Mac Pro too expensive

I bought the first intel machine, the iMac Core Duo, and have been using it for a year. Unfortunately I have managed to already push it (the hard drive) beyond my needs. USB 2.0 hard drives are too slow, and I am worried that getting a Firewire drive will also be too slow and out of date.
I am in the market for an expandable machine (where I can replace the HD, or add en eSata disk), but the Mac Pro is hella expensive!! What should I do? Why can't I get something with an intel chip that I can upgrade from apple for under 1300?? Should I get a PC?

Apple tried an expandable machine midway between the towers and the iMac, known as the Cube. Unfortunately it didn't sell well. If you have a better design suggestion, I suggest putting it on http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html
I disagree, the cube was not a midrange desktop. It was over priced, and lacked any expandability. Apple failed to properly position this computer in the right segment. People have been yearning for a mid range headless (non-imac) computer for years but to know avail.
for the record I think the 24"iMac is an extremely capable machine with the only knock on it its lack of expandability.
Mike

Similar Messages

I've got Photoshop Elements 11 on my mac-book Now I want to copy the programm to my Mac Pro too. Is it possible or do I have to buy another license?

I've got Photoshop Elements 11 on my mac-book Now I want to copy the programm to my Mac Pro too.
Is it possible or do I have to buy another license?

Thx a lot, Barbara!
Your answer helped me to install the program to my Mac Pro
You made my day!
I wanted to give You points, but I am new in the forum and I am not quiet sure how to do it.
Salute
Erwin
Am 02.10.2014 um 17:37 schrieb Barbara B. <[email protected]>:
I've got Photoshop Elements 11 on my mac-book Now I want to copy the programm to my Mac Pro too. Is it possible or do I have to buy another license?
created by Barbara B. in Photoshop Elements - View the full discussion
You're allowed to have it installed and activated on two computers at once but you can never copy an installed copy of PSE. You need to install it from scratch on the Mac Pro. If you need the file, you can download it here:
Download Photoshop Elements products | 12, 11, 10
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Mac pro too slow to use, spinning ball, no finder response, only hard power off, installing system stalls at 18 minutes left.

mac pro too slow to use, spinning ball, no finder response, only hard power off, installing system stalls at 18 minutes left.
It is taking an hour to power up and mac apple logo appear onscreen. No finder controls or "clicks" are being recognized. Spinning beachball all the time.
Using hard power off and holding the mouse down, I was able to open the optical drive and then restart with "c" and ask the dvd to reinstall the system, but it has stalled before finishing the installation.
This happened about 4 days ago, first it started responding slowly, and then it just keeps spinning the beachball. I can't find hardware test. I did run etrecheck, it did not have any error messages, but I can't copy or move the data anywhere.... I am not able to access the mac pro with another machine, and now I am stuck in install freeze, so I can't copy etrecheck by hand onto a piece of paper.
Without being able to finish a reinstall, what can I try?
After it got bad, and before it got REALLY bad, I managed to repair permissions, but it took a long time. Most of a day. When I restarted from that, things were only worse.
Mac Pro 1,1 , 11 GB ram, 7300, 5TB hard drives, OS 10.6.8, the drive containing the system folder is/was 700 used, 290 free. While I could get commands to respond, I put Activity monitor on the desktop and watched it. System memory was 3.31 GB used, about 7 free, and some wired. No app was using a huge amount.
what should I try next? I put a bid on a new/old machine so that I could move the 4 hard drives over.

