New 12-Core Mac Pros Now Available for Order

[JoeDMD]

They are Mac Pros, Not "Mac Consumers" or "Mac Prosumes". If you aren't modeling degradation of nuclear stock piles and weapons, making the next Pixar flick, or some other business that easily justifies this type of investment, get an iMac. The name says it all. Anyone really using these for what they are intended for will scoff at the $1,000 or so premium everyone is complaining about.

So, if I want any kind of expansion capabilities (ie. DRIVES, i/o upgrades, etc.) I have to pay 300$ more for the base Mac Pro, which probably benchmarks lower than the i7 iMac (which has more ram and a 27inch monitor included)

Wait - I am not a "Pro", I should just get an iMac, and clutter up my desk with external drives or some sort of NAS or home server. And then when a new interface comes out, throw out my iMac because it doesn't support it.

 

[LillDrutten]

What a joke. I thought they should release new mac pro's after 500 days. But it's the same. but minor cpu speed increase. Graphics (not really a integrated to the mac) and a substantial price increment. The major flaw with not a multiple of 3 memory slots is still there. The PC's have 6 GB/s sata and usb 3 and costs a third. It looks like we now see the effects of Steve Jobs illness.

 

[maf2k8]

For your average, everyday, home user......Would i notice a speed different in the One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” vs the One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere”? seems like a HUGEEEEE price upgrade in the 2 so wondering how much of a difference a " Home User" would benefit.

I have a i7 2.8 iMac at the moment and i really want to add a Mac Pro to my family of Macs ( funnys thing is i have used PCs my entire life, i have just recently within the past 4 months went all Apple/Mac )

Any advice?

 

[dissolve]

For your average, everyday, home user......Would i notice a speed different in the One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” vs the One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere”? seems like a HUGEEEEE price upgrade in the 2 so wondering how much of a difference a " Home User" would benefit.

I have a i7 2.8 iMac at the moment and i really want to add a Mac Pro to my family of Macs ( funnys thing is i have used PCs my entire life, i have just recently within the past 4 months went all Apple/Mac )

Any advice?

Really depends on what you're using it for. The clock speeds are almost equal, so you'll only notice a difference if you're using multithreaded applications. Also note that the RAM speed is slightly higher as well in the 6-core. Again, all depends on your uses.

 

[SirHaakon]

I'll pass on this one and you should too.

That's lovely, except it just gives Apple the very ammunition they're looking for to say, "see, there isn't a strong market for this class of computer so we're going to continue to head in the direction of making cheaper priced toys like the iPad." I honestly doubt you'll see a Mac pro in 3 years' time.

 

[ghostchild]

That's lovely, except it just gives Apple the very ammunition they're looking for to say, "see, there isn't a strong market for this class of computer so we're going to continue to head in the direction of making cheaper priced toys like the iPad." I honestly doubt you'll see a Mac pro in 3 years' time.

cause the mass market is where the money is at.

 

[SirHaakon]

cause the mass market is where the money is at.

That's the point entirely. Apple used to make products for discerning users, not the "mass market." It's a different company today.

Problem is, with Apple out of the picture, what's the other option?

 

[hoosker]

For your average, everyday, home user......Would i notice a speed different in the One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” vs the One 3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere”? seems like a HUGEEEEE price upgrade in the 2 so wondering how much of a difference a " Home User" would benefit.

I have a i7 2.8 iMac at the moment and i really want to add a Mac Pro to my family of Macs ( funnys thing is i have used PCs my entire life, i have just recently within the past 4 months went all Apple/Mac )

Any advice?

Same boat here.. Is it worth $800 and ram will probably cost more too (from OWC) I do all the Adobe graphics plus FCE. Very hard decision

 

[lshaner]

Most of our editors both Video and Graphical are moving to the i7 iMacs. We ran trials on them and the users love them. Say they are just as fast and the smaller foot print is nicer.

I would have gone with a 27" iMac, myself, if it had two eSATA ports, or at least an ExpressCard/34 port. It isn't realistic to think of doing much in the way of serious pro work without fast eSATA HW RAID array attached -- both for I/O performance and for capacity.

The newest 27" iMac with the option for SSD help w.r.t. the performance, but at the expense of capacity.

