Mac Pro - Should I ?

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

Soldato
Joined
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Hi,

Im just about to sell my PC as I seem to use it once a fortnight to play a game for 30mins and thats it! Only real reason for keeping it is for storage and backup for everything on my macbook pro. But Ive had a good offer for the PC which I cant really refuse!

I was just wondering what peoples thoughts are on Mac Pros, they're obviously a great bit of kit but expensive. If you were to buy one would you just get the basic one and keep it for years or do you think it will soon be old tech and you would start to see a slow down on things you're doing?

I mainly use my MBP for graphic/web design so its not stuff that is overly powerful, but I do find my MBP slowing down sometimes which really gets irritating! Espcially when I have Parallels running alongside OSX and a good few apps.
Would a base spec mac pro with 8GB ram keep everything running smoothly for a good few years or would I be needing to upgrade again?
The money mac pro's need is a lot so buying something would really have to be an investment for 5+ years.

Another question, can iMac's be used as a second screen for my MBP? If the mac pro is overkill then I might be tempted to sell my Dell 24" and get a 24" iMac, but then again I would love to have 2x24" with a mac pro eventually!
 
well an iMac is out of the question then!

Just dont know whether I need the mac pro or whether saving the money for a while and just using my MBP will do fine! Only thing I can think of missing with selling the PC is the very odd bit of gaming my MBP cant handle
 
couldnt fit mbp/24" and imac on my desk!

its really between MBP+24" Dell+mac pro or just leave it as MBP+24".

~£1000 for a mac pro is expensive ubt its really an investment i think
 
Well Im definitely selling my PC, might just stick the cash in another account and see if I can afford a mac pro in a few months! Otherwise i will just stick to my MBP until it dies lol
 
Definitely not getting hackintosh because everytime Ive gouth a pc/built it, I have spent twice as much keeping it running normally. Hard drives dying or motherboads etc etc
MBP been reliable for 2 years so I want to move 100% away from windows and only have it as VM on a mac.

I think ill look at keeping the money in 1 account for a few months and hopefully get something for about £1500 with 2GB ram and upgrade it myself. Cant see me needing more than 8 cores anytime in the next 5 years lol
 
BusError said:
Well seems it'd be safer to spend the money as quick as you can instead of having it in a bank ;-)

I also run my second machine as a *beeeeeep*intosh, my first being a 2*G4 1.42 (!). I'm hesitating to get a MacPro now, or wait for the upgrade... My problem is that an upgrade is surely going to require DDR3 which I find silly, and very expensive... I'm used to 8GB too you know :D
Click to expand...

That the thing, paying £1500~ and in a few years its classed as old tech, but would it be slow? Thats another question.

Only real thing holding me back besides money at the moment is only certain GPU can go in there. If more GPU were available for mac pro then it'd be even easier to decide.

I mean DDR3 will be faster than DDR2, but if you have 8GB DDR2 now, do you really even need DDR3? Everything wiuld run perfectly on a 2x2.8quad 8gb ram, even in 5 years it probably would, its just being picky and always wanted the best!
 
If I downgraded the CPU to a single quad core, can I then buy a quad core myself to make it 8 core? or if I pick the lowest 8 core can I upgrade it to the 3.2 myself?
 
Is there a mac pro upgrade coming soon then? On the macrumours buyers guide it is 60 days overdue but is the event/conference on 14th jsut for the laptops?
 
Im still debating between new macbook pro or mac pro & eee pc.

Whenever I do work I sit in a room with a 24" monitor, but an EEE might be too small to watch films/US tv shows on everynight!

Nehalem will be a good bit faster, but do you need the extra speed at the moment? I know 8-12GB ram and a 2x2.8ghz quad would do me for a good few years
 
If I bought a 2nd hand mac pro, that was still in its 1 year warranty, can I get 3 year warranty added with HE discount? If so, how much?
 
ok if it was bought under HE discount it automatically gets 3 year warranty, does this show up on the website when you check serial number? ive put a 2nd hand mac pro serial number in and it says september 11 2009 is when warranty runs out, but the mac pro wa bought Ireland HE discount I think.
 
Ah ok thanks a lot :)

Was after a new macbook but its pretty pointless really with the spec bump, think I'll stick with getting a mac pro and either selling my macbook pro for an eee type laptop if I need to!

The mac pro's are likely to get refreshed in January aren't they? So buying a 2nd hand one now a good price would be around £1300-1400 for the base spec?
 
Looks like Im joining the mac pro club anyway!

Any tips for raid?
Ideally I want to get a 2x1TB drives to mirror on top of the 320GB but cant afford the 2x1TB right now.
So I'd buy 1 and then buy another a few weeks later and mirror it, or would I have to wipe all the data? :(
 
Ill hopefully use the 320GB for OSX and Vista and 2x1TB for all my storage. But for now it will be 2x500GB coming from my PC.

I found out that if you buy an Inno3D 8800GT 512mb, there is a bios out there which you can flash and it will work in osx/vista which is good because I didnt fancy paying Apple £150 when you can get 8800GTs for £70-80.
 
Ive only ever looked on Crucial, i think Kingston might make it though?

Get my mac pro on Tuesday! Can't wait ! :D

£100 is the cheapest ive found it thats going through USPS which whenever I have done i havent been stung for customs. Customs checks every courier item but not all USPS items as there are too many, might get lucky, might not :)
 
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Woohoo!

MP.jpg


More images here :

http://www.tomsinclair.co.uk/random/Mac Pro/1.JPG
to
http://www.tomsinclair.co.uk/random/Mac Pro/19.JPG
 
2x2.8ghz quads
320gb hdd
1tb hdd - from ocuk
2600xt - getting 8800GT/4870 in a few weeks. Probably 8800GT and flash it myself.
2x2GB ram
2x4GB ram

Flies through anything at the moment, just waiting for Adobe CS4 to show up!
Spent most of today backing things up from my PC, found an app so you can jsut stick in NTFS drives and copy data straight over, 65mb/sec quicker than over a wireless network! :D

Partitioned my 1TB drive into 800/130GB. 130GB going to be Time Machine for my OS drive!
 
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haha gwon oli you know you want to! :P
I cant decide whether to sell my MBP and get a netbook or not! Feel like Im wasting the mbp's power just sat here being used for an hour a day lol
 
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