Thank you for all your suggestions. Please correct me as I articulate this.
I have three versions( 5, 6, CC) of the Adobe Master Collection which I keep active for different clients. I have final cut and motion. I have Office 365. I have a collection of graphic apps that are individually not too big but in all, my app folder is 65GB and my bootcamp partition is 61GB. I can't fit all this on 120 ssd and a 256 will be full once I install, correct? drives should be half open?
Somehow I did not make it clear enough that I was trying to copy onto a 2TB drive I had just initiallized in order to try and save files from my startup drive. I don't use time machine. I take a day or a few days worth of documents and physically move them to another drive at night. If a series is finished I make two dvd's as well. The second black drive that was failing was the drive I moved my backup documents onto. At no point was I trying to backup onto the failing drives. I was trying to copy off both of them onto the other two drives, a third aux backup that has been there for a while, and a newish 2 TB which I designated as the startup drive when all this trouble started.
I wondered if there were any good techniques for trying to get the data off the failing drive. Thanks for the suggestion of Data Rescue 3. I don't have it yet, but I will try it as soon as I get it. I was never trying to repair in place.
I am very interested in getting a pci bracket and an ssd, but I may wait until I can afford the larger one. If I get an older bracket that is compatible with my old mac pro 1,1 , I'd like to be able to move it to a mac pro 3,1 if I get one. Will the larger ssd drives be compatible with the sata in a pci bracket that can work in my mac pro 1,1 ? sata 2 versus something else? If 240 or 256 is my size limit, how much more than my 65 and 61 GB partitions can I put on there? How much of a scratch disc can I make if I leave another 39 GB of headroom on my bootcamp partition? I'm filling 165 GB without making any allowance for temp files.
You have said that 120 is enough for any system. I think I must be misunderstanding something. Are you saying that assuming that most people run office and photoshop and maybe lightroom?
I have and use 4 HDD in this machine, mostly for document storage in two places.
I took out all but the group of 2GB ram chips I bought a year and a half ago. The old ram had passed the hardware test the last time I had access to the hardware test. Two black drives failed, one was a year old and one was a year and a half old, and that it may have been exacerbated by the heat wave. I don't know why the video and the monitor were affected save that the startup drive was failing. I am trying to replace the card.
With all this said, I am also looking at a used mac pro 3,1 with a better video card since a newer machine will likley be compatible through another OS upgrade. If a machine costs only a little more than a new card, it might be a better way to go.
I don't have any sources that offer an ssd for 100. ( of a size that is useful)
How large is your application folder?

My Mac Pro too old for Yosemite?

I'm still on Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro. The build year does not appear in my system profile, but according to the Model name, identifier and serial number, it looks like my Mac Pro was built some time in 2007. I purchased and started using it in January of 2008. According to the model compatibility given by Apple, my machine may be too old. It states that machines built in 2008 or newer are compatible with Yosemite.
Does this really mean that my machine is not compatible with Yosemite?

The firmware for the Mac Pro 2,1 2007 model is EFI 32-bit, not 64-bit, even though the processors are.
EFI 1.x is not supported, only EFI 2.x and higher and no you can't put that on your system.
If you have another Mac that is you can by using 3rd party (unsupported) to get the installer package, you can't get Mountain Lion or above from Apple AppStore.
So it can but it uses a secondary boot loader to achieve that.
You also are limited by PCIe 1.x and Apple doesn't want to support older graphic cards that are not 2.0 or later.
Having a 64-bit kernel and all 64-bit drivers in the end is part of the goal, just as dropping PowerPC and Rosetta in Lion, just as dropping 68k code in favor of PowerPC was in OS 9.1.
The Mac Pro 2006-7 began in 2005, and even the 2008 is not "ideal" and does not meet the UEFI standard for a 64-bit firmware.
It still works, even better today, but Lion is the last official OS and may not get security and Safari support updates.
Two year old news from when Mountain lion came out, or that lots of people are running 10.10.x on that box.
2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X Yosemite ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... Last Page)

Mac Pro Too Slow and Freezes

Hi there. I have an Intel Mac Pro which I bought new last year. It has 8GB RAM and four large-ish internal drives. And it's become so slow I can't use it for anything. This has happened to me three times before and out of frustration I replaced the hard drive once and formatted it another time. Both times it came back up to speed, but I can't do that every couple of months.
It's freezing during ridiculous things, too, like when I open up the system preferences to adjust the input volume. I get the spinning beach ball indefinitely and have to do a forced quit on the system prefs.
I have bought and run: Disk Warrior, Macaroni, Onyx, Mac Maintenance, and Tiger Cache Cleaner. Can you tell I'm desperate?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. No one seems to know what the **** is going wrong. I don't download stuff other than programs connected to my work (Photoshop editing), so I can't see why this would happen.
Thanks.

