Mac recommendations?
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- knoxvoice
My company needs to buy a Mac Pro system for our new motion graphics artist, who works with Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Maya, Photoshop, and Illustrator, with 1 30" display and another plasma screen to preview his work.
Could you guys suggest what Mac Pro specs he could get away with? We haven't hired yet, which is why I'm asking...
- Llyod0
ask him
- knoxvoice0
Good question. Conservative would be $4-5k, ideal would be $6k-$8k.
My two big questions are:
1. Video card: Will the GeForce 8800 GT suffice or does he/she really need the Quadro FX 5600?
2. RAM: I'm sure "the more the better" but is 4GB enough? 6GB? 8GB? More?
- johndiggity0
go dell for the 30" display. about $300 cheaper than the apple, and a higher contrast ratio.
- knoxvoice0
Good point - I had intended to do just that. I use Dell 22" monitors, which are like 1/2 the price of Apple's and just as good.
- the dell 24" ultrasharp is nice too.akrokdesign
- is it just me? my dell 22" is noisy. i don't like the grays on it.funkage
- akrokdesign0
Mac Pro
Part Number: Z0EM
One 16x SuperDrive
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard (English) + User's Guide
8GB (4 x 2GB)
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Accessory kit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (Two dual-link DVI)- but, I would get the memory at macsales.com instead. way cheaper. maybe also buy the 2nd HD at frys. there was a 1TB for 169 there. :-)akrokdesign
- ...for 169.akrokdesign
- < $5,898.54 with tax.
akrokdesign - On hard drive, he'll need a local scratch-disk HDD but our network saves files to a RAID.knoxvoice
- Buy one of these for me while you're at itlocustsloth
- working with network connected, how fast is it? at my ex. job we had a network EX HD..and it was slow.akrokdesign
- if you use final cut alot, the scratch disk will be quite large.akrokdesign
- How fast is the RAID? It's a fibre channel Xserve RAID, 4TB (so far). The network is 10/100/1000 ethernet.knoxvoice
- knoxvoice0
So you think 8GB RAM is enough?
And the GeForce 8800 GT is enough? I wonder if the Quadro FX is overkill...
- Good point on the RAM - I buy lots of stuff at provantage.com, killer prices and fast shipping.knoxvoice
- i got 2gb ram in my macbook pro, works fine with maya and final cut. of course take a while to render.
akrokdesign - 8 gb ram should be enough. I dont think the older G5 had much more then that.akrokdesign
- Quadro FX - if the client pays the bill. lol.akrokdesign
- ...think its overkill.akrokdesign
- ismith0
8GB should be enough, but if there's room in the budget it definitely won't hurt to have a little more or at least make matched pairs of 2GB. I remember hearing that the Quadro FX was awesome for 3D rendering but not for games, so it might be something you want to look into. I don't know how the 8800GT's performance is, but for the cost/benefit ratio it could be the best option. Also, make sure you buy a quality HD. Saving money is nice, but losing data is never fun and when you're doing a lot of read/write operations it'll happen a hell of a lot quicker.
- Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it!knoxvoice
- thenuge0
I do motion graphics and editing at work. my boss went on the cheap and got me the baseline quad core with 4GB of RAM. It's pretty time consuming to do heavy motion work. you really need 8GB of RAM or you need to be really good at optimizing your effects.
- ismith0
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_…
There may be some unofficial comparisons of the FX5600 vs 8800GT (search Google), but most of what I found was just gamers fantasizing about million dollar rigs. I think it would be smart to go with the 8800GT, and if it didn't work out go for the Quadro FX for a $300 loss. The FX was born to render, and the 8800GT can't touch it with 1.5GB of onboard RAM. It's all just a matter of whether it's worth the cash for your level of production.
- airey0
get the best you can afford. it's going to probably need to last you at least 3 years or so, so fork out the cash. the faster the better when iy comes to dv. also, get a crapload of RAM.
- knoxvoice0
Okay, so definitely a minimum of 8GB high quality, error correcting, 800 mhz RAM. Maybe 12GB just to be safe?
- thenuge0
here's what your motion guys needs to know if you skimp on anything: