Apple Gets Nehalem Early, h264 and VMWare Performance Boosts

[xbjllb]

Many customers are waiting for a lot more than benchmarks

"...many customers are awaiting 3rd party benchmarks to make a final purchasing decision."

Many customers are awaiting a lot more than 3rd party benchmarks to make a final purchasing decision.

Like complete Blu-ray support and integration and a matte screen option on new Cinema Displays.

That's those pro content creating customers who'd like to stick with Apple despite being **** on. Many others have long since moved on.

 

[analog guy]

Is now the time to sell "old" (August 08) Mac Pro to buy new one?

Hi!
I purchased a Mac Pro 8-core (2 x 2.8 Quad-Core Xeon) in August 2008. I've been happy with it but am intrigued by the idea of the newest Mac Pros.

I currently have 10GB RAM, 5x500GB HDs, wireless, and the NVIDIA 8800 GT in there.

Should I consider selling my current Mac Pro (if so, how much?) in favor of buying one of the new 2x2.26 Nehalem-based machines?

I'm a user of PHotoshop, Logic/Audacity, business apps, and VMWare Fusion (and getting into some video editing). I'm intrigued by the ability of the new processors to run emulation (Fusion) faster.

I'd be happy to move the HDs from the old machine to the new if it made sense.

Any ideas on how much the swap might cost? Any arguments in favor of or against making this switch?

I admit that part of it is novelty of something new -- but I also wonder if the newer Mac Pros will be much better poised for the future (3-5 years) and will take much better advantage of SL.

Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[MacFly123]

So can you hook up two LED Cinema Displays to the new Mac Pro and how would you do it if that is possible???

Can someone please tell me!!!

How could Apple not make this possible?????

 

[iMacmatician]

For those that are complaining about the loss of 4 cores should look at the following benchmarks posted by anandtech and actually understand that it is a brand new architecture.

Those benchmarks don't really make up the loss of 4 cores though (assuming multithreaded).

 

[Umbongo]

Hi!
I purchased a Mac Pro 8-core (2 x 2.8 Quad-Core Xeon) in August 2008. I've been happy with it but am intrigued by the idea of the newest Mac Pros.

I currently have 10GB RAM, 5x500GB HDs, wireless, and the NVIDIA 8800 GT in there.

Should I consider selling my current Mac Pro (if so, how much?) in favor of buying one of the new 2x2.26 Nehalem-based machines?

Wait until the benchmarks are out. It is likely there would only be minor performance gains on what we know so far. You're looking at $1000 to make the upgrade, unless you wait for refurb systems then you mgiht be able to save some money, but not much.

So can you hook up two LED Cinema Displays to the new Mac Pro and how would you do it if that is possible???

Can someone please tell me!!!

How could Apple not make this possible?????

You have to have multiple graphics cards.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Hi!
I purchased a Mac Pro 8-core (2 x 2.8 Quad-Core Xeon) in August 2008. I've been happy with it but am intrigued by the idea of the newest Mac Pros.

I currently have 10GB RAM, 5x500GB HDs, wireless, and the NVIDIA 8800 GT in there.

Should I consider selling my current Mac Pro (if so, how much?) in favor of buying one of the new 2x2.26 Nehalem-based machines?

I'm a user of PHotoshop, Logic/Audacity, business apps, and VMWare Fusion (and getting into some video editing). I'm intrigued by the ability of the new processors to run emulation (Fusion) faster.

I'd be happy to move the HDs from the old machine to the new if it made sense.

Any ideas on how much the swap might cost? Any arguments in favor of or against making this switch?

I admit that part of it is novelty of something new -- but I also wonder if the newer Mac Pros will be much better poised for the future (3-5 years) and will take much better advantage of SL.

Thank you for your thoughts!

No, you shouldn't upgrade at all.

Keep your current machine until you NEED to upgrade.

 

[powers74]

My thoughts exactly

You would think they would have used something other than "Turbo".

Acceleration? Supercharge? They could have strained their brains a little to come up with something better than turbo.

 

[slughead]

Of course, they may continue to moan about the lack of the borndead technology called Blu-Ray, or the fact that they can find a low-quality PC box for less money. Truth is: MacPros have ALWAYS been competitively priced in comparison with similar quality (if there is any, of course) makers from the Winblows world.

Apple charges $300 for a 1 TB hard drive of varying quality. Now read this.Tell me that's a good deal.

