What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

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alex2035
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What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by alex2035 »

Hi,
our 2009 Mac Pro went dead in a session last night, we are travelling USA to go get a new one, is the Mac Pro ( the black one) appropiate to run DP?. I find for instance that it doesnt sport Firewire any longer, so what to do with the MOTU 2408 ,the MIDI Timepiece, MTP AV, MOTU 2408 MKII, the 3 monitors ( VGA, HDMI and a Thunderbolt one new yet in the box), I suppose there are adaptors for sure.

What about OSX? we are on 10.8.5 , I think this is gonna be Sierra, any problems with DP or Plugins?

Of course I am doing my own research but perhaps somebody here has experience already, that would be of great help, Thanks a lot.
Regards

alex
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

There are Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptors that work fine. The trash can MacPro is great for DP. OS 12.13 is not yet recommended by MOTU as it is said to delete DP authorizations. 10.12.5 working great here with a few TB to FW adaptors.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by alex2035 »

Great info, thank you MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by mikehalloran »

There are Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptors that work fine.
These will have FW800 type connectors. Best to use FW800–400 cables to connect your units to the adapters. Adding another adapter in between is not recommended.

The Mac Pro has an HDMI out.
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/
A simple Mini DVI-HDMI is all you need to hook additional monitors to the TB ports. Best Buy etc. have them from around $7 up.
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Di ... QF7WQN80B3
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Your 2408 will not work with any Thunderbolt Mac. There is no PCIe to Thunderbolt solution that can make it work. Time to retire it. Many old threads on this. (PCIe to TB chassis for those cards such as RAID etc. where it is possible cost more than a new MOTU interface anyway).

You might save some $$$ if the configuration you want is in the Refurb Store (these cannot be further customized by Apple). Note that you cannot get these from the local Apple Store unless you arrange to have one shipped there. AppleCare can be added at time of purchase or up to one year after.

https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by HCMarkus »

You can also get 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros for very reasonable prices as drop-in replacements.

I am running two hot-rodded 2009s that think they are 5,1s.... see this thread, and note that X5680 and W3680 CPUs are now well under $100 each:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58848
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What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by James Steele »

I wouldn't recommend buying the black "trashcan" Mac. It's an end of life model. Apple is going to release a new modular MacPro in 2018 supposedly. In the meantime, you can hot rod a 4,1 or 5,1 into a 6 core or 12 core machine that is very fast and you can keep all your current interfaces in service.

I recently scored a 4,1 8-core from a private party on Craigslist for the killer price of $300. I just ordered two 3.33 hexcore CPUs for $145, and 64GB of RAM (8x8GB) for $160. Total out of pocket $605. Result: screaming system that should last me for years and forestall upgrading audio interfaces as well.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by alex2035 »

OK, lots off information here.

Thanks everybody for your help and advice, hope this is sorted out, luckily we have 2 mirrored controls and we can carry on one in the meantime unless it becomes real busy...

Regards
alex
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by dewdman42 »

James Steele wrote:I wouldn't recommend buying the black "trashcan" Mac. It's an end of life model. Apple is going to release a new modular MacPro in 2018 supposedly. In the meantime, you can hot rod a 4,1 or 5,1 into a 6 core or 12 core machine that is very fast and you can keep all your current interfaces in service.

I recently scored a 4,1 8-core from a private party on Craigslist for the killer price of $300. I just ordered two 3.33 hexcore CPUs for $145, and 64GB of RAM (8x8GB) for $160. Total out of pocket $605. Result: screaming system that should last me for years and forestall upgrading audio interfaces as well.
Nice!

I also concur. I bought a 2010 mac Pro, 12 cores at 3.33ghz. Runs great, my PCI hardware works great in it and as well I have lot of storage mounted inside the box, which I prefer to external harddrives sitting around everywhere. There are refurbished mac pros you can get from various vendors where they have done all the upgrading for you, that's what I did. I paid a bit more than James did, but I'm very happy with the purchase.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by frankf »

James and others, I upgraded from Mac Pro 3,1 to Apple refurb 6,1 almost a year ago and have been more than pleased. The price was fantastic and it screams with DP and will last me many years. I'm going to point out without malice and friendly way that it's ironic to say the supported Trashcan is "end of life model" when you're all talking about upgrading unsupported, older MPs. Sure, it's less expensive to go that route, but I've found that the modern processors, IO, graphics ( DP IS a graphics program and we want to drive larger, more precise monitors), connectivity and even weight and cooling and more have made a great difference in my workflow. And I paid $4k for a smokin' music computer. I'm an obvious fan of the trashcan.


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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by James Steele »

frankf wrote:James and others, I upgraded from Mac Pro 3,1 to Apple refurb 6,1 almost a year ago and have been more than pleased. The price was fantastic and it screams with DP and will last me many years. I'm going to point out without malice and friendly way that it's ironic to say the supported Trashcan is "end of life model" when you're all talking about upgrading unsupported, older MPs. Sure, it's less expensive to go that route, but I've found that the modern processors, IO, graphics ( DP IS a graphics program and we want to drive larger, more precise monitors), connectivity and even weight and cooling and more have made a great difference in my workflow. And I paid $4k for a smokin' music computer. I'm an obvious fan of the trashcan.


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I hear you, but I'm talking about "end of life" in that it was introduced and is going away. As for as paying $4K for a smokin' music computer, I will have paid about $600 for a smokin' music computer that will probably post Geekbench scores very close to yours for $3400 less. I'm using a 5770 graphics card that's driving (admittedly older) 30" and 24" Apple Cinema Displays. I have plenty of monitor space and not sure what you're trying to say about DP being a graphics program? I see the same data displayed on the screen you do.

