Apple's Mac Pro - A True PowerMac Successor
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 16, 2006 12:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
The Mac Pro is pretty much everything the PowerMac G5 should have been. It's cooler, quieter, faster, has more expansion and it gives you more for your value than the older systems ever could.
If you were happy with your PowerMac G5, then you'll definitely be happy with the Mac Pro. And if you're a heavy multitasker, you will quickly be spoiled by the four very high performance cores that have found their way into the familiar looking chassis.
We did want a little more out of the system; for a company that usually embraces up and coming standards we wanted to see things like eSATA or CrossFire/SLI supported, but that's mostly for the geek in us that just likes playing around with interesting technologies. We would've also appreciated a more upgrade friendly setup; while we do appreciate how easy it is to install new drives and memory, replacing your CPUs is much more time intensive. Seeing as how you can now buy CPUs for your Mac from Newegg thanks to Apple using regular Intel processors, we'd assume that CPU upgrades will be done a bit more frequently especially as time goes on and prices drop.
From a performance standpoint, running OS X, the Mac Pro is truly Apple's fastest system by a long shot. Some of the performance advantages over the PowerMac G5 aren't enormous, but then you look at situations like iPhoto, Xcode or Final Cut Pro where the G5 is just put to shame. Rosetta performance is just about as good as it gets, the only real solution to that problem is for Adobe and Microsoft to hurry up and release updated software. Unfortunately since Apple isn't really a favorite of either company, it's not like greater than usual amounts of resources are being thrown at releasing new products specifically for the Mac platform.
Would we suggest staying away from the Mac Pro until all applications are available as Universal Binaries? No. But make sure you know what you're getting yourself into before you buy anything: emulated performance is bearable, but it's by no means fast.
One of our biggest concern about the Mac Pro is that users who don't need 8 memory slots or four cores would be better off if Apple released a single socket Core 2 based Mac tower. The memory performance of FBD on the Intel 5000X chipset is absolutely horrid and there's nothing you can do about it unless you switch entirely to an all serial interface or go back to using regular DDR2 memory.
The memory performance of the Mac Pro is noticeably better than the PowerMac G5 and competitive with other products in the Mac lineup (for now), but it's still significantly lower than where it could be. Intel seems married to its FBD strategy for now, which unfortunately means that as long as Apple wants two sockets for the Mac Pro, you'll need to deal with FBD. Our recommendation to Apple? Give us a Core 2 based tower. Our recommendation to Intel? Give us an alternative to FBD.
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DigitalFreak - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
Is there a 64bit version of OS X for the Intel platform? I didn't think there was, considering that until now all of the Intel Macs have only had 32bit processors.kelmon - Thursday, August 17, 2006 - link
Depends on what you mean by 64-bit. OS X has, I believe, had a 64-bit UNIX layer since 10.3 (I don't think it was introduced with 10.4) but the only applications that can take advantage of this are command-line tools. Leopard will introduce 64-bit everywhere but I'm still struggling to find a reason why that will impact me in a good way. That said, the new Mac will have a 64-bit processor so that I can feel future-proof.Pirks - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
Good question. I don't know, maybe OS X on those Mac Pros is patched to 64-bit or something.. if not than I should shut up and wait till Leopard.Snuffalufagus - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
it should factor in at least a 25% - 35% discount code on the Dell :).I have never bought anything off the Dell site without getting a substantial discount from a current promotion.
trivik12 - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
Does Dell offer 25-35% off for Dell Precision Workstation?MrPIppy - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
The last generation of Power Mac G5s also had dual GigE ports: http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html">Apple's G5 specs pageOne difference though, the G5s (and the GigE G4s before them) used Broadcom 57xx chips for Ethernet, while the Mac Pro now uses an Intel 8254x chip.
Josh7289 - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
But what is so good about Macs? Why would I want a Mac instead of a PC? What can a Mac offer me that a PC can't? I don't like trolling, but I seriously am asking these questions and want to know what the answers are.phaxmohdem - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
I used to be a mac hater because All the macs I've ever used truely were Pieces of $h!t. Old single cpu G4 towers with no Hard Drive Space or RAM, and way too much student crap spread on them. HOWEVER recently I had the pleasure of using a REAL mac (Quad G5) for a video project, and it made me think of macs a little differently. Plenty fast, and stable. My biggest problems were learning all the new Mac hot keys and keyboard shortcuts.. but once you master those you'll fly on the mac. (Some of Macs shortcuts still seem pretty stupid and complex to me though).However I serioualy don't understand the keyboard and mouse that Apple gives their cusotomers... The new mighty mouse is an improvement, but still an uncomfortable POS to me. Ditto for the mushy fugly keyboard that is standard. I've found that a proper Logitech (or similar) Kybd/Mouse combo makes the mac experience feel 10x better. (One more side-gripe... OS X does not have adjustments for mouse acceleration, and for me the stock acceleration speeds are wretched and piss me off... Hopefully this is something to be updated in the next release of the OS)
So, moral of my story is... if you're going to Mac it up, do it right with proper input devices and some decent specs, and you'll have an enjoyable experience under OS X. I personally still choose Windows for its versatility w/ software and hardware... but to each his own.
Maury Markowitz - Thursday, August 17, 2006 - link
Agree. I find it somewhat ironic that the only MS products I really like are their keyboards, mice, and joysticks. What's particularily maddening is that Apple used to, years ago, make the best keyboard money could buy. Seriously, solid as a rock and typing feel you'd kill for. Now they peddle crap that looks nice. Not good.timelag - Thursday, August 17, 2006 - link
Apple used to, years ago, make the best keyboard money could buy.Ah yes, the extended keyboard II. Better even than the famous IBM and Sun keyboards of yore. If it weren't for my Kinesis (the One True ergo keyboard), I'd be using mine through an ADB to USB connector.