Apple Introduces New Mac Pro with Nehalem Xeon Processors

[iMacmatician]

Originally Posted by polaris20

Nevermind the fact that a single quad core i7 floors an 8-core Xeon system of the previous generation.

Benchmarks please. And I want a wide range of them.

I saw a pretty wide-ranging table of Core i7 vs. Core 2 some time ago, can somebody pull it up?

[GodWhomIsMike]

btw... does the new Mac Pro also consume 12 amps of power under load?

[Umbongo]

Originally Posted by lftrghtparadigm

Really? Apple has a secret black market you can buy from? Unless that's what you mean, then no you cannot get the SAME hardware for a $1000 less.

What you mean is that you can get something similar that does not run OS 10.5, nor will it run 10.6. in a few months.

If thats what you're interested in, then go for it.

Yes of course that is what I meant. Apple have had good value Pro hardware for years and today there really is an Apple tax and it is big. Understandably people are frustrated and annoyed.

[dagomike]

Originally Posted by mutantteenager

These new machines are a rip off considering we are in recession.

Well, time is money. Faster computers = less staff time = less staff = less overhead. I have a 2007 octo I'm looking to both upgrade and add a second workstation/cluster.

Spending like 7-G's will be a tough sell, but getting an assistant is a certain non-starter.

[LERsince1991]

Why have the prices gone up so much for the baseline.
I was considering a base mac pro before the update for £1200 (downgraded the processor) but now the minimum is like £1900...

Also the mac mini price has gone up... Ahhh

[lftrghtparadigm]

This thread needs to be re-titled: i want the fastest Mac in existence, but I refuse to pay for it. Post here:

To clarify for people who are not understanding all of this weird hate today, The Mac Pro has never been a good buy for the money. Ever.

Its always been a ridiculously overpriced machine for what is included, and adding features to it takes it to a new level of absurdity.

So, today's hate is about the following: Mac geeks were desperately hoping to buy their first Mac Pro in the wake of financial crisis (insane decision), because they expected the "best Mac Pro ever" to suddenly stop being a rip off, priced-inflated product.

Well that didn't happen, as it was never intended to.

[gibbz]

Originally Posted by KindredMAC

These prices in the Mac Pro line are absolute jokes for what you get and don't even get me started on the mini display port on the graphics cards. YOU HAVE TO BUY A SECOND CARD TO RUN TWO APPLE LCD PANELS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Originally Posted by wheezy

Do some research before you spit off on posts. And by research I mean just go to Apple.com. You can buy a Mini-Display Port to DVI adapter, you still only need one card to run 2 DVI enabled monitors.

I think he might have meant you needed two cards to run two Apple 24" monitors which require mini DisplayPort.

[rajalot]

Originally Posted by lftrghtparadigm

Fixed, man. Fascinating doesn't cut it. People are absolutely despicable, and the people that use this forum are among the worst of the worst.

I woke up today to find a plethora of new products from Apple, all of which are products that "users" have "demanded" that Apple update. All of the updates are in line with "demands", yet a quick view of the postive/negative reviews shows the true color of people who troll this site. Its absolutely, HORRIBLY, pathetic. Frightening, even.

It's the damn international prices and integrated GPU's. Cost rift between PC's and Mac's are ourageous.

[lftrghtparadigm]

Originally Posted by Umbongo

Yes of course that is what I meant. Apple have had good value Pro hardware for years and today there really is an Apple tax and it is big. Understandably people are frustrated and annoyed.

More accurately, as I just said, the Mac Pro is, and always has been (3 years), a ridiculously over priced joke. No one actually buys them if they care about their computer spending finances. No one.

Today is just more of the same, albeit with current technology.

Meanwhile, every other product is a steal for they offer.

The $1199 iMac is incredible value.

The $599 Mini is the most powerful Mac in the world that retails for less than a $1000 dollars.

The $1299 MacBook is the best value laptop money can buy.
---

The Pro lines suffer from being only slightly better, but more than slightly more expensive. Too damn bad. Buy what you can afford, not what you want.

