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such suave

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...

I like your style. i sold my beloved ibook in order to get a new bicycle which is not good for cs2.
 
TedSlawski said:
I got the base model, really don't find that graphic cards make much difference to me, RAM is usually less than half of what Apple wants in the aftermarket, putting my lightscribe in the other optical bay, Hard drives are usually close to free with my Staples office rewards, so I'll pick up the pieces to deck it out while I wait 3 weeks to get mine. Plus the place I bought it from gave me a $1200 trade in on my moderately upgraded original 2gig G5. I envy the 3gig processor though but that was financially just out of reach.

That brings up a question I was wondering about...since they only offer 1 model that can be customized by Apple...what will the Apple Stores and Authorized Resellers have in stock...Just the base model?
 
I'm SO angry too! I'm seriously going to be PISSED OFF until Apple offers a 50 GHz workstation with 32 GB of RAM and a 4 TB hard drive for free!
Reductio ad absurdum only works if the original argument/request was absurd (hmmm...).

I, for one, am not asking for anything extraordinary or underpriced. I think the people looking for a $999 desktop are nuts, too. That's a market where Apple doesn't have a niche to get into.

But a sub-$2k desktop with a decent-to-good graphics card (and yes, the 7300 GT is completely useless - the x1600 in the iMac I'm using right now

I want something in competition with the mid-range PCs of the world - a tower with a 2.4GHz Conroe or a 2.0GHz single Xeon, with a graphics card at least capable of playing whatever games are out (once upon a time, I remember playing games now and then), two hard drive bays (four is nice, but two gives me a boot drive and a media drive, backups can go external), for $1599-2000 retail.

If Gateway can sell me a 2.4GHz Conroe with X1900 XT - more than adequate for my needs in photography and design, with the added benefit of games - for $1850, why the hell can't Apple sell me one for $2k? I'll happily pay the Apple Tax for something that genuinely fits my needs.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
ProMac is a workstation, Consumer is still king though and I suspect something new the next few months because Mini aint enough and ProMac is a beast. Still waiting for my Cube Jobs:D

Me too!
 
Abercrombieboy said:
That brings up a question I was wondering about...since they only offer 1 model that can be customized by Apple...what will the Apple Stores and Authorized Resellers have in stock...Just the base model?

I was also wondering about that. The stores also have additional configurations of the MacBooks and MacBook Pros available. Probably Apple will have three standard configurations in the Stores. The stores could also just customize the machines for the customers. I don't know how easy it is to switch the CPUs, but all the other components, which can be customized, seem to be easily changable.
 
Horst said:
As for prices, any word on compatibility with 3rd party Ram and internal hard drives ?

Looks like the extra one gig from Apple is $300 and what appears to be the same ram from Crucial is $202. If you go into the custom config screen for a Mac Pro there is a drop down box that explains the memory requirements. In the box there is a caution about some sort of fancy memory heat sink Apple uses that is not on other memory modules. That kind of scared me, so I just went with the Apple memory upgrade. For the extra $98 I figured it was not worth the chance of Crucial memory not working properly.

I see on Newegg there is a Kingston module with the right specs, and the picture looks like there is a heat sink attached... but who knows if it is like the one Apple specifies.
 
Does anyone know if this systems absolutely *REQUIRES* ECC RAM?

ECC is very expensive!
 
MBP Will Be A New Design • Black Anodized Aluminum • User Installable HD

UmaThurman said:
SO in the Paris expo is where we'll most likely see updated MBP?
Loge said:
They don't need a special event for what will most likely just be an updated processor.
I am one who thinks the Merom MBP will be a new design including user installable HD like on the MB. :) So I am still thinking Paris Apple Expo. Apple loves the French. ;)
 
Just ordered with the X1900 upgrade, memory upgrade, and Bluetooth. Says three to five weeks to ship.

If I check the order status twice a day, will that make my system ship faster? :)
 
You Read Like South Park's Butters

shompa said:
The G5 is almost as fast per clock cycle.
Apple COULD have released quad G5 3ghz instead, but they want us to use Intel.

The whole Intel project is beacuse of no G5 laptop.

Stupid IBM. I do not like X86, the play plattform.
But, I have changed all my PPC macs to Intel now.
Macbook pro, Macbook, macmini and today a Macpro.
Congrats on making the shift. I will probably wait for 8 cores. But I am tempted because of the 6 Bays and the additional front ports. Maybe I'll get a refurb in the Fall. Still want a Core 2 MBP more I guess. Really want 8 cores. Might just hold out until Spring so Leopard is inside 8 cores. Love Leopard features. :)

Stupid IBM...
 
LaMerVipere said:
Also, if you hit the EJECT key on the keyboard while you have two optical drives installed, will they both open?

Questions, questions...

On my dual G4, the Eject key opens the top tray, and Option Eject opens the bottom. I suspect it is the same...
 
Save A Lot Of Money Buying Third Party RAM

Weaselboy said:
Just ordered with the X1900 upgrade, memory upgrade, and Bluetooth. Says three to five weeks to ship.

If I check the order status twice a day, will that make my system ship faster? :)
Two 1 GB Sticks are only $386 from Third Parties.

2x1 = 2GB = $386 vs Apples 4x 512 NOT 6x 512 = + $386 Plus the One GB from Apple for total of 3GB.
4x1 = 4GB = $772 vs. Apple's $990 Plus the One GB you get base from Apple for total of 5GB.

