[Apfhex]

Originally Posted by tkmd

There was a test in one of the forums - I'll do some looking, where the presence of a 4MB cache greatly increased rosettas performance. Benches on non-UB apps were almost 1:1 with their PPC counterparts. I wish I could remember where I saw this. People where quite surprised and I think the performance was ultimately attributed to the larger cache.

I cant wait till we see some benches in cocktail and itunes in next couple of days.

I can't wait till we see some benches in Photoshop. Almost 1:1 with PPC? That's a pretty unbelievable claim.

[kaido]

Here's what I'd like to know:

1. Will a Raptor 150 work in the Mac Pro? (heat issues?)

2. Will a Seagate 750gb work in the Mac Pro? (500gb max offered from Apple...)

3. Can I RAID seperate pairs of drives (2 sets of RAID 1? Primary RAID + backup RAID would be great!)

4. What goodies are available for the PCI Express expansion slots?

5. Who sells the cheapest ram?

[mduell]

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Video capture cards, graphics cards, eSATA cards, TV tuners, etc.
5. I like Crucial; they're cheaper than Apple, but probably not the cheapest.

[kaido]

Originally Posted by mduell

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Video capture cards, graphics cards, eSATA cards, TV tuners, etc.
5. I like Crucial; they're cheaper than Apple, but probably not the cheapest.

Nice, thanks! I haven't kept up with the desktop market; glad to know there are more PCI Express options available now than just video cards now.

[kaido]

Originally Posted by mduell

5. I like Crucial; they're cheaper than Apple, but probably not the cheapest.

Yeah, I like Crucial as well, but they are usually far from being the cheapest. Right now they're surprisingly good, although I don't see 2gb sticks on their list yet. A basic price comparison:

Apple: 8gb (8x1gb) add $2500
OWC: 8gb (8x1gb) add $2195
Crucial: 8gb (8x1gb) add $1376

Crucial only sells 2gb kits (2x1gb), but I'm assuming you can add more later and thus combine it all at once to get 8 gigs (not exatly sure how the "match pairs" work on the Mac Pro, whether it's 2 by 2 or what). If the current trends continue, other aftermarket ram combos will offer an even better value. For example, Crucial sells a 2gb MacBook kit for $249; I got 2gb of G.Skill from Newegg for about $150. Heck, I'll go for 16 gigs of aftermarket ram on the Mac Pro if it's as cheap as getting 8 gigs from Apple.

Or at least dream about doing it

[mduell]

Originally Posted by kaido

Yeah, I like Crucial as well, but they are usually far from being the cheapest. Right now they're surprisingly good, although I don't see 2gb sticks on their list yet. A basic price comparison:

Apple: 8gb (8x1gb) add $2500
OWC: 8gb (8x1gb) add $2195
Crucial: 8gb (8x1gb) add $1376

Crucial only sells 2gb kits (2x1gb), but I'm assuming you can add more later and thus combine it all at once to get 8 gigs (not exatly sure how the "match pairs" work on the Mac Pro, whether it's 2 by 2 or what). If the current trends continue, other aftermarket ram combos will offer an even better value. For example, Crucial sells a 2gb MacBook kit for $249; I got 2gb of G.Skill from Newegg for about $150. Heck, I'll go for 16 gigs of aftermarket ram on the Mac Pro if it's as cheap as getting 8 gigs from Apple.

Or at least dream about doing it

The Mac Pro page used to have the whole array of memory modules on it, although it had a non-standard URL so it was probably just temporary. The current Mac Pro page at Crucial seems to be incomplete.

Anyway, look at the generic 667Mhz FB-DIMM page, and they have everything up to and including 4GB FB-DIMMs (for a cool $5k).

[MaxPower2k3]

so what exactly is the advantage of these "Fully Buffered" RAM chips? Is it just a fancy name for ECC?

[kaido]

Originally Posted by mduell

The Mac Pro page used to have the whole array of memory modules on it, although it had a non-standard URL so it was probably just temporary. The current Mac Pro page at Crucial seems to be incomplete.

