Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple Mac Pro Desktop (Two 3.2 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 16x SuperDrive)

I purchased the item from Amazon b/c i'm a Prime member, quick shipping. I upgraded the standard build to have an additional TB of hd space (www.macsales.com) and added 8gb of ram. the thing is wicked fast. The sound of the machine is also very low, which is great. I have parallels running my windows vm's (xp and vista) and am now testing out fusion. I added a 2nd video card (same as the one it came with) and now have 3 monitors (fusion beta 2.0 support multi monitor) but i'm not super happy with the speed of the machine which i exported (using the fusion VM Ware export tool). I think it could also be a beta thing. All in all, i used to be a Dell guy and now for the money i'm definately happy with the Mac Pro b/c for about 1k less i have an 8 core power house. I expect this will by my workhorse computer for some time.

Chris Boyd
www.windwardnetworks.com

I purchased this Mac particularly for it's processing power. I do a lot of work in 3D and my G5 was taking days to complete some of my rendering work.

This Mac has surpassed every expectation I had. Something that would take 42 hours to render gets completed in a bit under 8 hours.

If you need the processing power get this Mac, if you only need it for Adobe Creative Suite CS3 work, the iMac 24" is probably a better choice.

Aside from the processing superiority, what most impressed me was the ease of migrating my old Mac to this new one with Apple's Migration Assistant. Got everything done in a little bit over two hours. Did not have to reinstall any of my main applications, not even the Adobe CS3 suite. Very smooth and easy.

The fist thing that I did was plug in more RAM. I added 4 GB for a little bit under $200, so now I have 6 GB of RAM. I did notice a huge difference in speed after the upgrade, particularly running several things at once. I will probably add another 4 when my budget allows.

Very fast, very quiet. And it even runs the junk OS known as windows vista. I should have bought one of these things a long time ago.
This is my first Mac, so I do have a little learning curve. However, OS X is really easy to learn. I can't wait to finally rid myself of microsoft, once and for all. If you are looking at Mac Pro, do yourself a favor and Buy it.

I've used Apple products since 1985, and purchased my first Mac in 1989, a SE/30, which I dearly loved. I went though a few of mediocre products of the 1990's, and then a G3 tower. About four years ago I got a dual G5 tower and it quickly became my favorite. I love the "cheese-grater" aluminum design, and this machine proved to be a reliable workhorse for many years.

This year I realized I needed to move to the Intel platform, and wanted the extra horsepower. Although I hated to get rid of my old tower, I'm happy to say this new model has surpassed my expectations. It's much faster and quieter than my old "wind tunnel", and upgrades are much easier. Thankfully, it kept the same tower design, one of the nicest looking enclosures I've ever seen.

I've owned it for almost six months now, running 24/7, and I've not had one issue with it. Working with multimedia applications is a breeze and it has enough power to quickly accomplish anything I throw at it. I upgraded the video card to a ATI 3870 and use it with two, 24" widescreen displays. I kept the standard 2600 card should I decide to add another monitor (or two).

I love how easy it is to upgrade and install new hard drives and memory. It's a pro-user's dream, and worth every penny I spent on it. Amazon had a great price on it, and as always, provided fast, reliable delivery.

I thought the G5 would become my best Mac, but now, it's this one!

Most of the other reviews have covered this ground already but:

- Have had the machine since 11/7/07 and I'm not sure it has ever crashed.

-Four internal drives and it is almost silent

-Does use a bit of power on start- lights dim

-Awesome power! Fast beyond anything I have that can test it and I use, WINXP via Parallels, FCP HD, Photoshop and inDesign CS3, constantly

-Windows XP roars on this machine, boot camp or virtual

- I have 8 GB RAM- maybe you don't need that much but don't skimp

What more can I say?