Buying a Mac Pro

If me it would all depend on the price I could get the mac you're looking at for. Right, 6-core 4.5GHz or 4.25GHz boxes cost under $1k with all new parts.

Also, if there is another MacPro release you can be certain that it will be user serviceable. There's little or no doubt about that.

While the current Mac Pro is "just fine", remember that you're investing thousands of $ on it so are you sure you want to buy the current model? It has more or less been confirmed that a new Mac Pro is coming this year (Tim himself said that in an email), hence I'd wait. Your current Mac has been okay for all these years so it should suffice for the next few months too.

Hi remster45. The Mac Pro 3.33GHz 6-core Xeon is a good choice for your needs in my opinion. The 6 core is the sweet spot. We know a new 2013 MPro is in the horizon but if you need the expandability for your work specially in managing large files, getting one if fine. Though the current Mac Pro is a 3 year old technology, if the specs are adequate for your needs you should be fine.

Your other option is get a refurbished MP or a good used one if you want to save some funds for your upgrading needs.

remster45 said:

I am considering the following:

Mac Pro
3.33GHz 6-core Xeon
ATI Radeon 5870

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I recently purchased that config from Apple, and brought the RAM up to 48GB with datamem.com.

Love the machine but wish I did not go for the 5870 as there are way more powerful graphics cards out now.

My only issue is the built to order Macs ship in the Apple box as is, and get a little roughed up in the shipping process.

If I buy another one, I will just get a stock 3.2GHz from an actual Apple store and upgrade the graphics card right away, and the CPU after the prices come down a little.


B

I just bought a refurb Mac Pro from Apple on purpose. Here's why, in case it might help you decide on the right path for your needs.

I also do audio, but it's a project studio running Pro Tools and blahblah. I rely upon mid 2000 gear that is mostly FW and SPDIF. Most of my gear is no longer being made (instead, small companies are offering upgrades). Life goes on. Yeah, I investigated the UA Apollo, but decided my system has a more analog sound. So I am staying with what works for me.

While no one knows for sure what the new Mac Pro will be, it is in Apple's DNA to disrupt markets. It would appear that the main thing holding back the new Mac Pro isn't Apple, but Intel. Some of the tech experts on MR have forecasted it will be at least mid-fall before Intel has the next Xeons with native Thunderbolt and USB3. That is also in accord with what Tim Cook suggested. And obviously, Jony is going to change the form factor as well.

But I think what's most important to your needs is the shift to Thunderbolt and USB3, and no Firewire. The idea that Firewire components can be hooked up to Thunderbolt hubs without taking a latency hit or having converter issues with the Firewire signal is, as yet, unproven for serious audio use. And thus far, there's little or no available pro-level Thunderbolt audio gear (depending on the level you're working at). And Thunderbolt has been out there long enough for that to start happening. And we also have no idea what Apple is going to do regarding PCI cards.

Since you are mainly audio editing in the box, I presume you're not using externals. So a new Mac Pro might be a great machine for your purposes. But also take into account Apple's increasing use of proprietary connectors for externals.

The new Mac Pro will probably be an awesome machine. But if you have legacy gear (or software apps) that you rely upon, and you don't want to go through the chaos of the bleeding edge, then some serious due diligence would probably be a good idea.

Only time will tell if I made the right decision or blew it. If you have the time, why not wait until fall 2013 and then make an informed decision rather than having to throw the Apple dice.

remster45 said:

Personally, what bugs me the most is when a computer lags. Like I said, I always have lots of windows open working on different things. I want to be able to switch apps without getting a spinning beach ball. I want to be able to simply scroll through albums of pictures and videos without waiting a few seconds for them to change. I'm constantly editing music, downloading and uploading large files, and managing large photo libraries, all of which my MacBook lags hard with. This is why I want to buy a Mac Pro so it can maintain the speed for years to come.

