eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS on my Pro, 3dMark 9800+

[macsimus prime]

Not true. Even on the PC side, people who have Xeon Workstation machines (such as HP workstations) rarely play games. Workstation motherboards usually have slow PCIe slots and slower RAM, compared to "consumer" Core 2 Duo lines.

I think gamers care primarily about 2 things...the performance (tweakable performance) and the price to get it. Not reliability, not server-style functionality. And though workstations have more reliability and less performance in one area, such as lower latency RAM, they compensate in others like FSB speed and on-die cache (a'la Zeon). Add big video pipelines, drop the price and make your guts swappable, and you've added "gamer" to your worstation vocab. Check out the results gamers are having at sites like http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ultimate_workstation_ultimate_gaming_pc/page16.asp . Or compare an Asus "worstation" board to a "gamer" board. Nowadays workstation hardware performs comparably to gamer, but the extra reliability costs more.

I prove it to myself when I compare a weaker card in my Pro vs a high end card in my PC and the Pro smokes it. The Pro is no simple workstation...it's a gamer rig in stealth mode, slowly converting everyone to Apple. I hope Apple stays on this line for a while.

 

[Pressure]

Not true. Even on the PC side, people who have Xeon Workstation machines (such as HP workstations) rarely play games. Workstation motherboards usually have slow PCIe slots and slower RAM, compared to "consumer" Core 2 Duo lines.

I don't know but this seems like a huge generalization.

I know plenty of people who have build a gaming rig around a server platform, and I see many home users using their Mac Pro machines as working machines, as well as gaming rigs. Why not bring the two together, meaning you save space and money.

Surely it will cost you a few percentages of performance gaming on a workstation compared to a dedicated gaming box.

 

[contoursvt]

Sounds like you're implying that people who need to do serious work dont like to play which is not true. I know quite a few people who have hefty gear they built for work but have tossed in a better card to play games.

My last box was a dual 3Ghz xeon box with SCSI drives and back then PCI-E was not as popular so I went with an X800XT for video. Let me tell you when Ihad free time, I played plenty on there

Not true. Even on the PC side, people who have Xeon Workstation machines (such as HP workstations) rarely play games. Workstation motherboards usually have slow PCIe slots and slower RAM, compared to "consumer" Core 2 Duo lines.

 

[SDAVE]

I don't know but this seems like a huge generalization.

I know plenty of people who have build a gaming rig around a server platform, and I see many home users using their Mac Pro machines as working machines, as well as gaming rigs. Why not bring the two together, meaning you save space and money.

Surely it will cost you a few percentages of performance gaming on a workstation compared to a dedicated gaming box.

There are other priorities with Server class computers, such as Error Correction on memory, more integrated onboard components, etc.

If you game on a Mac Pro or an HP Workstation, then good for you...but do not expect companies to cater gamers with workstation class computers. By all means, you're welcome to build a gaming rig, either way you're going to be using Windows.

Sounds like you're implying that people who need to do serious work dont like to play which is not true. I know quite a few people who have hefty gear they built for work but have tossed in a better card to play games.

My last box was a dual 3Ghz xeon box with SCSI drives and back then PCI-E was not as popular so I went with an X800XT for video. Let me tell you when Ihad free time, I played plenty on there

I love games too, although haven't had the time to play it for a few years. Just read my paragraph above, what I was saying is that people keep comparing the Xeon line with the Core 2 Duo line. Totally different beasts, althought they might share the "core" architecture, they are for different purposes.

Now comparing the iMac with lets say a Sony Vaio would be a good comparison...but even then you can't compare these 2 because the iMac is an "all-in-one" and there is no room for faster graphic cards.

Unfortunately Apple does not have a "midrange" desktop...rather people look at the Mac Pro because it is a desktop machine. But it is in the "workstation" class.

 

[contoursvt]

Ah I see. Yes I agree that its a different class and they are targeting it as such but they really do need to update their lineup of graphics cards. Even for 3D work in maya or other similar apps, chances are the X1900 will not be as fast as say an 8800 series card. Now true they have a quadro but its such a huge jump in price and that quadrom is a few generations old so for that much money, one is getting older components. Just seems a bit unfair to the users.

I'd assume it shoudl just be a matter of modified firmware to allow for a new card to work in OSX. I bet apple could if they wanted to take an 8800GTX and easily make it work in OSX - well thats how I feel so maybe that why I feel its not fair that they dont offer such a card (or the ATI 2900 series).