Basic system methodology over now to some diagnostics:
(You can find above information on Pages 32 to 36 of your MacPro user Guide )
Using the number(s) noted earlier and a coloured (colored) marker pen identify and mark the faulty RAM remove it AND its matched pair from the Riser card and set them aside.
The Ram is held at the ends by hooked clips that you push outwards with your thumbs to release them. Don’t force RAM as you will bust these hooks and possibly kill the Riser card at the same time.
Adjust remaining RAM pairs to positions following above population chart, and take the opportunity to VERY CAREFULLY blow away any dust on the RISER particularly around the RAM contact blocks and rear contact strip itself. Handle with care and also avoid getting finger oils on those contacts at the same time.
NB.
If the fault is reporting on either position1 or position 2 of RISER 1 (Top Riser) only remove the pair as above and move the pair from position 3 and 4 on the SAME RISER into position 1 and 2.
If no faults are reported on RISER 2 what you now do is swap over each Riser card (They are completely swappable!). Place the card from Riser 2 in the Riser 1 slot and card from Riser 1 in Riser 2 slot with all fault reporting RAM removed.
When you do reboot the MacPRO will now register Riser 2 positions 3 and 4 as being empty !
Right next refit the RISER cards. Side the cards into the Slots upto the block and press with your thumbs and they snap back in.
With the side panel temporarily off re connect your monitor, key board and mouse only, replug into power socket and press start button to boot up
Continued:

MAc Pro Too much computer for me?

I am thinking of buying the new 8 core 2.8 Macpro. All I do with it is email, web browsing, spread sheets, video editing with Final Cut and looking at building blue prints with cad software. So my question is - Is the Mac Pro wasted on what I do, Should I just get an iMac?
The new MP comes with 2gb - 2x1gb ram, can I add/mix it with another 4x2gb ram sticks to get 10gb ram?

Should you do decide to go to iMac instead of Mac Pro, do yourself the favour and bring your video camera / equipement to the mac store and test it out against the iMac model you plan to purchase. I discovered the hard way that none of my video cameras would work with ANY of the Aluminum framed Intel based iMacs what so ever, but they all would work 100% with any and every other Mac computer in the store.
This is why I bought the Mac Pro after returning the iMac. I have the new old one, it's decently fast enough though slower than my PC quad core when doing video work.
There's no doubt the iMac concept is nifty, an all in one package but has little expandability.. If you camcorders work with the iMac and you're not a power user, and only plan to do the occassional video editing work, an iMac would be a nice system.. but heed what many say.. once you get hooked, you'll be wishing you had more.. As the old saying goes: "Go big or Stay Home"
If I had to do it all over again, knowing NOW what I know after such difficulties, I would have gone for the 8 core system. I don't game on the MacPro, kinda not the right system for it in my opinion, but its nice for photo and video editing and this is where the 8 cores will kick in the most. For general every day use, you'd most likely not see the speed but when you're crunching huge numbers like in AV work, you'll fer sur see it.
Right now, I'm mulling over either selling this quad Mac Pro and going for the 8 core.. or upgrading this old/new Mac Pro with an 8 core (2 quads). Mine currently has the two duo cores 2.66 in it. No idea on how to go about this but research should hopefully get me there..
Best of luck.. cheers

Mac Pro Too Loud

I have 4 units of Mac Pro. All have same specs. Early 2008 model, 2.8ghz Quadx2, 8gb ram, 320gb hardisk, 2tb (2x1tb raid). All my other 3 mac pro seems to be normal and silent. And this one mac pro of mine seems to be louder than the other 3. It has a humming sound. the fans seems to turn faster than the others. Any got any experience with this? Please help, Thanks.

I have the same unit. It's the ATI Radeon HD2600 video card fan. It sounds like a jet warming up on the tarmac. The "genius" at the local Apple Store told me I didn't have a problem. If you put your finger on the fan it goes completely quiet. I teach in a lab with 30 G5's and MacPro's (all earlier than the 2008's) and my one new Mac Pro makes more noise than my entire lab of 30 machines. Combine that with the "on again, off again" USB problems, I'm beginning to realize this is not going to be a pleasant experience.

Mac Pro 2008 with 8800 GT, hard freezes with screen savers/OpenGL. You too?