Apple also routinely uses crappy hard drives and crappy RAM. Also, their optical drives are crappy rebranded NEC (they call them "sony") too, but they sell them for $100 ($25 here for a better drive).

Quality my ass. The only thing quality is the case, PSU, mobo, and processors, the rest is as cheap as they can find. There's a reason why they never tell you what brand components are included, even though Apple makes almost nothing in that box. Say what you will about "low quality PC's", they always tell you what's inside and who made it. Of course I own a 2006 mac pro, but I've had to replace everything but the PSU, Mobo, processors, and case. The RAM was expensive as hell back then, but I still managed to pay half what I would from Apple and got a better brand.

Of course now, to buy an 8 core, you have to plug up 6 slots with overpriced, possibly low quality 1GB RAM modules, simply because Apple didn't feel they were making enough profit and wants to force you to buy more. They say it goes up to 32GB, but you have to buy a whole new set of chips to get there ($5000 from OWC), or pay Apple $6,100 extra for mediocre crap.

If you need the power at any cost (all four of you that do), then your options are fairly clear here. But for G_d's sake, don't say you're getting a bargain.

Every time Apple releases a product that only they sell (Nehalem, in this case), there's a short time period in which the fanbois come out in droves and claim it's the best thing on the market (even in relation to price, which is the hilarious part), simply because it hasn't yet been proven otherwise. I think we should wait for the benchmarks before making judgments.

 

[slughead]

So can you hook up two LED Cinema Displays to the new Mac Pro and how would you do it if that is possible???

Can someone please tell me!!!

How could Apple not make this possible?????

According to other posters in this thread, LED displays require a mini-display output, and there's only 1 on the Mac pro. So no, only one Apple brand LED display can be attached, without purchasing two video cards.

 

[BayouTiger]

Why would anyone buy ram or hard drives or extras like that from Apple of any other manufacturer. You can always get it for less third party. You just need to plan your memory purchases and find the sweet spot.
I bought a 2GB MPB, then bought 4GB for it and took the 2GB from it and put them in my Mini. i them took the 1 GB stick I had in the Mini (don't remember where it came from) and put it in MSI Wind. the only thing I have left unused is a 256MB DIMM.

I can say that I added a second third party DVD to my MacPro as the second "Superdrive" but it has never behaved quite as nicely as the Apple supplied drive. I can't explain it but it's true.

Also, as far as value goes, I have a Dell 9000 series server in my office that has nearly identical specs to my MP with twin Woodcrest 5150's and it was quite a bit more expensive and is so noisy I can't hardly be in the same room with it. The only problem with Apple's price is that while it is a good bargain at release, they hold that price while the rest of the market drops. That's why the dedicated Mac folks only upgrade at refreshes. As for switchers, buying a Mac at any point in the cycle is an upgrade. If you're happy as a DIY/gamer/hackintosh type then you shouldn't be switching anyway. I was for too many years and since switching my total cost of ownership had plummeted. I am no longer chasing the top benchmark or framerate anymore. I just have a machine that gets the job done with no issues, frustrations, or headaches. Heck I put my 70 year old dad on my Mini and have had ZERO tech support issues since. I have a brand new iMac sitting here for my inlaws, then I will switch my sister and my days of tech support will finally be over!!!!

 

[CATinHAWAII]

Apple charges $300 for a 1 TB hard drive of varying quality. Now read this.Tell me that's a good deal.

Apple also routinely uses crappy hard drives and crappy RAM. Also, their optical drives are crappy rebranded NEC (they call them "sony") too, but they sell them for $100 ($25 here for a better drive).

Quality my ass. The only thing quality is the case, PSU, mobo, and processors, the rest is as cheap as they can find. There's a reason why they never tell you what brand components are included, even though Apple makes almost nothing in that box. Say what you will about "low quality PC's", they always tell you what's inside and who made it. Of course I own a 2006 mac pro, but I've had to replace everything but the PSU, Mobo, processors, and case. The RAM was expensive as hell back then, but I still managed to pay half what I would from Apple and got a better brand.

Of course now, to buy an 8 core, you have to plug up 6 slots with overpriced, possibly low quality 1GB RAM modules, simply because Apple didn't feel they were making enough profit and wants to force you to buy more. They say it goes up to 32GB, but you have to buy a whole new set of chips to get there ($5000 from OWC), or pay Apple $6,100 extra for mediocre crap.

