That's a really good question. You would think, most of the hardware being off the shelf intel stuff (or at least something like it) you could get by with what you suggest. Somehow, I don't think I'd hold my breath about it just yet.
apple does seem to have power plugs for video cards in there new mac pro.
So are these X1900XT's likely to be standard off the shelf, or do they still have special bios' that means standard PC cards don't work?
seems like there is potential for buying a 7300GT and putting a standard PC X1900XT in there and saving some cash.
It's kinda complicated. They'd technically of a standard type, but a couple years ahead of the curve. EFI and BIOS need different firmware. Since windows of behind the curve, nobody is including EFI ROMs on their cards. If the windows world we to adopt EFI, they'd probably work. The BIOS based preview machines worked perfectly with PC video cards, minus drivers of course.
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
A lot of mid range users want to use there own moniter and not be stuck with a build in one. and they also may want a better video card then what comes with the iMac.
What would you use this better video card for?
As has been mentioned, the Intel iMacs have a DVI output. So unless you need to run the 30" display, you're fine and can mirror or span. I think you (and MarcUK) would do fine with an iMac. It was hard for me to bring myself to get one, since like you I found ways to dwell on its inadequacies, but at the end of the day it was really cheap and has done a good enough job at being a weekend workhorse.
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
its a chicken and egg thing with games if there is no good gameing hardware then less games are likey to come out for mac.
and you can 1 video card in a 4x4 system also the cpu in a 4x4 system are cheaper then Xeons and they use cheaper ram.
Joe_the_dragon wants a PC that runs OS X. He wants it to be completely BTO, so that he gets exactly what he wants, and he wants it to be cheaper than the Dell equivalent. He wants a 2.67 GHz C2D w/ SLI'd 7900GTs, for under two grand or so. No offense Joe, but what you're looking for isn't here. Apple doesn't care about pure gamers. Apple focuses on markets it thinks it can take a decent stake in -
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
I dare you to find me a FX that beats a 2.67 GHz Conroe without using completely unrealistic overclocking.
"3.4 GHz on liquid nitrogen" doesn't work here. It's fine for a gamer, but it's not a pro solution if it's DIY.
Also, you're talking like FXs are cheap. They're generally more expensive than Woodcrests. You're looking at $1400 or so just for your processors (which are hardly a match for the Xeons anyways). Toss in $300 for the X1900XT to compare, as well as Mobo, RAM, HDD, case, and cooling, and I have a hard time seeing a 4x4 being both better and cheaper. Cheaper maybe, better maybe, but not anywhere near both at once.
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
Actually Zach that's a pretty silly assumption. I'd say about 45% of 3D pro's are using 3D to make games. Most gaming machines originated from a pro graphics machine. There is hardly a difference. If you look at the BOXX, or alienware workstation you will see that there isn't a gaming option left out of their BTO options.
Joe_the_dragon wants a PC that runs OS X. He wants it to be completely BTO, so that he gets exactly what he wants, and he wants it to be cheaper than the Dell equivalent. He wants a 2.67 GHz C2D w/ SLI'd 7900GTs, for under two grand or so. No offense Joe, but what you're looking for isn't here. Apple doesn't care about pure gamers. Apple focuses on markets it thinks it can take a decent stake in -
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
I dare you to find me a FX that beats a 2.67 GHz Conroe without using completely unrealistic overclocking.
"3.4 GHz on liquid nitrogen" doesn't work here. It's fine for a gamer, but it's not a pro solution if it's DIY.
Also, you're talking like FXs are cheap. They're generally more expensive than Woodcrests. You're looking at $1400 or so just for your processors (which are hardly a match for the Xeons anyways). Toss in $300 for the X1900XT to compare, as well as Mobo, RAM, HDD, case, and cooling, and I have a hard time seeing a 4x4 being both better and cheaper. Cheaper maybe, better maybe, but not anywhere near both at once.
You won't get anywhere. I posted a link showing how a 2.9 ghz Conroe was beating Quad core opteron systems yet Joe is convinced that when AMD goes Quad Cre they'll start killing Intel's Quad core cpus. Good luck, neither Murch nor I could make much progress.
