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tony3d

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 6, 2006
377
2
Bought a new Mac Pro 3.06 yesterday, but it was the first Mac purchase I was sorry to make. I really had no choice. Was not going to go to Windows, and all that implies. Bought it with the 5870. I'll load it up with 24 gigs of ram, and maybe a 480 gig SSD. I was loosing bids on to many good paying jobs because my 2008 was just to slow to make deadlines comfortable foe me. Pisses me off, but just had no other real choice. If they do come out with something killer next year I suppose I'll sell it. Has anyone else bought one, or am I the only sucker?
 
Bought a new Mac Pro 3.06 yesterday, but it was the first Mac purchase I was sorry to make. I really had no choice. Was not going to go to Windows, and all that implies. Bought it with the 5870. I'll load it up with 24 gigs of ram, and maybe a 480 gig SSD. I was loosing bids on to many good paying jobs because my 2008 was just to slow to make deadlines comfortable foe me. Pisses me off, but just had no other real choice. If they do come out with something killer next year I suppose I'll sell it. Has anyone else bought one, or am I the only sucker?

Have done the same with a 3.33 last friday... Felt like a sucker...
 
Bought a new Mac Pro 3.06 yesterday, but it was the first Mac purchase I was sorry to make. I really had no choice. Was not going to go to Windows, and all that implies. Bought it with the 5870. I'll load it up with 24 gigs of ram, and maybe a 480 gig SSD. I was loosing bids on to many good paying jobs because my 2008 was just to slow to make deadlines comfortable foe me. Pisses me off, but just had no other real choice. If they do come out with something killer next year I suppose I'll sell it. Has anyone else bought one, or am I the only sucker?

Nope got a 6 core, if there's an upgrade next year and it's worthwhile I can sell and buy that, if not I'll keep it for a while. They seem to hold value well.
 
Nope got a 6 core, if there's an upgrade next year and it's worthwhile I can sell and buy that, if not I'll keep it for a while. They seem to hold value well.

That's what I figure I'll do as well, but I doubt they'll hold as much value this time around.
 
That's what I figure I'll do as well, but I doubt they'll hold as much value this time around.

I didn't pay full price for mine. So I'll probably still spin a profit.

A six core is $3000, I can see them selling with the HDD it came with, and added ram for... $2500-3000
 
I didn't pay full price for mine. So I'll probably still spin a profit.

A six core is $3000, I can see them selling with the HDD it came with, and added ram for... $2500-3000

I got a Disney discount as well, but I think even selling it may be a hassle.
 
I got a Disney discount as well, but I think even selling it may be a hassle.

eBay, starting price $2000, BIN: $3000

Take good pictures and put a nice thorough add together (look at others first)

Easy.
 
Bought a new Mac Pro 3.06 yesterday, but it was the first Mac purchase I was sorry to make. I really had no choice. Was not going to go to Windows, and all that implies. Bought it with the 5870. I'll load it up with 24 gigs of ram, and maybe a 480 gig SSD. I was loosing bids on to many good paying jobs because my 2008 was just to slow to make deadlines comfortable foe me. Pisses me off, but just had no other real choice. If they do come out with something killer next year I suppose I'll sell it. Has anyone else bought one, or am I the only sucker?

You're not the only one. I bought a 3.33 hexcore last night after a LOT of indecision. I must have configured it at least 20 times on the apple store page over the last 4-5 days, always ending up by killing the page before finally deciding last night and actually clicking the buy button.

In the end, it'll still be an massive performance improvement over my current 2007 iMac.
 
Bought a new Mac Pro 3.06 yesterday, but it was the first Mac purchase I was sorry to make. I really had no choice. Was not going to go to Windows, and all that implies. Bought it with the 5870. I'll load it up with 24 gigs of ram, and maybe a 480 gig SSD. I was loosing bids on to many good paying jobs because my 2008 was just to slow to make deadlines comfortable foe me. Pisses me off, but just had no other real choice. If they do come out with something killer next year I suppose I'll sell it. Has anyone else bought one, or am I the only sucker?
I sympathise with you, bud. I bought the same machine minus the SSD. I still have a 5870 in my 2,1 that I'm going to put in there, saving me a bit of money.

I felt terrible having to make the purchase, but I need an upgrade badly. I'll probably re-sell it next year if we get a genuine update to the mac Pro. Will probably loose a grand in the process, but I'd rather be able to do my job better for 12-18 months as opposed to limping along on this old thing and saving myself a little bit of cash.

At least it's still the fastest Mac available from apple by a substantial margin! Probably getting a geekbench of over 25,000.
 
I sympathise with you, bud. I bought the same machine minus the SSD. I still have a 5870 in my 2,1 that I'm going to put in there, saving me a bit of money.

I felt terrible having to make the purchase, but I need an upgrade badly. I'll probably re-sell it next year if we get a genuine update to the mac Pro. Will probably loose a grand in the process, but I'd rather be able to do my job better for 12-18 months as opposed to limping along on this old thing and saving myself a little bit of cash.

At least it's still the fastest Mac available from apple by a substantial margin! Probably getting a geekbench of over 25,000.

It's feels like I was really taken. Things like this are hard to forget. Just can't believe they didn't at least add USB3, and high end graphics card options. They could have at least done that to make it a bit easier to swallow.
 
It's feels like I was really taken. Things like this are hard to forget. Just can't believe they didn't at least add USB3, and high end graphics card options. They could have at least done that to make it a bit easier to swallow.

Yep, I've used Macs for over 20 years but never felt so ashamed and robbed as I did having to make this purchase from Apple. First time the company has genuinely let me down and had me questioning my loyalty to them.

Now, had I bought a 2010 Mac Pro 2 years ago, i doubt I'd be in the predicament I'm presently in, but I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when it came to my upgrade cycle.
 