Also my new box is a quad core (q6600) and I am really amazed at the performance for the money. Its just such a fantstic cpu. If apple released a 3/4 size mac pro based on the Q6600 or similar chip for say 1/2 the price or 60% of the price, I bet so many would jump on it without a second thought.

...I love games too, although haven't had the time to play it for a few years. Just read my paragraph above, what I was saying is that people keep comparing the Xeon line with the Core 2 Duo line. Totally different beasts, althought they might share the "core" architecture, they are for different purposes.

Now comparing the iMac with lets say a Sony Vaio would be a good comparison...but even then you can't compare these 2 because the iMac is an "all-in-one" and there is no room for faster graphic cards.

Unfortunately Apple does not have a "midrange" desktop...rather people look at the Mac Pro because it is a desktop machine. But it is in the "workstation" class.

 

[SDAVE]

If apple released a 3/4 size mac pro based on the Q6600 or similar chip for say 1/2 the price or 60% of the price, I bet so many would jump on it without a second thought.

But then Apple wouldn't make money now would it?

Apple has a simple line up.

macMini: Low Range
iMac: Midrange
Mac Pro: Professional

If they added a new class below the Mac Pro, they'd probably have people buy them more than they buy the low range Mac Pro's. It's smart business, if you ask me....but like I said before, try to have a spec for spec top of the line Mac Pro compared to a workstation class HP XW series with Intel chips (that is if they carry the 5365), and you will see that they are very similar in price...this is one of the reaons I went the Mac Pro route, I was too lazy to build a machine myself, plus I needed OSX as well as the Mac ergonomics.

Most non informed Mac people don't know that a Q6600 will be beat a low end Quad Core Mac Pro...

 

[contoursvt]

Ya I was actually very surprised to see that in quite a few scenarios, my quad 2.4Ghz was very close in speed to the dual dualcore 2.66. A tick faster in some things and a bit slower in others but close enough that I'd say almost even.

Now I did spend a bit more on my board because I had SCSI drives and controller to carry over so I got an asus workstation board with PCI-X for my SCSI controller. I needs me my 15K drives

 

[Sesshi]

I think gamers care primarily about 2 things...the performance (tweakable performance) and the price to get it. Not reliability, not server-style functionality. And though workstations have more reliability and less performance in one area, such as lower latency RAM, they compensate in others like FSB speed and on-die cache (a'la Zeon). Add big video pipelines, drop the price and make your guts swappable, and you've added "gamer" to your worstation vocab. Check out the results gamers are having at sites like http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ultimate_workstation_ultimate_gaming_pc/page16.asp . Or compare an Asus "worstation" board to a "gamer" board. Nowadays workstation hardware performs comparably to gamer, but the extra reliability costs more.

I prove it to myself when I compare a weaker card in my Pro vs a high end card in my PC and the Pro smokes it. The Pro is no simple workstation...it's a gamer rig in stealth mode, slowly converting everyone to Apple. I hope Apple stays on this line for a while.

Let's inject some realism here.

You've smoked a low-cost CPU which lags behind the Core 2 Duo and Xeon. In fact, the 4200's performance is generally exceeded by the lowest-end previous-generation Core CPU that is clocked roughly 400mhz less.

XP vs Vista.
No PCI slots (sound, physics, etc).
No SLI support.
Kludge power.
The Xeon vs C2D argument for general purpose use.

Congrats on your efforts to heave a decent general purpose GPU onto the Pro, but exactly how is it a 'stealth gamer station'?

Is the Dell Precision 690 (a dual-5160 5000X based PC) a 'stealth gamer station' given it's added support for PCI and better potential for tapping power in comparison to the Pro? Not really, when you compare it to a ''real'' gaming / general purpose entertainment PC.

Yes, you can turn both a Precision and Pro to these tasks but it does not mean that it is some sort of magical amazing solution. I appreciate how everything seems to be better on a Mac to many - the somewhat average sound subsystem on the Macbook Pro which is present on many other average notebooks suddenly becomes a high fidelity device when it turns up on an Apple for example - but it's not always the case in reality.

As for the 'stealth rig' moniker, It just happens to be your only choice on Apple - and far from an optimum one - if you do want to turn to higher-end general entertainment.