Apple Introduces New Mac Pro with Nehalem Xeon Processors

[winterspan]

Well, for everyone that wants to make excuses about the enormous price increase of mid-level Mac Pro configurations (bumping solely the CPU to dual 2.66Ghz from a base config gets you to $5000), I made a little chart. I knew despite the platform switch and all the hype that the new CPUs shouldn't cost much more than the older Harpertown Xeons did (when they were new). What I didn't realize is that the new Nehalems Xeons that the Mac Pro is using are even CHEAPER than their Apple equivalent from the old Mac Pro!

Disclaimers:

1) These prices were found from a few different sources, but I make no absolute guarantees that they are perfect.

2) These prices represent unit cost in batches of 1000 at the time of initial release. Remember, Apple does NOT lower their prices over the lifecycle of a certain model even though the CPU costs may drop somewhat. Regardless this point is moot anyhow as server grade CPUs don't change price much if at all until a new, faster model/series is released.

2) The single CPU xeon configuration (at least the base model) uses a different CPU from the Xeon 3xxx series. Price is unknown but should be somewhat similar to - if a little lower - than the equivalent of the dual-socket 5xxx series.

 

[giffut]

Can someone tell me if the 2.26GHz octo from this year is faster than last year's 2.8 octo processor? I checked the performance tests, but they are for the crazy expensive high end 2.93GHz processor. I want to know how much faster this low-end Nehalem processor is compared to last year's 2.8.

Thanks guys.

Geekbench Result Browser lists i7-920 systems (4 real cores + 4 hyper-threading = 8) around 9000 points. A Early 2008 Mac Pro Octo 2,8Ghz lists around 8300-8800 points:

http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2009/01/mac-performance-january-2009/
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search (add search term "i7")

The defacto price increase is still quite significant, though, especially considering the limited memory upgrade path of th enetry Mac Pro.

 

[Flavioparentiq]

If everyone is a genius on analysing others people strategy, why isn't everyone doing

It's pretty amazing how people criticize the strategy of one of the top 10 corporation in the world using some links and thoughts (perfectly logical in their LIMITED view of the situation). In italy we have the same for soccer, at a bar, everyone is better that the official team coach

I know you can't evaluate a situation without knowing all the possibile factors that could modify the final result. I mean, we do mistakes when we don't have enough data to evaluate the situation. I think that's a pretty logical statement isn't it?

So you guys know more than the whole apple's marketing/financial/technological crew? wow.

Having a clear vision of apple's strategy is impossibile because know one as the data they have to find an optimized solution. Or at least we should accept that THEY have evaluate the problem a bit more than us. And they are the one that created Imacs, Ipods, Macbookpro, Iphones...

Let's try to link what happened with the world's situation and with other apple's marketing moves.

1.Apple has always build their market on the pros and wealthy. Consumer market came later with the ipod, imac and itunes. I guess what is happening now is the creation of a big lap between pros and consumer in terms of price and tec lap.
2. Beeing in a time of crysis, apple is trying not to loose it's buyer's core (pros, editor, graphist and wealthy people), wich mostly have very little problem paying 2000$ more, because it's an investment that could lead them to more money. (Sorry for my english)

So i gess what we saw is just apple going back to it's original way and saying "you still want to work on mac osx and you're a pro?" well, we're the best and you know it, so you pay for what we give you.

But pay attention.

When a pro buys a mac, he doesn't buy only the hardware itself, he gets the best os (by far, and don't try to convince me that windows 7 is par... I tried it, it's a reduced version of vista. So nothing to do with unix stability. We're talking about pro here, people that can't afford to loose their work and are willing to pay a bit more to avoid malware, spyware, virus, .exe stuff on mail etc etc...). He gets easy interconnectivity with other apple hardware, he gets apple care, mobile me, and a whole bunch of software he's used to use

Wether it's fair or not i don't care. It's economy. I don't think they care if PEOPLE will buy mac pro, probably they won't and that's exactly what they want. Pro is for Pro. And if people buy it, what's the "pro" after the "mac" written for?

What I finally think is that the "best" (in terms of money earned) graphic society, editors, digital artist who needs the os and an upgrade will definitly follow apple in this strategy. But that's a personal statement that has been generated by a very few amount of information.


