How to Customize a Mac in an Apple Retail Store

Apple Macintosh computers come in standard configurations like any other computer company's models, but you can customize your Mac, whether you buy it from the Apple online store or in an Apple retail store. While most configurations already may be available in the boxes, technicians at the store can configure your Mac, often while you wait, to your specifications. Here's how to do it.

Instructions

1. Step

   Start with the basic computer you want. For top of the line, a Mac Pro tower is it. This computer comes standard with a certain speed processor, hard drive, random access memory, a graphics card and an optical drive, but you can customize it to they way you want it.

2. Step

   Select the speed of the processor. As of early 2010, the Mac Pro has three options for speeds: 2.26GHz quad-core Intel Xeon, 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz. The standard is 2.26GHz, but if your are going to need extra speed for digital film or audio editing---prime uses of these computers---you may want to go all the way up to 2.93GHz. The store probably already will have Mac Pros in this configuration because this would be the hardest thing to change out.

3. Step

   Choose the amount of RAM you need. The Mac Pro takes a maximum of 32GB of RAM, but 6GB is the standard. RAM helps the Mac run faster and handle more simultaneous processes. At 32GB of RAM, it is installed as eight 4GB chips.

4. Step

   Select how many and what size hard drives you want in the Mac Pro. It has four bays for hard drives. Each bay can hold a 1TB hard drive for a potential total of four terabytes. That's 4,000 gigabytes of space. The standard is a single 640GB hard drive that runs at 7,200 revolutions per minute.

5. Step

   Choose the type of graphics card you need. Again, if you are planning to use the Mac Pro for intensive video graphics, you can upgrade from the standard NVIDIA GeForce GT card to the 4x version or to the ATI Radeon HD 4870. These all will change over time as new cards are developed. To go along with this, you will need a monitor. Currently, Apple offers the 24-inch LED display or the 30 inch Cinema HD display.

6. Step

   Order one or two optical 18x SuperDrives for your Mac Pro. These both burn dual-layer DVDs as well as CDs. There also are several keyboard options and, while Apple provides an Airport Extreme wireless card as part of the deal on other Macs, for the Mac Pro, you need to add it if you want wireless Internet connections.