12-core Mac Pro question

So I am asking my girlfriend for her hand in marriage tomorrow, and my parents gave me a 5500$ gift card to the Apple Store towards a new Mac Pro as a gift, so I had some questions.

I'm gonna go all out with my Mac Pro this time and get a 12-core and 64gb of ram.

Plain and simple, the question I wanted to ask is where are some of the best places to get ram and a good ssd? Some have said Macsales.com and I am curious if anyone has any other opinions.

Any other information or suggestions is also welcome!

ThePope43 said:

Plain and simple, the question I wanted to ask is where are some of the best places to get ram and a good ssd? Some have said Macsales.com and I am curious if anyone has any other opinions.

Click to expand...

When getting more ram...it's not really like you have that many options (good, better, best)...you're basically looking for compatible ram that will work in your Mac.

For ram go to either:

OWC
Crucial

...and you'll be fine.

- Nick

ThePope43 said:

So I am asking my girlfriend for her hand in marriage tomorrow, and my parents gave me a 5500$ gift card to the Apple Store towards a new Mac Pro as a gift, so I had some questions.

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By the way...how are these two things connected (Marriage & the Apple Store)?

If you're asking this girl if she'll marry you tomorrow:

- Why did your parents give you a $5500 gift card today...what if this girl says NO tomorrow?
- And if she says yes...she's still just your fiance...I'm guessing you're not getting married for at least a little while...why a marriage gift so soon?
- What happens if the engagement is broken?...it has happened before. Wouldn't this marriage gift be a bit pre-mature?
- Marriage gifts are supposed to be beneficial to both parties...how does your future wife benefit from this computer?

- Nick

jeeez, $5500??

Amazon would be my recommendation. Decent price and range, free delivery.

on the marriage front, I would make sure you definitely want to do it, its a big commitment. but this isn't a forum about romance, so ill shut up now.

pigoo3 said:

By the way...how are these two things connected (Marriage & the Apple Store)?

If you're asking this girl if she'll marry you tomorrow:

- Why did your parents give you a $5500 gift card today...what if this girl says NO tomorrow?
- And if she says yes...she's still just your fiance...I'm guessing you're not getting married for at least a little while...why a marriage gift so soon?
- What happens if the engagement is broken?...it has happened before. Wouldn't this marriage gift be a bit pre-mature?
- Marriage gifts are supposed to be beneficial to both parties...how does your future wife benefit from this computer?

- Nick

Click to expand...

Lol I would be glad to go a little more in-depth to answer these questions!

1) I love the Apple store; she already pre-said yes
2) we're getting married at the end of this summer! Exciting!
3) It won't be, because like I said she's already said yes; I don't base my decisions on worst possible outcomes either! My cup is half full, not half empty
4) There are other circumstances that have been settled in my girlfriends favor, from my parents, that allow me to accept such a gift for myself


If you need more information I'd be glad to just invite you to the wedding lol






Also....don't read into it too much, my parents know I love Apple products and it's just a gift from them. Plain and simple!

Also are there any other sellers like OWC, or are they pretty much the only cream of the crop?

ThePope43 said:

Also are there any other sellers like OWC, or are they pretty much the only cream of the crop?

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I wouldn't say cream of the crop but they have pretty high customer satisfaction. I've never had any issues with them.

ThePope43 said:

Also are there any other sellers like OWC, or are they pretty much the only cream of the crop?

Click to expand...

Of course there are others:

- Small Dog Electronics
- MacMall
- Newegg
- Tiger Direct
- The Apple Store (you do have a $5500 gift card)!
- Macmemory.com
- CDW.com (used to be MacWarehouse)
- etc. etc.

...but why reinvent the wheel (???) when OWC has:

- great products
- great customer service
- low cost shipping
- Macintosh focused for years
- flexible return policies
- people all over the world order from them

HTH,

- Nick

Just a question Pope43... dont you think this is a bit overkill? when will you ever need 64GB RAM? 12 cores? Why dont you save a bit of money, maybe buy a nice 30" Cinema Display (or two)?

robduckyworth said:

Just a question Pope43... dont you think this is a bit overkill? when will you ever need 64GB RAM? 12 cores? Why dont you save a bit of money, maybe buy a nice 30" Cinema Display (or two)?

