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Melodist

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 30, 2015
150
90
Hello there,

What newer OSX would you recommend for a Mac Pro 3.1 in terms of speed and performance while using Pro Tools, Logic X et cetera?

Mike
 
Mountain Lion 10.8.5. It's a '10.6.8' without Rosetta but with USB 3.0 support.

Newer Flat Design OS's use more resources.
 
Ditto with Synchro3 on Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 for a cMacPro 3,1. I personally use both Mountain Lion and OS X 10.10 Yosemite on my own cMacPro 3,1.

Big vote here for 10.10 Yosemite -- great fresh interface, all the up-to-date Apple apps to link up with iPhone, and super speedy on Samsung 850 Pro SSD in an OWC Accelsior S using the PCIe 16 lane bandwidth.
 
Ditto with Synchro3 on Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 for a cMacPro 3,1. I personally use both Mountain Lion and OS X 10.10 Yosemite on my own cMacPro 3,1.

Big vote here for 10.10 Yosemite -- great fresh interface, all the up-to-date Apple apps to link up with iPhone, and super speedy on Samsung 850 Pro SSD in an OWC Accelsior S using the PCIe 16 lane bandwidth.

Isn't el capitan faster?
 
If 10.6 is not a choice, El Capitan is the best choice. There were a lot of optimizations made in the years since 10.7 and 10.8.

10.7 and 10.8 are both file I/O intensive. I wouldn't run them without an SSD, but I don't think it's a very good idea to run them anyway.
 
I have a dual boot of 10.8.5 and 10.10.5 on two separate SSD's. I had El Cap on an SSD but as you know the newer the OS the more chances for incompatible items! I run some legacy sw such as Shake and it will not work in 10.10. Also, I use the MOTU HDX-SDI and it has no diver for any OS after 10.9! Funny how MOTU pushes Digital Performer 9 but this box has drivers from 4-14-2014! I have remained on DP 7.24 and PT 8
So keep your hw in mind too! :(
MOTU.png
 
Sorry if this sounds ignorant but what's the downside of running the newest OS?
Snow Leopard contains Rosetta, a translation software that allows you to use IBM PowerPC applications on an Intel based Mac. Older software may become inoperable if you upgrade beyond 10.6 Snow Leopard.
On the upside if you want better OpenGL drivers for your graphics and a faster user experience with the latest applications available, upgrading to El Capitan is the better bet.

Running WoW on the same hardware El Capitan does a good 15 fps faster in pretty much all situations. Just by moving from OpenGL 2.4 to 4.1
 
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Snow Leopard contains Rosetta, a translation software that allows you to use IBM PowerPC applications on an Intel based Mac. Older software may become inoperable if you upgrade beyond 10.6 Snow Leopard.
On the upside if you want better OpenGL drivers for your graphics and a faster user experience with the latest applications available, upgrading to El Capitan is the better bet.

Running WoW on the same hardware El Capitan does a good 15 fps faster in pretty much all situations. Just by moving from OpenGL 2.4 to 4.1

Well for me it is not about the graphics, rather the responsiveness of the OS with my machine and speed in applications such as Pro Tools and Logic Pro.
 
Now that I've done away with SIP completely my Xserve2,1 (very similar hardware to the MacPro3,1) switches between Mavericks and El Capitan, but I'm still finding things that don't work properly in El Cap (or have been deliberately hobbled - I still can't understand or forgive the new Disk Utility:mad:) so I'm spending the majority of my time in 10.9.5. I also have 20 GB partitions set aside with every other version of OS X except Yosemite, and use symlinks to keep my user environment consistent regardless of what's booted.
 
Be sure to partition your hard drive and install the newer version of OS X on the new partition. This has the advantages of:

1) Maintaining the ability to access Snow Leopard and Rosetta through the "dual-boot" method of restart;

2) Installing over Snow Leopard, will destroy Snow Leopard; and

3) Being able to easily remove the new partition if you determine that Snow Leopard is the best choice for your Mac Pro.
 
Solid advice here from MichaelLAX on creating and using dedicated partitions for the different versions of Mac OS X you will want to use. I use a dedicated SSD for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and OS X 10.10 Yosemite on my cMacPro 3,1.

Mountain Lion runs spooky fast on an SSD in HD bay 1 in my cMP, and Yosemite is strong on a 6G SSD in an OWC Excelsior S PCIe card in slot 2. Dedicated partitions or drives = smooth route to capitalize on different Mac OS X versions which offer the capabilities and flexibility you need.
 
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I agree, with a 128 GB SSD booting Snow Leopard and a 480 GB SSD booting El Capitan (both OWC 3G Mercurys), I get the best of both worlds. I use a flashed ATI 5870 1 GB Sapphire Vapor-X which works fine with both OSes.
 
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