How did the big corporations ever get by when the Power Macs were using non-FB-ECC RAM?
They didn't use Power Macs in the same way that they don't use Mac Pros.
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MacPro bashing
- Thread starter jameskohn
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They didn't use Power Macs in the same way that they don't use Mac Pros.
wow, that would be something i'd like to see...right now my 'puter takes about two hours and some change to write a two hour dvd...i'm still using my good 'ol G4 450mhz tower...i'm gonna upgrade soon, no, really I am...right after MWSF
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Now it's 1TB thanks to Hitachi. You can get up to 4TB in the thing. HDD space is a none issue now that the prices are ridiculously low, and many companies offer spacious 500GB drives for under $200. If you are desperate for space there is the $400 1TB drives and a plethora of RAIDed externals with three or more interfaces. The abundance of space and the wicked fast speeds of even laptop processors is what's making many pros go for the cheaper and easier to assemble iMac.
Many of the photogs I work with have taken the 2.8GHz iMac instead of the pro because they get most of their work done on a laptop anyway, so going with a machine with laptop parts is not a big deal for them. And upgrading the parts on the iMac is a small price to pay when you consider that you saved 50% on the iMac. After you spec the Mac Pro to something higher than the iMac you will have spent $4000 plus.
I am still in limbo over the Mac Pro and iMac choice. I know I will be moving my entire operations over to a 17" MBP, so do I fork over $4000 to get my quad core Mac Pro with 4 HDD bays, or do I save $1600 and get the 24" iMac and use the money saved to get an external display and a RAIDed box of HDDs... maybe 4TB G-tech or something? I will know around March of next year, so I will see what the new Mac Pros offer.
I don't think any machine's upgradeability is endless. Not even a PC. There aren't that many users who are willing to hold onto a 5 year old machine and still put current parts in it and see a noticeable change in performance. That same person is going to see the specs of the current system and want to get their hands on the newer faster FSB speeds, processor speeds, memory speeds, HDD capacities, and standard graphics. Keeping a machine for over 5 years is just plain cheap, like driving a 20 year old (crappy to begin with) car and trying to get a new engine for it.
Either way... most people complain about the graphics/video cards because they consider themselves GFX specialists.... and not that they aren't, just that they want the latest and greatest GFX cards... but the top end Nvidia card in the Mac Pro is only a year old... and at a price of $1600 it had better not be obsolete until after it's reached 3 years of age. My paper has those cards in their Mac Pro systems... and I see nothing wrong with them. The low end card on the other hand... I'd stay away from that.
The biggest complaint is that Apple is still charging us last year's top of the line price for last year's old... year old technology. Like paying $3300 for a G5 Quad.
Also remember back in the PPC days, Apple's laptop and consumer offerings were, and this is being generous(and coming from a powerbook g4 owner), anemic. The last 2 years of the powerbooks saw tiny speed bump after tiny speed bump with a few nifty(but not earth shattering) features thrown in along the way. Now look at how much the macbook pro has improved over the past 2 years. And Apple used to go out of their way to cripple the iBooks, and now other than the video cards the computers can compete with their bigger cousins and are VASTLY better than the iBooks. And now the *books get updated about every 6 months like clockwork. A much better deal for mobile users.
It seems Apple has done a 180 from primarily being a prosumer company with some consumer offerings to being primarily a mainstream consumer computer maker with a smattering of stuff for the pro market.....
You are right, but I was referring to the Mac Pro. Regardless of how you look at it, the Mac Pro line is overpriced 16 months after introduction, and in some areas they are very dated. The problem is if they are "work station" class towers they are definitely dated, if they are PC equivalents then they are overpriced buy a lot.
The lack of upgradable options remains a grave issue for the entire Mac offerings, this I have become convinced, is an Apple issue in restricting what we buy as long as it profits in the process. Don't forget, PC companies have been offering Blu-Ray for the past 8 months +/-, as well as other new technologies.
BLU-RAY is over rated and have you seen the price for one of those drives in the machines. I promise you there isn't a large amount of pros using BR or opting to buy it inside their machine.
