Mac Pro Reviews and Video

[kosmo]

I expect more and more reviews to hit the wires over the next few weeks.

Thanks, Captain Obvious!

 

[piltupso]

Anybody who got their Mac Pro had any problems? I ordered mine a few days ago and can't wait to get it. I am expecting to love it but am a little apprehensive as I don't usually buy anything from cars to computers in the early production runs.

 

[Multimedia]

AnandTech Benchmarks Review Skips Quad G5 Comparison

Wow. I just studied the new AnandTech Mac Pro Review Part Two that came out yesterday. What a disappointment. They compare the Mac Pro to only two OLD 2004 single core Dual 2 and 2.5GHz PowerMacs. What a BUMMER. I can't believe they didn't have a Quad G5 to compare with.

I really want to see a set of benchmarks bewteen the 2GHz Mac Pro and the Quad G5. Please let us know if you find one. Thanks.

 

[MacsAttack]

Anybody who got their Mac Pro had any problems? I ordered mine a few days ago and can't wait to get it. I am expecting to love it but am a little apprehensive as I don't usually buy anything from cars to computers in the early production runs.

I'm about to order one. Only issues I have seen so far are...

1. One DoA unit.
2. One instance of the stock video card overheating - it has passive cooling and I am guessing this is an instance where the heat sink was not mounted correctly.
3. One instance of drive bay 3 not working (same unit had a follow on failire of bay 2). - Update - Stock drive works fine in all bays, but the user is trying to add some WD drives and there are problems getting them to work all the time.
4. Scattered reports of new machines not starting until the memory card risers are re-seated. The one DoA report mentioned this as a fix to try before giving in to dispair as the same thing happened to a review unit and apparently that fixed it.
5. There is no 5.
6. Parallels not yet working yet (there is a stop-gap fix that some have got working).
7. Bootcamp disk controller drivers are not too good. Drive performace is not too good in XP.
8. A report that using third party memory pulls memory speed down to 533 MHz. Perhaps they got a bad stick of memory. Perhaps Apple memory has those big heat sinks for a reason?
8. Non-Apple video cards don't work in OSX. Not exactly a surprise that one.

Asside from the Bootcamp and Parallels issues I have not seen any general problems surface yet - which is very encouraging. Check out the Apple support discussion boards. They are always a good place to get an idea of the hot issues.

Anyone got any more before I pull the trigger here?

 

[kirah]

Know folks who will pro mod Mac Pro Tower cases???

Hey how'd you know this was what I was looking for! hehe actually YES. I need to find a place that can mod a Mac Pro Tower case to:

(a) mod a case to be as small as physically possible to take it on the road. We had a company mod out a G5 for this purpose and it works great, now we want to do it to a Mac Pro Tower but the other company isn't in business anymore.

(b) mod a tower case to fit into a 21 or 30in depth rack mount slot, hopefully not more BUs than required to save on rack space.

Sooooo anyone know a legitimate company that mods Mac towers? I'm on the West coast of the US, in CA so a local company would be sweet but not a requirement.

kira

I found it interesting that no review has mentioned anything about the size of the case. Another generation that's not rack mountable? Oooh the inside is so spacious!!! Who cares. Cut us pro users an inch so we can get that 20.1" hunk of burnin' love into our industry standard 19" racks. Some of us travel with these beasts and custom cases leave out the flexibility we need.

 

[piltupso]

I'm about to order one. Only issues I have seen so far are...

1. One DoA unit.
2. One instance of the stock video card overheating - it has passive cooling and I am guessing this is an instance where the heat sink was not mounted correctly.
3. One instance of drive bay 3 not working (same unit had a follow on failire of bay 2). - Update - Stock drive works fine in all bays, but the user is trying to add some WD drives and there are problems getting them to work all the time.
4. Scattered reports of new machines not starting until the memory card risers are re-seated. The one DoA report mentioned this as a fix to try before giving in to dispair as the same thing happened to a review unit and apparently that fixed it.
5. There is no 5.
6. Parallels not yet working yet (there is a stop-gap fix that some have got working).
7. Bootcamp disk controller drivers are not too good. Drive performace is not too good in XP.
8. A report that using third party memory pulls memory speed down to 533 MHz. Perhaps they got a bad stick of memory. Perhaps Apple memory has those big heat sinks for a reason?
8. Non-Apple video cards don't work in OSX. Not exactly a surprise that one.

Asside from the Bootcamp and Parallels issues I have not seen any general problems surface yet - which is very encouraging. Check out the Apple support discussion boards. They are always a good place to get an idea of the hot issues.

Anyone got any more before I pull the trigger here?

Well mine is not here yet, it has to make it all the way to Alaska. Hope its not DOA as a return would take forever. My unit is pretty much stock so not too many issues on your list to worry about (crosses fingers). Thanks for the heads up on reseating the memory risers. I should get it in the next few days depending on weather. Its painful watching it slowly creep up the coast on the package tracking, but that is life in the bush.