for the Mac Pro can justify spending the additional dollars.

The noise we are hearing about the new Mac Pros being overpriced is coming from a small minority of users who obviously can't justify spending the additional dollars. If they could, they wouldn't be complaining. For those who have issues with the price, I suggest buying a $99 ADC student membership to knock off at least 20% from the retail price. That's a significant savings. Even an educational discount will save you 10% on a Mac Pro. It's easy enough to qualify for either of these discounts.

I just configured a Mac Pro 2.93 GHz Octad w/ Radeon 4870, all other items standard, for $4,879 with the ADC student developer discount vs. $6,099 without.

The problem I had with your statements was that you claimed that the only reason someone would buy a MacPro (other than professionals who buy them to make money) is as a status symbol. You claimed it was an “ego purchase”.

I never addressed what percentage of buyers actually buy MacPros to make money, just that there are many good reasons to buy a MacPro that have nothing to do with making money or ego.

[macaliseme]

How is it a symbol when it sits at home or in the office under a desk ? Unlike a car which people are always showing off, nobody is going to see the desktop computer (or even care about it). People have their own reasons for getting a tower and a symbol is not even on the list.

Why get a tower unless you're going to open and routinely change the internals? You get a tower for one of two reasons; you need the expandability because your work load is going to rapidly increase over the lifetime of the computer thus you want to maximise its life OR you see it as a massive ego boost by owning one.

Again, unless you fit into the first category, why would you need a tower? hence the whole xMac arguments I see are stupid.

[awulf]

Why get a tower unless you're going to open and routinely change the internals? You get a tower for one of two reasons; you need the expandability because your work load is going to rapidly increase over the lifetime of the computer thus you want to maximise its life OR you see it as a massive ego boost by owning one.

Again, unless you fit into the first category, why would you need a tower? hence the whole xMac arguments I see are stupid.

During the time I've owned my Power Mac G4 466GHz over its 8 years of life i have kept it running over these years due to minor upgrades when the need arises:

Replaced 466MHz G4 with a 1GHz G4 Sonnet upgrade card
Replaced CD-RW with DVD Combo and later a DVD Burner
Replaced IDE 30GB 5400RPM hard drive with 80GB IDE 7200RPM and later 320GB IDE
Added two SATA 320GB hard drives as RAID, later replaced with two SATA 1TB
Maxed out the 3 RAM slots to 1.5GB.
Added a PCI AlchemyTV DVR card
Added a PCI Sonnet SATA card
Added a PCI 5 port USB 2.0 card
Added an AirPort card
Replaced ATI Rage 128 Pro with ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which gave it Core Image support and a DVI port.

There are many people who do this and Apple is missing out on this audience. They lost a sale to me because the entry Mac Pro is over priced compared to what I could get from the PC scene and install OS X on it.

[mjteix]

During the time I've owned my Power Mac G4 466GHz over its 8 years of life i have kept it running over these years due to minor upgrades when the need arises:

Replaced 466MHz G4 with a 1GHz G4 Sonnet upgrade card
Replaced CD-RW with DVD Combo and later a DVD Burner
Replaced IDE 30GB 5400RPM hard drive with 80GB IDE 7200RPM and later 320GB IDE
Added two SATA 320GB hard drives as RAID, later replaced with two SATA 1TB
Maxed out the 3 RAM slots to 1.5GB.
Added a PCI AlchemyTV DVR card
Added a PCI Sonnet SATA card
Added a PCI 5 port USB 2.0 card
Added an AirPort card
Replaced ATI Rage 128 Pro with ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which gave it Core Image support and a DVI port.

There are many people who do this and Apple is missing out on this audience. They lost a sale to me because the entry Mac Pro is over priced compared to what I could get from the PC scene and install OS X on it.

Those were the good old times...
Unfortunatly today apart from the choice of 2 or 3 video cards, there are very few real updates that you can perform on a Mac Pro.

Anyway, manufacturers are starting to offer nehalem Xeon workstations, first in line: Lenovo (http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/lenovo-thinkstation-s20-d20-sport-new-xeon-cpus-tesla-c1060-g/).

The high-end ThinkStation D20 and low-end ThinkStation S20 workstations will run on Intel's as-yet unlaunched Xeon 3500 and 5500 series dual-core and quad-core chips.
...
The S20 model will be sold for $1,070 and dual-socket D20 starts at $1,550. They will hit the shops later this month. µ

Uglyness aside, those will offer dozen of choices of cpus and 7 options of workstation video cards, SATA and SAS drives including 10,000 and 15,000 rpm ones...

[polaris20]

Those were the good old times...
Unfortunatly today apart from the choice of 2 or 3 video cards, there are very few real updates that you can perform on a Mac Pro.

Anyway, manufacturers are starting to offer nehalem Xeon workstations, first in line: Lenovo (http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/lenovo-thinkstation-s20-d20-sport-new-xeon-cpus-tesla-c1060-g/).



Uglyness aside, those will offer dozen of choices of cpus and 7 options of workstation video cards, SATA and SAS drives including 10,000 and 15,000 rpm ones...

By the time you get to anything useful with the Lenovos, they're nowhere near $1500. They start out with 1.86Ghz cpu's, 1GB RAM, NVS series graphics, etc. They'll easily run you as much as a Mac Pro by the time you spec it out similarly. At least that was the case when comparing them to the previous gen MP. Lenovo's pricing and specs have yet to be updated on their site for the new Xeons.

What does make Lenovo (and HP for that matter) attractive is that they sell Core Duo (and presumably will sell regular i7) based workstations for far less, which Apple of course, does not.

[AidenShaw]

Why get a tower unless you're going to open and routinely change the internals?


A tower gives many more CTO (buy-time) options than a laptop or a laptop on a stand. Even if you never open it after purchase, you have the flexibility when you buy.
A mini-tower could use desktop parts, rather than more expensive laptop or workstation/server parts. The price/performance ratio would be better than either laptops or workstations.
A tower doesn't tie your CPU and monitor together, like a laptop on a stand does.

[Sehnsucht]

Report: Ballmer dishes on Apple (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10201068-37.html?tag=mncol)

Ballmer: "Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment - same piece of hardware - paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."

Spoken like a non-shareholder.

