[Leica] OT: different Apple desktops

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

I'll just make a few general observations that haven't been made as I
write this:

The Mac Pro will allow you to use eSATA drives. This provides a good
way to create external RAID drives using eSATA enclosures. I have one
from FirmTek that holds 5 SATA drives in easily removable carriers.
That's 2.5 TB using reliable 500 GB drives. 750 GB drives are now
coming in at about $150 at Frys here in the States and 1 TB drives are
a bit over $225 or so. I'm sure you'll find good deals in your neck of
the woods.

Fast video processing is another important advantage of the large-box
Mac Pros. More and more software is accelerating video using on-card
programming. Aperture and Final Cut Pro for sure. Apple's core
animation provides these to services to subscribing programs for free.
Although the Apple offerings aren't necessarily the fastest (as in
gamer fast) they are still more than adequate for image and video
processing.

The new Mac Pros have insanely fast front-side buses and the memory is
easily upgraded. There are spots for 4 internal SATA drives and
there's the usual assortment of FireWire and USB connections. I like
having those on the front of the box.

I'm about to have to change out my laptop because the current MacBook
Pro was damaged in the car crash. Apple invalidated the AppleCare
warranty because of the dents on the case and there's a very strange
set of problems that indicate both the display and the main circuit
board have possibly broken traces that lead to intermittent failures.
It's very frustrating. We replaced my wife's PowerBook with a MacBook
Air. She loves it and I have to say it's a fabulous machine. It's NOT
for folks who want to connect via FireWire (there ain't any) or if
they need a lot of heavy CPU cycles. But it's still faster than her G4
PowerBook.

If you want to have substantial amounts of storage then I would
recommend getting a Mac Pro: eSata is the path that's higher
performance than FireWire 800. Video card co-processing is much better
on the Mac Pro as well. Remember that the iMac is closer to a laptop
than it is to a built-for-speed desktop machine. An 8 core Mac Pro is
going to give you a whole lot of power - about three to five times the
performance of the fastest G5 PowerMac.

I don't have a new desk top in my budget until next year but when I do
it'll be a Mac Pro.

Good luck!

Adam