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The concerns you're airing are addressed primarily by having enough fast RAM installed and secondarily by equipping the machine with fast responsive storage. For storage SDD and Hybrid Drives (either SSHD drives or Apple's Fusion configuration) are of course the answer. I recently did some testing with various profiling software and a stopwatch and found that OS X doesn't settle down and behave itself as one would expect until it has 24GB of RAM available to it. It's pretty good at 16GB but still not all the way there. And this is entirely Apple's fault for mangling the latest VM subsystems in Lion and ML. It should be good at 4 to 8GB if Apple had a clue how to utilize those subsystems. You can also turn off the worst one of these subsystems and gain back a little sanity either instead of or in conjunction with adding more RAM:

• sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

followed by a reboot and you can turn it on again with:

• sudo launchctl load -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

I'm going the 'in conjunction with' route myself with $300 32GB of RAM and the dynamic_pager switched off. Ooo, so nice! No beach balls in months! Folders of thousands and thousands of high-rez images update instantly. All applications load in seconds. And the machine has never been so stable - OMG what a difference! Of course these are the results of more proper use of Cache so things need to be cached - which happens the first time they're accessed. With 16GB of RAM or more and the dynamic_pager turned off if you use your system for more than an hour the speed up is pretty incredible!

Also, the external drives I have use FW800 which I find the speeds to be quite decent. Even if I want USB 3.0 in the future, I can just buy a PCI card, right?

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Unless you have more than 5 they will all just install internally. I'd ditch the firewire if it were me! If you need/want them to be specifically external I'd sell the FW cases on flea-bay and use an eSATA cradle (docking interface). I dunno if FW PCIe cards exist tho I assume they do - have a search!

remster45 said:

My MacBook Pro is already maxed out. I upgraded it over the years. I have hundreds of GB of music and other data so a sole SSD in my MacBook won't really do me any good.

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Of course, I'm not suggesting you upgrade your laptop in order to use it as a desktop or workstation. I'm just letting you know some of what you need to be aware of for making decisions.

remster45 said:

Thanks for all the responses! Those are all good points to consider.

Personally, what bugs me the most is when a computer lags. Like I said, I always have lots of windows open working on different things. I want to be able to switch apps without getting a spinning beach ball.

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Lagging. Now that is something that I can relate to. All three of my Macs beachball excessively. It strikes me as odd that a late 2008 C2D 2.4GHZ MBP with 8 GB RAM, a late 2009 C2D 2.66HZ mini with 8GB RAM and a 2010 MP 3.2 quad with 24GB RAM all beachball the same. Last night the mini, my EyeTV DVR when into permanent-beachball mode will editing a video.

The laptop and the laptop-in-a-box each have a WD 7200RPM 750GB Scorpio Black drives. The MP has a WD RE4 2TB boot drive and RE4 4TB data drives. They all beachball equally when multiple apps are opened.

When the Snow Leopard HDD is installed in the MBP (yes it's that old!) or the ML boot disk in the MP is swapped for a SL one the beachballing/lagging is a bit less.

When I boot the MP to Windows 8 the Windows equivalent to beachballing rarely occurs. My conclusion is that the Mac OS is responsible for beachballing, Mountain Lion more so than Snow Leopard.

scottsjack said:

Lagging. Now that is something that I can relate to. All three of my Macs beachball excessively. It strikes me as odd that a late 2008 C2D 2.4GHZ MBP with 8 GB RAM, a late 2009 C2D 2.66HZ mini with 8GB RAM and a 2010 MP 3.2 quad with 24GB RAM all beachball the same. Last night the mini, my EyeTV DVR when into permanent-beachball mode will editing a video.

The laptop and the laptop-in-a-box each have a WD 7200RPM 750GB Scorpio Black drives. The MP has a WD RE4 2TB boot drive and RE4 4TB data drives. They all beachball equally when multiple apps are opened.

When the Snow Leopard HDD is installed in the MBP (yes it's that old!) or the ML boot disk in the MP is swapped for a SL one the beachballing/lagging is a bit less.

When I boot the MP to Windows 8 the Windows equivalent to beachballing rarely occurs. My conclusion is that the Mac OS is responsible for beachballing, Mountain Lion more so than Snow Leopard.

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Try entering the commands I pasted in the message above. Your beach-balling will stop!