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Mac Pro (Early 2008) Notes and Options

Where did that 88FPS Doom3 benchmark on the Radeon 2600XT come from?

I get exactly 100FPS with the same settings under Windows XP on the iMac.
 
Evangelion said:
Well, the thing is that Mac Pro is not meant for gaming. Sure, some people might buy one and use it primarily for just that. But that does not change the fact that it's not designed for that task. It's a workstation, and it's designed for workstation-workloads. And that does not include gaming.

you say that not including a better vid-card is a "stupid-ass" decision. to use a car-analogy, it was a stupid-ass decision by Ferrari when they didn't include a towball and a huge trunk to their latest sportscar.



That's nice. And because of that, Apple should design their _workstations_ with gamers in mind?



These GPU's that Apple offer are suitable for the intended workloads Mac Pro has been designed for. They might not be suitable for some other workloads, but that's 100% irrelevant.



Mac Pro's are not meant for gaming, therefore it's pointless to whine about lack of gaming-related functionality in Mac Pro's.



And for many people who buy Mac Pro's, it is.
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Hey, you should tell Apple that because right now they have a section specifically for calling the Mac Pro the "Ultimate Gamer" and "is a gamer’s dream-machine"

http://www.apple.com/games/hardware/index.html#ultimate
 
thereubster said:
I'm going to wait to find out if the single quad Mac Pro comes with the same motherboard as the dual quads. If it does I'm ordering one with an 8800GT.
FINALLY!!!!😀
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From BigHeadache Page 3, quote #52:

I'll take a guess and say that you can upgrade later.

Why? because according to the specs the single quad used is a 5400 series Xeon which means its socket 771. If you were going with a pure single CPU machine, you would be using a socket 775 Xeon such as a Xeon 3350 or 3360 quad core.
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But see my post at the top of page 9...
 
ray_uk said:
Nah, a real hardcore gamer would find a way of overclocking that single 2.8ghz quad core chip al the way to 3.6GHz
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You cannot change the multiplier so you would have to fiddle with FSB selectors on the processor but since that 400Mhz Quad-pumped Front Side Bus is currently the fastest available, you are left with nothing to overclock it to.
 
Pressure said:
You cannot change the multiplier so you would have to fiddle with FSB selectors on the processor but since that 400Mhz Quad-pumped Front Side Bus is currently the fastest available, you are left with nothing to overclock it to.
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ASUS has a board that can do 450 Mhz on the bus. All you need then is well made FB DIMMs. That should take the 3.2 Ghz Mac to 3.6 Ghz. Skulltrail should do better.
 
late release for something

maybe they plan on announcing something bigger for the mac pro but it wont be released til mid 08.
the iphone was announced and shown at macworld but wasnt realeased until july. i dont know bc of att or apple reasons.
 
sas76 said:
I am still suprised people care what these things look like. They are a box (very well designed) to put computer bits in, nothing else. I am sure you would find most Mac pro's stuck under a desk.

Who cares...
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tirerim said:
Hey now. My G5 is next to my desk; when it was under my desk I kept bumping into it with my knees. 😛
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I keep my G4 Tower and monitor on my top of desk (custom made open computer cabinet) in my "family room". Too beautiful to hide. When I have "new company" over, the people marvel at my "new" computer and monitor. ("new" as in 7 years old this month).
 
Evangelion said:
And that still doesn't change the fact that gaming is something that it's NOT designed for. It just happens to be pretty good at it.
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I was just thinking last night ... maybe these new Mac Pros '8 Cores and all', are really 'blow out sales' of the casings and components to make way for a radical new machine at WWDC? Apple has done this before ... several times with the end of a line model. Load them up at amazing prices and get them out of the doors fast. Just a thought ....
 
Roy said:
I keep my G4 Tower and monitor on my top of desk (custom made open computer cabinet) in my "family room". Too beautiful to hide. When I have "new company" over, the people marvel at my "new" computer and monitor. ("new" as in 7 years old this month).
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Put a G5 there, open up the side to show that beautiful internal industrial design and add subtle lighting ... they'll faint! 😉
 
RAM upgrades

Does anyone know when 3rd party 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs will become available for these? particularly in the UK? - too expensive from apple but no one else seems to be supplying them right now...
 
