Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
Homey when your ready to configure that , check with us first. Lot's of great Mac experts here that been down this road and we can save you some money or really kill the wallet but you will fly. LOL
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Mac Pro performance tips on DIGLLOYD
- Thread starter Jack
- Start date
Thanks Guy.. I don't come here as much as I want to but when I need good advice about stuff that matters I always check here first.
I have actually been building a Fantasy Sports site for some guys I know and man I thought it would be quick. Wrong!!! At least its done now and I can get caught up on some photo work.
I am taking on more Video in 2009 and thinking of adding the 5D MII to my gear (still up in the air about the video portion).
Anyway the GL 2 still does the job but man video hurts this poor Mac Book Pro.
I'll be here picking your brains about what I need and what I don't. It will be strictly for photo and video editing and you guys know what I need.
Saving cash is always good but if I need it I am not scared to drop a $ or 2.
Thanks again.
Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
Yea if you have special needs than you may want to enlist folks here that do this stuff everyday. Buying stock is not the real answer. You will want faster drives and better video cards plus a good amount of processing power and ram. All things mac is great for what you are doing but maybe not buying it through Apple on the part end. Nice to hear you come here for good advice that warms many forum members hearts. The folks here love to help people.
Heart warmer.. Ha good one.
One of these days I am going to hit a workshop too. The Moab one sounds great just don't see how I could fit the timing of it in. Besides I am self employed ( so if you read between the lines that means I never get up at 5am)
Right now I am thinking about starting with the basic 2 x 2.8 duo core. 8 gigs of RAM, Bay 1 the basic 320 gig 7200 HD bay 2 the 7200 1TB HD, Raid card ?? (not sure), Graphics card (not sure here either), 2 Superdrives and don't know about which display I am going with. I also don't know what else I'll need.
As is I think this was around $6k without the display.
Not cheap by any means but it could be a lot more.
Good start? What do the experts say ??
One of these days I am going to hit a workshop too. The Moab one sounds great just don't see how I could fit the timing of it in. Besides I am self employed ( so if you read between the lines that means I never get up at 5am)
Right now I am thinking about starting with the basic 2 x 2.8 duo core. 8 gigs of RAM, Bay 1 the basic 320 gig 7200 HD bay 2 the 7200 1TB HD, Raid card ?? (not sure), Graphics card (not sure here either), 2 Superdrives and don't know about which display I am going with. I also don't know what else I'll need.
As is I think this was around $6k without the display.
Not cheap by any means but it could be a lot more.
Good start? What do the experts say ??
Dale Allyn
New member
Homey: I'm sorry, but I don't recall your location. If you're located in the U.S. you should consider buying your basic MacPro box with minimal RAM and HD and get buy the additional RAM and drives from a source like Other World Computing or similar, rather than Apple. Sometimes you can save even more by shopping for hard drives at places like NewEgg.com, but I usually just go with OWC for simplicity. You'll save enough to fund your display.
If you're located outside the U.S. you may still want to look to alternative sources from Apple to purchase your RAM and hard drives. Apple's RAM prices are astronomical and the well designed systems allow for easy self-installation. Hard drives are equally easy to install.
If you're located outside the U.S. you may still want to look to alternative sources from Apple to purchase your RAM and hard drives. Apple's RAM prices are astronomical and the well designed systems allow for easy self-installation. Hard drives are equally easy to install.
Last edited:
Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
Exactly as Dale says buy the Mac pro with minimum ram like 2 gb , and the cheapest hard drive. What you are after at Apple is a good processor and that is about it. Everything else you build from there . Video card maybe good from Apple but we have to check around on that one. BTW buying the fastest processor only get's you so far it really comes down to drives and ram. As Dale said OWC for the Ram it is cheap and Newegg is great on hard drives. Unless you want the new 300gb 10 k drives which I have 3 of them now.
here is a simple config at Apple that maybe just enough
Part Number: Z0EM
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard + User's Guide
Accessory kit
Gift message: Add
Remove $2,849.00 $2,849.00
Than with two 2 gigs on board add 12 gb of Ram from OWC for a total of 14gb if you want to stay on the low end of price. 279 for 12gbs
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/64FB2MPK12GB/
Now i have three of these and my machine flies. Have one for the OS than have a second one partitioned like 100gb for Photoshop scratch and the other 200gb for temporary video or stills as a working drive. So edit off this drive and do your work.
WD VelociRaptor™
SATA Hard Drives
300 GB, 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM
3.5-inch (backplane-ready)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD3000HLFS/
Than fill the box with 2 1TB Seagates or Western Digital for storage there not expensive. Look for something like this 1.0TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II 7200RPM 32MB . Key words 7200 rpm and 32mg cache. I have these http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST31000340AS/
The video card I just ordered this one http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI Technologies/100435928/
Now here is where we would have to see what maybe best for video. Which is a little different animal than stills.
But I would go with a 2.8 or even the 3.0 and build it outside Apple. BTW i love my 30 inch Apple Cinema but watch out here this could be getting a update early next year but even still great monitor and still reasonable in price unless you went Eizo which are great but pricy. Just some things to figure out and look at in the pricing area. But Ram is dirt cheap right now
Others may have some different thoughts here also on final setup of drives. Also the drive you buy from Apple after adding the others you simply may want to use for Time machine in a Firewire box. That is what i have done
here is a simple config at Apple that maybe just enough
Part Number: Z0EM
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard + User's Guide
Accessory kit
Gift message: Add
Remove $2,849.00 $2,849.00
Than with two 2 gigs on board add 12 gb of Ram from OWC for a total of 14gb if you want to stay on the low end of price. 279 for 12gbs
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/64FB2MPK12GB/
Now i have three of these and my machine flies. Have one for the OS than have a second one partitioned like 100gb for Photoshop scratch and the other 200gb for temporary video or stills as a working drive. So edit off this drive and do your work.
