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Nehalem Mac Pros a world of hurt.
- Thread starter Chaos123x
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I use FW800 drives to lend clients. Blu-Ray is nice but will be dead within the next 7 years I presume.
Do I need to explain why?
Do I need to explain why?
Oh that would nice, I would have to spend a hour on the phone with them everytime they want to play the video.
Great idea.
Yeah, and what happens when they stick a Blu-Ray disk into a DVD player? If it takes you an hour to tell someone to stick something into a USB drive, well, that's just sad.
That was the most shocking thing of all to me about the update.
And, actually, those two points are the ONLY things about the update for which we were TOO pessimistic. We got better than we had expected here, but worse everywhere else.
The new Mac Pros have a number of faults that need to be resolved if they are to compete against 3rd party Workstations.
First. you can build a Hackintosh using the same Chipset as the Mac Pro meaning you can install off the Leopard retail DVD's with a simple boot loader mod run from a CD or USB Key. Same performance (Or even better as you can OC or buy better chips for the same price) with very little hassle and Software Update fully functional.
Second. The new Mac Pro once again lacks real graphics choice. The HD4870 is nice but where are the NVIDIA equalivents? GTX285, GTX260 or the like. And where are the Pro card choices? - Some Apple defenders are saying we wanted better Gaming cards and we got that so they removed the Pro cards. But in reality Apple could offer 4 or 5 different cards without issue.
Third. No Bluray support in OS X, no Bluray BTO, no ETA for Bluray. Industry pros who are authoring discs need Bluray burning capability. Adobe has already re-iterated their Bluray supporting video suits 2 or 3 times while Apples Final Cut and other apps continually have zero support for Bluray. As do all there Macs which ship without Bluray drives. No mater how much you like to think that Bluray is going away it is not. It is here to stay. It is the Industry standard for delivering High Defintion content in capacities from 25 to 200GB and beyond (2010 we are looking at 500GB-to-1TB discs) While Apple stall on this other Pro app producers like Adobe are moving in. Btw these are Windows apps, no need for Mac Pros here.
Forth. RAM not enough slots at all. Later this month your be able to purchase SuperMicro boards and Tyan boards with 16-24 DIMM slots. Workstation E-ATX boards not server 1U's - Prices from £300 to £500 aswell. A drop in the ocean compared to the Mac Pro's £2,500 price range for a Dual Socket machine. The CPU's even at £500 each (Which they wont be) would still bring a Hackintosh or Windows Workstation Nehalem system around £1000 cheaper.
Fifth. Price the new ones are priced ridiculously for what you get, everyone that I've spoken to who was waiting for the new ones has now decided to build a hackintosh instead. Which means Apple gets no money but the people get the machine they always wanted anyway. I know people will say things like 'How can you rely on a Hackintosh for a Production machine?' and to them I say. Check out the OS X hack scene today where even Software Update runs without problems on these machines.
First. you can build a Hackintosh using the same Chipset as the Mac Pro meaning you can install off the Leopard retail DVD's with a simple boot loader mod run from a CD or USB Key. Same performance (Or even better as you can OC or buy better chips for the same price) with very little hassle and Software Update fully functional.
Second. The new Mac Pro once again lacks real graphics choice. The HD4870 is nice but where are the NVIDIA equalivents? GTX285, GTX260 or the like. And where are the Pro card choices? - Some Apple defenders are saying we wanted better Gaming cards and we got that so they removed the Pro cards. But in reality Apple could offer 4 or 5 different cards without issue.
Third. No Bluray support in OS X, no Bluray BTO, no ETA for Bluray. Industry pros who are authoring discs need Bluray burning capability. Adobe has already re-iterated their Bluray supporting video suits 2 or 3 times while Apples Final Cut and other apps continually have zero support for Bluray. As do all there Macs which ship without Bluray drives. No mater how much you like to think that Bluray is going away it is not. It is here to stay. It is the Industry standard for delivering High Defintion content in capacities from 25 to 200GB and beyond (2010 we are looking at 500GB-to-1TB discs) While Apple stall on this other Pro app producers like Adobe are moving in. Btw these are Windows apps, no need for Mac Pros here.
