Upgrading from MBP to MacPro is it up to the task??

[FSBW21086]

I currently have been using a MBP for my photography business. (2.33 C2D 3 GB RAM blah blah blah) I have this hooked up to a 23 inch ACD and esata 750 gb hard drive. My productivity is going out the window since I wait for things to export and render in lightroom half the time without being able to multitask. I can't deal with how slow the machine is anymore and want to pull the trigger on a macpro.

I was thinking the default 2x2.8, 8800, 2GB ram (8gb OWC ram)=10GB total, 2x750gb hd to start. Im really hoping I will be happy with this set up.

I want to be able to at the same time....

Export 3-5 sets of images full resolution to hard drive in lightroom
Upload 2 lightroom galleries
Work on 10-15 images in cs3 (sharpening, shadow/highlight, levels, large dodges/burn)
Have itunes running without skipping
Have these programs open in the background- adium, mail, firefox, transmit,coda, dreamweaver

With the amount of work I have I find myself multitasking constantly and the MBP really slows everything down. Will this MacPro setup be up to the test? Or should I bump the processor or wait for next revision. (I will be purchasing in a bout a month BTW) I also am getting into a lot of video/motion graphics so its def time to upgrade just the question of how much powah!

 

[nick9191]

New model wont be here until January at the earliest.

 

[netdog]

It is certainly up to the task though you may want to consider getting the default card and upgrading to the new ATI 3870 for Mac. My understanding is that it is better than the 8800 for Pro apps.

You also might want to just go with 8GB of RAM instead of 10. You can always sell the two sticks that come in your machine on eBay.

 

[FSBW21086]

It is certainly up to the task though you may want to consider getting the default card and upgrading to the new ATI 3870 for Mac. My understanding is that it is better than the 8800 for Pro apps.

You also might want to just go with 8GB of RAM instead of 10. You can always sell the two sticks that come in your machine on eBay.

are you saying I wont see enough noticable performance increase in 10 compared to 8?

 

[FSBW21086]

It is certainly up to the task though you may want to consider getting the default card and upgrading to the new ATI 3870 for Mac. My understanding is that it is better than the 8800 for Pro apps.

good call on the 3870, its not even much more expensive. Im sure I could fleabay the standard card

 

[nick9191]

The ATI 3870 is actually a slightly inferior card, however because the ATI drivers on OS X are much more mature you see better performance.

 

[FSBW21086]

The ATI 3870 is actually a slightly inferior card, however because the ATI drivers on OS X are much more mature you see better performance.

I would much rather have better overall UI responsiveness than more FPS in games... thats what I use my ps3 for.

 

[Play4keeps]

I currently have been using a MBP for my photography business. (2.33 C2D 3 GB RAM blah blah blah) I have this hooked up to a 23 inch ACD and esata 750 gb hard drive. My productivity is going out the window since I wait for things to export and render in lightroom half the time without being able to multitask. I can't deal with how slow the machine is anymore and want to pull the trigger on a macpro.

I was thinking the default 2x2.8, 8800, 2GB ram (8gb OWC ram)=10GB total, 2x750gb hd to start. Im really hoping I will be happy with this set up.

I want to be able to at the same time....

Export 3-5 sets of images full resolution to hard drive in lightroom
Upload 2 lightroom galleries
Work on 10-15 images in cs3 (sharpening, shadow/highlight, levels, large dodges/burn)
Have itunes running without skipping
Have these programs open in the background- adium, mail, firefox, transmit,coda, dreamweaver

With the amount of work I have I find myself multitasking constantly and the MBP really slows everything down. Will this MacPro setup be up to the test? Or should I bump the processor or wait for next revision. (I will be purchasing in a bout a month BTW) I also am getting into a lot of video/motion graphics so its def time to upgrade just the question of how much powah!

1 More thing Just try to add Raid 0 with back up or raid of some sort.

 

[jroller]

It is simply the most powerful Mac you can buy; if it is not (and I have no doubt that it is), then nothing is going to do what you want. I echo the other advice you have already been given.

 

[Michael73]

Don't get rid of the stuff

I'm a big fan of AppleCare especially since you'll be using this for your business. In any case, don't get rid of the original RAM or graphics cards b/c if you bring in the MP for service you could run into issues. IMHO, the nominal amount you'll get for selling them isn't worth the cost of negating the warranty.

