MacPro / should I

[pigoo3]

think i got a good macpro then ? also comes with = now i did pay $950.00 for it. not sure if thats a fair price or not.

I'm glad you mentioned this!!! Because when I read your earlier post that you bought the Mac Pro...I was assuming you paid the $1300 you mentioned in the beginning of this thread.

$1300 would have been too much for this model Mac Pro. They're typically selling for $800-$1000...with the $950 you paid being a pretty fair price.

The Mac Pro you got is the original 1st generation Mac Pro released back in 2006. The currently selling Mac Pro's are 5th or 6th generation (depending on how you count it).

It's a good computer, you paid a fair price for it...and it's light-years more advanced than your old G4!!!

Have fun,

- Nick

p.s. You might want a better video card sometime in the future. But the 7300GT should be fine for most things.

 

[hotrod351]

well a fair price is better than over paying. i kept watching ebay for the last week and this seemed like the best deal. the average for a macpro is around $600.00 + but that hardly includes anything but the tower and cord. figured all the extras had to worth something, plus the osx lion upgrade. main thing is the intel processor. everything is going intel, wish mac would of done it sooner but it is what it is. i remember when the g5,s loaded were hitting $4000.00 + on ebay, now there $150.00. this should do me fine for many many years.

 

[RavingMac]

well a fair price is better than over paying. i kept watching ebay for the last week and this seemed like the best deal. the average for a macpro is around $600.00 + but that hardly includes anything but the tower and cord. figured all the extras had to worth something, plus the osx lion upgrade. main thing is the intel processor. everything is going intel, wish mac would of done it sooner but it is what it is. i remember when the g5,s loaded were hitting $4000.00 + on ebay, now there $150.00. this should do me fine for many many years.

It should, it's almost twice as fast as my MBP, which is still going strong.

 

[pigoo3]

well a fair price is better than over paying. i kept watching ebay for the last week and this seemed like the best deal. the average for a macpro is around $600.00 + but that hardly includes anything but the tower and cord.

I haven't checked on 1st generation Mac Pro's for a few months on e-Bay...so my $$$ estimates are on the high side. Like you mentioned...I did see some selling ("Buy It Now") in the $600-$700 range. Of course with e-Bay you usually have to add a bunch for shipping one of these "monsters"! You did get some extras...which add to the value. Ram for the 1st gen. Mac Pro's isn't cheap...so that 4 gig you got does add some value.

i remember when the g5,s loaded were hitting $4000.00 + on ebay, now there $150.00.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...the old "I remember when" stories...I got a list of these as long as my arm! Unfortunately a lot of sellers on e-Bay & Craig's List don't know this...and they still try asking wayyy too much for their older computers.

As I'm sure you know...almost everything in "computer land" is expensive when new...and next to worthless when old.

- Nick

 

[hotrod351]

saw that too. some asking $3500.00 or more. make a person look. like hey whats that thing got, hmmm, nothing, just a high price. in fact the g5s for under $200.00 seemed scary but thats all there worth. i picked up on for $150.00 plus $50.00 shipping but hey for $200.00 i figure i cant go wrong. ill either sell it or my old g4, dont need to backups.

 

[hotrod351]

well ive had my macpro for a couple days now. unbelievable difference between it and my old g4. first of all the playing of any online videos is instant, unlike my g4 which took forever, in fact everything moves at lighting speed. dont get me wrong, my old g4 digital audio as served me well for many, many years, and still runs perfect. i just knew with everything going to computers that need a intel processor i needed to upgrade. i always wanted a macppro but they were $3000.00 and up for many years. there still up there but you can find some for under $1000.00. thats still a lot of money considering you can buy a pretty nice toshiba, dell or gateway for that brand new. anyway im happy i bought it. the only thing im not to crazy about is the magic mouse, it get jittery. ive reset it a couple of times but thats another device to mes with at a later time, right now i went back to my old trusted logitech cordless mouse, it works great.

