I'm getting kinda tired of using a hack for day to day activities[been doing so since 2006..], so I was thinking of going for a real Mac desktop. I have a few questions:

1. 4 cores or 8?

I've asked a few friends and they say I should go for the 8 core model, but I'm not really sure, especially considering I don't do anything too incredibly stressful on the CPUs[Photoshop, but not with 9999999x9999999 documents.., vmware/parallels, and windows for games, and XCode for programming, as well as other miscellaneous emulators/programs].

2. Buy the $100 extra superdrive, or add in my own IDE drive for like $30?

3. Does quad channel RAM really help that much more, or should I just stick with 2GB for day to day life?


The iMac doesn't really fit my needs, because I don't want a slow[relatively speaking..as in the FSB and the RAM speeds..core 2s are FAST] laptop CPU/RAM in a desktop, and the graphics card[the 2600] leaves a bit to be desired, and if I'm going to upgrade, it's going to be BIG, i.e latest CPU/GPU.

I'll ask more as I think of more.

You might do OK with only 4 cores but get more power if you have the cash. You definitely want 4GB of ram instead of only 2GB. HDDs (like everything else except the useless shuffle MP3 player) are way overpriced at apple, so yeah, use your own. Just make sure you buy a quality model and not some no-name POS.

Good luck!

hecker

Does the quad channel RAM really make that much of a difference?

There's a theoretical advantage in terms of both bandwith and latency.
A single RAM module has a 64-bit bandwidth. Dual channel improves this by 2 (128-bits) by accessing two modules at the same time (2x64). Double that again and you have a bandwith of 256-bit (4x 64).

To make it short: let's say that in most cases you won't see much of difference but sometimes you will see a huge performance boost. I say, if you can afford it, buy it.

PS: What I meant in my previous post is that you should get more RAM (4GB instead of 2GB). I did not mention anything about the dual- quad-channel issue. Dual-channel and Quad-channel, refers only to the way the RAM is built, not it's actual size.

If you are going to be doing a lot of gaming, IMO its better to select the 4 core option and tack on the 8800GT. Also two things I'd put in my Mac Pro are Airport, Wireless KB/Mouse, and Dual 16x Superdrives.

That being said, if you do plan on doing some real number crunching, its better to stick with the 8 cores as you won't find a 2.8GHz chip for $499 anytime in the near future.

http://www.barefeats.com/harper3.html

Any other ideas/comments/feedback?

don't bother with the extra superdrive, just add in any IDE (or sata ) optical drive

i've got a 2008 model mac pro myself, and apple give you 4 extra screws to mount a second optical drive if you choose to (they're on the reverse side of the optical drive carrier)

It accepts SATA dvd drives? I was reading the instruction manual and it only mentioned Parallel/Ultra ATA 100.

They might work if you managed to connect them - not sure if it's possible. The OS shouldn't have a problem with them, given that they work on Hackintoshes.

PATA ones should still be easy to get, though.

I have a spare IDE and SATA dvd burner, so I guess I can just test both if/when I decide to buy the MP.

yeah, on the logic board, beneath the front fan unit, are a pair of sata ports marked "ODD_SATA" - I'm assuming they are there for futureproofing, SATA dvd/blu ray drives etc (you can also connect an e-sata bracket to them if you want)

btw: i recommend you attempt to "futureproof" yourself, and go for the 8core system, and a minimum of 4gb of ram - that'll keep the mac lasting longer before you need to update

Also, if you get just one processor, you might not be able to find another one later down the track to upgrade. This is beside the issue of needing a heatsink, as has been mentioned.

I guess if I were in your position, I'd have to think carefully, too. I'd bet, though, if you got the 8-core and at some point launched a CPU-heavy multithreaded task, you'd be glad you had it!

Dax, like everyone else said, go with the 8-Core setup, but don't throw your money away on Apple's overpriced ram and hard drives.

one more thing on the "super"drive

my mac pro came with a Pioneer DVR-112D
AU price for a second one is AU$150, quick search on google and I found prices of around AU$40, massive difference

$110 installation charge, that sounds about right.