Flavio

 

[Umbongo]

1) These prices were found from a few different sources, but I make no absolute guarantees that they are perfect.

3) The single CPU xeon configuration (at least the base model) uses a different CPU from the Xeon 3xxx series. Price is unknown but should be somewhat similar to - if a little lower - than the equivalent of the dual-socket 5xxx series.

The prices are correct. For the Xeon 3500s the price is $284 for 2.66 and $562 for 2.93.

 

[FF_productions]

www.apple.com/feedback

Don't be harsh, but this is the place to go to.

 

[BenRoethig]

I was going by this post:
But perhaps if they are using a custom board then what he has seen in use isn't applicable.

If that is true and the quad core versions are using the x58 SP northbridge than you don't even want to know what Apple's margins would be. The machine would be nothing more than an off the shelf core i7 machine with ECC memory and they seem to be using the much cheaper unbuffered verity. It would literally be the $14/1699 PowerMac with a ~$1000 price increase...all profit. If they are using different variants of x58 for the quad and octo core variants I don't see how you can any respect anymore for the current Apple regime as it just completely screwed its pro customers for no other reason than greed..

 

[MACMUSO]

NEW vs OLD

For fans of the refurb store the real question for me is:

Is the new 2.9 quad equal to the previous 3.2 Octo or not?

They will essentially cost the same so this could decide the purchasing route of many before the refurb stores run out.

Any views on this??

 

[pilchard]

Been there, done that. You'll be back.

Very true - if price is your only motivation then you will always find a cheaper PC, but you are missing the point. Macs are not just about the hardware in the box. I make my living with my computer and having owned and built my own PCs for years, I can tell you that no matter how much of a price difference there is between comparable systems I will never buy a PC again. Have fun with your PC when you connect to the Internet and spend the rest of you life maintaining it. Been there, done that.

 

[diamond.g]

2) The single CPU xeon configuration (at least the base model) uses a different CPU from the Xeon 3xxx series. Price is unknown but should be somewhat similar to - if a little lower - than the equivalent of the dual-socket 5xxx series.

No it doesn't. Check the Tech Specs page.

 

[BenRoethig]

It's pretty amazing how people criticize the strategy of one of the top 10 corporation in the world using some links and thoughts (perfectly logical in their LIMITED view of the situation). In italy we have the same for soccer, at a bar, everyone is better that the official team coach

I know you can't evaluate a situation without knowing all the possibile factors that could modify the final result. I mean, we do mistakes when we don't have enough data to evaluate the situation. I think that's a pretty logical statement isn't it?

So you guys know more than the whole apple's marketing/financial/technological crew? wow.

Having a clear vision of apple's strategy is impossibile because know one as the data they have to find an optimized solution. Or at least we should accept that THEY have evaluate the problem a bit more than us. And they are the one that created Imacs, Ipods, Macbookpro, Iphones...

Let's try to link what happened with the world's situation and with other apple's marketing moves.

1.Apple has always build their market on the pros and wealthy. Consumer market came later with the ipod, imac and itunes. I guess what is happening now is the creation of a big lap between pros and consumer in terms of price and tec lap.
2. Beeing in a time of crysis, apple is trying not to loose it's buyer's core (pros, editor, graphist and wealthy people), wich mostly have very little problem paying 2000$ more, because it's an investment that could lead them to more money. (Sorry for my english)

So i gess what we saw is just apple going back to it's original way and saying "you still want to work on mac osx and you're a pro?" well, we're the best and you know it, so you pay for what we give you.

But pay attention.

When a pro buys a mac, he doesn't buy only the hardware itself, he gets the best os (by far, and don't try to convince me that windows 7 is par... I tried it, it's a reduced version of vista. So nothing to do with unix stability. We're talking about pro here, people that can't afford to loose their work and are willing to pay a bit more to avoid malware, spyware, virus, .exe stuff on mail etc etc...). He gets easy interconnectivity with other apple hardware, he gets apple care, mobile me, and a whole bunch of software he's used to use

Wether it's fair or not i don't care. It's economy. I don't think they care if PEOPLE will buy mac pro, probably they won't and that's exactly what they want. Pro is for Pro. And if people buy it, what's the "pro" after the "mac" written for?

