Probably quite a lot (even after accounting for Apple's hype) - but everyone else isn't exactly standing still, either.
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Apple Introduces New Mac Pro with Nehalem Xeon Processors
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Probably quite a lot (even after accounting for Apple's hype) - but everyone else isn't exactly standing still, either.
People in the UK are paying the price for the weak pound. Apple clearly held off necessary price increases until this model came out. It still sucks though. As does the "upgrade." I am very relieved I took the plunge with the last iteration. Maybe there will be a price drop along with a 16-core release in 6 months? I'd wait for that eventuality if I were looking to buy.
one Mini Display port on the graphics card along with DVI which looks hella weird. also means that you cant use two LED Displays with a Mac Pro
Is this going to be like the ADC days where we had to wait (even) longer for cards because NVidia and ATi had to invest extra money to add the different connector? If, two DVI ports would have made much more sense, provided they finally release a DVI to Mini DisplayPort adaptor...
Overall, looks like a solid update, but then again, I'm not in the market for a Mac Pro... I'm just happy SOMETHING came out of Cupertino.
Fast enough clock speed to balance out going from 8 cores to 4? I'm still waiting to see that benchmark.
Exactly. I was ready to buy a mac pro the second the update was announced...at least until I found out about the giant price increase for 8 cores.
Nice strawman there.
You consider a FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR price bump "in line with demands"?
Honestly, I would have been perfectly happy with pretty much any assortment of spec bumps at the same price point.
would the speed difference be profound? would love to see benchmarks actually with the 2 against each other but of course that won't happen for a few weeks yet i'd say.
The four cores are seen and perform as eight. So the new base 2009 Mac Pro is STILL an eight core machine.
Read-
http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/processor.html
The eight core processors are seen and perform as a SIXTEEN core machine.
See above.
uh, NO. A quad-core uses Hyperthreading to perform 8 threads, but it is still a 4 Core machine.
WHAT APPS benefit from 8 cores?
id like to get an 8 core,, but what apps benefit from
8 cores, as opposed to the 4 cores?
it used to be like ,, 4 apps or something... anybody know..???
id like to get an 8 core,, but what apps benefit from
8 cores, as opposed to the 4 cores?
it used to be like ,, 4 apps or something... anybody know..???
In a nutshell, why are people being so negative in their feedback? As I see, all news about new Macs have an overwhelmingly negative feedback...
What's up with the WHINERS here??? You weren't EVEN expecting new MacPros and Apple delivered it!!!
What's up with the WHINERS here??? You weren't EVEN expecting new MacPros and Apple delivered it!!!
No, it's not.
(Unless you think a ca. 2003 Hyperthreaded Pentium 4 was a "dual core machine".)
You are either lying, or lack the necessary knowledge to talk about the subject. Either way, you should stop, in case someone takes you seriously.
The consumer 2.66ghz Core i7 chip outperformed the old 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro so I have no doubt that despite the cores halved, and the lower clock speed, the machine is still faster. Not bad for $300 less.
We'll just wait for the benchmarks so I can laugh at the naysayers
We'll just wait for the benchmarks so I can laugh at the naysayers
I also hope for benchmarks.The consumer 2.66ghz Core i7 chip outperformed the old 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro so I have no doubt that despite the cores halved, and the lower clock speed, the machine is still faster. Not bad for $300 less.
We'll just wait for the benchmarks so I can laugh at the naysayers
That is how Apple is marketing it. It is still a Quad core CPU (and in the case of the DP system 2 Quad Core CPUs). The real question is does OS X realize it isn't a real core and schedule appropriately.
I keep seeing this claim. Where's the link to the benchmark?
I was actually planning to buy a MP as soon as it was updated, I just didn't see a $500 increase coming. If it were still $2799 I would have ordered the second it was announced. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do.
Did you?
Sure, the MP has arguably never been a great value...but does that make it OK for it to overnight become a much worse value? Do you really think that yesterday's version wasn't a better value?
And on that benchmark, assuming I'm reading it right, the new quad is NOT faster than the old 8 core.
Since the dual 2.66 Mac Pro costs $1400 more than the dual 2.26 Mac Pro, I really wish they'd offered a single 2.26 Mac Pro for $700? (even just $500?) less than the current single 2.66 Mac Pro...
A ≤$2000 Mac Pro would have really cut back on a lot of this bitching.... Or maybe not, since a lot of people here don't understand that the current SYSTEM is as fast or faster than the older SYSTEM, even though the CPU clock speeds are smaller and you're trading off 8 physical cores for 8 virtual cores.
I'm upgrading from a dual G5, which still runs very nicely for my work (photo retouching and lots of Illustrator), thanks very much, but I would really like to be able to take advantage of CS5 under Snow Leopard when Adobe churns that out.
I wouldn't bet on that just yet. Wait for some benchmarks; between the eight virtual cores + faster RAM + better system architecture (etc.), I have a feeling that the new $2500 base model is as fast or faster than the old $2800 base model. It's not all about processor speed! And when Snow Leopard comes along, it'll bump the speed a little more. (Although, granted, it would do that to the old eight-cores, too.)
A ≤$2000 Mac Pro would have really cut back on a lot of this bitching.... Or maybe not, since a lot of people here don't understand that the current SYSTEM is as fast or faster than the older SYSTEM, even though the CPU clock speeds are smaller and you're trading off 8 physical cores for 8 virtual cores.
I'm upgrading from a dual G5, which still runs very nicely for my work (photo retouching and lots of Illustrator), thanks very much, but I would really like to be able to take advantage of CS5 under Snow Leopard when Adobe churns that out.
I wouldn't bet on that just yet. Wait for some benchmarks; between the eight virtual cores + faster RAM + better system architecture (etc.), I have a feeling that the new $2500 base model is as fast or faster than the old $2800 base model. It's not all about processor speed! And when Snow Leopard comes along, it'll bump the speed a little more. (Although, granted, it would do that to the old eight-cores, too.)
Me too. I would have been fine with a slight decrease in clock speed like 2.4GHz for $2799. As it is, its too expensive and too slow. I know Nehalem is supposedly significantly faster but this is a substantial drop in GHz. It looks like the new octo core base model is about as powerful as the old 2.8GHz model yet cost more - traditionally newer models have been faster at a similar price point.
On the other hand... maybe Apple is trying to get us Mac Pro buyers be more sensible in the current recession and not buy new Macs. It looks like I will now no longer be replacing my 2.66GHz Quad Mac Pro for a good while and will save my pennies thus better preparing myself for the economic downturn. Its a well known fact that Apple has $15 billion or so in cash reserves so they'll survive this recession just fine. They don't need to sell any more macs - they're obviously thinking about us and encouraging us not to buy their products so as to get through the downturn ok, ready to spend more on the other side.
Not to mention the clock speed is severely reduced. But hey! It has DDR3, so isolated synthetic memory benchmarks with no bearing on real world performance are 40% faster!
The consumer 2.66ghz Core i7 chip outperformed the old 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro so I have no doubt that despite the cores halved, and the lower clock speed, the machine is still faster. Not bad for $300 less.
We'll just wait for the benchmarks so I can laugh at the naysayers
Just because Nehalem is faster clock for clock and is much faster in memory bandwidth, doesn't necessarily mean it's twice as fast for everything. I can run 5 virtual machines on octo Mac Pro, without issues and have OS X running snappy. Try running 5 virtual machines on a quad core. Oh wait, you can't. So in my usage, a quad core is far slower regardless of what speed is available.