I agree with everything you say except the case. I still think it is the best looking desktop enclosure out there (PC or Mac)
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Mac Pro Suitable Xeon (Nehalem) Processors Due March 29th
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I agree with everything you say except the case. I still think it is the best looking desktop enclosure out there (PC or Mac)
He has been doing a lot of that lately, hasn't he...
Then at least make a smaller cheese grater.
(Personally, I pick case for function - not styling. It goes under the desk, it's not some piece of bling or status symbol that I need to place on top. Dark colors are good - they make the case less prominent.
I like how the Dell systems still have the 3.5" floppy drive slot - and you can put a n-in-one media card reader in it. Very handy.)
Really?
I think the Dell cases are horrible!
I love the current case, I hope it isn't changed at all.
He has been doing a lot of that lately, hasn't he...
Then at least make a smaller cheese grater.
(Personally, I pick case for function - not styling. It goes under the desk, it's not some piece of bling or status symbol that I need to place on top. Dark colors are good - they make the case less prominent.
I like how the Dell systems still have the 3.5" floppy drive slot - and you can put a n-in-one media card reader in it. Very handy.)
I'm with you regarding Functionality over Design. Considering Apple's strength in design, I don't think it is difficult for them to come up with an excellent looking case and the i7 processor inside. They are just unwilling to produce a desktop computer that fits between iMac and Mac Pro
PS: It wasn't that long ago that Apple's presentations always insisted on power and using better chips and being faster than the competition. All the talk about Velocity Engine, faster Photoshop performance and such. It's sad to see them letting go of that mentality and insisting on thinness!
Really? On which model Dell? Dell has many models at different price points, you know.
My office Dell Precision 490 workstation (dual socket 8 core Xeon, 16 GiB) has a great case. Quiet, solid, easy to open and work on. Superb attention to cable management and airflow. And it's 3/4 the size of a Mac Pro with the same CPUs/memory capacity.
Our single socket office systems are good. Nice and quiet, not as well built as the workstation, but high quality components and adequate layout. Dell gives us a 4 year warranty - they're going to work to make sure that we don't make many claims on these systems.
We don't buy the $400 deals, so I don't know how cheaply made those are. But, since we're comparing it to a $3000 Apple - we don't need to.
I really don't want Dell wasting money making the inside of my computer case into a work of art. Make sure the cables are secured, and the airflow is controlled, and if I need to upgrade it's a simple, toolless procedure. But please, I'm not a teenager who needs to open my computer case up and "willy wave" how nice it looks on the inside.
--
I had a friend once who was in the audio industry. (Very high end automotive installations - the kind where they put in an extra battery so the stereo wouldn't keep the car from starting. On his personal "demo car", they had to add a second alternator - around town in winter the factory alternator could not support both the car and the stereo.)
When I was shopping for a nice home system, he gave me this advice: "If the salesman pulls the speaker grille off to show you the drivers - find a polite excuse to walk away. You're only interested in the sound, and if the salesman tries to distract you with the insides - he's hiding something."
Don't spend $2000 more for a computer that's only advantage is that it's prettier when the cover is off. Oh wait - you have to spend $2000 more, Apple doesn't offer a quad core mini-tower!
Haha. They are making progress in the Hackintosh community with the Studio XPS.
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=151117&mode=threaded
OS X can now see all 8 (4 real, 4 virtual) cores.
Now, I'm really excited about it shipping. I can just imagine how fast EyeTV is going to convert my TV recordings to an Apple TV compatible format. No more waiting hours and hours for my Core 2 Duo MacBook to do it.
Unless, Windows 7's Media Center gets me first.
Hi people,
I have a cliënt who wants me to make some animations for his LCD screens in his supermarket. He can't pay me because i'm not registered as a freelancer or owner of my own company, so he want to pay me in hardware.
I told him I would really love a Mac Pro, and he agreed. But now I've been searching the web, I realize that maybe i (or he for that matter) should wait before buying the current Mac Pro?
What I would like to know, is what the most probable release date will be (I'm reading things about March 29th, but also June 2009 etc.) and what the difference in price will probably be in comparision to the current available Mac Pro.
