Mac Pro

[Radio_Shack]

I am somewhat of a Windows biggot but was thinking of adding another computer and leaning towards Mac Pro.

So, here is a few questions for the Mac experts out there:

1) I want to be able to run OS10 and Windows XP at same time. Out of the box what would I have to do to get XP running as well?

2) Looks like I can add 4 disks inside the mac pro. Are these SATA disks or some porprietary connection that Apple has come out with? I wanna add 4x500 GB disks or maybe a few 1TB and later add some more TB disks.

3) How much memory do I need if I plan to run both xp and os10? I do alot of downloads, video conversions, picture editing, net surfing..

thanks

 

[GOLEAFSGO67]

On the XP question

My understanding now is, if you have a legit copy of XP now, you can contact Microsoft and for $20 they will give you another licence, and yu can use your disc. They encourage this to keep their product front and centre!!!!

 

[danibbler]

2) They are SATA connectors.
3) I'm not sure how serious you are with those activities but I'd probably go with a minimum of 2 gigs.

One of the great things about the Mac Pro (If you're talking about the current version) is how expandable it is. I'm very tempted by it but I am most likely going to go with a Macbook Pro for my next machine.

 

[thirdtime]

With:
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
2GB (2 x 1GB) ECC memory
4 - 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

$3,349.00 plus tax seems a little pricey to me!!!

Curious why you'd want an Xeon server processor in a desktop?

 

[Never Compromised]

There are a couple of utilities out there that will allow you to run Leopard and your Microsoft OS at the same time. Not officially supported by Apple.

RAM is cheap, and if you are going to be doing a lot of media work, the more the better.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/design.html

I would suggest 4 gig if you are running anything more robust than Photoshop.

 

[danibbler]

With:
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
2GB (2 x 1GB) ECC memory
4 - 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

$3,349.00 plus tax seems a little pricey to me!!!

Curious why you'd want an Xeon server processor in a desktop?

If that price includes SATA drives from Apple then you deserve to be ripped off.

As to why a Xeon server processor? Same reason why if you can achieve MSOGs you go for it.

 

[danibbler]

I would suggest 4 gig if you are running anything more robust than Photoshop.

Well...that would depend on the Photoshop files...

 

[cypherpunk]

As to why a Xeon server processor? Same reason why if you can achieve MSOGs you go for it.

Yeah, nevermind the insane processor/memory/motherboard mark up.

Maybe you should build the computer yourself and spend the savings on half a dozen $300 girls. MSOG really is an option here...

EDIT: Server/workstation processors don't even make sense unless you're going to be using more than 8GB or have some exotic needs (which you don't).

 

[thirdtime]

RAM is cheap...

Not if you buy ECC RAM from Apple!!!!

The Mac Pro comes with 2 GB.
To add another 2 GB of 800 Mhz DDR2 fully buffered ECC memory, they want $500!!! (it's partially the ECC part that kills the price)
If Apple systems are anything as proprietary and fussy as Dell when it comes to memory, most kinds won't work.

Does anyone know if Apple systems come with a 'foil seal' on the case that voids warranty if broken by other than an Apple technican? That would kinda kill the option of buying basic and upgrading it yourself.

 

[danibbler]

If Apple systems are anything as proprietary and fussy as Dell when it comes to memory, most kinds won't work.

Does anyone know if Apple systems come with a 'foil seal' on the case that voids warranty if broken by other than an Apple technican? That would kinda kill the option of buying basic and upgrading it yourself.

The best way to avoid having Apple work you over is to get the smallest amt of memory from them and then order more from a reputable dealer such as OWC (Other World Computing).

As for the "foil" seal, no, I have a PowerMac and it's upgradeable up the wazoo. I've put in HDs and additional memory and it's all good. Look, it doesn't make sense, if you look at the Apple pages on the Mac Pro for them to be touting all sorts of expandability and upgradeability for them to have the "foil" seal.

 

[thirdtime]

Look, it doesn't make sense, if you look at the Apple pages on the Mac Pro for them to be touting all sorts of expandability and upgradeability for them to have the "foil" seal.

Not if they expect you to return it to them to do the upgrades for you.

 

[ThePunkPanther]

My main work machine [these days] is a Mac Pro.

here's whats in mine;

2 dualcore 2.8ghz Xeons.
4gigs of ram. [kingston valueram, much cheaper than the apple branded but otherwise identical RAM]
Boots off a seagate 500gig SATA drive, data is stored on a set of three seagate 1terabyte drives. [all mounted internally].

backups are to a set of 1TB drives in external firewire800 boxes.

software: OSX 10.4 "tiger", and VMware Fusion running win-xp and Centos Linux as guest OS's.

