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Help on timing on new Mac Pro purchase ?

K

kieranm

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2007
6
0
Hi folks, I would appreciate your guidance on any potential changes in the Mac Pro configuration options, cinema display and iSight potential offering expected within the next 2 months ? I am in the usual dilemma on when exactly to buy as this is my first Mac after being in the Dell PC world :) Thanks, Kieran, Ireland
 
In July, there are supposed to be price cuts on Intel's processors, and they should make an effect on the Mac Pro's pricing.

There might be an entire line of Octo-Mac Pro's sometime later this year.

Don't take my word for it.

As far as cinema displays go, no rumors have fluttered about on those, and the iSight still hasn't been discussed yet.

Apple's displays are beautiful, but you must consider other companies LCD displays. You can probably get a 24 inch LCD for the same/less price of an Apple 20 inch.

Check out www.newegg.com, www.tigerdirect.com. There are more websites out there.

I got a 20 inch ACER display for 190 bucks online for my Mac Pro.

Ram and all other Mac stuff can be ordered from OWC: www.macsales.com

Just some friendly advice...
 
I would like to be wrong about this but I don't think the next generation Mac Pro will be out until November.
The new Mac Pro will probably have a Stoakley platform, a Seaburg chipset, and use Harpertown for it's processor(s).
Stoakley/Seaburg is rumored to be released in November.
Harpertown is rumored to be released in Q4/2007.
And we (or at least some of us) are hoping it will have a much more powerful BTO high-end consumer video card.

This is one case I would love to be wrong and find the next generation Mac Pro coming out in a month or two.

Oh, and bite my tongue for this one but I've heard quite a few people say that they really like Dell LCD displays. Well, that upset my stomach.
 
I don't see how they could get away with not updating video cards and procs in July or August.

All 8 core line-up, new video cards, same price. That's the only thing that makes sense.
 
Hi Kieran,

There are several posts across this Forum asking just this question. This isn't a criticism as it is such an important decision to make so you have my sympathy!

I went through the same dilemma myself. I was ready to upgrade in Autumn 2006 but waited, and waited and waited some more for upgrades to the Mac Pro lineup. I finally gave in and in April bought a Mac Pro 2.66GHz. Added extra RAM and drives to take it up to 3GB RAM, 250GB+500GB+500GB (leaving bay 4 for a Time Machine drive).

I don't know why I left it so long. I guess the question you should ask yourself is when the upgrades come (as they will eventually) are you likely to benefit from them? Will a 20% or so faster machine make that much difference to you when it has a fast CPU already with 4 cores (something Leopard will make more use of when that comes out). Unless you're doing some really high end 3D modelling, real-time video production or something like that then the current line-up is likely to do you just fine for several years.

Just my two pence worth!

Whatever you decide, I wish you luck with your purchase. Whenever you go for it you won't regret it!! :)
 
AJClayton said:
Will a 20% or so faster machine make that much difference
Click to expand...


Just to be fair, there is NO WAY that the next revision of the Mac Pro will be 20% faster than the current. Base model to Base model, it's probably more like 5%, if that.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
Just to be fair, there is NO WAY that the next revision of the Mac Pro will be 20% faster than the current. Base model to Base model, it's probably more like 5%, if that.
Click to expand...

Well considering we don't know what the new model will have, I wouldn't quite throw out any figures.

It is likely that the Mac Pro could go all 8-core in which case in some Apps you could see close to a 40% jump. That is documented here:

http://barefeats.com/octopro3.html

Of course not all apps will benefit, however, multi-tasking performance should increase dramatically and Leopard would seemingly pull take increase even further.

Whats more, the base model could be likely to see a RAM increase, probably to 2GB. And an 8xxx series GPU. So, I don't think it is fair to give any performance increase numbers now however if any of what I have said happens. The jump will be more than 5% in just about anything, and even more in multi-core aware apps like CS3 etc.
 
Well with that in mind, do you think that it will be an octo-core with added ram, for the same 2500 base price?

