Apple® - Mac Pro 2.26GHz

Ok to start this review of I would like to talk about the other reviews on here. There are several reviews that compare this to a PC. There are several written by people that don't even own one. There is also a couple real one's and there is one talking about Free BSD. First off this is not a PC. These processor's are not cheap. That's why it has the price it has. People are saying it only has 6GB's of Ram. But they keep overlooking that this is based on UNIX!!!!!! Which mean's it requires a lot less ram to power it. The HD is a little small but you can go to Apple's website and customize it more by giving it raid and e-sata connections. You can buy a 1TB 7200RPM for only 89.99. Also 1 TB is equal to 1024GB not 1000. This machine can easily be used as a server. Server's don't really need this much power unless you are running google or a country. I have a mac mini for a web server and one for my house. If you want a server with Mac OSX server get a mac mini server or get a X-Serve. That's why apple make's those option's. This computer has lot's of power. You can also put a blu-ray drive in it for cheap. You can also buy HDMI adapter's yea there extra but wait until there event before you write a fake review. Mine could out run probably almost any computer out there. I have 24GB's of DDR3 1066MHZ. And mine is the 8-Core 2.66GHZ but this is the only one BestBut sell's so I am reviewing it. This does have firewire port's both 800 and 400. It has 5 USB 2.0's. I can have the whole Final Cut Studio collection running on it and have the Whole Master Collection CS4 open. This Computer is meant to work and is a Media Powerhouse. Great graphics from the ATI Radeon HD 4870 With 512MB of Video Ram I purchased from Apple as well. This thing is heavy but if you plugging something in, plug it in to the front or else move the computer so you can plug stuff in easier. Now on to the review. Mine is awesome. Very fast and powerful. I can run many program's at once like I said before. The design is amazing and is so easy to upgrade a caveman could do it. It come's already activated because Mac OSX doesn't require serial number's it's ready right out of the box. It actually run's pretty cool with all the fan's installed. I enjoy having dual drive's installed because I can burn two CD's in less than 2 minute's at the most. Very fast burn speed's and very smooth read speed's create the ultimate movie watching experience. I will admit it is a little heavy but if you compare it to other's it really isn't that bad. The built in bluetooth is awesome. I picked up a apple wireless keyboard and the Magic Mouse and they work great. I also have the bluetooth hooked up to my surround sound in my living room and work's great. Overall this computer is awesome it's Mac OSX so you don't worry about viruses because it's more secure. It is a little pricey but you get what you pay for. So when you spend more money you get better quality. I love my Mac Pro. My name is Jake and I'm a Mac.

This Mac Pro desktop computer is ok. It's excellent that RAM is expandable to 32GB and has a large storage. This Mac has 6GB of memory and 640GB of hard drive. Also it has a great processor. But however, there is a Windows PC called HP Pavilion Elite Desktop e9180f includes 9GB of RAM, 1TB (1000GB) of hard drive, Intel Core i7 920 Processor, Blu-Ray disc player, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 graphics with 1 HDMI and 2 DVI interface for connecting HD components,15-in-1 digital media reader, 2 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interfaces and 7 high-speed USB 2.0 ports, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit operating system, and it costs $1,199.99. Also this is a new HP desktop computer with a new look and you will also get a free Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade disk from HP. RAM is expandable to 24GB but that is okay. The HP computer has more better performance and cost way cheaper then a Apple Mac computer.

I believe a lot of people that have looked into this machine have gotten the wrong idea about it. One of the other reviewers seems to be angry about it only having 6gb of ram, no HDMI port, card reader, and blue-ray drive. It seems the poster has the wrong idea of what this machine is built for, this machine is built strictly for reliability. This is not meant to be a media powerhouse (though it is of course). It has 2 Xeon processors, these are meant for servers and cost about $1250 apiece - minimum. It has support for ECC ram, which is incredibly important for any server. With ECC ram the amount of soft errors is going to drop dramatically. This increases the reliability rating significantly. Further, being expandable up to 32GB of ECC ram, even with the 1333mhz variety running, it can handle anything and everything If you're looking for a media computer, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a server, you've found one..

