Customer Reviews

Apple Mac Pro MA356LL/A Desktop (Two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processors, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, the included 1GB RAM will not do justice to this machine. I added additional 2GB for total of 3GB, but I still need more when I use professional apps. I upgraded from a Dual G5 2.3, and Mac Pro is quite a bit faster in every operation except PPC only apps. For them, it's about as fast as before, provided you give it enough RAM. Rosetta translation works effectively, but it requires considerable amount of memory. This is my observation that (even for Universal Binary apps) Intel Macs seem to require more memory than G5. So do yourself a favor and get extra memory when you get a Mac Pro. Unfortunately FB-DIMMs are not cheap.

Once RAM issue is taken cared, this machine is a dream. It's quiet, a lot quieter than G5 which was relatively quiet to begin with. Expansion option is great. With 4 drive bays, you can easily create RAID configuration internally.

One big bonus of using a Mac Pro (or any Intel Mac for that matter) is, by using Parallels software, I can run Windows at native speed in virtual environment. Windows runs so fast (disk array helps) that booting up to Windows desktop is considerably faster than my AMD 64 based PC.

The only other thing I might add to the system at a later time is a more powerful graphics board. The included GeForce 7300 is seriously underpowered for such a high performance system.

Overall, I highly recommend this Mac to anyone considering getting one.

What David Johnson forgot to mension was that the Dell has only ONE dual core processor. The Mac Pro has two. That will put you back much more than a lcd, tv tuner and everything else you mensioned. We're talking XEONS! Kind of expensive...
Anyway, compare the other features of the mac pro such as 4 sata hard drive sleds, 8 memory risers, dual gigabit ethernet, dual firewire 800, faster fsb on EACH PROCESSOR...lets not forget that there are not 1, but 2 dual core processors working side by side.
Anyway, before writing such a biased review, please research your topic.

I've been an Apple addict since the Classic was first introduced and have traveled through the good, great, and struggling years with them. Thus, I feel well-qualified in saying that Apple's new Mac Pro MA356LL is THE best Mac ever made. (Which, by extension, also means the best desktop computer ever made.)

First, it's incredibly fast. When I'm working full tilt, which is often, I'm running Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, Acrobat, Word, and Final Cut Pro all at once, switching back and forth between programs often and in need of quick results. On this baby, everything flows smoothly and reaction times are instantaneous.

Second, it's resiliently stable. I run an advertising and design agency, so I keep the aforementioned programs running all day, all at the same time, plus iTunes, FileMaker Pro, and Internet programs, off and on. Even on my previous generation Mac G5, every now and then things would get bogged down and I'd have to reboot, then take the time to open everything again, etc., etc. Not even a hint of that on this one, so far. (As of this writing, I've had it about a month.)

Also, while the Mac Pro certainly resembles the G5 in size and casing, this new one has additional ports that make for increased productivity right out of the box. And, yes, you can add plenty more, although I'll probably just go with the factory build for the moment.

Lastly, it's worth noting that although Macs have traditionally cost somewhat more than PCs upfront (although I've always found them to be worth it), in this case, you'd be hard pressed to find a better value than the Mac Pro. Match it function for function and capability for capability with a PC, to the extent that you can, and the PC costs AT LEAST as much, and usually more.

Take this baby out and rev her up. You're in for a great ride.

This is my first Mac - I've been a PC/DOS user for over 20 years. When I took a look at my work needs and the upcoming requirements for Vista, it became clear that I would need to buy an entirely new machine just to upgrade to Vista - that was the last straw for me. Taking a look at Mac, it became clear that the new intel-based machines were a logical choice.

The reasons for my decision:

1. Extremely costly to upgrade to Vista, and I REALLY REALLY did not want to run a first-release WIndows OS based on my previous experiences with Millenium edition and XP. There are also potentially very serious issues with the current availability of regular 32-bit drivers in Vista at this time, let alone for 64-bit. You have absolutely no assurance that when you upgrade that all of your peripherals will work.

2. Recently tried adding a wireless USB mouse to my XP PC, from a major manufacturer. Placing the transmitter dongle in my USB hub resulted in an immediate system crash down to the BIOS level. I was without my computer for 4 days and paid a "PC plumber" $150 to find and solve the problem.

3. Boot camp - this wonderful beta release software allows you to convert your intel Mac to a dual boot XP machine - you have to do a single disc based install of XP SP2, but this is a minor issue. There is a superb tutorial on workarounds at Paul Thurott's web site to help if you need to create a slipstream XP disc containing service pack 2 - this would apply to those of you (like myself) whose original XP install discs are based on SP 1. The practical upshot - you can run your Mac in native XP mode for graphics-intensive programs like Half-Life 2. You'll still need to protect your XP partition in the usual way with respect to anti-spyware and antivirus software, but hopefully you'll do most of your web-based work in OS X anyway. Also note that the upcoming OS X Leopard release this spring will fully incorporate Boot Camp into the OS.

