Mid 2010 Mac Pro ponderings...

[iMav]

This my current, primary macOS rig. (lots of other Macs in the house...and I personally also use an early 2016 Macbook (HATE that keyboard!))

I know that I am on borrowed time with this system (the fact that High Sierra is supported was a BONUS!). I upgraded this to a 6-core Xeon CPU (from a 4-core). I had considered trying to get a dual-CPU tray...but at this point, that is probably throwing good money after bad... (also upgraded the vid card)

I hang two Dell U2415 monitors off of this. (I had used a 4k display...but it required too much monkeying around for reboots, upgrades, etc)

I have been pondering what I will, eventually, replace this with...and whether I should do so now or wait till the OS release comes out that is no longer supported (and/or there is no workaround to get it supported).

Love the expandability... SSD primary drive...mirrored RAID for data storage...large, internal time machine drive...

Anyone in a similar situation??

 

[thedocbwarren]

Yes, I maxed out my 5,1 to dual 12-core CPUs and a fast 5970 video card (boot screen.) I have other machines much faster but the 5,1 will keep up (geekbenches at 25K in multicore.)

It's up to you. I love the 5,1 too and know we probably have this year till it's EOL and no more upgrades. I'm pondering selling it as well (but hold back due to sentimental reasons.)

View attachment 749949

This my current, primary macOS rig. (lots of other Macs in the house...and I personally also use an early 2016 Macbook (HATE that keyboard!))

I know that I am on borrowed time with this system (the fact that High Sierra is supported was a BONUS!). I upgraded this to a 6-core Xeon CPU (from a 4-core). I had considered trying to get a dual-CPU tray...but at this point, that is probably throwing good money after bad... (also upgraded the vid card)

I hang two Dell U2415 monitors off of this. (I had used a 4k display...but it required too much monkeying around for reboots, upgrades, etc)

I have been pondering what I will, eventually, replace this with...and whether I should do so now or wait till the OS release comes out that is no longer supported (and/or there is no workaround to get it supported).

Love the expandability... SSD primary drive...mirrored RAID for data storage...large, internal time machine drive...

Anyone in a similar situation??

 

[rjtiedeman]

I am also pondering updating. The possibility of the next update can be solved by just saying NO. My home Mac Pro 5,1 is running the latest mac os 10.13.3. my office IMac is running on El Capitan. They both get the job done, We need to Just Say NO to updates. We can save the money for food and drink.

 

[pl1984]

Unless there's a reason to purchase a new system I say continue using what you've got until such time as it no longer meets your needs. Is there something your current system doesn't do thus the reason behind your question? Or is it something you're just curious about and planning for that eventuality? If it's the former then additional details would help us help you. If the latter my recommendation is to wait until Apple announces the mMP to see what it will be.

 

[ActionableMango]

I have been pondering what I will, eventually, replace this with...and whether I should do so now or wait till the OS release comes out that is no longer supported (and/or there is no workaround to get it supported).

Love the expandability... SSD primary drive...mirrored RAID for data storage...large, internal time machine drive...

Anyone in a similar situation??

Yes. I begrudgingly and unhappily sold both of my Mac Pros and switched to a Windows PC. I would have vastly preferred to buy a new Apple tower if Apple would just make one.

From my point of view, I didn't leave Apple. Apple left me.

The Modular Mac Pro has some promise. Depending on what they come up with I could be back.

 

[haralds]

Yes. I begrudgingly and unhappily sold both of my Mac Pros and switched to a Windows PC. I would have vastly preferred to buy a new Apple tower if Apple would just make one.

From my point of view, I didn't leave Apple. Apple left me.

The Modular Mac Pro has some promise. Depending on what they come up with I could be back.

I have to use Windows 10 for our multi-platform development. I just cannot stomach it for long.

 

[rjtiedeman]

I have to use Windows 10 for our multi-platform development. I just cannot stomach it for long.

My upgraded mac pro does what i need it to do. As a freelancer i can’t justify spending big dollars (5G) for a new mac pro. i would love to have the new toys.

I spend a lot more time waiting for decisions that waiting for the computer.

 

[Macschrauber]

I use my 5.1 until it falls apart. I also upgraded the CPU to 6 core, upgraded the mass storage to PCIe SSD with 1000 MB/s. I still run El Capitan for good. So I am in the game for two bonus years.

Anyway I use Mac Pros down to 1.1 from 2006 with El Capitan with a little fiddling and patching.

So I dont care a lot what the mothership is doing. Silly trash cans, glued iMacs, MacBooks with built in batteries. You got the idea. Now and in the past.

