Mac Pro

I sold my PowerMac G5 a few months ago on craigslist, since it wasn’t Intel-based, and I really wanted a machine that was capable of running both OS X and Windows. My experience using the MacBook at work won me over.

My Mac Mini

I took part of the money for the G5 and got a Mac Mini as an interim solution, hooking it up to my TV instead of getting a monitor. I wanted to play with the idea of having such a machine at home, to get an idea of what I’d do with it and whether I’d end up going the Boot Camp or Parallels approach for running Windows. With Vista’s release coming soon, the Mini was a way for me to test the waters a bit and determine if I wanted to stay with the Mac at home, or go with a Media Center PC instead.

The Mini in the living room is a nice setup, especially given its size and quietness, but it’s a bit under-powered for my needs, and I find that although it’s nice at times to have a computer in the living room for things like Front Row, it gets inconvenient and uncomfortable to use for long stints of regular computer usage. I never really got comfortable typing and mousing from the couch, and even on a 50” plasma, the resolution is pretty limited compared to what’s available on a smaller monitor. Not to mention the whole watch TV or use computer decision. Yes, I realize that there are solutions like eyeTV to watch and record TV (Media Center does this too) but I’m happy with the Comcast DVR for this, and the idea of using my hard drives to record TV seems a bit strange to me. I don’t consume video as much as music, I guess.

I was hoping to hear rumors of Apple introducing a desktop model with power and expandability closer to the Mac Pro and a form factor closer to the Mac Mini, but it doesn’t appear that anything like that is coming soon. So my options to stay Mac meant choosing between a Mac Pro and an iMac. I don’t like the limitations of all-in-one computers, so the choice was pretty easy: I bought a Mac Pro today. Merry Christmas to me :)

I get a pretty decent corporate discount, given Apple’s universal pricing model, but the price of what I wanted for the configuration is still on the higher end of my computer budget. So, selling the Mini is a likelihood down the road. I’ll wait to hear more about Apple TV, but given that my primary interest is in music, I may also look to other solutions (Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the Sonos Digital Music System come to mind) to fill that need.

My Mac Pro

I decided on the mid-level Mac Pro, and went with the basic configuration for RAM, storage and video, knowing I can easily upgrade those as needed, and can do so for a lot less money by going 3rd party. I got more storage right away, and I’ll likely get more RAM to run Vista once I get that far in the setup – probably not until January.

Here are the specs:

• Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processors with Intel Core microarchitecture (4MB shared L2 cache per processor, 128-bit SSE3 vector engine, 64-bit data paths and registers, lower power optimization)
• 1.33GHz, 64-bit dual independent front-side buses
• 1GB 667MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory, taking up two of eight slots (expandable up to 16GB). Update: 2/3/07: I added an additional 2GB of RAM and I am now running Windows Vista Ultimate under Bootcamp. Nice.
• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port (support for 2 displays)
• 250GB primary internal hard drive (Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200-rpm, 8MB cache), expandable up to 3TB
• 16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW). Writes DVD-R discs at up to 16x speed, DVD+R DL discs at up to 6x speed, CD-R and CD-RW discs at up to 24x speed. Reads DVDs at up to 16x speed, CDs at up to 32x speed.
• One open optical drive bay for an optional second SuperDrive.
• Three open full-length PCI Express expansion slots
• Two independent 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45) network cards
• AirPort Extreme wireless networking at 802.11n speeds
• Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) up to 3Mbps
• Two FireWire 800 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
• Two FireWire 400 ports (one on front panel, one on back panel)
• Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel)
• Two USB 1.1 ports on included keyboard
• Front-panel headphone mini jack and speaker
• Optical digital audio input and output Toslink ports
• Analog stereo line-level input and output mini jacks
• Apple wired mouse and keyboard

Display

I really wanted to get Apple’s 30” display, which I’ve had my eye on ever since they announced it, but I decided on the more economical Apple 23” Cinema HD display instead. If necessary, I can take a dual monitor route with two of these displays for about the same price as the 30”, and have a backup in the event of a problem with one of them.

Western Digital hard drives

250GB isn’t enough space for OS X, Vista, my applications, music, photos and other files, but Apple’s pricing for expanding storage is awfully expensive. After exploring several different options, I ended up creating a second partition consisting of three Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB hard drives (7200 RPM, 16MB cache, SATA 3.0Gb, model WD5000KSRTL).

All-in-one printer

Apple was running a printer promotion for Mac purchases, which I took advantage of, getting a Canon Pixma MP600 printer/scanner/copier. I haven’t used an all-in-one combination in a while, and the quality of this model is very nice. The software on the Mac side is certainly far better than the HP versions I had been struggling with on the G5.

Video

I’m not much of a gamer, so I’m fine with the video card I have at the moment. I’ll wait to see how it does in Vista (I want Aero Glass) and the next version of OS X (I want Core Animation), and decide whether or not to upgrade then.

Sound

I’m sticking with the Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks II. They’re great.

Next post (newer)

The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution

Previous post (older)

The Ruins