Anyway, look at the generic 667Mhz FB-DIMM page, and they have everything up to and including 4GB FB-DIMMs (for a cool $5k).

Nice! About $2,000 less than Apple's 16gb kit at $3,724 (4x4gb kits @ $931 each). Wow! I wonder if those 4gb sticks work...32gb would be really insane Assuming ram prices follow current trends, we might be able to get 16 gigs for under $3,000.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

so what exactly is the advantage of these "Fully Buffered" RAM chips? Is it just a fancy name for ECC?

No, it's a new way to access RAM. Technology@Intel Magazine covers it pretty well.

Originally Posted by kaido

Nice! About $2,000 less than Apple's 16gb kit at $3,724 (4x4gb kits @ $931 each). Wow! I wonder if those 4gb sticks work...32gb would be really insane Assuming ram prices follow current trends, we might be able to get 16 gigs for under $3,000.

The Intel Xserve supports 32G, the Intel docs say the chipset supports 4G/module, so I think the Mac Pro should support 32G.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally Posted by mduell

No, it's a new way to access RAM. Technology@Intel Magazine covers it pretty well.

Neat

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by The Apple Store

Subtotal $2,279.00

Estimated Ship:
3-5 weeks

More than a month for delivery?! Cheese and rice, man. I wish I could order it with no video card and I'd just buy the freakin' thing from NewEgg.

[saru boy]

Any idea if the Xeons in the Mac Pro are overclockable? This is one of the capabilities of the Core 2 Duo chips which have been talked up - the fact that you can overclock a mid level C2D chip with relative ease and have it perform faster than the top of the line C2D Extreme CPU.

I haven't seen anything about overclocking Woodcrests, but I assume it's also possible, since it uses the same microarchitecture.

Then again, I haven't seen much about overclocking any Macs, although with the transition to Intel CPUs, I would have thought it would be possible.

[Chuckit]

People overclock Macs. There's just less interest in such things in the Mac community than in the PC community, since people tend to look at Macs as whole systems rather than a bunch of little parts.

[SierraDragon]

Regarding iMacs for pro usage:

No desktop box limited to 2 GB RAM qualifies as a "pro" box.

Yes, iMacs are desktop boxes. Desktop is defined by the lack of portability and the fact that it lives permanently on your desk. A laptop/notebook is an intentionally highly portable box that is easily moved around, including to your lap.
----------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the breadth of the product line:
Absolutely there is room for lower end boxes, both in laptops and in towers. But Apple can only build so fast, and also it is easy to clutter the market. So logically Apple goes after the high end high margin products first.
----------------------------------------------------------
Regarding gaming:
I do believe that Apple is making efforts to go after gamers. Note that a Mac Pro can be configured any way the user wants it.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the Mac Pro pricing:
This is excellent competitive pricing, just do the math. Compare to G5s or to (yechh) Dell. I priced my planned new workstation out last week for budgeting purposes and it was ~$8k as a G5. Today a stronger Mac Pro setup priced out at ~$7k.

Sorry about you folks who want lesser boxes; these Mac Pros are not lessers!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding Dell offerings:
Dell does a spectacular job of hiding what you are not getting when you configure a Dell box, making Dell products appear to be better values than they really are.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding: "there is some fishiness going on with their powermac upgrades. its like they are trying to take in bigger margins on the higher end models, so that they can make up for other expenses (like R+D) or maybe just to rake in fat profits. either way, its sick"

It is called business. Of course margins are higher on the high end. And where else would you think R&D funding and profits might come from? No one is misleading anyone.
----------------------------------
Regarding folks who only want one cpu:
Sorry but the entire chip industry has moved in the direction of slower clock speeds with multiple processors to provide throughput. Apple is simply using the cpus available. I would suggest to all folks who want less power... You don't need a Mac Pro.
----------------------------------
Regarding Aperture and the 7300 GT:
Looking at the specs, for those of us using Aperture IMO the X1900 XT may well be worth the $350. I intend to buy it. But the 7300 Gt is a very good value card, so you could just try it and upgrade later. I do not think Mac Pro owners will be prevented from GPU-upgrading like G5 owners were.

