First Mac Pros Begin Arriving Ahead of Christmas

[Vlad92]

I thought someone hacked my UPS tracking when I saw your post. My UPS tracking is identical to yours. Sorta funny . . . but not really. You can clearly see when the shipment got to Kansas it slowed down to a crawl with the shipment sitting for 40 hrs. plus with no movement. I realize Christmas was in there but . . . I mean it has now been sitting in Lenexa for 5 hrs. with no movement. Now, I keep refreshing my UPS tracking every once in a while and now I am thinking if my shipment does not leave Lenexa for Salina, KS pretty soon, like it should of an hour or two ago, I may not even get my Mac Pro tomorrow which would mean it would be Monday before it shows up. A lot of my UPS Amazon shipments go through Wichita and then straight to Hays, KS for delivery but for some reason UPS sends my Mac Pro 3 hrs. in the wrong direction. Most UPS shipments sit for no more than 2 to 3 hrs. and then they are back on the road. It's not looking promising for a tomorrow delivery either.

As someone posted earlier, Standard Shipping was my only option when I placed my order but I would have probably sprung for 2nd Day Shipping and payed extra if I would of had that option.

Looks like I got lucky! Let's just hope the truck doesn't break down driving across town... Hope you get yours as well today!

 

[calaverasgrande]

Dev

I do iOS development while running a VM for some development tools I can't get on osx, while running 3 displays, from a 15"rmbp (late '13 dedicated graphics, 16gb ram). Good thing about it is I can travel to the customer and display the app running across all the simulators on the same machine. Plus nothing looks better on their conference table, haha. Never even hinted at slowing down under load.

I don't know about IOS development, but when I have done Web Dev work I'll have not just an IDE open but also an image editor (Photoshop), every browser known to man, MySQL, PHP, Apache, many many finder windows, Filezilla and who knows what else. Oh yeah, VMs. Love me some virtual box so I can have my Apple and my XP/7.1 too.
Development can be done with a text editor on an ipad, or you can do it on a big screen with every possible application.
I'd also point out that at my last job every engineer had the 17" MBP with the hires screen. NOt because it was needed for their job, but when you spend 60 hrs a week on a computer working, it is worth it to have a NICE computer. Some folks call that rich? It's not. Buying a red Mac Pro for hundreds of thousands is "rich". Having an 'actual gold' iPhone is rich. This is merely middle class behavior and nothing on the order of rims that spin and whatnot.

 

[Gudi]

But Microsoft only makes the software, not any of the parts.

There is only one Mac Pro, but many designs of Pro PCs. The same hardware design work gets done over and over again on the Windows side of things. The development costs can not be regained, because of too much competition among different hardware makers.

While being its lowest volume product, Apple can still be sure to sell ten thousands of Mac Pros on day one. And they know there won't come out any new model to divert demand for at least a year. So they can preorder huge amounts of parts at a steep discount. No PC manufacturer could dare to do such a thing.

Dell manufactures just-in-time. Meaning if a few more people click on their website, they order a few more parts. And they are not the only ones demanding the same parts at the same time. This is not a good negotiating position with part suppliers. You can't out-apple Apple on this front.

 

[pagansoul]

MacPro early

Going to pick mine up at the store right now..1 week early. Guess what I'm doing all weekend.

 

[Vlad92]

Going to pick mine up at the store right now..1 week early. Guess what I'm doing all weekend.

CONGRATS! Raises a good question... I wonder how the "ship to store" option compares with "standard shipping" for delivery timeframes? I had that option as well when I ordered, but picked the home delivery.

 

[Nugget]

I keep telling myself.... "self, would you rather have delivery today or have those sweet BTO options you chose?" It's almost working.

 

[N64]

Going to pick mine up at the store right now..1 week early. Guess what I'm doing all weekend.

You must be lucky. I went to check it out at my local store, and someone wanted to buy it immediately, but the sales guy said that they aren't being sold for another month.

 

[Spinland]

I keep telling myself.... "self, would you rather have delivery today or have those sweet BTO options you chose?" It's almost working.

Yeah, me too. Every new report of another unit already delivered gives me a pang of "what if?"

 

[AppliedVisual]

Thank you! I will have to run the latest version of Cinebench again on my 2008 8 core (I remember the old version score but not the new one). That is really helpful!

You're going to find that Cinebench, even the latest version, is a poor test on these newer systems. The CPU render test doesn't kick in heavy and hard enough for any significant time to stress the CPUs or push them into turbo mode. They haven't updated the OpenGL performance test in ages.

