Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Help me choose a Mac Pro, please..

D

DarthTreydor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 25, 2007
292
0
Richmond, VA
I am going to purchase a mac pro and I'm deciding between the current single processor quad-core and a refurb model of the previous gen mac pros. here are the specs:

Refurbished Mac Pro Quad 3.0GHz Intel Xeon
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
2GB (4 x 512MB) memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT with 512MB memory

Price: $2300

or

New Mac Pro Quad 2.8GHz Intel Xeon
One Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor
2GB (2 x 1GB) memory (800MHz DDR2 FBDIMM)
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
One 16x SuperDrive

Price: $2150 (w/ edu discount)

I'm very torn. Here's how I broke down the pros and cons for each one.

Refurb Model Pluses:
Faster clock speed
Faster FSB
Better video card (?)

New Model Pluses:
Bigger HDD
Faster RAM, 2x1 instead of 4x512
Possibility of upgrading to 8 cores later (maybe?)
Bluetooth
Fancy Box
Cheaper

Aside from basic stuff (itunes, safari, etc) this computer will primarily be used
to record and edit music in logic pro. So what do you guys think is the better buy? Any insight is greatly appreciated.
 
id go and spend the little extra for the new one, it will probably respond alot better in performance than the older one, when using logic pro
 
DarthTreydor said:
Refurb Model Pluses:
Faster clock speed
Faster FSB
Better video card (?)

New Model Pluses:
Bigger HDD
Faster RAM, 2x1 instead of 4x512
Possibility of upgrading to 8 cores later (maybe?)
Bluetooth
Fancy Box
Cheaper
Click to expand...
No question - get the new model. Refurb is not actually faster in real world test, because I believe that it is the NEW model that has a larger cache (not sure about the FSB). Also FW 800 is faster on the new model, PCI buses are better, etc. If the older model was a bit cheaper than the new model, maybe, but really the only thing that might be better on the Clovertown is the older (and problem plagued) video card,

barefeats: "Also, you might not be aware that the Harpertown has a larger L2 cache -- 6 MB versus 4 MB. Plus the North Bridge now has a 24 MB snoop filter which maintains an index of all cached data in each processor. This significantly reduces data traffic on the FSB, providing lower latencies and greater available bandwidth to handle requests between CPUs. (See Apple developer note for more detail.)

You can see the gains the new architectures provides when a 2.8GHz "Harpertown" can keep up with the 3.0GHz "Clovertown" in the Cinebench and Geekbench tests."

http://www.barefeats.com/harper.html

Edit - I see you are thinking about the single processor model - how much is the new double processor with education discount? Given the choice of a new single 4 core 2.8 processor vs the older 8 core 3.0 processor, I'd change my vote to the older model.
 
I actually just purchased a new single quad Mac Pro and it's absolutely brilliant. Whether or not it's faster than the old 3,0 quad... I'm not exactly sure.

The facts are that the new system has a higher FSB : 1600 mhz compared to 1333. Also, the new Mac Pro has 12mb of cache compared to the old system which possessed 8. The ram is also quicker in the new Pro, which was a big thing for me. Check out this link :

http://www.macworld.com/article/131782/2008/01/macprobench2.html?t=205

Some benchmarks comparing old and new. The numbers should give you some legit insight as to how well the quad performs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back