So how much will a Mac Pro be realistically? (Because £8300 is taking the ****)

[Sesshi]

I'm doing some budget planning and I have to set some idea of a computing budget for the first half of next year. My servers were all upgraded in the last 18 months and are not going to be replaced now for another two years. The general idea is not to splurge on systems from now until late '08, given the huge spend on computer hardware in FY05 (I must be one of the few individuals who get corporate pricing from Dell). And having spent about £14K on Macs so far this year I am looking to limit the rest of '06 ~ half '07 budget to about £15K all-in including purchases for my staff (of one ).

Part of what I want is a 'proper' desktop. My desk is wide enough now that I've given all traces of a PC the boot (with the exception of a games PC lurking lonely in the corner) to accomodate two 30" monitors. So I'm pricing the Power Mac with quad-core, two 30" monitors , various paraphenalia to support it and 4Gb RAM...

... and, excuse me? £8300? WTF? I have NEVER spent £8300 on a single machine. There is no way I could justify that to myself. Are prices likely to stay this ludicrous for the rollout of the Mac Pro?

 

[DannySmurf]

Ludicrous? Are you serious? You're looking at a quad core G5 with TWO 30" monitors. You were expecting prices near 1000 for this?

 

[Sesshi]

Of course not. It just seems overtly excessive for what it is.

 

[kgarner]

You can save yourself a chink of change by dropping those 2 30" and getting the Dell equivalents and then buying your RAM third party.

With the setup your looking at though, that price doesn't seem too high to me (but I have no concept of english pounds so it may be high). When I worked at CompUSA two or three years ago I set a guy up with a (for then) top-of-the-line system. Fastest G5 they had back then, a 23" monitor (largest available at that time), and 4 GB of RAM, and software (Final Cut, etc.). All that came to just under $10,000.

When you buy top of the line like that, you are going to pay for it. I would suspect that the Mac Pros will be similarly priced to their G5 counterparts. Maybe a little cheaper, but more likely they will be the same price with more features.

 

[DMPDX]

With your average budget of 15k I bet oyu could move some things arround to accomadate the puchase. But you shouldnt be complaining about price when youre buying 2 30" displays that probably arent totally necissary, and the highest-end tower. Have a friend in college buy it for you? Haha.
-dsm

 

[Sesshi]

You can save yourself a chink of change by dropping those 2 30" and getting the Dell equivalents and then buying your RAM third party.

With the setup your looking at though, that price doesn't seem too high to me (but I have no concept of english pounds so it may be high). When I worked at CompUSA two or three years ago I set a guy up with a (for then) top-of-the-line system. Fastest G5 they had back then, a 23" monitor (largest available at that time), and 4 GB of RAM, and software (Final Cut, etc.). All that came to just under $10,000.

When you buy top of the line like that, you are going to pay for it. I would suspect that the Mac Pros will be similarly priced to their G5 counterparts. Maybe a little cheaper, but more likely they will be the same price with more features.

Unfortunately I would imagine you're right. It was just a staggering price tag for what it is. I guess I might have to darken Dell's doors again for at least the monitors.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I guess I might have to darken Dell's doors again for at least the monitors.

I have 2 24" Dell's hooked up to my quad and its great - getting 2 30" might be overkill - what do you need 2 30" for?

D

 

[aquanutz]

Maybe he want's those two 30 inchers so he can watch pr0n from space!

J/k

As a deverloper I know having more monitor space means more productivity... if I were given that much screen space, I wolud never have to minimize anything I was reading and would be able to do a ton of stuff much faster.

 

[Sesshi]

I have 2 24" Dell's hooked up to my quad and its great - getting 2 30" might be overkill - what do you need 2 30" for?

D

Personally I consider a dual 23-24" monitor class to be a 'comfortable' size for the way I work, especially when I'm playing at the same time (iTunes, Macrumors etc), but not 'large'. My Mac desktop / transportable screen arrangement (20" iMac / 17" MBP + 23" ACD) was a bit of a compromise in the interests of going Intel Mac.

Two 30" might be slightly overkill, but I have noticed very strongly that the more screen I have the more productive I am - but I don't like single monitor configurations. A dual monitor setup regardless of the size allows me to partition windows like having two piles of paper, and I prefer working that way.


Edit: Oh yes, that and pr0n too

 

[ham_man]

Of course not. It just seems overtly excessive for what it is.

No. Getting a Quad G5 with 4 GBs of RAM and two 30" monitors seems "overtly excessive"...

 

[Topono]

I went ahead and priced it in the Apple U.S. Store:

$8,997.

 

[Eraserhead]

I went ahead and priced it in the Apple U.S. Store:

$8,997.

He's added the Quadro graphic's card and 2x500GB HD's to the price otherwise it'd be a more sensible £6500.

 

[Topono]

Wait, so it would be.... $11,522.

 

[Sesshi]

He's added the Quadro graphic's card and 2x500GB HD's to the price otherwise it'd be a more sensible £6500.

