Mac Pro Announced

[Trekkie]

Nice try... you almost had me convinced.

I was obviously not trying to convince you, because clearly you have a different model to work off of that can accomodate a $5000 computer being broken for a day or two while you try and get parts.

Try justifying all that to my associates who run their studios on slim margins.

I don't need to justify, the first time a system is unusable and the part replacement time is 7 - 10 days if you're lucky not including shipping and they'll only ship it back to you parcel post from across the continent not matter how much money you wave in their face and you miss an all important deadline and it costs you a job, and reputation, then it matters.

The money you save through buying quality 3rd party products can be applied to backup systems.

Backup systems do you a heck of a lot of good when the system is unusable until the replacement part arrives. I've mailed off many hard drives that I bought dirt cheap. I love em. But then again I could wait a month before the replacement came.

Though, last I checked, Newegg has a decent return policy too!

Return policy, sure, but when a part breaks it is between you and the manufacturer. I'm not bashing newegg in the slightest, I've bought thousands of dollars of gear from them over the last five or so years.

Ram? I've been running Macs with quality 3rd party ram for 12 years and have NEVER had ram failure.

Me too, I usually figure out what's the most I can get from the vendor that's reasonable, and if I want more then I'll buy it from someone else. Crucial is my current favorite for the last five years an my iMac is running 2 of their 1GB sticks with never a hiccup. But then I don't make money with my desktop so I don't sweat it.

Having paid too much for your gear so that you have peace of mind and perceived guarantee for quick replacement is a bunch of crap.

I'm giving you ideas that I've learned from many businesses and how they provide uptime for their stuff. I've seen them buy duplicate systems down to the paint so that they could swap any part out instantly and warranty them back. I've also seen vendors get upset because they use the one systems serial number instead of the 50 that they had so it looked like the one computer broke 40 times in a year... heh that was kinda funny.

I was an Apple repair tech from '94 to '98. Third Party Memory and them didn't get along back then in a corporate environment. You call in with weird issues and they start troubleshooting and collecting info out of the machine they'll hit that 3rd party memory and no matter what the problem is they'll tell you to rip it out and call em back if it still is an issue. It's a PITA if you're support 700 - 800 clients.

There are tolerances that people will deal with at any level, clearly your worry is the upfront cost and you feel you have an adequate system for when something goes wrong. But not everyone feels your system is the way to go, I've seen quite the opposite more times than not. I'll run into the 'I do it my way' kind of person and I've also had them run back to me after they did it their way and something went wrong and someone almost lost their job.

I'm not saying that way works for everyone either, just being on the service end of the industry since '89 I've seen everything go wrong and could easily think up of a scenario I've experienced where no matter what you did up front to save a few $ if you'd done it slightly different the vendor would bend heaven and earth to help.

 

[THX1139]

I was obviously not trying to convince you, because clearly you have a different model to work off of that can accomodate a $5000 computer being broken for a day or two while you try and get parts.

Parts?? How hard is it get another drive if one dies? You're paying premium so that Apple will replace right away? Do you live in the Outback? If I have a drive failure, I just go to Frys or Compusa and buy a new one or order online if I'm not in the middle of a project. The point I was making is that they are paying a hell of a lot of money for the convenience of Apple sending them another one if it fails.

I haven't done the math, but I believe the cost of all those Apple drives and all that Apple ram could "almost" buy another Woodcrest, or a used G5 Quad. It could certainly buy bunch of hard drives! Or how about just leaving the money in the bank for an emergency?

The base Woodcrest is not $5000 unless you load it up with Apple amenities. My point was that if you are so concerned about failure or even one second of downtime, you buy a backup computer. Are you saying that it makes more sense to purchase premium products from Apple, over having a backup system, or backup drives? The OP spends thousands of dollars on top-of-the-line when they could have spread their money out and invested in a better backup system. If a drive fails in your scenario, they have to call Apple or go to the Apple store to get a replacement drive and then transfer all of the files (if they were backed up). In my scenario, they already have the backup drive in the studio that contains all of the backup files. When the project is done or during downtime, they send in the defective drive and that one becomes their backup when it gets back. Or just throw the damn thing away. LOL!! I would rather have a backup drive ready to roll than the ability to call Apple for a replacement drive!!

