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| Apple Mac Pro MA356LL/A Desktop (Two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processors, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) | 
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| Brand: Apple
Category: Personal Computer
Buy New: $2,639.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 775
Media: Personal Computers
CPU Manufacturer: Intel
CPU Speed: 2.66
CPU Type: Intel Pentium II Xeon
Processors: 2
System Memory: 1000
Memory Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive Size: 250
Shipping Weight (lbs): 42.4
Dimensions (in): 23.2 x 12.6 x 28.2
MPN: MA356LL/A
Model: MA356LL/A
UPC: 885909091843
EAN: 0885909091843
Availability: Usually ships in 4-5 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Awesome performance for the price April 14, 2007
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
You may think this Mac is expensive, but try to build an identical PC on the Dell site. I did and found it cost over $3,000! At first I didn't believe it as I always thought Macs are priced at a premium (for the better quality hardware and software). But after a little research I found that this Mac is indeed a great value for the price. I figured I was getting the OS X software essentially as a bonus, and I was sold.
The stock model comes with 1GB RAM. I bought an additional 1GB and added it in (you probably want to, and there are places cheaper than Apple where you can buy the RAM). I run FreeBSD and Linux on top of Mac OS X (using Parallels Desktop - $79). The speed always amazes me. I push a hotkey and I have a FreeBSD server resumed from a suspended state in less than 5 seconds! Now I can run multiple operating systems without having to buy multiple ugly PCs and clutter my work area.
This machine is superbly designed and solidly built. Everything is well thought out inside and out, down to the detail. For example, the hard drives have no cables, you just mount them on trays, slide them into a slot and they snap right into the port connection. The optical drive trays are hidden behind automatic sliding metal-style doors (means different colored drives don't show on the front of your machine). You can check the manuals on Apple's site to see how easy it is to open and upgrade. For peripherals there are plenty of USB 2, Firewire 800 and audio ports - some conveniently located in the front and more hidden away in the back.
A useful upgrade is to add two or three additional disks and set them up with software striped RAID - that gives hard drive performance a super boost. The software based RAID is included in OS X. Using XBench disk tests on mine, a single drive scores 70 and three drives in striped RAID score 140. Difference in score for sequential read (with large block size) is more pronounced - single drive scores 56.6MB/s and RAID configuration scores 166.38MB/s. Instead of getting a souped-up version of this model, it makes a lot more sense to get the stock model and buy memory and hard-drive separately.
The airflow and cooling is great (also the Intel Xeon chips provide higher performance per watt than the older G5s) - this thing runs whisper quiet.
This is certainly not for small places - at 20" tall and 19" long, it is big and heavy. The top 'handle' in the front makes it easier to pull the 40-pounder out from under a desk.
The package includes the apple keyboard and mouse (neither is wireless) which I put away since I use my current ergo keyboard.
Overall I'm very happy with this purchase and am looking to many years of high-performance computing.
By Far, The Greatest Computer Ever Built March 31, 2007
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
Even those of us who weren't around when the Altair first came out still know its impact. Everybody who's used the Internet knows what an Altair is (though, we may not know anything specific) and that people used to think the Comodore 64 was really "neato." The first Apple computer (Apple I) made great strides; the PC market eventually moved away from catering to corporations to delivering to consumers a product they could use on a daily basis.
That's all nice and dandy, but when was the last time you actually ENJOYED using your computer? It doesn't matter if you're regular or rare user...the answer is still the same: hardly ever. While most people are bogged down trying to boot their computers or recover lost files due to foolish mistakes or viruses, there's a small group of individuals (a group, I might add, that's getting bigger every week) who sit back and take silent pleasure in their Mac Pro's.
Hands down, the Mac Pro is THE fastest computer on the market (excluding that super computer you've had your eye on, of course). The Intel Xeon processors are blazing fast and the Mac OS is simple, intuitive, and unobtrusive. The applications don't just freeze for no apparent reason on a regular basis; the OS doesn't keep force-feeding you information you don't need (i.e., "You are not connected to the Internet"; or "Your computer may be at risk. Please update your virus software"); and you find yourself enjoying even the small tasks like emailing or Google-ing your favorite recipe.
Now imagine doing this on a machine that has four fast Xeon processors. Amazing.
