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Apple Mac Pro Dual Xeon 2.66GHz Dual Core Desktop (Dual 2.66GHz Intel Xeon 5150, 1GB DDR2, 250GB, DVD±RW DL, Mac OS X 10.5 Tiger - MPN: MA356LLA)
Description: It provides four hard-drive bays and a cable-free installation process with no cables or connectors to trouble you. A tool-less PCi bracket simplifies the installation and removal of expansion cards. The double-wide graphics slot means you .... Read More Description: It provides four hard-drive bays and a cable-free installation process with no cables or connectors to trouble you. A tool-less PCi bracket simplifies the installation and removal of expansion cards. The double-wide graphics slot means you don't have to sacrifice a valuable expansion slot. Eight FB-DIMM slots on two riser cards offer quick, easy memory installation. And you'll find more ports up front for added convenience including a FireWire 800 and another USB 2.0 port.
Every Mac Pro comes with a single 16x SuperDrive, but a second bay lets you outfit your Mac Pro with a pair of SuperDrives. Talk about productivity gains, with two 16X SuperDrives, you can simultaneously read from one drive and write to the other. Read from both drives. Or even write to both. Minimize |
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| Date Reviewed: 09/30/2006 |
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Strengths: Extremely powerful, quiet, great potential for expandability
Weaknesses: Expensive!! Expensive RAM
Summary: The new Mac Pro is built right. It includes extremely powerful processors, which potentially can be upgraded in the future. There are plenty of expansion slots. Apple has added more USB and Firewire ports to the front of the system, making access easier! RAM is very easy to add, and can support a large amount of RAM. Unfortunately, the RAM is quite expensive as it is Fully Buffered ECC. Adding a hard drive is very easy, and there are room for four hard drives! While the name might have changed, this tower is powered.
 100% of People (14/14) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 06/04/2007 |
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Strengths: I love its ease of use. It has plenty of upgrade capability, easy and fast to set up, and no useless programs to delete. I love it.
Weaknesses: This thing is a beast. You are going to need some extra space for the tower.
Summary: This thing is a sleek performance machine. It is almost silent when in operation. It also comes standard with two monitor outputs, something that is priceless to any person working with music or video production. This is also my first mac and I found the OS very easy to learn and navigate.
100% of People (3/3) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/28/2008 |
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Strengths: Gorgeous bit of industrial design. It radiates Quality down to the smallest details inside and out And delivers Stunning Performance. This machine will become a design classic. Guaranteed.
Weaknesses: Due to it's dominating minimalist design, it may clash with everything else in the room. You'll have to get rid of that Barcalounger and get some le Corbusier or Mies pieces.
Summary: After releasing that perfectly engineered release latch with it's cleverly intigrated padlock ring and sniffing around inside this beast to add memory, superdrive, a couple of extra hard drives etc. it was clear I'd made the right decision. This machine is fantastically well designed and assembled - down to the cords, plugs and machine turned Torx fasteners throughout ! There is truly nothing remotely comparable if you appreciate great industrial design.
100% of People (1/1) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 12/04/2006 |
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Strengths: Usability
Weaknesses: Expensive memory; insufficient memory on base configuration.
Summary: This is my first professional-level Mac - I was impressed enough by my Mac Mini, and also the "Parallels Desktop for Mac" software for running Windows on Intel Macs, that I figured it was time to jump ship.
The machine has all the classic Apple usability - plug and play most peripherals; the OS functions identically to the 'Mini. However, 1 Gig of memory is not enough for my purposes, and in my opinion does not do justice to the machine: I get disk swapping and fan noise far too easily. (i.e. Trying to run both Parallels and Photoshop at the same time.) And additional memory, whether from Apple or Other World Computing, is highly expensive.
92% of People (11/12) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/13/2006 |
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Strengths: Very fast for compression (video, audio, etc.), Whisper quiet, well built, runs great
Weaknesses: really heavy, maybe could use a few more USB connections, OS X has very few good games
Summary: I have always used PCs, but I finally bought a Mac and I love it. With the conversion to Intel, I can still boot Windows XP if I need. I have had the Mac for a few months and I am using Windows less and less. This computer is the best I have used at everything I do, except gaming. I tried running some games under XP and they do run, just not as fast as I expected for this computer. That is only a minor annoyance as everything else about my Mac experience has been great with all else!
91% of People (10/11) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 01/23/2007 |
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Strengths: Very powerful/fast, quick start ups, nice room for hardware exandability, optimized for professional video editing and musical recording, the ability to install a Windows OS and run windows programs!
Weaknesses: I would have liked there to be more ports on the back on the computer unit for sound, the included mouse might be a little tricky for someone who is used to PC mouses (very minor), the overall price.