[andy721]

Originally Posted by KindredMAC

screw ramjet.... they are most of the time the most expensive of all third parties....

Macsales.com is the place to go.

ok geez I can never give advice out anymore. I wish I owned a nuke so I can blow this ****** earth apart. I'll use Macsales.com for now on you win ****.

[Umbongo]

Originally Posted by lftrghtparadigm

This thread needs to be re-titled: i want the fastest Mac in existence, but I refuse to pay for it. Post here:

To clarify for people who are not understanding all of this weird hate today, The Mac Pro has never been a good buy for the money. Ever.

Its always been a ridiculously overpriced machine for what is included, and adding features to it takes it to a new level of absurdity.

So, today's hate is about the following: Mac geeks were desperately hoping to buy their first Mac Pro in the wake of financial crisis (insane decision), because they expected the "best Mac Pro ever" to suddenly stop being a rip off, priced-inflated product.

Well that didn't happen, as it was never intended to.

You are wrong. The Mac Pro has always been GOOD value for what you got. The issues people had with it arose from the lack of options and the gap between it and the iMac not being filled by a cheaper single socket quad core option. In addition to lack of graphics card updates during it's lifecycle.

When the 2006 and 2008 Mac Pros came out you couldn't build a system from retail parts for less. Dell and HP were charging $4,500 for similar systems. But now that has changed and a system that would cost less than $1,500 from other sources is going to cost you $2,499 from Apple. The 2008 Mac Pro used two $800 processors and a systemboard with features that would run you $500 elsewhere. The $2,499 Mac Pro comes with a $300 processor and $300 board.

[Gonk42]

Originally Posted by polaris20

Nevermind the fact that a single quad core i7 floors an 8-core Xeon system of the previous generation.

Whether that is true or not is debatable (it depends on the number of applications you want to run and which ones), but in the last generation Apple made a big thing of being 8 core across the board giving the impression that this was the way of the future. Now they've quietly dropped the idea.

Personally I want 8 cores to run multiple copies of the same application on different data sets so 8 cores is important (not just 8 logical threads). Not only have the prices risen sharply but the design seems cobbled together - 8 ram slots when the memory is 3 lane, 6 or 9 slots would make a lot more sense it doesn't inspire confidence in a well thought out design. Either Apple are giving up on the workstation market or else there will be a less rushed, proper design coming out later in the year.

[drsmithy]

Originally Posted by JimAtLaw

Interesting - if anyone can confirm this I'd love to hear it. This sounds effectively like a quad-channel mode, with the channels divided up by processor. (If you could set up Parallels to run Windows on physical one CPU with 4GB RAM on one completely separate channel, and OS X on the other CPU with 12GB RAM on tri-channel, that would be ideal.)

If that's the case, it seems like you could also perhaps run two dual-channels per CPU - but the way this sounds, it's like you're not sharing the same pipeline/channel between CPUs, rather getting two separate memory buses for the two CPUs. Is that right?

If you have 3 DIMMs or 6 DIMMs, you get tri-channel (ca. 19GB/sec).
If you have 2 DIMMs, 4 DIMMs, or 8 DIMMs, you get dual-channel (ca. 13GB/sec).

The performance difference between tri-channel, and dual-channel, outside of some corner-case benchmarks, is insignificant.

[lftrghtparadigm]

Originally Posted by rajalot

It's the damn international prices and integrated GPU's. Cost rift between PC's and Mac's are ourageous.

Who.........cares? If you can't afford one, you don't buy one. Its simplest economic concept in history.

Yet people have this ridiculous idea that they SHOULD be able to buy THE computer they want, when they want one. LOL, hilarious.

Its called spending within your means. Most peoples means don't enable the purchase of a new MacBook Pro every year. And people blame APPLE for that.

Hil....arious

[Gilfanon]

I'll more than likely buy one of the new Nehalem-based Pros, but my rationale is not based on brute power now, but on future-proofing. I'm no expert on Intel's development roadmap, but my understanding is that Nehalem is a fundamental architecture change, which suggests that we're unlikely to see a further step jump like this for some years. Snow Leopard will bring in better multi-core support, and developers will start to optimise software for multiple cores over the next few years.

