Apple Nehalem-based Mac Pro in-depth impressions
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 18th 2009 1:30PM
posted Mar 18th 2009 1:30PM
Design
- Design wise, you won't notice a single change externally from the previous generation Mac Pro... save for the port selection.
- Speaking of, the old FireWire 400 ports have been done away with; you've now got twin USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports on the front (along with a 3.5mm headphone jack), while the rear presents three USB 2.0, two FireWire 800, optical audio (Toslink) in / out, stereo audio in / out and dual gigabit Ethernet ports.
- Internally, Apple has made the eight DIMM slots stupendously easy to access by providing an easily removable tray that slides completely out of the chassis (check out a video of the removal process here).
- You'll also notice that some six feet of cabling has been removed, which makes the installation of additional hard drives and another optical drive much easier than before.
- All in all, the inside of the Nehalem-based Mac Pro is super clean, and it's entirely air cooled; no liquids allowed on this one.
- The bundled Apple Keyboard with Numerical Pad and wired Mighty Mouse were found to be satisfactory and still lame, respectively. We can't help but wonder if Apple will ever add backlight capabilities to its desktop keyboards. Sure, it's novel, but for avid MacBook Pro users, reverting back to a non-backlit keyboard just feels dirty.
Hardware
Update: It should be pointed out that XBench, while an excellent gauge of overall performance in a generic sense, doesn't perfectly demonstrate the potential of these CPUs. The tool doesn't yet test multi-threading, and given that these processors are so new, it'll probably take awhile for it to be re-coded to take advantage. That said, we can tell you from real world use that these fancy new slabs of silicon aren't worth their asking price for menial tasks; you'll only truly appreciate 'em when using true professional applications. You can tell by Apple's own selection of benchmarks -- seen here -- that this machine is tailor made to perform best when working with pro software. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but consumers in general should definitely be aware before expecting the wrong thing.
All in all, we've come to realize that this is a pro-level machine for a reason. It's just marginally faster than much cheaper consumer-level rigs at doing consumer-level things, and it's downright lousy at gaming. In fact, we had to force the resolution to 1,600 x 1,200 and turn anti-aliasing off entirely to get Call of Duty 4 to become playable. The newest Mac Pro has proven once again that it serves a clearly defined niche, and unless you'll be firing up Aperture, Final Cut Pro or similar on a regular basis, you should probably pass. 'Course, you could also slap that ATI card in here along with four 2TB HDDs to create a powerhouse that can't be replicated in any other current Mac form, but we'd propose that it's just not worth the cost. If you're looking to game, there are far cheaper ways to do it. If you're looking to handle web surfing and typical Office tasks, the same is true here. If you're a pro looking to cut down those render times and give yourself lots of room for expansion, this might be your machine. We'd stop by an Apple store to give it a whirl first, though.
- Our review unit was the baseline "8-Core" model listed on Apple's website; it's the $3,299 rig with two 2.26GHz Intel Xeon 5520 processors.
- The new Intel architecture promises big speed gains all around, with inclusions like 8MB of fully shared L3 cache per processor, an integrated memory controller and support for Hyper-Threading. In our tests (we'll explain a bit more later), the fancy CPUs didn't add that much zip when dabbling in basic tasks, though they certainly helped in processor-intensive situations.
- This Mac Pro supports eight DIMM slots, each of which can handle a stick of 1,066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM. Our system came with 6GB spread over six slots -- thanks for leaving us loads of room for expansion, Apple.
- Bluetooth 2.1+EDR is bundled in, though WiFi (via an AirPort Extreme card) is still a $50 option. Really, Apple? Your $3,299 flagship desktop doesn't include WiFi? We know, 96 percent of these will be attached to a CAT5 / 6 cable, but it's the principle here that's irking us.
- The standard graphics card is NVIDIA's 512MB GT 120, which -- frankly -- is a travesty. This nomenclature may sound new, but really, it's hardly more than a renamed, die-shrunk GeForce 9500 GT with dual-link DVI and mini DisplayPort thrown in. We were seriously underwhelmed by the performance (we'll touch more on it later), and can fully understand why Apple's pushing the more potent ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB (a $200 option) as the real-deal power card for those who'd like to game.
- The 18x SuperDrive still takes too long to eject (around four seconds on average), makes entirely too much noise while sliding out / reading a disc and amazingly, doesn't do Blu-ray. We'd wager that most video professionals haven't made the jump to burning their footage to BD-Rs just yet, but to not provide the option due to some off-the-wall belief by Sir Steve is just farcical. Give your video pros the option to toast to Blu-ray, Apple -- believe it or not, the format is here to stay (at least for a while).
- We'll take this opportunity to lament the fact that not a single FireWire 400 port is included. We know, times change and all must eventually move forward, but loads of professional AV equipment has been and still are based on FW400. To not even provide a single front-mounted port just seems snobbish, and to not toss in a complimentary FW800-to-FW400 adapter just seems dumb.
- One of the most pressing concerns from previous Mac Pro owners is noise / heat. We're happy to say that even when taxed, our test system never got overly raucous or forced us to flip on the air conditioning. In fact, we were shocked at just how quiet it remained until we really pressed it in Final Cut Pro; we had to seriously stress it in order to get those fans to be super audible, which is a great, great thing.
