Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Mac Pro Review

anandtech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 163 posts

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#121

Post by userbinator »

MBCook wrote: post #81
altero wrote: post #76

Configuration is kind of joke. 16GB RAM and zero free slots on high end desktop? My PC had the same price three years ago, but it has 5GHz CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB on SSDs and 5 TB on spin HDDs.

The slots thing is a design decision. Apple doesn't think people need them, I think they may be right. The Thunderbolt connectors are direct to CPU , not even the north-bridge in the way. I remember when they said people wouldn't need ADB or SCSI. Or floppies. Or serial ports. It worked out. If your 5 GHz CPU a Xeon with ECC? The RAM can be upgraded (those are options), the SSD can be upgraded (1 TB is an option) and…

>Apple doesn't think people need them

I am more inclined to say Apple doesn't want people to think they need them.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#122

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rsynnott wrote: post #110
leephillips wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/MC747LL/A/apple-45w-magsaf... EDIT: rsynnott, below, has an excellent point.

The trouble with reviews on that sort of product is that almost nobody has any reason to ever write a good one, because everyone writing one is buying the thing because their old one broke. Unless you have a product that _never ever fails_, reviews on spare parts are always going to be pretty awful.

It does seem to have been a design defect in this case:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4127

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#123

Post by epsylon »

M4v3R wrote: post #2

AnandTech hardware and Ars Technica's software (especially OS X) reviews are works of art by themselves. The level of details that goes into these pieces is nothing short of amazing. They are examples of tech journaling done right.

I know people on HN enjoy being hyperbolic, but I certainly wouldn't call a piece of tech journalism art.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#124

Post by hollerith »

leephillips wrote: post #112
yapcguy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rob Pike wrote a blog post "Thank you Apple" (sarcasm) because of the problems he was having with his iMac and Apple's software. http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/09/thank-you-apple.ht... Linus Torvalds is said to be using the ChromeBook Pixel as his primary machine. http://www.geek.com/chips/linus-torvalds-is-making-the-chrom... As for Miguel De Icaza, he's eating his own dog food, as he now makes his money sel…

From now on when people ask me why I use Linux instead of OSX and why I refuse to install closed-source, copy-protected software, I'm going to send them to Rob Pike's eloquent description of his self-inflicted torture.

OK, but you should know that Pike likes Linux even less than he likes OS X.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#125

Post by gmac »

josephagoss wrote: post #119
bfrog wrote: post #37

A 1 year warranty is such a joke for this much money. I think this and the new mbp where should anything break you need a full replacement basically, need to have some serious warranty coverage changes. 3 years minimum in my mind. Just another way to nickle and dime you on something like an almost required extended warranty. Apple, your stuff is mostly nice. Fix your product warranty and maybe I'll open my wallet.

I think Australians get 2 years free as per the legal requirements. However I suspect they increase the overall price to compensate so we are not really better off.

EU citizens do too: http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#126

Post by _delirium »

Watabou wrote: post #59
marincounty wrote: post #22

Apple needs to fix Mavericks before I ever buy anything from them. They have so much cash, and so many bugs in Mavericks?

What bugs have you found? Have you reported them to Apple? I haven't found any since the 10.9.1 update. They fixed the quicklook slowness bug which was my only complaint. Mavericks is one of the most polished OS X release I have used, behind Snow Leopard.

I have a weird issue where, after upgrading, opening the Activity Monitor causes a process called 'systemstats' to balloon to >1.5GB memory and peg the CPU. Doesn't seem to be just a startup thing, because it does it indefinitely until I kill the process (closing Activity Monitor doesn't fix it). Googling around turns up some other people with that issue but no obvious diagnosis.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#127

Post by altero »

MBCook wrote: post #81
altero wrote: post #76

Configuration is kind of joke. 16GB RAM and zero free slots on high end desktop? My PC had the same price three years ago, but it has 5GHz CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB on SSDs and 5 TB on spin HDDs.

The slots thing is a design decision. Apple doesn't think people need them, I think they may be right. The Thunderbolt connectors are direct to CPU , not even the north-bridge in the way. I remember when they said people wouldn't need ADB or SCSI. Or floppies. Or serial ports. It worked out. If your 5 GHz CPU a Xeon with ECC? The RAM can be upgraded (those are options), the SSD can be upgraded (1 TB is an option) and…

I thing my desktop is nicer than this surounded by dozen external HDDs.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#128

Post by mturmon »

altero wrote: post #127
MBCook wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slots thing is a design decision. Apple doesn't think people need them, I think they may be right. The Thunderbolt connectors are direct to CPU , not even the north-bridge in the way. I remember when they said people wouldn't need ADB or SCSI. Or floppies. Or serial ports. It worked out. If your 5 GHz CPU a Xeon with ECC? The RAM can be upgraded (those are options), the SSD can be upgraded (1 TB is an option) and…

I thing my desktop is nicer than this surounded by dozen external HDDs.

Perish the thought! The solution they have in mind for expansion is more like:

http://www.promise.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=23&region=en-gl...

E.g.,

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HE153VC/A/promise-pegasus2...

I have had the predecessor device, a 6bay Thunderbolt RAID 6, for two years and it has been quiet and reliable.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#129

Post by pa5tabear »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #72
umsm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it worth it to purchase the Applecare warranty for $250 which extends the warranty period to 3 years? When you're spending $3k on a computer, I don't see how $250 will really affect the bottom line...

> Isn't it worth it to purchase the Applecare warranty for $250 which extends the warranty period to 3 years? payoff * Probability of payoff = EV 3000 * Probability of payoff = 250 3000 * P / 250 = 250/250 3000 / 250 * P = 1 12 * P = 1 ∴ P = 1 / 12 You require 8.3% of the computers to fail in years 2 and 3, and for the failure to cause $3000 worth of 'damage' avoidance, and for it to be something covered under the wa…

Or that they lose money on the warranty and make up for the loss in other ways.

It's a necessary part of the package.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#130

Post by coldtea »

leephillips wrote: post #108
coldtea wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like Anandtech but they have come into criticism recently, from some of their long-time readers, for fawning over Apple products. Which, instantly, should be reason enough to understand that said criticism is BS. Apple products are among the best in the industry, period. Not just from the industrial design part of it, but overall: coherence of product vision, attention to important characteristics for the target…

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/MC747LL/A/apple-45w-magsaf... EDIT: rsynnott, below, has an excellent point.

Well, FWIW, I have had 3-4 magsafe cords (MBA, MBP, MBPr) and have used them from 5 (MBP) to 3 (MBA) to 1 year (MBPr) without issue.

I've had other parts crap on me though, e.g a battery after 2-3 years of use that had to be replaced. Also had an iMac (sold now), which had a faulty DVD (also replaced).

The thing is, those things happen to ALL production runs, there are some % of defective units. You can be Apple, IBM, Dell or BMW, and you still get this. I've had "upmarket" IBM hard disks die on me for example ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST_Deskstar ).

And, for tens of millions of machines sold, you only get to read about the far fewer faulty ones on such problem forums (well, duh!) -- so it's not much to get an accurate picture on.

I like to do extensive research before I buy something (I buy lots of tech gear, from stuff like DSLRs to Audio interfaces), and if I gave much promimence to the occasional forum complaints, I wouldn't have bought anything at all, because there are always people that have issues with any product you search. I prefer to stick to reviews, seeing units in action from friends and in the store, etc. Case in point, my latest buy, a Focusrite Scarlett interface. Pages of complaints about strange audio glitches with Mountain Lion / iMacs etc in audio forums. Have been working 100% fine for me.

Post reply on HN