The Z series having plastic sheaths and cowling you have to remove for each part reminds me of the G5's (in a bad way.) They cleaned things up a bit with the X40s, I guess.
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Why are Mac Pros SO Heavy?
- Thread starter pkarl
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The Z series having plastic sheaths and cowling you have to remove for each part reminds me of the G5's (in a bad way.) They cleaned things up a bit with the X40s, I guess.
I have seen one in person, but not the inside. Just looked up some images, and the interior looks pretty modular and efficient in design... but they still are sheet-metal towers. I wouldn't necessarily call them nice - just beefy towers.
From a security POV, I'm glad the cMP is so heavy with its metal case, dual CPU, big graphics card, up to at least 6 drives and uncomfortable to carry. Then the back can be padlocked and the rear handle can be security locked with a motorbike lock to the desk or the radiator. If someone wanted to steal your machine they would need serious power tools and be very strong. Then if you don't have a boot screen that's even more security because someone can't easily attach a bootable USB drive to load their own OS that they can use to funk with your internal drives.
Soy is the boy, he has hit it right on the head. My Mac Pro fully loaded with drives and cards is far too heavy for some scrote to just pick up and run away with. The handles cutting into your hands over time is an added bonus!
Notice my use of the word quality and not nice. With that said what do you mean by nice?
They are designed efficiently on the inside (I'm especially eyeing those drive bays that look easily swappable), but they still are non-Apple towers: plastic, sheet metal, etc. I wouldn't confide in its hardware over a Mac Pro's, even if this HP workstation is designed better and boasts higher quality than normal towers.
BTW, last I checked, some Dell workstation with equivalent specs to my 2006 Mac Pro was about $1k more in price and nowhere as good in any other way. They're stamped-out boxes, like any other non-Apple tower.
You're aware that the cheese grater Apples are simply made of bent, rolled, stamped aluminum, yes?
I don't understand the focus on how the boxes are made. If they're sturdy, durable, silent, expandable and easy to work on - I don't care if they're made from microwaved hardened cream cheese.
The Precisions and the Z-series are definitely winners in those areas. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on good design.
ARE they silent? I'm sure they're pretty durable, but their quality lacks a bit in comparison to that of a Mac Pro... it's apparent in ANY non-Apple tower.
The MP6,1 is quiet, it is not silent.
The Dells and HPs are also quiet. I've actually made the mistake of pulling PCIe cards out of Precision Workstations without shutting them down - they were so quiet I didn't realize that the were actually running.
What's apparent is that you seem to have a bias that "quality" requires that a half-eaten apple be on the box. In fact, there are other quality systems.
If you compare $2K to $3K workstation systems from Dell and HP to Apples, you'll find little difference in quality. The Apples might push more for "pretty", but as far as build quality and endurance you'll find little difference. (This applies to the MP5,1 and earlier - the MP6,1 fortunately doesn't have any comparable system from any other vendor.)
On the other hand, the $399 specials at Best Buy are lower quality, regardless of the brand. Surprised? The only difference is that Apple for the most part doesn't have an "affordable" tier of systems.
I understand that the differences aren't enormous, but I would still rate a Mac Pro as being higher in quality than an HP or Dell workstation. And, yes, current towers have improved. However, comparing a 2006 Dell workstation to my 2006 Mac Pro would be like comparing a tuned Honda to a BMW. In this case, however, the Honda some how costs more.
Do not dare accuse me of being a person who thinks that a logo makes a product - it's infuriating and a rather unoriginal comment to make, considering that everyone and their idiot brother says that about Mac users.
I happen to own around 85, a couple dozen (or more) of which are Windows PCs. I am very familiar with what goes into a Windows PC; I have also seen and used an HP workstation before. Do NOT accuse me of not knowing my computer hardware - consider my experience here. I have and work on more Windows PCs than many Windows users do, and I have yet to be impressed with the hardware on ANY Windows PC. Even if I happen to encounter a machine that's seemingly nice, there are already cheap quirks to it... sorta like with those new HP Folio machines that kinda look like MacBook Pros. It's $1050 per machine. They might seem nice, but their structural integrity can easily be examined and discounted, due to the fact that it's still not very well-built in comparison to a MacBook Pro.
Do not dare accuse me of being a person who thinks that a logo makes a product - it's infuriating and a rather unoriginal comment to make, considering that everyone and their idiot brother says that about Mac users.
I happen to own around 85, a couple dozen (or more) of which are Windows PCs. I am very familiar with what goes into a Windows PC; I have also seen and used an HP workstation before. Do NOT accuse me of not knowing my computer hardware - consider my experience here. I have and work on more Windows PCs than many Windows users do, and I have yet to be impressed with the hardware on ANY Windows PC. Even if I happen to encounter a machine that's seemingly nice, there are already cheap quirks to it... sorta like with those new HP Folio machines that kinda look like MacBook Pros. It's $1050 per machine. They might seem nice, but their structural integrity can easily be examined and discounted, due to the fact that it's still not very well-built in comparison to a MacBook Pro.
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The simple fact that you say "Windows PC" instead of "Windows workstation" weakens your argument.
And one simply can't compare an MP6,1 to a current HP Z-series or Dell Precision. They're completely different systems built for different users.
You'll get into absurd comparisons like "the MP6,1 is six kilos lighter". Perhaps true and significant if you workflow demands putting the workstation in your carry-on luggage. But irrelevant if your system is in the office and your customer wants the footage rendered yesterday.