 

[aloshka]

Going to pick mine up at the store right now..1 week early. Guess what I'm doing all weekend.

Was yours stock?

 

[walker5467]

Never had issues with vm's crashing after wake up? How many do you run at a time? I tried using an rMBP as my primary machine but the fans ran like crazy, and could only run 2-3 VMs (with no more than 1-2 cores at each) at a time and had to limit the memory (I generally need 8-16gb of memory).

My fans always go nuts coming out of standby with VirtualBox, but I think thats a software issue. I only run 2 VM's for work, one with 4 cores/8gb and one with 1/1gb, and work in OSX, so I'm not pushing near as hard as you. It's quiet with everything idle, but it will start to cook if I have lots of load on a VM and OSX.

I would say my biggest complaint is only being able to use 3 monitors..

side note: gaming on the machine is awesome. (750m)

 

[dbassett]

Cinebench submissions

Can those 2013 MAc Pro owners submit cinebench scores to http://cbscores.com
You can download cinebench from the link also.
Thanks

 

[Cubytus]

(...)Obviously this is not the norm for everyone else. Sorry to hear that. If that was me, I'd definitely ship everything to the store.

Precisely for that reason I expect any supplier to at least provide a choice of shipping providers. It doesn't cost them anything.

Shipping to the store was actually what I wanted to do since they typically deliver at home during working hours, and when they claimed they couldn't find the mall. The biggest one in town.

(...)and you're responsible for the burden of proof which Only makes sense, they'll cover their faults. Every time. They wouldn't be in business if they didn't

Try proving their online software was at fault. Good luck. Even them have a disclaimer saying they are not responsible for malfunctions.

(...)there's the chance a bad employee reflects bad on the company. Big time, extremely successful and VERY reliable shipping service doesn't get this way by displaying the type of behavior you're speaking of consistently

As a consumer, I want choice. Never any problems with transborder USPS or Purolator, or FedEx, for that matter. As I say, better to have a package late in an easy-to-drive-to place than having to argue over the phone for hours to get things done as they should have been, or no package at all. Would avoid DHL out of practicality since their only depot is 30 min drive or 1hr bus from home. FedEx is ok to receive packages, but a pain when something needs to be sent back: you'll basically spend more time filling in the paperworks than it takes for the package to reach its destination The last time a computer I had had to be sent back, they wanted, among others, the countries of origin of each single part, with their FCC IDs.

I can't believe a single employee would be responsible for all that ****. I may be a statistical exception, but so many problems over many years ordering various parts from various places speak from themselves. Only when I had a failed MacBook replaced I was always on Apple's back to keep track of the UPS-sent package. They took care of problems that happened. Of course I would be more willing to accept them as a carrier if Apple provided a a way to ship in-store, which they don't.

Fake photo. They aren't going to leave a few thousand shipment on a doorstep, they require a signature. I get the point though.

You don't know how carefree they can be. Sometimes I got damaged or late package in regular mail, but nothing as serious as UPS-sent ones (including a package "mysteriously" disappearing 25km from its destination, or saying they couldn't find a 250lb, 14ft-long carpet sent in 3 days service).

 

[puckhead193]

CONGRATS! Raises a good question... I wonder how the "ship to store" option compares with "standard shipping" for delivery timeframes? I had that option as well when I ordered, but picked the home delivery.

I was pondering this today also. I'm assuming that instead of putting your home address on the box they put your local store...and it won't really effect shipping unless the apple store isn't in your neighborhood...
Can I change it to store pick up? I still need to buy some more toys for it

 

[aloshka]

My fans always go nuts coming out of standby with VirtualBox, but I think thats a software issue. I only run 2 VM's for work, one with 4 cores/8gb and one with 1/1gb, and work in OSX, so I'm not pushing near as hard as you. It's quiet with everything idle, but it will start to cook if I have lots of load on a VM and OSX.

I would say my biggest complaint is only being able to use 3 monitors..

side note: gaming on the machine is awesome. (750m)

Yeah. Gaming I agree. I played wow and could do med settings at 90fps. Not in pandora though, I think something about that place is complex.

 

[crw]

I just called Apple and they upgraded the shipping to next day free of charge. It's a BTO and they still just said "January" for the ship date but at least I won't have to wait for ground shipping once it does finally ship.

