Apple's Mac Pro business practices scare me

[wankey]

I'm in the market for a desktop PC, and since I'm a hardened Mac user, I decided to look into the Mac pro (I use a macpro at work that runs ridiculously fast, so I'd like to have one for personal use)

At $2899CDN, I get a quad core CPU at 2.66ghz, 3 gig ram, 640gb harddrive and an nVidia GT120. Doesn't come with a screen

It seems a bit too much, so I decided to check up what PC users are paying for the same budget (~4000)

At NCIX.com, you won't believe how behind the Mac Pro is:

Core i7 2.93ghz
12gbs of DDR3 ram
Best Motherboard (it's got a featurelist longer than my thesis)
nVidia GTX 480 1.5gb GDDR3
Intel 40gb SSD (for OS installation)
2x WD Caviar 2TB
Antec P183 case (arguable as good as the Mac Pro's case)

I also threw in some low noise high performance fans for the CPU (Xigmatek's massive 120mm fan for CPU is nearly silent) to match the Mac Pro's silent operation.

The price in total came down to $2451CDN

That's a nearly 500 premium over the best PC desktop money can buy. How can people stand by and let Apple screw you like this?

In short, for 500CDN LESS, I can get a

Core i7 2.93ghz > Xeon 2.66ghz
12gb of DDR3 ram vastly > 4gb DDR3 ram
nVidia GTX480 vastly > nvidia GT120
4tb of HDD > 640gb of HDD
40gb of SSD > *

This must be a joke that Apple thinks it can charge nearly ~3000 on a computer that people can buy for half price. In fact, I may be even over stating it so I went a head a configured a similar desktop PC just to see what's going on with the Mac Pros:

Core i5 2.66ghz ~ Xeon 2.66ghz
4gb of ram > 3gb of ram (seriously Apple?)
nVidia GT220 > nVidia GT120 (they no longer sell 120's)
640gb WD HDD
Same Antec Professional 185 (The most expensive PC Case money can buy)
Corsair 750W

Guess how much the price came down to. I was pretty shocked.

$956CDN

That's right folks. Anyone who is seriously thinking of buying a Mac Pro is either too rich or too ignorant. There is no real difference between a 2.66ghz Xeon processor over a Core i5 2.66ghz. It's only Intel's way to extort more money over business owners who want "security over savings". Please name me a few cases where the retail version of the CPU is vastly inferior to the "server" version that it necessitates a near $800 premium for the same performance.

I'm really shocked by the fact that Apple continues to screw people over in this area, charging a ridiculous $1800 premium for their desktop computers for absolutely no reason. There is no way you can realistically convince me that the OS or the case is worth nearly $2000.

Considering that the Mac Pro is all about performance, it certainly fails to add anything in this department. Using an aging processor, with an obsolete graphics card, a pitiful amount of ram and literally a sad amount of storage.

With their focus shifting to limited portable devices with crude input and usage modes, I fear that Apple may fall into the consumer market completely and forget its roots as a company that made great products for professionals and production designers, and not a company made for gimmicks and touch screens.

Guess the only thing to look at now is the iMac.

[macjunk(ie)]

actually....I have been thinking about this since the past few months.
By using (and liking) Mac OS, we really have no choice other than to buy Apple's ridiculously priced hardware and warranty. If I could only get myself to like a Windows machine..life would have been so much easier....

[Vylen]

actually....I have been thinking about this since the past few months.
By using (and liking) Mac OS, we really have no choice other than to buy Apple's ridiculously priced hardware and warranty. If I could only get myself to like a Windows machine..life would have been so much easier....

hackintosh suggestion incoming :p (not from me, anyway)

To OP, well, they've been pretty much charging the same price since its release. Apple just don't have the tendency to reduce the prices of their products - especially those in the professional/prosumer market.

Also, pretty much everyone here knows what you've said - so you're not the only one to see this revelation (if you can call it that).

It's bad, but usually "alright" when there's a fairly regular sub-yearly refresh of the devices. But obviously not alright when there's no refresh insight with the Mac Pro.

It's not an ethical thing either. Nothing to do with ethics (an ethical matter would be whether or not to ignore the Mac Pro's giving off benzyne-based fumes). This is just a business practice. A poor one, but nothing we can do about it so we just gotta sit here and complain.

[wankey]

hackintosh suggestion incoming :p (not from me, anyway)

To OP, well, they've been pretty much charging the same price since its release. Apple just don't have the tendency to reduce the prices of their products - especially those in the professional/prosumer market.

Also, pretty much everyone here knows what you've said - so you're not the only one to see this revelation (if you can call it that).

It's bad, but usually "alright" when there's a fairly regular sub-yearly refresh of the devices. But obviously not alright when there's no refresh insight with the Mac Pro.

It's not an ethical thing either. Nothing to do with ethics (an ethical matter would be whether or not to ignore the Mac Pro's giving off benzyne-based fumes). This is just a business practice. A poor one, but nothing we can do about it so we just gotta sit here and complain.

Yeah it's kinda sad. I love OS X, and I rarely use Windows anymore. It's good that a majority of people know what's going on. I'm new to this area so I might be a new thing for me.

I really want a super powerful computer, one that I can extend with extra storage if I need or more ram, but these prices are laughable.

I'm hoping Apple pulls some serious tricks out of its sleeves with the next Mac Pro release. Move it down to 2400. Make it Core i9 with 8 gb of ram and 4 tb of harddrive with a GTX480 to boot would make it a buy for me.

[brentsg]

In your last comparison, it seems silly to me. You compare the i5 2.66 to the Xeon 2.66 in the MP. These are not equal parts, with the former failing to support triple-channel memory or hyperthreading. Both of these things are important in the workstation environment.

You are comparing workstation quality Apple parts that are due for a refresh any moment, to mid-range consumer oriented parts and concluding that the latter is a value proposition. How is this news?

[wankey]

In your last comparison, it seems silly to me. You compare the i5 2.66 to the Xeon 2.66 in the MP. These are not equal parts, with the former failing to support triple-channel memory or hyperthreading. Both of these things are important in the workstation environment.

You are comparing workstation quality Apple parts that are due for a refresh any moment, to mid-range consumer oriented parts and concluding that the latter is a value proposition. How is this news?

You're going to tell your boss that for $2000 (I can buy 3 of my PCs btw for the same price of one) extra that "triple channel DDR" and hyper threading is worth it?

Furthermore, there is little data to prove triple channel DDR is anymore more than a marketing gimmick and same goes for hyperthreading. Real world usage their performance is realistically the same. Unless you're pushing massive amounts of numbers and memory, in which case getting a PC is far better bang for the buck (if you're in the performance industry. My father works in this field and he laughs every time when I ask him to help me buy a mac)

I think it's more silly to say that a $3000 computer barely out performs a $999 computer (also, the $999 rapes the $3000 in graphics performance, put in a CUDA program and your CPU comparison is moot)

[Grimace]

Mac Pro business ethics? Ranting about price is fine, but you are really off the mark on any discussion of ethics. Intel sets prices for the chips. Apple sets prices for the system. Who are you mad at again?

Mac Pros are not designed to be the fastest things out there -- they are designed to be consistent and stable and much of the market it to professionals; not individuals, companies who buy many of them and will pay for consistency and stability for mission critical work.

[wankey]

Mac Pro business ethics?

Ranting about price is fine, but you are really off the mark on any discussion of ethics. Intel sets prices for the chips. Apple sets prices for the system. Who are you mad at again?

Mac Pros are not designed to be the fastest things out there -- they are designed to be consistent and stable and much of the market it to professionals; not individuals, companies who buy many of them and will pay for consistency and stability for mission critical work.

Hence I changed the title to business practices (or maybe not, Macrumors title editing doesn't seem to work?). They are not designed to be the fastest things out there? LOL, I'm sorry but that is smack dab in the middle of the "Apple apologist" persona.

[VirtualRain]

It's not news that you can buy hardware at half the cost of what Apple charges. Laptops, phones, mp3 players, mini desktops, all-in-ones, and yes, workstations from Apple all cost more than comparable Windoze machines. This has been the case for 20+ years, and will continue to be the case for ever more.

[cube]

Why didn't you configure an i7 with triple channel ECC? That would be a fair comparison, as Xeon for single CPU is a waste.

[emptyCup]

That's a nearly 500 premium over the best PC desktop money can buy. How can people stand by and let Apple screw you like this?

If you think that OSX is worth nothing than you would be a fool not to buy the cheaper machine. Most of the people who spend $4000 on a computer do so for business (or are Level 30 Half-Orc Barbarians). If you are not planning to use this machine to make money then you definitely should consider another machine.

What are you planning to do with your computer? How about a nice iMac or a $300 Dell with Windows 7 Ultimate Basic Jr. Home Edition?

[Horus]

I don't understand you, first you were saying "I use a macpro at work that runs ridiculously fast, so I'd like to have one for personal use".

Then you started to bitch that you need something faster. So whats the point of having something faster than something already ridiculously fast?

Also, how do you think the Xeon CPU inside the Pro is "Aging". Talking about inconsistency, you know it is aging but, in your own words, ridiculously fast.

"There is no real difference between a 2.66ghz Xeon processor over a Core i5 2.66ghz." LOL.

[wankey]

It's not news that you can buy hardware at half the cost of what Apple charges. Laptops, phones, mp3 players, mini desktops, all-in-ones, and yes, workstations from Apple all cost more than comparable Windoze machines. This has been the case for 20+ years, and will continue to be the case for ever more.

This is just apologetic. Buying hardware from Apple adds only a bit of premium (which is easily arguable from a design, manufactoring quality, and service point of view) I've bought iPods, iPhones and Macbook pros and easily can defend why I bought them.

The iPhone is competitively priced. MP3 players a competitively priced (iTouch is a great app platform and gaming machine). The Mac mini is in a market of its own with its own target market (due to its incredibly unique form factor)

The iMacs, Macbooks and Macbook pros have their industrial design merit and engineering excellence (all three have unibody designs) to merit a small premium (configuring similar laptops cost pretty close)

And now we have the Mac Pro. A $3000 computer that's really worth $900. A computer that hasn't been updated since ______ (help me out here)

The least Apple can do is reduce the price of it but no, they keep it incredibly high just to screw over buyers so need a desktop powerhouse.

You should open your eyes and understand what's actually being discussed here rather than blanket statements that are actually pretty false. Apple products don't cost double or triple on purpose. You're actually spreading bad info.

[brentsg]

You're going to tell your boss that for $2000 (I can buy 3 of my PCs btw for the same price of one) extra that "triple channel DDR" and hyper threading is worth it?

Furthermore, there is little data to prove triple channel DDR is anymore more than a marketing gimmick and same goes for hyperthreading. Real world usage their performance is realistically the same. Unless you're pushing massive amounts of numbers and memory, in which case getting a PC is far better bang for the buck (if you're in the performance industry. My father works in this field and he laughs every time when I ask him to help me buy a mac)

I think it's more silly to say that a $3000 computer barely out performs a $999 computer (also, the $999 rapes the $3000 in graphics performance, put in a CUDA program and your CPU comparison is moot)

Wow, ok.. First off you started off talking about buying a Mac Pro for personal use, now you're talking about making a recommendation for your boss. Actually you seem to be compiling a whole bunch of popular debates into a post against Apple for some reason.

First, yes.. For applications that people tend to use MP's for, both triple channel memory and hyperthreading will easily pay for themselves. Anything that is CPU intensive will benefit greatly from both of these features.

Second, it's silly to consider a single Xeon CPU configuration. If you do this you're paying a $ penalty for no benefit. People that need a lot of CPU cores buy Xeons.

Third, comparing a consumer oriented i5 to a workstation oriented Xeon is not apples to apples. Don't need hyperthreading, triple channel memory, ECC, a whole lot of CPU cores, etc, etc... then you do not need a Mac Pro. It's not designed for you. MPs aren't a value proposition in a single user, home environment. They are a value proposition to businesses that need to do a lot of heavy lifting. In that environment they extra performance will pay for itself quickly. Trying to strip a MP down to something you could order from Dell for $800 isn't going to yield value.

The only dig on Apple here is the fact that the product line could use a refresh and a lot of folks think it's coming soon. Apple isn't a company that tosses a new CPU into the lineup every time it's avail from Intel. They never have operated in that manner.

So in summary, don't need a MP at home + invalid comparison between i5 and Xeon + the fact that Apple is due for a refresh = not a good value. Again, no surprise here.

What any of this has to do with Apple's ethics is beyond me. What is says about your ethics if you try to sell your boss on a home-built hackintosh vs. a Mac Pro for his critical business needs... might say something about yours.

[cube]

Don't say "it's $900". Make the proper comparison, as I suggested previously. It will certainly still be a lot cheaper and there will be no serious rebuttal.

[Robellyn]

Actually, I went ahead several months ago and replaced my MacPro (old G5 2GHz Dualcore) with an i7-920 based Windows 7 machine. (reasons: I wanted more 'modern' hardware than available in the "new" Mac-Pro's, and a slight disillusionment with a perceived direction in Apples hardware priorities).

Going back to windows after 10 years of Mac-happiness WAS a little hard: Windows 7 is a fine operating system, but do keep in mind Windows machines require some maintenance to keep them running happily. For the first month I was frustrated and unhappy with the new machine, but as I began to understand the quirks of Windows, I became quite satisfied with it's performance and abilities. I even, almost, prefer Windows 7 to MacOSX now (but I still have my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard: I'm not giving up on Apple completely!)

However, I did not go with the lowest priced machine I could find (in fact, after replacing some of my Mac software with Windows versions, the price came to about the same as the Mac would have). Although I have no proof either way, I would imagine that the same axiom applies to both Apples and Windows-based machines: you get what you pay for.

[apolloa]

You know it's become pretty comical to visit the Mac Pro forum on here because I think every day one new thread gets started slagging the Mac Pro off for one reason or another!! You don't know weather to laugh at this forum or yawn??

Oh and FYI the Core i5 and i7 ARE NOT Xeon's!!!!!!!!!!

[cube]

Oh and FYI the Core i5 and i7 ARE NOT Xeon's!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed about the i5 but why should you use Xeon for a single-CPU machine instead of i7?

[slughead]

actually....I have been thinking about this since the past few months.
By using (and liking) Mac OS, we really have no choice other than to buy Apple's ridiculously priced hardware and warranty. If I could only get myself to like a Windows machine..life would have been so much easier....

*warning: off-topic rant about warranties*

Yeah, that warranty is **** anyway. Most hard drives and RAM come with > 1 year (most of the time > 3 years)... Thermaltake PSUs have a FIVE YEAR. oh, did I mention this is at no additional cost?

I hate when people all like "oh, homebuilding sux! you get service and support with apple!"

By not building your own and relying on Apple's Warranty, you're actually getting a worse deal.

I bought a WD HD 2.5 years ago and it recently died. Most (All?) WD hard drives come with a 3 year warranty at no extra charge. So I went onto their website, entered in the serial, paid $5 for a UPS shipping label, shoved the HD in a box and dropped it off at the UPS store. It took 15 minutes (10 minutes of that was driving to a UPS drop-off round trip), in 3 days I had a new hard drive, and I got to keep my box AT HOME while I was waiting.

If Apple wanted to impress me, they'd do what Dell does and offer in-home tech support. Instead you have to lug your computer to the Applestore, wait in line (or schedule an appointment), have them tell you what you already know, PRAY they have the part at the store location, and/or wait for the part to come in (while your comp sits in their store-room)... Unless you bought it online, in which case you have to MAIL YOUR WHOLE BOX TO APPLE (full disclosure: last time I had to do this was 2 years ago, so my info may be dated) and wait weeks to get it done.

Last time I mailed my comp to Apple (powermac G5's Motherboard literally blew a cap). it took 3 months and they ended up sending me a totally different machine.


TL;DR: homebuilding is better, you get better parts, longer warranties, and at half the price. Apple fanboys who have never built a PC before have no idea what they're talking about.

Edit:

It's not an ethical thing either. Nothing to do with ethics (an ethical matter would be whether or not to ignore the Mac Pro's giving off benzyne-based fumes). This is just a business practice. A poor one, but nothing we can do about it so we just gotta sit here and complain.

^ Also, this.

[apolloa]

Agreed about the i5 but why should you use Xeon for a single-CPU machine instead of i7?

You wouldn't, that's just Apple's attempt to shut the people up who want a small single CPU Mac Pro tower...
It's the same as the Skull Trail platform Intel developed, a gaming system based around 2 Xeon's!! Total waste of time and money. IMO it's ALWAY'S better to just get the low end dual CPU Mac Pro system then upgrade the processors later.
Yes the iMac Core i7 beats it but you cannot change the iMac processor.

[Vylen]

This thread is singing the same old tune in other past threads.

I think it'll save on finger-karma and be more entertaining if you guys can argue this by simply posting links to specific posts in older threads that have already said pretty much what you want to say.

[J the Ninja]

This thread is singing the same old tune in other past threads.

I think it'll save on finger-karma and be more entertaining if you guys can argue this by simply posting links to specific posts in older threads that have already said pretty much what you want to say.

I'm now really tempted to make the thread: "ITT: We complain about the Mac Pro using only links to other posts", but I'm scared of what the mods would do to me. :)

[wankey]

Apple could also be a little less cheap about harddrive and ram. Seriously, 3gb of ram on their performance machines?

Mac Pro should come with 8 gig standard.

[brentsg]

You wouldn't, that's just Apple's attempt to shut the people up who want a small single CPU Mac Pro tower...
It's the same as the Skull Trail platform Intel developed, a gaming system based around 2 Xeon's!! Total waste of time and money. IMO it's ALWAY'S better to just get the low end dual CPU Mac Pro system then upgrade the processors later.
Yes the iMac Core i7 beats it but you cannot change the iMac processor.

It is really a shame that Apple ignores the home pro-sumer that doesn't want an all-in-one.

[J the Ninja]

It is really a shame that Apple ignores the home pro-sumer that doesn't want an all-in-one.

Not enough of them to make it worth the trouble. We've been over this. Most people who want a desktop love the attractive and space-saving iMac. They don't care that it isn't upgradeable, they have no idea how to do that anyway. For the people who do want a TOWER OF POWER are for the most part either: A) Gamers and tinkerers who would never buy a Mac anyway, and B) People who are using them to make a living and need some serious desktop iron and are fine with paying up for a dual-socket box.

[brentsg]

Not enough of them to make it worth the trouble. We've been over this. Most people who want a desktop love the attractive and space-saving iMac. They don't care that it isn't upgradeable, they have no idea how to do that anyway. For the people who do want a TOWER OF POWER are for the most part either: A) Gamers and tinkerers who would never buy a Mac anyway, and B) People who are using them to make a living and need some serious desktop iron and are fine with paying up for a dual-socket box.

I never said it made good business sense for them. I simply wish it existed.

[slughead]

B) People who are using them to make a living and need some serious desktop iron and are fine with paying up for a dual-socket box.

There's probably a 3rd category of people (like me) who are tech-savvy, not pro-sumers, and want a desktop they can keep and upgrade for years without buying totally new one.

The only reason I own a mac pro is because 1) in 2006 when I bought it, it was a good deal and 2) when I bought it, I was self-employed as an IT guy.

The problem is there are way too few of us and Apple can't give us what we want without ceasing their ripping off of pro-sumers or undercutting iMac sales.

Also: Gamers WOULD buy macs if they knew they could run windows and actually upgrade their videocards someday. The Mac Pro would make a really overpriced gaming rig though.

Really, the only thing You shouldn't be able to upgrade with PC parts on the MP is the mobo. The graphics card could be hacked with some driver cleverness (as people have done here on this site). For a gamer, that'd be alright. The price tag, however, is not alright.

[cube]

Not enough of them to make it worth the trouble. We've been over this. Most people who want a desktop love the attractive and space-saving iMac. They don't care that it isn't upgradeable, they have no idea how to do that anyway. For the people who do want a TOWER OF POWER are for the most part either: A) Gamers and tinkerers who would never buy a Mac anyway, and B) People who are using them to make a living and need some serious desktop iron and are fine with paying up for a dual-socket box.

YOU say there's not enough customers. There's a lot of people who would buy an i7 minitower. The iMac sucks and the Mac Pro is outrageously expensive overkill.

[J the Ninja]

YOU say there's not enough customers. There's a lot of people who would buy an i7 minitower. The iMac sucks and the Mac Pro is outrageously expensive overkill.

Really? How many do you know? I barely know anyone who wants an iMac, much less any kind of tower. They all want laptops, whether Mac or not.

[Consultant]

Really? How many do you know? I barely know anyone who wants an iMac, much less any kind of tower. They all want laptops, whether Mac or not.

Yeah, most consumers buy laptops now.

Actually with invention of iPad, there's a new category that use iMac with iPad.

[cube]

Really? How many do you know? I barely know anyone who wants an iMac, much less any kind of tower. They all want laptops, whether Mac or not.

I know I stuck with a Cube for 9 years because Apple still does not offer a replacement.
I only bought a 15" MBP because Apple killed the ExpressCard and the removable battery (I rushed to get the old model of course).

No Blu Ray, either. With Apple it's all about using old tech nowadays.

[VirtualRain]

This is just apologetic. Buying hardware from Apple adds only a bit of premium (which is easily arguable from a design, manufactoring quality, and service point of view) I've bought iPods, iPhones and Macbook pros and easily can defend why I bought them.

