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Mac Pro - Exchange!

S

superpalmtree

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 6, 2009
166
0
North Dakota
I have the Mac Pro 2.26 - today I decided to order the Quad 2.93 model. Anyone else contemplating Quad? The Apple Rep told me 8GB is just what Apple Tested it up to, he said the board is capable of more. I use the Mac Pro to run a business, office tasks, photoshop, vista x64, more general stuff - yes an iMac could have done it for me, but I would rather use a 5yr old Dell laptop than an iMac. And I'm selling my Apple 24" LED as well - that screen initially was cool, but the gloss and fake colors took over fast. I have a Doublesight 26" DNS-236, which is much, much better.

What I ordered:

Quad 2.93
3GB RAM
640GB HD
ATI 4870
Wireless
Keyboard/Mouse

What I currently have but will send back or sell:
Octo 2.26
6GB RAM
640GB
ATI 4870
No wireless
Keyboard/Mouse
 
Are you sure about this?
When you buy a Mac Pro you really want something future proof, don't you?
More and more applications take advantage of more cores in the future.

Upgrading the Octo Core Model is less expensive because you can use 2GB Modules instead of 4GB sticks.
 
Nik said:
Are you sure about this?
When you buy a Mac Pro you really want something future proof, don't you?
More and more applications take advantage of more cores in the future.

Upgrading the Octo Core Model is less expensive because you can use 2GB Modules instead of 4GB sticks.
Click to expand...

I actually always sell my Mac Pro's and buy the newest model. I'm thinking the 2.93 will hold it's value better than the 2.66 just because it will be harder to find used 2.93's. The 2.93 with a potential for 16GB RAM and a Raid 0 is going to be snappy for a bit. Or am I just STUPID for thinking Quad? lol
 
why?

hi there. i've got a 2.26 8-core on order myself. i'll be using it for graphics, video editing, and possibly 3D visual effects. i understand that the quadcore can take 16GB of RAM. but then you would have to buy 4GB RAM chips at $800 a piece. i don't see the prices for those chips coming down to a reasonable price for at least another year or so.

i was tempted to get a loaded 2.93 quadcore myself cause the 2.26 clock speed number bothers me a lot. but the difference in price is only like $300 or so based on your configuration. i'd rather have 8-cores than 4 for that price difference. and i actually spoke to an apple engineer on the phone who told me that os x snow leopard is going to have a tremendous effect on these nehalem processors.

i'm curious, did you start up the 2.26 and use it? how was it for day to day tasks? i'm wondering if i want an 8-core 2.66 or 2.93, but the price increase for those is really ridiculous to me, almost criminal.

and by they way, i had a 24" led display. in fact, i had two cause the first one was replaced. then the second one needed to be replaced, so i decided to get a refund instead. those displays are plagued with problems when used with a macbook or macbook pro. not sure how it is with a mac pro, though.
 
VirtualRain said:
Yes, I think that's the best machine for my needs as well.

What are you selling your glossy display for?
Click to expand...

Did you already or are you planning on getting a Quad as well? The glossy I will probably sell for $750. I have a few people I know would pay that much. It's a pretty screen and the built in cam is great, but I don't like it, and I was usually a fan of glossy screens. I guess not as much as I thought.
 
bluesteel said:
hi there. i've got a 2.26 8-core on order myself. i'll be using it for graphics, video editing, and possibly 3D visual effects. i understand that the quadcore can take 16GB of RAM. but then you would have to buy 4GB RAM chips at $800 a piece. i don't see the prices for those chips coming down to a reasonable price for at least another year or so.

i was tempted to get a loaded 2.93 quadcore myself cause the 2.26 clock speed number bothers me a lot. but the difference in price is only like $300 or so based on your configuration. i'd rather have 8-cores than 4 for that price difference. and i actually spoke to an apple engineer on the phone who told me that os x snow leopard is going to have a tremendous effect on these nehalem processors.

i'm curious, did you start up the 2.26 and use it? how was it for day to day tasks? i'm wondering if i want an 8-core 2.66 or 2.93, but the price increase for those is really ridiculous to me.

and by they way, i had a 24" led display. in fact, i had two cause the first one was replaced. then the second one needed to be replaced, so i decided to get a refund instead. those displays are plagued with problems when used with a macbook or macbook pro. not sure how it is with a mac pro, though.
Click to expand...

Thanks, you make great sense!

That was my problem, some reason or another the 2.26 with 6GB RAM granted was a little slow-feeling to me on my day to day tasks. Maybe the RAM had something to do with it. And I normally use Raptors or SAS and I only have a Caviar Black 1TB drive for OSX at the moment, I was waiting for my new drives to come in. So it's probably fast.....I just like the idea of a 2.93 CPU, granted only 1, to use for a year or so until the new model comes out. I'm not someone that can keep a computer more than 12 months. In the last year I've actually switched computers in 30 days or less. HAHA -- I was hoping this new Mac Pro could tame me down a bit! Before I decided on Quad I have a cart full of custom parts at Newegg to build a kickin i7 desktop system - I actually prefer Vista X64 over OSX....but in my business I like to have experience with all OS's.
 