Forth. RAM not enough slots at all. Later this month your be able to purchase SuperMicro boards and Tyan boards with 16-24 DIMM slots. Workstation E-ATX boards not server 1U's - Prices from £300 to £500 aswell. A drop in the ocean compared to the Mac Pro's £2,500 price range for a Dual Socket machine. The CPU's even at £500 each (Which they wont be) would still bring a Hackintosh or Windows Workstation Nehalem system around £1000 cheaper.
Fifth. Price the new ones are priced ridiculously for what you get, everyone that I've spoken to who was waiting for the new ones has now decided to build a hackintosh instead. Which means Apple gets no money but the people get the machine they always wanted anyway. I know people will say things like 'How can you rely on a Hackintosh for a Production machine?' and to them I say. Check out the OS X hack scene today where even Software Update runs without problems on these machines.
It would be nice of DVDSP supported burning to BR. Maybe we'll see this in FCSP 3. Otherwise, use Toast. Not. A. Big. Deal.
Seriously if you're actually doing Blu-Ray disk authoring rather than just making arguments, you're going to want to replace any stock drive either right away for the new 8x, or in the near future when faster drives come out. Blu-ray drives are the weakest link in the HD workflow.
Look at the component prices. Apple could have waited longer for price breaks, but then everyone would complain. Apple could have used lower chips, but then everyone would complain.
Basically, Apple is delivering real performance for professionals. Certainly there could be a mid-range box, but I think these machines will be similarly competitive compared to previous Apple products.
BR is coming to the Mac likely later this year. Its all been about
licensing fees.
I like the new MP's- people always find something to complain about it seems.
licensing fees.
I like the new MP's- people always find something to complain about it seems.
And yet it is a requested feature by so many professionals. A feature that Dell, HP, Acer and other equipment manufactures will sell us in their workstations that Apple will not. There is an entire Billion dollar industry around this format and Mac professionals can't touch it without the Drives and the Software.
I have, Motherboard: £300-£500, CPU's £500 for 2.66GHz - Thats £1,500 tops for the Mobo+CPU. How much do you think a PSU to power it costs? £1000?? no £130 for 1000Watt PSU, £110 for a Bluray Burner (£20 for a DVD Burner) £400 for 12GB of ECC DDR3 RAM (yes 12GB not 6 or 3) And a HD4870 retail £140. An EATX case like an Akasa 62-Eclipse to hold it all in £78 Total including the faster upgraded parts: £2,218 and that is still £300 off the Apple price. with Bluray, 12GB of RAM, Two 2.66GHz Quads and the HD4870. If we increased the price of the CPU's by £100 each making them £600 each (£1200 total) (Which is unlikely but we'll add it anyway) it still only comes to £2418 again under the Mac Pro 8 Core at stock.
In my calculations I put the Motherboard as costing £500 but it wont actually cost that much. The most exspensive dual socket Xeon board right now is only £350 (THE MOST EXSPENSIVE) with the cheapest dual socket at £150. (The only Xeon board at £500 is the Skull Trail which is discontinued the high price is due to lingering stock and it being a special item with Crossfire and SLI)
Apple is delivering Prosumer gear to real Professionals. And no one I know in the Pro space wants to touch them.
Just take a look at the pricing of the current 2.66GHz Quad Core Harpertowns (These are NOT Nehalem) £400 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...own-Core-266GHz-FSB-1333MHz-12MB-Cache-Retail
Current Core i7 consumer Nahelems are £200 for 2.66GHz - This is important because the older Non-Core i7 at release in the 2.66GHz Range was the Q6700 which shipped at £400 - This is a decrease in Release price by £200. It is therefore feasible to assume that the new Nahelem Core i7 will cost £500 or less. It is also important to remember that the 8 Core i7's are on the horizon. Intel will want to sell bucket loads of these and so they will tip out the current £1000 price range that the 3.20GHz Harpertowns currently occupy.
