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2007 Harpertown Stoakley-Seaburg Motherboard With New Graphics Cards 8-Core Mac Pro

Are You Waiting For A Stoakley-Seaburg and 2007 Graphics Cards 8-Core Mac Pro

  • No. I bought the FrankenMac

    Votes: 30 7.1%

  • Yes I Will Wait 'Til Apple Gets It Right

    Votes: 246 58.0%

  • Not sure. Waiting for benchmarks on the 4.4.07 model.

    Votes: 27 6.4%

  • I'll stick with 4 cores, thank you very much.

    Votes: 121 28.5%
  • Total voters
    424
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Ramseeker.com & Seagate Drives

-Noodles said:
Just wanted to get some advice on the new mac pro that you're talking about here. Will RAM for the higher end configurations only be available through apple during the initial release/update of the mac pro? Or will other vendors carry it? Is there a precedent that suggests what might happen?

In other words should i buy the lowest possible RAM config through apple then buy what i need (2gb sticks) somewhere else? If so are there sites any of you could suggest?

Looking at what's available on the site right now it seems they really overcharge on the RAM they currently offer.
Click to expand...
Yes you NEVER buy any more than the minimum Apple offers from them. I use Omni Technologies Optival ram via Ramseeker.com and have had no problems with any of it for many years even though it's priced lower than all the other brands. The trick is to go THROUGH Ramseeker.com to Omni with their links on the prices to get the lowest price. If you go to Omni directly it will cost a lot more.

This is the Ramseeker.com Link that takes you to the inexpensive Omni Optival 16GB Mac Pro RAM Kit for only $700 page.
darthraige said:
Sorry if this has been covered, but...

Anyone know a really good internal hard drive for the money for a MacPro? Thinking of getting two more when the new MacPro ships, one for Windows, and one for time machine. Preferably 250 gigs or lower.
Click to expand...
I prefer Seagate because they have a 5 year warranty and they are locally engineered here in Santa Cruz County California. They're my hometown team! They're also very inexpensive. 750's are now only about $180. I just bought a pair of external FW400, USB 2, ESATA Seagate 750's for only $198 each from Frys.com in anticipation of my new Time Machine setups.
 
This 500 $95 Maxtor Looks Good Too

darthraige said:
This one seems fair for the price. Anyone disagree?

NewEgg 250Gig WD - $75
Click to expand...
Someone had a bad time with Western Digital.
From that order page lower right: said:
Cons: it failed in less than a month of service. newegg would not take it back because it was just past 30 days of the invoice date. WD's cust service is USELESS. I had to file a complaint with the better business bureau and we'll see how that goes.

Other Thoughts: My friend warned me about WD. I've used their drives in the past and never had any problems, but I think, since my friend had 2 out within a week and I had this one fail, I will never buy one of their drives again.
Click to expand...
For $20 more you can double your pleasure double your fun with a Maxtor 500 and a 3 year warranty.
 
frick said:
At this rate, I'm hoping Apple will at least wait till Macworld in January... this gives us the possibility of Wolfdale CPU's in a low-end (but still extremely powerful), affordable mac pro with the possibility of running DDR2/DDR3 memory and picking up nVidia/AMD's latest. Releasing a new mac pro in November would simply ensure its obsolescence within a few months (save for the video encoding/photoshopping junkies), and drive me to build a Windows machine once again. I like OS X a lot, but I'm not very happy about paying a $1500-2000 OS X tax just to get a box that isn't built with laptop parts.
Click to expand...

I've got a better idea, I think Apple should wait until April (or so) when Intel launches Nehalem :rolleyes:

p.s. Word of caution to anyone who tries to hunt me down...I've got two huge Rottweilers. :p
 
What Will Nehalem Bring To The Party?