I think it was one 500Gb. I was under the impression the Quadro is required to power the two 30" monitors. Is that right?

 

[KingYaba]

I say you should get one of these bad boys. 3 24" screens for 4 grand. 1000 cheaper than 2 30"

1920x1200 for each moniter i say that's pretty baddass

Zenview makes some wicked looking moniters. Ive seen ones with like 6 screens, and someone was talking about two 30" was overkill... how about this?

that alone costs 8 grand

 

[KingYaba]

Or this...

5 grand lol

 

[Sesshi]

Back when I had Bloomberg at home I did have a quad-monitor setup. Mousing and rapid pointer location becomes a bit of a chore with 4 monitors because you tend to scan one monitor at a time, however big it is. Not entirely sure about three 24" either for the same reason but if I went for that on the basis of cost / retaining Apple screens what are the video card implications? You'd still need to buy a pretty top-notch 4-monitor card, right?

 

[risc]

Jesus Christ OP you are whiny thing aren't you? You want a Quad core UNIX workstation with 2 30" monitors and you don't think you are going to have to pay for it? THE POWER MAC G5 IS NOT A DESKTOP PC! Get over yourself, you don't need all that power, if you did you would realise that it is great value for what you actually get. Just look at your specs you've spec'd up a WORKSTATION!

 

[xPismo]

...you tend to scan one monitor at a time, however big it is. Not entirely sure about three 24" either for the same reason but if I went for that on the basis of cost / retaining Apple screens what are the video card implications?...

Sorry, but I just can't follow you. What are you using this for? If you budgeted 15k for 1 user (you I assume) and your 'check every option' computer hits ~9k why are you complaining?

As for scanning monitors. You should get in front of two 30" monitors before dropping down the dosh on them. They are considerably huge - if you can't scan three 24" in a row, you'll be at sea with two 30".

Whats your application?

 

[Rasheem]

What are you using this for? IF you truly need to 30" monitors buy them from dell or somewhere else, apple jacks up the price. as for the ram and hard drive buy them elsewhere also. And if your just using this for a desktop get a top of the line imac they do great for almost everything.

 

[Sesshi]

Jesus Christ OP you are whiny thing aren't you? You want a Quad core UNIX workstation with 2 30" monitors and you don't think you are going to have to pay for it? THE POWER MAC G5 IS NOT A DESKTOP PC! Get over yourself, you don't need all that power, if you did you would realise that it is great value for what you actually get. Just look at your specs you've spec'd up a WORKSTATION!

As they say, well duh. What I'm saying is pretty simple: For what it is, it's incredibly expensive. An quad-core (3ghz) Dell Workstation for example with similar specs / monitor sizes would be about £3,000 cheaper (excepting any further discounts I'd get). That is a major difference even factoring in the 'Apple Design'.

The use varies. It can be for analysis-heavy work on spreadsheets, reviewing engineering drawings and proposals, word processing, scheduling, etc. The chances are that I'll be working on all of them actually in one go. Right now I have Entourage open, a Citrix session going to our project database, three Firefox windows each with at least two tabs, Preview, Excel spreadsheets, a Pages document, iTunes and an RDC session to my personal-stuff server.

I'm not sure if you've actively used a large multi-monitor system but I find the eye fully takes in one monitor in one go, however large or small it is. Scanning two monitors is fine. More, I find it to get a bit busy. Given that I'd rather have two large monitors than three slightly smaller ones.

And as I've said several times now, the price tag of that compared to what else is on the market really made me go "holy crap "

 

[KingYaba]

That quadro fx can power up the multi moniter set ups. as can other cards.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

And as I've said several times now, the price tag of that compared to what else is on the market really made me go "holy crap "

Well you do realize buying Apple stuff is a bit more expensive.

And for What it is , I would say IT IS a huge computer setup you're pricing out. What the hell does that mean anyway "for What it is"?

 

[Glen Quagmire]

Well you do realize buying Apple stuff is a bit more expensive.

And for What it is , I would say IT IS a huge computer setup you're pricing out. What the hell does that mean anyway "for What it is"?

Yeah, I mean, think about it:

High end Mac Pro with masses of RAM and expensive CPUs
Very high cost and spec graphics card
Big hard drives
Huge monitors

All of that shouldn't cost more than $100, should it?

Perhaps the OP should be more realistic (or ask himself whether he really needs all this stuff). Or, if he objects to spending all that money, buy a Dell instead and take advantage of this discount he seems to willing to trumpet to the world.

 

[Sesshi]

Well you do realize buying Apple stuff is a bit more expensive.

And for What it is , I would say IT IS a huge computer setup you're pricing out. What the hell does that mean anyway "for What it is"?

There's 'a bit' (a premium I was happy to pay for the iMac, Macbook and MacBook Pro) and there's 'a rip'. In terms of percentage price difference for comparable PC hardware, the system I specced definitely enters the latter description. All I can say is that I hope the Mac Pros deliver really class-leading performance for the cost.