Why is everyone so Dissappointed?

[-js-]

I too have been wondering what the deal is--and I mean that from both directions! I've been wondering what the deal is with Apple AND with all the disappointed people here. And it's an honest "wondering" and not a shaking-my-head-in-disgust sort of thing. I'm curious, and more or less still somewhat ignorant. As are many of us.

I mean, that what I'd really like to see is some OTHER benchmarks. New baseline Pro vs. Old baseline Pro, for example.

In any event, I have to agree with the OP about the case. I love it just as it is, and am glad it hasn't changed.

On the other hand, the crippled max memory of the quad-core baseline model is just UNACCEPTABLE for me. Right now, 8 GB is plenty. But 8 years from now? Probably not. That was always one of my points (mentally speaking) in favor of shelling out the extra bucks for a Mac Pro: longevity. Massive expandability. With 32GB of potential memory, you're a lot more future-proof.

Also, it does seem that the margins have changed here, when you look at hardware prices vs. total cost. Not really great.

I am thinking seriously about buying an old model new from Amazon IF they drop their price in the next two or three months. Otherwise, I will buy the baseline octo at some point in the next four or five months, because I NEED a new computer. I was definitely hoping for a bit better situation at this point, after the release of the new pros.

Still . . . perhaps people are maybe MORE disappointed and reactionary than they should be? Just a thought.

 

[Umbongo]

Still . . . perhaps people are maybe MORE disappointed and reactionary than they should be? Just a thought.

Nah it's the internet! There are complainers every Apple update whether things are good, bad or meh.

Personally I've been defending Apple's pricing and hardware choices on the Mac Pros since they came out as it was clear to me they were great value and had their place. Sure you could get similar performance for less from a PC as we passed the 6 month old mark and newer hardware came out, but they held up well.

Apple appear to have changed attitude towards the Mac Pro and I think that is something worth discussing, which online will lead to the same old "complainers vs complaining about complainers" that always happens on here. Most people aren't going to change their stance that initially formed when they saw these systems so the arguments just go round in circles.

The other thing is that for all the "Mac Pros are for Pros" talk there are plenty of people who are funding computer purchases privately that can make use of the hardware for what they want to do and because of Apple's unique hardware line up the Mac Pro has generally been the only system they can really consider. The sacrifices of a mini or iMac are greater than paying the extra money, but that doesn't make the cost easier to bear and these individuals are more likely to want to air their frustrations.

It certainly isn't that these systems aren't going to offer great performance.

 

[thelongmorrow]

Well, Ive slept on it and have decided to wait, not for a the next new mac pro model but at least until some 3rd party benchmarks come out. Im waiting for the biggest question to be answered (imo) will the new 2009 base show a significant increase to the 2008 base. (New quad vs old Octo). If not then i might be swayed towards the old octo from somewhere like amazon and just upgrade the ram/graphics/hdd. than again I like the new ram better (its cheaper) but not the limitation on slots on the base.

I am also willing (able) to wait until snow leopards release (hopefully june/summerish). I guess I can limp on my current Mac and PC till then.

 

[Gasu E.]

. This is how I see it:

A. 8 x 2.8 Mac Pro / 2GB/ 320GB / HD2600XT £1712
B. 8 x 2.26 Mac Pro / 6GB / 640GB / GT120 £2500

2500 - 1712 = £788 Increase in price

that is 46% Increase over £1712, that almost half as much on TOP! ..., we are paying for that performance increase when previously that cost is covered by TIME.

According to what I read recently in The Economist, the £ has depreciated by 25% against the $ recently. I agree Apple has increased the real price, but only from £2244 in real terms-- £256 or 11-12%. You had better get used to seeing prices of products pegged to the $ going up, as (again per The Economist) the £ was greatly overpriced before and is now approaching long term parity.

 

[mason.kramer]

Because these new systems be whack yo

 

[chicagdan]

I'm mainly just annoyed that the video card choices suck harder than a sorority girl on a Friday night, especially for us Gen I 8core owners.

