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[chadbag]

I have a CM Stacker 832 and that particular case is great. Specifically, I like the motherboard slideout tray. Mac Pro still has easier access to hard drives. CM allows more fan mounting options and has better air flow as a result. Other aspects, they're about the same.

I have not seen that one. I will see if I can find one to take a look at. I have never had an easier to service case myself than the Mac Pro one. Granted, I am not replacing the motherboard etc. I am messing with HD, RAM, and PCIe cards. Which is what most people are doing. I am comparing against ready built PCs. Home build guys (which I do for my servers in my hosting business and any PC I may want myself) can do stuff cheaper and have the pick of the best HW out there to choose from.

Xeons are a waste of money for 99% of users. CPU RAS features are designed for systems with dozens of sockets and terabytes of RAM (for example, the upcoming Beckton chips). For single/dual socket home users and workstations, it is ridiculous. Xeons are statistically no more robust than their desktop counterparts. Both Xeon and desktop processors from Intel are guaranteed to run for 7 years at 110C (or something close).

When Apple forced the Xeon route, they inflated their prices. I think it's a prestige thing.

I think that when they originally went the Xeon route, several years ago, it was because there were not comparable desktop chips and chipsets with ECC, best processor performance, and other things they wanted in their system (better sets of PCIe for example, as a guess as I do not know what the chipsets supported back then on PCIe, only that the Mac Pro had more faster slots than any MB I saw then). Now, with Core i7 (iN) processors etc, the "desktop" systems are comparable or beat the Xeon based systems.

I do think Apple needs to expand their line to including a son-of-Mac Pro using a smaller case and the core i7 line of processors for less money.

The Apple store also charges a premium last time I checked... equivalent items cost more there than on the open market.

The Apple store probably does charge a premium (ie, MSRP) on some upgrade items and things like that. No argument there. Though recently their RAM upgrade prices have been more inline with what you pay elsewhere plus labor to put it in -- not everyone feels comfortable doing so. I myself, like many others, just buy it from NewEgg or OWC or other place and do it ourselves.

Hard to argue that point, but it takes me about 5 seconds to add a DIMM in my Coolermaster 832. Unless your wiring job is crap or you're using a small form factor motherboard, I don't see how this is an issue.

The ergonomics and robustness of the Apple case means it will cost more. A Lian Li or other top end PC case is not cheap either.

Remember I am comparing prebuilt PCs to the Apple stuff. Most of the prebuilt stuff people compare with use piece of crap lowest bidder cases to drive their prices down.

Can you provide examples? There's plenty of crappy hardware on the market for the PC side. I have yet find a case where I cannot find a high quality PC option for the same price as the Apple option. Usually cheaper.

I have not done it that recently but everytime I go configure a PC (pre built) that matches a Mac Pro in terms of features (Xeon processors, etc) it has always come to be the same ballpark if not more expensive. Now with the Core i7 stuff out the desktop performance has gone way up for relatively inexpensive prices, but the HW is not the same HW so those comparisons are not fair.

It is not fair to compare home built ones where you have the pick of the HW since you are warrantying it yourself and do all the labor. A fair comparison is prebuilt PC to Mac

CPU overclocking. Cranking up the core ratio or bus clock for extra frequency. I run my Core i7 at 4ghz using those methods. That should be especially relevant to CAD/AV applications since they are CPU intensive.

ok, sorry for the misunderstanding. I understand CPU overclocking (If you look hard enough on the internet you will find my name associated with a SW hack that enabled a HW hack on a Mac LC 475 to work to overclock it)

The new Core iN line of processors is particularly overclocking friendly. I may actually build a Hackintosh one of these days, mostly as a learning experience, using one. Most people don't do this in the prebuilt market though.

Sure it breaks the warranty, but tell me, how many CPU's have you sent back because they died running normally using approved cooling, nominal voltages, etc? Early CPU deaths are extremely rare because of burn-in done at assembly. Unless corporate/government protocol demands no overclocking, it's stupid not to do it.

on the newest chips with an applicable mainboard it works and if you want to play around with it go ahead. The normal PC buyer does not care about that but I would probably do it too. No argument from me.

My video card complaint was not about overclocking, it's about choices. Bad wording in my first post. As far as I know (and you can correct me if I am wrong), video card choices are severely limited on the Mac Pro. Apparently I can only use a small list of supported cards, and I cannot SLI/crossfire them.