If you guys could answer me this, I would be very gratefull
I have a cliënt who wants me to make some animations for his LCD screens in his supermarket. He can't pay me because i'm not registered as a freelancer or owner of my own company, so he want to pay me in hardware.
I told him I would really love a Mac Pro, and he agreed. But now I've been searching the web, I realize that maybe i (or he for that matter) should wait before buying the current Mac Pro?
What I would like to know, is what the most probable release date will be (I'm reading things about March 29th, but also June 2009 etc.) and what the difference in price will probably be in comparision to the current available Mac Pro.
If you guys could answer me this, I would be very gratefull
Apple doesn't make any $1500 desktops except the iMac (which you reject).
Porsche also doesn't make any $25,000 sports cars.
Same solution applies to both: do without, buy a competitor's product, or compromise by changing your constraints & try again.
IMO, that price point was an anomonly, particularly since there's been a long history of the bottom model of the PowerMac often being lobotimized for those who are willing to pay for simple expandability without power (including sometimes even using a different motherboard, such as on the G5/1.6GHz). Thus, the sweet spot for best product value has generally been the "one up from the bottom" model, which if you look at recent Apple history, one finds their release price history to be:
1997: G3/266: $2399 (Gossamer)
1999: G3/350: $1999 (B&W)
1999: G4/400: $2499 (Sawtooth, not Yikes)
2000: G4/450: $2499 (Gigabit)
2002: G4/933: $2299 (MDD)
2003: G4/1.25: $1999 (Firewire800)
2003: G5/1.8S: $2399
2005: G5/2.3D: $2499
2008: Xe/2.8D: $2799
Add $1 to each of them to get rid of the marketing "99s" and we find that all of these price points are $2K or higher.
Similarly, if we find the statistical median, it is $2400 ($2399), and that all of these prices are within 20% of that value...including today's.
And this is despite the fact that we're spanning a period of a decade, which as per westegg.com, we have experienced 29% worth of inflation over that period. This means that the 1997 G3/266 that originally was $2399 would in today's dollars now cost over $3088. Amd since the current Mac Pro is $2799, this means that on a constant dollar basis, its roughly 10% cheaper.
Of course, there's anomolies that can be argued as exceptions. The 'best value' here is arguably the last G4, but if we recall that historical period, this product was a stopgap speedbump of trailing technology that occurred while we were waiting for the G5 to finally ship. The G3 "Yikes!" is a similar example, and was even reflected in its codename.
Same here. However, it is a trade-off of the lesser of two evils: I don't want to go suffer through Vista, so I'm going to stay with Apple...and to maximize value, simply wait for the product line refresh. From there, I can either buy the best-and-newest at top dollar, or I can buy the discontinued prior model at a discount. I've used both approaches at different times (I wasn't about to pay $6,800 for a IIci back in 1990, so I bought a discontinued IIcx instead for a "mere" $5K).
Sure, but as the Rolling Stones said:
"You can't always get what you want..."
I'm still waiting for my personal jetpack, and a flying car that folds up into a briefcase.
And on a more realistic basis, would really like it if the full frame dSLR housed underwater camera system that I want would be <$3K (its actual cost will be around $9K).
-hh
It's easier to log onto a non-Apple site and complain ad nauseam instead of simply buying a different product that suits their needs.
It's quite simple: vote with your wallet. Don't like Apple's offerings? Buy a Windows PC. Like OSX better? Deal with Jobs' way of things. I like OSX, so I generally choose the latter.
However Windows 7 is so good, that if Apple pissed me off enough, I'd switch back.
Companies are in business to make money, including Apple. To make money, they have to please enough of the user base for them to buy their products. If that changes, they'll have to change their products, or die.
The last three PowerMac/Mac Pro updates have had a price increase, and Gainestown CPUs and Tylersburg DP motherboards are a bit more expensive than their predecessors. I wouldn't put it past them, then again with the commonality with bloomsfield and Tylersburg SP, I wouldn't discount the possibility of a more affordable single quad version to compensate for the increase of the dual quad systems.
The problem with that is Switching to Vista would be a hassle. I have to convert a lot of my files to windows equivalents and a lot of my iLife files will simply being abandoned. Also, by the time I got done buying windows version of my software I'm spending more than I would have with a Mac Pro. Switching from an Apple product is not like switching from Dell to HP. In fact, its a lot easier to switch from Windows to OSX than the other way around. A lot of the reasons Apple can get by with what they do is because they understand this. They know that they have you effectively trapped.