Topper said:
I've got a better idea, I think Apple should wait until April (or so) when Intel launches Nehalem :rolleyes:

p.s. Word of caution to anyone who tries to hunt me down...I've got two huge Rottweilers. :p
Click to expand...
I can wait 'til April for the mobile Nehalem but not for the Mac Pro. Can you tell us briefly what you think they will add positively to the mix?
 
krunk said:
Pick up a Western Digital. FYI, macs use Seagate which is a really nice brand and known for their quite operation.
Click to expand...

Seagate have moved down the pecking order for quiet drives recently, Samsung and then WD are the two top choices (in that order) for silent computing enthusiasts at the moment.

Seagate tend to have a little better performance and of course the warranty is longer, WD do have 5 years on their enterprise rated drives. Though it's more likely the drive will fail early than later on anyway I believe. If you read any discussion of hard drives there will always be someone saying that x out of y drives failed from a vendors, all vendors get covered. For a single computer, a good backup system should counter any real failure rate issues.

I think really it's best to stick with the vendor you've used in the past if you haven't had issues or go with whatever seems the best deal.

http://www.storagereview.com is a good source for performance ratings, and if noise is more important any of the larger silent computing sites can also help with a decision.
 
Multimedia said:
I can wait 'til April for the mobile Nehalem but not for the Mac Pro. Can you tell us briefly what you think they will add positively to the mix?
Click to expand...

I hope it was obvious that I was joking. I can't wait until April either.

I really don't know much about Nehalem except that it may have 8 cores on one chip.
And it's got something called "QuickPath Interconnect" which is supposed to improve memory bandwidth by three times over Harpertown.

I think that the people who currently own Mac Pros and are going to buy Nehalem Mac Pros, I think think they are going to get one heck of powerful computer.
And I think they are going to get a much, much, much better video card than we will.
I think they will be able to say back to us, "Na, na, na, na, my computer's better than yours."
 
Multimedia said:
I can wait 'til April for the mobile Nehalem but not for the Mac Pro. Can you tell us briefly what you think they will add positively to the mix?
Click to expand...

3 words: Integrated Memory Controller

Like Topper said, huge increase in memory bandwidth. Which will make video crunching in your RAM disk that much faster ;)

I'm going to pick up the next revision because I can't wait until Nehalem. But I will definitely look into selling my system when Nehalem launches. Those benchmarks should be really impressive.
 
krunk said:
Pick up a Western Digital. FYI, macs use Seagate which is a really nice brand and known for their quite operation.
Click to expand...

We've had Mac Pros in here at work with WD hard drives. All of the recent ones I've set up have WD. Most iMacs too. But yeah, Apple uses Seagate, Maxtor, WD, and sometimes even Hitachi.

Newegg is a great place to get the drive. Any SATA drive will work, but you'll want to get one with 16MB cache at least. And pay more for the ones with longer warranties. Trust me.
 
When Will Quad and Oct Nehalem Processors Ship For Late '08 Mac Pros?

bigbossbmb said:
3 words: Integrated Memory Controller

Like Topper said, huge increase in memory bandwidth. Which will make video crunching in your RAM disk that much faster ;)

I'm going to pick up the next revision because I can't wait until Nehalem. But I will definitely look into selling my system when Nehalem launches. Those benchmarks should be really impressive.
Click to expand...
That sounds great. What's the time frame for the first Nehalem Quad & perhaps Oct Xeons that will go into the mid or late '08 MP?
 
Multimedia said:
What's the time frame for the first Nehalem Quad & perhaps Oct Xeons that will go into the mid or late '08 MP?
Click to expand...

The Nehalem roadmap is very vague right now.
The only thing we know is it is coming out sometime H2/2008.

I've been trying to figure out the platform, chipset, and processors but it's too early.
 
frick said:
If Apple puts out a new mac pro in the next month or so using top-end Penryn Xeons, it'd be about the worst thing they could do (as far as I'm concerned).

