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Apple Introduces New Mac Pro with Nehalem Xeon Processors

Thanks Apple, you've cleared it up for me. Unless I'm missing something huge, this is a preposterous price increase for a drop in features. Only 6gb ram in triple channel and 8 in dual!? My god, I have 8 now and assume I'll need 16 within a year!!!!!

I'd be happy if a desktop-processored mac pro came out...FOR $1500!!!

I'll build my own for $1500 or less, thanks.

I was really hoping to avoid the hassles of a hackintosh too.
 
Well I have the 2008 octo 2.8 and with these prices I'm going to skip one generation. Just ordering 4870.
 
ImageWrangler said:
Remember when you could get an entry Mac Pro for $1600? I do. Mind you, these new ones are, more or less, based on a design SIX YEARS OLD!

Whatever Apple is smoking, I wish they'd share it with the world, it'd make this whole global economic meltdown seem like just a fantasy world.
Click to expand...

Just what I was wondering about. One word: LAME!

Over a year wait, no redesign (PC cases hold over 8 HDs), Apple insists in using Xeon processors when i7s are cheaper. I want to see real tests on these.

The worst part is:WTH are the $300 in savings?! Either Apple is indeed smoking something hard or they just thing everyone is plain retarded.

Yep...and my next Mac will be: http://www.expresshd.com/p137/Express-PC-Q9550/product_info.html
 
milo said:
If anyone wants to claim that I want to see a link to the benchmark.

And I'm VERY curious how these new machines benchmark on real world apps, specifically LOGIC.
Click to expand...
Well you can kinda see in the Mac Pro performance section that the Nehalem one is 1.5x~2.4x as fast in synthetic benchmarks (so 1 Nehalem = 2 Penryns). That's probably what the claim is about.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html

The numbers aren't as good with the other benchmarks.
 
Umbongo said:
2006 Mac Pro - $2,499 Two 2.66GHz dual core ($690 per processor) $1,119 + processors
2008 Mac Pro - $2,799 Two 2.80GHz quad core ($797 per processor) $1,205 + processors

2009 Mac Pro - $2,499 One 2.66GHz quad core ($284 per processor) $2,215 + processor
2009 Mac Pro - $3,299 Two 2.26GHz quad core ($373 per processor) $2,553 + processors

Please explain Apple.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But, you did miss one thing: the 2.66GHz xeon is $958, which makes your calculation $1541 + processor. It also means they are charging you $800 for a (-214) processor upgrade, the 2 socket mobo, and 2 gig sticks of DDR3 memory.

I highly doubt the 2 socket motherboard costs an extra $900. :confused:
 
antominus said:
Yeah. But, you did miss one thing: the 2.66GHz xeon is $958, which makes your calculation $1541 + processor. It also means they are charging you $800 for a (-214) processor upgrade, the 2 socket mobo, and 2 gig sticks of DDR3 memory.

I highly doubt the 2 socket motherboard costs an extra $900. :confused:
Click to expand...

Nope it's a Xeon W3520, which is $284.
 
Don't these Nehalem chips offer double the number of hardware-threads per core? This would account for better performance at lower clock-speeds, though I'm unsure how much of this will be instant (i.e - without requiring new OS X libraries or grand-central to take advantage of). The integrated memory controller, and faster DDR3 RAM will certainly account for a big performance jump, especially for large files like video etc.

The new interior is interesting, I'm assuming those two huge silver boxes are even bigger heat-sinks for the processors? Those things are monstrous! Memory was never hard to get at, but with heat-sinks that big the tray is certainly needed. I wonder why they don't just go for liquid cooling, surely it would save on space overall?

An interesting bump anyway, I only got my Mac Pro last year, so it'll be a while before I do any upgrading, besides which I have no money :)

I'm disappointed that there's no integrated RAID controller for the price they're charging either, the new models really are ridiculously expensive. I paid £4,500 for my current Mac Pro last year, with high-end processors, plus an extra 8gb of RAM (2 x 4gb) and four 750gb hard-drives, and those I ordered elsewhere. With the new model I'm almost at that price-point just upgrading the processors, though granted it comes with 6gb RAM.
 
Oh I forgot one more thing.... WTF NO built in AirPort yet again?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

Apple is showing their poker hand now. It is completely obvious that they would rather get rid of the Mac Pro and make everyone buy iMacs for desktop use.
 
Pricing Themselves Out of Sales...

milo said:
Pretty horrible update considering the massive price increases.

So now the cost of eight cores went up FIVE HUNDRED bucks? Unbelievable.

These look like solid machines, but such a big price increase is VERY hard to swallow, as well as the downgrade from 8 to 4 cores on the base model.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. The folks in Cupertino are obviously unaware of the state of the global economy.

And their BTO configuration is completely RIDICULOUS. So in order to get into 8 cores this time around you need to eat a 3299 bullet??? Come on. I join others in saying this update, while technologically impressive, is offensive in its pricing and rigid BTO configurations.