So REALLY, for my needs, there was no choice but the Mac Pro.

 

[jjahshik32]

There is truth in this at the extreme, 12 core end. Comparable Dell towers, while ugly, are competitively priced.

I think the problem is the chasm between the Top iMac and lowest Mac Pro. The single 6-core option is nearly $1000 more than a comparative dell. But more significantly, there are a lot of prosumers (and people who are just wealthy) with a money to spend on a high-spec personal computer.

Lol, you dont have to be "wealthy" to buy a $5000 computer. Actually, I've seen many "middle class" people buy $5000-$7000 computers, especially if they need it for business.

I would say wealthy people would buy a mac pro modified to be made out of platinum with diamond encrusted Apple symbol on the side of the door for 5 million dollars.

 

[jjahshik32]

I would have gone with a 27" iMac, myself, if it had two eSATA ports, or at least an ExpressCard/34 port. It isn't realistic to think of doing much in the way of serious pro work without fast eSATA HW RAID array attached -- both for I/O performance and for capacity.

The newest 27" iMac with the option for SSD help w.r.t. the performance, but at the expense of capacity.

So REALLY, for my needs, there was no choice but the Mac Pro.

Now that the new Mac Pros have been released, the base model is similar to the top of the line iMac with the Mac Pro being a couple hundred dollars more expensive.

The top of the line iMac comes with the ATI 5770 card with the 2.93GHz QUAD and 4GB of RAM while the base model Mac Pro comes with the 2.8GHz QUAD, ATI 5770 (desktop variant though while the iMac's is a mobile part) with 3GB of RAM.

Although with the iMac you get the 27" screen thats imbedded to the computer you would get 4 HDD bays on the Mac Pro with the ability to upgrade the GPU in the future. I'd say those are the trade offs but personally I like the base model Mac Pro better because you can add your own monitors later and I would take the 4 HDD bays + ability to upgrade GPU in the future over the attached 27" display on the iMac.

What I hate the most about the iMacs is that when you want to upgrade to a faster mac in the future, you'd have to give up that sweet 27" monitor along with the iMac when you sell it. I just hate that all in one deal.

 

[xgman]

The 3GB ram config is silly, even in a laptop. They just do that to keep the starting price down and probably figure either people will overpay them to upgrade or get it themselves elsewhere. I can't imagine how poorly any mac would run on 3gb ram.

 

[bjeadeh]

New MacPro just a little faster?

Nice addition with bluetooth and airport, but what ever happened to the Firewire 1600 and 3200, and where is that USB 3? I was not expecting blu-ray of course, but also not expecting 5 grand, ouch. That is as much as I paid for my Quadra 700 with apple printer and monitor,

 

[DesmoPilot]

To people saying that the Xeon's are oh so different from the consumer desktop CPUs, these days that simply ins't true. Only difference between the Xeons and Consumer lines these days is the Xeons have dual QPI so you can slap them in multi-processor systems.

 

[Soura2112]

Well I need to update

I'm looking at the 8 core. Go middle of the road.
I need to update, I'm running a 2005 dual G5, and sadly it's not running that great, which is fixable, I just couldn't see dumping anymore money into an old machine lacking intel, plus it's just time to update in other areas for my uses.
-FCP
- adobe Photoshop
- logic
- GarageBand (I know not a reason for a MP)
- Aperture
- other apps that I don't need a MP for at all, such as simple iLife etc

Those are my main uses, and I'm not sure what to go with, plus more I want to learn, or whatever comes out hay I may also want to learn. I don't want an iMac since I love to open up my machine and swap drives, add RAM, etc.

To save some money can you add the 2nd 5770 graphics card later? If i determine i need it or just want to buy one on my on later. I'm not up to date with these new graphics cards, I'm trying to learn quickly!

That also makes me ask how the 5870 would be worth it in the apps I use? I also do not see an option for 2 5870 cards, only one. I'm guessing a simple reason for that, just not sure why. I was going to add a new graphics card to my G5 about a year ago, but again I was waiting for the update. Adding a card later would be nice if I want one, while saving me money at the present time.