For Price of Quad Mac I could get:

ABS Canyon 695 Case
Corsair 1000W PS
12GB Corsair DDR3 1600 RAM
i7 920 2.66 (Over-clock to 3.8)
ASUS P6T6 Workstation Board
Dual Velociraptors 300 (Raid 0)
2TB Caviar Black - Raid 1
EVGA 285GTX
Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler
Creative web cam Pro 9000
Silicon Dust TV Tuner (Network One)
Creative Fatality X-Fi
Apple Keyboard / Razer Mouse
Bluetooh Adapter
Blu-Ray
And other stuff: $3100 overnight shipped.
Mac Pro 2.93 Quad / 3GB RAM / 640GB HD / 4870 $3400 + next day shipped.

I still suppose Apple is the better deal, especially for OSX and much much better CPU - but that was the i7 that tempted me! And then I would just buy a Mac Mini to meet my OSX craving. The Canyon Case is $600, but I have 1 in my office already and it's great looking.
 
superpalmtree said:
Did you already or are you planning on getting a Quad as well? The glossy I will probably sell for $750. I have a few people I know would pay that much. It's a pretty screen and the built in cam is great, but I don't like it, and I was usually a fan of glossy screens. I guess not as much as I thought.
Click to expand...

I've been waiting for more benchmarks to come available. Most benchmarks are focused on the difference between 2008 octo's and 2009 octo's... few have paid any attention to the Quad. I felt from the first day of the announcement that the Quad was the ideal machine... slotted nicely between the high-end Octo's and Apple's other lesser desktop offerings.

The 2.93 Quad seems more balanced in terms of clock speed and parallelism where the Octo (At least the 2.26) is far to skewed towards multi-threading and I'm afraid might feel slower than a laptop on day-to-day tasks.

However, hanging around here for the last two weeks has nearly got me brainwashed into thinking that having less than 12GB of RAM is foolish. Yet, I come from Windows, where very few enthusiasts run more than 4 or 6GB and clock speeds are king.

I think one of the problems here is that there's a mix of users trying to justify their purchases... the enthusiast pro-sumers vs. the hard-core professionals... it's hard for the enthusiasts who want more than an iMac to avoid getting spun into the Octo 16MB web.
 
VirtualRain said:
I've been waiting for more benchmarks to come available. Most benchmarks are focused on the difference between 2008 octo's and 2009 octo's... few have paid any attention to the Quad. I felt from the first day of the announcement that the Quad was the ideal machine... slotted nicely between the high-end Octo's and Apple's other lesser desktop offerings.

The 2.93 Quad seems more balanced in terms of clock speed and parallelism where the Octo (At least the 2.26) is far to skewed towards multi-threading and I'm afraid might feel slower than a laptop on day-to-day tasks.

However, hanging around here for the last two weeks has nearly got me brainwashed into thinking that having less than 12GB of RAM is foolish. Yet, I come from Windows, where very few enthusiasts run more than 4 or 6GB and clock speeds are king.

I think one of the problems here is that there's a mix of users trying to justify their purchases... the enthusiast pro-sumers vs. the hard-core professionals... it's hard for the enthusiasts who want more than an iMac to avoid getting spun into the Octo 16MB web.
Click to expand...

Wow - I wish everyone would read your post! You couldn't be more right. I too got spun into that web. I thought I had to have an Octo with 12+ GB RAM. I am a tech enthusiast - and in my opinion having one 2.93 with even 8GB RAM and a fast hard drive sounds like more fun than what I currently have, the 2.26 Octo - which seems sluggish in my opnion.

I'm glad I'm starting to untangle from the web - and I appreciate your comments which even bring more light to it. And the Apple Rep more or less stated 8GB is just what Apple tested, and he pretty much stated more RAM is possible, just not tested. I'm content with 8GB right now anyways.

I enjoy builing high-end PCs, but I think this 2.93 may just find a place under my desk for the next 12 months.
 
Wow. Just wow.

Weren't you summoning the troops to the octo Nehalems last week? Perhaps you ought to be patient, gather information, and make an educated decision from your workflow. Or just try to rein in that ADD for these heated product releases.

Back to the topic, the quad with the same memory comes in to be $138 below the octo. We have yet to hear of the octos will accept more than 8Gb in a different configuration. And I'm guessing the octo will be better for future proofing.

OR, wait until the faster processors further bring down the prices on the lineup while gathering more info on benchmarks and your usage patterns.
 
MCHR said:
Wow. Just wow.

Weren't you summoning the troops to the octo Nehalems last week? Perhaps you ought to be patient, gather information, and make an educated decision from your workflow. Or just try to rein in that ADD for these heated product releases.

Back to the topic, the quad with the same memory comes in to be $138 below the octo. We have yet to hear of the octos will accept more than 8Gb in a different configuration. And I'm guessing the octo will be better for future proofing.
Click to expand...

Hey:

Summoning the troops? I don't appreciate your response.

I was simply encouraging people to buy new technology. You were leading the pack to tell people to buy last year's 2008 model. I simply stated the Nehalem was the better buy for a number of reasons. When you're spending $3K why wouldn't you buy new? I don't want to discuss that here...just saying.

The Octo's will accept more than 8GB Ram. The Quad's may only accept 8, but I am pretty certain will accept up to 16GB.

I have a 2.26 Octo right now - I have come to the conclusion that I'd rather have one 2.93, (I don't need dual 2.93) for Vista, Photoshop, and basic office tasks.
 
Rude

MCHR said:
Wow. Just wow.

Weren't you summoning the troops to the octo Nehalems last week? Perhaps you ought to be patient, gather information, and make an educated decision from your workflow. Or just try to rein in that ADD for these heated product releases.
Click to expand...

You're rude. Go punch a pillow or something so that you can behave like a human being instead of a gorilla.
 
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