I have been experiencing random intermittent hard crashes of my "early 2008" model 8-core Mac Pro. Now I have finally found an easy reproducible test case (see below), and hope others will try it and post the results. This is a video-driver related crash that I have now duplicated with two different video cards.
The symptom is that my screen randomly freezes. The mouse moves, but there's no way to use the Mac[1]. Holding the Power button to force the Mac to shutdown is the only way out.
Usually, this occurs when I get to my office in the morning, or after the gym. That's because the screen saver is running. I found that the screensaver, other OpenGL/3D type applications, are what triggers this bug.
The bug seems to be with the graphics driver. Immediately before the freeze, messages like this are printed in the system log:
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception!
status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: 0000000c
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: 00200000 0000502d 00000470 00000000
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: 00000482 000002ac 00000003 00000003
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 01be0003
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception!
status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: 0000000b
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception!
status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
Other errors like these also appear (the actual log output volume is too large for this forum):
Mar 26 21:15:15 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x6 = Fifo: Parse Error
Mar 26 18:34:14 Mac-Pro kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
Anyway, finally I found on another thread about a similar issue[2], a recommendation to run Folding@Home program to trigger the freeze. They were talking about another Mac model, but sure enough, it triggers my problem every time. I downloaded the client[3], installed it, and then launched the app which gets put in the Applications folder. It doesn't even finish bouncing once in the dock before the Mac Pro freezes.
This is not a bug specific to Folding@Home; juding from the log messages and the effect, this is exactly the same crash that is intermittently triggered by the default Mac OS X screensavers (I use Arabesque, but I think any OpenGL screen saver does it). It's just that running Folding@Home is an easier way to trigger the bug than leaving your screensaver running for hours.
So, that is pretty unfortunate, right? I mean, not only can my new Mac Pro not sleep without losing all unsaved data (yes, I have the reboot-instead-of-wake problem[4], too, but that is another issue...) but it also crashes at random whenever the screen saver runs for a while, or somebody uses OpenGL programs. I have set my machine to never use the screen saver, but still.
So, first and foremost, my question for other 2008 Mac Pro owners with the 8800 video card is: does your Mac puke all over itself when you launch Folding@Home?
I just found it a little bit hard to believe that every Mac owner of the most expensive new Mac and the higher end video card will have these crashes. It could be, but it seemed far-fetched. So I tried some troubleshooting:
a
1.) I considered that I had a bad video card, so I got another GeForce 8800 GT and installed that. Still crashed.
2.) I disconnected my second monitor, and tried it with only one monitor. Still crashed.
3.) I booted from the pristine boot disk my Mac shipped with (10.5.1). Still crashed.
4.) I reduced the resolution on my 30" Cinema display to 800x600. Still crashed.
5.) Just to stave off the usual chorus of "try zapping your PRAM" posts, I zapped the PRAM. Of course, this did nothing (I don't think this has really fixed a problem since the 1990s...). Anyway, it still crashed.
6.) In doing all these tests, I disconnected all USB/FireWire peripherals.
7.) My Mac is totally up-to-date with Software Update as of Thu, Mar 27, 2008. Mac OS X 10.5.2.
I don't want to return this Mac to Apple; it is wicked fast and that really helps me with my work. But, the frequent crashing really is a productivity-killer.
So: does every 2008 Mac Pro owner with an 8800 GT have this problem?
(Note: there are lots of similar problems with other Macs and the new Mac OS X 10.5... I hope to specifically address this particular model and crash in this thread.)
If not, I will go to the next extreme step: pulling out some of my RAM. I have 12GB of RAM, and it all seems to work fine, no parity errors or anything. But I know sometimes problems don't happen unless there's "too much" RAM, "too high" resolution, and so on. But I would like to hear from others before I go banging on my precious DIMMs and riser cards.
Thanks for any information!
The next step will be to determine if this is just another unfortunate defect that affects ALL 2088 Mac Pros (in which case I would want to keep my fast Mac and wait for fixed drivers), or if perhaps just a subset of them have defective video cards that cause the driver to crash in this way (in which case I would want a replacement).
---------- NOTES: ----------
[1]: I can connect via SSH on the command line to the Mac. However, the GUI environment seems borked; opening apps or trying to gracefully quit them via AppleScript either does not work or really hard freezes everything, such that SSH no longer works either.
[2]: A similar (but perhaps different) issue affecting notebooks is discussed here, and there are some people with Mac Pros, too: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6786960
[3]: The Folding @ Home client, which can be used to trigger this bug, can be gotten here: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download
[4]: The severe defect affecting many (most?) 2008 Mac Pro machines' ability to sleep without losing data is discussed in this other thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1353551

