MacBook Pro Retina or Keep my Mac Pro?

[RunOverProducti]

Hi Guys, just looking for some advice.

I own a Mid 2010 Mac Pro 8 core, I raided 2 OWC 120GB SSD=240GB for the OS and Applications.

32GB Memory (purchased at Macsales.com)

2x 1TB 7200 hardrive.

I use it mainly for music production (sometimes up to 45 tracks) and rarely edit music videos. I Love my Mac Pro, but I was just wondering if I could save some cash.

I was planning on selling the Mac Pro to purchase a Retina or even a regular MacBook Pro, with the MacBook Pro I would replace the optical drive with a SSD from MacSales.

Any thoughts?

Thank You!

 

[Lampmeister]

Don't do it. Just my personal opinion, but you'll appreciate your Mac Pro when it's gone. Last year I got rid of my 2009 Mac Pro in favor of a full-tilt 27" iMac, and it's nowhere near as snappy a performer.

 

[Maczor]

Buy one before selling the Pro and give your best at breaking it... throw as many tracks as you can at it and see how it handles. If you're pleased with the performance, you can either keep it, or send it back ( you have 14 days from the day of delivery you know ) and get one after you sell the Pro.

If it doesn't live up to your expectations / needs, then I think things are quite obvious...

 

[derbothaus]

Music Production? And you can get by with 2xUSB and 2xTB ports? Surely you jest. Not many pro apps have been updated for retina AFAIK especially plugs. The blurry elements will be an annoyance.

 

[JoJo Zzang]

Music Production? And you can get by with 2xUSB and 2xTB ports? Surely you jest.

Ports are easy to get around for serious work related reasons. I.e docking stations and etc...

 

[leekohler]

Buy one before selling the Pro and give your best at breaking it... throw as many tracks as you can at it and see how it handles. If you're pleased with the performance, you can either keep it, or send it back ( you have 14 days from the day of delivery you know ) and get one after you sell the Pro.

If it doesn't live up to your expectations / needs, then I think things are quite obvious...

Agreed. That's what I did and the rMBP won.

 

[derbothaus]

Ports are easy to get around for serious work related reasons. I.e docking stations and etc...

BS. No one does serious work with USB. Docking stations? lol.
2 consumer interfaces use TB. The rest then now require TB>FW dongle. What a heat filled mess. If you can do it it means you did not really need that Mac Pro to begin with. Can you say Spin up, Spin down? That will be what you are eternally waiting for with all your external HD's. Hopefully the apps don't crash or jitter too bad waiting.

 

[stevelam]

Hi Guys, just looking for some advice.

I own a Mid 2010 Mac Pro 8 core, I raided 2 OWC 120GB SSD=240GB for the OS and Applications.

32GB Memory (purchased at Macsales.com)

2x 1TB 7200 hardrive.

I use it mainly for music production (sometimes up to 45 tracks) and rarely edit music videos. I Love my Mac Pro, but I was just wondering if I could save some cash.

I was planning on selling the Mac Pro to purchase a Retina or even a regular MacBook Pro, with the MacBook Pro I would replace the optical drive with a SSD from MacSales.

Any thoughts?

Thank You!

how exactly are you saving any cash? for the RMBP you'll need a minimum of 512gb hard drive space for audio files/plugins/etc. and i assume you'll be upgrading to 16gb of ram. that'll cost you at least $2900+

on top of the fact that no major DAW has committed to updating for retina at all..

 

[90miles]

I work with both of them, rMBP at home and Mac Pro at the studio (thankfully the company pays for it all) for doing heavy duty recordings with tons of effects and Audio Units you'll appreciate the extra juice the Mac Pro gives you, at home though my rMBP is more than enough and I do quite some mixing/recording on it, last week the Mac Pro went bad and I had to record a big-band on the rMBP, doable with the right gear but takes MUCH more time, I'd say keep the Pro if that would be your only machine.

 

[iPersian]

keep the pro! the retinas are flawed!

 

[reRESERVEDMD]

I recently benchmarked my base rMBP and my Mid 2010 Mac Pro 2.8 Quad 8GB RAM 256 SSD and 5770 and it gave me a score of around 9700 in Geekbench.

I did the same thing with the retina got 11785. If upgradeability isn't an issue, get a rMBP. Otherwise, that Mac Pro will suffice...

I honestly don't know how much of a difference 2000 points is in Geekbench. I still favor my Mac Pro over the MacBook.

 

[iScreamSanWitch]

I agree with a question above.. how exactly will you be "saving" money with an expensive retina purchase over keeping your existing one lol..

 

[90miles]

I recently benchmarked my base rMBP and my Mid 2010 Mac Pro 2.8 Quad 8GB RAM 256 SSD and 5770 and it gave me a score of around 9700 in Geekbench.

I did the same thing with the retina got 11785. If upgradeability isn't an issue, get a rMBP. Otherwise, that Mac Pro will suffice...

I honestly don't know how much of a difference 2000 points is in Geekbench. I still favor my Mac Pro over the MacBook.

Actually in this very specific case the user may not take a lot out of the extra-points and the Mac Pro would be in advantage simply because Logic loads all the virtual instruments into the RAM (32GB vs 16GB MAX) and when you are working projects with 90-140 different audio/virtual instrument tracks you'd need more storage than what an SSD can currently offer.