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Apple Mac Pro Desktop (Two 3.0 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 16x SuperDrive) | 
| Brand: Apple
Category: Personal Computer
Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 8035
Media: Personal Computers
Shipping Weight (lbs): 65
Dimensions (in): 28.2 x 23.2 x 12.6
Model: Z0EM1
ASIN: B000VR3E3C
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| Features:
| • | Two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, 1.6 GHz per processor bus | | • | 2 GB RAM expandable up to 16 GB, 320 GB hard drive, 16x Double-Layer SuperDrive | | • | ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI) | | • | Two FireWire 800 ports, two FireWire 400 ports, five USB 2.0 ports, and two USB 1.1 (on keyboard) | | • | Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, iLife '08, Comic Life, Omni Outliner, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, iWork '08 (30-day trial), FileMaker Pro 3.5 trial |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
Boost your productivity with the Apple Mac Pro desktop PC--the fastest Mac Apple has ever made. Combining two of Intel's new 64-bit, 45-nanometer Quad-Core Xeon 5400 processors running at 3.0 GHz, the Mac Pro is an unbelievably powerful workstation that can handle even the most intensive graphics rendering. Its industrial-style enclosure offers improved functionality with a cable-free installation process and massive upgrade ability--up to 32 GB of 800 MHz RAM and four hard drive bays for up to 4 TB (that's right--terabytes) of storage under the hood. And while it comes standard with a 16x SuperDrive (compatible with burning DVD±R/RW and CD-R/RW discs), you can also add a second writing SuperDrive. Additionally, the Mac Pro MA970LL/A features a 320 GB hard drive, 2 GB of installed RAM, and the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (two dual-link DVI ports) graphics card with 256 MB of video RAM, both FireWire 400 and 800 slots, optical digital audio input and output, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, and iLife '08. The Mac Pro also includes a DVI to VGA adapter and an Apple keyboard and Mighty Mouse. 
Smart design makes installing massive amounts of memory, adding expansion cards, and increasing storage surprisingly simple. | Processor
Based on Intel's next-generation Core micro-architecture, the two 3.0 GHz 64-bit quad-core Intel Xeon 5400 processors are based on state-of-the-art 45nm Intel Core microarchitecture. With a new high-bandwidth hardware architecture, 12 MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6 MB), and dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses, the new Mac Pro achieves a 61 percent increase in memory throughput. These 64-bit buses give each processor a direct connection to the system controller and deliver improved processor bandwidth of up to 25.6GB per second--20 percent greater than the previous Mac Pro. Every Intel Xeon processor features an enhanced SSE4 SIMD engine. Capable of completing 128-bit vector computations in a single cycle, SSE4 is ideal for transforming large sets of data, such as applying a filter to an image or rendering a video effect. Because Intel designed this dual-core Xeon to be more efficient, it consumes less power than similar workstation-level processors, so your system fans don't have to work as hard to keep them cool. Working with Mac OS X Leopard, it also continues the tradition of enabling 64-bit computation. Ideal for scientific applications, the 64-bit Intel Xeon processors can express the extreme precision needed for floating-point mathematics and to express integers up to 18 billion. The Mac Pro incorporates a 256-bit-wide, fully buffered memory architecture with Error Correction Code (ECC), which corrects single-bit errors and detects multiple-bit errors automatically. These features are especially important in mission-critical or compute-intensive environments. Apple designed a more stringent thermal specification for the Mac Pro FB-DIMMs, so the internal fans spin at slower speeds and keep the system quiet. Graphics
This Mac Pro comes standard with the new, high-performance ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, and two dual-link DVI ports. GDDR3 (Graphics Double Data Rate, version 3) is a graphics card-specific memory technology that's better able to deliver fluid frame rates for even the most advanced games and applications. It provides great performance for typical creative applications, and you get dual 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display support out of the box. With support for up to four graphics cards, the new Mac Pro can drive up to eight 30-inch displays at once for advanced visualization and large display walls. Hard Drive
This Mac Pro (model MA970LL/A) comes loaded with a single 320 GB hard drive. It comes with four 3.5-inch internal hard drive bays for an enormous amount of internal storage--up to 4 TB. These bays are direct-attach and cable free, so it's easy to add or remove drives. Just attach the drive carrier to either a Serial ATA 3Gb/s or Serial Attached SCSI 3Gb/s drive, and slide the drive into place. There are no connectors or cables to contend with. Lock the drives with the side door latch, and you're done. You can also choose ultrafast 15,000-rpm Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 3Gb/s drives with 300GB of capacity for the highest in disk I/O performance. Together with the Mac Pro RAID Card, these drives provide 250MB/s of RAID 5 disk I/O performance. That's enough data to play back one stream of 10-bit uncompressed HD content. It's the ultimate storage solution for highly demanding data transfer situations like editing uncompressed HD video content or updating ultra-high-resolution images. 
