Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Need some advise.. [is what I am about to buy is worth the $1500.00?]

A

Amend61

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 2, 2015
2
0
Greetings Mac people!
I need some advise please,

I'm new here and I'm green with Mac. in short I'm on a learning curve.
I have somewhat made my way with pro tools and like how mac works with it.
I am about to invest in a 2008 mac pro with some goodies ,
Id like to know if what I am about to buy is worth the $1500.00. I've seen this mac and its in great shape. here is the spec sheet please take a look and shoot me a comment.. any advise is greatly appreciated Thanks!

2008 Mac Pro Eight Core 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon
16GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5700 1024MB VRAM
4 hard drives installed (SATA)
- 4TB Seagate 5900rpm
- 4TB Seagate 5900rpm
- 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
- 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
stock Apple SuperDrive
empty optical drive bay if you want to install a SSD - has OWC Multi Mount Adapter sled installed already, just need to buy a drive
SN: G88382KTXYL

the seller goes on and adds this statement:
Rock solid production machine I have been using for audio and video production for the past 3 years with ZERO issues. I'm the second owner and I've been using this for production heavily for the past 3 years so its been put though its paces. I'm only selling because I've taken a full time job and am no longer doing freelance work. This has been a great system for me running Logic Pro, Pro Tools, FCP, Motion and the entire Adobe Suite (CS6 and CC). Handles multitrack audio recording in Logic or Pro Tools, HD video editing in FCP or Premiere Pro, and motion graphics animations in Motion or After Effects. Machine in excellent condition, well cared for, internally cleaned regularly, no damage/scratches.

Average retail price according to Everymac is $1300-1500. This guy is loaded with RAM, excellent video card, 4x hard drives and with CS6 installed I'm asking for $1500. Hard to find a reliable audio/video production machine thats loaded and ready to go
 
Mmmmm… I think you should invest the same money on a 2009/2012 Mac Pro.
Differences?
1) New generation Xeon easily replaceable. And cheaper. And more powerful architecture!
2) All 4 slots are Gen 2.0 PCIe. On the 2008, only two lower, the other being 1.0
3) Cheaper, REALLY cheaper RAM, with an "astronomical" limit of 128GB!
4) Better graphics upgrade, more compatible PC cards
5) No IDE connectors (to gain access to the two logicboard SATA a "mini-surgery" must be done.
6) More or less "future proof", if you want

Look at these guys:
http://www.usedmac.com/products/Apple Mac pro?product_id=3733
 
Good to know!

Awesome study!
makes perfect sense,
I guess what I'll need to consider
is this more than enough to accomplish my little projects.
perhaps use this model to learn my limitations.
I like the "future proof"

Thanks
 
Amend61 said:
Greetings Mac people!
I need some advise please,

I'm new here and I'm green with Mac. in short I'm on a learning curve.
I have somewhat made my way with pro tools and like how mac works with it.
I am about to invest in a 2008 mac pro with some goodies ,
Id like to know if what I am about to buy is worth the $1500.00. I've seen this mac and its in great shape. here is the spec sheet please take a look and shoot me a comment.. any advise is greatly appreciated Thanks!

2008 Mac Pro Eight Core 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon
16GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5700 1024MB VRAM
4 hard drives installed (SATA)
- 4TB Seagate 5900rpm
- 4TB Seagate 5900rpm
- 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
- 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
stock Apple SuperDrive
empty optical drive bay if you want to install a SSD - has OWC Multi Mount Adapter sled installed already, just need to buy a drive
SN: G88382KTXYL

the seller goes on and adds this statement:
Rock solid production machine I have been using for audio and video production for the past 3 years with ZERO issues. I'm the second owner and I've been using this for production heavily for the past 3 years so its been put though its paces. I'm only selling because I've taken a full time job and am no longer doing freelance work. This has been a great system for me running Logic Pro, Pro Tools, FCP, Motion and the entire Adobe Suite (CS6 and CC). Handles multitrack audio recording in Logic or Pro Tools, HD video editing in FCP or Premiere Pro, and motion graphics animations in Motion or After Effects. Machine in excellent condition, well cared for, internally cleaned regularly, no damage/scratches.

Average retail price according to Everymac is $1300-1500. This guy is loaded with RAM, excellent video card, 4x hard drives and with CS6 installed I'm asking for $1500. Hard to find a reliable audio/video production machine thats loaded and ready to go
Click to expand...

