[AubreyL]

I did more reading just now and wish I had done more research before I bought. My Windows machine is just in such bad shape that I was waiting for the new Mac Pro to do an upgrade. I use a iMac at work so I am fairly literate in OS X but know little about the Mac Pro.

I chose the stock out of the box $2799 Mac Pro. Now I'm seeing most people are talking about the NVidea 8800 card. I know there are a lot of card options, some even over $1000. I'm also not interested in having two video cards in my system but I see his is just $200. I know it has double the memory but what other reasons are people making this choice?

For my use this is for home use but also for my fiancee who has a home office. It kind of will be a jack of all trades from the simple such as mail, ical, iwork (pages and numbers), some office 08 work such as Powerpoint, Word, and Excel, Safari browsing, etc. For the more intensive, I do a lot of work at home in ebooks such I'll be using Adobe CS3 (Acrobat, PhotoShop, inDesign, and sometimes Illustrator) and also I'm just starting to get into desktop video such as doing Final Cut Pro Studio. I do freelance work and am getting a HD Camcorder shortly so will be doing HiDef. Because of this I went with 8Gigs. My fiancee will use it also so frequently there will be 2 ID's logged on and also I'm a big multitasker switching data between programs, copying and pasting, etc. Now my fiancee is a gamer but he has his own Windows machine. He already wants bootcamp on here but honestly I always have programs open so prefer a solution like Parallels. The only game he really likes is flight simulators and he's looking at X-Plane for the Mac. Now that I've said what we use it for, would it be worth the extra $200 of the card or is that better spent elsewhere? I know I already ordered but even if I decide later can I simply add the 8800 card and can I just purchase anywhere or do I have to purchase from Apple?

Now my other question is about Hard Drives. I also ordered the stock 320GB drive and was actually told I'm better off doing that because I can buy a lot of accessories that are better and cheaper elsewhere than Apple and my fiancee is willing to help with the upgrades. I actually want to go with two hard drives. I want to replace the 320GB with a 750GB-1TGB drive that is used as a system drive and then get a 2nd drive that is more like a data drive. I have looked at Maxtor a lot and heard they are good and actually heard I should stay away from Seagate but I'm hearing a lot now about Fujitsu and Western Digital and saw that even their Green Power drives are good. Any suggestions of a good hard drive?

Once again I apologize for all the questions from a Mac Pro newbie. I appreciate any assistance with this.

[mduell]

None of the apps you've mentioned really use the graphics card much, so you're not missing out on anything by staying with the 2600XT instead of the 8800GT. For games the 8800GT makes a huge difference (not because of the VRAM, but because it has a much faster graphics processor), but to play Windows games you would have to shut down and reboot into Windows (Parallels gaming performance is poor). So is it worth $200 to improve performance in X-plane? Your fiance could play X-plane on his PC, or you can upgrade to the 8800GT later for $350 (less whatever you can sell your 2600XT for).
I hope you didn't buy the extra memory from Apple; for what they charge to upgrade to 8GB you could have purchased 16GB elsewhere (for a total of 18GB). Perhaps it's not too late to cancel your order and re-order with the 8800GT and stock memory?

You have 4 hard drive bays, so there's not much reason to replace the 320GB until you have 3 other big drives. Good idea to not take the upgrade from Apple; for what they want to upgrade from 320GB to 500GB you could go buy a 500GB drive. I'd keep the 320GB as your system/apps drive and add a larger drive or two for data. Everyone has a different favorite/hated drive manufacturer; personally I like Hitachi and Seagate. 750GB and 1TB are about the same price per gig, so I'd go with the terabyte; Hitachi is the current leader for performance at the 1TB level. The "green power" drives are a joke, offering poor performance, because they're just a way to rebrand and sell older technology (lower spindle speeds) that no one wants to buy.

[markw10]

I'm looking for a similar setup but am also very used to the Mac Pro. I was looking at switchboxes but am wondering now also about graphics cards. I have the stock ATI card but is it possible then to add the 8800GT card that Apple offers to this computer and use both cards? My idea would be to use the two most important monitors I have to the 8800GT and then any additional needed screens would be added to the ATI. Would this work? If I get a 8800GT what model do I have to get or do I have to get a specific brand to make sure it's compatible with my Mac Pro?

[markw10]

Obviously I'd like to save money so is there a specific brand or place online I should look at to get a 512GB 8800 GT Card? Once I get it does it matter which slots I use to install the cards?

[mediahound]

Just FYI,

I recieved my new Mac Pro yesterday and the 320GB drive it came with is a Seagate Barracuda 7200. Nice.

I got the ATI 2600 XT video card and it's totally fine for your uses (and mine).

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by markw10 

Obviously I'd like to save money so is there a specific brand or place online I should look at to get a 512GB 8800 GT Card? Once I get it does it matter which slots I use to install the cards?

You have to buy the 8800 from Apple if you plan to use it under OS X. "Normal" PC 8800's don't use EFI.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by markw10 

Obviously I'd like to save money so is there a specific brand or place online I should look at to get a 512GB 8800 GT Card? Once I get it does it matter which slots I use to install the cards?

You have to buy the 8800GT from Apple at their slightly inflated price. You'll want to put the 8800GT in the slot the 2600XT comes in to avoid blocking other slots; you can then put the 2600XT in the other 16x slot.