Upgrading is limited on all machines... especially laptops. Apple isn't doing anything scandalous, they just realize that many users in the Apple community don't mind buying an all-in-one that limits upgrades. I would love to have a mini tower for gaming, but since Apple doesn't have one and Windows sucks I will just get my iMac and sup it up.... or get my Mac Pro and have a much better gaming rig.
Stop with the Blu Ray thing... it's not that special.
Yeah, I agree about Blu-Ray. It is simply not a must-have feature yet, whatever it's future prospects are.
With regards to video card in the Mac Pro, Apple should do one of two things: either update them more regularly or drop the price after 6 months. Apple is still charging launch MSRP on the Radeon X1900XT when the Radeon HD2900XT has been out for some time now in the PC world.
With regards to video card in the Mac Pro, Apple should do one of two things: either update them more regularly or drop the price after 6 months. Apple is still charging launch MSRP on the Radeon X1900XT when the Radeon HD2900XT has been out for some time now in the PC world.
Digital Skunk, keep up with the times. They aren't THAT expensive:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/philips-and-lite-on-announce-a-199-blu-ray-drive/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/philips-and-lite-on-announce-a-199-blu-ray-drive/
True. It will come down. I don't think Blu-ray is a must have, but they are going to have to come eventually. People are going to start wanting to get more video than DVD allows. Especially with these consumer HD video camera getting so cheap.
Agreed.
I am keeping up with the times my friend, which is why Blu Ray is still over rated. It's no where near becoming a standard, and is still rather expensive compared to the already market saturated DL-DVDs.
Besides... that drive... (like the one that was announced almost a year ago that read from both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD).. is read only and I am sure users will want one that reads and writes to all formats including Blu-Ray.
I, for one, am still on the fence until good burners and media are available at reasonable prices, affordable. Until then, DVD-RW is good enough for me.
It is expensive but like I said this is going to be a want by the video pros soon. I don't think the next Mac Pro should have it but eventually an HD standard is going to have to prevail.
No standard can do that if everyone keeps pushing them off until the format war is over. Because, if everyone waits nothing is going to happen. In other words, the people with the money need to make a choice. But I guess we knew that.
On one of your other points on the first page, you said the consumer quad cpus can't handle the power the Mac Pro puts out (which doesn't make any sense) but please provide some data for that claim.
The Mac Pro in its current form is crippled by its memory. That is a fact. The only reason a Mac Pro can be faster is its use of the Xeon platform which allows for dual CPUs. The consumer boards don't really have that as an option. So, it is indeed comparing Apples to oranges if we look at the quad consumer systems and the octo Mac Pro considering there are no single octo chips.
However, if we look at a quad system and compare it to the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro would get slammed because of its use of FB-DIMMs. That is clear from the latency benchmarking of these "consumer" machines.
This silly distinction is just that, silly. The Mac Pros classification as a "workstation" because of its use of Xeons does not come with the implication of it being a better machine than a "consumer" desktop.
I am not even going to bother with the fence. I will be using and burning DVD media until something outside of my power causes me to change. There is so much freedom in technology and you have so many options out there that you don't have to worry about a thing. I just get what I need and get the job done.
If I need to burn off a Blu-Ray disc I will get an external burner. Heck... I haven't even needed to burn a DL DVD yet because none of my clients or the people i work with have a DL reader.
My point in mentioning Blu-Ray is not that it is a "must have", the point is that Apple is not keeping up with new technology offered on PCs, especially one they are a board member to. In the old days Mac heads loved to brag about Macs having Superdrives when PC didn't offer them. I suppose back them the argument of "must have" was different?
We can not pick and chose to support flawed arguments. The fact is and remains, Apple has not upgraded the Mac Pros in 16 months, nor dropped their prices. The fact remains, we have fewer upgrade options (i.e. Video Cards) than ever before. Be objective please, PC vendors are selling their towers with 3 to 4 GB of RAM, Apple is selling Macs with 1 GB of RAM and upgrades for outrageous prices, same for all the other upgrades.
