Buying a New Mac Pro and need some advice

Hello everyone,

I am about to enter the world of Mac by purchasing my first Mac Pro.

I am getting the two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors.

One 750GB Hard Drive,

The ATI Radeon 1900 Video Card,

and I want to get either 4 or 8 Gigabytes of Ram. I am wanting to save some money, and I want to get the 8 GB, but if I get it through Apple there is no way I can afford it. When I look up the RAM at other places all I can find is unbuffered. Does this make a difference? I am probably going to get my monitors from CompUSA, and was wondering if I should just get the minimum ram from Apple and get some replacement sticks when I get my monitors. I am really into gaming and will be using this comp for working in Web design and program coding. I was wondering if there are any websites I should look at and exactly what I should be looking for in RAM for a Mac Pro. Also, I have been reading the rumors about the possible Mac Pro Upgrade that may be coming this month or the first of the year. Is this something that I might want to wait on or should I just go ahead and make my purchase now?

Any help would be much appreciated.

I just installed another two 2-gb Crucial RAM chips in my MacPro taking it to 9gb total RAM. I paid $264.98 total including shipping from www.newegg.com ( item # N82E16820148118 )

Your configuration's MSRP is $4,545 but if you pay $99 to join NAPP ( http://www.photoshopuser.com ) you can buy your MacPro configuration for $4,365 with free shipping. You save $80 net on the MacPro and get a years NAPP membership "free". NAPP is an awesome resource if you're planning to use Photoshop.

I recommend that you take the 250 drive and buy addtional 750gb drives after purchase. You can get open box 75gb seagates from www.newegg.com for $179.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134R
That would save you $275 over buying the 750gb Apple drive plus you'd still have the 250gb drive to use. We have six drives in our MacPro. They are so easy to install.

It will be cheaper to buy base model and upgrade it yourself. Fry's is having a special on a 500GB HD for $99. Those take 2 mins to install.
RAM is a little more difficult. Newegg.com always has great prices. You need buffeted RAM b/c the MacPro uses server processors (Xeon) so it requires server RAM (buffered.) You need to buy the RAM with the heat shield. I read an article about someone who put RAM in the machine that didnt have the heat shield. He kept getting error because the modules were getting too hot.

jees man what do you guys use your computers for those spcs are ridiculous lol

Mac_OS said:

jees man what do you guys use your computers for those spcs are ridiculous lol

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Batch processing RAW camera files and manipulation on occasion. Mainly for general computer use (Internet, burning CD's/ DVD's) while being an entertainment center, storing all my music and movies.

Hopefully i will find some inspiration real soon so I can shoot on a regular basis.

Thanks

Thanks for the help. I found the memory on newegg, and plan on getting it there. Is any internal hard drive compatible with a MAC or do I need to look for certain specs? Thanks for the tip with the NAPP membership, but I am using the student discount through my college and the Apple store. I doubt they would let me apply both, but I might check into becoming a member anyway just get help with photoshop when I need it.

Dude42 said:

Thanks for the help. I found the memory on newegg, and plan on getting it there. Is any internal hard drive compatible with a MAC or do I need to look for certain specs? Thanks for the tip with the NAPP membership, but I am using the student discount through my college and the Apple store. I doubt they would let me apply both, but I might check into becoming a member anyway just get help with photoshop when I need it.

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Internal 3.5" SATA HD. For optimal results, get a 7200 RPM drive or faster with a large cache (32MB for a 750GB HD).

bryphotoguy said:

Batch processing RAW camera files and manipulation on occasion. Mainly for general computer use (Internet, burning CD's/ DVD's) while being an entertainment center, storing all my music and movies.

Hopefully i will find some inspiration real soon so I can shoot on a regular basis.

Click to expand...

No Offence but why do you need 2 QUAD core processors for thats wheer you save the money jsut get a quad core you dont relaly even need that to process RAW files

Back to your original point the penrhyn based server processers are going to be the first to come out so i owuld wait because this is such a huge purchase

patch5674 said:

No Offence but why do you need 2 QUAD core processors for thats wheer you save the money jsut get a quad core you dont relaly even need that to process RAW files

Back to your original point the penrhyn based server processers are going to be the first to come out so i owuld wait because this is such a huge purchase

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I have the Quad (2- 2.66GHz Dual Core Processors.) I use DxO and was messing with 20- 1D Mark III RAW files and it took a considerable amount of time to process them.

Agreed the 8-Core would be extreme.

When are the Penrhyn processors going to be in the Mac Pro??
Someone said they would be in the Mac Pro when Leopard was released. (Thread in the Rumors section.) I knew that rumor wasn't true. Aren't each processor at least $1000? I STILL say 6 months to a year before the processors are upgraded in the Mac Pro. First, a processor upgrade isn't needed. They've been in the Mac Pro for a year now and still pulverize the fastest 2.8GHz Extreme C2D iMac which is the newest, fastest model Mac after the Mac Pro. Second, the processors too darn expensive. Apple doesn't increase the prices on their product when a upgrade comes along. Everything (cost) has to fit in a $2499 budget with at least a 20% profit margin for Apple. So the total cost of building a Mac Pro is somewhere in the $1900- $2000 if I had to totally guess. So I say at least 6 months before the processors can fit in that price range while accommodating all the other costs of the components.

Sorry for the off topicness of my posting. Hope your questions are answered Dude42.