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UK owners - 3,1 price

Gav Mack

Gav Mack

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 15, 2008
2,194
23
Sagittarius A*
There's a sniff of an 8 core 5,1 possibly coming and wondered what your thoughts were and I know theres a few vars who post here. I could possibly take the 4,1 route like I do for many of my clients but for my own system I do not want to count the turns doing my own hex upgrades!

Looked on ebay etc and the prices vary so wildly it's quite hard to give it an accurate valuation because its in essence a totally maxed out 3,1 and there aren't many there I can find. It's minus all my upgrade parts: Power extension cable, USB 3.0, GTX 680, Solo X2 and SSD's are all moving home so I will be left with:

MP 3,1 - 3.2 8 core 32 Gb RAM 800Mhz, 1Tb HDD, 8800GT and Yosemite installed. I'm thinking as high as 850 for a punt on gumtree cos I have seen them sell with less of a spec than mine. The faster ram as we all know isn't cheap and there is the option to list 2 pairs of the 4Gb modules on ebay and adjust my pricing down but I would rather sell in one go.

Plus I have quite a bit to fork out to upgrade the 5,1 such as 12 cores and 6 ram sticks - as the one I may have my hands on has 6x1gb and they will all have to go. I couldn't possibly work with only 6gb! :D

If anyone asks I will not ship abroad - I need my box for the 5,1 which doesn't have one and they do not travel well without one.

Truthful comments such as you're dreaming as always appreciated!
 
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Gav Mack said:
MP 3,1 - 3.2 8 core 32 Gb RAM 800Mhz, 1Tb HDD, 8800GT and Yosemite installed. I'm thinking as high as 850 for a punt on gumtree cos I have seen them sell with less of a spec than mine.
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Good luck with that price. This company is selling similar systems on eBay with 667MHz RAM & 2TB HDD for £795 including free EU shipping & 1 year RTB warranty & 20% VAT (reclaimable if you are VAT registered) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/APPLE-MAC...mputing_Apple_Desktops_CV&hash=item43d15c9feb

You might be better off selling the RAM separately.
 
Gav Mack said:
Truthful comments such as you're dreaming as always appreciated!
Click to expand...

Good luck Gav Mack selling your MP 3.1, I'm in the same boat. I consider stripping the 3.1 to it's core specs and sell everything else (GTX/RAM/SOLO-X2/SSD) separate.

PS (Are you dreaming as always?) :D
 
BDM STUDIOS NL said:
Good luck Gav Mack selling your MP 3.1, I'm in the same boat. I consider stripping the 3.1 to it's core specs and sell everything else (GTX/RAM/SOLO-X2/SSD) separate.

PS (Are you dreaming as always?) :D
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I was dreaming - but I think I have a buyer lined up for £550-600 as I don't want to go through the hassle of selling ram sticks!
 
Gav Mack said:
I was dreaming - but I think I have a buyer lined up for £550-600 as I don't want to go through the hassle of selling ram sticks!
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You're going to make the buyer very happy with the 32GB RAM. The most expensive upgrade for the MP 3.1. as I recall :(

Also great that it has dual (8x) 3.2 Ghz onboard. Great price for the buyer...
 
I sold my 3,1 for £499 on eBay. After ebay fees and PayPal I end up with like £440.

I tried for approx 6-7 weeks to get more, like 650ish, but no one wants it for that. As soon as I dropped under 500, it sold.

It was an 8-core 2.8, 12GB ram, 8800GT, 500gb HD, wifi and Bluetooth.

I think the rxtra spec on yours means you could get 550-600 or so if you are lucky enough to find the right buyer, which hopefully you have.

Good luck!
 
The used market is like it is with cars. While new all the factory fitted extras can make a big price difference but when they are a few years old then the premium isn't so much. It's easier to sell a basic model at a cheaper price as there are more willing buyers whereas you need a more sophisticated buyer who appreciates the upgrades & is prepared to pay the extra. That's why I suggested that selling some at least of the 800MHz FB-DIMMs separately as you will easily be able to sell the base system with a reasonable amount of RAM but bumping the price up to account for 32GB of 800MHz RAM will mean that the total system price is much higher.

It may even be worth buying 4x1GB of 800MHz RAM (£80) & putting that in the system for a quick sale & then selling your 8x4GB 800MHz separately. The higher capacity 800MHz parts command an enormous premium even those in the know realise that there is almost no difference in performance.

