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Make a Prosumer Mac and I promise to buy a Cinema display!

9Charms

9Charms

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 19, 2006
206
0
Vancouver, BC
Dear Apple,

Please bring out a "Prosumer" Mac tower. All I need is a Mac tower with room for 4 or more 3.5" hard drives, 3 PCI Express slots, and 4 slots for RAM. I don't need a quad-core processor, a nice little Core 2 Duo will suffice. I'm okay if you want to tweak the graphics card so I have to buy a Mac-specific one. Just as long as I have the freedom to chose which card I want to be ripped off on.

Please, I just need something in the $1000 to $1500 (CAD) range. All I run right now is iLife. But that's just the point. If this Prosumer Mac came out, I could start running many more things. To start, I'd like a RAID 5 internal array to keep my iLife safe from hardware disaster. I could add a non-glossy Cinema Display and try my hand at RAW photography. Maybe I'll run dual monitors to boost my productivity. Windows on one side, OSX on the other... sounds promising!

Just don't force me into buying a Mac Pro. I won't use half of the capacity of the thing. Really it's priced for someone who runs a business or is a professional. I'm just goofing off at home.

I don't really want to buy a used G4 or G5. The G4's are dinosaurs, albeit still quasi-useful dinosaurs and the all the G5's will probably die in a couple of years. (What a waste of time those things were!)

I promise that if you do I'll buy a Cinema Display! If you add up the profit margins, you'll end up making the same or more than an iMac, which is what you wanted to sell me in the first place.
 
I'm all for a prosumer mac, but I think you are asking for too much:
4 drive bays, 3 PCI-x slots and 4 RAM slots is just not going to happen from :apple:, sorry.

I could see 2 drive bats, 1 slot (maybe 2 one filled with the graphics card) and then 2 slots. OK, maybe "I wish" is more like it.

Your wish list is basically a MacPro with a lesser CPU and 4 less RAM slots. It's not all that different from a MacPro. Or is part of your wish to have a smaller case than the MacPro too?

When the MacPro finally gets a revision, the price on the "now current" models will drop some more on the refurb site. I'd imagine that would put the Mac Pro with 2 dual 2.0GHz @ 1499 or 1599. I would find that to be tempting.
 
Maybe it should be dubbed the 'iMac Pro'. I too would like to see an upgradeable iMac for those of us who can't run to a Mac Pro. Shame Apple don't see this as a market they wish to target as yet. :(
 
I like this idea, and make sure that regardless of what monitor you use, only one cable is traveling from the computer to the display, similar to the old cinema displays.

I'd say something the size of a mid-tower to mini-tower would be plenty for most people, or even something that is just a double-tall mini. I have many friends who really like Apple and the Mac, but want something more powerful and expandable than the Mac mini, find the iMac constraining in terms of upgrades and internal use, plus don't see the logic in buying a computer that is also a monitor ("when the computer gets old you have to also get rid of the awesome screen"), and find the MacPro over priced and over powered (even though it is cheaper that a Dell with the same specs.) Best thing would be... they could call the system.... the Mac.

TEG
 
Even something with 2 PCIe slots and 3 slots for RAM (non-ecc $$$) would be great. Hey, I would even settle for GMA 950 instead of a real video card. Just give me some room in the case the add some hard drives and extra fans. As for looks, make it look like a Performa 6400, I don't care!

Am I asking for too much? I am looking at those HP systems at Best Buy for $800 that have all the computing power and expandability I need... they just don't run OS X... Okay they may break in 3 years, but I'm not asking Apple to build junk, that's why I'll pay almost double for a Mac.

Who does Apple's marketing research anyway? We've been screaming for this machine for years and they give us the Mac Mini...(!!!)

By refusing to address this market niche, they are forcing many owners to keep their PowerMacs for longer and not buy a new machine. They are also forcing many budget conscious people to buy a used machine instead of a new one...
 
I'd love a prosumer tower, but I don't see it happening with Apple's current lineup. If anything I'd love:

Core 2 Duo CPU
3 ram slots
2 hard drive bays
Removable GPU

Anything more would just be icing on the cake
 
I'd love to see the "prosumer" mac, but it seems people set their sights too low. If Apple were to do one in the next few months, making it anything other than quad core, with a full modern motherboard (4 ram slots, 4 PCI) seems like a waste. They are very unlikely to ever offer what would essentially be an iMac without a screen and an option for another drive and video card upgrades. It'll have to be something more, and having power and function suffer for form factor in the current market seems fruitless. I think Apple could sell quad core systems at similar iMac pricing levels, despite some of the offers from HP and Dell on quad core machines, but start to heavily cannibalize what such a system has in the way of features and you aren't going to get the switchers.
 
I have to agree with Umbongo. People switch because of the iMac and the MacBook, that's it. I've seen this first hand numerous times.

But I still think Apple should make a product for their long established customers as well. Many people grew up with Macs, are technically inclined, and now want a "hobbyist" machine that can run their favorite OS.
 
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