Hello guys, thank you for the replies.
I do have more data at this point.
ujeezy: Those posts on MacNN and others like them did give some clues.
Jon BWFC: I think you are (partly) right that it's (partly) an issue with the driver. But I have confirmed with a fair degree of certainty in my case that it is a hardware issue too, likely with the video card and not the Mac Pro itself.
cmcom: I think it sounds like you problem is different than the one we're talking about (although who knows, the driver could be causing that too). The freeze we are seeing locks up the whole Mac, and no application crash report is produced.
I had another GeForce 8800 card, so I went through some exhaustive troubleshooting. I tested each card, installed in each of the 16x slots, booting from either my normal 10.5.2 boot disk or a clone of the pristine virgin system disk that shipped with the Mac, and tried to see if the Mac would crash.
Unfortunately this was harder than it seems, because:
a.) both my GeForce 8800 cards appear to be defective, but in different ways (see [1] and [2] below)
b.) In my testing, I thought I was seeing the crash sometimes, but later I discovered that there are different ways to make the Mac crash like this. That is, there are bugs in Mac OS X 10.5.x (probably in the NVIDIA driver) that cause similar crashes, and these bugs occur on all Mac Pro units and even other Mac models, without any hardware defects. Unfortunately, the Folding@home exercises one such bug.[3]
So the upshot is, all those times I was using Folding@home to test this issue were bogus, because Folding@home crashes any Mac Pro with the NVIDIA card, and crashes MacBook Pro machines with NVIDIA chips as well.
Argh! So I had to retest. It took a couple of days but I found another reliable way to crash my Mac Pro, more quickly than just leaving the screensaver on for a day or two: run this OpenGL virtual fish tank simulator[4] for 2-3 minutes. Unlike the Folding@home test, this did not crash any of my other Macs, and after exhaustive testing I found that it ONLY crashed the Mac Pro with one of the GeForce 880 cards installed, and not the other one. This was regardless of what slot it was installed in or what boot disk was used.
Whew! So, I concluded that indeed, there is a hardware defect in one of my GeForce 8800 cards which causes the machine to lock up. [2]
What made this problem much harder to deal with was the fact that Mac OS X (specifically the graphics driver parts of the OS, perhaps NVIDIA-specific) crashes with these same symptoms in other cases too. Like when you run Folding@home, or in some of these cases people are talking about with their MacBook Pro machines.
So, when there is a bona-fide hardware defect, it is really hard to isolate. (It took me like four days.)
The thing is, the defective NVIDIA card that crashes the Mac[2] was a REPLACEMENT card for the 8800 card that shipped with my Mac. I called Apple about the video artifacts I was seeing and they replaced the card.
I am now running the original card (and suffering the ugly video artifacts, but no crashes). At my own expense, I ordered an ATI card (the RADEON HD 2600 XT) and I will install that.
I hope someday to have my Mac work without graphics glitches or crashes. For now, operating (mostly) without crashes will have to do.
The original problem with this Mac continues, though: the video doesn't work correctly; it starts displaying visual artifacts after 1-72 hours of use[1]. That could either be because:
a.) a hardware defect in that video card
b.) a software problem with the driver/OS
c.) a hardware defect in the Mac itself
I strongly suspect A, but hopefully my buying a different card and testing with that will help further isolate what is wrong.
I am marking this thread "solved" because the specific issue I originally posted about has been resolved: the GeForce 8800 card causing the crashes is defective, and using another card fixes that issue.
[1]: The original GeForce 8800 card that shipped with my Mac Pro exhibited annoying-but-not-deadly video artifacts, which can be seen here: http://masonmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/bogusvideoartifacts.jpg
[2]: Apple replaced the video card, and that is when my deadly video-corruption-plus-frozen-Mac crash problem began. A screenshot example of that problem can be seen here: http://masonmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/crashedmac_pro_akashitball.jpg
[3]: The red herring in this case was the Mac OS X bug (seemingly specific to NVIDIA-equipped Macs including Mac Pro and MacBook Pro) that causes a very similar full system crash. This bug can easily be triggered by running the Folding@home version "6.10beta2" demo application. That is a serious bug, and since my employer is a Mac software company I reported this bug to Apple via the official channel. It is Apple bug number 5830772.
[4]: The OpenGL fish tank simulator I found, which would trigger the system crash caused by my defective 8800 video card (but would not crash any other Mac, or crash my Mac Pro with the other 8800 video card installed) can be found at: http://uri.cat/software/Fish/