4. Parallels - this software will allow you to run windows apps inside a window inside of OS X using a virtual machine. This software will work very well with software that does not require the full processing power of your graphics card, so it is ideal for non-game apps like Office and quicken. The current Parallels offical release requires a separate install of windows, but beta versions are available which will allow you to run windows from a previously installed boot camp partition. A note of caution - the release candidate versions of Parallels are truly betas - you could have significant problems getting them to work and you could be placing your boot camp partition in jeopardy using them. Nevertheless, it appears that the Parallels team is working VERY hard on getting out an official, stable release that will work from a boot camp partition. I am waiting for this with great anticipation.

5. OS X just works - no muss, no fuss, and it has fewer present security risks as well as highly superior stability compared with XP. As a security aside - it looks as though future versions of Parallels may allow drag-and-drop functionality BETWEEN the windows virtual machine and the OS X desktop - this potentially creates a doorway of vulnerability into the otherwise very secure OS X operating environment. Further discussion of this possible issue can be found on the Parallels support forum, for those of you who are interested.

6. Change for the sake of change: It seems every release of Windows changes the location of many common tasks/operations and often completely changes many menus, and Vista appears to be no exception. We'll all have to learn where to find these all over again. In OS X, the fundamental organization and layout does NOT change from relase to release. Also, the release upgrade cycle in OS X tends to be considerably shorter. Significant enhancements to the OS seem to occur in 12-24 month intervals, historically closer to 12 months. The Longhorn/Vista product cycle was around 5 years.

To sum it up - with the intel-based Mac Pro, you can have your cake and eat it too, playing in windows and working in OS X. You can work in the wonderfully designed, secure and stable OS X environment and also run your indispensable windows apps inside a window inside OS X using the Parallels software. Want games? - use the incredibly simple Boot Camp software to install a windows partion - you can even put it on a physically separate internal HD. You won't have to give up Half-Life 2 to work in OS X. BTW - with a good graphics card, XP games absoultely SCREAM on the Mac Pro.

A final word on prices - buy the base configuration desktop and add your own enhancements - it is incredibly easy because of the masterful internal design of the Mac Pro.

The cost of upgrading your HD or adding additional HDs is about $299 for a 500 GB SATA II from Apple. I bought TWO Seagate Barracuda 500 GB SATA II HDs online for $320. It was literally plug an play installation - no cables, no power connections. All that was needed was a small phillips-head screwdriver to mount the drives in the plugable, removable brackets. It took 5 minutes total for both drives. You could also have the work done at an authorized Apple reseller or by the "Genius" guys at an Apple store, if you are nervous about doing this yourself. Apple also has excellent, very clear PDF instructions on how to do this on the main web site

An upgrade to 4 GB of RAM from Apple costs $1100 - VERY pricey because of the heat sinks and ECC features. I purchased an additional 3GB of RAM online, buying "certified" (as opposed to "genuine") RAM w/heat sinks for about $530. Note that buying heat sink RAM is advisable if you want to keep your Mac Pro as quiet as possible. The case design is such that the airflow which cools the RAM passes over the CPU BEFORE reaching the memory. If your RAM overheats, you may experience performance degredation and the fan, which is actually rather loud at full speed, will be running a lot more.

In summary, I was able get my Mac Pro with an addtional 3 GB of memory and 1 TB (!) of storage at an $800 savings over the "offical" cost.

While the Mac Pro is by no means cheap, it represents exceptional performance value for dollar spent, especially if you upgrade outside of the Apple store. If you carefully compare major mfgr. PCs with the same specs, you will probably find that cost differences are in the low hundreds of dollars.

I'm delighted I fired Bill Gates - I couldn't have done it as little as a year ago. I now have the best of both worlds.

I upgraded from a Powermac G4 (Single 733 Mhz processor), so I have been using Macs for several years. In my opinion, the Mac Pro is the best desktop computer you can buy for multimedia design, as it has performed flawlessly with all the programs I have used thus far (Adobe stuff, Macromedia, etc.) In general, you get what you pay for, it might be expensive, but the craftsmanship is immaculate. I have had some crashes, but I think these will get less frequent with more OS updates and Universal binaries being released. Also, Leopard (10.5) should run great on the Mac Pro.

