Apple intros new Mac Pro, the fastest Mac ever with eight processor cores standard

Mac Daily News ^ | Tuesday, January 08, 2008 - 08:37 AM EST

[Swordmaker]

An Apple II in 1977 with 48k RAM was $2,638.00.

In adjusted 2007 dollars that $2,638 Apple II computer would cost $9,810... that makes the new $2,799 Mac Pro quite a bargain!

And that Mac IIFX, which sold for $10,970 in 1990, would sell for $17,786 in 2007 dollars.

If the Mac Pro were sold in 1977, its adjusted price (using 2006 dollars) would be $818.12. That is really inexpensive...

[rmlew]

If the Mac Pro were sold in 1977, its adjusted price (using 2006 dollars) would be $818.12. That is really inexpensive...
I'm thinking it would cost a few hundred thousand, be the size of a small apartmenrt, and be used by the government as a supercomputer.

[Swordmaker]

I'm thinking it would cost a few hundred thousand, be the size of a small apartmenrt, and be used by the government as a supercomputer.

Considering its faster and more powerful than a Cray of the period which sold for $8,860,000, you are probably on the low end of the price... the very low end... if we were comparing processing power.

1976 Cray 1 - $8,860,000

"When in 1986 Apple bought a Cray X-MP and announced that they would use it to design the next Apple Macintosh, Seymour Cray replied, "This is very interesting because I am using an Apple Macintosh to design the Cray-2 supercomputer." Also, when Apple Computer took ownership of the machine they had a party for Apple employees where crayfish were served."

[antiRepublicrat]

A fully decked out 3.2GHz eight core with 32GB of memory and 4 TB of Hard Drives will only cost $19,585.00....

Of course you can save $6,300 by not buying the memory from Apple, and $730 by not buying the drives from them (and this savings includes throwing away the included RAM and HDD).

[antiRepublicrat]

although there is a custom option to have a single 4 core processor for $2299, $500 less than the standard format.

If you think about it, that's a dumb purchase unless you absolutely can't scrape up the extra $500. That extra quad-core Xeon chip is easily worth $1,000. They're not retail yet, but I see a slower Clovertown (2.66 GHz, 65nm, 1333 bus, 8 MB L2) is running almost $800.

[Spktyr]

I still have a IIfx with an 80mb hard drive, 128mb of RAM and an 8*24GC video card.

It still runs AU/X and is in occasional use. :D

[Swordmaker]

I still have a IIfx with an 80mb hard drive, 128mb of RAM and an 8*24GC video card.

I sold one for $5 about five years ago... it still ran also.

[HAL9000]

The IIfx with 8*24GC was an amazing machine for its time.

[SunkenCiv]

Maybe you’re right... maybe it’ll be a zippy new notebook, instead of the rumored subnotebook... and then also an iPhone update, and an iPod update, and Stacie Somers’ cell number will be included in the phone book of every iPhone shipped... ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

The product champion for the fx called it “Wicked Fast”. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

The pricing is ridiculous, I can get a similarly equipped Dell for $19,572.00... /rimshot

[SunkenCiv]

This NVidia news is gonna further erode AMD’s position.

[Spktyr]

Still has the fastest serial ports ever put on a desktop machine (short of USB).

My IIfx was still competitive into the early PPC era. It was faster than the LC040s @25mHz.

It was never the greatest in standard Mac OS - that machine *really* screamed under AUX.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) My favorite of the monochrome Macs was the SE/30, but that’s probably true of most who used those. :’)

[Wyatt's Torch]

This is the machine I have been waiting for! Now I am al ready to switch from Windoze...Getting the base config (octo core) and upgrade the video card and wireless n. Can’t wait!

[SunkenCiv]

:’) The Apple II was a great value in 1977.

[Paridel]

I feel your pain, my 2.66GHz Mac Pro is getting processor envy too.

The bright side is that it may be possible for us to get one of those nVidea GeForce 8800 GT cards in the future.

-paridel

[Paridel]

I got my friend a framed board from a Cray 1 for his wedding present. I was under the mistaken impression that both he *and* his now wife were computer engineers.

Turns out that she was an industrial engineer and didn't quite appreciate it as much as he did.

-paridel

[Sir_Ed]

MUST get one of these!!!

I’ve got a Quad G5 right now, and run Maya, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash, and I really need the extra horsepower!

Thanks for the ping, Sword!

The only thing that sucks is Classic being removed. I’ve got literally thousands of legacy PageMaker files of clients that I’ll no longer be able to open or modify, and InDesign never really opens them up with the same font metrics.

Ed

[Eddie01]

Interesting. Thanks for going to extra freeper mile on perspective.