8-core Mac Pro hands-on, Apple NAB booth tour

Behold, Apple's mammoth, sprawling NAB booth. Ready to show off all the pro apps it announced yesterday, the Apple complex came complete with two demo theaters, dozens of demo kiosks, a few octo-core Mac Pros (which we finally got our hands on for a hands-on -- not that it looks any different), and a small army of black-clad employees ready to school you in the ways of pro media production. We asked for a Compressor 3 demo showing off the octo-Pro's multithreaded rendering, and while the demo didn't actually successfully wrap, we did get to see those eight cores burn through a bit of HD encoding right quick. Also, be sure to check out Apple's massive, 40 Xserve RAID equipped demo media SAN -- it's almost too much aluminum-clad enterprise gear.

Gallery: 8-core Mac Pro hands-on, Apple NAB booth tour

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[js @ Apr 16th 2007 5:38PM]

Steve Jobs, FTW!!!!

[exelsior @ Apr 16th 2007 5:40PM]

Yeah, but can it run Doom?

[Platypus @ Apr 16th 2007 5:53PM]

@ 2

Easily

[scott @ Apr 16th 2007 5:46PM]

At 2048 fps...

[AndrewNeo @ Apr 16th 2007 6:05PM]

At least eight copies at once!

[mike @ Apr 16th 2007 6:02PM]

#2, if you're gonna buy that powerful a computer, I would hope you have better things to do with your life than video games! I'd feel embarrassed playing games on something that good.

[dparton @ Apr 16th 2007 6:08PM]

Will it blend?

[Steve Shickles @ Apr 16th 2007 6:17PM]

Nice.... Everything you could want in a computer.

[Rob @ Apr 16th 2007 6:58PM]

Am I crazy, or does this "hands on" give me practically zero feel for this computer? Kinda seems just like an empty headline with no content to back it up... Or did I completely miss something?

[Rob @ Apr 16th 2007 7:00PM]

Oh, photos...

Dooh!

[blamecanada @ Apr 16th 2007 7:19PM]

OMG, i dont care

[Ben @ Apr 16th 2007 7:41PM]

FCK the 8 core mack ... I want that x-serve array!

No telling how much storage / processing power that thing has.

[w00fd06 @ Apr 16th 2007 8:48PM]

Wow, this is the coolest computer I have ever seen in my life, only problems; well, for starters, it's overpriced, and noone will buy it(besides Bill Gates). Second, it's running Mac OS X Tiger, and I know that you can run Boot Camp, and put XP on it but who would put XP on a brand new computer when you could have Vista, and you'll have to wait until October(when Leopard comes out) if you want to put Vista on it because Apple took everyone who was working on Leopard and made them work on the overrated iPhone.

[Joseph @ Apr 16th 2007 9:03PM]

As of the newest version of Boot Camp, it supports Vista. So go ahead and splurge (if that is what you really want) or do something useful with your $4000

[Dman @ Apr 16th 2007 10:26PM]

Oh please. This machine is actually cheaper than similar configured high-end PCs - so stop with the myth already. And as for no one buying this, you're right - no one except graphic designers, design firms, ad agencies, sound engineers, video houses, y'know people who use these machines to, um, CREATE stuff and get paid large sums of money for. I know that's hard to understand for people who dish out loads of cash to just so their pc can play video games.

...and you are joking about Vista, right???

[w00fd06 @ Apr 16th 2007 10:52PM]

Actually, I wasn't kidding about Vista, I hate apple's "user friedly" interface. This may sound sad, but I have Windows Me, and I love the interface with the excption of the messy Start menu. Apple's interface is to basic for people who actually know about computers, and the only reason why developers get Macs is for the software, and honestly, there are way better programs that you could get through Adobe, and even Google, who is supposedly going to buy-out every software manufacturer by 2016(estimate), and the other reason developers get Macs is for the Apple HD Ceinemas 2600x1600, which you could get seperately.

[_V3ndetta_ @ Apr 18th 2007 4:46PM]

Um. Woof dog? Saying you're upgrading to an XPS in a Mac forum isn't gonna help your cred. AND, I know you knew about spotlight. You were being stupid.

