Mac Pro questions - please help

[drcoffee]

Hi there, I’m considering buying a Mac Pro, but would really like to know a few things before I take the plunge (I’ve always been PC based). Sorry about the list, but this will be a big commitment for me (being on a very tight budget).

1) Is it worth waiting for Leopard to come out? Or will I be waiting forever?

2) Does a Mac Pro use normal PC Hard drives? (cheap expandability)

3) Is it possible to wipe the Mac Pro OS and solely run windows?

4) Does a Mac Pro take PC Graphics cards? If not what’s the difference?

5) Would a Mac Pro out perform a similarly priced PC (Dell 690, HP xw8400 for real time HD editing?

6) Why is Mac Pro RAM so expensive? Is there a cost effective alternative?


Many thanks, any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Jon

 

[Lezbo007]

1) Who knows how long Leopard will be not hard to upgrade when it does come out if you buy now. But if your waiting for the Octo cores may be worth waiting? But i would get one now.

2) Yes, mine had a normal seagate 250Mb Sata. i have now added 3 more hdds.

3) Best way is to add a new hard drive and use Boot Camp. I have heard of people using using mac pros as PC's so i guess it can be done.

4) Yes and no. If you buy a PC ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB You can Flash it to run on the Mac. The difference is the firmware and also a special Apple power plug. But you have to use the exact models that Apple offer and then flash them (exact). If you just whack any PC graphics card in a Mac Pro it wont work on the Mac but it will work on Windows if you run it on your Mac Pro.

5 ?? its a PC! with mac OSX and a Apple Logo. You could build a almost an exact same rig or better. (esp Video Cards, SLI, You could also go Opteron Have faster and cheaper memory) As a lot of Pro programs (video, Imaging Apps) Now use The Graphics GPU a lot these days A similar HP, Dell what ever with a 8800GTS or High End Quadro card would out perform a Mac Pro At the moment. I expect the Mac Pro to get updated Graphics soon I hope..But the Mac Pro is great value for the hardware you get.

6 Apple are a rip off!! You can get cheaper 3rd party RAM with even better quality. however it is still expensive any registered ECC Ram is expensive

 

[moss918]

3) Is it possible to wipe the Mac Pro OS and solely run windows?

Isn't it easier to just get a Windows machine? Why would you want to do this?

 

[Stretch]

Welcome to M-F.

1. No one knows when Leopard will be released, other than Apple. Upgrade costs are nothing like Windows, so you can buy now and not worry too much. Plus, if you do decide to upgrade, it will be almost like you got another new computer.

2. Mac Pros use normal SATA drives, so any SATA drive should work once formatted.

3. Yes, but if you plan on doing this, I would NOT suggest buying a Mac, go look at a Dell or something else.

4. No, Apple's card have different firmware for the Apple OS. As for what the previous poster said, I have no idea if PC cards will even work if you are running just windows.

5. If you are running Mac OS X on the MAc and Windows on the PC, then I'd say that the Mac will be equally as fast, or faster, but I'm not 100% positive on this.

6. That type of RAM is expensive. Whether you get it from Apple or 3rd party, either way, its expensive. As for Apple's being more, not always true. I've seen Apple's be cheaper than some reputable 3rd party sellers.

 

[drcoffee]

Cheers guys, things to think about. I think I may get one sooner rather than later.

Jon