[mattyb]

Refurbished Mac Pro 2.8Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Two 2.8Ghz 8-Core Intel Xeon processors
2GB (2x1GB) memory
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s drive @ 7200rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
Eur 2.149,00

A new Mac Pro with ONE 2.8 Xeon and a 512M GeForce 8800 comes in at about Eur 2200.

What do you guys think?

[EricTheRed]

I always buy my Macs as refurbished. With my latest Mac Pro it was pretty obvious that Apple has used it as a server. At the time, I paid 3299 for it right at the beginning of 2007. Unexpectedly it came with an extra 500 GB HDD and 2 GD more ram than I expected. I'd call that a deal.

[mattyb]

Must have been a good deal, its gone now.

[Simon]

It depends on what you want to do with it.

If you're a gamer the single quad-core MP with the 8800/512 will perform better than the octo-core MP with the 2600/256. OTOH if you use apps like Aperture and Motion the 2600/256 will perform just as good as the 8800/512 but the additional 4 cores will increase performance.

Personally, I'd go with the octo-core refurb and get an extra 8800/512 for games.

No matter what you do though get more RAM.

[mattyb]

Yeah I would get the 8800 if the refurb didn't come with one.

How does one know if the Pro is first or second generation though, to determine what 8800 to get? I couldn't figure out from the advert.

Here in France I'd get more RAM from MacWay. I'm planning on 4G initially (I run some virtual machines - it would be nice to let them active all the time).

Keeping my eyes open for another offer, there's one there at the moment :

Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
1GB (2 x 512MB) memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory

But at 3399€ its too much, plus its really overkill.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

How does one know if the Pro is first or second generation though, to determine what 8800 to get? I couldn't figure out from the advert.

Early 2008 MPs come with Harpertown Xeons (1600MHz FSB, quad-core) at 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 GHz. The 2006 MPs came with Woodcrest and Clovertown Xeons (1333 MHz FSB, dual-core) at 2.0, 2.66, and 3.0 GHz.

The 2006 MPs came with 1 GB base RAM and a 7300GT/256. The 2008 MPs come with 2 GB base RAM and a 2600XT/256.

Here in France I'd get more RAM from MacWay. I'm planning on 4G initially (I run some virtual machines - it would be nice to let them active all the time).

On a MP I'd consider 4 GB the minimum. Fortunately right now RAM is really cheap.

Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
1GB (2 x 512MB) memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory

But at 3399€ its too much, plus its really overkill.

That's the high-end version of the original MP with two Clovertown Xeons. That's a serious Mac, but not ideal for games. The many cores (which won't improve game performance) make it expensive and yet the GPU sucks. Obviously it's also severely RAM starved.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Here in France I'd get more RAM from MacWay. I'm planning on 4G initially (I run some virtual machines - it would be nice to let them active all the time)...

I agree with Simon that 4 GB RAM is minimal for MPs. I recommend adding 4x2 GB, which is what I did with my 2006 MP.

And IMO refurb MPs are very often excellent choices, it just depends on matching individual machine specs and price to one's specific applications needs.

-Allen Wicks