Wait a minute ... are you complaining about the sorority girl sucking?

 

[synth3tik]

I was rather upset to see the same design for the drive bays. I don't know how common the problem is, but my Mac Pro eats hard drives.

At first it seemed like a heat issue as the drives would seize up, almost as if the bearings over heated and expanded. However the drive temps never went over 95 F. Digging in a little more I found that the problem was not heat but EMF. Stacking hard drives creates heat issues, setting drives up side by side creates magnetic issues. So instead of the bearing over heating the drive platters were being pulled towards the other drives, therefor stripping the motor in the drive. On average a hard drive lasts in my machine around 6 months. I was really hoping that Apple would do something to the design that would allow more space between the drives. Even if that made it so one could only fit 3 drives in the machine, As currently I can only use slots 1 and 4.


New processors are cool, and the clock speed thing is just over rated. Their awesome processors, and would love to have them, I just feel Apple has a lot of work to do before I throw another 3 large at them.

 

[hexonxonx]

I was rather upset to see the same design for the drive bays. I don't know how common the problem is, but my Mac Pro eats hard drives.

At first it seemed like a heat issue as the drives would seize up, almost as if the bearings over heated and expanded. However the drive temps never went over 95 F. Digging in a little more I found that the problem was not heat but EMF. Stacking hard drives creates heat issues, setting drives up side by side creates magnetic issues. So instead of the bearing over heating the drive platters were being pulled towards the other drives, therefor stripping the motor in the drive. On average a hard drive lasts in my machine around 6 months. I was really hoping that Apple would do something to the design that would allow more space between the drives. Even if that made it so one could only fit 3 drives in the machine, As currently I can only use slots 1 and 4.


New processors are cool, and the clock speed thing is just over rated. Their awesome processors, and would love to have them, I just feel Apple has a lot of work to do before I throw another 3 large at them.

So why haven't we heard other people complaining about these issues? I've owned my Mac Pro since June 2, 2008 and have had all four bays filled with WD 1TB drives. No problems here.

 

[mason.kramer]

I was rather upset to see the same design for the drive bays. I don't know how common the problem is, but my Mac Pro eats hard drives.

At first it seemed like a heat issue as the drives would seize up, almost as if the bearings over heated and expanded. However the drive temps never went over 95 F. Digging in a little more I found that the problem was not heat but EMF. Stacking hard drives creates heat issues, setting drives up side by side creates magnetic issues. So instead of the bearing over heating the drive platters were being pulled towards the other drives, therefor stripping the motor in the drive. On average a hard drive lasts in my machine around 6 months. I was really hoping that Apple would do something to the design that would allow more space between the drives. Even if that made it so one could only fit 3 drives in the machine, As currently I can only use slots 1 and 4.


New processors are cool, and the clock speed thing is just over rated. Their awesome processors, and would love to have them, I just feel Apple has a lot of work to do before I throw another 3 large at them.

Considering that no one else with lots of HDD's has your problem, I think it's safe to say that it's not the mac pro's case design. I would look elsewhere for your HDD issues.

 

[rockinrocker]

So why haven't we heard other people complaining about these issues? I've owned my Mac Pro since June 2, 2008 and have had all four bays filled with WD 1TB drives. No problems here.

yeah, I've also had 4 in mine for some time and have had no issues.

 

[sidewinder]

Digging in a little more I found that the problem was not heat but EMF. Stacking hard drives creates heat issues, setting drives up side by side creates magnetic issues. So instead of the bearing over heating the drive platters were being pulled towards the other drives, therefor stripping the motor in the drive.

LOL! Where did you get this load of false information?? Go to a data center and look at how high density storage devices are laid out. They have drives in columns and rows extremely close together.

Too funny....

S-

 

[pprior]

LOL! Where did you get this load of false information?? Go to a data center and look at how high density storage devices are laid out. They have drives in columns and rows extremely close together.

