Just ordered one minutes after the keynote. Anyone else suffer through the interminable website running on molasses style delays?
Mac Pro
- Thread starter Transcend
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Let me just say, first off, that it looks beautiful and functional.
But some of this s**t cracks me up:
Yeah! Totally unique! I've never heard of a heat sink on memory before!
...I'm looking through the store here, and holy bejeezus do they rape you in the butt with some of these items. The upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM is $800! An extra DVD burner is $100?! $400 extra to get a 500GB drive added?!?!
Those prices are absolutely astronomical. $0.80/gb for a hard drive space? $800 for 2GB of RAM, are they flippin' nuts?
On the plus side, if you have unlimited money to burn, you can have 2TB of hard drive space, 16GB of RAM, 4x GeForce 7300GTs and 4x 3ghz processors. I mean, it'll set you back a cool ten grand without a monitor or Bluetooth, but it's there
eh, it's an Apple, so people are used to overpaying for things...
Overpaying is one thing. Buying that RAM is getting sodomized with a telephone pole. Without lube.dante said:eh, it's an Apple, so people are used to overpaying for things...
Moral of the story - never upgrade at apple.
I got the dual 2.66 with 1 gb of ram and the 7300gt. A gb of
ecc full bufferred ram is about $204 from newegg (kingston/crucial etc). Apple wants $335.
Total price was $2632cnd with the 250gb HDD, 1gb ram, bluetooth and 2 2.66 woodcrests. Oh, and I got a free 2gb ipod nano due to buying it educational.
Crazy.
I got the dual 2.66 with 1 gb of ram and the 7300gt. A gb of
ecc full bufferred ram is about $204 from newegg (kingston/crucial etc). Apple wants $335.
Total price was $2632cnd with the 250gb HDD, 1gb ram, bluetooth and 2 2.66 woodcrests. Oh, and I got a free 2gb ipod nano due to buying it educational.
Crazy.
Well, it certainly looks pretty, and the hard drive carriers are neat. I just can't see paying that kind of money for a computer, let alone the upgrades. I could put together one hell of a component spec for the $2,499 base price.
Too bad.
Too bad.
Well considering those processors are $750 each in volumes of 1000 (each machine has 2) and it uses fully bufferred ecc dual channel ram...you'd be pretty hard pressed to get anything better for that money.binary visions said:
Apple ram is usually just crucial (micron) with the price way up. Crucial pricing on the same ram is $204 for 1gb.
For what you get from Crucial, it's pretty spendy w/ regards to timing and overclockability.
Ya, but kingston and everyone else is about the same price. Fully bufferred ram is PRICEY.Pau11y said:
Yeah, but, uh, why?Transcend said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819117075
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's got a slower FSB. It's not going to run quite as fast. But it's not going to run half as slow, either, and it's half the frickin' price. Just seems expensive to me. Seems like Apple consistantly misses the price-to-performance ratio - without fail, every time.
Nah you can buy a PC system with the same Intel chipset and CPU right now (actually in July you could). The only thing that is different is the case which has no effect on the device's purpose and performance - COMPUTING. Plus the PC you could get a real videocard in without being robbed for the upgrade.spincrazy said:
It was great - another Jobs RDF - here we have the Dell with a workstation video card and higher end Intel motherboard. Here we have the Apple with an entry level workstation motherboard and $80 videocard. See, we are cheaper when we use cheaper components - YAY!
You could also buy 3 complete AMD X2 4200 or Opteron 1XX dual core systems w/2GB ram per systems with ok spec and cluster them for the same price as the single Apple dual Xeon system w/lower spec. A university did this with cheap Athlons a few years ago to make a really cheap supercomputer
Most people don't really need this computing power unless they are doing CPU heavy stuff. Transcend can use it, but the average user can get by with a Mac mini with Core Solo or entry level modern PC as long as it has around 512MB-1GB RAM.
Most people don't really need this computing power unless they are doing CPU heavy stuff. Transcend can use it, but the average user can get by with a Mac mini with Core Solo or entry level modern PC as long as it has around 512MB-1GB RAM.
Well clearly the average user can get away with a MUCH cheaper system. I'll be piling on 45mb photos by the thousands, and the vid guys will use it as well. I could probably get away with something lower end (i'm on a g4 powerbook now), but I can afford it and I need tax writeoffs. I also HATE laggy systems, this thing lags unbearably when i try and pile on the work.
There is a reason it is called the Mac Pro. It's a 64b workstation. The lower end ones will be out in Spetember. (There is a Paris event this year apparently around then BTW, looked it up).
You can bet on $1500 versions with core 2 duos probably.
There is a reason it is called the Mac Pro. It's a 64b workstation. The lower end ones will be out in Spetember. (There is a Paris event this year apparently around then BTW, looked it up).
You can bet on $1500 versions with core 2 duos probably.
Right. But an extra GB of RAM would be far more useful even to most pros than the small performance increase gained by going with the $750 CPU instead of the <$400 CPU. Just seems like a swing and a miss to me. There's a big power user market that WANTS the pro level specs but doesn't want to pay for the bleeding edge. Even throwing in a cheaper CPU option to knock $700 off that price would have accomplished that.Transcend said:
Good for them, they aren't the target market. Plenty of design firms, film companies etc will buy the mac pro.binary visions said:
Transcend said:
That's fine, dude, but do you not see the point here? That's ALWAYS the problem. Someone's always outside of the target market. Apple's "target market" is too frickin' narrow, and for that, they will never significantly expand their market share.
And it's all for lame moves like this. A simple option for another CPU and removing the atrocious price gouging for their hardware is all it would take to capture another piece of the market. Yet they don't.
Price gouging? Have you specced something comparable to the mac pro from someone else?
