WWDC 2006 Keynote
So yesterday morning Steve Jobs (with help) gave his highly anticipated keynote. As far as product announcements go, all I cared about since Jobs announced the switch to Intel processors at last years WWDC was knowing when the Power Macs would be updated. Now the date has finally arrived with the introduction of the Mac Pro.
Am I disappointed with the absence of a slick new case? Of course! Nothing like a new case design to send current owners into instant buyers remorse! ;) But in a way it makes perfect sense. All the other previously updated products were externally unchanged so Apple was just being consistent. I reasoned that they could have shrunk the overall dimensions since such a massive cooling system for the previous G5s wouldn't be necessary anymore. But what the engineers apparently did was take advantage of the "extra" room by beefing up the capabilities of the machine. I can't fault Apple for that. Extra hard drives, a second optical drive, plenty of PCI Express expansion slots- some of these were valid criticisms of the design of the original Power Mac G5.
So as usual, reading Apple's website with all the pretty pictures and techy specs (Quad Xeons- wow) made me want to customize my own dream machine and hit the buy now button. These are the machines I always wished Apple would make to truly compete with the best out there for professional work. (Actually the previous Dual and Quad Power Macs G5s were the machines I always wanted but the Intel announcement simply made them less than desirable for future use.) But unfortunately for me the HP workstation I purchased in September 2004 is still going strong and will be my primary machine for quite some time. I would consider a new Mac Pro to replace Rika's six and a half year old Power Mac G4, but since she's in the midst of a career change, it would be gross overkill.
So who's buying then? Oh and FWIW, my dream (but realistic) configuration would have been this:
Am I disappointed with the absence of a slick new case? Of course! Nothing like a new case design to send current owners into instant buyers remorse! ;) But in a way it makes perfect sense. All the other previously updated products were externally unchanged so Apple was just being consistent. I reasoned that they could have shrunk the overall dimensions since such a massive cooling system for the previous G5s wouldn't be necessary anymore. But what the engineers apparently did was take advantage of the "extra" room by beefing up the capabilities of the machine. I can't fault Apple for that. Extra hard drives, a second optical drive, plenty of PCI Express expansion slots- some of these were valid criticisms of the design of the original Power Mac G5.
So as usual, reading Apple's website with all the pretty pictures and techy specs (Quad Xeons- wow) made me want to customize my own dream machine and hit the buy now button. These are the machines I always wished Apple would make to truly compete with the best out there for professional work. (Actually the previous Dual and Quad Power Macs G5s were the machines I always wanted but the Intel announcement simply made them less than desirable for future use.) But unfortunately for me the HP workstation I purchased in September 2004 is still going strong and will be my primary machine for quite some time. I would consider a new Mac Pro to replace Rika's six and a half year old Power Mac G4, but since she's in the midst of a career change, it would be gross overkill.So who's buying then? Oh and FWIW, my dream (but realistic) configuration would have been this:
- Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
- 2GB (4 x 512MB)
- 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
- Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)
- 1 x SuperDrive
posted by Robert at August 08, 2006
2 Comments:
So why not the 3GHz? Nice whole number...
$800 more! I was thinking realisticaly, not blue sky. Could have gone with a dual 30" display configuration and a FX 4500 card too! Anyways, would you notice a real world difference between 2.66 and 3.0? ;)
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