 

[MIDI_EVIL]

I'm a big fan of AppleCare especially since you'll be using this for your business. In any case, don't get rid of the original RAM or graphics cards b/c if you bring in the MP for service you could run into issues. IMHO, the nominal amount you'll get for selling them isn't worth the cost of negating the warranty.

This is the best advice in the thread.

The Mac Pro will handle what you are planning to throw at it, and then some.

Get the standard card, and look to upgrade to the 3870 from ATI. It has been benchmarked as being a better performer with regards to pro apps.

 

[FSBW21086]

I'm a big fan of AppleCare especially since you'll be using this for your business. In any case, don't get rid of the original RAM or graphics cards b/c if you bring in the MP for service you could run into issues. IMHO, the nominal amount you'll get for selling them isn't worth the cost of negating the warranty.

yea it looks like the standard card is going for less than 100 bucks anyway.. and I would rather have 10 gigs of ram has to be better than 8!

 

[FSBW21086]

Is everyone happy with thier mac pros? Ive had a dual 2.5 ghz G5 in the past with no problems, hoping these are as reliable.

(coming from someone with a macbook pro that needs new: hard drive, top case, latch, logic board, superdrive all within a year)

 

[jjahshik32]

Definitely get the mac pro, its much MUCH faster than any macbook pro.

Also try to get all dual rank ram(2gb not 1gb) to fill up all 8 slots which will give the mac pro its best performance. This is why I ordered 8x2gb for a total of 16gb and its freaking silky butterly smooth!

Also I'd keep the original 2gb RAM that came with your mac pro because if anything should happen in the future you should put your 2gb stock back in to ship to apple and keep your 3rd party with you.
Now I'm just waiting for my ati 3870 and snow leopard to be released.

 

[Mackilroy]

I've had my Mac Pro for over a year now, it's rock solid, still plenty fast for me. Very, very reliable.

 

[sirnh]

I was thinking the default 2x2.8, 8800, 2GB ram (8gb OWC ram)=10GB total, 2x750gb hd to start. Im really hoping I will be happy with this set up.

I just put together a similar configuration myself. Your biggest bottleneck with that system is going to be the storage. You may want to seriously consider a pair of 10K RPM drives running in raid 0. And use external storage or a Time Capsule to back them up.

If you want more storage than 10K drives offer, I would skip over the 750GB drives and go with the 2 platter 640GB drives, or the 3 platter 1TB drives. Still run them in a raid 0 configuration for optimal speed.

Also to improve speed, since I don't believe you can boot from a software RAID set, you will want to think about 3 of these drives, using one of them as a boot volume. The base 320GB drive is anemic and slow.

One last thought, New Egg tends to have the lowest prices around. They sell 2GB DDR2-800 FB DIMMS for $75 each. Their drive prices are lower than most, too. The bad thing about New Egg is their return policy, which is non-existant on many parts, instead relying on manufacturer's warranties.

 

[Velin]

Is everyone happy with thier mac pros? Ive had a dual 2.5 ghz G5 in the past with no problems, hoping these are as reliable.

Unqualified yes. Even in a base 8-core config, it's rock-solid and fast. Upgrading is easy -- and if you go to third-party retailers, pretty cheap to outfit the Pro with terabytes of storage and lots of RAM.

The Mac Pro destroys anything in the "consumer friendly" Mac lineup; there's no comparison. 8-core Xeon Mac Pro, 10 gig RAM, 10,000 rpm drives in Raid 0 -- this kind of pro setup absolutely obliterates everything else either Apple or PC vendors offer, while still being user friendly and accessible. I find it difficult going back to notebooks or PCs, because they are tediously slow in comparison. We simply get a lot more done on the Pros, with zero downtime.

We've also been running Vista with VMWare, and it's true: Mac OSX and the Pro run Vista far better than our PCs ever did -- no Vista SP1 driver crashes, no BSODs, no problems at all. All I can say is we're Wintel converts -- our entire office is getting outfitted with Mac Pros. And an Xserve will be next, after Snow Leopard is released.

 

[MrRage]

This thing has enough room to keep multitasking with 7 python processes locked up. At 8 things still work but not as smooth. you simply can't phase this thing till your down to one core and even then its still very tolerable.

I've got a macbook pro 2.4 and it really is night and dam compared to my Mac Pro dual quad 2.8 with 8gb of ram. I didn't install the other 2-gb because I didn't need it.

 

[sirnh]

good call on the 3870, its not even much more expensive. Im sure I could fleabay the standard card

DO NOT sell the card that came with the system. If you ever have to do a clean install again, your system restore CD will not boot with the ATI card installed.