Ok dokey!
Been using it properly today, and apart from that lag on input every few seconds... I LOVE IT! (Contrary to my previous statement
)
Build quality: 10/10 - Can't fault this really apart from one tiny thing, the door at the front is half a mm out from the rest of the case (yes thats all I could find
))
Cooling: 10/10 Following on from the good old G5 design, nothing really has changed. Zones cooling, independent fans (which im coding software for to control them, but my limited coding knowledge has caused me to hit a wall, if anyone wants to help me here that would be great!).
Cores idle (from the chip itself) is about 35C, which is not bad at all IMO. Load is hitting 90C and the fans arn't increasing, it doesn't crash and hits about 95C after handbrake load, I want the software to decease this by increasing the fan about 500RPM.
Noise: 10/10 From a sitting 2ft away at my ear level point-of-view, its pretty dam quiet! You can hear the fans just about and you can hear the velociraptor clicking away but its a nice sound so doesn't bother me, always liked a good hard-disk click when seeking
When you have it under the desk I doubt it would bother anyone!
Expansion/Upgradeability: 8/10There is space (just) for another row of HDs IMO, just cut a cm or so off the heatsink (the area could be regained easily using slightly denser fins). Two DVD drives is enough, could use blu-ray but i'd rather buy a PS3 for that than have the additional cost on the MP.
Memory, as established, 4Gb sticks are here, so thats 12/16Gb, and to be honest if you can afford that and need more you would be getting the octo anyway.
PCI-E, 4 slots, the first is doubled spaced so you don't loose a slot thanks to the 4870 dual slot cooler, allows full length cards cooled by a dedicated fan.
CPU, from what I can see it uses a heatspeader (unlike the 2.26 octo!! mac rumors it
) so in theory I can wack the up and coming 3.2Ghz i7 and 6Gb of non ECC in there as the X58 chipset supports it.
Ports on the back and front, the two FW800 on the front do puzzle me, but then I think its directed towards HD cameras so quick download etc? USB and headphones are useful on the front. Three on the back (all used, KB, iPhone, Printer), use the two on the front for SLR/memory stick so useful all round there. Optical in and out, 2 FW800, microphone etc, all nicely spaced out along with two gigabit ethernet ports. All in all nicely designed although some could say more USB ports on the back would be a good improvement. Some are calling for eSATA, although from my experience of having 3 drives using it I wish they would stick with FW800, the connections are weak and keep disconnecting so having no eSATA on the back is hardly a loss IMO.
Speeeeeed: 10/10 Tricky one really, what do I class it on? MBP? What the 2.93 would be like? What the octo could be like? Well im comparing it to a June 2007 Macbook Pro 2.4Ghz with 4Gb. Handbrake encodes at 4-5 times the speed (yes 4-5 times! - in theory it should be 2-3 times as fast due to double the cores), the HT really helping there. Turbo boost in Windows seems to be stuck at only one more multiplier, I really hope this isn't the case as the desktop i7s do better than that!!! Responsiveness is excellent, Lightroom is far smoother now, if this lag wasn't here it would be superb!
What else can I say really? Superb purchase IMO. Apple should have notched down everything tho, the 2.66 should have been around the original 2.8 octo mark with the 2.93 coming in at the current 2.66 price level, but hey ho.
My advise to anyone thinking about it is:
BUY IT!!!!