- Both Mac Pro systems come loaded with a single 640GB SATA hard drive with three open HDD slots; we asked Apple why there was no option for SSD storage (or even a Fusion-io ioDrive), and it simply stated that users with a need for more speed should consider the $700 Mac Pro RAID card, which can utilize 15,000RPM SAS hard drives. The lack of optional flash-based storage isn't a deal breaker, but we can't understand why Apple would pass up the opportunity to give well-endowed speed freaks the option to indulge in PCI-based SSD RAID storage.
Update: It should be pointed out that XBench, while an excellent gauge of overall performance in a generic sense, doesn't perfectly demonstrate the potential of these CPUs. The tool doesn't yet test multi-threading, and given that these processors are so new, it'll probably take awhile for it to be re-coded to take advantage. That said, we can tell you from real world use that these fancy new slabs of silicon aren't worth their asking price for menial tasks; you'll only truly appreciate 'em when using true professional applications. You can tell by Apple's own selection of benchmarks -- seen here -- that this machine is tailor made to perform best when working with pro software. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but consumers in general should definitely be aware before expecting the wrong thing.
All in all, we've come to realize that this is a pro-level machine for a reason. It's just marginally faster than much cheaper consumer-level rigs at doing consumer-level things, and it's downright lousy at gaming. In fact, we had to force the resolution to 1,600 x 1,200 and turn anti-aliasing off entirely to get Call of Duty 4 to become playable. The newest Mac Pro has proven once again that it serves a clearly defined niche, and unless you'll be firing up Aperture, Final Cut Pro or similar on a regular basis, you should probably pass. 'Course, you could also slap that ATI card in here along with four 2TB HDDs to create a powerhouse that can't be replicated in any other current Mac form, but we'd propose that it's just not worth the cost. If you're looking to game, there are far cheaper ways to do it. If you're looking to handle web surfing and typical Office tasks, the same is true here. If you're a pro looking to cut down those render times and give yourself lots of room for expansion, this might be your machine. We'd stop by an Apple store to give it a whirl first, though.
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Should be a Pro-Tools only rig. No consumer needs all that.
I never
What the expletive are you talking about? This thing doesn't even have a Blu-Ray drive.
Read up on what professionals use a Mac Pro for... Hollywood movies.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/action/
You're right... no consumer needs a Mac Pro. But does that mean that a Mac Pro does not need to exist?
In a related story... Caterpillar makes a $100,000 bulldozer. No consumers need that either.
And their bulldozers aren't freely available to consumers in their own branded garages....
Who DOESN'T need a bulldozer?
As a designer, I use an iMac. It is perfectly acceptable for just about everything. Hell, I do my iPhone design and development on an Air. They have their place, and are damn lovely. Boy, would I love to max one out in the store!
PRO TOOLS only?
At work we use the kit for design and animation. While a rig like this SHOULD be perfect, it honestly is appalling. The stability when running CS3 (not tried CS4, sorry) is terrible. Constant beach balls, out of cache errors in After Effects, files dissappearing. Along with the quirks in Leopard (I feel Tiger was far more stable). it is almost unusable sometime. Often the machine will beach ball with multiple apps open yet only 2 cores are operating with any intensity? (we have 8 core models with 16GB of RAM) and not all memory used. The apps can handle multi-processing ok (few problems with AE) yet the OS can't seem to spread the load of CPU and memory, all very odd. None of the apps are 64 bit so all we have here is an overly powerful PC with an OS that cannot keep up with the hardware. This is the same on all of our machines (about 15). Oddly my macbook running 10.4 is ok (beach balls a lot but only have 1gb RAM) hence my conclusion. There are many issues and quirks not mentioned but these machines just irk me. This is a first gen mac pro. Sometimes the OS shows previews of JPGs, sometimes not, never seems to remember my views as I left it.
My machine at home atleast FEELS far quicker just from the fact it has a quicker boot drive setup, so apps load quicker, cache is quicker, temp files etc.
Why is it £500 for a RAID card for one of these? Stick two velociraptors in at home with RAID 0 on the motherboard!
Damn, that is one bad-ass machine. It's time to jizz. Why even bother with Windows PCs when this Nehalem multi-cored aluminum-clad mofo is around.
This is to you, Dell.... uhhh.
:-()...
Let's all build our own high-end Windows machines so we can put Apple out of business. This is the call of the brainless. Everyone put up their hands that can build the equivalent of a Mac Pro for under $500 worth of parts. Unanimous. I dumpster-dived in 200 dumpsters in Silicon Valley and managed to scrounge up everything except the processors for absolutely nothing. Now I just have to wait for someone to throw away a couple of slightly-used Xeon Nehalem processors and I'll be home free.
Most Windows PC users can't even plug-in their keyboards without on-line support.
@ David Austin
"At work we use the kit for design and animation. While a rig like this SHOULD be perfect, it honestly is appalling. The stability when running CS3 (not tried CS4, sorry) is terrible. Constant beach balls, out of cache errors in After Effects, files dissappearing. Along with the quirks in Leopard (I feel Tiger was far more stable). it is almost unusable sometime. Often the machine will beach ball with multiple apps open yet only 2 cores are operating with any intensity? (we have 8 core models with 16GB of RAM) and not all memory used."
