It's the week before Macworld 2008, and Apple's updated the
Mac Pro with Intel's new 45nm quad-core Penryn Xeon 5400 (Stoakley) CPUs at up to 3.2GHz. The new 8-core config is $2,800, and Apple's
Phil Schiller is calling these machines the "fastest Mac we've ever made" (not that we'd expect the newest machine would be anything but). Standard options:
- 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (256MB)
- 320GB drive, 16x DVDRW
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, (2) PCI Express 2.0, (2) PCI Express slots
- That fancy new Apple keyboard they've been shipping with iMacs
No Blu-ray, as rumored, but it can be configured with plenty of hard drives (as usual), RAID, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics cards, and 802.11n. Why do we feel like Apple threw these up today just to screw with everyone at CES? (Actually, it's because Intel is announcing all those new chips -- we get that.)
posted Jan 8th 2008 8:36AM
it could barely run crisis...ive seen very very powerful rigs get crippled at that game
Nice :P
Can it play Crysis?
isn't Crysis Windows only?
Nope, it can't play Crysis. I love my iMac and apple products, but to me, the Mac Pro is the biggest rip off in computers, next to alienware.
Yes, it can play Crysis just load it up in Boot Camp. Macs can run all available software
Yes it can play crysis, 8800's can play it somewhat well.. and bootcamp, duh.
First off, the 8800 is optional, god knows how much apple will charge you for $280 gfx card... Maybe $450-$500?
Second, 8800s dip into the teens quite often on high quality. I'm assuming you're going to be playing this on a nice apple cinema display since your spending alot of money on the Mac Pro, and the lowest resolution of the bunch is the 20" with 1680x1050 all the way up to 2560x1600 for the 30". At 1600x1200 crysis runs at around 28fps with no AA, and like I said plenty of dips into the teens. That's not playing a game, that's watching a slide show.
but can it overclock?
Indeed. I'm guessing this means that they have lots of goodies for MWSF, so they don't need to water it down with dull product updates.
@ hotrodsemail:
The 8800GT in the Mac Pro is a $200 option, which would make it LESS than retail, you putz.
@ Zak
The 8800 is not a $200 option. The $200 is the additional money over radeon 2600 that you have to pay. Since apple charges $150 per each 2600 card, that would mean you're paying $350 for an 8800.
8800 GPU? It's already outdated...9800 is out next month!
@ Jotenks:
The Mac Pro ships with the Radeon 2600 by default, and when people quote the $2799 price, that *includes* the Radeon 2600. So there's no such thing as paying the baseline $2799 plus $350 for the 8800. Since you can't configure the Mac Pro without a video card, the most you will ever pay for an 8800 is $200.
If you base your decision on whether or not you'd buy a computer on whether or not it plays a particular video game, then I question your reasons behind owning a computer at all.
Sounds to me like you want a TOY, not a professional computer, which is what the Mac Pro (thus the "Pro" part) is.
Frankly, i've never, ever known one game worth having an expensive, ultra-powered rig. I'm perfectly happy with my XBox 360 these days, and even in my hardcore PC-building days, I never bothered to waste my paycheck on parts just so I could play the latest game.
That's just stupid and obsessive.
bout, f'n time!!! :) HAPPY DAYS!!!
8 core? 3.2Ghz * 8 = 25,6Ghz
It doesn't work that way...
It does if you're an Apple fanboy.
Does this mean that the colored pinwheel bullsh!t spins 20 times faster when I try to open up caranddriver.com?
How does it work? I never understood multicore, they say you can't compare processors by speed, how are you supposed to compare? By benchmarks?
@TheWakeUpCall
The way multi-core setups work isn't that they're added together, it's that they're truly in parallel. In electronic circuits, for instance, you can wire some lights in either series or parallel. In series (one right after another( --!--!--!-- ) each succesive bulb is dimmer than the one before it, all three don't run at full brightness giving you th power of three bulbs - much like a multi-core CPU isn't the sum of their respective clock speeds. When in parallel...