The Mac Pro is loaded with connectivity options. | Using Mac OS X, you can stripe two, three, or all four hard drives in a RAID 0 array to increase performance and create a massive volume for video editing; or create a RAID 1 mirror for protecting your critical digital media assets against a drive failure. For the ultimate in data protection and enhanced performance, add the optional Mac Pro RAID Card with 256MB of RAID cache, a 72-hour cache-protecting battery, and hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 0+1. Apple's RAID Utility software makes setting up and managing the RAID card easy. Memory
While this Mac Pro comes loaded with just 1 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 RAM--which is satisfactory--this Mac Pro has two memory riser cards with four fully buffered DIMM slots each. Just slide out the riser cards and snap in the memory. You don't have to dig around inside the computer or wrestle with wires or cables. With a total of eight DIMM slots available, you can install up to 32GB of 800MHz ECC fully buffered DIMM memory. Expansion and Connectivity
The Mac Pro features four full-length expansion slots, including a high-performance PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot, with up to twice the bandwidth of PCI Express. The graphics slot is double-wide, so it doesn't cover up an adjacent slot. In addition, three available expansion slots, one PCI Express 2.0 and two PCI Express, provide room to grow. And thanks to a tool-less PCI bracket, you can take out cards as fast as you put them in. - Two FireWire 800 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
- Two FireWire 400 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
- Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel)
- Two USB 1.1 ports on included keyboard
- Front-panel headphone minijack and speaker
- Optical digital audio input and output Toslink ports
- Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks
Preloaded with Leopard, you'll enjoy enhanced productivity and a clutter-free desktop (thanks to the redesigned 3-D Dock with Stacks). | Preloaded with Leopard and iLife '08
The biggest Mac OS X upgrade ever, the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system features over 300 new features, including: - Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac
- A redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs
- Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application
- Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them
- A brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock
- Major enhancements to Mail and iChat
Leopard's new desktop includes the redesigned 3-D Dock with Stacks, a new way to organize files for quick and easy access with just one click. Leopard automatically places web, e-mail and other downloads in a Downloads stack to maintain a clutter-free desktop, and you can instantly fan the contents of this and other Stacks into an elegant arc right from the Dock. The updated Finder includes Cover Flow and a new sidebar with a dramatically simplified way to search for, browse and copy content from any PC or Mac on a local network. Time Machine lets you easily back up all of the data on your Mac, find lost files and even restore all of the software on their Mac. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac. In the event a file is lost, you can search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. The Mac Pro also comes with the iLife '08 suite of applications that make it easy to live the digital life. Use iPhoto to share entire high-res photo albums with anyone who's got an e-mail address. Record your own songs and podcasts with GarageBand. Break into indie filmmaking with iMovie and iDVD. Then take all the stuff you made on your Mac and share it on the Web in one click with iWeb. Dimensions
It measures 20.1 x 8.1 x 18.7 inches, and weighs 42.4 pounds. What's in the Box
Mac Pro, Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse, DVI to VGA adapter, USB keyboard extension cable, install/restore DVDs, printed and electronic documentation
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 43
 MacPro has Firewire Problems May 13, 2009
Photog (Dallas, TX USA)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Apple Mac Pro MA970LL/A Desktop (Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processors, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 16x SuperDrive)
This is a rather long review and if you are not a big time firewire drive user I have made a brief synopses of this review in the first two paragraphs. Note that this computer was purchased the first of January 2009. I have delayed writing this review to give Apple every chance to come clean about the FW problem.
