My Mac Pro arrives

Soldato
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Give me a DVD to test, I'll run handbrake with some of the defaults and we'll see how it runs. But from what I've seen its more that you can run multiple instances at the same time which is where the machine really shines
 
Soldato
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They really are a lovely machine, PAC. I forgot to mention but plugging everything into the back of the machine (even ethernet) makes a reassuring 'clunk'. Inserting a hard drive is laughably easy.

I had to break apart my RAID0 array last night because you can't install Boot Camp if the StartUp disk is raided - that sucked quite lot as the array was lightening.

Installing Windows at the moment and will be installing games thereafter should all go well, but I think I'm going to have to buy a Gaming box at some stage - I did want to split the 320gb drive and have XP and Vista each way, but Boot Camp won't allow that. I could install another drive but I want the last bay to be a backup drive that covers the other 3 drives - so it messes up my plans.

Regardless, the Mac Pro is a lovely machine and it will get my main usage of everything barring gaming - I just wish Apple would make Boot Camp a bit more gaming / high-end friendly. I inevitably didn't know about these limitations until it came to installing Windows last night, my own fault but I assumed it 'would just work'.

I will bench shortly when I get everything to how I like it - RAM arrived this morning so will install that also.
 
Soldato
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Well what you have there (ie 2xQC Xeon + 8GB) is what we run for our standard product building blocks for my products. Should go like *um* of the proverbial shovel..

Mind you.. you don't get to play with 35 in one go.. That's a lot of short messages/sec ;)
 
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Soldato
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17 Feb 2003
Posts
5,152
Location
Northampton
They really are a lovely machine, PAC. I forgot to mention but plugging everything into the back of the machine (even ethernet) makes a reassuring 'clunk'. Inserting a hard drive is laughably easy.

I had to break apart my RAID0 array last night because you can't install Boot Camp if the StartUp disk is raided - that sucked quite lot as the array was lightening.

Installing Windows at the moment and will be installing games thereafter should all go well, but I think I'm going to have to buy a Gaming box at some stage - I did want to split the 320gb drive and have XP and Vista each way, but Boot Camp won't allow that. I could install another drive but I want the last bay to be a backup drive that covers the other 3 drives - so it messes up my plans.

Regardless, the Mac Pro is a lovely machine and it will get my main usage of everything barring gaming - I just wish Apple would make Boot Camp a bit more gaming / high-end friendly. I inevitably didn't know about these limitations until it came to installing Windows last night, my own fault but I assumed it 'would just work'.

I will bench shortly when I get everything to how I like it - RAM arrived this morning so will install that also.

Buy a decent sized external drive and plug it in using usb or firewire. Then time machines does lots of easy backups keeping incrementals for you, cutting down on the overall size. Got mine set to do my boot drive and music which I've just finished ripping.
 
Associate
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Slogan can you or anyone here tell me if the CPU is upgradable i.e. not soldered to the motherboard anymore?

None of the Mac Pro's CPU's are soldered, and can be upgraded and swapped, just make sure you get matching cpu models for both sockets. There's loads of guides if you google
 
Soldato
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hey Ringo,

It's going good thanks, not a lot to report on at the moment as I've just been doing general stuff but everything is managed quickly!

Gaming has gone pretty well so far. I've only really tested out Medal of Honor: Airborne and Call of Duty 4. Both run pretty well on 1440x900 with medium to high settings. Anything above that and the fps gets cut up.

Put it this way, I'll be awaiting a GFX upgrade at some stage or possibly buying a new Gaming PC [really don't want to do this for ugliness and wallet-sake]. It's decent for gaming but not at the very highest level/resolution.
 
Soldato
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So not only do they cost a fortune they require a special low-fat, high fibre diet consisting of mainly complex carbohydrates. :(

Err...pretty much. :D

Why Apple haven't made the 8800 GTX available is beyond me. They baffle me with their GFX decisions, I've just given up trying to find reason.

Hopefully they will do at some stage and I'll get it - and then leave out buying computer stuff for quite a while. Promise.
 
Soldato
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I'd love to get one and the only game id ever be playing is flight sim x but i'm not sure what the performance would be like. It doesn't make sense buying a gaming rig for just one game though!
 
Soldato
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Flight Simulator X would probably bring the GTS to its knees. I know it's a pretty demanding game from what I've heard.

An update to the graphics card would be both expected and justified - just a case of when.
 
Soldato
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Gaming has gone pretty well so far. I've only really tested out Medal of Honor: Airborne and Call of Duty 4. Both run pretty well on 1440x900 with medium to high settings. Anything above that and the fps gets cut up.

Something definitely isn't right there, the 8800GT is far more capable than that. My 1900XT has done both those games on full-whack at 1680x1050. Are you running the latest graphics drivers?
 

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D

Deleted member 651465

*Sneaks on 'net in work*

Haven't tried the gaming on mine yet (need to wait for payday for a secondary hard drive + Vista), but it's good to see that CoD4 is playable at a decent resolution.

That said, I'll be paying source games mostly :cool:
 
Soldato
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TheVoice, I am indeed running the latest drivers.

I'm not sure it's capable of much more than that, it (COD4) started to push my GTX quite a bit at 1920x1200. But most certainly playable - was doing a bit of ass whooping online last night. :cool:

Bought Sim City 4 today, obviously the true benchmark of any graphics card. Not really but I'm looking forward to playing it. Was going to get the Mac version but I got Supreme Commander and Sim City 4 for half the price of the Mac version.

Just waiting for both games to dissolve in Vista now.
 
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