Alternately I am sure that within a week or two the Aperture Forum will have folks reporting on the Aperture performance of Mac Pros with the 7300 GT.
----------------------------------
Regarding the performance of G5s:
New boxes are used for the next few years, not just today. Anyone suggesting purchasing new G5s is a good performance value ("very good bang for the buck") for the next few years is not thinking very well about where apps and the OS are going.

Similarly, denigrating the fact that many folks find that many apps "feel" faster on MacIntels is simple wrong thinking. The reality is that the "feel" of an app like Photoshop (or similarly the feel of OSs like OS X vs. Windows) is significant beyond simplistic benchmarks. Perhaps even more important than benchmarks, because productivity today is not so much about how quickly a Photoshop filter runs as it is about how one feels about the creative process over the course of a work day.
----------------------------------
Regarding: "Apple's code has nothing to do with the Mac Pro hardware's capabilities."
That is false, except perhaps in the short term before code evolves. OSs and apps are engineered based on the hardware they expect to run on.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by saru boy

Any idea if the Xeons in the Mac Pro are overclockable? This is one of the capabilities of the Core 2 Duo chips which have been talked up - the fact that you can overclock a mid level C2D chip with relative ease and have it perform faster than the top of the line C2D Extreme CPU.

I haven't seen anything about overclocking Woodcrests, but I assume it's also possible, since it uses the same microarchitecture.

Then again, I haven't seen much about overclocking any Macs, although with the transition to Intel CPUs, I would have thought it would be possible.

Overclocking the Core 2 Duos is more of a chipset thing (allowing you to change the FSB) than a chip thing (I think the Core 2 Extreme lets you change the mutiplier, have to check up on that).
With Xeons targeted as professional machines and the FSB already all but maxed out, I doubt there will be much overclocking potential.

[saru boy]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

People overclock Macs. There's just less interest in such things in the Mac community than in the PC community, since people tend to look at Macs as whole systems rather than a bunch of little parts.

Seems to me that if there's less interest, it's because Apple has discouraged such practices and made it difficult to do so (for example by requiring soldering of resistors on the motherboard, among other things).

Anyway, my question is whether it is possible to overclock the Mac Pro's (or any other Intel Mac in that case). Some people have posted that it is possible to replace the CPU since they use the standard Intel sockets, but what if you just wanted to boost your current CPU by 15-20% instead of springing for a whole new one (or two as the case may be)?

[saru boy]

Originally Posted by mduell

Overclocking the Core 2 Duos is more of a chipset thing (allowing you to change the FSB) than a chip thing (I think the Core 2 Extreme lets you change the mutiplier, have to check up on that).
With Xeons targeted as professional machines and the FSB already all but maxed out, I doubt there will be much overclocking potential.

True, overclocking also requires a suitable motherboard, but seeing as how the Intel Macs are now using Intel chipsets and Intel motherboards, doesn't it stand to reason that overclocking may be possible?

Having a maxxed out FSB doesn't necessarily mean you can't overclock - you would just change the multplier between the FSB and the CPU.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon

Regarding: "Apple's code has nothing to do with the Mac Pro hardware's capabilities."
That is false, except perhaps in the short term before code evolves. OSs and apps are engineered based on the hardware they expect to run on.

That is irrelevant. The code still does not affect the hardware's capabilities.

[rnicoll]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

That is irrelevant. The code still does not affect the hardware's capabilities.

Okay, lets talk of processes, schedulers and threads.

Each running application in OS X has at least one process. It may also have other processes, or light weight processes called threads (can anyone confirm for me if OS X treats threads and processes differently?). Each process wants CPU time, so it can run; deciding which process/thread get CPU time, and how much, is handled by the scheduler. If the scheduler is badly designed, it's going to make things suck; in particular, you want the minimum time to be taken up by the scheduler, and the most efficient use of available CPU time. I can't tell you how the OS X scheduler is implemented, but I can tell you there was a scary amount of excitement over Linux moving to a new scheduler:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/kernel/o1.php

And I can tell you, the OS X process handling isn't so hot:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2520&p=8

[mac128k-1984]

I want to chime here, since I first posted that I was on the fence about purchasing the beast.

