Should I upgrade Ram or Video Card

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Should I upgrade Ram or Video Card

Hi, How can I find out if additional RAM or upgraded video card will increase my Mac Pro's performance enough to justify the cost. I have a Mac Pro (early 2008) 2 x 2.8 GHz quad-core, 10 GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 880 GT 512 MB. I'm trying to see how much an additional 8GB RAM (I have two empty slots to fill - 8GB = $275) and/or upgraded video card (e.g ATI Radeo HD 4870 1GB = $200. Note Apple don't recommend many other video cards for Early 2008 Mac Pro model) will improve my Mac Pro. I use photoshop extensively and the new cameras create big files (up to 1GB) after processing. Is it worth upgrading or should I start using my Mac Book Pro (2.2 Ghz, 16GB, SSD). I would prefer to use the Mac Pro because of the large multiple hard drives and convenience of a stand alone machine. Xbench gvies MP score of 335 and the MBP 371. CPU test is 196 for the MP and 242 for the MBP. Any other suggestions?

Mac Pro (early 2008)-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 27, 2012 2:40 AM

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Answer 1

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 27, 2012 3:33 AM in response to DXT

Look at the Activity Monitor, System Memory for some hints on whether you should add memory. Here's how to interpret the info:

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

If you need ram I recommend OWC. You can put up to 32GB in a 2008. See the link I provided for choices.

For video you can put a Apple version fo the ATI Radeon HD 5770 into your machine. It will work in a 2008 mac pro so long as you have Snow Leopard 10.6.4 or greater installed. If you google this you will find plenty of hits of installing a 5770 in a 2008 mac pro.

Note, the articles in the MacPerformanceGuide might be of interest to you.

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