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Where to buy 2008 mac pro

W

wilycoder

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 4, 2008
337
0
Is there any place online that still sells the 2008 Mac Pro BRAND NEW?

I bet they are cheaper since the Nehalems came out....
 
I was planning on buying a 2009 MP, but I'm starting to seriously consider getting a 2008 2.8 8-core model instead. I notice that the price for the basic model at B&H is the same as the refurbished price at the Apple Store. Does anyone know if the one from Apple is really refurbished, or are they just calling their old stock "refurbished" to justify the price drop? Also, is the one at B&H new (nothing on the site seems to indicate it's refurbished, so I have to assume it's new)?

Anyone know of any other places to buy a 2008 MacPro?
 
mchalebk said:
Also, is the one at B&H new (nothing on the site seems to indicate it's refurbished, so I have to assume it's new)?
Click to expand...

I ordered one from B&H and it was new, sealed in a box. No where on the site or the invoice does it say "refurbished". I'm sure a place may be able to make a refurbished look like new... but if they were ever found out they wouldn't be in business much longer.

One nice thing about the B&H Mac is that it comes with Parallels and iLife '09... which the Apple 2008 doesn't (has iLife 08). Free shipping and no tax. From order to arrival was exactly a week (New York to Wisconsin) with UPS. There's and automated call a day or two before it's due to arrive to let you know the exact delivery day and that a signature is required.

Hope that helps.
-Dave
 
Actually I got a 2008 2.8gHz refurb Mac Pro in January and that shipped with iLife 09, so I imagine any ones since will do.
 
I've had a lot of luck with refurbs from Apple. I can't speak about refurbs by resellers. Apple offers the same warranty as the new systems and they seem to have pretty stringent QA on them...

I just got myself a refurb '08 2.8 8-core for about $600 less (taking sales tax into account) than the exact same system on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MA970LL...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1240426373&sr=8-1

I'll be sure to repost once I have it up and running.
 
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Right now I'm leaning towards ordering the 8-core 2.8 system from B&H. I'll do a bit more checking around, but I suspect I'll be ordering tomorrow.

Now I just gotta figure out how many HDs to add (and which ones). I'm leaning towards WD Caviar Black in the 640GB-1TB range.
 
I got mine on craigslist.
2.8, 8-core (harper), 8 gig ram, 750GB (32mb cache) Hatachi HD, two 500GB WD's, bluetooth w/ wireless keybd/mouse, 27 months left of AppleCare. $2,400.

Helps to live in SF bay area but I'm sure there are other deals out there. If not, go the the Apple store before they sell out.
 
Eyeful said:
I got mine on craigslist.
2.8, 8-core (harper), 8 gig ram, 750GB (32mb cache) Hatachi HD, two 500GB WD's, bluetooth w/ wireless keybd/mouse, 27 months left of AppleCare. $2,400.

Helps to live in SF bay area but I'm sure there are other deals out there. If not, go the the Apple store before they sell out.
Click to expand...

I live in a much smaller area and no MacPros show up on Craigslist here.

I'm curious why buying from the Apple Store would be preferable to buying from someone like B&H. If I buy from Apple, I'll have to pay sales tax for a refurbished unit (though I wonder if they’re really refurbished). B&H has the same price as the Apple Store, plus no sales tax and their units are new.
 
I went ahead and ordered the 8-core 2.8 system from B&H. I also ordered a couple of WD Caviar Black HDs (1TB and 640GB) from Newegg and 16 GB (8x2) of RAM from OWC. I think I'll be set nicely for years to come.
 
For anyone in the UK I ordered a refurb Mac pro 2.8 octo core from Jigsaw this morning for £1379 + vat (£1585.85 or $2307 with tax). They had 10 in stock (9 now). I upped the RAM to 6GB for an additional £78. Should arrive tomorrow.

I have spent the last few days deliberating over one of the new Nehalem Mac Pros, but didn't think I'd be lucky enough to find a 2.8 at such a good price. I called a few other retailers and was told a couple of times that Apple had taken back all the 2008 models as soon as the 2009 models were announced, which isn't usual.
 
Ralfy said:
For anyone in the UK I ordered a refurb Mac pro 2.8 octo core from Jigsaw this morning for £1379 + vat (£1585.85 or $2307 with tax). They had 10 in stock (9 now). I upped the RAM to 6GB for an additional £78. Should arrive tomorrow.

I have spent the last few days deliberating over one of the new Nehalem Mac Pros, but didn't think I'd be lucky enough to find a 2.8 at such a good price. I called a few other retailers and was told a couple of times that Apple had taken back all the 2008 models as soon as the 2009 models were announced, which isn't usual.
Click to expand...

If Apple have recalled all the old 2008 mac pro stock, it's a shame because they know they can't sell them for exactly the same as the previous retail price but at the same time, can't undercut sales of the new range by selling them too cheaply.

Brand new for £1,459 you could configure the 2.8Ghz base mac pro model with 1 CPU and wi-fi. That would have being my ideal system to aim for. I don't think for a second paying nearly £2,000 for the equivalent Nehalem Mac Pro with 3 useful RAM slots and expensive upgrade options is worth it, even if it does perform well.
 
barkmonster said:
Brand new for £1,459 you could configure the 2.8Ghz base mac pro model with 1 CPU and wi-fi. That would have being my ideal system to aim for. I don't think for a second paying nearly £2,000 for the equivalent Nehalem Mac Pro with 3 useful RAM slots and expensive upgrade options is worth it, even if it does perform well.
Click to expand...

