Mac Pro users: Opinions

[Daniel Geiger]

There was a recent news story pointing out that extended warranties on electronics are THE most expensive insurance you can buy, i.e., a waste of money. I think it was on the CNN tech page, but can't recall for sure. Apple Care is such an extended warranty. Why would a computer manufacturer otherwise get into the insurance business, if it would not be a good revenue stream? Revenue means, that they earn more than it costs them, or in other words, the consumer overpays the service.

I've been using Macs since the plus, and we use them on long run applications such as DNA automated sequencing and phylogenetic searches, which typically run for 2-3 days straight. Not one problem. I have had a couple of minor repairs (with an 8 year old Powerbook 180, no surprise there), but on balance, its much cheaper to repair the computer (or to get a new one) than to buy apple care.

Get more RAM and get additional harddrives and do a RAID array to secure your data. As the Macpro desktop now finally has four HD bays, you can implement a RAID straight in the desktop box.

[Daniel Geiger]

P.S. If something is seriously wrong, it blows up within a year of regular warranty. Happened to me with a Dell XPS that had a hard drive crash with burning smell coming out of the box after only about 20 h of use within 2 months (rarely used computer to run Zeiss Axiocam on a compound microscope).

[Mike Lewis]

I bought a Mac Pro a couple of months ago, with the standard 1GB of memory. Currently I am using it with Photoshop CS in emulation mode. Here are my observations:

- The machine is very stable and very quiet, a stark contrast to the Power Mac G4 it replaced, which was an unusable piece of garbage IMHO. I still give the G4 a kick every now and then out of sheer malice.

- Photoshop is memory-bound; it almost doesn't matter what processor you have or how many cores-- it matters how much memory you have, and one gigabyte is not enough for editing 600MB image files. I put three extra SATA drives in the machine and striped them together as RAID0 for Photoshop swap; it didn't seem to help much. Get 4GB of memory minimum. You might want to buy the Apple memory; it comes with odd-looking cooling fins that will help keep the machine quiet, though you might find those elsewhere.

- In case you're curious, the big 30-inch monitor is too large to be a practical computer screen for everyday use, because it is larger than your field of vision. Couple that with OS X's screwy user interface that puts all pull-down menus at the top of the screen, and it becomes annoying. The big screen is great for movies, though, and for Google Earth (wow!). I would recommend the 23-inch screen.

- Finally, in two months of use I've locked the machine up only twice, which is amazing compared to the miserable G4. If Apple would only fix OS X's UI this would be a great computer.

[Marko]

There was a recent news story pointing out that extended warranties on electronics are THE most expensive insurance you can buy, i.e., a waste of money. I think it was on the CNN tech page, but can't recall for sure. Apple Care is such an extended warranty. Why would a computer manufacturer otherwise get into the insurance business, if it would not be a good revenue stream? Revenue means, that they earn more than it costs them, or in other words, the consumer overpays the service.

I've been using Macs since the plus, and we use them on long run applications such as DNA automated sequencing and phylogenetic searches, which typically run for 2-3 days straight. Not one problem. I have had a couple of minor repairs (with an 8 year old Powerbook 180, no surprise there), but on balance, its much cheaper to repair the computer (or to get a new one) than to buy apple care.

This is true in general. AppleCare is a little different since they cover only their own hardware, but they cover whatever you buy at the time of computer purchase as one bundle. So, if you buy a monitor or two, that's also covered.

The way it works is through spreading the risk over a number of users, just like with auto insurance. You may not have an accident (or theft or break-in) in years or even never, but on the rare occasion that you do need it, you'll sure be happy you have it. Especially with a laptop, motherboard or monitor.

[Brian K]

I have a Mac Pro and find it very stable and much faster with most applications. PS is not much faster though when CS3 comes out it will be more optimized for the Intel Macs.

I also recommend getting as much Mac ram as you can afford and get any extra hard drives or video card upgrades installed with the order. I got applecare with my purchase but I'm not sure if long term it was the most economical choice.

[Marko]

I got applecare with my purchase but I'm not sure if long term it was the most economical choice.

It is definitely more economical that way than the other way around. I never had to use mine and I never regretted having it either.

[Jack Reisland]

...another thing to consider if you are thinking of making a purchase soon, Apple is slated to release the latest version of OSX, Leopard, in June.

[Howard Slavitt]

I have a 2.66 mhz Mac Pro Intel Duo. It smokes with the new native applications like Lightroom. In comparison, the speed is good, but not great, with the non-native applications. It should be great with Photoshop CS 3 (which will be native). I am using it with 3 gb of RAM; with Photoshop CS 2 I could use a little more RAM. I purchased my RAM and 2 extra hard drives from Other World Computing. I've been buying all my RAM and hard drives from them for at least 5 years, and have never had a problem. Saves a lot of money. I do not typically buy extended Apple Care. I've had one out of warranty problem in the last 10 years or so of using desktop macs; I'm pretty sure it was after I had the machine 3.5 years, so I wouldn't have been covered by extended Apple Care either. I am thinking about getting another 2 gb of RAM, but will probably wait until after I get the new Photoshop CS 3 upgrade to see if I really need it.