Ram failure after 30 days is so rare that it's not an issue.

Anyway, I'll agree that we are arguing apples and oranges. Each business model has it's own concerns and we could argue forever and say the same things. A two man studio is going to have different requirements than a studio like Pixar or advertising agency like Satchi & Satchi.

I don't agree with everything you wrote and you obviously don't agree with me either. So, let agree to disagree.

 

[cromeyellow]

The Last Word on buying 100% Apple

I've always bought the top of the line when it came in and I could afford it. Spent about $10K on the finest 9500/132 system around 1994-5, and about the same on a PowerMac G4 in 2003. I missed the G4 towers entirely.

It's interesting how through the personal computer revolution about $10,000. has been the amount you need to spend to get the finest. From what I understand the old S-100 4Mhz based hexadecimal and DOS systems that came out in the late 70s also cost $10K if outfitted with all the bells and whistles.

Sure, a barebones system today will cost under a grand, but from what I read so did a crappy TRS-80 from Radio Shack at the same time that $10K could get you a color graphics system (in 1980).

Back to the point of all this....

On the Power Mac 9500, I went ahead and got the aftermarket memory and drives. The seller was one of those who discounted and put in aftermarket drives period - there are plenty of such dealers left around today as well. In other words, the system came with no Apple installed drives whatsoever - all OEM.

Well, THAT system did not work from the getgo. Just my luck, a drive failed on day one. Luckily Apple covered it as a courtesy under warranty (or maybe their tech never figured out the drives were not Apple), but within a couple of years one of the drives failed again. When a drive fails the issue is not just down time, but potential loss of data!

Now, I am not saying that the aftermarket drives are cheapos and the Apple ones are the finest, because in some cases they might even APPEAR to be identical, but my experience has been that the Apple original drives last, and the aftermarket ones fail.

Maybe this is because Apple tests the drives again after they get them (in the final operating computers) so they go through two levels of tests, while the aftermarket companies test them once only. Anyway, who knows. My experience has been that the Apple drives last, the others do not. For this reason alone, I will never purchase non-Apple drives in an Apple system again.

Then - memory. On my 9500 I had no Apple memory installed. Again, not my choice. The dealer did it that way. Many dealers still do it that way but do not bother to tell you this (of course). On the G4, the original standard memory was Apple, rest was not.

And on the G4 some of the memory failed. Apple refused to service, because obviously it was a non-Apple part. So, there I was left with a broken machine, and down time, because I tried to save some money.

So, finally, this third time around I decided and was determined to go Apple all the way. Besides, that type of memory for the MacPro is not even available anywhere else (yet).

It comes down to a penny wise, pound foolish philosophy that I bought into before, but no longer. Sometimes, if you purchase from a place like MacMall, you have no choice when it comes to certain items such as extra memory - they won't even install the Apple memory for upgrades unless it is the only form available (such as is the case for the MacPro at present) - but in the end you will be holding the bag if the system fails.

Unless you are a technician you will be unable to differentiate whether the failed part is Apple or non-Apple, and only after it goes in and you are drumming your fingers with down time, will you get the final answer. And depending on the answer the system might be coming back to you from Apple, for you to lug over to some other place to repair.

And don't think that Apple does not discount - they discounted each of our towers about $1500. from full retail.

A good analogy is software. If you know what you are doing you can pirate about anything. But, when your copy of MSFT Office freezes because it detects a non registered copy in the middle of a school lecture or business presentation, or you are unable to upgrade your software and need to reinstall, find serial numbers and start all over just to get your work done, you will understand and weigh the benefits.

Bottom line: if your tool (whether it be software or hardware) makes you money, then you will not jeopardize its use by cutting corners. Why mess with your livelihood?

