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cbrfanatic · Jan 2, 2007, 02:32 AM

Im going to school for engineering and i am about to purchase a new desktop computer. I am also going to be purchasing a Wacom Cintiq 21UX in about a month. My question is will i be able to run dual 30" ACD's and the Cintiq all at the same time?

This is the specs of the MacPro going to be ordered...

Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processors
4GB Ram
2 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
3 NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB
2 30" ACD's
Two 16x SuperDrives

mduell · Jan 2, 2007, 03:02 AM

Yes, you can run 3 displays. I'd recommend getting the X1900 for the pair of 30s and a 7300GT for the Wacom.

What type of engineering?

Buying 500GB drives from Apple is silly expensive. Buy the 160GB from Apple and add two 500s yourself; you'll save a bit of money and have more storage.
Ditto on the dual superdrives; Apple is charging $100 for a $30 drive.

cbrfanatic · Jan 2, 2007, 03:22 AM

Thanks for the advice. so instead of the 3 7300's, get one X1900 and one 7300 then right?

What options do i have for drives that give same amount of storage but out perfrom the ones from apple.

Ditto for the drives. I can look a little longer for those since i have an external dual layer reader/writer laserscribe drive. And my brother has a Blue-Ray one on his fugly pee-cee (hooked the hell up, but still a pee-cee, lol)

And it is Structural and also Mechanical Engineering. Im not locked into it yet so i still have time to switch, trying to find a career path nowadays is such a headache. But there are alot of doors for engineers. Im heavily into science and originally was going to go to scchool to become a physics professor, but they are a dying breed, so i jumped ship and went to engineering. Now i am just trying to find something within engineering that will give me the same playing field with science but offer profitable job oportunitys. Im 19, and stressed, lol.

Once again thanx for the advice and help with this decision, either way i go, it will be a hefty investment so im trying to get all the kinks ironed out before i sign a receipts, lol

mduell · Jan 2, 2007, 04:33 AM

Originally Posted by cbrfanatic

Thanks for the advice. so instead of the 3 7300's, get one X1900 and one 7300 then right?

Yes, that's exactly what I meant when I said get an X1900 and a 7300GT.

Originally Posted by cbrfanatic

What options do i have for drives that give same amount of storage but out perfrom the ones from apple.

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
The drive is the same, so the performance is the same, You're just paying $140 per drive instead of $400 per drive.

Originally Posted by cbrfanatic

Ditto for the drives. I can look a little longer for those since i have an external dual layer reader/writer laserscribe drive. And my brother has a Blue-Ray one on his fugly pee-cee (hooked the hell up, but still a pee-cee, lol)

Since you already have an external, do you really need two internals? I'd save the slot for one of the upcoming optical formats.
If you do, Newegg.com - Pioneer 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Read Beige ATAPI Model DVR-111D - OEM

While you're at it, buy the memory from Crucial (Computer memory upgrades for Apple Mac Pro Desktop/PC from Crucial.com) instead of Apple.

Originally Posted by cbrfanatic

And it is Structural and also Mechanical Engineering. Im not locked into it yet so i still have time to switch, trying to find a career path nowadays is such a headache. But there are alot of doors for engineers. Im heavily into science and originally was going to go to scchool to become a physics professor, but they are a dying breed, so i jumped ship and went to engineering. Now i am just trying to find something within engineering that will give me the same playing field with science but offer profitable job oportunitys. Im 19, and stressed, lol.

Speaking as someone who just got a job doing stress analysis for a major US aerospace company, there's no lack of engineering jobs in the US; there's even been some upward pressure on salaries in the last year or two.

Gossamer · Jan 2, 2007, 03:41 PM

In all reality that computer is going to be more than overkill for engineering. I'm in the third year of my ME degree and my iBook G4 was more than enough until I broke it in a bike wreck. Now I have a single processor intel unit with a 19" widescreen and I can easily run the apps I need for classes (like SolidEdge, Solidworks, Autodesk Inventor, etc), even with the 19" monitor driven by Intel Integrated graphics. Assuming you haven't been to college before, your first year or two will be basic classes anyway, making this computer complete and utter overkill. There's no way you can justify spending almost $10K on a computer that will be out of date in a few years. I spent about $500 on my entire setup and it's been more than enough for me.

silverflyer · Jan 2, 2007, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Gossamer

In all reality that computer is going to be more than overkill for engineering. I'm in the third year of my ME degree and my iBook G4 was more than enough until I broke it in a bike wreck. Now I have a single processor intel unit with a 19" widescreen and I can easily run the apps I need for classes (like SolidEdge, Solidworks, Autodesk Inventor, etc), even with the 19" monitor driven by Intel Integrated graphics. Assuming you haven't been to college before, your first year or two will be basic classes anyway, making this computer complete and utter overkill. There's no way you can justify spending almost $10K on a computer that will be out of date in a few years. I spent about $500 on my entire setup and it's been more than enough for me.