I bought the machine at the applestore on the corner of spadina/college then walked down the road to pickup upgrades for memory and disk.

all in all, a very very nice machine. [just remember that apple charges a serious premium on memory and disk upgrades that are otherwise standard industrial parts that are commonly available everywhere for alot less money.].

I think I spent maybe.... $3k for the machine about a year ago.

 

[cypherpunk]

If Apple systems are anything as proprietary and fussy as Dell when it comes to memory, most kinds won't work.

The only thing proprietary about Dell systems is the case/psu. If you had a bad experience with memory and a Dell, it was probably with RD-RAM, which means you had a bad experience with Intel.

 

[thirdtime]

The only thing proprietary about Dell systems is the case/psu. If you had a bad experience with memory and a Dell, it was probably with RD-RAM, which means you had a bad experience with Intel.

Nope.
2 older Dell systems using SDRAM. I tried 5 different generic sticks of memory with the correct specifications that worked fine in multiple non-Dell systems. I had to buy Kingston SDRAM for the Dells.

 

[cypherpunk]

Nope.
2 older Dell systems using SDRAM. I tried 5 different generic sticks of memory with the correct specifications that worked fine in multiple non-Dell systems. I had to buy Kingston SDRAM for the Dells.

Looking through the usenet archives I do see complaints popping up in the mid 90s, but the problem isn't isolated to Dell. My guess would be a poorly implemented BIOS. Whatever the case, this sort of thing is unheard of today.

 

[danibbler]

Not if they expect you to return it to them to do the upgrades for you.

No, I think that the only foil-sealed parts would be areas such as the power supply, the internals of the SuperDrive and so on. Those places where you would not expect to have anyone opening them up.

Items such as video cards, HDs, memory and so on do not have foil-seals on them. If you don't believe me, just go to an Apple Store and ask them.

 

[thirdtime]

If you don't believe me, just go to an Apple Store and ask them.

I wasn't questioning your facts. I truly didn't know... but a case 'seal' is something I wouldn't put past Apple.

 

[danibbler]

I wasn't questioning your facts. I truly didn't know... but a case 'seal' is something I wouldn't put past Apple.

Ok, well, a case seal? Hrmm..maybe for the mac mini but that's already difficult enough to open. The Mac Pros are meant to be opened...my "pro" machine just has a latch, pull that and the entire side flops down and the guts of the machine are exposed.

 

[cypherpunk]

Ok, well, a case seal? Hrmm..maybe for the mac mini but that's already difficult enough to open. The Mac Pros are meant to be opened...my "pro" machine just has a latch, pull that and the entire side flops down and the guts of the machine are exposed.

Most vendors put tape seals on cases as a matter of quality control, similar to a seal of freshness of foodstuffs. A lot of people think that breaking the seal is voiding a warranty, but it's not unless specified in the warranty, which I've never heard of. Some unscrupulous, smaller vendors will use seals that say "void", which probably reinforces the idea.

 

[xarir]

1) I want to be able to run OS10 and Windows XP at same time. Out of the box what would I have to do to get XP running as well?

You basically have 3 choices - Parallels, Fusion or BootCamp. BootCamp is the "best" way to run Windows as it boots your Mac directly into Windows. The downside is that you can only run 1 OS at a time. If you boot into Windows then want to switch into OS X, you have to reboot.

More flexible are Parallels and Fusion. Parallels is the more popular of the two and costs less than $100. You do however, need to supply your own copy of Windows.

For more info on Parallels versus Fusion, read this now somewhat out of date review.

Also, here is a more recent and more exhaustive comparison review of Boot Camp, Parallels and Fusion.

2) Looks like I can add 4 disks inside the mac pro. Are these SATA disks or some porprietary connection that Apple has come out with? I wanna add 4x500 GB disks or maybe a few 1TB and later add some more TB disks.

Standard drives are SATA. You can add SCSI if throughput is important to you (i.e. Video apps). I would suggest starting with a 1TB drive, then adding 3 more at the same time. When you add the extra 3, the standard Mac OS can RAID them together so that they appear as one 3TB volume instead of 3 separate drives. Related to point #1 above, you can run your Windows stuff on an external Firewire or USB2 drive. That way, if you get spyware'd to death or something it's easy to zorch the drive by reformatting or whatever. (As opposed to running a partition on one of your main drives.)

3) How much memory do I need if I plan to run both xp and os10? I do alot of downloads, video conversions, picture editing, net surfing..

That really depends what you're doing in either OS. The MacPro comes standard with 2GB RAM but you'll likely be happier with 4GB or more. Since ECC RAM is still rather expensive you can buy sparingly now then add more later on. Keep in mind that on a MacPro you have to add RAM 2 sticks at a time. There's little point cheaping out an getting only 512 sticks or even 1 GB ones. I'd suggest adding 4GB at a time (2 x 2GB).