Come hell or high water. If the company at the infinite loop road (genius name, btw) runs totally mad I will run Linux on my Pros. Still good machines, just talking bout software...

 

[Silencio]

Still pretty good machines. With PCIe SSDs and Nvidia GPUs, they'll last my average designers and art directors a while longer. Unfortunately I can see the 48GB RAM limit on the single processor systems being more and more of a limiting factor for us. Maybe one day I will truly figure out how to get 4x16GB DIMMs to work, or I'll just buy some more dual CPU trays instead, but that will only delay the inevitable a bit longer.

I'm still holding out for the mMP, but in reality most of our creatives would do just fine with a top-end 5K iMac, or an iMac Pro for the more serious video work.

 

[pixelatedscraps]

Love these machines, I'll never let go of my first 2010 cMP - the only thing that bugs me is the lack of Thunderbolt 2/3 ports and the limited speeds I'm getting from my USB-C card. I just purchased a Apple Broadcom BCM943602CD AC / Bluetooth 4.1 card with antenna off OSXWIFI ($$$) because I eventually gave up on the patchy IOGear USB BT4 dongle I was making do with.

 

[haralds]

Love these machines, I'll never let go of my first 2010 cMP - the only thing that bugs me is the lack of Thunderbolt 2/3 ports and the limited speeds I'm getting from my USB-C card. I just purchased an Apple Broadcom BCM943602CD AC / Bluetooth 4.1 card with antenna off OSXWIFI ($$$) because I eventually gave up on the patchy IOGear USB BT4 dongle I was making do with.

I upgraded a while back and did the same to my wife's 3,1 running High Sierra. Love the Watch Unlock!
I also upgraded my mid 2011 MacBook Air for the same reason.

 

[kwikdeth]

the limited speeds I'm getting from my USB-C card.

Find an x4 PCIe card and that will probably fix your issue. Mac Pros are PCIe 2.0, so an x1 card (which is what most are) will run out of bandwidth very fast with USB3. They're hard to find but they're out there.

(Edit)
Here you go
https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-4-Port-PCI-Express-RocketU-1144D/dp/B015CQ8DCS
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00X...=417Y9NMR5TVJRY42YZYR&dpPl=1&dpID=6112ZvJbeeL

 

[h9826790]

Find an x4 PCIe card and that will probably fix your issue. Mac Pros are PCIe 2.0, so an x1 card (which is what most are) will run out of bandwidth very fast with USB3. They're hard to find but they're out there.

(Edit)
Here you go
https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-4-Port-PCI-Express-RocketU-1144D/dp/B015CQ8DCS
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00X...=417Y9NMR5TVJRY42YZYR&dpPl=1&dpID=6112ZvJbeeL

He was talking about USB-C, not USB 3. He want the max speed that USB-C is supported.

There are plenty of cheap USB 3 cards that has no speed restriction. Those expensive cards are mainly because they have an independent controller for each port. So, no throtting when all ports are stressed simultaneously. Not because they can achieve USB 3 max speed.

 

[kwikdeth]

He was talking about USB-C, not USB 3. He want the max speed that USB-C is supported.

USB-C is a connector, not a protocol standard. there are tons of devices on the market with USB-C that run at USB2 speed.

There are plenty of cheap USB 3 cards that has no speed restriction. Those expensive cards are mainly because they have an independent controller for each port. So, no throtting when all ports are stressed simultaneously. Not because they can achieve USB 3 max speed.

Yes, they do have a speed restriction. Your PCIe 2.0 x1 connection has a throughput maximum of ~500 MB/s. USB3's throughput is 5 gigabits/sec, which comes out to about 640 MB/s. What do you think happens when you have say, 4 SSDs plugged in and fighting for that single 5 gigabit x1 link? That's right. You lose throughput. Having more controllers on the card only helps reduce instances of the USB controller having to make devices wait their turn to talk to the USB controller. There is still the factor of the upstream connection to the CPU. on an x1 card, those four controllers are still going to be limited by the PCIe bridge which only has so much bandwidth to hand out. An x4 card does not have that limitation, because each individual USB3 controller has access to a dedicated PCIe lane, instead of making the four fight for a single PCIe lane. You are still not going to get 100% throughput that USB3 offers, because of that ~140MB/s difference, but its the closest you're going to get on a PCIe 2.0 bus, and will be a whole lot better than a single x1 link. an x1 card with 4 controllers on it would give you some performance benefit, mostly by avoiding excessive USB polling, but its ultimately not much of a difference in terms of throughput. to really get the best performance for USB 3 on older machines you need a x4 card with 4 usb controllers on the card.

if you dont believe me, go read the reviews of the cards i linked. you'll find people saying the exact same thing im saying here, and that the performance difference with the x4 cards is clear.