Pros:
Very quiet (it is great to have a computer that barely makes a sound, I hope it stays that way)
Fast (obviously one of the fastest computers out right now)
Aluminum instead of plastic
Several inputs (USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and 800)
Quad processor (it will be nice when programs start taking advantage of this)
Adding more RAM and Hard drives is a breeze (everything slides out, takes seconds)
64 bit

Cons:
Steel enclosure is large and bulky (I had to modify my desk to get it to fit)
RAM is expensive (the heat-sinks make it very costly)
Hard drive circuit boards are exposed on this new type, it seems vulnerable
Apple Care should be 3 years by default
A lot of the bundled software is not Universal

You may think this Mac is expensive, but try to build an identical PC on the Dell site. I did and found it cost over $3,000! At first I didn't believe it as I always thought Macs are priced at a premium (for the better quality hardware and software). But after a little research I found that this Mac is indeed a great value for the price. I figured I was getting the OS X software essentially as a bonus, and I was sold.

The stock model comes with 1GB RAM. I bought an additional 1GB and added it in (you probably want to, and there are places cheaper than Apple where you can buy the RAM). I run FreeBSD and Linux on top of Mac OS X (using Parallels Desktop - $79). The speed always amazes me. I push a hotkey and I have a FreeBSD server resumed from a suspended state in less than 5 seconds! Now I can run multiple operating systems without having to buy multiple ugly PCs and clutter my work area.

This machine is superbly designed and solidly built. Everything is well thought out inside and out, down to the detail. For example, the hard drives have no cables, you just mount them on trays, slide them into a slot and they snap right into the port connection. The optical drive trays are hidden behind automatic sliding metal-style doors (means different colored drives don't show on the front of your machine). You can check the manuals on Apple's site to see how easy it is to open and upgrade. For peripherals there are plenty of USB 2, Firewire 800 and audio ports - some conveniently located in the front and more hidden away in the back.

A useful upgrade is to add two or three additional disks and set them up with software striped RAID - that gives hard drive performance a super boost. The software based RAID is included in OS X. Using XBench disk tests on mine, a single drive scores 70 and three drives in striped RAID score 140. Difference in score for sequential read (with large block size) is more pronounced - single drive scores 56.6MB/s and RAID configuration scores 166.38MB/s. Instead of getting a souped-up version of this model, it makes a lot more sense to get the stock model and buy memory and hard-drive separately.

The airflow and cooling is great (also the Intel Xeon chips provide higher performance per watt than the older G5s) - this thing runs whisper quiet.

This is certainly not for small places - at 20" tall and 19" long, it is big and heavy. The top 'handle' in the front makes it easier to pull the 40-pounder out from under a desk.

The package includes the apple keyboard and mouse (neither is wireless) which I put away since I use my current ergo keyboard.

Overall I'm very happy with this purchase and am looking to many years of high-performance computing.

Even those of us who weren't around when the Altair first came out still know its impact. Everybody who's used the Internet knows what an Altair is (though, we may not know anything specific) and that people used to think the Comodore 64 was really "neato." The first Apple computer (Apple I) made great strides; the PC market eventually moved away from catering to corporations to delivering to consumers a product they could use on a daily basis.

That's all nice and dandy, but when was the last time you actually ENJOYED using your computer? It doesn't matter if you're regular or rare user...the answer is still the same: hardly ever. While most people are bogged down trying to boot their computers or recover lost files due to foolish mistakes or viruses, there's a small group of individuals (a group, I might add, that's getting bigger every week) who sit back and take silent pleasure in their Mac Pro's.

Hands down, the Mac Pro is THE fastest computer on the market (excluding that super computer you've had your eye on, of course). The Intel Xeon processors are blazing fast and the Mac OS is simple, intuitive, and unobtrusive. The applications don't just freeze for no apparent reason on a regular basis; the OS doesn't keep force-feeding you information you don't need (i.e., "You are not connected to the Internet"; or "Your computer may be at risk. Please update your virus software"); and you find yourself enjoying even the small tasks like emailing or Google-ing your favorite recipe.

Now imagine doing this on a machine that has four fast Xeon processors. Amazing.

I know it sounds all like a commercial, but the facts are that clear. Yeah, you could go out and buy a PC with a dual-core system for a little cheaper, but you'd also be investing in viruses, lockups, and a plethora of other unfortunate events known to the PC market. With an Apple computer you're at least confident that next week won't bring a new slew of viruses (and hope that your McAffee license is still good to download the updates).

The thing is, it doesn't matter if you're buying a Mac Pro or MacBook or Mac Mini. The experience will be the same. But for those of us interested in photography and videography the faster the computer, the better our turnaround time.

Yes, the Mac Pro is a very expensive computer, but it also offers the most out of any machine on the market. The upgrade options are very impressive, and only beaten by the do-it-yourself kits and boxes that an experienced compuer user would dare to tango with.

Want to upgrade the RAM? Buy the modules; open the case on the side; pull out one of the RAM trays; insert both modules in the slots; close the machine; reboot. Easy, huh?

Suppose you want to add that 500GB hard drive you think you need. Get the specified drive; open the case; pull out the hard drive tray; screw the hard drive to the tray; reinsert the tray; close and boot the computer.