So you spend tons of money to run a machine that is running powerpc apps in emulation? See what you are doing there that is wrong? Go and buy current versions of Creative Suite and THEN complain it doesn't do the job.
@ratty
I did not buy anything, I merely work on such machines. CS3 is not running in emulation however, it is universal binary. Fair point had I mention CS2.
Forgot to ad ratty, did you not read where I stated that the OS was not distributing resources correctly, not just the software. If I have 6 apps open and rendering in one, surely the others should be using different cores? The OS is technically behind. I have every belief this will change with snow leopard, but the changes should have been in place for the hardware.
You do get equally powerful PCs and frankly, they seem to handle everything much better. In another department I was shown some work, RAM previewing in after effects while at the same time 3ds max was rendering. Doing the same on the mac but with Cinema 4D is a sure way to crash something.
More OS issues: You can see a window but you cannot click on it! Have to hide the app and unhide!
Folders dissappearing and reappearing as you click on them (problem with our fibre share, which we hope is fixed now we have intel server, though I feel they should just work together anyway)
You can buy dual xeon workstations from HP and Dell you know. They just don't aggressively market them because no run of the mill consumer needs them. They're also INCREDIBLY more customizable. For reference, the T7400: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_t7400?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
I kinda agree with the OP. The stark reality, regardless as to whether you prefer an Apple PC or a Custom built PC, is that the components within the box, (and it is JUST a box), will be pretty well half as powerful as the equivalent offerings this time next year.
Here is the deal; if you paid top whack for this Apple PC then you are a corporation who has a bent towards Graphic dependent activities, or you are an individual ENTHUSIAST. BUT.... you most likely will not be swapping out the components this time next year. (else you have a very unique Finance Director who truly is shagging the IT Director).
On the other hand.... if you built your own PC, with say a Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 case (which seems to be rather pleasing to the eye and receives great reviews), including the same components as found in the Apple PC, then this time next year, you can swap out your chip etc, for the latest offering (remember we are talking about an enthusiast), and still be quite a long way ahead of the game in terms of cost.
Lets not get into the question of OSX vs other OS's (I think we all know that we really are talking about similar products).
Despite all of the enthusiasm provided by some of the posters here, I suspect that there are VERY VERY VERY few who are actually going to splash the cash on this Apple PC.
Coolermaster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119138
There is no way for an average user to tell whether instability is with the OS or an app. If you want a more stable app, maybe the latest offering from Adobe would do better? For starters, CS3 isn't even listed as compatible with Leopard.
The thing about not being able to click a window in the background is also not something you can be sure is an OS or app problem.
The 64-bit thing is because Adobe used Apple's Carbon APIs and Apple did not make it possible for developers to make 64-bit Carbon apps. Adobe has to port to Cocoa to make that work. I blame Apple for this as much as Adobe, personally.
@David Austen
i have had a chance to use a friend's original 2.66 Mac Pro and i had a lot of the same issues you described. Weird slowdowns, beachballs, and the like, and that was just in general use. I didnt have that problem though with a newer 2.8 at the office.
@hy not the LS2LS7?
"There is no way for an average user to tell whether instability is with the OS or an app. If you want a more stable app, maybe the latest offering from Adobe would do better? For starters, CS3 isn't even listed as compatible with Leopard."
You can tell when the system is unstable using finder, more than one app and from multiple developers. I would try CS4 if I could, though I can't. Works choice not mine. My main point about the OS was not even stability, but the fact it cannot seem to spread the load of multiple apps over multiple cores. Memory management is also poor, but nowhere near as bad. I also expect an OS upgrade to work with my software. If I bought CS3, which works perfectly under Vista and it didn't work under Win 7, there would not only be an outcry, but probably a solution at the end of it.
I cannot comment on apple service in other countries, but in the UK they are terrible. I can take a system to a store, but they are not even in every city. Warranties are only a year long, 3 years costs even more. I expect a laptop to last atleast 3 years. I am about to get my third macbook replacement in as many years. Any problems I have with hardware or software, they cannot guarantee a reply, it's really hard to contact them. Still no reply about the fact the latest but one itunes update ruined my NAS itunes share... It now keeps dropping off and I have to close itunes and re-open. Compare this to when I had a problem with MS software I bought OEM, a guy respinded to my email with a phone call to talk me through the issue. Probably from within UK but had an American accent and I emailed their main .com site. Apples stuff is great for net and office, even some media, but want to do anything powerful and they have lost their way. Also peeved that the Airport Extreme has no Airtunes! Other than that it is amazing. Saying that though, the update is another £20 more than the old one. I can buy a good pre N router for £40-£50. Extreme = £140!!!. Express is now £85????? Waaaay over priced. They are good and worth a premium I admit, but not at the new prices.
"The thing about not being able to click a window in the background is also not something you can be sure is an OS or app problem."
I can if I am only in finder!!!
Also, using search, how do I get it to only search in a specific folder?? We have huge shares at work and also targa sequences which we want to avoid searching. I also hate how if you try to scroll down while it is still searching it just pops back up to the top! I want to open a file AND let it continue searching.