What I finally think is that the "best" (in terms of money earned) graphic society, editors, digital artist who needs the os and an upgrade will definitly follow apple in this strategy. But that's a personal statement that has been generated by a very few amount of information.


Flavio

Not all pros have an unlimited budget.

 

[-hh]

The PowerPC G5 is still not a bad CPU. Quite decent for its age.

Agreed, which is why mine is still in service ... and will remain in service as an OS X Server after I get a Mac Pro.

Interestingly, I learned the other day that the first Mac CPU ... the veritable 68000 ... is actually still in production and being used in new products!


-hh

 

[Tallest Skil]

What I didn't realize is that the new Nehalems Xeons that the Mac Pro is using are even CHEAPER than their Apple equivalent from the old Mac Pro!

What you also didn't realize is that there is a 3.2GHz version of Gainestown that Apple isn't using.

Or did you mean their performance equivalent? Because your chart is still wrong if that's what you meant, but for the better this time.

2) The single CPU xeon configuration (at least the base model) uses a different CPU from the Xeon 3xxx series. Price is unknown but should be somewhat similar to - if a little lower - than the equivalent of the dual-socket 5xxx series.

Nope. It's the standard 3500 series.

2. Beeing in a time of crysis, apple is trying not to loose it's buyer's core (pros, editor, graphist and wealthy people), wich mostly have very little problem paying 2000$ more, because it's an investment that could lead them to more money. (Sorry for my english)

I didn't think that Apple cared about gaming!

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Well, for everyone that wants to make excuses about the enormous price increase of mid-level Mac Pro configurations (bumping solely the CPU to dual 2.66Ghz from a base config gets you to $5000), I made a little chart. I knew despite the platform switch and all the hype that the new CPUs shouldn't cost much more than the older Harpertown Xeons did (when they were new). What I didn't realize is that the new Nehalems Xeons that the Mac Pro is using are even CHEAPER than their Apple equivalent from the old Mac Pro!

Disclaimers:

1) These prices were found from a few different sources, but I make no absolute guarantees that they are perfect.

2) These prices represent unit cost in batches of 1000 at the time of initial release. Remember, Apple does NOT lower their prices over the lifecycle of a certain model even though the CPU costs may drop somewhat. Regardless this point is moot anyhow as server grade CPUs don't change price much if at all until a new, faster model/series is released.

2) The single CPU xeon configuration (at least the base model) uses a different CPU from the Xeon 3xxx series. Price is unknown but should be somewhat similar to - if a little lower - than the equivalent of the dual-socket 5xxx series.

Exactly. Those prices show why it would have made much more sense if the 2.66GHz new Octo model were priced like the 2.26GHz model. The 2.66GHz chips are a bit more expensive than the previous 2.8GHz chips - hence the overall price increase of the system could have been justified. As it is, they're selling cheaper stuff for a bigger markup.

All the pricing seems just so out of whack. It looks like the pricing for each model (quad, then three octos) should have been brought down by one level. They're using cheaper chips so could have sold the 2.26GHz Octo at the price point of the 2.66GHz Quad, 2.66GHz Octo at the price point of the 2.26GHz Octo etc. They could then have sold the 2.66GHz Quad at a lower price point since its using much cheaper chips than the rest and it would have gone a long way to silence those after a 'mid ranged mac'. If they'd done all this then their profit margins would have been in the same region as with the previous Mac Pros and I honestly think they would have sold a lot more units.

 

[myca]

So you guys know more than the whole apple's marketing/financial/technological crew? wow.

Well I've just priced PC components that are superior to the base mac pro at retail for half the price, so at OEM prices I do think Apple are overselling this current gen, and for me a hackintosh is becoming a serious consideration, as long as Pro Tools and Logic work I'd be happy.

Having a clear vision of apple's strategy is impossibile because know one as the data they have to find an optimized solution. Or at least we should accept that THEY have evaluate the problem a bit more than us. And they are the one that created Imacs, Ipods, Macbookpro, Iphones...

I'm starting to think that Apple doesn't have a clear strategy at the moment, with dropping firewire, glossy only, last years tech at next years prices, they seem to be in a muddle IMHO.

Let's try to link what happened with the world's situation and with other apple's marketing moves.