I sees this system just sold on eBay for £500 - Apple MacPro 3.1 2.8Ghz 8 Core 500GB 4GB 512MB Nvidia 8800GT 3.1

New 2x4GB 800MHz FB-DIMM kits are selling for nearly £200 on eBay. Even if you only got half the new price that's still £400 for your RAM alone.
 
nigelbb said:
The used market is like it is with cars. While new all the factory fitted extras can make a big price difference but when they are a few years old then the premium isn't so much. It's easier to sell a basic model at a cheaper price as there are more willing buyers whereas you need a more sophisticated buyer who appreciates the upgrades & is prepared to pay the extra. That's why I suggested that selling some at least of the 800MHz FB-DIMMs separately as you will easily be able to sell the base system with a reasonable amount of RAM but bumping the price up to account for 32GB of 800MHz RAM will mean that the total system price is much higher.

It may even be worth buying 4x1GB of 800MHz RAM (£80) & putting that in the system for a quick sale & then selling your 8x4GB 800MHz separately. The higher capacity 800MHz parts command an enormous premium even those in the know realise that there is almost no difference in performance.

I sees this system just sold on eBay for £500 - Apple MacPro 3.1 2.8Ghz 8 Core 500GB 4GB 512MB Nvidia 8800GT 3.1

New 2x4GB 800MHz FB-DIMM kits are selling for nearly £200 on eBay. Even if you only got half the new price that's still £400 for your RAM alone.
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I know only too well as I have family and friends in the car trade and I've been in the PC/Mac game for over 20 years now.

Food for thought - thanks. If my pal backs out of the deal that's something worth considering, I could list it on ebay or Gumtree with system profiler clearly showing all 8 sticks are genuine Apple 800 Mhz parts. I have to list 8 new sticks of Crucial 2gb DDR2-800 which go in 24 inch early 2008 iMac's anyway at some point!
 
Unless you live in a big city be prepared to ship. If you specify 'Collect only' then you will be severely limiting the number of bidders & hence final price if you live in the wilds. I am kicking myself for missing this sale for a 4-core 4,1 Mac Pro that ended yesterday. It was in rural Suffolk but near enough to me to collect & I would have happily paid quite a bit more than the £265 selling price. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac...mputing_Apple_Desktops_CV&hash=item23437220e8
 
nigelbb said:
Unless you live in a big city be prepared to ship. If you specify 'Collect only' then you will be severely limiting the number of bidders & hence final price if you live in the wilds. I am kicking myself for missing this sale for a 4-core 4,1 Mac Pro that ended yesterday. It was in rural Suffolk but near enough to me to collect & I would have happily paid quite a bit more than the £265 selling price. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac...mputing_Apple_Desktops_CV&hash=item23437220e8
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I live in south London in the suburbs but I got a single 4,1 for just a little bit more than that yesterday. :D

Being dropped to me on Monday. W3680 for £150 and 24gb of ram is also on the way.

Will see how I can live with the single socket for a week or so and then list the 3,1 - at least I can recover 3tb plus disks in the meantime on bootcamp!
 
Gav Mack said:
I live in south London in the suburbs but I got a single 4,1 for just a little bit more than that yesterday. :D

Being dropped to me on Monday. W3680 for £150 and 24gb of ram is also on the way.

Will see how I can live with the single socket for a week or so and then list the 3,1 - at least I can recover 3tb plus disks in the meantime on bootcamp!
Click to expand...

I suppose that in London you have other listings sites besides eBay.

It will be interesting to hear your experience of comparing the single socket 4,1/5,1 versus the dual CPU 3,1.
 
AkuskaUK said:
Im having trouble selling my 2009 2.26 8Core for 700! Good luck for the sale!
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It must be to do with the original sale price of the Macs but looking at sales on eBay it seems that most 2008 3,1 models are dual CPU & most 2009 4,1 models are single CPU.
 
nigelbb said:
It must be to do with the original sale price of the Macs but looking at sales on eBay it seems that most 2008 3,1 models are dual CPU & most 2009 4,1 models are single CPU.
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Mine also has a 1TB HDD, 16GB ram, 5770 and a wifi card :S, i agree with your statement though... there seems to be a lot of single processor '09's!
 
nigelbb said:
I suppose that in London you have other listings sites besides eBay.

It will be interesting to hear your experience of comparing the single socket 4,1/5,1 versus the dual CPU 3,1.
Click to expand...


Will probably try gumtree first but I do have other options.

When I get the time to upgrade it that is going to be an issue, I am doing 18 hour days I reckon till next month and have a mbp 2011 doing a clone to SSD and 16gb ram right now!

