MP All Models The "I just ordered/bought/got my new/refurb Mac Pro" thread [Merged]

[RC Mike]

My 2008 MP was feeling a little tired, so I started looking at Craigslist the other day. What I managed to score astounds me. A 2012 5,1 12-core, 3.06ghz, with 64GB of RAM, and an ATI 5870. It still has AppleCare until May of 2016, too. $760!

And it came with a 27" LED Cinema Display included for that price. I'm feeling fortunate.

So far it seems like quite the upgrade. I'd been going back and forth between buying a 2009-2012 MP or building a Hackintosh. Both options had their pluses and minuses. This resolved the dilemma quite nicely!

 

[m4v3r1ck]

To good to be true?

Was the cMP 2012 5.1 upgraded to a dual 3.06GHz, 64GB etc., even with Apple Care on it?

If a geniuen 5.1 with those specs, than a very great catch! Congrats.

Cheers

 

[RC Mike]

It's a genuine one. I'm still amazed. I've gotten some good deals this year, but nothing like this.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

A cMP 2008 owner, but only became a member 1 hour ago? How fortunate you must be to score that cMP 5,1 GENUIEN on MGL!

Please DO share that link! :-/

Cheers

 

[austinpike]

What I managed to score astounds me. A 2012 5,1 12-core, 3.06ghz, with 64GB of RAM, and an ATI 5870... $760!

Did we buy from the same guy? I just scored a 12-core 2010 2.93, 24GB, 4x1TB (original Apple drives) dual 5770 w/27" Cinema Display for $750. Serial checks out and all original as spec'd on the label. Having been through so many CL flakes I never thought the deal would pan out. I was pretty sure the ad said 3.06 but I wasn't going to complain.

Parting out the 5770s and display would pay for the machine. Plan was to find an 8-core and upgrade to 2x 3.46, but now I feel bad dismantling this "classic..."

 

[RC Mike]

In Minneapolis? Very likely, I think. He'd originally shown me a 2.93, but I was like "no, the one that we talked about is..." And we'd initially agreed on a 3.06 that had two 5770s and 16GB, but he "must have brought the wrong one" when he had the 5870 with 64GB that I ended up buying.

Strange, eh?

 

[austinpike]

In Minneapolis? Very likely, I think.

Yep, Minneapolis. How random. Yeah it sounded like he maybe had a couple of them and he wasn't especially clear on the specs. That's amazing yours still has AppleCare. Wish I knew where he sourced them; given the price he must have got them for dirt cheap. The drives were pretty clean but I found some unlinked aliases to a bunch of University BioMed documents; probably some decommissioned/U surplus.

 

[RC Mike]

I'd been concerned that it was hot, so I ran the SN through a couple of databases to see if it had been reported as stolen. Came up clean, and he didn't seem to care that I did it. First thing I did was pull the two drives he had in it, so I've yet to look to see what was there.

The AC mine has includes the regular consumer services, such as labor and phone support. Most large institutions purchase a different AC package that just includes parts.

I'm absolutely loving the machine. Getting Bootcamp updated from the old hardware at the moment. I'll toss Win10 on a spare SSD and see how it does.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Decided to replace my 21.5" iMac with a Mac Pro and 27" display, the other Mac Pro in my signature is in my office. I've been looking for a decent deal for months and, after a dodgy start, I picked up a Mid 2010 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon for 1000 euros. It's currently only got 10 GB of RAM installed in it and an ATI Radeon 5770 but I'll upgrade it all at some point, obviously RAM and an SSD to start things off.

 

[lowendlinux]

I sold mine new to me Mac Pro (shipped it today) and built myself a new Linux box. It's nice to be back!

 

[Bradleyone]

Mac Pro with Retina 5K display

Despite lurking the new Mac Pro in 2015? thread, where the consensus seems to be 50/50 between a refresh in October or early 2016, I finally caved to a good deal on eBay and bought the 8 core Mac Pro I'd wanted since Dec 2013 (and would have bought if poor availability at the time hadn't pushed the order out months, prompting me to give up and build an "equivalent" Hackintosh instead - long story.)

But finally I have the real thing and to celebrate I paired it with a Dell UP2715K, which makes it as near as spit to an iMac with Retina 5K Display. The Dell panel even supposedly has better specs - 100% Adobe RGB vs 99% for the iMac, etc.

The UP2715K works beautifully with the Mac Pro, firing up immediately in glorious 5K after plugging in the two Mini DisplayPort connectors. Yosemite had a profile waiting for it. Even the Mac's sound comes through the display's Harman Kardon speakers.

The screen is glossy just like an iMac's and there are pixels as far as the eye can see. On the left is a 15" rMBP with exact same window open as on the 5K display behind it. Space to burn!

 

[js2704]

Decided to replace my 21.5" iMac with a Mac Pro and 27" display, the other Mac Pro in my signature is in my office. I've been looking for a decent deal for months and, after a dodgy start, I picked up a Mid 2010 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon for 1000 euros. It's currently only got 10 GB of RAM installed in it and an ATI Radeon 5770 but I'll upgrade it all at some point, obviously RAM and an SSD to start things off.

I've had one of these for a few years now and love it. I installed an SSD fairly quickly and that makes a massive difference, but I recently went for an SM951 on a PCIE card and now it's very snappy indeed.