The fact remains, Apple is no longer trail blazing, at best they are at a par with PC offerings. "PC" offerings, not workstation class offerings, they are well behind in that class.
In all of this, do not forget we are forced into a "one shop", take it or leave it situation. We can only buy Macs from Apple, then we should have a wide range of options an "value" priced computers.
In the end, Apple is only hurting itself by not making the towers less expensive or offering a product that sits between the iMac and the Mac Pros. More than you, I truly hope the Apple will prove me wrong in their next Mac Pro offerings, I want to upgrade to it but can not justify spending the kind of money required for what is essentially dated equipment in "technology time".
Blu-Ray will be a standard like you said... but soon... also like you said. It isn't now and it won't be until the consumers start showing an interest in it. In fact more and more users are moving toward online streaming and not renting or buying DVDs. Blu-Ray players aren't even a hit yet because the market just hasn't caught up.
The comment I made about the Mac Pro vs Consumer quads was based on another posters comments where he said the consumer quads did better than the Mac Pros... and that isn't true because the machines are completely different. Both machines are hindered by their memory... the Mac Pro's FB-DIMMs and the consumers 667MHz or 800MHz bottle neck. The fact that the Mac Pros use Xeon chips and have up to 8 cores makes them workstations. That is still quite a bit of power that we haven't even utilized yet. Only a few programs are core aware and even 64 bit OSes have a hard time trying to use all 8 cores in a Mac Pro....
And going along with that argument that a consumer quad can compete is, "which processor?" If someone is comparing the Extreme factory over clocked chips then sure... but you will be paying for it. Since no one has provided data for the original claim and they are the bearer of proof then I will just say check the 'net' and see.
There won't be any 'slamming' of the Mac Pro anytime soon unless it's in simple tasks that don't take advantage of the multiple cores.
As for being classified as a workstation... it comes from more than just speed... it comes from level of customization options, and standard configs. The Mac Pro is lacking in both yes... but that doesn't mean that it isn't a workstation, or that is is slower than consumer machines, and then you could also ask... "What is classified as consumer?"
I agree with you... but PC makers aren't doing that either.... no PC maker is offering their machines with 3 to 4GB of RAM. I just went to Dell and all they are giving is a GB across the board and still offering Vista which needs at least 2GB to run smoothly.
The Mac Pro is behind in everything... and if you look closely Apple was never trailblazing in anything... they never did trailblaze on anything besides software and design of their machines. We aren't forced to buy anything. I don't want a headless Mac like the mini, that thing sucks, so I won't buy it. And I don't want that God forsaken MacBook keyboard on the iMac... so I will stay away from it and buy 3rd party. We always have choices, although I know where you are going with that and yes... I want a headless mini tower (cheaper Mac Pro) too.
And by stating facts we all have to keep in mind that we can't say that Apple is hurting itself in anyway. We can prove otherwise by the increase in market share. And as for value priced computers, we all know Apple will never make one. They haven't done that since their inception. Anyone who buys a Mac is not in the market for a value priced computer... not even the mini.
Dangerous reasoning - it's foolish to assume that we need to keep up merely for the sake of keeping up. Why? Most people can't read Blu-Ray discs anyway, so even if you get a burner it will only be useful for your own back-ups, and right now DVDs are still cheaper.
Hahahahahahaha, obviously you haven't been a Mac user for very long...
Nonsense. You are operating under the fallacy that the value or desirability of a computer is based entirely on a list of specs and price. You're leaving quite a bit out.
I think the people who are complaining about the Mac-Pro's cost are consumers who aren't using it for work. If you look at HP, and Dell's current workstations they are several hundered more for essentially the same thing, I belive dell's was around $500-600 more for the same setup but had a Quadro 285 card in it ($130 card). The current Mac-Pro still is a good deal, even if it's a bit dated. Don't get me wrong I belive they should have bumped up the HD, and video card in between launch and Peynron, the memory doesn't bug me too much, I plan on pulling out the 512x512 to put 4x4gb in to utilize the quad mode. I ordered the 2x4gb for now though.
