DP and the Mac Pro Late 2013: about to change my system.

[groove]

I’m sure this topic might have been covered, but I can’t find any recent threads. Forgive me if I’m wrong!

I have a question to the Unicorns who have changed their old Mac Pro to the new one.

Have you noticed any significant improvements, speed bumps, stability compared to the system you had? Do you consider it to be a good move and did it improved your workflow?

I’m looking at the Geekbench results and, for the 64-bit Multi-core results, my actual system is slightly better than the Late 2013 4 cores. However, on the 64-bit Single Core results, it is in the middle of the pack.

I know that the SSD and Thunderbolt will make a difference, but I’m wondering if it will be that much.

My actual system is a Mac Pro 5,1 (Early 2009) (I changed the 4 cores CPU to a 6 cores 3,46 GHz last year) , 24 GB ram, 1 TB internal HD for system and apps, 3 internal SSD for jobs and samples.

I’m looking at a Mac Pro (Late 2013) 3500 MHz 6 cores, 32 GB ram, 512 Flash SSD.

I will have to sell my UAD PCI cards and get a Satellite Thunderbolt instead. I’m not sure if my Firewire Traveler will work and if so, if it will slow down the system or if I need to change it as well.

Any comments or advices will be greatly appreciated. I’m between two projects and planning to make the move this month.

Thanks!

[Gravity Jim]

I did not make the move, for the very reasons you give. My aluminum 12-core with 32gb of RAM runs smoking hot, and I can't see getting rid of my drives and peripherals for any reason, but especially not for Thunderbolt (an I/O solution already in doubt).

Maybe others who have made the move will say differently, but the new trashcans just don't run enough faster (or not at all, in the low end cases) to make me spend the dollars and time.

BTW, mad props to all the Unicorners who advocated the CPU upgrade.

[mikehalloran]

1T SSDs have hit the $300 price point. You can get a Samsung 850 EVO 500G for around $150 if you shop around. An adapter to make it fit your MP is about $11.

I would try one for your boot drive. Run El Capitán or Yosemite 10.10.5 and enable TRIM or Mavericks and use Trim Enabler.app.

A PCIe blade will give the fastest performance due to the SATA II limitation in the buss but the real world performance boost over an SSD won't be as dramatic as an SSD over an HD.

There is a way to get the full SATA III performance from a Mac Pro. Get a PCIe card that supports eSATA and run an SSD from an inexpensive dock (or a spare bay inside the Mac if the card has internal SATA ports). If all of your drive bays are full, eSATA is ideal.

It doesn't cost much and you might really like the speed bump. If not, you'll know that, too.

I ran my SSD via eSATA for over a year before I installed it into my iMac. Once I used it, going back to a spinner was never an issue. I bought a 2T 850 EVO once they became available. Replacing the drive on a 2010 iMac is not as easy as a Mac Pro and I wanted to do it only once.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

FWIW, I moved from a late 2008 3,1 to a 4-core, 2013 trash can earlier this year. I also opted for a 1TB internal SSD and 32GB RAM.

Of course, booting up is significantly faster (10 seconds at worst as opposed to 2 minutes on the 2008 machine. Apps launch faster, but the big difference is performance. DP still maxes out the CPU when starting up (What the heck?) and at start of sequence (sometimes) but after that initial surge never sees any impact on the CPU.

I used all the internal drive bays join the 2008 MP, so I had to move those to docks (one TB and one USB3). Also a couple of drives in external FW enclosures. By the time I was done I spent about $1k on the peripherals (docks, TB to FW cables, etc). In the end, it's all working well. The MOTU Track 16 and enclosures for the spinners are happy with the TB to FW adaptors. Pass thru also works, so I can daisy chain 400 or 800 FW devices as needed.

The big surprise for me was my electric bill. It immediately dropped by about $50/month after moving to the trash can.

My only suggestion is get as big an SSD as you can. They are proprietary with Apple, and while there are 3rd party solutions now, they were pretty pricey last time I checked. You DON'T want to replace the SSD if you can avoid it.

My dual DVBI monitors are also happy with their adaptors. I tried the HDMI port but it didn't seem as responsive. Probably due to an incompatible monitor, plus in some cases you need a $100 adaptor to use certain monitors. In a dual monitor setup it's working nicely.

I'm on 10.10.5 and probably staying put until Make Music fixes Finale. Even then, I'm concerned about Adobe and some Microsoft compatibility. I'll probably install El Cap on the 2008 and see how it goes on a clean install.

There ARE graphic card issues on the trash cans! One of my cards had to be replaced in the first month. It's a known problem but Apple won't offer to fix it unless you report it as a warranty issue and they can see the problem. Just look out for that.

