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Should I do something about this?

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nazmac21

nazmac21

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 25, 2007
507
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Digital World
My obsessed-with-Apple friend is going to buy a 3Ghz, 16Gigs of RAM, nVidea Quadro FX 4500 Mac Pro, with 2 23" Cinema Displays for heavy gaming and making HD movies. Is this good for him or I should stop him.
PS: He does have a 17" MacBook Pro, but he uses it for Web Browsing and Music Making/Remixing.
PS 2: He can afford the Mac Pro.
 
nazmac21 said:
My obsessed-with-Apple friend is going to buy a 3Ghz, 16Gigs of RAM, nVidea Quadro FX 4500 Mac Pro, with 2 23" Cinema Displays for heavy gaming and making HD movies. Is this good for him or I should stop him.
PS: He does have a 17" MacBook Pro, but he uses it for Web Browsing and Music Making/Remixing.
PS 2: He can afford the Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

16 GIGS OF RAM!??!? :eek:
 
nazmac21 said:
My obsessed-with-Apple friend is going to buy a 3Ghz, 16Gigs of RAM, nVidea Quadro FX 4500 Mac Pro, with 2 23" Cinema Displays for heavy gaming and making HD movies. Is this good for him or I should stop him.
PS: He does have a 17" MacBook Pro, but he uses it for Web Browsing and Music Making/Remixing.
PS 2: He can afford the Mac Pro.
Click to expand...


It's nice to have rich friends :D
 
just wondering:

How much is he going to spend on this monster?

Is this a NEW or used machine?

Is the HD movie making for business or fun?
 
Odds are he doesn't know what he is doing if he is order 16GB or ram. Especially if he buys it from Apple!

I'm not saying there aren't legitimate uses fo 16GB...I'm just saying odds are he won't benefit much beyond 6-8GB.
 
He's going to spend around $18,000 (I would too, if I could)
He's going to be making HD movies for fun and entartainment.
It's a new machine
 
there's absolutely no way he'll notice a difference between a mac pro with 8 GB of RAM and one with 16. But then again, if he has enough money, I guess he won't notice the price difference either.
 
16GB of RAM is excessive, and an FX4500 is not for gaming. He would be better with 4GB of RAM and an X1900XT. If he needs more ram then get it in the future. My guess is he would be wasting thousands of dollars for no reason, which regardless of finances is daft. Getting some Western Digital Raptor hard drives will also help. While I understand he might just prefer a single machine, the best thing would be to invest in a gaming machine rather than all that memory and non-suiteable graphics card in addition to a Mac Pro.
 
hayduke said:
Odds are he doesn't know what he is doing if he is order 16GB or ram. Especially if he buys it from Apple!

I'm not saying there aren't legitimate uses fo 16GB...I'm just saying odds are he won't benefit much beyond 6-8GB.
Click to expand...

I would imagine you are 100% correct.
 
My friend thinks this machine will last him 20 years. Also, I think the Quadro FX 4500 is better for gaming than the Radeon X1900, just look at Apple's Benchmarks on the Mac Pro page.
 
nazmac21 said:
My friend thinks this machine will last him 20 years. Also, I think the Quadro FX 4500 is better for gaming than the Radeon X1900, just look at Apple's Benchmarks on the Mac Pro page.
Click to expand...

It won't last him 20 years, computing won't even be anything like it is now in 20 years. Memory isn't going to prolong the life of his computer, just make his workflow better. The FX 4500 is not better than an X1900XT for gaming.
 
nazmac21 said:
My friend thinks this machine will last him 20 years. Also, I think the Quadro FX 4500 is better for gaming than the Radeon X1900, just look at Apple's Benchmarks on the Mac Pro page.
Click to expand...

20 years? I think not. Look at a top of the line machine from even 10 years ago, let alone 20. Still a viable everyday machine? :rolleyes:
 
I fi had that much money, I'd rather buy 6 or 7 iMacs for my school...I hate using that.....*shudder* Vista...:(

I mean, really.....16gig of Ram is insane.....how much does Apple Ram cost anyways?
 
He's will be going to the Apple Online Store in a couple of hours (on his 17" MacBook Pro:p ). Should stop him before he spends that much money?
 
Yeah, he'll really get a lot of use out of those extra 4fps in Doom (according to Apple's site)! Woo! Totally worth the extra cost. Here are some better benchmarks:

http://barefeats.com/quad03.html

Scroll down a bit. Yeah, it's a good card, but it's definitely not worth it for the price. Sheesh. That money could do so much good, yet it's going to be wasted on an insane system he'll get barely any value out of. What a waste.
 
nazmac21 said:
He's will be going to the Apple Online Store in a couple of hours (on his 17" MacBook Pro:p ). Should stop him before he spends that much money?
Click to expand...

he's buying completely the wrong machine for his use based on some deluded notion that more expensive = better.
 
Oh, to that post that said he should just buy a Gaming Machine, my friend would never buy a PC, EVER! He is a mac-only, even at work.
 
Why do I have a feeling this is some high school kid trying to mess with us?

A mac for hard-core gaming?
16GB of RAM?
Thinks it'll last for 20 years?

Please.
You don't get that wealthy being that dumb.
 
nazmac21 said:
Oh, to that post that said he should just buy a Gaming Machine, my friend would never buy a PC, EVER! He is a mac-only, even at work.
Click to expand...

So he's obviously not a heavy PC gamer then? 3Ghz, 4GB RAM, X1900XT and a couple of Raptors in RAID 0 and 2 750GB drives in RAID 1 would be more than adequate I would imagine.
 
xfiftyfour said:
Why do I have a feeling this is some high school kid trying to mess with us?

A mac for hard-core gaming?
16GB of RAM?
Thinks it'll last for 20 years?

Please.
You don't get that wealthy being that dumb.
Click to expand...

You also don't need to be wealthy to drop thousands of dollars on a product though.
 
He is wasting his money.

It will not last 20 years. By then, we should be using quantum computing or some sort of clockless system.

16GB is way too much for making HD movies. As others said he will get zero benefit as opposed to having 8GB. 8GB might even be a bit much. Besides, since 16GB isn't needed right now why waste the money and by the RAM at todays prices. In 5 years, the cost would down to say $1200 for 16GB.

Quadro is not a gaming card. Yes it handles gaming, but the added cost comes from drivers that make rendering 3D in realtime go from 10fps to 60fps. If he is not rendering 3D content, he doesn't need a Quadro.

To be blunt, you should stop him. He obviously knows nothing except for how to spend money (which obviously doesn't take much intelligence).

Having the money to buy something doesnt mean you should buy it. And your comment about how you would spend $18000 if you had it supports that. I guarantee most people would never realize the difference between an $18000 computer and a $2000 because the average does not tax the system.

I will give you this, a Mac Pro is a good choice for making HD movies. But his poor choices in configuring show that he does not know what he is doing. I would even go as far to say that he doesn't even make HD movies but maybe wants to.
 
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