$100 - Apple LED Display Port Cinema 27" Display

[coius]

Oh, and the cost of getting a Mac Pro is more prohibitively expensive for the slight extra performance increase than just working with my current Hackintosh.

I believe I can make my Core i7 Ivy-Bridge come within about 2000 points of a 12-core. It's already hitting 15k point on geekbench compared to 24 on the 12-core. So if I overclock slightly more I can get at least probably close to 18-19k points. Thereby closing the gap.

I will save my money. After losing $400 in my stocks in one day alone, I feel kind of sick to my stomach (I went from $2000 to $1600 in less than 20 minutes)

 

[Anonymous Freak]

(Wandering topic)

I wouldn't bother with an older Mac Pro unless you *NEED* the expansion slots.

The just-released Haswell processors are so fast that you'd need a 12-core Mac Pro to be faster. If the Mac Mini moves to desktop processors (which is should/could with Haswell,) an updated Mac Mini will likely be faster at everything but gaming than an 8-core Mac Pro. And it should be faster even for gaming than the stock video card that shipped with a 2009 or earlier Mac Pro.

 

[Cory5412]

Is there a particular application you're trying to run at the same speed as a Mac Pro? Westmere EP to Ivy Bridge is a bit of a per-clock differential, but you're still talking about 3x the cores. If your disk subsystem is already exceedingly excellent, and your sure that you're never going to need more than 32 gigs of ram, the Ivy Bridge chip will become the bottleneck on the way to "performance like a Mac Pro."

On the other hand, I think a lot of people who say they need a Mac Pro for performance reasons are going to be looking at the iMac and offerings from Dell/HP/Lenovo for a few months yet.

Re haswell: There are some *very* interesting "Crystal Well" i7 SKUs in the pipe at the moment. ark.intel.com says that they're released, and they're quads ranging from about 2.0 to 3.2GHz with Intel HD 5200 Pro IRIS or whatever the exact sequence of tags is. They don't have vpro or some of the newest VT extensions, but they're more than everything you'd need in a) a low end iMac for people who don't care about the ATi and nVidia names B) a high end mac mini for people who do care slightly more about graphics performance and c) other space-constrained form factors.

The Mac Pro will be exceedingly interesting (to me, personally, at least) again once it gets revved. I think at this point Apple's waiting for one or more Xeon platform refreshes. The E5s are at the Sandy Bridge microarch right now and the E7s are there or are on Westmere still.

 

[redrouteone]

I will save my money. After losing $400 in my stocks in one day alone, I feel kind of sick to my stomach (I went from $2000 to $1600 in less than 20 minutes)

If this is all the money you have saved stocks is the wrong place to put it. A FDIC insured savings account would be best. Then once you get a bit saved up start with low risk mutual funds. Individual stocks should be the last place you put your money.

 

[coius]

Well, I ended up recovering it within 2 days. I also made an extra $200 on it.

Kramer from that tv show picked my stock to say "sell! sell! sell!" and it tanked. People came to their senses and it went back up.

For the record, I started with $1000 and grew it to $2000 in 6 months. I was in Astex Pharmeceuticals, then Ford, then YUM and now I am in 3D printing. I made quite a bit of money over the last 6 months.

Either way I am back up to $2000.

I have actually decided not to get a Mac Pro and decided possibly a MacBook Pro. The issue is Retina or non-Retina.

8GB RAM and 256GB Flash costs about the same as the 1440x900 w/ 500GB and 4GB but it as at least upgradeable. Can anyone tell me that has used the retina vs non whether it is worth giving up upgrades for the retina display?

 

[TheMacGuy]

I have used both a non-retina and retina 15" computers (my non-retina had the high-quality display), and there was a difference. But, depending on what you are using it for, I would go with a Retina. But I would wait, because I think new models with the Haswell processors with better graphics, better battery life, and faster processors will be coming soon. The MBPwR is Apple's favorite computer right now, so of course they are going to upgrade it more then other models.

1 thing, UPGRADE YOUR RAM if you go Retina. Since the Apple Store replaced my non-Retina with the Retina for $100, so I got no say in the RAM and I'm stuck, forever, with 8GB of RAM since it is soldered. The Flash Drive can be upgraded, but It will void your warranty.

I think Apple is going to start phasing out the non-Retina, and the MBP will only come in Retina.

 

[MultiFinder]

Always solid advice - if there is no way to upgrade the RAM in your machine, and you plan on keeping it for some time to come, get as much as possible.

 

[Gorgonops]

A random observation: this Saturday I saw a 24" Apple DisplayPort display at a garage sale priced at $100, same model as the OP's, supposedly it worked. I didn't buy it because I had no use for it but looking at what these stupid things sell for I'm starting to regret it.