Can't think of much else to report related to your ???, but I will add that I am extremely happy with the upgrade. It's so damn quite and energy efficient.

[HCMarkus]

Unless you REALLY need it now, I'd wait. New MP is likely in 2016; better bang for buck.

Another choice: build a MP like Jim's; you can start with a 2009 Octo 2.26 ($900), add two de-lidded X5680s ($400) and GPU of choice and, of course, the aforementioned SSDs, for a powerhouse for a lot less money.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Unless you REALLY need it now, I'd wait. New MP is likely in 2016; better bang for buck.

Another choice: build a MP like Jim's; you can start with a 2009 Octo 2.26 ($900), add two de-lidded X5680s ($400) and GPU of choice and, of course, the aforementioned SSDs, for a powerhouse for a lot less money.

If and when...

[doodles]

1T SSDs have hit the $300 price point. You can get a Samsung 850 EVO 500G for around $150 if you shop around. An adapter to make it fit your MP is about $11.

I would try one for your boot drive. Run El Capitán or Yosemite 10.10.5 and enable TRIM or Mavericks and use Trim Enabler.app.

A PCIe blade will give the fastest performance due to the SATA II limitation in the buss but the real world performance boost over an SSD won't be as dramatic as an SSD over an HD.

There is a way to get the full SATA III performance from a Mac Pro. Get a PCIe card that supports eSATA and run an SSD from an inexpensive dock (or a spare bay inside the Mac if the card has internal SATA ports). If all of your drive bays are full, eSATA is ideal.

This is EXACTLY what I've done this week. Waiting for them to arrive, so will let you on how I get on. Samsung EVO's are notoriously dodgy after a year or so, so have gone with Samsung PRO's. Have bought 2 * 512 gigs to put on a RAID card (which will act as a 1 gig drive). This will go in a PCI slot, so will act as SATA 3 (rather than 2). Already have my apps, etc, on an SSD in another PCI slot, so my project files will go on this RAID drive.

I had my 2010 aluminium mac upgraded this year to a 12 core 3.66, with 32 gigs of RAM. While DP still grinds to a halt sometimes (mostly because of the size of the template and the number of VI's and VE Pros on it), I can't see me getting THAT much more performance out of a trashcan for now.

Will let you know what difference the PCI RAIS stuff makes once I've got it installed...

[mikehalloran]

Samsung EVO's are notoriously dodgy after a year or so,

Not true. Only the 840 EVO had a problem (stale data) and the current firmware upgrade seems to be working.

The 830, 830 EVO, 840, 840 PRO, 845 EVO and 850 EVO are solid performers and use a different NAND than the one that caused the 840 EVO headaches. The 830 series, 840 and 840 PRO have had firmware updates to make them more compatible with ultra-slim notebook computers.

The 850 Pro had a firmware upgrade issue shortly after it was released in 2014 but Samsung fixed it.

Other than that, the 850 PRO does have a 10 year warranty vs 5 year for the 850 EVO. Nothing to sneeze at. If you decide to go to the nMP later, you can always put these SSDs in a TB or USB 3 enclosure to use with the new machine.

[groove]

Thanks everyone for your sound advices.

I've already upgraded my CPU and GPU two years ago to the fastest ones my modest 2009 4-cores could get at the time and changed my internal HDs to SSDs. My only options are to max my ram from 24 to to 32 GB and get a eSATA PCI card as mike suggested.

Get a PCIe card that supports eSATA and run an SSD from an inexpensive dock (or a spare bay inside the Mac if the card has internal SATA ports). If all of your drive bays are full, eSATA is ideal.

But I'm running out of juice with my UAD cards (Solo and Duo) and I don't want to add another one as they are becoming difficult to resale. Buying a Satellite Firewire is out of the question for future compatibility. I'd better change to a Satellite Quad Thunderblt in due time.

I could get a fare price reselling my system but for how long, I have no clue!

I'm still evaluating the options and let you know how it goes.

[rickorick]

What about VEPro? Get another MacPro as a slave.

[doodles]

by mikehalloran » 12 Nov 2015 09:53 pm

Samsung EVO's are notoriously dodgy after a year or so,
Not true. Only the 840 EVO had a problem (stale data) and the current firmware upgrade seems to be working.

I'll bow to your judgement Mike! Not a big techie. All I know is I've had quite a few of them fail, and when asking around tech friends they said the same thing. But I've probably got bad juju

[doodles]

by rickorick » 13 Nov 2015 02:11 am

What about VEPro? Get another MacPro as a slave.

The problem with VE Pro (not really a problem - it's amazing software. Couldn't live without it!) is the number of plug-ins on large templates. I have around 30 instances, with 2 slave mac pros hosting the samples (32 gigs in each). But all these instances of VE Pro in my template really slow DP down.