If you need the power at any cost (all four of you that do), then your options are fairly clear here. But for G_d's sake, don't say you're getting a bargain.

Every time Apple releases a product that only they sell (Nehalem, in this case), there's a short time period in which the fanbois come out in droves and claim it's the best thing on the market (even in relation to price, which is the hilarious part), simply because it hasn't yet been proven otherwise. I think we should wait for the benchmarks before making judgments.

yes, but if you get the applecare,, anything goes wrong with the drive, or ram, and no questions, THEY REPLACE IT...
your cheap off brand , or name brand,, do they do that? maybe if you are lucky,,, or bitch and moan,,, or go back on line and its a great hassle...

 

[fatespawn]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

Wow. Well for how many terabytes of drives and gigabytes of memory I've bought... I can't say the FEW times I've had problems justify paying for marked up prices on junk only to have to pay for the guarentee that goes along with it.

 

[slughead]

yes, but if you get the applecare,, anything goes wrong with the drive, or ram, and no questions, THEY REPLACE IT...
your cheap off brand , or name brand,, do they do that? maybe if you are lucky,,, or bitch and moan,,, or go back on line and its a great hassle...

So you're saying it's okay that Apple users poor quality components because they have a good extended warranty?? When my HD fails and they have to throw my data in the trash can at the local retail store, it'll warm my heart that at least I didn't have to pay to replace the defective component they sold me (unless you count the Apple premium pricing or $250 Applecare Policy...).

As bad as the components are that Apple uses, they still profit A LOT on Applecare. If you save your $250 and put it in the bank, you can probably replace the hard drives, optical drives, and RAM at a fraction of that cost, on your own, and MUCH MUCH FASTER than Apple could (it took 2 months to repair my dad's G5 in the shop).

Keep in mind what $250 will buy
- 12GB of great quality OWC Mac Pro RAM (Lifetime warranty)
- TWO great quality 1 TB hard drives (5 year warranty)
- 9 (nine) "Superdrives" (if you go through 9 superdrives in 3 years, I'd like to shake your hand)
- An Apple Mac Pro PSU

So $250 is enough to satisfy all your common part replacement needs many times over. Ergo: Ripoff. Not to mention that the replacement part is going to have a warranty much longer than Applecare, and you can get that part within a few days and install it yourself (at least on a Mac Pro).

That said, if your motherboard or processor fails, $250 is a bargain to replace it, but that's extremely rare in comparison to the above (except that time when Apple shipped a batch of defective PSUs, but they did a recall on those so Applecare was no help there).

I MIGHT recommend Applecare to noobs for the technical support and labor, but the fact that they profit a LOT off it means without question it's not worth the money to people who know what they're doing.

Now, you're comparing it to a PC? Which use many of the same or better quality components--some of which carry lifetime or 5 year warranties by themselves? That argument may have held up when we were using PPC, when nothing had any economy of scale, but now that everything is the same... yeah uh...
----

how this relates back: Many Mac Pro revisions have been "good" deals. The 2006 model even beat DIY prices. However, this new one appears (according to the people here that follow this stuff) to have more limitations and a higher price tag than its predecessor, which was at the end of its product life. It goes back to what I was saying: If you need the power, fine, but this is definitely not a bargain.

 

[Bubba Satori]

No, you shouldn't upgrade at all.

Keep your current machine until you NEED to upgrade.

+1 A better idea than a new Mac Pro would be to get the 4870 video card.

 

[Digital Skunk]

how this relates back: Many Mac Pro revisions have been "good" deals. The 2006 model even beat DIY prices. However, this new one appears (according to the people here that follow this stuff) to have more limitations and a higher price tag than its predecessor, which was at the end of its product life. It goes back to what I was saying: If you need the power, fine, but this is definitely not a bargain.

There are only two times when I recommend Apple Care.
1) to the new users that may not be too familiar with the way Apple works. Not that it's a bad thing, APP is as the quoted poster said, a rip off for just about everything sans the mobo and LCD on laptops which RARELY break on their own.

2) users that just don't give-a-hoot. Mainly high end users that don't mind paying to not have to bother with it. I want to be the latter, but right now I know that I will just purchase APP discounted, or not at all for certain products.