I am on the cusp of a nice deal out of the blue today with an Apple agent I have dealt with in the past for bigger jobs and a multinational who are windows only. I will be asking for a 4,1 dual tray thrown in so that w3680 may not be in there very long :D
 
Not good for a seller but I got mine for a couple of hundred. Which wasnt too bad, seller was an office clearance place on ebay. Just listed as Apple desktop.
 
Mac Pro 3.1 Price

I've been using a Hackintosh since my old G4 bit the dust a few years ago. I was going to buy a mini as a back up to the Hackintosh I'm using now an i7 2600k, 16gb ram, R9 290 gfx, running Yosemite on one drive and Windows 8.1 on the other, but when I saw the new mini models I wasn't too impressed. I had a quick look on ebay UK and found a Mac Pro 3.1, 2.8ghz x 2, 8 core, 8GB Ram, 1TB Hard Drive, 2600xt gfx. £450 with free delivery.

It's in mint condition so I pulled the trigger. It turned up on Weds and it's beautiful. I always wanted a Mac Pro but couldn't afford one and when I read that Yosemite was still supporting 3.1 it was a no-brainer.

I'm loving it so far and have already ordered 16gb (8x2GB) 800mhz memory (as the memory it arrived with was only 667mhz) and a flashed Radeon HD6850, lol, it begins...

It's good to be back on a real Mac again.
 
nigelbb said:
I suppose that in London you have other listings sites besides eBay.

It will be interesting to hear your experience of comparing the single socket 4,1/5,1 versus the dual CPU 3,1.
Click to expand...

Early doors but a full test out, flash to 5,1, W3680 and 24gb ram went without a hitch this morning. CPU temps around 55c on idle, going to take my processor board to my brothers workshop as the weedy can of compressed air I have couldn't blow the stuck on accumulated dust on the copper heatpipe rods whereas his high powered air line will blow them all clean and that idle temp will drop significantly.

It's running on a stock spinning disk so far but I can see it's faster on single core over the 3,1 already. Long way to go though - there's the x2, twin ssd, odd power extension, gtx 680, USB 3.0 card to do and the handoff wifi Bluetooth module to fit and the long processes of reinstalling Windows and patching the MBR for ahci though I may try using Winclone first. That usually ends in blue screen hell though!

I have got a few nibbles for the 3,1 already at £550, two of those may even want similar upgrade parts as those destined for the 4,1.
 
If a 1tb PCIe nMP Apple SSD blade turns up to fit in the Sintech my x2 will be going on eBay. That would certainly make it faster doing the migration as the optical extension won't be necessary which is barring reinstalling Windows is the longest and fiddliest job to do. I have a second evo stuck on top of the other evo for dual boot into the x2's second port with ODD power..
 
4,1 Hex up and running dual boot with my x2 cards, I ran the ODD extension cos I couldn't wait lol. Feels slightly faster than my old 3,1 but the Intel RST Driver in AHCI mode is now 11.7 instead of 10.1 which means no more grief recovering 3Tb plus HDD's in Windows 7 x64 hooray.

3,1 will be gone shortly barebones minus all my upgrades if not to my contacts - to someone else on gumtree when I list it!
 
Sold my 3,1 to a very nice chap on gumtree, an oasis of a contact amongst scam tech support calls which I found very amusing, the first was literally 15 mins after I posted the ad. A lot of phishing texts sent via the web with their name not number in the header and also some cleverly crafted very authentic phishing emails. It must be a ripe playing field for the scammers.

Went for £400 with just 8gb ram - the remaining 24 gb will be listed as 3 lots of genuine Apple 2x4gb pairs when I get a chance. I'm thinking about £120 with free shipping and I have all the serials and showing they are genuine Apple thanks to system profiler :D
 
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If anyone cares there is a shop on Goodge Street simply called Mac and PC Repairs near Tesco that is almost exclusively full of Mac Pro towers from 1,1 to 4,1. The old man who owns the place knows very little about Macs he just buys and sells them so you could probably haggle for a bargain in there.
 
EdDuPlessis said:
If anyone cares there is a shop on Goodge Street simply called Mac and PC Repairs near Tesco that is almost exclusively full of Mac Pro towers from 1,1 to 4,1. The old man who owns the place knows very little about Macs he just buys and sells them so you could probably haggle for a bargain in there.
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Thanks for the tip. I would have asked my other half to take a look in the shop as she works in Hanover Square for ballpark prices for the 3-4,1's but I think it will require me taking the choo-choo up town to Charing X and have a gander myself.

Getting cheap towers off clients and badly described ones on ebay is working pretty good for bargains so far!
 
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