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Mac Pro Overpriced?

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"My point, again is this, Just because the Mac Pro is priced well doesn't mean they can keep selling old hardware. Doesn't mean it is overpriced, doesn't mean it a terrible computer. It is simply outdated, which depending on how you look at it, could mean overpriced. But to each their own. It is however outdated."

I said the mac pro COULD be outdated, but it is NOT overpriced. I personally don't really think it's even outdated in many regards. It seems the graphics cards options ARE outdated, and the stock ram they put in probably be increased. But the core technology, namely, the processors and motherboard, don't seem all that outdated with current technology.

But that's besides the point, I don't care if you want to call the mac pro outdated, I've specifically said it COULD be outdated, I can understand arguments that say that. However I think it's fairly objective, that at the current prices, it is NOT overpriced. That's all I've said this entire time. (Also, I'm not planning on getting a mac pro within the next year, was just looking up on it, and was shocked at how many people were claiming it was over-priced, when I found it to actually be a good deal)
 
wentwj said:
"My point, again is this, Just because the Mac Pro is priced well doesn't mean they can keep selling old hardware. Read that again, and again if you need to. Doesn't mean it is overpriced, doesn't mean it a terrible computer. It is simply outdated, which depending on how you look at it, could mean overpriced. But to each their own. It is however outdated."

I said the mac pro COULD be outdated, but it is NOT overpriced. I personally don't really think it's even outdated in many regards. It seems the graphics cards options ARE outdated, and the stock ram they put in probably be increased. But the core technology, namely, the processors and motherboard, don't seem all that outdated with current technology.

But that's besides the point, I don't care if you want to call the mac pro outdated, I've specifically said it COULD be outdated, I can understand arguments that say that. However I think it's fairly objective, that at the current prices, it is NOT overpriced. That's all I've said this entire time. (Also, I'm not planning on getting a mac pro within the next year, was just looking up on it, and was shocked at how many people were claiming it was over-priced, when I found it to actually be a good deal)
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Expect the fact that:

1: FB-DIMMs cost WAY LESS
2: 250GB drive are chump change
3: The X1900XT does not cost $400, not does the 7300GT cost $149

Processor and motherboards?
Seaburg is on the way. 45nm and price cuts on the way too. Even now, the 2.66Ghz Xeon is cheaper than it was a year ago. have the prices adjusted at all, no.

The main thing right now though is the RAM, HD, and GPU. The CPU and Mobo are coming by years end. The Mac Pro is outdated and is overpriced (even more so in a couple weeks), like I said the low cost does not mean should be allowed to stay the same for over a year.

It is still a great Mac. But one that I won't be buying anytime soon.
 
Umbongo said:
You've missed the fact that those processors will be quad core as opposed to dual core, and that they are using a more efficient architecture.
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you may have missed the point that tiger doesn't even utilise 4 cores properly . let alone 8 , and we'll have to wait for leopard before a true multi core aware os is on line

i'd be amazed if there was anything but an incrememental spped increase by simply adding cache , maybe intel are hitting the speed limits of the core architecture already and like motorola are just adding cache as a stop gap until they can somehow get the speed up without using liquid cooling etc

explains why apple aren't exactly rushing to update the pro , there's nothing on the market to update it with

this time next year , maybe
 
I would like to see some data on your point about 4 and 8 cores. Because I truly missed it. Now, if you are saying it doesn't do it well, maybe. But multi-core/cpu has been around with Apple for quite sometime, I can't imagine the OS isn't at all capable of taking advantage of it. But of course, you will furnish some data.

One more thing, the 3ghz problem is all around the board. We are reaching the limits of silicon, hence the paradigm shift to core processing.
 
barefeats posted this ; http://barefeats.com/octopro1.html

"MEMORY BOTTLENECK?
Our friend, Lloyd Chambers, thinks there's a memory bus bottleneck for the 8-core, which he discussed back in March on his blog. He wrote, "Memory bandwidth is inadequate for 8-cores. It’s already a limiting factor with the current quad-core 3.0 GHz Mac Pro. Memory copy speed is at best 2.9GB/sec on the Mac Pro, in spite of Apple’s highly misleading claims of 21.3 GB/sec (“maximum processor bandwidth of up to 21.3 GB/s”—bandwidth is a bit more than double the memory copy speed). That’s a measly 700MB/sec per core on a quad-core machine, and only 350MB/sec per core on an octa-core machine. By comparison, a 6-drive hard disk RAID array can easily perform at over 400MB/sec!"

We did run the "test-compute-speed" with digLloydTools (DLT) on the 8-core. Its aggregate rate was 1204MB/sec (versus the 4-core's 601MB/s). That says that if the task is pure CPU, the 8-core is twice as fast as the 4-core. But if your task has to do a lot of interaction with memory, the advantage drops almost to nothing -- as we saw with Photoshop CS3 and Aperture.