 

[aloshka]

For those that ordered mac pros, what are you guys using for monitors? TB seems outdated and not sure I want to buy another one (currently using imac + tb). But I do love the ambient brightness thing (my office changes light–long explanation why). Does anyone know of any 24+ monitors IPS (not washed out) that have ambient light sensors?

 

[Nugget]

For those that ordered mac pros, what are you guys using for monitors?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1687402/

 

[aloshka]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1687402/

Hey thanks. Looks like a lot of people are in the same boat. I'm thinking either dell 24" 4k (dual) or hopefully apple will update something by feb 2014.

 

[blesscheese]

Wow...a top of the line, fully decked out Mac Pro ALMOST costs as much as a Mac IIfx (y'all grey beards remember that thing?).

Funny you mention that, 'cuz I collect old Macs...the Quadra 700's I have were introduced in 1991 with the base model having a retail price of $5700

I'm not going to bother trying to figure out what that would be in today's dollars, easily close to $10k.

So yes, the grey beards all remember the "good" (cough cough) old days...

Oh, and by the way...I picked up my first Quadra 700 at auction for literally $0.01 (+ $25 shipping) about 5 years back...it even came with 64MB of memory, which was way more than the base model, LOL...so, if you wait long enough, the new Mac Pro will come down in price, too!

 

[Larry-K]

Sure no problem

My only potential issue (if it would affect the test) is that I'm running an old 30" Cinema Display and I got the wrong Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter (thanks J&R for the knowledgeable advice) and I have to hustle to the 5th Ave Apple Store to get the Dual Link DVI adapter as my current supported resolution tops out at 1280x800.

We'll see. It has already crashed once (this morning) and the alert said it was an issue with waking from sleep (possibly related to using the wrong display adapter).

I'll try to run Cinebench now and after I get the correct adapter.

It always cracks me up that I need those adapters for my newer Macs to run my old 30" ACD, but my old 17" Powerbook G4 powers the thing straight out of the side without breaking a sweat.

I figure Apple just wanted to shake me down for another hundred bucks.

 

[Larry-K]

Wow...a top of the line, fully decked out Mac Pro ALMOST costs as much as a Mac IIfx (y'all grey beards remember that thing?).

Yeah, I got one in the Garage under a pile of something. Cost over $13K out the door with a 24 Bit Video Card and Monitor, and that was when a dollar was worth something. As I recall, it was deemed "Wicked Fast" at the time, it wasn't, but it got the job done in those medieval times.

 

[Nugget]

It always cracks me up that I need those adapters for my newer Macs to run my old 30" ACD, but my old 17" Powerbook G4 powers the thing straight out of the side without breaking a sweat. I figure Apple just wanted to shake me down for another hundred bucks.

You're just looking at it the wrong way. The dual-link DVI adapters are like time machines, not capability extenders. They take your modern Mac far enough back in time to be able to talk a dead language.

I just bought five for our incoming nMPs. In fact, they're on my desk at work now, taunting me, until I have something to use them with.

 

[milo]

I'm wondering if someone more knowledgeable might clarify this but I was under the impression Logic Pro could potentially be able to benefit in the future from dual graphics cards if Apple were to fully support OpenCL?

I keep hearing OpenCL isn't well suited for audio processing. Apple has the opportunity to prove that wrong with Logic but they just released a major update and it doesn't mention anything about OpenCL.

 

[Cubytus]

(...)I don't know about IOS development, but when I have done Web Dev work I'll have not just an IDE open but also an image editor (Photoshop), every browser known to man, MySQL, PHP, Apache, many many finder windows, Filezilla and who knows what else. Oh yeah, VMs. Love me some virtual box so I can have my Apple and my XP/7.1 too. (...)

There's no point in developing for each and every browser. Only those that conform to standards. That's what standards are for.

Some folks call that rich? It's not. Buying a red Mac Pro for hundreds of thousands is "rich". Having an 'actual gold' iPhone is rich. This is merely middle class behavior and nothing on the order of rims that spin and whatnot.

We surely don't call the same things "middle class". The "middle class" is the one struggling to make ends meet despite decent salary, the "middle class" has the burden of most taxes, the "middle class" can't afford to send two kids in $15k a year colleges. The "middle class" spends its days running wild between job, kids, tv, and lack of sleep.

At the very least, what you describe is a proper tool, granted, but that only moderately well-off people can afford. $3.5k is a LOT of money, whatever way you put it.