Upgrading Mac Pro

[Odisey]

Can someone help me figure out what I need to upgrade my system? I cannot find it on the Apple website to determine what I need:

In short, my operating system needs upgraded, memory from 2 GBs to 8+ - which memory I should get, and I need a fast HD (maybe a new SSD) for media development.

I am a website and media developer who has been running bootcamp and Windows XP (stability) for ages. I have Adobe CS3 Master Collection installed on the Win side, but Windows just fricking dragggggggggssssss now. I want to speed up, I want to fly, I want to be free, to dance in the street in my underwear singing "I have time to be happy again."

My goal is to beef up the Mac and start using Adobe CS6 Mac version on the cloud for development tasking (I can afford that), and run Parallels to fetch other documents from the Windows side when needed.

Do I need a different graphics card, etc ...

I will post my system specs in a minute, and system requirements for Adobe CS6 too ...

 

[ashman70]

It would help immensely if you could tell us what Mac, specifically which model you have. If you have a Mac Pro, is it a 2,1 a 3,1 or do you have an iMac?

We can't make suggestions or recommendations before first knowing what system you have.

 

[Odisey]

It would help immensely if you could tell us what Mac, specifically which model you have. If you have a Mac Pro, is it a 2,1 a 3,1 or do you have an iMac?

We can't make suggestions or recommendations before first knowing what system you have.

My current system specs:
Mac OS X Version 10.5.8
Processor 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Memory 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.25f4

CS6 Requirements are:
Mac OS

Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support.

Mac OS X v10.6.8 or v10.7. Adobe Creative Suite 5, CS5.5, and CS6 applications support Mac OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8) when installed on Intel based systems. Refer to the CS6 FAQ for more information about Mac OS X Mountain Lion support.**

4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)

15.5GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)

Additional disk space required for disk cache, preview files, and other working files (10GB recommended)

1280x900 display with 16-bit color and 512MB of VRAM; 1680x1050 display required and second professionally calibrated viewing display recommended for Adobe SpeedGrade

OpenGL 2.0–capable system

DVD-ROM drive compatible with dual-layer DVDs (SuperDrive for burning DVDs; Blu-ray burner for creating Blu-ray Disc media)

Java Runtime Environment 1.6

Eclipse 3.7 Cocoa version (for plug-in installation of Adobe Flash Builder; the following distributions are supported: Eclipse IDE for Java EE and Java Developers, Eclipse Classic, Eclipse for PHP Developers

QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime features, multimedia, and HTML5 media playback

Dedicated GPU card recommended (for optimal performance in SpeedGrade and for GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects: NVIDIA Quadro 4000 or other Adobe-certified GPU card with at least 1GB of VRAM recommended); visit www.adobe.com/products/premiere/extend.html for supported cards

Optional: Tangent CP200 family or Tangent Wave control surface for SpeedGrade

Optional: 7200 RPM hard drive (multiple fast disk drives, preferably RAID 0 configured, recommended) for video products

 

[ashman70]

Thanks for that but there is still some info missing.

What video card are you using?

How many internal hard drives do you have, how big are they and how much free space do you have?

You could definitely do with some more RAM, I would suggest you look at OWC.COM, its expensive but you don't have a choice, I'd go up to at least 8GB or 16GB if you can afford it, Adobe product benefit from RAM.

You can look at putting in an SSD, again OWC has models and brackets so you can mount one or two in the optical bay, there are two SATA connectors available although they are hard but not impossible to access.

You can likely upgrade your video card, there are many choices here, you may want to look at Nvidia since you are working with Adobe products, there are many threads available with plenty of information.

 

[Odisey]

OWC.COM? Oliver Wyman? Nothing on that site ....

 

[pertusis1]

OWC.COM? Oliver Wyman? Nothing on that site ....

otherworldcomputing.com

a.k.a. macsales.com

great site for updating macs

 

[pyzon]

You could definitely do with some more RAM, I would suggest you look at OWC.COM, its expensive but you don't have a choice,

.

Why is it they have no choice? Ram is ram most come with lifetime warranty one is as good as the next, failure are few and far between. More choices than OWC , it's getting a bit like macperformanceguide here - sponsored by OWC I'll let somebody else post the correct URL.....

 

[Loa]

Hello,

OWC has good products, but very expensive. Lots of RAM is compatible with your Mac Pro, search on these forums for the correct info. (Especially for your 2008 Mac Pro: shopping around will save you lots of money.) Same thing for SSDs: don't get them from OWC, as all SSDs work well on Macs.

As for the GPU, I would upgrade it last. Make sure you have enough RAM, then think about a SSD and finally a GPU: few operations are really improved by the GPU, so make sure it's a good investment before buying.

Loa

 

[Odisey]

RAM first -- then we will talk about SSD, GPU, etc ...

OK ... Thanks Loa, Pyzon (Goomba), others .... I am looking at OWC just to see what I need and get prices. And now I am guessing I have a limited number of slots for memory installation, as purchasing new memory comes in 1, 2 or 4 GB modules. I'm guessing if I want to ramp up memory to the most possible over time, I'm going to want to get 4 GB modules to maximize my slots.

Is that true?