Mac pro 2008 or 2012 i5 Mac Mini

[mordzy]

Hi All,

Ive had my mac pro 2008 for a number of years and its served me well at the office. Ive upgraded the disk to a decent SSD and don't have an issue with the performance. Only that since upgrading to Yosemite i seem to run out of RAM or the CPU time is taken up by the WindowsServer process. Tried all the fixed for that but still have issues. Never did In Mavericks.

Spec;

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3.2 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB
Memory: 14 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.25f4

I have recently taken a Mac mini that has 8gb ram, a SSD and a core i5 out of my home cinema and wondered if it would be a better machine?

In my head its got less ram, less cores and a lesser video card. but its newer and as with most things they improve with time.

I generally browse the web, send emails, occasional light photoshop use. (max 100mb files) some dreamweaver.

Appreciate you thoughts and advice.

 

[IowaLynn]

One fix I swear by: start with clean install, leave the old system as is it will be your "safety net" and it allows Setup Assistant to pull over what you need.

An XP941 is an SSD, just in a different ballpark - or the Apple/Samsung route - gets you beyond even dual SSD RAID0 with 1100MB/sec but it costs, just not as much.

Some GPUs will not handle Yosemite and the OpenCL to handle the user interface, so that matters.

"Slow after upgrade" is common, going back to every OS version, you would find Snow Leopard, or when Rosetta was dropped later, and just from doing upgrades in place.

SSDs have evolved from 2008 at a rapid pace - shows no sign of slowing down, only more change last and this year.

 

[mordzy]

When you say clean install i guess you mean a fresh disk? how will the setup assistant get all my programs and stuff?

Your right i have always just 'upgraded'

the SSD In the mac pro is only a year old. - Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series

So are you saying stay with the 2008 pro with a fresh reload?

 

[IowaLynn]

When you say clean install i guess you mean a fresh disk? how will the setup assistant get all my programs and stuff?

Your right i have always just 'upgraded'

the SSD In the mac pro is only a year old. - Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series

So are you saying stay with the 2008 pro with a fresh reload?

Make a USB installer and erase the destination drive. You would want to clone your current system to another drive so take a look into Carbon Copy Cloner.
http://www.bombich.com

How To Clean Install
http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/18/clean-install-os-x-yosemite/
(there are many but the basics remain the same)

Then decide your needs and wants. Putting the 840 Pro on a Velocity Duo might change your mind. FBDIMMs were downright cheap and affordable in 2013-14 too, 8x2GB for under $100.

 

[mordzy]

Make a USB installer and erase the destination drive. You would want to clone your current system to another drive so take a look into Carbon Copy Cloner.
http://www.bombich.com

How To Clean Install
http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/18/clean-install-os-x-yosemite/
(there are many but the basics remain the same)

Then decide your needs and wants. Putting the 840 Pro on a Velocity Duo might change your mind. FBDIMMs were downright cheap and affordable in 2013-14 too, 8x2GB for under $100.

Thanks IowaLynn.

So you are definitely saying to stick with the Pro not swap to the Mini?

Velocity duo looks Mint!

 

[fuchsdh]

Thanks IowaLynn.

So you are definitely saying to stick with the Pro not swap to the Mini?

Velocity duo looks Mint!

For many everyday tasks the Mini might be faster, and it'll definitely be quieter in general, smaller, and more energy-efficient. The Pro has greater options for upgrades, and if you're putting demanding workloads on its processors it'll handle them far better.

I echo other people here in that while you'll probably see some decay in performance upgrading to a new OS in general, clean installs also solve many of the issues people have with incremental upgrades—I tend to clean install every other OS revision for that reason.

 

[nigelbb]

I have a similar Mac Pro 3,1 3.2GHz system & upgraded to 32GB RAM using much cheaper 667MHz FB_DIMMs bought used on eBay as pulls from a Xeon server. 32GB (8x4GB) cost just £80 ($120). There is no real difference in performance (bare feats benchmarked 800Mhz vs 667Mhz at just 4% faster). You have 14GB so canon have eight matching RAM sticks so should see a performance boost just from that never mind the more than doubling of memory. The 667Mhz FB-DIMMs run cooler too. I also use a PC GTX570 graphics card which has given a real boost to performance versus the Mac GTX285 it replaced especially for CUDA & Premiere Pro.

I am still running Mavericks on my 3.2GHz but upgraded another 2.8GHz 3,1 to 32GB & a clean install of Yosemite & performance is great even though using just a GTX8800 for graphics.

 

[mcnallym]

I upgraded my Parents iMac a 2008 model to Mavericks. The box had started on 10.6, 10.6, 10.7 then 10.9.

Performance got worse.

Did a clean build and the difference is amazing.

Would definitely try a clan install first.