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Why are the 2009 mac pro owners screwed over?
- Thread starter njean777
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Yeah, but that can be explained due to bad grapes due to not ideal weather or other circumstances.
So can a screwed Mac Pro from 2009.
Faulty components or drivers, or ....?
2009 Mac Pro owners have been "screwed" over in the sense that "we" ( I must put this in quotations since I did not purchase my MP but rather had my 08' octocore replaced by Applecare after it failed so I can't complain about price) have had to pay a price premium for BTO options like CPUs. The 2008 Mac Pros were much more reasonably priced and you got much more for your money. Don't get me wrong the 09's are great systems it's just that for so many people the price has gone beyond their reach and this will most likely continue with the Gulftown update. However, let's stay positive and hope 2010 will be a good Mac Pro year.
From what I have read:
hard drive controller is limited to 650ish MBps for the transfer speed
price
some people don't like the DVD taking up a SATA port on the board
limit on quad core ram slots
could upgrade previous quad core to octo core
also something about not using the internal for raid without a 165 $ card.
Plus the higher price with the lower clock speed and you get a weird mix of a computer faster in multiple threaded apps and slower in some single threaded apps.
Thats why some people say go 2008 over 2009.
hard drive controller is limited to 650ish MBps for the transfer speed
price
some people don't like the DVD taking up a SATA port on the board
limit on quad core ram slots
could upgrade previous quad core to octo core
also something about not using the internal for raid without a 165 $ card.
Plus the higher price with the lower clock speed and you get a weird mix of a computer faster in multiple threaded apps and slower in some single threaded apps.
Thats why some people say go 2008 over 2009.
It's not a card, but an adapter needed to use a 3rd party RAID card with the internal HDD bays (MaxUpgrades).
There's also the loss in performance, increase in power, and higher temps (some at dangerous levels) related to audio (audio chip on the board, or USB and FW audio devices, even if just plugged in) in this thread.
Depending on the CPU used (those that are capable of running 1333MHz) can't, as the firmware has a fixed memory multiplier so it can only do 1066MHz.
The ICH limit isn't just in the '09's, as there's evidence it's occuring in the ICH9 family as well. Since it's systems eng., the newest is based on the older, so it's almost certainly an issue in all of them.
I have a 2009 Mac Pro and don't feel "screwed over" in the slightest. The machines are priced right in line with their major competition from HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. I popped in a 3.33 GHz W3580 before Apple offered the upgrade, set up a RAID array using MaxUpgrades sleds and a HighPoint RAID card, installed a 250 GB SSD boot drive, and installed 16 GB of RAM. I also paid the educational discount price on the new Quad 2.66.
I'm a happy camper. This baby can handle everything I throw at it, and it will be a long time before this starts to feel "slow". I suppose it depends on what criteria you are using, but most people who feel "screwed" by the 2009 models are referring primarily to price. There are those who also feel the Mac Pro is somehow defective because CPU temps rise when listening to or working with audio. My CPU temperature diode, as reported by Temperature Monitor, jumps from ~34C @ idle to ~53C while playing music in iTunes for approx. 10 minutes. Although odd, it's well within Intel's thermal parameters. I haven't noticed any degraded performance as a result.
It's all a matter of point of view. I still feel the quad is the best value in terms of performance for the majority of applications used by the majority of Mac users. If you are a "pro" who needs pro applications that utilize the additional cores for rendering, etc., then an you will get better value from the 8-core.
I'm a happy camper. This baby can handle everything I throw at it, and it will be a long time before this starts to feel "slow". I suppose it depends on what criteria you are using, but most people who feel "screwed" by the 2009 models are referring primarily to price. There are those who also feel the Mac Pro is somehow defective because CPU temps rise when listening to or working with audio. My CPU temperature diode, as reported by Temperature Monitor, jumps from ~34C @ idle to ~53C while playing music in iTunes for approx. 10 minutes. Although odd, it's well within Intel's thermal parameters. I haven't noticed any degraded performance as a result.
It's all a matter of point of view. I still feel the quad is the best value in terms of performance for the majority of applications used by the majority of Mac users. If you are a "pro" who needs pro applications that utilize the additional cores for rendering, etc., then an you will get better value from the 8-core.
Interesting details.
My biggest complaint would be the 2009 Quad. I mean, you buy a workstation and then you have a low RAM ceiling and can't expand. Six months later, the i7 iMac comes out and it's faster than the Quad (which was ridiculously overpriced at $2500)
Apple did that once in a while. Remember the single processor G5? What a lame duck.
Generally, I think, too, that Mac Pros were overpriced in 2009.
Let's hope for 2010
Your experiences in the temps thread are better than others, so for some it's a much more valid concern.