Actually Zach that's a pretty silly assumption. I'd say about 45% of 3D pro's are using 3D to make games. Most gaming machines originated from a pro graphics machine. There is hardly a difference. If you look at the BOXX, or alienware workstation you will see that there isn't a gaming option left out of their BTO options.
I didn't mean "you can't game" on a Mac Pro (I intend to both design and play on it), I meant it's not a pure-gaming machine like a Falcon Northwest or an XPS. If you're looking at a Mac Pro just to boot to Windows and fire up Half Life, that's not what it's for.
Short Answer: It can game, but it's not built for gaming like other machines are.
You won't get anywhere. I posted a link showing how a 2.9 ghz Conroe was beating Quad core opteron systems yet Joe is convinced that when AMD goes Quad Cre they'll start killing Intel's Quad core cpus. Good luck, neither Murch nor I could make much progress.
His logic relies on the idea that there's a bandwidth issue at quad-core on a 1333 FSB. And that might make it close, or even narrowly in AMD's favor. Hypertransport is nice at that level, I don't deny it. But the superiority of the processors will probably win out.
Do I have this correct? With several hard drives on board, I could conceivable load OSX onto one, and the n with Boot Camp load Windows on the second internal, thereby having two totally different OSs in one box? Does Boot Camp allow this to happen on two drives like this?
I would also really love to hear an answer to this question... will the Mac Pro allow an entire separate drive to be devoted to Windows or must BootCamp run on a partition on the boot drive?
I would also really love to hear an answer to this question... will the Mac Pro allow an entire separate drive to be devoted to Windows or must BootCamp run on a partition on the boot drive?
Um, it should be OK with a seperate drive - since it is the same bootloader as it would be for multi-OSX installs on seperate partitions, or OS X and Linux on PPC. The real question is how the GUID + NTFS issue is handled, as in - will this allow more than 3 partitions (EFI, OS X, Windows) per HDD.
Joe_the_dragon wants a PC that runs OS X. He wants it to be completely BTO, so that he gets exactly what he wants, and he wants it to be cheaper than the Dell equivalent. He wants a 2.67 GHz C2D w/ SLI'd 7900GTs, for under two grand or so. No offense Joe, but what you're looking for isn't here. Apple doesn't care about pure gamers. Apple focuses on markets it thinks it can take a decent stake in -
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
Nowhere in there is there a slot for a gamer who's gonna run Windows 90% of the time with a lot of 3rd party hardware.
thank you for your efforts... i had a long post elswhere that i didnt bother to post, this guy should go pester another board... as IMO blind stupidity is tantamount to trolling
In the keynote they compared a Macpro stock to a Dell, call me crazy but wasnt it unfair because the MP had a ~$70(retail) geforce 7300 card and the Dell had a Quatro...isnt that like compring a stock Viper to a vet with NOS, turbo and racing slicks?
it's not a pure-gaming machine like a Falcon Northwest or an XPS.
To be honest, the only folks buying those are fools with daddys cc or too much $$ of their own.
If all you want is games, spend $600-800 on a core system (CPU MOBO HDD Optical drive PSU and case) and about $300-500 on video card and RAM --$350 for a high end gpu and $150 for 2GB RAM...(most gamers have a windows license already.)
Comments
That's a really good question. You would think, most of the hardware being off the shelf intel stuff (or at least something like it) you could get by with what you suggest. Somehow, I don't think I'd hold my breath about it just yet.
apple does seem to have power plugs for video cards in there new mac pro.
So are these X1900XT's likely to be standard off the shelf, or do they still have special bios' that means standard PC cards don't work?
seems like there is potential for buying a 7300GT and putting a standard PC X1900XT in there and saving some cash.
It's kinda complicated. They'd technically of a standard type, but a couple years ahead of the curve. EFI and BIOS need different firmware. Since windows of behind the curve, nobody is including EFI ROMs on their cards. If the windows world we to adopt EFI, they'd probably work. The BIOS based preview machines worked perfectly with PC video cards, minus drivers of course.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
A lot of mid range users want to use there own moniter and not be stuck with a build in one. and they also may want a better video card then what comes with the iMac.
What would you use this better video card for?