Sorry, but Ballmer is Satan in disguise. Not to mention that he just repeated once again a tired old quote that's been thrown around by The Other Side since the mid '80s. The different (better) OS aside, the fact remains that Macs and PCs aren't always the "same piece of hardware". Depending on the manufacturer, some PCs use higher-quality components and some use the cheapest Chinese crap. I also love how Microsoft fanboys will say, "Oh it's the same hardware, just more expensive" whenever they're comparing prices, but in other debates, they turn around and say "Apple's build quality is horrible", "all their laptops have overheating issues", "Apple's laptop batteries explode and catch fire", "the MacBook Pros have bad graphics cards," blah blah blah. :rolleyes:

[Eidorian]

Sorry, but Ballmer is Satan in disguise. Not to mention that he just repeated once again a tired old quote that's been thrown around by The Other Side since the mid '80s. The different (better) OS aside, the fact remains that Macs and PCs aren't always the "same piece of hardware". Depending on the manufacturer, some PCs use higher-quality components and some use the cheapest Chinese crap. I also love how Microsoft fanboys will say, "Oh it's the same hardware, just more expensive" whenever they're comparing prices, but in other debates, they turn around and say "Apple's build quality is horrible", "all their laptops have overheating issues", "Apple's laptop batteries explode and catch fire", "the MacBook Pros have bad graphics cards," blah blah blah. :rolleyes:Just like Apple does. :D

[diamond.g]

Sorry, but Ballmer is Satan in disguise. Not to mention that he just repeated once again a tired old quote that's been thrown around by The Other Side since the mid '80s. The different (better) OS aside, the fact remains that Macs and PCs aren't always the "same piece of hardware". Depending on the manufacturer, some PCs use higher-quality components and some use the cheapest Chinese crap. I also love how Microsoft fanboys will say, "Oh it's the same hardware, just more expensive" whenever they're comparing prices, but in other debates, they turn around and say "Apple's build quality is horrible", "all their laptops have overheating issues", "Apple's laptop batteries explode and catch fire", "the MacBook Pros have bad graphics cards," blah blah blah. :rolleyes:
Not a MS fanboy (by any means) but the bolded statements can still be true, even if they indicate the opposite. Why? Cause Apple takes those same Intel chips and stuffs them in a small enclosure. Whereas Dell/Gateway/etc don't (well didn't they seem to be trying it out since Apple has been so popular with the idea). So Apples systems (aside from the Mac Pro) "overheat" (to me they are well within tolerances) when being pushed while the Dell doesn't.

[DeepCobalt]

Actually, I've been up to Redmond several times, and many developers there have Mac Pros running Windows--they feel Apple has optimized hardware.

[AidenShaw]

(duplicate, please delete)

[AidenShaw]

Sorry, but Ballmer is Satan in disguise.

Wow, did the devil make you say that?



Ballmer's big mouth is good for Microsoft
March 23, 2009 3:39 PM PDT

Steve Ballmer likes to mix it up in interviews. And although some don't like how forthright he is, Don Reisinger contends that it's hard to argue with what he says.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10201879-17.html



In the story, it says:

Does Steve Ballmer have a big mouth? I'm sure Bill Gates has cringed at what his buddy said more than once. But he says what he believes (or at least appears to).

And he's only telling us what we already know: Windows Mobile is in desperate need of a meaningful update; Windows Vista is a bloated mess that Microsoft can't salvage; Mac OS X isn't a credible threat to Windows; Apple charges much more for its computers than most of us think necessary; and Microsoft is a successful company.

What's so bad about any of that? It might hurt the feelings of Apple (and Linux) fans, but it's the truth.

[mjteix]

By the time you get to anything useful with the Lenovos, they're nowhere near $1500. They start out with 1.86Ghz cpu's, 1GB RAM, NVS series graphics, etc. They'll easily run you as much as a Mac Pro by the time you spec it out similarly. At least that was the case when comparing them to the previous gen MP. Lenovo's pricing and specs have yet to be updated on their site for the new Xeons.

What does make Lenovo (and HP for that matter) attractive is that they sell Core Duo (and presumably will sell regular i7) based workstations for far less, which Apple of course, does not.

Things change. We will have to wait and see the full pricing. While Lenovo may not change what they used to do in terms of pricing policy (I agree that fully configured their workstations can cost a lot), Apple has changed theirs. I'm not saying that Lenovo in particular has better offerings than Apple, just that soon we will be able to compare the new Mac Pro to equivalent workstations from other manufacturers.

FWIW, you can find the latest benchmarks of the new Mac Pro from MacWorld here (http://www.macworld.com/article/139507/2009/03/macpro2009.html). IMO, there's nothing spectacular about the new $3299 octo 2.26GHz Mac Pro. The single quad 2.66GHz looks better despite its high price and RAM limitation. It is still my opinion that the new Mac Pros are overpriced (all of them), and the fact that Lenovo can offer base prices as low as $1,000/$1,500 for the same platforms, just reinforces the feeling.

It’s harder to recommend that people spend $800 more for the new $3,299 2.26GHz eight-core Mac Pro if they don’t run software written for the top-of-the-line Mac Pro’s eight processor cores. Though the 2.26GHz model was faster at most individual tasks than the previous eightcore 2.8GHz Mac Pro, and very fast in a few of our professional applications tests, it was slower than the new quad-core model at the majority of our application tests.

[awulf]

I have had many hardware related issues with Apple laptops.

I had an iBook G4 1.33GHz (latest generation) when I pulled it out of its box it was slightly bent, so I brought it back to the Apple store, where they said its not functionally broken, so its fine. Then after a month a CD got stuck, and I brought it back there, so they decided to send it off for repairs. About a week later I got a phone call saying they wont fix it because it was physically damaged, I yelled over the phone and they decided to fix it. Turned out the logic board, combo drive and a metal beam was broken and hence replaced. 5 months later the iBook kept kernel panicking, due to the AirPort card. Sent it in AirPort card and logic board were replaced. 4 months later again, same issue, was sent back in and got a new logic board. 3 months later out of warranty happened again, but wasn’t covered under warranty so couldn’t do anything about it. Turned out that that model of iBook had a design flaw where the chips and sockets would come off the logic board.

My current MacBook Pro 2.2GHz (LED) was sent in twice for a new LCD because they kept getting white spots all over, my guess is that the logic board is sending the LCD too much power or something. Now its out of warranty its happening again and also the optical drive is malfunctioning. I have been careful with this laptop, it sill looks like new. Also it once screen turned off in a game, probably due to the commonly faulty Nvida 8600M inside it.

Most people I know who have a Mac laptop have had problems with theirs too. So they are definitely not reliable in my eyes.

My old PowerBook 100 is still running strongly though :D

[drsmithy]

Why get a tower unless you're going to open and routinely change the internals? You get a tower for one of two reasons; you need the expandability because your work load is going to rapidly increase over the lifetime of the computer thus you want to maximise its life OR you see it as a massive ego boost by owning one.

Or you have enough hardware that it won't fit into an iMac. Like, say, four hard disks, 3-4 expansion cards, two CPUs and 8 memory DIMMs.

You could buy a machine configured like that from day one and never open it again for 3 years, but you still need a large case to fit it into.

