MPro comparison to other workstations from Arstechnica

[G51989]

I'm still not too sure about the article. Price didn't play much of a factor in the comparison.

In terms of being a real workstation, the mac pro is a bargain. 2 and a half grand to get your foot in the door to xeon class processing power is pretty good.

So far as I've been looking at workstations the MP has always been in the corner of my eye as a low cost, stable, out of the box, professional-world alternative.

I know people here have been complaining about the price of the mac pro and the perceived lack of value from these machines but for me it's sort of a bargain compared to the alternative in my old office - dell precision. (nothing wrong with dell's business grade stuff!)

The Mac Pro is not a bargin by any means, its outdated. And the perceived lack of value is 100% true. Not only does it lack modern IO ports. Your stuck with old hardware, did you see how badly the Mac Pro got destroyed in those benchmarks?

The base model is even worse, its a complete ripoff, 100%. Unless you NEED OSX ( which is very rare these days ), there is no point in buying the current gen Mac Pro.

 

[velocityg4]

My first MP came with a Maxtor HD and an NEC optical drive, both of which failed. There were an entire generation of MPs with a huge failure rate on PSUs. The Radeon 2600, Radeon x1900, NVidia 8800 were all ticking time bombs or had awful drivers and flaws. Many MP owners also noted extremely cheap RAM.

Add in the fact that the PCs in the articles come with longer warranties and superior on-site service--and yes, they often come out same-day and bring replacement parts with them, something you willfully misstated here.

There is nothing magical about Apple parts that makes them last longer, and with a shorter warranty and no on site service, it can be a huge expense for companies, especially small ones with no real tech department.

If I have to haul my workstation into a freaking Apple store every time I want something fixed, or be an expert in computer hardware to troubleshoot the freakin thing, my downtime for any particular problem is going to be unacceptable.

As for Windows 7 being worse than 10.7/8 in terms of crashes, I highly doubt it. Dell also has tech support who can actually remotely login and troubleshoot your computer to fix it.

I find mac-using professionals often have to know a lot more about hardware and software to make it "just work" without significant downtime. This is just ridiculous. Expecting it to run every time or someone to fix it "for free" when it doesn't is not too much to ask.

For consumer machines, Macs are great, but professionals/businesses require reliability and service.

With Apple's terrible support, it's almost better to just build your own.

I didn't willfully misstate anything. Your experiences with tech support have obviously been much better than mine. Mine have been spending a long time on the phone troubleshooting to no avail, waiting two or three days to get an onsite tech out, waiting for parts to ship then waiting for the tech to return to install them. Much of which could be avoided if they took my word that i know what i'm doing and just send me the parts I know that the repair needs. Rather than wait for a tech to do exactly what I knew the repair needed.

I only bother with tech support on stuff that can wait. If it is important I go out, buy it and install it.

 

[DonMega]

I do like OSX, I hated 10.7, and am sorta starting to hate 10.8, feels like its full of gimmicks. Though I don't think I'll ever hate 10.8 as much as 10.7.

Yeah I agree, I've always used PC's and Macs, even as a youngin ( First PC was a 486 running Windows 3.1, first Mac I used was some old pile of ****, forget what kind of was, then I bought a iMacG3 in high school, damn Im getting old....27 is just to damn old lol ). The only windows I have complaints about are ME and Vista, the rest of them weren't to bad.

OSX is just something I see going down hill, big time.

I'm afraid that if you have hate toward something as peripheral to life as an OS, you've got bigger problems.

 

[G51989]

I'm afraid that if you have hate toward something as peripheral to life as an OS, you've got bigger problems.

Its not the same kind of hate that I have for people ( yes, I hate people, most of them are pretty damn stupid ). Its more of a " well that's gonna be collecting dust because its ****ing garbage " kind of dislike.

 

[xav8tor]

In prior to the Xeon E5's being avaialbe to system vendors in volume. (very late April '12 and previous) that was true. The delta between the June updates and their predecessors isn't that large. So it really didn't make much sense to release those earlier in 2011 like some suggested. If they are 'woefully bad" now in 2012 rolling back 6-8 months into 2011 doesn't really make that much better. Furthermore, it would have blown the "Plan B" option from being invoked in June if Apple stumbled along the way (which they did).




Not really. Even for he various variants of the "pro" connotation thrown around.