[xtrememainer @ Apr 30th 2007 7:32PM]

woofdog is the only guy who knows what he's talking about. You losers

[brendan Sheehan jnr @ Apr 16th 2007 8:50PM]

When will Engadget uncheck this; "E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment" option checkbox, by default. I'm sick of unchecking it myself. Please if you are reading Ryan, get that sorted - cheers!

[brendan Sheehan jnr @ Apr 16th 2007 8:56PM]

I noticed the 42" Panasonic flat 'PLASMA' TV's on the walls. Hopefully this is a sign Apple has the sense to NOT make their TV's LCD when the produce them. Plasma kicks the absolute crap out of LCD on all fronts, I know cause I own both, and both are new enough too. Here's to SED, OLED or humble old Plasma technology for Apple's TV displays whenever they decide to make them.

[Dan @ Apr 16th 2007 9:50PM]

Ok, I'm totally going to do my best to make a shopping cart full of what I suspect is in this photo:

http://www.engadget.com/gallery/8-core-mac-pro-hands-on-apple-nab-booth-tour/215294/

I must know how much all of that would cost! How much $ is behind that plate of glass? Interesting...

[Giltronic @ Apr 17th 2007 1:59AM]

you should just buy this

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/6274001/wo/uN6HF7QrPULV2J9YhHy16Q2TckM/2.?p=0

[SniperPiper @ Apr 17th 2007 7:54AM]

Yes, indeed! I will have one of these systems (or something similar) in about 15 months (when my current lease is up). I will not pay a dime for it, the company I work for will. Yes, working in the graphics field is a beautiful thing. I suppose I could spend all my hard earned money, and my limited free time & build my own prone to viruses PC, then spend what is left of my social life to play games on it & go online and brag how powerful my computer is. That would be sooooo much better than using this Mac to create things you'll be spending money on.
And to the absolute tool that said "it's running Mac OS X Tiger, and I know that you can run Boot Camp, and put XP on it but who would put XP on a brand new computer when you could have Vista, and you'll have to wait until October(when Leopard comes out)"
First, Tiger is way ahead of Vista & Leopard will be what MS comes out with for an OS in 2012 - so you will be that much ahead of the game.
Second - putting any OS made by MS on this machine would be like buying a Ferrari & swapping out the engine for a Scion engine.
You can build the most powerful computer you want in your basement, but if in the end it is running a Microsoft OS it is all for naut. Fun hobby though! And look how important it made you feel! Find yourself a similar Dell & price compare, then please, take the time to STFU.

[dan @ Apr 16th 2007 10:30PM]

OMG, is that fiber channel cable going directly into the back of that 8-way mac? (The orange cables) It looks like a primary/secondary fiber channel cables that we have going into our gigabit switch at our datacenter. WTF, this thing comes with fiber channel adapter, built into the machine? Why? Overkill much?

[JT @ Apr 16th 2007 11:29PM]

"This may sound sad, but I have Windows Me...."

Wow, man just, wow.

If that previous post about Macs not being able to run Vista didn't kill whatever credibility you may have had, this should have finished it off. Impressive.

[w00fd06 @ Apr 16th 2007 11:56PM]

JT:
Hey man, I'm getting my Vista computer tomorrow, XPS 410, if that helps my cred at all. The only reason why I dis Apple is because, well, I hate them, because everyone disssses, uhh, however you spell that, anyway everyone likes to dis MS because of these little things, like not having a searchbar on the desktop, Mac OS X doesn't have one either, so why not make fun of Apple for that? And apparently, Windows has bad security, I don't really think it's that as much as the fact that hackers want to annoy more people, so, more people have Windows KERNELs, so they go and creat viruses, and trojan horses and whatnot for Windows.

[Ricardo Chavarria @ Apr 17th 2007 10:11AM]

Please, PLEASE just shut up kid. You don't know what you are talking about. Grow up, study then come and talk.

Your choice of OS has NOTHING to do with how much you know about computers. Don't be a fool. Most of us here, unlike you, know about computers. Yes, Vista is "cool", but Mac OSX beats the living hell out of it.

