Just a little vent lol

[djray77]

OK guys dont go nuts here but I just have a couple thoughts I wanted to share and to see if anyone has the same thought.
OK I just bought a macpro and dont get me wrong I think its awesome, BUT I am reading through this forum board and Im not so sure it was a good buy? and here is why.
I am reading about old video card options (This was a big factor for me also but I decided to buy one anyway) lets face it the x1900xt is old now and kinda of dated IMO. Lets move to HD, I would of liked it if they had a WD Raptor option . I mean the stock 250gb is OK but they couldnt even give you a 16mb cache drive?? Now the soundcard very limit IMO, crap my headset w/mic for some reason doesnt work?? for the video/audio edited machine these are I thought they would of put top of the line in there.

Like I said I do like my first mac but for the money these cost I think they really skimp on them 3 items.

For a reference I did get a quote from Dell (yes I did say dell lol) and I could of got the best of the best for about the same price, but I wanted to try a mac

Edit: There is a 4th item isnt the ram kinda old also running 667mhz??

 

[jono_3]

not speaking for video, but for audio anyway the high end programs that you would be running in a pro situation would absolutely not be using the built in soundcard. some programs come with them, but specialty I/O interfaces are used kindof like a soundcard and bypasses the internal stuff. the reason most people use macs for audio/video is because of security, stability, and the superior os.

 

[Oryan]

my headset w/mic for some reason doesnt work??

My G5 powermac requires a powered mic. I suspect this is the same on the mac pros. You can get a USB adapter to make your mic to work. I haven't actually bothered to try one though.

 

[dkoralek]

OK guys dont go nuts here but I just have a couple thoughts I wanted to share and to see if anyone has the same thought.
OK I just bought a macpro and dont get me wrong I think its awesome, BUT I am reading through this forum board and Im not so sure it was a good buy? and here is why.
I am reading about old video card options (This was a big factor for me also but I decided to buy one anyway) lets face it the x1900xt is old now and kinda of dated IMO. Lets move to HD, I would of liked it if they had a WD Raptor option . I mean the stock 250gb is OK but they couldnt even give you a 16mb cache drive?? Now the soundcard very limit IMO, crap my headset w/mic for some reason doesnt work?? for the video/audio edited machine these are I thought they would of put top of the line in there.

Like I said I do like my first mac but for the money these cost I think they really skimp on them 3 items.

For a reference I did get a quote from Dell (yes I did say dell lol) and I could of got the best of the best for about the same price, but I wanted to try a mac

Edit: There is a 4th item isnt the ram kinda old also running 667mhz??

Honestly, what kind of research did you do? The last comment is the clearest indication of this. The chipsets that support the Xeon (5100) series require fully bufferred memory. The max speed on these are 667MHz. Dell doesn't even default to this, they default the configs to 533MHz. The Mac Pro is a workstation. If you compare to the Precision workstations that Dell sells, there isn't much out of line. If you want a raptor, buy a raptor. I mean, how much easier can it be to add a hard drive. I'll grant you that the 8meg cache on the hard drives that apple sells is a bit cheap, but as I said before, installing other sata hard drives could not be any easier than can be. I'm not sure what you mean by the x1900 not being hd, btw. whether the apple sold one is hdcp compliant is unclear, but one would imagine that the next generation will for sure (it's not as if apple is shipping blu-ray or hd-dvd yet, so it wouldn't matter either way).

cheers.

 

[jono_3]

My G5 powermac requires a powered mic. I suspect this is the same on the mac pros. You can get a USB adapter to make your mic to work. I haven't actually bothered to try one though.

is the power your refering to +48v/phantom power?

 

[Umbongo]

The Mac Pro isn't a gaming machine, the X1900XT is still one of the best performing DX9 cards around and is more than adequate for the majority of users. Are there better cards out there? Sure, but for whatever reasons Mac users are stuck with a small range of options, the X1900 is hardly a bad one.

I imagine the raptors aren't offered as Mac pros are supposed to be "silent". Why they ship drives with 8mb cache rather than 16mb I don't know, probably something to do with most users not needing them or buying drives from Apple. So they just offer cheap storage devices at high prices to make money on sales to institutions and businesses that buy in bulk and aren't going to custom fit hundreds of drives.

In regards to the soundcard; perhaps Apple thought there would be a number of aftermarket pci-e cards around. I'm not well versed in such technology.

