Getting a new Mac Pro advice

[Anonymous]

We are looking at getting a new machine for the office.
We currently have a Dual 2.7 G5 with 2Gb RAM - which serves us well. We're looking at upgrading the old G4.

Background:
Our projects are mainly residential - either single residences or small developments. Our models are worked up in 3D to a fairly complex level. We do a lot of walk-throughs with clients in the office, fly through's, lightworks renders etc.

This is what we are thinking:
-Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
-4GB (4 x 1GB)
-ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB SDRAM
-250GB HD
-1 x SuperDrive
-Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)

Questions:
-is it worth upping the processor to 2 x 3GHz in your opinion?
-is 4GB a good idea, or 2 ok?
-ATI RadeonX1900/512 OR GeForce7300/256?
-Is the extra superdrive worth getting (someone on this forum recommended it, because it is not much more, and handy to have when the other carks it -we don't do that much burning, although it might be good for copying stuff!)

Thanks for any advice. I'll be interested in comparing it to the G5, which is pretty swift. - i'll have to benchmark them when they are up and running

cheers

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
Get three drives - set drives 2+3 as RAID 1. [mirrored data for security unless machine stolen then you are kaput! ] -- Could buy aftermarket drives as economy measure - easy install - but then no Applecare. Evaluate cost/benefit.

Dwight-
Why 3 drives 2-raid and 1-OS? Couldn't you just have a 2 drive raid with everything including the OS, etc.??

thanks!

[Dwight]

Good question.

I would suspect a potential operating system conflict.
Like writing temporary operating files to two places at once can't be great.

But I'm not sure.

Anyone else know about this?

[Rod Jurich]

Dwight wrote:
Good question./........
Anyone else know about this?

Not a thing in geek speak, but my G5 has just 2 drives which
a real Mac geek set up for me. Need to know how to use Terminal.
Partioned to give me OS/Apps on 1 which is cloned regularly to
2nd partition.
3rd partition and largest is set up as a Raid set for me, the User.
Apart from regular backups to an ext firewire hd.
They are each 250MB.