Made my mind up - let me know what you think.

[andyjamesnelson]

Hey, so before I click the order button let me know if you think this is a good choice.

Mac Pro 2.66

2gig of ram from apple (with the higher education it didnt seem cheaper anyplace else). I am going for the 512mb sticks so that I can upgrade to 4 gigs sort of cheaply in the future. I dont think I will ever need over 4gigs ram.

Going to stick with the 250gig Hd for now and if I need more I will look else were then Apple.

Going to stick with the base line Nvidia card becuase people dont seem to think I will get much performace difference running Photoshop and Final cut (I dont play games or do 3D so the Ati card just seems like an extra expense).

Both wirless and bluetooth - very usefull

Apple wirless keyboard and mouse. Also very usefull as I am sure you know.

I am going to wait to buy a display as yet. I have to look around and there are many choices and its not cheaper to buy it now with the computer anyway. Still the 20inch model is pretty good with higher education discount.

Ok so thats about it. Any last minute thoughts from anyone? Let me know. Andy.

 

[eMagine]

Mac Pro 2.66

Good choice. Best performance/value balanced choice.

2gig of ram from apple (with the higher education it didnt seem cheaper anyplace else). I am going for the 512mb sticks so that I can upgrade to 4 gigs sort of cheaply in the future. I dont think I will ever need over 4gigs ram.

You should have just gotten the 1GB. for $270 you only get 1GB upgrade (from 1GB to 2GB) that's $270/GB.
if you were to get the stock 1GB and get 2 sticks of 1GB=2GB at a cost of $400(maxupgrades.com) that's $200/GB. Much cheaper and you end up with 3GB's

Going to stick with the 250gig Hd for now and if I need more I will look else were then Apple.

Good choice. get the 3rd party hard drives at a much cheaper price than apple. actually the 160GB is an even better choice. I added a 500GB (SATAII) for $129 and a 750GB(SATAII) for $299. took out my 160 and selling it.

Going to stick with the base line Nvidia card becuase people dont seem to think I will get much performace difference running Photoshop and Final cut (I dont play games or do 3D so the Ati card just seems like an extra expense).

Actually the Ati card is good to get. Mac os X tiger and especially leopard will utilize hardware graphic acceleration for it's CoreAnimation.
i regret not getting it (will be adding one soon).

Both wirless and bluetooth - very usefull
Apple wirless keyboard and mouse. Also very usefull as I am sure you know.

Agreed.

 

[waremaster]

Good choice. Best performance/value balanced choice.



You should have just gotten the 1GB. for $270 you only get 1GB upgrade (from 1GB to 2GB) that's $270/GB.
if you were to get the stock 1GB and get 2 sticks of 1GB=2GB at a cost of $400(maxupgrades.com) that's $200/GB. Much cheaper and you end up with 3GB's



Good choice. get the 3rd party hard drives at a much cheaper price than apple. actually the 160GB is an even better choice. I added a 500GB (SATAII) for $129 and a 750GB(SATAII) for $299. took out my 160 and selling it.



Actually the Ati card is good to get. Mac os X tiger and especially leopard will utilize hardware graphic acceleration for it's CoreAnimation.
i regret not getting it (will be adding one soon).



Agreed.

But 3gig of ram has him running in 128 bit mode vs 256bit I think your choices are the correct ones.

 

[andyjamesnelson]

"You should have just gotten the 1GB. for $270 you only get 1GB upgrade (from 1GB to 2GB) that's $270/GB.
if you were to get the stock 1GB and get 2 sticks of 1GB=2GB at a cost of $400(maxupgrades.com) that's $200/GB. Much cheaper and you end up with 3GB's"

Yes but I read that if you have different sizes pieces of ram then it slows things down. Your way I would have 2 1gig sticks and 2 512mb chips. Doesnt that make the risers unequal?

Also i dont really know what core animation is and its the price difference really worth getting the other card? What will I see improvements in?

 

[andyjamesnelson]

"But 3gig of ram has him running in 128 bit mode vs 256bit I think your choices are the correct ones"

sorry I dont understand this. What are these modes and which is better? Andy.

 

[Monyx]

But 3gig of ram has him running in 128 bit mode vs 256bit I think your choices are the correct ones.