The iPhone is competitively priced. MP3 players a competitively priced (iTouch is a great app platform and gaming machine). The Mac mini is in a market of its own with its own target market (due to its incredibly unique form factor)

The iMacs, Macbooks and Macbook pros have their industrial design merit and engineering excellence (all three have unibody designs) to merit a small premium (configuring similar laptops cost pretty close)

And now we have the Mac Pro. A $3000 computer that's really worth $900. A computer that hasn't been updated since ______ (help me out here)

The least Apple can do is reduce the price of it but no, they keep it incredibly high just to screw over buyers so need a desktop powerhouse.

You should open your eyes and understand what's actually being discussed here rather than blanket statements that are actually pretty false. Apple products don't cost double or triple on purpose. You're actually spreading bad info.

Here's a quick summary to support my claim (not exactly the same specs but very close)...

Mini Desktops:
Dell Zino HD: Starts at $249
Mac Mini: Starts at $699

All-in-ones:
Dell Studio 19 All in One: Starts at $399
iMac: Starts at $1199

Low-end laptop:
Dell Inspiron 15: Starts at $399
MacBook: Starts at $999

High-end laptop:
Dell Studio 17: Starts at $749
MacBook Pro 17: Starts at $2299

Mobile Phone:
Dell: Starts at FREE
Apple: Starts at $99

MP3 Player 8GB:
Dell/SanDisk: $59
Apple: $149

Quad Core Workstation:
Dell T3500: Starts at $1239
Mac Pro: Starts at $2499

So actually, the Mac Pro has the lowest difference at double the price of any other product category Apple makes where the difference can be 3x or more. In fact, if Apple priced the Mac Pro like they do their other products, the entry level quad would be $3600 or so. ;)

Again, this is not news, nor appologetic, it is how Apple positions themselves in the market and you either see the value or you buy something else.

[VirtualRain]

Strange duplicate post?! :confused:

[TheStrudel]

These threads are becoming wearisome.

Vote with your dollars.  will either watch this happen and respond or they won't. End of story.

[strausd]

People need to stop complaining about how 3 GB of RAM and a 640 GB drive doesn't cut it for professionals. Most people who buy a Mac Pro will upgrade those themselves anyways. And I think that part of the price difference (definitely not all) is for the OS and reliability.

[apolloa]

TL;DR: homebuilding is better, you get better parts, longer warranties, and at half the price. Apple fanboys who have never built a PC before have no idea what they're talking about..

YOU don't have a clue what you are talking about by saying that!!! Yet again blabbing away TOTALLY missing the whole point of a Mac Pro....:rolleyes:

[dXTC]

... homebuilding is better, you get better parts, longer warranties, and at half the price. Apple fanboys who have never built a PC before have no idea what they're talking about.

...

I'm not yet the Mac fanboi, but i do like my iMac. That said, if I were to have another computer not made by Apple, I would probably homebuild.

I built my iMac's predecessor back in 2003 or so. I had easily double the computing power and hard drive space of comparably-priced desktop towers at the time (thanks NewEgg and AMD), was able to transplant parts from earlier PCs for further cost savings, and had the satisfaction of managing to get it right the first time. This homebuilt PC is still running quite well, in fact.

[TennisandMusic]

YOU don't have a clue what you are talking about by saying that!!! Yet again blabbing away TOTALLY missing the whole point of a Mac Pro....:rolleyes:

Umm...I have had Mac Pros and have built my own machines. The guy is right. Home built machines are basically the best machines around (assuming the person knows what they are doing). You get better parts, and it's assembled by hand by a skilled person, not mass produced in a factory with slave labor.

What IS the point of a Mac Pro? To have a good desktop with OSX. It is not some special machine like so many Apple fans seem to like to believe. It's an incredibly standard machine. On the PC side it would be quite underpowered. I'm really confused as to what you think the "point" of a Mac Pro is. Do you even have one? Have you ever had one? They are the best Macs out there, and at the same time are absolutely nothing special...

[CATinHAWAII]

Wow, ok.. First off you started off talking about buying a Mac Pro for personal use, now you're talking about making a recommendation for your boss. Actually you seem to be compiling a whole bunch of popular debates into a post against Apple for
The only dig on Apple here is the fact that the product line could use a refresh and a lot of folks think it's coming soon. Apple isn't a company that tosses a new CPU into the lineup every time it's avail from Intel.

So in summary, don't need a MP at home + invalid comparison between i5 and Xeon + the fact that Apple is due for a refresh = not a good value. Again, no surprise here.
.
I got my MP march of last year, and I'm still happy it's the fastest Mac out available, but there is a new one coming, and that's the best time to buy, and yes, it will last for a few years,,, but you buy your pc clone, and everything changes so fast, including the hacks and protections you need just to keep it running,,,

[wankey]

People need to stop complaining about how 3 GB of RAM and a 640 GB drive doesn't cut it for professionals. Most people who buy a Mac Pro will upgrade those themselves anyways. And I think that part of the price difference (definitely not all) is for the OS and reliability.

I dunno why people continue to make these kind of remarks. It's like saying, people need to stop complaining that they're paying for 10 bucks for 1 gallon of oil while the rest of the world pays 10 bucks for 10 gallons of oil. You can easily buy the extra 9 gallon of oil for a measly 9 bucks after you've spent the first 10 bucks on 1 gallon.

3GB ram is pitiful and so is 640gb. Apple should be continuously updating these aspects of the computer so that at least price parity is good enough. In other words, keeping these as minimum as possible is purely so that the bean counters can counter extra beans at the end of every week when ram and harddrive prices drop.

And please, Power Macs are as reliable as a Dell workstation. Considering it's not a portable device, and it's parts all come from the same factory with suicidal workers.

OS costs 129. That certainly doesn't mean Apple can charge a $1000 premium.

If they keep it up, it'll be pretty sad, because the premium is continuously increasing as time goes on. Unless they implement some sort of incremental ugprade for later versions, the MacPro's will remain an incredibly niche product.

[TennisandMusic]

I got my MP march of last year, and I'm still happy it's the fastest Mac out available, but there is a new one coming, and that's the best time to buy, and yes, it will last for a few years,,, but you buy your pc clone, and everything changes so fast, including the hacks and protections you need just to keep it running,,,

Another bunch of silliness. Not true at all. The worst part of owning a Mac is being grouped in with this kind of Mac contingent. :D

[wankey]

Another bunch of silliness. Not true at all. The worst part of owning a Mac is being grouped in with this kind of Mac contingent. :D

lol, I think these people will thinks Macs run on fairy dust and that similiar computers don't compare because they don't have the fairy dust in them. Even though the same components are in both computers, except the case looks a bit shinier.

[apolloa]

and it's assembled by hand by a skilled person, not mass produced in a factory with slave labor.

What IS the point of a Mac Pro? To have a good desktop with OSX.

On the PC side it would be quite underpowered.

Do you even have one? Have you ever had one?

The "Skilled Person" is a biassed point, just how many people or corporations do you actually know that build a hackintosh dual Xeon computer to use for there livelihoods?

The Mac Pro is in NO way underpowered, if you think that then you have never used it for it's intended purpose, beyond email and internet... It has dual Xeons for a reason, not for the name.

What does weather or not I have owned one or own one have to do with it? Does it mean I am not able to understand the target market for the Mac Pro?

The point of the Mac Pro is: A workstation class product aimed at professionals from single individuals to multi national corporations, it's a powerful computer that is reliable and has very good customer service back up and it runs Mac OSX.
If you use Photoshop CS or Final Cut Pro or logic as an example in a professional manor then the Mac Pro is aimed at that audience.
It is aimed at a market where time is money so they want a reliable machine, a marker that doesn't give a stuff if a new one is around the corner because they NEED one NOW.

It was even said in the very first post on this thread, I use a Mac Pro at work........
That's it's point, not for someones bedroom, for serious professional use...

I am more then happy that you can build your own, congratulations, but to completely forget or ignore the wider picture of just who uses a Mac Pro is ignorant.

[TennisandMusic]

lol, I think these people will thinks Macs run on fairy dust and that similiar computers don't compare because they don't have the fairy dust in them. Even though the same components are in both computers, except the case looks a bit shinier.

Yeah pretty much. All the retail stuff is made by the same factories. The best quality parts are made by the third parties who cater to system builders (they generally use the best PCB's, capactiors, connections blah blah blah), while the companies like Apple and Dell try to get things as cheaply as possible, generally sacrificing quality. Now if Apple allowed system builders to install OSX officially, then they would have something. :cool:

[racer1441]

Pretty long winded way of writing a 'hardware costs more boohoo' thread. :rolleyes:

[Umbongo]

I dunno why people continue to make these kind of remarks. It's like saying, people need to stop complaining that they're paying for 10 bucks for 1 gallon of oil while the rest of the world pays 10 bucks for 10 gallons of oil. You can easily buy the extra 9 gallon of oil for a measly 9 bucks after you've spent the first 10 bucks on 1 gallon.

3GB ram is pitiful and so is 640gb. Apple should be continuously updating these aspects of the computer so that at least price parity is good enough. In other words, keeping these as minimum as possible is purely so that the bean counters can counter extra beans at the end of every week when ram and harddrive prices drop.

And please, Power Macs are as reliable as a Dell workstation. Considering it's not a portable device, and it's parts all come from the same factory with suicidal workers.

OS costs 129. That certainly doesn't mean Apple can charge a $1000 premium.

If they keep it up, it'll be pretty sad, because the premium is continuously increasing as time goes on. Unless they implement some sort of incremental ugprade for later versions, the MacPro's will remain an incredibly niche product.

Some people feel that if Apple were to sell their systems with large amounts of storage or memory they would be paying Apple prices for it. They would rather be sold the minimum and then buy what they need from a third party; getting to choose based on their usage requirements, component quality and purchase in a market where there is pricing competition and discounts to be had.

[TennisandMusic]

The "Skilled Person" is a biassed point, just how many people or corporations do you actually know that build a hackintosh dual Xeon computer to use for there livelihoods?

The Mac Pro is in NO way underpowered, if you think that then you have never used it for it's intended purpose, beyond email and internet... It has dual Xeons for a reason, not for the name.

What does weather or not I have owned one or own one have to do with it? Does it mean I am not able to understand the target market for the Mac Pro?

The point of the Mac Pro is: A workstation class product aimed at professionals from single individuals to multi national corporations, it's a powerful computer that is reliable and has very good customer service back up and it runs Mac OSX.
If you use Photoshop CS or Final Cut Pro or logic as an example in a professional manor then the Mac Pro is aimed at that audience.
It is aimed at a market where time is money so they want a reliable machine, a marker that doesn't give a stuff if a new one is around the corner because they NEED one NOW.

It was even said in the very first post on this thread, I use a Mac Pro at work........
That's it's point, not for someones bedroom, for serious professional use...

I am more then happy that you can build your own, congratulations, but to completely forget or ignore the wider picture of just who uses a Mac Pro is ignorant.

Ugh...you're calling me ignorant? Right, I use my machines for email and internet. I don't do system and web dev, HD video editing, music composition...none of those things. :rolleyes: Why in the heck would I settle for a 2.66 quad i7 920 for 2500 dollars?! That is ABSURD. That machine IS extremely underpowered when you could build a hex 3.33 for the same price on the PC side, and overclock it to 4ghz, easily I'm sure. All those "pro apps" you mention like the Adobe suite? Better on Windows 7. FCP is behind the curve. So where does that leave Mac users like us?

You're not getting it. The Mac Pro is underpowered relative to a similarly priced PC. That would be "extremely underpowered." Your "purpose" of the Mac Pro is right out of marketing and ignores the reality of the situation: It's currently creamed by the quad iMac (if we are talking base standards here). Do you get that? Just because it's "branded" a workstation and uses ECC memory, doesn't mean it's the best, most reliable machine money can buy. It's certainly not.

People are just too emotionally attached to Apple, bottom line. I like their stuff, it's all I use, but I don't give two craps about the company, because the company doesn't give two craps about any of us. I want to use the best tools. Apple is lucky they have the iPhone ecosystem, or hardly any devs would be doing what I do I imagine.

The only thing that's ignorant is thinking the current Mac Pro is some awesome machine. It was a rip off the day it was released (at least the base quad), what could it possibly be now? The whole thing would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

[Tali]

lol, I think these people will thinks Macs run on fairy dust and that similiar computers don't compare because they don't have the fairy dust in them. Even though the same components are in both computers, except the case looks a bit shinier.

Macs are overpriced, but that's nothing new. However you simply cannot compare them to Dell products in most cases. For instance the Dell Studio 17 vs. the Macbook Pro:

When the Dell breaks (and there is no expensive warranty upgrade added), you have to call in the error, argue with them over phone, wait at home while someone picks it up, wait at home when it gets sent back and then most likely send it back in.

Little story here: My girlfriend has a studio 15 and we sent it in (still within 1 year warranty) to have the display fixed because it had a pretty large area that was somewhat lighter than the rest:
When it came back after the first repair, the "new" display was flickering and bright yellow, the laptop had been dropped and some mobo damage occurred, so we sent it back in (took about 2 weeks and a good 7 hours of calls to get it done).
When it came back after the second repair, the display was badly fitted (uneven), the case was horribly scratched (like some used a screw driver to do it) and the mobo had not been changed. So it took another couple of hours to talk to support center (they have no own number, you get a different guy every time and you have to explain the entire story over and over again). After hours of talking to them, they agreed to send a technician to us, he replaced the screen, case and mobo and left quickly. He forgot to tape the CPU vent cables down so they obstructed the CPU (hi thermal shutdown) so we had to call again, and after 2 months we finally had it fixed. No chance of getting reimbursed for your troubles, no support and no idea of what they are doing.

Sure I could do it myself, but that would void the warranty.

If you Apple fails, you take it to a store (granted you have one close by) and you will have it fixed in no time. Most of the time you get a little bonus. I know that what they charge is a lot, but believe me, I would pay $2000 any day just so that I don't have to talk to the idiots of Dell support again.
Of course I use my Macs to generate income and I wouldn't be able to work without one (at least not for 8 weeks). Sure you can buy upgrades when it comes to customer support, but they do cost quite a lot for Dells.

Of course Dells are nice computers if you just want to game or do light word processing and watch an occasional movie, but the second my income depended on them, I'd shoot myself.

That being said, the Mac Pro is way overpriced, I have been in the marked for one since late November 09 and I didn't buy one because I couldn't justify paying the price (there are a couple of them where I work and I just use those for heavy rendering and whenever I specifically need the Kona). Everything else I currently do on a MBP or an IMac (far from superb, but the current MP is just too overpriced)

[strausd]

And please, Power Macs are as reliable as a Dell workstation. Considering it's not a portable device, and it's parts all come from the same factory with suicidal workers.

OS costs 129. That certainly doesn't mean Apple can charge a $1000 premium.

If they keep it up, it'll be pretty sad, because the premium is continuously increasing as time goes on. Unless they implement some sort of incremental ugprade for later versions, the MacPro's will remain an incredibly niche product.

Overall Macs are generally more reliable than PCs, part of the reason people are willing to pay the extra money, mainly when it comes to their notebooks considering those are their most popular.

I didn't say they are charging a $1000 premium just for the OS, all I said was that part of the price difference is for the combination of both the OS and reliability.

And when has Apple lowered the price of their computers as the price of the components go down? Definitely not something Apple is known for.

[Dana Beck]

Well, I dunno, but, having used Mac products for the last 4 years is refreshing because--unlike a Windows machine--I can actually sit down and get some work done...without having some blinking icon in the system tray, a perpetual antivirus update message, a Windows Update emergency patch, what have you. This drove me nuts.

On the contrary, with my old (2006) MacPro 1,1, I can still batch edit 50 Mb Camera Raw files in PS, along with site edits in Dreamweaver or Fireworks files without missing a beat. Yes, this machine cost double what my innumerable PC's did, but it's worth it to me. Maybe because I am female I am more concerned with reliability...specifically, I can work on my MP for long periods of time without distractions or OS "incidents" rearing their ugly heads.

[Apple Corps]

wankey - you do not know what the OS COSTS

"...OS costs 129. That certainly doesn't mean Apple can charge a $1000 premium..."

Apple sells it for $129 but the cost of developing it and maintaining it is unknown to us. Also - and this is VERY IMPORTANT - that cost must be absorbed over a much smaller user base.

[Beaverman3001]

You are paying for more than hardware, it really isn't a hard concept. Yes it should be updated, but people comparing hardware specs 1 for 1 are missing a huge point.

[slughead]

YOU don't have a clue what you are talking about by saying that!!! Yet again blabbing away TOTALLY missing the whole point of a Mac Pro....:rolleyes:

It's the public education.

Umm...

I think he was being sarcastic

What IS the point of a Mac Pro? To have a good desktop with OSX. It is not some special machine like so many Apple fans seem to like to believe. It's an incredibly standard machine. On the PC side it would be quite underpowered. I'm really confused as to what you think the "point" of a Mac Pro is. Do you even have one? Have you ever had one? They are the best Macs out there, and at the same time are absolutely nothing special...

Again, sarcasm... but still good points. There are people out there who believe in the fairy dust included in each mac pro (must be what gives off the benzene fumes.

[slughead]

Well, I dunno, but, having used Mac products for the last 4 years is refreshing because--unlike a Windows machine--I can actually sit down and get some work done...without having some blinking icon in the system tray, a perpetual antivirus update message, a Windows Update emergency patch, what have you. This drove me nuts.

There are more OS's than just windows and mac

On the contrary, with my old (2006) MacPro 1,1, I can still batch edit 50 Mb Camera Raw files in PS, along with site edits in Dreamweaver or Fireworks files without missing a beat. Yes, this machine cost double what my innumerable PC's did, but it's worth it to me. Maybe because I am female I am more concerned with reliability...specifically, I can work on my MP for long periods of time without distractions or OS "incidents" rearing their ugly heads.

Yep, OS X is great. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to pay twice as much though? Some of us can't afford that. Not to mention it's outdated hardware.

[slughead]

Yeah pretty much. All the retail stuff is made by the same factories. The best quality parts are made by the third parties who cater to system builders (they generally use the best PCB's, capactiors, connections blah blah blah), while the companies like Apple and Dell try to get things as cheaply as possible, generally sacrificing quality. Now if Apple allowed system builders to install OSX officially, then they would have something. :cool:

EXACTLY!! It so annoys me when people don't get this.

Homebuilders get way better parts for half the price and we don't even have to cut corners--if anything, we get way better stuff.

The first mac pro came with a sony DVD burner (which was a noisy unreliable POS manufactured by NEC), a Maxtor hard drive, and some of the worst RAM on the market.

Not to mention the PSU failures with the fog of death leaking out.

edit: btw: sorry for multiple posts, I probably should've replied all in the same thing, huh?

[Wild-Bill]

I used to build all of my own before I totally switched to Mac.

My next computer will be a hackintosh for sure. With the way the Hack scene is maturing, I'll have no problems waiting to update the O/S until a Hack fix comes out for it, or I'll build a vanilla build that has no problems updating and no problems with sleep.

As a matter of fact, I still have my old Coolermaster Stacker case in storage, just begging for some parts. Probably in late 2011 or so I suppose.

[macjunk(ie)]

Vote with your dollars.  will either watch this happen and respond or they won't. End of story.

This is where it starts to get screwed up!
People (including me) just don't care! We know that we are paying a lot for the machines and that we could get a cheaper Windows machine...but still we don't care. We manage to convince ourselves by looking at how cool the construction is, post a few good things about the machine on macrumors and feel justified whenever you look at the heap of plastic Dell calls a laptop...

Not sure about the iPad but this is magical! When it comes to buying Apple, most (if not all) do not vote with their dollars and hence Apple continues to be arrogant about their pricing....

When it comes to the Mac Pro..I see two things : 1) Apple's arrogance 2) Apple not listening to customer demands (not new but this is getting on my nerves nowadays)

[the editor]

next year windows 8 comes out and they are already admitting they are basing it on the MacOS. I see this as a really good thing and i wouldn't hesitate to switch if windows would go more the MacOS way.

Lets face it, the only reason most people use a mac is because of the OS, i could care less about how it looks or what logo is on there, i just want a machine to work, with a blazing good performance, especially when paying 4000$ for a computer. Instead we get crap videocards, crap HDD space and a crap amount of memory. PEople that buy the current MacPro are either filthy rich, stupid beyond believe or victims because Apple has them hi-jacked, the professional whom has thousands of $ invested (software...etc) and to who the Imac is no option.

Back then Microsoft was looked upon as being the all evil company, but Apples way of doing business is without a doubt worse.

then come the fan-boys claiming the reason why Apple is expensive is because they are stable, because its Apple's wright to charge more than double...because windows sux...etc being a fan-boy is one thing, being straight up retarded is another. The only reason Apple gets away with overpricing is because of these type of idiots claiming to be professionals whom want computer stability in life, while all they get is a basic set-up machine with the name Pro slapped on. And oh yeah...Mac users piss on Dell all the time, but there's more out there than Dell, also the macbooks aren't the best build machines either, and its not as if they are made out of titanium. And oh yeah, Imacs suck even more and don't get me started on Apple's customer support, they aren't the brightest on mother earth either.

Apple has even invented something called "Applecare" meaning they have you pay extra for warranty when in reality you should get a 3year waranty on intel cpu's, HDD, and memory regardless . if you go buy a boxed intel CPU you have a 3 year warranty, if you buy a HDD 3 years...i even believe you have a 5 year warranty on corsair memory and Asus motherboards.