2 of those a day would pay more than my last job!

I guess all the questions about EFI and 8800GT are put to rest with the advent of this thread?

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=91755

Wrong topic, Boss?

Anyone know if the single quad mobo is the same as the dual quad mobo?

i'm pretty sure it's the same, as they are both revision 3,1 - the earlier mac pros were 1,1 for the dual dual core, and 2,1 for the dual quad

Your best bet would be to configure it with the least amount of RAM, the smallest hard drive, and a single optical drive. I did a quick search and you can get 16GB of RAM for under $330 [4 kits of 2X2GB] shipped. Furthermore, a 1TB SATA harddrive can be had for under $250, and 500GB for $99. The closest Pioneer burners I am seeing are the 212 and the 115, and I have no idea with regards to the drivers support but can say that they are listed at under $30.

So do yourself a favor, barebones it from Apple and buy the stuff and throw it in separately, spending an hour more to save several hundred.

Are you sure they were 800MHz FBDIMMs? The 533s the old MacPro used have come down a lot, but last I checked, 16GB of 800MHz FBDIMMs would run around $750 from the cheapest vendor (for 8x2, or $1500 for 4x4)

I'd get a Mac Pro with 4 cores. Unless you are into heavy video editing and music recording, large picture editing, and work with 3D video rendering, and such like

if you just do basic stuff than 4 cores would be the way to go, if you can afford 8 though, why not get it

Is tough to decide between 4 and 8 cores, especially if you are 100% sure that you don't or will need the second CPU, but as someone said, down the line, it might be very hard to get another identical CPU.

For example, I needed a northwood P4 for a PC and was not able to get one, no matter were I looked and I don't trust a used CPU.

No point getting 8-core. There aren't many applications or tasks that can fully use all 8-cores. Even Adobe says:

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/files/PSWorld...Preso_final.pdf
Going over 2 cores in a system has diminishing returns. It won’t hurt, but it won’t help as much as you
might think. This goes back to the speed of processors versus the bandwidth of memory. Of course, if
you do radial blurs all day, more cores will almost always help. Don’t avoid getting more, of course,
there just may be better ways of spending your machine budget.

The performance of MacPro memory (those FB-DIMM RAM) is not as good as standard RAM. Many tasks can be done faster on a faster dualcore.

More cores don't necessarily have to be used for the same task. It can help for running multiple things simultaneously (which I'm always doing). Also, more and more applications will be taking advantage of multiple cores, since right now increasing the number of cores seems to be the main way computers are increasing in speed.

Get a used Mac Pro 2.66 Quad off eBay for $1800 tops. Then spend $600 for 16 GBs of ram for TransInt or OtherWorld. Then spend $270 for a 8800 Nvidia from Apple for 1st Gens. The thing that is nice is that it runs 10.4.7 and all of the system ratios are perfect. 10.4.11 takes 20 seconds from statup time to automatic login... its so hot... I run 10.5.3 on mine tho hah

But basically that's $2700 vs $2800 barebones 8 core or $3800 maxed out with 16 GBs and 8800. So you could get a MacBook and a Mac Pro 4 core. or just a Mac Pro 8 core...

That what I am doing/did...

Laters...

Why not make the comparison a little bit more fair and customize the new Mac Pro to have 4 cores since that's what the used one would have? The 8800GT is also a $150 option on a new one rather than $270. You can then get 16GB of RAM for $728 from Transintl, for a total of $3177. I think I'd rather get a slightly faster new Mac Pro that still has its full warranty remaining for $3177 than a used one for $2700.

I would definitely go for the 8 core. The only reason to pay the extra coin for the server CPUs, RAM, and chipset in the Mac Pro is that the server chipsets support two physical processors. If you don't want 8 cores, build a Hackintosh for a small fortune less.