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Jason D. O'Grady & David Morgenstern
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Mac Pro and Xserve go bump in the night

By | December 4, 2009, 11:40am PST

Summary: Apple speed bumped its Mac Pro towers and Xserves under the cover of darkness. Should you care?

http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/_macpro_images_index_tower20060807.pngApple quietly bumped the specs on its Mac Pro desktops last night to include an optional 3.33GHz quad-core processor. It also added optional 2TB hard drive configurations to the Mac Pro, doubling the maximum hard drive capacity from Apple to 8TB. The Xserve also gets the option of 2TB drives for a 6TB maximum.

The upgraded processor in the Mac Pro is a $1,200 upcharge over the base model quad-core 2.66GHz tower and a $800 premium over the 2.93GHz model. At $3,699 the 3.33GHz quad costs $400 more than the company’s 8-core Mac Pros which start at $3,299 (2 x 2.26GHz).

What’s a shame is that Apple is charging $350 to upgrade from the standard 640GB HDD to 2TB on the Mac Pro. On the Xserve Apple is charging $550 for 2TB drives, because none are included by default. That seems excessive to me given that 2TB raw drives can be found for around $150 online.

Apple is also rolling out 4GB RAM modules pushing the maximum RAM to 32GB (8×4GB) in the Mac Pro (an extra $3,700) and 48GB (12×4GB) in the Xserve ($5,850).

Tip: MacRumors

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Topics

Apple Xserve, Hard Drive, Apple Macintosh, Quad-core, Apple Mac Pro, Desktops, Processors, Hardware, Semiconductors, Components, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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Lester Young 5th Dec 2009
Would have to see the benchmarks for Snow Leopard to find out how much difference GCD makes in those scenarios.
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0 Votes
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That's cool for breaking your bank.
Grayson Peddie 4th Dec 2009
(Just joking, but I can't afford a $500 Mac Mini...)

I still already have Ubuntu netbook with the look and feel of Mac OS X without propriety applications. happy

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin/
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/gnome2-globalmenu-global-menu-bar-for-gnome.html
0 Votes
+ -
Just wondering - Were they ever able to fix this in the meantime?
Qbt Updated - 4th Dec 2009
It has been quite some time since this fiasco but I am just wondering whether Apple has been able to figure out how to do multithreading in the meantime...

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2520&p=5

Does anyone have newer benchmarks?
0 Votes
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Maybe
Lester Young 5th Dec 2009
Would have to see the benchmarks for Snow Leopard to find out how much difference GCD makes in those scenarios.

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