TIGER IS "CHASING ITS TAIL"
"Yes, the memory bus is weak, but the biggest problem is that OS 10.4 (Tiger) does not know how to deal with so many cores. Perhaps 10.5 (Leopard) will. the problem is that the OS does not know that it should keep a thread on the SAME core instead of swapping it around to any one of the 8-cores. When a thread moves to a different core-group, the cache has to be reloaded on the new core. Since Intel quad-cores are two Core 2 Duos "duct-taped" together, the problem is worse than it would otherwise have been. When this thread/core shift happens repeatedly, it makes the cache ineffective and floods the memory bus with activity." (Though put forth by an anonymous BF reader, this analysis has been confirmed by Lloyd Chambers where he discussed "core swapping" on his latest blog entries regarding the 8-core Mac Pro.)"


i guess you'll call them inaccurate idiots , then

if people want to buy something , let them , last i heard the west was free
 
flappo said:
you may have missed the point that tiger doesn't even utilise 4 cores properly . let alone 8 , and we'll have to wait for leopard before a true multi core aware os is on line
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Well being as we are talking about Penryn processors I don't see Tiger as having anything to do with it as Leopard will surely be out before they come to Apple's line.

i'd be amazed if there was anything but an incrememental spped increase by simply adding cache , maybe intel are hitting the speed limits of the core architecture already and like motorola are just adding cache as a stop gap until they can somehow get the speed up without using liquid cooling etc
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The Penryn processors aren't just Clovertowns at different speeds with more cache. And AMD not providing any competition is a far more likely souce for incremental speed increases than Intel hitting a wall.

explains why apple aren't exactly rushing to update the pro , there's nothing on the market to update it with
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Well yeah. They are on Intel's time table.

this time next year , maybe
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Not sure what you mean by this, there may have been 4, and at least 3, significant changes to Intel's Xeon processors by this time next year.
 
Umbongo said:
Most people think it's overpriced because the only desktop machine that Apple produces they want starts at $2,500 despite in all likely hood not being aimed at them at all.
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Can't speak for everyone else, but that's why I think it's overpriced. :p

After the Q6600 price drop on the 23rd, I'll be building a monster PC (Q6600, 4gigs of ram, P35 mobo to o/c the Q6600 [to 3gig clock speed], GeForce 8800GTS card, dual LiteOn DVD burners, Antec case, etc.) for $1500, which for a quad machine, is 1/2 the price of a similar cpu'd Mac Pro that features less ram and a weak video card (by comparison).

Apple needs a prosumer midrange desktop for $1500 with no monitor. Until they do (which will undoubtedly be *never* because they don't give a damn) - these claims and threads will never die. :D
 
Well I reckon I could still be using my Mac Pro for the next decade or so - of course this does depend on the pace of technology and all that but when I consider that my iMac is just a good to use today as when I bought it two years ago the Mac Pro will be even more so.

Back in the bad old days when I was running various PC's the best life-span I could get was three years.

So taken as a total cost of ownership model over the lifetime of the computer I think they're a bargain. You can all gripe that the latest video card isn't fitted and the the RAM is too low and these are valid points but we'll all add after-market RAM and disk, and the video card will be out of date after another three months anyway.
 
Oh hell yeah it's over priced.

Maybe by a hundred bucks or so. Nothing huge I know, but it adds up, especially when Apple does sell outdated hardware as though it were new.
 
flappo said:
i guess you'll call them i accurate idiots , then

if people want to buy something , let them , last i heard the west was free
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Hmm. Well considering I hadn't read that and was genuinely interested, not to mention I didn't say it wasn't a problem and knew that is was to some degree, but of course you bought 4-cores, so why try to tell someone that OS X can't utilize 4 or 8 cores properly? Is it relevant? I think not. 4 and 8 core are offered NOW, so knocking down the idea that some newer ones that could be offered is...

I have said "I don't think it is smart to buy now," but nowhere have I tried to convince someone not to buy.

If people want to wait to buy something, let them, last I heard the west was free.
 
It will become very overpriced when Intel cuts makes their huge price cut in a few days.
 
only if apple actually follow suit and cut the prices of the mac pro*

*not gonna happen , people

maybe they'll make the 2.66 quad the bottom line , the quad 3 the standard and 8 core 3 at the top as now ?

i don't really care tbh

4 more cores won't make a massive difference to my computing experience , in fact i tried maxing all 4 cores over the last few days and very few programs seem to take advantage of them , apart from a few test bench apps that is - and they're hardly reflective of real world useage
 
I can see the future and here is what will happen.