 

[product26]

The Mac Pro isn't a gaming machine, the X1900XT is still one of the best performing DX9 cards around and is more than adequate for the majority of users. Are there better cards out there? Sure, but for whatever reasons Mac users are stuck with a small range of options, the X1900 is hardly a bad one.

I imagine the raptors aren't offered as Mac pros are supposed to be "silent". Why they ship drives with 8mb cache rather than 16mb I don't know, probably something to do with most users not needing them or buying drives from Apple. So they just offer cheap storage devices at high prices to make money on sales to institutions and businesses that buy in bulk and aren't going to custom fit hundreds of drives.

In regards to the soundcard; perhaps Apple thought there would be a number of aftermarket pci-e cards around. I'm not well versed in such technology.

a lot of audio people will be using a firewire or usb solution for sound I/O

they offer a decent I/O solution onboard to keep MOST people from bitching about it.

 

[iW00t]

No offense, but your post really smells like a PeeCee user's what with all that spec comparisons and numerical mumbo jumbo.

What work are you doing with it that requires that 2-3% of increased performance that you get from 16MB cached hard drives and another 2-3% from perhaps a faster clocked memory?

I mean you shelled out quite a fair bit to have a huge gamer's ePeen, because I am positively sure you are not doing anything real on those el-cheapo gateway LCD monitors.

Swop them for a pair of these, then perhaps you have a more justified need for what the Mac Pro delivers.

 

[WildPalms]

OK guys dont go nuts here but I just have a couple thoughts I wanted to share and to see if anyone has the same thought.
OK I just bought a macpro and dont get me wrong I think its awesome, BUT I am reading through this forum board and Im not so sure it was a good buy? and here is why.
I am reading about old video card options (This was a big factor for me also but I decided to buy one anyway) lets face it the x1900xt is old now and kinda of dated IMO. Lets move to HD, I would of liked it if they had a WD Raptor option . I mean the stock 250gb is OK but they couldnt even give you a 16mb cache drive?? Now the soundcard very limit IMO, crap my headset w/mic for some reason doesnt work?? for the video/audio edited machine these are I thought they would of put top of the line in there.

Like I said I do like my first mac but for the money these cost I think they really skimp on them 3 items.

For a reference I did get a quote from Dell (yes I did say dell lol) and I could of got the best of the best for about the same price, but I wanted to try a mac

Edit: There is a 4th item isnt the ram kinda old also running 667mhz??

WTF? the X1900XT performs at a similar level to the nVidia 7950GT which is the current card on the market. Dont go quoting the 8800 to me either as this is a relative newcomer on the market with its own host of issues and the only DirectX 10 card, etc etc etc <-- my vent.

Are you a Windows baiter?

 

[Grenadier]

IMO,
the X1900XT is not very old. It will be ageing in about 3 months, but its still one of the top cards. Apple will probably be introducing a higher end card before March anyway.
667MHz RAM is not that bad-
is there seriously such a performance difference between 667MHz and 800MHz RAM ?
Oh, and if the HDD isnt to your taste, just buy a Raptor

 

[djray77]

IMO,
the X1900XT is not very old. It will be ageing in about 3 months, but its still one of the top cards. Apple will probably be introducing a higher end card before March anyway.
667MHz RAM is not that bad-
is there seriously such a performance difference between 667MHz and 800MHz RAM ?
Oh, and if the HDD isnt to your taste, just buy a Raptor

Check my sig

 

[djray77]

No offense, but your post really smells like a PeeCee user's what with all that spec comparisons and numerical mumbo jumbo.

What work are you doing with it that requires that 2-3% of increased performance that you get from 16MB cached hard drives and another 2-3% from perhaps a faster clocked memory?

I mean you shelled out quite a fair bit to have a huge gamer's ePeen, because I am positively sure you are not doing anything real on those el-cheapo gateway LCD monitors.

Swop them for a pair of these, then perhaps you have a more justified need for what the Mac Pro delivers.

This coming from a guy with no sig and probably has a couple 15 inchers LOL!!
DUDE NEC sucks ass, I like my acer and gateway, and 700 each is enough to spend for me thanks for the input though.

You guys arent seeing my point here and just thinking "OH NO SOMEONE IS TALKING ***** ABOUT MACS"
Im just saying for the price these machine cost dont you think it should come with the latest and greatest?? I dont care if its 2-3% increase. I did pay alot for my setup and yes i do have a raptor drive in but I think it should come that way stock.