My point is that, in my opinion, one is better off hot-rodding a 4,1 or 5,1 8-core and waiting to see what Apple comes out with next year than buying in to the trashcan Mac. Your mileage obviously varies.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by mhschmieder »

OWC just released a Thunderbolt hub that works with the latest iMacs but possibly not with the MacPro trash can model -- I haven't been able to keep up with all the Thunderbolt variants. It includes FW800.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by dewdman42 »

I agree with James, the next mac next year is the one to keep an eye on. I'm sure the trash can is fast and looks cool and if you're all geared up with thunderbolt and/or FW hardware then great, but getting one of the 2010 macpros as a temporary solution is much more afforadable in order to wait to see what happens next year. If Apple comes out with a truly modular mac, then great, that will be the one to get in my view.

Me personally, I was NEVER interested in the trash can mac and never will be, because it had no PCI slots. I don't want 4 hard drives dangling off the side of my mac. I didn't want to have to replace my PCI based audio hardware with thousands of dollars worth of replacement stuff either.

Personally I'm planning on running my 2010 12 core for as long as OSX will support it because its plenty fast, has plenty of memory, I can put video cards in there to support plenty of monitor, and....most importantly for me...I can keep using my 2408 and 1296 which have been serving me well and would cost me quite a lot to replace the same number of input channels. Also..I like that I can put all the HD's inside the box. I hope Apple's new offering next year will be something closer to what I have then the trash can is...but maybe with updated CPU, thunderbolt, etc. Even then, I won't feel too particularly compelled to upgrade to it because i know apple is gonna charge $5000+ for something equivalent to my 2010 screamer now.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by HCMarkus »

One point in favor of the 4,1/5,1 cheese grater... you can upgrade the graphics card. Mine is running an AMD RX 460 GPU driving a 4k monitor and second 1080 monitor as well. The card cost me under $100. The problem with the 6,1 trashcans is they use proprietary GPUs. If and when one of the two GPUs fails, good luck finding replacement parts for a reasonable price. And they are not upgradeable to newer generation GPUs.

Unlike the trashcan, you can add PCIe SSDs to the cheese grater, as well as multiple SATA SSDs or spinning drives, very easily. No external cases required. Mine houses 5 SSDs and 3 spinners.

You can also upgrade the CPUs in a dual CPU cheese grater to provide CPU horsepower that rivals the fastest trashcan. Cost for the CPUs will total about $150 (X5680).

Unless you absolutely need Thunderbolt connectivity on your Mac, the cheese grater currently provides better bang for the buck. Once the new Mac Pros are introduced (2018 likely), the value proposition may change, as users dump their trashcans for the latest and greatest.

Of course, if the form factor for the trashcan works better for you and you don't mind the noted drawbacks, the small and quiet trashcan could still be the better choice.
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by James Steele »

HCMarkus wrote:Of course, if the form factor for the trashcan works better for you and you don't mind the noted drawbacks, the small and quiet trashcan could still be the better choice.
Well, I will relate a story regarding a drawback to the convection cooled trashcan Macs. I concede that these conditions were extreme and not typical of a normal office or studio environment.

I've was backstage at a corporate event that was held outdoors. They had an LED wall for a screen and the technical area was outdoors and under an awning, but it was a very HOT day. There were two trashcan Macs running PowerPoint (or it might have been more custom presentation software) that included slides as well as some embedded fullscreen video clips. There were fans attempting to cool the general tech area, but not doing all that well. The trashcan Macs were getting flakey due to thermal issues... they may have even shut down.

A friend of mine was the video engineer on that event and he had to devise a solution because the Macs were having issues during rehearsals.

Here's the solution: he sent someone off to buy two metal tubs and dry ice. The ended up setting the Macs on some blocks of wood in the center of the tub, then placing the Macs on the wood blocks and then filling the tub around the Mac with dry ice up to where the button of the Mac was and then if I recall correctly using plastic or some other material to shroud the mac, leaving the exhaust hole at the top. Something like... I wonder if I have pictures.

It ended up working and the trashcan Macs stopped having crashes and thermal shutdowns or whatever, but I have to wonder if the cheesegrater machine would have fared better by having its fans kick into high gear? Fan noise was not an issue in this application since it was backstage in an outdoor event.

And yes... I concede... those are extreme conditions very few people will ever face.

I'll also pass along one other thing I learned. If you have a speaker who flew from the East Coast to give a presentation in the afternoon on the West Coast, and he's going to hook into the system and use his MacBook to run PowerPoint projected to very large screens... make sure he doesn't have Night Shift enabled. I was at an event where at exactly 3pm a keynote presenter's slides that were being projected on big screens to an audience of over 2,000 suddenly started looking very yellowish and "warm." It's not just the screensaver settings you have to watch out for today. :)
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Re: What Mac to replace old Mac Pro?

Post by frankf »

I get it about the upgrade but, as I said, I was coming from a MP 3,1 which had upgrade limitations especially with graphics and old eyes (I bought a 5770 card which didn't work). After 8 years with the 3,1 I had to give it up but I got a lot of improvement for my money with the trash can-more than I'll need for my film work for a while. But yes, my upgrade needs might have been different than others. The 6,1 has been great for me and is a great option and should not be dismissed out of hand.




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