Buying a MacPro … Should I get More CPU or More RAM?

[Dan Riley]

More RAM is better, but I have a question for you….
Are you getting the RAM from Apple in the config you mentioned?
Because if you are, you are paying twice as much as you need to
for 8 gigs of RAM. Don’t do that. Buy great RAM from transintl.com
or macsales.com Maybe if you do this, you can get both the QUAD 3 gig
and the RAM. Even so, my advice is get as much RAM as you can.
8 gigs is good. 4 gigs, not so much. The problem is you computer
will use it’s virtual RAM feature (meaning it uses your system hard drive
as fake RAM) much more often. This is obviously slower than RAM.
You can’t turn this off in OSX, so the only thing you can do is
purchase more RAM if you are going to be using apps that like to use
RAM to operate, like Motion, FCP, Photoshop, After Effects, etc.

Just one man’s opinion. Let’s see who else chirps up.
Dan

[David Roth weiss]

Everything Dan said about RAM is true, my only disagreemnt with his reasoning is that, since procs are not really upgradable and since RAM is, you only get one shot at the procs…

Okay, that being said, RAM is more important than ever before now, and it will become even more imnportant later when 64-bit FCP comes out. So…

And, don’t forget hard drive speed/throughput. Striping four SATA drives together in that MacPro and using the other Superdrive space for your system drive will get you bucket loads of performance too, many, many times faster than firewire 800. So don’t skimp there either…

Now, where did you say you found that money tree??? I need to find one myself.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

[Rj Miles]

Unless something changes, it will be easier to add more memory than increase the processor speed. So, I would get the fastest Mac Pro, and add more ram when I could afford.

Based on some early hacking of the 8-core processor on quad Mac Pros, I thought there might be a future for swapping in faster processors as they became affordable, but that possibly hasn’t materialize yet.

We have now bought 16GB of ram from OWC for our Mac Pro 8-core machines, and but for (1) 2GB stick OWC advance replaced, their cheap ram has been flawless. (knock on wood)

Happy shopping

PS… I bought MY 8-core as an Apple Refurb and it came with the X1900 card instead of the 7300GT listed on the Apple website. 🙂

[Cory Mckechnie]

Thanks everyone for the help. I was completely unaware of the 3rd party RAM options. I will definitely be getting the dual 3GHz procs and picking up 8GB of RAM from either macsales.com or transintl.com!! Once I get a little closer to clicking the send button on this purchase (in the next couple weeks) I’ll probably be back with more specific questions about the RAM and if there’s a difference between those two sites in terms of what RAM they sell, but until then I’m excited about my now even cooler new machine!!
Thanks again,
Cory

[Walter Biscardi]

[Cory McKechnie] “I will definitely be getting the dual 3GHz procs and picking up 8GB of RAM from either macsales.com or transintl.com!!”

I only recommend Crucial.com. they seem to have the best quality and most reliable RAM of anyone out there. From what I understand, it’s the exact same RAM that Apple installs.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Cory Mckechnie]

Interesting, I’ll keep that in mind when buying the RAM.
Thanks Walter,
Cory