I've been wrestling with the idea for a long time now, 5 years to be exact... I always had a thing for Mac computers, the design, the way their software 'flows' and the overall experience. The only thing stopping me was 1. The Price, and 2. Teething troubles.
You see, I do a lot of media production at home in my spare time for fun, and sometimes a little extra cash too. So I couldn't afford to buy something 'cheap' as it were, if I was going to get a mac, it'd have to be the dog's privates with no compromises.
After a good few years of watching OS X improve, and Windows XP stay it's same stale self, I have decided to take the plunge. So, on Monday at around 2pm I ordered a new Mac Pro with this config:
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR3
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mac OS
As you can see I kept it pretty much stock, this was so I could get the best prices on RAM, HDDs etc. But as a recent convert from Windows, I have a few questions.
While I have used OS X at work a fair bit, I would still consider myself to be a newbie to Apple's wonderful operating system. Are there any guides for 'Windows Pros who now want to migrate to a better system, and want to know the facts' out there? Any simple little tips that a Windows user may benefit from knowing? Keyboard Shortcuts? Etc.
Also, I will be editing uncompressed 1080p video fairly often so I will need a fast RAID... Will 3 new Seagate 1tb SATA drives in RAID 0 be sufficient? Or should I get a 4th & use that as a boot volume AND video drive? Or are there other options? I have a budget of around £500 max for this side of things, and I'd like to ideally have as much fast space as I can. Don't worry about the backup side of things, I have that sorted already.
And lastly, with 8-Cores I understand that after effects would benefit from having 16mb of RAM (2gb per core) Is the 800mhz Mac Pro RAM from macsales.com my best bet? Or will I have issues ordering from US to UK? What about the stock 2gb, can that be used alongside the 16gb from Macsales? Will it affect performance etc?
Anything Else I should probably know about? I don't like surprises too much, haha.
Thanks ever so much,
Dan (Mac Noob, Newly rescued from Windows)
You see, I do a lot of media production at home in my spare time for fun, and sometimes a little extra cash too. So I couldn't afford to buy something 'cheap' as it were, if I was going to get a mac, it'd have to be the dog's privates with no compromises.
After a good few years of watching OS X improve, and Windows XP stay it's same stale self, I have decided to take the plunge. So, on Monday at around 2pm I ordered a new Mac Pro with this config:
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR3
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mac OS
As you can see I kept it pretty much stock, this was so I could get the best prices on RAM, HDDs etc. But as a recent convert from Windows, I have a few questions.
While I have used OS X at work a fair bit, I would still consider myself to be a newbie to Apple's wonderful operating system. Are there any guides for 'Windows Pros who now want to migrate to a better system, and want to know the facts' out there? Any simple little tips that a Windows user may benefit from knowing? Keyboard Shortcuts? Etc.
Also, I will be editing uncompressed 1080p video fairly often so I will need a fast RAID... Will 3 new Seagate 1tb SATA drives in RAID 0 be sufficient? Or should I get a 4th & use that as a boot volume AND video drive? Or are there other options? I have a budget of around £500 max for this side of things, and I'd like to ideally have as much fast space as I can. Don't worry about the backup side of things, I have that sorted already.
And lastly, with 8-Cores I understand that after effects would benefit from having 16mb of RAM (2gb per core) Is the 800mhz Mac Pro RAM from macsales.com my best bet? Or will I have issues ordering from US to UK? What about the stock 2gb, can that be used alongside the 16gb from Macsales? Will it affect performance etc?
Anything Else I should probably know about? I don't like surprises too much, haha.
Thanks ever so much,
Dan (Mac Noob, Newly rescued from Windows)