New iMacs and Magic Trackpad out

[James Steele]

I have a friend who is still on a G5 running DP7. On my advice he has put off buying a Mac Pro for a while. Since this announcement I've exchanged several emails with him. I think my last recommendation to him was to go with a 2.66 Mac Pro Quad. He's found one on CL in mint condition with 8GB RAM, with the standard 250GB boot drive, two additional 1TB internal drives, WiFi card installed, eSATA card, an iSight camera, and SL installed for $1400. I told him offer $1300 and if the guy says no, give him the $1400.

He's still going to be blown away by how much faster it will be than his G5. He'll be able to get his feet wet in the Intel world, etc. And that machine will serve him well until the next Mac Pro refresh most likely.

The one other portion I can think of is if he wants to spend $2000 or more than maybe since the marginally better $2499 Nahalem quads will replace the current $2499 Nehalem quads, that another option would be to try and snag the discontinued 2009 version when they get discounted. Or maybe a used 2009 quad which might see a price drop on the used market because their no longer available new at the Apple Store.

Related pet peeve: people who list their used Macs and detail how much money they spent configuring their Macs with additional drives and RAM purchased from Apple at exorbitant prices, and base what they think their Mac is worth used using that figure. Puhlease.

[BKK-OZ]

maybe since the marginally better $2499 Nahalem quads will replace the current $2499 Nehalem quads, that another option would be to try and snag the discontinued 2009 version when they get discounted. Or maybe a used 2009 quad which might see a price drop on the used market because their no longer available new at the Apple Store.

It's all these maybes that get me confuzzled. I'm really tempted to try to get one of the current Mac Pros as they are refurbed or run-out.

Another maybe is getting one of the iMacs - either new model, superseded model, or a used one. One evilBay listing here in Oz has a '2 week old 27" Apple iMac 3.06' for $2k (AUD). One way I like to think about all this is, it should cost me approx $1k per year on my computer hardware, so, in terms of this computer, will I get 2 years out of it before I will want to change over?

(My current machine is a weak little iMac I bought for $400(AUD) about 1.5 years ago, I definitely have got my value out of it!)

[BKK-OZ]

Related pet peeve: people who list their used Macs and detail how much money they spent configuring their Macs with additional drives and RAM purchased from Apple at exorbitant prices, and base what they think their Mac is worth used using that figure. Puhlease.

Let go of your anger Luke. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to something, something something... dark side, something.

[n2mpujack]

Wow, what a contrast to the low value "entry-level" MacPro coming out in August. I no longer see any compelling reason to buy a MacPro, when price of entry is $3500 base, unless one can live long-term with 8 GB of RAM when iMacs (and I think MacBook Pro's) can go beyond that. What a joke.

8 gig of ram? Are you saying that's a max for the new MacPros? I agree the Apple website is a bit of a hash to make sense out of, but I just went over there and what I found was for the single cpu machines there are 4 slots for a total of 16 gig of ram and 8 slots for 32 gig of ram in the dual cpu machines using 4 gig sticks. I wonder how long it will be before MacSales has 8 gig sticks for sale for the new machines (which they have for the current MacPro) which doubles the ram available to 32 and 64 gig respectively for single and dual cpu machines.

[James Steele]

That might be just for the Westmere models? I need to look. But the base quad machine is still going to be Nehalem shipping with 3GB and upgradeable to 8. Which means it might be hamstrung when 64-bit DP arrives?

I'm beginning to think the result of these new Mac Pros and their pricing is brisk sales of used Mac Pros and VE Pro. It may be high time for MOTU to build in a proprietary method into DP for utilizing multiple computers as slave machines. If MOTU did it themselves for DP it could be elegant and turn key.

[n2mpujack]

That might be just for the Westmere models? I need to look. But the base quad machine is still going to be Nehalem shipping with 3GB and upgradeable to 8. Which means it might be hamstrung when 64-bit DP arrives?

I'm beginning to think the result of these new Mac Pros and their pricing is brisk sales of used Mac Pros and VE Pro. It may be high time for MOTU to build in a proprietary method into DP for utilizing multiple computers as slave machines. If MOTU did it themselves for DP it could be elegant and turn key.

All the single cpu machines will have 4 memory slots as all the dual cpu machines will have 8 ram slots. Hard as I look I can't find where there's a statement on the Apple site that the base quad will only be upgradeable to 8 gig - that would be a step backward for a 4 memory slot machine.

[James Steele]

Hey,,, I'm glad to be wrong about that!

[mikehalloran]

OWC already has 4G 1333mHz sticks for the new iMac ($549.99 OWC / 639.99 Samsung-Apple).