(To say nothing of being able to keep it cool, quietly.)

Again, unless you fit into the first category, why would you need a tower? hence the whole xMac arguments I see are stupid.

The 'xMac' requests are for a machine that's basically half a Mac Pro. So, 2 hard disks, two expansion cards, 4-6 DIMM slots and a single CPU, plus cooling ability.

That's not going to fit into an iMac.


This is also before covering the other obvious advantages, like not being tethered to a particular screen, and the better price/performance of non-laptop components.

[mangis]

I just can't stop giggling.

New Mac Pro arrived yesterday - - upgrade from 2002 Dual 1 Ghz Quicksilver.

Oh, the speed!

I thought I learned my lesson waiting 7 years from 1992 to 1999 going from a powerbook 160 to a G3 powerbook.

Remind me never to wait 7 years again to upgrade. The feeling of the power!

Also, can't sleep, just on computer all the time.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[DoFoT9]

I just can't stop giggling.

New Mac Pro arrived yesterday - - upgrade from 2002 Dual 1 Ghz Quicksilver.

Oh, the speed!

I thought I learned my lesson waiting 7 years from 1992 to 1999 going from a powerbook 160 to a G3 powerbook.

Remind me never to wait 7 years again to upgrade. The feeling of the power!

Also, can't sleep, just on computer all the time.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

jealous!!

pretty sure you need to upgrade your Sig. :p

[AidenShaw]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10203540-92.html?tag=mncol

Dell is attempting to gain some ground in the server market, which is dominated by Hewlett-Packard and IBM. In order to grab a larger piece of the data center pie, the company has shoveled everything together into one announcement. And it's a big one.
There are 14 new products altogether: new Dell M-series blade servers, 11th-generation PowerEdge servers, Precision workstations, EqualLogic PS6000 storage arrays, and a host of revamped services.
...


No details yet, so keep watching to see if the Mac Pro looks crippled and/or overpriced next to the Dell, or whether it turns out to be a good value.


update:

http://www.engadget.com/tag/Nehalem/

An industry source has sent along information and images for a trio of new Dell Precision workstations using Intel's Nehalem architecture.

The T3500 (starts at $999) sports up to 24GB DDR3 ECC memory.

Just above that, we've got the T5500 (starts at $1,620) with up to 72GB of memory and dual socket Intel Xeon.

Meanwhile, granddaddy T7500 (pictured; starts at $1,800) boasts 192GB of three-channel DDR3 ECC memory up to 1066 or 1333MHz, dual native Gen 2 PCIe graphics slots and supports NVIDIA SLI technology.

All models feature an E-SATA port, up to 1.5TB SATA HDD, dual / quad monitor support, DisplayPort connectors, and for those trying to keep some assemblance of eco friendliness, these are all Energy Star 5.0 compliant.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/2009-03-24dellprecisionpage.jpg



Guess we go with crippled *and* overpriced.

My guess would be that the T3500 is the Xeon 3500 in Dell's mid-tower case, with 6 RAM slots. T5500 would be a pair of Xeon 5500s in the mid-tower, and the T7500 a pair of Xeon 5500s in Dell's maxi-tower. Interesting memory limits, though, for the dual socket systems....

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/2009-03-24dellprecision.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/intuos4-tablet-2009-03-25_01-32-18-rm-eng.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/intuos4-tablet-2009-03-25_01-32-34-rm-eng.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/2009-03-24dellprecision-11.jpg T3500 - six RAM slots, one socket (air baffle on/off)

[azentropy]

HP released their consumer desktops with the i7...
HP Pavilion Elite m9600t series (http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=Performance+and+entertainment&series_name=m9600t_series)

Starting at $949, again showing either what a poor value the entry MacPro is or the huge hole Apple has in their lineup.

[Umbongo]

No details yet, so keep watching to see if the Mac Pro looks crippled and/or overpriced next to the Dell, or whether it turns out to be a good value.

update:

Guess we go with crippled *and* overpriced.

I kind of want to be a dick and quote all those people that said the Dell single quad core workstations would be really expensive because they were "workstations". Seems they are a little bit more than the consumer boxes.

[Tallest Skil]

HP released their consumer desktops with the i7...
HP Pavilion Elite m9600t series (http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=Performance+and+entertainment&series_name=m9600t_series)

Completely different market, completely different concept, rendering your point moot.

Starting at $949, again showing either what a poor value the entry MacPro is or the huge hole Apple has in their lineup.

Shut up about the xMac already. :p

Know what the xMac is? Honestly, do you want to know what the xMac is to Apple?

The quad core Mac Pro is the Apple-made xMac. The quad core is what they have given us as the xMac.

"But it's $1,000 more than we wanted!"

Apple couldn't care less what we want. This is what they have given us.

[NightSailor]

Wow. Now I am extremely happy with my 2.8 8-Core. It was cheaper too. haha

I agree. I'm very happy with my 2008 3.2GHz. My next upgrade is a SSD drive. I think that will make my machine snappier than any new one.

[AidenShaw]

Completely different market,

...and a large market in which Apple has no products to sell. :eek:


The new Nehalem Precision Workstations aren't on the Dell site yet - it is possible that they won't appear for sale until after the formal Intel announcement of the 3500/5500.

[Umbongo]

Interesting memory limits, though, for the dual socket systems....

The 72GB one is interesting as that would suggest, if correct, that the T5500 has 3 memory slots for one processor and 6 for the other.

[pohl]

I just can't stop giggling.

New Mac Pro arrived yesterday - - upgrade from 2002 Dual 1 Ghz Quicksilver.

Oh, the speed!

Whoa, cowboy. What are you doing expressing joy about your 2009 Mac Pro in a thread that's clearly designated as a piss & moan zone!? :D

Congratulations, though. Mine came a week ago and I am in heaven: vast, untapped resources...just how I like it. (I upgraded from a 2Ghz dual-core G5)

Also, can't sleep, just on computer all the time.

Same here. This is the first machine I've ever had that was more than being merely adequate. It is bliss.

[BenRoethig]

I kind of want to be a dick and quote all those people that said the Dell single quad core workstations would be really expensive because they were "workstations". Seems they are a little bit more than the consumer boxes.

First, they were saying that because in their minds there was no way Apple could be possibly be gouging customers like.

Second, are you a bit surprised? The only difference in manufacturing cost between an i7 system and a Xeon 3500 system is the ECC memory. Of course Apple's case is going to cost more to produce (but not that much more than the as low as $1299 PMG5 it was based on), they could be using the 36D chipset instead of the 36S, and they might be using the same ~1000W power supply rather than a cheaper one with less capacity, but the numbers still don't add up without unheard of margins being factored in. It really looks like the pricing is designed to make the make lineup nice and tidy with no overlap.