So do you think you will order a 2.8 with 2 CPUs for £100 more?
 
johnsosn said:
Did you get it Ralfy?

How is it?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got it yesterday morning. So far I have only started it up once. Haven't installed any software yet as I am waiting to sell my G5 on ebay. I will swap everything over this weekend and report back on performance compared to the G5. One thing I did notice is that it is a lot quieter than the G5.

The machine itself came in its original box and is very clean and tidy. According to Jigsaw it was used by Apple as a demo machine, but not in-store. The only downside is that it didn't come with iLife 09. According to Chipmunk - http://tinyurl.com/c49o7 - it was made in Jan 09. I spoke to Jigsaw yesterday morning and they still have a dozen or so in stock.
 
Ralfy said:
So do you think you will order a 2.8 with 2 CPUs for £100 more?
Click to expand...

COST. I'd love to do that otherwise ;)

If you add Wi-fi to the current 2009 system, you get less for £1,938.99 in the 2.66Ghz 4 core Mac Pro than you got for £1,459.99 last year with the 4 core 2.8Ghz system, considering there's 3 practically useful RAM slots and the previous 2.8ghz 4 core system could use 2Gb RAM modules to "Cheaply" go up to 16Gb, maintaining it's full memory bandwidth. 12Gb using expensive 4Gb DIMMS is the only option for the 2009 model and I highly doubt from most benchmarks that the new 4 core Mac Pro is significantly faster than the old 2008 model. At least across the board.

I've seen last years' 8 core 2.8Ghz system on eBay for just over £1,500 which wouldn't be too bad if it was directly from Apple as a refurb/Clearance item but used system prices have become a joke over the past few years. There's even people having the cheek to want £400 for a used 1.83Ghz Mac Mini on eBay and they were selling for £325 on the Refurb/Clearance section of the Apple Store when the new models came out!

The used prices should be more reasonable like this:

Apple Store Prices of OLD STOCK / Private Sale of USED system

2008 Mac Pro 2.8Ghz 4 core: £1,299 / £1,200
2008 Mac Pro 2.8Ghz 8 core: £1,599 / £1,400

And not a penny more :D

If I find a 2008 Mac Pro at some stage when I'm more capable of raising £1,200 to £1,400, I'll be looking for one of those systems. I'm really thinking I'm priced out of anything other than an entry level Mac book these days!

If you look at the cost of RAM upgrades it gets worse, lets assume you want maximum bandwidth and exactly the same amount of RAM (12Gb). It works out like this:

2008 Mac Pro + 10Gb Crucial RAM (all 8 slots MAX bandwidth):

2Gb (2 x 1Gb included with system) + 4 x 2Gb (£210.44 crucial) + 2 x 1Gb (£62.09 crucial) = £1,732.52 total

2009 Mac Pro + 3 x 4Gb (£1108.59 Crucial) = £3,047.58

And you've had to give up the 3 sticks of RAM it came with and leave 1 slot empty to maintain interleaving of the DDR3 it uses.
 
dmg3d said:
I ordered one from B&H and it was new, sealed in a box. No where on the site or the invoice does it say "refurbished". I'm sure a place may be able to make a refurbished look like new... but if they were ever found out they wouldn't be in business much longer.

One nice thing about the B&H Mac is that it comes with Parallels and iLife '09... which the Apple 2008 doesn't (has iLife 08). Free shipping and no tax. From order to arrival was exactly a week (New York to Wisconsin) with UPS. There's and automated call a day or two before it's due to arrive to let you know the exact delivery day and that a signature is required.

Hope that helps.
-Dave
Click to expand...

Weird. I bought a 2008 2.8GHz 8-core near the end of last March at the Apple Store and it had iLife '08 pre-installed, but it did come with an iLife '09 disc. I suppose it's just luck of the draw with manufacturing dates.
 
Duff-Man says....I've been trying to decide between a new Nahelem Mac Pro or saving a few $$ and getting one of last years models. After much indecisiveness I was again browsing B&H looking at both offerings when I noticed that they now had last years 3.2GHz 8 core systems for $2899 new in box - sheesh, the refurbs are $4099 from Apple at the moment. Well, seeing that basically made up my mind for me and I pulled the trigger on my credit card. Added an airport card and another 16GB ram...will be a great improvement over the old G5 dual 2.5 I sold last month...oh yeah!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

Geez, that's an amazing deal and you get the 8800 card upgrade. Even had me thinking what I could do with the 2.8 octo I just got so I could get this system, but I don't think I can swing it. Nice deal you got though
 
Duff-Man said:
Duff-Man says....I've been trying to decide between a new Nahelem Mac Pro or saving a few $$ and getting one of last years models. After much indecisiveness I was again browsing B&H looking at both offerings when I noticed that they now had last years 3.2GHz 8 core systems for $2899 new in box - sheesh, the refurbs are $4099 from Apple at the moment. Well, seeing that basically made up my mind for me and I pulled the trigger on my credit card. Added an airport card and another 16GB ram...will be a great improvement over the old G5 dual 2.5 I sold last month...oh yeah!
Click to expand...

Holy crap! THAT IS a great deal!
 
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