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Help needed in buying a Mac Pro

wonderspark said:
The Mac Pro is designed to be serviced very easily.

There is a lever on the back that you will flip up, which allows the whole side to be removed. Then, you can access the RAM slots right there, or move two more levers to slide the processor / RAM tray out a little, and move the RAM levers open to remove the old, and insert the new RAM in reverse order. Then, you'd secure the tray, replace the side panel and it's done.

It's very easy, I promise. However, if you REALLY don't want to have anything to do with the inside of the computer, you can take it to any computer shop, and someone there can do it for you, and you'll STILL pay much, much less for the whole process, even paying a computer shop to pop those RAM sticks in for you. Apple's RAM is *that much more* expensive.
Click to expand...
Is this the ram you are talking about and if so which one should I get....the RM price in US$ is divided by 3
 

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Is this the correct one

CMSA8GX3M1A1600C11 DDR3, 1600MHz 8GB 1x204 SODIMM
 
bigbadneil said:
Is this the correct one

CMSA8GX3M1A1600C11 DDR3, 1600MHz 8GB 1x204 SODIMM
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It looks completely wrong, based on the 1600MHz and the 1x204, since you want 240-pin and 1333MHz. At least you got DDR3 right.

You want 4x8.0GB PC10600 DDR3 ECC 1333MHz 240-Pin.
 
This page might help you understand RAM better, or it might completely confuse you.

SO-DIMM is laptop RAM with 204 pins. Don't get that for a Mac Pro.

Also, 1600MHz is wasted, since the most you'll get is 1333MHz from the CPU options. It won't run any faster than the CPU allows.
 
pyzon said:
Ridiculous advice, there is NO reason not to buy a Mac Pro now...as nobody has ANY information on any new model/specs it makes no sense to wait if you want/ need one now. There is not much out there the current Mac Pro properly spec'd for the job can't do...most people only want faster/bigger/better because it is available or may be available rather than actually needing it....
Click to expand...

What's ridiculous is to advise someone to buy 3 year old overpriced hardware.
 
Thanks to everyone who helped me here, below is the spec I just ordered:
 

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I recently bought a MacPro and a HP workstation

The MacPro came with 512SSD & 2TB 7k2 hdd, the wonderful 3.33GHz 6-core Xeon, HD 5780 and a 27" ACD.
I bought also the HPZ820 2 x 8-core Xeon E5-2670@2.6GHz, Quadro 4000 2GB and an HP 30" display.

The MacPro feels great, smooth, responsive FAST and snappy whilst the HP Windows 7 box feels slow, maybe just feels slow and annoying. I downloaded Cinebench to cross-compare the systems and Windows wouldn't let me near the file - you don't have permission to browse the temp folder for "Cinebench" - Win7 was lying as it seemed to have deleted the file! - I d/l again, and it took forever to unzip - around 6 minutes to unzip a 139 MB folder, with 7000+ items. Speed was around 1.3MB/sec or less during the unzip. Snappy? - NO!

however when I ran the Cinebench on the two systems
16 Core 32 Thread liquid cooled gurgling HP Sandy-Bridge with 20MB L3 cache per CPU gave great results OPEN GL =61.76 FPS CPU 19.6 pts
Whilst 6 Core 12 Thread '2012' MacPro was half-as-good OPEN GL =37.34 CPU 8.5 pts but I love using it!

So to get double the work done, with pain - Go Win7 workstation
To enjoy your work - and feel snappy - go 2012 MacPro

(The Win7 came with a 6 Tera HDD composite wired for RAID0 - I didn't trust this so broke it up into RAID1, I think the Win7 HP is desperately in need of an SSD for the OS. I don't trust the somewhat noisy liquid cooling for longevity either - I hope the 2013 redesigned MacPro doesn't gurgle!)
 
cyclotron451 said:
The MacPro came with 512SSD & 2TB 7k2 hdd, the wonderful 3.33GHz 6-core Xeon, HD 5780 and a 27" ACD.
I bought also the HPZ820 2 x 8-core Xeon E5-2670@2.6GHz, Quadro 4000 2GB and an HP 30" display.

