I'm buying a Mac Pro w/Dual 3.0ghz Woodcrest!!

[ches111]

**MAYBE**

Has anyone seen the pricing on this beast? They are a nice looking machine with some decent specs (mostly).

The 1gb of ram for a +$2200 machine is kinda small. It is also DDR2-677. They do have what seems to be a nice mb in the machine with support for dual 1.3ghz FSBs.

They also have the capability to build one with an Nvidia Quadro 4500 card as well.

I guess the point of this thread is would you pay the price for such a beast?

Looks good, great case design, decent specs, possibility to boot directly into Windows without using bootstrap...

With a price point from $2200 to ~$4000 is this possibly your next machine?

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

 

[ches111]

For me the answer is easy.

*** N O ***

I can not see paying those prices for the specs given.

I would much rather build the same machine. But I do not know if I could build it for less. I will have to research.

By the way they upped the internal HDD capacity to UP TO 2TB.

 

[voxel]

I wuold much rather build the same machine. But I do not know if I could build it for less. I will have to research.

$2200 - Can't get much cheaper than that... workstation mobos are pricey as is ECC RAM. 1GB of RAM? Dude, they go up to 16GB! 2GB is minimum these days. 4GB is ideal now. Dual Woodcrests will smoke any overclocked Conroe in multi-threaded apps AND be quieter and cooler.

I'm trying to convince my boss to buy 50-100 of them replace the aging workstations we have. He's close to biting (being sub-$3000 is a good thing).

 

[ches111]

K,

A little pricing retreived from Pricewatch (lowest prices available not concerning vendor)..
________________________________________________

Proc - 2.0Ghz Woodcrest Xeon 5130 - $340.00 X2 = $680.00

MB - Tyan s5380g2nr DP - $397.00

Memory - 2x512-DDR2-677 FB-DIMM ECC = $127.00 X 2 = $254.00

Case - Went with a Lian-Li PC-V1000APlus II (similar in looks to the Mac Pro but with more capabilites) - $223.00

HDD - WD WD2500KS SATAII 16mb cache 7200rpm - $79.00

VId Card - ATI 1600XT (they are using a 7300 GT, assumed the 1600XT comes close to same perfomance as I can not find anything else on the 7300GT) - $145.00

Keyboard/Mouse combo - Logitech MX3000 combo - $58.00

SO:

680
397
254
223
079
145
058
___

$1836.00 + some level of shipping (100.00 assumed) = ~ $1938.00

Apple's similar configuration comes to $2200 + Free Shipping.

Is it worth $262 for someone to build the machine for you?

 

[ches111]

This may not be that bad of a deal.

$262.00 more for a vendor built/supported/shipped device.

When you add back in the OS, then this gap becomes even less.

Is Apple providing a good bang for the buck? Looks like it is.

Consider this. For the 2200 you GET the Mac OS X and can then put a version of Windows on, with the possibility of native support for that too.

 

[voxel]

$262 is monkey spit and who wants to maintain a bunch of mongrel PCs?

You also forgot to include the OS. Don't be pirating sh*t when you are doing business as a professional unless you live in a 3rd world country in Eastern Europe.

BTW The ATI 1600XT probably won't run on the MacPro unless there's a firmwire upgrade(?). The number of video cards compatible with Macs/OSX is limited. Couldn't you find the price for the 7300 GT? Also, add a DVD writer too

I also don't want the slooooooow Xeons. Give me the 5160 (the only ones faster than ALL the Opterons). Otherwise you could buy yourself an Opteron to match the 5130 + 5150(?).

 

[voxel]

This may not be that bad of a deal.

The memory upgrade prices didn't seem to be great, but I didn't hunt around. I would buy the 1GB model and upgrade it myself if I could get the RAM much cheaper elsewhere.

The biggest reason for buy a Woodcrest workstation from Apple:

It's colour co-ordinated!! ;-)

 

[ches111]

When you add back in the OS, then this gap becomes even less.

I actually did take into consideration the OS. ^^^^^

Also, as stated I was unable to find anything on the pricing of the 7300 GT. I substituted the 1600XT for that card. Since this is an alternate build it would most certainly support the 1600.

I did "NOT" take into account the DVD burner so adding another 50 for that and another 100 for an OEM Windows XP Pro, we are much closer in pricing.

