Thread: Can you please help me decide on the purchase of these two macs

Im buying my first tower and considering these two

The New Mac Quad Core
One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
processor
6GB (three 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive
18x SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5
$2500

or this one

Second Hand
Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Westmere" processor
6GB (6 x 1GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
1TB Serial ATA 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5 memory
$2800

I am leaning towards the Second hand model cause it has two processors rather than one....and I will update with graphics card and more memory and drives later...just need a solid box to start from and add onto later...please advise thanks

I have one quad core - I wish I had too. So, second would be my choice.

Contact Apple first and say "I really want to buy a Mac Pro but it's not been updated in years, what can I do" you might get a bit of help there...no promises, just try it and see

The thing for me is support and warranty. If the second hand one fails, you're on your own. With the new one, there's an element of comfort and a minimum of a year's piece of mind. Second hand expensive kit where the registrations are all in somebody else's name always seem risky to me.

The price of "brand new" compared with second hand is far too great to justify the cost of buying new just for a 1 year warranty.

You can get a full accident and liabilities cover from a third party insurer anyway.

New $2500, second hand $2800. Not a paltry sum. Sure - I accept you can have a warranty for second hand kit, but that is yet another cost - I equate second hand with value for money, hence why reliability and security come high on my list - but also lifespan, which on a computer is often short anyway - my accountant thinks a 3 year old computer is worth virtually nothing!

I'll accept of course that a second hand Mac is a far better buy than a PC made up with various unbranded components - but the risk is always going to be higher. My question is always "why are you selling it?" If the answer is to upgrade, then surely the new owner would be in the same position?

But surely that argument could apply to anything second hand?

A car
A piece of clothing
A TV
A DVD
A Mac Pro

As for why the owner is selling it, that could be because they don't want to do video anymore, which I've found many times with people buying a load of kit, then selling it off when they get bored.

All your kit from cameras to furniture to tripods to screens to mac pros should be insured against theft fire accidents anyway, first year warranties just don't cover it sadly. Yes it is additional expense but so is forking out thousands if it goes ka-put

I agree history is important - but technology dates so quickly. I can only speak for myself, but for me, second hand MUST be cheap. In the UK the Sale of Goods Act gives lots of protection to a buyer on new kit. For old kit, you're on your own - so my own guide to buying is that I must be able to afford a total loss. My insurance may cover theft, fire and accidental damage, but not a processor that fails when hot, or a memory module with an intermittent fault, or power supply failure, or .......... With a new one, Apple will give you another.

Would you buy a second hand camera for more than the latest model? Perhaps if the second hand one was much better - but for a similar spec, I'd not risk it.

It's up to the OP to decide of course - but when you buy a camera, and two months later a new one comes along, your investment takes a dive. In the audio world, many people with Yamaha LS9 digital audio mixers are trying to shift them before the new Behringer X32 arrives, because as soon as it does, they will take a big hit on value for money.

My motto is second hand MUST be a bargain - if the 2nd hand one was $1000 then, I'd consider it.

Be very careful getting caught up in second hand anything...especially a mac