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And I thought my QUAD core Mac Pro was fast... ahhh the price of progress.... :_|

For some reason the timing seems a bit odd. Same guts; bigger engine. Close out this case design before a major overhaul at NAB perhaps?

I'm surprised that a) there is no BluRay option and 2) there is no FireWire 3200. I know the spec hasn't been finalized, but that didn't stop them from using the 802.11N spec. Since the connector is the same, maybe they'll charge us $1.99 to unlock it later?

Macworld, PLEASE do a comprehensive review showing the performance difference achieved with the various graphics cards, hard drives (SAS vs SATA), etc. It's one thing to see how a standard vs. a tricked-out "ultimate" configuration compare, but what if you just change the processor, or just the graphics card? Let us know which upgrades are worth spending the extra $$ on. Thanks!

WOW. Well now we know a little bit of what WON'T be announced next week. Too bad I don't need power desktops anymore these days. This is a killer machine. Looks like it will be a Macbook MacWorld (and maybe some other portable surprises), which I can't wait for. Give me half of this in a Macbook Pro, please:-) There was a day when the Pro machines would have been big MacWorld news, but these days with the power of iMacs and MacBooks (Pro or regular), I think they are the bigger news for the big show. This is probably a super specialty market for Apple now (but a very profitable one).

sundoggy said:

Heck, I'd love to see half of that in a small desktop. A fast machine with 1 or 2 graphics slots so I can still drive a 30" display (or 2), 2 internal HD bays, up to 8Gb of RAM and then the usual ports. Only a few markets NEED the full capabilities of the MacPro now, but many of us need/want a little more flexibility than the iMac gives us.

I ordered this morning... thus ending almost 7 years of using my poor Beige G3 (and the Pentium III next to it).

I wasn't blown away by the specs. Average video card, and they're still using DDR2 FB-DIMMs (yuck) but I couldn't wait anymore. This should be good enough for multimedia...

It's not available for ordering on our corporate store...



Of course Apple HAD to bring down the entire store site for at least two #$%^&*( hours to make the few changes to the lineup. They couldn't do it in the early morning/late evening hours so that it didn't impact the business... Nooooo, Apple doesn't give a rat's rectum about that. I'm looking to see what else is broken on our online store site with these latest updates... For the past few updates, Apple has managed to screw up the site each and every time. Taking anywhere from a week (or two) to months to fix...



Apple really doesn't care about their enterprise level customers... IF they did, these kinds of things simply would not happen.

These are nice updates to the professional line, and sorely overdue as well. But, and I may get blasted for this, I can't help but be a little disappointed that Apple has not revamped the Mac Pro line, not in processor speed or specs, but in the overall design. Not that the current design is bad, but it hails from the G5 days and quite frankly it's getting a little old.
Also, it seems to me that the G5 tower design was based on the need for the enormous heat sinks to cool off those furnace like G5 chips. With the more efficient Intel processors now, is this really as necessary? Would be nice to see some differentiation in the new from the old outside of just moving the ports on the back around a little.

With this update there is also an increasingly large gap between the consumer and pro desktop lines. Apple really should come up with something in the middle range. Basically, if you want a Mac without a built in display, your only choice is a monster workstation in the Mac Pro, or the poor performing Mac mini. There's a whole lotta room there for something in between. Maybe next week we'll see something else? I really hope so, or that something is at least in the works.

You have to love Apple marketing. Whenever they release a new machine that has new tech from Intel or others, they quitely roll them out with barely a press release. If, on the other hand they tweak their designs, its lauded as a breakthrough and hyped to hell. Apple is a study in canny marketing.

Personally I think Intel are a slack, one trick pony. If it were not for AMD we might still be using 32-bit Pentiums and the 'NetBurst' architecture, with it's 40 stage pipeline and ability to act as a space heater. Intel release marginal updates to their architecture and compete almost exclusively on silicon process (as keepers of Moore's law) and market power. Look at the latest chips - they have 50% more cache which probably delivers most of the speed improvement.

I pray everyday that AMD prospers, it's the sole source of Intel's architecture innovation.

It's interesting that it is listed as "starting at" $2799 when the single CPU version is $2299

Breathe, breathe... Apple doesn't take the store down to inconvenience you?they do it to update the system so you can get better stuff. Dell has to do it too, you know.

“This is a real dream machine for our power users,”
How about a half-height and half-price dream machine for your prosumer users?!

My next purchase will NOT be a non-expandable iMac, laptop or Mac Mini.

just a point of clarification -
this is it - this is the upgrade to the Mac Pro line that we've been waiting for - for months and months - ?
there's not going to be anything else announced at MacWorld in terms of the Mac Pro desktop?
I know it's an obvious question, but I'm going to ask it before I put down $2700!
will