New Intel Xserve Quad Xeon available for pre-order, shipping mid-November
Although Apple's new quad core Intel-based Xserve was expected to ship this month, it'll be a few more weeks before they get them out the door. But you can pre-order yours now and there a dizzying array of build-to-order (BTO) options available to keep you busy (and broke) for a while.
The quad Xserve uses two 64-bit Dual Core Xeon "Woodcrest" microprocessors and is available in speeds up to 3GHz (dual core). Three drive bays (for SATA or SAS modules), eight DIMM slots, two PCI Express slots, one optical drive, two USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire 800 ports, one DB9 serial port, dual Gigabit Ethernet and a hot-swappable 650 watt PSU option all make for a pretty sweet rack. Don't forget the unlimited-client Mac OS X Server license that comes with it!
Base config starts at $2999. Affordable even for the likes of a lowly blogger. Once you start adding those BTO options, however, it quickly climbs to second mortgage or corporate credit card with a high limit territory, which is to be expected for a beast of this nature. Still, it's fun to configure a $75,000 server every now and then, don't you agree?
Thanks Evan, Alex and all the others who sent this in!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
niclet said 7:23PM on 10-25-2006
Do you think it could be a good device for music? I'm a musician and I have the "phantasm" to have one of these in a rack-mount with my fx and board. It could be a good setup for live performance. In that way I could have just a simple LCD screen as monitor and Bluetooth Mouse/Keyboard on my table with all my controllers. What do you think? Is it a good choice or should I stick to laptops? Does someone have ever try this?
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BLACKOUT said 7:33PM on 10-25-2006
if you have the money
do it.
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Geoffrey Hutchison said 7:50PM on 10-25-2006
@Niclet
I'm not sure that's a great idea. At least with the Xserve G5, it wasn't really designed for quiet operation. To say the least.
No word on how noisy this generation is, but I'd stick with a laptop. Maybe even rack-mounting a Mac Pro, which should be quieter.
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ryan said 7:49PM on 10-25-2006
What?? Where is the optional H/W raid card that i order with all my G5 Xserve's? OS X software raid has always failed me for 100% uptime.
Damn, and with the dual PS i was thinking we where getting some ware.
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Sergiy Gagarin said 8:04PM on 10-25-2006
Boy, why only $75,000 when you can easily push it up to $98,711.00. Nice.
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niclet said 9:21PM on 10-25-2006
Thanks for your reply Geoffrey, I didn't thought about the noise thing. Rack-mounting a Mac Pro it's a good alternative, a little heavier but interesting. Mmmm, I'll think about it.
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Joe said 9:30PM on 10-25-2006
Anyone notice the typo on Apple's Xserve page? "Piece of mind" is only correct if you're saying something like "I'm going to give him a piece of my mind." It should be "peace of mind."
If anyone from Apple is reading this, email me, and I'll be happy to replace your copy editors...
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mac-finance said 9:50PM on 10-25-2006
Intel Macs don't yet support RAID. So I think the RAID card will be added at some point in the future.
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LD said 11:12PM on 10-25-2006
I think calling it a quad-core it a bit misleading. More correctly it's a dual dual-core. There is an actual quad-core CPU coming from Intel soon so I think it's important to use proper terminology.
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