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[Juice]

I was pretty underwhelmed, but only because the most recent talk has been about the iPhone and Finder.

I thought the Time Machine sounded lame as all get out until I saw the graphical look of it. Now THAT actually looks worthwhile. What's best is that it'll probably be pretty darn fast, since it's clear they're using metadata to populate the actual zoom back (as indicated by the preview window). So that'll probably be more useful to me than Dashboard or Spotlight, depending on how flexible they are regarding external hard drives.

The Mac Pro looks like a beast, but might actually be less practical than it seems, because now the hard drives pretty much have to be provided by Apple. They need to become more standards friendly, not less (even though, yeah, installing an HDD into an array the old fashioned way is a pain by comparison).

The expose-like thingy of Spaces was the only thing that set it apart from current desktop managers for OS X. Hopefully it's as flexible. For example, an application's various windows should be able to be spread out over multiple spaces. One feature that probably won't make it (because it's not reality-analogous) is no mirroring of an app across all spaces. Also, how are they going to handle multiple desktops?

Overall, so-so show. Predictable, but solid. 64-bit apps at the user level should be slick, as having Intel ASM in 64 bit should be a cut above the G5 days.

 

[McFly]

The Mac Pro looks like a beast, but might actually be less practical than it seems, because now the hard drives pretty much have to be provided by Apple.

Not true. You get four of those hd "slide-cases" with each Mac Pro and you can use any normal SATA drive with them.

Fredi

 

[Juice]

Not true. You get four of those hd "slide-cases" with each Mac Pro and you can use any normal SATA drive with them.

Fredi

Really?

Nevermind.

Mac Pro is awesome. Awesome is Mac Pro

 

[McFly]

From the tech specs page: http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

"Four independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA cable-free, direct attach hard drive bays; four internal hard drive carriers included"

Fredi

 

[McFly]

It's official, the Mac Pro service manual is now available to technicians, which includes instructions for replacing the CPUs. You could buy the 2GHz version now and at the end of the year replace them with the 4 core Clovertown chips ... that would be 8 cores in your Mac!

Fredi

 

[bionic77]

I'm ordering a MBP now.

QUICK: glossy or matte?

I've used both and the glossy is nicer, but the matte is anti-glare. I've read blogs that say anti-glare is overrated and the glossy is actually nicer outside because the text is more readable. QUICK IMPRESSIONS PLZ

You have to go to the store and see for yourself. I did that and I went with the matte because I just liked the look better. Most people at the store seemed to go for the glossy though, but I hate glossy screens. The good news is that both screens are gorgeous and it is a small difference between the two (imho).

 

[Y2Kev]

I went with the glossy and ordered express shipping. I hope to have it by Friday, but I doubt I will.

I got a really nice discount because of my school. Usually I only expect like 100 off, but I got 200 and good prices on Office.

 

[Juice]

I normally dislike Glossy screens (the ones I see at Best Buy), but the MacBook's makes me happy. It's bright and vibrant.

Like rainbows are vibrant.

 

[Phoenix]

Not at all. A shadow copy is a block differential image of the entire volume, which is kept in a special file on the volume.

They are not full copies of files or folders, and are not the same as rsync or Backup + Automator.

In Windows Server 2003/XP, they were exposed via SMB over the network. You could right click a file stored on a server, and it would show you the previous versions available in older shadow copies on that server.

In Vista, the "Previous Versions" feature uses Shadow Copies to let you get access to older versions of any file on your hard disk. In a similar fashion, you can right click any file on the hard disk, and Vista will show you the versions available on prior shadow copies. It will also search an index for any off-line backup versions of that file (made with the Vista backup app) and show those as well.

I have yet to see a way in Vista to get at email that I deleted a few days ago. Is this an issue where the developers using Vista aren't using core OS functionality?

 

[TheWolf]

i honestly think the new MBPs will come fairly soon. i don't think they're going for a new case, since the current one matches the Mac Pro, and they'll want some synergy with the Pro lines. also, they have the same processors in the MB and the MBP, and adding the new Intel chip will help distinguish the products.

clear our the current Yonah MBP while Meron supplies increase.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

Did anyone else notice how worryingly thin Steve has become?

 

[Macam]

He's not that thin, and I trust he's taking care of himself following the cancer scare. In any case, the more I attend these sessions, the more impressive Leopard becomes as there's just a massive amount of stuff under the hood that I can't talk about. I can't wait to get back home to my new 23" ACD and play with this stuff more at length.

