Second-hand Mac Pro buying advice
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From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 16 Apr 2010 09:51 On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:44:43 +0100, Michael H. Phillips <mhp(a)odtaa.invalid> wrote: >On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:24:23 +0100, James Jolley wrote: > >> On 2010-04-16 14:19:22 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh >> <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> said: >> >>> It's a pretty good price, as long as the Airport trouble doesn't get >>> in your way. The only reservation I'd have is the way it seems to have >>> had so many wires damaged... >>> >>> Cheers - Jaimie >> >> That's a good point you know. Looking at the info in you're original >> post, it does seem to have been treated a bit roughly. > >The seller claims that "this MacPro has been used in a smoke free environment >and regularly cleaned. There are a couple of not-too noticeable scratches on >it." He does seem to enjoy tinkering, though, but maybe he knows what he's >doing. >> >> My own machine is the 2008 Eight Core machine but it's overkill for the >> present time. My partner uses it for photoshop though so she does like >> to get the most out of it. > >The seller says that "Apple hasn't released (and more than likely won't be) a >EFI firmware update, as such both the MacPro 1,1 and 2,1 run on a EFI32 code, >as result though the CPU is 100% 64bit, the MacOS X won't be running on a >64bit kernel", which, if I understand it, means that Finder is going to be a >bit of a laggard on this machine. That's not a correct understanding, it just means the kernel isn't running 64bit. Finder will be. My new very 64bit i5 iMac is running with the kernel in 32bit mode. This is probably for compatibility reasons - you can't have 32bit kernel extensions running with a 64bit kernel. I'd expect 10.7 to switch every Mac that can run 64bit to 64bit throughout, since that'll have given time for driver writers to go 64bit. >Answering my own initial question, I now think it wiser to wait for the next >generation of Mac Pro and blow an anticipated income tax refund on it. Not if that's your reason! And it *is* a good price. Cheers - Jaimie -- Once I drove so fast that my friend, who was pregnant, started having Lorentz contractions. "Ahah," you might ask, "but how far apart were they?" - Adam Fineman, rgrn
From: Michael H. Phillips on 16 Apr 2010 10:43 On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:47:53 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote: > What are you running it on at the moment, and what operations are > annoyingly slow? You might be better putting a couple of hundred quid > into RAM in your current box than �1200 on a new/old machine. A G5. Adobe CS5 requires Intel. > > ... I've nothing against people buying new machines but I do like > people to be doing it for the right reasons. If your expectation is > that it'll speed up your current workflow, you're likely to be > disappointed unless the workflow is CPU or memory restricted. I'd expect a speed increase and would be disappointed if it wasn't noticeable. And I'd hope for greater stability -- Illustrator CS4 is a crash a day. > > (I do count "I just want one!" as a fair reason) I don't really want one. In fact I dread re-installing all my applications. But I *do* want the new edition of Illustrator and for that I need an Intel Mac. -- Michael mhphillips at gmail dot com
From: Elliott Roper on 16 Apr 2010 10:58 In article <06ogs5hm94qtk3uvbiv8go07lligu69ire(a)4ax.com>, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:05:43 +0100, Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> > wrote: > > >I hang onto Macs till the current model is at least 4x faster than what > >I have. If the new Pros are that quick, this one is going to be driving > >the telly. > > If that's all it'll be doing, you're better off flogging it (the price > on the OP's is about normal) and getting a Mini at 1.8GHz C2D or > better to do the same. And �700 to spend on your favourite chocolates. I might go that way, but I figure the Pro can sit downstairs rendering FCP and Motion, and holding untold TB of photos and movies and other backups. It does not take too much added usefulness to make it a keeper compared to a mini, and I don't see �700 difference in price. More like �450 before putting useful amounts of disk nearby reduces the difference further. -- To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$ PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
From: James Jolley on 16 Apr 2010 11:06 On 2010-04-16 14:41:57 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> said: > On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:21:59 +0100, James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> > wrote: > >> On 2010-04-16 14:09:53 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh >> <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> said: >> >>> On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:05:43 +0100, Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> I hang onto Macs till the current model is at least 4x faster than what >>>> I have. If the new Pros are that quick, this one is going to be driving >>>> the telly. >>> >>> If that's all it'll be doing, you're better off flogging it (the price >>> on the OP's is about normal) and getting a Mini at 1.8GHz C2D or >>> better to do the same. And �700 to spend on your favourite chocolates. >>> >>> My TV mini (late 2007 Mini, 2Ghz, 4gig) does the usual EyeTV >>> dual-tuner play/record, other media playing, and also runs a VM of my >>> services server (DNS, DHCP, mail, antispam). It rarely goes over 30% >>> CPU. A Pro - even an old one - is crazy overkill. >> >> Does it make coffee and serve cupcakes as well? How many login items do >> you have on that thing, I bet it takes an age to restart. > > It sits almost silently under the telly, using about 15W. The login > items are EyeTV and VMware - and since the VM is paused and restarted > rather than rebooted, the whole thing takes under a minute to come up. > > Cheers - Jaimie Just goes to show how far we've come with hardware. Amazing stuff.
From: James Jolley on 16 Apr 2010 11:09
On 2010-04-16 14:47:53 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> said: > On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:31:21 +0100, Michael H. Phillips > <mhp(a)odtaa.invalid> wrote: > >> On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:19:22 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote: >> >>> What do you intend to do with it? The new ones are liable to be twice+ >>> as fast for really parallelised CPU intensive stuff - is that worth >>> the cost to you? >> >> Mainly for Adobe applications (CS5) -- Illustrator in particular. > > What are you running it on at the moment, and what operations are > annoyingly slow? You might be better putting a couple of hundred quid > into RAM in your current box than �1200 on a new/old machine. > > ... I've nothing against people buying new machines but I do like > people to be doing it for the right reasons. If your expectation is > that it'll speed up your current workflow, you're likely to be > disappointed unless the workflow is CPU or memory restricted. > > (I do count "I just want one!" as a fair reason) > > Cheers - Jaimie I personally decided to get one for future proofing. I do quite a lot of audio encoding type work with mine, but I do respect that it'de be fine to use an imac for that sort of thing. |