$1500 is about what you would pay to purchase everything separately. Just depends on what you would be using it for.
 
Not good to post serial number of machines, fwiw - maybe you can edit out?

2008 is close to what I have and know all too well its limitations, odd personality (and weird PCIe configuration), plus it is more limited in support and performance in most all areas of PCIe like even graphics.

2009 also has a limitation in its two 4x PCIe slots but at least they are PCIe 2.0 (or is it 2.1?)

DDR3 memory - single processor you can go to 3x16GB or 4x8GB though as well.

Green 5900rpm drives are not what I use for work files, a backup drive, not a mirror.

If you want to give your Mac a good go, unlike PCs until recently, Mac can boot from and use an XP941 type SSD (1000MB/sec+) to speed your system or scratch or editing volume.

2008 was 7 years ago when it came out. For $1500 you could find a 2010 model also and better spec'd by far. Or think what you could assemble on a PC
 
The 2008 3,1 Mac Pro with all it's limitations is still a very usable machine, but at $1,500 the price is way out of line. It's at least 2½ time what the machine is worth.

Lou
 
IowaLynn said:
Not good to post serial number of machines, fwiw - maybe you can edit out?
Click to expand...


Apologies for the derail - but sincere question: why is listing the serial number a bad idea? Was planning on handing it over to whoever queries, if I ever sell my MBP online? What could happen/worse case, if someone gets the serial number?
 
Cassady said:
Apologies for the derail - but sincere question: why is listing the serial number a bad idea? Was planning on handing it over to whoever queries, if I ever sell my MBP online? What could happen/worse case, if someone gets the serial number?
Click to expand...

There is no harm in posting the serial number. It will just let someone be able to check the specs and see if it has apple care on it.
 
I second IowaLynn's recommendation, though I would buy it as bare-bones as possible. Instead of getting a quad 3.33Ghz, get a 2.66GHz model and spend that $200 on a 3.33GHz 6-core on eBay. The firmware update takes about 5 minutes, and assuming you can find a long enough hex key to undo the heatsink, the CPU swap takes about 5 minutes as well. Or spend $80 on a 3.33GHz quad, if that's what you want. Either way, you get more for the money.

That leaves around $650-800 (depending on your CPU upgrade) to try to beat out the Mac Pro. Get 4x4GB DDR3 for $120, a GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon 7950 on eBay for around $150 (and flash that Radeon so you can have boot screens), and spend the rest on storage.

I'm sure the 2008 Mac Pro is nice and all, but I can't just ignore Nehalem machines. Hot-rodding these things can be addicting, let me tell you. Just to give you an idea, here's what I have:

MacPro4,1 on eBay - $475 (gotta watch for those, they tend to run around $525 or so right now, or $650 from OWC or Mac of All Trades)
Xeon W3570 3.2GHz quad - $60 on eBay
24GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 - 2x8GB pulled from a PC, added 2x4GB more for $55 on Newegg
Radeon 7950 from eBay - $150, made my own EFI BIOS for boot screens
8-pin and 6-pin power adapters from eBay - $11 (for video card)
256GB + 64GB SSDs, 500GB HDD pulled from PC
Internal USB 3.0 card from Amazon - $20
20-pin USB 3.0 adapter from Newegg - $7
OSXWifi wireless adapter (Apple OEM with bluetooth) - $110 with Bluetooth antenna extension cable, plugged USB into the internal header. (I actually only had to buy the adapter because I had the Broadcom card in a regular PCIe adapter, my old PC was a Hackintosh that used it, so for me it was more like $60)

I've also bought a 512GB Apple-OEM PCIe SSD and one of those PCIe adapter cards, but those are an expensive proposition - mine was $375, and that seems to be roughly the going rate.

The PC I raided for stuff was based on a Core i5 650, so I got 2 extra cores, more memory, and a graphics upgrade (old card was a GTX 660, which would have been fine). I also sold the rest of the old PC's parts to make back about $250 (half of which was the video card) and some of the stuff I pulled, like the 2x2GB RAM, the old CPU, and the GT 120. All told I've got around $1000 invested and it holds its own against current Macs - much better in some ways, a little worse in others. Without the OMGSSD it's more like $600. The GPU is about as fast as the two D300s would be combined in the base nMP, but the CPU is a little behind. If I put in a 6-core down the road, then I think I'd basically catch it. $600 for me vs. $3000 seems like a no-brainer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back