I think the only question will be if the new quads can be upgraded to 16 like the iMac or 32G like the current quads.

[Shooshie]

I gotta admit, I'm not a dummy (at least I don't think I am), but I really really struggle to figure out what to buy. It is really hard to come up with some sort of value-for-money equation that makes sense. Plus, I just can't keep all the core count & clock speed variations in my head, so I find myself wondering if one machine with one CPU is better than the next, etc. Yes, I have seen things like the Geekbench performance tests, etc. but I still struggle.

I dunno, maybe I is dum dum.

It's like this: anything you could possibly buy is so much more powerful than most of us can utilize, what does it matter if you got the 2nd-most powerful computer in the world? Or the 3rd? I just replace mine every 3 to 5 years out of principle. That is, if there's money in the cookie jar. I gotta quit wasting it on automotive garages who keep screwing up my car, or I won't HAVE a new computer in the allotted time-frame. But assuming I do, then the only important thing is to make sure it's new and that it can hold all the drives and PCIe cards and ports that I want. In other words, a Mac Pro. Which model of Mac Pro? One that can do 64 bit all the way. That means any of them. As long as it is as good as or better than the one that I have, I'll be happy.

Shooshie

[BKK-OZ]

It's like this: anything you could possibly buy is so much more powerful than most of us can utilize, what does it matter if you got the 2nd-most powerful computer in the world? Or the 3rd? ... the only important thing is to make sure it's new and that it can hold all the drives and PCIe cards and ports that I want. In other words, a Mac Pro. Which model of Mac Pro? One that can do 64 bit all the way. That means any of them. As long as it is as good as or better than the one that I have, I'll be happy.Shooshie

I hear you brother - and I have decided that MP is the only way to go, and I agree it isn't about getting the fastest but I still get confuzzled - I just don't want to get ripped off.

My choices are to either buy a second hand one, refurb, or ?? At the moment, my plan (ha! overstatement if ever there was one!) is to buy one of the current generation (not the ones just announced, but the ones in stock as I write this), either as a refurb, or if someone decides to dump one and move to a new one, or if any stores decide to run-out the existing models as the new ones come in. The performance jump will be enough to keep me happy for quite a while, and then I can add drives, maybe a faster graphics card, etc. as time and $$$ permit.

[BKK-OZ]

See, this is the sorta thing that drives me bananas (mmm... bananas...).

In this post here J Steele provides this link to a Mac Pro model MB871LL/A.
I'm currently watching an evilBay auction for a Mac Pro, model MB871X/A.

Both are 2.66Ghz, both have Nehalems, but what's the difference???
If I go for the MB871X/A, what does that mean vs. other models?
I've tried Mr Google, and I've tried Apple's site, but I get nuthin'.

Me is dum dum.

[n2mpujack]

See, this is the sorta thing that drives me bananas (mmm... bananas...).

In this post here J Steele provides this link to a Mac Pro model MB871LL/A.
I'm currently watching an evilBay auction for a Mac Pro, model MB871X/A.

Both are 2.66Ghz, both have Nehalems, but what's the difference???
If I go for the MB871X/A, what does that mean vs. other models?
I've tried Mr Google, and I've tried Apple's site, but I get nuthin'.

Me is dum dum.

From what I can find in a Google search is that on the surface of it there doesn't appear to be any hardware difference between the two models. What I did find is that the MB871X/A appears to be an Australia/ New Zealand area machine based on the websites that come up in the first few pages on Google and the MB871LL/A appears to be a US machine, again based on the websites in the Google search. Another find is the prices are higher than the LL/A on the X/A which may reflect the Aussie/NZ exchange rate - the au/nz sites don't say what currency their prices are in.

Now I don't know if Apple would do different machines for different places in the world. And all this doesn't reflect those US-based places that ship world-wide.

[BKK-OZ]

Thx for that Jack - what you write makes sense, the AUD and NZD are both lower than the USD, and the difference in model numbers could signify nothing more than different power supplies. I couldn't get any reference to these models on Apple's site(s) - got a link?

[n2mpujack]

Thx for that Jack - what you write makes sense, the AUD and NZD are both lower than the USD, and the difference in model numbers could signify nothing more than different power supplies. I couldn't get any reference to these models on Apple's site(s) - got a link?

Didn't go to Apple's site - I just went to a few reseller sites that came up in the Google search I did. I just entered the model numbers you gave in 2 different Firefox/Google windows and did side-by-side comparisons.

[mhschmieder]

It's kind of humerous how the MacPro topic morphed into an iMac topic, and vice-versa...