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Price of ram for Early 2008 mac pro's, in the UK... WOW

Sharky II

Sharky II

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
1,002
404
United Kingdom
I guess i'm sticking to 2gb for a while then!!

At crucial it's 2-3 times the price of the memory for the 'old' mac pro's... crazy!!

£634.49 for 8gb (4 x 2gb) (that's $1,246.98 for american dudes!)
£336.04 for 4gb...

Anyone able to guess how long it'll be til the prices fall to a reasonable level?!

I guess i should have checked this before purchasing, but i doubt it would have changed my decision to buy... my mac arrives tomorrow ;)

Cheers :)
 
Sharky II said:
I guess i'm sticking to 2gb for a while then!!

At crucial it's 2-3 times the price of the memory for the 'old' mac pro's... crazy!!

£634.49 for 8gb (4 x 2gb) (that's $1,246.98 for american dudes!)
£336.04 for 4gb...

Anyone able to guess how long it'll be til the prices fall to a reasonable level?!

I guess i should have checked this before purchasing, but i doubt it would have changed my decision to buy... my mac arrives tomorrow ;)

Cheers :)
Click to expand...

You are very right!

Many people on these forums have happily imported from the US (e.g. OWC 8GB comes to around £300 with VAT etc on import) and the Music Store in Germany sells for approximately the same price.

But, personally I don't want the potential hassle (sending faulty RAM back, the potential arguments with Customs if they try and charge import/VAT on the replacement etc) of import but I don't want to pay rip-off prices either so as I can get by for the time being without a Mac Pro I cancelled my original order and am waiting to see what happens.

It is probably just me (I'm turning into a grumpy old man) but it seems to me to be bad customer relations on Apple's part to supply a cheap base model which clearly inadequate RAM (2GB shared between 8 cores is not much) and then charge literally 5 times the market (i.e.OWC's) cost for RAM upgrades.
 
Apple always have and always will rip you off when it comes to BTO options.

Buying from them is just stupid. Give it a couple of months and prices will hopefully start to fall. I couldn't in my wildest dreams justify Crucial's prices let alone Apple's.
 
Does anyone know why Mac Pro memory is so expensive? I was amazed at how cheap 2 x 1GB for the MacBook was (from Crucial), and Mac Pro 2 x 1GB is more than 5 times the price.

I don't know what's worse, having a new Mac Pro crippled by inadequate RAM or being ripped off by current RAM prices.
 
The memory in the new Mac Pro is (AFAIK) literally brand spanking new memory tech. Production is likely much, much less than that of the MB or MBP RAM, and because it hasn't been made for very long they're still recouping R&D costs. All these things work against us. This is what you get when you have the latest and greatest, give it time.
 
In what way does this new RAM differ from the RAM required for the 'old' Mac Pro machines? Is it just higher rated due to the faster bus speed of the system?
 
NATO said:
In what way does this new RAM differ from the RAM required for the 'old' Mac Pro machines? Is it just higher rated due to the faster bus speed of the system?
Click to expand...
It's faster, faster = newer. Newer = less systems using it. Less systems using it = lower production. Lower production = requirement for higher profit margins per unit.

I don't know, I'm not market expert, just guessing at the probable causes.
 
Ah, interesting to know it is faster, I'd somehow thought it was the same as the old systems. Just a curiosity really, I remember how extortionately priced RAM was when the Mac Pro was first introduced... my wallet remembers it better though ;)
 
Gonk42 said:
But, personally I don't want the potential hassle (sending faulty RAM back, the potential arguments with Customs if they try and charge import/VAT on the replacement etc) of import but I don't want to pay rip-off prices either so as I can get by for the time being without a Mac Pro I cancelled my original order and am waiting to see what happens.
Click to expand...

I don't think you need to worry about this too much. There is the odd stick or two out of hundreds that will sometimes be defective, but even if you import the RAM, ship it back and get it replaced it's still going to be cheaper than buying it from a UK outlet.

Nevertheless, you shouldn't have to pay any VAT on items sent out of the country for repair. With the Fedex VAT bill I got, there was an FAQ about this sort of thing, and you can file paperwork with them to ensure that on return to the UK, no VAT will be applied.
 
I agree, even if it was faulty then it will be cheaper to send back etc.

I placed 2 orders with Macsales.com(2x2gb and second order of 2x2gb), one via USPS that cost me £128 delivered (no import tax) and one via Fedex that cost £127 although I got stung with a fedex import bill of about £34!

Buy it from Macsales and if your in no rush, USPS.
 
the stock 2GB is still a lot of memory.

i'm planning to buy another 2x1GB sticks when prices hit about £50 a stick. With so many slots (8!) there is no need to be splashing on 4GB, or even 2GB sticks frankly, at the moment. One day i'll get this think up to about 6GB that'll be plenty for my needs
 
davem7 said:
I don't think you need to worry about this too much. There is the odd stick or two out of hundreds that will sometimes be defective, but even if you import the RAM, ship it back and get it replaced it's still going to be cheaper than buying it from a UK outlet.
Click to expand...

Logically speaking you are correct. In fact you could send it backwards and forwards about 5 times before the costs hit those of Crucial and you could fly out in person first class (probably) and still pay less than what Apple charges.

But phsycologically having had a lot of fun sending back and forth something as simple as a Microsoft keyboard in the past I'm not keen to repeat the experience across time zones and continents. Wimpy I know, but spending a lot of money on a computer I feel gives me the right to be wimpy!

If I needed the computer right now (as my son keeps telling me I do so he can play games on it), I'd go the OWC route but as I can hang on for a month or two I'll wait to see if Crucial drop their prices.
 
What would be good is if places like Crucial stopped selling the 667MHz modules and sold the 800MHz for all Mac Pros (I'm assuming it's backwards compatible) - then they would sell higher volumes and the price would come down.

Hmm, still can't decide whether to buy now or wait...
 
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