I don't see a lot of other companies at the moment consciously trying to use extortionate practices on their customers, which will keep new customers away. Some will still buy for the chic, some will buy because they're locked in, others will look from afar and say "OMG how much for a C2D dual core?"

2. Beeing in a time of crysis, apple is trying not to loose it's buyer's core (pros, editor, graphist and wealthy people), wich mostly have very little problem paying 2000$ more, because it's an investment that could lead them to more money. (Sorry for my english)

I'd beg to differ, it used to be that Apples Pro software would sell their higher end hardware, and we haven't seen any new Pro software in some time, nor had any news of updates. Also some of their Pro market is already annoyed about the lacklustre notebook refresh, lack of matte options and the firewire debacle. Not to mention that the top end iMac is to some extents a Pro machine for those who don't need the full on fury of a MacPro, but in the UK it costs £400 more than the last model and has the same specs (except a little more memory and HD space)

So i gess what we saw is just apple going back to it's original way and saying "you still want to work on mac osx and you're a pro?" well, we're the best and you know it, so you pay for what we give you.

Will this be the same original way that nearly destroyed the company in the 80's??

When a pro buys a mac, he doesn't buy only the hardware itself, he gets the best os (by far, and don't try to convince me that windows 7 is par... I tried it, it's a reduced version of vista. So nothing to do with unix stability. We're talking about pro here, people that can't afford to loose their work and are willing to pay a bit more to avoid malware, spyware, virus, .exe stuff on mail etc etc...). He gets easy interconnectivity with other apple hardware, he gets apple care, mobile me, and a whole bunch of software he's used to use

It's very easy to convince mac users of why they like to use macs over windows and linux, but for Pros it's also about the software, so where are the updated Pro apps, where's Blu Ray authoring to go with DVD Studio, when's the next advance in Logic, or FCP, where's the 64bit adobe suite, oh wait that's only on Windows

Wether it's fair or not i don't care. It's economy. I don't think they care if PEOPLE will buy mac pro, probably they won't and that's exactly what they want. Pro is for Pro. And if people buy it, what's the "pro" after the "mac" written for?

If a company doesn't care if people buy their goods then that would make them plain stupid.

Of note I think that over the last couple of years Apple really could have made strides to increase their market share more than they have, if they'd have updated lines quicker, and been a little more competitive with their rivals. And with Vista having a major false start this could have easily happened, as it stands now I think the market share that they'd gotten is going to dwindle unless someone comes in there and gives them a kick in the nuts. But instead they've allowed a certain amount of arrogance go hand in hand with what seems to be a little bit of mediocrity.

 

[pprior]

In other words, they have a virtual monopoly on OS X hardware. Whether or not it's "legal" has yet to be determined. Psystar's court case is in November, I think. I hope they win. It will force Apple to compete. Capitalism is all about fair and open competition. Apple is neither. I like their OS. I don't like their hardware. I will buy a Hackintosh the next time around. Screw Apple's prices. They deserve to go out of business with those prices. But then this is the same company that thinks they deserve 30% of EVERYONE's profits for the iPhone app store. That's a LOT to just host an app at a store. But that's Apple for you. They are greed personified. I used to think Bill Gates and Microsoft was greed personified, but I do believe Apple and Jobs has them beat...by a large margin. Microsoft achieved it by worldwide market share. Apple achieves their profits by milking the heck out of a MUCH smaller market.

Gee great goal - we want apple to be more like Microsoft, eh?

Personally I'm GLAD apple's business plan is to NOT try to compete for all PC buyers and push prices down. That only leads to inferior products. I'm willing to pay a higher price for a better user experience. Apple having to compete with generic box manufacturers would not be a good thing in the long run.

 

[pprior]

It's pretty amazing how people criticize the strategy of one of the top 10 corporation in the world using some links and thoughts (perfectly logical in their LIMITED view of the situation). In italy we have the same for soccer, at a bar, everyone is better that the official team coach
...deleted...

Flavio

Flavio, this is the best post in this thread thus far. Couldn't agree more with you - all the keyboard analysts out there telling us how Apple is screwing up probably are college kids that don't even have a job. Apple is one of the most successful corporations in the country and I think they have a little bit more wisdom in price points than those whiners here who think they deserve the best computer made for cheap.

