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Apple Announces New Mac Pros With Up to 12 Cores, SSD Options
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So, the Macs DO suit your needs, but you can't afford them, and you would rather complain (publicly) rather than pursue the alternatives that you have identified. Yep... and that makes very good logical sense.... absolutely. Because of course if you argue your point long enough on a site devoted to rumours Apple is going to see the light, and all of us who have had to wade through the narcissism will leap up and thank you. I do see the logic...
Maybe I've been too hard on you. Perhaps you come from North Korea, or Albania - where the concepts of free market economy are not taught. In a free market economy the value of an object is exactly worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Therefore, if Apple judges that enough people are buying the Mac Pros at whatever price Apple has set, then the value of those Mac Pros is that price. If Apple has judged wrong, and not enough people buy the new Mac Pros, then the value is less than the price. If you don't believe that the value is the worth the price, then to you and you alone, it is overpriced and you don't have to buy it. You also may feel compelled to buy it for external reasons, but that does not change the value/price connection.
Also, in a free market economy, a for-profit corporation is supposed to make huge profits in a sustainable way. I would like to point out that A) Apple is a for-profit corporation (maybe you confused them for a charity?) and B) They have been successful at making profits for a number of years, so there isn't really a lot of question the 'sustainable' bit.
If I were an Apple shareholder I would be mighty annoyed if I thought that Apple was making less profit (i.e. not doing what it could to maximize my investment) by dropping prices because they felt sorry for people who really really really like Mac Pros, but didn't like the price.
...would stop acting as though being vocal about disappointment in a product that you pay money for is unreasonable or narcissistic.
christ.
Ok, ignore the original comment below, and replace it with "No,you're right. Narcissistic is not the right word to describe when someone states over and over again that what is not a good value for them is not a good value for anybody."
No, you're right. Narcissistic is not the right word to describe when someone states over and over again that what is not good enough for them is not good enough for anybody.
Interesting. I have a 5770 in my PC, and I paid $175 for it. It's a midrange gaming card last time I checked. 
Interesting. I have a 5770 in my PC, and I paid $175 for it. It's a midrange gaming card last time I checked.
SSSSHHHH! Don't tell anyone!
It's also nearly a year old.Interesting. I have a 5770 in my PC, and I paid $175 for it. It's a midrange gaming card last time I checked.
Interesting. I have a 5770 in my PC, and I paid $175 for it. It's a midrange gaming card last time I checked.
Which would be bad thing ..... if the Mac Pro was being sold as a gaming machine.
In the PC world, gamers need's are driving the graphics card makers to push the technological envelope. Which is a good thing for us who use the cards for work (and I'm being serious). The gamers pay the graphics card maker to develop bigger and faster cards. And a year later they're discounted heavily, since all the bleeding edge R&D has already been paid for, and the rest of us get to take advantage of the technology for our own uses.
That's one way of looking at not getting the latest technology despite a massive premium. I admire your ability to stay positive!
When the DoD's 2008 block on USB (the supposed 'fixes' still haven't been put in place) is finally lifted... I might begin to agree with you. Of course, then Apple will merely need a dedicated SIPR line, too.
Understood, but to what degree does that then mean that the potential target market the corporation who's thinking about dropping $500K for their own 30+ CPU SGI?
And it also comes down to cost, not just technology. Pragmatically, we're going to need at least the equivalent of 100bT to drop to under $20/month for the general consumer...and monthly data caps that are far higher than 5GB. I am aware that the world record for bandwidth was broken awhile back...still waiting to see an official announcement. However, the enabling technology is still too expensive.
Understood. This is where I've expressed disappointment with the MP from the aspect of exploiting current technology. For example, really doing a SSD right (and standard) for optimizing OS X's I/O, which probably from a tecchie hardware perspective should have included SATA-3, since I/O's on fast SSDs now exceed SATA-2...even before RAID. As such, this 2010 offering seems to offer minimal future capability growth...figuratively, one may as well just buy an equally "un-future-proofed" iMac.
However I'm sat running over 2.5 Tbs.. so my view point may be different to yours
Understood. I'm looking at relatively mundane stuff (images) where the increases in resolution and base file sizes are chocking response times and thus, decreasing productivity. I'm curious as to what degree having a few select software products really exploit Grand Central Dispatch will be beneficial...and mostly still just waiting for the Tea Leaves and thus, deferring purchases, since the ROI on the current simply isn't compelling.
