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JasonK

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 10, 2008
97
0
Eugene, OR
I am buying a 8 Core 2.8 4GB Ram (from apple, not that it matters) Mac Pro (potentially) from a friend for $2200 which appears to be a great deal. I know the new machines are coming out, but I expect apple will still have a 8 core in their line up, and I don't expect it to be cheaper than this. I need two monitors and the added Ram, but the processing power is absurd for me. It is still under applecare and has very little use.
Now for my question: (This would be to people who own this machine or have used a mac pro and can give insight) I am a day trader running Parallels and a bunch of other web based software in OSX all the time. At any given moment I could have 10-20 windows open and demand them to give me fast feedback without lagging (I have a fast connection). I do some computational software, but not very hard, and my wife wants a machine to start recording on with Logic. Would I be satisfied getting a 2.66 4-Core from a refurbished store online (expercom.com) and boosting the ram or having 8-Core processing power and less ram? Any insight would be helpful, thanks!
 
go w/the 8 core!

you can upgrade RAM much cheaper - and you can little by little.

processing power will help when running a lot of apps.

i HIGHLY doubt you will be lagging with a 4 core. let alone an 8 core.

and even though 4GB of memory.. think back a year or two years ago. that was considered A BUTT LOAD.

my recommendation would DEFF be 8-core by far!
 
The 2.66 would be good enough, but the 8-core for $2200 is an awesome deal. You probably only need 4GB of RAM for the time being; you can always upgrade that later; don't forget it'll be only like $200 upgrade to like 8GB of RAM white upgrading the CPU would cost like $2000.
 
Thanks guys. Appreciated! I am going with the 8 core and planning on the upgrade of ram in the next couple months! I will update this forum with my impressions in a week or so.
 
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