Advice-Buy early Mac Pro 2gz 4GRAM for £690, or save for later model?

The earliest model...... just want to get some opinions here before taking plunge..drawbacks for me 1)I don't like the idea of not being able to update the OS 2) dont like the fact it doesnt run 64 bit natively...plus side 1) It will be a major upgrade for me, as am using g4 ppc and can run Snow L 2)I can afford it (just) can I pick some minds re price and how long its likely to last? I mostly use my mac for video and music..what exactly will I need to watch HD video? am wavering whether to milk my g4 until I can save enough, or take the plunge and start saving again...

I think you are both mistaken, and exaggerating. Plus this got some good input from your friends on MacRumors.
Booting a 64-bit kernel is all it lacks as you should have gathered by now.
Runs 64-bit apps fine. There were lots of threads on forums etc about 64-bit drivers/mode and what it means (or not). Maybe in 3 yrs will 64-bit kernel matter more, but today? now?
I don't know what US$ is but if you want "more modern" Apple Store Specials.
Refurbished Mac Pro 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon $US2200 is a better investment.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB871LL/A?mco=MTEzMzA3MDk
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro
3 yrs ago when it was new it would have been a great upgrade from any G4. Today you could buy an iMac and probably be happy and satisfied.
So the only reason is you think Snow Leopard might help, and in that department I'd say wait a year or until 2011. No compelling reason today.
Good reason to stay with 3 yr old Mac, it runs 10.4.11 (Intel, so you need the OEM DVD it came with probably). Tiger for Intel Mac was never sold retail.
Best reason to buy: you need it and can't do what you need now; these things are darn quiet!
Plan on upgrading the graphics to ATI 4870 and throw in an SSD system drive, plus a 1TB data drive. I'm sure you'll find it fine.

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Advice buying new mac pro

Im in process in buying mac laptop-mac pro 15 or 17 inch-new for business
I have never owned apple software/hardware. CUrrently have sony vaio laptop and also pc desktop with adsl broadband.
wondering about few queries.
1. will mac pro work in my existing wireless internet home (considering net/modem (external) are linked to pc desktop)?
2. stability of running PC software if needed on mac pro?
how effective, stable are parellels an bootcamp?
3. when is the leopard operating system available (in Australia?) ? should i wait till its released so its already part of bundle?
4 mac pro laptop compatibility with PDA phones (DOPOD? JASJAM--I mate)? --which are windows based platform phone/ORGANIZERS?
hoping for some honest answers--I have never used mac before. Just heard good things about them.
Cheers

+1. will mac pro work in my existing wireless internet home (considering net/modem (external) are linked to pc desktop)?+
It should, assuming your home wireless is a standard 802.11 type of thing.
+2. stability of running PC software if needed on mac pro?+
+how effective, stable are parellels an bootcamp?+
In Boot Camp, software should be exactly the same as on a PC.
In Parallels, software should generally be fine unless it makes use of more exotic features or hardware, like special display modes.
+3. when is the leopard operating system available (in Australia?) ? should i wait till its released so its already part of bundle?+
The official line is October, as with elsewhere in the world. If you have need of a Mac now, then it makes no sense to wait. If it's more of a "can survive for now" situation, then it's really personal choice.
+4 mac pro laptop compatibility with PDA phones (DOPOD? JASJAM--I mate)? --which are windows based platform phone/ORGANIZERS?+
I think this would depend on the particular device, but in general don't expect features like synchronisation to work in OS X if they rely on Windows software (such as Outlook).

Compatible HD for Early Mac Pro 2008

Hello All,
I have two failing drives in my early Mac Pro 2008 and its time to find some replacements. The drives I need to replace are 1TB in size but I was looking to get something larger being 1.5TB. I read on a site that this version of Mac Pro supports a maximum of 4TB accross all the four bays which would essentially mean a maximum of 1TB for each Bay. Here is the link to the site: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/faq/mac-pro-how-to-upgrade-hard-dr ives-what-type-supported.html
Question I have, is whether its safe to add two 1.5TB drives (I also have a 640GB for the boot and 500GB additional data drive) or should I stick with 1TB drives? Also, is there any advantage in going beyond the 3Gb/s Serial ATA spec as I would suspect the faster drives would not be utilized to their capacity given the older data path in this machine.
Any help/advice would be appreciated and thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Vin.

