

Ars reviews the 12-core Mac Pro. Worth it for the intro image alone - quux
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/10/tri-screen-cpu-monitor-ars-reviews-the-12-core-2010-mac-pro.ars

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S_A_P
My "base" early 2008 mac pro is still fast enough that I havent felt a need to
upgrade. It really is the first 5+ year PC that I think I have purchased... I
think the expense can be justified in those terms...

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superjared
I'll agree with you here. I bought my wife a Mac Pro the same time I built
myself a PC. I paid about 1/3 for the PC and it feels _really_ dated. Her Mac
Pro, meanwhile, is still incredibly fast. It plays SC2 on max settings without
slogging while my PC slogs on Medium (and enough Marines running around).

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Psyonic
But you paid 1/3 for it... If you had paid the same for a PC, I can pretty
much guarantee you'd be getting better performance on the PC. Mac's are nice,
but gaming isn't their specialty.

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superjared
That shows the perception between quality, though. So many people fight the
fight with regard to price -- which I did, and failed. Now I have a PC which
isn't really upgradeable because the CPU Socket (AM2+) and RAM-type (DDR2) are
obsolete.

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Psyonic
True, the perception is probably more skewed than reality. For gaming, PC's
are still definitely the way to go, but Mac's aren't quite as marked up as
most people think. They do use quality parts.

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riffic
Apostrophes indicate possession, not pluralization.

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hugh3
Who actually buys these? I was buying myself a new work machine last week, and
wound up going for the 27" iMac since I really couldn't think of any possible
justification for the Mac Pro.

The price gap is really quite significant, for what doesn't seem to be much of
a gain in performance.

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gamble
People who need to run OSX and need multiple cores and lots of RAM or support
for hardware expansion cards. Think high-end RAID cards, graphics cards,
specialized AV cards, etc.

If you don't know you need it, the Mac Pro was not built for you.

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zdw
Fundamental reason: Apple doesn't release old, bottom of the barrel, price
compromised junk.

Go find a laptop that compares, feature to feature, with a MacBook Pro. Once
you're totally frustrated at being unable to find IPS displays, firewire 800,
optical digital out, and the same weight target, I can guarantee that the
comparable models will be about the same price points.

That said, if all you want to do is play SC2 on a cheap 18 bit display and
don't need the features mentioned above, go for it.

That all said, Apple could and should put better GPU's and pay more attention
to game developers than they currently do.

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old-gregg
_Go find a laptop that compares, feature to feature, with a MacBook Pro. Once
you're totally frustrated at being unable to find IPS displays, firewire 800,
optical digital out, and the same weight target, I can guarantee that the
comparable models will be about the same price points._

MBPs are TN film, not IPS. Their color gamut is pretty pedestrian, certainly
pales in comparison to my ThinkPad T510. Their panels are low-DPI too, which
makes text much harder to read (you should see Linux/Freetype on 15" Full HD -
blows my mind every day).

MBPs don't have a trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard, hence are not
typist-friendly, they are not nearly as rugged (flaky lids), their screens
also don't even open at 180 degree angle and MBPs don't have mouse buttons
under your thumbs. They also run twice as hot (and loud) than Thinkpads. Shall
I keep going? I can: the keyboard is crippled and not waterproof, hard drive
is not easily swappable and Apple uses cheap fans that get quite noisy after a
couple of years.

The bottom line: fanboyism is silly.

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icegreentea
To be fair, the MBP high resolution option isn't exactly low-DPI. It's lower
than FHD on a T510, but not by much.

MBPs also have battery life I wish I could get out of my T400. Sitting through
an afternoon of lectures, I would have to crank my screen all the way down to
get through with my 6 cell, while my neighbours with their MBPs could happily
cruise their with their screens nice and bright.

Still love my T400. (And I'll admit, sometimes I wish I didn't have those
mouse buttons right under the space bar. Sometimes having a giant trackpad is
sooo nice)

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sahillavingia
While I love the reviews, I just wanted to point this awesome page out, it's
my go-to page soon after a new Mac's release:

<http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/>

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quux
Credit to John Siracusa for the title of this post.

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sesqu
The intro image alone was not worth it.

Please don't copy linkbait.

