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Apple Announces Penryn Mac Pros and Xserve

Cry and moan.

No Blu-Ray!?

I don't like the graphics card!

No new cinema display with iSight!?

Al Gore had a spot in the Bill Gates CES video!

I'm officially screaming to anyone that will listen that I now HATE Apple and am taking my business elsewhere. Alone I will bring them to their knees! (cue sinister laugh)

Whew, glad to get that out . . . Not as sexy as some of the rumored things to come at Macworld, but not a bad update for the Mac Pro's true target market. Wish the price for the updated Mac Pros were a bit lower, but I also say thing at the grocery store.
 
Jade Cambell said:
I read all the specs. I read em good n hard. And I know that when it comes to real world performance, this is not an upgrade that I give a damn about.
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Yeah, you're right.... 1600 FSB across the board (processor and memory), new SSE4 instructions, cooler running memory, PCI-Express 2.0 graphics from this year (well, close enough), bigger standard hard drive, bluetooth standard, and double the base memory amount.... You shouldn't miss that at all.
 
Bah, 26 pages. What do people do when they buy new towers, as in like this for example... what do you do if you already have the new keyboards...

Why does Apple not make an option for, no keyboard or mouse. I'm sure it'll be fun for people buying new machines when they already have mighty mouse, wired/wireless, new keyboard, wired/wireless.

I'm sure it's fun when these keep mounting up on peoples collections...
 
jazzkids said:
I know that these new processors are CPU Socket Type LGA 771 (from newegg)

Question is will they work in the 'original' Socket 771 macpros from last year?

That would be a nice processor swap!
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Thats what Id like to know... Or if the Single slot Quad 2.8 has a ziff for the 2nd processor or did they do us like the old single processor G5 machines..

When I find that out, I'll decide to buy. $2299 isnt bad for a single Quad 2.8 if I can expand it later.
 
vohdoun said:
Bah, 26 pages. What do people do when they buy new towers, as in like this for example... what do you do if you already have the new keyboards...

Why does Apple not make an option for, no keyboard or mouse. I'm sure it'll be fun for people buying new machines when they already have mighty mouse, wired/wireless, new keyboard, wired/wireless.

I'm sure it's fun when these keep mounting up on peoples collections...
Click to expand...

So what happened to their previous machine that it wouldn't still keep its keyboard/mouse? Normally you DO need a new keyboard and mouse with a new computer... unless perfectly good towers are being discarded, in which case the waste of the keyboard is the least of the problem.
 
vohdoun said:
Bah, 26 pages. What do people do when they buy new towers, as in like this for example... what do you do if you already have the new keyboards...

Why does Apple not make an option for, no keyboard or mouse. I'm sure it'll be fun for people buying new machines when they already have mighty mouse, wired/wireless, new keyboard, wired/wireless.

I'm sure it's fun when these keep mounting up on peoples collections...
Click to expand...

One word...Ebay
 
Gunga Din said:
No but the single quad core with the 8800 gt for $2500 isnt too bad. The 8800 gt is recommended for Crysis. So should have no problem running it.

I play a few games and this new mac pro should have zero problem running them. But I'll keep using my PC for those since it takes care of my gaming needs. This Mac Pro is for everything else and if my PC dies i'll have no problem playing the games i play on it. Great backup as well for me.
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The 8800GT will barely, and I mean barely play Crysis at the very lowest settings. Everything else should be fine though.
 
BillyShears said:
They could be getting these updates out of the way so they have enough time at MacWorld to announce all the other updates. Or it could be because these products were so far out of date they needed to get them out ASAP.
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The Mac Pros were desperately out of date. The new ones are a mixed bag of good, bad and possibly ugly news in my opinion.

The Good:
More and faster processors/bus speed. Very nice
More RAM. About time
Updated OPTIONAL video card options. Way past due

The Bad: (not what IS but what IS NOT included)
No HDMI input/output (this is EXTREMELY bad for video professionals, professionals in general)
No Blu-Ray option (I really don't know where Apple's head is stuck but it must be a deep dark hole. Steve's ass?)
No eSATA support (give me a break Apple, pathetic. Yeah, Steve's ass)

The Ugly:
The once Crown Jewel is now relegated to a quiet refresh AFTER 18 MONTHS!!! I am not sure what this means for the Mac, if no answers come at Macworld it can only spell bad news. If Apple goes yet another 12-18 months to come up to what Dell and others have been offering for 6 months or so (Blu-Ray option) it becomes clear Apple doesn't have long to enjoy the positive spotlight.

Considering what IS NOT included in this much delayed refresh, I don't see how Apple can call these works stations keeping a straight face.
 
overcast said:
The 8800GT will barely, and I mean barely play Crysis at the very lowest settings. Everything else should be fine though.
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Hmmm...I have a 8800GTS with less video memory, and I run smoothly at medium, and it's still comfortable at High settings....
 