I bought the 12 core 2.4ghz config because my 2008 died. Had it for half a day before returning it. Mine was defective with tons of beachballs every time I tried to do anything which obviously made my final decision. Any other mac I would have exchanged it but I felt like the biggest sucker buying it in the first place so it felt good to return it. I ended up just having my old one repaired with a new logic board for $450 at the apple store. Not bad for a full logic board replacement. Sucks too since I am only 2.5 months out of applecare warranty. Anyways I saw the new macbook pro retina there and loved it and went home and ordered one instead and purchased the voyager hard drive dock from OWC for $80. Works very well and has USB 3.0 and FW800 among others so I might pick up another and just stay mobile. The 2.4ghz only got a 18000 on geekbench and the macbook pro gets a 12000 so not too far off really in speed especially since it has 8 more cores!

If apple comes out with a super desktop next year I will buy it, maybe unless I feel that I am then fully invested in mobile with accessories and don't need it by then which will probably be the case. Apple is shooting themselves in the foot here. I tried to config a new HP W820 but the price went soaring into heaven so I gave up. Tried to build a system from newegg but they only have quad core ivy bridge and heck I have that already in notebook form so why bother. If its not at least 8 core ivy bridge then what is the point really. I never thought that having more power by this time would be so hard. Seems like we are stuck at the current performance of around 12000 to 20000 geekbench for the foreseeable future in regards to macs unless apple pull there head out of their behinds.
 
Yep, I've used Macs for over 20 years but never felt so ashamed and robbed as I did having to make this purchase from Apple. First time the company has genuinely let me down and had me questioning my loyalty to them.

Now, had I bought a 2010 Mac Pro 2 years ago, i doubt I'd be in the predicament I'm presently in, but I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when it came to my upgrade cycle.

Well, a lot of people are in the position from the look of it. If you bought a 2008 MP, it didn't make a ton of sense to upgrade to the 2010. A mac pro should last you at least a few years, not 2. Refreshing every 4-5 years is pretty reasonable for a professional machine. Apple has now thrust on people in that upgrade window a very difficult choice. Get by for possibly another 18 months on now an aging machine, buy a 2 year old computer, build a hack, or jump to another vender and OS. That's not an easy choice for people working in a professional environment and expensive software. Its a questionable business position Apple is putting themselves in for the professional market. If you think the moaning over a possible 2012 Sandy Bridge update has been bad, if the 2013 up is slow and Ivy Bridge E5's have been out for a few months, think how bad that's going to get.
 
If you think the moaning over a possible 2012 Sandy Bridge update has been bad, if the 2013 up is slow and Ivy Bridge E5's have been out for a few months, think how bad that's going to get.

that's what i'm wondering. we're going to be in exactly the same boat next year except swap ivy bridge for sandy bridge.
 
I just priced out a 480gb 6gb/s ssd + 2x 3TB 7200 RPM 6gb/s HDDs + 24GB RAM

$1259

Ouch.....

But atleast the ssd and the 2 harddrives I'm buying for the machine I could pull and use in the next gen.

Which would mean I'd be selling a 6core 1tb apple HDD with 24gb of ram. Could probably get 2500-3000



Edit: is the 5870 graphics card a necessary update? I do extremely small amounts of work in FCP (5-7min studio clips) with basic editing.
Also dabble with the creative cloud from adobe. Web design, and some graphic works.

(I do primarily audio, all this other stuff is mostly hobby for my enjoyment.)
 
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Edit: is the 5870 graphics card a necessary update? I do extremely small amounts of work in FCP (5-7min studio clips) with basic editing.
Also dabble with the creative cloud from adobe. Web design, and some graphic works.

(I do primarily audio, all this other stuff is mostly hobby for my enjoyment.)

Depends on your screen size. A 27" screen really is much better suited for a card like the 5870 and it shows. If your screen is 24" or under, a 5770 is fine. I wouldn't pay more than $200 for a 5870, though. (better to buy when ordering rather than upgrade later).
 
It's feels like I was really taken.

Sorry dude:(. When they released this as an update, it lended real legitimacy to the complaints. I mean the others are just starting to ship. If Apple began shipping something similar too, it wouldn't have been so bad.

. Anyways I saw the new macbook pro retina there and loved it and went home and ordered one instead and purchased the voyager hard drive dock from OWC for $80. Works very well and has USB 3.0 and FW800 among others so I might pick up another and just stay mobile. The 2.4ghz only got a 18000 on geekbench and the macbook pro gets a 12000 so not too far off really in speed especially since it has 8 more cores!

Heat, IO, and gpu speeds remain an issue even if the cpu falls within the good enough range. Other than that, both Sandy and Ivy aren't that bad under moderate loads if your laptop needed an update anyway. If the workstation is far enough behind and you don't have any exotic IO card requirements, you can always stagger your updates. It's just not ideal.

I tried to config a new HP W820 but the price went soaring into heaven so I gave up. Tried to build a system from newegg but they only have quad core ivy bridge and heck I have that already in notebook form so why bother. If its not at least 8 core ivy bridge then what is the point really.

Workstation chips are only available in Sandy Bridge E. The ivy bridge ones are low power components or those intended for consumer desktops. The Ivy bridge ones you'd see in a mac pro aren't scheduled for the current year. HP adds a huge "HP tax":D:rolleyes: to any configurations. They start out moderate. If you want to max one out, you pay dearly for it. It's pretty common among oems. Apple is a little more homogenized in this regard. They don't support a huge number of configurations. There's definitely a markup on upgrades. On some things you pay more for the base model but less on top for the upgrade. Some of Apple's competition can still price well below them, but the markup built into configurations rather than based on components can be annoying.
 
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