A few questions (complete Noob)

[Remis]

I'll skip the life story...

1. Can you use PC PCIe graphics cards in Mac Pro's that aren't sold by apple? (ie, ATi 2900)(Am talking about under OSX, not XP/Vista)

2. We all know apple ram is $$$ (espically in South Africa). Can I use this ram
"Kingston ValueRam KVR667D2D8F5/2Gi intel validated ECC FB-DiMM with AMB , 2048mb ddr2-667 ( pc2-5300 ) , dual rank x8 , CL5 , 1.8v , 240pin - lifetime warranty" in a Mac Pro?
What pin size do they take?

3. Can I use PC Sata harddrives in a Mac Pro? How compatible are Mac's with PC based external drive housings?

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm a complete noob with Macs at the moment, have been working with PCs my whole life...

 

[ab2650]

I'll skip the life story...

1. Can you use PC PCIe graphics cards in Mac Pro's that aren't sold by apple? (ie, ATi 2900)(Am talking about under OSX, not XP/Vista)

2. We all know apple ram is $$$ (espically in South Africa). Can I use this ram
"Kingston ValueRam KVR667D2D8F5/2Gi intel validated ECC FB-DiMM with AMB , 2048mb ddr2-667 ( pc2-5300 ) , dual rank x8 , CL5 , 1.8v , 240pin - lifetime warranty" in a Mac Pro?
What pin size do they take?

3. Can I use PC Sata harddrives in a Mac Pro? How compatible are Mac's with PC based external drive housings?

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm a complete noob with Macs at the moment, have been working with PCs my whole life...

1. No*, only in Windows not OS X. (* I've heard of people flashing firmware on cards to recognize them in OS X, but its only the same cards OEM).

2. Other brand memory should work as long as it matches the specs. What you noted sounds a lot like this set at Newegg.com. So (most likely) yes.

3. Yes, you can use SATA drives in your Pro. If you want to WRITE to them, you can't keep them in NTFS partitions; I suggest FAT32 if you're looking for Windows/Mac interoperability, or HFS if you want speed and journaling. You can get whatever enclosure you want really; USB, Firewire400, FW800... but not eSATA as far as I know.

HTH

 

[Remis]

Thanks for the help.

Will probably wait a few months to see if the new Mac Pro is released before buying.

Gonna be a long wait....

 

[ab2650]

Thanks for the help.

Will probably wait a few months to see if the new Mac Pro is released before buying.

Gonna be a long wait....

It might be... I read somewhere on the forum that a prudent idea may be to wait until Nov-15 to see if there's an announcement on updated Pro specs. If there isn't, then the next likely date would be some time in January.

It's all speculation. Keeping your few grand in the bank is a good idea if you don't yet need the Pro. But when you do, buy it rather than wait.

 

[byakuya]

if you need to have different file systems (I do have a ntfs external as well...on which I do have to write data with my macbook from time to time) it might be worth to take a look at macfuse.
I have written a little something where to get all the stuff needed to have write access on a NTFS drive under OS X.
I hoped that with leopard there would be native write support for ntfs volumes (which would make sense in my opinion with boot camp reaching final status) but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case (?)