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The three star rating is primarily due to the inability of apple to deliver on its promise of reliable FW 800 performance on the MacPro or the Macbook computers and their lack of responsiveness when confronted with an actual user that wants and needs to mount many FW disks.
The other contributor to the 3 star rating has to do with the speed of the MacPro. While Photoshop and Lightroom are much more responsive than my MacMini (1.5 GHz G4), I would expect an 8 core (2 x 2.8 GHz Intel Xenon) to literally blow the doors off the MacMini. The other applications that I use are also faster, but not dramatically so.
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I purchased this high performance MacPro Tower because my MacMini and Macbook Pro 15 were beginning to show signs that the large digital photo files that I work with were a little too much, particularly on the MacMini. The MacMini is an earlier G4 model. Also, Photoshop CS4 is optimized for Intel. I also use Adobe Lightroom to manage my large database of digital photographs, currently approaching 40,000 files.
Since I do not trust hard drives and I am disinclined to spend hours creating DVD archive disks, I maintain many, many firewire drives to archive and backup my photographic library. I copy each CF card that I use when shooting photographs to no less than 4 separate hard drives before deleting the files from the cards. I use Lexar Professional CF cards exclusively.
As FW 800 drives came available I have been buying the triple interface Maxtor III drives expecting to use them in FW 800 mode when I finally upgraded my MacMini with a new tower computer. I have 12 of these drives including 2 500 GB, 6 300 GB, and 4 2 TB devices. I have been using these drives without problem on my MacMini as I purchased them without issues. Of course the initial drive of that chain had to attach through the FW 400 port of the MacMini because the G4 MacMini does not have a FW 800 port.
When the MacPro came in I naturally wanted to move these drives to the MacPro and leave the FW 400 drives attached to the MacMini. I have another 16 or so FW 400 drives that I have acquired over the last several years.
Unfortunately, the FW 800 implementation seems to be flawed. If I try to mount several FW 800 drives, at some point, the FW 800 chain appears to get `confused' and the drives spontaneously unmount. This means that I cannot mount all of my drives at the same time. Typically I can only mount 5 or 6 drives before I experience problems. Worse still, I have experienced file corruption when copying photo files from either my FW 400 or my FW 800 CF card reader. I have since spoken with another photographer (another long time Mac user) and he said that he had the same problem with trying to mount multiple drives. His work-around is to only use one FW 800 drive at a time.
In addition to the FW 800 problem, the FW 400 ports also seem to have problems with using multiple drives simultaneously. On my MacMini and on my Macbook Pro I have mounted nearly every drive that I own (more than 30 firewire drives) using the FW 400 port. The FW 800 drives are connected with each other via the FW 800 ports and with the rest of the chain via a FW 400 port on the triple interface drives. This is how the drives were used prior to the MacPro purchase.
Interestingly, when I tried to mount several FW 800 drives to the Macbook Pro; it too would lose the chain at some point.
I called apple support a couple of times concerning this problem. The techs on the phone suggested zapping the pram, etc., which I did to no avail. The last call was escalated to a higher level in the support and was subsequently turned over to the hardware folks. I was assured I would receive a telephone call and an email with some information concerning the Firewire problem, but after a week I had no futher response. Fortunately, I had sent some screen shots to the tech at apple, so I had an email address. When I emailed a reminder, he finally sent (forwarded) the email that he received from the hardware folks.
To make a long story short, apple blew me off saying that there was something wrong with my drives, etc. I replied that I wanted information concerning the FW 800 testing that apple did to verify that FW 800 could mount 63 drives, since I couldn't get it to mount 6 drives reliably. All I received in reply was silence.
I spent many, many hours testing the MacPro, the MacMini, and the Macbook using various combinations of FW drives, FW card readers and USB 2.0 card readers. I worked on this problem on a regular basis for nearly 3 months. I offered apple to be a beta tester for their FW issues since I do have so many devices and apparently, apple has never tested their own interface to anywhere close to its limits.
