I'm thinking of getting the nMP, however when i compare it to a PC of similar price the PC is the better choice performancewise. Anyway, doesnt have much time now but can write some more later. For now, please post which MP you're getting, what you're going to do with it and why you chose it.
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What are you going to use your mac pro for?
- Thread starter Runqen
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theSeb
macrumors 604
Well, this a new topic that has never been discussed here before. Can you post what you're comparing to exactly?
Well that might have been a missleading sentence. I'm not saying that a pc performs petter than the mac with the equivalent hardware. What i ment sas that with the PC i can customize the build exactly how i want. I would perhaps swap the xeon for a 6core i7, for example or swap the superfast flash hdd for a normal SSD and then add a third graphics card. Understand what i mean?
theSeb
macrumors 604
I do, but then your comparison is inherently flawed. The fact that there is no Mac with a consumer desktop CPU and GPU is a separate discussion. In order for this comparison to make sense, you should be comparing the nMP to similar PCs with workstation Xeon CPUs. It's like saying I can turbocharge my Toyota sedan and it will be just as fast as your sports car, and cheaper to buy, too!
I'm not comparing the computers that i believe you're thinking.
What i ment was simply that with a PC i can customize my build completely while on the MP you only have a set of choices like amount of ram and such.
However, the intention with this thread isnt to discuss pc vs mac performance but to discuss the following subjects:
Which MP are you getting?
What are you going to use it for?
Why did you chose the way you did?
Why did you get the MP and not a PC? (for example: Becouse of the OS, the design?)
What i ment was simply that with a PC i can customize my build completely while on the MP you only have a set of choices like amount of ram and such.
However, the intention with this thread isnt to discuss pc vs mac performance but to discuss the following subjects:
Which MP are you getting?
What are you going to use it for?
Why did you chose the way you did?
Why did you get the MP and not a PC? (for example: Becouse of the OS, the design?)
I am getting 2012 MP, Hex core 3,33ghz / 24gb RAM / ATI 5770 1GB/
Using it for music production / writing / editing mostly. ( it's my profession )
I chose this route as it is a significant upgrade to a 2008 system.
It also gives my access to all the hardware /PCI cards etc that I own.
Having to change ALL of that for the nMP would have cost me at least three
times as much ... pointless at this juncture.
I have been a Mac user since 1994, the only "Windows" system that I owned
briefly was so riddled with issues, that I could not use it in a professional
recording environment.
That was a LONG time ago and I know for a fact that you can buy systems
specifically built for pro audio use, that are fantastic.
However, the Apple route has suited my needs and has been on the whole,
totally rock solid and I need that in a professional recording situation, where
time is money.
- just my opinion from experience, nothing more.
M
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I spat out coffee at that one 🙂
Priceless !!!
M.
Made my day!!!😀
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6core D700 for development, development related design-work and casual gaming
...
and of course because I can and I like the design
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I create 2-10 minute videos for computers hooked up to TVs, projectors and web. At the moment, using 1080p HDSLR video but excited about some upcoming 4k cameras.
I edit and create graphics and animation using Adobe CC and Cinema 4d.
I edit and create graphics and animation using Adobe CC and Cinema 4d.
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Gav Mack
macrumors 68020
I have a Mac Pro 3,1
For my job as an IT consultant/technician working mostly with PC and Mac environments for over 20 years. QuarkXpress/Photoshop with occasional Premiere Final Cut as a sideline/hobby.
Makes absolute sense having a dual boot Mac OSX /Windows machine for my work. Do data recovery work almost weekly so the SATA sleds get used a lot for either OS. Net cost for the 3,1 with 8 core 3.2 and 32Gb ram was £280 before upgrades - very cheap.
I have PC's but instead of having two primary workstations, one OSX the other Windows a Mac Pro can do the job of both. Do not want the hassle of Hackintosh for my own uses either they are already enough of a pain to manage for clients!
For my job as an IT consultant/technician working mostly with PC and Mac environments for over 20 years. QuarkXpress/Photoshop with occasional Premiere Final Cut as a sideline/hobby.
Makes absolute sense having a dual boot Mac OSX /Windows machine for my work. Do data recovery work almost weekly so the SATA sleds get used a lot for either OS. Net cost for the 3,1 with 8 core 3.2 and 32Gb ram was £280 before upgrades - very cheap.
I have PC's but instead of having two primary workstations, one OSX the other Windows a Mac Pro can do the job of both. Do not want the hassle of Hackintosh for my own uses either they are already enough of a pain to manage for clients!
I have (hopefully) an 8 core, 64gb, 1tb, D700 nMP coming in the next week (Apple has taken payment).
It's main use will be Windows software development (yes I know) with a couple of VMware Windows PCs running SQL Server.
I think I will have a boot camp Windows installation for games (never used boot camp before).
I had planned on buying a Mac Mini when it is updated to host a shared iTunes library but I am considering running the nMP 24x7 - not sure about this one though.
It's main use will be Windows software development (yes I know) with a couple of VMware Windows PCs running SQL Server.
I think I will have a boot camp Windows installation for games (never used boot camp before).
I had planned on buying a Mac Mini when it is updated to host a shared iTunes library but I am considering running the nMP 24x7 - not sure about this one though.
I'm thinking about buying a nMP with Intel Xeon E5 3.7GHz base model since I run AutoDesk Revit in Win 7. Revit doesn't take advantage of muti-cores. I have a MP 1,1 and I'm looking to upgrade. I'm not sure if I should buy a nMP or iMac i7. I love how you can upgrade the MP's.
First and foremost, graphic design and programming.
Secondly, recording original songs in Pro Tools… like this… https://soundcloud.com/nathan-dickson/mystery-girl-over-limited
Lastly, gaming, both Mac-based games and Windows games via Bootcamp. I am betting that most of my gaming time this year will be in Elder Scrolls Online. I like being able to play that within Mac OS X, but having the option to swap to Windows for the Crossfire yumminess.
Secondly, recording original songs in Pro Tools… like this… https://soundcloud.com/nathan-dickson/mystery-girl-over-limited
Lastly, gaming, both Mac-based games and Windows games via Bootcamp. I am betting that most of my gaming time this year will be in Elder Scrolls Online. I like being able to play that within Mac OS X, but having the option to swap to Windows for the Crossfire yumminess.
OSX
Digital Photography
Videography
3D Product Rendering
Windows
3D CAD
Game
That pretty much sums up what I do in both environments
Digital Photography
Videography
3D Product Rendering
Windows
3D CAD
Game
That pretty much sums up what I do in both environments
....true story.... Need that high intensity cores to run highly intense graphics lol😀
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:d
Which MP are you getting? I couldn't afford a newer one so I had went with a 2.1 Mac Pro
What are you going to use it for? I use it for videos, video editing, music and music editing, photos and art, gaming and watching movies 🙂
Why did you chose the way you did? The price range and the fact that it has really good specs.
Why did you get the MP and not a PC? (for example: Because of the OS, the design?) A Hackintosh is still not an Apple computer and you could do so much to make OS X think its running on a native machine until something goes wrong.
FYI Runqen was right so you guys bringing a pc discussion are the ones that are flawed.
What are you going to use it for? I use it for videos, video editing, music and music editing, photos and art, gaming and watching movies 🙂
Why did you chose the way you did? The price range and the fact that it has really good specs.
Why did you get the MP and not a PC? (for example: Because of the OS, the design?) A Hackintosh is still not an Apple computer and you could do so much to make OS X think its running on a native machine until something goes wrong.
FYI Runqen was right so you guys bringing a pc discussion are the ones that are flawed.
paulsdenton
macrumors 6502
I use mine for video processing using FCPX v10.1. I got it to shorten transcode and optimized media generation times on video import. With my old Mac Mini this process took forever. I mean, like overnight for a big batch of DV or Mpeg 4 files.
Yesterday I fed the Mac Pro a big batch of Mpeg 4 (maybe 20 or so converted from 60 minute VHS tapes) files and it was done in under 15 minutes. I actually got some heat out of the top of the Mac Pro! What it was doing was importing and transcoding the files into Pro Res 422 and analyzing and correcting the audio. FCPX does these things in background but it bogs a slower system down too much for me.
I use it also for Illustrator and InDesign CS6, but the Mac Mini handled these just fine. I can't say I see much difference in the performance of both programs, but I'm a slow worker in both of these so maybe I'm not pushing it very much.
For storage I got a Pegasus TB2 array that I am running as RAID 5, but I do another backup of digitized primary source material to a different hard disk that I transport daily off site. If I had to start over again I would configure the RAID for full redundancy and just buy a bigger unit. Capturing all the stuff I get from tapes is such a pain that I would not like to contemplate doing it over again if two disks in the RAID 5 were to fail. I would back it all up to the Cloud but I live in a very rural area and all we have here for internet service is slow DSL from a terrible provider.
I think if I did not have a lot of video to transcode I would not have bought the Mac Pro, but would have gotten an iMac. I would never go back to Windows under any circumstances. I found running Premiere on Windows to be too unstable. Maybe things have changed with more recent versions but I got too many "NTLDR is missing" blue screens to ever trust Windows again.
Just my two cents worth.
Yesterday I fed the Mac Pro a big batch of Mpeg 4 (maybe 20 or so converted from 60 minute VHS tapes) files and it was done in under 15 minutes. I actually got some heat out of the top of the Mac Pro! What it was doing was importing and transcoding the files into Pro Res 422 and analyzing and correcting the audio. FCPX does these things in background but it bogs a slower system down too much for me.
I use it also for Illustrator and InDesign CS6, but the Mac Mini handled these just fine. I can't say I see much difference in the performance of both programs, but I'm a slow worker in both of these so maybe I'm not pushing it very much.
For storage I got a Pegasus TB2 array that I am running as RAID 5, but I do another backup of digitized primary source material to a different hard disk that I transport daily off site. If I had to start over again I would configure the RAID for full redundancy and just buy a bigger unit. Capturing all the stuff I get from tapes is such a pain that I would not like to contemplate doing it over again if two disks in the RAID 5 were to fail. I would back it all up to the Cloud but I live in a very rural area and all we have here for internet service is slow DSL from a terrible provider.
I think if I did not have a lot of video to transcode I would not have bought the Mac Pro, but would have gotten an iMac. I would never go back to Windows under any circumstances. I found running Premiere on Windows to be too unstable. Maybe things have changed with more recent versions but I got too many "NTLDR is missing" blue screens to ever trust Windows again.
Just my two cents worth.