SaS drives

Just wanted to point out that SAS drives REQUIRE the raid card

About SAS
Get the ultimate in disk I/O performance by configuring your Mac Pro with new 15,000-rpm high-performance Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3GB/s drives. These 300GB drives provide up to 250MB/s in sustained RAID 5 sequential read performance and are particularly suited for demanding disk I/O scenarios like film and video projects. Please note: The Mac Pro RAID Card is required when selecting SAS drives.

also 8800GT will play Crysis at 1280*1024 on medium an high settings very well, its only when you start going above this resolution (which is standard on 19inch lcd) that the card is not sufficient.

I was wondering if you can have eiterh 2 * 8800GT running or atleast 1 * 8800GT and 2600XT, I need to connect 3 LCD and 1 card wont cut it.

I will also wait to see if anything else comes out on the 15th, (i doubt it however). I am happy with it, just would have preferred normal DDR2 :D

Other great workstation!
 
Why does anyone really need a case redesign?

If that's all you were waiting for, you shouldn't be buying a Mac Pro.

These are workstation computers, and an extra curve here, or an angle there isn't going to make a difference to your workflow or creativity. You are obviously just a material idiot, for whom this machine is not aimed at.

I think this is a very acceptable upgrade, as it reflects what is available today.

When Apple releases a new product/updates, it is both exciting and frustrating, certainly when you have a forum full of braggers or wannabes who just completely miss the boat.
 
Does anyone know if the 8800GT cards will run in a first gen mac pro?
I'm dying over here in crysis on my 1900 xtx.
 
Voltaic said:
No HDMI input/output (this is EXTREMELY bad for video professionals, professionals in general)
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I am hoping that the cards will actually have HDMI and DisplayPort and we will see the ACDs updated to support both.


No Blu-Ray option.
Click to expand...

Until recently, it was only burners. Sony just announced their Blu-Ray player at CES so it might not have been ready in time. At least now, you have the choice of a burner or player and can add them yourself (likely at a decent savings).


No eSATA support
Click to expand...

This is a bad oversight. :(
 
filmguy15 said:
Hmmm...I have a 8800GTS with less video memory, and I run smoothly at medium, and it's still comfortable at High settings....
Click to expand...
You must have some magical card then, or you have a ton of effects options off. Unless you have the latest revision of the GTS, it's much slower than the 8800GT. Personally, if I can't turn on all the eye candy then it's not worth playing. That's what I paid for. Crysis absolutely annihilates even the highest end machines.
 
CWallace said:
It might work. Drivers would be the main hold-up.





Mixed messages on this one. Apple Online Sales say "no", but they're not engineers. :)
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Yea that whole backwards compatible but not forward compatible crap just doesn't make sense.
The sales person i got probably said it was possible, I'm ready to pull the trigger and run down to frys and try it. Do i need a rom or an update? Is it coming with 10.5.2?
 
knome said:
The sales person i got probably said it was possible, I'm ready to pull the trigger and run down to frys and try it. Do i need a rom or an update?
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A PC card will definitely not work in OS X until someone figures out how to put an EFI bios on it. And even then there is no indication it would work driver-wise with our old Mac Pros. We'd also need the copy of OS X that comes with the new Mac Pros or wait for 10.5.2.
 
overcast said:
You must have some magical card then, or you have a ton of effects options off. Unless you have the latest revision of the GTS, it's much slower than the 8800GT. Personally, if I can't turn on all the eye candy then it's not worth playing. That's what I paid for. Crysis absolutely annihilates even the highest end machines.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a some bottle-necking from somewhere else besides your graphics card....everyone I know who has any 8800 model runs crysis ok....might want to consider an upgrade elsewhere....
 
CWallace said:
I am hoping that the cards will actually have HDMI and DisplayPort and we will see the ACDs updated to support both.
Click to expand...

from the pictures it's DVI only
so no hdmi

http://www.apple.com/macpro/technology/graphics.html


i suspect they preferred having the ability to tout "dual 30" on base config" in marketing since going with DVi + hdmi very likely would have costed them a DVi connector

edit:
overcast: sure your 8800 GT isn't broking ? i saw crysis running in 1280x1024 on a 8800 with quite a significant amount of eye candy so i somehow think either your card is broken or you have some other problem in your configuration
 
filmguy15 said:
Sounds like you have a some bottle-necking from somewhere else besides your graphics card....everyone I know who has any 8800 model runs crysis ok....might want to consider an upgrade elsewhere....
Click to expand...

yea i know quite a few people that can run on very high with a 8800gt with 27-35 fps.
Hell my 1900 gets around 22-35 fps on medium/high.

Well if anything comes out of the 8800 series being supported it will be that the modders will finally have a base to work off of so they can create some good drivers.
 
knome said:
yea i know quite a few people that can run on very high with a 8800gt with 27-35 fps.
Hell my 1900 gets around 22-35 fps on medium/high.
Click to expand...

I run in on my Macbook Pro (latest gen)..... at low settings it's fluid.
 
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