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Mac Pro Options for $7000.00?

T

tony3d

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 6, 2006
377
2
I'm going to have $7000.00 in cash to buy my new Mac Pro. What kind of options do you think that money will buy as a total package including video card, SSD, and memory?
 
Buy as much of it from a 3rd party as possible. Apple has a habit of charging 2x over retail for optional components. It's very annoying, but very true.
 
dbit said:
Buy as much of it from a 3rd party as possible. Apple has a habit of charging 2x over retail for optional components. It's very annoying, but very true.
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What SSD do you suggest, and are they as easy to install as a standard drive? I would use this as my boot drive.

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Pressure said:
Yeah ... like we will see the Geforce GTX680 as an option :p
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I'll be happy with an ATI 7970!
 
tony3d said:
I'm going to have $7000.00 in cash to buy my new Mac Pro. What kind of options do you think that money will buy as a total package including video card, SSD, and memory?
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Well, you have a lot of options, what's important to you? With $7000, you're not going to have a lot of money to configure the top BTO option, unless you don't need much other than the box. Do you need a monitor?

64 GB RAM (8x8GB): ~$1000.
256 GB SSD boot drive: ~$200
3x2TB drives: ~$450

So, lets just assume with tax and maybe needing a couple other small things, that you're up close to $2000. With that budget and the seemingly $400-$500 dollar price increases in the DP models, you might not be able to get the 2nd highest BTO option (looks like it will be the 2650 or 2660) at maybe ~$5500. But if you don't really need 64 GB RAM (i.e. if 32 is fine 8x4GB would only cost $300), you have a monitor, and you will be happy with the standard video card (AMD 7970?). You could maybe squeeze into the mid range DP Mac Pro on that budget.
 
wallysb01 said:
and you will be happy with the standard video card (AMD 7970?).
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Radeon HD 7970 as the standard video card? Thanks for the laugh :p

I'm thinking a Radeon 6870 if we are lucky. The original Mac Pro came with a Geforce 7300GT and the 2008 model came with a Radeon HD 2600 XT.
 
Do existing ram upgrades from places like OWC work at the higher ram speed expected or will we have to wait for 3rd party add on ram to become available?

edit: No they have to wait and see what the specs are and get new ram for most of the new models, so it could be a couple days or weeks they said. In 2010, it was pretty quick.
 
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tony3d said:
I'm going to have $7000.00 in cash to buy my new Mac Pro. What kind of options do you think that money will buy as a total package including video card, SSD, and memory?
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What's happened to your HP?
 
wallysb01 said:
Well, you have a lot of options, what's important to you? With $7000, you're not going to have a lot of money to configure the top BTO option, unless you don't need much other than the box. Do you need a monitor?

64 GB RAM (8x8GB): ~$1000.
256 GB SSD boot drive: ~$200
3x2TB drives: ~$450

So, lets just assume with tax and maybe needing a couple other small things, that you're up close to $2000. With that budget and the seemingly $400-$500 dollar price increases in the DP models, you might not be able to get the 2nd highest BTO option (looks like it will be the 2650 or 2660) at maybe ~$5500. But if you don't really need 64 GB RAM (i.e. if 32 is fine 8x4GB would only cost $300), you have a monitor, and you will be happy with the standard video card (AMD 7970?). You could maybe squeeze into the mid range DP Mac Pro on that budget.
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I can get buy with 16 gigs of ram for now. I'm currently running with 8 on my current Mac Pro, and it does very nicely in Lightwave 3d. I mostly do product renderings, so it's not to demanding.
 
Pressure said:
Radeon HD 7970 as the standard video card? Thanks for the laugh :p

I'm thinking a Radeon 6870 if we are lucky. The original Mac Pro came with a Geforce 7300GT and the 2008 model came with a Radeon HD 2600 XT.
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Don't forget the GT120. Sucked when it was released but has found new power thanks to CS6.
Look at the liquify results.
http://www.barefeats.com/pscs6.html

I bet 7950 and GTX 670. Both are 2x as fast as 5870. But who knows maybe they start shipping 1200W PSU's with 8-pin's:eek:
 
Pressure said:
Radeon HD 7970 as the standard video card? Thanks for the laugh :p

I'm thinking a Radeon 6870 if we are lucky. The original Mac Pro came with a Geforce 7300GT and the 2008 model came with a Radeon HD 2600 XT.
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6870 is defunct. Apple have always launched Mac Pros with the latest graphics cards available. 7770/7870 as standard and 7970 or GTX 680 seem most likely.
 
tony3d said:
I'm going to have $7000.00 in cash to buy my new Mac Pro. What kind of options do you think that money will buy as a total package including video card, SSD, and memory?
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Buy all your upgrades from Other World Computing(macsales.com). They have great products, fair prices, and their customer service is AWESOME!!
 
Rokeneer said:
...and their customer service is AWESOME!!
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If you like deception and an attitude that their customers are dumb-asses then yes, awesome! My experience only. I wanted to like them. But lying instead of saying you don't know is pretty low on the trust spectrum.
 
derbothaus said:
If you like deception and an attitude that their customers are dumb-asses then yes, awesome! My experience only. I wanted to like them. But lying instead of saying you don't know is pretty low on the trust spectrum.
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I too have been boned by OWC. I stopped doing business with them a few years ago. They are on my banned list.
 
Umbongo said:
6870 is defunct. Apple have always launched Mac Pros with the latest graphics cards available. 7770/7870 as standard and 7970 or GTX 680 seem most likely.
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Yeah, the Geforce 7300GT were definitely the latest. So were the Radeon HD 2600 XT, Geforce GT120 and Radeon HD 5770. The latest indeed.

But yeah, we might get Radeon HD 7770 or 7850. I'm just purposely setting laser for "low expectations" so I don't get disappointed ;)
 
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Pressure said:
Yeah, the Geforce 7300GT were definitely the latest. So were the Radeon HD 2600 XT, Geforce GT120 and Radeon HD 5770. The latest indeed.

But yeah, we might get Radeon HD 7770 or 7850. I'm just purposely setting laser for "low expectations" so I don't get disappointed ;)
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Not sure what you mean by the latest indeed? :confused:
 
tony3d said:
I can get buy with 16 gigs of ram for now. I'm currently running with 8 on my current Mac Pro, and it does very nicely in Lightwave 3d. I mostly do product renderings, so it's not to demanding.
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You previously said you did primarily motion graphics:p. I figured if you're using lightwave, you probably started some time ago.

derbothaus said:
Don't forget the GT120. Sucked when it was released but has found new power thanks to CS6.
Look at the liquify results.
http://www.barefeats.com/pscs6.html

I bet 7950 and GTX 670. Both are 2x as fast as 5870. But who knows maybe they start shipping 1200W PSU's with 8-pin's:eek:
Click to expand...

I don't know why but the Iris blur test didn't seem to work with the GT120. I also have to wonder what they did to that mesh to push times so high without gpu acceleration. Liquify is pretty archaic at this point. The rebuild tools haven't changed much from version 6 to CS6.

Dr. Stealth said:
I too have been boned by OWC. I stopped doing business with them a few years ago. They are on my banned list.
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What did they do? My concern with them was the debacle where they claimed their NAND was somehow superior.
 
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