 

[Hyoushi]

Did anyone else notice how worryingly thin Steve has become?

lol what

 

[Juice]

Did anyone else notice how worryingly thin Steve has become?

He did look a tad dead. I wouldn't worry, though. When he dies, they'll probably just keep spinning that he's "on vacation" or something every time a keynote comes up.

Kinda like Fidel and Cuba.

 

[McFly]

In any case, the more I attend these sessions, the more impressive Leopard becomes as there's just a massive amount of stuff under the hood that I can't talk about. I can't wait to get back home to my new 23" ACD and play with this stuff more at length.

Do you know if they have added anything new to the automaticaly generated spotlight metadata? You know, that stuff you can see with the shell command "mdls".

Fredi

 

[TerryLee81]

This is a beautiful machine:

 

[aaaaa0]

I have yet to see a way in Vista to get at email that I deleted a few days ago. Is this an issue where the developers using Vista aren't using core OS functionality?

Yes, pretty much. It will take time for people to start using the features.

The big thing that Vista does is it makes shadow copies a core feature of the OS.

A shadow copy preserves your entire disk as it was on the day it was created. Think of it as as a frozen instant of the contents of your hard disk. The way it works is a differential block copy: Vista keeps track of changes to the disk blocks and saves away old disk blocks into a file called the diff area.

It can then reconstitute any older view of the disk on the fly, so from your point of view, the entire disk (every file, every bit) looks like it was on that day the shadow copy was created.

Shadow copy was introduced in XP, made better in Windows Server 2003, and improved again in Vista. Several Vista features use shadow copies behind the scenes.

Shadow copies are not a replacement for a backup since they live on that disk itself. Also if your disk fills up, Vista will begin purging the oldest shadow copies to free up disk space.

So think of a shadow copy as an undelete or filesystem versioning feature rather than a backup.

To be clear, this is not a completely new feature, other OSes have had similar features in the past, but I don't think this kind of feature has been in a consumer level OS before.

There are 4 major features (that I know of) in Vista that use shadow copies:

The first is "Previous Versions". This feature was code-named "Timewarp" when it was in development, and was first available in Windows Server 2003. Bascially it takes shadow copies of your disks at regular intervals, and lets you browse them for old versions of files and files that may have been deleted.

So you can restore your deleted email by exploring to the file representing your mailbox (in Outlook it's probably Outlook.pst), right clicking it, properties, then the previous versions tab.

If any shadow copies exist, your mailbox file should have multiple versions available. Simply restore a copy of the mailbox from there, open it in your mail app, and your mailbox should look exactly like it was on that day.

The second feature is Vista System Restore. It also uses shadow copies. Since a shadow copy is basically a frozen image of your disk at the time it was created, System Restore can use it as a reference to undo changes made to your OS by applications and to a certain degree, fix problems caused by viruses and malware.

One useful thing about System Restore in Vista, is that you do not have to be able to boot your OS to do a System Restore, you can run it from the install DVD. So even if your computer is so screwed up it can't boot, you can still attempt to do a System Restore to revert back to a time where everything was OK.

The third Vista feature that uses shadow copies is file backup. It creates a shadow copy of the drives it wants to scan, then copies user documents and files to an external hard disk, CD/DVD or network share.

It keeps a catalog of all the files backed up, so you can search or browse for them -- this catalog is shared with the "Previous Versions" feature, so if you have a backup of a file on offline media or external HD, it will show up in the same list as the files from a shadow copy.

The file backup program also uses standard ZIP files, so you can open your backups on any machine (even a Mac or non-Vista machine) and if they're damaged, any ZIP file repair utility can be used to salvage them.

Finally, Vista also has a complete system imaging program that takes a shadow copy of your hard disk and writes it out to a Virtual PC file (.vhd) on an external hard disk, or CD/DVD. A complete image of your hard disk means it's easier to completely restore your system in the event of a total hardware failure -- just put the whole image back. There's some quite clever stuff in there using nested shadow copies to make it possible to take incremental system images.

 

[goodcow]

A shadow copy preserves your entire disk as it was on the day it was snapped. A shadow copy is a block-differential disk image.

Shadow copy was introduced in XP, made better in Windows Server 2003, and improved again in Vista. Several Vista features use shadow copies behind the scenes.

Shadow copies are not a replacement for a backup, they live on that disk itself. Think of a shadow copy as an undelete or file versioning feature rather than a backup.

