[Rj Miles]

I recently sold a G5 2.0ghz DP for $1500 with just OS X 10.4.10 installed. It had 1.5 GB of ram and a 300GB HD. The buyer also bought a ProTools Rack 002 package for use on the G5.

best of luck with your G5 sale.

I’ll echo the suggestion to buy an Intel Mac Pro as a replacement. That’s what I’m doing.

RJ

BTW… I still have a G4/500 AGP with a Sonnet processor upgrade and ATI 9800 Pro video card serving as my back up Mac. 🙂

[Rj Miles]

We recently bought (2) Dell 2407 monitors for a Mac Pro. We have noticed one of the monitors has a slight flicker for about 30-60 seconds from a cold start up.

Has anyone else seen this? The flicker goes away pretty quickly, but we will be keeping an eye on it to see if it becomes worse.

Otherwise, the monitors have been flawless.

[Rj Miles]

We have 16GB of ram in our new 8-core from OWC and it has been flawless.

[Rj Miles]

Thanks Walter…

I hear ya regarding using an external HD. I would be using an eSATA Express card for connecting to my Sonnet F500 Bays.

Do you have a favorite eSATA card? I’m wondering which eSATA cards support port-multipliers i=on the MBP?

Thanks again for your reply.

RJ
…

[Rj Miles]

The work flow I use involves sharing eSATA drives between computers. I use the Sonnet F500 drive bays, which can also be used with the MacBook Pro when fitted with an Express Slot eSATA card.

When I don’t share the actual RAID drives, I use Super Duper to copy a current Mac Pro production volume to a single “back up/remote” drive, which is also on a Fusion 500 tray. In this case, I only need to copy the project file from the remote HD when I want to resync my project progress with the Mac Pro RAID.

I might note this backup/remote HD could easily be a FW800 drive instead of a eSATA drive on a F500 tray, and the process resyning the project file would be the same.

I work with 500GB HDs, and a single drive has been more than enough for me to move a project around. Actually, I move many projects around.

I prefer the eSATA connection solution because coping the source files goes much faster than with FW800.

Good luck

[Rj Miles]

We have had great success buying our Mac ram from OWC (Other World Computing).

They have a great price on MacBook Pro ram upgrade, which I believe is $219 for the (2) 2gb sticks, taking the MBP to 4GB.

Happy shopping

[Rj Miles]

You can also find some great deals on Mac Pro 2.66ghz quad machines.

There are some packages coming online that will only run on Intel, so you might take that into account.

I’ve been using a new 8-core at a clients, and I have been getting by with a G4/500 upgraded with a 1.8ghz Sonnet processor upgrade and ATI 9800 Pro video card. Talk about a tale two Macs. 🙂

I recently sold my home studio G5 2.0ghz DP to make way for some flavor of Intel Mac, either a Mac Pro or MBP. I’m trying to make the best decision for what tasks I will have. I’m leaning heavily toward a Mac Pro 3.0ghz quad over the faster Octo, but I can also make a great case for a new MacBook Pro.

IMHO, you should consider investing in an INtel Mac. It will have the longest legs as more and more Intel only software is released.

Good luck with your decision.

[Rj Miles]

Doah!

Thanks Walter.

[Rj Miles]

If you are going to get the Quad (2) x (duo core), check out the Apple refurbished site. They have that Mac Pro with the X1900 for $3299 shipped.

For heavy Motion production, or FCP and AE for that matter, have you ruled out the 8-core for about $700 more? You could start out at 8GB of ram added to the factory 2 GB, and that should hold you over until you can move up to 16GB.

Definitely go with the X1900 over the stock card, and seriously consider asking your boss to invest just a wee more cabbage in the 8-core. The time savings will add up very quickly and out weigh the cost.

Good luck

[Rj Miles]

Shane…

How do you like the MBP?

I ask because I can’t decide between a 2.4ghz 17″ MBP or Mac Pro 3.0ghz (2) dual core for my home office and occasional location location use.

I’m just wondering if you have noticed performance compromises with the MBP when working with FCP?

I know my AE render times would definitely be faster with a Mac Pro.

Thanks