--!--
/ \
----!------
\ /
--!--
All three bulbs light to their full brightness, but use less power to do so. This is how it is with a multi-core setup, in lay man's terms anyway. What this gives you in the terms of processing power is that the little caveat that a CPU can only process one task at a time, if you have 2, 4, or 8 cores, you can do 2, 4, or 8 tasks at the same time...with each task being operated on at 3.2GHz in this case. So that's why 8 cores at 3.2GHz != 25.6 GHz - The circuitry isn't the true reason behind it all either, it's just an example.
Hope it helps!
:)
No blu-ray :(
no blu-ray. i was waiting for that. but 1600MHz FSB and 24MB cache with 8 cores is pretty amazing. maybe i will break out the credit card...
And suddenly, $2800 doesn't seem like all that much to pay, though I know it is.
Must... Hold out... For new portables... That I actually need.
My girlfriend would flip out if this huge ass box landed on the doorstep.
This is the power of the girlfriend: She can freak out of HE buys something.
Try freaking out the next time she buys a pair of very expensive shoes. It won't work. She'll just freak out right back at ya, and you lose twice.
Hmm.
liar; you don't have a girlfriend.... there's really no need to lie to impress us.
Mike, that optical media sounds really good next time you need something and your internet is down.
Every tool has its place.
try uploading and or downloading a 28gb HD video file and then tell me optical media is dead.
Man Rule #8675309: that's the beauty of having a "girlfriend," and not a "wife"... if she freaks out, just kick her to the curb, and find a new one who appreciates your geekdom!
you're not frickin' married man... come on, grab your damn sack and buy whatever the heck YOU want that YOU can afford!
Considering I'm seriously looking at replacing my PC with a Mac (again, after many years), this is good news.
It likely means, between this news and whatever they'll announce at MacWorld, that the existing Mac Pros will be dropping in price Real Soon Now. :D
The only problems with macs now are the prices (they still don't have a decent midprice computer), and the lack of hardware openness (almost no upgradability).
Not everyone needs two quad-core processors. I do 3d rendering and that still seems pretty ridiculous. and they need to let other people sell some OS X computers. competition of computers that has their OS would be good.
So if I buy one of these and put more RAM in it, can I claim to have made "the fastest Mac ever made!"?
I believe they are talking about the fully upgraded version which comes with 4 or 8gigs of RAM, and two Video cards.
So their fully upgraded would be fastest mac ever, but not the base version
they already support 16gigs of ram. 16 gigs! goto the website and max out everything..last time i did it, it was like $19,000.
scratch that..32gigs of ram!
lol $18000 now its like $27,240 maxed out! jesus thats SO much
eh, all of a sudden i agree that 2800 does not seem like that much... But then, i don't feel like that this is worth $3000.
Suddenly $2800 doesn't seem much...
Suddenly the Pied Piper of Hypeland leads half a million off the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge!!
Man... (back when I walked 10 miles to school in the snow) my first PC (24MHz) was ~$2400!! With the vast assortment of quality PC's under $1000, and unless you're doing some crazy app that needs a quad core machine for WORK, you're crazy if you think $2800 is not much!!
this line will best define why i am still a Windows user
"compatibility, everybody fits with me... all the applications want to get with my virility"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkrn6ecxthM
i do 290348239048239048 more on my pc than on my mac.
How is a PC more versatile than a Mac Pro when a Mac Pro can run Windows AND Mac OS?
oh yah now ... sorry i was jus on memory lane
Wait... So you do arbitrary number more on Windows than OSX? Er. K!
None of those things are worth $2,800, especially $3,000! Why do people continue to fall for this joke of a computer? Do they now that the "wheel of death" comes pre-installed with Apple? The reason they made 'Boot Camp' is so that people can still have Windows. They have more out for Windows than they do Mac. You can do MORE with Windows! The only thing that Apple has good out is the iPod. You can tell they are getting desperate for by trying to make phones, and making "Apple TVs". Apple is a JOKE now!
No Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but it does come with the stupid new keyboard.
Hey now!!! I absolutely love my apple keyboard. I was a massive hater when it first got some bad reviews and I was like "screw it, I'll try one" and lo and behold I type about 10 wpm faster then 2 or 3 months ago with my other keyboard. It's just so effortless to depress these buttons....and surprisingly easy to use on a regular basis. I wasn't expecting a good experience whatsoever but damn I'm impressed...and of course everyone that walks it always has nice comments about how sexy it is.
I love it too. Plus, it's infinitely cleaner than the previous rendition which always seemed to collect large amounts of debris beneath the keys.
-Ax
Nice Apple, now where's the new displays to go with this?
The most important specs, CPU cache and bus speed, are omitted. Why are PC people so fascinated with CPU clock speed?
Yeah, CPU speed is worthless if you don't have the infrastructure to move the info around quickly.
Yeah, here is the Holy Carp! factor:
12MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6MB)
128-bit SSE4 SIMD engine
64-bit data paths and registers
1600MHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses
800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory
Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 32GB of main memory
256-bit-wide memory architecture
See: http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html
Apple is just getting the minor announcements out of the way before Macworld.
True this is only a speed bump, and tied to Intel's chip-a-thon, but this seems to bode well for Apple making a few big announcements next week. At least it gives SJ one less trivial thing to run on about during his keynote.
Boom.
I'm sure rambling on about bus speeds for three or four slides is as painful for Steve as it is for us. So good call, sir.
I'm OK with this update, because it means that Apple will show something more than an ultraportable MacBook Pro. Maybe an updated iPhone? No maybe they buy B&O!!
Nah, B&O is too black and brushed aluminum....... oh wait....
Well I'll be the first to say I never saw this coming (before Macworld that is).
Yes!
I will be replacing my current system in June, and in 6 months these might even be faster & cheaper!
Not that price matters, I am not the one footing the bill-
It's Apple. In 6 months, the price and specs will be the same. In six and a half months, however, after you purchase your machine, they'll re-vamp the whole MacPro with new case and everything, just as your box hits your doorstep...
I'll still be happier with an older Mac than a spankin' new Dell!
DDR2 ram?
You're missing the point. Remember it's more "efficient", lol.
I can't see why anyone would pay that kind of price for a PC to use at home. 2 quad CPUs? Who needs that? ... the Mac's don't even play games unless you jury rig them with bootcamp to run the o/s that made you buy the Mac in the first place.
I honestly believe it's just a status thing for most geeks to own a MacPro.
mac pro's are workstations. they have xeon processors in them. I don't believe Apple ever intends for these to be used by regular home users, only high end 3D graphics users/video editors, etc. People have asked Apple before to release an "entry" level tower, but I believe Apple thinks the iMac is enough for a regular home user.
Whenever somebody starts a sentence with "I can't see why...", there is no point in paying any further attention to them. Ever.
Brad - very true. However, for "home users" like me who like to tweak and upgrade as well as have their own monitor, the Pro is the only option. Good news is that they will last for quite a long time before needing to be replaced.
The Mac Pro is used for things like http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/specs.html
Final Cut Pro is used to mix as many as 16 HD sources in real-time. This requires at least 4 spindles in a RAID to deliver the data and a beast of a CPU cluster.
Macs are not toys. They are what people use to do the impossible.
PCs are what people use to play games. They are toys. Like PDAs, "smartphones", and all the other status symbols that the corporate suits invest in.
