[ApeInTheShell]

I oughta slap you silly! Keep your Mac Pro. If you end up getting a new one what more are you gonna do with it? In fact, your wife should slap you just for thinking it. geesh.

[Philip J. Fry]

Originally Posted by Thade 

sarcastic reply edited

Hey now, I was just kidding around

[Thade]

Originally Posted by Philip J. Fry 

Hey now, I was just kidding around

hehe I Know

This has been very tough. I look at it as NOT returning the machine but just waiting another week or so to buy it.

[Dazed]

well as long as your wife is ok with with it, then its all good

Heres hoping for some good announcements in Jan as i'm holding off buying my new machine (a MBP) incase they update it.

[fritzair]

Originally Posted by Thade 

Well, I returned the Mac Pro. No hard feelings from the wife, she knows me too well. The bonus: No restocking fee. I guess I got lucky there. At least I can relax a little and see what Steve has to say.

I believe you were justified. The price will be the same, the HD larger, the Video better and it may boot with OSX.5. To upgrade would cost a lot more and you would have the lesser machine now and in the end.

But.... I would suggest you buy the wife something nice, something really nice.

[Thade]

Originally Posted by fritzair 

I believe you were justified. The price will be the same, the HD larger, the Video better and it may boot with OSX.5. To upgrade would cost a lot more and you would have the lesser machine now and in the end.

But.... I would suggest you buy the wife something nice, something really nice.

10.5 is a long shot but iLife '07 is likely

[P]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I'm with you there; AMD's "hypertransport everywhere" architecture looks more elegant on paper than Intel's shared bus.

Having done a bit more research, I think comparing Barcelona to Kentsfield/Clovertown is misleading; one is available today, the other won't be available until at least the middle of next year.
Today: Kentsfield (DCM/FSB) beats with 4x4 (sockets/cHT) on both performance and power consumption
This time next year: I expect the result will be the same with Yorkfield (DCM/FSB) having the performance and power consumption edge over Barcelona, with similar results on the multi-processor side.

After that it gets interesting... AMD may be able to regain the lead if Intel stumbles with CSI again.

Of course it's unfair to compare a product that is here today with one that will be here in a year or so, but I think everyone is on board with Conroe killing anything AMD has at the moment. It's not fun talking about that anymore...

HT/cHT is AMDs only advantage right now. It will be very interesting to see where they're taking it, particularly with the ATi purchase. A two-socket system with a Radeon-branded "stream processor" in the second socket could make for a very interesting combination - the Radeon would of course handle the graphics, but could also be tapped for other tasks. Until Intel gets CSI working (how long have they been talking about that?) they can only watch and chase that FSB even higher. Since I could get my rig up to 1.6 GHz FSB with stock cooler, there is still some performance to be gained there.

[dsteinman]

unless you REALLY need an octal core machine.. Keeping it also tells your wife that her gift was exactly what you wanted, rather than a close second, this kind of stuff does matter to women...

[vasic]

I keep wondering how was this even a question? At worst, two weeks from now, the Original Poster will have exactly what he had yesterday, for the same money (meaning, if SJ announces nothing new and there are absolutely no changes in hardware/software lineup; how likely is that?). If there is any kind of announcement (i.e. quad core shipping mid-February), our OP can either buy the same thing he got for less money (or with more RAM), or wait for the quad-core (with some other improvements, most likely). Besides, it is certain that, if there are software announcements (iLife 07), this will be good for all shipping machines, including refurbs.

Bottom line: spend the SAME or LESS money, get SAME or BETTER machine, vs. keep the machine and next year, spend MORE money to upgrade. If wife is OK (and it is not such a major thing for her to be offended; mileage may vary, though), this should have been more-or-less a no-brainer. On the other hand, If I had a beautiful Mac Pro sitting in a beautiful white box in my home, I'd have had a hard time not opening it and sending it back, no matter how logical it would have been...

[Thade]

Originally Posted by vasic 

I keep wondering how was this even a question? At worst, two weeks from now, the Original Poster will have exactly what he had yesterday, for the same money (meaning, if SJ announces nothing new and there are absolutely no changes in hardware/software lineup; how likely is that?). If there is any kind of announcement (i.e. quad core shipping mid-February), our OP can either buy the same thing he got for less money (or with more RAM), or wait for the quad-core (with some other improvements, most likely). Besides, it is certain that, if there are software announcements (iLife 07), this will be good for all shipping machines, including refurbs.

