Mac Pro or C2D?

[I'mAMac]

I'm trying to decide if I should get the 24" c2D or the Mac Pro. I have always been leaning towards the mac pro but now im not sure. If I got the C2D it would probably be something like this:
24" 2.16Ghz
2GB RAM
7600GT
250gb HD

If I got the Mac Pro:
2.66ghz
1gb RAM
X1900XT
250GB
The thing I like about the Pro is that it is upgradeable. Now I know they will both be great computers but I just wanted a second opinion. I'll use them mostly for gaming, some video and movie making/editing, and a little photoshop. Thanks

 

[bob5820]

I went the Mac Pro route myself, for the price difference between the two your looking at it just seems like the Pro is a better deal. The Achilles heal of my logic though is that you will need to come up with a monitor, and from what I understand 1gb is a little light. I installed an extra 2 GB (3 GB total) before I ever fired up my Pro, so I'm going by what I've read not actual experience. Though I can testify that 512mb on a Macbook is definitely a little light ( my 2GB gets here tomorrow). I ordered my Mac Pro before the 24" iMac came out, but I don't think that it would have changed my decision. There is something about upgradability that just feels right.

 

[Monyx]

There is something about upgradability that just feels right.

Indeed, for the long term My Mac Pro 3GB/800GB x1900xt was a choice made so much easier by the fact that I already shelled out AUD1250 for Dell 2405 24" LCD.
If I didn't have the LCD...might've been a lot tougher to choose between iMac v MacPro.

Q. is are you likely to expand HD, RAM, video (including for WinXP), do heavy processing & can budget for an LCD?

If YES
then MacPro is in order (but you will want 2GB to get most out of it)
If NO
then iMac

 

[I'mAMac]

Well I already have a 19" monitor which is plenty big for me. I will try to get the 2gb, not sure about it. If I can't I'll just upgrade to 2 or 3 gb later.

 

[Chone]

I originally got an iMac but then I decided for a Mac Pro, I don't have to sacrifice a 20" monitor and I can upgrade the hell out of it, it just seemed like a better investment, Mac Pro can have up to 16GB of RAM, tons of HDD space, GPU is easily upgradeable, PCI-E slots for other niceties and of course, there is also the possibility of upgrading the CPUs for the time when Quad Xeons just don't cut it (which honestly I don't think will come anytime soon) so it just felt right, I also thought that if a component failed, on Mac Pro it would be very easy to just replace it yourself.

So yeah, I think the extra cash for Mac Pro is worth it, especially if you plan on keeping the computer for a long time, for example, 2 years from now, that X1600 will be slow as molasses and Core 2 Duo will start to show some age and 2GB will be the norm so iMac will not be as fast while Mac Pro will still have an awesome processor, you can put tons of RAM on it and upgrade the GPU. 5 years from now iMac will be slow (by comparison) while Mac Pro can easily get back on track with a CPU upgrade.

It seemed like a brainless decision to me, espcially since I kept my Power Mac G4 for 6 years and it would be nice if Mac Pro could last that long (which I think it will).

 

[Macmadant]

I'm trying to decide if I should get the 24" c2D or the Mac Pro. I have always been leaning towards the mac pro but now im not sure. If I got the C2D it would probably be something like this:
24" 2.16Ghz
2GB RAM
7600GT
250gb HD

If I got the Mac Pro:
2.66ghz
1gb RAM
X1900XT
250GB
The thing I like about the Pro is that it is upgradeable. Now I know they will both be great computers but I just wanted a second opinion. I'll use them mostly for gaming, some video and movie making/editing, and a little photoshop. Thanks

In such photoshop tests, Rendering and what not there isn't that much difference between the mac pro specs above and the imac specs above. however when apps are released to make use of those four cores, it will blow the imac away

 

[I'mAMac]

there is also the possibility of upgrading the CPUs for the time when Quad Xeons just don't cut it

I didnt know you could upgrade the processors in the pros wow. Then it is definitley worth it. You wouldnt need a new computer for like 10 years at least

 

[Macmadant]

I didnt know you could upgrade the processors in the pros wow. Then it is definitley worth it. You wouldnt need a new computer for like 10 years at least

Well with intel chips being released every second, the socket type may well change meaning new chips would not fit the pro and also if new processors are hotter the pro's cooling system might not be adequate enough. But certainly for the Clovertown processors coming from Intel you can shove in there, but most apps won't be written to take advantage of 8 cores, some aren't even written to take advantage of the four cores in the pros, so say you brought a 2.66 GHz 8 core clovertown (max speed is 2.66Ghz) you may not notice much difference except for the 8 megabyte L2 Cache,

Processor # / Clock (GHz) / Bus (MHz) / L2 Cache (MB) / Price (in 1,000 unit lots)
X5355 / 2.66 / 1333 / 8 / $1,172
E5345 / 2.33 / 1333 / 8 / $851
E5320 / 1.86 / 1066 / 8 / $690
E5310 / 1.60 / 1066 / 8 / $455

So i don't know about being top of the range for 10 years maybe about 3

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Well with intel chips being released every second, the socket type may well change meaning new chips would not fit the pro and also if new processors are hotter the pro's cooling system might not be adequate enough. But certainly for the Clovertown processors coming from Intel you can shove in there, but most apps won't be written to take advantage of 8 cores, some aren't even written to take advantage of the four cores in the pros, so say you brought a 2.66 GHz 8 core clovertown (max speed is 2.66Ghz) you may not notice much difference except for the 8 megabyte L2 Cache,

One thing to remember about the L2 cache is that it is 4 MB per pair of cores. So a single socket, quad-core Xeon would be functionally identical as a dual-socket, dual-core Xeon system. Both would have 4 MB per two cores, 8 MB total. (In fact, a dual-socket, dual-core has an advantage over a single-socket quad-core in that it is using two front side busses.) But a dual-socket, quad-core would obviously win out in any heavily multithreaded apps.

And yes, the current Xeon line will be replaced in late '07 or early '08 with a new socket that will be shared between Xeon and Itanium. (So you could theoretically upgrade a system from Xeon to Itanium. But that would be really odd, since it would require a complete OS install, since the two chips are different instruction sets.)