Looks like a cheese grater! 
Well, the store is not updated, yet. I want to see the lowest configured price, but they are talking about a “standard” price of $2799. That’s a big jump from how low you could go from in the last iteration.
So…
Even though there has been zero speculation on rumor sites… could this open a marketing pocket big enough to fit a mid-range headless tower in there? It would be a huge departure, but Apple’s willingness to sell with lower margins as it’s market share grows gives me a modicum of hope. 
I sure would be interested if they could throw us a bone at MacWorld.
I find it interesting that many of the benchmarks they list are in comparison with a G5 as default. When I switch to a comparison with my machine (Mac Pro 4-core 2,66 GHz), it doesn’t look THAT impressive. Given the heat that a Mac Pro 4-core 2,66 GHz produces already, I think the limit is somewhat reached…
Thank God, I don’t have to immediately buy a new computer 
… well, since the shop is down, I couldn’t do that, anyways
I’m still waiting for Leopard 10.5.2… any news on that, yet?
Jashan
I suspect that the Leopard update could come at any time, but it may come on the day of the keynote if Apple has no other fun, free software to release on that date. (Jan. 15th.)
Anybody knowledgeable about those graphics cards options. Are they new? Are they the same old story, etc.
Holy moly, this is amazing!
For instance i’m completely blown away by the awesome and almost unbelieveable graphics horse power. This is simply unmatched in the world, right?! Apple succeeded once more and teaches us that we have to learn so much more and they really care and raise the bar to redefine the graphics level.
Breathtaking how they once again rediscover gfx chips which are categorised as low range and mainstream chips or even are outdated in the pc world, obviously by mistake, and offer them in high class systems. Hey the best is just good enough for Apple.
But if the Mac Pros get the best gfx cards in the Apple lineup i wonder if this could mean that they didn’t notice the HD 3XX0 line or the mobility HD300 serie? So it will be interesting to see what will be in the other updated lineups in a week. Maybe at some point, when available, they might even switch to an integrated AMD solution.
But seriously it all makes sense if you read the latest c’t. If the numbers from their survey are representative then the majority of the Apple users don’t care about their gfx card, contrary to the pc users, so…
You’re entirely right to be p.o.'d, taumel. What’s “the latest c’t.”, though?
And dropping the Mac Pro to quad-core gets you a $2,299 price tag ($2,149 educational). I doubt another tower is in the works.
Germany’s finest computer magazine.
@aaronsullivan
To your question: I think the best (obviously depends on your needs) option is to go with the 8800GT, which is a good performing mid range card. The ATi card is outdated, 256MB only and replaced by the newer HD 3XX0 lineup already. If you don’t need it, i wouldn’t pick up the quadro as it comes cheaper if you just buy a good mainstream high end card instead and update this one more frequently, at least that’s what you would do in the pc world.
Yep, not much of a hole marketing wise. But a huge consumer hole!
The video card thing is annoying, of course. I’m hoping that those are still hardware customized cards like they used to be. The different gamma and other issues used to force that as I understand it. It really has to be erased, though. There needs to be an improved/standardized color space for video cards/monitors in the near future, I want more information in lights AND darks, thank you very much.
We’ve got the economies of scale on our side with processors. Now, it needs to happen for the video cards and sooner rather than later… but… I’m starting to think about this and… what about the integrated graphics? Is this a technical issue AT ALL anymore? Or is this just marketing and margin inflation?
Tired of it. For the first time, I’m thinking about Hackintoshes. :shock:
edit: thanks, taumel. You must have posted while I was posting.
;O)
I’ve been waiting for months for this new batch to appear, so I’ll most likely buy one. Coincidentally, my G5 died yesterday. The timing is almost… suspiciously… perfect.
Taumel, I see your point about graphics cards. I’ll probably end up going for the 8800GT. Out of curiosity, In an ideal world, if you were specifying graphics cards for Apple, what would you put in these machines? What’s the absolute top of the line?
I was wondering this too, and found this recent article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/03/the_best_gaming_graphics/
They recommended the 8800 GT (above the GTS) for the higher end, and two 8800 GTs in SLI configuration for the really high end. (I don’t think the Mac supports SLI/Crossfire)
So is it really that bad?
-Jon
The 8800GT is very near to today’s high-end. Look up the actual performance on it. There’s a good reason they were impossible to find for a few weeks after launch…
@Jonathan
As i’ve said before the 8800GT is a good performing mid range card. Depending on if you’re more after better video support, less power consumption or more performance, i would go for a HD 3850 with 512MB or a 8800GT also with 512MB. But keep in mind that the 8800GT, contrary to the HD 3850, isn’t a DirectX10.1 card and that nVIDIA’s next product line is about to be released in a few months, which means more performance and DirectX10.1 support.
In my opinion they would have done the best if they would have gone for a 512MB 8800GT/HD 3850 solution on the entry level, then choosing a highend nVIDIA mainstream card for the better option and then offering the Quadro for those who need the extra memory.
But offering a HD2600XT and advertising it as a new generation and mind blowing blabla for a high end system is just a stupid marketing and fooling those who have no idea of gfx cards. I mean there is a reason why Apple is earning so much money…
Naturally, since I didn’t buy one the second the Apple Store came back online, there’s now a 3-5 week delay if you want an 8800GT. I need a new machine pretty quickly, so I can see myself having to go with the ATI card.
On the other hand, no matter what I get, it’s going to be a lot better than my Radeon 9600…
And I guess directx 10.1 could matter to some mac users now, since they may rely on it for Windows as well as MacOS X. If not, though… it means little to nothing.
Well, I’m broke as a diet coke, so… I’ll just wait till the MacWorld keynote and maybe look closer at my credit cards-- see if there’s something I missed in the contract about having to pay them back… lol.
So yeah, I am planning on getting one of these sometime in the next few months. I really need to figure out what GPU I want. I am of course drooling at the Quadro, but it is rather pricey. My question I guess is what is a really good high end card that would work in the mac pro. I’ve never bought a GPU that didn’t ship with a mac and have no clue what will or wont work.
Based on how fast the previous generation of octo-core Mac Pros renders in both Studio Max and Maya compared to it’s quad-core sibling, I’m loving this. We can’t afford it of course.
I agree regarding 3D authoring apps. I have a (now previous model) Mac Pro Octo @ 3.0 GHz and I run Softimage XSI on it (along with everything else). Mental Ray uses all eight cores so I can leave a true mental ray render window open while I’m adjusting lighting and textures and it updates so fast I can just keep working instead of getting a drink, even with global illumination and final gather turned on.
As for the new model, I’m underwhelmed. What happened to all the talk from Intel about more, more, and more cores for 2008? Once they start doubling cores it will get really interesting. Yes, the power on my block will dim when I start rendering with my 64 core Mac Pro in 2009.
Ricko