[Umbongo]

First, they were saying that because in their minds there was no way Apple could be possibly be gouging customers like.

Second, are you a bit surprised? The only difference in manufacturing cost between an i7 system and a Xeon 3500 system is the ECC memory. Of course Apple's case is going to cost more to produce (but not that much more than the as low as $1299 PMG5 it was based on), they could be using the 36D chipset instead of the 36S, and they might be using the same ~1000W power supply rather than a cheaper one with less capacity, but the numbers still don't add up without unheard of margins being factored in.

No I'm not suprised, but on the other hand I wouldn't have been suprised to see a T3500 configured like a quad Mac Pro to close in on $2,000. The T3400s with similar last-gen components got close. I'm sure the T3500 will have lower power PSUs and expensive CPU, memory and storage options but for those pure price arguments it is sure to win out.

You are correct in the Mac Pro chassis and power supply stuff, the Mac pros are the same just with different daughter boards plugged in which means it is probably cheaper for Apple to do than offer different PSUs anyway.

It really looks like the pricing is designed to make the make lineup nice and tidy with no overlap.

Absolutely. If you look at Apple's computers alone then the line up is smooth and balanced. It's when you know how much parts cost and look at competitors who let you choose from a full range of products, components and configuration choices that it looks bizarre.

[polaris20]

No details yet, so keep watching to see if the Mac Pro looks crippled and/or overpriced next to the Dell, or whether it turns out to be a good value.


update:



Guess we go with crippled *and* overpriced.

My guess would be that the T3500 is the Xeon 3500 in Dell's mid-tower case, with 6 RAM slots. T5500 would be a pair of Xeon 5500s in the mid-tower, and the T7500 a pair of Xeon 5500s in Dell's maxi-tower. Interesting memory limits, though, for the dual socket systems....

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/2009-03-24dellprecision.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/intuos4-tablet-2009-03-25_01-32-18-rm-eng.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/intuos4-tablet-2009-03-25_01-32-34-rm-eng.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/2009-03-24dellprecision-11.jpg T3500 - six RAM slots, one socket (air baffle on/off)

A current T5400 (up to 32GB RAM, 8-core) equipped as such, as similar to an Octo 2.26Ghz:

PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional downgrade edit
2ND PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit
WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX570, Dual Monitor DVI Capable edit
CHASSIS CONFIGURATION AND 1394 Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration edit
MEMORY 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ and Roxio Creator™ Dell Ed edit
RAID CONFIGURATION C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 drive total configuration edit
HARD DRIVE 750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™ edit
MONITOR Dell 19 inch™ E1909W Widescreen Flat Panel edit
SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers

Sorry about the garbled text, it's a cut and paste.

$4133.

The supposed "starting at" prices are BS for Dell, Lenovo, and HP. By the time you get to something comparable, it's not that great of a deal.

I'm not saying Apple still isn't overpriced in some areas, but the others aren't cheap either.

Also, Apple really doesn't offer anything equivalent to the 7500 or 3500. The quad is still quite a bit high for Apple. It's basically an HP XW4600 for a grand more (XW4600 is a quad, single socket, 8GB max RAM, ~$1500).

In my opinion, the quad MP really should be about $1800-$2000, to bring it in line with HP but with the infamous "Apple tax".

EDIT A current T3400 comes in at about $1600-$1700 (2.66Ghz quad, 2GB RAM, 750GB HD) so it would make sense for Apple's 2.66Ghz quad to run $2000 or so.

Also, something that really does irritate me with the new MP, though it's not a deal breaker, is the fact that no Quadros are being offered. I could have sworn the last gen was available with a FX5600, which is a nice card.

[Eidorian]

A current T5400 (up to 32GB RAM, 8-core) equipped as such, as similar to an Octo 2.26Ghz:

PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional downgrade edit
2ND PROCESSOR Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5440 (2.83GHz,2X6M L2,1333) edit
WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX570, Dual Monitor DVI Capable edit
CHASSIS CONFIGURATION AND 1394 Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration edit
MEMORY 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ and Roxio Creator™ Dell Ed edit
RAID CONFIGURATION C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 drive total configuration edit
HARD DRIVE 750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™ edit
MONITOR Dell 19 inch™ E1909W Widescreen Flat Panel edit
SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers

Sorry about the garbled text, it's a cut and paste.

$4133.

The supposed "starting at" prices are BS for Dell, Lenovo, and HP. By the time you get to something comparable, it's not that great of a deal.

I'm not saying Apple still isn't overpriced in some areas, but the others aren't cheap either.

Also, Apple really doesn't offer anything equivalent to the 7500 or 3500. The quad is still quite a bit high for Apple. It's basically an HP XW4600 for a grand more (XW4600 is a quad, single socket, 8GB max RAM, ~$1500).Upgrading to the dual/socket style processors like the Mac Pro on a lower end Dell/HP is always what ends up being the problem. The upgrade costs are outrageous but the ridiculously low entry price means everyone can have an awesome i7 system starting off at around ~US$1,000.

It boggles my mind how Apple can sell a mobile Core 2 Duo in a desktop for more than $700 and that people actually buy it. I love my MacBook to death and all but it's nonetheless amazing.

[polaris20]

Upgrading to the dual/socket style processors like the Mac Pro on a lower end Dell/HP is always what ends up being the problem. The upgrade costs are outrageous but the ridiculously low entry price means everyone can have an awesome i7 system starting off at around ~US$1,000.

It boggles my mind how Apple can sell a mobile Core 2 Duo in a desktop for more than $700 and that people actually buy it. I love my MacBook to death and all but it's nonetheless amazing.

When you say $1000 for a Dell/HP, I don't think you're making accurate comparisons though.

While it's true you can get an i7 desktop for $1000, the workstation series from Dell (T3500) and from HP (whatever replaces the XW4600) will be around $1400-$1500 similarly equipped to the quad Apple. This is a guestimate based upon what we're currently paying for the XW4600's, and what we've priced the current T3400's at.

That doesn't mean the quad isn't still grossly overpriced, it's just that the difference is a grand, not $1500.

[Eidorian]

When you say $1000 for a Dell/HP, I don't think you're making accurate comparisons though.

While it's true you can get an i7 desktop for $1000, the workstation series from Dell (T3500) and from HP (whatever replaces the XW4600) will be around $1400-$1500 similarly equipped to the quad Apple. This is a guestimate based upon what we're currently paying for the XW4600's, and what we've priced the current T3400's at.

That doesn't mean the quad isn't still grossly overpriced, it's just that the difference is a grand, not $1500.I think we're drawing the line at non-ECC and ECC support for calling it a workstation or not?

