Apple Ships 8-Core MacPro 628
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the way-more-cores-than-the-earth dept.
from the way-more-cores-than-the-earth dept.
ivan1024 writes "The Apple website is announcing the availability of an 8-core Mac Pro. The machine will ship with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 processors. Older models with the Dual-Core chips remain available. Base model with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processors start at $3997, (albeit with unacceptably minimal RAM or HD space; fully spec'd with dual 30" monitors and tons o' RAM/HD still over $10K... bummer)"
No price drops on old configurations (Score:3, Informative)
Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:4, Informative)
Never buy anything from Apple that you can't install yourself. For the Mac Pro, Apple charges $700 for 4GB (4x1GB) of RAM. You can get the same amount of RAM from DealRam [dealnews.com] for $500. The same goes for hard drives. Apple charges you $329 for a 500GB SATA drive, which you can get from NewEgg for around $200. [newegg.com] Granted, these aren't covered by your warranty, but they often have a manufacturer's warranty
I've often though the lack of user serviceable parts in the Mac Mini was designed to sell more RAM at Apple's hugely inflated prices.
Re:Advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
a good chunk... (Score:3, Informative)
Similarly, for editing/post, there's a ton of flint/flame/inferno/etc./etc. out there which are nowhere near Apple.
And that's completely ignoring everything hardware that you'll find in a typical broadcast facility. Avid, Thomson/Grass Valley, et al would have a chuckle at your post. So would Apple, for that matter - Apple isn't interested in replacing them at all... they're more on the software side and helping to sell Apple hardware.
Re:Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:2, Informative)
Re:awesome machine (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Advantage? (Score:3, Informative)
Adobe and the Multi-threaded Client
http://www.illuminata.com/perspectives/?p=251 [illuminata.com]
Correction: (Score:1, Informative)
USA only? (Score:4, Informative)
When you try to make it as expensive as possible.. (Score:3, Informative)
You've got $3,600 in displays alone - that's more than 1/3 of the price. Also, Apple is notorious for overpricing hard drives and memory. Buy the fastest CPUs and get everything else from someone else, including the displays (get'em from Dell), and you'll save 20%+.
Re:Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:3, Informative)
The only hard part about upgrading the RAM in a mini is not panicking at the plastic-popping sounds you get when you crack the case. Two sharpened putty knives (or lab spatulas), and you're golden. I did the memory and added wireless to mine at the same time, and I'm typing on it now, six months later. The mini is designed like apple's DRM; it prevents the casual tinkerer from getting inside of it, voiding their warranty, then having a fit on the phone.
Note for Apple RAM/Drives - Apple's warranty (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:5, Informative)
No. Installing memory in a Mac Mini does not void the warranty. [macworld.com]
Re:Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quick Mac Buying Tip (Score:5, Informative)
Look at Apple's "Select Developer Membership." At the base configuration, the difference between (ADC Select Membership + Mac Pro w/ discount) and (Mac Pro w/o discount) is $1... in favor of the membership. Bumping up the Mac Pro to the 8-core version yields $300 savings (ie: $800 savings - $500 membership). Plus you get everything that comes with the membership, including the Leopard Early Start Kit and two free tech support incidents.
If you're a student, the membership price drops from $500 to $100, though you're only allowed to use the hardware discount once ever, whereas the Select Membership lets you buy hardware with the discount once per year (at a price of $500/year).
Re:Correction: (Score:4, Informative)
20% of Maya sales are Mac (Score:4, Informative)
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:pfgF8E0i5C8J:
20% of Maya sales are the Mac version, according to Autodesk. (Google cache since Macworld UK is apparently down.)
Re:Advantage? (Score:3, Informative)
plenty of shops run avid systems on macs. Admitedly a lot of the large scale newsroom stuff is currently only on windows but all of that is fairly new. Stand alone editors (as used in TV show and movie editing) can be done just as easily on an avid PC as an avid mac.
Im not sure exactly what the breakdown is right now out in the field but these things are just fine for running Media composer and editing up your latest blockbuster movie (although I'm not sure if these actual machines have yet been certified by avid)
Re:Correction: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
CG animation uses a timeline as well as three dimensional coordinates, so 4d is technically correct.
Re:Advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
Premiere? Well first off, it is available [adobe.com]for the Mac, secondly Adobe stopped making it for the Mac for a while because Premeire has always been a low-end program for prosumers and multimedia professionals.
Only low end shops use Final Cut? So do you consider:
The BBC
CNN
David Fincher
The Washington Post
Pixar
Weta
ILM small shops? Cold Mountain and Lost in Translation were cut solely on Final Cut Pro, and for compositing tools don't forget Shake is what Weta used to make the Lord of the Rings movies and King Kong.
Re:DAMNIT! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Advantage? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Advantage? (Score:3, Informative)
Both have a huge number of FCP editors.
Re:I was wating for this machine! (Score:4, Informative)
Every machine running this generation of Xeon processors needs the type of RAM Apple uses and calling it "slow" does not really help your credibility here.
Umm, you can't? Since when? You've been able to swap the video cards in Apple's towers for about 8-10 years now.
Apple uses standard video cards, but as usual are a little ahead of the curve. Not all cards support EFI yet, since Vista is the first version of Windows to support it on the desktop properly. You're probably one of those people who complained about Apple's nonstandard choice of using USB for keyboards and mice instead of PS/2. Now many years later the bottom end of the PC market is finally catching up but my 8 year old mac is still working fine because they included USB and firewire instead of what was "standard" at the time.
Personally, I'm glad Apple is forward looking and pushes current standards instead of decade old ones. If they lose a few sales from people who can't wait 6 moths for the Windows crowd to play catch up and for more widespread support from third party vendors, I think it is a small loss.
Re:Advantage? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:a good chunk... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple 16GB (8x2GB) FB-DIMM 667 $4499
Newegg 16GB (8x2GB) Kingston (KVR667D2D8F5/1G) FB-DIMM 667 $2392
Apple 750GB SATA 3GB/s $$499
ZipZoomFly ST3750640NS 750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s $299
Apple Warranty 1 Year
Seagate HD Warranty 5 Years
Kingston Memory Lifetime Warranty
So at the least buy a bare bones Mac Pro and add your own parts, you will save a ton.
Re:Technological superiority at last! (Score:5, Informative)
Considering I find half a kazillion posts about said video cards not working under OS X, and the few that do need to use some beta driver from here [macvidia.com] and any new graphics cards will be a hit-or-miss thing too because the PC cards lack EFI support, yes I'm under that "mistaken impression". If you got any sources to back up your claims, I'd love to see them.
Re:great for apple folks (Score:5, Informative)
Mac Pro uses different heat sink standards for RAM (Score:5, Informative)
Getting the right RAM 3rd party is a smarter buy than getting it from Apple, but make sure you get the right RAM!
Again, from what I've seen, _be very careful_ getting RAM for the Mac Pro. Make sure it's been thoroughly tested first and had no problems before getting any given brand, and without the proper heat sinks, it seems like you're going to get slowdowns of the RAM and dramatic increases in the use of fans in the Mac Pro. (From what I've seen, though, it's more likely to have errors than just do that, unfortunately.)
Then again, you could probably get away with standard heat sinks if you know how to tweak the fans to run fast enough to keep them from going wonky.