Mac Pro Core 8, 3GB, 4TB HD, 16GB RAM

Mac Core Pro 8
Intel 3.0 Ghz, 16GB Ram. 3TB hard drive.


Figured I'd do a gear review of this computer since I just bought one.
What can ya say. Holy crap is about the first words that come to mind.
The desktop case itself is built like a tank and it couldn't be easier to access the insides. To replace any component like the hard drives, you just flip open the latch cover and pull the drive out.

I started with just one 320GB hard drive and 2GB Ram, mainly cause Apple's prices are way out of line compared to after market stuff. I grabbed 4 750GB hard drives off eBay and right now I'm still waiting for the 16GB of ram to arrive since it's not available in Canada yet. I figured 2GB would be enough but I'm already struggling when I have a browser, email client, Cubase and a couple of other programs running at the same time.

Other than that...Compared to the old Beige G3 Mac I've been using for 12 years, it's fast as all hell. The cinema display is crisp and clear and the unit is almost completely silent. I turned on my old G3 the other day and I couldn't believe how noisy and dull looking it was.

Only draw back is the price. Mine was about 7 grand with a 23" display and a second 30" display for later this year will be about another 2 grand.
On top of that it's about $150 per 750GB hard drive and a couple more grand for 16GB of Ram.

The operating system is a pleasure to use. I bought a brand new Pentium with Windows Vista about 6 months ago and to put it mildly, it's a piece of crap compared to this. In fact it's already been in for repair twice already.
Right now the Pentium monitor is still at Future Shop.

3TB of hard drive space is hard to get used to as well. I took about 1000 of my backup CDRW's and transferred them onto the Mac. Now I never have to go searching for old files anymore.

What can I say...Even the screen savers are hard to believe. There's one with fish in an aquarium that you'd swear was the real thing.

Since I got the Core 8, I've totally loaded it up with as much software as possible like Dreamweaver, Cubase, iWeb, Photoshop, Acrobat, Flash, Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign, Lightroom, Portfolio, Logic Pro, iMovie, Carrara, Finale, Sibellius, etc etc..

Time Machine comes in handy too. Just designate one of the hard drives as your backup and once an our it backs up everything. If you ever need to retrieve anything, it keeps a dated screen shot of everything you've done going back a couple of weeks. So if you delete something accidentally or screw up, you just load time machine and reset your Mac back by a few days.

Last but not least I guess, is Cubase. I'm still getting used to it...But just being able to time stretch any audio file and transpose them on the fly is making things so simple I no longer have to go searching for loops in the right key anymore.

Anyhoo..If you have the money, I'd definitely recommend getting a Mac Pro...Even one of the lower 2.1 Ghz models. Just using Leopard is worth the money.

Wait wait wait.. You bought this beast for Music Production right? :P Not for playing movies and stuff.. haha.. I know.. I do the same thing. I have mine insured as "Recording Equipment" which is its main task.. but you can't help yourself when you have that much power and capacity, to use it for other things to. Mine is certainly not as big and powerful as yours but you know what I mean... it's not a toy, right? :) haha.. at least that what we tell our wives/girlfriends.. if I had one I would.. lol :D

I think you could just about fly the space shuttle remotely with that beast.. haha..Good stuff man. Just one thing though.. how come it couldn't handle the tasks with 2GB? I have 2GB and everything is fine... How much resoruces does Cubase take??

It's not so much Cubase, it's having a ton of applications running at once that bogs it down. Like, Thoth takes up a ton of space to start out with, then gradually keeps taking up more as it downloads files.
If you have Safari and Entourage going at the same time and then add in MSWord, Split & Concat, MacPar Deluxe... plus all the extensions like Time Machine, CopyPaste, Default Folder, Growl, TypeIt4Me, MagicMenu, a menubar calendar and OpenSpaces it only leaves you with about 600MB of RAM left over.
Not to mention watching DVD's and having Big Brother running on RealPlayer at the same time.
Once you start copying files or downloading using the browser, it makes it even worse and it's like going back to my old Mac G3 again it's so slow.
Then all it takes is one more application like iMovie and things start crashing.

I'm just trying to push it too hard for the amount of RAM it's got. Unfortunately, CanadaRam says they won't have anything in stock until mid March.