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The Beast Has Arrived!! New Mac Pro with 2x24" Apple Displays [pics and geekbench]

gibbz said:
A similar spec'd Dell was more expensive, at least in the few I put together.
Click to expand...

In the UK, Apple with student discount (of 16%) is about the same as Dell on the T7500 (octo) so I guess Apple's mark up is around 1/0.84 or close to 20%.

On a four core, single processor, if you're willing to go with a Dell T3500 (smaller case and power supply) then the cost of the Apple is more like 50% to 60% more and the Dell provides the option of Quadro cards and a 3.2GHz processor and SAS drives without having to spend £500 plus on a RAID card. And most importantly (from my point of view) is Dell provides six RAM slots per processor to Apple's four (effectively three if you want to stick with triple channel memory access).

Personally I really like the Apple design and have been looking to buy a Pro for eighteen months or so but I really can't take the double wammy of paying a big excess and then on top of that having to buy very expensive 4GB RAM modules if I want 1GB per virtual core or more. (And I am a student so I would get the Apple discount).

I should add that for the 08 Mac Pro the situation was very different with Apple being cheaper than Dell even without the student discount - it is the '09 model that has come with a huge price increase. (I'm talking prices relative to Dell, or a DIY build as opposed to the absolute price which is more open to debate).
 
gibbz said:
A similar spec'd Dell was more expensive, at least in the few I put together.
Click to expand...

That depends on which systems you're comparing.
  • Single Quad Core 2.93 W3540
    Dell: $2,085
    Apple: $2,999
    The Dell comes with a Quadro.
    Apple has no good video card options on-line.
    This is almost a $1,000 difference. :(

  • Single Quad Core 2.66 W3520
    Dell: $1,635
    Apple: $2,499
    The Dell comes with a Quadro.
    Apple has no good video card options on-line.
    Again here Apple is way over the mark. :(

  • Dual Quad Core 2.26 E5520
    Dell: $3,146
    Apple: $3,299
    The Dell comes with a Quadro.
    Apple has no good video card options on-line But comes with 6GB instead of 3GB.
    Here Apple is only like, $150 more than DELL.

  • Dual Quad Core 2.66 X5550
    Dell: $5,366
    Apple: $4,699
    The Dell comes with a Quadro.
    Apple has no good video card options on-line But comes with 6GB instead of 3GB.
    Here Apple wants significantly less than DELL. :)

  • Dual Quad Core 2.93 X5570
    Dell: $7,106
    Apple: $5,899
    The Dell comes with a Quadro.
    Apple has no good video card options on-line But comes with 6GB instead of 3GB.
    Here again Apple wants significantly less than DELL. :)

So it just kinda depends. If you roll your own system however, then 2009 Apple systems are always more expensive and ridiculously so for the single chip models. :p

For 2008 ~ 2006 Apple beat DELL's price on every model! :D
 
gibbz said:
A similar spec'd Dell was more expensive, at least in the few I put together.
Click to expand...

Yeah I had a look at the Dell Nehalem machines when they came out. They're far far cheaper for the quad core versions but are about the same for the octo cores. Its such a shame since they could have significantly undercut Apple. Instead, they followed Apple's lead in marking up on their processors big time. Its not hard to find out how much these processors cost and its not hard to find out how much all the past processors in Mac Pros have cost. Hence, we know that Apple and Dell have drastically increased their profit margin. The optimist amongst us would say that this is so as to combat the current economic crisis. The pessimist would say its due to price fixing between the big companies at the cost of the consumer.
 
Dell prices are rather more flexible. The web prices are just a starting point for negotiation. They seem quite happy to knock off more than £200 on even cheaper systems (ie $300 plus) which makes the gap on the single processor options even larger.

On the dual processor 2.66 system I was looking at (before I decided I couldn't afford it) the price from Dell was about the same as the Apple student price.

The frustrating thing is that Apple/Dell etc have nabbed all the chips. I would like to go the DIY route but no one is selling the W3570 at least not in the UK. I've seen a Canadian and an Australian site with it.
 
Gonk42 said:
Dell prices are rather more flexible. The web prices are just a starting point for negotiation. They seem quite happy to knock off more than £200 on even cheaper systems (ie $300 plus) which makes the gap on the single processor options even larger.

On the dual processor 2.66 system I was looking at (before I decided I couldn't afford it) the price from Dell was about the same as the Apple student price.

The frustrating thing is that Apple/Dell etc have nabbed all the chips. I would like to go the DIY route but no one is selling the W3570 at least not in the UK. I've seen a Canadian and an Australian site with it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm really disappointed by the pricing structures used. I really want a new 8 core Mac Pro but I can't really justify the cost right now. If the 2.66 GHz Octo was at the price point of the entry level octo then I might bight but as it stands, its just not good enough value. I'm eligible for the HE discount so getting a refurb previous gen Octo is a bit of a waste of money and besides which, as I recently discovered, the stuff I do that utilises my machine the most is pretty dependent on memory. My 2.53GHz MBP with DDR3 memory outperforms my 2.66GHz Mac Pro even if the MP is overclocked to ~2.8GHz.
 