 

[h9826790]

USB-C is a connector, not a protocol standard. there are tons of devices on the market with USB-C that run at USB2 speed.



Yes, they do have a speed restriction. Your PCIe 2.0 x1 connection has a throughput maximum of ~500 MB/s. USB3's throughput is 5 gigabits/sec, which comes out to about 640 MB/s. What do you think happens when you have say, 4 SSDs plugged in and fighting for that single 5 gigabit x1 link? That's right. You lose throughput. Having more controllers on the card only helps reduce instances of the USB controller having to make devices wait their turn to talk to the USB controller. There is still the factor of the upstream connection to the CPU. on an x1 card, those four controllers are still going to be limited by the PCIe bridge which only has so much bandwidth to hand out. An x4 card does not have that limitation, because each individual USB3 controller has access to a dedicated PCIe lane, instead of making the four fight for a single PCIe lane. You are still not going to get 100% throughput that USB3 offers, because of that ~140MB/s difference, but its the closest you're going to get on a PCIe 2.0 bus, and will be a whole lot better than a single x1 link. an x1 card with 4 controllers on it would give you some performance benefit, mostly by avoiding excessive USB polling, but its ultimately not much of a difference in terms of throughput. to really get the best performance for USB 3 on older machines you need a x4 card with 4 usb controllers on the card.

if you dont believe me, go read the reviews of the cards i linked. you'll find people saying the exact same thing im saying here, and that the performance difference with the x4 cards is clear.

May be I am not clear enough in my last post. I believed that he want the MAX speed that a USB-C port can support, Which is 40Gb/s with TB 3 connection. A x1 or x4 USB 3.0 card doesn’t really matter in this case, they are both slow (single port).

If he has a proper USB-C card in the cMP (USB 3.1 gen 2 standard), that’s 10Gb/s (per port). Going back to a 5Gb/s (per port) USB 3.0 card is a downgrade to him.

I believe that he want the remaining 3750MB/s from a single USB-C port, but not talking about that relatively negligible missing 125MB/s (due to the difference between x1 or x4).

 

[kschendel]

OP, it sounds like the machine is still doing the job, so there's no need to rush into anything. Keep putting pennies into the piggy bank for the day when the machine is no longer officially supported and you need to do something that won't run or is too slow under the older OS or hardware. With any sort of luck, by then we'll have a new Mac Pro option from Apple. (and if not, whatever you're forced to move to will at least be current tech.) I strongly suspect that you have AT LEAST a year of using the cMP, if not longer.

I mostly run linux on my cMP, and I've priced out a PC replacement a couple times in the last year; but each time I tell myself that I wouldn't be getting enough improvement for all that cash, and I'd like to be able to run OS/X when I need or want to. So I'm still waiting, and in the meantime it still runs great.

 

[kwikdeth]

May be I am not clear enough in my last post. I believed that he want the MAX speed that a USB-C port can support, Which is 40Gb/s with TB 3 connection. A x1 or x4 USB 3.0 card doesn’t really matter in this case, they are both slow (single port).

im sorry but that makes no sense. you're never going to see that kind of speed no matter what, because there is no way to add thunderbolt support to a machine that wasnt designed for it. on top of that, USB 3.2, which isnt even out yet in consumer products, is only 20Gb/sec.
Thunderbolt speeds have literally nothing to do with an encapsulated layer running on top of it. TB3 is 40Gb/sec, but a USB connection over thunderbolt is still only going to run at 12mb, 480mb, 5gb, 10gb, 20gb, or whatever the specific USB protocol in use for that connected device supports.

an x4 card very much matters in these cases, because you're getting four times the bandwidth to the CPU. each USB controller gets to talk to the CPU as fast as the bus supports, which on four lanes means four simultaneous 500MB streams, that dont have to fight each other. an x1 has a single 500MB/s lane which has to then be split among the four controllers. To get the maximum performance possible for USB3 on a legacy mac pro, you need to use an x4 card.

lastly, as I have already mentioned - USB-C is not a reliable method for automatically determining what kind of device you are connecting. it is merely a connector. there are devices on the market with USB-C that run at 2.0 speeds, 3.0 speeds, and 3.1 speeds. additionally, USB-C 3.1 is only faster than regular 3.0 if its a generation 2 chipset. Standard USB-C 3.1 is the same speed as regular 3.0, at 5Gb/s. Just because he has a USB-C card, you cannot assume that it is automatically a 10Gb/s card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#USB_3.1

