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THE NEW Mac Pro Quad ZeonPosted by dom
"absolute must" is a litle strong.
It depends on how free and loose you can be with your downtime, and can your business handle the risk? The first manufacturing run of ANYTHING is more likely to fall victim to production line snafus while they work out the kinks. Toasters, cars, computers... Can you afford downtime? Is this how you make your living? Is being cutting-edge worth the heightened chance of having to send it in for repair? If you are wthout the computer, can your business still function? These are the questions you must answer for yourself. This is why "absolute must" doesn't necessarily apply to all.
There's supposed to be new Nvida cards coming out that I've heard are amazing. Keep in mind that future versions of Studio are going to rely upon the GPU very heavily.
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The ATI X1900 seems to come very close to the Quadro 4500 card as measured on the apple site. Nvidia also has the 7900GTX 515MB card that is a hair from the performance or that Quadro card as well.
One big question I have is: do PC based video cards that you can buy at CompUSA, now work in the MacPro??? One big difference is the BIG endian vs Little endian data structure talking to that card. Big on the MAC, and Little on the PC, I believe, but now since the MAC is a PC??????
I'm doing what i did with my 2001 Dual 800 G4.
Wait until I have money. For extra memory. For extra software. For AppleCare. For extra hard drives! Now here's a question, folks: I'm loving the 4-drive setup. I envision replacing all my LaCie D2 FW 800's with drives I can pop out, park on the shelf, and pop in for each client, including striped 2- or 3-way groups for HD. I love that idea. But the SATA sliders Apple shows -- are they glud to each drive? Will we be able to get these slide cradles separately? I want to buy bare SATA's at MicroCenter at competitive cost. No clue from the Apple website or from the WWDC keynote. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
I drank the Kool-aide from apple long ago. I thought the chips they used were far superior to the stuff put out by Intel. Now I'm thinking I might wait a while. I'm thinking there are lots of smoke and mirrors in the tests. I noticed these new Intel based ibooks can no longer run pro apps. So, if I'm a bit suspicious about claims....sorry. Heck, I might take a second look at Microsoft based editing solutions...ala Premiere. If the same chips apple uses are in win machines and I can build one with who knows....8 dual core chips and tons of memory and have money left in my pocket.... It's just that the taste of the Kool-aide still lingers in my mouth. Fortunately, the effects are starting to subside.
I'll tell you what, Loren. I wouldn't want to open my machine as much as you are going to open yours to swap out all those drives on a regular basis. The only time I open my chassis is to install / uninstall RAM, a PCIe card or an HD. That is a total of MAYBE 5 to 10 times over the course of it's life with me. Every time you expose the inside of your machine to open air, you increase the chances of a mishap.
I would much rather use external hot swap enclosures. Nice & inexpensive and highly accessible. ...but that's just me - Joey When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
Not open my tower, Joey? In winter I leave it open while cutting.
And I vacuum it out regularly. I have baked cookies on the Dual 800's for quick snacks. Sometimes I nap in there. I raised two cats in there. No problems whatsoever. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
Shane Ross wrote:
>The drives are probably mounted to them using drive mounting screws. I thought only the best of the best used popsicle sticks and gaff tape, Shane! ...My husband should tell you the story of the first media drives he ever installed for a FCP system... And I married him anyway! ;-)
[The sliders most likely aren't glued to the drives]
Let us hope so. Fortunately all bare drives carry standard screw holes so you're probably right. But I'm not certain if Apple will include the three extra sliders unless you BTO three additional drives. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
The drives are sold seperately so I doubt the sliders are glued to them.
I just spoke with an Apple sales tech and was told the spare Optical drive slot has a parallel ATA connection. So he said the computer could be sold with an ATA drive in that slot as the boot drive and then you would have 4 empty bays just waiting for your favourite SATA drives to be popped in and stiped for a 2 TB internal RAID. With 500GB Hitachi deskstars going for under $200 that's a pretty cheap SATA Raid solution. You cant do this configuration online though you would have to call in and order it that way.
[The sliders are supposed to be in place (with screws) when we buy the Mac. ]
Whoopee! [an ATA drive in that slot as the boot drive and then you would have 4 empty bays just waiting for your favourite SATA drives] Yum, that'sa spicey meatball!! Great tip about phone-in. The only downside would be G4-style boot speed. But so what. That second bay now has purpose for me. [also does anone know how hard it would be to install a second optical drive after the purchase? in theory?] In practice installing a replacement for my G4's 1X Stupordrive (Pioneer 103) with something more reasonable (Pioneer 109) bought from NewEgg, was a dream to install. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
the three extra sliders are DEFINITIVELY included standart "how many ever" HD you order
from specs Apple US [tracker.tradedoubler.com] "Four independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA cable-free, direct attach hard drive bays; four internal hard drive carriers included" if you watch here [www.powermax.com] you'll see they hare numbered --------------------------------- A Day late & a Dollar-short Productions
Man...that's a beauty. It feels good, ya know? Apple is finally THINKING about the PRO USERS with the latest design. Easier access to the RAM / Doublewide slot for that fat-a$$ 2-slot monster video card / 2 FW busses - FW 800 ports / etc... That second optical bay will be sweet for a Blue Ray burner
OK...saving starts...NOW. - Joey When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
["four internal hard drive carriers included"]
whoop whoop whoop whoopee! Now the ceiling has four new depressions. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
[why no external SATA, though? wouldn't that be faster than FW800?]
Probably, but third parties make PCI Express cards for it. And pricing Seagate or Western Digital bare SATA at the store runs about 110.00 per 250 GB, 180.00 for 400 GB. Must be a nice box for 'em made by OWC, Club Mac, et al. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
Actually, I've been seeing really nice prices on SATA bare drives lately. And I have an Azio SATA/USB enclosure that's very cheap and very fast (with a Hitachi drive, of course).
I guess we can't have everything. But with Apple moving to SATA inside the last box, and hearing nothing lately about FW1600, and hearing rumors of firewire's death (succumbing to USB 2.0), and given that SATA (both 1 and 2) are right darned fast, I assumed Apple would add do eSATA this time. If there's an available SATA connector on the motherboard, it's easy to just add an extender to the back of the case, giving it an external port. This is amazing, though - the box has been out 2 days, none of us have worked with it, and here I am wishing for more. I'll stop now, the new MacPro looks great! thanks, HarryD
[ hearing rumors of firewire's death (succumbing to USB 2.0),]
Firewire may well succumb, but likely not to USB 2.0. As I understand it, USB 2.0 is not as efficient a data stream as FireWire for media, at any speed. - Loren Today's FCP 5 keytip: Preview effects sections with Option-P or Option-Backslash! The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat. Now available at KeyGuide Central: www.neotrondesign.com
Browner wrote:
"Just for fun go to the mac site and price one out with every option they offer, even two 30" cinema displays, and see what it comes out to. Now where did I leave that Visa card....." I did this this yesterday... Just over $16,000 if you get the top of the line processor, with 4 drives, 16GB of RAM, 2 - 30 Inch Monitors and the top video card with second burner...Of course the RAM and drives can be had cheaper by looking elsewhere.
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