You can put any make and any size 3.5" drive in all the bays in any combination. Also SATA 3's will work but of course at not their full maximum speed as you mentioned so SATA 2's are OK.
As an example, if you got 4 3TB's you could stuff them in there for a max of 12TB. Bit of overkill unless you really need all that space!
Personally I like Western Digital 1TB and 2TB blacks.
You might also want to consider using an SSD as your boot drive.
Update: I took a look at that site you linked. That 4TB limit is the max any one drive bay can support, not the total capacity across all 4 bays.

I plan to buy a mac pro 13 inch, any discount for corporate company workers

i plan to buy a mac pro 13 inch, any discount for corporate company workers
13-inch: 2.4 GHz

Possibly if your company has an agreement with Apple and the machine is purchased through the company. Otherwise, no.

I intend to buy new mac pro, is it better to wait for the new OS X mountain, or can buy it and we can update it without affecting its performance?

I intended to buy new mac pro, is it better to wait for new OS X moutain or can buy it now and update it later as it will not affect its performance???

khalid.mktaka76 wrote:
I intended to buy new mac pro, is it better to wait for new OS X moutain or can buy it now and update it later as it will not affect its performance???
If you can wait about a 3 months after 10.8 is released this summer and upon new hardware you should be in excellent shape to have not only a fastest latest machine, but a OS X version that all the bugs have been worked out. Plus the three free months of Apple hand holding while they figure out what they did wrong with the new OS version.
If you need a new machine now you'll have to get what you need obviously, but 10.8 should run on it just fine. However know that Apple tweaks things with more currently sellling hardware first, then later gets to the previous released models.
It's been my guestimation that your good for about two year old hardware with very recent OS X release, three years or older hardware you may want to reconsider sticking with the previous OS X version as your hardware is getting dated and likely has only a year left to go anyway (4 year average), so why bother mucking it up, slowing it down and having to buy all new/updated software and third party hardware because they won't make drivers for your new OS version?

So im about to buy a mac pro, I just need help cause im not sure if it's worth paying more for instance, a hi-res screen compared to the stock screen, and will i really miss the .2 ghz and the upgraded video card if I get the 2.0 ghz mbp?

So im about to buy a mac pro, I just need help cause im not sure if it's worth paying more for instance, a hi-res screen compared to the stock screen, and will i really miss the .2 ghz and the upgraded video card if I get the 2.0 ghz mbp?

The_Tiger92 wrote:
So im about to buy a mac pro, I just need help cause im not sure if it's worth paying more for instance, a hi-res screen compared to the stock screen, and will i really miss the .2 ghz and the upgraded video card if I get the 2.0 ghz mbp?
It appears the 15" 2.2 ghz isn't worth spending $400 more for, but you get the 1GB Radeon 6750M that has four times the VRAM than the 15" 2.0Ghz model and about 167% more performance. High settings on all current games with over 50 fps.
If your not into 3D gaming or just light weight, then the 2.0 Ghz (last years performance) will suffice on low-medium settings at about 30 fps.
The 13" is rather poor as it has integrated graphics. 30 fps on only some games.
The high res screen is a excellent choice and the anti-glare is great for viewing just about anywhere.
No messy films to replace at $30-$40 a pop.
A lot of people bring the glossy screens back once they hear about the anti-glare.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/05/23/glossy-vs-matte-screens-why-the-pc-indus trys-out-of-touch/
Here's my 17"
In my opinion the extra $400 for another 2-3 years of use out of the computer is worth it.
Quad cores are more than enough for most uses for most people for many years, it's just a slow card is going to make the machine feel slow in rendering graphics in the future.

About to buy a Mac Pro: best Processor speed to get for non-graphics user.

I'm currently running a dual processor 2 GHz PowerPC G5 with 1.5 GHz SDRAM. It's almost four years old.
The time has come to buy myself a Mac Pro; 8-core, I think!
Am I right that I'll experience greater speed if I add memory to 4 GB than if I buy the 3.0 GHz (or even the 3.2 GHz) version?
I don't do a lot of graphics and no games; but I do want speed.
What kind of performance boost will I see with 3.0 (or 3.2) over:
1 - What I have now (2 GHz PPC), and
2 - Over the 2.8 GHz Mac Pro?
Thanks for anyone else's experiences!

try and convince you?
i just erased my answer to you after rereading your last post.
not only are you going to use FCP and other demanding apps, but you are starting a business. Thats the clincher, at least would be for me.
it's one thing to settle for more time waiting for the machine to complete tasks, its quite another, when you have one eye on the clock counting the seconds left on this task and that task, because you have 5 clients who all wanted finished product on the same friday afternoon, and can i make it, and whats that beach ball now want, will i lose them as future clients, will they want their money back, and oh, i wish i had gotten the 8-core machine....
don't assume you're business might stay small, one project at a time type thing. One 200 person wedding might have 5 in the planning stages of their own wedding and they'll all take your name down without you knowing it until 5 days before their ceremony and their planned videographer is in the hospital and could you pleeease help us out....
for all we know, you are going to repost in this forum announcing to all of us that you just bought two more macpro 3.2ghz with 32g ram so your two employees can work...