Once you define "quality" in terms of how performant the system is - "pretty" drops out of the picture.
The simple fact that you say "Windows PC" instead of "Windows workstation" weakens your argument.
And one simply can't compare an MP6,1 to a current HP Z-series or Dell Precision. They're completely different systems built for different users.
You'll get into absurd comparisons like "the MP6,1 is six kilos lighter". Perhaps true and significant if you workflow demands putting the workstation in your carry-on luggage. But irrelevant if your system is in the office and your customer wants the footage rendered yesterday.
Once you define "quality" in terms of how performant the system is - "pretty" drops out of the picture.
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I lift the Mac Pro towers on a daily basis, you just have to crouch down and grab both top side handles before lifting it. Otherwise you'll hurt your back. Its the same as lifting any other object weighing more than 30 lbs.
Also those machines on stairs you need 2 people. You should also pull the hard drives into anti-static bags to be carried up separately. Often the data on the drives is more valuable than the machine itself.
Jeez they're not that heavy something like 42 pounds.
Z's are also not all steel the aluminum sides are heavier gauge than the MP and the MP is no quieter than a Z. MP's are pretty machines in a different way than Z's are but they're both pretty.
Z's are also not all steel the aluminum sides are heavier gauge than the MP and the MP is no quieter than a Z. MP's are pretty machines in a different way than Z's are but they're both pretty.
The Z series has a metal housing with some plastic covering parts of it. It's a sturdy design which I would bet holds up better than the cMP design (how many bent handles / feet do we see on cMP's?). The Z series handles are actually comfortable to move the system around with. The power supply is easily removed. IMO a much more quality design than the cMP.
The Z series has a metal housing with some plastic covering parts of it. It's a sturdy design which I would bet holds up better than the cMP design (how many bent handles / feet do we see on cMP's?). The Z series handles are actually comfortable to move the system around with. The power supply is easily removed. IMO a much more quality design than the cMP.
They're no louder than the cMP...which means they don't make a lot of noise. Of course if you plug all kinds of power consuming parts into one it's going to make more noise. But no more so than a cMP.
As for quality you need to actually look at one. They're no less quality than the MP...IMO they're better quality.
If that's the case then his statement about the logo is appropriate. The Z series workstations are every bit, if not more so, the quality of the MP. To claim otherwise is speaking from a position of ignorance or fanboi. Which is it with you?
That I have my own frustrations with the Z-series on a design level. You prioritize different elements of the design, that's great, but it's not some objective fact (I've never even needed to get at the power supply of any workstation I've owned save the office Z820's going bad.)
My Z230 has a plastic front and sheet metal sides. While not an Aluminum Mac Pro tower it appears to be every bit a well constructed and is easier to work inside than my 2012 MP. If is now my machine of choice. The six-core Mac Pro just sits there.
Can you be more specific? The only sheath one would have to remove is that for the RAM (at least on my Z600 system). It takes all of one second to remove...hardly something to worry about. Other than that what frustrations do you have with them?
The 840s (and 800s through 820s, I believe, although I haven't had to service those in a while) have every major component partitioned and blocked by a plastic sheath. They're tool-less, but the hook and catch mechanism (especially on the expansion slot access) plus their flimsy structure makes them tiresome to constantly remove and replace, and difficult until you've done it many times to know when they are properly seated—for a while I wasn't putting it in properly and didn't realize until I tried to replace the main door and it wouldn't latch. At that point I'd prefer just a cowl like the G5s had.
HP advertises their Thunderbolt 2 support, but installing the cards are a pain (have to remove everything you have in the system to run little wires and switch jumpers on the mobo) and their documentation was as of May 2015 when I had to do the installs, incredibly poor (the cards shipped with incorrect install guides... finding the correct ones was an exercise in frustration, as their support site is even worse than Apple's.)
Then there's minor things, like how their PCIe slots are positioned at the very bottom of the machine, making swapping video cables more difficult. For my use case, the 1125W chassis for beefier graphics and dual processors comes with 3 six-pin connectors, meaning I still needed a cluster of harder-to-find adapters to power a Titan (and that extra cabling interferes with the sheaths much more than the stuff I've done in a cMP to get extra power.)
I appreciate that they are more quiet than a cMP and fairly close to a nMP's noise levels, and despite being a lot bulkier and heavier than either are generally a bit more wieldy than the cheesegraters (for the cMP, though, I always picked them up from the underside, so the cut hands was never my issue.) They certainly can be kitted out with a lot of power, although in my use case that's largely going to waste (not HP's fault, though, that's Adobe's.) There's things I like about them, and things I don't; every tower design has its drawbacks (as fond as I am for the G4s, with their molded handholds and their accordion design, getting into the hard drive cages is still incredibly frustrating). Just like every pro has different needs from their computer and issues that are deal breakers to one person on this forum are irrelevant to another, so to are designs. It's not a matter of quality, it's a matter of priorities.
Thanks for the feedback. While I feel these are rather minor annoyances I can respect how they might become more so if one is working with a large number of systems. With that said they're quality systems even if they have this minor annoyance to you.
It's worth noting that in a high percentage of cases, only the people manufacturing the systems deal with the baffles and shields.
Companies tend to buy them configured to go, and discard them on a predetermined replacement cycle. (My company contracts for the 3 year on-site warranty, then replaces them in 3 years.)
Run giant decoy - real mac behind mirror.