Awaiting delivery of my MacPro 2.66 X1900XT airport, I decided I'd try the MaxSink 2GB kit (1GBx2) for US$399 + $18 UPS Express Int delivery ~AUD551.

MaxSink

Have seen the Netlist stuff to be pretty good so far for the Mac Pros.

Does anyone technically know which 3rd party RAM manufacturers are actually approved by Apple as yet?

Ok, all ordered, now awaiting delivery...

There might be some interest in where I opted for 3rd party options on some components to save $ like the new FB-DIMM RAM which is exxy for the Xeon powered workstations. A lot of my research was centred these discussions:

http://www.barefeats.com/
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1
http://discussions.apple.com/categor...categoryID=194

System as ordered from Apple:

Mac Pro 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon (Quad core)

1GB 667 DDR FB-=DIMM ECC 2x512MB ram (standard)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB SDRAM vcard (upgrade)
Airport Extreme (upgrade)
160GB Sata 3GB/s 7200rpm HD (downgrade)
1 x Superdrive

To the above I am adding:

2GB kit (1GBx2) - Total 3GB
Matched Pair:Fully Buffered:PC2-5300:ECCDR2-667:240pin DIMM w/MaxSinks: USD$399.00 (AUD551 incl. delivery)
http://tinyurl.com/pr4pu

2x WD3200KS 320GB 16MB SATAII 300mb/s 7200rpm HD
AU$125 ea, $266.50 incl delivery (downgrade at Apple gave me $95 to put towards these for either RAID0 or separate source/destination video and scratch disks)

I note there's a great deal on the latest Seagate 500GB for $289 incl GST, delivery & 5yr warranty over at:
http://bulkbuy.com.au/site/

Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-111D $58 (second optical bay for reading discs while burning, not sure if I can burn two discs at once using Toast?)

TwinHanDTV Alpha USB2 HDTV tuner, reportedly works with my existing software EyeTV 2.3, used for PVR function. $94 incl delivery

http://www.citysoftware.com.au/

I will be using my existing Dell 2405 24"LCD for display, perhaps a 17" CRT as 2nd monitor.

I got my 2Gb kit of FB-DIMMs from Other World Computing in the US. It works great, and has made the machine much more responsive.

g.

I know that most AppleCenters sell the FB-DIMMs for a pretty high margin, if you ask them for a discount on it, they probably will to move stock

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(graemie @ Oct 1 2006, 01:15 PM) [snapback]219956[/snapback]</div>Indeed I see Aperture 1.5 req 2Gb ram for Mac Pro but only 1Gb for all other models, one not only has to shell out for the CPU power but then got to feed it twice as much RAM as Mac - Dual CPU/buses I supposed being the factor.

This thing better fairly fly for the $$ I'm throwin at it!