Oh, and I agree about the price not being a bargain. I was full force into getting the $2499 model until I saw that you have a RAM cap. 16GB would have been a non-issue, but 8GB is just not going to cut it especially at that price range.

+1 A better idea than a new Mac Pro would be to get the 4870 video card.

Right, especially for the last gen model.

It's not necessary to upgrade your machine every year when the new model won't give you anything better.

 

[CATinHAWAII]

So you're saying it's okay that Apple users poor quality components because they have a good extended warranty?? When my HD fails and they have to throw my data in the trash can at the local retail store, it'll warm my heart that at least I didn't have to pay to replace the defective component they sold me (unless you count the Apple premium pricing or $250 Applecare Policy...).

As bad as the components are that Apple uses, they still profit A LOT on Applecare. If you save your $250 and put it in the bank, you can probably replace the hard drives, optical drives, and RAM at a fraction of that cost, on your own, and MUCH MUCH FASTER than Apple could (it took 2 months to repair my dad's G5 in the shop).

didnt they have a replacement computer for him to use in the interim?
they should have offered it ...

Keep in mind what $250 will buy
- 12GB of great quality OWC Mac Pro RAM (Lifetime warranty)
- TWO great quality 1 TB hard drives (5 year warranty)
- 9 (nine) "Superdrives" (if you go through 9 superdrives in 3 years, I'd like to shake your hand)
- An Apple Mac Pro PSU

So $250 is enough to satisfy all your common part replacement needs many times over. Ergo: Ripoff. Not to mention that the replacement part is going to have a warranty much longer than Applecare, and you can get that part within a few days and install it yourself (at least on a Mac Pro).

That said, if your motherboard or processor fails, $250 is a bargain to replace it, but that's extremely rare in comparison to the above (except that time when Apple shipped a batch of defective PSUs, but they did a recall on those so Applecare was no help there).

I MIGHT recommend Applecare to noobs for the technical support and labor, but the fact that they profit a LOT off it means without question it's not worth the money to people who know what they're doing.

Now, you're comparing it to a PC? Which use many of the same or better quality components--some of which carry lifetime or 5 year warranties by themselves? That argument may have held up when we were using PPC, when nothing had any economy of scale, but now that everything is the same... yeah uh...
----

how this relates back: Many Mac Pro revisions have been "good" deals. The 2006 model even beat DIY prices. However, this new one appears (according to the people here that follow this stuff) to have more limitations and a higher price tag than its predecessor, which was at the end of its product life. It goes back to what I was saying: If you need the power, fine, but this is definitely not a bargain.

yeah, it's not the bargain, its the "piece of mind" that you dont lose, having not to go through your receipts and such, taking it to one place to fix, etc,
and who doesnt back up their hard drive regular like is just looking for it,,
although i would not go the time capsule route at all... not that seems expensive,, probably not just to me...

 

[Digital Skunk]

yeah, it's not the bargain, its the "piece of mind" that you dont lose, having not to go through your receipts and such, taking it to one place to fix, etc,
and who doesnt back up their hard drive regular like is just looking for it,,
although i would not go the time capsule route at all... not that seems expensive,, probably not just to me...

I wouldn't even think of using Time Capsule for a Mac Pro. For laptops sure, and for homes with multiple Macs (iMac and Macbook) sure, but never a professional tower with 4 HDD bays.

 

[MacFly123]

You have to have multiple graphics cards.

According to other posters in this thread, LED displays require a mini-display output, and there's only 1 on the Mac pro. So no, only one Apple brand LED display can be attached, without purchasing two video cards.

So you CAN hook up two LED Cinema Displays but you have to configure your Mac Pro with one of the options that gives you more than one GPU???

 

[analog guy]

No, you shouldn't upgrade at all.

Keep your current machine until you NEED to upgrade.

Let's say hypothetically, if one could do the following for the same price (or nearly so):
a) sell a like-new 2x2.8 Mac Pro (10GB RAM, 1 or 2TB storage)
b) buy a 2x2.26 Nehalem Mac Pro

...would it be worth it?

In other words, will the Nehalem 2x2.26 outperform the "old" 2x2.8 on all tasks?

If I can upgrade for little to no money (hypothetically speaking), would it make sense to jump to the new architecture?

Or, to really get the performance increase does one have to step up to the 2x2.66 or 2x2.93 Nehalems (at much greater cost)?

Thanks!

