Sputter
Three to five WEEKS? You mean if we lose control and order the BRK Mac Gamin’ Rig, we gotta wait a month to get it? That’s not kosher, Apple. We won’t stand for it!
/puts credit card back in the freezer
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Question: How much?
HAHAHAHA
Yeah the standard model is 2 days, the NVidoa 8800 pushes it to 3-5 weeks (and strange the order lead time on the card alone is 5 days). But come on, you know we can’t make do with a small card in a monster like that
I lasted, what, 2 days before i gave it. I ordered mine today and got a mega bargain on a unused but unwanted 30″ Dell screen from a friend
This this is gonna rock.
I am TOTALLY praying that the 3-5 is a default and it arrives early.
17″ MBP -> 30″ Mac Pro Monster… life doesn’t get any better than that does it?
Crapple and Crypods, hoooo!
now the better question is did you put the credit card back before or after it was swiped??
that thing is a gaming monster.
Whatever the cost, you can probably get an HP with the same system specs (and probably more RAM) for $800 or so less.
But HP has brutal tech support, which is an important part of buying a box.
Computers rule!
Tech support is important if you buy pre-made boxes. My tech support is along the lines of “Bugger, the power supply blew up. Where’re the car keys?”
I haven’t needed tech support from a computer company in years. 98% of all my issues have been software/driver issues. If a piece of hardware fails, I replace it. There’s no way I’m mailing off my rig for a couple weeks. *shudder*
You missing the point. Its a Mac.. No HP box can come close, never mind its 2xXeon 5400 cpu’s and a piece of engineering that makes you weep.
To those mocking tech support:
Clearly if you build your own computer YOU are the tech support. But as far as pre-mades go, you want to have good support.
But on that note, build-your-own > pre-made.
*finds apple store location*
wow…that ones pretty close…
*walks into Apple store*
“yeah i want that one…but bigger…better…faster…etc…”
*drops sheet on table from website with said upgrades*
“K gimme a sec”
*watches man go into back room*
*is handed box of already assembled pre-spec’d laptop*
That’s how I ended up with a macbook
Why pay tech support.. Build your own PC… and screw MACs
Lots of premade machines are integrated “if one part is bad the system is bad” MAC = integrated and they have funky mice… MAC guy = Snob not that BRK or WoW users with Macs are snobs… BUT
Build your own system and if the video card gets “burned out” replace it with a better one.
Have 2Gig Ram, need more add more…
Have a few SATA 7200 RPM drives, update them to 10000RPM drives…
the list goes on..
Not that MAC’s are not good.. but they are severly overpriced. you can probably get 2 HP, Dell, “make your own” for the same amount your paying for that IPOD on steroids.
We bought a PC the other night.. very similar with a 23inch LCD for under a thousand…
Just buy a state of the art video card for your older Mac. I’ve got a G5 / 2GHz dual processor machine with ATi card and it plays WoW plenty smoothly even with iTunes running.
Very nice
Probably gonna run you $2500 easy.
Mac Pros are tower based computers, like most windows desktop computers. It’s fully upgradable, and is also capable to have specific parts replaced. This is the high end of the mac spectrum, being capable of up to 16GB of RAM.
These bad boys, when fully upgraded are used mainly for video editing. But they can also make excellent gaming rigs.
Also, with Leopard, you get the advent of Boot Camp that is supported by Apple to get windows on your machine, as an actual bootable OS.
<3 apple and <3 apple tech support (I should know, I’m in it
)
@Donjio
$2500, I can buy the new car from India for that price… and it gets 50 MPG.
Someone have a MAC I can borrow?
Macs are overpriced, but at the same time, I’m of the opinion that they last longer because they can both be easily upgraded and will last a very long time. If I’d gotten a win-based notebook instead of my Mini, I know I’d already be pulling my hair out in agony wanting a new one. Meanwhile, the nearly year-old Mini still has that new computer feel.
Also, Apple tech support does rock.
Overpriced? Did you even look at those specs. Oooo baby that’s one sweet machine. I dare you to find an HP with equivalent specs at that price point.
That being said. You never ever order a mac right before Macworld anyway! Who knows what cool stuff Jobs has up in sleeve.