 

[After G]

Basically, pro users care about the HW being up to snuff with respect to non-upgradeables. Otherwise, they'll bring their own sound interface/drives/other peripherals to get the job done.

I'm pretty sure you could plug in a DX10 card, but you'd have to swap with the ATI card to run OS X, and run it by itself with Windows.

 

[CyberPrey]

If you felt this way, you evidently didn't do much research before spending money..

If you wanted something with better sound and raptor drives and faster memory and a newer video card straight from the box, why didn't you simply call alienware, falcon northwest, or some other customizable system seller?? Or simply build one yourself??

 

[Grenadier]

!



I can kind of agree.
Kind of


However, I myself am getting a Mac Pro purely for gaming soon, and im sure itll fit my needs. Why not a Alienware ? I cant live without OSX

 

[djray77]

If you felt this way, you evidently didn't do much research before spending money..

If you wanted something with better sound and raptor drives and faster memory and a newer video card straight from the box, why didn't you simply call alienware, falcon northwest, or some other customizable system seller?? Or simply build one yourself??

I do alot of research before buying any computer hardware, I do have a PC that I built myself. I have always wanted to give mac a try for 3-4 years now.
I did get quotes from Dell, Alienware and falcon, but they dont have the Mac OSX I always wanted to tryout.
Like I said I do like my MAC I think its a great machine, I was just looking at all the threads about why apple doesnt have the latest video cards/sound cards etc.. I really think for the money you have to pay for a mac they should give you all the lastest hardware thats all im saying.

 

[dkoralek]

This coming from a guy with no sig and probably has a couple 15 inchers LOL!!
DUDE NEC sucks ass, my acer and gateway rock, and 700 each is enough to spend for me thanks for the input though.

You guys arent seeing my point here and just thinking "OH NO SOMEONE IS TALKING ***** ABOUT MACS"
Im just saying for the price these machine cost dont you think it should come with the latest and greatest?? I dont care if its 2-3% increase. I did pay alot for my setup and yes i do have a raptor drive in but I think it should come that way stock.

No, we're seeing your point and clearly you have done jack in terms of research. You can't get an 8800 from Dell on a workstation. For the majority of uses for a Mac Pro, the x1900 or the FX4500 is more than adequate (and for my use where I could care less about 3d acceleration, the 7300 is more than adequate). The Mac Pro isn't geared towards gamers (nor are the Dell Precisions) and one of the benefits of fewer choices is more OS stability and compatibility (these limits are both a blessing and a curse for the Mac world). You can't get 800MHz RAM with a xeon 5100 (and Dell doesn't even pick 667MHz as the base configuration). You might be able to on the lower tiered Precisions, but they use the conroe based xeons and aren't using fully bufferred DIMMs (which are maxed out at 667MHz). As I stated before, this weakens your arguments because it shows that your research is poor. Yeah, maybe Apple could sell a raptor as a configuration, but at Apple markups would you really want that? You can easily move everything from one drive to the other, so it takes an hour out of your day to install it and move everything, big deal.
And to address your last point, no I don't particularly want the latest, I want the best that's stable with my OS and applications.

cheers.

 

[dkoralek]

I do alot of research before buying any computer hardware, I do have a PC that I built myself. I have always wanted to give mac a try for 3-4 years now.
I did get quotes from Dell, Alienware and falcon, but they dont have the Mac OSX I always wanted to tryout.
Like I said I do like my MAC I think its a great machine, I was just looking at all the threads about why apple doesnt have the latest video cards/sound cards etc.. I really think for the money you have to pay for a mac they should give you all the lastest hardware thats all im saying.

If you did "a lot of research" you compared apples and oranges (no pun intended). You were clearly comparing a Mac Pro to gaming PCs. The Mac Pro is not targetted to that market, and you are comparing other components that don't match up right (like the RAM). It would be like buying a Dell precision as a gaming rig.

cheers.

 

[djray77]

Its kind of like buying a bentley and getting ford escort options
I do see your point though, I guess I thought it would be able to do everything I wanted not just geared for one aspect, if you know what I mean.

 

[dkoralek]

Its kind of like buying a bentley and getting ford escort options
I do see your point though, I guess I thought it would be able to do everything I wanted not just geared for one aspect, if you know what I mean.

You're trying to buy a top of the line SUV that can also do all the things that a top of the line sports car can also do. and other than hard drives (which are simple to buy and install) they come with all the top of the line bells and whistles that a top of the line work station comes with.

cheers.