decided with my scholarship (ill be getting early next year) im going to fork out for a mac pro.... but im really confused on what i would need ontop of a basic mac pro speced one which is about 1600 quid. there is the mac book 17" slim laptop thing too for about 1800 quid! its hell of alot of money but theres just so many great things tap the side and you can swap operating systems! i think thats an amazing thing! so what im asking is basicly with a mac pro... is it easy to upgrade like a normall pc? there was an option to have up to 16 gig of ram! doubt ill need that much but for a average designer whats the spec i should be looking at?

also had on the books, a imac...open to suggestions

thanks!

Leon

Since your a student and potentially mobile I'd have to say go for a mac book pro...

Given your not going to just use it for typing essays, being the arty/designer type of chap you are.

However the mac pro has a lot of processing power and yes, memory capability, if your rendering, then 2gig a minimum?

Bear in mind it's not normal ram, it's ecc stuff which is not going to be that common ever, it's quite expensive to upgrade. Don't pay apple prices without checking, once they were way out, when I got mine it was £20 difference.

You can add disks and apple issued cards, you cannot just get an ati x1900 and pop it in.

Seriously think and look at a 15" mbp with external screen etc.

Unless you just don't ever need it at lectures, library, home etc...

I had a desktop at uni for dissertations, except it had a 5 1/4" disk and came with a wide range of colours for the display, green, fading green and opaque green...we spent many a happy hour together

give Computer Warehouse - The UK's favourite Apple Mac Reseller. a call, they talked to me quite a bit while I was hunting for what to get. In the end I choose not to go mobile; despite being mobile at the moment. What I got was raw brutal desktop server development power, I'm quite certain a MBP would cope too.

And like many, there is no need to swap Os, I had my linux box powered up for 12 hours during the cross over to get files sorted, it's not been powered on once in over a month and I don't expect to power t up for another one at least...mac os really is quite good, jsut a few quirks, but very productive

Whatever you do enjoy, but make sure you need what you buy, the loan is that, a loan and the schoalarship folk should be able to help you in what is normally needed or expected, or even required to excel.

HTH.

i already have a laptop thats quite up to scratch but i have never used it only other than to talk to people while im cooking in the kitchen. so i think portability isnt that nessersary - but it might come in handy when im traveling or doing other things. thanks very much for that Colin! great help:)

I'd probably go with the new 24" iMac... with the following options:

* 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

* 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB

* NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB SDRAM

* 500GB Serial ATA drive

* Wireless keyboard (English) & wireless Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X (English)

* 24-inch TFT display

* 8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±RW, CD-RW)

* AirPort Extreme

* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

£1,729

been told through the university we get %15 off!

edit - whats airport extreem?

If your heart is set on the Mac Pro:

* Two 2.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

* 2GB (4 x 512MB)

* NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)

* 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

* Two 16x SuperDrives

* Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme

* Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse - Int'l English (wireless)

* Mac OS X

* Five USB ports

* Two FireWire 400 ports

* Two FireWire 800 ports

£1,989.02

But remember you still need a screen!

edit - whats airport extreem?

It allows you to wirelessly send data through the air, whether it be music, print jobs etc... an option which isn't much to spec, but will help in years to come when you what to move it on!

imacs look really great value for money considering there 24" can you buy ram from another supplier or does it have to be bought from factory options? mac pro looks really really expecive i think im in the dream world if i need to get a screen!

I have the iMac

RAM can be had at crucial, it's the same stuff apple use anyway, and it's around half price!

Memory upgrades, graphics cards, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com

im all excited now! thanks SkodaLover - dont actualy know your name yet:P i shall go to sleep and think about it. still got a few weeks to go!

i wish the design was a bit more adventurouse though... i loved hte older imac - if theres a new one soon i might hold my horses

Chris, how do you do?

Good night, sweet dreams

Chris, how do you do?

Good night, sweet dreams

ahh Chris! sleep well!

If you have a good screen then a mac pro is sweet as it takes 2 minutes to add extra RAM and hard drives.

Ram is expensive as its FullyBuffered and only a few places sell it at the moment but that will change soon. You just have to ask yourself this question really. Does your work require lots of RAM as the iMac can only take 3Gb which if your rendering or doing loads of stuff with layers your going to need more.

The 24" iMac is a really sweet machine but when i set a MacPro up with 2x X1900ATI cards, 1TB of storage , 6Gb Ram and 2x 30" Displays i did want to take it home

you wouldn't be far off a macbook AND an imac for £1800...

if you're not sure what you're after, it's a hell of a lot to spend.

if you're going to do it, google parallels and crossover for os x if you need PC compatibility...i'm a pc guy who's just bought a mac. quite impressed so far bar things like crappy dvd-rw drives in them...

If you're anywhere near Bristol come into the AppleCentre there as that's where i work and I'll give you a run through!

you wouldn't be far off a macbook AND an imac for