I opted to put an order in, the specs were to overwhelming to ignore, quad xeons along with the ATI video card. The ATI card of course pushed my est. deliverly date out 3-5 weeks. Patience is a virtual they say so I'll have to be patient - I won't like it though

I went with the 2.66GHz processors and aside from the GPU went with the minimum configuration across the board. I figured I could find hard drive and memory cheaper thn what apple was charging. Plus I only had so much money saved up thinking the new desktops were going to come in at a different price point.

[devmage]

Originally Posted by mduell

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Video capture cards, graphics cards, eSATA cards, TV tuners, etc.
5. I like Crucial; they're cheaper than Apple, but probably not the cheapest.

3) Is it hardware raid? I didn't see any mention of raid features.

4) I've not seen a PCI-Express TV card do you have an example?

[scottiB]

Originally Posted by devmage

4) I've not seen a PCI-Express TV card do you have an example?

Not to stray too off topic, but I haven't been able to find any either .

On topic: My small graphics department will be upgrading next spring from our PowerMac Dual-1.25s. For our needs, a Mac Pro is supreme overkill (even when refreshing every four years), Our type of 2-D/print work for the company just doens't require that much horsepower. A mini-tower for $1700-$1800 would be more than enough, and I could use the saved money elsewhere in the budget.

Oh well. It'll still be cheaper than what we paid for the PowerMacs and 22" ACD displays.

[kaido]

Originally Posted by devmage

3) Is it hardware raid? I didn't see any mention of raid features.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/expansion.html

Bottom left-hand side under "Up to 2TB of Internal Storage"

[Dog Like Nature]

Originally Posted by kaido

http://www.apple.com/macpro/expansion.html

Bottom left-hand side under "Up to 2TB of Internal Storage"

That's software RAID.

[devmage]

Originally Posted by kaido

http://www.apple.com/macpro/expansion.html

Bottom left-hand side under "Up to 2TB of Internal Storage"

OSX has software raid in it which is what I assumed they were talking about. Though it does say "Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four of those drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance..." which I would find hard to believe if it was just software raid. Though I've never tried software raid before because I have always read it does more harm than good. Perhaps OSXs is better though like it is in most other things

I figured a machine of this calibur and expense would have hardware raid on it though. Most of todays remotely high end PCs have it now.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by rnicoll

Okay, lets talk of processes, schedulers and threads.

Each running application in OS X has at least one process. It may also have other processes, or light weight processes called threads (can anyone confirm for me if OS X treats threads and processes differently?). Each process wants CPU time, so it can run; deciding which process/thread get CPU time, and how much, is handled by the scheduler. If the scheduler is badly designed, it's going to make things suck; in particular, you want the minimum time to be taken up by the scheduler, and the most efficient use of available CPU time.

And that still has no bearing on what was being discussed. In fact, if you go back and read, you'll see that I have already pointed out that how efficiently the software uses the processor has no bearing on the processor's actual capabilities.

Originally Posted by rnicoll

And I can tell you, the OS X process handling isn't so hot:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2520&p=8

And I can tell you that Anandtech article is hugely flawed.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by scottiB

My small graphics department will be upgrading next spring from our PowerMac Dual-1.25s. For our needs, a Mac Pro is supreme overkill (even when refreshing every four years), Our type of 2-D/print work for the company just doens't require that much horsepower. A mini-tower for $1700-$1800 would be more than enough, and I could use the saved money elsewhere in the budget.

Oh well. It'll still be cheaper than what we paid for the PowerMacs and 22" ACD displays.

You will get your wish, no problem. By next spring the bottom offering of the Mac Pro line will have evolved to lower than the current US$2125.