To all those complaining about poor graphics cards: what IS a good/the best graphics card out there, in your opinion?
 
spiritlevel said:
Does anyone know when 3rd party 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs will become available for these? particularly in the UK? - too expensive from apple but no one else seems to be supplying them right now...
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You may want to check dealram.com. Not sure if anything's out yet, much less in the UK, though.
 
History repeats itself again in my life. In 1994 I bought a Brand New PowerMac G3 Beige 233MHZ and the next month the Blue n White G3 arrive... Last Month I bought a brand new iMac (and I love it BTW) and now they introduce the Mac Pro of my dreams at the same price. ... Well, I'll enjoy my iMac for 5 years and lets see what happens ....
 
wdaleherring said:
NOOOOOO!! I wanted Blu-ray support SO badly. Oh well, theres always next year.😱
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I have Toast 8 and one of the things you can optionally install is Blu-Ray support. Since I don't have a Blu-Ray drive, don't know how well it works, though. Probably lets you read/write data Blu-Ray Discs, but I don't know if the software & new graphics card can do the whole HDCP thing of movies.
 
I doubt its a good thing to elaborate on the "gaming on a Mac Pro" debate going on, but just throwing in some coins here.

If people are willing to put in >$2000 on a system intended for gaming, wouldn't that make them "Pro gamers"? And what would the difference be if someone was a professional gamer versus a professional graphic designer? Just to prove a point, I'll throw in an example;

I make electronic dance music and made a good living from it for 7 years now. Been using Logic for a long while, just like many top producers. But on lots of forums, from producers who makes pop or rockmusic- and in daily events, the type of music that I compose is a bit frowned upon, and my work not considered "professional".

Well, if people spend so much time gaming that they can actually start making a living from it, could you not consider them as professionals? And shouldn't they be able to use a nice Mac like the rest of us?

Anyway, the new MP seems awesome, and as I don't play that many games anymore I have no complaints 🙂 Ordering one after MWSF.
 
I can't decide between the 8 core 2.8 or 3Ghz

Can anyone tell me/point me towards some info on the performance increase on the 3GHz over the 2.8? The 2.8 system I have specified comes in at just under £2K and it costs another £500 to go to 3GHz. This is an increase of 25% for a .2GHz increase in processor speed which seems like a lot...do you reckon this represents good value? I am a graphic/web designer using CS apps primarily but I also make a bit of music and do some video editing.

If the 3Ghz will make a lot of difference to me then I'll go for it but I could spend that £500 on a lot of other stuff = good audio monitors, a graphics tablet, new ACD (when they come), new camera etc..the list goes on.

How would the 8 core 2.8 compare to last years 8 core 3? Its a slower clock rate but would the newer chip and faster architecture on the new machine give it similar performance?

I'm finally upgrading from my trusty mirror door G4 1.25 DP so I think whichever one I get will be a pretty big jump from where I am now.

Any help appreciated, thanks.
 
So, no IR, right? Meaning no Front Row from a remote. I guess this is were the nifty wireless keyboard comes into play.

I was kinda looking forward to using Front Row from a remote, but I suppose this doesn't quite fit the whole "Pro" mode anyway.
 
In a nutshell, the Mac Pro is meant to make the games, not play them.

It is aimed for "content creators" - not "content consumers".

Dell's XPS gaming machines use desktop chipsets (Intel x38 and nForce 680), not server/workstation chipsets. Same with HP's "Blackbird". And you cannot get any "gaming" card on HP's workstations. It's all FireGL or Quadro. Same with Dell workstations.

So as workstations go, Apple is likely the best choice for gamers because you can actually get "gaming" cards for them. They may not be the best, but hey, try playing Crysis on a NVS295 with 128MB of RAM. 😱
 
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