And so you don't doubt it, I do know about computers, I'm a Computer Scientist who loves and uses Macs but works for a PC centric company.

Ric

[scsl @ Apr 17th 2007 1:14PM]

w00fd06:

I don't know if I should cry or smack you over the head with a clue club... you just shot your ignorance all over the place and it's FUGLY. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fugly)

I only use XP right now but even _I_ know that Mac OS has a feature called "Spotlight" that Vista was supposed to copy... err 'innovate'. If you've ever used it you'd know it blows the stupid "dog search" in XP away... oh wait, no, you're still using ME -- one of the WORST OS's that Microsoft has ever put out... and even THEY admit that. *sigh*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_me#Criticisms
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/

[_V3ndetta_ @ Apr 17th 2007 10:37PM]

Guys, this "kid" knows more about [[[[PC]]]s than anyone i know. and, considering everyone here has Apple as company of choice, you would naturally disagree with him, and, in certain circumstances, insult his intelligence to make yourselves fell better. Now, I'm running vista, which only recognizes 4 gigs of memory. So, does Tiger recognize 16 gigs? Doubt it. So that basically means you cant take full potential of this machine, using the only operating system you can. Sheesh.

[harpreet @ Apr 16th 2007 11:48PM]

8-core mac pro = "A big hole in my pocket"

[JT @ Apr 17th 2007 12:30AM]

w00fd06:

Enjoy Vista.

[Giltronic @ Apr 17th 2007 1:55AM]

your a horse of a different color; too weird to live and too rare to die...

giltronic

[SniperPiper @ Apr 17th 2007 7:57AM]

you don't need to worry about cred at all.. Your uninformed rants & foolish opinions have stripped you of any you will ever have.

[carlos @ Apr 17th 2007 2:14AM]

You'll also need a few of these.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/6274001/wo/uN6HF7QrPULV2J9YhHy16Q2TckM/28.?p=0

[treetrunk @ Apr 17th 2007 9:19AM]

You sound like an Apple advert. Do you memorise their ad-campaigns, or are you just really suggestible?

"Tiger is way ahead of Vista"..

I've heard lines like this a lot, but they're never qualified further. How exactly is Tiger "way ahead" of Vista?

As for "Leopard will be what MS comes out with for an OS in 2012" - based on what we've heard of Leopard, I disagree. Unless they've kept an awful lot under their belt (and to be honest, I struggle to think of anything else which could be added to Vista's feature set which would be useful) it's Apple who are playing catch-up this time.

"Second - putting any OS made by MS on this machine would be like buying a Ferrari & swapping out the engine for a Scion engine."

No, because OS doesn't equal engine. OS is your interface to the system, not what powers it. Everyone uses MS OSs because (like it or not) they do work well. Everyone who is serious enough about driving to own a Ferrari uses a manual transmission because they also work well. Therefore an apt analogy would be swapping out the silly flappy-paddle gearbox in your Ferrari that Top Gear always complain about for a regular manual gearbox. It's more common and therefore a bit less "special", but the reason it's common is that it works better than the proprietory alternative.

[SniperPiper @ Apr 17th 2007 10:35AM]

Try this:
Get a PC that is 5 years old, and has not been upgraded since it was unboxed, install the full version od Vista onit.
What? You can't? Why?
Now try it with an Apple.
The thing with MS is, if there hadn't been other systems to copy, we'd still be using DOS. Sure, Bill Gates would come out with upgrades all along the way, so at this point, we'd be able to use DOS with magenta text, rather than green.
Windows is the WalMart of operating systems - cheap imitations for the gullible masses. Yeah, I like Apple products because they are innovative & done right.
How many technologies were pioneered on Apple computers that other companies wouldn't dare attempt - then went on to become the standard?
here, let me help
the mouse
3.25 floppy disc drives
the gui
color
fonts!
the CD ROM
USB
firewire
64 bit computing

Should I continue to go on? I can if you want...
No, they did not invent a lot of these technologies, but are the only company brave enough to use them, with the rest following suit within two years.

