if I had $25,000, I'd configure a Mac Pro for $19,000 and buy a car with the rest.
Umm, wouldnt a $19,000 car and a Mac Pro with the rest be more sensible?
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Has anyone actually bought a maxed-out $24,000 Mac Pro?
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Umm, wouldnt a $19,000 car and a Mac Pro with the rest be more sensible?
Umm, wouldnt a $19,000 car and a Mac Pro with the rest be more sensible?
Cars depreciate faster than Mac Pros
Fwiw
One thing to consider: If you order everything built from the factory, you're pretty much assured of care and warranty issues remaining intact. That's important to me.
Being a Mac person for more than 20 years, I prefer to stick with Macs, but I'm looking to get a Mac Pro maxed out for both video and audio. It will be used everyday for work in my studio, and occasionally wrung out in 3D animation and MIDI for the development of enableware using onscreen instruments with specialized controllers.
Therefore, I want fast rendering times for everything, but I'm a one-man operation (at least for now).
I'm on SS Disability. Any advice on how to get the gear paid for?
TIA,
Ken N.
One thing to consider: If you order everything built from the factory, you're pretty much assured of care and warranty issues remaining intact. That's important to me.
Being a Mac person for more than 20 years, I prefer to stick with Macs, but I'm looking to get a Mac Pro maxed out for both video and audio. It will be used everyday for work in my studio, and occasionally wrung out in 3D animation and MIDI for the development of enableware using onscreen instruments with specialized controllers.
Therefore, I want fast rendering times for everything, but I'm a one-man operation (at least for now).
I'm on SS Disability. Any advice on how to get the gear paid for?
TIA,
Ken N.
Have you looked into government grants?
Other than that, I'd think a small business loan would be the most likely source of funds, but not sure now due to the current financial markets.
Sorry, I don't have any other ideas.
Good luck.
I'm certainly nowhere near the $24K guy, but I just ordered a pretty tricked out Mac Pro. Mine is 2x 3.2Ghz Quad, 16GB Ram, 2x Optical, 2x WD VelociRaptor, 2x WD Caviar Black, ACD 30" and 8800GT.
Needless to say I bought the RAM and HDs from NewEgg and saved a ton. I also bought the hardware through work at a substantial vendor discount. The total cost is around $7,500 and is going to be legitimately written off as a business expense.
Now the question is, do I need this much power? I doubt it, but I don't plan to have it all go to waste. I do a lot of video transcoding and we all know that more cores is better if you don't want to wait. I went with 16GB of RAM because it's so darn cheap. If Chris Pirillo can pimp a 32G USB Flash Drive for $80, then I can certainly drop 16GB of DDR2 into a MAC Pro.
While I agree that the linked poster with $24K to burn is a moron, we all know that, as enthusiasts, we have a lot of gadgets, gizmos and horsepower that we don't *need*. Just have a look at the 9x SSD RAID 0's out there (http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/), or those on the Futuremark forums with triple-SLI GeForce 280's (http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=399229&compareResultType=19) and nitrogen cooled PCs (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/5-ghz-project,731.html).
Anyway, looking forward to moving from a PC to a MAC and am sure I'll get as much value as can be had from my tricked out Mac Pro.
Needless to say I bought the RAM and HDs from NewEgg and saved a ton. I also bought the hardware through work at a substantial vendor discount. The total cost is around $7,500 and is going to be legitimately written off as a business expense.
Now the question is, do I need this much power? I doubt it, but I don't plan to have it all go to waste. I do a lot of video transcoding and we all know that more cores is better if you don't want to wait. I went with 16GB of RAM because it's so darn cheap. If Chris Pirillo can pimp a 32G USB Flash Drive for $80, then I can certainly drop 16GB of DDR2 into a MAC Pro.
While I agree that the linked poster with $24K to burn is a moron, we all know that, as enthusiasts, we have a lot of gadgets, gizmos and horsepower that we don't *need*. Just have a look at the 9x SSD RAID 0's out there (http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/), or those on the Futuremark forums with triple-SLI GeForce 280's (http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=399229&compareResultType=19) and nitrogen cooled PCs (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/5-ghz-project,731.html).
Anyway, looking forward to moving from a PC to a MAC and am sure I'll get as much value as can be had from my tricked out Mac Pro.
A lot of people don't think people would buy RAM and the like from Apple. I am fairly sure that a few firms have. Companies pay a higher price for convenience.
For me personally, i would never spend 24k on a mac pro even if i had it as spare change.
reason being, i love the idea of starting with the base configuration and then being able to customize it the way i want as time goes by. Fixing new cards, adding more ram, getting more HDs.
Call me silly, but that was a major part of the appeal and i find it fun.
reason being, i love the idea of starting with the base configuration and then being able to customize it the way i want as time goes by. Fixing new cards, adding more ram, getting more HDs.
Call me silly, but that was a major part of the appeal and i find it fun.
If you are receiving Social Security Disability benefits (for sash), why do you need a maxed-out machine for audio and video production? Do you make money off these projects?
