Should i upgrade from a 2008 iMac to a 2008 Mac pro?

ca9phoenix

ca9phoenix

ca9phoenix

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I currently have a 2008 iMac,

24''
2.8 C2D
4GB DDR2
128GB SSD (my own install)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB

The SSD really made things zip along however movie encodes etc are taking an eternity and i am playing steam games using parallels and it is really sluggish, can't boot camp as the current drivers do not support my mac, and to be honest parallels is happily running on my external drive any way.

Ive found for £1500 (including shipping and tax from usa) (without shipping and tax it's only £1010)

Apple Mac Pro 2x 3.0GHz Quad-Core (8 Cores) Xeon E5472 (Early 2008)
16GB DDR2
500GB
8800 GT 512MB

I can put my SSD in it and can also sell my iMac for perhaps £400

I wasn't really wanting to spend over £1k but it's close with the sale of my iMac.

Looking at doing this at the end of the month (pay day)

any other suggestions on a way of affording something quick and apple? (please no hackintosh)
 
for that i'm looking at a 20'' iMac 2.7 i7 but no SSD, i would void the warranty by putting my one in it. i only did it to my 2008 one after the warranty was up
 
For £1339 i could have a mac mini, 2.7 dual core i7 8gb ram and 256GB SSD.....

Or £1249 gets a 2.0 quad core server mini

surely 8 core 2.8 xeon would kick it's behind?
 
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My dilema is i have everything on an external 3TB Hdd and it is a desktop computer.

I want something faster for encoding and something that is going to play diablo 3 well and perhaps put windows back on to access my older steam games.

My current system struggles with anything other than the minimum settings in diablo and is about a 1:1 ratio in time to turn a M4V file to a DVD.

I need to upgrade but don't really want to spend more than 1K and that limits my options majorly with apple stuff
 
If you can hold off, wait until the new iMacs come around. Otherwise, pick up a refurb i7 iMac from Apple themselves. Gives you a display, a system that offers faster performance than the 8 core Mac Pro in most scenarios (I'm not going to claim all because I haven't had a look in a long time!), all for the same kinda money.

EDIT: For well under £1000 you'll be able to pick up a 21.5" refurb iMac, probably with a couple of hundred to spare. That would be a big upgrade in itself, though the 2008 Mac Pro would be faster (though considerably more expensive) purely due to the number of cores. They're in completely difference price ranges though!
 
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Any iMac or 15" MBP from the last two years will be happy with Diablo 3, others only at low resolution. lamboman said exactly what I was going to re: new imacs and refurbs. :)
 
hmmm there is a 21.5' 2.5ghz quad core i5 on there that would be quite an upgrade for £849, sell my current one and might have enough left over for an iphone 5......

have to see what i have spare when payday comes around then
 
I've decided I'm going to wait, get a new iPhone then save up and get a 27'' iMac when they next update. I'm not really in a rush.
 
How about buying a 2009 Mac Pro for £1000 (or less), flashing it to 2010 firmware and wacking a W3680 & a 6870 in there for £1500/1600?

Faster than the new iMacs will be, for sure.
 
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