Apple Updates the Mac Pro

Apple has refreshed the Mac Pro--the first full turnover of the Mac Pro since it was first announced in August of 2006. The line has switched from being dominated by Quad-core Xeon's to being dominated by Octo-core Xeon's. There was an uptick in price for the recommended system from $2500 to $2800 for an 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro.

There are some other improvements in the system architecture and early results show good improvements in system performance. While adding 4 more cores doesn't double the speed, these systems look signficantly faster than older Mac Pro's, especiallly in encoding video. Check out this benchmark test from MacWorld for more info:
"From the Lab: Internal changes bolster latest Mac Pro"
I was surprised at what low marks they gave the internal hard drive that ships with the new Mac. I've always assumed that those had decent performance, but MacWorld found a significant speed bump on their multi-app test by putting a hard drive from an older Mac Pro into the current 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon. For some good specs on hard drive performance, check out Bare Feats. Apple also has some performance comparisons with other Mac towers here, including rendering & encoding with FCP and After Effects.

There had been rumors that Apple was ready to add a Blu-ray drive for playing back high-def movies to the Mac Pro's. For PC's, adding an HD DVD or Blu-ray drive, or both, is now a common option. Nothing from Apple about Blu-ray for these new computers, but an announcement could come at the MacWorld Conference. I'm anxious to see Apple add Blu-ray disc authoring to DVD Studio Pro, as well as decent support for the HD DVD standard. Adobe's Encore already does this. Commentator Bob Cringely suggests that Jobs will ignore high-def discs because he sees them as a threat to iTunes ruling the media world in his latest column (he also thinks Apple will buy Adobe, which seems a bit far-fetched to me.)

Mac Pro Onboard SATA

Recently I wrote this post about a way to use the extra SATA ports that are otherwise unused inside the Mac Pro. Well, here's an article from a person who actually did it, and on reflecting on it, I would judge it not worth the effort. Appparently the NewerTech eSATA Cable Kit/PCI bracket manual recommends that you route the cables underneath the motherboard. I'm not up for that kind of surgery personally. Neither was the author, so he/she just left the cables floating around inside the computer. I guess that would be OK, but generally I don't like to do stuff inside of a $2,500 computer unless a manufacturer is recommending it. When you can get 2 eSATA ports from a number of PCIe card manufacturers for $100, I wouldn't bother with this personally. File this under, too much trouble but cool (in the geeky way).

Cool in a geeky way would also describe the site where I found this article xlr8yourmac.com.