The first is "Previous Versions". This feature was code-named "Timewarp" when it was in development, and was first available in Windows Server 2003. You can restore your deleted email by exploring to the file representing your mailbox (in Outlook it's probably Outlook.pst), right clicking it, properties, then the previous versions tab.

If any shadow copies exist, your mailbox file should have multiple versions available. Simply restore it from there, open it in your mail app, and your mailbox should look exactly like it was on that day.

Unfortunately, no one has integrated this feature with their apps for Vista, perhaps that will come later, so email restore really clunky right now.

Vista System Restore also uses shadow copies. Since a shadow copy is basically a frozen image of your disk at the time it was snapped, System Restore can use it as a reference to undo changes made to your OS by applications and to a certain degree, viruses and malware. One useful thing about System Restore in Vista, is that you do not have to be able to boot your OS to do a System Restore, you can run it from the install DVD.

Vista also has a file backup program that uses shadow copies. It creates a shadow copy, then copies files from it to an external hard disk, CD/DVD or network share. It keeps a catalog of all your files backed up, so you can search or browse for them. It also uses standard ZIP file format, so you can open your backups on any machine (even a Mac or non-Vista machine).

Vista also has a complete PC imaging program that takes a shadow copy of your hard disk and writes it out to a Virtual PC file (.vhd) on an external hard disk, or CD/DVD. This makes it easier to completely restore your system if your hard disk fails.

Thank you Bill!!!!!

 

[McFly]

Macworld has a nice Mac Pro FAQ up: http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/firstlooks/macprofaq/index.php?lsrc=mwtoprss

I found this two interesting:

Does the Mac Pro use the same RAM as other Intel Macs?

No. While the DDR2 RAM in the Mac Pro is the same speed as that in all other current Intel Macs (667MHz, compared to the Power Mac G5’s 533MHz), the Mac Pro uses Fully Buffered Memory modules, or FB-DIMMs. Each FB-DIMM has built-in error checking and correction, and carries a chip (known as an Advanced Memory Buffer, or AMB) that controls data transmission.

As a result of the AMB chip on every RAM module, each Mac Pro DIMM comes complete with its own heat sink. Apple says that by attaching a heat sink to every module in order to dissipate heat, it can keep fan noise to a minimum. Apple says it’s provided a thermal specification for the modules to the companies that are manufacturing Apple-branded RAM for these systems. (Since they can come from different manufacturers, RAM modules may vary in appearance depending on how their manufacturer chose to meet Apple’s specs.) Apple’s also pushing for its thermal specification to be adopted as a standard by the JEDEC standards body, which would make it easier for third-party RAM vendors to manufacture heat-sinked RAM to meet the needs of Mac Pro users.

So you can't buy any FB-Dimms, just those designed for the Mac Pro?

Speaking of PCI Express, are the speeds of each slot the same as with the Power Mac?

In the Power Mac, each PCI Express slot had a set bandwidth, expressed in terms of lanes—the graphics slots was the fastest at 16x, with one 8x slot and two 4x slots as well. With the Mac Pro, Apple says that when you boot the computer after installing a new PCI Express card, the OS will let you choose the amount of bandwidth to dedicate to that slot. Apple told us that the total amount of bandwidth available to the PCI Express bus is less on the Mac Pro than on the Power Mac, but said the ability to direct that bandwidth as needed should make up for such a shortcoming. They also told us that there’s more power (total wattage) available to the PCI Express bus, letting you power two Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 graphics cards.

And here's a good thread from someone that already got the machine: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=222939

Looks like the beast is silent and the performance tests are promising, even Photoshop under Rosetta is usable.

Fredi

 

[TerryLee81]

Macworld has a nice Mac Pro FAQ up: http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/firstlooks/macprofaq/index.php?lsrc=mwtoprss

I found this two interesting:



So you can't buy any FB-Dimms, just those designed for the Mac Pro?



And here's a good thread from someone that already got the machine: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=222939

Looks like the beast is silent and the performance tests are promising, even Photoshop under Rosetta is usable.

Fredi

Thx for the link, here are pics of a Mac Pro taken apart:

http://www.powermax.com/articles_reviews/article.php?id=32

 

[Boards of Canada]

Yes, pretty much. It will take time for people to start using the features.

How about you create a Time Machine clone if you believe this is possible using Shadow Copy.