It may be a hassle worth avoiding, but you're hardly 'trapped'...either direction.
iTunes runs on both platforms, so there aren't any particularly huge problems transferring platforms here that I can see, particularly if you bother to strip DRM.
iPhoto might appear to be a problem, but it has a file 'export' feature which allows you to dump everything into an ordinary directory, which you can then transfer to another machine and use other applications. I'm currently using this feature to move groups out of iPhoto and into (multi-platform) Adobe Lightroom.
GarageBand - sorry, can't speak to this one, since I don't use it at all.
iMovie/iDVD: it only makes sense to finish your current projects and burn them to DVD, then start your next project on the Windows PC. I don't see why the raw video files can't be simply copied over, or at worst, re-imported.
iWeb - yes, there will be some 'lost' work here in that existing pages won't be able to be maintained anymore. However, having worked with iWeb for a year now, I'm starting to look around for another tool to use with which to replace it. AFAIC, iWeb is a resource pig and it frustratingly can't do a couple of what should be "simple" things that I want it to, because it doesn't really follow true hypertext media cross-relational concepts, but it instead imposes a higherarchical approach. Example upon request.
MS-Office: available on both platforms and the "Home & Student" license is often cheaper on the Windows side. Files are 99% transferable.
Adobe: available and files are effectively 100% transferable.
So what's going to have to be abandoned?
-hh
As you said, not a problem. Just copying the folder and rescanning the directory. 5 minutes.
It's actually easier than that. Right-clicking on the iPhoto DB allows you to show contents. Copy the originals, then import into Picasa 3, which is a fantastic photo organizational tool.
Right-click, Show Package Contents. Standard aif files that can be imported into nearly any Windows audio app I've ever used.
Good advice, though something like Adobe Premiere Elements and Sony Vegas Studio (the latter of which I've used extensively) can import .mov files easily without degrading them.
I agree, that's a problem. Though I'm in the same boat, and currently I'm using Kompozer, which is cross platform WYSIWYG.
Correct on both counts.
Good question!
I certainly wouldn't be buying a Vista machine either; I'd buy an XP Pro machine now, and then the cheap upgrade to 7 when it's released. Vista is dead. It's the Millenium Edition of the present.
I'd buy Vista and put the Windows 7 beta on it now.
And you'd probably be surprised if you did run Vista on a new machine. With SP1 and adequate hardware - it does not deserve to be compared with ME.
When my friends would tell me that I paid too much for my Mac Pro, and this is up until only 6 months ago, give or take, I would send them a link to Dell's site with a Dual XEON workstation configured to be as close to the Mac Pro as possible. Most were actually slightly short on higher end media features, but invariably, it would cost more to custom build a machine from dell that could match the performance of a machine that I had bought from apple two years prior.
Really? On which model Dell? Dell has many models at different price points, you know.
My office Dell Precision 490 workstation (dual socket 8 core Xeon, 16 GiB) has a great case. Quiet, solid, easy to open and work on. Superb attention to cable management and airflow. And it's 3/4 the size of a Mac Pro with the same CPUs/memory capacity.
![precn_t5400_shots.jpg]()
Our single socket office systems are good. Nice and quiet, not as well built as the workstation, but high quality components and adequate layout. Dell gives us a 4 year warranty - they're going to work to make sure that we don't make many claims on these systems.
We don't buy the $400 deals, so I don't know how cheaply made those are. But, since we're comparing it to a $3000 Apple - we don't need to.
I really don't want Dell wasting money making the inside of my computer case into a work of art. Make sure the cables are secured, and the airflow is controlled, and if I need to upgrade it's a simple, toolless procedure. But please, I'm not a teenager who needs to open my computer case up and "willy wave" how nice it looks on the inside.
--
I had a friend once who was in the audio industry. (Very high end automotive installations - the kind where they put in an extra battery so the stereo wouldn't keep the car from starting. On his personal "demo car", they had to add a second alternator - around town in winter the factory alternator could not support both the car and the stereo.)
When I was shopping for a nice home system, he gave me this advice: "If the salesman pulls the speaker grille off to show you the drivers - find a polite excuse to walk away. You're only interested in the sound, and if the salesman tries to distract you with the insides - he's hiding something."