Apple makes you Buy your warranty...hows that of a rip-off, back in the day they called it filching

Only thing good on a Mac is the OS and how it looks

Apple the company that fooled the world

[macjunk(ie)]

<...stuff about Dell's customer support>
If you Apple fails, you take it to a store (granted you have one close by) and you will have it fixed in no time. Most of the time you get a little bonus. I know that what they charge is a lot, but believe me, I would pay $2000 any day just so that I don't have to talk to the idiots of Dell support again.
Of course I use my Macs to generate income and I wouldn't be able to work without one (at least not for 8 weeks). Sure you can buy upgrades when it comes to customer support, but they do cost quite a lot for Dells.

Of course Dells are nice computers if you just want to game or do light word processing and watch an occasional movie, but the second my income depended on them, I'd shoot myself.


I hear ya....but you also get to hear horror stories about Apple's customer support. Nothing new here. In fact, it is the Apple story which hurts the most because in all probability, you are comparing the warranty service on a 800$ Dell with a 2500$ Apple!

First of all...AppleCare is not as comprehensive as Dell's warranty. If your laptop fails, you might have drive down to an Apple store and you are completely at their mercy as to when you will be getting the laptop back. Now if your laptop is making money for you...well you are out of luck!

And if by any chance, you dent your Apple laptop (or any other cosmetic damage)..you can kiss the warranty goodbye (since the ridiculously priced AppleCare does not include accidental damage protection).

[gaspra]

Only thing good on a Mac is the OS and how it looks

Apple the company that fooled the world

The good thing for Mac OS is not only the looks, but also the native support for X-Windows. To me, I care more about X-Windows. Mac OS also gets better support for commercial softwares, this is why I choose Mac over Linux.

Windows 8? If it just looks like Mac OS, I wouldn't make a switch, too much hassle to run cygwin or virtual machine on Windows.

[ghola]

I'm in the market for a desktop PC, and since I'm a hardened Mac user, I decided to look into the Mac pro (I use a macpro at work that runs ridiculously fast, so I'd like to have one for personal use)

At $2899CDN, I get a quad core CPU at 2.66ghz, 3 gig ram, 640gb harddrive and an nVidia GT120. Doesn't come with a screen

It seems a bit too much, so I decided to check up what PC users are paying for the same budget (~4000)

At NCIX.com, you won't believe how behind the Mac Pro is:

Core i7 2.93ghz
12gbs of DDR3 ram
Best Motherboard (it's got a featurelist longer than my thesis)
nVidia GTX 480 1.5gb GDDR3
Intel 40gb SSD (for OS installation)
2x WD Caviar 2TB
Antec P183 case (arguable as good as the Mac Pro's case)

I also threw in some low noise high performance fans for the CPU (Xigmatek's massive 120mm fan for CPU is nearly silent) to match the Mac Pro's silent operation.

The price in total came down to $2451CDN

That's a nearly 500 premium over the best PC desktop money can buy. How can people stand by and let Apple screw you like this?

In short, for 500CDN LESS, I can get a

Core i7 2.93ghz > Xeon 2.66ghz
12gb of DDR3 ram vastly > 4gb DDR3 ram
nVidia GTX480 vastly > nvidia GT120
4tb of HDD > 640gb of HDD
40gb of SSD > *

This must be a joke that Apple thinks it can charge nearly ~3000 on a computer that people can buy for half price. In fact, I may be even over stating it so I went a head a configured a similar desktop PC just to see what's going on with the Mac Pros:

Core i5 2.66ghz ~ Xeon 2.66ghz
4gb of ram > 3gb of ram (seriously Apple?)
nVidia GT220 > nVidia GT120 (they no longer sell 120's)
640gb WD HDD
Same Antec Professional 185 (The most expensive PC Case money can buy)
Corsair 750W

Guess how much the price came down to. I was pretty shocked.

$956CDN

That's right folks. Anyone who is seriously thinking of buying a Mac Pro is either too rich or too ignorant. There is no real difference between a 2.66ghz Xeon processor over a Core i5 2.66ghz. It's only Intel's way to extort more money over business owners who want "security over savings". Please name me a few cases where the retail version of the CPU is vastly inferior to the "server" version that it necessitates a near $800 premium for the same performance.

I'm really shocked by the fact that Apple continues to screw people over in this area, charging a ridiculous $1800 premium for their desktop computers for absolutely no reason. There is no way you can realistically convince me that the OS or the case is worth nearly $2000.

Considering that the Mac Pro is all about performance, it certainly fails to add anything in this department. Using an aging processor, with an obsolete graphics card, a pitiful amount of ram and literally a sad amount of storage.

With their focus shifting to limited portable devices with crude input and usage modes, I fear that Apple may fall into the consumer market completely and forget its roots as a company that made great products for professionals and production designers, and not a company made for gimmicks and touch screens.

Guess the only thing to look at now is the iMac.

Get this as soon as I get a working ATI kext I'll have a system that Apple would charge prolly $100000 for. :p

[the editor]

The good thing for Mac OS is not only the looks, but also the native support for X-Windows. To me, I care more about X-Windows. Mac OS also gets better support for commercial softwares, this is why I choose Mac over Linux.

Windows 8? If it just looks like Mac OS, I wouldn't make a switch, too much hassle to run cygwin or virtual machine on Windows.

if it just looks like mac than people could just stick with windows 7 or XP and customize it like crazy. its as easy as installing software to make a pc "look" exactly like a mac. i'm sure windows is going to do more than just make it look like a mac. but i have a very strong feeling the next windows wont be anything we've seen before and will surprise everyone since they are re-writing it from scratch. i think its also a good thing for windows to just admit that they are looking at the MacOS essentials to come up with a new OS.

[VirtualRain]

I think any PC builder/modder who thinks these two are the same, does not take their craft seriously...

http://ambress.com/pc/pc_update/pc_internals.jpg

http://images.macnn.com/esta/content/0902/macpro-nehalemlg2.jpg

Now, if your idea of a home built PC is more like this, than you probably can appreciate the design of the Mac Pro...

http://www.million-dollar-pc.com/systems-2010/twentynine/twentynine.htm

Do you know how many serious PC builders/modders would kill for things like
- Backplane mounted drives?
- Custom motherboard PCIe power traces to the base of the GPU slots?
- Custom lever PCIe card retention mechanism vs plastic tabs?
- Slide out CPU drawer?
- Integrated main-board wifi and bluetooth?
- No visible cables?

The best home built PC's will cost a lot more than a Mac Pro after the person's time invested has been accounted for.

Anyone can slap parts from Newegg or NCIX together in an afternoon. It takes, planning, time, and serious hard work to turn out a computer that's worthy of being listed on million-dollar-pc.com and only those are really in the same league as the Mac Pro in my opinion.

For me, as a former builder/modder, the Mac Pro is a custom built hackintosh that's half the price of what it would cost me in time and materials to build something I'd be happy to represent as my work.

[TennisandMusic]

Why would someone kill for a slide out cpu tray, among other things? :confused:

That million dollar PC thing is a "normal" build for most decent home builders. That first thing you posted looks like it's from ten years ago. It doesn't take more than an afternoon to do a machine of the posted quality. It's not hard at all. Not sure why you would want to muddle the facts other than to prop up the Mac Pro. Yeah it's nice, but it's not awesome.

[wisty]

Here's a quick summary to support my claim (not exactly the same specs but very close)...

[QUOTE=VirtualRain;10448612]Mini Desktops:
Dell Zino HD: Starts at $249
Mac Mini: Starts at $699
wimpy 1.6GHz AMD single-core vs half-decent Intel 2.4GHz dual-core, worse graphics, and worse HDD. Similar RAM. Yes, the Mini is still more expensive. Apple will always be more than Dell.

Yes, Apple is stupid to use Intel on low-end machines. Though it might help power consumption ... I'm not sure.

All-in-ones:
Dell Studio 19 All in One: Starts at $399
iMac: Starts at $1199
Bulldust. The $399 one is nothing like the same specs. The $699 Dell has similar guts to the $1199 iMac, and the screen is a crappy 18 inch, not a half-decent 21.

Yes, the Mac is overpriced. But nowhere near as much as you are claiming.

A better comparism would be to the 79,800 yen Lenovo C305 All-In-One Desktop PC. It's about $870 US.


Low-end laptop:
Dell Inspiron 15: Starts at $399
MacBook: Starts at $999

A Dell Inspiron 14 with a slower processor, Intel graphics (yuck) but more RAM and HDD is $649.99.


High-end laptop:
Dell Studio 17: Starts at $749
MacBook Pro 17: Starts at $2299
A Core i5 starts at $849.9.

OK, I'll only defend the MacBook Pro 17 if you need the battery.

Mobile Phone:
Dell: Starts at FREE
Apple: Starts at $99

No idea what either costs without a plan.

MP3 Player 8GB:
Dell/SanDisk: $59
Apple: $149

iPod Nano has a nice little video camera. On the other hand, the SanDisk draws especial attention to it's "fashionable clip" for the "fashion conscious".

Quad Core Workstation:
Dell T3500: Starts at $1239
Mac Pro: Starts at $2499
Dell T3500 starts off dual-core, with much worse specs. Except the GPU ... Mac Pro needs an update.

So actually, the Mac Pro has the lowest difference at double the price of any other product category Apple makes where the difference can be 3x or more. In fact, if Apple priced the Mac Pro like they do their other products, the entry level quad would be $3600 or so. ;)

Again, this is not news, nor appologetic, it is how Apple positions themselves in the market and you either see the value or you buy something else.

I'd call most Apple gear about 40% overpriced, when you really compare Apples to ... Apples.

You haven't really tried to compare Apple gear to equivalent products. You are definitely leaning towards comparing Apple hardware to cheaper parts ... why bother?

[Plutonius]

How are they screwing you ? You are not forced to get one. Get one of the alternatives you mentioned and it sounds like you will be happier.

[Plutonius]

next year windows 8 comes out and they are already admitting they are basing it on the MacOS. I see this as a really good thing and i wouldn't hesitate to switch if windows would go more the MacOS way.

Is it backward compatible with older windows ? Does it still have a registry ?

If so, it's more Mac like in UI only and nothing really has changed. Microsoft needs to ditch compatibility with the older windows and needs to get rid of the registry.

[mlts22]

Is it backward compatible with older windows ? Does it still have a registry ?

If so, it's more Mac like in UI only and nothing really has changed. Microsoft needs to ditch compatibility with the older windows and needs to get rid of the registry.

+1. MS needs to consider virtualization for all legacy applications, perhaps with some DirectX black magic so legacy gaming still works. Then force all apps that want to run "natively" on the OS to support both ASLR and DEP (so basic code injection attacks won't run).

[Vylen]

http://ambress.com/pc/pc_update/pc_internals.jpg


Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

[lemonade-maker]

Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

To make it suck even more.

[Tali]

I hear ya....but you also get to hear horror stories about Apple's customer support. Nothing new here. In fact, it is the Apple story which hurts the most because in all probability, you are comparing the warranty service on a 800$ Dell with a 2500$ Apple!

First of all...AppleCare is not as comprehensive as Dell's warranty. If your laptop fails, you might have drive down to an Apple store and you are completely at their mercy as to when you will be getting the laptop back. Now if your laptop is making money for you...well you are out of luck!

And if by any chance, you dent your Apple laptop (or any other cosmetic damage)..you can kiss the warranty goodbye (since the ridiculously priced AppleCare does not include accidental damage protection).


Well I know it's somewhat far fetched, but the point is pretty much that I would choose apple as I depend on it. BUT you are right, you are pretty much at their mercy, which I is something I despise. I do however have the bonus of doing the shopping for the company I work for so I get treated pretty nicely. Never had any problems, even with products that didn't have Apple Care anymore. I was normally offered to call ahead (Superdrive failure, Logic Board etc) and I went for a coffee while they repaired the laptop. I wouldn't want to have that problem without the bonus of having the "you want this order?" card up my sleeve.

But you don't really have to compare it to the MBP, you can just take a nicely specced out 15 inch Dell and compare it to a MB, it's pretty much the same price and the difference is still there. I can't imagine that Dell is always this bad, but this one time really was enough for me ,). Imagine talking to 8 (!) different support members overall and every single one of them says something different and you have to explain the entire problem and email photos every single time. That was horrible

But there is one more thing: Dell and Apple use the same repair service, so I don't know what happens if you mail in your Mac.

[Brien]

The Mac Pro isn't really targeted for us home users unfortunately. In the old days plenty of home users bought PowerMacs, but it seems the iMac has eaten up more and more of that segment. I've owned nothing but towers in the desktop realm, but even I am considering a 27" iMac for my next purchase (just as I'm considering a Mac Mini server instead of a new Xserve).

[Repo]

There are more OS's than just windows and mac

True, but those are the only two with significant companies backing them up with support and updates; not to mention the two most popular to write software for.

[PaulD-UK]

Hi
I've been a self-employed Mac video editor since 1993 when I started with a Quadra 840AV and a £5700 5GB raid. I know many other guys who have done the same - buy a Mac, add some hefty storage, learn the software and get on with it - and make a living

I also know a lot of Avid editors who work for smaller production companies who work on HP workstations and the like.

Without exception NONE of us Mac guys pay a regular tech support contract, and the only outside help needed is with SAN/multi-user networking.

Without exception EVERY Avid company either employs a full time computer specialist to keep the PCs running, or pays for a very considerable up-front on-call maintenace contract - and then they need the SAN/networking support added on, as a regular IT guy won't have that skillset.

So to the cost your Dell or HP workstation add the cost of the guy's salary to keep Windows working in a 100% uptime environment.

To ensure (insure?) 100% uptime in my own edit suite I keep two identical Mac edit computers, but I've not had to use the back-up kit since 1997 (when a Radius 8100 clone went down...).

The converse of this is I'm still using outdated Macs because I don't think the tech spec of the 2009 Nehalem Mac Pros is right yet (because of the obsolete Intel Hartwell ethernet controller - which is data-rate capped).

So in terms of getting my money Apple is close, but no cigar...

[Kilamite]

There's no denying the Mac Pro is an awesome machine.. design and the power + OS X.

But there's no denying either that Apple are taking the **** with their lack of upgrades. This doesn't just apply to the Mac Pro, but the whole line. It takes them so long to update their computer line. New hardware becomes available - yes Apple will want to test it and get OS X to be fully compatible, but you can't be selling outdated hardware months and months down the line at the same premium price as when you introduced it.

I really thought WWDC was going to be more than just iOS 4. I thought they were going to tell the world they still care about the prosumer market and introduce a spanking new Mac Pro with 27" Cinema Display (in glossy and matte finish), along with a new suite of updated prosumer applications.



Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

Looks like it isn't a tower case but one that lies flat.

[Shademaster]

I own a small 3D studio (10 people) and sadly we are not going the macpro way anymore. The 2008 models were absolutely great for their price/value. As stated before, the difference between a normal macpro nowadays and a corei7 are way too great.

We are now running PC's with overclocked i7's. All machines have maxed out PC spec's with 12gbram, multiple drives, 850 watt corsair PSU, nice graphics cards. All these machines perform above our expectancies. We even went so far as to sell our 2 remaining iMac's so we could trade them in for 2 DIY core i7's.

We do very processor/memory intensive work with all of our machines constantly rendering and being use to the max. To be honest we don't feel the difference between our 2008 macpro's (8x3.0ghz with 12gbram) and our new i7's that are 5 times cheaper than one macpro.

If I look at this the business way a MacPro is not an option in our production environment.

Currently we are debating a switch to windows 7 including all of our licenses.

I now have 10 very happy people sitting behind i7's, we get enough number crunching power from them that we do not need a renderfarm anymore and it cost us as much as 2 decked out macpro's.

Sorry but considering the pc option I would be extremely stupid as to choose for a macpro in it's current form again.

[GoKyu]

Re: The OP wanting a Mac Pro for home use.

Quick background: I was a PC user since the late 80's, and started building my own PCs in the early 90's. Bought my first Mac in 2008 (see specs in sig.)

I'm a home/power user, but I don't use the computer professionally to make my living, and yet I still bought the most expensive Mac you could get at the time. Why?

I was tired of having to upgrade and maintain my computer just to have it run well. Defrag the hard drives, optimize the registry, Antivirus/Antispyware constantly running in the background, many apps in the taskbar giving me additional functionality...all added up to a slower machine, slower boot times, having to reboot more often = big waste of time.

My Mac Pro is SILENT (not too many PCs can make that claim), FAST, has plenty of extra horsepower for the times I decide to push it harder than I normally would, and best of all, it's really proven itself to be quite future-proof for my needs. January will mark the 3 year point, and I can easily see myself using it for at least another 1.5-2 years beyond that, if I don't decide to sell it first and make back enough for a solid downpayment on a newer model.

Do Mac Pros cost a lot? Sure. Are they worth every penny for a home user who wants a solid, silent, stable machine that will last for years? Definitely.

Let me end by saying: If I keep this machine for 5 years, that averages out to around $480 per year. That can *easily* cover the expense, time and yes, hassle of looking online to find parts, order, wait for them to come in, and finally install them. It's just not worth it to me anymore to build my own. I'm happy to let Apple build something that I'm happy with and that will last a long time.

[harlem]

Re: The OP wanting a Mac Pro for home use.

Quick background: I was a PC user since the late 80's, and started building my own PCs in the early 90's. Bought my first Mac in 2008 (see specs in sig.)

I'm a home/power user, but I don't use the computer professionally to make my living, and yet I still bought the most expensive Mac you could get at the time. Why?

I was tired of having to upgrade and maintain my computer just to have it run well. Defrag the hard drives, optimize the registry, Antivirus/Antispyware constantly running in the background, many apps in the taskbar giving me additional functionality...all added up to a slower machine, slower boot times, having to reboot more often = big waste of time.

My Mac Pro is SILENT (not too many PCs can make that claim), FAST, has plenty of extra horsepower for the times I decide to push it harder than I normally would, and best of all, it's really proven itself to be quite future-proof for my needs. January will mark the 3 year point, and I can easily see myself using it for at least another 1.5-2 years beyond that, if I don't decide to sell it first and make back enough for a solid downpayment on a newer model.

Do Mac Pros cost a lot? Sure. Are they worth every penny for a home user who wants a solid, silent, stable machine that will last for years? Definitely.

Let me end by saying: If I keep this machine for 5 years, that averages out to around $480 per year. That can *easily* cover the expense, time and yes, hassle of looking online to find parts, order, wait for them to come in, and finally install them. It's just not worth it to me anymore to build my own. I'm happy to let Apple build something that I'm happy with and that will last a long time.

ofcourse its going to be future proof, you said yourself you don't use the machine on a professional basis. Heck even a 8 year old computer could still surf the net and run photoshop.

Also i'm still a PC user (but looking to buy a MacPro for professional work and my boss has agreed to pay half of the machine :D i would never pay 4000$ out of my pocket for a pretty basic computer with these kind of specs) and yes pc's do need some maintenance but ive been using PC's forever and i only do maintenance once a year...and my computer runs super smooth. never quite understood how Mac users always use the "ooo windows machines need constant taking care off" its more a fan-boy comment than a realistic one if you ask me...have you guys even ever used windows7, i'm saying Steve Jobs has you guys fooled. Mac is good but be a bit realistic here, the hardware is pretty much crap if you consider the price tag. Sometimes i wonder if they use solid gold computer parts, its that ridicules.

my first ever time i used a mac, i kid you not, it was in school and i had the thing frees on me. so long for fairy tales that macs dont crash and can't get buggy.

Yes i'm in the market for a Mac, but refuse to be ignorant a claim that Mac is the best thing out there, it has its flaws and good points just like a windows machine. side note is that Macs are double the price.

[Kilamite]

..it's really proven itself to be quite future-proof for my needs. January will mark the 3 year point, and I can easily see myself using it for at least another 1.5-2 years beyond that, if I don't decide to sell it first and make back enough for a solid downpayment on a newer model..

That point is meaningless. Any computer with the same specs will fall into your category of future proof. In terms of value for money.. that doesn't apply here. Of course you can start arguing the construction of the thing will maybe make it last longer, but there's little argument there too since decent PC cases don't cost that much.

If I built the same specced PC as your Mac Pro at the same time you bought it, then my PC would also fall into your point about being future proof.

Any arguments about cost of the thing resulting in future proofing are moot.

[harlem]

That point is meaningless. Any computer with the same specs will fall into your category of future proof. In terms of value for money.. that doesn't apply here. Of course you can start arguing the construction of the thing will maybe make it last longer, but there's little argument there too since decent PC cases don't cost that much.

If I built the same specced PC as your Mac Pro at the same time you bought it, then my PC would also fall into your point about being future proof.

Any arguments about cost of the thing resulting in future proofing are moot.

+1

[lemonade-maker]

That point is meaningless. Any computer with the same specs will fall into your category of future proof. In terms of value for money.. that doesn't apply here. Of course you can start arguing the construction of the thing will maybe make it last longer, but there's little argument there too since decent PC cases don't cost that much.

If I built the same specced PC as your Mac Pro at the same time you bought it, then my PC would also fall into your point about being future proof.

Any arguments about cost of the thing resulting in future proofing are moot.

Meaningless is a bit harsh. PCs are so cheap it often makes more sense to buy a new one and use the older one for a different purpose rather than upgrade the os and keep using it as is. Running windows 7 on a 4 year old pc that came with xp pretty much sucks. Running 10.6 on a Mac that came with 10.4 doesn't suck much.

