Speculate the MAC PRO configuration

I'm expecting we'll see 1600 MHz FSB in 3.2 and 2.8GHz configs. I'd like to see a decent video card but my hopes are not high (and my expectations/needs not that high either). Standard RAM is not really important, but it would be nice if it shipped with 4GB standard. I'd like to see eSATA.

 

Dual Quad - 2.8 or 3.0 Penryn
1600FSB
500GB or 750GB HD
2GB or 4GB Standard Ram (2 x 1GB) or (2 x 2GB)
Bluetooth and Wireless as Standard.
Single DVD+ R/RW etc
Graphics Card - Anything less than 24 months old.

Wireless Keyboard and Mighty mouse as standard.


we can all dream

 

Let's keep it realistic...

Stoakley Seaburg
Dual Quad Harpertown 2.80, 12MB cache, 1600 FSB
2GB DDR2 800 (FB of course)
320GB or 500GB HD
8600GT
Faster Superdrive SATA

 

Dual Quad Harpertown 2.80, 12MB cache, 1600 FSB
2GB DDR2 800
500GB HD
8600GT or Better
Superdrive SATA (But I hope there is an IDE cable in there so I can hook up my second one. lol)
Blu-Ray Option
Bluetooth

 

I'll second this, though I don't see 500GB drives as standard as there is profit to be made for Apple on upgrades. The graphics cards are anyone's guess, but I wouldn't be suprised to see a weaker card than the 8600GT.

 

I know we should keep it realistic but..
PowerPC 750 (G3)
64mb RAM
ATI Rage 128 GL
12gb hard drive
32X CD-ROM

 

2.8 GHz
2 GB RAM
320 GB HD
Radeon HD2600 Pro or XT
No BT/AP

 

2.8ghz
250gb
2gb ram
8800gt (best optional card for gamers)

 

Sounds like Apple to me. But having a 8 x 2.8GHZ machine for $2,499 is lots of power. 2GB is a no brainer, we can hope for 500GB but 320GB sounds more likely. I could also see an 8600 card from nvidia. 16x Superdrive, blu-ray/HD-DVD will be an option. I also see new Cinema Displays with HDMI and HDPC coming out the same time. Considering Apple likes to upgrade their pro towers every 1.5 years they need to include all those features.

BTO options will include a 3.2 GHZ 1600MHZ bus, 8 core that will come be between $3500-4000 and a 2.33GHZ 8 core for $2,200.

Hard drive options will max out with 1TB options, but I can see them also offering 500GB and 750GB drives. All for ridiculous prices. OWC has the Mac Pro maxing out at 32GB. Although I could see Apple doing this also, their RAM prices would easily push the mac pro to over $15,000 without including the displays.

 

My dream Mac Pro:

3.0GHz (Dual Core), then 3.33GHz Quad Core
2GB RAM (up to 16GB)
320GB HD (up to 2TB)
GeForce 8800 GTX (base card would be the GeForce 8600GT)

 

God I hated those displays. Our artists used them and I was the IT person who had to move them. Constantly. Heavy as #$#$ and bulky and UGLY.

 

Why isn't 500GB realistic expectation.

Okay you say that a 500GB drive is not realistic.

Just saw a programme on QVC.

Ignore the fact that it's a HP

Core2Duo - Not 100% sure which one.
500GB HD
3GB DDR2 RAM
HD DVD
8400 GTS Turbo I think.
Wireless mouse and keyboard
24" Monitor

all for £1200.

So for £1700 Apple should be able to better this by a considerable margin, especially given the factthat they don't provide a monitor. If you think the current machines.

Christ 3GB in a consumer machine. I thought the Mac Pro was for the Pro users.

 

It's not realistic because Apple can offer 500GB drives at a considerable markup and 320GB is more than enough to sell a system. The price difference is as little as £15 between 320GB and 500GB at retail pricing, making it insignificant for HP or Apple to offer 500GB (for their respective reasons of HP trying to impress, Apple trying to profit). The memory is a little different, 3GB of whatever cheap memory the HP has costs barely anything, alot less than 800MHz FB-DIMMs will. 1GB/2GB is still standard for pro-systems from big vendors. You are comparing what is essentially an overpriced consumer machine probably geared for christmas sales against a workstation.

I also wouldn't expect the new MP to cost £1,699 if it costs $2,499 stateside.

 

Are you kidding me? MP in UK does cost £1699!

 

The new MP, not the current one.

 

Umbongo are you an Apple fan/loverboy?

I just wast to clear this up before I respond to your pointless post.

 

No I'm a realist.

 

Aside from the fact that it's always pointless belittling anyone as such on these forums, if anything Umbongo's retort to your wishful thinking came off as the words of an Apple fan jaded by experience. Apple has been crippling the default settings to push over-priced BTO options onto us for years. Whilst they have made both the consumer lines and pro lines more competitive, the former has been achieved in terms of both price and features, but whilst the Mac Pro is cheaper than it once was, they still pull the same old stunts on us features-wise:

crippled hard-drive, crippled RAM, and after giving airport and BT away on every other mac for well over 2 years, they still stiff us with 50 quid for it on our workstations.

I, too, expect 320gig, 2GB as standard.
The processors will prob be as in the rumors (2.8/3.2) but the question is whether the 2.8 1600 MHz one will be the default, with a cheaper offering replacing the current 2.0 Woodcrest at a discount (2.33 Octo, 1333 MHz bus?), or they introduce a 4th option as the default, or make the chepest one the default. This interests me greatly as the current default 2.66 model represents great value for money and presumably outsells all the others by a mile.
I know little of graphix cards and most of my work is processor-intensive anyways, I just hope for something more modern, at least at inception, than the options we have had for the past 15 months.
e-sata
a cheaper raid solution, so that having a RAID5 doesn't cost me £659 before I've even bought any drives...
blu-ray as an option if the screens get updated with HDCP (+ camera etc.), but this seems a little soon to me, and might come as a seperate event later (besides if new screens were coming, with new enclosures on the long overdue towers, we would surely have heard more than just processor info)

 

Skulltrail with Apple I/O and 10gig ethernet.

Edit: Only because it is an oddball design so like Apple, many of the overclocker features suit, and 10gig ethernet has waited soo long.

 

I hate wireless mice and keyboards. Those should NEVER be standard.

 

I swear I did this in another thread..

Base: $2499
Octo (2xQuad) 2.8Ghz/1600FSB
1GB FB-DIMM 800MHz
500GB HD
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro

BTO:
Octo 2.5Ghz/1333FSB -$300
Octo 3.2Ghz/1600FSB +$800
ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB +$250
ATI FireGL V8600 1GB +$2000

Plus RAM and HD configs, opt. dual superdrives, etc.

 

For the starting model :
Still only 1GB in the base would be ridiculous. 2GB is a minimum in a "Pro" range. So an octo-core would boost unnecessarily the price, and there's a lot of people like me who don't need so much ones. Even 4 cores will be pointless for me 90% of the time.

 

I have it on good authority...

Here is my prediction for the Nov. 14 Mac Pro spec for the base model...


Two 2.66 Dual-Core Xeon Woodcrest Processors
1 GB RAM (DDR2 667)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of VRAM
250GB SATA 7200 RPM Drive
16x Superdrive!

 

I can´t imagine that they would "downgrade" the base-model in terms of processor tact-speed and at the same time keep it at 2.500$.

And a 1 GB Ram base would be an embarassment.

Honestly, if they do one of the above, ... their reputation is finally screwed in my mind. It´s hanging on a thin thread as it is. If there was no final cut studio 2, I wouldn´t even be having this conversation but be enjoying a fast, cheaper PC right now.