Mac Pro - Customization Question

[goodwill]

Hi all,

I am considering purchasing a Mac Pro in the not too distant future and I am curious about how customizable the Mac Pro is after purchasing.

My budget is pushed by going for the powerful Mac Pro so I'm looking for advice on what I should add / spend my money on in the initial purchase and suggestions on what I should then add/purchase the third party vendor route.

For example, I know RAM is notoriously expensive through Apple and I am comfortable adding it myself so I am looking for recommendations along the lines of, 'go ahead and purchase X amount of RAM now with this capacity so you can purchase X amount later to maximize / scale the RAM to capacity later through third party content'.

Also, I am a graphic designer who typically hast 7-10 programs at once with 20 tabs open in Chrome so any suggestions on where I can achieve optimal performance in the graphics card etc and/or processing speed would be wonderful.

Essentially, I am looking to max out the skeleton of the Mac Pro at the least expensive cost while being able to build / add into it once it's been purchased.

Thanks for any suggestions in advance

 

[paulrbeers]

Hi all,

I am considering purchasing a Mac Pro in the not too distant future and I am curious about how customizable the Mac Pro is after purchasing.

My budget is pushed by going for the powerful Mac Pro so I'm looking for advice on what I should add / spend my money on in the initial purchase and suggestions on what I should then add/purchase the third party vendor route.

For example, I know RAM is notoriously expensive through Apple and I am comfortable adding it myself so I am looking for recommendations along the lines of, 'go ahead and purchase X amount of RAM now with this capacity so you can purchase X amount later to maximize / scale the RAM to capacity later through third party content'.

Also, I am a graphic designer who typically hast 7-10 programs at once with 20 tabs open in Chrome so any suggestions on where I can achieve optimal performance in the graphics card etc and/or processing speed would be wonderful.

Essentially, I am looking to max out the skeleton of the Mac Pro at the least expensive cost while being able to build / add into it once it's been purchased.

Thanks for any suggestions in advance

Processor (although this one will be tricky) and RAM are currently the only parts that are upgradable. OWC plans to have an SSD upgrade kit in Q3 so that's also a possibility. The GPUs aren't really upgradable, so if you need GPU power then you will want to go with the D700s right away (yes they are technically upgradable but due to their custom design....).

As for how much RAM initially, the 32 is actually fairly reasonable compared to buying separately, but otherwise I would just go with 12 and upgrade when you can (the SSD helps out a lot when you run out of RAM compared to old mechanical drives)