"The 64-bit thing is because Adobe used Apple's Carbon APIs and Apple did not make it possible for developers to make 64-bit Carbon apps. Adobe has to port to Cocoa to make that work. I blame Apple for this as much as Adobe, personally."
Fair point, I just feel that touting the power of this machine without the software to make it worthwhile is ridiculous. It really annoys me the blind saying 'it's better for xxx cos it's a mac'. Even if that was true in the past, these systems are anything but solid and mature.These are bought for those reasons, places that already run macs. Come CS5 and snow leopard I imagine things will be very different.
while I am ranting, I hate all ipods... Except the ipod touch. I think it is ace. Only I wish it had either DAB or FM radio built in.
well I think the engadget staff should learn how to do proper benchmarks. However macpros are prissy little things. The only time I could get my money's worth out of it was doing compressor renders. No other software could take full advantage of it. Nothing wrong with the hardware (xeons), it's just I think the programmers don't code specifically for it. I could work all day on an 8 core xeon based system, save my files on a drive, go home and pop them into a OC Q6600 and not notice a difference (AFX CS3).
I challenge anyone to get these machines running at full boar on anything but a compressor run. I even had all 4 drives in a raid-0 config as the system drive in addition to the 12 bay FC RAID the project was based on to feed the xeons with 16GB of ram which was never fully utilized either (even though it should have been)
They really should have just released a version that came with the consumer chips in them. People who need Xeons know they need Xeons and will buy them regardless of cost because usually the software running on them costs way more than the hardware.
I think $1800 would be the sweet spot for a prosumer level tower. But until you know who steps down, it will never happen.
Nobody in their right mind would buy something this expense especially because you would have to buy a real keyboard to go along with it, a DVI adapter, amongst other things. If you buy this computer, you're the kind of person who would buy the new Shuffle. An idiot in my opinion.
Well obviously Apple is not targeting this machine at your average based consumer (an idiot like you), so of course not everybody will buy it. Also, the keyboards are awesome and much better than your average keyboard that you can buy for all PCs.
Not to mention that someone who pays several grand for a new computer isn't likely to suddenly change their mind upon realising that they might want to buy a $30 mouse or something.
Yes, those buying a $3000ish computer are really worried about paying for a DVI adapter and real keyboard.
In related news, I hook my Dell display to my Mac Pro's DVI output (yeah, did you miss that in the pictures?) and my Mathias TactilePro keyboard that I already owned.
Based on processing power, this thing is the best desktop around based on Cinebench scores. Problem is that you need apps that can really take advantage of 8 cores, and those apps are currently lacking. However, once Final Cut gets updated to recognise this many cores, this thing really will fly. But by then, perhaps faster models will be out.
I'm a realistic Apple user. Yes, this thing is expensive, but for those who need it, it really isn't expensive unless you're going for the uber pro, top-of-the-line model.
Well obviously Apple is not targeting this machine at anyone in their right mind.
Next up: What would you change about the Nehalem-based Mac Pro?
Too true. You know what would be fun is if they made a post about packing stuff up to be sent back. It would be sort of like their unpacking posts but different. That way instead of a dozen posts on some new iThing we could get a bakers dozen.
This machine is over kill. And by over kill I mean absolutely f***ing ridiculous. I like a Mac like the next guy but no average Joe is gonna be able to put this machine to its full potential. Not even when testing its hardware.
Well, guess what! This is not targeted at your average Joe but at professionals who actually use the power! (gasp!)
you sir and an idiot. this is a pro machine meant for pro users, not the average joe.
@Patriks7
Apple Defense Force Go!
The apple keyboards seem pretty good/not bad, I used some and they're nice and quiet, felt better too, nothing to complain about
but really man? an idiot like him? don't get defensive just because we aren't all professional photographers or filmmakers
I'm curious to see if these crush AutoCAD processes and their like as well; never seen macs running in more of an engineer's environment
ever wonder how long it takes something like open office to be compiled?
well on my 2x xeon 2.4ghz, 2 gb ram, 74 gb 10000 rpm scsi (all of which is about 5.5 years old now), somewhere between 3 and 5 hours depending on what needed to be changed/what else i was running...so trust me when i say, i'm sure there are a few of us here that could put all that horsepower to good use. :)
I frequently use video applications that would easily tax this system. I have several multi-threaded video compression applications that love running on the 16 virtual processors.
Anyone got $3K to spare? Obama? Care to bail me out?
I do everyday. I run numerical fluids models on them that max out all 8 cores and use 14 GB or RAM no problem. Also I network several together and max them all out. Just depends on what you're doing.
I work in the pro film world doing compositing and these computer are more then necessary with big scenes with programs like shake. I cant really see a great use for one as a personal computer for the home office. But im sure people who feel they need the most power they can afford will pick them up. Lol
And I don’t understand what the outrage is for not having a blueray burner. Its would be a silly option at best on a machine like this. Real output files are delivered uncompressed. And I have never heard anyone around here say “I wish I had a blue ray burner to burn this”
@scott
What are you talking about? You send uncompressed files to your clients for review?