 

[Silentwave]

Interesting, cryellow, thank you for sharing.

I'd go all apple if their stuff fulfilled my needs, but unless they expand their HD selection big time I will have to load up on aftermarkets

 

[chatin]

Ouch! Cry baby!

I've always bought the top of the line when it came in and I could afford it. Spent about $10K on the finest 9500/132 system around 1994-5, and about the same on a PowerMac G4 in 2003. I missed the G4 towers entirely.

Ouch! Sounds like you were around during the Dark Times for Apple. The time of the Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition Mac, with the white gloves and limo.

The new Apple mantra is VALUE! Compete with Dell. No more anniversary, unless we're talking about the PC twenty fifth anniversary which all Apple power users celebrated with a MAC PRO!!!

 

[cromeyellow]

LARGE aftermarket drives

Well, that's something else entirely. 500gb x 4 is more drive than I have ever had! I never thought I would even fill my G4 tower which has two 120Gbs, but then the day came when I wanted to install Final Cut Pro 5.0


By the way, I meant that I missed the G5 towers entirely. I never owned any G5. Looks like I never will. On to Intel!

 

[cromeyellow]

Ouch! Sounds like you were around during the Dark Times for Apple. The time of the Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition Mac, with the white gloves and limo.

The new Apple mantra is VALUE! Compete with Dell. No more anniversary, unless we're talking about the PC twenty fifth anniversary which all Apple power users celebrated with a MAC PRO!!!

Untrue. Throughout history, whether we're talking Apple or PC if you want a top end laptop it's always about $3500., and about $10K for the fully loaded tower with maximum memory, drives and the best video card. Prices have not changed - just technology.

Prices have dropped only to the extent of inflation. Ya' falla'?

 

[dongmin]

Bottom line: if your tool (whether it be software or hardware) makes you money, then you will not jeopardize its use by cutting corners. Why mess with your livelihood?

Hard drives are hard drives. Buying directly from Apple has nothing to do with it. Hard drives fail sooner or later; that's why you should make backups and that's why Apple is introducing Time Machine.

There's really no reason to buy HDs directly from Apple, especially now that they've made installing them such a snap. Just have someone moderately hardware-savvy to install it for you, if you're nervous about that kind of thing.

 

[cromeyellow]

Also maybe the HD companies send the tested and true ones to the manufacturers and put the barely passed or tested lightly ones on the shelves.

Don't think it's true? Family members owned a modem manufacturing company (huge public co.) and they used to do exactly that all the time with their modems.

 

[Silentwave]

Untrue. Throughout history, whether we're talking Apple or PC if you want a top end laptop it's always about $3500., and about $10K for the fully loaded tower with maximum memory, drives and the best video card. Prices have not changed - just technology.

Prices have dropped only to the extent of inflation. Ya' falla'?

But doesn't that mean that courtesy of inlation, we get more for our dollar?

If a fully loaded mac pro is $10k, as was a fully loaded 9500 (1995-1997) those $10,000 from then would be about $13000 today.

 

[cromeyellow]

But doesn't that mean that courtesy of inlation, we get more for our dollar?

If a fully loaded mac pro is $10k, as was a fully loaded 9500 (1995-1997) those $10,000 from then would be about $13000 today.

That's exactly what I said! Ya' falla'?

 

[Roy]

Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) interfaces

Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) interfaces

I can understand one of these, but I haven't been able to figure out exactly what are some of the uses for the 2nd one. I'm sure there is a good reason for 2 of them, but as a home user of a G4 tower, I can't figure out what I would do with with the 2nd one. Anyone want to increase my knowledge base?

 

[aswitcher]

Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) interfaces

I can understand one of these, but I haven't been able to figure out exactly what are some of the uses for the 2nd one. I'm sure there is a good reason for 2 of them, but as a home user of a G4 tower, I can't figure out what I would do with with the 2nd one. Anyone want to increase my knowledge base?

