Old Mac Pro vs New Mac Pro?

Did you read the same specs I did? It says that the new Mac Pro has -4-, not 1, Firewire 800 ports -- 2 in front, 2 in back. And the photos reflect that.

Quick question - I just bought a Mac Pro with Intel Xeon (specs below) - it arrived literally 2 days before Apple announced the new Mac Pro with the new chip set. I have the option of exchanging it - but am a little confused by the change in specs.

My current Mac Pro is configured with 3 x SAS (15,000 rpm) - but I noticed the new Mac Pro only allow for installation of SATA drives (7,200 rpm). While I notice the RAM is much faster (1066 vs. 800) - I am wondering if this makes a huge difference for what I use my Mac for. . .

I do a lot of video and photo editing - so my question is: if I configure SATA in raid 0 - will I get substantially the same performance of my current SAS drives in Raid 0? Or more simply put, am I better sticking with my current configuration as opposed to shelling out 600 or more for the new Mac Pro?

A. You would need to custom order, as yours did, with the Apple Pro RAID card to support SAS.

Yes there is more memory bandwidth for a number of reasons, on chip memory controller should deliver a big benefit.

MacRumors, AMUG and Barefeats have already posted and linked to various benchmarks and will be doing more reviews.

+(I'd start by calling, and I'd also start your own thread if you have more questions.)+

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP506
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7209585#post7209585
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346 (SAS)
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal01.html

My next shot will probably be my own, a Core i7 custom build, I can do without the OS and just use 7 instead. Hopefully my current 2GHz 5130 will last another 2-3 yrs but likely my last Mac.

The hatter wrote:
My next shot will probably be my own, a Core i7 custom build, I can do without the OS and just use 7 instead. Hopefully my current 2GHz 5130 will last another 2-3 yrs but likely my last Mac.

I was thinking the same thing - why not build a custom i7 hackintosh rig for significantly less coin? But can you go dual processor with such a thing? Would the savings really be there in cost?

eVGA Classified and drop an Xeon 35xx in there, but that is not dual socket board, and I don't know when - the D0 just came out and other chips like 975 aren't going to be out for weeks.

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=100660315

The best time to buy a system is after it has been out and had a firmware update 3 to 4 months down the road. And best time to upgrade to a new OS is when it has been out for more than "awhile" - like a year.

The worst is when the OS and hardware are new. And that won't happen for months.

PS: All Snow does is enforce 64-bit clean drivers, a lot of API changes. It won't be on store shelves until later this year and sounds like a whole bunch of FUD with very little else.

Those rumors were about iPhone apps. Microsoft will and can Windows, and I think that only makes sense, they are generous with their public beta and RC testing anyway.