New Mac Pros

Adrianr

Adrianr

Adrianr

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3 Feb 2008
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Am I missing something? A single quad core tower with upgradeability to 8GB of ram maximum for £1899?

I know the full twin-cpu tower can still go upto 32GB, but who is this base spec model supposed to appeal too now? Considering it's more than the old twin-Xeon Mac Pro that you can't buy anymore?

It seems quite a few people would like a more standard Quad core tower without the expensive server nonsense for those who don't require 32GB of ram and two processors.. This could have been it.. £1899? Does anyone know what makes up that price exactly? :confused:
 
I was thnking this it's insane,I was waiting on the new mac pros and nehlemn and was going to duel boot to play games,but now I may as well build a quad core pc for half the price, that's the issue osx and 2.6k for the mac pro I want or 1.5 k for a quad core pc with more ram and top gfx? Would I miss osx? Hmm not sure,may wait on snow leapord and see if ill be able duel boot vista x64.
 
Im very disappointed with the Mac Pro pricing too.

Thankfully the HE discount knocks a hefty £300 off the price of my spec (2.93/4870/6gb) but its a very, very hard choice to make.

Thing is I've run out of HD space on my MBP with my photo library and I need more power for CAD/MATLAB/Lightroom so its got to be done!
 
Concorde Rules said:
Im very disappointed with the Mac Pro pricing too.

Thankfully the HE discount knocks a hefty £300 off the price of my spec (2.93/4870/6gb) but its a very, very hard choice to make.

Thing is I've run out of HD space on my MBP with my photo library and I need more power for CAD/MATLAB/Lightroom so its got to be done!
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Based on our extrapolations from Apple's published performance tests, the "early 2009" 2.26GHz 8-core will equal the "early 2008" 3.2GHz 8-core on many benchmarks and the "early 2009" 2.66GHz 8-core will beat it on all benchmarks. In other words, you don't have to spend $6K+ on the 2.93GHz version to beat the fastest "early 2008" Mac Pro

http://www.barefeats.com/nehal01.html
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I've had the 3.2GHz, so that thing will SCREAM if it's quicker :D *jealous*
 
Concorde Rules said:
Im very disappointed with the Mac Pro pricing too.

Thankfully the HE discount knocks a hefty £300 off the price of my spec (2.93/4870/6gb) but its a very, very hard choice to make.

Thing is I've run out of HD space on my MBP with my photo library and I need more power for CAD/MATLAB/Lightroom so its got to be done!
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You're going to hand over 2.2k for a single Quad core i7 chip with 6GB of ram?! :eek: Rather you than me matey! That's daylight robbery.
 
Was looking forward to the new mac pros, tempted to sell mine and get a new one as I got mine very cheap and it still has 2.5years left of warranty as well!

With HE discount the 8core is £2000 with 6GB ram, considering its DDR3 and the CPU will outrun the top end late 2008 mac pro, thats not bad I think.
To swap my current system (8 core 2.8ghz/10GB ram/8800GT) wouldn't cost me much but Im not sure if I'd see the improvement or not, need to read around on the GPU and CPU comparisons!
 
The best site for Mac Pro benchmarks is barefeats.com.

Give it a week or two and they'll have some amazing benchmarks. Their stuff on the last Mac Pro is what persuaded me to buy what I did (graphics, HDD drives, RAM.. everything down to the T)

I had it bookmarked for bedtime reading at one point, there was so much good info to mull over.
 
Well... £1900 now buys you single CPU 2.66Ghz Mac Pro with 3Gb of memory, upgradable to 8Gb max for extra £200 (£2100 in total). And live with the laughable Nvidia 120.

Or. For the same £2100 you can get 8 core, dual CPU, 2.8Ghz '08 mac and upgrade it to 10Gb of memory and ATI 4870. And you still have 4 memory slots left free for the future upgrade to max 32Gb .

It's really no brainer this time around. They really pulled jester hat with pricing of I7 pros...
 
EVH said:
The best site for Mac Pro benchmarks is barefeats.com.

Give it a week or two and they'll have some amazing benchmarks. Their stuff on the last Mac Pro is what persuaded me to buy what I did (graphics, HDD drives, RAM.. everything down to the T)

I had it bookmarked for bedtime reading at one point, there was so much good info to mull over.
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Pretty much waiting on these benchmarks tbh. I'm thinking of getting the dual 2.66 config, but if I'm not convinced I might just buy an early 08 one instead. I just hope there'll be some left in the refurb store when that time arrives...
 
MTWest said:
Pretty much waiting on these benchmarks tbh. I'm thinking of getting the dual 2.66 config, but if I'm not convinced I might just buy an early 08 one instead. I just hope there'll be some left in the refurb store when that time arrives...
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We know the new gfx (not the 120 :rolleyes:') is better than the 8800GT.

The RAM is on a faster bus & tri-channel, so that's better (also, no northbridge)

The CPUs can overclock themselves if other cores are idle, and their preliminary benchmarks seem favourable.

It's a case of how much better they are :)
 
Well, the new Mac Pros have such crazy prices, the old 2.8Ghz 8 cores are now gone out of stock everywhere I looked (except few places which charge few hundred more than original Apple price). Spoke to one retailer this morning over the phone and he said they thought it was some sort of prank - all of a sudden one morning people started ringing desperate for what was few days before quite a slow selling workstation.
 
Could be that they do this to ensure the old stock gets used up then they lower the prices to ensure people buy them..
 
NickK said:
Could be that they do this to ensure the old stock gets used up then they lower the prices to ensure people buy them..
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Could make sense if they still sold the old 8-core Mac Pro :p The price would have to come down a LOT to make the old 8-core not seem like the better option.
 
NickK said:
Could be that they do this to ensure the old stock gets used up then they lower the prices to ensure people buy them..
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No.

Apple doesn't do price drops :

(Sadly, I'd really like a SSD but that will have to wait if I want a 2.93Ghz Mac Pro!)

Im looking at the old 3Ghz and 3.2Ghz 8 cores from the previous versions too :s
 
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Justin said:
Conc, what are you planning on using the Mac Pro for? Photography?
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CAD/MATLAB/Lightroom/Photoshop/Video work/FSX :p

iMac is pointless (27" Hazro already)
Macmini is less powerful than my MBP

Oh and it'll be my desktop for a good few years :P

Setup will be:

2.93Ghz i7 or 2.8/3 8 core
6 or 8gb Ram
8800GT or 4870
300Gb Velociraptor boot drive/bootcamp
640Gb (stock HD) data
1TB Timemachine
1TB FW800 portable backup

Macbook Pro for taking to Uni/in the field :p
 
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Justin said:
Nice :)

FSX will run like a dream on that, runs on my iMac perfectly.
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This is something I've been trying to find out, haven't tried it yet.

I used to be quite big in the FS world, I've been involved with a few projects (both freeware and semi-commercial) but I've not touched it for ages. I have FS X on the shelf but it's not been used since I got the Mac. I hanker to have a bash again but wonder how well it'll work on my Mac Pro with the 8800 and plenty of RAM.
 
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