(homer simpson voice) 3-5 weeks! But I need to Raid now! (/homer voice)
The new mobo for my Made my own should be delivered today. Then I get to swap it out. Then I can get better than single digit FPS in shat.
woot.
Of course if I fail at this…anti-woot.
(ben stiller as Starsky in disquise-Maury Finkle) BRK Do It! Do It! Do it!(/ben stiller)
Quick question to my PC friends how many freezes and crashes did you have for 2007??? Running wow on a 1gig 9 yr old power mac I have had 0. Yes that is right 0 CRASHES or FREEZES. My time over a 1 year period is worth much more than the upcharge for Mac hardware!!! How much is your time worth?? BRK you rock!!
Lozenge and Nedbeatty
lolz. L2PC http://www.tigerdirect.com
Almost every PC centric magazine out there has done a comparison of the MacPro line to comparably spec’d Dells, HP’s, etc. In every single comparison, the MacPro was $600-1000 cheaper than the commodity hardware makers.
Granted, these are preconfigured boxes, but on the high end of the performance scale, NO ONE, I mean NO ONE is making machines like the MacPro. Dual Quad Core Xeon? That is gaming overkill! These are real-time HD video editing monsters. (I know, I’m currently sitting at a last generation MacPro with 2 30″ HP High Def LCD monitors and a 50″ Panasonic Plasma for my monitor array)
BRK, if you get one of these monsters and you do not fork out for Final Cut Studio… you’re going to have to take away massive quantities of sustained BRK cool points from yourself. Editing on iMovie in one of these is video editing HERESY!
And if you ever… EVER… put Premiere on your machine… I’ll find a way to do something really really nasty,
Hi BRK!
I was recently in a similar position: wanting to buy a fast new Apple and in serious need of some Visa card restraining mechanism (my other half put it in a Khorium Lockbox, but I’ve always been a Rogue at heart).
In the end I went with a 24″ iMac, buffed up with 4GB of RAM.
I dittoed WoW over, cranked up every single graphic option, restarted and was greeted with a completely different game! I still however wanted to see if I could push the system to it’s limit. So, I started capturing a movie from inside WoW, fired up iTunes and… nothing, no appreciable difference.
Anywho, it’s super sweet and I boggle to think of what a Mac Pro would be capable of.
loveurwork
Booticles & Shakedown
Hey guys, just wanted to put my 2cents in.
So going to get one of these babies later in the year, but noticed a funny thing:
Dell dual quad core box, 2g ram, 300g HDD, cheapest 512 graphics card = $5,263
HP doesn’t offer that config, but did have a dual quad core 4G ram, 250G HDD, no gaming type card so you’d have to buy your own = $6,510
Apple Mac pro, dual 3.0G quad core, 320g HDD, 512 graphic card..
$3,799.00
yeah Macs are so expensive!! LOL
I looked at this same thing when the last gen of Mac Pros came out. Found exactly the same thing, Dell was almost reasonable but they only offered one product line at the top end, and HP was almost double the price. And that is why I have 2 Mac pros on my desk right now at work. Apple is SO much cheaper than HP (our regular vender) at the high end it’s almost funny.
CK
The problem is that if you buy anything pre-assembled with the latest hardware, you’re going to get overcharged. I don’t care if it’s a Mac, a PC, a server of any flavor, or a Linux box. Why? Simple.
Anything super-cutting edge is going to have a relatively small market. That means the assemblers (Dell, Apple, whoever) don’t get the huge volume discounts they normally would on their parts, in addition to the fact that those parts themselves are somewhat expensive. That means the assembly fee for the computer ends up becoming much more noticeable – normally it’s mostly subsumed in the price discounts the assembler receives. That’s why you can ususally find a pre-assembled Dell or HP or whatever for only slightly more than you could make yourself.
If your build your own rig and are comfortable with that sort of thing, you can at least cut out the assembly costs. Granted, you’re still paying something of a premium for the newest, cutting-edge parts (mmmm, I want 2 SLI cards). But the huge price advantage that the assembler normally has over you gets reduced by quite a bit in the higher end models, making it potentially more worthwhile to build the more expensive your machine ends up being (in general).