Pro == Enterprise and/or "big ticket price" market. Those market typically are risk adverse and move slowly on capital equipment purchases. A few will be updating at a time but the group as a whole largely does far, far, FAR, more talking and prima donna strutting ( 'either you do exactly what I say or I'm going to the next sandbox to play') than doing.

Pro == significantly above average high performance with more than average (for Macs) prices. Again, typically a substantially slow equipment turn over rate.


The Mac Pro is not the key to the Mac business. Never has been. Ever.




It is growth not profits. Growth is what inflates the Apple stock by large amounts over longer period of times.




The boot code is not Apple's code. Whether the card presents to EFI is the card vendor. I suppose Apple could hand over a wad of R&D money as a bounty for the card vendor to do the work. While Apple does that for some parts for the most part they slide risks to the components vendors side of the table. That's primarily why there are no cards.

If there was a gap between OpenGL and the card that is more so the area where its "Apple's fault".





Apple generally does not have an inventory problem.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/06/01/apple-inventory

They have one of the most highly tuned "just in time" supply chains in the business. That is one reason why they have been highly successful and a primary reason why Tim Cook is now CEO.

If the suggestions you are sending are along the lines of "you should do blah, blah, blah to clear out inventory" then they are most likely being politely dumped into the trash can.

That's like trying to sell air conditioners, ice makers, and "walk in" freezers to Eskimos living North of the arctic circle.

I don't have time now that I have all the upgrades done to respond to each reply. I am a "PRO" user because I use "pro" equipment and derive about half of my revenue from my pro hardware (i.e., the Mac Pro) and half from my software (my brain).

My notes to Cook and IR were articulate and logical, not crybaby. Tens of thousands of pro users reacted the same way I did. Between the FCX debacle and calling the 2012 Mac Pro "new," Apple again fell flat on their face. As a shareholder, I read all the annuals and quarterlies and listen to the earnings calls. I fully understand what drives the value of AAPL and as a shareholder, am ecstatic. As a pro user, I am angry and feel neglected. Plenty of others feel exactly the same way. And again, I stand by my position that a visible presence in pro markets has far greater value than profit per unit alone.

 

[slughead]

And again, I stand by my position that a visible presence in pro markets has far greater value than profit per unit alone.

That's clearly true. I don't know how anyone can deny that. As long as they're not losing too much money on the Mac Pro, clearly having a machine in that market allows companies to do all the tasks they need to do without having another platform. This reduces costs to companies by allowing them to hire less technical staff as well as allowing their computers to network more seamlessly.

If there were no Mac Pro, new businesses purchasing hardware that require a real workstation would overlook Apple in favor of a bulk buy from Dell.

That's also not to mention the "I use it at work, seems to do okay, I think I'll make my next personal computer a Mac too!" Apple adopted this strategy with education--exposing the kids to Macs so they bought/asked their parents to buy macs later. All Apple has to do is offer a product and update it semi-regularly and they will get a lot of utility out of it.

 

[dbit]

Im a 17 year mac loyalist who finally spent 4k and built an amazing pc workstation. Windows 7 has been great and the machine is smoking fast. I am one of those who would proselytize to others how "I know why I pay the premium for the mac os experience", and "once you know you'll never go back", blah blah.. To be fair, this is a 'work only' machine. I'm still using my mbp for worry free internet, but the transition has been so seamless and transparent that I have to say in retrospect I was putting way too much emphasis on the importance of the OS on a work machine. I spend 98% of my time in application environments. Windows 7 is clean enough to where I hardly notice it.

I do love having my macs for all things internet, being for the most part worry free, etc. but I'm done being so arrogant as to think the windows experience is by definition clunky, horrible, unintuitive, etc. After 17 years and now finally having a decent microsoft os in windows 7, I have to admit, it really doesn't matter all that much...

 

[twietee]

To be fair, this is a 'work only' machine. I'm still using my mbp for worry free internet, but the transition has been so seamless and transparent that I have to say in retrospect I was putting way too much emphasis on the importance of the OS on a work machine. I spend 98% of my time in application environments. Windows 7 is clean enough to where I hardly notice it.

I don't quite get it either. I have roundabout 5-8 main programs I do use for work, once everything's set up my system only starts getting unstable with me doing things on a worksation which are work-unrelated..but that's my personal experience of course. I do like the easy bootcamp choice, though - hence the Mac.

I too have an Apple laptop, they are superior I think, but I also see constantly Lenovo Thinkpads in firms I'm doing business with. I'm in the transition from XP PC to a MacPro for a workstation though. Yeah, keep laughing..