The blu-ray burner we got has been as useful as cd burners were in the day. We use it as a tape library replacement (Raw P2 footage archived to blu-ray stored off site). Also everyone works in at least 720p these days and blu-ray client reviews are 100% necessary. I had to hook ours up externally (USB) because internally it would just make lots of $10 coasters.
Apple is stupid for not officially supporting it.
OOO My bad, it has a real DVI port
HAHA, and a real keyboard.
Well, I still wouldn't buy it.
Stick with your P.O.S. Dell. Much more your style.
Sub 1,000$ is also much more my style! :D
..."We know, 96 percent of these will be attached to a CAT5 cable"...
Wouldn't CAT6 be better for Gigabit ethernet?
Just wondering...
Cat5 can do Gigabit just fine
Funny enough CAT5e and CAT6 are the exact pin outs when terminated. The only real difference is their shielding and the distance you can go at full speed transmission. You can actually use CAT5e, semi-stably, with in a hundred or so feet at Gigabit speeds. Although if you want a clear connection with less distortion it's better to go with CAT 6... it's cheaper than fiber and can go up to 2000 feet.
There is no "shielding" on either CAT5 or CAT6. What changes is the twists per meter, termination specs (stranded vs. solid conductor, termination jack quality), etc.
You can get shielded CAT5 or CAT6 cable but it's not part of the core spec, and it's not needed for Gig-E speeds.
Looks pretty nice.
for that price, i could build a super computer out of 8 PS3s...or buy a used car..or hire an upscale prostitute for a night...
ill shut up now.
My MacBook Pro cost more than my car. Guess you can tell where my priorities are.
Wow, they sell used computers for 3k$? Damn, you either get really cheap cars or very expensive prostitutes.
Or take photography lessons and take a vacation.
Shame you only get 1 DVI port... .. what a rip off.
@Patriks7
do not try to pretend that u have a good sense of humour.
stop trolling and get some rest.
BTw, 3k$ for a prostitute is really an overkill, better get urself that mac, it will serve u fr more than 1 night.
I agree with this sediment. I posted something similar down the line, but honestly, Apple, give us the real sh*t and stop selling us nice cavities, that we then, have to take apart and put the right stuff in it.
Video card is junk. Shame on Apple.
The jump should have been like the G4 to G5 jump. Jaw dropping design and scale, this thing is a wet paper towel dried out and ironed and re-rolled up.
"Unless you'll be firing up Aperture, Final Cut Pro or similar on a regular basis, you should probably pass."
Unless you are required to use those, you should probably pass. That is a ridiculous price for the hardware.
I know its a tired adage now, but you can build a computer with comparable performance for much less and still do the same things on it.
I've used Macs for video editing, and honestly, if you're concerned with budget, this isn't even a great option for the "clearly defined niche." Right now I'm editing 1080p files from my Canon 5D Mark II using Vegas Pro 8 (converting w/ Cineform), on a custom-built $2,700 machine, and I'm blazing through it.
I've used both platforms, and I still don't understand why people cling to the notion that Mac is the "industry standard." Yeah, well, more people use PCs than anything else and that doesn't make PCs superior (the majority of which are crap-bucket rigs from Best Buy running an OS they can't handle).
Moral of the story is: Don't believe the hype for any brand, Mac, PC, or otherwise. Do your research beforehand, and see which platform offers the best price/performance while meeting the other criteria that may be required. PCs can do a lot of those fancy "niche" things Macs can do -- you just have to do a little work and figure out the right software.
Nice review though. Thanks, Engadget.
You do know that only one of the CPUs here costs like 1k$, right?
So it definitely ain't better to build, cause you can get normal support from Apple plus a great OS without any hacks.
I thought that building is best to keep prices down as much as possible and most custom builds come to around 1.5k$. Now just the CPUs costing over 2k$ you definitely blow your price point for building.
Sisyphus, good luck taking your Vegas project and sharing with other video professionals. No one uses that crap professional. It's either Avid, or FCP. And increasingly, it's FCP. Also, many video professionals don't want the hassle of figuring out who to blame when their rig stops working. Your home grown rig has no central authority if it goes down. You'll have to troubleshoot it yourself. Many professionals appreciate having an Apple Store nearby where they can go if something flaky starts happening with the hardware/software.
I'm not saying that building your own machine doesn't have its place. I've built many of my own. For surfing, email, and general home tasks, they are great. But for something I rely upon, and make my living at, I wouldn't entrust my home grown rig with it.
The Mac Pro's are expensive, and I'd never buy one. The iMac's are a much better value if you don't need the power of a quad core chip, or if you don't need PCI slots.
Those two xeon processors (when they are released, apple got them early) will cost 1500+ alone. It's not as overpriced as you think.
I was with you up until you mentioned you're using Vegas. Oh snap!
"You do know that only one of the CPUs here costs like 1k$, right?
So it definitely ain't better to build, cause you can get normal support from Apple plus a great OS without any hacks."
Talking about CPUs and MSRPs is so passe in terms of performance.
"Your home grown rig has no central authority if it goes down. You'll have to troubleshoot it yourself. Many professionals appreciate having an Apple Store nearby where they can go if something flaky starts happening with the hardware/software."