However, historically the bottom line tower has never been the most long term life cycle cost effective pro graphics solution (except for folks who had to buy boxes 10 months ago knowing new generation MacIntel towers were coming soon). Certainly today's lowest Mac Pro is more than enough for basic graphics today, but over the 3-5 year life of a new pro graphics box the demands of the OS and apps will increase. Even a year from now I doubt if we will be calling today's minimum Mac Pro tower "overkill."

I am in a similar upgrade situation (DP 1.0 GHz G4) but will not make it to next spring. The demands of DSLR image capture lead me to Aperture, which already needs pro MacIntel to run well.

-Allen Wicks

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

...if you go back and read, you'll see that I have already pointed out that how efficiently the software uses the processor has no bearing on the processor's actual capabilities.

We are sort of arguing semantics here. The point is that hardware has no capabilities that are not executed through software. Until software implements, hardware capability is only potential capability. E.g., envision a potential hardware "capability" that requires implementing code overhead that far exceeds the value of the supposed capability.

-Allen Wicks

[Chuckit]

Yes, you are definitely arguing semantics. I was responding to the following claim:

If Apple does their job, writing good code, and optimizing it properly, and if application vendors do their job, then it is possible to see the speed improvements that Apple claims.

We won't completely know until we get our hands on the MacPro's and 10.5 at some point.

I answered that what Apple does with 10.5 is irrelevant to its claims that the CPU in the Mac Pro is 1.6 times faster than the Quad G5. That would be a comparison of the software, not the hardware.

(Also, to continue with the semantics argument: Ability is always potential. I have the ability to shoot an animal, but I've never done it.)

[freakboy2]

i really don't understand what you guys are arguing about. but maybe nobody cares.

[Laurence]

Everyone seems to be asking about expandability and I haven't seen any definite answers yet, however I assume they will come in time... What I really would like to know is why Apple is limiting the options available through the Apple store if there are really no physical limitations...

Why only 500GB drives available from Apple? (750GB is an option on the XServe) Will the 1/2/4 TB drives coming out in the next few years work? (As long as they are standard SATAII obviously)

Why 16GB Max RAM? Will the motherboard not accept >2GB DIMMS (4GB ones are available now) I realize that these are expensive now, but in 2 years I will probably be able to get 8GB DIMMS for $100. Will they work in the Mac Pro?

Why the limited video card options? Since this is an Intel Motherboard and NVidia makes universal drivers, why can't I pick from a complete range of cards?

Apple talks about the 5 million combinations, but they still seem very limited in the video card department and artificially limited on RAM/HD (at least on paper)

[breakbeat46]

Inside of Mac Pro

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by rnicoll

It's great value for money, sure, but.... my stuff is single threaded. One core will run my stuff, another will run all the background tasks and I'd have a whole CPU just sitting around consuming electricity for kicks. I'm not looking for a completely different cut down version of the Mac Pro, I just want the ability to buy one with only one CPU!

Actually your wrong. Having used a dual processor Power Mac for over two years I can tell you anything, yes ANYTHING, you do on a dual processor Mac will use both processors. And that's because MacOS X itself has mutliple processes that will be running on both processors and your application is always making calls to MacOS X. MacOS X generally spreads the processes between processors. As well, most of Apple's own apps are coded for multi-processors (multi-cores) and future apps will be coded for multi-processors (multi-cores) as this is the wave of the future.

[ehchan]

Originally Posted by breakbeat46

Inside of Mac Pro

Just curious to see if the video cards are standard of if they still have special ROMs for the Macs...

[Landos Mustache]

I'm gonna wait on this thing. No point on getting it before Photoshop is native. I have also been burned on every Rev A Apple hardware I have ever bought.

It also isn't going to be easy to find RAM with heatsinks for a while.

Perhaps mid to late next year I will upgrade from my Dual G5 2.

[kaido]

Originally Posted by devmage

OSX has software raid in it which is what I assumed they were talking about. Though it does say "Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four of those drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance..." which I would find hard to believe if it was just software raid. Though I've never tried software raid before because I have always read it does more harm than good. Perhaps OSXs is better though like it is in most other things

I figured a machine of this calibur and expense would have hardware raid on it though. Most of todays remotely high end PCs have it now.