-hh
That's one way of looking at not getting the latest technology despite a massive premium. I admire your ability to stay positive!
Previous Message Deleted:
A) Please cite your sources that show that there is a "premium". Otherwise it's just an unsubstantiated opinion.
B) On the one hand you believe the Mac Pros are overpriced, on the other hand you think it would be better for me to pay more to get a graphics card that won't do me any good at all. None. Nada. Zilch.
So you do want me to pay a premium, but to get the parts that suit you.
I think I understand now....
Or it could be the same thing as paying $2500 for this mid range computer:
Which is really worth $1000.
But as you say, you're sitting on a 2008 8 core - a nice machine with a ton of value. Throw a new video card in there and you'll have a brand new experience on your computer.
I will admit, and I think we can agree - that the 2008 octo cores were a terrific value. I sometimes wonder if Apple sold a whack of them, and is now trying to figure out how to move more of us off of them.
I'm not sure why I need a new video card. I make photographs. Is a new card going to show better colours? Make my Photoshop filters work faster? For me all the bottlenecks are not video card based.
I get the exact same feeling.
Ah, well, this originally started off talking about how it's a mid range gaming card. If you happen to play Starcraft 2, then you'd see a big jump.
I know that, with reasonable security precautions, you have to make them COME ONTO YOUR PREMISES to get the info.
When that info is somewhere else, you're at the mercy of whomever is hosting it. And good luck with that.
That's not a tin foil straw man either; it's common sense.
CLOUD=SLAVERY;
MOBILE=PRELUDE TO SLAVERY
That's one way of looking at not getting the latest technology despite a massive premium. I admire your ability to stay positive!
All current Mac Computer buyers and users (myself included) have to adopt the similar stance of Jim Jones victims: It sucks right now and it will suck presently, but hopefully it will quit sucking.
And if you're not part of the solution, you're the problem.
So what you are saying is if you are a so-called "professional" then you should just throw your money away at every turn??? YES, that is EXACTLY what you're saying to me. You apparently don't mind being charged $10,000 for a piece of costume jewelry either. Raise the price of a dozen eggs to $12 and it's fine. Everyone else apparently simply can't AFFORD to buy eggs. Your arguments are just down right ludicrous. You seem to be telling me you ENJOY being RIPPED OFF. Fine for you. I can sell you some nice swamp land in Florida.
The rest of us actually expect Apple to deliver a bit of value for our dollar, not make 200% profits because they have no direct competition for the OSX market and they know they have you over a barrel.Maybe you come from Beverly Hills and don't have a freaking clue what the concept of money means??? Maybe I'm being too hard on you. You obviously don't understand the value of money and that you just don't throw it at anyone who asks for it without a valued service to boot. You don't give a car salesman the first price he asks for. But I guess you do and you get royally RIPPED OFF. The rest of us in America aren't that ignorant and so we get actual value for our dollar. You don't even appreciate value for your dollar and that means you don't deserve to have it. Don't waste your time replying because I don't care to hear another snooty word come from you. Go buy your $250,000 Porsche, tip the guy $50,000 for the privilege of overcharging you and smile at getting screwed while Robin Leech comments on it all.
The rest of us actually watch how we spend money. You obviously have it to burn. Hey, e-mail Steve and tell him he isn't charging enough for that 12-core. Tell him to set the price at $100,000. You'll pay it. You'll thank him for it even.
What's the rip-off exactly? The new MP seems to cost about the same as equivalent workstations with more or less the same components. ECC is a must for anyone who is using their computer to, you know, compute, as opposed to making pretty pictures or disco soundtracks. And with it's unix underpinnings it is the perfect engineering workstation.
You must have missed the part where I said I use a $2 coffee maker, a $12 toaster. I also drive a 1987 Toyota, and I have a rack of (authentic) Hawaiian shirts bought from a thrift shop. Because, for me, spending more on these things is a bad value. We also paid for a custom built house - because for us it was important for us.
Where you and I are fundamentally different is you feel it is your right to tell me (and others) that you disapprove of my decisions. And I don't care what you do with yours, as long as it doesn't affect me.
It is not whether or not we think the Mac Pro is a good value.... it's why do you think I care what you think about my decision?
