Thanks for respone.
I would be lucky if i could get 2009 MP for 700 bucks. I live in Eastern-Europe and prices here are ridiculus - I'm paying 750$ for 2008 version. Shipping it from overseas is not an option too - Taxes and shipping combined would be approx. half the price of item.
Anyway, although RAM is quite a bit more expensive, 12 GB Ram is about 150$, which I'm willing to spend.
Is there that huge difference between 800 Mhz DDR2 and newer 1333Mhz DDR3?
hey im from eastern europe as well and i was in your situation a year ago. i know the prices are crazy here, i was even considering 2006 dual processor MP because they were the cheapest.
but after a lot of reading you will understand that anything below 2009 isn't that great if you want to upgrade the system for reasonable price. RAM is way cheaper and you can get hex core CPUs that will really give you a lot of power if you need it in future.
after research, I decided for single processor 2009 4,1 model. i thought i would put more money into it for hex core 3.33 CPU and GTX GPU but after running this computer for around a year, I discovered that it is plenty powerful for my work - I do video editing, some photo editing and management, even occasional gaming. It is very good all around machine.
I got a killer deal from forum member who was from UK and was willing to ship it. You will not believe this but he sold it to me for around 800GBP, including quad 2.93 CPU, ATI HD5870 1GB, new PSU, 8GB of ECC memory, 128GB SSD drive, 640GB HDD and 2TB HDD, keyboard and trackpad, even 2 months of AppleCare!
Since then I put 32GB of DDR3 RAM and two 500GB hard drives in RAID0 (putting SSD in optical bay). I am very happy with it, it's been rock solid.
What I wanted to say that there are good deals out there. You might spend maybe two months looking for it but it will be worth it. There are european sites like 2ndmac.de that sell these systems but they're quite bare and cost around 1500EUR which is not a good deal but they give you some sort of warranty on them.
If anyone wonders why we dont buy from US its because of import taxes that are quite large, so it's best to find something within EU.
Try looking in the Marketplace on this forum, thats where I found my Mac Pro. We used Moneybookers and their escrow service, so the transaction was safe. Also try looking at german and english eBay (ebay.de, ebay.co.uk), I bought used MBP there that Im very happy with.
Dont settle with 3,1, they are not bad systems but now its not the time to buy them anymore, buy at least 4,1. Dual CPU versions are good too but upgrading the processors is way harder and from what you say, I think you'd be fine with quad core CPU as well, and if not you can get six core CPU that is very favorite around here.
The sellers have been selling 4,1 and 5,1 systems for the same price for about 1,5 year now, it's not normal and does not reflect the real value. It's because classic Mac Pro is not sold here anymore. If they want to sell you single CPU 2008 model for 750EUR and more you should reconsider. That computer has about the same CPU power as simple 2011 Mac mini which can be bought for even less - including warranty and ability to run SATA3 SSDs and cheap RAM.