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You know, I thought about that, honestly. But I have been saving all my money forever always passing up on things I want. For me, and everybody has their on niche, my niche is just having a basses computer. I always am dabbling in things such as my most recent learning video editing and theres honestly nothing I'd want more than to just get an all out awesome computer. I already planned on getting two of their 27" displays, I didn't know they made 30" anymore?

ThePope43 said:

You know, I thought about that, honestly. But I have been saving all my money forever always passing up on things I want. For me, and everybody has their on niche, my niche is just having a basses computer. I always am dabbling in things such as my most recent learning video editing and theres honestly nothing I'd want more than to just get an all out awesome computer. I already planned on getting two of their 27" displays, I didn't know they made 30" anymore?

Click to expand...

Please take a little advice from a 26 year Macintosh User (this logic actually applies to all computers...Macintosh or other)...DON'T buy a super-duper computer setup like you're thinking of (12-core Mac Pro & 64 gig of ram)...unless you are some sort of graphics or video professional.

Although Mac Pro's do tend to hold their value a bit better than other Macintosh models (since Apple doesn't update them that often)...they still depreciate in value very quickly.

Also realize that there are VERY few applications that take true advantage of multiple cores...so having a 12-core Mac Pro will not do you very much good...other than scoring real well on benchmarking programs. Check out this link:

MPG - Mac Performance 101: Cores, Processes, Memory - Application support for multiple CPU cores

I agree with "robduckyworth" get yourself something a bit more reasonable...like:

- a nice quad-core i7 27" iMac
- then splurge on a nice 27" Apple Cinema Display
- and if you want to splurge even more...get yourself whatever new Apple laptop that meets your needs

A 12-core Mac Pro with 64 gig of ram sounds like a REALLY nice setup to brag about to your friends...but in reality...it's a BIG waste of money (unless you are a graphics or video professional).

You could even "think" a little more like a "soon to be married man"...and buy yourself & your soon to be wife matching computers...like two nice matching 15" laptops for example!

Just my humble opinions of course.

- Nick

sorry, I was thinking of the old displays.

If it were me with the money, I would go for a mid range Mac Pro. 12GB RAM will be more than enough for any rendering you need to do, unless you are planning to film a blockbuster soon You have expansion options, Its not gonna go out of date for a long time, lets face it.

this way, you will have more money to wave around at other things, instead of going all out on features you don't need.

Buy a new iMac, invest the rest in Apple stock. If Apple continues its upward trend, you'll have new computers every couple of years for the rest of your life.

I agree with the folks here. It may be nice to have a "Lamborghini" of computers, but if the speed limit's 55, what's the point apart from bragging rights?

(Bonus - you'll impress her folks with your fiscal responsibility and long term view!)

So I decided on a second option. I think I will buy my fience and myself a pair of the new iMacs and I will save the rest of the money for when I move to Kentucky and I will start repairing computers there while I attend UK and I will keep the rest of the money to start doing Mac/PC repair there.


Sound a little better?

ThePope43 said:

So I decided on a second option. I think I will buy my fience and myself a pair of the new iMacs and I will save the rest of the money for when I move to Kentucky and I will start repairing computers there while I attend UK and I will keep the rest of the money to start doing Mac/PC repair there.

Sound a little better?

Click to expand...

Hey you're the man...you do what you want with that $5500...just throwing some ideas your way to consider!

So what iMac's are you considering...the new one's just released?...21" or 27"?

You mentioned moving to Kentucky & going to UK...and while there doing some Mac/PC repair...and using the rest of the money for that. If this money is on an Apple gift card...how will this "Apple cash" help with your repair business? If you need to buy parts/supplies...you're going to be better off getting these items from various suppliers other than Apple (lower prices).

- Nick