I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the unexpected bombshell from Apple yesterday morning: the octocore MacPros are here!

Along with most of the rest of the world, I speculated those would be “coming soon” and indeed they are now here. The entry point? Three Washingtons shy of 40 Franklins (or $3997). So what do you get for the price of a Yugo? Eight cores. 1GB RAM. 250GB HDD. And most of the other normal stuff you’d get with a server-like box (Gig-E, video, etc.). You’d also need to purchase a monitor, which Apple was nice enough to lower the prices on yesterday also. Yay!

But 1GB? For eight cores?

Someone’s either smoking crack, or simply trying to put their machine at the lowest tier of cost. There’s no way that someone who needs eight cores is gonna be able to live in 1GB RAM. I doubt they could live in 8GB! With that many cores, I’d figure on about 2GB RAM for each core. Frankly, by the time you bought the RAM and HDD needed to feed a beast like this, I think you’d be pushing $6k-$8k easily.

Of course, I’m an idiot about that kind of stuff. 🙂

As tempting as the bragging rights would be from a behemoth like that, there’s just no real reason for me to own a box like that. And more importantly, it hasn’t moved me off my personal mobility initiative (PMI). I still like being able to do my stuff anywhere, and the thought of getting my home infrastructure where it can support me being anywhere stills gives me shivers (the good kind), along with making me feel like I’m working toward a real purpose.

Still….. Eight cores! 🙂