Don't spend $2000 more for a computer that's only advantage is that it's prettier when the cover is off. Oh wait - you have to spend $2000 more, Apple doesn't offer a quad core mini-tower!
What Dell server are you buying that's only a grand, because I guarantee you it's not faster than even the original Mac Pro. I literally went to dell seconds ago and if I drop two processors that are admittedly slightly faster into a dell workstation with no operating system it comes to 3147$, which is about 50$ less than I paid for my 4x3.0GHz. . . In 2006.
No, I wouldn't be surprised because we've tested Vista quite a bit on multiple machines. I'd definitely will be waiting for Vista SP3, er I mean Windows7, which is what Vista should have been in the first place.
Where do I say anything about "server" and "grand" in the post that you quoted?
WTF are you talking about?
The obvious comeback here is that "Snow Leopard will be what Leopard should have been in the first place."
But that would be a cheap shot - I won't do it.
Im not sure about that. I thing its going to be between the same price or slightly expensive. But the thing is that the High End Xeons are really expensive. So... That could change
IMO the recommended system is going to be between 2700 and 3100 dollars with the minimum options -average ram, average video card-
FYI, this point has already been raised.
The summary of that discussion is that we're not allowed to criticize Dell for their price of their 'equal hardware to the Mac Pro' workstation despite the fact that it costs more than the Mac Pro.
And apparently, the reason why we're not allowed to criticize Dell is because they're already selling a PC with the new i7 CPU.
Even though Dell has not cut the price on their dual Xeon workstations.
-hh
The point is simply that DP Xeons are much more expensive than desktop Core chips. Ancillary chips for DP systems (5000X, FB-DIMM) are also more expensive.
We've been saying that the Mac Pro (and the Dell Precision) are expensive, not that they are over-priced. Big difference.
__________
Dell offers single-socket systems using desktop parts, including Core 2 Quad and Core i7.
Apple uses more expensive mobile parts in their single-"socket" systems, and no quads.
That is why Dell can offer systems which match the performance of the Mac Pro (and Dell Precision) in some cases, and beat the price of the Imac.
Dell doesn't have a huge gaping hole in their model line - they don't jump from laptop-based systems to dual-socket workstations.
__________
I don't know why you want to argue that a Dell Xeon workstation price is wrong, that's just a distraction that doesn't follow from the arguments that have been made.
Once Dell Precision has Nehalem Xeons, the current situation where the desktop system can match the workstation will end - the much more expensive system will be more powerful than the desktop.
Once the Mac Pro has Nehalem Xeons, the huge gaping hole in the product line will get even larger. (if the consensus view that the Nehalem Xeons will be more expensive is true)
I've been over this many times.
Apple uses consistent margins. That's why the consumer products are higher priced and the Mac Pro is cheaper. Dell might use use a 20% margin on consumer products and a 40% margin on servers and workstations. If you're making 30% or so on the high volume consumer machines, you're going to make a lot more money. In essence, Apple makes their money on the low end, Dell makes their money on the high end. Apple has both trendy image and a quazi-religious following so they're Apple to command the high volume. They used to also have the respect & loyalty of the prosumer until they started grouping them with either the low end consumer or the super high end professional. If anything, not alienating what used to be their base would result in even more profit and might even bring in a few switcher prosumers. Absolute black and white thinking is the weakness of the strategy, not the lynchpin.
Yes, it's a great deal for what it is, but even with the Pros, most do not want or need a xeon workstation. If you need a desktop and have to spend almost an extra grand beyond what you paid on you're last PowerMac, its not such a good deal. When your computer and operating system company forces the hardware to basically, two extreme, it's very difficult to make direct comparisons. A lot of the time you're caught in no man's land have to make relative comparisons because the machine that you need does not exist on this platform anymore.
There is life below the super high professional end of the spectrum and above the low to middle end typical consumer level. In fact, for most applications, 6 of those 8-cores are going to be doing nothing at all.
Nobody is saying that the MacPro isn't a great deal for a workstation. Workstations are inherently expensive. What they're saying is that it isn't a very good deal for someone who needs a desktop, something that does not exist with on Mac OS X currently.