The cards that are Mac compliant is a smaller list than on the Windows side. Mainly because the Mac does not use BIOS but uses EFI only and most cards do not support that. The HW is the same and many PC cards work in Macs with small SW tweeks or configuration tweeks but usually you don't get any screen image until after the OS has booted. I am not that familiar with doing it as the Nvidia Quadro 5600 in my Mac Pro works fine for me as does the secondary ATI card I have. But the Hackintosh folks use all sorts of PC cards successfully with minor tweeks.

The video cards are the same HW, just a different ROM on them to support the "more advanced" Mac EFI system (some PCs have moved to EFI as well -- EFI is not an apple technology). Most people don't care about this either in the prebuilt arena. There are several cards from ATI and Nvidia that Apple puts in the machines and there are some 3rd party ones available for purchase separately. Some people also reflash PC cards with EFI/Mac compatible firmware.


The bottom line is that the average Mac prebuilt is better designed HW than the average prebuilt PC. When you get more comparable prebuilt PCs the cost is more inline with Apple pricing. Also, Apple pricing is not just the HW but also the SW / OS as well. Most PCs do not have Windows ultimate edition nor an iLife equivalent installed out of the box and that all equates into the price.

You CAN buy your own very well designed and built PC HW and build your own. And you can probably save a bunch doing it. I build my own PC based servers and desktops . Different market though.

[dmancornell]

^

No argument on pre-built PC vs pre-built Apple. I deal solely with home-build PC's and my entire argument rests on the value/quality of a good home-build vs the Mac Pro. Dell et al can suck it.

Still have to disagree with Xeons. Apple switched with Woodcrest and at the time, the X48 motherboards were just as fully loaded as any Xeon counterpart. ECC is yet another useless feature for home/workstation and the FB-DIMM memory spewed heat like a hot iron. Conroe vs Woodcrest performance matches frequency exactly, since they have the same core silicon. Woodcrest did offer dual socket, and I'm convinced Apple was using dual socket and ECC as a way to differentiate themselves from the PC beige box builders. At a huge price premium of course.

[chadbag]

^

No argument on pre-built PC vs pre-built Apple. I deal solely with home-build PC's and my entire argument rests on the value/quality of a good home-build vs the Mac Pro. Dell et al can suck it.

Still have to disagree with Xeons. Apple switched with Woodcrest and at the time, the X48 motherboards were just as fully loaded as any Xeon counterpart. ECC is yet another useless feature for home/workstation and the FB-DIMM memory spewed heat like a hot iron. Conroe vs Woodcrest performance matches frequency exactly, since they have the same core silicon. Woodcrest did offer dual socket, and I'm convinced Apple was using dual socket and ECC as a way to differentiate themselves from the PC beige box builders. At a huge price premium of course.

ECC is very important for everyone. They just don't know it. Besides the fact that ECC saved my bacon on my Mac Pro -- started getting memory errors but it kept on working fine until I had the time to take it in. You can get memory errors on any level of machine -- those strange random ones that happen due to a stray photon or whatever -- and it can corrupt your data without you knowing it. Do you want a memory error corrupting your accounting data?

They also wanted the dual socket as Mac OS X is very multi threaded (and more so now than ever) and it is a good way to get performance with a good OS. If your OS does not do so well in a multi process/multi threaded environment then you don't get the same benefit. Apple came out with 4 core x 2 processor machines (I am typing on one) and that gives a big boost to performance -- at least at the time they came out. Newer chips of course will outperform them.

I am not Apple so I cannot say with authority why they did it but it made sense to them and probably made more sense then than it does now given what the offerings were.

Remember that the Mac Pro is the flagship high end pro machine. ECC, multi CPU with lots of cores, multiple fast PCIe, lots of memory and HD capability, and easy to work on for the latté sipping crowd to be able to do themselves. High end features.

Since you home build, you can of course make whatever decisions you want and probably get more bang for the buck on the HW end. If you want to legally use Mac OS X however, and for most of us it is not the HW but the SW that matters, then you buy the Apple HW. You can make a Hackintosh though the legality of that is dubious. Not that Apple seems to care for the individual hobbyist -- they only get up tight it seems by the people who try and commercialize such.