Like my G5 I want to get about 5 years on the machine which is very hard
these days, except when I do the math it works out to a good investment, a 5 year old computer that is crazy fast and has some muscle ( like car people)

Also to save some money I'm thinking of waiting for the next iLife to come out, if it does anytime soon, I have heard some rumor dates just not sure when. This may seem cheap, just trying to save as much as I can.

Looks like I'm waiting till November so I will know much more by then from these boards and people I know.
Thanks for any info

 

[cube]

To people saying that the Xeon's are oh so different from the consumer desktop CPUs, these days that simply ins't true. Only difference between the Xeons and Consumer lines these days is the Xeons have dual QPI so you can slap them in multi-processor systems.

Xeon also supports ECC RAM. Core does not.

Phenom and Athlon support ECC.

 

[Beric]

Not terribly surprising or interesting. Many more would rather drop Xeon to save $1,000 on the name alone.

For sure. A i7 is really just as good, for all real-world intents and purposes, and costs oh so much less.

Also, what's with just 3GB RAM stock? I bought 6GB of DDR3 RAM for my i7 PC for $80 a year ago. Laptops come with 4GB stock these days.

I'm not gonna mention that my PC cost half the price of the base-model Mac Pro a year ago, and yet has similar real-world performance a year later.

 

[puckhead193]

didn't feel like reading through 9 pages....but saw this:

regardless, i would love to see some benchmarks!

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Another example of competitive pricing is Apple's new 27" LED, which is priced pretty aggressively, $100 cheaper than it's Dell counterpart, the U2711. I'm quite stoked about this.

The dell has $100 worth of connectivity:

1 High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
2 Digital Visual Interface connectors (DVI-D) with HDCP
1 DisplayPort (DP)
1 Video Graphics Array (VGA)
1 Component Video
1 Composite Video
1 USB 2.0 upstream port
4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
8 in 1 Media reader


I have the 24 inch version of this monitor, and it's wonderful. The connectivity is amazing. I also got it for $500. Not bad for an IPS with those options built in.

 

[turtlebud]

6x1GB RAM Sticks

Is it just me, or does that seem kind of hokey to only put 6GB of RAM and fill up 6 of the 8 RAM slots (esp on the 12 core machine). Yes, I know you can just take out the RAM and put in bigger capacity RAM, but I'd hope they'd at least do a 4x2GB as the base to give you a little more room to expand before you have to start pulling out the stock RAM.

 

[ValSalva]

The dell has $100 worth of connectivity:

1 High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
2 Digital Visual Interface connectors (DVI-D) with HDCP
1 DisplayPort (DP)
1 Video Graphics Array (VGA)
1 Component Video
1 Composite Video
1 USB 2.0 upstream port
4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
8 in 1 Media reader


I have the 24 inch version of this monitor, and it's wonderful. The connectivity is amazing. I also got it for $500. Not bad for an IPS with those options built in.

That's the U2410? It seems like a great display. I'm looking at that one or waiting for the U3011.

 

[cmaier]

Is it just me, or does that seem kind of hokey to only put 6GB of RAM and fill up 6 of the 8 RAM slots (esp on the 12 core machine). Yes, I know you can just take out the RAM and put in bigger capacity RAM, but I'd hope they'd at least do a 4x2GB as the base to give you a little more room to expand before you have to start pulling out the stock RAM.

This has been pretty standard practice among computer manufacturers as far back as the late 1980's.

 

[AidenShaw]

triple channel

Is it just me, or does that seem kind of hokey to only put 6GB of RAM and fill up 6 of the 8 RAM slots (esp on the 12 core machine). Yes, I know you can just take out the RAM and put in bigger capacity RAM, but I'd hope they'd at least do a 4x2GB as the base to give you a little more room to expand before you have to start pulling out the stock RAM.

Note that these systems have triple-channel memory - so 3/6/12/15/18/21/24 DIMMs are the better fit.

Most of the time the effect is small, but if you don't need the 4th DIMM (or the 7th and 8th) you'll get a somewhat faster system. Of course if you need the memory, you'll be much faster with the unnatural number of DIMMs.

 

[twoodcc]

man i really want a new 12 core machine, but man, those prices are so high!

 

[Digital Skunk]

Finally, and thank goodness they have a 6 core option. Right now, I am going to aim for the 6 core at $3800, and if I miss at least I end up at the spec'd out quad core.

** starts crushing cans **