To me, the power increase and performance reduction is more uniform from what I can tell, and perhaps the direction needed to be taken with Apple to address it.
Maybe a nitpick here and there, such as the fixed memory speed of 1066MHz, DIMM count per CPU (particularly with the Quads), and the need for an adapter to use the HDD bays for an internal hardware RAID with a 3rd party card.
Beyond that, it's definitely over the funds required, as the earlier Intel MPs were better values.
In terms of how the existing system compares price wise to the competition, I've seen it cheaper from Dell, and Sun, particularly the base models (CPU = W3520 or E5520's for SP or DP systems respectively). As you go up in CPU clocks, it gets much closer.
So your happy that your £2k+ machine uses 50W more power simply playing a MP3.
Right. Thats totally acceptable isn't it? I wonder why an iPhone can even PLAY a mp3 with its little 600Mhz CPU...
It is a problem. There is no way around it.
If course it's a serious problem, but it doesn't make me feel screwed over.
I paid a lot of money for my machine and despite of it's little flaws it's still a great machine that does it's work! That's why I'm very pleased with that machine, even though I could have gotten a better machine from '08 for less money.
"Screwed" might be putting it a little strongly, but the fact remains: there were some worrisome defects or lacking performance on the entry level (most popular) models. Put simply: Nobody likes it when next year's model is a step back in some ways from what was previously being sold.
Nobody said that the 09 model was inadequate, but it may be a symptom of the fact that the 08 model was, all things considered, pretty good.
For my part, when the '09 models came out, I said "Well, I'm not sorry I didn't wait." Other people did too. It just wasn't the leap in performance we were expecting from the much-lauded Nehalem.
Maybe the '10 models will be great. We really have no way of knowing, now.
Nobody said that the 09 model was inadequate, but it may be a symptom of the fact that the 08 model was, all things considered, pretty good.
For my part, when the '09 models came out, I said "Well, I'm not sorry I didn't wait." Other people did too. It just wasn't the leap in performance we were expecting from the much-lauded Nehalem.
Maybe the '10 models will be great. We really have no way of knowing, now.
Apple's prices are only "right in line" with the competition when you conveniently ignore the facts that Dell puts professional graphics cards in their workstations AND sells them by default with three years business ON SITE warranty. Apple does not even offer that kind of support and they also only put consumer graphics cards in their Mac Pros.
So, no, in reality Apple's pricing for the Mac Pros has never been competitive. They simply sell less for the same price.
Unless you're running one of the three Apple Pro applications/application suites - Aperture, Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio - you're usually better off with the workstations from the PC competition. You get more bang for the buck and better support when you buy from Dell for the same price. And since we are talking about professional equipment here, this makes all the difference.
Power consumption was not a consideration when I purchased my Mac Pro, so in my case the answer to your question is NO. I'm not too concerned with power consumption because that was not a consideration when I bought the machine. Granted, it's unusual and probably due to a software anomaly, but for the vast majority of Mac Pro users this is not a big issue. Those having higher temperature swings may have another issue, such as improperly applied thermal paste, and should definitely have the machine looked at. I also think Apple's environmental claims with regards to the Mac Pro don't live up to reality, at least not when listening to music.
Is the performance loss affecting you're usage?
That could be an issue for some, and at the very least, grounds for many to be upset over it just out of principle.
This does not match my experience.
I bought a Dell XPS system a few years back for quite a lot of money. Within a year, I wanted to install a better GPU and couldn't because (1) The PSU was insufficient to run the card without frequent system crashes and (2) The case would not shut after installing said new graphics card.
It was a joke...A year after I bought that system I hated it because it was not designed to be upgraded and everything about it including the awful plastic case with hideous blinged out blue LEDs was cheap and nasty. And it wasn't stable, I would leave it rendering overnight only to come in the following morning to find it had shut down randomly or just crashed for no reason. Also, I never got 3 years warranty as standard, I got one. I would never buy a Dell system again based on my experience with that machine.
Conversely I was lucky enough to get an 08 Mac Pro Octo and coming up to 2 years on it's still the best machine I have ever had. I recently installed a flashed 4870 GPU which is great for 3D work....I've never felt envious of folks who pay top dollar for high end GPU's....In my experience a decent consumer card is sufficient. I paid extra for AppleCare so I get 3 years on site warranty should I need it. My DVD drive went on the blink about a year back and I had a new one from Apple within 3 days...I just had to post back the faulty one. Same with a NVIDIA 8800GT, although I don't trust NVIDIA cards anymore, hence the upgrade to the 4870.
I accept that I paid more for it and that's fine given that I've never had a PC that's managed 2 years service and counting as a main workstation. It's a very stable machine and I know I can leave it rendering overnight with confidence. All of these things add up especially when a workstation is directly linked to your livelihood.
Just saying.