 

[h9826790]

im sorry but that makes no sense. you're never going to see that kind of speed no matter what, because there is no way to add thunderbolt support to a machine that wasnt designed for it. on top of that, USB 3.2, which isnt even out yet in consumer products, is only 20Gb/sec.
Thunderbolt speeds have literally nothing to do with an encapsulated layer running on top of it. TB3 is 40Gb/sec, but a USB connection over thunderbolt is still only going to run at 12mb, 480mb, 5gb, 10gb, 20gb, or whatever the specific USB protocol in use for that connected device supports.

an x4 card very much matters in these cases, because you're getting four times the bandwidth to the CPU. each USB controller gets to talk to the CPU as fast as the bus supports, which on four lanes means four simultaneous 500MB streams, that dont have to fight each other. an x1 has a single 500MB/s lane which has to then be split among the four controllers. To get the maximum performance possible for USB3 on a legacy mac pro, you need to use an x4 card.

You didn't get it yet.

pixelatedscraps said "the only thing that bugs me is the lack of Thunderbolt 2/3 ports and the limited speeds I'm getting from my USB-C card."

He was talking about TB3. Both he and me never say we can get TB on the cMP. We know we never get TB on cMP, but this is the exact reason to bug him.

That limited speed for the USB-C card was compared to the TB3 speed in that single sentence. You just crop the 2nd half but completely ignore the 1st half.

Do you get what I mean now.

As you said "USB-C is a connector, not a protocol standard". We know that. And from his post, I believe he want the TB3 speed via the USB-C port. But because of no TB support in cMP. He can now only get USB 3.1 gen 2 connection via that USB-C connector. Which end up is limited to 10Gbps per port.

And you tell him to use a USB 3 card? Further limit the speed down to 5Gpbs per port?

I know a x4 USB 3.0 card with 4 independent controller is better then a x1 USB 3.0 card. But please check the history what he or me was talking about. We are talking about USB-C connector, not USB 3 connection, and he want the TB2/3 speed. And he already has a USB-C 3.1 gen 2 card (in his signature). Your suggestion is a downgrade to him, and x1 or x4 is completely irrelevant in this case.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

My upgraded mac pro does what i need it to do. As a freelancer i can’t justify spending big dollars (5G) for a new mac pro. i would love to have the new toys.

I spend a lot more time waiting for decisions that waiting for the computer.

Microcenter has iMac Pro for $1k off. B&H has them for -$500

 

[kwikdeth]

forget it, once again being reminded why i ^&*($%&^( hate this forum.

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Delete

 

[chet.d]

Does anyone think it's wiser from a stability - performance point of view to be on 10.12 compared to 10.13.4 in so far as the mid 2010 MP is concerned?

I'm using recording SW and torn about which to update to. There's (not surprisingly) conflicting reports.

 

[h9826790]

Does anyone think it's wiser from a stability - performance point of view to be on 10.12 compared to 10.13.4 in so far as the mid 2010 MP is concerned?

I'm using recording SW and torn about which to update to. There's (not surprisingly) conflicting reports.

I believe 10.12.6 is still more stable than 10.13.4, and virtually no performance difference for most usage.

 

[crjackson2134]

Still pretty good machines. With PCIe SSDs and Nvidia GPUs, they'll last my average designers and art directors a while longer. Unfortunately I can see the 48GB RAM limit on the single processor systems being more and more of a limiting factor for us. Maybe one day I will truly figure out how to get 4x16GB DIMMs to work, or I'll just buy some more dual CPU trays instead, but that will only delay the inevitable a bit longer.

I'm still holding out for the mMP, but in reality most of our creatives would do just fine with a top-end 5K iMac, or an iMac Pro for the more serious video work.

You can add another 16GB dim to the 3 you already have if you upgrade/change the processor to one from a dual-core machine. You don't need 2 processors to get 64GB support.
[doublepost=1527546265][/doublepost]

Love the Watch Unlock!

I wish I could get this to work on my system. It never finds the watch, so it won't even enable in the settings menu...

 

[BillyBobBongo]

@OP We're all in the same boat.

I'm holding out to see what this new 'Modular Mac Pro' is going to bring to the table, but I'm not foolish enough to put all my faith in Apple anymore. Been considering building a Hackintosh for a while now, but after I've added it all I just start thinking that maybe I should just do all my heavy lifting (graphics wise) in Windows and use my Apple laptop for everything else. Sure would make life easier.