Why do people still act like bootcamp is some sort of "hack" that isn't "real" windows? Macs have been x86 ever since the first intel ones were announced. Bootcamp simply allows window to boot past EFI (since windows was built to boot with BIOS) and it provides some drivers. That's it. It's real windows, running on real x86 hardware. I hate hearing people refer to Macs as being "incompatible" because that's not a valid argument anymore- they run windows natively, and saying that they are less compatible than PC's is just ignorance. I'm aware that Mac Pro's are not mega gaming hax0r computers that you can rig up with 3 8800 ultras and over clock them to 5GHz with a vapor phase-chane cooler- they're not meant for that. If you want a gaming rig, then yes, go build one (seeing how the Mac Pro is a pro system, not an entertainment/gaming system)- just understand that you'll still have the same software compatibility on a Mac as you will on a PC. In fact, you'll have more, as Macs run both windows and Mac OS natively. Bootcamp is not a hack- it's real windows running on x86 hardware- the platform it was built for.
it would make no sense if it was slower then the previouos
The Mac Pro is the one cog in Apple's machine that I just can't justify.
I have a Powerbook, Cinema Monitor, IPod 3g, Nano, Shuffle, iPhone, Mini, new keyboard, HiFi and probably a few more odds and ends but for my main workstation I have a hi spec PC, Core 2 Duo overclocked and running an 8800GTS dual booting into Vista and Leopard thanks to OSX86.
It cost me €1500. As the long list above illustrates I'm not shy of paying for Apple products and I seriously considered the Mac Pro but when I can build a machine that is as powerful if not more for half the price and is more easily and cheaply upgraded then even a fanboy draws the line.
Your core2duo gets eaten alive by the Xeon, what the heck are you smoking? And your system is only that cheap because are running a stolen pirate copy of OS-X.
I want that sexy case by itself, so I can put hardware in it that doesn't cost a fortune.
http://www.welovemacs.com/9227346.html
the case
and the rest is self explanatory
"Penryn" on the pic? Don't you mean "Harpertown"?
http://www.apple.com/macpro/technology/processor.html
"Inside the new Mac Pro is the latest technology from Intel: Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors."
It needs more RAM!
This is a workstation class computer. Please stop asking about the use of 2 Quad CPUs...
Wow.
Its almost as if i could build myself the same stats in a pc, or better, for nearly 1/5 the price.
I'm all for the mac operating system, its really nice to use, but their hardware and prices...criminal.
I don't believe you. Oh wait, unless you steal some Quad Core Penryns..
Simply not true. Go to Dell and price the exact same specs and see what you come up with. Last time I did that Dell was more expensive by about $100.
I've seen this trash talked for years. How about you put your money where your mouth is? Spec it out and post the prices and sources right here in the comments. I bet you don't get within 15% of that price.
How much power does this latest Mac Pro consume?. The last time I read about Mac Pro power consumption it was well over a Kilowatt of power. Is this true?, Because if it is that's a lot of power.
1.21 gigawatts!
As always, Apples aesthetics never fail to impress but these specs look weak. DDR2? Come on... really?
I can't really be bothered with the Mac Pro. What I am excited about is the reasoning by Apple for announcing them during CES. Yes, perhaps it was because Intel made their announcement but in my optimism I like to think it was because they have so many announcements to make that they had to drop a couple to make room. We'll see though.
I was just wondering, wasn't it 8-core before as well? Or is that the first time we have those 4-core CPUs available?
Thanks for any help.
I could do better with $2,800.
Not bloody likely, but do feel free to prove it. Build a PC using the same 2.8 GHz Penryn 45nm 5400 processors in a dual-quad core format like Apple is doing. Here's what you have to include in order for it to be directly comparable:
8 memory slots using 800 MHz DDR2 memory and 256 bit wide architecture
Double wide 16 lane PCI express 2.0 slots
Support for 8 (eight) 30" monitors at once
two independent gigabit network ports
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
4 cable-free direct attach SATA drive bays with independent channels
16x optical drive, writes DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL
2 FireWire 800 ports
2 FireWire 400 ports
5 USB 2.0 ports
analog and optical TOSLINK input and output ports
3 full length PCI Express slots
And just for fun, let's say you have to make the 4 drive bays RAID style, so you can just pop out one of the drives and replace it, you have to make it so it runs nearly silently, You have to make the case out of aluminum, you have to make it EnergyStar compliant, you have to design the case so it's virtually wireless inside, and then, oh what the heck, make it so that it can run both OS X and Windows natively. And Linux, and anything else you want to put on it.
