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Considering Buying Mac Pro

I

iLikeMac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 9, 2007
26
0
After being a devout Mac user for years, about a year and a half ago I bought a PC gaming laptop which while I loved it at first has become quite a nuisance over time. I'd love to go back to Mac but I'm not that familiar with the way they work anymore. I would prefer it to be fairly high end though not over the top expensive. I play one game, World of Warcraft, that would need to run phenomenally but I'm not sure what of the available video cards for the Mac Pro would enable me to do that without spending a lot of money unnecessarily.. I'd also use the computer for graphics design and programming. I guess my question overall is what would be overkill in a Mac Pro and what would be a reasonable price to pay for the machine to do what I want/need it to do.

Thanks for any response.
 
The Mac Pro is quite outdated in specs (the Quad hasn't been updated since August 07, 2006, and its been 158 days since the Octo was introduced) so if you're looking for great specs and your machine is still fine for now, I would wait for the next update...
 
How long until the next update?

Unfortunately my machine isn't very fine for now at all, which is what encouraged me to start looking in the first place.
 
Basically - the mac pro with the upgraded video card would run WoW just great, and everything else.

99.9% of the people here will tell you it's a waste of money and to wait for an update.
 
iLikeMac said:
How long until the next update?

Unfortunately my machine isn't very fine for now at all, which is what encouraged me to start looking in the first place.
Click to expand...

No one knows for sure. There has been no information on this from apple.
 
Which would be the upgraded video card? That just mean the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB?
 
That is my number one issue at the moment. But I am quite frankly fed up with PC's, I have never had a bad experience with a Mac, so I'm willing to pay the extra.
 
iLikeMac said:
That is my number one issue at the moment. But I am quite frankly fed up with PC's, I have never had a bad experience with a Mac, so I'm willing to pay the extra.
Click to expand...

Likely the new iMac 24" will do everything you need. I've been kinda eyeing them up. Played with one in the store. Very nice.
 
iLikeMac said:
Cool I'll take a look. Can you configure the iMac?
Click to expand...

Yes and no. You can change RAM, hard drive and also the CPU if you want, but you can't change the video card. I actually just returned my 24" iMac after a whole fiasco with the screen not being properly lit and strange coloration and bumped up to a Mac Pro. I also got to pick a new 22" Samsung monitor to go with the system. I think I'll be much happier this time around. Now I just have to wait to get everything in a few days.
 
Ok, well my question then is does it have the graphics capability that I'm looking for.
 
Awesome.

So what kind of difference would I be noticing between an iMac like this:

Specifications
spacer.gif
* 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
* 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 750GB Serial ATA Drive
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* Apple Mighty Mouse
* Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
* AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
* Accessory kit
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
* 24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
* AirPort Extreme
* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR


and a Mac Pro like this:

Specifications
spacer.gif

* Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
* 4GB (4 x 1GB)
* 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
* One 16x SuperDrive
* Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
* Mac OS X - U.S. English


Again, thanks everyone for the info, the quick responses are greatly appreciated.
 
iLikeMac said:
Awesome.

So what kind of difference would I be noticing between an iMac like this:

Specifications
spacer.gif
* 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
* 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 750GB Serial ATA Drive
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* Apple Mighty Mouse
* Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
* AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll
* Accessory kit
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
* 24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
* AirPort Extreme
* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR


and a Mac Pro like this:

Specifications
spacer.gif

* Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
* 4GB (4 x 1GB)
* 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
* One 16x SuperDrive
* Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
* Mac OS X - U.S. English


Again, thanks everyone for the info, the quick responses are greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...


A pretty freaking large difference. Under no circumstance can that iMac compete with that Mac Pro.

ESPECIALLY considering the boosts you can get from even more ram, faster drives, and the raid possibilities.

Everything else aside (newness of built, cost factor), the Mac Pro you listed DESTROYS the top of the line iMac, especially if you start throwing in some Raptors and a Raid0 or 2.
 
Not even sure what the Raid or Raptors entail, but I'm wondering if the increase in performance is worth the few extral thousand dollars.
 
iLikeMac said:
Not even sure what the Raid or Raptors entail, but I'm wondering if the increase in performance is worth the few extral thousand dollars.
Click to expand...

Just save yourself some money on the Mac Pro by buying extra hard drive space and RAM from a 3rd party. That will already save you a lot of money instead of paying for it with a BTO option.
 
