Apple Mac Pro (Mid 2010) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 6, 2010 9:26 PM ESTFinal Words
The new Mac Pro isn’t significantly different from last year’s model, which isn’t a bad thing. Apple created a good formula with the original Mac Pro and with the Nehalem update fixed some of the remaining issues with its design.
The desktop is very easy to service and upgrade. You don’t get access to the PSU or optical drives, but storage is easy to swap as is memory. You can even swap CPUs if you have a lot of patience and learn from my mistakes. I’m happy with the chassis. It’s quiet and can accommodate most of what matters these days, a powerful GPU or two, a ton of memory and four SATA drives. I would prefer it if Apple would at least bundle 2.5” adapters and PCIe power cables with the Mac Pro. The system is so easy to upgrade yet unnecessarily painful to acquire parts to do so on your own. I get that the typical Mac Pro customer won’t be doing this on their own, but it never hurts to ask.
Compliments about the system aside, it’s rare to see an Apple product go this long without some sort of a refresh. There is room for a styling upgrade, for some tweaks with the add-in card retention plate - it’s just time to try something new. I’d expect to see that when LGA-2011 based Sandy Bridge arrives late next year.
I would still like to see Apple offer SSDs as standard, particularly in this price class. On top of that I'd like to see OS X get TRIM support and some faster SSDs as options in the Apple store. SandForce anyone?
As far as upgrading from a previous system goes, it makes sense for anyone hanging onto an old Power Mac G5 to bite the bullet and move to something more modern. Whether it’s an iMac or even a used Mac Pro, you’ll see a huge increase in performance.
If you have an original Mac Pro, an upgrade wouldn’t hurt either. It’s users who have the early 2008 Mac Pro with 8-cores or anything from 2009 that will find it harder to justify the upgrade. In fact, if you haven’t moved to an SSD yet you’re far better off buying one of those and waiting for Sandy Bridge rather than enjoy a marginal upgrade today.
The higher core count systems are interesting but it’s tough enough to justify eight cores. Making the case for 12 requires very particular applications/usage models. Ultimately if you need 12 cores you probably already know.
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Macdesign - Thursday, November 4, 2010 - link
The motherboard of the 2006 is only 32bit and only the processor is 64bit. The 2008 and 2009 Models are full 64bit on both motherboard and processor so W7 can run on them.standar29 - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
Seems like people want to consider the other aspects of business costs so we might as well add in the fact that VOLUME DISCOUNTS on hardware weren't mentioned in this article and probably more than take care of all of these additional costs. Apple's profit margin is well known.Chuck_Darwin - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
Anand, before I bought my Mac Pro last fall I priced an equivalent system on Newegg. I was reluctant to rely on any manufacturer after 10 years of building my own. I found Newegg's prices to be within $300 of Apple, except for one thing: you really can't buy an equivalent case at Newegg. That $249 Antec you used to compare isn't even close to the same class as Apple's. You can find one on Amazon, though, and it runs around $400. Similarly, the Dell uses shoddy parts, like the case, to hit that price point. Wish you would've posted every component you used to compare so we can judge for ourselves.Conniesimmons - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Thanks for the comparison. I have a MAc Pro 2,1 dual quad core 3 GHz with a new 480 SSD boot up drive in my optical bay, 4 750 TB internal drives, and 16 Ggs of memory. I am an editor using HD footage, but I don't do a lot of 3-D work. I keep looking at the new 12 core machines, but based on your review it still seems like I wouldn't see a really huge difference in FCP, compression programs, that would justify buying a new machine now instead of later. Any other improvements you might suggest?Do you have a consulting business?
Best, Connie