They can keep their Nehalem Mac Pro, and I'll keep my early 2008 Mac Pro. :mad:


I also recommend that everyone who is outraged by their ridiculous pricing visit their Mac Pro feedback page and give them an earful.
 
iBug2 said:
I don't think 4 cores can sweep out 8 cores in any case. If the application you use is using all 8 cores, then your previous 8 core machine should perform better than the new 4 cores. But most applications don't even use double cores. So I'm mostly wondering about single core performance of Nehalems.
Click to expand...
i7 loses to E8xxx series Core 2 and it loses to Phenom II, when single-core performance is counted. Where it wins is efficiency of multi-core performance and that happens only because it utilizes tri-channel memory, thus having higher bandwidth. On the other hand i7 consumes more power than either of competitors so it loses out in performance/watt to both.
 
so...
penryn 8core VS nehalem 4core? (besides only up to 8gigs of memory :D ?)
 
iBug2 said:
Slower CPU? I suppose you haven't looked at the performance charts.
Click to expand...

First, they don't touch the 2.26ghz models on the charts. Second, the charts are usually manipulated by Apple are usually based on the most ideal situation. Remember how they showed how much faster the PowerPCs were...until they stopped using them. In fact, the real world OSX benchmarks on the development showed the P4s were faster than the G5 on OSX.

volvoben said:
Thanks Apple, you've cleared it up for me. Unless I'm missing something huge, this is a preposterous price increase for a drop in features. Only 6gb ram in triple channel and 8 in dual!? My god, I have 8 now and assume I'll need 16 within a year!!!!!

I'd be happy if a desktop-processored mac pro came out...FOR $1500!!!

I'll build my own for $1500 or less, thanks.

I was really hoping to avoid the hassles of a hackintosh too.
Click to expand...

They made that system, they're just charging $2500 for it.
 
Still no blu-ray, maybe after 10.6 is released.
Still, some nice stuff 3 big product upgrades. The mac Mini is one hell of a machine now. Might look into getting one with the LED display.
 
ImageWrangler said:
Remember when you could get an entry Mac Pro for $1600? I do. Mind you, these new ones are, more or less, based on a design SIX YEARS OLD!

Whatever Apple is smoking, I wish they'd share it with the world, it'd make this whole global economic meltdown seem like just a fantasy world.
Click to expand...

You're talking the single low-end PowerMac G5's that ran around 1.6 ghz and 1.8 ghz, while there were Dual 2.0 ghz Macs and Dual 2.5's etc..There was also the Quad 2.0, for like $1800-1900 if I remember right...


Considering Apple has SPLIT the Mac Pro lines into Quad and Octo as you can tell by the 8 gig ram limit, it would be smart to put the prices in the high-end iMac range, around $1800-2000, prolly at the expense of lower clock speeds.
 
Voltaic said:
Just what I was wondering about. One word: LAME!

Over a year wait, no redesign (PC cases hold over 8 HDs), Apple insists in using Xeon processors when i7s are cheaper. I want to see real tests on these.

The worst part is:WTH are the $300 in savings?! Either Apple is indeed smoking something hard or they just thing everyone is plain retarded.

Yep...and my next Mac will be: http://www.expresshd.com/p137/Express-PC-Q9550/product_info.html
Click to expand...

The Xeon 3500 IS the i7. Same chip, same price. Consumer i7 branded models have ECC support disabled.
 
iMacmatician said:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html

Originally Posted by myery
I'm not sure if this has been posted (at least, I didn't see it), but aren't the Nehalem-based Xeon processors multi-threaded? As in, can't a quad-core execute 8 threads at the same time (as opposed to Core 2's 1 thread-per-core)?

Yeah they do, but 2 threads aren't as good as 2 cores.
Click to expand...

@iMacmatician
Where did you read that?
I'm just trying to cut through opinion vs. the facts.
For the last few months I've been reading about how much of a an evolution in speed this Nahelem architecture is supposed to be over the Xeons we have been using. Surprisingly, I haven't heard or read ANYTHING that contradicts that assertion.

With that information in mind, It seems like it's "plausable" that 2 threads ARE as good as 2 cores. If you have some data that says otherwise...
 
KindredMAC said:
Oh I forgot one more thing.... WTF NO built in AirPort yet again?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

Apple is showing their poker hand now. It is completely obvious that they would rather get rid of the Mac Pro and make everyone buy iMacs for desktop use.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. The pricing is bad enough without nickel and dimeing customers on things like wifi and adapters. Really, three grand and they can't include the wifi that's in the $599 mini and the $29 mini to DVI cable?
 
Sas?

SAS drives are not mentioned at the store.
Modems are not either.

I thought SAS drives were the future?
 
jaw04005 said:
Not to mention, Intel won't let you run the consumer i7's in a dual processor configuration.
Click to expand...

That's the 5500, an i7/3500 with a second quickpath link.. The i7/3500 has a single quickpath link.

Wild-Bill said:
Totally agree. The folks in Cupertino are obviously unaware of the state of the global economy.
Click to expand...

I'm beginning to think they want us off the platform so they concentrate solely on trendy low end consumers.
 
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