One connects to your modem/router, the other connects to either:

Internal wired network or second Mac or Network storage device, where you want high speed transfers (1000mbps not 54mbps).

 

[THX1139]

...Now, I am not saying that the aftermarket drives are cheapos and the Apple ones are the finest, because in some cases they might even APPEAR to be identical, but my experience has been that the Apple original drives last, and the aftermarket ones fail. ...

The last word eh?

Well, okay... whatever floats your boat. Just be aware that the drives don't come from Apple. A Seagate is a Seagate. A WD is a WD... doesn't matter who you buy it from. Apple buys the same OEM drives as you can get from Newegg etc. Only they actually pay less and sell it to you for more. Apple running two tests is not going to keep it from failing anymore than any other drive you can buy. You think that Apples quality control is that tight? Yeah, right. This forum is littered with posts for defective Apple products that got by quality control. Do you really believe that Apple installed drives are made with some sort of magic? Sorry, I digress. Here's the bottom line:

Apple: 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s [Add $400]

Newegg:Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $259.99

The Seagate is faster and cheaper. And probably a better drive that Apple uses (16MB cache vs 8).

Those Apple installed drives cost around $400 per machine EXTRA ($140 x 3 x 2). With the money you freely gave to Apple, so they could run two tests, you would have been able to buy 3 extra drives and an external housing to run a terabyte firewire 800 raid for backup! And still have a extra drive to put on a shelve for emergencies. Now who's being pound foolish?


Firewire dual case

Oh well, I give up. I'll leave you alone now. Good luck.

 

[THX1139]

Also maybe the HD companies send the tested and true ones to the manufacturers and put the barely passed or tested lightly ones on the shelves.

Don't think it's true? Family members owned a modem manufacturing company (huge public co.) and they used to do exactly that all the time with their modems.

Ooohh, sounds like a conspiracy theory!!! Try telling that to the millions of PC users and gamers who build their own systems. What about all those external drive vendors. Do they get bad drives too? LOL!!!

 

[Macinposh]

1.

When a drive fails the issue is not just down time, but potential loss of data!

2.
Now, I am not saying that the aftermarket drives are cheapos and the Apple ones are the finest, because in some cases they might even APPEAR to be identical, but my experience has been that the Apple original drives last, and the aftermarket ones fail.


3.
And on the G4 some of the memory failed. Apple refused to service, because obviously it was a non-Apple part. So, there I was left with a broken machine, and down time, because I tried to save some money.


4.
Bottom line: if your tool (whether it be software or hardware) makes you money, then you will not jeopardize its use by cutting corners. Why mess with your livelihood?

1.
Backup.Backup.Backup.And once more,backup.
Obviously.
Raid,NAS,DVD or what ever.
The drives have their MTBF and once they go,they go.




2.
You are buying from apple whatever they might have in the store at that moment!!! Frigging sake,they use Hitachis,Seagates,WDs, whatever they are suplied with at that moment. The worst part in that is that you dont know what you will get!!! You might get a model with 8.9ms seek time and 8mb cache OR a 8.6ms seek time and 16MB cache.
In a worst case, you might get different HDDs in the same machine, and you dont even know that.
Try to build a RAID array with that.
So getting buying OEM hard-drives you can make sure that you buy enterprise class HDDs in the first place,with longer MTBFs.
AND with the saved money you can buy 30% more HDDs and put them on your shelf waiting for a HDD to fail. Then you just throw in it,take the data from your backups and get the system running.

You´ll propably have that done sooner than gotten the apple care people to answer you phone call.


3.

I dont know where you live,but in most cities getting the replacent memory via a delivery/messenger would take about 1hour.
You buy it from some store and have that delivered.
Apple store,fine.Some other store,fine too.
Those aftermarket memories are mostly done in the same factories that where the apple memories are done too. Going kingston or crucial is a quite safe bet nowadays.

