Is a Mac Pro worth it?

I live in Canada, here the Mac Pro costs $2799. It comes with 2 dual core Xeon processors at 2.66Ghz. This can be configured to 2 dual core 3Ghz processors for an additional $959 bringing the total to $3758. It comes standard with 1GB of ram. I was thinking of upgrading this to 4GB to ensure it's capable of enjoying Second Life in the future when the requirements may be higher. Apple's RAM is ridiculously expensive so I'm planning on ordering it with 1GB and upgrading it to 4GB myself buying it from elsewhere. It can handle up to 4 GeForce 7300 GT's.

I have a few questions:

How would something like this hold up against a high end machine from Dell (XPS), Alienware, Voodoo? Would having 4 GeForce 7300 GT's, something which costs about the same as a single top of the line card be a good idea, or would I be better off going with a single high-end card? I would only be going with the 23 inch monitor. I currently own a 20 inch and it suits my needs quite nicely so I don't need a top of the line graphic card just to handle the monitor. I saw a 24 inch iMac over at Best Buy today and must say, it's quite a beauty! It's $2249 and of course, saves me a grand on the monitor. It comes with a 2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, which can be upgraded to a 2.33Ghz for an additional $300, bringing it's total to $2549 -- still less than the Mac Pro and actually including a beautiful monitor. Other than using Photoshop, I don't use any other programs that are very demanding, other than Second Life. My current PC, an Athlon XP 3800+ handles Photoshop fine so I'm not really worried about it, however it is fairly sluggish with SL granted it uses integrated ATI graphics.

If anyone has had any experience with the new Intel chips i.e. E6300, E6400 etc, I'd appreciate hearing from you. I'd also appreciate hearing from anyone who's used the new Extreme Edition Quad Core. I'm interested in how this would compare to 2 dual core Xeons in particular. I would imagine that the new version of OS X, granted it's much better multicore processing will lead to better performance running SL under OS X. I'm not too finicky about that though and I'm more than willing to run it under XP if that proves to be a better option.

I really want to get an Apple. I've been wanting one for about 5 years now and they finally seem (at least to me) to be reasonably priced in regards to their performance. However, I'd like to know from someone more knowledgeable than me (a mere enthusiast) if buying an Apple at the moment would be a good buy or if I'm paying alot more for something just because it has a pretty case and the Apple name.

Reece,
I've got the same questions. Here's where I'm at:

I've used Macs since the 80's...both at Home (always) and at work, (when they let me).
And, by buying the higher end, configurable models, they have easily lasted six or more years with an occasional hardware upgrade. (I have one from 1995 that I *still* use for some things. (It had a processor transplant, so goes fast enough, but can't do heavy graphics )

Personally, for this much money, I'd wait a week- there's a big Apple event rumored for this month...Apple is notoriously secretive. It is 'possible' that the Mac Pro's will be updated.

The next generation OS, (10.5 'Leopard') is due out this summer...it should make the lower end Macs even better-including the iMacs.

Personally, I run SL using a Mac Mini. I decided that I would try a Cheap computer, because they seem to be changing so quickly...BUt then I discovered Second LIfe! The frame rate is poor. And the graphics card is not upgradable. The new First Look viewer is a lot better...but I would *NOT* recommend a Mini for SL. OS 10.5 should fix some of the graphics issues by using the dual processors more efficiently.

The iMac's get great reviews...but I'm weighing a Mac Pro versus a cheap PC with a better graphics card--just for SL.

Thank you very much for the reply Clearly we're both experiencing the exact same dilemma. I can't thank you enough for telling me to hold off, I could never forgive myself if they made a huge upgrade right after I bought mine... I took another look at the 24 inch iMac today... I'm just not sure how the iMacs hold up compared to the Mac Pro and Power Macs of the past... I know for one thing they certainly aren't as upgradeable. I'd imagine that heat constraints would also lessen their lifespan. The Mac Pro -- especially if they upgrade it, seems quite reasonable price/performance wise provided you don't get their massively overpriced RAM (lol at Apple, always having RAM priced as if it was made of gold...). Would anyone in their right mind pay $6839CDN (about $5500USD) for a 15gb RAM upgrade? They're a whole Mac Pro worth more expensive than the cheapest 16gb solutions

edit: You reckon they'll stick with the Xeon line or put in the Quad Core Extreme Edition in the Mac Pro update?