Considering the venerable Power Mac G4 and G5 and their memory support...

[polaris20]

I think we're drawing the line at non-ECC and ECC support for calling it a workstation or not?

Not exactly. While the XW4600's are indeed ECC, they're specifically classified as workstations by HP, and as such are built better than the DC series desktop line, generally are more expandable in terms of drives/memory.

I guess it's a blurry line, but that's what I am going by. For instance, an XW4600 with a 2.83Ghz Core 2 Quad, 3GB of RAM, 500GB HD, and an FX560 graphics is $1788.

The DC7900 series would be their upper end "desktop" segment, and Apple just doesn't want to play in that area, for whatever reason.

Maybe I'm snobby with this stuff because of years in IT, but I just refuse to compare Apple stuff to consumer-grade HP/Dell etc., because generally I find it to be built for crap. Their business lines are much more comparable, as is the service.

[123]

Not exactly. While the XW4600's are indeed ECC, they're specifically classified as workstations by HP, and as such are built better than the DC series desktop line
What exactly do you mean by "bulit better"? The case?


generally are more expandable in terms of drives/memory.

Well, this might be the case for HP and the like, but Apple's offerings are absolutely comparable to consumer machines of these brands when it comes to drive/memory expandability.

[drsmithy]

While it's true you can get an i7 desktop for $1000,

Well, you can actually get an i7 desktop from Dell for $800 now - so, bottom-end quad-core Mac Pro performance, for less than 1/3 the price.

[AidenShaw]

What exactly do you mean by "bulit better"? The case?

The case is more solid, there's more attention to cooling and airflow (which translates into quieter), usually easier to work on (screwless), better and larger power supply.

I have a similar view of Dell's desktops - the business models are better built than the models found as Best Buy specials.


Well, this might be the case for HP and the like, but Apple's offerings are absolutely comparable to consumer machines of these brands when it comes to drive/memory expandability.

For laptops, but not for desktops.

The Mini and Imac are a joke for disk expansion - only one drive, and a laptop drive in the Mini. Most consumer machines from other brands are mini-towers with 3 to 5 total disk/disc slots.

Dell and HP entry quad Nehalem systems support 24 GiB of RAM, the quad core Apple supports 8 GiB. Dell octo-core Nehalems support 72 GiB or 192 Gib - Apple's octo maxes at 32 GiB. (And neither Apple supports full tri-channel memory at the max.)

[diamond.g]

The case is more solid, there's more attention to cooling and airflow (which translates into quieter), usually easier to work on (screwless), better and larger power supply.

I have a similar view of Dell's desktops - the business models are better built than the models found as Best Buy specials.




For laptops, but not for desktops.

The Mini and Imac are a joke for disk expansion - only one drive, and a laptop drive in the Mini. Most consumer machines from other brands are mini-towers with 3 to 5 total disk/disc slots.

Dell and HP entry quad Nehalem systems support 24 GiB of RAM, the quad core Apple supports 8 GiB. Dell octo-core Nehalems support 72 GiB or 192 Gib - Apple's octo maxes at 32 GiB. (And neither Apple supports full tri-channel memory at the max.)Does anyone know if the Dell boxes use EFI? That could be the cause of Apples issues.

[AidenShaw]

Does anyone know if the Dell boxes use EFI? That could be the cause of Apples issues.

Not sure that I understand this - "EFI" is basically just a different firmware image, and should not materially change the cost of a system.

So, "Apples are more expensive because they use EFI" isn't likely.

[diamond.g]

Not sure that I understand this - "EFI" is basically just a different firmware image, and should not materially change the cost of a system.

So, "Apples are more expensive because they use EFI" isn't likely.

I was meaning the RAM differences.

Price is all due to the spiffy :apple: logo on the boxes.

[Umbongo]

I was meaning the RAM differences.

Price is all due to the spiffy :apple: logo on the boxes.

The memory limitations are all marketing or self imposed limitations and the number of physical slots present on the systems. The X58 platform supports all the DDR3 capacities and the Xeons support any combination of unbuffered/registered and ECC memory.

[AidenShaw]

The X58 platform supports all the DDR3 capacities and the Xeons support any combination of unbuffered/registered and ECC memory.

Of course, the system firmware (BIOS/EFI) can disable support for particular densities. This isn't unreasonable, since a vendor might want to avoid problem calls due to untested memory sizes and combinations.

[Umbongo]

Of course, the system firmware (BIOS/EFI) can disable support for particular densities. This isn't unreasonable, since a vendor might want to avoid problem calls due to untested memory sizes and combinations.


Good for upselling to higher end products with bigger margins too ;)

[AZREOSpecialist]

The problem I had with your statements was that you claimed that the only reason someone would buy a MacPro (other than professionals who buy them to make money) is as a status symbol. You claimed it was an “ego purchase”.

I never addressed what percentage of buyers actually buy MacPros to make money, just that there are many good reasons to buy a MacPro that have nothing to do with making money or ego.

I suppose that puts you squarely in the "hobbyist" category then, which is not Apple's target market for Mac Pro.

[mchalebk]

I suppose that puts you squarely in the "hobbyist" category then, which is not Apple's target market for Mac Pro.

That has nothing to do with any of the statements I've made. You made a claim that there were two types of people who buy MacPros: people who use them to make money and people who buy them as status symbols. I never once talked about Apple’s target market, I was simply refuting the insulting and blatantly incorrect statement that, if you’re not making money with your MacPro, it is an “ego purchase”.

[BenRoethig]

Does anyone know if the Dell boxes use EFI? That could be the cause of Apples issues.

No. Windows doesn't support EFI at the client level, only the dinosaur called BIOS.

[AZREOSpecialist]

That has nothing to do with any of the statements I've made. You made a claim that there were two types of people who buy MacPros: people who use them to make money and people who buy them as status symbols. I never once talked about Apple’s target market, I was simply refuting the insulting and blatantly incorrect statement that, if you’re not making money with your MacPro, it is an “ego purchase”.

You picked out one sentence in a much longer email which I wrote regarding Apple's target market for the Mac Pro. I'm simply referring to my original point, which is that you are obviously not Apple's target market for the Mac Pro. Apple's target market is not hobbyists or those who wish to buy the biggest and fastest so that they can claim to have the biggest and fastest.

I'm sorry you were so offended by one comment in a much larger email. Perhaps I'll add a third category to the two which were so offensive to you. So there are three types of Mac Pro users -- business users who create wealth with their CPU muscle, "ego" buyers who just want the best without any real "need" to justify the expenditure, and hobbyists like yourself.

I still think that Apple's target market for the Mac Pro are content creators, and (I'm going out on a limb here) don't the vast majority of content creators use their Mac Pros to make money? I mean, how else can you justify that kind of cost?