Summary: My pops purchased this wonderful Mac so that we could finally do some serious recording with Pro Tools. Setting up the system was a breeze as well as registering. I love the slick, simplified interface of the Mac, you'll feel right at home even though you're a windows user (though that might take a while for some). This system is built for professal use like for video editing and recording music and so it is packed with a dual core intel based processor (sweet). I really havn't yet found anything seriously negative about the system. Go ask any professional who is in the media industry - they'll tell you that a Mac Pro is the best way to go for multimedia productivity. The only thing that I didn't give a smile to was the price tag - quite expensive but I guess a good investment in the long run.
Highly recommended for video enthusiasts, musical producers, graphic designers, or the advanced joe who wants a different and perhaps slicker, easier way of computing and managing their digital life (not to mention having bragging rights)!
80% of People (4/5) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 09/06/2006 |
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Strengths: Fast Fast Fast...Lots of storage space. Great on the eyes. Cheap for the Xeon processors and what you get.
Weaknesses: A bit expensive on the wallet(although a great value), Cannot find a wireless card in a store at the moment.
Summary: I have yet to run a game like Half Life on it but as far as multi-tasking, music, internet, photoshop...ect, this thing never gives up and doesn't seem to slow down. It looks great on the outside, but looks even nicer on the inside. I Can't wait to expand my memory and start to edit HD movies. The only thing I don't like is the lack of support at the stores, even the Apple Store. I can't find a wireless card nor other upgrades (the Computer is very new).
75% of People (6/8) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 03/30/2008 |
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Strengths: Extremely Fast, Has lots of room for storage and memory upgrades, has very quiet processors, A BEAST FOR VIDEO EDITING, DIGTAL DESIGN & MUSIC PRODUCTION!
Weaknesses: Comes with only 1 GB of memory (which is pretty expensive if bought separately), doesn't have bluetooth or airport built in, not enough audio optimization in the back of the unit.
Summary: I've been working on macs for around 6 years now (G5s and powerbooks) and have never been disappointed in terms of their performances. I recently decided to move on and start working with Intel-based macs (for video editing, graphic design and music production). After having made a few (memory) stress tests, all i can say is that the MacPro is probably the fastest and most performant piece of hardware on the market today. It's not even comparable to older mac machines, as its speed is remarkable No it's not perfect, it somehow lags when you play High Def footage in Final Cut Pro (without rendering)...and umm that's basically the only negative aspect i found until now. Like i mentioned in the 'weaknesses' box, i would've loved to buying the machine with at least 2 GB of RAM, but other than that, it has everything i ever needed for professional & normal usage.
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| Date Reviewed: 03/16/2008 |
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Strengths: Fast, SuperFast...Super Build, easy to upgrade memory, PCI cards, Hard Drives
Weaknesses: Apple doesn't let you add bluetooth or airport (wifi) on your own.
Summary: I run a medical office on the Macintosh platform using FileMaker Pro. When the Revision A G5 iMac I have at home started "sparkling" on the display (a sign of impending capacitor failure), knowing it was 3 months out of the extended 3 year warranty for the known capacitor swelling and failure problem; I decided to bring the 2.4GHz iMac running the network home and pickup on Amazon.com this tower. It was only recently obsolesced in January with the release of the HarperTown Xeon chipped Mac Pros. I love the Xserve inspired hard drive sleds, so that as patient files increase in size, I can simply increase the number of drives required. OS X supports software RAID and doing so simply increases performance. The machine comes standard with a small HD, 1GB ram and NO bluetooth or airport. The oversight on RAM is easily corrected, and recommended. At 1 GB of RAM I didn't notice much improvement in snappiness over the imac, however, adding 4GB of matched FB-DIMMS was cheap and easy (pull out riser cards makes addition of RAM a matter of seconds, literally). What I wasn't prepared for was the grief in adding airport and bluetooth. The later more important as my wireless mighty mouse needed bluetooth to work. Amazon incorrectly implies that ordering an airport extreme card (for notebooks only) could be purchased at the same time and is useable in the tower (it is not). Some searching on the internet allowed for finding the true directions on adding the broadcomm chip for bluetooth and a separate 802.11n wifi card. It simply is plugged into the motherboard, and screwed in with two supplied screws. The airport antennae are hidden behind the second hard drive sled. It should take about 3 minutes to add the cards. The only place to get the cards is at Apple or one of the Apple retails stores. I called, they had it in stock. Now the upsetting part, Apple calls this a NON customer installable part. They will gladly do it for you, however. I made an appointment and lugged the 50 lb computer in with me (inconvenient enough). When I arrived at the appointed time they stated it would take 4 hours to install and refused to allow me to leave with the $25.00 part, stating "not user installable." For a formerly 2500.00 machine, I think Apple could have either allowed user installation or made it standard. So beware, you will have a hassle if you need wifi and bluetooth. In any event, the machine is very fast (actually the fastest mac I have ever used) and is more than adequate to the task for administering a network of 7 linked macs over a gigabit network. I recommend it despite the nitpicky issues you will face getting a barebones machine up to speed.
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