Mac Pro - Do I need two processors?

Comments

• Reply 1 of 8

  monkeyoe Posts: 45member

  January 22, 2008 4:19AM

  Hmm, I think having more RAM would benefit you more, as you tend to have lots of applications open at the same time, don't get your RAM from Apple though, they charge an arm and a leg.
  
  
  
  As for the rest: No idea Sorry
• Reply 2 of 8

  onlooker Posts: 5,252member

  January 22, 2008 6:26AM

  If you wait a little while MacWorld news site will most likely have photoshop benchmarks between both systems.
• Reply 3 of 8

  mzaslove Posts: 519member

  January 22, 2008 11:55AM

  Also, have we found out if one can add the extra CPU later? I was following the threads for awhile, but no one said (I ordered two with double chips). If one could, then the single chip option with extra ram would be the way to go at the start, then later, you could upgrade to the secone chip. If that's possible.
• Reply 4 of 8

  Marvin Posts: 15,320moderator

  January 22, 2008 12:06PM

  The graphics card won't make much difference for 2D stuff but I'd get the 8800GT anyway for future resale value and maybe if you want to dabble with motion - the extra VRam will come in very useful.
  
  
  
  For your kind of work, I'd go with the quad model and more Ram. You only really need more if you are doing rendering for motion graphics (not motion though as it's hardware rendered but AE) or 3D. For still images, designs etc, a quad is enough. It may help with video encoding but even there I doubt the improvement you'd see would be worth the extra money.
  
  
  
  Crucial doesn't have Ram for the new Mac Pro yet so you'd have to get it from Apple or shop around. What I would do is get the base model with 2GB and check your Ram meter to see if you are using it all with what you do. If you find that you don't have enough, upgrade to 4GB and so on. I wouldn't go all out and buy 8GB Ram because it's expensive and you might not use it all.
  
  
  
  For hard drives, check out newegg and look for the 3GB/s SATA drives:
  
  
  
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=400GB+-+750GB
  
  
  
  I reckon it'll be cheaper with 4 x 500GB (around $400) than 2 x 1TB (around $600). As for model, Seagate and Western Digital have good reputations but it's one of these things where opinion varies a lot. Hard drives can fail at any time no matter the make so you really just have to try them out for yourself.
• Reply 5 of 8

  onlooker Posts: 5,252member

  January 22, 2008 4:32PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Marvin
  
  
  .......................
  
  I reckon it'll be cheaper with 4 x 500GB (around $400) than 2 x 1TB (around $600). As for model, Seagate and Western Digital have good reputations but it's one of these things where opinion varies a lot. Hard drives can fail at any time no matter the make so you really just have to try them out for yourself.
  

  
  

  
  
  That's what I got for mine. 4 x 500 GB's. And 4 x 2GB OCZ RAM. I have everything but the computer. lol.
• Reply 6 of 8

  sophie_d Posts: 2member

  January 22, 2008 11:58PM

  Thanks for the responses. Seems like I'll go with the single processor and get 8GB of ram from OWC. I'll probably get some of the Seagate Barracudas from Newegg, though I think I'll stick to 1TB drives since I often shoot a couple of thousand images a week and I literally cannot have enough storage right now!
• Reply 7 of 8

  splinemodel Posts: 7,311member

  January 23, 2008 2:42AM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Sophie_D
  
  
  Thanks for the responses. Seems like I'll go with the single processor and get 8GB of ram from OWC. I'll probably get some of the Seagate Barracudas from Newegg, though I think I'll stick to 1TB drives since I often shoot a couple of thousand images a week and I literally cannot have enough storage right now!
  

  
  

  
  
  Good choice. Also, get the cheapest graphics card. it will have almost no affect on resale, and by the time you wish to sell your Mac Pro, it's highly likely that many PCs will be EFI. What that means is that macs will be able to use cheaper PC graphics cards and no-one will pay a premium for an old card that was 35% better than the cheap option, in its heyday.
  
  
  
  I was going to say that you need to work on an extremely large still image (as in, 400+ megapixel) for the CPU to start having impact these days, but I think you made the right decision before I even said that. Besides, you'd need a lot of memory either way.
  
  
  
  Good luck, use the Mac Pro to make something awesome (or some things awesome).
• Reply 8 of 8

  lemon bon bon. Posts: 2,173member

  January 23, 2008 11:23AM

  If you're doing Photoshop work, I'd have thought the Quad model enough with the stock card.
  
  
  
  However, bring in 3d work? GT plus the extra cpu? Worth it.
  
  
  
  Lemon Bon Bon.
  
  
  
  PS. Look at the benches on Apple's site...