Mac Pro Thoughts

ok I have to ask, what are the thoughts on the new mac pro
What haven't heard well here follow the link - [www.apple.com]

We'll Here are MY opinions-

-I was shown concept cases for this computer and im disapointed they weren't it, it looks similer

2 fw 800 ports, one would hope on seperate buss, but i can't find the info
first mac to support up to 8 moniters (assuming you have the graphics cards)

room for 4 hard drives stock, thats exciting. (that are pracitcly hot swapable, not really but kinda, they are very easily removed in a tray)

it's fast (obviusly)

2 disk drives

all the ports, optical in and out, what posibilities does that give us?

adjustable pci-e ports so no more "fast" and "slow ports"

im excited, How about you?



Amateur Teacher

It just seems wrong to be able to customize a desktop computer that costs as much as my car ($17,000+). Plus, I really hate all the stupid new names they're trying to role out. Mac Pro, Mac Book, Mac Book Pro, Pro Mac Book Power Pro Mac Pro Booking Pro...Come on, man. It's a damn Powerbook, iBook, iMac, or Powermac. They'll always be that to me. Anyway, I think the new Powermac looks cool.

Steven Gladney



Sometimes the obvious is hidden in plain view.

I just bought a fully loaded Quad in December '05 that I am THRILLED with. I have never been one to buy the first iteration of new technology so I decided early on to wait. I am sure we'll hear from the resident guinea pigs soon enough. I couldn't care less about this new unit as this point in time.

OBSERVATION: Apple's cramming a lot of gear inside that case. More gear = more heat. More heat = more problems. We'll see.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

<<-I was shown concept cases for this computer and im disapointed they weren't it, it looks similer>>


Yeah? I hear that to keep this case externally was always in the plan. Which is brilliant because it's the best ever. The only question is how they can afford it.

<<2 fw 800 ports, one would hope on seperate buss,>>


True. Separate busses would be a big deal.

<<but i can't find the info
first mac to support up to 8 moniters (assuming you have the graphics cards)>>

Any recent Mac could support four GPUs. But until now the extra GPUs were slowed by PCI.

<<2 disk drives>>


Six possible drive bays. Four 2.5" and two 3.5".

<<all the ports, optical in and out, what posibilities does that give us?>>


Pretty much the same as before.

<<adjustable pci-e ports so no more "fast" and "slow ports">>


No.

<<im excited, How about you?>>


VERY! They're great machines.



- Justin Barham -

JustinB wrote:

>
> <<adjustable pci-e ports so no more "fast" and "slow ports">>
>
>
> No.

New to the Mac Pro: you can even adjust the PCI Express bandwidth on your system to meet your specific needs. -apple



Amateur Teacher

>Come on, man. It's a damn Powerbook, iBook, iMac, or Powermac. They'll always be that to me.

Come on Steven, if that's the case you haven't had macs for very long:-)
What about the LCII, the quadra, the 8600, 9600, etc. etc. And that's only in the last 10 years. Apple always has a new name for a new product.

Should we wait for the next model in the series to come out?

Anyone know any rumours of when the 2nd release will be?

Hi guys,

The Mac Pro has two separate FireWire busses. The inputs on the FRONT (both FW400 & 800) are on one PHY, and the inputs on the BACK (again, both) are on a different PHY.

-Paul from Apple

The Mac Pro has two separate FireWire busses.

NICE! I'm glad that we'll finally not need to recommend a separate PCI card to create that second bus. FireWire folks are going to be plenty happy now.

Anyone know any rumours of when the 2nd release will be?

Nice try! ;-)

I really hate all the stupid new names they're trying to role out. Mac Pro, Mac Book, Mac Book Pro, Pro Mac Book Power Pro Mac Pro Booking Pro...Come on, man.

LMAO! You're a funny, funny man.

Apple's cramming a lot of gear inside that case. More gear = more heat. More heat = more problems. We'll see.

Joey, the procs use less energy. Less energy means less heat. Less heat means better performance AND more room in the box 'cause you don't need all the cooling add ons to keep it running cool. ;-)



Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead, DV Products
Adobe
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro Community Blog
Follow Me on Twitter!

"...The Mac Pro has two separate FireWire busses."

Wow...did not know this. That's HUGE, fellas...hmmmmmm....*



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

ya so 4 fw ports, but if you have two things that need fw 400 your down to fw 400 on all ports

but i supose it's time to get a fw 9 pin to 4 pin plug (once i get one, eventually)

still all the 800 on one buss and all the 400 on another could be nice, but i understand why they did what they did



Post Edited (08-08-06 14:13)

Amateur Teacher

Aaron,

Mike Horton, the CEO of the LAFCPUG already mentioned this to you in another forum... you have to type slower, use Spell Checker & pay attention to what you're writing, bro. Give us a break, huh?

