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| Well, you had to put gear in service by the end of last year to affect your 2011 taxes, so at this point I'd wait until NAB to see if anything interesting comes up.
- Chris
On Mar 20, 2012, at 6:29 PM, Jim Curtis wrote: Thanks for your thoughts, Chris. I'm working on a MacPro octo that turned four this year, and was wondering what I'm missing. When I price a new top-of-the-line Mac Pro at over $6K without any additional RAM or drives, I wonder if it's worth that much to get 10 or 20% faster renders in Ae, which is only one among several of the apps I rely on for my business, and one of maybe two apps I use that benefits from more, faster cores.
Since I charge by the hour, investing in faster gear (without a related rate hike) could be a net loss proposition.
So, when it comes to section 179 deductions, I've come to look at other value-adds for my clients.
Recent additions to my arsenal include:
- workstation furniture - work room acoustic treatments - fireproof safe to store LTO tapes and external drives - air compressor to blast my RAID and towers as part of routine maintenance
I look for opportunities for sensible and legit deductions, but seem to be getting to the point where I just don't need more equipment.
The current MacRumors Buying Advice is "don't buy" for MacPro. The next model (if there is one) is sure to be around $13K fully loaded (even with lower cost third-party adds), if past is prologue. Well, it's still early in 2012.
Jim C.
On Mar 20, 2012, at 5:19 PM, Chris Meyer wrote: Part of it was Section 179 deduction to get us under a few limits (such as being able to max out our Roth IRAs, in addition to our other retirement accounts). And when you take federal, state, and self employment tax into account, the actual bottom line cost does help soften the sticker shock. But I do have to say, it is zippier rendering as well. Then my old workstation was shuffled into the screen capture room, replacing a less capable machine that was in there. Computers live a long time here; their jobs just change with age.
- Chris
On Mar 20, 2012, at 4:08 PM, Jim Curtis wrote: So, Chris... Is a three year old MacPro over the hill? Or, is this more of a case of needing more Section 179 deductions for the tax year, or some other reason?
For tax planning, Trish has informed me that I must - over my feeble protests - upgrade my 3-year-old MacPro tower to a new 12-core machine, fully kitted out if possible. (Please send chocolate in lieu of sympathy cards.)
I must admit I wasn't paying attention in class when others were discussing optimal RAM configurations for the 12-cores. Was it 24 gig, or 32 gig? Allocated how across the DIMMs?
Also, who are the preferred vendors for Mac RAM these days? We used to be Techworks fans, but after they got taken over (and then dropped) by Buffalo Technology, the quality plummeted - Trish and I have had 3 RAM failures this year. The OWC RAM I've plugged in as replacements has worked so far, but more current experiences are always appreciated.
Finally, folks still happy with the Quadro 4000? Should I move my 4800 from my old tower into the new one and stick the 4000 in our "training" machine, or vice versa? Keeping in mind that the new machine will inevitably come with Lion, which I've been avoiding so far.
many, many thanks in advance for your hard-earned experiences and advice - Chris +---End of message---+
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