A company like Microsoft imitates other companies sucessful ideas, calls them their own, then uses their marketing might to make it the standard & kills the original - even if it wasn't as good as what they copied. I know when a person does something like that (on a smaller level) in the office, we refer to them as a douchebag.
Microsoft is the jugernaut of douchbags.


Something to think about on your ride home -
in your Scion.

[Antoine Bourgeon @ Apr 17th 2007 9:25AM]

Hey, Is somebody know what's this table control on the right side ? :
http://www.engadget.com/photos/8-core-mac-pro-hands-on-apple-nab-booth-tour/215295/
It's look nice.
Thanks

[JAW @ Apr 17th 2007 11:52AM]

Or what the box is on the left side of that photo, beneath the monitor?

http://www.engadget.com/photos/8-core-mac-pro-hands-on-apple-nab-booth-tour/215295/

[Eric @ Apr 17th 2007 1:37PM]

Here is the control product page

http://www.jlcooper.com/pages/mcsspectrum.html

[Bjarke Andersen @ Apr 17th 2007 9:41AM]

Now I am not a Mac person, so my stupid question, what is the white box they hide in bottom, rear side of the case? (pic 2)

[Antoine Bourgeon @ Apr 17th 2007 10:08AM]

Answer to Bjarke Andersen : it's the power supply of the screen

[treetrunk @ Apr 17th 2007 4:01PM]

More marketing babble.

That comparison doesn't work.

Firstly, you're wrong in that a 5 year old PC could not run Vista. The minumum specification to run Vista fully is only a 1GHz processor and 1Gb RAM, which has been around for a lot longer than 5 years- the top-end Intels were at 3 times that speed 5 years ago! So, many 5 year old PCs will be quite capable of running it.

Secondly, you're not comparing like with like. A 5 year old PC has a fairly good chance of running Vista, while a 5 year old Mac has ZERO chance. A 5 year old PC would be capable of running OSX - I've done this myself on a 4 year old machine (OSx86) - and so (of course) would a 5 year old Mac.

Thirdly is the issue of what these machines were designed for. Not all 5 year old PCs will run Vista, but bear in mind that those which won't WERE NOT DESIGNED TO. OS X has been around for longer than 5 years, so any 5 year old Mac was designed to run it. Vista has a new kernel and completely different graphical subsystem over XP, to take advantage of the advances in graphic technology which have occured in the past 5 years. OS X has changed a little, with "revolutionary" features such as a search box, but broadly it's still exactly the same underneath.

"if there hadn't been other systems to copy, we'd still be using DOS"...

Um, great. You don't explicitly say otherwise, but are you aware that it was XEROX which first came up with the graphical interface, not Apple or MS? They both "copied" it. I put "copied" in quotes as personally I think this is a silly debate- a graphical interface was simply the logical next step, and (especially with the technology of the time) there were very few sensible ways of doing it.

I won't go through your whole list because I can't be bothered. However, a quick look on Wikipedia is all that's needed to tell you that you're wrong. The Mouse and GUI were both "pioneered" by XEROX, the far better laser mouse by Sun. The 3.25 floppy doesn't exist, but the 3.5 floppy was invented by Sony and first used by HP. "Colour" has been around in some form or another since at least the ZX Spectrum, the CD was Sony/Phillips, USB was a joint venture with the likes of HP, NEC, MS & Intel. Intel, AMD and Sun had all done 64-bit before Apple.

As far as I'm aware Apple did not invent neither were they first to use ANY of the above technologies. THEY were the ones "following suit" after someone else had had the idea. Though their marketing might try to tell the gullible among us otherwise, they are historically quite a stubborn and backwards company. Look at their down-right refusal to use Intel chips for so many years, despite them being so obviously better than the Power-PC ones they were using. Look at their continued refusal to produce a PROPER 2 button mouse. Look at how proprietary they used to be with their Apple desktop bus and their overpromotion of firewire (which even they don't support any more on their most popular product ever- the iPod). Thankfully, they appear to have begun to see the light recently, and have become much more standardised like everyone else. Their marketing remains the same though, leading gullible people like you to believe they're still the pioneers of everything.

