Best place to pick up a used 12-core 5,1 Mac Pro?

Adeamus said:

Heya folks

So, as much as I love the shiny black can, I'm not a professional. I'm just a guy who works in the music production software world who wants to have a powerful machine for recording at home and I'm pretty positive a 12-core Mac Pro tower is where its at.

I plan to upgrade it myself (RAM, OWC PCI SSD, UA Octo card) so I'm just looking for a bare bones machine I can trick out myself.

Anyone have any suggestions other then craigslist?

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Hi Adeamus. The places I could think of are Mac of All Trades, http://www.macofalltrades.com/ or eBay. There are also other used Macs stores like PowerMax though as far as I know Mac of All Trades has one of the best reasonable prices. If you're checking eBay, just be attentive if the Mac Pro is a genuine 5.1 from 2010 or 2012. There are 2009 Mac Pros, with the firmware upgraded to 5.1 as some sellers do not disclose this at the ad. Best to contact and clarify with the eBay seller.

I would just get a dual quad 5,1 and upgrade the CPU's yourself.

That's what I plan on doing anyway, next year. Just got a 5,1 Mac Pro with a GTX780 (Flashed)...it flies. Next year when the 2x Six Core Xeons are cheaper I'll just get them off ebay.

Total cost for 5,1 with the GTX780 with Dual 2.4Ghz Quad Core W series Xeons was $1800.

SDAVE said:

I would just get a dual quad 5,1 and upgrade the CPU's yourself.

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This. Macofalltrades has a 5.1 octo for $1700. Used X5680's are running under $800 a pair.

I did the quad 4,1 to 5,1 flash and am very happy with a single W3680 running Digital Performer like a champ. Get some RAM and a few SSDs and rock on.

You can upgrade a 4,1 octo to 12 core, too, but as MVC recently noted, upgrading the 5,1 is a science, upgrading the (dual CPU) 4,1's is an art.

DPUser said:

... upgrading the (dual CPU) 4,1's is an art.

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My view also, especially when it come to tightening down the heatsinks.