If you could link to a Dell that is comparable to a Mac Pro... this would give your post a more factual approach. Now it's a bit of an opinion piece.
That said, I agree that a one year warranty is not enough for a workstation. It should be three by default, and Apple has to improve its ways here.
You get a second, free year here in the US if you buy with a credit card, but that's it.
The XPS (Xtreme Performance Systems) models aren't workstations, but gaming machines.
SP system (i.e. Quad) = Precision T3500
DP system (Octad equiv.) = Precision T5500
In comparing systems, you can't get 100% parity, but you can get close (i.e. same CPU P/N, memory amount, speed rating, and type). The rest is close, and may need some options. But on the MP side, you have to add the Extended Apple Care to get close to the warranty offered with PC based offerings.
In the end, with the base system CPU's, the PC side is less expensive. By more than $1k USD, last I looked, and that's from the web pricing. Call, and the price is even less, with no change in specs (something got changed to a cheaper component for example).
At the time the XPS was being marketed as a serious machine for power users.....It was certainly priced as such. Even going with the argument that an XPS is a gaming rig has no mileage.....A gaming PC and a 3D graphics workstation are very similar in specification.
To excuse the poor performance, reliability and lack of upgrade options of the system on the grounds that it's not classed as a workstation is weak.
I am not sure I can agree with some of the posts here - I just went to HP and spec'd a Z800 workstation, which seemed to be a close match to an 09 Octo.
The workstation was configured with two 5570 processors, 8 GB RAM. The least expensive graphics card was an Nvidia Quadro NVS 295. The as-built price came up to a few dollars over $7000 USD.
I then went to Apple and spec'd a MP with the same processor and RAM selecting the ATI 4870. The MP priced at $6200 USD.
Using Newegg as a guide, the NVS 295 is a $139 USD card vs. the 4870 being purchased for $179 USD, so the video card is a wash.
Based upon my simple comparison, I would say Apple is at least comparable to current PC based solutions. I say this because the HP comes with 3 years service and you would need to purchase Apple Care to get the same. This doesn't take into account the fact that the HP comes with an ugly steel case and simple black plastic keyboards/mice.
Comments?
The workstation was configured with two 5570 processors, 8 GB RAM. The least expensive graphics card was an Nvidia Quadro NVS 295. The as-built price came up to a few dollars over $7000 USD.
I then went to Apple and spec'd a MP with the same processor and RAM selecting the ATI 4870. The MP priced at $6200 USD.
Using Newegg as a guide, the NVS 295 is a $139 USD card vs. the 4870 being purchased for $179 USD, so the video card is a wash.
Based upon my simple comparison, I would say Apple is at least comparable to current PC based solutions. I say this because the HP comes with 3 years service and you would need to purchase Apple Care to get the same. This doesn't take into account the fact that the HP comes with an ugly steel case and simple black plastic keyboards/mice.
Comments?
You've obviously never dealt with Dell on a corporate level especially if you think their "On Site" help is good.
Hi Nano,
I understand that someone in the other forum is claiming a decrease in performance relating to their CPU getting hot while playing iTunes. Although I haven't run any benchmarks, I have not noticed any decrease in performance while playing a song in iTunes. My temps also are not as high as others have reported, so it's possible that the CPU starts to throttle down after hitting a certain threshold.
Unfortunately, Apple put more focus in their MacBook/Pro line and the iMac in 2009 than they did their Mac Pro. In a way, Apple just threw some new processors and a goofy-looking RAM hardware ensemble into the machine and put it on shelves.
I'm disappointed in Apple regarding the Mac Pro, but then again I have to say that the new iMac is great (disregarding the screen issues).
I'm disappointed in Apple regarding the Mac Pro, but then again I have to say that the new iMac is great (disregarding the screen issues).
I understand where you're coming from, but even though gaming systems can provide similar power, it's a consumer system. So the thinking is different, as is the parts it's typically designed around. Xeon vs. desktop, ECC vs. non ECC, and the boards have traditionally been different. Such boards, and the subsequent systems they're built on, tend to pay more attention to the details like cooling, better voltage regulation, and cable management from what I've seen. The consumer systems try to cram in every bell and whistle possible, but to keep the costs down, have to shave on parts quality. It really does make a difference.At the time the XPS was being marketed as a serious machine for power users.....It was certainly priced as such. Even going with the argument that an XPS is a gaming rig has no mileage.....A gaming PC and a 3D graphics workstation are very similar in specification.
To excuse the poor performance, reliability and lack of upgrade options of the system on the grounds that it's not classed as a workstation is weak.
Nehalem's changed that in the case of the SP systems though (same board could have microcode in the firmware for both desktop and Xeons for the same socket). This seems to only be the case with the higher end LGA1366 boards so far.