Why are the 2009 mac pro owners screwed over?

[RebootD]

Sadly I needed a new machine and the Quad was the one I could afford (Plus it is faster than the base 8c for Photoshop) and I felt ripped off in March (no base 2.9ghz, only 4 ram slots etc) when I purchased it, now I feel downright mugged.

Why oh why do iMacs get 4x faster gfx cards than my 'workstation' class machine? I needed the MP and the 4870 was $200 more, but it would have pushed back my purchase weeks so I did without it. Now if I want to upgrade past my pathetic GT120 I'd have to pay 3.5x more for a 4870 than it's even worth! Bah!

Oh well I still love it and it's the fastest Mac I've ever owned so I guess I don't know what I'm missing speed-wise because I haven't used a newer machine.

PS. I will never buy a shiny iMac so it's Mac Pro or bust.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Sadly I needed a new machine and the Quad was the one I could afford (Plus it is faster than the base 8c for Photoshop) and I felt ripped off in March (no base 2.9ghz, only 4 ram slots etc) when I purchased it, now I feel downright mugged.

Why oh why do iMacs get 4x faster gfx cards than my 'workstation' class machine? I needed the MP and the 4870 was $200 more, but it would have pushed back my purchase weeks so I did without it. Now if I want to upgrade past my pathetic GT120 I'd have to pay 3.5x more for a 4870 than it's even worth! Bah!

Oh well I still love it and it's the fastest Mac I've ever owned so I guess I don't know what I'm missing speed-wise because I haven't used a newer machine.

PS. I will never buy a shiny iMac so it's Mac Pro or bust.

I would imagine that your Mac Pro is still faster than a comparably clocked late 2009 Quad iMac. If you need a faster graphics card, then you can pop one in and go. That's one of the advantages of having a Mac Pro. I don't understand why someone feels "mugged" when a newer computer comes out for less money than what they bought. That is the basic reality of buying anything based on technology - there is always a newer, better one around the corner. In fact, the day Apple launched the 2009 Mac Pro they were already developing the 2010 Mac Pro.

The entire iMac line was Core 2 Duo at the time 2009 Mac Pro was introduced with 4 and 8 cores. iMac always gets the Mac Pro hand-me-downs, so it was inevitable that a 4-core iMac would hit the market later in 2009. We will most likely have 6 and 12 core Mac Pros by March of 2010, how will you feel then? Murdered?

Those who buy a certain computer for bragging rights or vanity will always feel emotionally mugged when a new machine comes out. That's because they have invested themselves emotionally into a piece of hardware that is obsolete, therefore what they have invested emotionally into having "the best and fastest" is now lost to the next generation. A typical mourning process ensues over this loss. Those of us who use our computer to generate income couldn't care less about what is coming out or what's coming out in 6 months or next year. We depend on our computers for income, and invest appropriately. I look at my 2009 Mac Pro purchase as one of the best investments I've ever made. It's increased my productivity, gives me access to certain tools via VMWare that are only available on Windows, and ultimately has played a key role in increasing my revenue this year. Buying it when I did was an absolute necessity, and it has paid for itself many times over.

I also built a VOIP PBX system for my office using a Mac Mini running Linux. The Mac Mini is 2 years old and runs Linux under VMWare. This $700 investment has saved me thousands of dollars in what I would have otherwise spent on a commercial off-the-shelf PBX solution plus all the money saved on not paying exorbitant fees to the phone company for multiple lines, per minute charges, etc. New Mac Minis have come and gone in the meantime, but do I care? The one I have is working great for its intended use, saves me money every day, backs itself up to a network NVS using Time Machine, and one day when the hard drive fails I'll pop in a SSD and reinstall everything from the backup. I'll be up and running again within a couple of hours, and faster than before.

If you look at your Mac as a necessary business investment, you're less likely to be inflamed by newer iMacs and Mac Pros. Keep it real folks. Don't put your heart and soul into plastic, aluminum, and silicon. Save that for your family, friends, and career.

 

[Gomff]

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.

Fair points, but at the time I paid £1700 (probably around $3000 US) for that Dell system, and that was just for the box....No monitor included as I already had my own. For that sort of money I expect better build quality and reliability. I decided to go with a pre-built system to try and eliminate stability niggles associated with home built PC's but it ended up being just as bad if not worse. I sold it on ebay 2 years later for £300 which included a a 17" monitor. As such it was poor value in service and beyond.

There are plenty of folks who use so called consumer level gaming rigs for 3D graphics without issue....My point is that the quality wasn't up to the mark when I put my faith in Dell, and because of that I won't ever be buying from them again.....If I had to return to using a PC workstation I'd go back to building my own after thoroughly researching the best hardware combination.

 

[nanofrog]

Fair points, but at the time I paid £1700 (probably around $3000 US) for that Dell system, and that was just for the box....No monitor included as I already had my own. For that sort of money I expect better build quality and reliability. I decided to go with a pre-built system to try and eliminate stability niggles associated with home built PC's but it ended up being just as bad if not worse. I sold it on ebay 2 years later for £300 which included a a 17" monitor. As such it was poor value in service and beyond.

There are plenty of folks who use so called consumer level gaming rigs for 3D graphics without issue....My point is that the quality wasn't up to the mark when I put my faith in Dell, and because of that I won't ever be buying from them again.....If I had to return to using a PC workstation I'd go back to building my own after thoroughly researching the best hardware combination.