Yeah, I missed that "Using Mac OS X" part. I'm hoping it means that you can control the hardware RAID through the OS; I'm not sure I'd trust a software RAID setup in a production environment. I'm already a tad bummed you can't go SCSI. It's a little bit strange that they added hard drive cases inside; it's not like putting in 4 screws is all that hard. I'm sure eventually someone will develop an aftermarket drive cage that you can run SCSI cables through to a PCI Express card; they have those kits for Power Macs that let you add multiple internal drives already.

[Simon]

Will a Mac Pro run 'open-sided'?

Can you take off the side of the Mac Pro while it's running? Is there some kind of see-through protection like on the G5? Will the fans go crazy or will you be able to run it fairly quiet and display the guts at the same time?

Just wondering. I wasn't planning on getting one (yet), but since they're such great value...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by saru boy

True, overclocking also requires a suitable motherboard, but seeing as how the Intel Macs are now using Intel chipsets and Intel motherboards, doesn't it stand to reason that overclocking may be possible?

Having a maxxed out FSB doesn't necessarily mean you can't overclock - you would just change the multplier between the FSB and the CPU.

Depends on the options presented in the firmware.

Intel has been locking multipliers for years. One of the big deals about Core 2 Extreme is that the multiplier is not locked. My guess is that the Xeons are multiplier locked.

Originally Posted by devmage

3) Is it hardware raid? I didn't see any mention of raid features.

4) I've not seen a PCI-Express TV card do you have an example?

I'm not really clear on that. The Intel southbridge supports RAID 0 and 1, but it requires an OS driver to work. I'm not sure why an OS driver would be required if it was hardware RAID, but I can't see why Intel would put anything special in their chipset if it was just software RAID.

The ATi Theater 550 Pro is a PCIe TV tuner. I'm not sure about OSX drivers.

Originally Posted by Laurence

Everyone seems to be asking about expandability and I haven't seen any definite answers yet, however I assume they will come in time... What I really would like to know is why Apple is limiting the options available through the Apple store if there are really no physical limitations...

Why only 500GB drives available from Apple? (750GB is an option on the XServe) Will the 1/2/4 TB drives coming out in the next few years work? (As long as they are standard SATAII obviously)

Why 16GB Max RAM? Will the motherboard not accept >2GB DIMMS (4GB ones are available now) I realize that these are expensive now, but in 2 years I will probably be able to get 8GB DIMMS for $100. Will they work in the Mac Pro?

Why the limited video card options? Since this is an Intel Motherboard and NVidia makes universal drivers, why can't I pick from a complete range of cards?

Apple talks about the 5 million combinations, but they still seem very limited in the video card department and artificially limited on RAM/HD (at least on paper)

750G drives have been out for a few months, but they often sell out at the stores I check, so they may not be out in sufficient volumes yet for Apple to be confident shipping them. The SATA controller in the Intel chipset supports much larger drives, at least into the tens of terabytes per port.

The chipset (Intel 5000x) supports up to 4GB/slot, and the Xserve will ship with up to 32G, so I think it's just a temporary limitation until 4G FB-DIMMs are available to Apple in volume.

Support for off-the-shelf video cards may not be possible if the system architecture (such as EFI) requires something special/nonstandard. Hopefully someone will receive a Mac Pro soon and test this.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by mduell

I'm not really clear on that. The Intel southbridge supports RAID 0 and 1, but it requires an OS driver to work. I'm not sure why an OS driver would be required if it was hardware RAID, but I can't see why Intel would put anything special in their chipset if it was just software RAID.

Usually it's just hardware XOR to take the error correction load off the cpu.

Originally Posted by mduell

750G drives have been out for a few months, but they often sell out at the stores I check, so they may not be out in sufficient volumes yet for Apple to be confident shipping them. The SATA controller in the Intel chipset supports much larger drives, at least into the tens of terabytes per port.

Apple offers them for the new XServe. I'm not sure why they are not available as an option for the MacPro.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Usually it's just hardware XOR to take the error correction load off the cpu.