Even though the Mac Pro is outdated in spec, its still a stellar machine. the X1900 XT is an amazing card. for WoW, you're looking at 60+fps pretty much all the time. It is that good.

A refresh would just make the MP a nicer option to go for. Along with a few hundred off ;)

The noisiest thing about my Mac Pro is infact, the graphics card. The fan on that is loud, but my tower is in a enclosure too, so it boosts its sound which explains it :rolleyes:

Anyway, good luck with your purchase. Just try and hold out for a while longer. I have a feeling that an update wont be till Christmas by the signs of Intels roadmap (and if Apple gets new Penryn chips early)
 
Willis said:
Even though the Mac Pro is outdated in spec, its still a stellar machine. the X1900 XT is an amazing card. for WoW, you're looking at 60+fps pretty much all the time. It is that good.

A refresh would just make the MP a nicer option to go for. Along with a few hundred off ;)

The noisiest thing about my Mac Pro is infact, the graphics card. The fan on that is loud, but my tower is in a enclosure too, so it boosts its sound which explains it :rolleyes:

Anyway, good luck with your purchase. Just try and hold out for a while longer. I have a feeling that an update wont be till Christmas by the signs of Intels roadmap (and if Apple gets new Penryn chips early)
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks again everyone for the info.
 
If you don't know if you need a Mac Pro, then you probably don't need one.

My suggestion would be to pick up an iMac.
 
iLikeMac said:
Not even sure what the Raid or Raptors entail, but I'm wondering if the increase in performance is worth the few extral thousand dollars.
Click to expand...

If you don't know what a Raptor is, or a Raid, you don't need a Mac Pro.

A raptor is a 10,000 rpm drive, which spins faster, but has a lower capacity (usually 150gb nowdays).

A raid is using more than physical disk together as a virtual disk. A Raid0 uses 2 disks as 1, splitting the data between them to incrase read/write performance. A Raid1 is when data is simultaneously mirrored across more than 1 drive, giving you instant backups and redundancy.

Most people who want a Mac Pro at least consider those options as a reason for buying, I know I did. If you didn't even know what they were, just get the 2.8ghz imac and be done.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
If you don't know what a Raptor is, or a Raid, you don't need a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

Gotta disagree with you on that one. Most owners of Mac Pro's aren't individuals like you and me. They're businesses in the photography/digital arts world who rely on these powerful machines to earn a profit. They have zero interest in gaming and could care less about faster boot-up or faster disk access with a WD Raptor main drive. Yes, they may possibly have a need for striped RAID 0. For sure they have a need for mirrored RAID 1. Just because someone doesn't know what a Raptor or RAID is doesn't disqualify them in my books from needing a Mac Pro.
 
Just to be clear here, even a stock Mac Pro will blow away a 2.8ghz iMac, right?


I just returned a 24" 2.4 ghz iMac over the weekend after a long hassle with tech support, nothing but problems with uneven backlighting/yellow-brown screen coloration and exchanging not fixing the problem. So I bit the bullet and went with a new base model Mac Pro that I'll just add my 150 Raptor and some other SATA drives I have into once I get it. I like the idea of being able to somewhat upgrade these machines since I'd been building my own Windows boxes for years, but got tired of it and don't have time for it anymore.

So I guess I'm just looking for a little reassurance here. The 2x dual 2.66ghz system should smoke even the new high-end iMac, right? I bought the baseline video card since I don't play too many of my PC games anymore, but I'll probably still install Boot Camp for just that reason and upgrade to a x1900XT if I REALLY just have to have a better gaming experience. I'll add more RAM soon too... just didn't want to spend a fortune paying for it at the time of purchase when I know I can buy it much cheaper later.
 
ndriver182 said:
Just to be clear here, even a stock Mac Pro will blow away a 2.8ghz iMac, right?


I'll add more RAM soon too... just didn't want to spend a fortune paying for it at the time of purchase when I know I can buy it much cheaper later.
Click to expand...



Yes, it will blow it away.

Get at least 2 gigs of ram, 4 if you can. A Mac Pro with 1 gig of ram will choke on alot of apps and seriously slow your machine down.
 
Go with 4 gigs or get an upgrade from crucial...I didn't feel like this Mac Pro was the computer I paid for until I went to 4 gb.
 
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