Text 12964, 78 rader
Skriven 2006-09-17 17:13:38 av /m (1:379/45)
Ärende: More Vroom For The Buck
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From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002030.htm

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The Mac Pro, with the equivalent of a V-12 engine, is cheaper than a tricked
out Dell

In an age of $300 desktop pcs and $500 notebooks, why pay $2,500 or more for a
computer? For most of us, spending that kind of money for a new Apple (AAPL )
Mac Pro makes as much sense as buying a Ferrari Scaglietti for commuting in
urban traffic. But for a class of people whose work--or play--demands maximum
power, the Mac Pro is almost a bargain.

The computer looks like the Power Mac G5 it replaces, in the same big and
handsome brushed aluminum case. Instead of IBM (IBM ) G5 processors, though, it
runs on a pair of Intel (INTC ) Xeon chips designed for servers and high-end
workstations. That means there are a total of four processor cores-two for each
Xeon.

Who needs the computing equivalent of a V-12 engine? The main audience is
Apple's traditional core market of creative professionals: graphic artists,
photographers, musicians, and video- and filmmakers, along with scientists,
designers, and engineers. But the Mac Pro also holds great appeal for serious
amateurs, whether they're editing video, doing digital darkroom work on the
photos from a 10-megapixel camera, or mixing the latest tracks recorded by
their band.

Although Apple is sometimes accused of overpricing its wares, that rap won't
stick with the Mac Pro. When I configured a Dell (DELL ) Precision 490
workstation to match the base Mac Pro as closely as possible, the price came in
at $3,033, upward of $500 more than the Mac. Even a much less capable Dell
Dimension 9200 came in at $1,840 when tricked out to approximate the Mac.

APPLE'S FREE SOFTWARE BUNDLE is another Mac advantage. True, a professional
musician would probably pay the $999 Apple charges for Logic Pro music creation
software or go with the pricier Avid Pro Tools system. But someone else-a
photographer who spends $800 for Adobe Creative Suite 2, say-might enjoy
dabbling with the free GarageBand music program or making a quick video in
iMovie.

I put a Mac Pro through its paces after returning from a South American
vacation with several hours of digital video tape and about 1,500 digital
photos. I edited video and audio using Apple's $399 Final Cut Express hd and
the Soundtrack audio program that is part of it, processed photos using Adobe
Photoshop CS2, and created DVD movies and slide shows using the bundled
applications iDVD and iPhoto.

This sort of work is never easy. Getting an audio mix right, for example, can
mean listening to the same bit of sound track over and over as you try
different adjustments. You want tools like these, which are responsive and
unobtrusive. Then there's the display screen area. You can't have too much of
this for creative applications, and the Mac Pro makes it simple to hook up two
monitors-much easier than on any Windows system. Finally, video work demands a
lot of waiting for the machine to finish a task. The Mac Pro kept those waits
to a minimum while meeting the job's stupendous appetite for storage space.
(The maximum of four 500-gigabyte drives should be plenty for almost anyone.)

The new Mac Pro completes Apple's transition to Intel processors. The company
has also upgraded its iMac line to the Core 2 Duo chips and cut the price of
the 17-in. model to $999 while adding a 24-in. version at
$1,999. But one thing keeping these systems from peak performance is a
lack of software optimized for Intel. Adobe (ADBE ), for example, has not given
a timeline for such key creative tools as Photoshop and Macromedia Flash. The
versions for older Macs work fine but don't deliver the speed gains the Intel
models are capable of.

The Mac Pro offers far more firepower than the typical user browsing the Web
and reading e-mail is ever going to require. But for the passionate minority
who want and are willing to pay for performance, it is a very tough system to
beat.
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 /m

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