 

[McFly]

More on Question of using PC Graphics cards in Mac Pro

" I was told today that video cards used in Mac Pro's must be EFI compliant cards. BIOS compliant video cards will not work in EFI equipped Mac Pro's. My dream of running PC video cards in Mac's seems to be thwarted at every turn!
-Iain B. "

Fredi

 

[djkimothy]

Thx for the link, here are pics of a Mac Pro taken apart:

http://www.powermax.com/articles_reviews/article.php?id=32

Are those heat sinks for the memory modules mandatory? Do they come with the RAM or do you have to buy them separately. This is the fist time I ever seen a RAM heat sink in a consumer machine.

 

[TerryLee81]

Are those heat sinks for the memory modules mandatory? Do they come with the RAM or do you have to buy them separately. This is the fist time I ever seen a RAM heat sink in a consumer machine.

I'm not sure if this still counts as a consumer machine, probably not.

Regarding the RAM, you don't have to buy the heat sinks separately, at least not if you buy from apple. I think I read somewhere that there's a seperate chip on every RAm module that can get fairly hot.

 

[CharlieDigital]

I normally dislike Glossy screens (the ones I see at Best Buy), but the MacBook's makes me happy. It's bright and vibrant.

Like rainbows are vibrant.

<cough>Fanboi-ism</cough>

That's like saying: "I normally don't like natto, but when Steve Jobs serves natto, it tastes like rainbows in my mouth."

If you don't like natto, why would it taste any better if it was served by Steve Jobs?

 

[McFly]

Regarding the RAM, you don't have to buy the heat sinks separately, at least not if you buy from apple. I think I read somewhere that there's a seperate chip on every RAm module that can get fairly hot.

I'm pretty sure you can use FB-Dimms with a smaller heatsink or even without a heatsink if that's how the manufacturer has specified them.

The Kingston 1GB are going for $170 --> http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=D2...118c23e324528078dcd41700c40e0b69986ad3422ea22

I'm really thinking about getting the 1GB Pro Mac and than add two or four of those Kingston Dimms.

Fredi

 

[McFly]

Ok, for a developer, Leopard will be ****ing sweet!

Apple Computer's recently previewed Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" has made quite a stir, not because of what was shown at the World Wide Developer Conference but of what was excluded from show, cited "Top Secret". However, the build released to attendees at the conference includes a huge number of ground-breaking changes to the underlying technology in Mac OS X and the APIs exposed to developers.

As a world wide exclusive, AeroXP has received information detailing several of the API improvements to Leopard, detailed below:

* Complete 64-Bit support for Intel and PowerPC through all frameworks excluding QuickTime C, QuickDraw, Sound Manager, Code Fragment Manager, Language Analysis Manager and QuickTime Musical Instruments. These modules are deprecated and one should use the modern equivalents instead.

* Leopard will feature resolution-independent user interface and there are several functions to get the current scaling factor and apply it to pixel measurements. It is a good idea to use vector controls and buttons (PDF will work fine) or to have multiple sized resources, similar to Mac OS X icon design, so you can scale to the nearest size for the required resolution.

* Address Book adds support for sharing accounts, allowing an application to restrict content according to user.

* Automator includes a new user interface and allows things such as action recording, workflow variables and embedding workflows in other applications.

* Time Machine has an API that allows developers to exclude unimportant files from a backup set which improves backup performance and reduces space needed for a backup.

* A new Calendar Store framework allows developers access to calendar, event and task information from iCal to use in their applications or to add new events or tasks.

* Carbon, the set of APIs built upon Classic MacOS and used by most 3rd party high-profile Mac OS X applications, now allows Cocoa views to be embedded into the application. This could provide applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Office access to advanced functions previously only available to Cocoa applications.

* A new control for creating matrices of views is available, NSGridView. This allows a grid to be created from any view in the system, including OpenGL or Web Views.

* Core Animation allows layers to be used as backing stores for a view, windows to use explicit animations when resizing (can be three dimensional, akin to the Time Machine view). Any view can now be put into fullscreen mode and a CoreImage transition effect can be used. Using Core Animation you can create anything including GPU-accelerated Front Row-style user interfaces without having to write OpenGL code. A Core Animation layer can include OpenGL content, Core Image and Core Video filter effects and Quartz/Cocoa drawing content, like views and windows.

* Text engine improvements include a systemwide grammar checking facility, smart quote support, automatic link detection and support for copying and pasting multiple selections.

* Core Image has been upgraded to allow access to RAW images directly.

* Apache 2.0, Ruby on Rails and Subversion are included, and support for script-to-framework programming is available, allowing Python and Ruby scripting to access Mac OS X specific APIs.

