New Mac Pro or wait?

[djstyleee]

Hi everyone,

I have been debating weather to purchase a new Mac Pro now, or upgrade my current Mac Pro. I currently have a mid 2012 12-core, 16GB RAM Mac Pro, which I unfortunately bought not long before they announced the Late 2013 edition.
I am an audio mixing engineer and can see the benefits that Thunderbolt 2.0 can offer, but I think many professional audio equipment is still in its infancy at developing Thunderbolt devices, and 4K displays are still relatively new (5k Dispay on new iMac's look amazing)!
Avid have recently released a Thunderbolt version of its HDX and HD Native systems, and Universal Audio have recently released Thunderbolt Satellite and earlier Apollo Audio Interfaces. However I am already using PT11 HD through PCIe and UAD-2 Quad's through PCIe.
I think what i'm trying to say is, I don't think I need Thunderbolt just yet, but would I be better off cutting my losses and purchasing a new Mac Pro now while my current Mac still goes for a decent price, or investing say 1K in upgrading this computer to 64GB RAM and PCIe SSD HD? Or would that be a waste of money? And then theres what if Thunderbolt flops, because that really is the only reason I would consider a new purchase at this stage.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[phrehdd]

Hi everyone,

I have been debating weather to purchase a new Mac Pro now, or upgrade my current Mac Pro. I currently have a mid 2012 12-core, 16GB RAM Mac Pro, which I unfortunately bought not long before they announced the Late 2013 edition.
I am an audio mixing engineer and can see the benefits that Thunderbolt 2.0 can offer, but I think many professional audio equipment is still in its infancy at developing Thunderbolt devices, and 4K displays are still relatively new (5k Dispay on new iMac's look amazing)!
Avid have recently released a Thunderbolt version of its HDX and HD Native systems, and Universal Audio have recently released Thunderbolt Satellite and earlier Apollo Audio Interfaces. However I am already using PT11 HD through PCIe and UAD-2 Quad's through PCIe.
I think what i'm trying to say is, I don't think I need Thunderbolt just yet, but would I be better off cutting my losses and purchasing a new Mac Pro now while my current Mac still goes for a decent price, or investing say 1K in upgrading this computer to 64GB RAM and PCIe SSD HD? Or would that be a waste of money? And then theres what if Thunderbolt flops, because that really is the only reason I would consider a new purchase at this stage.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sounds like either way you gain or lose something. If I were in your shoes, I would consider updating your present system even if it wont hold the value you would hope for (in a later sale). As for Tbolt, there is already talk of TB3 coming in perhaps 2016. As many say - buy when you really need it. Your present system has lots of life left to it and would be a shame to get snookered into the present incarnation of the MP for the sake of TB.

 

[NReichman]

On Gearslutz we've discussed this issue in a few places. I think you have a Mac Pro 5,1. I just jumped from a 3,1 to the 6,1 (black model), and am very pleased. But if you look at the 64-bit multicore speeds on Geekbench, you'll see that you have an excellent machine for Pro Tools, which does a good job distributing its load over cores:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

So unless you need Thunderbolt, or the small form factor, I don't think you would benefit from upgrading now. And if you did upgrade, you would have to spend a lot of money to get an equivalent 6,1.

 

[djstyleee]

Cheers for the advice lads, I think I will stick with the one i've got for now then.

 

[JamesPDX]

On Gearslutz we've discussed this issue in a few places. I think you have a Mac Pro 5,1. I just jumped from a 3,1 to the 6,1 (black model), and am very pleased. But if you look at the 64-bit multicore speeds on Geekbench, you'll see that you have an excellent machine for Pro Tools, which does a good job distributing its load over cores:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

So unless you need Thunderbolt, or the small form factor, I don't think you would benefit from upgrading now. And if you did upgrade, you would have to spend a lot of money to get an equivalent 6,1.

Howdy. After all this time, how's your 6,1 holding up in a studio setting? Any overheating GPUs or kernel panics?
PM me if you like. I'm running PT 12 on a 2012 Mini, but I need more CPU grunt.