I don't see where I've told you I disapprove of your personal buying decisions. What I do see is you telling me that I have no right to express (or else you'll make fun of) my opinion that the current Mac Pro lacks features to justify a $3000-5000 price tag on the high-end yet is overpriced for the consumer on the low-end with Apple offering NOTHING in the $1500-2000 range to meet real computer user consumers and much better products being available in the $2500-5000 range from other vendors on the high-end. The problem is that the OSX user is stuck with only ONE supplier of hardware and that is Apple, which is the reason WHY the options don't exist. Apple couldn't care less about those markets anymore (they are more and more focused on gadgets and less on actual computers) and yet they don't want anyone else handling them either, licensed or not.
I don't need ECC. I don't need Xeons. But I surely don't need a flipping iMac POS either. That leaves me either overpaying for what I don't need (and then I still don't get USB3, eSata, more than 1 FW bus or more than 4 expansion slots that I can easily get on other hardware for far less) or it leaves me with building a Hackintosh, which are spotty at times when it comes to upgrades (you have to wait until the hackers ensure the latest patch doesn't screw your entire machine and back-up constantly as the threat of that happening is VERY real as I know first hand from my Dell Netbook).
If Apple doesn't want to properly serve its computer market, fine. License someone else to do it. But the typical fan response on here seems to be if I don't like the hardware Apple is offering or the prices it puts out, I should abandon all my Mac software and go buy new software for Windows just so I can get a stinking USB3 motherboard or a newer graphics card and all because Apple doesn't think we deserve newer hardware features or has some internal conflict of interest with iTunes or whatever that it feels the need to decide FOR us that we don't "need" or "want" something like Blu-Ray. I shouldn't complain about any of that, though. Let Steve and Company run Apple with total aplomb, no consumer complaints or feedback and drink all the Kool-Aid in the world and LIKE IT. When Microsoft put out Vista, they got PLENTY of complaints from people including myself. I have never purchased Vista and stuck with XP the entire time on both my PC and my MBP boot camp partition. Windows7 is much better now. If no one complained, would they have even bothered to improve it? So long as everyone says "Great new Mac Pro!" Apple will think they are making the best possible decisions. If everyone grumbles and lets them know, they might do something about it (either lower the price or add the features people want to see). The problem with Apple is that they listen more to Steve than they do their own customers which is why I wish they'd split the computer division off for someone else to run (I don't know if Woz has the interest in running it, but he certainly has shown a LOT more interest in cutting edge computers than just gadgets than I see from Steve and he has just as much history with the company and even more in the hardware side back to the founding days; he built the Apple ii, not Steve).
Truism: The more you pay, the more it is worth.
Apple offers a $1200 iMac, a $1000 MacBook, a $800 headless, and even a $1000 full server. Yes expandability for these is external, but that only means the morass of wires and devices can be on a little table under the desk and off the surface. The part you confront is lower footprint and more cosmetic, and notably more reliable and with a longer effective lifetime.
You certainly have other options. Apple is under 10% of the annual CPU sales market. You could be among the dregs!
Rocketman
Proof: The more you choose to pay the more it is worth to you.
Here two things you have said previously....
"...but that doesn't mean I think the price would be out of line *IF* it offered the features a typical Pro NEEDS. ..."
And
"... The point some people are making is that the current Mac Pro serves NO ONE. ..."
By implication you are saying that though I use a Mac Pro professionally, you think I didn't get the features you believe I need for the price. And you say so publicly and to the world. (We are assuming, for the moment, that I have bought the new Mac Pro and not using my older one. If I needed a new MP this year I would pay for one. From the refurb store since that is where I tend to buy my Mac stuff. I would pay full-price, but if I don't have to I will try to save money.)
I never said you have no right express yourself. I have said that I wish the negative posters in threads like this would choose to not pollute what might have been an interesting discussion. I hope I have not made fun of you, but... absolutely - if you have posted a some opinions that are not logical I might have made fun of them. Demanding that Apple build the hardware You need is a doozy... I'm sorry that you don't see the humour in it.
OS X is part of the package that Apple is selling. Apparently you find OS X valuable enough that you don't like using other OSes. Don't be fooled by the retail price on the OS X discs. The true price is built into the hardware. Apple builds systems that are a combination of the OS and the hardware. From reading your posts, it appears that you really like the OS and software. That is, in my opinion, the value that Apple has built into the system. They would like you please pay for it when you buy their hardware.