[mBox]

I own a small 3D studio (10 people) and sadly we are not going the macpro way anymore...Makes good business sense if you have an open budget. I budgeted for new Mac Pros so Im screwed till they release something. I cant switch that to anything else and not even iMacs :(
We have Windows boxes doing most of our rendering here (rman mostly) and they deal with the brunt of the 3D. The Macs are mostly for Adobe apps and that we need upgrading. Id like to update to AE CS5 so we can at least take advantage of the overpriced RAM we purchased :)
If anything, this article should be more of a wake-up call that us prosumers/pros are not getting a timely update let alone the price :(

[Kilamite]

Running 10.6 on a Mac that came with 10.4 doesn't suck much.

Let's not forget all the Macs that have PowerPC chips that came with Tiger. Do they run Snow Leopard? No.

[lemonade-maker]

Let's not forget all the Macs that have PowerPC chips that came with Tiger. Do they run Snow Leopard? No.

A 4 year old Mac is intel.

[eponym]

Agreed about the i5 but why should you use Xeon for a single-CPU machine instead of i7?

i7s are not server-grade processors. They don't support ECC RAM.

[eponym]

And sorry to burst your bubble, but the server-grade component price jump isn't limited to Apple.

3 members of my team just spent over $2K (before taxes) for Dells with 2.4 GHz (iirc) Xeons. And they'll tell you they were worth every penny because they need those small benefits that are useless to consumers and pro-sumers.

[Gomff]

Yet another thread about how you can get four PC's for the price of one Mac Pro.

Please just go ahead and buy your windows box and be happy then, stop polluting the forums with the same old whining diatribe. Yes, we know.....Apple don't offer the best value for money when it comes down to Hardware. Sadly, they happen to sell (in many people's opinion) the best operating system which only runs smoothly on their machines.

Deal with it!

Yawn.

[iCole]

I'm tired of the whole 'apple is overpriced' stuff. I think a lot of ppl look at Apple products in the wrong way. (ok, The Mac Pro is prolly overpriced because of its getting old, i dunno, and the mini is prolly too.)

Every product in the Apple line has a place. For example :

The mini is supposed to be an ultra small and energy sufficient little box that still is performant enough. Don't compare it to bigger boxes.
The iMac is a stylish all-in-one, with everything build in, great cooling, great screen, very quiet, etc... please don't compare it to an ugly ass all-in-one.

If you go Apple, you go for an easy accessible computer and a well designed one. I probably can do everything on my gamepc too, but then i have to miss the fast bootup times of my mac, the stability of the OS, the clear screen, and the overal great look in my living room. Yeah, if you want pure specs, then why bother with Apple? It all depends on what you are willing to spend your money on.

edit : I think every product has unique value. A Mac mini tower wouldn't be a succes, because it wouldn't make sense. You can easily build a windows tower, get all parts cheaper and run your games much easier.

[harlem]

Every product in the Apple line has a place. For example :

The mini is supposed to be an ultra small and energy sufficient little box that still is performant enough. Don't compare it to bigger boxes.
The iMac is a stylish all-in-one, with everything build in, great cooling, great screen, very quiet, etc... please don't compare it to an ugly ass all-in-one.

.

thats where i stopt reading...so we have to take your writings serious?:rolleyes:

[brentsg]

i7s are not server-grade processors. They don't support ECC RAM.

He was buying it for home use and willing to go with an i5. So the question about why he'd even consider the single Xeon is valid.

[brentsg]

thats where i stopt reading...so we have to take your writings serious?:rolleyes:

Huh? You don't like LED backlit IPS panels?

[PeterQVenkman]

Yet another thread about how you can get four PC's for the price of one Mac Pro.

Deal with it!

Yawn.

He did deal with it, and got twice the performance for the price.

Huh? You don't like LED backlit IPS panels?

He doesn't like yellow LED backlit IPS panels. ;)

[chaosbunny]

He doesn't like yellow mirror LED backlit IPS panels. ;)

I hope you don't mind, but I had to extend that. :)

[Gomff]

He did deal with it, and got twice the performance for the price.

Really? Did he really? He didn't get OS X. Probably had to install Antivirus and then has to sit through various scans a few times a month, not to mention Windows updates that take forever. What will that machine be like in a year, particularly if he doesn't re-install windows in that time? My bet is that it will take twice as long to boot, and will be subject to random Hard drive grinding sessions where even opening an explorer window takes forever.

Seriously, I can't say this enough times.....Buying a Mac is only half about the hardware, the rest is about OS X. It's about still being able to do other stuff while you're moving big files around in the background, and doing system updates when it suits you rather than your computer. The virus thing may or may not be over played but I know my OS X installation doesn't have any. What's more, it started life as a Leopard install 2.5 years ago, was since upgraded to Snow Leopard (rather than a fresh install) and it still boots quickly, runs fast and keeps out of the way while I do my work.

Processors and hard drives have to get a lot faster than they are now before windows can Match OS X for productivity in my view. Windows carries the extra weight of registry clog, bloatware, random applications you don't remember installing sitting in your system tray and virus / anomalous threat "protection" from Symantec or one of those other god-awful parasitical companies that prey on the ignorance and insecurities of the average PC user.

Try opening the task manager and looking at processes in Windows, and try to work out what the hell all of those things are that suck the juice out of the CPU.....It's virtually impossible to tell what's going on after you've been running a windows system for a few months, whether a process is legitimately accessing the internet or whether it's a key logger, or a worm or some sort of ad-ware using your bandwidth to send back personal information to some amoral marketing entity.

Bollocks to Windows and PC boxes, I'll pay the extra thanks.

[GoKyu]

yes pc's do need some maintenance but ive been using PC's forever and i only do maintenance once a year...and my computer runs super smooth. never quite understood how Mac users always use the "ooo windows machines need constant taking care off" its more a fan-boy comment than a realistic one if you ask me...have you guys even ever used windows7...

I don't consider myself a fanboy - I've only been using Macs for a couple of years, and still know WAY more about PCs than I know about Macs at this point.

I'm not saying PCs need *constant* maintenance, but rather *regular* maintenance...once a month or so (maybe a little more often if you use it all the time.) This comes from 20+ years of using them every day.

I loved Windows 2000 and XP, and I think Win7 is finally a worthy upgrade. Vista is what actually made me switch, and at this point, I just prefer the way that OS X works (I'm also very used to using Linux and AfterStep (http://www.afterstep.org/) (NeXTStep clone), which is the basis for OS X anyway, and another reason I like this OS so much.)


my first ever time i used a mac, i kid you not, it was in school and i had the thing frees on me. so long for fairy tales that macs dont crash and can't get buggy.

One thing I particularly don't like about Apple is their marketing slogans. All this "magical (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZS8HqOGTbA)" stuff is really out of left field. I'm also not too big on them always crowing about how "thin, light and beautiful" everything is - sure their products look great, but you'd have to be pretty shallow to fork out the money for their machines based more on those features than on how well they perform. I'm sure some people get sucked in by that though.

Any computer system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and while it's true that *Windows viruses* can't really affect OS X, that doesn't mean that Macs can't get viruses - it's just with the UNIX subsystem it's much harder to write viruses for the platform.

A few more points about why I chose the Mac Pro:

1. Form Factor: I'm used to the PC tower setup, because I have several internal hard drives and enjoy the easy access inside the machine. I'd rather not have 4 or 5 external drives all over the place (and have way too many USB devices already...) Unfortunately, Apple doesn't give me any other option than a Mac Pro if that's what I'm looking for. You can count me in the group that would love for them to make a headless mid-tower of some sort. Laptops have really surged in popularity though, and that offers even a less chance of them ever making one (however remote the chance was before...)

I really don't care for the all in one design, because if something happens to the screen, you're out a computer until it gets fixed (or if you're out of warranty, call it cheaper to just have to buy a monitor than to pay $1000+ for a repair/new iMac.)

2. Choice of screen: As with the all in one above, I'm not big on Apple's love of glossy screens. It's not as good for the main reason I use Photoshop, which is color-correcting images. The current Mac mini would certainly be powerful enough for the things I do, but again, the form factor is the other main issue why I don't want one.

Gomff: +1, you really nailed it!

[iWolf00]

What a bad comparison thread starter made; it is very obvious that you care much about price and neglect everything else! beside you were comparing workstation vs desktop; and there are a lot of difference between them or they would combine them into one category long time ago if there were having the same functionality.

People who are using mac are not ignorant; they love mac that the reason why they do like to stick with it for premium price

Last, Comparing 2 inch bulky laptop that has a lot of plastic with very annoying reflective screen against a sleek laptop that has best design, performance and has the lightest weight is unfair. Again this comparison is from PRICE perspective; A good example is mercedes and honda, both are carz and both can take you to your destination, but mercedes gives you luxury, power, design and safety that Honda lack; and people pay premium price to get mercedes. The same story can be with Mac against other brands.

[apolloa]

Oh dear, you first state this:

Umm...I have had Mac Pros and have built my own machines. .

Then state this:

Ugh...you're calling me ignorant? Right, I use my machines for email and internet. I don't do system and web dev, HD video editing, music composition...none of those things.

Your not ignorant, just incredibly stupid. Your telling me that you have owned a Mac Pro and ONLY used it for emails and the internet? And then you come on here and you feel qualified enough to state as a fact it's crap and is underpowered? Oh hell, yeah, gosh those dual Xeons must REALLY struggle with your web pages mate...


:rolleyes: Why in the heck would I settle for a 2.66 quad i7 920 for 2500 dollars?! That is ABSURD. That machine IS extremely underpowered when you could build a hex 3.33 for the same price on the PC side, and overclock it to 4ghz, easily I'm sure. All those "pro apps" you mention like the Adobe suite? Better on Windows 7. FCP is behind the curve. So where does that leave Mac users like us?

Hang on a minute? I thought this was the MAC RPO forum, what the HELL has the iMac got to do with this???? You can't state the Mac Pro is underpowered then suddenly change to the iMac in the same argument. If you want to discuss the imac please go to the imac forum. So are you telling is that Adobe runs better on an overclocked PC then an iMac??


You're not getting it. The Mac Pro is underpowered relative to a similarly priced PC. That would be "extremely underpowered." Your "purpose" of the Mac Pro is right out of marketing and ignores the reality of the situation: It's currently creamed by the quad iMac (if we are talking base standards here). Do you get that? Just because it's "branded" a workstation and uses ECC memory, doesn't mean it's the best, most reliable machine money can buy. It's certainly not.

This is all drivel frankly, you quite obviously haven't a clue what you are talking about and can't decide if your talking about the iMac or the Mac Pro, a business can buy a dual Xeon 2.93, this will spank the iMac i7, otherwise the iMac i7 is better value as it's far cheaper then a base Mac Pro but more powerful so that kind of throws your whole expensive argument out of the water.
And do you have physical proof that Adobe Suite runs better on Windows 7 then? I doubt it. Yet another factless claim, just YOUR assumption.
You clearly do not understand what a Xeon processor or a workstation actually is, it's also clear you just pick up on all the negative comments posted on this forum like stating FCP is 'behind the curve' I'm sure I've read that in other posts, and FYI the BBC for one use it, yeah it's really rubbish :rolleyes:

[MythicFrost]

That's right folks. Anyone who is seriously thinking of buying a Mac Pro is either too rich or too ignorant. There is no real difference between a 2.66ghz Xeon processor over a Core i5 2.66ghz. It's only Intel's way to extort more money over business owners who want "security over savings". Please name me a few cases where the retail version of the CPU is vastly inferior to the "server" version that it necessitates a near $800 premium for the same performance.

I'm really shocked by the fact that Apple continues to screw people over in this area, charging a ridiculous $1800 premium for their desktop computers for absolutely no reason. There is no way you can realistically convince me that the OS or the case is worth nearly $2000.
There is a huge difference, Core i5 doesn't support Hyper-threading. It's been nearly a year and a half since the last Mac Pro update, and Apple doesn't reduce the price as time goes on, so they seem ridiculous now, but they wouldn't have been when they were released. Also, if you buy the RAM and hard drives from OWC you get them significantly cheaper.

Your entire argument is too long to pull apart, but very flawed. I'd like to see links to these machines you posted about.

[slughead]

Your not ignorant, just incredibly stupid. Your telling me that you have owned a Mac Pro and ONLY used it for emails and the internet? And then you come on here and you feel qualified enough to state as a fact it's crap and is underpowered? Oh hell, yeah, gosh those dual Xeons must REALLY struggle with your web pages mate...

Calm down dude. This isn't soviet russia. It's his money, and with it he'd like to not get ripped off. Just because you don't feel he needs it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it for the price he pays.

That's the only part of either of your posts I read so I donno if I agree/disagree on anything else, I just thought I'd throw in my two cents on that.

Also: *You're

[iCole]

thats where i stopt reading...so we have to take your writings serious?:rolleyes:

Ya ok, screen yellowing is not a feature dude :p

[dimensional]

Ugh, maybe Hackintosh is the way to go from now on. :/

By the way, there are lots of PC cases out there, including ones that are gorgeous inside and out, you can't compare all PC cases to that one.

[xgman]

wow, a lot of pent up anger in this thread.

[darkplanets]

Newsflash: Macs are always considerably more expensive than their PC counterparts, and are always behind tech-spec wise. It's been this way for quite some time.

Solution: Either deal with it, or make a hackintosh.

[snberk103]

...

First of all...AppleCare is not as comprehensive as Dell's warranty. ....

Really - I can call Dell 2.5 years after I've bought it and ask them how to install a printer? Or how to use a Chat App? Or how to do something with the OS?

Apple's AppleCare may not be as comprehensive as Dell's in covering the hardware, but it sure shines when it comes to customer support. If you buy your Apple system with a credit card with extended warranty provisions, which most cards now have - at least those used by the demographic Apple is aiming at - your system is covered for accidental damage in any case. Why should I pay Apple for that coverage when I am already paying for it on my credit card?

[snberk103]

Most people on this thread don't seem to understand what Apple does...

(sorry for the 2nd post, but it's a new thought)

Apple does not sell hardware or software, they sell a "solution" or an "experience" depending on which marketing guru you listen to. When you buy a MacPro you are not buying the parts, you are buying - in theory at least - a package that is greater than the sum of its parts. By controlling the software and the hardware, things just work. And they work as a team as efficiently as possible. You could pay to get better bits, but unless you upgrade every single bit - you are probably going to get a bottleneck, so while the specs for some parts are going to look better - the overall experience is still not much better than before - because of that bottleneck.

I used to build my own systems. Learned lots. Saved lots of money by upgrading bits and bobs instead of the whole thing. Had lots of down time while I rushed back to the store to exchange the PCI card that conflicted with Video card, or when the ribbon cable didn't quite reach between the HD and MoBo without a nasty twist as it passed over the CD drive connector, so I had to shuffle 3 HDs and a floppy drive into different bays..... ah yes, the good old days.

Not to mention the hours and days spent researching what worked with what, and the time spent doing backups because I never messed around without a backup, and then recovering from those backups because when something didn't work I needed to put it all back again so that the system would actually be - you know - Useful!

Don't miss them days at all.

I don't mind paying a bit more for system that turns on every time I ask it too.... oh wait, I don't turn it off - I just sleep it at night for weeks at a time until I think to myself - maybe I should restart it incase any crud as crept in. I have a 2008 MacPro - and I have never ever seen a kernel panic. It still works as fast as I need it too (I'm a photographer, and I deal with with Photoshop files that can get bigger than 1 GB). I spend my day working, and not troubleshooting. I update when Apple suggests (instead of having to watch the 6 websites for drivers to cards I installed myself on a homebuilt system).

I can call AppleCare whenever I feel like it.

And despite the various personal anecdotes, Apple's systems are considered more reliable than the competition. Just ask the various organizations who track these things. It's not just the quality of the parts that make for good experience, it is the time it takes to combine them into the whole package, to test the package, to write the OS to take advantage of what is available.

If you want to build your own - no one is stopping you. Apple doesn't really care (despite the license restriction) unless you try to sell it.

With all of that said..... the current MacPros, in my opinion, are not the best value that we have seen from Apple. I think they got caught between other product upgrade cycles. I think we'll see an update soon that will remedy this situation. Probably this month or next, before the school year. Just a guess though.

[macjunk(ie)]

Really - I can call Dell 2.5 years after I've bought it and ask them how to install a printer? Or how to use a Chat App? Or how to do something with the OS?

Apple's AppleCare may not be as comprehensive as Dell's in covering the hardware, but it sure shines when it comes to customer support. If you buy your Apple system with a credit card with extended warranty provisions, which most cards now have - at least those used by the demographic Apple is aiming at - your system is covered for accidental damage in any case. Why should I pay Apple for that coverage when I am already paying for it on my credit card?

Yup...with Pro support you could! I guess they will also help you with a few Adobe and Microsoft programs (need to verify though)

IMO...AppleCare is a ripoff just like Apple's hardware. I have no doubts about that. I am still using Apple products because I like OSX.

[apolloa]

Calm down dude. This isn't soviet russia. It's his money, and with it he'd like to not get ripped off. Just because you don't feel he needs it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it for the price he pays.

That's the only part of either of your posts I read so I donno if I agree/disagree on anything else, I just thought I'd throw in my two cents on that.

Also: *You're

Not at all, if you want to agree with a person stating as a fact the Mac Pro is "underpowered" compared to an over-clocked PC yet then state they have owned a Mac Pro AND only used it for internet browsing and emails go ahead.
Personally I take dislike to a comment like that so shall respond how I see fit thanks.

Oh, and thanks for the English lesson, as alway's when it deteriorates to people feeling the need to teach English I shall gleefully totally ignore it.. :rolleyes: Especially from someone who types 'donno'!!!

[PeterQVenkman]

Really? Did he really? He didn't get OS X. Probably had to install Antivirus and then has to sit through various scans a few times a month, not to mention Windows updates that take forever. What will that machine be like in a year, particularly if he doesn't re-install windows in that time? My bet is that it will take twice as long to boot, and will be subject to random Hard drive grinding sessions where even opening an explorer window takes forever.

Try opening the task manager and looking at processes in Windows, and try to work out what the hell all of those things are that suck the juice out of the CPU.....It's virtually impossible to tell what's going on after you've been running a windows system for a few months, whether a process is legitimately accessing the internet or whether it's a key logger, or a worm or some sort of ad-ware using your bandwidth to send back personal information to some amoral marketing entity.

Bollocks to Windows and PC boxes, I'll pay the extra thanks.

I'll pay extra, too, but not $1500 extra. It also sounds like your windows systems run poorly, sorry about that. My MacBook Pro is screaming under windows. I'm getting better Open GL performance, too.


Really - I can call Dell 2.5 years after I've bought it and ask them how to install a printer? Or how to use a Chat App? Or how to do something with the OS?

The support with my Dell Workstation was top notch, english speaking people and it came with 3 years of warranty. The machine never gave me an issue, and I even got support installing a new processor.

[Gomff]

So why not do what most folks do who want a new Mac, and buy what you want soon after the latest model has been released. It's common sense that this is the time when Apple hardware represents the best value it's going to be. Apple's marketing and pricing strategy for Macs has been consistent for quite a while now. A lot of the whining that's going on is really just impatience in disguise.

I'll pay extra, too, but not $1500 extra. It also sounds like your windows systems run poorly, sorry about that. My MacBook Pro is screaming under windows. I'm getting better Open GL performance, too.



I ran (and still run via bootcamp) Windows because I've had to for the last 16 years. I'm pretty handy at managing the OS, I just don't like having to do so much of it. I find regardless of how carefully you manage the system, over time it slows down and occasionally just decides to perform some system background task which takes a chunk out of the performance. Windows has done this for years, ever since Microsoft merged NT technology into all versions of windows which they did with windows XP I think. Since XP, the NT architecture that professionals have gone with has become more sluggish and bogged down.

[Tesseract]

Didn't read all of the posts in the thread - just the OP's, so maybe these points have been made:

•Xeon is NOT the same as i5 / i7. Not at all. Its a major reason why Mac Pros cost so much. Not sure whats so hard to understand about that. But the main issue to consider as of right now (and its a serious issue, btw, but it also has to be UNDERSTOOD), is that:

•We are still neck deep in the technological revolution. Tech - especially computer tech - goes obsolete FAST. Its over a year since the 2009 Mac Pros came out, and that @#$% is ooooooooooooold in tech years. Apple's problem is they don't update their hardware nearly fast enough to keep up. Adding to the problem - they don't lower the price appropriately as the tech goes out of date. Its one of the main problems of making an all-in-one or pre-built computer. Back in 2009 when the new Mac Pros came out - those prices were very much appropriate (except maybe the prices for the GPUs and RAM, but that is another story entirely).

So basically - don't buy Apple unless a refresh has happened recently. Or just wait until they do a refresh.

Maybe one day, Apple will start repricing their dektop & all-in-one lines as they get older... or just start refreshing them a lot more frequently... but I wouldn't count on it.

[lemonade-maker]

IMO...AppleCare is a ripoff just like Apple's hardware. I have no doubts about that. I am still using Apple products because I like OSX.

Way to completely contradict yourself.

Since you claim to like OSX, you find value in it and it is difficult to buy your "ripoff" assessment.

A "ripoff" would be putting OSX on a non Apple machine.

[VirtualRain]

Most people on this thread don't seem to understand what Apple does...

(sorry for the 2nd post, but it's a new thought)

Apple does not sell hardware or software, they sell a "solution" or an "experience" depending on which marketing guru you listen to. When you buy a MacPro you are not buying the parts, you are buying - in theory at least - a package that is greater than the sum of its parts. By controlling the software and the hardware, things just work. And they work as a team as efficiently as possible.

