Apple Mac Pro Dual Xeon 2.8GHz Quad Core Desktop

Best computer I've owned

Strengths: Fast, powerful, Quad-core

Weaknesses: Price, wish it had more memory "standard"

Summary: I am a typical Windows user but I'm starting to dabble in the world of Mac. I wanted a good system to use and learn new software in the Mac interface, and this was the system I decided on. I plan to use it for both work and play.

I've only been using it for a bit over a week, but this thing is a beast. It runs faster than any system I've used. I haven't run into any trouble yet, but I'm still adjusting to the MAC interface/OS. From what I've seen I think it will ultimately be easier than Windows after I get used to it.

I look forward to upgrading this system in the future, I'd like to add more memory as this thing can handle a ton of it. Wish Apple included more than 2gb and a bigger than 320gb hard drive as its standard offerings.

The computer itself is quite heavy, but if you're looking to buy it you likely know this already.

I would like to update this review as I get more experience with this computer (and with MAC in general).

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Fantastic

Strengths: Everything

Weaknesses: None

Summary: I bought this unit 3 days ago and still haven't had enough of it. The entire unit is just perfect. Very quiet, very very fast. I use if for Digital photography, VM Fusion with 5 other operating systems. Xeon processing power worth every penny. This is true computing power. I love MAC products. They really put their heart and soul into their engineering and design. If you have the money, go for it, I guarantee you will no be disappointed.

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Blazing fast and quiet

Strengths: super fast processing speed, quiet, lots of room for expansion

Weaknesses: expensive RAM, crappy mouse, bug that causes the computer to automatically reboot when it goes into sleep more for over an hour

Summary: I had been using a 24in 2.16 iMac Core 2 Duo for about 5 months and it just wasn't up to par with the work I was doing. I'm a graphic designer who needs to have lots of design applications running at the same time and the iMac just didn't have enough memory or processing power. After months suffering through Photoshop moving like a snail, I knew I had to upgrade to a Mac Pro but wanted to wait until the new Harpertown/Penryn processors were released. As soon as Apple released the updated Mac Pro in January, I picked one up. After using the iMac for so long, the Mac Pro was like a breath of fresh air. This machine is crazy fast. I loaded 10 GB of RAM into it and can pretty much have all my design apps open (mainly CS3) as well as run Parallels at the same time. I could never do this with the iMac. Overall, I'd recommend the Mac Pro to design professionals looking to run lots of apps. Pick this machine up and you won't be sorry. You'll have to deal with the strange rebooting problem I mentioned above but I don't think it's a deal breaker. I've gotten around this by either shutting my machine down when I'm gone for long periods of time or setting the sleep cycle to never. It's not a great solution (I can't save electricity this way) but I think it's worth it for the power of this machine.

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THIS QUAD SUCKS! DON'T BE FOOLED!

Strengths: MAC IS WAY OVERRATED. I'VE OWNED 4 (QUAD CORE, G4,G5 AND POWER BOOK) POWER BOOK WAS MUCH BETTER FOR THE MONEY THEN THIS HIGH PRICED TUNA FISH CAN!

Weaknesses: UPDATES CRASH COMP & GIVE KERNAL VIRUS. YOU MUST PAY MAC TO UNDO IT FOR YOU. DOESN'T WORK WELL WITH OTHER PROGRAMS THAT WERE NOT CREATED ($$$)BY MAC. MY PRO TOOLS 8 KEEPS SHUTTING DOWN.

Summary: WHEN I CALL MAC CUSTOMER SERVICE, I GET SOME HEAVY ACCENT WITH AN ATTITUDE BECAUSE I CANT MAKE OUT WHAT THEY ARE SAYING.WHEN YOU HAVE COMP TROUBLE AND YOU CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE, THE LAST THING YOU WANNA DO IS BE LOST IN TRANSLATION BECAUSE YOUR CALL IS REROUTED TO PAKISTAN! IF YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE A MAC, DON'T FEEL LEFT OUT. APPLE DOES A GREAT JOB OF PROMOTING THESE THINGS BUT AFTER HAVING 4 OF THEM, I STILL PREFER MY PC. I WENT TO THE 24 HOUR MAC STORE IN NYC @ ABOUT 10PM DURING THE WEEK AND IT WAS LIKE A NIGHTCLUB OF PERVS, NERDS AND SOCIAL MISFITS. I HAD A STRANGE OLD MAN HITTING ON ME WHILE THE SERVICE MAN TOLD ME HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO FIT ME IN AROUND 5AM IF I HANG AROUND. BOTTOM LINE, IF YOU WANNA OVERPAY FOR A PC, GET CUSTOMER SERVICE RUNAROUND AND LOSE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS WHEN THIS COMP KNOCKS YOU OFF DA NET THEN, BUY THIS COMPUTER!

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Can't beat it

Strengths: Speed, never crashes, expandability, quiet, powerful, OSX, build quality

Weaknesses: power consumption, but you can't have all that good stuff and do away with power consumption.

Summary: I've had this machine for a year and its still better and faster than any windows machine I've ever played with. Add Mac OSX and your cooking. I don't understand why anyone would want to boot into Windows OS for regular day to day computing. Just about any program now is made to work with OSX. I am heavy into graphics and photography, nothing slows this thing down. The case is heavy, 45 lbs. but its built like a tank. The side panel opens with ease for expandability and adding components is pretty easy as well. I've heard people complain about macs being expensive but there is no comparison, Apple uses the best of the best. The one machine I did compare that ran Windows when I bought this was a thousand more and was not close in quality or high end ram.

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