I think you really should change your order to base ram and add TWO 1GB sticks for only $386 for a total of 3GB to begin with for only $116 more than the cost of TWO from Apple taking up only 4 slots. :)

When you buy 2 GB (4 x 512) from Apple you are paying Apple $270 for ONE GB (because you get ONE GB Base anyway) Instead of $193 per ONE GB from Third Parties plus the ONE it comes with no matter what.

$386 MINUS $270 = $116 for that first GB it comes with. See?
 
Correct_Old_Quad_Still_Viable

Multimedia said:
Not really significantly faster than the G5 Quad. Maybe 50% faster at best. As owner of a Quad G5 my motivation would be more about the 6 bays and the FW 800 and extra USB 2 port on the front than the speed. :) Not worth the extra money to go 3GHz - 33% more money for 12% more speed doesn't make economic sense. Need 8 cores inside.

Agreed!

The next 2 releases of the MacPro are the ones I'll buy.

I am very happy I purchased my PowerMac Quad -- It has made me a lot of money in production multitasking. Fantastic Machine with NATIVE software that works NOW, with few minor bugs which I am sure will surface with the MacPros.

DJO
 
I don't know if this was said, but no dual grpahics cards in SLI/Crossfire mode? Many PeeCee motherboards support it. If the Mac Pro is supposed to be a workstation, why no SLI/Crossfire?

I think I'll wait until MWSF or whenever Apple releases 10.5 and see what's out (and to save up money). I checked to see how much it would cost to buy one w/ the specs I want (bluetooth & Airport, superdrive, GeForce 4500, smallest RAM & hard drive, 30" apple display) and it cost over $7,000. That's almost half a year's pay for me (I work in a public elementary school as their computer geek so the pay's lousy, but still fun).
 
Interesting

Well it's certainly good to see new computers, but they really are aimed at high level tasks. These machines use server technology, rather than technology developed for the retail sector.

Interesting points I see are the use of ECC RAM (this is not at all unusual for servers, but very expensive because it's usually paid for by a company's server budget), and I didn't see any mention of onboard hardware RAID, which is a bit disappointing when you've got all of this other fancy stuff going on.

I'd also be interested to see, from an environmental perspective, how its power consumption levels compare with an equivalent consumer PC.
 
Multimedia said:
1 GB Sticks are only $125 each from Third Parties.

2x1 = 2GB = $250 vs Apples 4x 512 NOT 6x 512 = + $270
4x1 = 4GB = $500 vs. Apple's $990

I think you really should change your order to base ram and add TWO 1GB sticks for only $250 for a total of 3GB to begin with for less than the cost of TWO from Apple taking up only 4 slots. :)
A good site for RAM is www.dealram.com. A lot (as in most, if not all) of the RAM is generic, but much cheaper than Apple's!
 
Amen!

iGary said:
And it still doesn't run Adobe/Macromedia products. ;)

Amen -- For me Adobe and Macromedia are huge apps -- I would never run them under Rosetta and chance my business to this setup.

The Quad G5 is a great machine: worth the cash -- cheap RAM, native performance, 64-bit, good graphics, nice SATA and decent bus.
 
1 GB Sticks are only $125 each from Third Parties.

That isn't a heatsinked FB-DIMM.

RAM is truly the dealbreaker here. EDU prices bring the 2.0 model down to a reasonable price, but I want 4GB - I'd like to scan my 4x5 film, so the more RAM the better - thanks to Xeon and the need for the ECC heatsinked stuff, I'm looking at $800 from Crucial. No way, man, not gonna do it.

The more I look at it, the more I believe a reasonable mid-tower option has to be in the pipeline.
 
this may be a dumb ? but . . .

as far as the empty drive bay, i already have a pionner 109 superdrive i bought for my old powermac g4. would that be compatible?
 
All Pioneer DVRs Are Compatible • You Would Never Buy Apple's $90 Optical

tonywalker23 said:
this may be a dumb ? but . . .

as far as the empty drive bay, i already have a pionner 109 superdrive i bought for my old powermac g4. would that be compatible?
Latest Pioneer DVR-111 is only $35.
 
How About $770 From Kingston Technology?

milozauckerman said:
That isn't a heatsinked FB-DIMM.

RAM is truly the dealbreaker here. EDU prices bring the 2.0 model down to a reasonable price, but I want 4GB - I'd like to scan my 4x5 film, so the more RAM the better - thanks to Xeon and the need for the ECC heatsinked stuff, I'm looking at $800 from Crucial. No way, man, not gonna do it.

The more I look at it, the more I believe a reasonable mid-tower option has to be in the pipeline.
Yeah I know what you mean. I fixed my post #188 to reflect that higher price. How About $770 From Kingston Technology?
 
newegg

shompa said:
FB Dimms ECC are really expensive.

Anyone knows where to get them cheaper?

I plan to use 4 gig FBdimm 4x1024
and 4 750 gig disks.

Then Bittorrent wont be slow!


Newegg has 512's for about 100 and 1GB chips for $200. Way cheaper than apple's upgrades. And they are retial crucial chips...

Hope that helps. Also, I don't know about the 750GB HD's - apple only offers 500GB drives - there may be a reason for that...
 
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