Too funny....

S-

Yes, this level of electromechanical engineering knowledge fits right in with all the economics and marketing "experts" that are railing on about the new mac pros....

Everyone knows hard drive failure in the mac pro is due to the little hamsters inside having flatulence problems. Put more fiber one into the CDrom tray and it will work better.

 

[sidewinder]

Yes, this level of electromechanical engineering knowledge fits right in with all the economics and marketing "experts" that are railing on about the new mac pros....

Everyone knows hard drive failure in the mac pro is due to the little hamsters inside having flatulence problems. Put more fiber one into the CDrom tray and it will work better.

Yes, vibration is a much bigger issue in multi-drive systems than EMF.

I find all the hoopla here about the new Mac Pro systems comical. It's quite entertaining.

S-

 

[Sesshi]

Considering that no one else with lots of HDD's has your problem, I think it's safe to say that it's not the mac pro's case design. I would look elsewhere for your HDD issues.

Well - the PCI-E slot and HDD cooling is mixed with the Pro. It's separated on many professional workstations. I don't know what combination of cards he's running, but I know that on some of my more heavily populated Pros that I've tried to take out hard disks on straight after I turned them off, the disks have been crazy hot - and of course, I know this because of the Pro's moronic form-before-function drive sled design which requires me to adopt a prostate-prodding stance when it comes to removing a hard disk. However although I have had my fair share of HDD failures I can't reliably attribute any of them to heat. PCI-E component failures or instability, I can definitely attribute to heat.

 

[cybeross]

so, I'm going to go out on a limb here... and suggest that *one* good thing might be that on apple's benchmark page they say in the fine print that the 2.93 was outfitted w/ 6gb ram, and the 3.2g '08 had 8gb ram. So, it's not truly a *baseline* comparison, in my opinion... any thoughts?

 

[sidewinder]

...I know this because of the Pro's moronic form-before-function drive sled design which requires me to adopt a prostate-prodding stance when it comes to removing a hard disk.

Moronic drive sled design? There is no pleasing anyone here......

S-

 

[Derek87]

i think as most people, i'll reserve judgment until some real world benchmarks form a few third parties come out. until then, perhaps the nay-sayers are being pessimistic?

i come from the perspective of having bought a single quad core a month ago knowing very well that these new machines were coming soon (i thought realistically June at WWDC, so i was way off). i admit to initial surprise and sadness when i read the release had occurred, but i also found some "buyer's remorse relief" in seeing:

1. the price increase for the base model [the statement that the base model price dropped is a flat out lie. the old single quad core was available for purchase for 2299].
2. the loss of RAM slots on the single processor model

maybe they'll show that the price increase is justified by performance gain, but the fewer slots for RAM is a serious downgrade IMHO. if i had waited until today to buy my machine, i'd still be looking for a last generation model (even not knowing the benchmarks) because of the aforementioned two reasons.

 

[Sesshi]

Moronic drive sled design? There is no pleasing anyone here......

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Well no, if you use better - and if it's very apparent that the design has taken precedence over the engineering.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Does the OP feel like this is the first time this has happened?

A little history lesson to any interested:
https://forums.macrumors.com/search/?searchid=15013501

 

[leekohler]

I'm just pissed that their entry level desktop is $2,500. And don't tell me that a mac mini or iMac is a substitute. They need to have a desktop that starts at $900 or less.

Hell, they made PM G5s for $1600 and I thought that was fair.

Now they've dumbed-down the quad and made it $300 more expensive. That's not a good move.

 

[Chaos123x]

I think people are upset because last years Octo 2.8ghz was such a awesome deal.

Now the prices are back to the G5 levels.

I remember paying over $6,000 for my G5 setup. My Mac Pro octo 2.8ghz was only $2500.