Or maybe some people who care more about getting stuff done than troubleshooting individual components.
I haven't ordered a $24,000 Pro, but we have a small number of the currently $15,198 (minus monitors) spec at work, as well as more (apparently) usual-for-here specs. I used to have three 3.2/8-16Gb/FX5600/SAS RAIDed (once again, no third party stuff) examples at home but two are now awaiting disposal, having been supplanted by Dell Precisions.
Thanks!
Sales rap may drop some percentage for you, but only 'may', it's entirely up to him, there are no special programs...
sash
The *only* reason I could dropping this much coin is for warranty purposes. Now, I don't doubt there are some pros out there that need a machine spec'd like this but to buy a base machine and then buy third-party RAM, HDDs, Video Cards, etc. means that if for some reason there is a massive failure of a third-party part that impacts another part of the MP then Apple isn't going to cover it with AppleCare. Having said that, the MASSIVE cost of Apple RAM, premium on HDDs and other parts is a pretty steep price to pay just to make sure you're covered by AppleCare. In fact, the money you save by buying third-party stuff could be enough to buy a replacement machine should there ever be a failure of that nature.
Well I dragged my mom to the Apple store last Friday...she was impressed with the Mac Pro especially...it had a (piano) keyboard hooked up along with Logic Pro and a 30" cinema display. She almost died when me and the Apple store guys told her that it can be configured to cost as much as $24,000. (Actually, it gets worse: on the way home, she called my 77-year-old grandmother, who also happens to be getting a new computer soon, and told her jokingly that we got her a maxed-out Mac Pro. )
But (and I was very surprised) my mom did say that if it wasn't for the Mac Pro's "obscene price tag", it'd be the one she'd get, because she likes the cinema displays and the "cheese grater" look. I told her it's probably going to be done away with soon so she'd better grab one quick before they're all gone. 
)But (and I was very surprised) my mom did say that if it wasn't for the Mac Pro's "obscene price tag", it'd be the one she'd get, because she likes the cinema displays and the "cheese grater" look. I told her it's probably going to be done away with soon so she'd better grab one quick before they're all gone.
I wouldn't say dumb. There are people that just do not want to touch anything. They want to open the box and turn it on, nothing more. I'm sure many studios have ordered a fully configured MP before - with ram and HDD's.
Never seen a receipt for $25,000 on one computer... but my university comms department did drop 2.5 million on updating the building's labs with 23" ACDs and pretty high end Mac Pros.
Configuring a Mac Pro, then adding 98 more of the same configuration, then adding 99 vTraks isn't a big deal everyone.
The only thing good about buying the parts directly from Apple is that they will be covered under Apple Care, after that, it's nothing else. I still wouldn't buy from Apple but it does have it's advantages for some people.... I guess.
Configuring a Mac Pro, then adding 98 more of the same configuration, then adding 99 vTraks isn't a big deal everyone.
The only thing good about buying the parts directly from Apple is that they will be covered under Apple Care, after that, it's nothing else. I still wouldn't buy from Apple but it does have it's advantages for some people.... I guess.
I Have a plan for when i go to Uni.
Other than Ram & HDD's, buy a fully spec'd Pro, and one ****ing big lock lol. I decided that i would run it for atleast 4 years, so the £4,000 would be worth it (Atm would get me 2 30" ACD's, 16Gb Ram and 4Tb, god knows what in 2 years.... And a nice fat HE Discount....
Not needed? Maybe, but i'll probably be doing alot of rendering, so saving a few hours over the rest of the class
Other than Ram & HDD's, buy a fully spec'd Pro, and one ****ing big lock lol. I decided that i would run it for atleast 4 years, so the £4,000 would be worth it (Atm would get me 2 30" ACD's, 16Gb Ram and 4Tb, god knows what in 2 years....
And a nice fat HE Discount.... Not needed? Maybe, but i'll probably be doing alot of rendering, so saving a few hours over the rest of the class
Seconded.
I heard Rush Limbaugh (the conservative radio show host) dumped $14,000 into his Mac Pro in 2006. I'm guessing the only way to do that is to buy Apple RAM/hard drives (which are CRAP a lot of the time... my first mac pro hard drive was a Maxtor (FAIL), the RAM was cheap too)
I have one in my business for doing video work, its great however it uses more electricty than my oven haha, its a case of turning it off as much as possible.
Definitive proof that conservatives are technologically illiterate and out of touch (And really rich).
I don't think I would ever spend over $4000 for a computer.
I spent $1,999 on my Mac Pro, and I love it to death. Just don't buy any hardware components from Apple (other than the video card, of course). I upgraded the RAM an extra 2GB, and added a 500GB HD. Both of these would've cost me at least $400-500 from Apple, I managed to do it for under $200 from NewEgg.com
Yea I agree with you, usually I'd like to spend $2500 for a nice notebook or desktop and my usual maximum is around $3500 but $4000 is my absolute maximum and I have a feeling the only way I'll spend that much is probably on the new upcoming Gainstown Mac Pro.