Also remember that no Lenovo, HP, or Dell comes with Mac OS X.

[diamond.g]

No. Windows doesn't support EFI at the client level, only the dinosaur called BIOS.

W2k8 Server and Windows 7 x64 does.

[mchalebk]

Perhaps I'll add a third category to the two which were so offensive to you. So there are three types of Mac Pro users -- business users who create wealth with their CPU muscle, "ego" buyers who just want the best without any real "need" to justify the expenditure, and hobbyists like yourself.
I can live with that.

I still think that Apple's target market for the Mac Pro are content creators, and (I'm going out on a limb here) don't the vast majority of content creators use their Mac Pros to make money? I mean, how else can you justify that kind of cost?
I am sure that Apple’s main target market for the MacPro is indeed people who make money using their computer. I won’t speculate on whether or not the vast majority of content creators use MacPros to make money because I have no idea.

However, the cost for a MacPro for some of us can be justified in ways that a lot of people probably can’t comprehend. Let’s talk about me (it is all about me, isn’t it?). I find transitioning to a new computer to be a painful experience. I don’t like to do it. When I bought my dual 800 G4 Quicksilver in 2001, it was the absolute top of the line. How could I justify it even though I don’t make money with it? Because I planned to keep it for many years. Well, guess what? I’m still using it (though, to be fair, I would have replaced it last year if my life weren’t thrown into turmoil with various things associated with moving across the country). If it were a status symbol, I would have certainly replaced it a long time ago.

When I buy my MacPro, I can justify the expense because I plan to keep the computer for a very long time and because I can afford it. Ego and status don’t enter into it. Do I wish it cost less? Of course. Have I been complaining about the price? No. Apple has the right to charge whatever they want. I have the right to spend my money wherever I want. It so happens that I like OS X and I want (need?) a MacPro, so I’ll pony up the bucks.

I do object when people make unwarranted blanket assumptions simply because they can’t comprehend the reasons why people do what they do. I always feel that it’s preferable to assume that people might have valid reasons for their decisions, even if they don’t seem to make sense.

Also remember that no Lenovo, HP, or Dell comes with Mac OS X.
I certainly won’t argue with you on this point.

[pohl]

Perhaps I'll add a third category...So there are three types of Mac Pro users -- business users who create wealth with their CPU muscle, "ego" buyers who just want the best without any real "need" to justify the expenditure, and hobbyists like yourself.

Consider a 4th category: people whose lives & priorities are different enough from yours so as to be beyond the reach of your imagination.


However, the cost for a MacPro for some of us can be justified in ways that a lot of people probably can’t comprehend. Let’s talk about me (it is all about me, isn’t it?). I find transitioning to a new computer to be a painful experience. I don’t like to do it....If it were a status symbol, I would have certainly replaced it a long time ago.

Ha...looks like you and I had similar thoughts, and we're even arguably in the same demographic. I don't upgrade very often (I can't even relate to people openly wondering if they should replace their 2008 Mac Pro!) and I really don't buy into much of any other mainstream consumer stuff: I drive a modest used car, I don't even own a television, let alone a big screen HDTV. No game console. No library of games or DVDs. The list is endless. One of the few things I've always wanted, and had never before had, was a machine where I was the limiting factor: where I have to work hard to even move the cpu load graph off the bottom line. Like you, I plan to keep this machine for a long, long time.

Moreover, none of my friends or coworkers know about it. Nobody who stops by my house can tell the difference between it and the old G5 Powermac it replaced. I've told my brother, and my son, and I told them both to keep it on the down-low. Well, here I guess I'm telling a few random anonymous members of this forum, too, but I'm not revealing the specs. It's not about ego; it's about giving myself something that I wanted - a rare occurrence.

...and after a quick visit to wikipedia, it looks like my decision has more to do with a mixture of Id and Super-Ego. The Ego, on the other hand "seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief," which seems to more closely match the nay-sayers in this thread. Edit: no, I take that back. Although there's clearly some Id involved, buying better items less frequently is realistic way to avoid long-term grief. So I guess there is some ego, at least of the Freudian variety.

[AZREOSpecialist]

I just configured a Dell Precision Workstation T7400 - 64bit and compared it to a similar Mac Pro configuration. I believe the T7400 workstations are the previous generation of Xeon chips (X5450) correct?

Here's what I got:

Dual Quad Core Intel X5450 3.0 GHz Xeons (8 cores total)
Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition
8 GB DDR2 RAM (8 x 1GB)
nVidia Quadro FX1700
16X DVD+/-RW
No Monitor Option
1 x 750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive
No additional options or software

TOTAL PRICE: $5,817

Compare that to a similarly configured Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz which comes in at $6,099. The Mac Pro costs a whopping $282 more for next generation "Nehalem" architecture, 2 GB less RAM than Dell but DDR3 (Mac) vs. DDR2 (Dell), 110 GB less hard drive space, faster DVD on Mac, not sure about the Quadro FX1700 on the Dell vs. the Mac's Radeon HD4870 (I picked the least expensive 512 MB card offered by Dell).

It doesn't look to me that the Mac Pros are overpriced at all once you factor in that you are getting next generation architecture, Mac OS X, and that beautifully engineered case design for only $282 (5%) more than the Dell.

The Mac Pro doesn't seem overpriced to me.

[AidenShaw]

The Mac Pro doesn't seem overpriced to me.

The $64K question is "What will be the Dell price for the T3500 and T5500, as well as the T7500".

In particular, it looks possible that the T3500 may come in for less than half the price of the quad Mac Pro for a nearly identical configuration.

(The base quad Mac Pro has no fancy stuff that you'd have to "add" to the Dell to come up with an equivalent config. It has 3 GiB of RAM ($84 at Crucial) and a GeForce card ($150 at Apple). The $999 Dell isn't going to need $1000 worth of upgrades to match the quad Apple.)

[JasonUKBristol]

I paid £3,200 for the Mac pro from a small independant mac shop. This was a week ago and they're telling me that apple are still delaying the delivery. In these times i'm worried that this shop might be going bankrupt. Has anyone else expericenced delivery problems??

[drsmithy]

I just configured a Dell Precision Workstation T7400 - 64bit and compared it to a similar Mac Pro configuration. I believe the T7400 workstations are the previous generation of Xeon chips (X5450) correct?

You should be using a T5400, not a T7400. The T7400 hits at a higher level of the market than the Mac Pro (most notably, it can go up to 128GB of RAM and has "professional" video card options).

Also don't forget that the Precisions come standard with a 3 year warranty, whereas it's another $250 to add Applecare.

The Mac Pro doesn't seem overpriced to me.