That being said, you’re also risking more expensive parts to your own skills, so don’t buy the latest and greatest for your first attempt at building a computer.
BRK… you know you want it… you know you need it.. and really, you know you deserve it too….
After all, you have movies to make… a book to write.. a site to maintain… that’s a lotta horsepower.. and after all, you make some money with that book, you’ll need the horsepower…
and the video… put that good mid-range video card in there, and well, you’ve never seen the atmosphere in WoW look so good…
come on.. you deserve it, you know you do….
/hands BRK icepick to free the card
/points BRK to Apple Store that may have beefy system in stock
/points BRK to Dell website to buy 2 24″ Ultrasharp monitors
/tells BRK not to buy the Apple monitors
If you do break down, wait until after the Macworld Expo next week. They usually bump up the hardware during or right after the expo, so it’s worth it to wait the extra week
*hug*
I’m resisting hitting “refresh” on my order page obsessively, hoping the delivery time will go down.
@ Chorius
The already announced the new MacPros on Tuesday..
(and Xserves)
Laptops at MWSF, maybe the lightweight one… maybe a MacbookPro as well.
LolMac
Get a Alienware
@Vortex
/got Keylogger?..
Aight.. I’ve been reading BRK’s site since I first started playing WoW about 3 months or so ago and have yet to leave a reply; but I just hafta respond to this..
Now, granted my rig doesn’t have a quad core in it and I built her myself; but the price I paid for the parts includes the monitor, keyboard, speaker system and a retail copy of XP Pro. (I already owned a Logitech G7 mouse.) I got everything from Newegg btw..
Case: Antec Nine Hundred
PSU : Antec TP3-550
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 AM2 nVidia nForce 570 SLI
CPU : AMD 64X2 4600 Windsor 2.4GHz OC’d to 3.0GHz
HSF : Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme/SilenX 120mm
RAM : OCZ Platinum Revision Rev 2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2
Vid : EVGA 8800GTS 320MB
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi 7.1
HDD1: WD Raptor 36GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150
HDD2: Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
DVD : LG Super Multi 18x SATA DVD Burner
Keyb : Logitech G11
Spkr : Logitech Z-5500 5.1
Mon : Optiquest Q201wb Black 20″ 5ms Widescreen LCD
OS : Windows XP Pro w/SP2
Price I paid, including mail-in rebates, was right around $1,550. My dual core proc has no problems multi-tasking and this baby consistently puts out 70 frames per second dropping to 55-60 during instances (5-man) when all h*ll is breaking loose. The fan on the heatsink flows 72 cfm at just 14 dBA for anyone who might want to know.
I use to fiddle with PCs all the time. Even built my own just before the Intel Core Duo came out (I was an AMD guy at heart).
I finally caved and bought an iMac 24″ and all I have to say is, “Bash all you want, ignorant PC guys, because a Mac running OSX will bring you WAY fewer headaches (if any) and I WILL NEVER GO BACK!!!” And for those of you yelling Linux at me… ha! It’s a great OS for tech heads, but seriously, not for the general public.
@BRK
Believe it or not, I received my iMac 3 days before estimated delivery (Thx Fed-Ex). But I do agree with One Among Many… when you’re gonna throw that kinda cash down, I don’t think a trip to the Apple store is too much to ask =)
I would wait. The jump in performance from a P4 to Dual-core was extreme, but the performance increase from dual to quad core not so much. Let the technology catch up.
Halabar your post confuses me ><
Anyway can’t you just buy a computer like this out of a shop where its just sitting on the shelf in America?
Just a few things to add.
Yes it was rare for Apple to announce the Pro a week before the show.
Next week you know, and I know, they will announce updated powerbooks and macbooks. First of all they Always do the mac book pro refresh in january and also we know it’ll include a speedbump because intel have already told us the chip.
So if you want one, order it now, if you have a laptop then wait until next week.
Worst case, if you order a product from them and they refresh the spec of the price within 14 days of order you can get the money back or return the box.
Anyway, back to wow… or should we start a new gallery for rigs?