On August 7th (or before, but around there ), Apple will have a big announcement on their website, the iPhone splash page will be replaced by the new redesigned iMac splash page. Much fuss will be made abouts it new look, faster processor and blah-blah-blah, but wait what else has happend, Apple has changed the base specs on the Mac Pro (insert what specs you are dreaming about here).

This could happen because they have done stuff like this before. It will be the day of the desktop updates, on with the fanfare and one for the pros that is a little more quite.
 
sdhollman said:
I can see the future and here is what will happen.

On August 7th (or before, but around there ), Apple will have a big announcement on their website, the iPhone splash page will be replaced by the new redesigned iMac splash page. Much fuss will be made abouts it new look, faster processor and blah-blah-blah, but wait what else has happend, Apple has changed the base specs on the Mac Pro (insert what specs you are dreaming about here).

This could happen because they have done stuff like this before. It will be the day of the desktop updates, on with the fanfare and one for the pros that is a little more quite.
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could happen

the prosumers buying mac pro don't need as much persuasion as regular consumers..
 
I supposed that is possible. Considering the Mac Pro isn't getting a "re design" like the Imac it could be updated masked with the Imac update. If Apple can sell Imac as soon as August reflecting the Intel Cut I don't see why they can't with the Mac Pro.
 
Umbongo said:
Well yeah. They (Apple) are on Intel's time table.
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Yes, that is exactly the point.
Why would Apple put out a new Mac Pro when there is nothing new to put in the Mac Pro at this time?!
IMO, We've got to wait for Intel to bring out something new and different like Penryn family processors.

If anyone can tell me why we will see a new Mac Pro in the near future, please tell me. I would love to get my hopes up.

zero2dash said:
After the Q6600 price drop on the 23rd, I'll be building a monster PC (Q6600, 4gigs of ram, P35 mobo to o/c the Q6600 [to 3gig clock speed], GeForce 8800GTS card, dual LiteOn DVD burners, Antec case, etc.) for $1500, which for a quad machine, is 1/2 the price of a similar cpu'd Mac Pro that features less ram and a weak video card (by comparison).
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I envy you. But I'll never in a million years go over to the dark side.
I hate to say it but I believe that even when the new Mac Pro comes out, the video card will not be as powerful as the 8800GTS.
 
Topper said:
If anyone can tell me why we will see a new Mac Pro in the near future, please tell me. I would love to get my hopes up.
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how about because there are prize cuts that allow them to up the specs, making people buy the mac pro. then the new processors come, and the upgrade mac pro once again, and some of the people who bought the "old" mac pro will sell it on ebay to buy new mac pros, or keep it so they have 2 :)
 
This Thread Should Have Been A Part Of The Stoakley-Seaburg Thread

Why was this thread created instead of a continuation of the well established Stoakley-Seaburg Thread? :confused:

Can we please stick to one big thread leading up to the Mac Pro Rev B release? I just posted all three architectures that are up for grabs now supporting two or four quad core processors inside over there.

We're up to 370 posts. You think we could keep this discussion consolidated over there for the duration please? It's bad enough all this waiting without having to hunt down every fragmented thought that is totally on topic over there. :rolleyes:
 
xUKHCx said:
Yeah but to account for a difference such as that the US tax would have to be around 38.5% which I doubt it is. I have no idea what it is (varies by state?) but it can't be that high. If you take the tax off the UK store then it is still £1446 which is about £210 more expensive.
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Most states sales tax are around 6-7%
 
macbook pro are good i just got my form 2100 brand new . but i still dont know how use some apps with it. is never like use a window system
 
empezar said:
how about because there are prize cuts that allow them to up the specs, making people buy the mac pro. then the new processors come, and the upgrade mac pro once again, and some of the people who bought the "old" mac pro will sell it on ebay to buy new mac pros, or keep it so they have 2 :)
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No new specs, just the same processors at a cheaper price.
But Apple will not lower the price on the Mac Pro.
That would really anger the people who already bought it.
Good try but Apple won't buy it.

Multimedia said:
Why was this thread created instead of a continuation of the well established Stoakley-Seaburg Thread? :confused:
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We could have but you changed the Stoakley-Seaburg thread to a Cranberry Lake-San Clemente thread.
 
If people don't want the stock 250GB SATA Drive (Which is a Seagate by the way) they can just pop in a 500GB Seagate drive for $99 from a local Circuit City.

For Memory, it's understandable...but even at 1GB you're going to add what another 4GB?
 
Mac Pro is released last year. Has the specs I am sure we all know. A year later, the Mac Pro has the same components and is the same price. New components have come and in other cases existing components are heaps cheaper. And in a few weeks, CPUs will be cheaper as well.

You can take this one of two ways. The Mac Pro is overpriced or the Mac Pro is outdated. Whichever you like.
 
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