I understand, and unfortunately, such cases do happen. Dell's put out a few lemons, particularly among the consumer systems. I'd be upset too, if that had happened to me, as it's not a budget box, but the high end line they build in the consumer side. Definitely not an inexpensive system, and what you ended up with was an expensive POS.

Their current enterprise gear is decent though.

For either system, the smartest thing to do, is try to do the research prior to purchasing. Saves loads of hassle.

 

[Kallel00]

Sadly I needed a new machine and the Quad was the one I could afford (Plus it is faster than the base 8c for Photoshop) and I felt ripped off in March (no base 2.9ghz, only 4 ram slots etc) when I purchased it, now I feel downright mugged.

Why oh why do iMacs get 4x faster gfx cards than my 'workstation' class machine? I needed the MP and the 4870 was $200 more, but it would have pushed back my purchase weeks so I did without it. Now if I want to upgrade past my pathetic GT120 I'd have to pay 3.5x more for a 4870 than it's even worth! Bah!

The IMac 4850 is already a previous-gen card. Just google "Adobe Mercury Engine" as an example to where even a CoreI7 IMac could somewhat suck.

It's still "future tech" (and could be a complete bust), but if it proves to be true, you're not going to envy the Imac one bit after you've upgraded your gfx card to next year's class.

What I mean is gfx cards are underused atm for mostly anything except gaming. If that changes, the fact alone you can upgrade your Mac Pro's gfx card makes it worth it.

 

[definitive]

because it's apple's hardware. and who in their right mind would pay two grand for a 2008 model - a system whose hardware was probably released in 07. might as well go with a *coughhackingtoshcough*

 

[ncc1701d]

For either system, the smartest thing to do, is try to do the research prior to purchasing. Saves loads of hassle.

Do you knowhow many PM's you're going to get form me when I buy my next computer!!

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[Nostromo]

I would imagine that your Mac Pro is still faster than a comparably clocked late 2009 Quad iMac. If you need a faster graphics card, then you can pop one in and go. That's one of the advantages of having a Mac Pro. I don't understand why someone feels "mugged" when a newer computer comes out for less money than what they bought. That is the basic reality of buying anything based on technology - there is always a newer, better one around the corner. In fact, the day Apple launched the 2009 Mac Pro they were already developing the 2010 Mac Pro.

The entire iMac line was Core 2 Duo at the time 2009 Mac Pro was introduced with 4 and 8 cores. iMac always gets the Mac Pro hand-me-downs, so it was inevitable that a 4-core iMac would hit the market later in 2009. We will most likely have 6 and 12 core Mac Pros by March of 2010, how will you feel then? Murdered?

Those who buy a certain computer for bragging rights or vanity will always feel emotionally mugged when a new machine comes out. That's because they have invested themselves emotionally into a piece of hardware that is obsolete, therefore what they have invested emotionally into having "the best and fastest" is now lost to the next generation. A typical mourning process ensues over this loss. Those of us who use our computer to generate income couldn't care less about what is coming out or what's coming out in 6 months or next year. We depend on our computers for income, and invest appropriately. I look at my 2009 Mac Pro purchase as one of the best investments I've ever made. It's increased my productivity, gives me access to certain tools via VMWare that are only available on Windows, and ultimately has played a key role in increasing my revenue this year. Buying it when I did was an absolute necessity, and it has paid for itself many times over.

I also built a VOIP PBX system for my office using a Mac Mini running Linux. The Mac Mini is 2 years old and runs Linux under VMWare. This $700 investment has saved me thousands of dollars in what I would have otherwise spent on a commercial off-the-shelf PBX solution plus all the money saved on not paying exorbitant fees to the phone company for multiple lines, per minute charges, etc. New Mac Minis have come and gone in the meantime, but do I care? The one I have is working great for its intended use, saves me money every day, backs itself up to a network NVS using Time Machine, and one day when the hard drive fails I'll pop in a SSD and reinstall everything from the backup. I'll be up and running again within a couple of hours, and faster than before.

If you look at your Mac as a necessary business investment, you're less likely to be inflamed by newer iMacs and Mac Pros. Keep it real folks. Don't put your heart and soul into plastic, aluminum, and silicon. Save that for your family, friends, and career.

That's a very good, down to earth post.

And even if you tend to like your computer, buy what you need, and get finance a bigger rig if you need it. It will last longer as it will stand up longer.

The lame duck Macs (entry level units) will always become obsolete very soon.

There are options like building a hackintosh, but this is not for me, as I want to make my money using the computer, not save money by building one and go through all the troubles hackinstoshes have.

This said, a few things have to be improved. The bad graphics cards Apple puts into its workstations and the lousy 1 year warranty are among them.

I can't put my finger on it, but I regularly read on the threads here about issues that put a Mac Pro sooner out of the race than it has to be. Apple should give more options to expand and upgrade and modernize one's system.

 

[alphaod]

I do not feel I've been screwed over; I waited until the changes sufficed my needs and I went for it. I knew what I was buying, so anyone who complains about the lack of features should note they do have a choice before making a purchasing. Yes the South Bridge is a POS, but any one serious about RAID, shouldn't even been bothering with using that as a drive controller. With tradition HDDs (which the sledges are designed for), the South Bridge provides plenty of bandwidth.

I know the Mac Pro was very expensive; I know I could have purchased a Dell or HP, but what's the point in that? I wanted a Macintosh, not a Windows PC… because if it was the latter, I'd build it myself.