There are plenty of people who can fix and troubleshoot custom PCs. This is a ridiculous assertion.
"Sisyphus, good luck taking your Vegas project and sharing with other video professionals. No one uses that crap professional. It's either Avid, or FCP. And increasingly, it's FCP."
"Just cause everyone else uses it" is not a great argument. There are plenty of people out there who are advanced amateurs who can afford some equipment and software, but not a supercomputer. I'm just saying that "Macs do audio/video editing" should not be the default position.
"For something I rely upon, and make my living at, I wouldn't entrust my home grown rig with it."
For every person who can troubleshoot and fix a Mac, there are a handful who can do the same for PCs. Just because it wasn't built buy a manufacturer doesn't mean it can't be troubleshooted (in fact, if you're going to someone who knows enough to fix your problem without asking if the monitor is plugged in, you generally don't go to a manufacturer first anyway).
Anex:
You're right -- I should have said the price is "high," not "ridiculous."
Amish:
I've only been using Vegas in an interim fashion (I have the demo) -- Adobe CS4 is not playing nice with my 5D Mark II yet, but I think it should support the new NeoScene soon.
To be honest , i am very anti pc but thats purely because of the os i love apple osx and could not see me ever going back to pc at this stage . I would happily build my own pc but would want osx and the support as far as i no isnt very good because it isnt legal. if someone offered an answer i would gladly except as i need a more powerful computer for uni.
Professionals DO NOT BUILD THEIR OWN MACHINES!! You will get laughed out of the building if you show up with a "custom rig". These are capable of running in mission critical installations because Apple spends literally millions of $$$ to design every component and overall design of these machines (a little more effective then comparing specs to check for compatibility on Newegg) and it shows in their relentless operation in just about every environment it's put in. It also takes advantage of technologies, like eliminating the bottleneck between the memory and processor, that you couldn't replicate if you wanted to. There aren't meant to be affordable to the average consumer and when you're talking about a business with basically unlimited funds for their computers, they want the best of the best, regardless of cost because they care SO much more about quality and dependability than saving a few hundred dollars.
It's honestly laughable that Engadget gave this a review as a gaming computer, especially with that video card. Gaming computers require graphics cards that are basically built specifically for gaming (no other applications can take advantage of the top end Nvidia/ATi chips like games can) and even with the very fastest processor, RAM, and HD's you'll barely run Quake III without the adequate card. It says absolutely NOTHING about the other components if they couldn't game on it.
"Professionals DO NOT BUILD THEIR OWN MACHINES!! You will get laughed out of the building if you show up with a "custom rig"."
What building? Try a little reading comprehension. I'm not talking about LED lights, sweet water cooling, and case stencils.
"It also takes advantage of technologies, like eliminating the bottleneck between the memory and processor, that you couldn't replicate if you wanted to."
Do you even know what you're talking about? Takes advantage of what technologies?
You mean like the removal of the FSB in favor of QPI? (That was Intel).
It's not true that the industry is shifting to FCP. Avid is still standard and industry leading. Also, people are shifting to HP workstations vs Mac workstations.
http://thenextbench.com/t5/Blog/The-Hardware-Behind-the-Hardware/ba-p/30548#A709
Just thought that was cool.
Andrew, you're introducing facts into a fanboy fight. That is illegal. Please stick to arguments at least 3 years in age, blind faith, and a penchant for buggery.
Professionals don't build their own machines?
Yeah, whatever. I'm a full-on 3D Animator who works professionally and I build everything myself. I can outpace any computer build for half the price and they are rock solid.
Also, looking at this Mac Pro - this rig is an overpriced mess which STILL can't properly handle 3D Modeling or Animation. Fast renderer, that's about it.
If the quadcore was $1800, the octacore was $2500 then these machines would be decent.
Oh, and if you set up your purchase off the Apple Store... their price for the 32GB ram is completely out of line. I can get the same 32GB of ram at crucial.com for 1/3rd the price.
@Sisyphus
in most post-houses you don't work alone on a project. THAT is why a common piece of software is used in most parts of the industry. if you had to teach everyone to work effectively on your convoluted Vegas workflow, you would have wasted a lot of people's time and patience.
sure, your end result can come out looking the same as something that was made on FCP or AVID, but nobody else in the industry will be able to come in and give your project the final touches that are important in cooperatively-based environments.
go ahead and work on your own while you still can, but if you want to make yourself available for more serious projects, you will need to learn the industry standards.
@ Andrew Prashad
thats not a hollywood trend. that is a group of 3 movies that moved to a HP workstation, and yes they will make it seem really really important because its a freaking HP website.
last year several of the oscar nominees were made entirely on Mac's using FCP. big deal. it is also a little bit easier for indipendant production companies to afford PC computers on such tight budgets, like the case for slumdog millionaire.
Avid works fine on both PC's and Mac's, so don't assume that because people are editing on Avid that they are switching to PC's.
the fact of the matter is that there weren't this many FCP users in the professional industry a decade ago, and now there is a very large presence. that is called a transition, and while it may not be happening overnight it is certainly happening. every company will have legit reasons for picking either Avid or FCP, but the fact that FCP is considered a worthy alternative means that it is a big name in hollywood, no matter how much that hurts your brain to think about.
utahnkid:
That's copypasta.