Windows 7 Install fails on early Mac Pro

Just wondered if anyone else has experienced a blue screen failure during installation of Windows 7 RC 32-bit on an early Mac Pro (pre-2008). I get almost to the very end of the install during the copy files/settings phase (last one), and after a reboot, Win7 seems to start, but eventually crashes with a blue screen.
This is on a separate hard drive formatted to all NTFS. I've tried an install from the DVD from scratch (freshly formatted drive), and then again as an upgrade from a Vista installation (this all took many hours - and I do this for fun?). All with 32 bit since I don't have access to 64 bit drivers. But the result was uniform in both cases. The same version installed perfectly with vmWare Fusion.
So I suspect some issue with my Mac Pro Quad, which is an early, first generation version. I know others have had success with Win7 on a Mac Pro, but maybe on 2008 and later versions?
I have yet to try Win7 64-bit. Hopefully will get cured by final release, but would just like to know if anyone else with early Mac Pros have had success.

I don't think you really need to worry about 64-bit drivers - I don't have any Apple software or Boot Camp.
You don't mention RAM, disk drives, or graphics card, or any other hardware and whether you tried w/o.
I would warn that our early Mac Pro will have to work around the EFI boot menu that Windows 7 RC x64 presents.
I've had my 7300GT culprit; a disk drive that had to be reformatted in Vista; pull the 4 x 512MB of RAM (Apple) that was beginning to trigger a red light. So there are various items. And they all took hours to diagnose, swapping hardware; lots of head scratching.
There is no cure except to get around hurdles. We are stuck in EFI 32-bit land. May have to / want to buy 10.6 to get newer drivers, but that won't add 64-bit support. You can if you must, get 64-bit Boot Camp. I feel it is optional.
If you can install Vista, then install Windows to another drive, leaving Vista alone. Burn the ISO to DVD and copy the DVD back to a 8GB NTFS partition and run Windows Install Setup off that is fast and neat.
Setup a drive with room for Vista, Windows 7 RC, 8GB ISO partition, and data partition. Or expand to multiple drives.
Burn the DVD slower. There are other tips and ideas.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866970&tstart=0
I've found Kaspersky 2010 beta and license from 2009 Internet Suite to probably be the best I've tested so far in that area.
Fusion use to use Windows Server 2008, maybe it got updated to include a better profile, or it was only x64 that had any problems. Sun VirtualBox is another. With that, you can modify the DVD to allow booting easier if needed.
I have Vista SP1, then put in Vista SP2-RC (same drive) and for Windows 7 I have one install that is for testing anything new first, and another that I use daily regularly - and prefer to use 7.7100 RC now instead of Vista.
Installing Windows while booted in Windows is neat, can be fast, but first find the hardware issue. Most BSOD is drivers and need to safe boot and uninstall drivers, but you may not have gotten even that far. And don't until you have a restore point, and be ready to reboot from Vista or 7 DVD to repair Windows.

Mac Pro - Separate HD for OSX and Windows?

Hello Mac Pro users - maybe some of you can help...
Are going to buy a Mac Pro soon - which will be used for graphic artwork and Windows games. Today I have a Mac and a PC - for the same purpose - and now I want to build the Mac Pro with a harddisk for OSX - and another harddisk for Windows (XP or Vista). Is it possible to have 2 separate HD's (or more) with each systems using the standard setup by Bootcamp - or do I have to make a partition on the OSX HD and then install Windows there?
I'm asking this pro forum because I can't get a clear answer here in Denmark where I live - a Apple supplier first said it was impossible - then 2 days later, that it was possible, but they will charge me for 2 hours of support - and in another forum some have told me it was easy - but have given me no help how to do it - and again some have told me to use some software called "rEFIt".
So is it possible - and hard to do?
If possible, please tell me in steps how to do...
BR FLASH

Boot Camp will allow you to
utilise an entire disk for Windows. If you go to the
Boot Camp web page you can actually see it in a
picture…
http://www.apple.com/bootcamp/
The only thing you need to be wary of is that the
Boot Camp Assistant will not wrok from a Mac OS X
installation that is on a RAID set. As long as you
boot mac OS X from a single drive then it's really
easy.
I had a setup for awhile of two drives in RAID-0 for my Startup drive, a backup single drive, and a separate 300GB drive just for Windows.
In Windows the "Startup" drive in Control Panel would not show the RAID-0 Startup volume, but I could startup from it by hitting Option when it rebooted.
Steve

Do I need to buy a Mac pro with an iMac?

