[Defenestrative]

Not Frankestein, but I have two hard drives (160 Western and 80 Maxtor) and a Super Drive DVD burner from a couple years ago that I had installed myself.

I hate the fan noise of the Sawtooth currently and have been seduced by the raw power and apparent quietness of the MP (based on reading the forum here).

So, Will my hard drives be installable in the MP? Will my (older 4X?) SuperDrive install into the second optical bay?

Besides that, I am thinking of going with the baseline configuration (except for wireless/bluetooth), because eventually processor upgrades will arrive, 3rd party RAM is cheaper (right?), and I am not that much of a power user anymore, although I may get involved in video in the future.

Thanks for your help!

[brokenjago]

No, most likely yes, respectively.

The Mac Pro uses SATA HDs, and unless you have some special SATA card in your Sawtooth, the HDs are IDE. As for the Optical drive, I imagine you should be fine, as long as it's not SCSI.

I would buy the X1900XT, but that's just me.

[Defenestrative]

Thanks for the info!

Hmmm, just read another thread where it said to downgrade the hard drive and then buy another third party drive. have to check drive prices....
I thought NVidia where better graphics cards than ATI? but that seems to be a common recommendation, so I will do it.

4 Gig Ram is the recommendation for mild photoshop use? 256M GRam?

Btw, I have a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro monitor, seems adequate to my needs but any thoughts otherwise?

[iMacfan]

It's really not worth putting your old drives in the machine - one might work on the bus for the second optical drive, but that wouldn't allow you to put your old SD in, which should work fine (though you might have to modify the front of the drive door to make sure it goes through the slot in the case.)

For HD space, as other have said, Apple do overcharge quite a bit so you would be well advised to downgrade to the 160Gb drive, then buy your own - just look on newegg.com to see how cheap disk space has become.

As for RAM, Apple used to fleece you, but that is not the case any more. The Mac Pro is tetchy with RAM and needs FB-DIMMs with the heatsinks. Any savings getting 3rd party sticks won't be that great.

David

[jyunderwood]

You could look in to an external enclosure for your hard drives if you want to still use them or you have files on there you want to bring over. Most firewire/usb enclosures are IDE.

[SierraDragon]

I recommend OWC OWC: Apple Mac G4 upgrades, Laptop Batteries, Memory, Drives for high quality RAM and for hard drives. 500 GB Seagates for the MP cost $214 vs. $400 CTO from Apple. 2x2 = 4 GB of RAM on top of Apple's 2x512 = 1 GB, total 5 GB costs $995 as compared to Apple's 4x1= 4 GB total for $1100. So Apple is $105 more for 1 GB less, and for lame 1 GB modules at that.

Generally IMO only 2 gb sized modules are acceptable adds, but I guess if one needs will remain light buying 4x512= 2 GB from Apple for $300 or 2x1= 2 GB from OWC = 3 GB total for $473 including Apple's 2x512 makes sense.

Apple's 4x2=8 GB is US$2700 while OWC's 4x2=8 GB (making 9 GB with Apple's 2x512) is US$1875. So Apple is $825 more for 1 GB less.

It looks like Apple is back to its old tricks of seriously overpricing RAM and mass storage.

IMO downgrading the hard drive from 250 to 160 to save $75 is not worth the effort. Keep the 250 and dedicate it to the OS and apps.

I too will buy the X1900XT when I buy a MP if the CTO choices remain as they are now.

-Allen Wicks