+1... Some people get it. ;)

The irony is that all the malcontent in this forum is the result of people WANTING a Mac Pro, but not wanting to PAY for one. If they took a few minutes to understand why they want one, they would understand, why it's worth paying more for one.

On the positive side, it's healthy to question the value, but it is getting very repetitive... and in some cases, it's the same old people in every thread saying the same things. I honestly don't know why they're here any more, if they were as convicted to their beliefs as they claim, they would have moved on to a PC enthusiast site a long time ago. :confused:

I'd love to know what the demographics are in this forum... but I'm guessing hard-working creative professionals who make a living on their Mac Pro are very poorly represented here.

[nanofrog]

Your not ignorant, just incredibly stupid. Your telling me that you have owned a Mac Pro and ONLY used it for emails and the internet? And then you come on here and you feel qualified enough to state as a fact it's crap and is underpowered? Oh hell, yeah, gosh those dual Xeons must REALLY struggle with your web pages mate...
It was sarcastic. The area's listed as "don't", are what the system is being used for above and beyond email and web browsing. ;)

So are you telling is that Adobe runs better on an overclocked PC then an iMac??
Assuming the CPU architecture is the same, then Yes. OC'ed systems will run the same software faster (helps to counter software bloat, which most commercially available software suffers from to some degree).

Apple does not sell hardware or software, they sell a "solution" or an "experience" depending on which marketing guru you listen to. When you buy a MacPro you are not buying the parts, you are buying - in theory at least - a package that is greater than the sum of its parts. By controlling the software and the hardware, things just work.
User Experience.

Generally speaking, this is a major advantage to a closed system. Unfortunately, Apple's fallen behind on this compared to past systems (i.e recent bugs such as the audio bug that went on for so long, keeping it just to the MP).

And they work as a team as efficiently as possible. You could pay to get better bits, but unless you upgrade every single bit - you are probably going to get a bottleneck, so while the specs for some parts are going to look better - the overall experience is still not much better than before - because of that bottleneck.
:confused:

Assuming the person really knows what the hell they're doing, this isn't an issue. MP's base configurations have bottlenecks for some usages, and have to be solved with upgrades. If a DIY builder is aware of this, they'll add in the necessary components to solve the problem as well, making this a moot argument.

Those that haven't sufficient knowledge/skills, would make the same mistake with either a DIY or purchased system (Apple, Dell, HP,...).

I used to build my own systems. Learned lots. Saved lots of money by upgrading bits and bobs instead of the whole thing. Had lots of down time while I rushed back to the store to exchange the PCI card that conflicted with Video card, or when the ribbon cable didn't quite reach between the HD and MoBo without a nasty twist as it passed over the CD drive connector, so I had to shuffle 3 HDs and a floppy drive into different bays..... ah yes, the good old days.
This is where skill level comes in. Granted, you knew more than some, but the details matter (i.e. get out a string and run it as intended, then measure that length to get various cable lengths correct). Driver interaction issues are harder to deal with, but not impossible.

Apple or any other vendor has to deal with this as well (hardware - driver interactions), and it's discovered in the validation testing. That's one of the major reasons it's done. User's just don't see it, as the vendor put in the testing and made the necessary corrections (presumably, as not all vendors will do this thoroughly, and is becoming more common, including Apple from what I've seen).

And despite the various personal anecdotes, Apple's systems are considered more reliable than the competition. Just ask the various organizations who track these things. It's not just the quality of the parts that make for good experience, it is the time it takes to combine them into the whole package, to test the package, to write the OS to take advantage of what is available.
Would you mind posting the sources of this information?

The support with my Dell Workstation was top notch, english speaking people and it came with 3 years of warranty. The machine never gave me an issue, and I even got support installing a new processor.
There's a big difference between the consumer system and enterprise system support.

Most of the complaints I've seen are based on the consumer side. It sucks, but it's how business is done (i.e. reason for the lower cost of consumer systems vs. enterprise systems).

•Xeon is NOT the same as i5 / i7. Not at all. Its a major reason why Mac Pros cost so much. Not sure whats so hard to understand about that. But the main issue to consider as of right now (and its a serious issue, btw, but it also has to be UNDERSTOOD), is that:
It's not a fair comparison of LGA1156 v. LGA1366. But for LGA1366 ONLY, it's more valid. In this case, the only difference is ECC RAM is disabled in the consumer parts, and enabled in the Xeon parts.

As most don't actually need ECC, it's not an issue. So economy of scale kicks in, and makes the consumer parts a bit cheaper in terms of retail pricing (i7 family using LGA1366 sockets). On the supply end, there's no difference in cost (i.e. Quad core Xeon and i7's have the same quantity pricing).

For those that really do need ECC, they don't have a choice. Xeon it is.

[linuxcooldude]

We are still neck deep in the technological revolution. Tech - especially computer tech - goes obsolete FAST. Its over a year since the 2009 Mac Pros came out, and that @#$% is ooooooooooooold in tech years. Apple's problem is they don't update their hardware nearly fast enough to keep up. Adding to the problem - they don't lower the price appropriately as the tech goes out of date. Its one of the main problems of making an all-in-one or pre-built computer. Back in 2009 when the new Mac Pros came out - those prices were very much appropriate (except maybe the prices for the GPUs and RAM, but that is another story entirely).

I think this is where personal vs business use comes into play. Just look at how businesses and companies operate. In many instances they are using older, now outdated technology...some are still using windows XP. They need something consistent, stable, that they know will work everyday.

Since they spend huge amount of money on computers and have so many of them, they can't afford to constantly switch to new technologies.

As always, Mac Pro is targeted towards those types of users. If you want bleeding edge technology, your not going to find it with Mac Pro's.

[dimensional]

I get that Apple's focus is providing a solution and not a computer, and I would rather not go through the hassle around putting a Hackintosh together. But as much as I value this convenience, I also value performance. Apple's performance, and more specifically price/performance, has fallen to abyssmal levels for the Mac Pro at this point in time.

The fact that they refuse to drop price on 1.5 year-old hardware is deeply insulting. I'd consider a 2009 Mac Pro if it had any sort of price drop.

Right now the price/performance is so bad that it is possibly overcoming the convenience factor of having Apple put it all together for me.

[PeterQVenkman]

So why not do what most folks do who want a new Mac, and buy what you want soon after the latest model has been released. It's common sense that this is the time when Apple hardware represents the best value it's going to be. Apple's marketing and pricing strategy for Macs has been consistent for quite a while now. A lot of the whining that's going on is really just impatience in disguise.

Yes, many of us are indeed venting, but about more than just a computer model. About the direction of a computer system we want to keep using for certain types of work.



I ran (and still run via bootcamp) Windows because I've had to for the last 16 years. I'm pretty handy at managing the OS, I just don't like having to do so much of it. I find regardless of how carefully you manage the system, over time it slows down and occasionally just decides to perform some system background task which takes a chunk out of the performance. Windows has done this for years, ever since Microsoft merged NT technology into all versions of windows which they did with windows XP I think. Since XP, the NT architecture that professionals have gone with has become more sluggish and bogged down.

What version are you running? I ran XP with no issues and got Windows 7 a while back, and I haven't noticed any dip in my cinebench scores over time in Windows (first thing I do with a fresh install is run cinebench!). Even after installing my apps, I keep a clean system. no games or experimental codecs in quicktime.

I don't consider myself well versed in Windows, either, and I fear the day I a have to be. ;)

Didn't read all of the posts in the thread - just the OP's, so maybe these points have been made:

•Xeon is NOT the same as i5 / i7. Not at all. Its a major reason why Mac Pros cost so much. Not sure whats so hard to understand about that.

Sorry, a Xeon and a core i7 from the same socket family (and clock speed, etc) are directly comparable. The only difference support for potentional dual processor and ECC ram. That's it.

That's why MacPro users got peeved about the Core i7 iMac BTO option.

[mattbatt]

Newsflash: Macs are always considerably more expensive than their PC counterparts, and are always behind tech-spec wise. It's been this way for quite some time.

Solution: Either deal with it, or make a hackintosh.

I disagree and this is why those of us who are frustrated and considering a Hackintosh have no respect for such cantankerous remarks.

FACT: 2008 was a great year of performance / price for the MacPro. I successfully argued many PC users down by showing that an 8 core server PC was indeed much more expensive than the 8 core Macs (build and spec sheets were made). PC desktops had no performance comparison.

FACT: 2009 Intel greatly increased the price on Nehalem

FACT: 2010 desktop quad i7's offer a lot of performance mimicking current quad MacPro performance and i980x outperforms the quads hands down.

FACT: The current MacPro is over 400 days old and even more overpriced (it was grossly expensive when it was first released- and yes, again, in part by Intel).

In conclusion, we have many factors all contributing in a showdown testing our loyalty and devotion to Apple. Apple in the least needs to show us an answer and not keep us in the dark with old hardware.

People in my shoes that HAVE to buy something because they have a dead computer, are in a predicament.

I understand ECC Ram, Xeon's, ect. but we have a powerfully wicked 6 core monster in desktops now that are creating real issues for mid range MacPro users (quads). No one wants to buy an outdated, expensive, underpowered machine that gets spanked by a cheaper desktop PC available to the masses.

All this is coming from a young, 20 year Mac user who has a dead G5 and runs a quad PC on windows 7 at work for design stuff. The reason why I want to keep with Mac is that I like video CODECS better under OS 10 (ProRes 4:2:2), don't want to deal with virus stuff and for the life of me, my PC gets so slow so easily. I have to do disk defrags, clean spy ware, do windowz updates constantly.

A little twist in the mix though: Adobe CS5 with PPro is hot on FinalCut's tail and I may switch. We need some new software from Apple too (stuff that handles HD-DSLR's, multiple cores, GPU for rendering).

Just some of My thoughts, thank you.

[snberk103]

Yup...with Pro support you could! I guess they will also help you with a few Adobe and Microsoft programs (need to verify though)

How much does it cost? I certainly can't find a price for it, though I did only look for about 10 minutes. It appears to me that Prosupport is more of a service contract (which is available from any number of providers) and less of an extended warranty.... but that is just an initial impression.

IMO...AppleCare is a ripoff just like Apple's hardware. I have no doubts about that. I am still using Apple products because I like OSX.

And I disagree. As I posted elsewhere, it's not the sum of the parts that makes a Mac, it's the combination that creates a package that works well - or not.

[deconstruct60]

The irony is that all the malcontent in this forum is the result of people WANTING a Mac Pro, but not wanting to PAY for one.


Actually no. A subset of the malcontent here is just stirring the pot just to stir the pot. Another substantive subset is folks who do NOT want a workstation (Mac Pro), but those who want the infamous "Mac mini tower". They don't ask for another product from Apple explicitly because in part know that is largely a doomed discussion. (How do you get a company to make a product they explicitly have said they don't want to make. Netbooks and mini-towers? Don't hold your breath waiting for Apple to start making one in the future. ).

An extremely high percentage of these I can do it for $1,000's cheaper are really apples to orange comparisons. It really amounts to "I wish build a headless iMac with slots". So it is not "I want a Mac Pro equivalent". It is "we should just throw some set of features off ( CPU, Power supply , case, RAM , etc.) and create a different product in a lower price bracket" argument. This often sweeps under the rung that these new product pricing overlaps with other Mac products.

Instead of going to Apple and asking for improvements to iMac they clamor for a product which would cannibalize iMac sales and introduce yet another product development team/requirements to Apple's management. Apple is very unlikely to buy into that. They might buy into iMacs with matte screens, reversing the jumbo frame Ethernet cock up on the i5/i7 options, better I/O (e.g. USB 3.0) , etc.

As for scary business practices. That's a joke. Go to HP, Dell, or any top 8 vendor and look at the prices for the larger workstations (not the quasi mini-tower workstations; the full height, larger power supply, etc. ones). Apple's prices are not all that far off. In reality, Apple's prices are approximately within +/- 10% of everyone else in their position.

There real primary difference is that Apple does not offer as many product lines as most of those vendors. That too is not a scary business practice. If Apple doesn't offer a product then they are not a good fit. That doesn't make their other products ethically questionable. Apple is not in the business of building a specific computer for every possible subcategory. They never said they were.

[snberk103]

+1... Some people get it. ;)

...

Thanks.... must be West Coast thing..... And I agree with the rest of your post too, but it was too hot and melted... :D

[snberk103]

Originally Posted by snberk103
And despite the various personal anecdotes, Apple's systems are considered more reliable than the competition. ...

...
Would you mind posting the sources of this information?

...

"For the third year in a row, Apple (AAPL) has come in first in an annual survey of computer reliability conducted by Rescuecom, a national tech support company based in Syracuse, N.Y." [Fortune - CNNMoney] (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/22/apple-is-no-1-in-reliability-survey/)

[linuxcooldude]

I also remember reading somewhere of a 2% problem rate on their products based on tech support calls.

[deconstruct60]

FACT: 2008 was a great year of performance / price for the MacPro. I successfully argued many PC users down by showing that an 8 core server PC was indeed much more expensive than the 8 core Macs (build and spec sheets were made). PC desktops had no performance comparison.


In many cases this is more so a software problem than a hardware one. Back in 2008 it was likely that PC desktops only had Duo cores. For lots of pieces of software it really was 8 versus 8 or 4 it was really closer to 4 versus 2. Currently one problem is folks are still running the same benchmarks with same old software that really can't go 8 way when it really matters.

Now there is more of an overlap between juiced up 4-6 core desktops and lower end of workstation market. Newsflash there are gobs of overlaps all over the PC landscape if you bother to look for them.



FACT: 2009 Intel greatly increased the price on Nehalem


So this is an Apple specific problem? The lower end Nehalem's are crippled. (lower caches sizes, number of memory controllers, and/or location of memory controllers off die.). For folks who actually have multiple tasks and I/O workloads Xeons are better.



FACT: 2010 desktop quad i7's offer a lot of performance mimicking current quad MacPro performance and i980x outperforms the quads hands down.


The i980x has the same exact high costs as the Westmere Xeons. Here is another FACT, the full set of 2010 Quad Xeons have not shipped yet. The 3640 and 3620 Xeons are not available in any other vendor's box. The hypocritical thing is that the "cheaper than Xeon" i7's are all those which are either last years tech or crippled in significant ways. They cost less and you get less. You don't get anywhere near the performance with those as you do with a i980x. People are cherry picking facts from multiple buckets. "low cost" from the lower performance i7 bucket and "equal preformance" from the higher cost i7 bucket. Neither of those moves is convincing once untangle the spin.



FACT: The current MacPro is over 400 days old and even more overpriced (it was grossly expensive when it was first released- and yes, again, in part by Intel).

Again cross product line comparisons rarely result in coherent discussions.
400 days ago Mac Pros were priced right along side other upper end workstations from just about every top 10 vendor who bothered to offer one.

There is no doubt that for some their workload has not increased as fast as the hardware throughput abilities have on workstation class boxes. However, the issue there is that those folks should fall back to a different product line. Not that the Mac Pro's are overpriced, the users dropped out of the class range. The categorizations of overpriced aren't accurate. At one point the graphics for the movie TRON were done on a cray. Now you could do the equivalent on a upper end desktop. That doesn't make Cray's overpriced. Cray's do different levels of workload now.



A little twist in the mix though: Adobe CS5 with PPro is hot on FinalCut's tail and I may switch. We need some new software from Apple too (stuff that handles HD-DSLR's, multiple cores, GPU for rendering).


Chuckle. If folks who moan and groan spent at least as much time moaning and groaning at the software makers the Mac Pro could be better utilized. Instead it is a litany of how software optimized for the single threaded, Pentium 4 GHz wars should dictate what hardware is good or not in 2010-2011. As long as folks trot those software packages as the litmus tests, they are not going to see to point of the processors being delivered today. Those and cheesy, swallowed in cache micro benchmarks do more to muddle the discussions than clear them up.

[deconstruct60]

Yes, many of us are indeed venting, but about more than just a computer model. About the direction of a computer system we want to keep using for certain types of work.

There are overall market and technology forces that are going to make certain legacy elements/form factors disappear (e.g., CPUs and GPUs fusing ... not going to stop that train by venting on user forums. ) That doesn't mean won't have tools to get work done. If folks spend most of their time irrationally venting then won't have time to give Apple constructive feedback to get what they need.



Sorry, a Xeon and a core i7 from the same socket family (and clock speed, etc) are directly comparable. The only difference support for potentional dual processor and ECC ram. That's it.


No they are not. The iMac has a Lynnfield core-i7 socket 1156.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors#.22Lynnfield.22_.2845_nm.29

The 980x everyone keeps ranting about is a socket 1366

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors#.22Gulftown.22_.2832_nm.29


One additional difference is that the 1366 supports 3 memory controller paths and the 1156 only supports 2 . The 1156 only has DMI and the 1366 has QPI linkes. In short you can hook to a wider set of 16x PCI-e links with the latter.

Bluntly, "i3" "i5" and "i7" cover a broad set of processors. it is a generic family name much more akin to "Pentium 4" or "Athlon 64"than a name that specifically identifies a specific socket or implementation of a CPU.

The "core iX " is a bit confusing because when the first rolled out there was an implicit socket gap between them. The notion of "extreme" label somewhat aligned with "i7" whereas the normal versions would be "i5" and super discount would be "i3". Now it is just a generic Intel marketing name. It is a segmentation(by crippling features) and/or pricing gap moniker more so now than technology.


That's why MacPro users got peeved about the Core i7 iMac BTO option.

Frankly, it is superficial spec peeved. Same as when folks were peeved about the MHz gap and other easily marketable "gaps".

[TennisandMusic]

People are still defending the current mac pro eh. I love the insecurity that attacks people who aren't dumb enough to think it's some marvel computer these days. Still reading references to expensive cpu's, high quality power supplies (pleaaaaase) and things of that ilk. It's all complete rubbish.

I wish we could actually discuss the Mac Pro in the realm or reality. This board is getting frustrating. Bottom line is that Apple is completely dropping the ball on this product line. It's a terrible value, it's "underpowered" compared to a iMac quad, and if you believe somehow that Apple programs the OS and apps to work with the exact hardware (like it's a special mobo, etc) then I got a bridge to sell you ;) It's not any better "integrated" than a nice Windows machine with good drivers. Period. Look at all of the problems that linger with the Macs these days...Apple just doesn't care because no matter what they get people buying their machines, and acting smug about it.

P.S. for the system builders...just because you have had big problems with putting stuff together, doesn't mean it's a universally difficult task. I can have a professionally built machine done in an hour, and I've never had a machine die on me. Every single one I've used has lasted for multiple years without a hiccup. 75% of my Macs have needed service in a year. Sometimes needing the entire logic board replaced. They just sell cheap hardware in a nice case. It's really nothing special. You either need the OS or you don't and that's it.

Gotta let go of all this ignorance...

[koruki]

I think any PC builder/modder who thinks these two are the same, does not take their craft seriously...
...

The best home built PC's will cost a lot more than a Mac Pro after the person's time invested has been accounted for.

Anyone can slap parts from Newegg or NCIX together in an afternoon. It takes, planning, time, and serious hard work to turn out a computer that's worthy of being listed on million-dollar-pc.com and only those are really in the same league as the Mac Pro in my opinion.

For me, as a former builder/modder, the Mac Pro is a custom built hackintosh that's half the price of what it would cost me in time and materials to build something I'd be happy to represent as my work.

this :rolleyes: The Mac Pro tower is still the sexiest M(*&F(*&*en case I know in existence, and trust me I've seen my fair share of premium aluminium cases =)

[Voltaic]

this :rolleyes: The Mac Pro tower is still the sexiest M(*&F(*&*en case I know in existence, and trust me I've seen my fair share of premium aluminium cases =)

Hum, I tell you what was sexy: replacing my, now dead, overpriced, underpowered Mac Pro that came with an anemic video card for ---> an inexpensive FAST, loads of RAM and an awesome latest model video card, etc., etc., for a sweet $1,000 PC.

The Mac Pro sexy it no longer is. Maybe dater and overpriced, with no real upgradable components to be found, since Apple has effectively stifled (if not killed) the Mac market.

Apple has lost touch, or interest, in its core market, it is up to us to pay more for less or simply move on-forward. Sad and too bad, but true.

[chaosbunny]

The irony is that all the malcontent in this forum is the result of people WANTING a Mac Pro, but not wanting to PAY for one.

Well, I certainly want to pay for one, in fact I don't care if the 2010 Mac Pro will be 2500 or 3500, I can afford it. But if I am droping that amount of money on a computer, I don't want compromises like a crippled amount of maximum memory (found in the current quad models) and a gpu that's way out of date. For that money I want a Mac that at least equals the average consumer pc in terms of performance, something that can't be said about the current Mac Pros.

If that means I have to wait, I'll wait, but if the next Mac Pro does not deliver an impressive update, I might go the custom pc route.

[linuxcooldude]

As for scary business practices. That's a joke. Go to HP, Dell, or any top 8 vendor and look at the prices for the larger workstations (not the quasi mini-tower workstations; the full height, larger power supply, etc. ones). Apple's prices are not all that far off. In reality, Apple's prices are approximately within +/- 10% of everyone else in their position.

Last time I compared workstations, I found most other brands were more expensive then the base model of the Mac Pro. Now it could be different story, I don't know

Currently one problem is folks are still running the same benchmarks with same old software that really can't go 8 way when it really matters.

Its not that the hardwares not fast enough, but the software is still catching up to take advantage of newer technology, like utilizing all the cores.