Considering a Mac Pro - Few Question

I am disappointed with my Intel iMac due to lack of USB ports (hubs don't work with some of my usb hardware) and the ridiculous audio/optical combo port. So I think I may go Mac Pro when Leopard is released. A few questions need to be answered if you would be so kind. A few caveats first...
A) Mac Pros are expensive for me, so I need to save money where I am able.
B) The Mac Pro will double as a media player for my Home Theater system. I have a connection for DVI and Toslink
OK, now the questions...
1. Does the Mac Pro come with the trays for the extra hard drives? I would like to purchase more drives separately. Can I do this, and what type of drives are used, SATA?
2. RAM from Apple is expensive. Is there a less costly alternative? It must be a dependable brand. Please include part number if available. Thanks!
3. Will reduction from 2.66 to 2.0 ghz make that much difference? I like grinding MP2 videos to H.264. Really, will it be worth the additional $264?
4. I can use both DVI or HDMI to go to my Home Theater system. Currently, starting the Home Theater changes the resolution on my iMac. I would like to avoid this. Should I get another NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, or will the dual port on the one card be able to be set to a different resolution output? I would like to be able to still work on my Mac while the kids are watching something in the theater.
5. As for audio, will I be able to run headphones, external speakers and optical out all at the same time? I am assuming yes, but just want to make sure.
6. I am also assuming the Mac Pros are quiet. Noise is one of my biggest enemies since I do quite a bit of audio work. I have not heard a single complaint regarding noise from Mac Pros. Are they that quiet?
Thanks in advance everyone!

4. I can use both DVI or HDMI to go to my Home
Theater system. Currently, starting the Home Theater
changes the resolution on my iMac.
You should be able to run different resolutions on the built-in display and external display if Mirroring is turned off in "Displays" System Preference.
I would like to
avoid this. Should I get another NVIDIA GeForce 7300
GT, or will the dual port on the one card be able to
be set to a different resolution output? I would like
to be able to still work on my Mac while the kids are
watching something in the theater.
The two DVI ports can run at different resolutions.
5. As for audio, will I be able to run headphones,
external speakers and optical out all at the same
time? I am assuming yes, but just want to make sure.
The optical out uses the same socket al the audio out, so you can't use both at once. You could add an iMic <http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/> to get an additional audio output. There are also other PCI-Express, FireWire, or USB audio interfaces available.
You can also use an AirPort Express for audio output. It is designed for iTunes, but Airfoil <http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/> will send any audio to it.
You may need Audio Hijack Pro <http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/> for different applications to send audio to different, or multiple, outputs simultaneously.
You may also want to consider the Apple TV <http://www.apple.com/appletv/> for audio and video connections to your home theater.

Mac Pro and Surround Sound

I cannot get 5.1 channel sound out of my Mac Pro (or my PM G5 for that matter).
So what are my options for bringing out the surround content of Windows games to my Logitech Z-5500 5.1 system?
I investigated the M-Audio Revolution 5.1. It's not compatible with the PCI-Express slots or with MacOSX 10.4.8.
Is the Mac Pro too new for any such products to be available for it yet?