Are you guys also lining up on the Porsche boards complaining that steel and plastic costs have fallen so why can't you buy a 911 for $30,000?

 

[jimmybee500]

Well, the way I see it Apple usually puts out an upgrade option for Mac Pro customers to cater for each model. Currently the cheapest Mac Pro you can buy now is in the UK is £1899. Last week it was £1400.

Explain that one away?

From my POV the Quad is no good for me as I will soon need 16GB+ RAM to cater for 3GB per core needed by After Effects for the work I do. I would be interested to know if s/ware like After Effects would recognize these 'virtual cores' introduced by the new Hyper Threading? Otherwise for £200 extra I'm not really seeing any kind of rendering difference to my current old Quad machine AFAIK.

Hmmm. So to upgrade to something of similar use as the previous 8 x 2.8GHz I would need to spend £800 more to buy something today. That's a bit ***** cheeky if you ask me.

Don't get me wrong...I'm all for investing in new technology, but they've seriously compromised their current product to squeeze these new chips in.

Oh, and I'd love to know which machine is "£300 cheaper" than the last generation!?!

 

[warwickt]

Just Ordered MACPRO 2.93Ghz 8 core + ATI4870 = $HK52,000

After watching https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/635530/ on a daily basis for many months while I am using my 2007 MACPRO 8 core Version1., I looked closely at yesterdays announcement from Apple.

For business/workflow reasons I just ordered the new MACPRO 2009 version 2.93 8xCore with the ATI4870 card with 12GB memory (triplets) + WIFI with standrd 630GB DDM from the *apple store. I have 4 x 1TB WD DDm's ready to pop in the new 2009 MAC PRO and existing SAS HBA's.

$HK52,000 & Delivery in 2-3 weeks.

In short my post is to make a statement that as always if you need it go buy it and if you dont need it please STOP POSTING/WHINGING about the prices and comparing these to trashy DELL gamer PC's with "superior" graphics cards and other unrelated noise.

 

[jimmybee500]

I totally understand the 'if you need it buy it philosophy' and when we do need to up the power for upcoming higher-res projects then we'll have to bite the bullet and buy them.

I resent the blatant lie (unless it really is cheaper than before in the US?) of them offering a cheaper baseline MP when clearly, in the UK at least, the baseline MP is now £500 *MORE*, not less than before. Limiting the RAM capacity on the base model is a bit naughty aswell.

 

[iMacmatician]

I'm starting to think that Apple doesn't have a clear strategy at the moment, with dropping firewire, glossy only, last years tech at next years prices, they seem to be in a muddle IMHO.

Sounds like a clear strategy to me.

(No comment on how good/bad it is.)

 

[myca]

A couple of nice links from the BBC and the Guardian!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technolog...rice_rise.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...mac-mini-imacs

No news is bad news??

-----------------------
No matter what happens with the mac, as long as the iPhone farts people will be happy

 

[matcat]

Raid

Question for the techies,
With the RAID card, I cannot run windows under Bootcamp or Parallels or otherwise. Is this correct and if so, are there 3rd party raid cards that I could buy for the Pro that would be windows friendly? I am stuck with one piece of software that forces me to put windows on every one of my macs.

-Matty

 

[lftrghtparadigm]

The good news is, the new iMacs are flippin sweet

 

[myca]

Question for the techies,
With the RAID card, I cannot run windows under Bootcamp or Parallels or otherwise. Is this correct and if so, are there 3rd party raid cards that I could buy for the Pro that would be windows friendly? I am stuck with one piece of software that forces me to put windows on every one of my macs.

-Matty

Can't you use VMware or some other virtualisation software rather than dual booting, I was unaware of VMware not working on RAID set ups, but I may be wrong??

I'm in a similar predicament with my macbook, I need windows only for soundforge, but that fortunately runs OK in VMware, not perfect, but it still saves time over dual booting to edit a few (or few hundred) audio files.

-----------------------
No matter what happens with the mac, as long as the iPhone farts people will be happy

 

[myca]

The good news is, the new iMacs are flippin sweet

That a joke??

If you're in the UK, 11 months ago the same specced 24" 3Ghz iMac (minus a little bump in ram and HD) was about £400 cheaper.

-----------------------
No matter what happens with the mac, as long as the iPhone farts people will be happy