Apple announces Mac Pro - shipping today

Sorry about the confusion. I meant FB-DIMM not FB-RAM. You do get more hits this way. :) In any case, the result is the same - expensive memory.

Another potential problem is that, apparently, Apple's FB-DIMMs comes with a heat sink. I'm not sure if all 3rd party FB-DIMM's include a heat sink. I wonder if the memory will work without a heat sink or if it's required in the Mac Pros.

Search for FB-DIMM, not FB-RAM!

Has anyone noticed that Apple is using something called FB-RAM in the Mac Pros?
I did a quick google search and 512meg of FB-RAM is $129 and 1gig is about $200. So Apple's not really gouging you on RAM this time around (extra 512x2 is $300 at Apple Store). My question is, why did they decide to go with such expensive RAM? Well, I know that FB-RAM was developed by Intel and that Intel helped design the new Mac Pro MB. So, I guess, there you have it. Intel sold Apple on the "necessity" of FB-RAM and now we all have to pay for it. I really, really hate it when Apple pulls something like this. Makes a great piece of hardware that has everyone drooling. Prices it somewhat competitively. Then requires some piece of slightly non-standard part that costs everyone a bundle. Looks like I'm going to stuck at 1gig of RAM for a long time after I order my new Mac Pro.

Not only is FB-RAM expensive, it's also relatively hard to find. On my quick google search for "FB-RAM" only 1 sponsored link showed up. Anyway, I think it's funny how no one has commented on this yet.

I ordered mine within 10 min or the store coming back up on line! My tower is a very old by todays standards B&W g3 that I now just use as a server and for more than 2 years my main computer has been this 17" 1.333 ghz G-4 powerbook so fo me this will be as big a leap in speed as when I went from the IIfx to the 8500 I am excited by this machine and it in favt will be the cheapest tower mac i have ever bought when adjusted for inflation! the standarde video card is fine for the market that the standard $2,500 config. is aimed at... so I do not understand the keveching about it... get the ATI or get some other card and flog the stock Nvidia on ebay... there will be lotos of folks that will want them for their video walls
while the rest of the order will be here tomorow the Mac Pro will not turn up till Sept 12... due I am told to the huge demand for the ATI video card I need.
I went with the 23" due to the price cut and tossed in Aperture as well... I checked with the usual places about RAM and it seems that none of the ones I called have the special Heatsinked DIMM that the Mac Pro uses yet... (one place I have bought most of my RAM from over the last 20 years said that they thought it might be 4 to 8 weeks before they that the 1 ande 2 gig sticks in stock)so I plumped for the extra gig from apple ( I had a lot of problems with aftermarket RAM on the B&W when OS X came out and it took me a lot of time and effort to get it tracked down and sorted so the extra right now is a large comfort factor for me in 6 months I expect that I will add another 2 to 4 gigs of ram from an after market source... when I get my tax refund next year should be about the right time ;) ) I will though add my own extra pair of 500 gig drives for a total of 1.5 Tera in a raid setup
Cheers
Windy
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0D8
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Aperture preinstalled
1 x SuperDrive
Accessory kit
Two 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Mac OS X - U.S. English
2GB (4 x 512MB)
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
Estimated ship: 3-5 weeks
Delivered next business day after shipping
1 $4,527.00 $4,527.00
Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)
Part Number: M9178LL/A
Estimated ship: Within 24 hours
Delivered next business day after shipping
1 $999.00 $999.00

A large number of people and companies buying the Mac Pro
will be using Final Cut Pro on it. This is a Universal app.
So I disagree with the guy above who says it's no good
simply because Adobe doesn't have their stuff converted yet.
These new machines will speed up everything we do with FCP.

Dan

add a bluetooth module for 35bux?? you gotta be kidding me. you can buy a generic brand bluetooth dongle for 15 bux or so.

its still a very nice machine though

How does Front Row work or is it even incuded. Doesn't come with remote

Huh, Apple's designers took a day off and left the Mac Pro with the good ol' G5 case. Just like Compaq, all their boxes looked the same at some point of time... :(

Is there a space for a HDTV tuner card or maybe even a CableCard board?

Remember the Intel speed increase will only appear with a small number of operations in a small number of applications as we saw with the MacBooks and iMac Intel. Most stuff we do will be the same speed. I will stay with my G5. Not impressed with Intel power.