 

[thelongmorrow]

so, I'm going to go out on a limb here... and suggest that *one* good thing might be that on apple's benchmark page they say in the fine print that the 2.93 was outfitted w/ 6gb ram, and the 3.2g '08 had 8gb ram. So, it's not truly a *baseline* comparison, in my opinion... any thoughts?

I believe they used less ram in the newer machine because they used faster ram, so they used less of faster ram and more of slower ram to equal it out. So if this is true, 6gb of the new ram is = 8gb of old ram!? That's a 33.33% gain, so 8gb maxed out on the quad is = 10.66gb of ram on the 2008 model.
This is my own assumption of course based on the above quote and below info.

My source taken from Apples site about the ram:
"by connecting memory directly to the processor, the new Mac Pro processors have faster access to data stored in memory, and memory latency is reduced by up to 40 percent."

"The integrated memory controller, along with fast 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM, also gives Mac Pro up to a 2.4x increase in memory bandwidth over previous generations."

 

[Abidubi]

I just hope this is the first sign that they branch the mac pro off into 2 designs.

If they had started now, this is what I would have envisioned;

Mac Home: starting at $1999 to 2999
1 processor 4 core 2.26 to 3.2Ghz
6 ram slots for 12GB max
1 optical drive slot
2 HDs slots
2 double wide PCIE slots
1 regular PCIE slot
5 USB ports, 1 FW800, 1 FW400 audio in/out
No optical audio

Redesign of the case to make it smaller (more space from -1 processor, -2HDs, -1 optical drive


Mac Pro: starting at $2799 to a small island
2 processors 4 core each (8 when released) 2.26 to 3.2 GHz
option of 4 processors... wow, 32 cores starting at $4499
12 ram slots for 48GB max
2 Optical slots
6 HDs
1 double wide PCIE slot
4 regular PCIE slots
5 USB ports, 2 FW 400, 4 FW 800 audio in/out analog/optical

Redesign of the case to be a little bit bigger with more cooling fans to compensate.



IMO, this would satisfy the most possible without cutting into current markets. The Mac Home would be in the range of the high-end iMac, with expandibility but without a display and larger form factor, but more powerful making it a little overkill for regular joeblow family use. The Mac Pro would be all the power you could want, but at a price. You could get a much faster quad 3.2 for the same price as the entry octo 2.26, meaning that unless you need 8 cores or more you'll fit into the home market. Pros that need lots of cores will pay a slight premium over the Mac Home, but get much much more expandability with 3X the HD space, 2X the optical drives almost 2X the PCI slots, optical audio, more FW ports, and of course the fastest and highest number of cores and RAM expansion.

 

[Bubba Satori]

Out of curiosity, what do you run that would require a "pro" video card under OS X. The usual distinctions such as drivers are not nearly as prevalent under OS X as they are Windows. I'm not sure there are many - if any - cases where a pro card is going to be more helpful under OS X. It will just cost more.

They certainly could have done better than a 4870 though. ATI's OSX drivers are not the greatest even when Apple has control, and it's not as powerful as something like the GTX285. More ever it leaves the Pro without a good CUDA capable card, and while Snow Leopard should fix this, I'm not convinced ATI is going to have their act in gear in time.

PS HDR, Cinema 4D, Vue, Poser, Painter, Illustrator and FCP. I want a video card with 1GB memory and preferably 2GB like the 4870X2 to drive a couple of 24" monitors. I just priced a Hackentosh i7 system at Newegg last night for $3K including the two 24" monitors. I'm going to wait till Snow Leopard and if Apple hasn't done something about the absurd video cards, lack of Blu-ray and prehistoric ACDs, I'll build a Hackentosh.

 

[sidewinder]

I'm going to wait till Snow Leopard and if Apple hasn't done something about the absurd video cards, lack of Blu-ray and prehistoric ACDs, I'll build a Hackentosh.

They won't....so you might as well not waste any time and build it now. Why don't you just jettison Mac OS X and buy Vista X64 while you are at it.

S-