I'm planning on buying a 27-inch iMac, do I need to buy a Mac Pro (single processor) or any other hardware etc with the iMac PC?

Go for the higher end 27 inch screen base model.
Get one with the fusion drive.
Add third party RAM after the purchase.
If you need an optical drive, the new iMacs no longer have an internal CD/DVD optical drive.
You will need to budget and purchase an external optical drive.
Also, budget for an external hard drive for backups and storage.
Most important, budget for, purchase and register for extended 2-years of AppleCare warranty before your first year of ownership has ended.
The cost of the extra 2 years is only a fraction of an actual out of pocket repair cost.
Later aluminum iMacs, in general, have a 3-5 year varied liability history and it's better to have 3 years of warranty coverage than get caught with an expensive repair sometime after the first free year of AppleCare.
Good Luck!

Help Installing Windows 7 64 Bit on Early Mac Pro

As previously noted, Wind 7 RC 64 bit DVD will not boot on early Mac Pro. I installed Win 7 64 bit on a dedicated hard drive as follows: 1) I booted into Vista 64bit successfully 2) I installed Win 7 64 bit on a second black disk, as noted above 3)All files installed correctly I think since Win 7 will begin to boot showing the Windows 7 startup screen 4) However, the startup screen will then disappear and the screen goes black, indicating a failed boot. When I engage the option screen (with primary Mac drive installed) during boot, no Windows disk is shown, indicating that boot camp does not recognize the Win 7 disk as a valid startup drive.
Has anyone successfully installed Win 7 64 bit on an early Mac Pro?? I would appreciate any help in accomplishing this. Also, is there any reason Apple has not provided an EFI firmware update for first generation MacPros?

Burn a DVD with Windows 7 RC 32-bit which you can boot from.
Try Safe Boot also.
From Vista you can install 7 on another hard drive. You can also copy the DVD to 6GB partition and run the install setup off that while in Vista.
Mixing ATI and Nvidia probably still doesn't work (may when 7 ships).
Windows is more aware of disk I/O errors than Mac OS.
Keep your system basic, don't have anything connected or installed you don't need (like PCIe controllers).
Vista SP1 or later, 64-bit also looks for EFI64/UEFI 2.x which causes the "Choose 1 or 2" boot menu and which 2008 Mac Pro (and 2009) work with.
You aren't the first or only person to run into this, and there are people running on 2006 Mac Pro.
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866970&tstart=0

Windows 7 64 bit on Early Mac Pro

I finally got Win 7 64 bit installed on early Mac Pro. However, I have one significant issue remaining. I have an Apple Cinema 23 connected via ADC to DVI adapter; my video card is a Nvidia Quadro FX 4500. I can boot into Safe Mode without problem since the video card is recognized as a basic VGA monitor. When I boot into "normal" startup, I see the Starting Windows logo but the screen turns black when it boots into the Win 7 OS. The boot up is successfull since I can shut down normally with the keyboard. ( I should mention I have had no problems running Vista 32 bit--no display problems.) In device manager, no problem is shown with the Nvidea driver.
Any suggestions to solve my problem?? Thanks.

Are you able to - and is there a Windows 7 WHQL driver?
I know in the past automatic Windows Update wasn't trusted or the best, though I think with 7RC that is changed, but getting the standalone driver installed would be best bet.
And, you probably want/need to uninstall any driver that was installed, whether by Apple or Microsoft, and use one from Nvidia.
Driver Sweeper 2.0 is also strongly recommended to delete and remove drivers after uninstall, while in Safe Mode on next boot, before installing new drivers - especially if having trouble. Might even want to disconnect from 'net to prevent auto update/install for that.
PS: what keyboard shortcut to shutdown works? I need that one.

About to buy a Mac Pro, have quick question please.