FACT: 2010 desktop quad i7's offer a lot of performance mimicking current quad MacPro performance and i980x outperforms the quads hands down.

The i980x has the same exact high costs as the Westmere Xeons. Here is another FACT, the full set of 2010 Quad Xeons have not shipped yet. The 3640 and 3620 Xeons are not available in any other vendor's box. The hypocritical thing is that the "cheaper than Xeon" i7's are all those which are either last years tech or crippled in significant ways. They cost less and you get less. You don't get anywhere near the performance with those as you do with a i980x. People are cherry picking facts from multiple buckets. "low cost" from the lower performance i7 bucket and "equal preformance" from the higher cost i7 bucket. Neither of those moves is convincing once untangle the spin.

I still see people trying to compare the desktop i7 quad is the same thing as a workstation class Quad-Core Intel Xeon. I am not convinced on that. I admit I don't know as much about todays processors then previous versions.

If its a lower price, more then likely its not the same, as its lower price reflects its cheaper to manufacture. So in some way, its missing some features somewhere.


deconstruct60, you put out pretty compelling points...lol

[Gomff]

Yes, many of us are indeed venting, but about more than just a computer model. About the direction of a computer system we want to keep using for certain types of work.

Vent away if you must, but everyone knows already that Apple don't offer the best value when you break their products down simply into hardware specs.....I'm bored of threads like this one that declare the fact as if it's news just in.

What version are you running? I ran XP with no issues and got Windows 7 a while back, and I haven't noticed any dip in my cinebench scores over time in Windows (first thing I do with a fresh install is run cinebench!). Even after installing my apps, I keep a clean system. no games or experimental codecs in quicktime.

I've been through Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 so I have experience of most Windows versions in the last 10 or 15 years. I have also used the dreadful Windows 95 and ME, but lets not get into that. I've watched them get progressively more clogged and less nimble, although granted Windows 7 is better than Vista but that's hardly saying much.

The point is that to me, windows feels clumsy, badly integrated and far less robust than OS X. When I used it exclusively, I would routinely reinstall once or sometimes even twice a year to get back the performance of a clean install. Everytime I boot to it now, I remember why I switched over to Mac but that's also why I'm willing to spend more money on Apple's computer solutions. The OP and several other Spec oriented folks seem to find Windows OK so I guess really, nobody should be arguing because we all get what we want and pay for. If I was in the market for a new Mac Pro, I would not buy one now either.....I'd wait for the next one and buy as soon as possible to maximise the value for the cash outlay. But I wouldn't whine and moan about it in the meantime because it's (a) futile, (b) childish and (c) boring.

[PeterQVenkman]

No they are not. The iMac has a Lynnfield core-i7 socket 1156.


You misunderstand me - I didn't mean to directly compare the processorts in the Mac Pro vs the iMac apart from performace.

SO let me rephrase: the Core i7 and Xeon (when from the same processor family, socket, etc) are directly comparable. In particular these two chips, a core i7 i7-940 and Xeon W3540, are very similar except for the support for ECC:

i7:
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=37148&code=Intel®+Core™+i7-940+Processor+(8M+Cache%2c+2.93+GHz%2c+4.80+GT%2fs+Intel®+QPI)

Xeon:
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=39719

Same price, same specs, etc.

now, am I really to believe a chip that goes for $562 in bulk pricing on intel's website (for customers like Apple!) justifies the cost of Apple's single quad 2.93 mac pro at $2900? Where is that extra $2338 going? The case? Mac OS X?



The 980x everyone keeps ranting about is a socket 1366

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors#.22Gulftown.22_.2832_nm.29


That is indeed a nice processor. But didn't mention it I don't think. But if you notice it's 1366 just like the two I listed above. ;-)


Frankly, it is superficial spec peeved. Same as when folks were peeved about the MHz gap and other easily marketable "gaps".

Ummm, no. The 980x, since you brought it up, overclocks very nicely and renders beautifully. The mixture of high clock speed for single threaded tasks (yes they are still out there) and nice number of cores for multi-threaded rendering, plus the price, hits a very nice sweet spot for price vs performance that people want in their mac! :)

That chip crushes the top end iMac in cinebench!

It's perfect for the small business owner or freelance artist who needs power, but can't justify dropping a minimum of $3300 on an 8 core 2.26 Mac Pro, or $3700 on a 4 core 3.33 (that's with 3 1 GB sticks of ram, BTW, just to add insult to injury).

[PeterQVenkman]

Vent away if you must, but everyone knows already that Apple don't offer the best value when you break their products down simply into hardware specs....

I think many of us miss the "competitive premium" price apple used to have. Intel processors haven't brought us on par as we hoped.



The point is that to me, windows feels clumsy, badly integrated and far less robust than OS X.

Yup. No self respecting mac user wants to switch to windows. :D


But I wouldn't whine and moan about it in the meantime because it's (a) futile, (b) childish and (c) boring.

Gotta be some way to pass the time until the overdue update. ;)

[VirtualRain]

Hum, I tell you what was sexy: replacing my, now dead, overpriced, underpowered Mac Pro that came with an anemic video card for ---> an inexpensive FAST, loads of RAM and an awesome latest model video card, etc., etc., for a sweet $1,000 PC.

The Mac Pro sexy it no longer is. Maybe dater and overpriced, with no real upgradable components to be found, since Apple has effectively stifled (if not killed) the Mac market.

Apple has lost touch, or interest, in its core market, it is up to us to pay more for less or simply move on-forward. Sad and too bad, but true.

I'd like to know exactly what parts you purchased for how much. Isn't a high end GPU $300, a decent Quad CPU $300, and a premium X58 motherboard $300? If so, how did you get a nice case, loads of RAM, and a 1KW PSU for under $100?

:confused:

I'd also like to know what you think is Apple's core market... ???

[mattbatt]

People are still defending the current mac pro eh. I love the insecurity that attacks people who aren't dumb enough to think it's some marvel computer these days. Still reading references to expensive cpu's, high quality power supplies (pleaaaaase) and things of that ilk. It's all complete rubbish.

I wish we could actually discuss the Mac Pro in the realm or reality. This board is getting frustrating. Bottom line is that Apple is completely dropping the ball on this product line. It's a terrible value, it's "underpowered" compared to a iMac quad, and if you believe somehow that Apple programs the OS and apps to work with the exact hardware (like it's a special mobo, etc) then I got a bridge to sell you ;) It's not any better "integrated" than a nice Windows machine with good drivers. Period. Look at all of the problems that linger with the Macs these days...Apple just doesn't care because no matter what they get people buying their machines, and acting smug about it.

P.S. for the system builders...just because you have had big problems with putting stuff together, doesn't mean it's a universally difficult task. I can have a professionally built machine done in an hour, and I've never had a machine die on me. Every single one I've used has lasted for multiple years without a hiccup. 75% of my Macs have needed service in a year. Sometimes needing the entire logic board replaced. They just sell cheap hardware in a nice case. It's really nothing special. You either need the OS or you don't and that's it.

Gotta let go of all this ignorance...

+ 1 x 10 :)

[VirtualRain]

People are still defending the current mac pro eh. I love the insecurity that attacks people who aren't dumb enough to think it's some marvel computer these days. Still reading references to expensive cpu's, high quality power supplies (pleaaaaase) and things of that ilk. It's all complete rubbish.

I wish we could actually discuss the Mac Pro in the realm or reality. This board is getting frustrating. Bottom line is that Apple is completely dropping the ball on this product line. It's a terrible value, it's "underpowered" compared to a iMac quad, and if you believe somehow that Apple programs the OS and apps to work with the exact hardware (like it's a special mobo, etc) then I got a bridge to sell you ;) It's not any better "integrated" than a nice Windows machine with good drivers. Period. Look at all of the problems that linger with the Macs these days...Apple just doesn't care because no matter what they get people buying their machines, and acting smug about it.

P.S. for the system builders...just because you have had big problems with putting stuff together, doesn't mean it's a universally difficult task. I can have a professionally built machine done in an hour, and I've never had a machine die on me. Every single one I've used has lasted for multiple years without a hiccup. 75% of my Macs have needed service in a year. Sometimes needing the entire logic board replaced. They just sell cheap hardware in a nice case. It's really nothing special. You either need the OS or you don't and that's it.

Gotta let go of all this ignorance...

I'm bored so let's try this... :p

I can't believe people are still bashing the current Mac Pro. I love how people think it's just the same as any other home built PC and cling to that in hopes that Apple might actually hear their cries and build them a lowly $900 Mac tower with an Apple logo on it so they can afford it. It's all complete rubbish.

I wish we could discuss the Mac Pro in the realm of reality. This board is getting frustrating. Bottom line is that the Mac Pro is still a very relevant and powerful computing platform and offers maximum performance, and expandability for those that need it to actually do some work. It's the most powerful Mac that runs OSX which is what most creative professionals have invested thousands of dollars in software and years of training and experience so they can make a living off their machine or business. The Mac Pro is better than a Windows machine, at least for those that want to get some work done and value total cost of ownership and not just initial hardware outlay... just look at some of the problems that linger with Windows these days... Microsoft and Dell just don't care because people keep buying their machines and acting smug about it.

Gotta let go of all this ignorance...

:p :D

In all seriousness, there are clearly two entrenched views on the Mac Pro and the divide seems fairly difficult for people to get over... and certainly not one that can be bridged in this thread, the dozens before it and the dozens that will follow it.

[ag55]

Im only going to post once as this thread could get messy (er) and im too tired to argue about opinions, this is just mine...

Yes to OP.
The Mac Pro currently is over priced and under-powered. But its several years since an update, so pitting it against newer tech is unfair. When we see an update (hopefully soon), that would be the right time to make a comparison.

So, let's say we get the update, we do a comparison, and it is still under-powered and over priced? Then you take into account the build quality and design premium (it can be argued for ages, but i think its fair to say its a beautiful case/design and ease of upgrading is also a plus). Then you also have to take into account the addition of OSX - its what you gotta do as its part of the "experience". Then you add a slight premium (because this is Apple your talking about, and it will always be there).

After adding all this up, then we can see exactly how over priced the Mac Pro is compared to other PC desktops (and maybe see how it compares spec-spec).

Personally, i use to have a Mac Pro and sold it. I got a refurb, it was great at the time - fast, easy, neat. 2 years later i saw the PC options available and was also missing gaming a bit so i went ahead and built a custom PC (top of the range i7 etc and still cheaper than that refurb). Of course i did see what the latest Mac Pro offering was 2 years on (it had just been updated), and it was more expensive, less power, and i realised not worth it at all. Do i miss the Mac Pro? Sometimes, but with that money saved i bought other things which have been better for me such as an iPhone and Macbook

[nanofrog]

A subset of the malcontent here is just stirring the pot just to stir the pot. Another substantive subset is folks who do NOT want a workstation (Mac Pro), but those who want the infamous "Mac mini tower".
There are some that it's an issue though, such as the independents and SMB's that bought into Intel Macs when they were cheaper ('06 - '08 systems). Now they're likely stuck with OS X, given the software investment, and the cost increase can hurt.

Granted, they should have realized the potential for cost increases like this IMO, but there wasn't any history with other Intel based Macs to lend them to think this was going to happen.

This is a segment that's on limited budgets afterall, and any price increase can cause additional strain to their business, or even cause them to fail. :(

An extremely high percentage of these I can do it for $1,000's cheaper are really apples to orange comparisons.
Definitely.

Previous Intel MP's came in cheaper than their PC counterparts, and even a truly equivalent DIY system (Xeons, workstation boards,...).

Where it may be valid, are for those that don't really need an enterprise grade system for whatever reason. In such cases, a desktop system from a PC vendor would make sense IMO, assuming they're either willing to deal with another OS, or a hackintosh route (personal users may take this route, but I can't see a business taking it, unless out of severe desparation, such as severely close to bankruptcy).

"For the third year in a row, Apple (AAPL) has come in first in an annual survey of computer reliability conducted by Rescuecom, a national tech support company based in Syracuse, N.Y." [Fortune - CNNMoney] (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/22/apple-is-no-1-in-reliability-survey/)
Ah, I should have clarified. I was hoping for information just on the MP, and possibly the XServe (if broken just into the enterprise market). :o

The PC side sells budget boxes where customer service and support are minimal to sell for the target MSRP's. Their other consumer systems may fair a bit better (varies), but it's not the same as the enterprise segment in my experience.

Most of the data is going to be from consumer systems, and Apple doesn't compete in the budget segment at all. So it's a bit of an unfair comparison IMO.

That said, good for them on the consumer market. :)

But if I am droping that amount of money on a computer, I don't want compromises like a crippled amount of maximum memory (found in the current quad models) and a gpu that's way out of date. For that money I want a Mac that at least equals the average consumer pc in terms of performance, something that can't be said about the current Mac Pros.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't expect this to change. Apple uses cheaper parts here to keep the margins high. Higher performance parts would push the price further, as I'd be shocked to see a substantial drop in margin to keep it in a similar target MSRP range as now, let alone drop back to previous levels of cost/performance.

Last time I compared workstations, I found most other brands were more expensive then the base model of the Mac Pro. Now it could be different story, I don't know
Last I checked, the base models were more expensive than their PC equivalents (before phone pricing, which is usually cheaper than that on the web configuration tool). As the processor clock was pushed, the price differences shrank to small amounts though. I also made the closest comparision as possible (absolute parity is impossible), so for example, added FW card to the PC systems, and Extended Apple Care to the MP's since the PC systems come with 3yr on-site standard.

Its not that the hardwares not fast enough, but the software is still catching up to take advantage of newer technology, like utilizing all the cores.
Unfortunately, software always runs behind the hardware.

I still see people trying to compare the desktop i7 quad is the same thing as a workstation class Quad-Core Intel Xeon. I am not convinced on that. I admit I don't know as much about todays processors then previous versions.
It would depend on the exact processor, as there are some desktop parts (LGA1366 socket), that only differ in the fact ECC is Disabled (quantity pricing from Intel is the same as their equivalent Xeon counterpart).

This is fine for those that don't need ECC of course, but those that do, will spend more for a board that can run a Xeon chip (keeping things to SP systems, as it's a more direct comparison). The CPU will usually be more expensive as well. There's also a lot of variance on what can be spent on a case that can make a notable difference to the system cost.

But when using those desktop parts, you can get them cheaper, as well as have more choices for other components (i.e. graphics cards are definitely cheaper when comparing Mac v. PC editions for a particular GPU). Shortcuts can be taken of course, and anything already on hand can make a difference in out-of-pocket costs to a builder (where I have issues with some of the $1000 systems, as they may be using smaller PSU's and cheaper cases for example). Good for the builder, but harder to call it a truely comparable system to me.

I'd like to know exactly what parts you purchased for how much. Isn't a high end GPU $300, a decent Quad CPU $300, and a premium X58 motherboard $300? If so, how did you get a nice case, loads of RAM, and a 1KW PSU for under $100?
I'm wondering the same thing as well. Decent parts just aren't that cheap. I can't help but think there's shortcuts or usable parts on hand to help lower the out-of-pocket expenses that aren't stated.

[deconstruct60]

You misunderstand me - I didn't mean to directly compare the processorts in the Mac Pro vs the iMac apart from performace.

I don't misunderstand. I just don't buy the misdirection of throwing the iMac in there. They are different sockets and capabilities between the two. And yes when you even them up the costs are exactly the same.


In particular these two chips, a core i7 i7-940 and Xeon W3540, are very similar except for the support for ECC:

Same price, same specs, etc.


Same chip with one with parts turned off. Same price only with one Intel gives you less. That's right you get less functionality for exactly the same price. That i7 has an advantage in that context if griping about getting value for the money?

This is in contrast to the 3500 vs. 5500 or the 3600 vs. 5600. Again same chip (transistor count is same) but with functionality turned off. For 3x00 series get one less QPI connection but somewhat offset by higher clockrates. The 3x00 cost at less. Get less , costs less. Make sense.

Get less and pay the same price. That doesn't make sense. It works because there are lots of PC folks that will pay for "extreme" and mucking around with overclocking parts past their rated values. In the latter case, Intel doesn't have to support those folks. If they run their CPUs into the ground sooner they'll just be back for another one sooner.

Since they are same price Apple is highly likely to charge the same exact price for the box. The box isn't going to get any cheaper by using the i7 in and of itself. There are some marginal deduction for not using ECC RAM. However again, you get less and so pay less. Where is the increased value ? It is just cheaper and you have no clue when your system starts encountering errors. That is an increased likely situation as you populate your system with a higher number of GBs of RAM.



now, am I really to believe a chip that goes for $562 in bulk pricing on intel's website (for customers like Apple!) justifies the cost of Apple's single quad 2.93 mac pro at $2900? Where is that extra $2338 going? The case? Mac OS X?


The CPU price to system cost percentage for Mac are all in the same range: 11-19% . This is one of the higher ones. Apple doesn't build systems where the CPU is 25-30% of the price of the system. A sizable chunk is mark up , but that is true for all the other vendors for products in this space. However, in a balanced design, yes 75-85% of a systems price are non-CPU components.



plus the price, hits a very nice sweet spot for price vs performance that people want in their mac! :)


The price hits the same spot the 3580 hit before and the 3680 hits now. It isn't likely going to bring you a lower priced box. What is missing is the 3640 and 3620.



That chip crushes the top end iMac in cinebench!


Right so when the 3620, 3640, and 3680 are all shipping they will all beat a top end iMac. There is no huge problem other than the fact that the 3620 and 3640 are not shipping yet. Newflash they are missing from the i7 line up too.



It's perfect for the small business owner or freelance artist who needs power, but can't justify dropping a minimum of $3300 on an 8 core 2.26 Mac Pro, or $3700 on a 4 core 3.33 (that's with 3 1 GB sticks of ram, BTW, just to add insult to injury).

These folks haven't been able to afford Mac Pros for years. The price points have been relatively stable for years. What has changed over time is that more of them can employ iMacs now if they want and it is a good price/performance fit. Others have not and still do not fit the market that Apple (and most of the workstation vendors) are targeting with this specific class of system/box. The other vendors may offer a different design/feature balance with other boxes at lower price points (by stripping off case, power supply , RAM , CPU tech, etc. ), but those are different product classes .

[macjunk(ie)]

How much does it cost? I certainly can't find a price for it, though I did only look for about 10 minutes. It appears to me that Prosupport is more of a service contract (which is available from any number of providers) and less of an extended warranty.... but that is just an initial impression.


And I disagree. As I posted elsewhere, it's not the sum of the parts that makes a Mac, it's the combination that creates a package that works well - or not.
This (http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/Global%20English%20ProSupport%20for%20EU%20Service%20Description%20Version%204.pdf) might throw some light.

I agree with you when you say ' it's not the sum of the parts that makes a Mac'. I am not denying that at all. I am in fact even ready to pay a premium for this sort of a 'solution' (as you call it). My issue is the amount of premium! I like Apple designs, service by AppleCare and OSX but I do not like the amount of premium I am paying for this 'solution'. Like I have said before, the only reason I am still implementing this 'solution' is because of OSX.

Coming back to the topic, the MacPro is a pro machine...no doubts about that. But it is outdated and more importantly, overpriced (and so is the accompanying AppleCare :))! To add to all this, Apple's commitment to their MacPro line has been less than optimal. Given the closed nature of Apple's solutions (to me this means that OSX cannot be installed on a non-Apple machine), this does not look good for people investing in Apple products for the long term and this should push people to question their investment in Apple's 'solutions'.

Personally, my MBP is not able to take the multiple Tomcat/JBoss/Oracle server instances I am running on it and hence I am considering getting a powerful workstation. The MacPro was the first logical choice since I am most comfortable with OSX BUT not at those prices! Obviously, I am not going to stall my work waiting for Apple to update the MPs :rolleyes:. The only solution is to go for a Windows workstation. If I do this, then I might as well as move to Windows on my laptop too to take advantage of a homogeneous work environment.

Anyway, this is my perspective on the situation. And like many others in this thread, even I am bored of my own rants! :p Apple will continue selling old hardware at sky-high prices cause people are still buying them. Apple is no hurry!

[Ravich]

Personally, my MBP is not able to take the multiple Tomcat/JBoss/Oracle server instances I am running on it and hence I am considering getting a powerful workstation. The MacPro was the first logical choice since I am most comfortable with OSX BUT not at those prices! Obviously, I am not going to stall my work waiting for Apple to update the MPs :rolleyes:. The only solution is to go for a Windows workstation. If I do this, then I might as well as move to Windows on my laptop too to take advantage of a homogeneous work environment.

This is why I get frustrated any time someone cries "APPLE IS ENDING THE MAC PRO!" It would be the dumbest move that Apple could possibly make from every single perspective you can look at it from.

Apple is not about to send an entire generation of pros away from OSX. If the industry cannot use Apple products, there will be no room for Apple products when mobile computing begins to fully take over the pro industry.

[spiralof5]

All I know is that I wish I had bought a BOXX system instead of my mac pro.

I'm tired of reading that I can only get a sub par video card (I'm a 3D artist) for $350.

There are ways around it as I'm about to flash an ATI 1gb 4890 but my preference would be no to (especially since the 5xxx series is out).

[deconstruct60]

This is why I get frustrated any time someone cries "APPLE IS ENDING THE MAC PRO!" It would be the dumbest move that Apple could possibly make from every single perspective you can look at it from.


