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Good news. I decided on the 8-core, even though most of my apps fall into the "don't take advantage" category. Strata3D 5.5 uses all 8, and I'm looking forward to giving that a try. I hope that the other apps (hello Adobe) are updated to make use of the power, and considering that it's taken me a while to upgrade my computer (still on a 450MHz G4... I know...) I"m guessing that I'll still have this one a few years down the road. I'm also pleased at the report on the 8800GT card.
Now... when will it get here? I ordered Jan 18, ship date is still Feb 26. Am I waiting for the card or OSX 10.5.2?

I ordered mine a week ago today and the ship date was Feb 20, with arrival time on Feb 26. Looking forward even more to the 8800GT after reading this!

Will you be testing a RAID-configured system at any time? I'm interested in RAID because I do video and when I did a very simple software raid on the two drives on my current Mac dual G5 I was very pleased with the noticeable performance gain across the board. Startup, rendering files to disk, everything had the kind of speedbump that made me sit up and notice.

I ordered mine on Jan. 10th, delivery date is Feb 18. Well it says ships Feb. 15th but I paid for overnight shipping so I dunno. Anyway it's definitely waiting on the 8800GT card, since you can pick up a 2.8 GHz Mac Pro in any Apple store right now. Can't wait to try that card out. :)

OK, now how about doing all those test over with a reasonable amount of RAM.
My 2.8 Octa arrived today along with 8GB of RAM to bump it to 10GB. 3 Raptors, 1 to boot from and 2 for a RAID, a server grade Seagate 1TB for backup.
Chances are I'll see better results than the test above. I just don't get this bit of testing a Mac like this with paltry RAM.

Glad to hear that the 256MB card that comes with the stock configuration is fairly robust. That's the configuration I am opting for - mostly for Photoshop / Painter usage. (I'm moving up from a Dual 2GHz G5, purchased in 2003.) I do plan on beefing up the RAM to a minimum of 4GB. Can't wait til it arrives...

We need the iMac with upgradeable mobile gpu for the rest of us.

I think this is a good system but I don't have money right now. So, I'm waiting for the money and for the mid-range Mac, something between iMac and Mac Pro which I wonder if Apple gonna offer the mid-range Mac at all in this life. So, if they don't offer, I have to go with entry level Mac Pro which by the time I have money, it should offer better than 3 Ghz CPU for entry level machine anyway. It will be good enough for me to work on HD video content ;-). I'm using PC right now but I prefer Mac. So, I hope they will offer the mid-range system in the near future.

catstudioth said:

It's never going to happen. There is no market.

An iMac IS mid-range.

I think there's market, at least me and I think many PC users who want to switch to Mac. Apple use to have this type of machine before Steve Jobs comeback. The machine that can replace the graphic card, have more than 2 RAM slots, can add more than 1 hard disk and have free PCI card slots. The CPU don't have to be Xeon, it can be core 2 Extreme which is good enough for my type of work. What I need is flexibility which iMac don't have that, the price point for iMac is OK but I don't need a computer that monitor and CPU are in the same unit. Plus iMac is less expandable, Mac Pro is too good and too expensive for the type of work I'm doing. I think the reason that Apple don't have this type of machine is it will effect the sale of iMac and Mac Pro.

Does anybody knows which 8800 GT card is delivered with the Mac Pro? Special front side bus speed?

In Denmark, there is a 2-3 weeks delivery time with the 8800 GT option, otherwise just 2-3 days.

Could I buy it later on the net? Maybe even cheaper...

That assessment is completely incorrect as the numerous posts on this topic that have appeared on these boards over the years clearly demonstrate. There is a huge market for a computer that is more expandable than an iMac and less than a Mac Pro. The professional power users that need a tower system constitute a small minority in highly specialized fields. The vast majority of professionals and power users need the Mac Pro’s processing power but only have modest expansion needs.
The iMac is a consumer-level system designed to meet the needs of non-professional users. Only the top-of-the line iMac even comes close to matching the bottom rung Mac Pros in terms of processing power and the iMac is not expandable. Aside from adding memory and external peripherals, the iMac purchased today will be limited to the technologies it came with. That makes the iMac the bane of power users because it is in no way a mid-level professional system, but a mid- to high-end consumer system.
The exception are office professionals that could use an iMac because the nature of their work does not warrant the processing power of a professional system; the classification of a system as “professional” by an OEM typically means that the system is geared toward power users and not simply professionals in the business sense of the word. As such persons can continue to use a computer as is well into its obsolescence, and often have no choice but to do so until their employer decides to upgrade the systems in their office, the price of a “professional” system, is not justifiable. In fact, the business systems offered by Wintel PC OEMs typically differ little from their consumer-level offerings.

mdawson said:

Here's the problem with your point of view. It's not a big enough market.

Yup, I just said it again.

Despite your opinion, and the opinions of the many posters you refer to, that's not what Apple is going to bring.

Maybe you noticed that Apple's Cinema Display's are horribly out of date and over priced relative to the market as well. That's been the case for how long now ? Is Apple doing anything about it ? No, because it's not a big enough market. Major manufacturers are all beating each other up competing in that segment so why should Apple bother.

Maybe you noticed that updates to computers don't happen in line with Macworld or the developers conference as they used to. Why ? Because that let the market dictate Apple sales, as it did for so many years. A slump in sales preceded the annual events as buyers held out for the latest update. Not a good business model. So now the Mac Pro and Xserve updates were unceremoniously announced a week prior to MW. MBPs will be updated in a couple of weeks, when they're ready.

Maybe you also noticed that Apple is no longer Apple computer. They're much more than that and they will continue to broaden their market, not chase the one you suggest is in need of a mid-level Mac.

You could say they, " Think different."