Mac GUI City :: Mac Pro - user experience

cactus · **Citizen** Topic Starter

What is your experience of owning a Mac Pro ?
These machines come with lots of options, but the price differential
(plus tax) on going from 3.0 to 3.2 GHz strikes me as unattractive
since everything else is the same.
Is the extra 6 percent increase in processor speed worth the money ?

What have you found essential and perhaps regretted not specifying
as part of the original purchase ?

More RAM than the 2 Gb standard or buy RAM later from an independant ?

Any major bugs, hardware defects etc. to look out for ?

Does anyone know of a new tower model or replacement line
to be released soon by Apple ?

Dog Cow · **Mayor**

There's a lab full of Mac Pro's in the arts building across campus which I have gotten to use a few times. I haven't done anything in-depth, so I can't say anything for the speed. It seemed just as fast as my Mac mini.

Which Mac do you have currently? That would allow us to give a better estimate of speed increase.

cactus · **Citizen** Topic Starter

I'd hope that a Mac Pro would be a lot faster than my G4 Quicksilver 500, except that OSX is a lot larger than OS9.
OSX on the eMac I'm using for an image archiving project is much slower than OS9 on my old machine, even though the eMac has a better spec
(1.5 GHz and more RAM) on paper.

However, what I'm asking here is whether the faster 3.2 GHz Mac Pro is
worth the extra cost over the 3.0 GHz one. I'm inclined to go for the slightly
slower one and spend some of the price differential on upgrades.

Dog Cow · **Mayor**

cactus wrote:

Quote: I'd hope that a Mac Pro would be a lot faster than my G4 Quicksilver 500, except that OSX is a lot larger than OS9.
OSX on the eMac I'm using for an image archiving project is much slower than OS9 on my old machine, even though the eMac has a better spec
(1.5 GHz and more RAM) on paper.

However, what I'm asking here is whether the faster 3.2 GHz Mac Pro is
worth the extra cost over the 3.0 GHz one. I'm inclined to go for the slightly
slower one and spend some of the price differential on upgrades.

If you're just image archiving, or anything similar, I wouldn't bother. Since these machines are built to run OS X as fast as possible, it'll be like using OS 9.

lector · **Citizen**

I think that before you buy a Mac, you have to realize where you are going to use it for. Maybe a MacMini would suffice in your case.
Have you considered that you need a screen also in case you buy a Mac Pro?

Rufus · **Citizen**

Ahh but can you afford a Mac Pro?

heavymetal4god · **Citizen**

You could just get an iMac for image archiving.

Dog Cow · **Mayor**

heavymetal4god wrote:

Quote: You could just get an iMac for image archiving.

But a Mac Pro will last longer.

Case in point: My first "serious" Mac was a b&w G3 which was released in January 1999. It's still the main computer at my parent's house with OS 10.4 and 100 GB of disk storage, only because I have a Mac mini now at the farm. In just a few months, that will be a decade of service that G3 will have given, and I'm sure it will still be in use.

The point is, the current top-of-the-line Mac is going to last a lot longer than a mid- or low-range Mac. A 1999 iMac in serious use today? Forget it!

cactus · **Citizen** Topic Starter

This could form a separate thread, but I see two philosophical viewpoints of buying computers:

1. Buy the top model or best you can afford and keep it awhile.
2. Buy the cheapest model and replace it frequently.

I lean towards the first approach. There is a significant cost of
additional software and a significant learning curve for any new
system before it is truly productive. Making a machine last minimises
the impact of these costs as long as it continues to do the job.

The second approach means one is always more-up-to-date. Had I
adopted this strategy, I would have had to adapt to three operating
systems and obtain three separate sets of software over the time that
my current machine has been in operation. I also don't like to think
of expensive hardware as 'disposable'.

The above assumes the computer is privately funded. For business use
where costs can be written off against tax, different pressures apply.

Image archiving is a bit of a red herring. That's a job I'm doing at a
former work-place, but my new mac is for home use and will be used
for lots of things.