I just received mine, currently updating to 12.3 … so just waiting 😅
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is it worth to upgrade from a Mac Pro 5,1 6-core to a Mac Studio Max 24-core?
- Thread starter Defever
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Defever ... I also have a 2010 5,1 (though now a 12 core 3.46Ghz version) and bought the M1 Mini when it came out (16Gb/256Gb) just to see. The M1 Mini kind of blew me away with single thread performance that was 3x the Pro and multi-thread that was near as dammit the same. Fatally (literally as it turned out for the cMP, a spike has blown the graphics card) I wondered about power usage and put a couple of Eve Smart Plugs on the Pro and the Mini and (based on electricity prices last year, never mind currently), the difference in power usage (and hence running costs) between the Pro and the Mini (for the same multi-core performance) meant that I bought a second M1 Mini (off the refurb site). The reduction in power costs was projected to pay for the Mini in less than 15 months.
I'm not saying don't get the Studio Max (I've got a Studio Ultra due to be delivered later today), but don't discount the M1 Mini (though don't go for 8Gb, go for 16Gb). It's still twice the speed of your Pro and will have paid for itself in reduced bills by the time the M2 Pro comes out.
I'm not saying don't get the Studio Max (I've got a Studio Ultra due to be delivered later today), but don't discount the M1 Mini (though don't go for 8Gb, go for 16Gb). It's still twice the speed of your Pro and will have paid for itself in reduced bills by the time the M2 Pro comes out.
For the cables and external drives great relief can be obtained by placing a small side table next to your main desk and it should ideally be just a few inches lower, so everything is out of sight.
I have the i7 mini and it's generally about twice as fast as the Mac Pro. It's actually been months now since I last fired up the Mac Pro and it's gathering dust in a spare room. I reckon one of these new Mac Studios would run rings around the classic Mac Pro.
When I finally make the move I will probably move my 5,1 Mac Pro drives into an external drive(s) enclosure after replacing some or all of them. A quick search shows that moving my boot drive files to the Mac Studio can probably be accomplished with Apple Migration Assistant using the FW 800 port on my 5,1 by using a FW800 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter and a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter. I guess.
Personally find cloning the MP5,1 boot drive with Carbon Copy Cloner to a spare or standard USB drive the absolute easiest method to use as a migration assistant base with any modern macOS product. Physically removing the boot drive and using in a USB housing would accomplish same thing if it's SATA-based.
when we migrated my wife's photo archive machine (mp5,1) to a maxed out m1 mini, we popped the side panel,
slid the drives out and used a newer tech drive dock to mount the raw drives. migration assistant worked like a charm moving all the system, apps and user files from the boot drive. we were more selective on moving the files from the non-boot drives.
much faster than using the e-sata or FW800
totally worth the 35$ for the drive dock.
i've got a 99$ credit with OWC and will get the OWC dual drive dock to help with the migration from my macpro4,1 to the new mac studio ultra in a couple of weeks
If you're happy with what you have, no rush to upgrade. When you do get a new Apple Silicon Mac someday, there will probably still be a use for the Mac Pro 5,1.
I ordered a Studio Ultra and I'm planning to keep at least one of my three Mac Pro 5,1s for use with older software and hardware. I've ordered a low power CPU and GPU, I think I can get it down to about 100w power consumption if I want to keep it running often like a NAS or a virtualization host. Maybe keep a second Mac Pro around with a higher power CPU/GPU setup if I need to do more intensive tasks.
Firewire-based audio recording gear is super cheap now for example, that could be a nice afterlife for a Mac Pro 5,1 full of hard drives for hobby music production. Also a convenient system for anything involving a lot of CD/DVD/Blu-ray media.
I've been happy to stay on Mojave even with my 2019 15" Macbook Pro, but now Adobe is dropping Mojave support for the latest versions, and the insane performance of the Ultra finally tempted me to upgrade.
I ordered a Studio Ultra and I'm planning to keep at least one of my three Mac Pro 5,1s for use with older software and hardware. I've ordered a low power CPU and GPU, I think I can get it down to about 100w power consumption if I want to keep it running often like a NAS or a virtualization host. Maybe keep a second Mac Pro around with a higher power CPU/GPU setup if I need to do more intensive tasks.
Firewire-based audio recording gear is super cheap now for example, that could be a nice afterlife for a Mac Pro 5,1 full of hard drives for hobby music production. Also a convenient system for anything involving a lot of CD/DVD/Blu-ray media.
I've been happy to stay on Mojave even with my 2019 15" Macbook Pro, but now Adobe is dropping Mojave support for the latest versions, and the insane performance of the Ultra finally tempted me to upgrade.
I purchased a Studio Ultra and I have no intention of retiring my 5,1 or 6,1 Mac Pros. The 5,1 is one of the best Macs I've ever owned and I like the 6,1 for its size / style.
That does sound like a better way to use Migration Assistant and I do own CCC 5. My boot and samples SSDs are on a Sonnet Tech Tempo PCIe card so they would probably need to be cloned.
That sounds like a pretty slick way to do it. But as I previously said, my boot and samples SSD drives reside on a PCIe card. I guess I could do some bare drive swapping using my external back up SATA drives so I don’t have to mess with the PCIe based drives.
I won’t be upgrading anytime soon but I do need to have good migration plan.
Another option might be to get rid of all the Mac Pros and buy a 2018 mini, which can run anything from the current OS going back to Mojave I believe. It's also a lot smaller and consumes less energy. The mini will offer you a lot more options in terms of OS compatibility, since it is still on sale and likely to be supported for another few years with OS updates.
The idea of having an Intel Mini stacked on top of the Studio does have a certain charm
I have a dual CPU 2009 Mac Pro, upgraded to 5,1 firmware and 2 x 5690s. A Mac Studio M1 Max would nearly triple my current single core performance and nearly double my current multi core performance. I'm eager to switch.
Unfortunately, the missing internal storage expansion is a problem one has to solve externally. And fan noise of the Max is also heavily discussed at the moment, but I still cannot see any reliable scientific results/comparisons, just anecdotal experience/reviews.
Unfortunately, the missing internal storage expansion is a problem one has to solve externally. And fan noise of the Max is also heavily discussed at the moment, but I still cannot see any reliable scientific results/comparisons, just anecdotal experience/reviews.
I mean, compared to the Mac Pro it is silent. The noise is there in the background though.
It appears the NAND flash is on some sort of daughterboard like the Mac Pro 7,1.