Here's a few reasons:

1. The (price increase)/(performance gain) ratio for Intel's top end chips is *miserable*. As I recall, the 3.2 GHz Xeons will be going for about $1499 a pop... that's an insane amount of money to spend on a CPU. You can pick up a Q6600 on Newegg for $280 today that, when overclocked, is essentially as fast as Intel's current top-end chip, and I expect there to be a similar situation when Intel's desktop Penryns are released. If Apple were to put a Wolfdale chip in a mac pro (the desktop line of Penryn), they could create a high-performance, low-cost mac pro that would lower the barrier of entry for those of us who don't want to spend an extra $1000 on CPU power we'll never use.

2. It is probably still going to use FB-DIMM's. FB-DIMM is a dead technology, and will only be around for as long at this next iteration of the mac pro in all likelihood.

3. Video cards: the market has been stagnant for almost a year, and if Apple just now all of a sudden realizes the mac pro's video cards are crap and pops an 8800GTX in, it will still be completely outdated come January/February when nVidia/AMD(ATI) release their new boards.

At this rate, I'm hoping Apple will at least wait till Macworld in January... this gives us the possibility of Wolfdale CPU's in a low-end (but still extremely powerful), affordable mac pro with the possibility of running DDR2/DDR3 memory and picking up nVidia/AMD's latest. Releasing a new mac pro in November would simply ensure its obsolescence within a few months (save for the video encoding/photoshopping junkies), and drive me to build a Windows machine once again. I like OS X a lot, but I'm not very happy about paying a $1500-2000 OS X tax just to get a box that isn't built with laptop parts.
Click to expand...

you want a macPro to replace your imac, that is never going to happen
you are not paying 2000 tax for a macpro, the pc alternative is just as expensive

you just want apple to make more in between machines, something they probably never do

thats one of the things about apple/os x its not more expensive than a comparable pc you just have less different price range/models

your argument is the same as telling dell or hp not to release a xeon fb-ram machine because you wont buy it, nobody cares that you won't buy it there are not trying to sell this to you
 
frick said:
1. The (price increase)/(performance gain) ratio for Intel's top end chips is *miserable*. As I recall, the 3.2 GHz Xeons will be going for about $1499 a pop...
Click to expand...

The "top bin" has always been relatively scarce and therefore much more expensive than the performance gain. The earliest P6 chips had the same issue - the 200 MHz CPUs were twice the price of the 180 MHz chips.

Nothing new here, move along kids....


frick said:
If Apple were to put a Wolfdale chip in a mac pro (the desktop line of Penryn)....
Click to expand...

Actually, "Wolfdale" is the dual-core Xeon in the Penryn lineup. It is not a desktop (i.e. single-socket only) chip.


frick said:
If Apple were to put a Wolfdale chip in a mac pro (the desktop line of Penryn) [sic-see above], they could create a high-performance, low-cost mac pro that would lower the barrier of entry for those of us who don't want to spend an extra $1000 on CPU power we'll never use.
Click to expand...

This has been the case since Apple abandoned the old PowerPC architecture.

Intel's had great single-socket desktop chips (Conroe/Kentsfield) but Apple has chosen to stick with mobile chips for the "desktop" (MiniMac and Imac), with a huge gap in price and size between the laptop-based Imac and the Mac Pro.

Nothing new here, move along kids....


frick said:
2. It is probably still going to use FB-DIMM's. FB-DIMM is a dead technology, and will only be around for as long at this next iteration of the mac pro in all likelihood.
Click to expand...

And the problem with this is????

Each new generation of CPU technology has evolved along with a new generation of memory technology to try to feed the new CPUs. Of course any memory DIMM that you buy for a Penryn will be obsolete for the Nehalem CPUs. That's life - you don't get to keep your RAM when you upgrade.

Nothing new here, move along kids....


frick said:
3. Video cards: the market has been stagnant for almost a year, and if Apple just now all of a sudden realizes the mac pro's video cards are crap and pops an 8800GTX in, it will still be completely outdated come January/February when nVidia/AMD(ATI) release their new boards.
Click to expand...

Yes, see above.