 

[Sehnsucht]

Like BMW cares about people on welfare.

Yeah seriously...these people amaze me. What, Apple should give their s**t away for free just because you can't afford it?!? Give me a f**king break!

Somebody needs to give me an 8-core Mac Pro for free!!!

 

[RobP]

yes, but if you get the applecare,, anything goes wrong with the drive, or ram, and no questions, THEY REPLACE IT...
your cheap off brand , or name brand,, do they do that? maybe if you are lucky,,, or bitch and moan,,, or go back on line and its a great hassle...

In the Uk and I suspect other countries, there are various consumer protection laws such as the Sale of Goods Act 1979. This act will protect a consumer for up to 6 years after purchase if the fault was not down to wear and tear and the device did not last a 'Reasonable amount of time'.

In the Uk it is up to the supplier of the goods to prove the consumer is wrong about a fault within the first 6 months. After that it is up to the consumer to prove the device is faulty.

This is what makes me laugh about Apple Care. If my LED monitor broke down after a year I could still get a replacement due to consumer law, as the display is both not fit for purpose and has not lasted a reasonble amount of time for a display.

Many people need to look at their countries consumer laws - some might be pleasantly suprised...

RobP

 

[OS X Dude]

In the Uk and I suspect other countries, there are various consumer protection laws such as the Sale of Goods Act 1979. This act will protect a consumer for up to 6 years after purchase if the fault was not down to wear and tear and the device did not last a 'Reasonable amount of time'.

In the Uk it is up to the supplier of the goods to prove the consumer is wrong about a fault within the first 6 months. After that it is up to the consumer to prove the device is faulty.

This is what makes me laugh about Apple Care. If my LED monitor broke down after a year I could still get a replacement due to consumer law, as the display is both not fit for purpose and has not lasted a reasonble amount of time for a display.

Many people need to look at their countries consumer laws - some might be pleasantly suprised...

RobP

And also if you're in the EU (as we UK peeps are), there's apparently a standard 3 year warranty on anything we buy that the manufacturers have to prove we shouldn't get. It's awesome, I had some Bose headphones that broke after 2 years, they replaced them to the new models (worth £10 more than the ones I'd bought) and posted them out free.

I didn't purchase a special warranty for them either.

 

[drlunanerd]

In the Uk and I suspect other countries, there are various consumer protection laws such as the Sale of Goods Act 1979. This act will protect a consumer for up to 6 years after purchase if the fault was not down to wear and tear and the device did not last a 'Reasonable amount of time'.

In the Uk it is up to the supplier of the goods to prove the consumer is wrong about a fault within the first 6 months. After that it is up to the consumer to prove the device is faulty.

This is what makes me laugh about Apple Care. If my LED monitor broke down after a year I could still get a replacement due to consumer law, as the display is both not fit for purpose and has not lasted a reasonble amount of time for a display.

Many people need to look at their countries consumer laws - some might be pleasantly suprised...

RobP

+1.
The problem is the majority of people haven't got a clue what "statutory rights" means. They're usually too lazy to educate themselves.
I've had people try and tell me that if a shop only offers a 6 month warranty on purchases you're SOL after that. Utter tosh.

Even with AppleCare you sometimes have to fight to get things repaired - Apple can claim you damaged it yourself, third-party RAM is the root of all problems etc. etc.

 

[slughead]

So you CAN hook up two LED Cinema Displays but you have to configure your Mac Pro with one of the options that gives you more than one GPU???

That seems to be the case, yes.

Each video card has only 1 mini display output and one HDMI output.
Mini display can be converted to HDMI (DL Requires a $100 adapter, FYI), but not vice versa.
The Apple LED screen can't use HDMI, just mini display.

Therefore:
You need one video card for each LED screen.

 

[MacFly123]

That seems to be the case, yes.

Each video card has only 1 mini display output and one HDMI output.
Mini display can be converted to HDMI (DL Requires a $100 adapter, FYI), but not vice versa.
The Apple LED screen can't use HDMI, just mini display.

Therefore:
You need one video card for each LED screen.

So what about the ATI Radeon HD 4870??? Why don't they give an option to get two of those? Doest it only have one Mini Display port and one DVI as well? Isn't it a lot better card than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120?

I feel like I'm not getting all that I can graphically, are these new card options good ones and when we get multiple is it going to really crank things up in performance?