Seriously, get a clue. Apple are just another computer company, making computers just like everyone else but in shinier boxes and with a now rather dated shiny grey OS.

[SniperPiper @ Apr 18th 2007 8:22AM]

I was talking about a 5 year old mac running OSX, and a 5 year old PC running Vista.
And a 5 year old pc is no way near the same as a mac when running OSX, even if they bioth ahve Intel processors - get a clue!
Allow me to quote myself
"No, they did not invent a lot of these technologies, but are the only company brave enough to use them, with the rest following suit within two years."

Also;
"install the full version of Vista on it."
as in not the scaled down, bare bones, XP+ version they in no way compares to OSX.
64 bit computers on a consumer level was first done by Apple. Yes, sparcstations & all that had it, but I am talking about readily available consumer computers.
Reading comprehension not a strong point?
As far as Apple 'copying' Xerox, Xerox had no intention of making a consumer version of Alto available. They designed it as something to enhance their copiers. Apple, got the rights from Xerox (after the tour), gave them serious stocks in Apple for it & took the key engineers who worked on it from Xerox to Apple to vastly improve what they saw at the Palo Alto Research Center to develop the Lisa & the Mac.
But you are right on one thing, Microsoft copied the Mac (as best they could), but unlike apple, they did NOT improve on it in even the slightest way. All this even after MS had gotten their hands on a Mac for supposed software development, and attempted to reverse engineer it instead. (so microsoft like!) Windows 1.1 was unuseable junk. And windows 3.1 was also junk. They didn't start to get it right until '95 (eleven years after the first Mac) when they completely aped just about everythign from the mac.
Palo Alto Research Visit - 1979
Lisa & Mac developed 1980-1984
Windows 95 developed 1995
All this & no need to google or wikipedia any of it! I've been using computers long enough to witness all these changes. Hey, you forgot to mention that Intel invented USB. Yes, they did. But no one used it until AFTER Apple. To say Apple is the one following suit you are just exposing your self as a bitter Apple detractor.
Keep on hating if that is what gets you off

I bet you are the type that thinks global warming is a farce too!

[blamecanada @ Apr 17th 2007 11:44AM]

^^ Using the word douchbag in your post immediately discredits it FYI.

[treetrunk @ Apr 17th 2007 4:18PM]

@scsl:

"Mac OS has a feature called "Spotlight" that Vista was supposed to copy... err 'innovate'."

I don't think that's exactly fair. Desktop search was announced as a feature of Vista back when it was called "Longhorn", some time /before/ a "coincidently" similar feature made its appearance in OS X Tiger. It was Apple who did the copying. Same goes for "time machine" finally coming in Leopard, which provides the same functionality as volume shadow-copy / "previous versions" did to system files in XP, to everything in Server 2003, and in Vista. Microsoft did it first, Apple made it pretty and claimed it'd revolutionised the entire world.

[Eric @ Apr 17th 2007 1:30PM]

Yeah what is this?

http://www.engadget.com/photos/8-core-mac-pro-hands-on-apple-nab-booth-tour/215295/

It looks to be something I want

[Antoine Bourgeon @ Apr 18th 2007 3:43AM]

Hi, Eric,

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'm look on the web since yesterday.

Have a nice day!

[Stupod @ Apr 17th 2007 7:04PM]

I've put up a Flickr set showing the unboxing of my new Apple 3.0GHz 8-core Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro with 23" Cinema Display here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thingsimade/sets/72157600087396142/detail/

[nimro @ Apr 18th 2007 3:42PM]

Yes, Tiger supports 16GB of RAM. As you can see by one of the gallery photos that Mac Pro has 8GB of RAM. As far as I am aware Tiger supports up to around 4TB of RAM.

Frankly I'm surprised Vista only supports up to 4GB, is that just the 32-bit version?

[_V3ndetta_ @ Apr 18th 2007 4:01PM]

The 32 bit version only recognized 3 of my 4 gigs. So I assume the 64 bit wont do more than double that??