* The iChat framework allows a developer to add shared content to an active iChat session, for example a video, an image slideshow or even an online multiplayer game.

* "Sharing accounts" are possible, with users being restricted via an access control list (ACL) to certain applications or files. Developers can integrate with this by restricting access to a specific piece of content by connecting it to a sharing account. Sharing accounts have no home folder.

* An Image Kit is included, to allow a developer to easily create an application that can browse, view, crop, rotate and pick images, then apply Core Image filter effects through an interface. A slideshow interface is also open to developers, allowing any application to display a fullscreen slideshow of images.

* Leopard also gives developers access to a "Latent Semantic Mapping" framework, which is the basis for spam protection in Mail. It allows you to analyze text and train the engine to restrict items with specific content (like spam e-mail for example).

* Mail stationery is open to developers, allowing any web designer to create fantastic-looking Mail templates, with defined areas for custom user content.

* A new framework is included for publishing and subscribing to RSS and Atom feeds, including complete RSS parsing and generation. Local feeds can be shared over Bonjour zero-configuration sharing and discovery.

* Quicktime 7.1 is included, and the underlying QTKit framework is greatly improved. There is improved correction for nonsquare pixels, use of the clean aperture which is the "user-displayable region of video that does not contain transition artifacts caused by the encoding process", support for aperture mode dimensions, improved pitch and rate control for audio and a number of developer improvements, like QuickTime capture from sources like cameras and microphones, full screen recording or QuickTime stream recording. Live content from a capture can be broadcast as a stream over the network.

From: http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=5142&st=0&#entry58868

I'm especially interested in the bold marked feature. I hope PHP will be able to access those APIs as well, or at least Perl.

Fredi

 

[element]

Did anyone else notice how worryingly thin Steve has become?

I was going to mention that. he looks like a meth addict or something.

 

[McFly]

Some Leopard detail screenshots: http://techpedia.org/a/90

Fredi

 

[djkimothy]

Some Leopard detail screenshots: http://techpedia.org/a/90

Fredi

Wow at spaces. When Steve demo'ed it I was afraid that he'd limit it to 4 virtual spaces, but from thoe pics it looks like we can have 16 freaking desktops! Nicely done.

 

[Polari]

Some Leopard detail screenshots: http://techpedia.org/a/90

Fredi

Stop signing your posts, we don't care what your name is.

 

[Phoenix]

How about you create a Time Machine clone if you believe this is possible using Shadow Copy.

The gauntlet has been thrown down....

 

[aaaaa0]

How about you create a Time Machine clone if you believe this is possible using Shadow Copy.

The gauntlet has been thrown down....

First tell me what you think Time Machine does differently than any other backup app, other than the fancy swooshing UI.

 

[Phoenix]

First tell me what you think Time Machine does differently than any other backup app, other than the fancy swooshing UI.

Hey, if that's all it does - shouldn't take long to duplicate it. BoC made the call and since the new UI library is apparently nice and XML based I guess it shouldn't take long for a duplicate to be made.

 

[Zombie James]

This is a good read if you want to get into the whole "who copied who?" thing... http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp

 

[fse]

This is a good read if you want to get into the whole "who copied who?" thing... http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp

great read.

 

[McFly]

Btw, both Kingston and Crucial removed the FB-Dimms from the Mac Pro pages. Looks like those heatsinks really are there for a reason after all.

This is the statement from Crucial:

"We are sorry to inform you that we are experiencing an inconsistency with the current heat spreaders on our Mac 1GB FBDIMM modules after extended system use. While we rectify this, we have canceled all shipments of these modules until we can provide a more advanced heat spreader that resolves the problem."

Kingston pulled their offering a few hours later, no statement from them till now but guess it will be similar.

So for now, RAM for the Mac Pro has to come from Apple, hope this will change soon.

Fredi

 

[djkimothy]

This is a good read if you want to get into the whole "who copied who?" thing... http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp

Wow, an Apple article written from a Windows centric site. Whatever will I do?

Kingston pulled their offering a few hours later, no statement from them till now but guess it will be similar.

So for now, RAM for the Mac Pro has to come from Apple, hope this will change soon.

Yah, I knew something was up. Those heat sinks were large from the photos and thought they were Apple specific. but I don't doubt that 3rd party offerings will soon be provided, and for cheap too!

 

[Boards of Canada]

First tell me what you think Time Machine does differently than any other backup app, other than the fancy swooshing UI.

