Considering purchasing Mac Pro

[Jonesy85]

As of now, I have a 17" Macbook Pro that I purchased late last year that I love, but I really don't need the portability of a laptop. I'd rather have the power of a home work station. I believe I could sell the macbook for nearly all the cost of the imac, or the majority of the cost for the mac pro. So now I'm debating between the high end imac or the entry level Mac Pro. The main reason I'm considering the Mac Pro over the imac is I love the option to easily upgrade and change things around on my computer over time, rather than having to buy a whole new computer.

But the Mac Pro is $500 more, and I do not have a monitor as of now, but I do have a 40" HDTV that I can use for a few months until I save up enough for a proper monitor. Now my question is, is the entry level Mac Pro more powerful than the highest 27" imac, and over time, with the option to upgrade ram and such, do you think it's worth the extra cash?

The only thing strenuous I use my computer for is gaming. Now I know Mac is not the ideal choice for gaming, but I want to be able to play Final Fantasy XIV at medium or higher settings, and would really like to be able to play Diablo III at high settings when it comes out.

The only other thing somewhat strenuous I use my computer for is burning my DVD collection. I like having plenty of hard drive space for that and for backing it all up, which makes me lean more towards the Mac Pro since it's really easy to add more hard drives to.

Have any of you recently debated between a Mac Pro and imac and went with the pro? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Tomorrow]

I can't possibly fathom DVD burning being a burden on an iMac. And bumping up to a Mac Pro seems like such overkill (read: waste of cash), IMO.

A high-end iMac should be a fine gaming machine, I would think.

 

[Apple-Man23]

Other than gaming what do you plan on doing with your new computer? My guess off the bat is that the iMac is more than enough to do what you want to do.

 

[Jonesy85]

I've decided to go with the imac . You're right, the Mac Pro would just be overkill, and there's no sense spending all that extra money for something I don't need. And like I was saying, gaming is the only thing I would be using it for to push it to its limits. I'm somewhat interested in photography as well, but the imac should be good enough for that. I don't need to make a huge investment in anything more powerful than the imac.

Now I'm wondering, though, what I should expect to be able to sell my macbook pro for. I'm guessing ebay is my best bet for this sort of thing. The specs on it are as follows:

17" anti-glare screen
4gb ddr3 ram
2.8 ghz core 2 duo
geforce 9400m and 9600m gt
500 gb hard drive

With it still being in excellent condition, and having the box and everything it came in, any ideas on what I may expect to sell this for?

Thanks for the replies.

 

[vistadude]

Pricing the current 17" macbook pro with similar specs would give you roughly $2200. Given it's a year old I would try for $1800 in a newspaper ad.. Though most people would rather just by a new notebook for less. Good luck.

 

[ActionableMango]

Do a search on Ebay for your model and filter the results with "completed listings only". That will give you an idea of what your laptop is worth.