The chipset docs only mention RAID 0 and 1... no XOR (for RAID 5) there.

[ChrisB]

Originally Posted by devmage

3) Is it hardware raid? I didn't see any mention of raid features.

4) I've not seen a PCI-Express TV card do you have an example?

There are professional video I/O cards that use the PCI-Express slots because of the high bandwith. Blackmagic's line of Multibridge and Decklink cards use PCI Express. However, companies such as Media 100, Avid, Blackmagic and Aurora have not released any certifications yet for the new Intel hardware that I can find.

So yes, you will be able to get professional I/O cards since they already use PCI-Express - but not until they have been certified for the new Intel MacPro's. I'm sure they are working with Apple on that right now.

As far as consumer level cards, who knows when new versions will be available.

[bballe336]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Apple offers them for the new XServe. I'm not sure why they are not available as an option for the MacPro.

Well the Xserve will not even be available till october. And many more people will order Mac pros than Xserves. So by that time hopefully there will be a large enough supply for Apple to ship them on the Xserve. But there may not be a high enough supply of drives to ship them in the Mac pros yet.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by Simon

Will a Mac Pro run 'open-sided'?

Can you take off the side of the Mac Pro while it's running? Is there some kind of see-through protection like on the G5? Will the fans go crazy or will you be able to run it fairly quiet and display the guts at the same time?

Just wondering. I wasn't planning on getting one (yet), but since they're such great value...

I was wondering the same thing.

Initially I had suspected that the Mac Pro didn't feature the same see through duct/sheath since Apple didn't bother mentioning it either at WWDC or on the Mac Pro site. And I'm pretty sure it's been corroborated by places like PowerMax that have posted thorough pictures of the Mac Pro with not a single shot that showed any kind of clear duct/sheath.

[Laurence]

There is definitely not a clear plastic air director on the MacPro.... see http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macw...ideo/index.php for a video disassembly.

[mduell]

PowerMax claims that it won't run without memory installed in pairs, but from their email it didn't really sound like they had tested it.

[G5man]

A few questions,
1. Is the Mac Pro able to handle 2 ATI X1900's?
2.I know it has capabilites of using the full length slots for 16 lanes of bandwidth. Would that make better performance with having 2 displays on there own chips?
3. Does OS X support having displays on different chips since it does it with the lower end 7300 GT?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Laurence

There is definitely not a clear plastic air director on the MacPro.... see http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macw...ideo/index.php for a video disassembly.

But will it keep on running if you remove the side panel? My MDD revved up its fans alright, but it kept on running. The G5 ran just perfect with the Al panel removed thanks to the shield. But what about the MP? I know some people have already received them, so what's the deal?

[SirCastor]

I went to the Apple Store hoping to find one today. No luck, worse yet, they don't know when they're going to be getting them other than 'soon'...

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by kaido

1. Will a Raptor 150 work in the Mac Pro? (heat issues?)

Yes.

Originally Posted by kaido

2. Will a Seagate 750gb work in the Mac Pro? (500gb max offered from Apple...)

Yes.

Originally Posted by kaido

3. Can I RAID seperate pairs of drives (2 sets of RAID 1? Primary RAID + backup RAID would be great!)

Yes.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by G5man

A few questions,
1. Is the Mac Pro able to handle 2 ATI X1900's?
2.I know it has capabilites of using the full length slots for 16 lanes of bandwidth. Would that make better performance with having 2 displays on there own chips?
3. Does OS X support having displays on different chips since it does it with the lower end 7300 GT?

1. Likely yes; you would be wise to configure the PCIe slots so that the one used is 8x an the one covered by the heatsink is 0x.

2. Note that there are only 12 lanes available to share among the 3 slots (the graphics slot gets 16x). If you're doing GPU-intensive work like Motion you may see an advantage with two cards, but I'm not certain.

3. OSX on the Mac Pro does not support mixing ATi and nVidia chipset. This is a unique limitation, since other PCIe based computers do support mixing ATi and nVidia chipsets with Windows or Linux.