AND you will get 2x the memory for the same price.
That money you could use to buy more memory AND some "backup" memory.
Like,if your memory would fail in the middle of a stormy night, could applecare do anything? No.
Pop your backup in and keep on producing.


4.
Because most of us small/middle size companies DONT have money coming pouring in from the doors and windows they tend to be more
money conscious in their purchase. I tend to use the profits on myself,instead of soaking my suppliers with money.






Let´s put it this way.

You buy a Jaguar with all the blings and a good service contract for 100.000$.Then you drive.

I buy a Jaguar too.But I bling it with a lot of pimpy stuff making it UberPimp. And i pay 30.000$ for it.

On a dark and stormy night,you cruise along with your girl in your normal Jaguar and suffer a puncture. You call the service.They tell you to wait for 3 hours,because there is a lot of punctures on that stormy night.
But well,I happen to drive past with my UberPimp jaguar.Well,you bored girl asks for a ride, and..why not!!?Jump in,girl!
But alas!
I suffer a punctured tyre too!!! What a coincidence!!?
But as a handy man, I change my tyre,and after 5mins we are going to my Casa (wich I pimped with some 70.000$ that I had lying around..) to make some mad love with the girl,because she thinks it´s hot that a man can change his tyres.

End of story.


Obviosly,different companies have different business modells.
What works for some,doesnt work for the other.

My business modell is to make as much money possible,with as small investments possible,while still maintaining OR surprassing my competitors quality by being creative.
And knowing my **** well.

But thats just me.

 

[relimw]

Grr. My ship date has moved out to Sept. 20th from the 7th. Talk about last minute slippage.

 

[BigHat]

Are the MacPros Overkill?

This thread has settled down so I thought I'd ask you pros a quick question.

I have a 20" iMac dual core 2.0. Nice machine, but I'd REALLY like to get a bigger display and have embarked on some hi res photo work in RAW. Have purchased Aperture and have started fooling with it. Seems to work okay. I also aspire to maybe start playing with a video camera (maybe HD). Other than that I pretty much use the computer for medium sized spreadsheets, email, and basic word processing. Almost forgot, I also use it as an iTunes music server that I control from laptops around the house.

Of course, no one NEEDs a reason for a particular computer, but do you think the MacPro would be overkill? Again, I don't design stuff in PS or do any gaming. Do you think one of the new iMacs with a 24" screen would suffice or would you press for the 2.66 MP (or 3.0??). I must admit I like the idea of future mods too. With a 30" screen my configuration would be about $6K. The iMac would be about half of that. Again, not adverse to spending the cash but hate to think the machine would be WAY underutilized.

Thanks for your input.

Thanks

 

[Trekkie]

Of course, no one NEEDs a reason for a particular computer, but do you think the MacPro would be overkill? Again, I don't design stuff in PS or do any gaming. Do you think one of the new iMacs with a 24" screen would suffice or would you press for the 2.66 MP (or 3.0??). I much admit I like the idea of future mods too. With a 30" screen my configuration would be about $6K. The iMac would be about half of that. Again, not adverse to spending the cash but hate to think the machine would be WAY underutilized.

Here are my thoughts, take it for what it's worth.

Because of the photography aspect, at first I would have said Mac Pro. Why? Because of the video card upgradability. You could go with the 2.66GHz and be perfectly happy, and in a year you could probably find some 3.0GHz chips on the used market if you needed more processing power.

But now that the iMac 24" has a socketed video card, that changes the game. If I could have updated my iMac G5's video card, I'd have been ok. Aperture doesn't run on the slow vid card in my gen1 iMac has, but the processor did.

The challenge is that if the iMac 24" has the socketed video card, thanks to Apple's insistance on secrecy we may never know if they plan on letting you upgrade that card or someone makes a card you could upgrade too in the future. With the Mac Pro you have a good guess as to it's upgradability over time as it has a proven

I'm sure if you had the extra power you could find a use for it, or the machine would have more legs over time for you to enjoy. Don't fall for the processor marketing of more cores, not everything benefits from that as much as they'd like you to think.