Hi all,
I am going to more than likely buy a Mac Pro 2.66 tonight or tomorrow, but I was wondering something in regards to graphics cars if any one could assist me.
I am planning to go with the ATI card and 2gigs of ram since I do some gaming on the side and plan to use bootcamp for that.
My question is that if I buy the machine in retail store, they do not credit the stock GeForce card and just add the ATI card in, so if I go that rout can both the ATI and Nvidia card both reside in the machine at the same time and be used in SLI mode?
EG: can I get the power of both cards or will I only be able to use the processing power of one card? If only one card then would I be better off configuring the machine online since they credit you the difference of the Nvidia card which saves roughly $150.00 off the order from doing it in a retail store?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am not worried about the $150.00, it would almost be worth it to spend the extra since the shipping time on the online configuration may end up costing almost the same unless I want to wait a few weeks for the machine.
Whats your thoughts on this? Is it worth it to buy in the store and use both cards or just buy online from apple and get the credit for the Nvidia card?
Thanks in advance!

can both the ATI and Nvidia card both reside in the machine at the same time and be used in SLI mode
No… SLI requires two Nvidia SLI capable cards. In addition, SLI is not supported under Mac OS X although does work, apparently, under Windows and Boot Camp. ATi's comparable technology is CrossFire.
would I be better off configuring the machine online since they credit you the difference of the Nvidia card which saves roughly $150.00 off the order from doing it in a retail store?
Financially yes as the Nvidia card is ultimately useless to you. One consideration though is the CTO conditions of return, or lack there of, in case you receive a DOA. In the US, amongst other countries, CTo unit are not returnable even if they are DOA so you should check the terms of sale in the country store you would buy from.
Whats your thoughts on this?
I, like many others, bought CTOs from the Apple Store so I don't think it's such a bad way to go. It also means you won't have any pressing need to open your new Mac Pro right away.
One thing you might want to consider though is to downgrade the standard 250GB hard drive to a 160GB drive and use the saving on a drive of your choosing. Apple tends to use OEM desktop drives that have unimpressive performance. The 160GB drive in my Mac Pro didn't even get turned on. It was a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 if you're interested.

If I buy the Mac pro and iMac combine it together would it be faster?

If I buy the Mac pro and iMac combine it together would it be faster or I just buy the mac pro and Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch)?

If you buy a Mac Pro 2013, use the iMac for casual stuff and use the Mac Pro for media creation work.
Maxed out iMac with 4-core 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD PCIe is nice.
Mac Pro with 6-core 64GB dual graphics for $1000 more might run rings around it.
Why not look them both up on Geekbench.
Some people really need and like having two systems, maybe laptop (Air) and a more powerful system.

Planning on buying a Mac Pro

Hi, I'm planning on buying a Mac Pro 3Ghz in the near future and had a few questions before I buy it.
I plan on using the computer mainly for games but I want to have it for a long time and be able to handle whatever I throw at it (games and otherwise). I had a iMac G3 300Mhz for about 5 years and been useing a iMac 2Ghz more recently, both of which I have been very pleased with but I know a regular tower has alot more options and complications too.
At first I was planning on buying all my RAM from Apple and just getting the monitor seperate (since they seem pretty overpriced), on futher research I found that the 2GB RAM I was going to get at first is really a min. amount for the system and 4GB much better for getting full performance from the computer. Now from Apple the price difference from 2BG to 4GB is $800, not cheap.
So my first question is where can I find memory thats not so expensive? and what are the good brands to buy?
I also found out that the hard drives that apple uses aren't that good. Was going to get the 250GB HD but I probly don't need that much and can always add more so size isn't a big factor.
So what brand has good hard drives and where would be the best place to buy it?
I'm now planning on getting the computer with the min. HD and RAM and upgrading from there but I also want to be able to put in all the upgrades right away and not have to worry about adding more for awhile.
Last is the monitor but that doesn't concern me as much as the main computer. I want to get atleast a 20", any suggestions you have would be appreciated.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

Last fall Intel customers that run heavy servers were clamoring for Intel to get new chips out the door. Servers are often optimized for multi-cpu/cores, and the new chips run cooler, take less power to run, AND less power to cool. The costs of running a server farm makes any reduction in cost important today. Plus, even though they are clocked slower, are somewhat more efficient (improved and more mature?) that and stability are often what drives servers, not the hottest (figuratively and literally) cpus and systems.
So even if/when Intel does start shipping, and tested/qualified for OEMs they may not have any "left over" for awhile for desktop. And it could be they might even end up in Apple Xserves rather than MacPro.
Given that it took until November (late) for Apple to use Xeon in Xserve I almost wondered if it takes longer and more testing (and revising version of server) or if Apple might be hoping to delay and see if Intel could supply the new 53xx chip (would they use single quad-core or two? or have both configurations?).
Often it does take a "patched" or revised OS to deal with any new hardware as well (10.4.9? 10.5.1? something in-between?).
Anyone whose work is really cpu bound on G5 Quad or Mac Pro will probably be first off the line for these, as they were for the other two systems.

Advice-Buy early Mac Pro 2gz 4GRAM for £690, or save for later model?

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