There is no modern Oracle DB on Mac OS X. The last Oracle DB on Mac OS X was , going on ancient at this point, 10gR2. 10gR2 is on the verge of going into legacy maintenance status; it has been 5 years since release. There was no 11g. There was no 11g R2. If you are siting around holding your breath for a 11gR2 or a "12g" (or whatever the heck they will call it) you are likely going to turn blue.

In only a marginally better boat with Tomcat/JBoss. Again where is the latest J2EE port on Mac OS X ?

It isn't the hardware that is the primary hold up here. If you want to muck around with a Oracle/Tomcat/JBoss stack on a Mac Pro, you'd probably be best off sticking it in a VMWare image running Linux than inside of Mac OS X proper.

[deconstruct60]

There are some that it's an issue though, such as the independents and SMB's that bought into Intel Macs when they were cheaper ('06 - '08 systems). Now they're likely stuck with OS X, given the software investment, and the cost increase can hurt.


The old prices, including the G5 era, were around $2199 , $2499 , and $2999-3199. The lowest price point was usually gotten by Apple by gutting the Mac Pro (or Power Mac) in some way. Typically half the memory and disk along with perhaps crippling the CPU in some way (slow speed, cache limiting, or tanking the bus) or tweaking the power supply and/or peripheral bus tech. The change is that they don't gut the lowest one to limbo in under $2499 anymore.


Those top two price points are still there. There are some folks who will fall off the bottom of the scale but the spin here that it was "thousands cheaper" is off. More like 10-14% cheaper in the same slot. There are also folks who "have to" get the top end GHz box who will pay more (if you have parallelized workload can come in around the same) . So will see some folks fall off.

There are lots of people who don't buy macs. 95% of the personal computer market doesn't buy mac. That Apple is going to loose some people to the non-Mac world. Happens every day in extremely large numbers. I don't think Apple spends most of its day worrying about that.



This is a segment that's on limited budgets afterall, and any price increase can cause additional strain to their business, or even cause them to fail. :(


If bought a $2499 machine in 2004-2008 there is a Mac Pro with a price that is exactly the same now.

If the jump from $2199 to $2499 for a machine would crumble a business they were bad shape already. The operator of the machine likely cost 10x - 20x as much to the business. $300 is a rather small delta relative to the machine + operator cost. Even more so if going to run the machine for 3-4 years. Anyone who is tweaked out over that amount is likely running for the hills anyway to a $1,200-1,400 econo-box solution. Holding the price at $2199 wouldn't have kept them anyway. The hamstring saddled the $2199 box with would only make the econo-box look better.

Apple's strategy for a very long time has been to hold prices relatively steady and try to add value to justify no price drop. Folks who want to be on the "computers get cheaper every 2-3 years" will have to move from product category to lower product category to play that strategy with Apple. Otherwise they will have to get off.

If want value there in next generation then it is better to talk to Apple about what is the most important ( or two .... not some long exhaustive "If I were steve and profit margin was an afterthought" list. ) features to move the value up in the next iteration ( e.g., better base video cards, more power , SSDs , better components, whatever. ).

[slughead]

I wish we could discuss the Mac Pro in the realm of reality. This board is getting frustrating. Bottom line is that the Mac Pro is still a very relevant and powerful computing platform and offers maximum performance, and expandability for those that need it to actually do some work. It's the most powerful Mac that runs OSX which is what most creative professionals have invested thousands of dollars in software and years of training and experience so they can make a living off their machine or business. The Mac Pro is better than a Windows machine, at least for those that want to get some work done and value total cost of ownership and not just initial hardware outlay... just look at some of the problems that linger with Windows these days... Microsoft and Dell just don't care because people keep buying their machines and acting smug about it.

Translation: It maybe slow but it's fast enough, says I! Ignore those GPU limitations and outdated CPUs standing behind the curtain. It has the expandability of a crappy PC but relative to my narrow Mac-user eyes (which see the iMac as the Norm), it's practically a Beowulf Cluster. Mac users are locked-in because they've already spent so much time and energy on Mac OS X education and software, this doesn't make the Mac a better value but I'm acting like it does (??). The Mac Pro is better than a Windows machine, at least for those people who don't know how to use Windows. Just look at all those imaginary problems novice users have with Windows! Experienced Mac users like me have far less problems with our Macs! This is a valid comparison. Microsoft and Dell don't care, and Apple with their low-quality over-priced hardware and Machiavellian lock-in attempts do care. And Apple and Steve jobs NEVER ACT SMUG ABOUT ANYTHING, EVER.

[palane]

Can we have a moritorium on this Mac has these stats and an "equivalent" PC is sooooooooo much better. Apple's screwing you etc etc etc.

Then comes the inevitable rejoinder that if you compare like for like, toss in build quality, and the advantages of OS X and iLife, Apple comes out OK.

The Mac Pro is stale and I'm on the record for wanting to get an MMMM (mythical midrange Mac minitower) for the lab. I just don't see a rehash of Hardware Wars accomplishing anything.

It [a Mac Pro] seems a bit too much, so I decided to check up what PC users are paying for the same budget (~4000).

At NCIX.com, you won't believe how behind the Mac Pro is...

[slughead]

The Mac Pro is stale and I'm on the record for wanting to get an MMMM (mythical midrange Mac minitower) for the lab. I just don't see a rehash of Hardware Wars accomplishing anything.

I think the point of rehashing it is that there are still people who don't fully understand just how much of a ripoff the MP is and others that say "oh, OS X is worth the extra expense" (who also don't understand just how expensive it really is).

There are only a few threads like this... you can just ignore them.

It's not productive (apart from allowing us to vent), but since Apple has ignored the MP for 1.5 years now, what else is there to talk about??

[dimensional]

i hate iOS

[afrowq]

why do some people keep posting about how they're scared Apple "might" some day push the pro market to the side?

People, it has already happened. It started with the ipod, and it was completed with the iphone. The ipad is just the next chapter. Apple is RIGHT NOW a mobile devices and shiny touch screen toy company. They are no longer a company that makes professional workstations for designers/professionals.

And if you are a professional who is bothered by that, you are part of the problem if you have an ipod or iphone.

[nanofrog]

Same chip with one with parts turned off. Same price only with one Intel gives you less.
From the processor alone, you're absolutely right (the circuits are there, but not active, and Intel charges for them anyway).

That said however, using the desktop variants in this family can allow for cost savings on other aspects of the system. Namely the system board (more choices and a bit more competitive on cost), and lower cost RAM. The case and PSU selected can make a notable difference in price as well. Unfortunately, none of it has to do with Intel, but the parts selection by the builder (individual or otherwise). Please understand, this is based on cost, not equivalent parity of systems.

For those that don't actually need ECC or Xeons, this is a valid trade-off IMO, as it gets them a lower cost system that will accomplish the necessary tasks.

Since they are same price Apple is highly likely to charge the same exact price for the box. The box isn't going to get any cheaper by using the i7 in and of itself. There are some marginal deduction for not using ECC RAM.
In Apple's case, the price difference would be negligible, as the case, PSU, board, and CPU (SP system only) would be the same cost. I doubt they'd do anything different with the GPU or RAM capacity in the base configurations. Really just cheaper RAM.

The CPU price to system cost percentage for Mac are all in the same range: 11-19% . This is one of the higher ones. Apple doesn't build systems where the CPU is 25-30% of the price of the system. A sizable chunk is mark up , but that is true for all the other vendors for products in this space. However, in a balanced design, yes 75-85% of a systems price are non-CPU components.
Take a look at the 2008 systems. The E5462 was $862 IIRC on the initial Quantity Price Sheet from Intel. Though I do think Apple got them cheaper than that, it's more than 11 - 19% for a Quad (~34.5% of MSRP = CPU cost, based on the $862 cost), let alone the Octad version (~59.5% of MSRP = CPU cost).

Realistically, they may have gotten the processors for ~$800 each, which will lower the %, but not down to the 11 - 19% range.

These folks haven't been able to afford Mac Pros for years.
Independents?

There seems to be a fair number of MR members that are exactly that from what I can tell, and bought Intel based MP's between '06 - '08. They were cheaper for the power obtained.

Now that they're needing an upgrade (particularly '06 owners that do rendering for example), are stuck with OS X due to the software investments and training. But the newer system prices are at best, unattractive (lower cost/performance ratio), or worse, actually hurting them due to their traditionally limited budgets.

...the spin here that it was "thousands cheaper" is off.
I agree with this. A few hundred for an equivalent system by another vendor, not a thousand or more.

If the jump from $2199 to $2499 for a machine would crumble a business they were bad shape already.
No doubt, but most small businesses are under capitalized, so price changes have a much more drastic impact on their business.

IIRC, statistics show that most fail within the first 5 years.

The operator of the machine likely cost 10x - 20x as much to the business. $300 is a rather small delta relative to the machine + operator cost. Even more so if going to run the machine for 3-4 years. Anyone who is tweaked out over that amount is likely running for the hills anyway to a $1,200-1,400 econo-box solution. Holding the price at $2199 wouldn't have kept them anyway. The hamstring saddled the $2199 box with would only make the econo-box look better.
As I understand it, many came through college using OS X for creative work, not PC's. So they're familiar with the OS X side, and people tend to go with what they're more comfortable/familiar with. There's also the past, where better software existed for OS X than Windows as I understand it.

As that meant Apple and OS X, they're now stuck with macs, unless they're in a position to do a complete system switch. Now whether they can get away with an iMac, or have to get a MP, $$ isn't that big a difference anyway IMO, as you seem to agree with (small delta, assuming they have a suitable monitor on hand). The expansion allows for graphics upgrades that can improve their workflow as I see it, and is worth the additional funds (works out cheaper over time, as the MP could be used for a longer period of time, which is far more critical to independents).

[ValSalva]

why do some people keep posting about how they're scared Apple "might" some day push the pro market to the side?

People, it has already happened. It started with the ipod, and it was completed with the iphone. The ipad is just the next chapter. Apple is RIGHT NOW a mobile devices and shiny touch screen toy company. They are no longer a company that makes professional workstations for designers/professionals.

And if you are a professional who is bothered by that, you are part of the problem if you have an ipod or iphone.

I hate the iToys focus too. But the added revenue from them should help Mac. Right? Developers need Pro tools to develop for the iToys. And I'm not talking about the 100,000 or so glorified web apps. Games and video content will be more and more important to the iToys/consumption device category. Thus Mac Pros should continue to be necessary.

Maybe iToys will subsidize Mac in the way that big time college football subsidizes college fencing and tennis teams.

[apolloa]

It was sarcastic. The area's listed as "don't", are what the system is being used for above and beyond email and web browsing. ;)

Well it certainly did not read like that and I think the person is more then capable of answering themselves.


Assuming the CPU architecture is the same, then Yes. OC'ed systems will run the same software faster (helps to counter software bloat, which most commercially available software suffers from to some degree).

Don't believe you, do you have any proof of tests to back that claim up?

[nanofrog]

Don't believe you, do you have any proof of tests to back that claim up?
Here's an example (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-975,2318-3.html) of a current processor (i7-975). This one is from Tom's Hardware, but if you look, there's similar tests done on other sites such as Anandtech.

At any rate, some applications will benefit more than others, particularly if the file sizes are larger, and there's no other system bottlenecks (i.e. RAM capacity or disk throughput are sufficient for the task). Other applications may show an improvement, but in fractions of a second, and not really noticable at all to the user (i.e. small file).

If there's a specific application you're interested in, search it and see how it fares on both a stock and OC'ed processor (same system otherwise to get accurate results).

[afrowq]

I hate the iToys focus too. But the added revenue from them should help Mac. Right? Developers need Pro tools to develop for the iToys. And I'm not talking about the 100,000 or so glorified web apps. Games and video content will be more and more important to the iToys/consumption device category. Thus Mac Pros should continue to be necessary.

Maybe iToys will subsidize Mac in the way that big time college football subsidizes college fencing and tennis teams.

I haven't seen any evidence of it yet.

BTW, I freakin' LOVE your location.

[hugodrax]

You guys fall easy for the troll. Every few weeks someone throws the bait on the hook and they end up catching plenty.

The old Mac pro is over priced compared to xxx desktop bait is getting old

[gordesh]

I want a mac pro I think, but I'm not sure I need it. I run an old imac for recording music sessions and it is vastly underpowered now. I don't want the same problem again so I am lusting after MP. Now that I keep hearing about hyperthreading and some of the other capabilities of a MP, I don't know whether I need that or not. That being said I am staying mac all the way. Sorry mac haters, but the extra premium paid so that I don't ever have to deal with a PC again is well worth it. The money saved on anti-virus and down-time alone have made me a mac lifer.

Anyhow, suggestions?? Mac Pro, maybe another high-end imac?

[TennisandMusic]

I want a mac pro I think, but I'm not sure I need it. I run an old imac for recording music sessions and it is vastly underpowered now. I don't want the same problem again so I am lusting after MP. Now that I keep hearing about hyperthreading and some of the other capabilities of a MP, I don't know whether I need that or not. That being said I am staying mac all the way. Sorry mac haters, but the extra premium paid so that I don't ever have to deal with a PC again is well worth it. The money saved on anti-virus and down-time alone have made me a mac lifer.

Anyhow, suggestions?? Mac Pro, maybe another high-end imac?

Goofiness of "money saved on anti virus and down time" aside, (run free microsoft security essentials, get Windows 7 64 and never have any downtime! :p) the i7 iMac is more powerful than the baseline quad Mac Pro. It does have hyperthreading, but I don't think that will benefit you much in music. In fact, there are some instances where it can mess you up. Not sure if that is still a problem but it was definitely there on the Mac Pro when they came out (with some programs).

The current iMac is tempting if you want a Mac Pro. If they had USB3 and a matte screen, along with a door to access the hard drive, I would say they would be a great alternative. They are workable now, but maybe the next update would make them fantastic? No idea when it's coming though...I'm looking forward to both the next iMac and Mac Pro updates to see what Apple delivers.

[palane]

Well... I usually avoid them, but thought I'd

That much having been said, there has been some good discussion. And

I was tasked several years ago with getting a new computer for our lab. We have existing investments in hardware (GPIB) and software (LabView), so a Mac wasn't going to be an option. I picked up a mid-range Dell tower (Optiplex 745). It's compact, fairly well built, and has run perfectly ever since. It was not, however, cheap. Ran to about $1500. Point is that there is quality on the other side of the wall, but you get what you pay for.

So, I'm not of the view that the Mac Pro is necessarily over-priced for what it is. Rather that it's overdue for a refresher. And I do wish that Apple could find it in its heart to create a mini-tower. Back in the day, Apple produced some nice mid-range desktops (IIci for example) that sat in between the all-in-ones and the 6 slot monsters.

BB

I think the point of rehashing it is that there are still people who don't fully understand just how much of a ripoff the MP is and others that say "oh, OS X is worth the extra expense" (who also don't understand just how expensive it really is).

There are only a few threads like this... you can just ignore them.

It's not productive (apart from allowing us to vent), but since Apple has ignored the MP for 1.5 years now, what else is there to talk about??

[apolloa]

Here's an example (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-975,2318-3.html) of a current processor (i7-975). This one is from Tom's Hardware, but if you look, there's similar tests done on other sites such as Anandtech.

At any rate, some applications will benefit more than others, particularly if the file sizes are larger, and there's no other system bottlenecks (i.e. RAM capacity or disk throughput are sufficient for the task). Other applications may show an improvement, but in fractions of a second, and not really noticable at all to the user (i.e. small file).

If there's a specific application you're interested in, search it and see how it fares on both a stock and OC'ed processor (same system otherwise to get accurate results).

That link had no Adobe CS tests in it, do you know of any overclocked I7's that do?
Barefeats shows these results for the 2.93 xeons:

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp23.html

[TennisandMusic]

Why on Earth would anyone doubt that an overlocked cpu would perform tasks faster than a stock version? If you overlock an i7 920 to 4ghz from 2.66 (very easy to do), you get exactly that ratio of performance speed up from the cpu. To doubt the veracity of that fact is quite strange. Why would anyone question it by asking for benchmarks? Just go to Anandtech and look at any cpu review...

[PeterQVenkman]

I was tasked several years ago with getting a new computer for our lab. We have existing investments in hardware (GPIB) and software (LabView), so a Mac wasn't going to be an option. I picked up a mid-range Dell tower (Optiplex 745). It's compact, fairly well built, and has run perfectly ever since. It was not, however, cheap. Ran to about $1500. Point is that there is quality on the other side of the wall, but you get what you pay for.


$1500 seems pretty cheap by comparison to me, but you said that it was a few years back. I honestly can't remember what models were out then! I thought my G5 was going to last me for years back then. ;)

[deconstruct60]

Take a look at the 2008 systems.


Why? it is 2010. I was looking across the 2010 Mac line up.


The E5462 was $862 IIRC on the initial Quantity Price Sheet from Intel. Though I do think Apple got them cheaper than that, it's more than 11 - 19% for a Quad (~34.5% of MSRP = CPU cost, based on the $862 cost), let alone the Octad version (~59.5% of MSRP = CPU cost).


Those aren't normal Mac percentages so not sure why folks keep trying to fixate on them.

The ark site at Intel says $797 but that isn't the point. I strongly suspect Apple was paying substantially less than even that. Either that or resigned to let this be loss leader boxes (Apple really doesn't do loss leaders so lean more toward the first but perhaps some combo of the two just for the transition.). In the workstation class machine, there wasn't a good reason to get off the PowerPC series. A "low power" Power 5 or Power 6 would have been highly competitive with any Xeon. Apple could have squeezed Intel for deep discounts for that segment of the line short term and gotten some commitments to $300-500 Xeons that would work in the future. Intel could give on that for a number of reasons. In that case, the list prices don't tell the whole story.

However, that has little to do with the state of affairs in 2010. Looking backwards in time to yelp about how Xeons are a highest contributor to current box costs is whacked. They aren't. So substituting in a higher end i7 isn't going to make a big difference.

A far more significant factor is that those $300-500 Xeons (and higher end latest micro-arch generation i7s) aren't shipping.



Independents?


No the "can't/won't possibly pay more than $1,900 for a computer " and the "I only need a $1,200 mini-tower computer" crowds.

IMHO I think some folks are mind warped by PCs. If just periodically have
batch rendering work to do it is easy to ship that off to some farm ( either local if have steady stream of work to do) or in the cloud. Timesharing (and cost sharing) on a bigger machine ( bigger virtually or physically) often is more cost effective than buying fastest possible machine now that stays underutilized for large segments of the day ( and/or has "future power" that is underutilized for the first couple of years. ) That too may mean a software migration to some extent.

There are many cases where it doesn't work, but than folks willing to admit where it does.

[deconstruct60]

Why on Earth would anyone doubt that an overlocked cpu would perform tasks faster than a stock version? If you overlock an i7 920 to 4ghz from 2.66 (very easy to do), you get exactly that ratio of performance speed up from the cpu.

No you don't if there is a significant fraction of memory and I/O accesses. Unless you also clock up the memory those remain at the exact same effective speeds. It primarily just works on problems which can get sucked into the in chip package cache. Oracle DB or some large finite element mesh ( weather , crash model, etc.) isn't going to run significantly faster except at defacto idling tasks. The results are application specific.



Likewise if you are running 8 threads full blast with significant memory streaming you are only going to increase memory I/O pressure by overclocking.

Overclocking works great for single threaded stuff with small working set kernels that can fit comfortably in the cache available. It also works better if were pumping large amounts into the relatively slow floating point (andor SSE) pipeline without taxing the I/O pressure too much.



Overclocking is like building drag racing cars. As long as cranking max speed over a straight line track they work great. They aren't going to win the 24hrs of Le Mans race though.

[TennisandMusic]

No you don't if there is a significant fraction of memory and I/O accesses. Unless you also clock up the memory those remain at the exact same effective speeds. It primarily just works on problems which can get sucked into the in chip package cache. Oracle DB or some large finite element mesh ( weather , crash model, etc.) isn't going to run significantly faster except at defacto idling tasks. The results are application specific.



Likewise if you are running 8 threads full blast with significant memory streaming you are only going to increase memory I/O pressure by overclocking.

Overclocking works great for single threaded stuff with small working set kernels that can fit comfortably in the cache available. It also works better if were pumping large amounts into the relatively slow floating point (andor SSE) pipeline without taxing the I/O pressure too much.



Overclocking is like building drag racing cars. As long as cranking max speed over a straight line track they work great. They aren't going to win the 24hrs of Le Mans race though.

So you are arguing that all things equal, a slower clocked cpu is just as good as a faster one? Why even buy a fast cpu then? Overclocking is generally just changing the multiplier, which is similar to buying a more expensive cpu (since the multipliers are set according to how the cpu's are binned).

A faster CPU gives you better performance. Period. That's all overclocking is, there is no magic involved. I'd really love for you to argue anywhere that a faster CPU doesn't get you faster results. Obviously if you are limited by something other than the CPU, then yeah a faster CPU won't help, but give me a break. Are we actually arguing here that a higher GHz CPU won't give you better performance than a lower one? :rolleyes:

[jwt]

At work I bought a SP 2.93 GHz Xeon Dell T3500 with hardware almost identical to the comparable Mac Pro offering for $1600. At home, if I wasn't invested in the Mac version of Adobe CS and Lightroom, my next machine would probably be a Dell Xeon box. I could barely stomach the $2200 I spent on my Mac Pro at the time, and I'll never spend that much again, but you can't even buy a Mac Pro for that little anymore. Jeez!