You are incorrect. As long as matching DIMMs are installed in pairs of equal size from the same vendor then 4-channel mode will work if a pair is installed on both riser cards.

Apple's Mac Pro instruction guide states, "In the illustration below,
DIMMs in one colored pair do not need to match DIMMs in a different colored pair."

So match pair of 512mb sticks in DIMMS1&2 on riser A + matched pair of 1GB in DIMMS1&2 on riser B is optimised fine.

 

[andyjamesnelson]

Hey, and you are sure that not having two different size sticks i.e. 2 x512mb and 2x 1gig sticks wont be a bottle neck for the ram itself?

I read that if you have the ram set up like this the 1gig set has to wait for the 512mb set and this slows things down??

What is those two modes you were talking about 128 and 2... somthing?

 

[Monyx]

What is those two modes you were talking about 128 and 2... somthing?

Here's a link that discusses quad channel vs dual channel MP ram:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2816&p=12

Note from above article:

If you're going to upgrade the memory in your Mac Pro anyways, you might as well stick to four FB-DIMMs as it will give you the best possible combination of latency and bandwidth (as good as you can get with FB-DIMMs that is).

Please post a link to where you read all FB-DIMMS must be the same size, my understanding is this only applies in respect of installing a matching pair of FB-DIMMS to upgrade memory.

 

[2nyRiggz]

Go for it...sounds like a good buy.



Bless

 

[waremaster]

Here's a link that discusses quad channel vs dual channel MP ram:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2816&p=12

Note from above article:



Please post a link to where you read all FB-DIMMS must be the same size, my understanding is this only applies in respect of installing a matching pair of FB-DIMMS to upgrade memory.

I would have to say if that was the final word on the machine then yes 4 channel wouldn't seem to make a difference but do you honestly think that Apple isn't constantly improving the EFI firmware and improving the memory speed? Lets look at the picture here as that review stated the ram was not running near it's potential. As they improve that in EFI it will make a difference. Ideally you want 2x512's in Riser A and 2x512's in Riser B for 256bit data transfer. It's what they used to call memory interleaving.

"There are a couple of things you can do to maximize performance and minimize the cost of additional memory on your Mac Pro, and it starts with the number of FB-DIMMs you configure your system with. The Mac Pro ships with a default configuration of 2 x 512MB FB-DIMMs, unfortunately that means that you're only using two of the four available memory channels, cutting your peak theoretical memory bandwidth in half. You'll want to upgrade to at least four FB-DIMMs so that you can run in quad-channel mode, in the coming weeks we'll be running some tests to figure out exactly how much additional performance you'll gain by doing that and if it's noticeable or not."

I take that to be 4 equal chips.

 

[waremaster]

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2811&p=5

 

[eMagine]

"You should have just gotten the 1GB. for $270 you only get 1GB upgrade (from 1GB to 2GB) that's $270/GB.
if you were to get the stock 1GB and get 2 sticks of 1GB=2GB at a cost of $400(maxupgrades.com) that's $200/GB. Much cheaper and you end up with 3GB's"

Yes but I read that if you have different sizes pieces of ram then it slows things down. Your way I would have 2 1gig sticks and 2 512mb chips. Doesnt that make the risers unequal?

Also i dont really know what core animation is and its the price difference really worth getting the other card? What will I see improvements in?

Usually, the CAS latency determine speed of the memory, not memory size.
But in the case of FB-Dimms, there's also the "rank" issue.
From what i understand, the 512's are only single rank and the 1GB and ups are dual ranks.
Dual ranks have more bandwidth then single rank. thus, faster. but larger memory have slower latency, thus slower.. so it's a balancing act.

as long as you have the memory in EXACT pairs (2 of each, same size, same brand, same model number) you are fine.

right now i have 512MBx2 on riser A and 1GBx2 on riser B. my system is running very smoothly. I didn't even get the "apple certified" fb-dimm. I bought Crucial FB-Dimm and installed the heatsinks myself.

I run aperture 90% of the time and my system is as stable as rock.

 

[andyjamesnelson]

"i have 512MBx2 on riser A and 1GBx2 on riser B. my system is running very smoothly. I didn't even get the "apple certified" fb-dimm. I bought Crucial FB-Dimm and installed the heatsinks myself."

is that a cheaper? and did you get the heats from crucial as well as? andy