The three star rating is primarily due to the inability of apple to deliver on its promise of reliable FW 800 performance on the MacPro or the Macbook computers and their lack of responsiveness when confronted with an actual user that wants and needs to mount many FW disks.
While I was able to successfully use the Macbook with many FW 400 drives (including the FW 800 drives when the FW 800 chain was initially connected via FW 400), I was never able to repeat this with the MacPro computer using the FW 400 ports. I also had to abandon using the FW card readers and revert to the USB 2.0 reader to eliminate corrupted files during transfer to the MacPro computer. Furthermore, I now only use the MacPro internal drives (4) and one (at-a-time) FW 800 drives for my photography. The digital archiving with the addition copies had to return to the MacMini.
The other contributor to the 3 star rating has to do with the speed of the MacPro. While Photoshop and Lightroom are much more responsive than my MacMini (1.5 GHz G4), I would expect an 8 core (2 x 2.8 GHz Intel Xenon) to literally blow the doors off the MacMini. The other applications that I use are also faster, but not dramatically so.
I have been a Macintosh user since the 512k Fat Mac. I have evolved through the LC, the IIci, S900 (clone), iMac, Power Mac G4, Powerbook, and finally the MacMini on the AIM chips to the Intel based Macbook and Mac Pro. In all these prior computers, I have never had a problem with apple or their computers till now. I have also used Intel PCs and Sun workstations at work (reluctantly in the case of the Windows PCs.). I am not an apple basher nor a PC basher, but at this point, I could not recommend a Macintosh computer to anyone that required a lot of drive space that needed to be online. I have in excess of 15 TB of FW storage that I cannot safely use with my most recent computer.
So, if you like apple hardware and you don't stress the firewire ports, this is a good machine. If you have a large investment in firewire drives, I would recommend that you keep what you have. Since most PCs don't come with firewire ports that would mean: Keep your old Mac and bug apple to get the bugs out of firewire 800. I understand that the new Macbooks don't come with FW 400 ports, so I would be careful there, as well.
MAC February 22, 2009
dillhead (Dallas, Tx)
Ok this is my second MAC I had bought a MAC Mini for my first MAC.. I'm a old PC user but after the purchase of the MAC Pro I could not be happier as the MAC allows me to run virtuals as well as the MAC OS and have not gotten a virus and very happy with the product. Suggest Vmware for virtuals if you a PC person and thinking about switching use VMWare to load XP / server 2003 / Server 2008 / Win 7 / as well Linux
Since receiving the my order I have gone to OWC for more memory and this MAC is a screamer.. I do 3D art and a normal PC can take three to four hours to render the picture but not the MAC Pro 20min at most.
Also Amazon delivered on-time like normal as well the box and all equipment was in a excellent condition. Thank you Amazon..
The positive reviews are not hype. February 17, 2009
T. Kowalski (Houston, TX)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great machine. Personally I use my Mac Pro for Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio, Shake, Aperture and Adobe CS3.
No need to repeat what has already been said.
Magnificent January 17, 2009
S. R. Staton (McKinney, TX USA)
Apple's latest workstation is a marvel of engineering and art. It combines elegance and power in a way that is unobtrusive and stark. The system has mad amounts of power and yet is quiet and minimalist at it's heart.
If I had any quibble with it, it would be using PATA bus interfaces for the optical drives. There are internal SATA ports that can be used for optical drives, but a number of vendors sell external cable adapters that let you add two eSATA devices easily (the installation is not that scary and you don't have to get near the CPUs doing it). I have six devices attached yielding 3.3Tb of storage -- all at SATA speeds.
Simply the best!
Top of the line Mac, get it if you can afford it! January 17, 2009
Greg L. Stewart (San Antonio, TX USA)
Apple's most upgradeable computer, though best suited to the prosumer or professional market due to its power and price. I have the 4 core version (custom configured through Apple) and its plenty fast. Plenty of room to upgrade hard drives, video cards, RAM, etc. Can't be beat for pure power, there's not much else to say that hasn't been said. This thing is built like a tank!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 43
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