As has been mentioned, the Intel iMacs have a DVI output. So unless you need to run the 30" display, you're fine and can mirror or span. I think you (and MarcUK) would do fine with an iMac. It was hard for me to bring myself to get one, since like you I found ways to dwell on its inadequacies, but at the end of the day it was really cheap and has done a good enough job at being a weekend workhorse.
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
its a chicken and egg thing with games if there is no good gameing hardware then less games are likey to come out for mac.
and you can 1 video card in a 4x4 system also the cpu in a 4x4 system are cheaper then Xeons and they use cheaper ram.
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
3) 1-2-3 functionality for mid-level users (sub-prosumer, above emailing Granny). [iMac, Mini]
Nowhere in there is there a slot for a gamer who's gonna run Windows 90% of the time with a lot of 3rd party hardware.
"3.4 GHz on liquid nitrogen" doesn't work here. It's fine for a gamer, but it's not a pro solution if it's DIY.
Also, you're talking like FXs are cheap. They're generally more expensive than Woodcrests. You're looking at $1400 or so just for your processors (which are hardly a match for the Xeons anyways). Toss in $300 for the X1900XT to compare, as well as Mobo, RAM, HDD, case, and cooling, and I have a hard time seeing a 4x4 being both better and cheaper. Cheaper maybe, better maybe, but not anywhere near both at once.
Yes but throwing in 4 of them does nothing except allow me to run 8 screens. They don't work in SLI, and SLI is generally crap to OK anyhow.
Why cant I buy a single dual core 2.3 or 2.6 xeon or Conroe, a mid range graphics card, in a mid-small form factor? Crazy.
Your going to have to wait for their consumer computer to be upgraded if your looking for consumer specs. Why are you even in this thread?
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?.....
.
Doesn't somebody need to design the games that go in the "cheapie" machines?
BTW
the processors are upgradeable.
They're in standard ZIF sockets.
SWEET, where'd you see it?
Ok. The next person who mentions gaming is going to have an ACD dropped on their head.
Mac Pros are not for gaming. They are for PROs.
Apple would rather dominate the Pro market than deal with gamers.
Why?
1) Pros will be more inclined to buy Apple Pro software when they're getting the Mac $500-750 cheaper than the Dell. Sales of Final Cut Studio, Shake, whatever the sound one is, etc., will add a lot.
2) Pros are much more interested in processor power. Except for limited circumstances (some 3D rendering) all the final work is done on the CPU (hence having 4 of them).
3) Gamers are a smaller market with more competition. Gamers have XPSes, Alienware, Falcon NW, and Build-Your-Own boxes. Apple can't make much margin on gamers and be competitive. Also, gamers gain less from OS X, because they'll be booting in to Windows all the time.
If you want a gaming box, get a Windows box. If you want a nice workstation, a Mac Pro is your best bet. Yes, it'll play games decently, but that's not the point of the machine.
A Mac Pro is a Hummer, and a gaming machine is a dragster. Each are powerful in their own way. Apple doesn't care about 4x4, because most pros don't need Quad FireGLs/Quadros, and 2 Xeons will kill 2 FXs.
Actually Zach that's a pretty silly assumption. I'd say about 45% of 3D pro's are using 3D to make games. Most gaming machines originated from a pro graphics machine. There is hardly a difference. If you look at the BOXX, or alienware workstation you will see that there isn't a gaming option left out of their BTO options.
Joe_the_dragon wants a PC that runs OS X. He wants it to be completely BTO, so that he gets exactly what he wants, and he wants it to be cheaper than the Dell equivalent. He wants a 2.67 GHz C2D w/ SLI'd 7900GTs, for under two grand or so. No offense Joe, but what you're looking for isn't here. Apple doesn't care about pure gamers. Apple focuses on markets it thinks it can take a decent stake in -
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
3) 1-2-3 functionality for mid-level users (sub-prosumer, above emailing Granny). [iMac, Mini]
Nowhere in there is there a slot for a gamer who's gonna run Windows 90% of the time with a lot of 3rd party hardware.
It is a chicken and egg thing and games will stay Windows 90% if apple does not help out with comeing out good systems for gamers.
A lot of people want a PC that runs OS X too.
