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 January 8th 2008 8:36AM
Will it make my display look small?
Well appropriate head line would have been:
"the fastest Mac we've ever payed some poor chines kid to put together".
Note: apple doesn't make or even has a slightest input in Hardware in their "PC", yes that what they are PCs, nothing more...
"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."
Richard, as an editor for 12 years using both Macs (for most of my editing career on an AVID) and PC (now that AVID's high end system moved to PCs). I can say that first of all, I have NEVER seen anyone do 16 layers of HD or anything above 2 without the aid of an third party accelerator board of some sort. Even at NAB no one claimed to do that once you track them down. And for the record, there are accelerator boards for PCs that can do just as well.
What fan boys fail to remember is that in the end, Macs and PCs are both COMPUTERS. They are a tool to get the job done. In the end, its what software you work with best. But the old adage of Macs are better for video/photoshop/etc. just doesn't apply anymore.
If they can afford to tell this to us now, imagine what they have got in store for us at the keynote!
Say how much do the 2.8 ghz cost on newegg? If I can get em for cheaper than apple, consider me a buyer although that price is outrageous, luxury comes at a high price.
Oh yes, I'm sure you as a consumer buying a single chip can get them cheaper than Apple does with its huge volume discounts. Good luck with that. And that price is outrageous compared to what exactly? Other computers that are slower?
Alright lads, here is my $1500 configuration:
2x Intel Xeon E5410 Harpertown 2.33GHz LGA 771 80W Quad-Core
8GB DDR2 667 memory
750GB WD HD
ASUS DSBF-DE Dual 771 Server Motherboard
Radeon HD 3870 512MB(cheap card, and for comparison to the crappy 2600XT)
This is all $1500 without a fancy case, but you can get a nice server Lian Li case and optical drives and other goodies for a relatively cheaper price. Sure these Xeons don't compare to the new higher clocked guys in the mac pro, but they can be overclocked and still provide great workstation power for the money.
I mean, I can see the appeal for these mac pros, but man are they expensive. Hobbyists can't afford to spend that much, so people strapped for cash generally put their computers together themselves.
I'm just a fan of cheap power. Prices I got from newegg as I'm lazy.
Nope. fail.
Nope. You fail. Real people that do serious computer work don't like to throw money around. The macs are just a cool box to wow the clients.
Sure your setup is pretty decent. But you wouldn't achieve that price with the new Xeons.
I take back what I said earlier. Its reasonably priced. I checked out to see how much the Xeons run, and boy, they are pretty expensive. Plus with a student discount it drops it down to $2600.
I take back what I said earlier. Its reasonably priced. I checked out to see how much the Xeons run, and boy, they are pretty expensive. Plus with a student discount it drops it down to $2600.
Is there anything more boring than this Apple vs PC bullshit? I know what I prefer, others know what they prefer, but it's surprising how there's just the one manufacturer of Apple products, but significantly more PC manufacturers and yet its still a case of "I can make that cheaper". So what, it's a custom PC. This is an OEM machine , so of course it'll be more costly. I'd love to have one fully specced up though (to £15k), just for the over kill nature of it.
Man, it's just a fun debate over cost vs. performance. I can't care less for MS or Apple, but I love discussing the ridiculousness of high priced "pro" machines. Same guts on the inside, but to a lot of people that doesn't matter. And custom doesn't mean like it's work being put in, either. It's the easiest thing in the world to plug components and screw things in.
engadget is dumb
its not a penryn chip, its a HARPERTOWN model
penryn is for laptops... just shows how knowledgeable ryan block really is
Sorry buddy. It seems the only one who is dumb is you.
Penryn is a family of chips based on Intels new 45nm fabrication process. That family includes mobile, desktop and workstation/server processors. Penryn is the name of the entire architecture.
Harpertown is the name for the Penryn Xeons, the Harpertowns are irrevocably Penryns despite their alternate naming.
Wolfdale is the Core 2 Duo set of desktop Penryns, while Yorkfield is the Core 2 Quad set of Penryns.
Where your confusion no doubt comes from in this matter, is that Intel decided to call their mobiles chips Penryn. Yes the same name as the architecture itself.
Now, before you begin to call people dumb and unknowledgeable. I suggest you go to school like boy. Otherwise you will continue to make an ass out of yourself.
Some reading for you, you may want to hit up first grade to brush up a little this is complex shit: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/09/19/idf_intel_penryn_decoder/
one less thing that they can waste our time on at jobs macworld keynote! still gonna have to go through the usual itunes store sales and retail store sales though!
But will it blend?
The Mac Pro looks expensive, but when compared to Windows based towers of the same spec, it's competitive. All those people complaining about the price need to look at the design and engineering of the case alone, R&D is not cheap nowadays.