Bottom line: spend the SAME or LESS money, get SAME or BETTER machine, vs. keep the machine and next year, spend MORE money to upgrade. If wife is OK (and it is not such a major thing for her to be offended; mileage may vary, though), this should have been more-or-less a no-brainer. On the other hand, If I had a beautiful Mac Pro sitting in a beautiful white box in my home, I'd have had a hard time not opening it and sending it back, no matter how logical it would have been...

Well said. I think the controversy is more centered on the fact that it was a gift. You don't stay married for 20+ years by being thin skinned about such things. Even if there were no new Macs on the horizon, I may have had thoughts of returning it just out of sheer guilt. It IS a very expensive gift. Anyhoo, she's TOTALLY fine with it. She was happy about the no restocking fee and said: "Hey, at least you got to play with it for a week" "Get the one at Macmall with 2gb RAM for th same price." If I end up with the same configuration it will be cheaper because I'll buy it online & we make most of our electronics purchases online for that reason. The HARDEST part is being without it for a while.... patients....

[mitchell_pgh]

From a technological standpoint, I would consider taking it back. I'm assuming Apple isn't going to take such a long time in updating the Mac Pro now that it is Intel based.

Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac

You know your wife better than anyone. IMHO, I wouldn't send it back if she was one of those people that would make a big issue out of it. Many wouldn't, many would.

[Roehlstation]

Judging from the performance of my Mac Pro, I'd have to say, do you think you'll really notice a difference? I mean the thing is "fast as all get out"

[Ronin1]

I saw a demo of a Mac Pro 2x 2.66 GHz machine recently and the power was something else. It simultaneously ran six, count 'em, six, MPEG 4 Quicktime movies, played Quake, and ran Ubuntu (in Parallels). The activity monitor showed less than 70% CPU utilization!

The problem with all of the multi-core CPUs is that many applications are not yet written to utilize them...that is where the stories of the dual core (or even single core) machines being faster than a quad-core with a slower clock rate originate. It is only using one core in those tests. That situation should change rather rapidly in the coming year as the various vendors finish the transition to UBs and make their apps multi-processor aware. Other limitations are around as well. Presently there is the restriction on RAM (4 GB) and the bus speed limitations to feed these monster CPUs.

I have seen nothing in the leadup to MW about the new machines incorporating flash memory on the logic boards to help speed boot times and serve as L3 cache. It may not make this revision, but will probably make it this year. The price of the quad-core CPUs is expected to come crashing down soon. Look Here.

If there is not restocking fee I do not see what you have to lose by returning it. If, for some reason, you do not like what you see at MW you can always buy something like you Christmas present on clearance. The new displays are likely to be improvements on the existing ones at similar price points as well.

Best Wishes

[Gorloth]

Myself I'd return it and wait out MWSF. Prices always go down. The Clovertowns will come in around the same price as the 3Gig Core duo, when they were the latest thing. The clovertown aka latesest technology will always be the more expensive. The others more downstream. Also you will have the latest firmware etc... On another note, I've got a 5 Gen iPod 60G in flawless..no scratches marks etc, for sale. Very lite use. For $260 which includes a new EVO3 iskin, a Belkin Tunecast Mobile FM Transmitter, and a Belkin Media Reader for the ipod. These 3 items new in box. All earbuds and cables still sealed in original unopened wrappers. iPod still in original celophane. if interested. [email protected] will put on ebay this weekend.

[Naaaaak]

Whatever happens, since you took it back you have to wait for the next rev now. If Apple does not announce new ones at MacWorld it will probably be a month or so later. They've done such things before (deferred some major product announcements until a few weeks after Macworld to let other things settle into place) and in this case I might expect it. You have to look at the availability of existing models (have ordering times increased? are they clearing the channels for a new product rev?), availability of potential new hardware (how is the production of intel's existing quad core extreme going?), and pricing of potential new hardware (I could see the top end model getting 2 quad cores accompanied with a price bump, but I expect the midrange and low end prices to stay about the same).

