New Mac Pros announced (2007/01/08)

[Eug]

Two 2.8-3.2 GHz Quad-core Xeon 5400 series CPUs <-- Actually it seems you can downgrade to a single quad-core.
12 MB L2 per processor
Dual 1600 MHz bus
800 MHz FB-DIMMs
4 cable-free, direct attach hard drive bays
Etc.

No Blu-ray or HD DVD burner option. If you want that, you'll have to add it yourself, or go external.

 

[sourceninja]

Well, at least they offer 8800's now. Not a bad little video card there.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
Well, at least they offer 8800's now. Not a bad little video card there.

Yeah, now they just need to add a "Mac" in their lineup, heh

 

[bigrash]

I guess if you can afford $2799, then you can add $200 for the 8800. But I can't believe they want $400 for 2gb more memory.

That is a sweet system though!

 

[Kmax82]

Hmm.. I wonder why there's no BluRay of HD DVD burners? I guess they aren't satisfied with their performance yet.. who knows? I'd think that with the MacPro's dedication to multimedia it'd want to be at the forefront there.

Nice machine though, maybe I'll be able to afford one, one day.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Pretty good updates there. I'm guessing the big reason why there is no BRD option because Apple is going to be pushing for digital HD downloads.

On a side note, I really wish they would put an 8800 into the imacs. Those ATI HD 2600s suck. I'm really hoping that they announce something at MacWorld regarding the iMac so I can finally go ahead and buy one. Otherwise, I'll just keep waiting until they put a better card in there.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: bigrash
I guess if you can afford $2799, then you can add $200 for the 8800. But I can't believe they want $400 for 2gb more memory.

That is a sweet system though!

Cuz its Apple. Its what they do, overcharge you. Sweet specs tho.

 

[Akula971]

Hi,
In one of Anandtech's reviews of using the MacPro as a windows machine to play games, it was found that the use of FB Dimms was a major drawback as they restricted its performance. Do you think that this is now resolved or reduced by these new MacPro's with better memory bandwidth?
I'm in dire need of replacing my 4 year old PC that just made it to an upgraded AGP card (XT1950), as it really struggles with Bioshock, crysis, most things in fact. And as my old mac mini is starting to struggle with its load, then I figure it is time to take the plunge to either a MacPro to do bot jobs or an Imac and a new PC for games. What do you reckon?

 

[palladium]

Originally posted by: Akula971
Hi,
In one of Anandtech's reviews of using the MacPro as a windows machine to play games, it was found that the use of FB Dimms was a major drawback as they restricted its performance. Do you think that this is now resolved or reduced by these new MacPro's with better memory bandwidth?
I'm in dire need of replacing my 4 year old PC that just made it to an upgraded AGP card (XT1950), as it really struggles with Bioshock, crysis, most things in fact. And as my old mac mini is starting to struggle with its load, then I figure it is time to take the plunge to either a MacPro to do bot jobs or an Imac and a new PC for games. What do you reckon?

Depends on what you need to do on your iMac. There are a few issues you'd have to consider tho:

1. 2GB of RAM doesn't give you much head room, and remember FB-DIMMs are quite expensive ( good thing is that you won't have to discard your memory modules as the Mac Pro has 8 memory slots).

2. Boot camp has (yet) to support 64 bit Windows, and given how quickly games consume memory, 32 bit is very likely to become obsolete in the very near future.

3. 8 cores, eh? Don't know if any games will benefit from 8 cores, remember most games don't even benefit from quad core.

In short, if you need to use Mac for hardcore multimedia/rendering, then maybe you want to consider this option. Else, you won't benefit from the hefty price the Mac Pro carries.