Apple Mac Pro (Z0D800091) Mac Desktop

I am a professional graphic designer. I work in print design, web design/development, presentation graphics, motion graphics, professional video editing, and 3D modeling and animation. When I work, every megahertz matters. I am also a Dad. I have two daughters, a nice apartment, and I hope to someday own a house. I try to optimize my purchases in order to make that happen.

When I heard that Apple was selling an 8-core Mac Pro tower at 3 GHz per core, I knew it was time to upgrade. I knew that I could replace my aging dual 2GHz Mac Pro and also my 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 PC with one streamlined system that would outperform them both. When I opened the box and booted the computer for the first time, I instantly knew how correct I was.

SET UP

Everything about this computer screams "style". From the box, to the unpacking experience, to setup, to the welcome video that plays the first time you turn the machine on.

Set up is simple; open the box, plug in the cables (all very well marked), turn on the computer, answer a few questions about your personal profile (for email, registration, and bringing data across from your old Mac), and start enjoying the very definition of raw speed. From cracking the tape on the box to icons on the desktop took me less than 10 minutes.

HARDWARE

The Mac Pro may be purchased with any variety of hardware options. You may purchase a minimum of 1GB RAM (I recommend a minimum of 2GB). You may purchase up to 4 hard drives (a total of 3TB, or 3000GB of data storage). The Mac ships with one DVD burner, but you may add another if you need to. There are wireless and wired keyboard and mouse options, external USB modems, and various software purchases available at the Apple order page. I'll outline below what you really need compared to what you may want.

Graphics cards range from a basic (but powerful) NVidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB VRAM to an ATI Radeon X1900 with 512 MB VRAM to an NVidia Quadro FX 4500 (for pro-level workstation users). The quadro is a $1649 upgrade, so you probably already know if you need it. The ATI card has the benefit of enabling 2 dual-link DVI displays (like Apple's 30-inch monitor). You need dual-link to use these newer displays because the computer actually sees them as 2 monitors in stead of one, distributing the picture accordingly. It enables faster and smoother animations, gaming, and 3D. The GeForce 7300 comes with one dual-link port and one DVI port for lower-end screens.

The Apple keyboard and mouse are nice, but they may take some getting used to. The keyboard is not very different from any normal computer keyboard. The mouse, however, is nice, but strange. Its 2-button design is hidden in what looks like a one button mouse with a scroll ball. The buttons just work - that's the easiest way to explain it. Many have complained about missed clicks, but I have not experienced any. the scroll ball is unique in that it allows the user to intuitively scroll up, down, left, and right in a smooth motion.

Upgrading hardware is VERY easy. There is a hardware latch (which can be locked with a simple padlock) located on the back of the unit. This releases the entire right side of the Mac to be removed, allowing easy access to the Mac's 2 internal optical drive bays, 4 expansion slots, 8 RAM slots, and 4 hard drive bays. All are easily accessible and it is very easy to add devices.

The Mac is very quiet, even though it has several large fans. It sits on the floor below my desk, and I cannot hear it above the small and fairly quiet fan on my Mac Mini. This system no longer suffers from the cooling problems that plagued my PowerMac G5. The fans do not kick into overdrive when I am using processor-intensive programs, sounding like someone parked an F-18 in my living room. A ceiling fan is noticeably louder than this Mac.

NETWORKING

The Mac Pro ships with 2 gigabit ethernet ports standard. You may configure them independently (if you know how to do that). On my Mac at work, I use one for my network/internet connection, and I use the other to connect my Maya rendering PC. The PC needs to stay as fast as possible, so I don;t install any virus software on it. Keeping it plugged into the Mac directly allows me to transfer files without the danger of having an unprotected PC on the network, where it may catch a bug.

There are also options for fiber optic network cards on the Apple store site. These are used for VERY high-speed data transfer and are not typically used in a home environment.

SOFTWARE

The Mac ships with Apple's latest operating system, OS X 10.4. Known as Tiger (Apple loves to name their OS versions after big cats), this OS features a very rich experience for any level of user. Its UNIX core makes it secure and speedy. Its Aqua interface is visually on par or above any other OS on the market. It has a real terminal for hard-core command-line users, and it has simple graphical settings for the less experienced folks. Easy to set up and use, but all the power of a workstation which would cost 5 times the price from another manufacturer.

The commercial software that ships on the Mac is very powerful - especially considering it is free. The Mac comes with 2 discs which contain the OS and a complete system restore. The system restore contains the OS installer with software integrated into the install process. There are no additional discs containing the software that ships with the Mac. I find this to be a disadvantage because if I want to re-install just one program, I may have to re-install the whole operating system to do it. There may be ways to install individual apps from this disc, but I have not found them.

Here is a list of programs that ship with the Mac. You would have to purchase these programs separately if you just bought OS 10.4 Tiger on its own, so they are essentially "free".

iLife '06 suite (iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, iWeb, Garage Band)
iWork and MS Office trials (not really free, you have to pay for them eventually)
Comic Life (lets you make comic books from personal photos, cooler than you think!)
Omni Outliner - a data outlining tool, very handy for project planning

Between iLife and Omni Outliner, you have a fairly comprehensive set of applications to get stuff done with. I would recommend never opening Microsoft Office, and in stead trashing it so that you don;t become dependent on it. Most people don't know that the "TextEdit" application that comes with OS X is a fairly powerful word processor and it is completely free. There are also productivity apps that work well together and are also free such as iCal, Address Book, Mail, iChat, and the all-powerful iTunes. All of the programs mentioned above are very powerful in their own right, and they make the Mac a valuable purchase, even if you cannot afford additional software out of the box.