Feeding my Logitech Z-5500 5.1 system from the optical out, only gives me DPL2, (I think) from DVD movies. For games on the Mac, I needed to take a feed to the Logitechs from the headphone out as the optical feed didn't yield any audio from games. What does the optical out give us then? Nothing more than sound for DVDs and some MacOSX alert sounds.
Now I'm guesssing this but my intuition tells me that the optical path is a direct feed from the DVD player. Well, perhaps not really direct but certainly a different path to that of the integrated audio hardware.
Now we have one most serious problem here. Nearly all games ported to the Mac are encoded 2-channel only. Aspyr admitted this to me. I do not watch DVD movies on my Mac so the Logitechs are serving no purpose apart from providing stereo audio.
Aspyr says that since Apple only provides for 2-channel audio in hardware and software, game publishers never bother with surround information in their games. Aspyr says, if it did it could cause instability and crashes because the Mac is a 2-channel computer. Games with surround sound will be more common if Apple builds the feature into its computers.
Unless Apple changes it's policy we are stuck with 2-channel. And similarly, Windows on Intel Macs is hobbled because the same hardware is used by Windows.
Can a Firewire or USB decoder extract surround sound from Windows games? It certainly can on a PC. But what about an Intel Mac? I'm about to learn the answer when the Audigy2 NX arrives.

Early 2009 Mac Pro, Mavericks, and Airplay

Yes, I'm sure this question has been asked and answered a thousands times, but I have been looking in vain for an answer that helps me.
I have an early 2009 Mac Pro, running Mavericks. I have a Denon AVR-1912 Receiver, which my iPhone and iPad see and can play through with no trouble. So can my MacBook Pro. I also have Apple TV, but I don't use it for streaming music because the Denon works well.
What I want to do is sit at my Mac Pro desktop and play songs through iTunes that play not only through my desktop system but through my home theater system (the Denon Receiver). I'm used to clicking on the little Airplay icon and getting to choose Single or Multiple speakers. When I go to System Prefs/Sound, I see my sound card (Presonus Firestudio) AND I see Apple TV and my Denon. So my computer is seeing them both.
Here's what happens. If I choose the Firestudio in System Prefs, it plays as always through my desktop system, but there is no Airplay icon in iTunes. If I choose Denon in System Prefs, iTunes plays music through the Denon AND I get the Airplay icon in iTunes. If i click on the icon and I choose Multiple, I can choose Airplay Device, which is already checked, and Computer. If I click on Computer, the Airplay icon disappears in iTunes, and the music starts playing through my computer's internal speakers, not through my Firestudio sound card, and it stops playing through the Denon.
Why does the Airplay icon not give me an option to play through my sound card and the Denon? Why, in other words, can't I do what I said I wanted to do in the third paragraph, above? Is it possible or is my Mac Pro too old?
Many thanks,
Paul

I found out that the built in firewall interferes with AirPlay (which I know is weird).
Try turning the OS X firewall off using System Settings -> Security. If AirPlay now works, turn on the firewall and add "coreaudio" to the list of exceptions. This worked for me.
Coreaudio is the system driver for audio, by the way.

New to the Mac Pro 8 quad questions

I am looking to buy a new mac. the Mac Pro looks good.
I need a computer that i can still put imovie HD6 and run it?
Can you do that on a mac Pro?
I use canon hv30 for filming in HD and capture into imovie HD 6 which i really enjoy using even though i do have the others. imovie 9
Sometimes even thought i have filled up my RAM on my imac, sometimes i still get the blue screen when capturing video onto the HD
I also use Creative suite 3 and would that be able to run on a new Mac Pro
I use dreamweaver for my web design stuff--although i am a beginner and i use photoshop and others.
I also ue ot to work on music recordings of bands
so i guess in summary
1. does the new mac pro be able to run imvoie 6 HD
2. will it run creative suite 3
3. or is it too much computer and stick with a imac
Is the mac Pro too much computer for what i use it for
thanks so much
scott

The Mac Pro is top of the line. If it won't, what pray tell would? What most want to know is how far to go in build to order options or stay with base model is all. And budget.

What do all the parts of a Mac Pro really mean?