That is quite an ignorant comment. People have real concerns with the direction that Apple is taking. We have bought in to a platform that has an unstable future of extremely ridiculously high prices and technologically below competitor and BYO machines.
I'm thinking more will at least consider building a Hackintosh. Particularly individuals and small companies where cash is extremely tight, but still need such a system.
I've already gone that route. Currently running an i7 920, and plan to replace it with the W3570 when it becomes available. Simple chip swap, as the board supports it. I'll finally get ECC functionality, and OC the new chip as well.
Worst case, the 920 is a less expensive experiment if I happen to destroy it.
Quite possible, actually,
if you go with the E5520 used in the base Octo core model. In Q = 1000, it goes for $373USD, so ~£265GBP (used xe.com for conversion). So even with markup, it will still be under £500GPB. A little more, and you could go for the E5540 (2.53GHz).
I've done the same. Core i7 940 here (2.93GHz) and I can easily OC this to 4GHz at the moment with the cooling I have. Single Thread app performance is off the scale at that point, but there is still 8 threads (4 logical 4 physical).
The biggest problem I have when considering a hackintosh is that it's "limited" to the 4870 as it's fanciest card. Unlike other posters who think this is a "mid range or low end card" (LOL), it's a great card, but a single one of them isn't going to tear through any game at 1200p. But if I'm not going to constrict myself to Apple's ridiculous prices, it begs the question "Why are you using OSX at all?" In an intangible way I do "like it" more, but I can't think of a single practical reason. Why not just get a DP board and some GTX295s? I'll be booting up in Windows 75% of the time to play games anyway.
Do what I do M1stake. Buy an Apple Notebook (Or a Windows one and Hax0r it) to run OS X 24.7 - Then build a Desktop and run Windows on it. It's so much more cost effective that way. I don't know many people who game on a Notebook the graphics are always very low and if they aren't its going to burn you so a Desktop is great in that regard.
If there was a Blu-Ray option I'd get it. Why not? It not being there, however, isn't stopping me from doing anything. This is just spec sheet masturbation. It would be nice to have but if this really is stopping people from buying I call BS.
LOL. I get it. You were looking forward to buying a new Mac Pro, but don't want to pay that much. That doesn't mean it's not a powerful upgrade for people who see the value.
I could care less about authoring, but I would sure like to be able to pop in a blu-ray movie and WATCH it on my Mac Pro with the "DVD player" app. In that room of my house my 23" display is my TV.
Thats the exact reason why we DON'T have Blu-Ray, because apple wants you to download movies from itunes instead.
I'm buying a laptop for school in August to get a free iPod to sell.
A good idea, but a few months too early. A lot of other people including myself were looking forward to buying a new Mac Pro, but do not want to pay that much. I was perfectly willing to buy the 2008 Mac Pro. So what does that mean? Is this thing out of my price range? No, it's not. It's just not worth anywhere near the $2500 or $3200 they're asking for it. Why would you buy something for $2500 when it's only worth $1700? Does that make any sense at all?
That's valid. I agree that Apple should have done a mid-range Mac Pro or a new headless Mac. That, however, doesn't mean people should expect the announced products to cost as such. Likely, the whole GHz thing is a marketing nightmare for them. It's all over the place here where people are relatively more informed. Imagine what it would be like in a mall.
I'm familiar with i7 processors, I've done many builds with them. I know how they perform, and I know how they perform in relation to their penryn counterparts.
Simply put, there is no way that the 2.26 eight core model is going to beat the 2008 2.8 eight core. It might be neck and neck, but then a single question remains: Why would anyone pay $400 extra for nothing?
You know, this really is a feat of engineering. To take the biggest processor bump since the Core and negate it requires some sort of genius.