What matters is the end product IMO. If Mr. Mac User delivers the same quality product on the same date as Mr. Homebuilt, except Mr. Homebuilt charges 10% less because he doesn't use overpriced hardware, do you think the customer cares that Mr. Mac User did it on God's gift to the video editing world?
No, he cares about the check he has to write.
If you have the knowledge and ability to build your own rig, you can save yourself both time and money. While Mr. Mac User is waiting in line at his local Apple Store for the Genius to clean gum out of some pre-teen's iPod, Mr. Homebuilt has probably already identified his own problem, solved it, and continued working.
Buying pre-built may work for you, and that's great. Personally I would rather rely on something I built myself than something assembled by $5 per week labor in China.
I really can't understand why Apple don't sell a cut down version of a Mac Pro to replace the Mac mini as a viable desktop alternative.
Not everybody wants or needs a laptop, and the Mac Mini is to locked down to be a viable alternative, and the Mac Pro is ludicrously expensive, even if it is powerful.
They do!! Its called an iMac !!
The iMac is a display that can really only be used with the computer that is in it.
No, he means a mid-tower where you can actually upgrade components. It could just be called "Mac".
You can get a 24" iMac with 4 gigs of ram, nVidia graphics, and a Core 2 processor for about $1500. Kind of hard to beat.
An affordable computer that can also be upgraded?
Apple doesn't do that. They're "unique".
@utahnkid
... not that hard to beat. In fact, pretty hard to find a worse deal out there from a price perspective.
I just bought a 2.66Ghz MacBook Pro (which I'm currently typing on), with 4GB ram and 512MB graphics card. But Stubbs the Zombie still runs like crap because it isn't Intel native. I'm wondering how fast it would run on the Mac Pro, but I doubt it would be much better.
Any PowerPC games are going to run like crap on an Intel mac because it has to go through emulation. There's no fix for this. See if the software company has an Intel-native version of your game or get the game on another platform or console.
i'd like one for work. and i'll get one :-)
Same here, but not until January : (
Hard drives:
"it simply stated that users with a need for more speed should consider the $700 Mac Pro RAID card, which can utilize 15,000RPM SAS hard drives"
That is true, and you can spec the RAID card on Apple's website, but you can't put SAS drives anywhere. According to their site: "SAS drives are sold separately."
Thanks for making the creating of a 'Pro' rig so easy Apple. It makes a lot of sense to buy your 7,200 RPM drive, throw it away, and reinstall the OS on my own.
You're half-right. SAS drives use the same pinout as SATA so you can use the same backplane; put the drives in the 4 internal easy-swap bays and you're set. You can probably even hot-swap them.
If Apple won't sell you SAS drives this means that you'll end up plugging the RAID card into the backplane, throwing out the SATA drive that the system ships with, and installing your own SAS drives.
Or you could buy a different company's OS X RAID card for around $250. The $700 Apple RAID card is both somewhat overpriced, and massively high-end. You don't need a card that powerful unless you're running more than the 4 internal drives.
Anyone else getting annoyed with Patriks7 yet?
Yeah he is an idiot. just ignore him......Most people do.
So Windows fanboys trolling are not annoying, but someone just trying to get people to understand that Macs aren't as overpriced as they are said to be (see: Dell Adamo vs Air) is annoying? Wow. so many weird things happening on Engadget lately.
For what? Pointing out (quite correctly) that quad-core Xeon chips aren't cheap? Or that a Pro machine is actually designed for professionals? Seemed spot on to me.
Look - the Mac Pro isn't "just" a tower machine. It's not competing with your home tower with a midrange motherboard. I seriously doubt 99% of you actually have a system that supports 8 cores - that requires multi-socket motherboards and Xeon chips, not your standard Core2 Quad. They're designed for servers and serious workstations only - which is exactly where Apple uses them. No one is going to buy a Mac Pro to game, and Apple never intended you to. If you have a workload that actually can take advantage of 8 CPU's, this is a godsend and likely in your price range. If not, then Apple's message is you really, really don't need one of these.
What this really does, however, is highlight the huge gap that has always existed in Apple's product line - a consumer Mac with an upgradable/replaceable video card. People may talk about wanting a cheap Mac tower, but what they almost always want is to be able to replace the video card and hook up their own monitor, and I can completely understand that. Not everyone wants an all-in-one like the iMac, and the Mac Mini is too underpowered for many people. And the Mac Pro is a workstation, not a consumer computer. Which leaves a significant audience stuck with either a PC or a hackintosh - either way Apple's not getting their money.
@Patriks7
The Dell Adamo has already been stated that it's fitting a very niche market, even from Dell marketers. Not to mention that this is the first time Dell has done anything absurdly overpriced for the specs. Apple has an established and growing tradition of poor bang-for-buck equipment. They sell an attitude and a look. Frankly, I can give you attitude and look at you like you're an idiot for free if you just ask.
@ Patriks7
Please stay at home rubbing your naked body on your wonderful Mac hardware and leave us all alone.
"cause you can get normal support from Apple plus a great OS without any hacks."