The same goes for upgrading video cards or adding a separate optical drive or adding more USB or FireWire slots via a PCI-X card. Simple to use and simple to upgrade.

As for the actual experience of using a Mac Pro...well, you should just walk over to the nearest Apple Store or CompUSA and try it out. Go ahead and launch iTunes, iMovie, Microsoft Word, Firefox, GarageBand, and Photoshop...all at the same time. While you're listening to U2, putting together a movie on iMovie, writing that award-winning thesis, checking your email, composing the next great rave track, and editing your digital photos, you'll suddenly realize that life is as it really should be: you and your computer are in harmony with each other. You'll feel a wave of calm overcome you as you begin to understand that your Mac Pro doesn't look down on you, doesn't keep telling you how stupid you are. It silently waits for your orders and carries them out.

Then again, this experience (as I said before) isn't limited to the Mac Pro. You'll think and feel the same way using any Apple computer. But, hey, on the Mac Pro you get to experience all this on the fastest consumer machine on the planet.

I was a Macintosh software engineer at Apple from 1987-1990 and a major Mac user until 1995, when I finally had to switch to Windows for business reasons (I develop corporate software and had to follow my customers to Windows). I've been in the Windows camp ever since... until now.

Faced with the expensive prospect of upgrading to Vista, and after receiving a compelling demo of a Mac running Windows from a good friend of mine, I started looking harder at the Intel-based Macs and came to the conclusion they're the only computer to buy today because you can truly have your cake + pie + donuts and eat them too (more on that in a minute).

Mac Convert has written an excellent review already and I second everything it says. The only difference is that I've been having excellent luck with Parallels, and it doesn't seem like beta software to me. I was able to replicate my high-end Sony Vaio workstation in Parallels, including its 1.5Gb of RAM and huge wide screen display, with no problems. And it blows my mind that I can use Visual Studio to build Windows software on the Mac even faster than I could on my PC. Everything just works flawlessly and frankly I didn't expect it to. It's just amazing.

With regards to cake + pie + donuts: with Parallels I can create multiple virtual machines on my Mac, each with a different OS if I want, and this has completely solved one of my biggest development problems, which is how do I develop and test my software on XP + Vista + Server 2003 without buying a ton of hardware? In Parallels I simply created a virtual machine for each and off I went. Now I can switch from a machine running XP, Visual Studio 2003 and .NET 1.1/2.0 to Vista, Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 3.0 just by clicking the mouse. Mind blowing.

Best of all, at long last I'll be able to make the most of my digital SLR and digital video recorder because I'll have access to all that cool Apple software for photos and video. I might even get my honeymoon video on DVD in time for my 5th anniversary next week! Every time I tried on my Vaio I'd crash the machine so I eventually gave up on that stuff in PC land. The Mac reopens these doors for me in a big way.

Putting Intel processors in the Macs is the smartest thing Apple has done in years - and for that reason buying a Mac is the smartest computer purchase you can make today. No matter what the Mac fanatics say we still live in a predominantly Windows world and it's awesome to be able to go both ways on the most beautiful and best-designed hardware on the market. Until recently you had to settle for either Mac OS or Windows, and neither one in isolation was ideal. Now that you can have both on the new Macs there's really no reason to buy anything else.

The Dual 2.67 MacPro configured standard is $2350 today at Amazon, free ship. Add $199 for three year Apple care=$2550

The Dual 2.67 Dell configured below (identical other than the graphics card, but using the cheapest, and similar one) is $3441 + shipping, or at least $900 more. I think the other guy forgot the second processor.

That does not include the required $79 annual subscription to Norton Antivirus... Even if you want to run XP, get a Mac...

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Dell Precision Workstation 490 MiniTower - 32bit
$3,441

Date 9/12/2006 9:37:45 PM Central Standard Time
Dell Precision Workstation 490 MiniTower - 32bit:
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media
2nd Processor:
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333
128MB PCIe x16 ATI FireGL V3400, Dual DVI or Dual VGA or DVI + VGA
1GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM NCQ Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cache
48XCDRW AND 16XDVD+/-RW, w/Cyberlink PowerDVD(tm) and Roxio Creator(tm)
No Floppy Drive
No Monitor Option
Dell USB Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard with built-in 2-port USB Hub
Dell USB 2-Button Optical Mouse with Scroll
1394a Controller Card

I have the Mac Pro with 2 of the 2.66 chips, 500 GB of disk, 4 GB of RAM (667 MHz), and the Radeon X1900 graphics card. I got this specifically to run a professional home photo studio with Aperture and Photoshop CS3 (Beta that runs Intel natively). It runs like a dream. Photoshop runs with no delays, and Aperture is running with very small occassional delays with about 10,000 images in the Aperture library.

I recommend upgrading the standard Mac Pro to at least have the Radeon graphics card to run two DVI displays, and definately bump up the RAM to at least 2 GB.