Xeon vs. Quad Core... THAT'S why its worth waiting a week or two! Even if it just means a price drop for the Xeon's

The only 'option' I'd buy from Apple is the video upgrade card (to the single ATI) and 'maybe' the next size up on the hard drive.

All RAM, Harddrives, etc., can be found more cheaply from 3rd parties. (and that's been true for almost 2 decades!

As for the iMacs...the new ones have a replacable video card...its a slot for a notebook sized card...BUT, I don't believe there's a standard configuration for those, and I've not seen any upgrades available. RAM is easily increased by the user. (there's a slot on the bottom behind a little door.) And (if you're handy) the hard drive is upgradable.

All in all, the iMac is a pretty cool machine. It does everything more or less right...but once you buy it, you're locked in to the technology, with no real upgrade path.

First.. the Mac Pro won't measure up to a high-end Windows box for gaming, because of the video card performance. The ATI card offered as an upgrade path is an improvement, but it still can't measure up to an NVidia 8800 -- let alone two of them when SLI drivers become available for the 8 series cards.

More than one video card in a Mac is a total waste for Second Life; there is no support for SLI or CrossFile. The point of the multiple 7300 cards is for the people who want massive multi-monitor support. It's great for video editing; you can get lots of screen real estate, and higher-end cards are wasted in that application anyway because video software doesn't use the GPU significantly. Though with APIs starting to appear for using the GPU as a general computing resource, that could change in the future; I could imagine a future video editor using the GPU to crunch its special effects.

The Mac Pro gives you more raw computing power than the iMac; you get two dual-core CPUs instead of just one like in the iMac. (Current SL clients won't get much out of the extra CPUs though.) It's also more expandable; you can have more RAM, multiple disk drives, and so forth. You might be able to upgrade the video card in the future to something faster, which you will never be able to do with the iMac. You'll have to decide whether the added power and flexibility is worth the extra money.

Price for performance, I would highly reccomend a Windows PC.

But if your heart is with a Mac, I'd definately see what Apple has cooking.

Shirley and Ketra, thank you very much for the replies

And, for all those wondering why I posted this here instead of the Mac Discussion forum, let's just say most mac lovers are rather... biased towards macs and I wanted replies from both sides

Rumor on the blogs today is that black iMacs and an 8 core Power Mac are soon to be.
"Pictures" at http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/black-imacs-and-8core-mac-pros-expected-next-month-238892.php

Thanks for the link! That black iMac looks mighty fine

And an 8 core Power Mac I wonder how much electricity that beast will use!

Xenon processors aren't really set up for gaming if I understand correctly, they are server CPUs which makes them very expensive and wasted mostly on a game computer. The 7300 is a low end graphics card no matter what you put it in and the ATI upgrades tend not to be top of the line the last I looked either.

If you can build your own, the price of a Power Mac with upgrades to make it a reasonable SL machine can buy you the parts to build a screeming, bleeding edge PC with an almost infinite upgrade path. If you want a game machine, go with PC, you want a number crunching workstation, go with a Mac.

The First Look viewer is showing remarkable results if you set rendering to Multithreaded even on my dual 4400+ AMD, I just wonder what 8 cores would do ...

I am posting this from a Mac Pro.
In general, it's a great machine, but for SL.. I would prefer run it on my windows PC any day.
The two problems I found with my Macbook Pro are:
1. Fan Noise, Yes.. the CPU fan run at full blast whenever I run SL. I don't have this problem with my old IBM T40.
2. Since the page up and page down keys required hitting two keys fn key + arrow up and fn key + arrow down, everytime when I need to fly up and fly down I will need both hand on the
keyboard.

Beside these 2 problems I would say it's a beautiful laptop.

Jack, you have a MacBook Pro?

Yes I have a 2.33 GhZ Intel Core Duo Macbook Pro with 15 inch screen