WD VelociRaptor™
SATA Hard Drives
300 GB, 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM
3.5-inch (backplane-ready)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD3000HLFS/
Than fill the box with 2 1TB Seagates or Western Digital for storage there not expensive. Look for something like this 1.0TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II 7200RPM 32MB . Key words 7200 rpm and 32mg cache. I have these http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST31000340AS/
The video card I just ordered this one http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI Technologies/100435928/
Now here is where we would have to see what maybe best for video. Which is a little different animal than stills.
But I would go with a 2.8 or even the 3.0 and build it outside Apple. BTW i love my 30 inch Apple Cinema but watch out here this could be getting a update early next year but even still great monitor and still reasonable in price unless you went Eizo which are great but pricy. Just some things to figure out and look at in the pricing area. But Ram is dirt cheap right now
Others may have some different thoughts here also on final setup of drives. Also the drive you buy from Apple after adding the others you simply may want to use for Time machine in a Firewire box. That is what i have done
Jan Brittenson
Senior Subscriber Member
I think it'll only use 3.2GB though...
Dale I live in Michigan and have an apartment in N.Y. for work. Thanks for the advice
Guy thanks for those links. I wont be buying until after the first of the year anyway so waiting a bit is no sweat.
Jan: Mine will take up to 4.0 gigs. I checked on that one. They told me when I bought it that it would take 4 gigs and the tech geek at Best Buy told me last week I could get 4 in it.
I don't think I will do the BB deal though. I'll look around and put it in myself.
Guy: The PC here that I still use once in a while is one I built in 2000. I have swapped out and added a few things since then but it still works like a champ. Its hard to believe that we would have ever thought it was fast. So I am not scared of building my own MAC.
I have OS X Leopard here and all the software I need. All I really need is to build it. I also like your prices a lot better than buying it from Apple.
Thanks again all..
Guy thanks for those links. I wont be buying until after the first of the year anyway so waiting a bit is no sweat.
Jan: Mine will take up to 4.0 gigs. I checked on that one. They told me when I bought it that it would take 4 gigs and the tech geek at Best Buy told me last week I could get 4 in it.
I don't think I will do the BB deal though. I'll look around and put it in myself.
Guy: The PC here that I still use once in a while is one I built in 2000. I have swapped out and added a few things since then but it still works like a champ. Its hard to believe that we would have ever thought it was fast. So I am not scared of building my own MAC.
I have OS X Leopard here and all the software I need. All I really need is to build it. I also like your prices a lot better than buying it from Apple.
Thanks again all..
D
DougDolde
Guest
Priced have fallen significantly for the 4gb MacBook Pro memory module. $158 now I think from OWC.
I need some help.
After reading this and another thread, I order a 4Gb DDR2 stick from OWC for my 2.4GHz 15" late 2008 Macbook Pro (Perlyn I believe) and upgraded memory to 6Gb. Profiler shows Ram is now 6Gb but Photoshop CS4 only see 3072Mb still. What must I do to get PS to utilize the additional ram?
After reading this and another thread, I order a 4Gb DDR2 stick from OWC for my 2.4GHz 15" late 2008 Macbook Pro (Perlyn I believe) and upgraded memory to 6Gb. Profiler shows Ram is now 6Gb but Photoshop CS4 only see 3072Mb still. What must I do to get PS to utilize the additional ram?
I do.
There is a great write-up by our friend Lloyd Chambers at http://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshop-Intro.html
Make sure that you pay attention to the plug-in advice even if you don't have striped volumes ESPECIALLY on a notebook.
-bob
There is a great write-up by our friend Lloyd Chambers at http://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshop-Intro.html
Make sure that you pay attention to the plug-in advice even if you don't have striped volumes ESPECIALLY on a notebook.
-bob
Hi Henry:
The answer is variable depending on how you use your laptop: IF you do a lot of heavy multi-tasking, like converting a bunch of raws in the background while processing large files in Photoshop, and keep mail and web and bookeeping software all open at the same time, setting CS to 3G may be detrimental overall. However, if you utilize your Macbook Pro in a more linear fashion, one program at a time, thee by all means set your CS RAM allocation to the 3G max.
PS: Note that adding the bigger tiles plug-in will also improve performance, and in some cases so will activating the disable scratch compression plug-in, so be sure to try it.
Cheers,
The answer is variable depending on how you use your laptop: IF you do a lot of heavy multi-tasking, like converting a bunch of raws in the background while processing large files in Photoshop, and keep mail and web and bookeeping software all open at the same time, setting CS to 3G may be detrimental overall. However, if you utilize your Macbook Pro in a more linear fashion, one program at a time, thee by all means set your CS RAM allocation to the 3G max.
PS: Note that adding the bigger tiles plug-in will also improve performance, and in some cases so will activating the disable scratch compression plug-in, so be sure to try it.
Cheers,
D
DougDolde
Guest
Apple is now selling 8 gb kits for the new model 15" MacBook Pro. Obviously OWC is a better place to buy it though. Previously they only offered it for the 17" MBP.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/26/apple_selling_8gb_memory_upgrade_kits_for_15_macbook_pros.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/26/apple_selling_8gb_memory_upgrade_kits_for_15_macbook_pros.html