Apple's big screwup here is that they don't have a policy/program of upgrading graphics offerings as the market changes. With Windows - whenever a new card comes out you can buy it, pop it in, load the new drivers, and nuke some cool aliens. With Apple - whenever a new card comes out you get to watch the Windows guys nuke some cool aliens.


frick said:
At this rate, I'm hoping Apple will at least wait till Macworld in January... this gives us the possibility of [Wolfdale] CPU's in a low-end (but still extremely powerful), affordable mac pro with the possibility of running DDR2/DDR3 memory and picking up nVidia/AMD's latest.
Click to expand...

Apple could do this anytime with Conroe/Kentsfield - no need to wait 6 months for desktop Penryns to show up.

The video bit, though, would require a change in the way Apple [mis]treats its customers.


frick said:
I like OS X a lot, but I'm not very happy about paying a $1500-2000 OS X tax just to get a box that isn't built with laptop parts.
Click to expand...

So you'd be interested in a mini-tower too? ;)
 
AidenShaw said:
Intel's had great single-socket desktop chips (Conroe/Kentsfield) and has chosen to stick with mobile chips for the "desktop" (MiniMac and Imac), with a huge gap in price and size to the Mac Pro.

Nothing new here, move along kids....
Click to expand...
The memories of the Conroe iMac from last year... :rolleyes:

AidenShaw said:
And the problem with this is????

Each new generation of CPU technology has evolved along with a new generation of memory technology to try to feed the new CPUs. Of course any memory DIMM that you buy for a Penryn will be obsolete for the Nehalem CPUs. That's life - you don't get to keep your RAM when you upgrade.

Nothing new here, move along kids....
Click to expand...
I don't expect DDR3 to be dead that soon. :p

AidenShaw said:
Apple's big screwup here is that they don't have a policy/program of upgrading graphics offerings as the market changes. With Windows - whenever a new card comes out you can buy it, pop it in, load the new drivers, and nuke some cool aliens. With Apple - whenever a new card comes out you get to watch the Windows guys nuke some cool aliens.
Click to expand...
This issue is only compounded by EFI usage in OS X.

AidenShaw said:
Apple could do this anytime with Conroe/Kentsfield - no need to wait 6 months for desktop Penryns to show up.
Click to expand...
Q6600 4LIFE

AidenShaw said:
So you'd be interested in a mini-tower too? ;)
Click to expand...
Aren't we all?
 
Eidorian said:
I don't expect DDR3 to be dead that soon. :p
Click to expand...

We are talking in the Stoakley thread here, which is FB-DIMM ;)

You might be right, though, in that a desktop Penryn (which is not on the near horizon) might be able to use the same DDR3 as the first generation of desktop Nehalems.

Might. ;)
 
More nVidia 8800GT Info Right Here.

At high resolutions, the GT appears to outperform both the existing 8800 GTS models in game tests, and beats out the 2900 XT in all but one test, too.

That should make for a great price/performance ratio for new buyers, and a galling price/obselescence ratio for old ones.
Click to expand...

PERY.jpg


fear.jpg

Please note that this benchmark is at 1920@1200.

It would be quite something to see this card end up the Mac Pro refresh. For one thing it's a single slot solution on a smaller die, so therefore cooler running (allegedly) than its GTS predecessors. However, this may be wishful thinking. If Apple decides to go for the GTS, GTX, or HD2900xt, then on 29 October the video card options will officially be one generation behind. lol :p:p

I am looking forward to an exciting week of Leopard, possible other Apple announcements ;) , and more leaked info on the forthcoming GT series from nVidia.
 
Multimedia said:
Yes you NEVER buy any more than the minimum Apple offers from them. I use Omni Technologies Optival ram via Ramseeker.com and have had no problems with any of it for many years even though it's priced lower than all the other brands. The trick is to go THROUGH Ramseeker.com to Omni with their links on the prices to get the lowest price. If you go to Omni directly it will cost a lot more.

This is the Ramseeker.com Link that takes you to the inexpensive Omni Optival 16GB Mac Pro RAM Kit for only $770 page.
Click to expand...

wow, $699 for 16GB of ram. i remember when 4GB was that price
 
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