Wait until you see how the new models price out. From the looks of it, a quad-core Mac Pro equivalent T3500 will come in at around $1500. Also, as has already been pointed out, if your main interest is processing power and RAM capacity, an $800 Studio XPS already offers more than a $2500 Mac Pro.

[Umbongo]

I just configured a Dell Precision Workstation T7400 - 64bit and compared it to a similar Mac Pro configuration. I believe the T7400 workstations are the previous generation of Xeon chips (X5450) correct?

Here's what I got:

Dual Quad Core Intel X5450 3.0 GHz Xeons (8 cores total)
Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition
8 GB DDR2 RAM (8 x 1GB)
nVidia Quadro FX1700
16X DVD+/-RW
No Monitor Option
1 x 750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive
No additional options or software

TOTAL PRICE: $5,817

Compare that to a similarly configured Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz which comes in at $6,099. The Mac Pro costs a whopping $282 more for next generation "Nehalem" architecture, 2 GB less RAM than Dell but DDR3 (Mac) vs. DDR2 (Dell), 110 GB less hard drive space, faster DVD on Mac, not sure about the Quadro FX1700 on the Dell vs. the Mac's Radeon HD4870 (I picked the least expensive 512 MB card offered by Dell).

It doesn't look to me that the Mac Pros are overpriced at all once you factor in that you are getting next generation architecture, Mac OS X, and that beautifully engineered case design for only $282 (5%) more than the Dell.

The Mac Pro doesn't seem overpriced to me.

The Radeon is a sub-$200 card, the Quadro is a $400+ card.

The issue isn't the dual processor systems being "overpriced" compared to other companies. It is that they are "overpriced" compared to the previous version and, for some, what the components would cost retail. I'd actually expect the DP Mac Pros to continue to be one of the cheaper options out there. The single core system is considered "overpriced" because you can get the same performance for under half the cost.

[AZREOSpecialist]

I just configured a Dell T5400 (last generation Xeon, not Nehalem) with the following components which are as close as I could get to similar Mac Pro configurations:

DELL T5400 XEON WORKSTATION
2 x Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor X5450 (3.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333)
8GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (8 DIMMS)
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable
16X DVD+/-RW
No Monitor
750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive
3 year on-site warranty

TOTAL PRICE: $5296

SIMILARLY CONFIGURED MAC PRO
2 x 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem"
6GB (6x1GB) 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM
640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
18x SuperDrive
No Display
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro

TOTAL PRICE: $6,348
APPLE PREMIUM: ~20%

The Dell is last generation Xeon technology, Mac Pro is the newest "Nehalem" architecture. We'll see how competitive Dell is when they introduce their "Nehalem" systems, and whether the 20% Apple premium will also apply.

The same Mac Pro system with an educational discount is $5,718, only 8% more than a comparably equipped last-generation Dell. The same Mac Pro system with a developer discount is $5,128, or 3% lower than a comparably equipped last-generation Dell.

I could not find any educational discounts for the Dell T5400, and could also not find any developer discounts.

[AidenShaw]

The reviews of the Studio XPS mini-tower all comment on how quiet the system is (although a few people also noted that the power-on test of the fans is impressively loud).

My batch of Studio XPS systems are in, and I brought one home to play with.

I got the 2.93 GHz Core i7-940, 12 GiB RAM, 750 GB disk, Radeon HD 4670 512 MiB, Vista Ultimate x64, Blue Tooth, 19-1 media card reader, BD-ROM/DVD-DL writer, 802.11n wireless and an UltraSharp 2408 WFP 24" LCD monitor and 3 year next day onsite service.

...for less than the cost of the quad 2.66 GHz 3 GiB Mac Pro with AppleCare. (A similar quad Mac Pro is $4647, so the Apple tax is more than $2000 (MP 2.93 GHz, 8 GiB, 4870, 24" display, AppleCare 3yr).)

The system is very quiet, with it sitting on the table beside the monitor you can just tell that it's running (as long as the room is quiet - with any music, television or other activity going on you can't hear it). There's a power-on fan whoosh that others have reported, but that's gone as soon as the OS loads.

Pretty soon I'll have the T3500's as well.

[Eidorian]

My batch of Studio XPS systems are in, and I brought one home to play with.

I got the 2.93 GHz Core i7-940, 12 GiB RAM, 750 GB disk, Radeon HD 4670 512 MiB, Vista Ultimate x64, Blue Tooth, 19-1 media card reader, BD-ROM/DVD-DL writer, 802.11n wireless and an UltraSharp 2408 WFP 24" LCD monitor and 3 year next day onsite service.

...for less than the cost of the quad 2.66 GHz 3 GiB Mac Pro with AppleCare. (A similar quad Mac Pro is $4647, so the Apple tax is more than $2000 (MP 2.93 GHz, 8 GiB, 4870, 24" display, AppleCare 3yr).)

The system is very quiet, with it sitting on the table beside the monitor you can just tell that it's running (as long as the room is quiet - with any music, television or other activity going on you can't hear it). There's a power-on fan whoosh that others have reported, but that's gone as soon as the OS loads.

Pretty soon I'll have the T3500's as well.I'm surprised they can pack in 6 RAM slots on those things.

[alsoul]

I have been following this tread since the beginning and I wanted see what a 2x 2.93 Dell cost in comparison to the mac and I did not see a huge difference in price.

The T5500 that I was looking at was $6790 for the 2x 2.93. Now I am sure that the video card options blows away the Apple's but I was expecting it to be much less. If I am missing a model please let me know because the Mac Pro is not looking so over priced (in comparison to the competition) to me anymore.

[contoursvt]

The majority of the i7 mainboards I see have 6 DDR3 slots and most can support 24GB RAM which is nice.

Here are a few :)

Asus P6T Deluxe
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2784604434_2663e25bc0_b.jpg

Asrock X58 (Asus's budget brand)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/asrock-x58-supercomputer/board_big.jpg

Gigabyte EX58-UD5
http://www.jatoncomputers.com.au/images/GA-EX58-UD5.jpg

MSI X58 Eclipse
http://pic.xfastest.com/MB/X58/X58-ALL-15.jpg

DFI Lanparty X58
http://www.images.clunk.org.uk/reviews/dfi-ut-x58-t3eh8/dfi-ut-x58-full-board-no-extra-cooling.jpg

BIOSTAR Tpower
http://resources.vr-zone.com/uploads/visionary/newspics/Oct08/07/TPOWER_X58_1.jpg

EVGA X58-SLI
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-11-17/132-bl-e758-a1_xl_8.jpg

Foxconn Rennisance
http://pic.xfastest.com/MB/X58/X58-ALL-16.jpg

XFX X58
http://img.hexus.net/v2/motherboards/intel/X58/XFX/MoboT-big.jpg




I'm surprised they can pack in 6 RAM slots on those things.