Yeah I agree guys. Apple hindered the entry level buyers of the MacPro with their increased margins. Maybe the economy forced there hands but if I were to buy a MP as a personal machine, I would think twice due to the current increase. I might have to consider a Dell running Linux.
 
gibbz said:
Yes, we were able to get the edu discount, plus I think Apple reduced the cost a little more due to the high price. Our IT dept. places the order and negotiated price.
Click to expand...

good to have perks on the job. make the most of it :D:D
 
Gonk42 said:
Dell prices are rather more flexible. The web prices are just a starting point for negotiation.
Click to expand...

The prices I listed are of machines configured to match the Apples as closely as possible.

I flexibility I see from DELL when on their N.American site is in the ability to configure it. For example there's a 2.53 GHz E5540 option that brings it down $830 more in-line with the Apple 2.66 price. Or there's the option for a 3.2GHz if I want. Additionally I can still order a X400 system if I don't want or can't use virtual cores and turbo boost.

Anyway the prices I listed reflect all of the current rebate and discount options not including educational discounts and etc. About the only differences I didn't list are a) The DELL comes with the 3-year care package (it's not optional) and b) I selected a 500GB HDD as there wasn't an option for a 640GB HDD like Apple has.

.
 
Gonk42 said:
Dell prices are rather more flexible. The web prices are just a starting point for negotiation.
Click to expand...

I do the purchasing for my company from Dell, and we get ~30% off the website prices on desktops, laptops, and workstations.

The other thing that Dell (and other manufacturers do but Apple does not) does is to reduce the price of the components as they come down in price. Apple loves to pick a price and stick with it - even if the parts are severely outdated (as was the case with the Mac Mini's from 2007 being sold until recently).
 
How much of a geek am I? The system is great but I am also jealous of having that much data to play with....... I only get to GIS sales data....
 
bamf said:
I do the purchasing for my company from Dell, and we get ~30% off the website prices on desktops, laptops, and workstations.
Click to expand...

Even as a private individual (though playing the student card - i.e. telling Dell that Apple give a good education discount etc) the Dell salesperson would give 10% off the web price (which itself was officially discounted).

The fact that Dell could still get a reasonable return whilst offering your company 30% discount shows just how much over the odds individuals have to pay.

In the past I've used Dell outlet which discounts by around 35% which I think is a bit more generous than Apple's refurbished scheme which is about the same as the student discount in the UK so there is no sense in a student not buying new instead.

I guess Apple will negotiate with big companies and universities, but I don't think they would with an individual (I've not tried).
 
Back in the day I did a lot of research on supersonic combustion, modeling the combustion chambers of supersonic aircraft. I had a NASA grant and did most of my work on a Cray Y-MP after I sufficiently buried all the HP workstations on my campus.

I have to wonder now, what it would have been like to run some of the code on the Mac Pros that are available. I've since gotten away from that line of work and haven't thought much about the supercomputers of "the day" vs today's workstations.

I should dig out some old source code and see how fast it runs on my single quad i7 ubuntu box...
 
brentsg said:
Hehe just need to hunt down a fortran compiler... :eek:
Click to expand...

I think there's a trial version of iFort, a great compiler imo. There's also g90 which is the GNU alternative I think. Can't speak of much experience with that though since I got Intel's compiler suite for peanuts and love it.
 
gibbz said:
Hi everyone. The machine I will use for my Ph.D. has arrived!! Here are the specs:
Click to expand...

You're going to really enjoy the power of your Mac. I have been using my beast for almost two years now, and I don't know what I would do without it. It has tremendously helped my research.

Enjoy!
 
Wicked1 said:
Not a Bad way to Spend $12,000.00 Grand but is that much power really necessary? :eek: but I still like it :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Cheaper than a Multimillion dollar cray C90 a few years ago, that would have taken longer to do the workloads than his new mac pro.

12,000 is probably the cost to just power the C90 on a monthly basis.
like this system NCAR had to use in the 90's

http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/computers/gallery/cray/antero.jsp


I still have my old sun ultra2creator workstation that cost 25K and was used for quantitive workloads (financial industry)



12K is actually a bargain for the computational power and memory you are getting.
 
Im jealous for a number of reasons. I "only" went with the low end 8 core w/ 12 GB machine, but more importantly...

I went with 1 day shipping because I just had to have it to play with before an upcoming business trip. It arrived a few hours after I left for the airport. Got back from trip and fired her up. It lasted about 2 hours (just long enough to transfer settings, apps, etc) before refusing to even power up. Dropped it off the next day at local Apple store and they have now had it for a week. The parts are in and it's now #1 on the repair list. Hoped to get it back today, but that is not looking promising!

Sooner or later I'd like to actually use it.
 
Congrats! Its a beast!

I was considering an entry level Mac Pro, but the new Sun Ultra 27 (Same cpu as the entry Mac Pro) starts at 1,500. Not the same build quality as a pro or as stylish, but still well built (I work with sun equipment - I love it). So, I will be on the fence for a while.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra27/index.xml

Anyways, hope you PHD works out! :)
 
zmttoxics said:
Not the same build quality as a pro or as stylish, but still well built (I work with sun equipment - I love it)
Click to expand...

I dunno, I like the style of the new Sun boxes!

k3_ultra27_1.jpg

k3_ultra27_4.jpg

​
 
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