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey,
As Peter Wiggins points out at kenstone.net, there are also 2 GigE ports, so Xsan folks will not have to give up a slot for another port. Currently, you have to give up a precious slot.

Likewise with 2 FW buses. Now you get solid performance without having to add a second bus via a card, so you save a slot there as well.

So in certain cases, you've now opened up 2 slots for a much better workflow.

I hope Paul will tell the design team that these small improvements are very much appreciated. Also the ability to add more drives to the box. Awesome! These improvements alone are not only clever, but also helpful to workflow for all users. Keep up the innovation Apple!



Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead, DV Products
Adobe
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro Community Blog
Follow Me on Twitter!

grafixjoe wrote:

> Aaron,
>
> Mike Horton, the CEO of the LAFCPUG already mentioned this to
> you in another forum... you have to type slower, use Spell
> Checker & pay attention to what you're writing, bro. Give us a
> break, huh?
>
> - Joey
>

yes I apologize, this is what i get for being excited with a microsoft wireless keyboard with dead batteries, i used to spell check, and gave it up for speed, apparently I gave up some dignity

Definitely a Pro rig built for Pro users This might create a lot more PC converts.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

ya but thats why there are the laptops, the mac mini's and the imacs, and im sure a teletuby mac is on the way (the problem with those is they don't stand still) apple has kind of compensated



Amateur Teacher

my impression:

it's finally the tower I always wanted it to be.

-multiple optical drives

-4 hd's (FINALLY!)

-seperate fw busses (one less card i need to replace when moving up)

-double wide PCIe slots (remember that nvidia 3d card that took up 2 slots?)

- (i don't understand it entirely yet) - but the ability to set the throughput on each PCIe slot. I JUST got hosed filling my 2&3 pci-x slots (i know its' diff technology than PCIe) and finding my sata raid performance sliced in half. from what limited understanding i have - this may no longer be an issue.

in terms of the HD slots & optical bays, it truly appears that the heat of the PPCs were really killing the real estate inside the G5s. the advantage of the intel switch, which has the cooler running chips, seems to have really shined with towers.

fp

actually, about the PCIe slots. it turns out it did eat a slot anyway...there are only 3 total (no more agp as we all know). oh well. still think it's an overall vast improvement

fp

Here's the block diagram of the new Mac Pros:



Notice the two FW busses, as well as two USB busses.

edit: Oh and there are two spare internal SATA ports available.

- - -

I'm also excited about some of the Leopard features:

- Spaces. I know a lot of us sometimes have to jump back and forth between Photoshop, Motion, Compressor, FCP, etc. And sometimes you don't have a notebook and need to have iChat and Mail open too.
[www.apple.com]

- Time Machine If it makes backups easier. Then it's an improvement.
[www.apple.com]

- 64-Bit Top to bottom 64-bit. Maybe this will help out future versions of FCS apps?
[www.apple.com]



Post Edited (08-09-06 19:23)

- Justin Barham -

I may be blind, but I don't see dual buses for either FW or USB. I see a single 33 MHz OHCI Bus with all 4 FW ports linked to it as well as a single USB 2.0 controller with all 5 ports feeding it.

Maybe this is just a poor diagram.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

<<I may be blind, but I don't see dual buses for either FW or USB. I see a single 33 MHz OHCI Bus with all 4 FW ports linked to it as well as a single USB 2.0 controller with all 5 ports feeding it.>>

Ooops you're right re: USB. I got "two" excited lol. I think with FW we're looking at two separate channels. I'm no hardware expert though.grafixjoe wrote:



- Justin Barham -

so there seem to be two unused SATA II busses internally. wow, that has definite possibilities for HD over external SATA II RAID.

I'd want more info on that, but it really gets me started in the morning!



HarryD

To save money I am going to buy the twin dual core 3ghz processor model with one gig of memory and the 160gb drive (which I will quickly remove and replace with 4 750gb Seagate SATA drives.

Does anyone have a good internet seller for both RAM for the mac pro as well as for SATA 750gb hard drives? Kinda like a computer version of B&H (trustworthy and inexpensive).

As Harry D said, I've changed my mind from going with an external raid to just buying the biggest SATA drives I can and doing an internal raid.



Michael Escher
incredibly talented filmmaker
www.ranchocalamari.com

The new Mac Pro requires RAM with significant heatsinks. ATM the only one I know that's selling them is OWC. They're a pretty good store.



- Justin Barham -

I use newegg.com for a lot of things, particularly hard drives. Their prices are excellent, they have a good user rating system, fast shipping, and the customer service is good, too.



HarryD

Newegg.com is good. But I wouldn't go with them for Mac Ram. Especially with the Mac Pro.



- Justin Barham -