@Kohelani
Did you really just compare a $1500 PC with 1 (ONE!) Dual Core Processor to a new MacPro with 2 QuadCores? Is that even a relevant comparison? Or are we just all here naming our rig’s specs…
Anywho…
Truth be told, buying a MacPro for WoW is like buying an 18 wheeler to tow your fishing boat(but I’d do it in a heartbeat myself if I had that kind of cash burning a hole in my wallet).
Gone are the days where Apple had a $1500 entry model in their Pro lineup. The gap in Apple’s available lines is the desktop model that is upgradeable, because the iMac fails in that arena.
Hey BRK I just built a system at the Apple Store with all the options maxed and it came to $17k….2 to 3 weeks to ship.
Maybe you should go big so you can get it faster?
BTW I’ve got the 8600GT in my little dual AMD and it runs WoW at 60fps everywhere I’ve been. I can get it to run faster but the display only refreshes at 60Hz so that wouldn’t make any sense…would it?
Green, L2spell “Mac” and get back to us.
@Ontherocks
The iMac may not be as “upgrade friendly” as the MacPro, but it is a lot easier to upgrade now than in previous models (ie, memory and hard drive). But as with any major processor upgrade, there’s no EASY way to do that, even with the MacPro. It’s still: 1. decide on your processor 2. find a Motherboard that is compatible and offers all the features you need/want 3. blah blah blah yada yada.
But yeah, buying a MacPro for WoW (or gaming period since Mac versions of games are still few and far between) is a little overboard. But I’m sure, like me, BRK has other reasons for upgrading his Mac than for just gaming. Awesome performance in WoW for me, was just a major bonus.
How much power do you really need?
I was on a single core Athlon 3000 with an AGP video card (tried both Radeon and GeForce) and couldn’t get more than 10-12 FPS in a raid, and similar FPS in Shatt. This is with all video settings at their lowest. Ever try to get to a TK instance with terrain distance set to zero?
I upgraded to an dual-core Athlon 4600, new mobo and 2GB of memory to match, and an EVGA Geforce 8800GT and it is an entirely new game. With video settings on Max, full screen glow and everything, I average around 45-55 FPS. In a raid, I’m getting 30 FPS.
From personal experience, I really don’t have problems with performance in a raid setting until I dip below 9FPS. Now, I am just in heaven. The big question though, is how much power do you really need? Ok, BRK is making videos, but seriously, how much do we really NEED?
All other considerations aside, the Geforce 8800GT 512 MB absolutely rocks. Considering that it is only ~$300 it is simply amazing.
@Ontherocks: “Did you really just compare a $1500 PC with 1 (ONE!) Dual Core Processor to a new MacPro with 2 QuadCores? Is that even a relevant comparison? Or are we just all here naming our rig’s specs…”
It’s relevant because 1)it cost me just 1500 bucks; 2)because I consistently game at 70 FPS and have never seen it dip below 55 FPS even with 5 people firing/casting/healing, etc; and 3)because it can multi-task without any hiccups – ie, running an AV check while listening to iTunes and writing this post. Did I mention it cost me just 1500 bucks?
The reason I listed the specs is so people who know PCs can look at the parts list and confirm that what I wrote is doable and I’m not talking out of my a$$.
And while it’s nice to have the latest and greatest, when you’re talking about a game like WoW you don’t need 2 quad-cores. For that matter, just what applications justifies the need for 2 quad-cores? I can’t think of any. And I’m sure that there are none currently out that are coded for use with a single quad-core, let alone 2 of them; so you won’t see a big performance increase in WoW simply because you are running 2 quad-cores.
@ Vortex
The Apple store does carry (or at least it used to) “beefed up” systems. But ordering is probably the best way.
The Apple Stores is shipped a combination of pre built systems. When someone goes in to buy a box one of the staff can pick up one of those or they take a base box and put in what you need before handing it over a little later.
I’ve bought boxes that I needed extra bits so I bought it, popped around the shops and picked it up later.
Had to order mine online for one reason and another. My 30″ screen is arriving any moment now and I’ve installed the widget to keep track of my order. I could have got the base model straight away but everyone raves about the 8800gt card so if I’m getting a good machine its worth waiting a little longer for the best video card.