[moose_n_squirrel]

hexor said:

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

I was thinkin the same thing since I have no real use for eight cores, but Apple's advertising "eight cores" specifically, and eight cores starts at $2799. $2299 is for four cores, and Apple's not marketing that. Clearly, Apple is not marketing to low price here, but to high power.

Kinda makes you wonder though. The gap between high and low end is larger than ever. Is Apple making space for something intended to fill that...midrange...gap? ...soon?

[MorrisTheCat]

Willfriedwald said:

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?

Only Apple knows for sure, but given they just announced these today, it's highly unlikely we'll see any other announcements about the Mac Pro next week- just a recap of today's announcement from Steve.

Of course, this doesn't preclude any announcement of a new Mac line, as has been predicted/wanted for years now. But we'll have to wait and see what happens there. I can only pray something mid-range comes along.

[Steve_S]

MorrisTheCat said:

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.

While it's true that the outside design is a reminder of the G5 days, I'm not sure that really matters. I don't see the need for an update just for the sake of it or to be in sync with the next generation Intel chips. I have a Mac Pro and generally like the case design. I've swapped out parts and find the internal design to be very functional. The inside of the Mac Pros are much better than the G5s. I like the aluminum look and I like the ports in front, etc. In short, I have to ask, what changes would you have Apple make?

[Steve_S]

drimwit said:

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.

Yeah, you're right, that 9% Intel clock speed boost is a real head liner, right? :) This may come as a surprise, but Apple can no longer differentiate their products based on the commodity parts they use. With that said, imagine how foolish Apple would look by making a lot of noise just for using more up to date commodity parts. Is this really what you think Apple should do?

Quote

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

Yes, competition is a good thing.

[lwdesign]

The fact that this new Mac Pro is being released prior to Macworld means that Steve doesn't want to unfocus the spotlight on whatever new announcements he has up his sleeve. It's a good sign that many other good things are in store for us. The Mac Pro news is great for power users, but with such excellent notebooks and iMacs, even high-end graphic designers can now use these "lower" models quite handily. The Mac Pro's are now the machine of choice for the super-elite: the high-end audio and video users, who want every scrap of processing power the Mac can muster. In comparison, the average iMac has more than enough power to handle just about any task you can throw at it. It's interesting to consider that today's iMac has several thousand times the processing power of the computer that went to the moon with the Apollo missions.

I'd like to see a midi-Mac, halfway between the mini and Mac Pro, half the size of the Mac Pro and with 2 PCI slots, 4 RAM slots and room for 2 internal drives. It would fill a sorely needed gap.

And how about real GPS being added to the iPhone? I'm hoping Steve's Macworld announcements won't be just an incremental round of MacBook updates, and that there will be something really thrilling coming up to overshadow all the CES hype like they did with the iPhone last year.

[Willfriedwald]

that's true - to me it's unfortunate that if you want anything that requires PCI slots (I need them for external SATA drives) you are forced to go all the way up to the super-high end - the Mac Pro.


I'm hoping to get a Mac Pro essentially just for iTunes - I currently don't have any choice, since my library is too big for any single internal drive - I need eSATA (sadly, USB & firewire, even FW 800, are just not fast enough).

But then, I guess I am using a lot of what the Mac Pro has to offer : faster processing, enormous internal drive capacity, and the ability to expand externally using PCI & eSATA.



w

[MorrisTheCat]

>I'd like to see a midi-Mac, halfway between the mini and Mac Pro, half the size of the Mac Pro and with 2 PCI slots, 4 RAM slots and room for 2 internal drives. It would fill a sorely needed gap.
>

Yep, I'd like to see this model too. It would probably be my next Mac. I love my current iMac, but the fact that I have so many peripherals, USB hubs and such hanging outside of it tells me I need something with a little more expandability, but definitely not a Mac Pro.
In fact, a mid Mac like this with 2 HD bays would be the ideal machine to help promote Leopard and Time Machine. Sure, you can hook up an external drive now to any Mac, but it would be nice to have the TM drive be internal and clean up the extra clutter on the desk.

[Claude Mathis]

Did I miss something, or is Blue Tooth not included or offered with the new Mac Pro?

[Graphos]

My G5 is currently rendering an image since Sunday. It's about 3/4 done and I estimate that it will be done tonight. Since I use my Mac as a rendering machine I could easily justify trading it for one of these 8 cores. I would guess that my image would have at least rendered in half the time, if not sooner on one of these new MacPros. These illustrations are for a client who has decided to forgo photography for a more controlled 3D rendering look. This might be the Mac for me.

[gfair2]

flybynight wrote:

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?

Why are you surprised at this? What caused you to set your expectation that you would see these two technologies? The Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD battle wasn't yet decided when Apple comitted to this design, so Apple is being smart. As for FireWire, FireWire is dead. Apple abandoned FireWire from the iPod, which is as big a statement as Apple could make about its own technology. Apple is probably waiting a generation for FireWire to fade in the market before abandoning it altogether. For Apple to abandon FireWire in the iPod is a huge statement, though.

So... the lesson here is don't set expectations. Wait for Apple to announce what they will come out with. Two expected new technologies, neither put in the new Mac Pros, and now we see people talking about how they expected one technology or another and Apple didn't deliver. Do they blame themselves for setting expectations? Nope, they blame Apple. The classic sign of people expecting things from Apple whether or not they make any sense.

Stop expecting.

[Willfriedwald]

actually, the one thing I was expecting was PENRYN processors (apologies if I got the spelling wrong) and on that expectation, they seem to have delivered. Am hoping these processors are going to make all the difference in terms of the price and the wait!



w

[hexor]

As far as no blu-ray, the OS has to be updated to support playing of blu-ray movies. Furthermore you can easily add an internal blu-ray drive to the Mac Pro since there are 2 optical drive bays. You can get an internal blu-ray drive for the mac pro right now but you simply can't play blu-ray movies. I am guessing that this will be rectified shortly.. perhaps as soon as next week.

[cebritt]

It's all relative! This new screamer seems like a steal to me. Heck, I paid $1800 years ago as a starving student for the original 128K! And I remember when SE/30s were $5K and laser printers $4K. We begged for years for a "headless SE/30" before Apple gave us the LCIII and Quadra 605.

Apple's move to Intel was the second smartest thing they ever did and it's reaping huge rewards. So stop all the whining and just enjoy this fast, cheap hardware...

[Cloudmover]

Excellent! I'm very pleased. My trusty ol' MDD Dual 1.25 has served me well and run flawlessly since I purchased it back in the day, but, it's time to send it up to the big eBay in the sky.

My one question about the new configuration -- memory.

Anyone know a a third party vendor that is selling or has announced a shipping date for 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs? In the previous Mac Pro they were 667 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM

I'd like to make a price comparison.

Thanks!