Apple Mac Pro (Quad 2 x Intel Xeon processors 2.66GHz; 1GB RAM)

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Features
Like Apple's Power Macs before it, the Mac Pro is clearly aimed at professionals. Its default S$4,388 (US$3,141.92) configuration, which is what we tested, features some average components, including a single 250GB hard drive, a lone SuperDrive 16x DVD burner, and a budget-level 256MB GeForce 7300 GT graphics card. Where it'll start impressing you is with its two 2.66GHz Intel Xeon processors and 1GB of high-end system memory by way of two 512MB 667MHz DDR2 ECC SDRAM sticks. ECC, or error-correcting code, is a feature of server-class memory designed to ensure stability. It makes plenty of sense to include ECC memory in a professional-level desktop, but it's overkill for casual home use or even for gamers.

Like the Power Mac G5 Quad it replaces, the Mac Pro comes with two dual-core CPUs, effectively giving it four independent processing threads. You can see the benefits of four threads in our performance section. What matters more in our features discussion is the type of chips it uses. The Xeon chips are based on Intel's new Core architecture, the same design behind Intel's category-leading Core 2 Duo consumer chips. These new Xeons incorporate all of the power-efficiency and performance-enhancing capabilities of their consumer desktop counterparts. That means that not only is the Mac Pro fast, it's also efficient. Yes, it has a massive heat sink, but it also has but four system fans; the PowerPC G5 Quad had nine.

It may look the same as its predecessor, but the Mac Pro has an all new pricing strategy. (Click for larger image)

Apple made a big deal about the Mac Pro's value proposition when the system was introduced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in early August. A slide at the show compared the baseline Mac Pro to a Dell Precision 690 workstation with a similar configuration, and the price difference was more than US$1,000 (S$1,574.45) in Apple's favor. We did the same comparison on our own and saw a US$1,340 (S$2,109.76) difference, so we wonder if Apple was being generous. The customization options between the two vary, though. Dell has more hard drive configuration options, including 10,000rpm drives, which Apple still doesn't offer (its customers want capacity more than speed, is what Apple told us). For professionals with the luxury to choose a platform, it's hard to make a blanket statement about which is the superior platform for value and flexibility, because the configuration options and specific professional needs vary widely. But starting from the baseline specs, at least, it appears that the Mac Pro's initial offer is a much better deal.

If you're a home user with an appetite for a powerful desktop such as the Mac Pro, you should consider a couple of things. We probably don't need to underline the fact that Macs aren't good for gaming, but what we find interesting is that Apple hasn't made the Mac Pro as home-theater friendly as the Mac Mini and the iMac. There's no Bluetooth or AirPort wireless networking built in, although you can add them for S$136.50 (US$97.74). Nor is there an option at all for the Apple Remote to run Apple's Front Row software. We don't expect that the lack of a remote will rattle professional users, but the Power Macs had a history of crossing over into consumer-level territory, and the omission of a remote from the Mac Pro (admittedly, not as intuitive a platform for the remote) seems to isolate it further from the casual buyer.

We mentioned the Mac Pro's multi-display capabilities earlier, and Apple makes this easy by selling four GeForce 7300 GT cards for only S$777 (US$556.35). If you need more 3D processing power, your options are more limited. A 512MB ATI Radeon X1900 XT for a fair S$609 (US$436.06) gives you more single-card 3D power, not to mention the ability to run two 30-inch LCDs. A S$282,450 (US$202,241.16) 512MB Nvidia Quadro 4500 card will let you do stereo 3D for seemingly real-world 3D visualization, useful in medical and other applications. We can't help but notice, though, that the Dell Precision 690 has a much wider workstation-class 3D-card selection (the Quadro 4500 card is cheaper, too). True, the Quadro 4500 is the top-of-the-line card, so Apple has the high-end covered, but for scalability, Dell offers more workstation cards, from entry level to the high end and all points in between.

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