My prediction is when we see a new MacPro rev the main model will simply have 1 quad core CPU for almost the same price, and the high end will have 2 and a price bump to cover for it. The low end may be the midrange today (ie, 2x dual cores at 2.66)?

[habibman]

WOA!

I just read on this thread that I can buy a student developer account for $99 and then save $500 on a macbookpro?!?!?!?!


Is this true? Can someone please give me more information about how this apple developer account works?


Thanks!

[habibman]

Alright, well I just went to the Apple Develepor Connection store (whose existence I was completely unaware of) and I tried to purchase the lower end MacBook Pro. I got all the way to the payment page without any trouble and I DO NOT have an ADC account. What is going on? When do they check whether you have an ADC account? I signed in and it showed my credit card and payment info and everything. Could I really have purchased the MBP at that price without having signed up?

What are the disadvantages to buying through ADC?

Thanks a bunch!

[habibman]

Sorry, one more question:
If you purchase through the ADC store, do you qualify for the printer rebate? On the ADC terms, it states that purchasing through the ADC means that you do NOT qualify for most rebates offered through apple of third-parties. However, when I read the full terms and conditions of the printer rebate, it said nothing about ADC store purchases not qualifying.
So maybe they are qualified?


Thanks again!

[Naaaaak]

Apple's Student Developer discount is not for anyone. In this case, unless you are a student over 18 years of age, who develops software for Mac OS X (or some other Apple device) you don't qualify. It's not a general purpose edu discount. Don't abuse the system if you don't qualify. If you don't use XCode you probably don't qualify (and you certainly won't care for the monthly mailings).

The store is publicly accessible so you can compare prices before you spend $100 on a student membership but not anyone can purchase. You have to have an Apple Developer account, then you have to buy a student membership directly from them, then you have to prove you are a student by faxing them a copy of your current transcript, student ID card, and college info. Then you have to wait for them to accept it. Among that, your discount is limited to a one time purchase, you cannot apply rebates or other discounts on top of that, and you are subject to the other terms of use.

After all is said and done, when you factor in the cost of the developer account ($100), the cost of a warranty (probably ~$200), and CA sales tax (~7%), you've basically mitigated most of your savings. Regular students and non-developers can probably find a better deal ordering something through Amazon, usually avoiding CA sales tax and getting a $100-$200 rebate of some kind.

[Zubir]

I've been in this situation many times (buy the new thing, future proof.) The thing is that you would've been better off keeping the quad. By the time there are programs that actually use 8 cores, the machine will be obsolete anyway, due to much faster processors being introduced.

This reminds me of the AGP 4x vs. AGP 8x, SATA vs. IDE debates. By the time there is a noticable difference, it's time to buy something new anyway.

[habibman]

ah I see, well thank you.

I shall wait for a couple more days than use the regular good ol student discount.

Thanks again.

[brokenjago]

Nothing.

All for nothing!

[Thade]

well I guess I'm gettin' an iPhone

[TimmyDee51]

Feeling good about my Mac Pro purchase in November. Now to save for the iPhone. . . (unlocked, that is).

[Thade]

We had a lot of fun following this thread. My wife did a google search a couple of weeks ago and found a link to this thread on the MacNN news page. It's actually more of a relief than disappointment that there were no changes made to the Mac Pro. I still think I did the right thing by waiting and practicing a little patients which is NOT my nature I ordered the exact same machine from Amazon with next day shipping. After 200.00 rebate and no sales tax it was $320.00 cheaper.

[zaghahzag]

Originally Posted by Thade 

We had a lot of fun following this thread. My wife did a google search a couple of weeks ago and found a link to this thread on the MacNN news page. It's actually more of a relief than disappointment that there were no changes made to the Mac Pro. I still think I did the right thing by waiting and practicing a little patients which is NOT my nature I ordered the exact same machine from Amazon with next day shipping. After 200.00 rebate and no sales tax it was $320.00 cheaper.

i wonder what apple would say if you called them up and said "hey, i bought this machine, but i can get the same thing from amazon for 300$ less." i wonder if they'd match it.

probably not right?

still it'd be so in their interest. instead of having a refurb machine to sell, they'd have a sale.

[Philip J. Fry]

Oh nevermind, I had to re-read the first part.