Mac Where To Buy In Toronto - Advice Please

[gvdv]

Hi,
I'm about to invest in a Mac Pro and wanted suggestions for where in Toronto (I live in Toronto) or Canada people would buy hardware and third party software.

I work very near Saved By Technology, and was there the other day, and the staff are friendly and somewhat knowledgable in terms of assembling a DAW (but that, after all, is there specialization). Third party memory here is expensive.

I really respect the technicians at Computer System Centre (at College and Spadina), but do not think a lot of the sales staff. The technicians have always made themselves available to give me advice over the 'phone; it's also good that they repair PC's and Macs. This place also sells third party memory, but they're very expensive.

There are a couple of other places, too (one at Bay and Dundas, opposite the bus station), and one at Broadview and Queen East, which are O.K..

I'm a bit dismayed at the cost of assembling a base level DAW - Mac Pro, 1GB Ram, 250 GB HD, 3.0 CPU is almost $5000 CAN., whereas a PC system for that amount would get you a couple of hard drives, 4GB Ram and a lot of good software, so I'm interested in trying to get a Mac Pro as cheaply as possible.

Thanks for any advice,
GVDV

 

[MT37]

Wow, that's a pretty expensive Mac Pro. Have you tried just going to Apple.ca, and building a Mac Pro there? I'm sure you can get a fair better deal then that on Apple.ca.

 

[BCains]

The one on Dundas Street, The DV Shop is an authorized Apple dealer.
For ram, its like $349 for 1GB ($360 online). You can try Canada RAM

Mac Pro Dual Dual-Core 3.0 GHz (same specs are you mentioned) - $4099 - DV
Mac Pro Dual Dual-Core 3.0 GHz (same specs are you mentioned) - $3800 - Apple.ca

And of course theres the apple stores:
Apple Store Eaton Centre
Apple Store Sherway Gardens
Apple Store Yorkdale

 

[OttawaGuy]

http://www.carbonation.com/
http://www.carbonation.com/contact/index.html

http://www.macdoc.com/

 

[cdarlington1]

Apple Store, Eaton Centre

Apple Store, Eaton Centre

 

[brad.c]

My fav VAR - Creative Technology - closed up shop when the Eaton Centre Apple Store opened, since they were off King by Yonge. My sales guy would give me great deals on everything non-Apple over the years, but had said the profit margins on Apple products was way too narrow to improve on.

That said, you may not get much of a deal buying through Apple or an Apple-authorized store fronts on current base systems. Since then, I've bought peripherals and components at TigerDirect.ca (caveat emptor), Vistek and CPUsed, but haven't tried the stores you've listed.

My first repair shop visit after CT closed was just yesterday to the Eaton Centre. Tyrone Solomon at the Genius Bar was excellent. If you already have a preferred repair shop, that's great, but you needn't fix where you shop.

 

[Raid]

Third party memory here is expensive.

I really respect the technicians at Computer System Centre (at College and Spadina), but do not think a lot of the sales staff. The technicians have always made themselves available to give me advice over the 'phone; it's also good that they repair PC's and Macs. This place also sells third party memory, but they're very expensive.

I too have this opinion of the Sales Staff at Computer System Centre, but if you're in that area, 'kitty-corner' (or near the North-East corner of the intersection) is Sonnam computers. It's a do-it-yourself kind of computer store (so you have to really know what you want), but the prices are cheap and quality/quantity is pretty good.

I'm a bit dismayed at the cost of assembling a base level DAW - Mac Pro, 1GB Ram, 250 GB HD, 3.0 CPU is almost $5000 CAN.

$5,000 CAD? you sure??? I went to the website and configured a Mac Pro (with all the specifications you posted) for under $4,000 (did you add a Cinema display?)

Subtotal $3,853.00
Specifications
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
1GB (2 x 512MB)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English

 

[filmamigo]

I've actually had good luck buying from CompuSmart. (Two locations, one in the Eaton Centre, and one on Yonge at... Richmond?)

They have reasonably priced third party RAM. They may not know much about Macs, but they display 'em and sell 'em and that's good enough for me.

The best part is that CompuSmart seems to clear out their inventory on a semi-regular basis. Their "clearance" prices are great for gear that isn't old. For example, I bought an iMac G5 1.8 for $1099 CDN, within days of the 1.9 being announced. I have also seen great clearout prices on G5s and Mac Pros.

Definitely worth a look, especially if you can wait a little bit for a deal.

 

[gvdv]

Hi Everybody,
Many thanks for all of your helpful replies.

I'm aware of some of the options mentioned (Sonnam for PC; Carbonation where they advised me to not buy a hard drive enclosure and sent me to Sonnam!).

Thanks for pointing out that the prices for the system I mentioned are cheaper via apple.ca; I got one of the guys at Saved By Technology to price my system over the 'phone and he came up with $5000 including tax, without a monitor.

I didn't realize that compusmart stocks macs.....

I will check all of this out.

Thanks so much, once again,
GVDV