I'm very disappointed today. Apple should've released a Mac Pro model at a lower price. I was looking for a model with only one CPU for around $1700. I need a tower and a 20" monitor. An iMac with 1MB ram and upgraded video is $1,874. The cheapest Mac Pro is with a 20" monitor is $2,977, that a $1,103 difference. I almost choked when I found out that they only dropped the price on the 20" monitor by $100. It's old technology and at its new price it's still $300 too much. They needed to have a system that met the sweet spot of $2500 with monitor. Apple please remember that you have customers that fall in the middle, us prosumers.

Dan we are looking at vaporware till it ships, which it hasn't and won't for at least 9 months. Improvement it may be (still to be proved) but it adds an absent feature to the Mac OS that has been on Windows for a long time for users to use warts and all. From previous experience, Apple's demos should be taken with a large grain of salt.

PCAuthority recently compared Vista (not shipping) to Tiger (out almost 2 years). I pointed out that was a fraudulent comparison. But then why let balance get in the way of stoking your readership's prejudices?

My specs on comparable systems were:

Mac Pro 2 3Ghz Dual Core Xeon, 1Gb Ram, 250 Gb Serial ATA HD, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512Mb GPU, 1 Superdrive, Apple keyboard & mouse + Applecare A$8456

Alienware MJ-12 7550i 3Ghz Dual Core Xeon, 1Gb Ram, 250 Gb Serial ATA HD, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4400 512Mb GPU, Acoustic Dampening Case, 1 Floppy, 1 LG Double Layer 16x DVD+/- RW/RAM, No Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, 3 port 800 FW, keyboard & mouse, 3 yr warranty A$6116

On the Australian site these were the closest configs. I had to upgrade the Mac's GPU because Alienware didn't have lower end GPUs close to the cheaper Mac options. The Alienware optical drive supports RAM which the Mac's does not. It has 3 external bays including a floppy or media reader, but seems to have less USB & FW ports (hard to tell from the description). Also I couldn't find provision for a 64 bit Windows, this just had Windows XP pro 32bit.

I noticed that Alienware's Xeon processors range up to 3.6Ghz where the Macs top out at 3.0Ghz. Also you can have hot-swapable HDs in the 4 internal bays, and if you order on-line you get a Free Alienware mousepad worth $20

Yep, I noticed that too but the Australian site doesn't offer the 8550 which seems a way more expensive machine. I chased up your system on the American site but confess to be being confused as to why only slower processors are available for this and also as to what the relative advantages are.

I am also sceptical about whether we will see any real world advantages for the double dual Xeon configuration on the Mac Pros. Benchmarks yes, but Apple has pulled this stunt before to make systems look better but without applications to take advantage of them the user is no better off.

Take for example the 64bit G5, with no 64bit apps, that suddenly turns into the 32bit Intel duo that then turns back into the 64bit Xeon quad. To what effect? Is there anything in Finder or any of the pro apps that make this worth the extra bucks it obviously costs?

Apple has once again painted itself into a corner with systems that push the envelope cost wise but leave gaping holes between models.

PCs offer much smoother transitions between models because they don't create these artificial distinctions between Pro, consumer etc. They just build the best system for the money as quickly as possible and put a margin on them. The PC consumer is freer to build in whatever variations they like. The Mac consumer is still very restricted.