THE EXPERIENCE

The Mac OS has always been a unique experience to all who have used it - for better or worse. It has always contained the power of other OS releases (Windows, NEXT, OS2, various UNIX iterations), but OS X has a reputation for being a "playschool OS" of sorts, due to its reliance on GUI (graphical user interface) settings rather than more robust and technical command-line configuration tools. The command line is also known as a Terminal and is akin to DOS, or a text-only computer interface.

Mac OS X has the best of both worlds. It is a UNIX-based operating system (meaning that it has the 30+ years of Unix engineering and knowledge behind it). The actual operating system that you see and use lives on top of the powerful command-line-driven UNIX core. All of the technical (and often confusing) parts of the OS are safely hidden behind graphical windows.

In today's age of flashy, animated, semi-transparent operating systems, OS X manages to keep the eye candy to a civilized minimum. Having used Vista, I found it to be glitzy, but over-done, putting too much emphasis on effects and window animations rather than letting the focus fall on the user's needs. OS X has a few nifty effects (the OS X animated dock comes to mind), but visually, you are allowed to concentrate on the task at hand rather than flying transparent objects. On-screen elements are attractive, organized, logical, and spartan.

THE SPEED

This is where the fun starts.

I just read a review of Microsoft Vista where in which start-up times (the time it takes from pressing the power button until you have a fully-useable Desktop) were typically in the area of 2 minutes. That's not too bad, but I was very impressed to see that my OS X computer boots in (I am not making this up) 10 seconds. It takes 10 seconds from when I press the power button on the front of the Mac until I have icons on the Desktop and I can use them. This is not waking from sleep, or hibernation, this is from a cold, off-state. I have never seen performance even approach this kind of speed on any computer I have ever used. It is truly amazing.

After I installed my applications (Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Studio, Macromedia Studio 8, and a few other utilities), the boot time went up to about 15 seconds. Still, not too shabby.

In Adobe AfterEffects (a video compositing and visual effects tool), almost everything I do is real-time including plug-ins, 3D effects, and process intensive operations like keying. Rendering is often faster than real time. In Final Cut Pro, I can edit multiple layers of video and audio with ease and no dropped frames.

THE WINDOWS EXPERIENCE

With the advent of MAcs using Intel processors, it has become possible to run Windows on your mac without emulation. Emulation is a technology that was used in products like VirtualPC. The Intel processor was emulated using software, which is much slower. The result was a working Windows system that was often painfully slow because it was running on top of an emulated processor which was running on top of the Mac OS. That's a lot to as even of a very fast computer.

The Intel processors inside the Mac Pro, along with Apple's "Boot Camp" technology allowed me to install Windows XP Pro on a second hard drive. Now I can shut off the computer and restart into a fully operational Windows environment running at full speed. There are no slow-downs because Windows is running on its native Intel processor. The speed is unimaginable, and I can run complex applications like Maya with ease.

If I reboot into OS X again, I can use a program called Parallels Desktop to open the very same Windows hard drive in a window of its own. It looks like Virtual PC did, having a complete Windows Desktop inside a window on my Mac, but it is much faster because there is no need for processor emulation. Everything is native. One drawback is that while using Parallels Desktop, OSX is still running in the background and using the processors, slowing down the Windows environment. That makes programs like Maya or Alias Studio Tools impossible to use productively, but it is still sufficiently fast enough for testing web pages in MS Internet Explorer while I have Dreamweaver and BBedit open on the Mac, along with Transmit (FTP app), Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Photoshop and Illustrator.

YOUR PERFECT SET-UP

I'd recommend a variety of system set-ups depending on your needs. Provide your own screen/monitor.

The Student
Since you are most likely on a budget, you'll want 2GB RAM, the stock 250GB hard drive, the basic Nvidia GeForce 7300, and a wired keyboard and mouse. You can upgrade the system by purchasing additional memory and hard drives from third parties (MUCH cheaper!!) Pair that with the Applecare Protection Plan and you have a professional system at $4545. Not cheap, but still within the realm of a film school student loan.

The Professional
The average professional system user will need more power and storage, but the system will still need to get past purchasing without being rejected. I'd recommend 4GB RAM, two 500GB hard drives, and the ATI Radeon video card for the additional VRAM. Also the Airport/Bluetooth option, wireless keyboard and mouse, and the Applecare Protection Plan. This comes to a healthy $5402.00.

The Ultimate
This is the system configured to its maximum settings. This is not for the faint of heart, but if you purchase this machine, you will have a system that is slightly better than God's.
16GB of RAM, 4 750GB Hard Drives, the Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 video card, two optical drives, Bluetooth, Airport, a Quad-channel fiver network card, Wireless keyboard and mouse, a .mac membership, and the Applecare Protection Plan. This system will leave burn marks on your hands when you use it. And at $13,495.95, it will probably do your laundry while you're out of the house.

CONCLUSION

This system is the most powerful I have seen to date. It is faster than any Mac or Windows computer at any of its available configurations or price ranges, and is well worth the price. Easy set-up and use, as well as a sturdy and fast OS make it the machine at the top of my dream machine list. Aside from the awkward mouse, If you are a graphics pro of any kind, or if you enjoy speed and power, this computer is for you.

On another note, I cannot stress enough how important it is to purchase the Applecare Protection Plan when purchasing any Mac. It is essentially computer insurance, and is not comparable to the service contracts you find at Best Buy or other retail establishments. Applecare covers the hardware for three years from date of purchase (typically the life of a typical computer), and it also gives you free phone support if you have any questions about the inner-workings of the operating system or configuration issues. I got Applecare for my Mom when she get a new Powerbook a few years ago, and now I'm not getting tech support calls anymore!