Most pro's will get what Apple gives them unfortionatly, they know business's won't hold off buying because of 1GB of ram and 320GB hard drive. I can see the consumer side of it though, it kills their pocketbook.
And when my machine failed me I just bought the 2.66 refurb the next couple of days (had to wait till the 13th LOL).
Most pro's will get what Apple gives them unfortionatly, they know business's won't hold off buying because of 1GB of ram and 320GB hard drive. I can see the consumer side of it though, it kills their pocketbook.
And when my machine failed me I just bought the 2.66 refurb the next couple of days (had to wait till the 13th LOL).
Dangerous reasoning - it's foolish to assume that we need to keep up merely for the sake of keeping up. Why? Most people can't read Blu-Ray discs anyway, so even if you get a burner it will only be useful for your own back-ups, and right now DVDs are still cheaper.
Hahahahahahaha, obviously you haven't been a Mac user for very long...
Nonsense. You are operating under the fallacy that the value or desirability of a computer is based entirely on a list of specs and price. You're leaving quite a bit out.
Not to mention that DVDs aren't the best solution for back ups. HDDs are amazingly cheap right now... so cheap that I can't wait for their flash replacements to start taking center stage. You can get a 500GB external for $170 and an internal for $130 or cheaper.
As for GFX... it's starting to become more of a fad to complain about GFX cards. Gamers should be the only ones talking, and many of them will be using a Windows based machine... I would. Most video pros don't complain that much because their apps use both the GFX card and RAM to perform, and until Apple offers SLI with dual 1GB cards everything else is just good enough.
I fear you are wrong about us complaining not using the Mac Pro for work. I work on 2 and 3D CAD and graphic applications.
I can not justify spending the money required to buy a Mac Pro with sufficient RAM to do what I need to do. My issue with the Video Card is because whet Apple offers, or what is available (reasonably priced) is mediocre at best for 3D rendering and photo-realism.
My CAD application is "Mac first", I have seen both Mac and Windows versions on a Mac Pro and an average PC with a good video card. The PC beats the Mac hands down in rendering speed due to the better/faster video card in photo-realistic rendering. So, what am I to do? Spend between $4,-$5,000 (don't forget we usually pay a premium for Mac upgrades regardless of what they are) for a dated Mac Pro (dated because it has not been refreshed in 16 months and mediocre VC) with the upgrades I need, or give up on the Mac and migrate to a reasonably priced PC (and upgrade it every 2 years) in order to do my work more efficiently and more cost effectively?
Trust me, I do not want to migrate to a PC. I bought my Dual G5 2GHz (mid model at the time), 1 GB of RAM, when it was just months out, and still current, for $1,650. Now that was a great deal, I don't expect to pay that for the Mac Pro 2.66GHz. At $2,500 after 16 months from its release you have to admit it should either be updated to a quad 3GHz or be cheaper.
New softwares are demanding a lot from processors and video cards, what Apple is offering is not enough or it is too expensive.
Your just a video gamer trying to use a mac pro for gaming. (at least that's what so many on the forums like to reply to anyone who suggests a 2 year old, no longer made, so outdated it's almost to door stop status mac pro video card is an insult)
If you are referring to the X1900XT, you're out of your mind. It might be badly overpriced at the moment but it is still a good performer, especially on the Mac side, where DX10 is meaningless...anyway it will still pull over 40fps in BF 2142 or Prey @1280x1024, max quality with AA & AF... I call that a good gaming card.
At any rate, Apple is set to update the Mac Pro soon, bringing a new selection of video cards along.
For most people, yeah... not everyone that has an issue with the Mac Pro is a gamer... I have issues with it myself and am no serious gamer. But I do believe that the issue is being taken way too far when an update is around the corner. Even two months is a short time to wait for a new $3000, up-to-date workstation.
When January/February hits and there is no update at MacWorld then we can start chopping heads.
Maybe they're going to drop the Mac Pro line
Nah, I think with a huge wait like this, Apple probably have something really big up their sleeves.
Nah, I think with a huge wait like this, Apple probably have something really big up their sleeves.