mac ppc died. macbook pro or mac pro for pt 9

[Dism]

Originally Posted by Ghostdreams

Thanks everyone! I am almost sure I will get a new Mac Pro quad 2.80. Should I spend the extra and update to 6g of ram? Any other options I might want to do at purchase?

When buying a new Mac, there is one particular rule of thumb:

Buy the best processor/video you can afford. Leave the RAM and hard drives as minimal as possible.

The reasoning behind this is that Apple completely rips you off for memory and drives. It is also very easy (particularly in a Mac Pro) to put in your own memory and drives for a LOT cheaper. Most of the time, you can find appropriate upgrades at any computer hardware store.

[gtomassetti]

That's what I did. Since my old Mac Pro and MBP both went entirely haywire at the same time, I decided to replace them. I just bought them as listed from Apple without adding any features on. Then I upped the RAM on both machines and added three internal drives to the Mac Pro (two of which lived in the old computer).

I don't know if I'm allowed to mention the name of the third-party vendor that I used, but I've had great success with them over the years. The cost of RAM for both computers and a 2TB HD for the Mac Pro came to about $600. It would have cost me about $1400 for the same items from Apple.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by gtomassetti

I don't know if I'm allowed to mention the name of the third-party vendor that I used, but I've had great success with them over the years. The cost of RAM for both computers and a 2TB HD for the Mac Pro came to about $600. It would have cost me about $1400 for the same items from Apple.

Not a crime to post your sources... It's not against Apple policy to install aftermarket memory and hard drives, especially in a Mac Pro. Apple uses many of the same internal components as PCs, so they are readily available.

OWC is an excellent provider of aftermarket parts and kits for Macs, but I usually just hit up a local computer shop.

[gtomassetti]

Originally Posted by Dism

OWC is an excellent provider of aftermarket parts and kits for Macs, but I usually just hit up a local computer shop.

Bingo. OWC it is. I usually deal with them simply because the time it takes them to ship something to me tends to be less than the time it would take for the local computer shop (or big box store) to get the item in question.

The one time there was an issue, with a Hitachi SATA HD that wouldn't mount, I called 'em up and they had a replacement drive on my doorstep the next day. I was most impressed…

[lwilliam]

My MacPro came with 6GB of RAM. I haven't upgraded it yet, but have bought RAM from crucial.com in the past for my other Macs and it's always been high quality.

Yeah, the PT9 crossgrade/upgrade went fine with me. It crashed a couple of times yesterday messing around with different i/o settings and different plugins, but I haven't got everything sorted out yet either. I probably still have a couple of outdated plugins. However, just loading and playing through a bunch of different PT8 sessions caused no hiccups at all. It feels very solid.

It's REAL interesting seeing PT work with my M-Audio Ozone and with the native Mac i/o.

...and FINALLY, Avid made a demo song for PT that I like. :)

[gtomassetti]

Originally Posted by lwilliam

My MacPro came with 6GB of RAM.

Mine, too. Since it was using 6 of the 8 slots, I figured that I'd get 4x4GB modules, and use 4 of the 6 1GB modules that came with the machine. Mac OS's Memory Slot Utility showed me how to best use the memory (basically alternating 4GB and 1GB in the successive slots), and I was off and running.

[SixChurchStreet]

Everyone recommends the Mac Pro for the best performance. But isn't the quad iMac a more powerful machine than the base Mac Pro, for $500 less. More ram too.


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[Ghostdreams]

Thanks. This advice has been very helpful and timely. I am still doing some research. I hear the extra money for a new ”Westmere” instead of the "Nehalem" would be a good investment. Any opinions?

[guitarhead]

i am looking to getting a mac pro and these are my choices. Any advice would be great

2.66 quad 2009 $1799
2.93 quad 2009 $2049
2.26 octo 2009 $ 2349
these machines are all on sale at macmall

I run a lot of different vi's superior drummer, amplitube, sampletank, NI
I have been using my macbook pro core 2 2.5 with 4 gig and have been able to run some good mixes, but here lately, i find myself using sometimes 2 instances of superior for different kits like a latin kit and a rock kit. Then i will add sampletank and other sampling synths and amplitube. I start running into problems as i am writing the song and trying to play guitar at 64 buffer the mbp starts to choke.

when tracking bands and what not and mixing i usually have no probs but writing song productions and using the vi's and still have to track durring the process without increasing the buffer is a prob.

I have never owned anything with more than 2 cores and i thought with the new tech these machines are a great deal as close out models going into 2011

[Dism]

Originally Posted by SixChurchStreet

Everyone recommends the Mac Pro for the best performance. But isn't the quad iMac a more powerful machine than the base Mac Pro, for $500 less. More ram too.


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In the short run... yes.

However, the expandability you have with a Mac Pro, even the base model, is what makes a Mac Pro...well... Pro. You can move around hard drives, RAM, PCIe cards (there are a LOT of reasons an audio pro would want a few PCIe slots) plus everything is done internally. No messing with daisychaining. Hard drive fails... pop open the side panel, swap it out and go. Have you ever tried to open an iMac?