I've only used a few backup apps in my lifetime, but the ones that I used were cumbersome compared to this. Is there a backup program where you can go back in a timeline and see multiple revisions to a folder on Windows? A backup app for Outlook contacts that lets you restore one contact from 3 weeks ago?

If there isn't, why not "start the photocopiers" and create a Time Machine clone. While the technology is relatively the same (Shadow Copy), the implementation on Apple's side just makes more sense.

 

[DjangoReinhardt]

This is a good read if you want to get into the whole "who copied who?" thing... http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp

First line of article: "Sometimes I wonder how Apple CEO Steve Jobs can sleep at night."

:lol

 

[djkimothy]

First line of article: "Sometimes I wonder how Apple CEO Steve Jobs can sleep at night."

:lol

comfortably?

 

[McFly]

As we're talking about copycats, someone made a Web Clippings clone after viewing the keynote: http://www.fondantfancies.com/blog/3001239/

Dash Clipping is a universal widget tool that allows you to turn any part of any web page into a Dashboard widget with a couple of clicks. Download it here. Feedback to the usual address.

If this sounds familiar it's because it's a shameless rip-off of the new Web Clipping tool that's due in Leopard and that I knocked together over the last 24 hours. If you watch the video on that page (and the keynote) carefully, you'll realise all Apple's doing is loading the whole web page but only showing part of it. There's nothing clever about what they're doing, and there's nothing clever about my version either, though I did have to write part of it in Cocoa to get in working (you can almost do it with just an IFRAME, but not quite).

Now that's fast ... ok, the concept is very simple and maybe too simple. Wouldn't it be better to target a div element and not just coordinates? What if the content you target gets smaller or bigger, what if the content above gets smalller or bigger? Guess, this guy just isn't clever enough to see that ... maybe I should send him an email. ;-)

Fredi

 

[Animal]

Ok steve, quit rubbing it in my face, i see the light, i want to throw my dell laptop out the window and get me a Mac Pro. I've been assimilated.

 

[McFly]

For all Photoshop users, don't worry about the performance of Photoshop under Rosetta, the Quad G5 is only 37% faster than the 2.66 GHz Mac Pro and even less (20%) if you're an After Effects user!

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

Impressive! (Both, the Mac Pro and Rosetta)

Fredi

 

[Juice]

For all Photoshop users, don't worry about the performance of Photoshop under Rosetta, the Quad G5 is only 37% faster than the 2.66 GHz Mac Pro and even less (20%) if you're an After Effects user!

http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html

Impressive! (Both, the Mac Pro and Rosetta)

Fredi

Well, the Mac Pro is only just about the fasted consumer desktop yet released.

 

[djkimothy]

Macworld is reporting on the Speedmark benchmark where the Mac Pro 2.66 GHz scored a 299, just shy of the 300 mark.
From the table it seems to have trounced the old quad G5 in many tests.

The standard configuration of the Mac Pro outperforms its PowerPC-based G5 predecessors by a wide margin, helping to justify Apple’s 2005 decision to switch to processors from Intel. What’s more, the system powered by two dual-core 2.66GHz Xeon chips narrowly missed becoming the first machine to ever record a Speedmark score of over 300.

Still, tallying a Speedmark 4.5 score of 299 in Macworld Lab testing is nothing to sneeze at—especially in light of the fact that a few of the tests that make up Speedmark involve applications that don’t yet run natively on Intel chips. That means the Mac Pro was able to improve upon the Speedmark score of the Power Mac G5 Quad by 14 percent, even though the collection of tests that comprises Speedmark includes several which require Apple’s Rosetta code-translation technology.

 

[Boards of Canada]

Only 40% is huge... Do not buy a Mac Pro until CS3 is out. Let's not forget CS2, Quark, and other apps are buggy under Rosetta. CS2 does crash, and it will often especially when fonts are involved.

 

[Hitokage]

Yup, that looks like your usual screw-on case compartment, but with the not-as-frequently-used bottom screwholes.

 

[White Man]

Wow, an Apple article written from a Windows centric site. Whatever will I do?

You don't read that site very often, do you? It's not been very Windows friendly the past, oh, year.

 

[TheWolf]

You don't read that site very often, do you? It's not been very Windows friendly the past, oh, year.

yeah, but some of the stuff in that article is just stupid, like...

functionality that Microsoft will add to Windows Vista with the release of Vista SP1 and Longhorn Server in late 2007.

:lol