Performance questions on a Mac Pro

I'm doing some extensive research before I purchase a desktop and I need some Mac Pro owner's input.


I'm setting up a foundation for a professional recording studio. I want to be able to do album covers and possibly amatuer music videos as well. I also wish to play some games. This is going to be a MAJOR workstation.


If I was to get a Mac Pro, I would choose the 8-core with the capability to upgrade up to 32 GB of RAM. I also like the access of having and upgrading 4 Hard Drive Disks. I would also upgrade the video card. I should have plenty of processor speed, memory, hard drive space, and video performance.


Questions:

The only things you CANNOT upgrade is the motherboard and CPU correct?

I understand that gaming is not a strong suit on a mac, which is fine as it is not a priority. However, to solve this would be to upgrade the video card and installing Windows OS (if needed). That's it?

A flaw of the Mac Pro is the processor speed for single core requiring applications? Photoshop is one. Any other applications? Is it that noticable?


That's all I can think of. Is there any flaw in my thinking? Anything I am missing or comments and advice? Thanks for the inputs, this site has already been a big help!

The only things you CANNOT upgrade is the motherboard and CPU correct?

Generally, this is the case. However, with Macs, it should be pointed out that when it comes to certain components (primarily the video card), you can't simply go out and buy one off the shelf. You are required to buy a Mac enabled version of the same hardware. Also, certain components are restricted to certain revs/revisions of hardware, ie some video cards work with later versions of the MacPro not earlier editions.

I understand that gaming is not a strong suit on a mac, which is fine as it is not a priority. However, to solve this would be to upgrade the video card and installing Windows OS (if needed). That's it?

This is a bit more complicated, and generally depends on what kinds of games and what sort of frame rates you are looking for. Further, the resolution of your monitor is also a factor.

Relatively recent (past 2 years) FPS games (ie Bioshock, FEAR, Crysis) etc require quite a fair amount of horsepower to run smoothly. There is a big difference in wanting to run this sort of game versus others that do not require as much GPU intensive activity. Currently the NVIDIA 285 is an upgrade option for the MacPro that should give you good performance all around. Also, the 4870 GPU isn't bad either. Again, this all is really contingent on what sort of games you want to play AND what you deem to be acceptable performance in these games.

Keep in mind, when it comes to games, any Mac hardware does not give you the upgrade/expansion options of a PC, this is just a fact that Mac users have pretty much come to accept.

A flaw of the Mac Pro is the processor speed for single core requiring applications? Photoshop is one. Any other applications? Is it that noticable?

I can't really comment on this but I can say that as a software developer I use a variety of tools (Eclipse IDE, XCode, JBoss etc) and at no point on my MacPro have I ever thought that the performance was laking. However, I don't do a great deal of multimedia based work so I am really not qualified to give any opinion of value.

On the motherboard upgrade issue, no, not a chance.

But, if you wait for Anand of Anandtech to finish up his full review on the latest Mac Pro, he is going to explain how to upgrade the CPU's. It can be done but he said in his preliminary report that it's a lot harder than the older Mac Pros. Keep an eye on Anandtech for his review which should be pretty soon.

Of course, as a word of caution, there are approved upgrades that don't violate your warranty, and those that aren't

Good point from dtravis7 on the CPU's, I remember them doing this with the older MacPros (going from 4 to 8 cores) prior to the release of the 8 core MacPro's that we know today.