Buying a new Mac Pro - which CPU/how many? And how much RAM?

Question

I tried to ask this question at Stack Overflow, thinking that was where I would find lots of developers who would have experience with various systems and would be best able to answer this. Alas, it got shut down as "not programming related" after two minutes, despite other similar questions being answered there. One of the commenters suggested I post it here; I'm not sure it's 100% relevant here either, but I don't know where else to ask so here goes:

I'm upgrading from an iMac to a Mac Pro, and trying to decide what to buy.

With my current usage, the base configuration - 1 2.66 GHz quad-core Xeon Nehalem - would be plenty, considering I've been getting by reasonably well with a single 2.16 Core 2 Duo for a couple of years now. But if I'm going to drop this much money on a system I want to use it for a while, and I don't want to end up feeling like I shorted myself when I could have gotten a lot better system for not that much more money.

Right now my system usage is pretty light - I compile iPhone apps, which are small, and I run Windows XP under VMWare. That's the main reason I'm upgrading, actually - the system becomes nearly unresponsive with Windows running. However, in the not-too-distant future I can envision getting into building Java web apps and even Cocoa desktop apps, so I'm likely to become a heavier compiler user in the future. I'm not into games, and my video processing is limited to running Handbrake occasionally (shh :). Right now I do no graphics processing to speak of but I desperately need to learn how to do the basics in Photoshop, so that will be a factor at some point during the life of this system as well.

My choices are:

1 2.66 GHz Xeon 1 2.93 GHz Xeon ($500 extra over the 2.26) or

2 2.26 GHz Xeons 2 2.66 GHz Xeons ($1400 extra) 2 2.93 GHz Xeons ($2600 extra) I'm trying to not make the decision based on price but I do have my limits, so my choices are probably among the first three - 1 2.66, 1 2.93, or 2 2.26. Beyond that the price gets out of my range.

The next question is RAM. The single processor systems come with 3GB, with upgrades to 6 ($150) and 8 ($250). The dual systems come with 6GB, with upgrades to 8 ($100), 12 ($300), 16 ($500) and 32 (add $6100 !!!). I only have 2GB right now and that's not nearly enough, so I'm thinking I need at least 6GB in the new system. But should I go higher?

From what I've read the single CPU motherboards cannot be upgraded to two processors later, so it's all or nothing. I suspect they are limited in RAM slots as well, given the difference in upgrade options.

Suggestions as to what I should get, and why? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Buy you ram from a third party such as Crucial. I also don't believe you can change from a single processor to a dual processor later. As the memory is also on the same daughter board as the processor having a single processor limits the amount of RAM you can have in the system as well. Look at how long you are going to be running the system and decide what is the right choice for you, if the extra processor and memory buys the system an extra year then it may well be worth it. Residual values on macs are also higher and I would expect the high end machines to hold they value better than the low end ones.

Answer 2

My advice is to get two of the cheapest Nehalem chips with the lowest possible amount of RAM, then buy more RAM aftermarket. If you might want two CPUs, get them up front because you may run into oddball issues if you buy a CPU later and get chip with a different rev or from a different batch.

I would recommend splurging with Apple on monitors; their monitors are beautiful and offer the best picture/clarity that you typically see.

Also, don't get upset about the interweb-bureaucrats who get bitchy about a perfectly reasonable question.

Answer 3

I don't know a ton about the mac pro configs but the last time I looked upgrading RAM etc was REALLY expensive from apple. I would say get your baseline mac pro - MAYBE spring for the second CPU and then add RAM and anything else you can aftermarket. Apple really hits you with the upgrades. I ended up paying an extra 1k on a 15 inch macbookpro just because I got the faster processor and 4GB ram from apple. And it turns the faster proc really hits the battery life - Anyway. tangent...

If you are not looking at the price I would say get the two 2.26 processors and then upgrade the RAM to 8GB or maybe 16GB if you are really really using a tone of VMs at the same time. Again - might be able to get a better deal on RAM aftermarket. And I would get the apple care...

Answer 4

One of my resellers tells me that Kingston is the "official" white-label for Apple RAM, so if you buy Kingston its the exact same stuff that would cost you 4x more buying direct from Steve Jobs. I'd also recommend getting the smallest harddrive you can from Apple to save money, and then spend the $100 in the aftermarket getting a 300gb+ drive (or SSD, if that's your flavor).

For comparison, I'm a linux sysadmin whose programming needs are light (lots of perl and python scripts), but I have Parallels 4 installed with Windows XP, OpenBSD, Debian, and Centos containers. Brushing up on my OpenBSD load-balancing testing, I'll easily have 4 or 5 VMs running in the background as 'web-server test nodes' with Apache and tcpdump running on each. My MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Intel Core Duo 2 with 4GB RAM handles that just fine, with no noticeable system slowdown doing basic everyday tasks (web browsing with firefox, email with Thunderbird, IM with Adium, etc).

From your described usage patterns, it sounds like you'd be fine with the base quad-core CPU and a whole messload of RAM (I'd recommend 4GB+, especially if you're getting into Photoshop). If you wanted to leave room for upgradability, I'd recommend getting the base dual-CPU configuration and still getting a whole messload of RAM. However, keep in mind Apple's lovely little habit of forced obsolescence. Do you see yourself continuing to use this system 5+ years from now when the Umpteenth Generation Big Shiny(tm) is released from Cupertino, and all of a sudden your system isn't considered "supported" because the industry has moved to 128-bit CPU cores forged from Unobtainium?

Answer 5

Lloyd Chambers aka digilloyd has written quite a bit about this. You might want to take a look at his articles. He focuses mainly on using the Mac Pro for digital photography but a lot of the basic reasoning applies.

Short summary: 'To save money, get the Mac Pro “bare bones” and stuff it with memory and hard drives of your choosing at a much lower cost than Apple offers.'

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToConfigureAMacPro.html