Mac Pro - A Review
 

I wanted to share a few thoughts on this new work horse I invested in a few days ago, the new Mac Pro. This flavor is the top-o'-the-line model with a Dual Quad Core 3.2Ghz, 12MB Cache per CPU, 2GB RAM and two optical drives. It was pricey as all fuck, $4700 to be precise. May be a bit of a performance overkill perhaps, though I wanted to keep a lot of room for future applications so I took the plunge.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2761/macpropo3.jpg

First of all, this is the nicest, best built desktop computer I ever used. I am no Mac-fanboy by any means, I used to have Windoze custom boxes since my first in 1995. The quality of build is incredible, the attention to detail is tremendous. Lots of I/O in front and back, 3 free SATA HDD frames that slide out and enable you to pop in up to 3TB of drives without attaching a single cable - you can do everything inside the case without using a screw driver AND without cutting your fingers to pieces. The black case in the background is a custom Silverstone case I built last year, despite it having a reputation of being a nice case, I still managed to cut open my fingers when I was installing hardware on its insides.

The Mac Pro comes with Leopard and iLife 08 pre-installed. The transition off my Macbook Pro (incl. applications, emails, passwords, accounts, every imaginable program setting) went flawless with a firewire 800 cable. I added another 2GB of RAM for good measure and got cracking. I mainly chose to move away from the Win platform for work because a. I do not use any special programs that are Win-only and b. because I feel that this is a much more secure platform to work on. Everything just feels more productive, mainly because of the OS. Network printers are added without hassle, any sort of hardware I plugged in worked right out of the box.

In my opinion, I feel like this machine is just going to get the work done without a hassle, I don't have to worry about stupid shit crashing on me and it is so beautifully quiet that it doesn't annoy during long hours behind the screen.

Definitely a thumbs up for this one. The basic configuration starts at $2799 if I am not mistaken. Sure, it's more expensive than a Dell, but when it comes to my business and the work place at which I spend 10 hours every day, I don't like to go cheap.

thanks for the info!

Yep, it is an awesome machine for sure..
$4700 is cheap compared what we have to pay for them in Europe..Apple just changed dollar to euro 1:1.. anyway, i am planning on getting this machine as well, i love my Macbook Pro but i am in need of something faster..

Have fun with your Mac :thumbsup

waste of money. long cat is the answer!

No waste at all! anyway.. what is Long cat?

Great machine.

I read up on the CPU and architexture of these systems they are an amazingly fast machine, Firingsquad.com a gaming website said they were faster than the fastest supercomputer in 1993. So they must be amazingly fast. I'd certainly go the Windows version myself, i'm a fanboy of Microsoft since I haven't had almost any crashes in years since XP came along and I use ALOT of custom apps that are Windows only.

Gotta admit Apple make some sweet machines these days though. Can't wait for the Iphone 3G to come out in Europe soon

You can always use Bootcamp and still utilize all your Windows apps. I will be playing around with it this weekend for sure.

Mine arrived two weeks ago. Not quite the powerhouse yours is, but not too far off.

I fucking LOVE LOVE LOVE it.

I notice you have the MyBookWorld too. That's one gadget that I don't know how I did without.

Dual quad core... 2GB of ram? wtf is that thing running with FBDIMM?

We've had ours for a couple of weeks now. Somehow I managed to snag it in to my office for the weekend. Dropped in 8gb of RAM last week, which thus far has made a tremendous work experience for all of us while using Motion, FCP/HD, and Soundtrack Pro.

An all around nice machine, and I am usually a mac hater :)

Nice machine, and yes Macs are built extremely well. The most i have spent inside a Mac is 5 minutes, because everything is right there easy to reach and access, badda boom badda bing.

longcat is loooooooooooooooooooong

nice review . U use it for music production ?

No, I am a web developer just like you. I just like to do a lot of things at the same time.:winkwink:

...so I assume. This is a webmaster forum after all.

Hmmm would be the opposite of my experience with a mac pro with. Same specs plus 2 more GB of ram. My partner bought it and it went back in just over a week. He even ate a restock fee to get rid of it. :1orglaugh

You're either a liar or a complete moron who can't add. Take your pick.

Actually, it is. 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM).

Why don't you share your vast Mac Pro experience?

a very nice machine

He already did, he couldn't find an FTP program he could afford (free) so they took it back. :1orglaugh

Cant read eh?

Last time I doubled 2 I got 4.. but not sure how they do math up there in Seattle.... :1orglaugh

Yes this is what I do I go around "lying" about Mac computers. It gives me a huge fuckin high, and me and Bill Gates slap the high five after each post. :1orglaugh

Yawn..

And as far as needing vast mac experience to give an opinion? What utter shit. Mac goes around screaming "Mac it just works" then when it DOESNT work well the fan boys jump up and down saying how you need to do something special to run a mac. Silly. Anywho off to enjoy the show. Maybe Ill reply back to this thread if I am bored and drunk later. lol :thumbsup

I'll go ahead and quote this before you re-read his post and try to un-own yourself.

Dumbass.

You said that your experience was the opposite to mine, I inquired what it was like and asked for you to share. Instead I get some bullshit babble without substance. Who's silly now?

Yikes...

Speaking of FTP. Check this one out. I HATE Transmit but Captain FTP rocks.

http://captainftp.xdsnet.de/

I may turn into a mac fanboy yet.

You mac fanboys pay way too much for your hardware. Do you still think it's 1995? A dual quadcore can be built for half that, and with 8Gb of ram, not a wimpy ass 2GB. It's no faster than its PC counterpart, and costs twice as much.

Yeah I spent about $6000 on my system and it kicks ass. Used to be Window's guy myself but I love being able to work in Unix. Kind of lame that the BIOS isn't compatible with Linux though. I'm running it in a VM for the time being.

some people dont want to build their own crap from parts. :pimp

It's pretty.

Must be fucking retarded took me 2 seconds to find: http://cyberduck.ch/

Free ftp for OS X.

Ya umm cyberduck blows big time. And interestingly enough it locked up shortly have running it for the first time.

A 3500.00 machine that is touted as "it just works" locked on me several times in the first few hours. Brilliant.

Yet the 1500.00 Toshiba laptop I got recently has locked up yet on anything ever and I install weird shit. Guess what its running Vista, and guess what Vista hasn't given me a single issue. On laptop or desktop.

Ya so Aico gets credit for me being wrong. I didnt read down that far and someone else even quoted the 2gb of ram thing. So it had same amount of ram my partners did. Every single thing that would be simple with a PC we had to hunt for a work around, or find some lame software to use instead.

There is NOTHING you can do on a mac that I cannot do on a PC. There is plenty I can do on a pc, that you cannot on a mac. End of discussion. Mac is all hype, and fanboys.

Ok Dana is done getting ready finally so off for real this time. Hasta.

Damn that is nice!