I know it sounds all like a commercial, but the facts are that clear. Yeah, you could go out and buy a PC with a dual-core system for a little cheaper, but you'd also be investing in viruses, lockups, and a plethora of other unfortunate events known to the PC market. With an Apple computer you're at least confident that next week won't bring a new slew of viruses (and hope that your McAffee license is still good to download the updates).
The thing is, it doesn't matter if you're buying a Mac Pro or MacBook or Mac Mini. The experience will be the same. But for those of us interested in photography and videography the faster the computer, the better our turnaround time.
Yes, the Mac Pro is a very expensive computer, but it also offers the most out of any machine on the market. The upgrade options are very impressive, and only beaten by the do-it-yourself kits and boxes that an experienced compuer user would dare to tango with.
Want to upgrade the RAM? Buy the modules; open the case on the side; pull out one of the RAM trays; insert both modules in the slots; close the machine; reboot. Easy, huh?
Suppose you want to add that 500GB hard drive you think you need. Get the specified drive; open the case; pull out the hard drive tray; screw the hard drive to the tray; reinsert the tray; close and boot the computer.
The same goes for upgrading video cards or adding a separate optical drive or adding more USB or FireWire slots via a PCI-X card. Simple to use and simple to upgrade.
As for the actual experience of using a Mac Pro...well, you should just walk over to the nearest Apple Store or CompUSA and try it out. Go ahead and launch iTunes, iMovie, Microsoft Word, Firefox, GarageBand, and Photoshop...all at the same time. While you're listening to U2, putting together a movie on iMovie, writing that award-winning thesis, checking your email, composing the next great rave track, and editing your digital photos, you'll suddenly realize that life is as it really should be: you and your computer are in harmony with each other. You'll feel a wave of calm overcome you as you begin to understand that your Mac Pro doesn't look down on you, doesn't keep telling you how stupid you are. It silently waits for your orders and carries them out.
Then again, this experience (as I said before) isn't limited to the Mac Pro. You'll think and feel the same way using any Apple computer. But, hey, on the Mac Pro you get to experience all this on the fastest consumer machine on the planet.
Very fast, very solid machine March 20, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Great Mac. The four CPU cores really make this thing shine for professional work, as the ability to accomodate a lot of RAM (My job typically requires 5GB to avoid memory swapping slowdowns, andd you can have more if necessary.) Upgrading is easy and even fun, because the Mac is rugged and beautiful evenon the inside.
The only thing it needs is additional RAM. Only 1GB is not suitable for a Mac this powerful.
The kitchen sink March 20, 2007
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I have the Mac Pro with 2 of the 2.66 chips, 500 GB of disk, 4 GB of RAM (667 MHz), and the Radeon X1900 graphics card. I got this specifically to run a professional home photo studio with Aperture and Photoshop CS3 (Beta that runs Intel natively). It runs like a dream. Photoshop runs with no delays, and Aperture is running with very small occassional delays with about 10,000 images in the Aperture library.
I recommend upgrading the standard Mac Pro to at least have the Radeon graphics card to run two DVI displays, and definately bump up the RAM to at least 2 GB.
Haven't been this excited since my first Amiga... March 19, 2007
This desktop is everything I imagined it would be, and more... Pretty much the perfect desktop for a programmer / gadget freak. I'll not bother repeating what others have already said about it, but I'll add - get Parallels for it if you want to try out virtualization. With 2Gb of memory, and Windows XP under Parallels, I am remoting into my work computers (with Aventail Client) and enjoying the fact I don't have to power down OS X to do this. Also, turns out Garmin doesn't have their NuviWebUpdater application for Mac, but no problem. It runs in Parallels. Same goes for the occasional website that requires some kind of ActiveX plugin (such as watching movies online at NetFlix). Also am running Fedora Core 6. I can't wait till Parallels supports 64-bit guest OS's. If this sounds like a review for Parallels, whoops. Anyway, like a few other people have mentioned, 1Gb of memory isn't quite enough if you're going to be running lots of concurrent apps, so you'll want at least 2Gb. The 250Gb hard drive is okay, but I think I'll be running out of space soon, so that's the next item on my list. Yes, it'd be nice if Amazon offered more than the base unit. Anyway, this desktop helps ease the pain of having to work with Windows for the past 15 years...
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