Some tips needed before taking the huge step...

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Good morning or evening or maybe afternoon !

After 3 years of reliable service and very decent performance my Mac Mini will now be replaced by a Mac Pro, work demanding it. Before I take this big step however I do have quite a few doubts;

1. I consider the 2,8 Ghz 8 core to be powerful enough for heavy Photoshop tasks, as well as some web design and sound and video, and also Painter X (which definitely can do with as much power as possible), am I wrong ?

2a. I was thinking of buying the 2 gig Ram model, and then buying from OWC online the approx. 800 dollar cheap 16 gig Ram configuration which would save me an impressive 2800 Euros (more than 4000 dollars !!!!!!!). Is this a reliable solution ? Or is there some point in ruining myself with Apple Ram...
2b. IF I go for this Ram solution, will my Apple Care purchase be obsolete ? (If there is some problem and I send the Mac to Apple and they see my evil Ram in there will they go "aha, sorry sir but your Apple Care is useless for you have been an infidel and shall therefore be punished...) (bit irony there but you understand the concern...)

3a. As for the RAID card to allow the purchase of a SAS 15.000 RPM Hard Drive is there also a cheaper solution that works perfectly ? For Apple will charge me 694 Euros or almost 1000 dollars for their own RAID card... not very funny..
3b. You DO need to buy a RAID card right ? There is not any whatsoever installed in the basic model ?
3c. Apple Care is down the drain if I buy cheaper RAID Card from other vendor ?
3d. IS there a SAS Drive that is BIGGER than the 300 Gig model that would do a great job ? Say 500 for example ?

4. For music is there any hardware upgrade to consider ? Or is it all green lights with the core model?

5. Graphic Card. Now there I am also quite clueless. ATI or NVidia ? 512 Mo or 2x256 or even 3x256 etc... How important would the perfomance increase be with the different options ? Mainly I will be doing alot of Photoshop heavy tasks, but also like I mentioned Video and Sound/Music especially for Web and last but not least Painter X which is VERY hungry for power ;)

6. For Graphics and Illustration as well as alot of typographic art, which 24 inch monitor would best serve its purpose (some video as well). I would like to not exceed say about 1500 Euros... I am considering the LaCie 24" 324 Model for the moment.

7. Another RAM doubt; HOW is 16 Gigabytes best configured ? 2x8, 4x4, 8x2 ?
I heard that the performance can be easily increased only by choosing the right one... It seems 4x4 is the best, but also the most expensive.


I am sure I forgot a truckload of things but these are my main questions that I feel needs some inspiring input ;)

To sum it up here is the system I am on the verge of buying as of this very moment :

* Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
* 2GB (2x1GB) (plus the 16 Giga from OWC online)
* 320GB 7200-rpm ATA 3Gb/s (plus RAID and 15.000 drive from OWC)
* NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
* One 16x SuperDrive
* Mighty Mouse de Apple
* Idioma del teclado (Español) & Guía del usuario (En Español)
* AppleCare Protection Plan para Mac Pro - Auto-enroll
* And then like i just noted from OWC I would buy the 4x4 Gig RAM plus
RAID card and 320 Gig Hardrive 15.000 RPM.

This would be approx. 4000 euros or about 5500 US Dollars while the SAME configuration from Apple would be, yes indeed it´s quite amusing, a staggering 7500 Euros !!!!!!!!!! 10.000 Dollars !!!!!!!!! That´s a trip around the world !

There it is ! A swede freshly moved from Paris to Palma de Mallorca thanks you all for all input on this matter and wherever you are, be cool and happy ;)

Daniel
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Pro 14gb ram 24" LED Cd & 23" Cd
Buy it. DOn't worry about any other video cards. You won't need them.

also if you plan on only running one monitor you def. don't need any more video card.

For ram I have 14 gb and Its perfect . I am regularly using 6-10 gb at all times while running XP with parallels at 2gb ram.

I use 4 HD's in mine. One for time machine. One for OSX, one for scratch disk and one for WOrk files.

All Digital, photoshop/illustrator files s well as Carrera 6 and Logic pro.

I have never had a computer as good as this and my total cost is around 4k cause I got a real good deal on ram and HD's :)
 

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