The MacPro feels great, smooth, responsive FAST and snappy whilst the HP Windows 7 box feels slow, maybe just feels slow and annoying. I downloaded Cinebench to cross-compare the systems and Windows wouldn't let me near the file - you don't have permission to browse the temp folder for "Cinebench" - Win7 was lying as it seemed to have deleted the file! - I d/l again, and it took forever to unzip - around 6 minutes to unzip a 139 MB folder, with 7000+ items. Speed was around 1.3MB/sec or less during the unzip. Snappy? - NO!

however when I ran the Cinebench on the two systems
16 Core 32 Thread liquid cooled gurgling HP Sandy-Bridge with 20MB L3 cache per CPU gave great results OPEN GL =61.76 FPS CPU 19.6 pts
Whilst 6 Core 12 Thread '2012' MacPro was half-as-good OPEN GL =37.34 CPU 8.5 pts but I love using it!

So to get double the work done, with pain - Go Win7 workstation
To enjoy your work - and feel snappy - go 2012 MacPro

(The Win7 came with a 6 Tera HDD composite wired for RAID0 - I didn't trust this so broke it up into RAID1, I think the Win7 HP is desperately in need of an SSD for the OS. I don't trust the somewhat noisy liquid cooling for longevity either - I hope the 2013 redesigned MacPro doesn't gurgle!)
Click to expand...

I think that your impression of speed with the Mac Pro vs the HP is down to the Mac Pro having an SSD and the HP not.

I use a MacPro at work (standard 2010 4 core with RAM upgraded to 14GB) and I have a three year old Dell dual Xeon Workstation at home (2x 5570s and 24GB of RAM) running Windows 7. I can't say I notice any difference in everyday use. The Mac Pro seems to have excessive disk activity from time-to-time and shows the spinning beach ball, while Windows 7 seems to have an annoying habit of sending the drives to sleep so they take a while to wake up.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your bad experience seems to be centred around disk access and given that the system was set up for Raid 0 and you switched it to slower (but more secure) Raid 1 and you're comparing it to an SSD it is not surprising there is a major difference. It is not down to any fundamental advantage inherent in the now rather dated Mac Pro design.
 
cyclotron451 said:
The MacPro came with 512SSD & 2TB 7k2 hdd, the wonderful 3.33GHz 6-core Xeon, HD 5780 and a 27" ACD.
I bought also the HPZ820 2 x 8-core Xeon E5-2670@2.6GHz, Quadro 4000 2GB and an HP 30" display.

The MacPro feels great, smooth, responsive FAST and snappy whilst the HP Windows 7 box feels slow, maybe just feels slow and annoying. I downloaded Cinebench to cross-compare the systems and Windows wouldn't let me near the file - you don't have permission to browse the temp folder for "Cinebench" - Win7 was lying as it seemed to have deleted the file! - I d/l again, and it took forever to unzip - around 6 minutes to unzip a 139 MB folder, with 7000+ items. Speed was around 1.3MB/sec or less during the unzip. Snappy? - NO!

however when I ran the Cinebench on the two systems
16 Core 32 Thread liquid cooled gurgling HP Sandy-Bridge with 20MB L3 cache per CPU gave great results OPEN GL =61.76 FPS CPU 19.6 pts
Whilst 6 Core 12 Thread '2012' MacPro was half-as-good OPEN GL =37.34 CPU 8.5 pts but I love using it!

So to get double the work done, with pain - Go Win7 workstation
To enjoy your work - and feel snappy - go 2012 MacPro

(The Win7 came with a 6 Tera HDD composite wired for RAID0 - I didn't trust this so broke it up into RAID1, I think the Win7 HP is desperately in need of an SSD for the OS. I don't trust the somewhat noisy liquid cooling for longevity either - I hope the 2013 redesigned MacPro doesn't gurgle!)
Click to expand...
Sounds great but I have bought already
 
wonderspark said:
You only need up to 1333MHz RAM. I get mine from OWC in the USA. Link:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/1333D3W8M32K/

Look for specs like this:

Size: 8GB (8192MB)
240-pin SDRAM DIMM
1024M x 72, Dual Rank ECC Memory Module
Data Rate = 1333MHz
Module Bandwidth 8.5GB/s
CAS 9-9-9-24
Voltage 1.5V
Apple Specified Thermal Sensor*
RoHS Certified
Click to expand...
I ordered it from them and then they canceled the order because I ordered it when I was in Hong Kong and asked them to ship it to my address in Malaysia ....no idea why.
Anyway has anyone else got a link to where I can buy this RAM online??
 
bigbadneil said:
I ordered it from them and then they canceled the order because I ordered it when I was in Hong Kong and asked them to ship it to my address in Malaysia ....no idea why.
Anyway has anyone else got a link to where I can buy this RAM online??
Click to expand...
Hmm, that's unfortunate... sorry to hear that.

If you have trustworthy friends in the US, you could have it shipped to them, and then they can ship it to you wherever you are.
 
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