ill try to make this as short as possible. i own a computer sales, repair, and modification shop where i live. until this year i refused to touch a mac. i also run a few small businesses online which require a decent sized media server i have set up in my home. until recently i'd been running an HP server tower i bought about 2 years ago (750gb hd, 8gb ram, intel quad core chipset rated for 2.16ghz per core overclocked and liquid cooled to 3.34ghz per core). for my personal computer (gaming, video editing and processing plus just general use) i was using an HP blackbird (the HP/Voodoo compilation - 8gb ram, 1TB hd, dual quad core intel chipsets overclocked from 2.26 to about 3.14ghz/core and 3 dedicated Voodoo 776mb accelerated graphics cards).i will admit both machines are amazing. the server has cost total about $3700 after wholesale mods. the blackbird i was lucky enough to grab wholesale for $2310 instead of over $3000. last christmas my girlfriend bought me a macbook pro 17" intel dual core with 2gb ram and media acceleration. she claimed the guy at the mac store told her it would keep up with my blackbird and i laughed and laughed. well after a diagnostic check, aside from media processing (due to the triple voodoo cards) the macbook actually outran my 8 core powerhouse. i almost cried. i rechecked it about 3 times and then gave up. dumbfounded, i started researching more about the OS of the mac... which is exactly what i had overlooked. since macs use a kernal based OS very similar to UNIX systems things started making sense; and since the new macs use intel chips i decided to juice them up a tad. i overclocked the mac to run 7% more efficient and it smoked my PC. now it made sense why macs cost more, they are built better, plain and simple. i sold both of my PCs and bought the mac pro tower. WOW. immediately i upgraded the hd by adding an external 1.5TB hd ($149) while keeping the 620mb internal drive. i upgraded the ram to 12gb (because unless you are running a small country there is no need for the whole 32. because my tower stays in constant process i didn't mess with the processing speed (no need to try and overheat it until i can figure out how to build a custom cooling system). i upgraded my macbook to 4gb and reset the processing parameters to stock because after a few months of use i realized macs don't need help to rule. if you ask me, and this is just one mans opinion, unless your job REQUIRES you to use a PC (and if they do HP is still my pick) then pay the extra few hundred for a mac. the OS architecture alone is worth it.. no viruses, no windows registry and plug n play crises to deal with, and the best thing is, if you are windows dedicated,.. well, the new OSX runs windows... and it runs windows MUCH more efficiently than a PC, ironic huh? lets just say i now advertise that i repair and work on both macs and PCs, and for 7 months now, i have yet to have a single mac come in for work. i still love PCs, they pay the bills :).... sorry for the long rant but 3gs is a lot of money and i wanted to be as clear as possible with my choice in opinions. Good Luck!

Ok, just to let everyone know. MacOS X+ is nothing but BSD Unix with a pretty user interface and some little apps Apple put into the OS. Before spending 3+ grand on a computer, just build the same thing for a fraction of the cost and just go straight to what OSX is built on top of, BSD unix. FreeBSD, PC-BSD, and many others are free operating systems that can run on almost any type of hardware with the same or more performance as OSX(aka BSD unix with apple logo on it). If you are not familiar with building a computer then just Buy a nice computer on bestbuy.com come out about $1,500 cheaper and load the OS yourself. Plus you will gain the ability to upgrade tons if needed.

Great computer, very fast encoding for webmovie, 8 core rocks. Love the extra 3 hard drive bays inside for extra internal store, the drives mounted inside easily and took me less than 10 min. to install 3 extra drives. So easy to open and close the tower. Best ever. Only one gripe is Apple charges extra and a airport is not installed in this computer, please Apple don't 'call this a PRO computer if you don't have a airport in it already, nickel and dime me. The computer at $3,299 is not cheap and to not have this preinstalled is pretty bad. Almost any computer should have this installed these days. My last G5 even had a airport installed.

Firstable, if a computer has a Xeon CPU, it is a PC, given this, the "MAC" can be compared with other PC's. The CPU and RAM type are excellent, however, a big downside of this machine as far as hardware, is the lack of a SAS drive and/or an internal RAID adapter. This machine uses an ordinary hard drive as the ones found in a PC under $800. The hardware in this machine is not server worthy, and for a home media PC, it lacks a lot of media features compared to far less expensive PC's available. The bottom line is, this machine is not good as a server and it is not good for a media "powerhouse" either, because it can perform, but does not have the means to support new media technology . Save the $1500 and buy a Dell instead. Ratings are based on cost of the machine.

There seems to be a LOT of confusion by previous reviewers... First, this is NOT designed to be a server. You can certainly use it as a server, but that's up to the user. The Xserve is Mac's server, not the MacPro. This computer is designed to be a "powerhouse" for media, or anything else you need. Stop comparing it to a PC... it's not PC. If you want a PC, buy a PC. If you want more ram, buy more ram. The main "pro" of this computer is it's design. It is remarkable simple. The ease of adding components is equal to no other computer. Everything but the power supply simply pulls out with a finger. Add HDs, optical drives, and ram in a minute or two. The only "con" is no real BluRay burning abilities. However I must say that this is not the fault of this model, but more across the board on the Apple line. There are some background issues to this that I'm hoping will be resolved soon. Apple was the first computer to offer the ability to burn your own DVD media projects to the masses. They just need to include the ability to burn BluRay as the next generation of media. Time will tell. Note: Bestbuy offers only one model of MacPro. Go to the apple site to discover many more configurations to better fit your needs/budge.