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Mac Pro unleashed

I'm surprised this hasn't been done already! WWDC was this morn, depending on time zones, and among other things the G5 replacement got loosed upon us mere mortals. Some stats;

Quote:

Two 2GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processors
Intel Core microarchitecture
4MB shared L2 cache per processor
128-bit SSE3 vector engine
64-bit data paths and registers
1.33GHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses
667MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory
Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (4 slots per card) supporting up to 16GB of main memory
Up to 256-bit wide memory architecture
Four independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA cable-free, direct attach hard drive bays; four internal hard drive carriers included
Up to 2TB of internal storage (2) using hard drives
Double-wide 16-lane PCI Express graphics slot with one of the following graphics cards installed:
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port
ATI Radeon X1900 XT with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and two dual-link DVI ports
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, two dual-link DVI ports, and one stereo 3D port
Multiple graphics card configurations including two, three, or four NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT cards
300W for up to four PCI Express graphics cards
Support for up to eight displays(1)
Support for digital resolutions up to 1920 by 1200 pixels; dual-link DVI ports support up to 2560 by 600 pixels
Support for analog resultions up to 2048 by 1536 pixels
DVI to VGA Adapter included
Dual-display support for extended desktop and video mirroring modes

Plus it's got two optical drives, a bunch more outputs and for an awesome price. If I only had the space and coinage to buy one, but I know several folk who'll be very happy with this one indeed. If anyone doubted the swap to Intel the proof, as the say, is in the pudding.

Did anyone catch the keynote? It's being rebroadcast at the Apple website and focuses a fair bit on Leopard.

holy hell. I love my Macbook Pro, which is my first Mac, but I never thought of getting a Mac desktop. This makes me think about having my next computer be a Mac, even though I have never bought a pre-built computer before. And since it's on the Intel chips, I can have the best of both worlds!

If I had $14,000 to spend on a computer and monitor, this is how I would do it:
Dual 3 GHz
16 GB RAM
2 500 GB HDs
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)
30" Flat Panel Display, HD naturally
Fibre Channel Card

Christ, it'd be like having a McLaren F1 computer.

This thing is a BEAST. I'm ever impressed with Apple.

is the Quadro FX 4500 better than 4 7300's? because it's a lot more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YaWhateva

is the Quadro FX 4500 better than 4 7300's? because it's a lot more.

Everything is more expensive coming from Mac, theoretically because it is more stabel and better integrated. I'm not 100% sure which is better between the two, but if I had to choose, I'd say that the Quadro FX would perform better in a Mac than the 7300's in a comparable PC.

The Quadro FX is a pro-level card. 3D designers et al. If you're getting it for games best bet is to stick one of the ATi cards in there, or like you suggested wire up multiple 7300s. Theoretically the drivers for 3D cards will be easier to make cross-platform with the Intel switch, so my money's on the divide growing smaller. Er, except that Dell now pwns ATi, so nVidia have the advantage. The processors for the Intel mobos are upgradeable, too - you can stick a Merom in a Mini.

A more "reasonable" configuration?

Dual 3GHz
4GB RAM
250GB SATA (+ later through super-simple sleds)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
30" Cinema Display
1 Superdrive (rarely use disc media anymore)
Bluetooth + Airport
AppleCare
----------------------
Total: $7076.00 OR $168/month

Makes a guy think... if I could do just a little more freelance per month, I could swing an extra $170/month into the ol' budget...