Which (newer) OS X for 2008 Mac Pro?

[MP3.1]

Hi all,

I'm currently still running Snow Leopard on my 2008 Mac Pro (2x2.8Ghz, 14Gb RAM, all HDD's, AMD HD5770) and want to upgrade my OS X to something newer (mostly because of compatibility with Lightroom 5).

I'm a bit worried that stuff will slow down when I upgrade to Lion or Mountain Lion. The OS is currently running like a charm (I know, all things are relative.. ). I mainly use my MP for photo editing and the occasional time lapse creation.

Safe to upgrade to Mountain Lion? Or will I notice significant speed drops Safari wise, loading programs etc.?

Thanks a lot!

 

[spoonie1972]

Hi all,

I'm currently still running Snow Leopard on my 2008 Mac Pro (2x2.8Ghz, 14Gb RAM, all HDD's, AMD HD5770) and want to upgrade my OS X to something newer (mostly because of compatibility with Lightroom 5).

I'm a bit worried that stuff will slow down when I upgrade to Lion or Mountain Lion. The OS is currently running like a charm (I know, all things are relative.. ). I mainly use my MP for photo editing and the occasional time lapse creation.

Safe to upgrade to Mountain Lion? Or will I notice significant speed drops Safari wise, loading programs etc.?

Thanks a lot!

My reco is to buy another harddrive, and do a clean install. if you like it, great. if you dont, change your startup volume.

i can't recommend *ever* getting rid of a system that works. Backups!

 

[OS6-OSX]

If you are going to purchase Lightroom 5, see if they have a 30 day free demo.
Try it with 10.6.8 before moving to 10.7 or 10.8
Avid started writing Media Composer 6 with 10.6.8 because 10.7 was not out. But when MC6 was released the minimum requirement was listed as 10.7!
Knowing this I knew 10.6.8 would work with MC6!

 

[clamnectar]

I'm running ML on the same computer as you, and it's excellent. Certainly no slower than SL. Possibly faster. I wouldn't think twice about upgrading if you need to.

 

[Danboard]

Running Mountain Lion on my Early 2008 Mac Pro. Runs really smooth with no problems. I have Lightroom as well and I have not encountered any problems with it. You probably will experience the same should you choose to upgrade.

 

[stjames70]

Mountain Lion

My computer is identical to yours, but running 10.8.4.

No issues, and running like a charm. I got four 960gb Crucial M500s running hardware RAID 0 in that machine clocked at 2000 MB/s. It is also running a Nvidia Titan card. I love the new form factor of the upcoming Mac Pro, but it makes me wonder why I really need to upgrade at all to the new Mac Pro.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Why now, if you can have 10.9 in a few months? Mavericks has better ColorSync and display support, newer drivers, supports OpenGL 4.1 and OpenCL 1.2 and so on.

 

[GraniteTheWolf]

Running Mountain Lion on my Early 2008 Mac Pro. Runs really smooth with no problems. I have Lightroom as well and I have not encountered any problems with it. You probably will experience the same should you choose to upgrade.

+1

I also am running Mountain Lion on my early 2008 2.8ghz 8-core mac pro. No issues at all!

 

[sailmac]

+1

I also am running Mountain Lion on my early 2008 2.8ghz 8-core mac pro. No issues at all!

+1 more

I'm running 10.8.4 on a MP 3,1
12GB
2 SSDs (boot and scratch)
4 HDDs (1 pair RAID0 users, 1 TimeMachine, 1 nightly clone)
eSATA card docks 2 more drives when needed
external BT antenna mod

I'm finding ML to be every bit as stable as SL. The UI changes and a few other quirks took a short time to become second nature, but now I believe I'm actually become more productive in my work flows.

You could wait till Mavericks is available, but unless you are a fan of x.0 or x.1 releases you might be waiting 6 months for something comfortable to land. In the meantime, spend the relatively small price for ML and whatever updates to your favorite software and enjoy the benefits available today.

I don't think you'll experience any drops in app performance; instead, mainly gains.

If by chance something does feel slow, you could add a SSD drive for boot. That makes a noticeable difference no matter which OS you're on.

 

[MP3.1]

thanks all! I'll go ahead and give it a try. Will install it on a new drive and keep my current bootdrive in case I want to go back (probably not reading your comments).