 

[pigoo3]

well ive had my macpro for a couple days now. unbelievable difference between it and my old g4. first of all the playing of any online videos is instant, unlike my g4 which took forever, in fact everything moves at lighting speed. dont get me wrong, my old g4 digital audio as served me well for many, many years, and still runs perfect.

Couldn't agree with you more...everything you said was "spot on"!

The Mac Pro is light years faster than an old Powermac G4 in every way. Just like you, I purchased a Mac Pro after used prices fell to 25-33% of it's original cost. And like you mentioned...the Powermac G4's & Powermac G5's are still fine computers for many tasks. If you use "vintage software" for a Powermac G4 (software from when the computer was new 10 years ago)...everything is fine.

Fortunately (or unfortunately)...software gets updated, OS's versions get updated, and the outside world changes (internet)...and these put demands on old computers that they just can't handle.

In any case...great to hear you're happy with your Mac Pro. Don't forget...with 4 video cards...you can run up to 8 monitors!

- Nick

 

[hotrod351]

yeah thats different, and theres got to be a way to run something different on each one, well maybe not, but yeah is something else. guess the dual dvd trays are so i can burn one disk to another. but yeah im happy, thanks pigoo3

 

[hotrod351]

that brings up another question. does it matter which port i plug my monitor into ?

 

[harryb2448]

The graphic card is usually marked port 1 and port 2. Personally with one monitor always use port 1. You are in for an exciting time as there is so much you can do to your Mac Pro to keep it up there. SSD hard drive would be the first suggestion, faster graphics as it may well have the nVidia 7300GT which was standard, and the extreme update a pair of Intel X5365 3GHz Quad Core CPUs.

Installed the 5355 2.66 Quads in my Mac Pro 1.1, together with a G.Skill Falcon SSD and an ATI Radeon HD4870 1GB graphics card and the Geekbench test mark went up to 9611, nearly 100% to the stock standard 1.1 Mac Pro.

 

[hotrod351]

no discs came with my macpro. if i were to loose my os what discs would i need to start over ? leopard ?

 

[harryb2448]

Leopard is pretty dear - even on eBay full retail install DVD will run you over the $100 mark. Your Mac Pro will handle Lion so either Lion on a USB thumbstick, $69.00, or Snow Leopard from Apple online at $29.00 and when running OS X.6.8 download Lion from the App Store, another $29.00.

If you choose the latter, make sure you burn a copy to a thumb drive or a DVD prior to installing.

 

[hotrod351]

i have lion 7.2 now. but if i were to loose it what would i have to go through to re-install it. seeing as i dont have any discs. i did clone my hard drive to my second hard drive, both are 750 Gb and ill never need that much space.

 

[harryb2448]

All you would need to do is be connected to the 'net and run Recovery.

 

[hotrod351]

but if i didnt buy the osx lion installed on my machine would lion recovery still work for me.

 

[harryb2448]

Boot and hold down the option key and see if the Recovery drive is listed. Suggest you purchase an extra drive and clone your boot drive with SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner. That way you will never be stuck.

 

[hotrod351]

thats what i did. i cloned my hard drive in bay one to my hard drive in bay two with CCC.

 

[harryb2448]

And does Recovery drive appear as suggested?

 

[hotrod351]

im leary about booting it. i can startup on my second hard drive. so i guess all is well.

 

[hotrod351]

just a update. i had cloned one hard drive to the other, started up on my second hard drive and everything worked perfect. cloned the second back to the first and started up on my first bay hard drive and same thing, perfect, been working perfect for quite a while now. must of been a fluke. that problem and the fact that when i started up on my bay #1 hard drive id have boot up my router every time to get a internet connection, anyway its been working for quite a while now perfectly. also bought a 1t external HD and setup time machine. now thats a great program. i already used the feature of going back in time to retrieve something i needed. anyway life is good for now. waiting for ilife 11 to arrive today. i really miss having iphoto.