When you've done all that for less money, then come back here and show us. And remember, every single thing listed above must be matched, or else you're not really "doing better", are you?
can it right-click?
Yes, welcome to the 21st century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse
fail!
Macs have been right-clicking for over a decade now, at least. Well before the Mighty Mouse, I was using a Microsoft 5-button mouse.
Please, stop basing your Mac insults on the computer you used in school in 1989. They're nothing like that now.
Right in the middle of shitastic CES.
Well played Apple, well-played indeed.
ahhh, language:
from the engadget article: "standard options" Huh? Can you say oxyoron? :)
from Apple" "our fastest computer ever" Wow. I was thinking maybe the next units would come with the declaration, "not as fast as before, but silvery-er" (with a nod to Colbert).
Actually the next computer they introduce definitely won't be the fastest Mac ever and I guarantee you they won't say it is. It'll probably be the lightest Mac ever, though, and I have a feeling they will say so. Wouldn't you?
perfect! let's hope...
I always get a chuckle out the the gamers who immediately post " I can build it cheaper" and followed with, "but can you play on it?" If that's what you use a computer for, why would you buy a Mac? Like the previous poster, I use a MacPro for video and 3D animation appplications - as in CREATING the stuff, not watching it. Complex video and animations require long render times, and time is money, so faster machines mean less down time, and more time to get the real creative work done.
It's a tool for my profession, not an entertainment device. I will be the first to concede that most home PCs ARE entertainment machines (with some occasional word processing duty), and a MacPro is major overkill for that kind of machine. I kinda think that the tower case is a testosterone equivalent for the PC....but that's my girly opinion....
Hmm.... fully upgraded with the most expensive specs and extras... a whopping $27,061.90!
These really ARE workstation machines. Now you want them to do everything "the best," ... which NO computer in the world does. These weren't built to run games, although they can. They were built for work ... evidently a notion somewhat foreign to some of you fan boys. Here's a great truth: different jobs require different tools. I swear to doG, I'm so tired of these "my dick is bigger than your dick" OS or machine debates you kids vomit all over these pages, whether they're pro Apple or MS or Intel or AMD or ..... Do you really think we care?
Problem is though the Macs can all run windows, unless you run XP/Vista 64bit they will only see just over 3GB of RAM as the GPU will take up some of the maximum 32bit 4GB allowance (Vista)
And anyone seriously in need of a Windows workstation will buy HP/Dell or better still make their own.
These MacPro computers are made for studios that will lease them. There used to be a time when artists could afford to buy a tower to make animation/video or whatever.
Now I use an HP blackbird.. yeah I waste my life gaming but it's great for work too.
The problem with Apple products now is they all look the same and indeed the cases for the towers and MacBook Pro have not changed for years. The iMac is not good enough for prosumer and it's all sooooo boring.
Leopard is a disaster so why buy these monsters?
Shame I always bought Apple, now it's like an ex-wife you wonder why you ever were in love with... I'm out of the cult now and am amazed at the design quality of some of the new HP and Dell products. Apple is resting on its laurels. They better start designing again. (No the iPhone does not count)
"Leopard is a disaster" ?!?!?
In what plane of reality? Leopard sold record numbers, and it's great. I love it. I don't like going back to Tiger, now. Exactly what is "disastrous" about it?
And if you say "the new dock" or "stacks suck" I will kick you in the balls.
For my purposes (Internet, writing, photo editing, music composing, DVD authoring, gaming) Leopard has been awesome.
I think you meant to say "Vista is a disaster."