And that, imo, is the free market economy. A company builds stuff, you buy it - or not. My wife has a Smart Car. Boy, do I wish it had 4 doors and AWD. But they don't make it. In North America, there is currently no alternative if you want a 'micro car'. It's Smart or nothing. By your logic I should head over to the Smart Car forums and spend my time demanding that Smart Car build a car that suits my needs. (If I did post that, I am sure somebody would make fun of my opinion, by the way...
)...
Yep. Some packages can be cross licensed (i.e. for a nominal sum you can get the license reissued for a Windows installation.) Do you know you can legitimately run Leopard Server (and probably Snow Leopard Server) as a virtual machine in VMWare? I believe you can get the Windows PC you want, install VMWare and then virtualize SL Server. It might be worth your time to see if the software you run will run in the server package.
I moved from OS/2/eComstation as an OS years ago. I had a heavy investment in the software, in the knowledge, in a workflow. I built my own PCs to meet the OS's specific hardware requirements. At some point, despite the fact that as an OS it is still being supported as eComstation, I decided to move away. It was expensive, it involved a big transition, etc etc. I also moved directly to Macs, so the price to enter this new ecosystem was a stiff one. It was, for me, the cost of doing business. I never complained on the OS/2 boards how badly IBM was treating their customers ... because they are a corporation and they make decisions based on what is good for them and not for me. I have no rights as an individual customer to make them provide the product I want at the price I want. They offer, I choose to accept or not. Period.
If you don't like the way the free market works, start a thread over at PRSI about the evils of the free market, etc etc. I might even join in.
Mac Pros need more expansion slots. Actually, that need has always applied since the days of the Mac II, so nothing's changed. I don't really care any more about bumps in processors or graphics cards, especially when the software is always struggling just to keep up (I'm looking at you Adobe ).
Four slots has never been enough, and will never be enough.
You do pay the sticker price if the rules of supply and demand apply, ie if the dealership is under no pressure to sell because they have plenty of demand for the model. The Mini Cooper I believe sold in the USA when released for above its sticker price.
You can only negotiate prices if the supply exceeds demand. Apple has no oversupply problems. Ergo, no negotiation on price. You pay the sticker price or go buy a PC which does have an oversupply problem from multiple mass manufacturers.
Please tell us how your claim actually applies to Apple products. How exactly do you get your value for your dollar on the sticker price on Macs? Do you buy them off ebay or something? Going and buying an oversupplied PC model instead is *not* getting value for money on a Mac, it's not buying a Mac at all. What you're saying is you negotiate a better price on a Toyota instead of buying the over-sticker price Cooper which will save you money on a generic 'car'. Good for you. But you still won't be buying a Cooper, and nor are you convincing other Cooper buyers on the CooperRumors forum that you're smarter than them because you wanted and got a better deal on a Cooper, because you didn't.
The way I save money on the purchase price of a Mac is the way everyone learns to do it, ie minimum configuration and then add third party RAM, drives etc. Not by buying a PC instead, which isn't saving money on the price of a Mac, it's savng money on the price of a PC.
). Four slots has never been enough, and will never be enough.
You do pay the sticker price if the rules of supply and demand apply, ie if the dealership is under no pressure to sell because they have plenty of demand for the model. The Mini Cooper I believe sold in the USA when released for above its sticker price.
You can only negotiate prices if the supply exceeds demand. Apple has no oversupply problems. Ergo, no negotiation on price. You pay the sticker price or go buy a PC which does have an oversupply problem from multiple mass manufacturers.
Please tell us how your claim actually applies to Apple products. How exactly do you get your value for your dollar on the sticker price on Macs? Do you buy them off ebay or something? Going and buying an oversupplied PC model instead is *not* getting value for money on a Mac, it's not buying a Mac at all. What you're saying is you negotiate a better price on a Toyota instead of buying the over-sticker price Cooper which will save you money on a generic 'car'. Good for you. But you still won't be buying a Cooper, and nor are you convincing other Cooper buyers on the CooperRumors forum that you're smarter than them because you wanted and got a better deal on a Cooper, because you didn't.
The way I save money on the purchase price of a Mac is the way everyone learns to do it, ie minimum configuration and then add third party RAM, drives etc. Not by buying a PC instead, which isn't saving money on the price of a Mac, it's savng money on the price of a PC.