1938 + 150 = $2088. The prices are from multiple vendors and non confirmed vendors. So given a reputable vendor for all these parts would have you closing quickly on the 2220 price tag.

 

[ches111]

The dual 3.0s are also very nice.

The Apple config is at $3300 for the same config with dual 3.0s.

The 5160 is available for $885 online which gives a difference of $1090 dollars over the previous build tally.

It is now:

Apple - $3300
Home Grown - $3178

Still very close in pricing.

 

[voxel]

$885 is optimistic for each 5160 CPU, but okay you maybe able to find such deals.

The 7300 GT is cheap (around $80US - $120CDN) I think... it's not a very good card compared to your choice. The bonus is that you can have FOUR of them in the MacPro... to power a mega editing system I think...

The homebuilt becomes slightly cheaper IF you can snag all those awesome deals.

 

[slim142]

The extra $200 are for their profits and warrantys dont you think?

 

[ches111]

I found the 7300GT from Nvidia.

Apple had a problem on thier configuration site that stated they were using a 7300GT from "ATI" I had not heard of it and could not find it. They just changed it to the Nvidia 7300GT which is a rather LOW end video card @ ~ $88.00.

Since I had a price of $145.00 that makes the price of the Home Grown a little cheaper now by $57.00

So now it is:

Apple 3300
Home Grown 3122

For a Diff of ONLY $178.00....

Apple is actually offering a price conscientious product.

 

[UnWorldly]

I just put together a similar coparison:

Lian Li PC-201B Black Case - $269.99
X7DA8-O Dual Socket 771 Intel 5000X Motherboard - $549.99
ASUS EN7600GT SILENT Video Card - $209.99
Antec Phantom 500 Power Supply - $159.99
2 X Intel Xeon 5160 Woodcrest - $1,833.98
4 X Crucial 1GB DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) - $777.96
2 X Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB Hard Drive - $579.98
Logitech Ultra X Wired Standard Keyboard - $21.99
Logitech MX518 PS/2 Optical Mouse - $39.99
Pioneer 16X DVD±R DVD Burner - $31.99
TOTAL: $4,405
(excludes OS, support, monitor, etc)

The MAC for comparison:
power mac case
mac pro motherbard (5000x chipset as far as I can tell)
Nvidia 7300gt(slower than the pc version)
apple PSU
2 X 3GhZ woodcrest
4GB Mystery RAM
2 X 500Gb Mystery HD
Apple Keyboard
Apple MightyMouse
"Superdrive" DVD burner
TOTAL: 4,549 (with academic discount, includes OS and support, no monitor)

I took a mac and configured it for their suggested "pro audio" setup, I took that same budjet and tried to build the nicest quad woodcrest rig for the money. What usually happens is for the same money you get obviosly better hardware, but this one comes really really close.

The main difference seems to be in the video card, the motherboards (which is a 5000x chipset as far as I can tell) for the pc's only have one 16x pci slot but the mac one seems to have more, shame the mac cannot support as many cards. If you consider OS, fans, and cables both righs turn out to cost about the same. The funny thing is, the PC is not the obviously surperior machine to the mac, which is usually the case when you do this comparison. That, and you dont have any firewire on that pc, or any support, and you have to put it together yourself.

 

[ches111]

I am sure that Apple is making much more than $200 per unit.

Those prices I am quoting are from Pricewatch and the products are already available. Those prices are also "not" Bulk/Wholesale pricing.

I am sure Wholesale pricing for a Woodcrest 5160 is much less than the $885.00 offering on Pricewatch.

I agree that the extra money it is going towards profit and warranty. The standard warranty with 90 day support and 1 year parts is not too shabby either though. You can upgrade to a three year warranty for another $250.00.


All in all who cares how much Apple makes when they are releasing product @ or near the home grown costs.

 

[ches111]

Just changed the "NOT" at the top of the post to "MAYBE".

Kinda fun to look at it and find that pricing is falling in line. Makes you wonder what pricing agreements they had for procs with the G5 line. Obviously Intel has made it worth their while to carry the Intel logo.

 

[Lamy]

Id consider buying one (assuming I needed something with that much juice) however I nearly fell on the floor laughing at the price of the new imacs with their "over the top x1600"