[nanofrog]

That link had no Adobe CS tests in it, do you know of any overclocked I7's that do?
Barefeats shows these results for the 2.93 xeons:

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp23.html
You'd have to search that out. Keep in mind however, most, if not all that you'll find are the PC versions of the software (unless someone that uses CS5 on a hacked OC'ed PC has posted results for OS X versions).

Why? it is 2010. I was looking across the 2010 Mac line up.
And the current systems are 2009. :p

The point is, that the current models shifted from previous Intel based systems (% MSRP spent on CPU/s).

Given they're using cheaper processors, and the prices either remained the same (Quad) or increased (Octad), Apple's offering less value than the previous models. As a result, some OS X users are having a fit (valid for independent pros from their perspective, and somewhat justifiably so IMO).

The biggest differences are with systems using the W3520 (PC vendors), as they can be had for ~$1000 or so less last I checked. The cost difference is smaller on the Octad systems (2x E5520), and if you push the clock speeds in their respective models (SP and DP systems).

The ark site at Intel says $797 but that isn't the point.
That's the current price, which has dropped from it's initial release. But as you say, it's not really an issue.

I rather doubt they got them for much under the $800 mark though.

I understand what you're trying to get at with leverage in negotiations, but I'm sure Intel was well aware that the PPC days had ended. Where I do expect they had negotation leverage, was because Apple used Intel as their ODM for the system board as well in the '06 - '08 systems, and bought enough quantity that it made discounts possible.

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking they shifted to Hon Hai Precision as the ODM for the current models' boards. Which resulted in paying closer to the published Quantity pricing for the existing CPU's used.

No the "can't/won't possibly pay more than $1,900 for a computer " and the "I only need a $1,200 mini-tower computer" crowds.
Ah, I see where you're going then, and I agree. The enthusiast users have been left out in the cold with the cost increase, as Apple isn't willing to release an expandable consumer system. The previous MP's just happened to be cheap enough that they could better afford them. With the current line-up, they'd have to deal with another of Apple's systems, bite the bullet and buy the MP, or go back to PC's (hacked or otherwise).

IMHO I think some folks are mind warped by PCs. If just periodically have
batch rendering work to do it is easy to ship that off to some farm ( either local if have steady stream of work to do) or in the cloud. Timesharing (and cost sharing) on a bigger machine ( bigger virtually or physically) often is more cost effective than buying fastest possible machine now that stays underutilized for large segments of the day ( and/or has "future power" that is underutilized for the first couple of years. ) That too may mean a software migration to some extent.
Farming is valid for some, but not those on tigher budgets. In those cases (again, the independent surfaces), they're budget sticks them to a single system.

They just don't have the funds on hand to pay for sufficient bandwidth, let alone timesharing. So building a farm of their own would be completely out of the question. Heck, the licensing costs might scare them to death.

For a growing production house (i.e. successful SMB), it may be another story, assuming there's a sufficient workload, and the funds are available.

No you don't if there is a significant fraction of memory and I/O accesses. Unless you also clock up the memory those remain at the exact same effective speeds. It primarily just works on problems which can get sucked into the in chip package cache. Oracle DB or some large finite element mesh ( weather , crash model, etc.) isn't going to run significantly faster except at defacto idling tasks. The results are application specific.
Most of the OC capable boards do in fact OC the RAM as well as the CPU clock. Particularly with the newer parts (LGA1366), as voltages, multipliers, and BCLK frequencies are accessible in these boards.

Likewise if you are running 8 threads full blast with significant memory streaming you are only going to increase memory I/O pressure by overclocking.
If it's not OC'ed, and the application can utilize the existing memory configuration, then Yes. But as the RAM is usually OC'ed as well, this pressure is alleviated to some extent at least (depending on the specifics, as the scale of RAM increases may or may not be linear with that of the CPU).

If it's balanced, it can benefit SMP. If not, there's going to be issues with data streams (processor uses what it has, then waits for data to continue working; wash, rinse, repeat). What I usually think of as an I/O stutter.

[hoj]

The good thing for Mac OS is not only the looks, but also the native support for X-Windows. To me, I care more about X-Windows. Mac OS also gets better support for commercial softwares, this is why I choose Mac over Linux.


I also wanted X11 when I got my Mac. Being able to compile sources on OS X or Linux is extremely important.

[PeterQVenkman]

IMHO I think some folks are mind warped by PCs. If just periodically have batch rendering work to do it is easy to ship that off to some farm ( either local if have steady stream of work to do) or in the cloud. Timesharing (and cost sharing) on a bigger machine ( bigger virtually or physically) often is more cost effective than buying fastest possible machine now that stays underutilized for large segments of the day ( and/or has "future power" that is underutilized for the first couple of years. ) That too may mean a software migration to some extent. .

Where I work, we farm out to a rendering service if we have to (mainly for large sequences on tight deadlines) and charge it to the project up front. But we also have to test render and set up our scenes before we send them out - which means rendering at least some on our local machines.

We are a small company in a small building so we don't have a full render farm of our own - but I can handily install Cinema 4d net render on all our macs and let them run for a night if needs be. :)

In that case, having the faster towers in house for our work machines can save us a ton of time.

[bigbutt]

I still say go 27" i7 iMac with 16GB for a fraction of the MacPro...

[Voltaic]

I'd like to know exactly what parts you purchased for how much. Isn't a high end GPU $300, a decent Quad CPU $300, and a premium X58 motherboard $300? If so, how did you get a nice case, loads of RAM, and a 1KW PSU for under $100?

:confused:

I'd also like to know what you think is Apple's core market... ???

You are missing my point. I am not making a 1:1 comparison, I am telling you I built a tower for $1K. The tower has a very nice case with up to 5 HD capacity, a Gigabyte motherboard, 8GB of RAM, 1TB HD, 1TB Video Card with HDMI out, a Quad Core 2.8GHz 64 bit processor, loads of USB 2 + Firewire ports, etc..

My point being, I do not need to spend $3K (by the time I upgrade the RAM) for a similar tower from Apple with less expandability and an anemic Video Card. I am not a charitable institution here to make money for Steve Jobs, I am trying to make a living, NONE of Apple's products fit my needs, not even close, and their prices defy reality.

Apple's core market? I suppose that is changing, but as a 20 year Mac user I would like to think we are still relevant. That is, unless Apple keeps its current course and slowly kills its own computer market. Lots to discuss in this subject.

Cheers

[mBox]

You are missing my point. I am not making a 1:1 comparison, I am telling you I built a tower for $1K. The tower has a very nice case with up to 5 HD capacity...
Apple's core market? I suppose that is changing, but as a 20 year Mac user I would like to think we are still relevant. That is, unless Apple keeps its current course and slowly kills its own computer market. Lots to discuss in this subject...Wow I havent seen anything Mac wise close to that since the Quadra line. Hmm not even sure if that fit 5 HD?
Yes it has changed, just had a thought during coffee break.
Not a good one I may add :(
Here is a future banner at the Apple Store:
"By one iPhone or iPad and get a Mac free".
Ugggh the thought of what the Mac specs would be :(

[slughead]

Don't believe you, do you have any proof of tests to back that claim up?

You have a problem believing overclocked systems run the same software faster?

That's like not understanding why driving a car at a faster speed will allow you to arrive at your destination sooner.

[TrojanX]

actually....I have been thinking about this since the past few months.
By using (and liking) Mac OS, we really have no choice other than to buy Apple's ridiculously priced hardware and warranty. If I could only get myself to like a Windows machine..life would have been so much easier....

I agree completely! If Windows was more stable and required less maintenance they would see my sales! I enjoy the quality of build that you see with mac and the UI is great but, it does come at a price!!

[dimme]

At work I bought a SP 2.93 GHz Xeon Dell T3500 with hardware almost identical to the comparable Mac Pro offering for $1600. At home, if I wasn't invested in the Mac version of Adobe CS and Lightroom, my next machine would probably be a Dell Xeon box. I could barely stomach the $2200 I spent on my Mac Pro at the time, and I'll never spend that much again, but you can't even buy a Mac Pro for that little anymore. Jeez!

A cross platform upgrade for adobe may make the switch to windows 7 more cost effective. I know my MacPro buying days are over.

[dimensional]

I wish Microsoft would pull an Apple and make Windows 8 fully UNIX-compliant (and FAST) at the shell and library level. Make it a full UNIX and layer it on top with all their proprietary stuff.

So many people using OS X would switch in a heartbeat, I know I would. I just use OS X because it's the best consumer UNIX at the moment. I need UNIX because all the software I develop runs in the cloud and that's universally Linux in my case.

Regarding iToys, I totally agree. I am switching to a Droid X and will switch away from an iPad to an android tablet as soon as one becomes available. As long as iToys are sucking resources away from OS X I will continue to ignore them.

[peskaa]

I'll throw something else in, don't know if it is mentioned or not already...

Large companies don't like homebuild systems, full stop. They don't want to have to diagnose a dead RAM stick and then deal with an RMA for that stick - if they can even find the receipt amongst thousands of others for every component in hundreds/thousands of systems. It simply doesn't work - they want service agreements, warranties on complete systems and the ability to just hand the machine over to somebody to fix.

Homebuild makes sense for the home user, or at a push for a small business with IT savvy employees. Take it up a notch, and the homebuild goes out the window and you start looking at the Dells/Apples/HPs of the world.


My organisation deploys Dells en-masse, (I'm talking around 10k systems here) yet my department rocks Apples. We buy Mac Pros and iMacs based on need, simply due to the fact that the users prefer them, work more effectively and that we have less headaches than with the Dell towers.

Yes, they're more expensive, but they seem to last longer too (we've still got PowerMacs in active use, whilst the Dells seem to last 2-3 years before getting binned). The Mac Pro is definitely in sore need of an update though, which is why it currently represents such poor value. It also doesn't make much sense for a home user either - which is why there is such a cry for a mini-Mac Pro.

[mBox]

I'll throw something else in, don't know if it is mentioned or not already...Large companies don't like homebuild systems...On the nose!

[nanofrog]

Large companies don't like homebuild systems, full stop. They don't want to have to diagnose a dead RAM stick and then deal with an RMA for that stick - if they can even find the receipt amongst thousands of others for every component in hundreds/thousands of systems. It simply doesn't work - they want service agreements, warranties on complete systems and the ability to just hand the machine over to somebody to fix.
Definitely.

In such instances, the single source for hardware problems is invaluable in terms of wasted time (lost production of the employee affected, as well as the additional hours spent by IT staff to solve the problem).

My organisation deploys Dells en-masse, (I'm talking around 10k systems here) yet my department rocks Apples. We buy Mac Pros and iMacs based on need, simply due to the fact that the users prefer them, work more effectively and that we have less headaches than with the Dell towers.
What does your dept. use the Macs for?
I ask, as I'm not accustomed to seeing them used in a NOC, especially when the primary OS is Windows or Linux.

Yes, they're more expensive, but they seem to last longer too (we've still got PowerMacs in active use, whilst the Dells seem to last 2-3 years before getting binned). The Mac Pro is definitely in sore need of an update though, which is why it currently represents such poor value. It also doesn't make much sense for a home user either - which is why there is such a cry for a mini-Mac Pro.
Is this software or hardware reasons?
And are these "binned" systems workstations/servers, or desktops?

Just curious, as the level of system matters in terms of hardware (businesses do use the cheaper models for those that don't need much power, such as email, spreadsheets, ... (i.e. MS Office or similar level of input; such as data entry).

I'm also more accustomed to Windows software having enough bloat to choke an Elephant (system slows to a crawl) as it were just a few years after the system is purchased (OS, MS or other software vendors' applications).

[apolloa]

You have a problem believing overclocked systems run the same software faster?

That's like not understanding why driving a car at a faster speed will allow you to arrive at your destination sooner.

Sigh, doesn't anyone read the full thread anymore and just 'jump in'??? No, I have a problem believing someone who says that an overclocked single CPU system can run Adobe software faster then a Dual Xeon Mac workstation, and in my mind I'm talking the 8 core 2.93 Xeons......

[palane]

Well, I didn't need anything server grade and it was replacing a dated piece of junk. I wanted a well-built machine with plenty of ports and a few slots. Also a processor equivalent to what I could get in the respective iMac (Core2Duo at the tie).

It was good value for the money. I've only recently discovered USB <-> GPIB converters that work like a charm. You're still spending about $500, but I had no trouble running LabView under VMWare.

BB

$1500 seems pretty cheap by comparison to me, but you said that it was a few years back. I honestly can't remember what models were out then! I thought my G5 was going to last me for years back then. ;)

[nanofrog]

It was good value for the money. I've only recently discovered USB <-> GPIB converters that work like a charm. You're still spending about $500, but I had no trouble running LabView under VMWare.
I ran into the same issues with MultiSim as well (LabView was originally the OS X version, MultiSIM run under VM). I opted to return the MP and got the LabView version swapped to Windows. Problem solved.

And a USB to GPIB adapter is a wonderful thing. :D

[peskaa]

What does your dept. use the Macs for?
I ask, as I'm not accustomed to seeing them used in a NOC, especially when the primary OS is Windows or Linux.
I work in an NHS hospital (one of the biggest in the UK), in a medical illustration department. We do photography, graphic design and video work - the Macs are due to FCP, historic use in graphics (basically the designers can't function in Windows, but we've never had any downtime on their machines either) and stability in photography. We tried Dells (Optiplex) towers in the photography section for six months, but they were horribly slow to boot up (that "bloat" you referred to is a real problem), and generally unreliable. We also find OS X's colour management better.


Is this software or hardware reasons?
And are these "binned" systems workstations/servers, or desktops?Mix. Some had failures due to suspected overheating from being on 24/7, and others just slowed to a crawl and we were fed up of re-imaging. The systems were workstations (Core 2 Quads, 4-8GB RAM) running Windows XP. We have a handful of the cheap desktop Dells kicking round for admin work, and they're a nightmare to work on...

Just curious, as the level of system matters in terms of hardware (businesses do use the cheaper models for those that don't need much power, such as email, spreadsheets, ... (i.e. MS Office or similar level of input; such as data entry).

I'm also more accustomed to Windows software having enough bloat to choke an Elephant (system slows to a crawl) as it were just a few years after the system is purchased (OS, MS or other software vendors' applications).

Totally agree on the first comment - the cheap Dell desktops are probably the most common ones in the hospital, as most users only need basic functions - and they're also the ones that go wrong a lot of the time. However, the IT Dept then just send it back to Dell and pull a spare out of the cupboard.

As for the bloat? Yep. Enterprise level IT seems to involve a lot of crap!

[nanofrog]

I work in an NHS hospital (one of the biggest in the UK), in a medical illustration department. We do photography, graphic design and video work - the Macs are due to FCP, historic use in graphics (basically the designers can't function in Windows, but we've never had any downtime on their machines either) and stability in photography. We tried Dells (Optiplex) towers in the photography section for six months, but they were horribly slow to boot up (that "bloat" you referred to is a real problem), and generally unreliable. We also find OS X's colour management better.
Makes sense then. I'm aware of medical imaging software is available for OS X as well from a couple of members, and wondered if it might be that (i.e. Radiology Dept.).

Mix. Some had failures due to suspected overheating from being on 24/7, and others just slowed to a crawl and we were fed up of re-imaging. The systems were workstations (Core 2 Quads, 4-8GB RAM) running Windows XP. We have a handful of the cheap desktop Dells kicking round for admin work, and they're a nightmare to work on...
XP's gotten rather huge over time (all the Service Packs and updates given it's age), and runs s-l-o-w-l-y on a lot of older systems (hate XP at this point).

Totally agree on the first comment - the cheap Dell desktops are probably the most common ones in the hospital, as most users only need basic functions - and they're also the ones that go wrong a lot of the time. However, the IT Dept then just send it back to Dell and pull a spare out of the cupboard.

As for the bloat? Yep. Enterprise level IT seems to involve a lot of crap!
Makes sense. Entities that large can keep spares around for such issues, even if it's covered under warranty in order to prevent a loss in productivity. Saves lots of hassle (just clone the correct master image to the HDD for the machine, physically set it in place and go). :D Nice to be able to do that.

Unfortunately, code bloat doesn't just show up under Windows, but given it's market share, is more commonly seen (i.e. cross platform applications by companies such as Adobe). :( :mad: I wish developers would "cut bait" and re-develop applications more often than they do, and rely less on recycled code (causes all kinds of problems). But it's not going to happen as I'd wish, as $$$ is the primary factor, not product performance/quality.

[daver11]

Why shouldn't Apple charge as much as they can? If they charge too much people will stop buying and Apple would either lower their prices or go out of business. Why lower your prices when everyone is buying your products? We should be glad they aren't RAISING them instead!

I for one think Apple's products are far superior to anything offered with Windows. So you have a faster processor? So what, you can run a Photoshop filter in 10 seconds instead of 10.5 seconds! My Mac Pro has an aircraft-grade aluminum body! Your's is cheap plastic!

Apple offers LUXURY electronic products with a LUXURY OS. You get what you pay for. Go buy your cheap crap! :cool:

[nanofrog]

Apple offers LUXURY electronic products with a LUXURY OS. You get what you pay for. Go buy your cheap crap! :cool:
Hardware wise, they're using the same parts that the PC vendor's use (components used on the main board and daughter board), HDD's, RAM, graphics card,... The firmware is just a different specification, and MP's aren't the only systems that use it (Itanium is what it was actually created for, and newer Xeon server boards have the option to run either BIOS or EFI).

They do differ from other products in industrial design (case). But their real advantage is a closed system, which has the potential for an improved user experience (what Apple's advertised about Macs for years). This is primarily a result of their OS.

Unfortunately though, this has diminished compared to the level it was in the past (i.e more bugs making it into shipped products). One example in the 2009 systems, is the Audio bug that took nearly a year to be addressed, and 2 patches to accomplish it (first patch still had problems).

It's just not what it once was anymore, as the iDevices has shifted their focus (makes sense, as they're a business, which means they follow the money).

[slughead]

Sigh, doesn't anyone read the full thread anymore and just 'jump in'???

I know I never do.

No, I have a problem believing someone who says that an overclocked single CPU system can run Adobe software faster then a Dual Xeon Mac workstation, and in my mind I'm talking the 8 core 2.93 Xeons......

That could be true. I'm still not going to change my thread-skimming ways though.

[PeterQVenkman]

I for one think Apple's products are far superior to anything offered with Windows. So you have a faster processor? So what, you can run a Photoshop filter in 10 seconds instead of 10.5 seconds!

Don't dump on faster processors! In my case, rendering can go from 1 full day to overnight while I sleep (no down time!).


My Mac Pro has an aircraft-grade aluminum body! Your's is cheap plastic!

A nice looking case doesn't get my work done faster.


Apple offers LUXURY electronic products with a LUXURY OS. You get what you pay for. Go buy your cheap crap! :cool:

Apple offers the same cheap crap at luxury prices. So yes, you do indeed get what you pay for (the logo on the side).

Sigh, doesn't anyone read the full thread anymore and just 'jump in'??? No, I have a problem believing someone who says that an overclocked single CPU system can run Adobe software faster then a Dual Xeon Mac workstation, and in my mind I'm talking the 8 core 2.93 Xeons......

I see your point! But you're forgetting cost. Compare a $3000 single processor 980x system to a $3000 dual Xeon from Apple. The core 980x is faster than Apple's base processor in the dual Xeon when comparing price points (so the value per dollar is higher), but one can find decked out 980x systems for under $2000 (less than the high end iMac).

But even then, the stock 980x is neck and neck with Apple's fastest dual Xeon offering. Overclocking the 980x takes it into (as Mel Brooks would put it) "ludicrous speed." ;)

Look at the top two listings of "Early 2009" MacPro's on the cinebench database:

http://www.cbscores.com/index.php?sort=rend&order=desc

Right below them, at .12 points behind, is a single processor 980x at probably a third of the cost.

[slughead]

Why shouldn't Apple charge as much as they can? If they charge too much people will stop buying and Apple would either lower their prices or go out of business. Why lower your prices when everyone is buying your products? We should be glad they aren't RAISING them instead!

I'll be glad when they supply a product I want to buy at a price I'm willing to pay.

People are pissed because they're locked into OS X with the previous hardware, software, and experience they've already invested in it, and Apple's screwing them over by not allowing them to keep up with the rest of the world (and at a HUGE premium at that).

I for one think Apple's products are far superior to anything offered with Windows. So you have a faster processor? So what, you can run a Photoshop filter in 10 seconds instead of 10.5 seconds! My Mac Pro has an aircraft-grade aluminum body! Your's is cheap plastic!

Apple offers LUXURY electronic products with a LUXURY OS. You get what you pay for. Go buy your cheap crap! :cool:

This is exactly what we've all been railing against: the idea that Apple has better quality products. The CASE, as you said, may be superior (debatable as it's obviously designed to thwart upgrades to the processor and is filled with extraneous metal for no reason). Their Motherboards and processors are fine too (albiet outdated).

However, many mac pros come with low quality HDD's and RAM, and the PSU failure rate on Mac Pros is amazing considering their limited release.

Compared to a home-built PC that would cost less than half as much (there are many recent threads on this), the quality and even the warranty is CRAP. 3 years (with overpriced Applecare)??? My HDDs have a 5 year and my RAM has a LIFETIME.

So no, you're not getting a "LUXURY" product. You're forced to buy crappy, out of date hardware inside a snazzy case for the opportunity to run OS X.

[chaosbunny]

A nice looking case doesn't get my work done faster.

But... but only think of the joy of looking at it while you are waiting. :)

[PeterQVenkman]

But... but only think of the joy of looking at it while you are waiting. :)

My work MacPro is under my desk. ;)