I think you'll find normal support (from Dell,HP,Acer etc.) means if your hardware goes down someone comes and collects it then returns it to you fixed, With Apple i have to drive 15 miles and then return a week later. that is not "support" it's a joke.
@Utahnkid
"Professionals DO NOT BUILD THEIR OWN MACHINES!! You will get laughed out of the building if you show up with a "custom rig". These are capable of running in mission critical installations because Apple spends literally millions of $$$ to design every component and overall design of these machines"
Professionals in what ? Most pros save money by building their own machines since it saves money (like Google)
Apple does not spend millions designing every component, Intel do, Apple were using Intel reference design "logic"boards until nvidia arrived now they use EXACTLY the same chipsets as nvidia sell to PC manufacturers.
Before intel IBM designed the inner working of Apple's PCs just how stupid are you ? You do realise that advertising is basically lieing to sell stuff don't you you sad corporate zombie.
Apple work at a price point just like every other PC manufacturer and they take a much bigger cut of the profit (around 40%) if you actually new anything about hardware you would now there really isn't anything else for Apple to design outside of Intel or Nvidia's chipsets.
@Major4Play
FYI Apple does onsite if you have applecare....
Why so many gaming comparisons? I could understand that if this was Joystiq but it's not. Plus you had the wimpy GT120 in there. I think the computer is very fairly priced. Try to find another dual Nehalem system out there for less.
I received my Mac Pro last week and have been very happy with it. I sold my 6+ year old PowerMac G5 system for $750 to help fund the new computer combined with the educational discount. The performance for me has been an order of magnitude improvement. What used to take 340 minutes to compress now only takes 34. I had been holding out for the Nehalem chips for the past year or two ever since they popped up Intel's road map.
Gaming is likely not so much of a concern for someone interested in this, but a better graphics card would help with CAD applications. Plus GPUs are being used more and more these days to handle certain processing tasks outside of just graphics (e.g. CUDA). There really is no excuse for having such a pathetic standard video card in a machine with such a large price tag.
I've got a White Macbook and I use Final Cut Express daily (at the moment, anyway). My college has a render farm, I sent a compressor 3 project to it and it finished faster than the program opened up on my laptop. I crave this thing like Jack Bauer craves freedom. But the shortcomings are obvious, no Blu-Ray in particular is astonishing, I hope the licensing gets sorted out in the next year or so.
Blu-ray on a Mac? Never gonna happen. It's just too conflicting with Apple's HD movies in iTunes. Only time Apple will add Blu-ray is when they will stop caring about cash, which will never happen unless they wanna go bankrupt within weeks.
All that CPU, but they can't slip a Quadro or FireGL in there?
What a surprise, a workstation computer turns out to work as a workstation. And a Mac on top of that ...
Seriously Engadget if you guys were looking to play games a Mac Pro is about the worst place to look.
Indeed-y.
They should at least have fired up Cinebench 10 and tested against ordinary computers to get an idea of what this machine is capable of.
I think it's kind of a valid observation to make, since not alot of readers are familiar with how apple's products are geared, so it's kind of natural to assume a more expensive machine will play games well
mac target audiences tend to be a bit more specific than the entirety of the pc market's (i.e. everyone), though
I'm glad I'm not the only one who things that rating a Mac on basis of gaming is stupid. I am an avid Mac user, but I realize most games are for Windows or game consoles (which is why I own a PS3).
Your average teenager isn't going to be able to afford this machine -- it's for businesses -- so benchmark it based on business applications, not games.
That being said, this monster of a machine is designed for applications like Final Cut Pro, which doesn't care too much about the performance of the video card. FCP is mostly burdened by slow CPU and slow storage, not video performance.
What was also not mentioned was the new Nehalem processors support HyperThreading. This means your 8-core processor is seen as a 16-core processor to the OS. If your apps are multithreaded (many are nowadays), they are going to scream on this new computer.
Can't wait to hear people complain about the price and offerings from PC makers like Dell, HP etc.
Fact is these Xeon 5500 processors are expensive as sin.
The former Mac Pro (early 2008) was a steal when compared to Dell and HP.
These processor are suppose to be cheaper (but offer higher performance)
Ummm people...you keep saying pc vs mac...the mac IS a pc...look at the parts...its just a pc running osx....i love how mac fanboys still try to insist on this mac vs pc argument....pc refers to the hardware and the hardware on my quadcore linux system is the same as this overpriced POS only real diff?..its running osx(we also run mac osx on my gf's pc laptop..only difference?...i paid 1500$ less than its mac counterpart..same cpu same gpu etc..)....so lets keep this to what it is...windows vs mac os...but then mac fanboys will always stand by their beloved apple products...probably in another thread arguing the shuttle is revolutionary as we speak...personally i find mac/apple fanboys to be anti technology...just lame fanboyism at its best...
Funny, but I feel the same way about Windows fanboys who blindly stick by a dying archaic old platform that's been lacking in real innovation for many years.
To each his own, but I don't know anybody with actual experience in the tech industry (and I'm not talking about Windows helpdesk drones) who talk shit about Macs. I do know one guy who used to run a webhosting company, did lots of programming, and tried to switch to OS X twice in 5 years and could never stick with it, which I respect. But the people who know computers are at least not ignorant about it.