[Eidorian]

The majority of the i7 mainboards I see have 6 DDR3 slots and most can support 24GB RAM which is nice.

Here are a few :)

Asus P6T Deluxe
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2784604434_2663e25bc0_b.jpg

Asrock X58 (Asus's budget brand)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/asrock-x58-supercomputer/board_big.jpg

Gigabyte EX58-UD5
http://www.jatoncomputers.com.au/images/GA-EX58-UD5.jpg

MSI X58 Eclipse
http://pic.xfastest.com/MB/X58/X58-ALL-15.jpg

DFI Lanparty X58
http://www.images.clunk.org.uk/reviews/dfi-ut-x58-t3eh8/dfi-ut-x58-full-board-no-extra-cooling.jpg

BIOSTAR Tpower
http://resources.vr-zone.com/uploads/visionary/newspics/Oct08/07/TPOWER_X58_1.jpg

EVGA X58-SLI
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-11-17/132-bl-e758-a1_xl_8.jpg

Foxconn Rennisance
http://pic.xfastest.com/MB/X58/X58-ALL-16.jpg

XFX X58
http://img.hexus.net/v2/motherboards/intel/X58/XFX/MoboT-big.jpgBut are they effectively Micro ATX. ;) See my point?

[AidenShaw]

I have been following this tread since the beginning and I wanted see what a 2x 2.93 Dell cost in comparison to the mac and I did not see a huge difference in price.

The T5500 that I was looking at....

If you've really been following this thread, then you would realize the few have claimed that the dual socket octo-core Apple is overpriced when compared to dual socket octo-core systems from other companies.

The discussion has been that the single socket quad core is way, way overpriced compared to Core i7 systems. In this case, the Apple Tax is about $2000 (although about $1700 for the system, and $300 for the display).

[AidenShaw]

But are they effectively Micro ATX. ;) See my point?

No, what is your point? Is there something bad about Micro ATX? (And most of those boards are ATX, not micro ATX.)

Please, acknowledge that Apple has nothing in the mid-range quad core space. Acknowledge that Apple's entry quad core is a high-end workstation - way over-priced for most people.

[Eidorian]

No, what is your point? Is there something bad about Micro ATX? (And most of those boards are ATX, not micro ATX.)I'm surprised I had to bring this up to you of all people. :(

The Studio XPS case is a effectively a Micro ATX tower. It's just surprising that they crammed in 6 RAM slots when it can be hard enough to find a Micro ATX board with 4 RAM slots.

[contoursvt]

No those were full size, but there are a few microATX with 6 slots as well. The most popular are the Asus and DFI

DFI Lanparty
http://www.cpu3d.com/media/image/g/9949/i/18924/DFI_JR_X58-T3H6.jpg

Asus Rampage
http://www.xcpus.com/Images/News/322/R2G_2D.jpg



But are they effectively Micro ATX. ;) See my point?

[Eidorian]

No those were full size, but there are a few microATX with 6 slots as well. The most popular are the Asus and DFI

DFI Lanparty
http://www.cpu3d.com/media/image/g/9949/i/18924/DFI_JR_X58-T3H6.jpg

Asus Rampage
http://www.xcpus.com/Images/News/322/R2G_2D.jpgRare and surprising they put 6 RAM slots. :D

You'd expect the more awkward 4 slot configuration which isn't the best for triple-channel.

[contoursvt]

I agree that its not typical, but I'm happy to see stuff like that. I'd love to build a micro ATX system with an i7 and like 12 gigs of RAM or more in an Antec P180 mini case :) I love that case. My main box is a full sized Antec P180 which I really like as well.


Rare and surprising they put 6 RAM slots. :D

You'd expect the more awkward 4 slot configuration which isn't the best for triple-channel.

[Eidorian]

I agree that its not typical, but I'm happy to see stuff like that. I'd love to build a micro ATX system with an i7 and like 12 gigs of RAM or more in an Antec P180 mini case :) I love that case. My main box is a full sized Antec P180 which I really like as well.That's exactly the kind of build that I would like as well. The mini P180 reminds me so much of the Mac Pro. Failing that a full tower Cooler Master Cosmos 1000. :D

What I like the most about the Mac Pro is the cable management.

[AidenShaw]

That's exactly the kind of build that I would like as well. The mini P180 reminds me so much of the Mac Pro. Failing that a full tower Cooler Master Cosmos 1000. :D

What I like the most about the Mac Pro is the cable management.

Personally, I'm not too concerned with what the inside of the case looks like.

Cables should be managed - true. They need to stay out of the air flow, yet be easy to connect (and have spare leads at each option bay).

The Studio XPS 435MT case is pretty bare bones. Cable layout is good, but unfortunately most things are mounted with screws. The disk bays are easily accessible.

http://www.devduff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dell-studio-xps-435-chasis.jpg

The Dell Precision Workstations cases are much nicer - more solid and they are tool-free to maintain. Practical things.

[polaris20]

If you've really been following this thread, then you would realize the few have claimed that the dual socket octo-core Apple is overpriced when compared to dual socket octo-core systems from other companies.

The discussion has been that the single socket quad core is way, way overpriced compared to Core i7 systems. In this case, the Apple Tax is about $2000 (although about $1700 for the system, and $300 for the display).

Don't forget that the Dell T3500 and the HP Z400 are also overpriced, just not as much as the Mac Pro Quad. ;)

[AidenShaw]

Don't forget that the Dell T3500 and the HP Z400 are also overpriced, just not as much as the Mac Pro Quad. ;)

But, you can get the Studio XPS instead of the T3500 - if you don't want ECC, more slots/bays, and a fancier case.

Apple, if you want any quad core, it starts at $2499.

[Eidorian]

Personally, I'm not too concerned with what the inside of the case looks like.

Cables should be managed - true. They need to stay out of the air flow, yet be easy to connect (and have spare leads at each option bay).

The Studio XPS 435MT case is pretty bare bones. Cable layout is good, but unfortunately most things are mounted with screws. The disk bays are easily accessible.

http://www.devduff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dell-studio-xps-435-chasis.jpg

The Dell Precision Workstations cases are much nicer - more solid and they are tool-free to maintain. Practical things.I'll be getting a modular power supply and a case with better management (P180 or Cosmos 1000) over my current cheap Cooler Master Elite 330. It just works and I don't see a need to show off the interior of my case but there's always a small nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

[polaris20]

But, you can get the Studio XPS instead of the T3500 - if you don't want ECC, more slots/bays, and a fancier case.

Apple, if you want any quad core, it starts at $2499.

Very true, which brings us back to the tired argument of lack of choice with Apple.

Very simple. Don't buy Apple.