Mac

As Mac Pro stagnates, PC workstations muscle ahead

Maria S. Wise | 89 | |

Like many Mac-primarily based creative experts, I followed this year’s WWDC keynote anxiously, watching for the “one greater aspect” that never got here: an E5 Xeon refresh of the Mac proline. Its absence became brutally disappointing; luckily, Tim prepared dinner and broke his vow of secrecy to reassure us that a brand new Mac Pro would arrive in 2013. but for filmmakers compressing hours of 4K photos or college labs in want of new Maya machines, that’s a long term to wait—possibly too lengthy. Because I was additionally in the market for a device to help with my V-Ray renders, I decided that the time had come to assess my alternatives. The Westmere-based Mac Proline is out of sync with what’s available elsewhere, and its miles are now not competitive from a price-to-power standpoint.

I’ve heard that Dell, HP, and Apple break up the pc market in plenty of ways; whether that is true, it did seem worth looking at how the alternative large boys’ hot rods rolled. The HP Z820 and Dell Precision T5600 are each sizeable dual-socket Intel E5-2665 Xeons clocked at 2.4GHz, and, if I needed to bet, I’d say that they’re much like what would have changed the dual Westmere Xeon 2.66GHz Mac Pro that I reviewed in 2010.

Of path, you can nonetheless construct your computer. However, I’m writing this for a target market that needs top-tier help and doesn’t want to chase six different corporations when something goes incorrect. I’ve my personal overclocked 3930K gaming rig dual-booting Linux and home windows. Still, as I’ve talked about countless times within the comments segment of my Mac Pro evaluations, a notebook needs to do one factor: keep running. Vendor support remains the secret to making this happen. That’s wherein the Mac Pro, Dell T5600, and HP Z820 are available. We will begin our cage match with the HP Z820… because it becomes the primary machine to arrive for testing.

evaluation of the HP Z820

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specs as reviewed:

twin E5-2665/eight-core/2.4GHz with 20MB cache
Intel® C602 chipset
16GB quad-channel RAM (sixteen DIMM slots general, four used on this config)
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB (1 dual-link DVI, 2 DisplayPort output)
500GB – home windows seven professional
twin-layer DVD-RW
HP keyboard and mice
because you may get Linux for these machines in place of Windows 7, I additionally examined this machine with an HP-furnished Redhat Linux boot disk. More on that later.

Mac Pro

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Fashionable Ports:

four USB 2.0 on the lower back, one on the front
2 USB 3.0 on the lower back, two on front
1 Firewire four hundred on return, one on the front
2 Gigabit ethernets on the lower back
1 VGA out
playstation /two keyboards and mouse on returned
Stereo output on returned
Headphones out on the front
Mic input on the back and front
expansion slots:

3 PCIe Gen3 x16
1 PCIe Gen3 x8
1 PCIe Gen3 x4
1 PCIe Gen2 x4
1 PCI
a fee as configured: $6,840 with cut-price energy at the time of assessment

HP has lots of excessive-cease merchandise, and the company is no stranger to content creators. For instance, its 30-bit Dreamcolor monitors are fantastic, and if you bought this sort of monitor and hooked it up to a Mac Pro, you’d simply be throwing away color (Apple still hasn’t added aid for 10-bits-according to-channel coloration to OS X). My Z820 and Dell T5600 evaluate devices got here with a Quadro 4000; each Nvidia and AMD restrict high-bit output to their pro line by way of their drivers so that each workstation can take advantage of those high-bit displays lamentably, I don’t own a 30-bit show. However, the Quadro 4000 works fine with my dual NEC 2490WUXi monitors in each home, Windows seven, and CentOS 6.3.

The rate tag

Before I cover the hardware and software capabilities of the Z820, let’s communicate about that moderate sticker shock. The first aspect that jumped out at you about the Z820 became, in all likelihood, not its 32-thread CPU or giant cache—it becomes the rate tag of $6,840, sans tax. We don’t generally think of Mac execs as “the reasonably-priced retail choice.” Still, computing device retailers like HP, Dell, and BOXX are continuously available at a better charge than the equivalently specced Mac Pro. This time around, the scenario is manifestly special, seeing that Apple doesn’t even offer a Xeon E5 device, but it’s far usual, and there’s an awesome purpose for it: on-site help.

The HP Z820 and Dell T5600 come with 3-12 months on-site warranties, while the Mac Pro has one-yr widespread AppleCare (you may purchase an added year of AppleCare for $250). The distinction is massive. It’s supposed to ensure minimal downtime if something goes wrong, like when a power delivery fails. AppleCare via a neighborhood Apple keep or certified Apple repair outlet works well if you stay in a first-rate metropolis and might afford a few days of downtime. Still, an on-website online warranty is like having a hotline to a dude prepared to run out in your office to repair your problem the next day.

This degree of service provides loads of hazards to the profitability of a machine for pc providers. If you stay in Cheesehole, Wisconsin—away from an HP- or Dell-certified repairman—they will still put their dude on an aircraft to restore your computer, for three years, at no extra price. An on-website guarantee is fashionable in business enterprise environments, and Apple says that AppleCare consists of on-website coverage… however, I’ve in no way as soon had them ship a technician to my office in 20+ years of using Macs. They continually tell you to carry the system in, or even at huge Apple shops, components aren’t stocked, so there’s at least a -day downtime for repairs. On-website coverage is computer existence insurance, and it’s expensive. Given that stage of a carrier, the $6,840 price tag of the Z820 could be very reasonable; whether the added top class is worth it remains between you and your pockets.

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