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Mac Pro Announced

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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During Apple's Annual Worldwide Developer Conference Keynote given by Steve Jobs and a host of other Apple top executives and product managers, Phil Shiller introduced the PowerMac's Intel replacement: the Mac Pro. Advertised as having "millions" of ways to configure the machine, the base configuration includes the following:

- Dual-Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon 5100 Processor, upgradeable to 2xDual 3 GHz.
- 1 GB FB-DIMM RAM (2x512 MB), expandable to 16 GB
- 250 GB Hard Drive, 3 empty slots (3 Gbps SATA)
- NVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB VRAM), configurable to ATI Radeon X1900 XT or Quadro FX 4500 (512 MB VRAM)
- SuperDrive (2 5.25" slots total, 1 remaining)
- 4 PCI-Express Slots (One extra-wide, taken by GPU)

Visit the Apple Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2006/08/07/mac-pro-announced/
Pretty impressive specs, aside from the fairly hopeless 7300GT graphics card.

The internal design - the hard drive slots and the memory - seems particularly well thought out.

The Mac Pro will be my next computer. Time to configure one and see how much it would cost.
 
I think this is a great update. All Quad Core and many BTO options. I am glad there are more things you can BTO now. I wish I had enough money to get one!
 
The Mac Pros sound great... I'm getting one! I hope to wait for quads-on-one-chip (Kentsfield, due later this year) in hopes of even more cost reduction, but I already like what I see today! And I'm curious: how good are the top BTO GPU options?

A smaller case seemed likely to me, but keeping the same case and fitting more expansion bays makes good sense too. But how about a mid-range tower? The market is there, and now you can't GET a dual-core Mac with choice of GPU--it's all quads. Sounds like there's a hole in the lineup. I bet Apple fills it... but "when" is the question. A dual-core Conroe headless with upradable GPU... I think it would sell well and draw Switchers, especially if priced as nicely as the new pro machines are.

Now we enter the era of "Merom MacBook Pros next Tuesday!" rumors :p

Anything that wasn't mentioned today can still come at any time :)
 
Flowbee said:
Excellent. Now it's time to wait for the sub-$2000 "Pro" desktop announcement. There's a suspicious gap in their lineup. Mac Pro Cube, perhaps?
Click to expand...
Core 2 Duo (Merom/Conroe) was conspicuosly absent from this Keynote.

I too hope when the consumer lineup gets Core 2 Duo that they'll fill this gap with either a high end consumer machine or a low end pro.

B
 
Macrumors said:


During Apple's Annual Worldwide Developer Conference Keynote given by Steve Jobs and a host of other Apple top executives and product managers, Phil Shiller introduced the PowerMac's Intel replacement: the Mac Pro. Advertised as having "millions" of ways to configure the machine, the base configuration includes the following:

- Dual-Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon 5100 Processor, upgradeable to 2xDual 3 GHz.
- 1 GB FB-DIMM RAM (2x512 MB), expandable to 16 GB
- 250 GB Hard Drive, 3 empty slots (3 Gbps SATA)
- NVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB VRAM), configurable to ATI Radeon X1900 XT or Quadro FX 4500 (512 MB VRAM)
- SuperDrive (2 5.25" slots total, 1 remaining)
- 4 PCI-Express Slots (One extra-wide, taken by GPU)
Click to expand...


I can just hear everyone moaning....NO MEROM MBP??? :eek:

Only one model of the pro.... This leaves open the door for a new, headless iMac to fill the lower end of the product range
 
Suppose it'd be a bit heretic to buy one of these solely for Windows, right?

I'd not get a quad Xeon Woodcrest anywhere else for less, and my Athlon 64 just doesn't cut it...
 
All I can say is Apple better be coming out with a mid-range tower. Upping the baseline of the MacPro to $2500, what is that. Sure it looks like a sweet computer, but what about small businesses or starving artists who cant afford that. Now we're stuck with the all-in-ones.
 
brap said:
Suppose it'd be a bit heretic to buy one of these solely for Windows, right?

I'd not get a quad Xeon Woodcrest anywhere else for less, and my Athlon 64 just doesn't cut it...
Click to expand...


I do believe that is the entire point of this WWDC06 keynote presentation. Note if you get the chaeaper, faster, nicer MacPro computer you get OSX and bundled apps "for free".

Rocketman
 
baleensavage said:
All I can say is Apple better be coming out with a mid-range tower. Upping the baseline of the MacPro to $2500, what is that. Sure it looks like a sweet computer, but what about small businesses or starving artists who cant afford that. Now we're stuck with the all-in-ones.
Click to expand...

You can configure it down in price as well you know. You can get 2.0 Ghz Xeons instead. If the store did not keep timing out on me, I'd tell you how much cheaper that would make it.
 
nagromme said:
Now we enter the era of "Merom MacBook Pros next Tuesday!" rumors :p

Anything that wasn't mentioned today can still come at any time :)
Click to expand...


Yea got my hopes up on the mbp cuz everyone kept makin a big fuss bout it possibly being announced today. Oh well, hopefully itll be announced soon....maybe next tuesday?
 
brap said:
Suppose it'd be a bit heretic to buy one of these solely for Windows, right?

I'd not get a quad Xeon Woodcrest anywhere else for less, and my Athlon 64 just doesn't cut it...
Click to expand...

If that is what you want, Apple won't mind at all if you buy a Macintosh to run Windows.
 
For those of you hoping for a mid-range tower, you're looking at it. Take the processor down from dual 2.66Ghz to dual 2.0 and the HD down from 250GB to 160, and you're looking at a $2124 machine.

I sincerely doubt Apple will introduce any new model to its current lineup of mini/pro, macbook/macbook pro. Your best hope is a supermini.
 
Displays

They updated the specs of the displays too along with lowering the price.
 
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