On the RAM, there's a ton of ex-server stuff to be had on eBay - install it in two sets of three rather than filling all four slots as there's a mild speed benefit to be had from the triple channel setup.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

I've had one of these for a few years now and love it. I installed an SSD fairly quickly and that makes a massive difference, but I recently went for an SM951 on a PCIE card and now it's very snappy indeed.

On the RAM, there's a ton of ex-server stuff to be had on eBay - install it in two sets of three rather than filling all four slots as there's a mild speed benefit to be had from the triple channel setup.

LOL, I just ordered 32 GB of Kingston memory (4 x 8GB) this morning. Will see how three sticks compare to four. Can always place an order for another 2 and push it to 48 GB.

 

[colodane]

Very Nice Bradleyone !

 

[Twimfy]

Thought I might add to this group seeing as I'm a newbie to the MP world.

Bought a 3,1 octacore for £210 on eBay to replace my 2012 MBP (I needed a decent dual monitor setup). It came with the original 320GB HDD, ATi 2600 and 10GB RAM.

Have fitted it with a GTX 650 my 256GB SSD and converted the original drive to a boot camp partition.

Very happy, these are great machines and incredible performance for their age with little investment needed.

 

[Bradleyone]

Very Nice Bradleyone !

It really is! I'm loving this setup. Even though the system cost $2000 over a 5K iMac (even buying the nMP secondhand and a killer Dell coupon code), the flexibility it offers is well worth it: modular, can replace computer independent of display, allows soft touch switching between dual connected PC and Mac, a breeze to VESA wall mount, etc, etc.

The Dell UP2715K could seriously have been manufactured just for the Mac Pro. It's very "Apple" in its design - minimalist bezel, soft-touch controls hidden on the side, understated mirrored logo that fades into the black. Slap an aluminum case on it and you'd swear Apple made it!

The only hint that Dell still thinks Apple should close its doors is a nails-on-chalkboard miscapitalization in the gamma submenu:

 

[JamesPDX]

I'd been concerned that it was hot, so I ran the SN through a couple of databases to see if it had been reported as stolen. Came up clean, and he didn't seem to care that I did it. First thing I did was pull the two drives he had in it, so I've yet to look to see what was there.

The AC mine has includes the regular consumer services, such as labor and phone support. Most large institutions purchase a different AC package that just includes parts.

I'm absolutely loving the machine. Getting Bootcamp updated from the old hardware at the moment. I'll toss Win10 on a spare SSD and see how it does.

Everyone please take precautions Re: Craigslist so that that nobody ends up "putting the lotion in the basket" -you'll thank me later.

 

[Trivial rock]

I've just received my 3.33ghz six core Mac Pro, with 16GB of RAM and the AMD Radeon 5870. I've also installed a Sandisk Ultra II 250GB SSD and a further 5TB of HDDs (for a total of 6.25TB). I'm very pleased with it, it's a great upgrade over my 2.66GHz quad i5 27" iMac

 

[pat500000]

Since I need an upgrade to another mac pro and since mac pro is discontinued...what now?

 

[austinpike]

Since I need an upgrade to another mac pro and since mac pro is discontinued...what now?

Are you not getting enough attention with the other 20 posts you have made about this...?

If you need one now, you can still buy one.
If you like the Classic version, there are plenty on eBay and Craigslist.

 

[satcomer]

I know all those with cheese grader front Mac Pros a great addition is the OWC Mercury Accelsior E2 Express SSD.

 

[carpsafari]

Another overpriced toy from OWC?
There are faster, way cheaper options than that.

 

[cmanns]

I've just received my 3.33ghz six core Mac Pro, with 16GB of RAM and the AMD Radeon 5870. I've also installed a Sandisk Ultra II 250GB SSD and a further 5TB of HDDs (for a total of 6.25TB). I'm very pleased with it, it's a great upgrade over my 2.66GHz quad i5 27" iMac

Very noice

I myself just switched from i5 2320 3.0ghz 4 core + 8GB ram system to 2006 MacPro stock 2x 2.66ghz dual core 8GB Ram.

Tossed in my 2x 1TB raid0 from hackint0sh, and added 240GB SanDisk Ultra SSD.... shes quite a dual-boot OS X Yosemite & BootCamp Windows 10 dream.

Using BootCamp 5.x (64bit windows) sleep/hibernate works on both OS X / Windows no problem

 

[thestickman]

Pulled the trigger on a refurbished 2009 8 core 2.26. Plan on updating to a 2010 & making it a 12 core & gradually maxing the ram out. Really excited!!!

 

[tripmusic]

Picked up a 4,1 Quad for $550. Flashed to 5,1, popped in a Hex W3690 @3.46Ghz for another $200. Got 24GB 1333Mhz Ram from DMS for $179. I need FW400 ports, so I got a PCIe card that will work with my audio interface for $50. It had no wifi card, so I had to take the one out of my 3,1 and bought one to replace it for $20. So this thing cost me a grand all together... more than I wanted to spend and I probably could've found this config for cheaper and already upgraded. I do enjoy researching the cpu upgrades and doing them though. Each Mac Pro that I've had has proven to be it's own unique animal that you must learn. So now I need to get my 2008 MP cleaned up and ready to sell. I hope I can get $500-600 for it.