Brief Hands-On Report--Apple's New Dual Quad 2.8GHz Mac Pro
As consistent readers already know, I am giving up my terrific 3G 2.4GHz 15" MacBook Pro with glossy LED-backlit screen. I have been using a MacBook Pro (1G, 2G and now 3G) as a desktop Mac and traveling Mac for nearly two years.
The upsides of having just a MacBook Pro are lower cost and the lack of any sync requirements. The 15" MacBook Pro does everything I need to do, and then some, plus it does it all reasonably well.
The downsides are the MacBook Pro struggles a bit with my 30" monitor, it is good but not great at fast 3D games, it has a full and/or rapidly filling hard drive carried everywhere and it uses several ExpressCard 34s for a plethora of peripherals to attach and detach--plus its traveling weight now that Apple has released the MacBook Air. Not only is the MacBook Air some 2.4lbs lighter, it will force me to shed a bunch of peripherals that I rarely use anyway. The total weight savings could approach 10lbs or so.
The first part of my new 2-Mac office arrived last week. It is a dual quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with the standard 2GB RAM and standard everything else except for the graphics card, an Nvidia 8800 GT upgrade. I got a great deal on it through the developer program purchase plan. I thought about the $400 cheaper single quad-core 2.8 GHz model since it is probably powerful enough for my uses. But I got the dual quad-core model in case Apple had dumbed down other features on its entry-level single quad-core Pro as Apple has done in the past. Anyway, the standard dual quad-core model will be more re-saleable in the future.
As an aside, I would have picked up a 24" aluminum iMac if I didn't already have a 30" Cinema Display and Apple hadn't dumbed down the top graphics system from the previous 24" white iMac.
My last Pro desktop was a quad-core 2.5GHz PowerMac G5 with with a stock Nvidia 6600 graphics card. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a faster graphics card. It was literally a beast with relatively noisy case fans. It worked very well and was, at the time, very fast (see my review). But I was not too unhappy to see it go due partly to its noise profile and partly because my first MacBook Pro had faster graphics.
My new Mac Pro looks identical on the outside as my ex PowerMac G5 but it is nearly silent in operation. It is even much quieter than my MacBook Pro which revs its fans when pushing the 30" Cinema Display. I have yet to do anything that causes fan noise from the Mac Pro except for a short burst when starting up or waking from sleep.
I installed three additional SATA hard drives in my Mac Pro. I thought the PowerMac G5 had a good drive system but the Mac Pro's system beats it hands down. There's no messing with cables and connectors, just screw a drive onto the sled that pulls out of the Mac Pro and push the sled back in. Installing the three drives not only gets them off my desk along with the clutter of cables, power brick and power cords but it silences them as well. I can barely hear all four drives running in the Mac Pro and then only if I listen very carefully. The three as external drives had significant fan noise and usual drive noises.
It took nearly three hours for the Migration Assistant to move 130GB of data from my MacBook Pro to my Mac Pro. All went well except that I had to re-authorize my Adobe CS3 applications. I also had to authorize my iTunes-purchased songs on the Mac Pro. Neither was a problem. Apple has really perfected the migration process.
The Mac Pro came with Leopard 10.5.1 and I upgraded it to 10.5.2. It runs Leopard very well with one exception. My Mac Pro occasionally reboots when waking from an overnight sleep. According to Apple's discussion boards, this annoyance is common among Mac Pros running 10.5.2 and it will surely be fixed in an upcoming update.
Finally, is 2GB RAM enough? So far it is for me but I don't use Photoshop much and don't render large images. I'm keeping my eye on RAM usage with Activity Monitor in the Dock. So far it shows a healthy 20% green wedge at a minimum with all of the applications I use open and while using them.
I'll post some Mac Pro speed tests shortly.
The second part of my new 2-Mac office, a MacBook Air, is scheduled to arrive Thursday. [Updated to reflect correct graphics card for the PowerMac G5 Quad.] [Bill Fox]
Saw something? Send a tip
The archive ran on reader tips. What did you see, where, and do you want the credit?