The MacPro comes with a cool programme called "ComicLife". It integrates with .mac in the sense you can annotate your photos from iPhoto and upload it to your .mac website.

Anyway, thought I'd use ComicLife to put up photos of my additional hard drives...

These Western Digital Caviar 250 Gb (16gb buffer) are identical to the stock 250Gb drive that the MacPro comes with. The difference is that they were purchased at LYP CZone for RM290. A fraction of what Apple would have charged...




This post has been edited by MacDaNife: Oct 21 2006, 06:44 AM

Not yet.... although there are advantages to be had running quad channel, methinks it is much too early to buy unbuffered RAM for the MacPro at the moment. Have to let enough of these machines reach users before RAM becomes more plentiful and prices come down from present exorbitant levels.

FYI, an additional gig (2 x 512Mb) was quoted to me at a "special price" of RM12xx.

It'll run with any SATA hard disk afaik.

Segate drives with 16Mb buffer have reportedly slow read speeds for reasons that are not immediately obvious. For that reason, I went with the Western Digital drive (also 16Mb).

And that's where I got mine from too.

And today, got an iSight webcam too....

Had a spare TDK DVD burner around and thought I'd pop it into the MacPro.

The Optical Drives come mounted on a Aluminum caddy. Interestingly, Apple supplies screws for the second drive ready-for-use on the caddy. Ribbon/power cables are also ready for the second optical drive. You just have to slide one in and connect the cables.



In any case (for those who are interested in this kinda thing) more photos with comments are over at my dotMac site...

HERE

For that, you'll have to ask Uncle Steve....

You're buying an upwards of 15k config and you don't want to get AppleCare?

With my prior experience with Apple repair costs, that's not a good idea. AppleCare for my MacPro cost RM8xx. I consider that money well spent. It costs the same for any MacPro btw. (even the ultimate high end like yours) and covers a CinemaDisplay too if you buy both on the same reciept.

Have to add something about the MacPro..

Audio is seriously good with this machine. Now the WorkRig was no slouch in the Audio department with a Creative XFi soundcard but the MacPro blows it out of the water. And this is running on an Aego2 2.1 system.

Some upgrades to the MacPro: Just in time for the HOLIDAYS!

1. ATi X1900xt

Ordered this when I picked up the MacPro. Always felt that the stock config nVidia 7300gt was seriously underpowered card as compared to the dual Xeons. Kinda like buying a Ferrari and putting wheels from a Kancil on em. Finally got a call from VR yesterday that the card was ready for collection... Comes in a big box:



Within the box is a HUGE card. Actually: not that big (My XFX nVidia 7950GX2 has a bigger PCB) but if you include the "stabilizer" it's very looooong. Design wise it oozes class. Shiny red metal always does.



Now while it appears that it is possible to buy a PC X1900xt (512Mb version) and flash it to a MacPro compatible EFI BIOS, see HERE (you will need to register with StrangeDogs forum) I was not keen on this for the following reasons:

1. I'd need to source a power cable to use with the Mac Pro as the card gets its power directly from a slot on the motherboard. (now why can't PC Mobos have this sort of functionality?). Apple provides the cable in the box. And it's is the exact right length in typical Apple business black.

2. The cards for the PC are lacking of the stabilizer which should help with noise/vibration and are simply COOL.

The price differential is however quite compelling. A PC X1900xt should set you back around RM1500. The Mac version goes for (gasp) RM2300. Below is a picture of the card installed. Note the power cable from card to mobo.




2. Kingston MacPro RAM (512Mb x 2)

When I can buy regular PC DDR2 512Mb sticks for a just over a hundred ringgit, it certainly hurts to have to pay RM1080 for two sticks of Kingston 512Mb RAM. Of course they are fully buffered and come in a big box BUT it doesn't make the pain any more bearable. However, OS X was never meant to run with only 1 gig and I really don't know the rationale of this configuration being the default for a "Pro" machine. Adding another gig has stopped the page-outs as monitored by MenuMeters 1.3 (excellent control panel: donationware!) and the MacPro now is a speedy as it should.

Adding more RAM has a second major benefit in that four sticks means running with quad channel. AnandTech reports at best only a modest speed boost and while I didn't get out the stopwatch to refute this, it does feel much snappier even performing the usual open/close windows and launching proggies.