As far as I can see it, buying a Nehalem system might be paying a premium, but may keep pace with software development a year or so longer than a current Harpertown-based system, so in the long run represents more bang for buck. I'm happy to have this assertion disproved by someone, but my philosophy is generally spend up front to maximise long-term benefit.

The graphics card option is woeful however- putting a £60 graphics card in a £2500 machine is like putting plastic bucket seats in a Ferrari- I'll be holding off on my purchase until the 4870 option is in place.

[giowillis]

I understand that benchmarks of the new processors are better than previous mac pro architecture .But my doubt is , is it worth? In times of economical recession prices of high tech should drop .If you want to buy a high end Mac Pro you now have to spend much more .The problem may be that Nehalem Xeon Processors are very new and overpriced at the moment. Apple should have waited a longer time before upgrading the Mac Pro line if these were the premises. Another disappointing feature is the lack of Blu Ray drive . I hope Apple will reconsider these factors .For now I decide not to buy a new Mac Pro

[Mal]

The Mac Pro has actually been somewhat underpriced compared to any machine with the same or similar specs. It merely doesn't fit some very vocal people's demands.

Pros who need workstation power have loved the Mac Pro since it came out and still do.

jW

[iMacmatician]

I don't understand how this:

Originally Posted by Gonk42

Whether that is true or not is debatable (it depends on the number of applications you want to run and which ones),

turned into "Nehalem ≥ 2x Penryn."

[BenRoethig]

Originally Posted by Grimace

I'm confused about the "integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory"

Is that why the base Mac Pro has two options for 3 Dimms (3x1GB and 3x2GB)? Wouldn't that degrade performance when four DIMMs are used?

Yes it would degrade performance, I don't think Ive's gang would change anything to give them the extra room for the extra two DIMMs. With 2 or 4 DIMMs, they run in dual channel instead of triple channel.

[sadatkarim]

Price drop?

http://store.apple.com/us_edu_43939/...family/mac_pro

Quad is now $2299. 8-core is now $2999.

[lftrghtparadigm]

Originally Posted by Umbongo

You are wrong. The Mac Pro has always been GOOD value for what you got. The issues people had with it arose from the lack of options and the gap between it and the iMac not being filled by a cheaper single socket quad core option. In addition to lack of graphics card updates during it's lifecycle.

When the 2006 and 2008 Mac Pros came out you couldn't build a system from retail parts for less. Dell and HP were charging $4,500 for similar systems. But now that has changed and a system that would cost less than $1,500 from other sources is going to cost you $2,499 from Apple. The 2008 Mac Pro used two $800 processors and a systemboard with features that would run you $500 elsewhere. The $2,499 Mac Pro comes with a $300 processor and $300 board.

Oh well. Too bad. So sad.

Buy it, or don't buy it. And life goes on.

(and no, you're wrong. it has never been a good buy. I would still be paying for a $3000 standard macpro if i bought one in 2006 and it probably would choke on snow leopard coming soon. Whereas, a new $600 mac mini will not.)

[iMacmatician]

Originally Posted by sadatkarim

Price drop?

http://store.apple.com/us_edu_43939/...family/mac_pro

Quad is now $2299. 8-core is now $2999.

Education store.

[Sehnsucht]

Yay, they didn't mess with the cheese grater!!!!

[Mal]

Originally Posted by sadatkarim

Price drop?

http://store.apple.com/us_edu_43939/...family/mac_pro

Quad is now $2299. 8-core is now $2999.

That's the education store. Of course it's cheaper, by about the same margin as before.

jW

[Umbongo]

Originally Posted by Mal

The Mac Pro has actually been somewhat underpriced compared to any machine with the same or similar specs. It merely doesn't fit some very vocal people's demands.

Pros who need workstation power have loved the Mac Pro since it came out and still do.

jW

And will continue to buy them, they will still do the job and are more powerful than previous Mac Pros. They don't offer as good value and there are features that have been sacrificed, but Apple aren't selling on specs they sell on the solution and what it can do.