LOL, aint that the truth...

Gossamer · Jan 2, 2007, 06:20 PM

I honestly don't think I can express how much this is a waste of money. In all seriousness I could have gotten by with a $30 B&W G3 for general email/IM/web/MS Office needs and saved class work for the lab-provided computers. Seriously, the only class work I've done on my own computer is in Excel, everything else is done in labs, usually with a group so having a great computer at home wasn't any help anyway. If anything, get a loaded 15" MBP and a nice external display so that you can at least take your computer to group meetings and still have a great setup at home.

cbrfanatic · Jan 2, 2007, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by Gossamer

I honestly don't think I can express how much this is a waste of money. In all seriousness I could have gotten by with a $30 B&W G3 for general email/IM/web/MS Office needs and saved class work for the lab-provided computers. Seriously, the only class work I've done on my own computer is in Excel, everything else is done in labs, usually with a group so having a great computer at home wasn't any help anyway. If anything, get a loaded 15" MBP and a nice external display so that you can at least take your computer to group meetings and still have a great setup at home.

Thank you for your suggestions. I already have a 15" 1.67 pb with a 21" external monitor, etc etc. so that is what i take for when i needs to gets a going somewhere. But this is to be my stay at home desktop solution. I have a motorcycle collection as some people here know, and i sold one of my bikes to get a desktop set up. i always go for the best since it will last the longest. i wont need an 8 core system when it comes out, so this one is powerfull enough for me, and i can dual boot and have a nice pee-cee setup as well to play all my pc games. hell, i might even quad boot into osx, linux, xp, and vista.

Gossamer · Jan 2, 2007, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by cbrfanatic

Thank you for your suggestions. I already have a 15" 1.67 pb with a 21" external monitor, etc etc. so that is what i take for when i needs to gets a going somewhere. But this is to be my stay at home desktop solution. I have a motorcycle collection as some people here know, and i sold one of my bikes to get a desktop set up. i always go for the best since it will last the longest. i wont need an 8 core system when it comes out, so this one is powerfull enough for me, and i can dual boot and have a nice pee-cee setup as well to play all my pc games. hell, i might even quad boot into osx, linux, xp, and vista.

Not only do you not need an 8 core system, you barely need a 1 core system. This is coming from three years of working on an ME degree, you do not need all of that. If you have a portable that you're going to be taking somewhere to work on actual class work you're going to need it running Windows since pretty much every standard CAD/CAM program is Windows only.
How about you buy the MBP and whatever goodies you want for it, send me the extra $7000, and I'll send you a guarantee that you'll get the same grades either way.

Leonard · Jan 2, 2007, 10:24 PM

I think he pretty much hinted that he's going for more than he needs!

He's obviously got the money to spend on it. This is no starving student...

Per chance, maybe he wants to play UT2007 with fellow students....

cbrfanatic · Jan 3, 2007, 02:05 AM

Originally Posted by Leonard

I think he pretty much hinted that he's going for more than he needs!

He's obviously got the money to spend on it. This is no starving student...

Per chance, maybe he wants to play UT2007 with fellow students....

tehehe, i snipe snipers too, ever since wolfenstein on the pc way back.

my mom is the Global Manager for Hewlett Packard, so pc's come and go like water in my house, my older brother already has a fx series processor computer and what not. This isnt ony going to be used for school, but everything else i do on the computer, and also gaming. what i really am happy about is the Wacom Cintiq.

goMac · Jan 3, 2007, 03:50 AM

I was in CS (taking a break right now) which was under the engineering department at my school (so I had to take the engineering core classes too), and honestly, my Powerbook G4 sufficed. Only once did I have to turn to my PC (which was a P4 3.6 ghz, super fast for the time) when I was running a chess simulation I had written. Hell, my G4 ran circles around our Sun mainframes the engineering department had.

(Not that I'd complain if I had a Quad Xeon)

Cadaver · Jan 4, 2007, 10:10 PM

Just to remind everyone...

The X1900 XT will support two 30" displays (two dual-link DVI ports); the 7300GT will only support one 30" display and one other up to 1920x1200 (i.e., anything but a 30" as the card has only one dual-link DVI port and one standard single-link DVI port).