No worries about the compatibility. Kingston guarantees that they are identical to Apple's part number for MacPro RAM and they have big, beefy heatsinks too:



As you can see, installing additional RAM is a breeze. Apple even includes the diagram to install RAM with the recommended configuration path for two, four, six and eight sticks on the cover for the MacPro. Essentially you slide out the riser card, add the pair and slide it back in again. Took under a couple of minutes.




3. Apple Bluetooth Module

Finally, added bluetooth functionality to the MacPro with this little guy:



It's tiny and plugs directly into the Mobo. See if you can spot it in the picture of the installed ATi card above. There are two screws that hold it into place. I now have a bluetooth icon on my menubar BUT can't use it with my M600i until Apple updates iSync. Sheesh!


Anyways, for those of you who like pictures of computer internals, more pics are at my homepage HERE.

This post has been edited by MacDaNife: Oct 21 2006, 11:36 AM

Of course "It Just Works"....

...and it works very well too, I might add.

Its really not that big a deal waiting for the next update to iSync.

Well, CTO does offer the benefit of saving some money by not paying for the nVidia 7300gt card.

Mine will sit in the X1900xt box. Just in case the ATi card dies.

Another note: The ATi card is very quiet. While reports on the web indicate an AcceleroX2 cooler swap, to me its not necessary. Even with extended gaming (Call of Duty, Quake 4) it doesn't get to levels in which it irritates. I'm leaving the pretty white cooler as it is.

I would recommend rather than installing ONE 500Mb additional disc; install TWO 250Mb harddisks in a Raid0 stripe. That's what I did.

Why? Go HERE for the benchmarks. As BareFeats has exhaustively shown, the benefits of Raid0 are quite remarkable. The usual caveat to Raid0 of course applies. You double your failure risk in that should ONE hard drive fail, ALL data is lost. To protect against this you need to keep your original drive as a backup drive. This policy is especially important since every OS X update so far has refused to boot from a Raid0 stripe without first booting from a single drive configuration.

The speed however is addictive.

It's soooo much cheaper (and very easy) to DIY hard drive upgrades.

I'd get the base configuration, and just go over to LYP and get some nice WD Caviar drives....

(Stay away from Seagate, they apparently don't play nice with the Mac Pro according to XLR8-your-mac)

Read the post bro...

At present, no... Although the WorkRig is connected to a APC UPS system.

Will probably get one for the MacPro too but need to do some research first on which one would be most appropriate. Have you any recommendations?

Man, that seems to much money to pay for UPS.....

I figure I need UPS in order to be able to quickly save whatever I'm doing in event of a power outage. In addition the security of having the UPS take the hit should a voltage spike from Tenaga Nasional run through my house (don't laugh - it's happened to me before with expensive consequences to my miriad electronic devices).

So I figure I don't need a UPS that would last me to restoration of power. It's not like I do anything irreplaceable with the Mac anyways. If I'm encoding video for example, I could always run the tape again....

I'll probably get something from APC in the RM200-300 range. That should be quite adequate. I'll post here should I get beyond the considering phase and into the purchase mode.

Always wanted to relearn the piano and fool around with GarageBand.

Hence the M-Audio Keystation 49e. Excellent build quality. No drivers required. Just plug into the USB cable (no power required either). GarageBand is a whole lot of fun!

Nope. Bought from good ol LYP. Two shops away from CZone actually....

The MacStudio had the M-Audio Oxygen49 and M-Audio Radium49 retailing at close to RM1k... That was more than I was willing to pay (esp since the same keyboards are available in the US for around USD150...)

Found a shop on the second floor which had the M-Audio e40 for "only" RM490. It doesn't have the dials and knobs of the Oxygen and Radium but since I'll be doing all the effects with GarageBand, those extras don't interest me anyways.

In the end, this brings a whole new aspect to computing for me. Worth the price IMHO.

More than I should have I guess...

Considering the price of the card, that's pretty cheap.

PC (not the Mac version) Radeon 1900xt's retail at LYP for around RM1400. Mac cards with the EFI bios and a distinctly superior build quality (not to mention smaller market - think economics of scale here) retail for much higher.

... but you get what you pay for.