I dare you to find me a FX that beats a 2.67 GHz Conroe without using completely unrealistic overclocking.
"3.4 GHz on liquid nitrogen" doesn't work here. It's fine for a gamer, but it's not a pro solution if it's DIY.
Also, you're talking like FXs are cheap. They're generally more expensive than Woodcrests. You're looking at $1400 or so just for your processors (which are hardly a match for the Xeons anyways). Toss in $300 for the X1900XT to compare, as well as Mobo, RAM, HDD, case, and cooling, and I have a hard time seeing a 4x4 being both better and cheaper. Cheaper maybe, better maybe, but not anywhere near both at once.
You won't get anywhere. I posted a link showing how a 2.9 ghz Conroe was beating Quad core opteron systems yet Joe is convinced that when AMD goes Quad Cre they'll start killing Intel's Quad core cpus. Good luck, neither Murch nor I could make much progress.
Actually Zach that's a pretty silly assumption. I'd say about 45% of 3D pro's are using 3D to make games. Most gaming machines originated from a pro graphics machine. There is hardly a difference. If you look at the BOXX, or alienware workstation you will see that there isn't a gaming option left out of their BTO options.
I didn't mean "you can't game" on a Mac Pro (I intend to both design and play on it), I meant it's not a pure-gaming machine like a Falcon Northwest or an XPS. If you're looking at a Mac Pro just to boot to Windows and fire up Half Life, that's not what it's for.
Short Answer: It can game, but it's not built for gaming like other machines are.
You won't get anywhere. I posted a link showing how a 2.9 ghz Conroe was beating Quad core opteron systems yet Joe is convinced that when AMD goes Quad Cre they'll start killing Intel's Quad core cpus. Good luck, neither Murch nor I could make much progress.
His logic relies on the idea that there's a bandwidth issue at quad-core on a 1333 FSB. And that might make it close, or even narrowly in AMD's favor. Hypertransport is nice at that level, I don't deny it. But the superiority of the processors will probably win out.
Do I have this correct? With several hard drives on board, I could conceivable load OSX onto one, and the n with Boot Camp load Windows on the second internal, thereby having two totally different OSs in one box? Does Boot Camp allow this to happen on two drives like this?
I would also really love to hear an answer to this question... will the Mac Pro allow an entire separate drive to be devoted to Windows or must BootCamp run on a partition on the boot drive?
I would also really love to hear an answer to this question... will the Mac Pro allow an entire separate drive to be devoted to Windows or must BootCamp run on a partition on the boot drive?
Um, it should be OK with a seperate drive - since it is the same bootloader as it would be for multi-OSX installs on seperate partitions, or OS X and Linux on PPC. The real question is how the GUID + NTFS issue is handled, as in - will this allow more than 3 partitions (EFI, OS X, Windows) per HDD.
Joe_the_dragon wants a PC that runs OS X. He wants it to be completely BTO, so that he gets exactly what he wants, and he wants it to be cheaper than the Dell equivalent. He wants a 2.67 GHz C2D w/ SLI'd 7900GTs, for under two grand or so. No offense Joe, but what you're looking for isn't here. Apple doesn't care about pure gamers. Apple focuses on markets it thinks it can take a decent stake in -
1) Professional workstations, with a possible Leopard foothold in the enterprise world [Mac Pro, XServe]
2) Laptops that double as the only computer in the house (single people under 35). [Macbook, MBP]
3) 1-2-3 functionality for mid-level users (sub-prosumer, above emailing Granny). [iMac, Mini]
Nowhere in there is there a slot for a gamer who's gonna run Windows 90% of the time with a lot of 3rd party hardware.
thank you for your efforts... i had a long post elswhere that i didnt bother to post, this guy should go pester another board... as IMO blind stupidity is tantamount to trolling
it's not a pure-gaming machine like a Falcon Northwest or an XPS.
To be honest, the only folks buying those are fools with daddys cc or too much $$ of their own.
If all you want is games, spend $600-800 on a core system (CPU MOBO HDD Optical drive PSU and case) and about $300-500 on video card and RAM --$350 for a high end gpu and $150 for 2GB RAM...(most gamers have a windows license already.)