Early 2008

[SuperVehicle001]

I have a chance to buy an Mac Pro 3,1 with

10.6.8 OS
x2 2.8 Ghz Quad core Intel Xeon processors
2 gb 800 mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
Pioneer DVD-RW
x1 300 GB Harddrive
x1 500 GB Harddrive

He wants $1,600 (no extra for shipping). Is this a good deal? I was going to build a hackintosh for around $1,300 that I could also use for decent PC gaming.

Thanks.

 

[goMac]

That's a fair deal.

 

[Neodym]

Calculate another 100-200$ for more memory, as 2GB is extremely tight on OSX.

Also the 8800GT is not exactly what one would call a decent graphic card for gaming.

I have to say that i'm not exactly overwhelmed by the offer.

Did you alternatively consider getting a 1,1 Mac Pro 2,66GHz for way under $1000 and then adding Ram and a good graphic card? That way you would get a machine whose CPU performance would be close to the 3,1 machine offered to you, but with considerably more Ram and a better graphic card (for gaming) at the price of your Hackintosh (or perhaps even below), but with better build quality than the Hackintosh. The saved $$$ you could finally invest into a nice SSD and then the 1,1 will be a better machine overall than the offered 3,1 - for a lower price.

Of course you could also upgrade the 3,1, but then it will cost you quite a bit more to bring it to the performance level of an upgraded 1,1.

 

[mojohanna]

I will bet you can find more memory for a lot less that $200. Just found 4g on Crucial for $49.
Prior to that, running OSX with only 2g with no real issues at all.

 

[aramosc]

wait.. be patient

I got a 3,1 2x quad 2.8 with 10 gb ram 3.3 tb HDD (3x1TB, 1 320GB) 120 gt graphics, still under apple care for $950. It's a hard deal to find but if you are patient you'll find something better than that offer.

 

[Neodym]

I will bet you can find more memory for a lot less that $200. Just found 4g on Crucial for $49.

Really? FB-DIMM 800MHz? Cheapest i could find on a quick search is around 76,- Euro for 4GB, which roughly translates to >100$ according to current exchange rates.

Prior to that, running OSX with only 2g with no real issues at all.

If you don't need more than 2GB in OSX you'll probably not need a Mac Pro in the first place...

 

[aramosc]

Really? FB-DIMM 800MHz? Cheapest i could find on a quick search is around 76,- Euro for 4GB, which roughly translates to >100$ according to current exchange rates.


If you don't need more than 2GB in OSX you'll probably not need a Mac Pro in the first place...

I second that FB-DIMM 800MHz are expensive!

 

[ActionableMango]

Your only listed us is PC gaming. Assuming the MP is a requirement, it's probably better to get a single processor MP. It will be less expensive, games can't use so many cores anyway, and with the money saved you can upgrade the CPU to something with a faster clock.

Also, that video card is really inadequate for PC gaming.

2GB is a little bit light and the 2008 model uses expensive RAM as others have mentioned.

I'd say get a 2009 or later model with single processor.

 

[Macsonic]

If you can get some discount and negotiate on the $1600 that would be great. In eBay, the average price on that model is around $1600 to $2000 depending on the specs as some units have upgraded ram and videocard. If you personally know the seller as someone who takes good care of his equipment would help too.

 

[SuperVehicle001]

He took it down to $1450. I made my case that I would need to upgrade the ram so I offered $1250. Would this make it a better deal? Yeah I did look up the ram. Damn that is a lot. At this rate I'm still leaning toward my custom build but we will see what happens.