I can still cancel my order. All the talk of "when to buy a mac pro" is giving me pretty serious second thoughts, especially when they haven't assembled or shipped my order yet, I could just cancel the whole thing and wait, if everyone believes that it will be that huge of a difference.

Almost 1 year ago to the DAY I placed an order for a Mac Pro, and then canceled it the next day, because I didn't want to run CS2 through rosetta. Now, a year later, I am ready to cancel and wait for the next hardware update because now these forums have got me thinking that a quad 2.66 machine with 5 gigs of ram won't be any good for CS3, and that if I REALLY want performance, I need to wait for the next release.

Not to mention I ordered the 2 nvidia 7300 cards, which everyone here seems to think are total crap.

lol I came here to gather information about this purchase, and now all I have is way more doubt.

Seriously though, I can still cancel. It seems right now that only a fool would order a mac pro right now, and a wise man would wait for a hardware update (unless the update isn't that big of a deal, or comes in 6 months, or raises the price, or if the current Mac Pro WILL be plenty great enough.. or.. or ... or... or..)

Man I hate this.
 
Quad core Xeons will be at the nearly the same pricing as the current dual-core Xeons. Will Apple drop an octo-core Mac Pro for $2500? I don't know. But it is worth waiting for. I figure at the very least I get 3.0Ghz dual-cores.

I think the price drops will bring quad-core all around. Here is my prediction:

2.66Ghz Clovertown (2x4 = 8 cores)
2GB DDR2 FB-DIMMs
500GB HD
Nvidia 8x00GT
S.S. mobo (this is a maybe and would depend on when they do the update)

That is what we could see, pricing and available hardware allow for it (S.S. being the exception as some will say).
 
Now don't drive yourself crazy.
If you're ready for a new computer enough to buy now just go for it.

I wouldn't bother canceling now if I had placed an order. If you're really waiting that long you might just be cheating yourself out of production time.

I personally wouldn't bother waiting as long as you have. I'm waiting till the end of this month for news but beyond that I'm probably just going to order. I'm looking forward to working on my new portfolio.
 
SolidShadow said:
Now don't drive yourself crazy.
If you're ready for a new computer enough to buy now just go for it.

I wouldn't bother canceling now if I had placed an order. If you're really waiting that long you might just be cheating yourself out of production time.
Click to expand...

I know I am cheating myself out of production time. This PC is so quirky.. half the time it won't boot, and when it does boot after a few hard-resets, windows takes about 10 minutes to load.

Not to mention the severe slowdown after half a day of doing photoshop and flash constantly, with dreamweaver screwing up and throwing "your system is low on memory" errors, even though I have 2 gigs. So then I need to restart and (see paragraph 1).

There's NO doubt I need a new computer. I'm just a glass half empty type of person.

Oh well. I've got 6 months 0% interest financing on it. So hey, if in 6 months there's some crazy new Mac Pro, I can always sell this or move it home, and buy the latest and greatest, right?
 
Sean Dempsey said:
This PC is so quirky.. half the time it won't boot, and when it does boot after a few hard-resets, windows takes about 10 minutes to load.

Not to mention the severe slowdown after half a day of doing photoshop and flash constantly, with dreamweaver screwing up and throwing "your system is low on memory" errors, even though I have 2 gigs. So then I need to restart and (see paragraph 1).
Click to expand...

I admire your staying power! On my Mac Pro 2.66 with 3GB RAM Photoshop CS3 Extended starts up in a couple of seconds and responds instantly however many layers I've got in a document, I have Dreamweaver CS3 running at the same time and other stuff running (like browser windows open to check how sites look as I'm designing). There's no lag in response at all (apart from when the drives in bays 2 and 3 need to spin up). BTW I have a 7300GT card which is just fine for all this kind of work.

A new Mac Pro (any spec), bought now will blow your socks off and be well up to the job of running CS3. Sure, a revised Pro would run it just that little bit faster but I'd be seriously surprised if you noticed the difference!

If an update within a few weeks would annoy you (even if it actually wouldn't make any difference to your workflow) then wait. If you want to finally bin that rubbish PC of yours and actually get something done then hold your nerve and don't cancel your order. You won't be disappointed!! :)
 
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