Hello,
     So right now I have a MacBook Pro, 13", 2 years old, 4GB ram, 160 GD hard drive, etc etc. I've got a wireless mouse, keyboard, and 27" LED Cinema Display, and I do graphic design work (as a job), and use my computer avidly. I'm the person who has 9 tabs open with 6 applications running. I also do a bit of gaming now and then, and love to fill up hard drives with my thousands of photos.
     So I want to upgrade to a Mac Pro in the future. However, my question is what should I get? With all this quad core, 8 core, 12 core, what will I really notice a difference in? Graphics card, what would really be beneficial - 1, 2, higher grade/normal grade? Whats a RAID card and a Solid-State drive? Would it be better to have multiple smaller hard drives or one big one?
     I mean realistically, what would help? Any good links for information?
Thanks
Ben

Okay, you may be happier then with Mac Pro. too often and it seems like a waste of my time if it is "pro-consumer" coming with questions, and often not well versed or not having researched the options and pros and cons.
Not everyone works with 1-2GB images and needs 32GB RAM and 6-cores though.
wish I could look in crystal ball and see 4th quarter Mac Pro with an LGA2011 socket processors from Intel - the next tic-toc after Nehalem/Westmere we have now. That may not happen for 6-9 months.
SSDs are great, but an SATA3 doesn't benefit and can actually run slow on SATA2 bus.
The DIY processor upgrade - 2.93GHz 8-core? not worth it. the 2.8 for $2100
Apple Special Mac Pro
Intel Xeon W3670 3.20GHz Hexacore Buy.com
W3670 Upgrade MacRumors
- includes photos
With PC, it is of course no trouble to build and run @ 4.2GHz and get more out of your investment.
A nice setup: 4 x 8GB RAM plus 3.33 6-core along with 2x SSD and 4 x 2TB drives
MacPerformanceGuide can take a couple days to digest and look at all the articles on various mac configurations.
A 2011 MacBook Pro shows it is competitive now.
So long as there is enough memory for Photoshop CS5 to use, the new 2011 MacBook Pro quad-core offers outstanding performance approaching that of the Mac Pro.
Results With Photoshop CS5
To understand CS5 on a Mac Pro you really want to study this section:
Strange but True: Photoshop CS5 Performance
More cores, more RAM, not always more performance
some want a laptop to take to clients and dont' want 60 lbs. An iMac top of the line can definitely do a lot more now.
ANALYSIS of the 2011 iMac
SHOOTOUT: Four 2011 iMacs

I want to buy a macbook pro.. but now I have a Packerd Bell with the programs: Word, Powerpoint,... I want those programs on my macbook pro too is this possible? and is it expensive?

I want to buy a macbook pro.. but now I have a Packerd Bell with the programs: Word, Powerpoint,... I want those programs on my macbook pro too is this possible? and is it expensive?

Hello:
Expensive is relative...
Microsoft makes a version (written native for the Mac) of Office:
http://store.apple.com/us/search/microsoft-office-for-mac
Some of us use iLife - an Apple product that almost seamlessly translates Microsoft programs (for example Word to Pages) back and forth. You can always export in a Microsoft format...
Barry

I am going to buy either a Mac Air or Mac Pro Retina 8GB RAM and 256GB. And as I have to still run Windows I will install Parallels 9. As the Mac are both 64bit machines does that mean I need to install Windows 7 64bit ? And office pro 2013 64 bit too?

I am going to buy either a Mac Air or Mac Pro Retina 8GB RAM and 256GB. And as I have to still run Windows programs I will install Parallels 9. As the Mac are both 64bit machines does that mean I need to install Windows 7 64bit or just install 32 bit? (Going with Win7 as I hate Win8). And I will install Office Pro 2013 64 bit too or 32 bit or is that automatically selected by the underlying OS (I use Word, Excel and Access mainly for a membership database of a local club) ? I am not a power user so would appreciate advice on way to go

Again thank you. If I only use word, excel and access in the Win environment and Mac OS for email and safari for internet do I need anti virus software . Ie my connection to the world is mac only and I use office pro only to ruin the club, newsletters, membership database etc. and of course anything I do there can drag/drop to the mac environ to email. That's my understanding anyway. Next will my existing .pst file copy directly into mac mail or do I have to runs translator as I recall reading something about that ages ago when I started thinking Mac

Mac Pro too expensive

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