09 Mac Pro satisfaction survey

[Boneoh]

Hi, all.

Now that the 09 Mac Pros have been out for a little while, I was curious about how the new owners are feeling about their purchase. For those who did buy one, taking everything into account, what is your overall level of satisfaction? Wondering if there is any buyer's remorse, etc.

Also, if you did purchase one and haven't voted in this previous poll, please do. The breakdown of the numbers is interesting.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/674394/

 

[McShizzel]

I love my Mac Pro, although I wonder whether I should have just spent an extra $3000ish to get the 2.93 octo instead.

 

[Abidubi]

I am very happy with it. Besides a the snow bug (which is a software issue that should be updated soon enough) I really haven't experienced anything negative. Not a single freeze of the system and it runs very fast.

For the programs that don't work so well with hyper-threading yet (probably OSX's fault since it was designed for physical processors/cores not virtual) I just temporarily disable HT with the processor preferences.

Boot camp with windows 7 beta runs flawlessly (besides actually windows bugs) with not 1 extra driver. All the included drivers on the install disk work great and considering I can run crysis at very high settings at 1920X1200 and still be playable, it has great performance too (besides all the page-file activity with only 3GB of RAM and a ridiculous amount of textures to load).

 

[Cynicalone]

Still waiting for mine to arrive. Ordered March 30th, ship date is now May 11th, because of the RAID card.

 

[superscientific]

I love my Mac Pro, although I wonder whether I should have just spent an extra $3000ish to get the 2.93 octo instead.

Kind of same here with the Octo. After using my 2.66 more and more though I just don't think I need a Octo. The 2.66 Quad is plenty fast. It is much faster than I thought it would ever be. Also mine is dead silent as well. I am very satisfied with the new Mac Pro.

 

[Jouhne]

Just received mine a few days ago : Quad 2,93 - 8GB RAM - 1TB HB - Radeon 4870HD - Airport.
It's running perfectly. There is not so much a performance gap from my old Quad 2,66 (2006). You can't really tell when doing some DTP, WoW and internet stuff. I've put 3 x 320 GB WD R3 in Raid 0 for data and an Intel X25-M as boot disk (in the second optical bay), using the 1TB for Time Machine and Win XP.
This Mac is running great - like is old brother - apart from one thing :
oscillating noise... bah, don't want to exchange it when everything is running so fine.

 

[MacAndy74]

Happy to see the majority being happy with their purchase.
I was going all out for a high end iMac but after comparing the two closely, I decided that having the ability to expand the Mac Pro with more HDD storage and a higher end ATi 4870 was worth the extra I need to spend.

 

[Roy]

Happy to see the majority being happy with their purchase.
I was going all out for a high end iMac but after comparing the two closely, I decided that having the ability to expand the Mac Pro with more HDD storage and a higher end ATi 4870 was worth the extra I need to spend.

The thing I'm still left trying to nail down is the differences between the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 specifically related to:

1..noise levels

2..heat levels

 

[jimgeb]

My 2.66 quad pro with 8GB OWC memory is flawless so far (knock on wood). As already mentioned, it's much faster than I thought it would be. It's also very quiet. The Nvidia GT120 is plenty fast and solid. My trusty 2003 dual 2.0 G5 will remain for now as a good backup just in case.

 

[Andy N]

First real computer in about 10 years. Last was a first generation 1.4 GHz Mac Mini. Prior to that was and 750MHz old HP PC. Got a 2.66 Octad w/ 8gb ram, 1TB HD, and the ATI card. Overall, super overkill for what I plan on using if for but wife said yes so I had to do it. If I can live with a mini for 5 years then I'll probably have this baby for 10 years or more. I didn't buy for the power but more for the expected longevity. Oh, and very satisfied. The mini got me in the Apple door and I've enjoyed the stay.

 

[summitscout]

No problems, no regrets

The 4870 is quiet and cool. The only thing I don't like is the main monitor turns off for a second then reloads the profile when powering the second monitor on or off. The only other issue that the machine doesn't like to sleep. Neither did my old G5 for the last 5 years so no change really. Looking forward many years of productive service out of the new MP!

 

[Abidubi]

^ Sounds like a USB peripheral to me.

The thing I'm still left trying to nail down is the differences between the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 specifically related to:

1..noise levels

2..heat levels

I really don't hear my 4870 much. It's audible, but you have to actually listen for it to hear it. Any ambient noise or sound playing on your computer covers it up completely. It never spins up to full speed except for 2 seconds on startup. I was able to play crysis on max settings at 1920X1200 and never noticed any noise the computer was making. If the GT120 is quieter, it isn't by much.

Heat wise the 4870 seems to put out a little more heat than the processors depending on the job. The processors are rarely really taxed so they don't put out much heat anyway. Acutally, the heat coming off the 4870 feels about the same as the heat that used to come off my dual 1.8's processors. It's not like a blow drier or anything though, it just kinda slowly flows out the back.

 

[galstaph]

Love mine, I have the 'snow' issue as well, but I can deal. So much faster than my mbp and exponentially faster than my ibook.

Only thing i want is more space (hdd, in May hopefully)
I wouldn't mind bumping up to 12 or 24 gb ram....
and eventually round it out with a 3.2ghz+ processor swap in like 3-4 years (maybe the prices will come down around the 1k range for the processors by then)

 

[RobP]

Very happy with pretty much everything, both the Mac Pro, LED screen and OSX have exceeded my expectations. The only fly in the ointment is the mouse, but I fixed that (heaven forbid) by replacing it with my old Dell mouse. - Now that tells a story....


RobP