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2009 Mac Pro Question

theforce

theforce

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
20
0
Hi all, I had a 2009 iMac which died. I don't have a lot of money to spend. I was either considering a Mac mini 2.8Ghz with 2TB fusion drive or on eBay someone is selling a 2009 Mac Pro, here are the details, the Mac Pro is $200 less, should I go for the Mac Pro ?
  • Model: Early 2009
  • CPU: Intel Xeon Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel QPI)
  • RAM: 24GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ECC (2x8GB, 2x4GB)
  • SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
  • HDD: 4.5TB 3XHDD (2TB, 1.5TB, 1TB)
  • GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT 512MB
  • DVD: 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support
  • WiFi: AR5BXB112 MIMO Wireless WIFI Card 802.11a/b/g/n 450M Dual-band 2.4/5 GHz
 
theforce said:
Hi all, I had a 2009 iMac which died. I don't have a lot of money to spend. I was either considering a Mac mini 2.8Ghz with 2TB fusion drive or on eBay someone is selling a 2009 Mac Pro, here are the details, the Mac Pro is $200 less, should I go for the Mac Pro ?
  • Model: Early 2009
  • CPU: Intel Xeon Processor X5690 (12M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel QPI)
  • RAM: 24GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ECC (2x8GB, 2x4GB)
  • SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
  • HDD: 4.5TB 3XHDD (2TB, 1.5TB, 1TB)
  • GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT 512MB
  • DVD: 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support
  • WiFi: AR5BXB112 MIMO Wireless WIFI Card 802.11a/b/g/n 450M Dual-band 2.4/5 GHz
Click to expand...

If it's good condition and full working order yeah. Ask for the system Diagnostics Report and pics of the motherboard.
 
It does say it's in good condition. And in perfect working order. I've seen screen shots of it starting up and showing the system profile that everything is recognised. The guy has a 100% score and has sold other Mac pros with no negative feedback
 
theforce said:
It does say it's in good condition. And in perfect working order. I've seen screen shots of it starting up and showing the system profile that everything is recognised. The guy has a 100% score and has sold other Mac pros with no negative feedback
Click to expand...

You will still need to upgrade that graphics card and SSD to something respectable. So compare the system price and specs to other Mac Pro.
 
If it's just to store music photos and videos, nothing more, no video editing or photoshop stuff, should I still update the graphics card and ssd?
 
theforce said:
If it's just to store music photos and videos, nothing more, no video editing or photoshop stuff, should I still update the graphics card and ssd?
Click to expand...

Your good then no need to upgrade anything depending on your programs installed that drive is more than enough to hold the operating system. My install only takes about 30gb in total for everything now that does not include my music or video which are stored on other drives but that machine has boatload of excess storage for you to put stuff on. Hell since you will only have SATA II speeds you could bypass the SSD for install and use one of the spinning drives if you need massive boot volume it would only be few extra seconds boot time. BTW even if you did video editing or photoshop stuff you have the most important parts needed for them anyways the processor plus good amount of ram, the graphics card is not involved much in them tasks. Really that machine is overkill for what you want to do the vast majority of the time that ram and processors are going to be wasted sitting idle always good to have the excess when needed though so cannot hurt. Good luck on the purchase if you grab it.
 
Can I run dual monitors of this card or will I need to get that changed ?
 
Bought mine on Ebay apprx. 4 years ago, still running strong. Various upgrades over the years, couldn't be happier :)
 
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