Maybe it's the people outside the target market who don't get it. This isn't targeted at them, period. If Apple wanted to, they could put out a machine to target them (and they probably will in Paris). This machine isn't it. Deal with it.
Dell sells quad xeons too, are you going to complain that they shouldn't because you are outside of that target market as well?
Maybe it's the people outside the target market who don't get it. This isn't targeted at them, period. If Apple wanted to, they could put out a machine to target them (and they probably will in Paris). This machine isn't it. Deal with it.
Dell sells quad xeons too, are you going to complain that they shouldn't because you are outside of that target market as well?
Semantics. And as a side note, dell used to sell plenty of quad xeons in 2Us back in the day.syadasti said:
Dell also sold them in regular towers, although I am sure the majority went into cabinets.syadasti said:
$800 for an extra 2GB of ram is price gouging. Period.Transcend said:
Oh, yeah, I must just "not get it". Despite 10 years of hands on and professional computer experience, I just don't understand what I want
.Don't you understand the point here? It's not about Apple's target. It's about an audience who is ready and willing to buy their hardware, and they need people to buy their hardware.
Dell isn't the one who's struggling to maintain an extremely tiny market share. Don't be obtuse. I'm saying that Apple has an opportunity with the power users market. Boot Camp, a more powerful OS and an extremely nice, appealing piece of hardware could be a powerful combination... all they have to do is be a little more flexible.
You've been able to get a 16 way, 2.6GHz 8 dual core Opteron workstation for a while...but who the hell really needs that...
http://www.hpcsystems.com/workstationaw800.htm?sa_campaign=outbound_clicks/shop_us-en/HPCSystemsInc/partner-details_0_0_0_5154
http://www.hpcsystems.com/workstationaw800.htm?sa_campaign=outbound_clicks/shop_us-en/HPCSystemsInc/partner-details_0_0_0_5154
None of these alternatives run OSX.
Sure they do, just get on bit torrent - 10.4 for Intel and AMD has been out for a while (just don't use the autoupdate feature - wait for the next torrentRidemonkey said:
). Linux is often used in professional environments - it has better computing performance than OSX or NT which is the reason you would buy these expensive xeon CPUs - for the horsepower in specialized applications.
Not really into stealing software, and Linux isn't as user-friendly as OSX, nor can it run many OSX apps.
Why are you arguing this, again?syadasti said:
RM, you're right, none of them run OSX. My point wasn't that PCs were superior, just that Apple could do a lot better for themselves if they expanded their offerings a little. As it stands, they're offering a CPU solution that is at the top end in terms of dollar value, but not that far up in terms of performance - if they offered something with slightly less performance and a better dollar value, and paired it with that awesome case design and a solid hardware spec, they could expand to a user market.
Hell, I just want that kickass case
Oh...you mean like professional photographers? Videographers? Developers? Or anyone who feels like paying a little extra for performance and user experience in one package?
Autocad isn't the only application in the world that needs processing power Captain iPod.
Autocad isn't the only application in the world that needs processing power Captain iPod.
Because he's a close-minded dunce.binary visions said:Why are you arguing this, again?
RM, you're right, none of them run OSX. My point wasn't that PCs were superior, just that Apple could do a lot better for themselves if they expanded their offerings a little.
Hell, I just want that kickass case
I agree. I couldn't really care less about Apple hardware to be honest. If they made OSX for PCs I would run it on a less expensive, equally powerful pc.
Most of those users won't have acceptable cost/benefit to buy a 4 or 8 CPU system. Thats why most workstations are dual socket MB these days.Ridemonkey said:
Normal applications - Hollywood uses SGIs (less so today) and all sorts of wacky expensive and exotic hardware/software setups. Engineering, science, military/goverment applications. I once worked for Lehman Brothers in the 90s - financial - they had about 3000 sun workstations and servers - they started around $9000 and up back then...
Ok...and the Mac Pro is a dual processor system....again, what's your point?syadasti said:
Sidetracked by semantics.Ridemonkey said:
Anyhow, BV's point is right - they should offer C2D CPU/unbuffered RAM in Mac Pros to expand their potential customer base. Most of the users will get all the performance they need without the extra expensive CPU and RAM Xeon's need - lots of applications don't require the extra technical features that combo offers.
Ok, so now your complaint is that it's too powerful for "most" users?
No it will have expensive technical features some users don't need. The performance differences some professional applications will be minimal - the cost/benefit way out of wack for these users.Ridemonkey said:
Especially not the time for these considering OSX is still transitioning to Intel code-wise - both Apple and third party apps.
The change to Intel required 86 million lines of code - you think its all optimized yet? They are running 4 months ahead of schedule, but its going to take a LONG time.
For the professional - whether it be for the technical hardware features they don't need or the lack of fully optimized OS/software - these are major barriers to adoption.
Yeah..."some" users won't need it, and "some" users won't buy them.
Ferrari really should release a 115hp minivan. Those 360 Modenas have way too much power for some soccer moms and the cost/benefit will be way out of whack for them.
I'm on an Intel Mac right now, and it's speed has upped my productivity greatly. Go stick your head back in the sand.
Ferrari really should release a 115hp minivan. Those 360 Modenas have way too much power for some soccer moms and the cost/benefit will be way out of whack for them.
I'm on an Intel Mac right now, and it's speed has upped my productivity greatly. Go stick your head back in the sand.
I am Apple's target market. I will have one of these as will the ad agency I work for (they will get 1000s of these worldwide). The Mac Pro is not for the everyday user. Arguing that it is too expensive and narrows the market share is of no use here. They are supplying the need of only their target market. In my industry, and many others like it, there are NO PCs. End of story. This machine will fulfill mine and others like myselfs needs at whatever price it costs because there is no other alternative.
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