dp8/macbook air or dp7/mac pro

Macintosh software/hardware discussion and troubleshooting

Moderator: James Steele

Post Reply
cgs
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 6:08 am
Primary DAW OS: MacOS

dp8/macbook air or dp7/mac pro

Post by cgs »

Hello all,

Returning to DP once again, looking for advice on which setup would provide a better experience. 8-16 audio tracks, effects, handful of VI's, MIDI. This is basically a matter of old mac pro w/dp7 VS new (probably underpowered for pro audio) macbook air w/dp8:

2013 macbook air 6,2
1.7ghz dual-core i7
8gb ram
ssd
mac os x 10.9.2
dp 8

2006 mac pro 1,1
cpu upgrade (2) 2.66 ghz quad-core xeon x5355
8gb ram
sata
mac os x 10.6.8
dp 7

Or none of the above... :/

Thanks for your help
Mac Pro1.1 8-Core 2.66 GHz, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.6.8, DP 8.06, Arturia Laboratory, Yamaha i88x (long live mLAN), Korg OASYS-PCI (long live OASYS-PCI), lots of old Ensoniq gear (long live Ensoniq)

Wow I really need to update my sig...
User avatar
mikehalloran
Posts: 15132
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:08 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Sillie Con Valley

Re: dp8/macbook air or dp7/mac pro

Post by mikehalloran »

DP 8 runs 32bit or 64bit and is the version being supported. It will certainly run on a 1.1 Mac Pro - many here are doing it.

The MB Air is a pretty good machine. My wife has the current model and I like it a lot. It will have 128 or 256G Flash for storage. You will need an external drive - either Thunderbolt or usb 3. Get an SSD if the budget allows. It can also handle a second monitor through the TB port.
DP 11.31; 828mkII FW, micro lite, M4, MTP/AV USB Firmware 2.0.1
2023 Mac Studio M2 8TB, 192GB RAM, OS Sonoma 14.4, USB4 8TB external, M-Audio AIR 192|14, Mackie ProFxv3 6/10/12; 2012 MBPs Catalina, Mojave
IK-NI-Izotope-PSP-Garritan-Antares, LogicPro X, Finale 27.4, Dorico 5.2, Notion 6, Overture 5, TwistedWave, DSP-Q 5, SmartScore64 Pro, Toast 20 Pro
cgs
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 6:08 am
Primary DAW OS: MacOS

Re: dp8/macbook air or dp7/mac pro

Post by cgs »

Thanks Mike. I have both of these machines, trying to decide which to set up for DP. Just ran benchmarks on both, the old MP still comes out ahead, probably due to the sheer number of cores. I'm assuming the bottleneck with the MP vs the MPA will be the drive (non-SSD vs SSD). Do you happen to have a recommendation - if I add a single SSD, would it be better to use as the boot drive or the drive containing VI sample libraries (or can one drive be used for both purposes)? I use an external FW drive for recording.
Mac Pro1.1 8-Core 2.66 GHz, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.6.8, DP 8.06, Arturia Laboratory, Yamaha i88x (long live mLAN), Korg OASYS-PCI (long live OASYS-PCI), lots of old Ensoniq gear (long live Ensoniq)

Wow I really need to update my sig...
User avatar
mikehalloran
Posts: 15132
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:08 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Sillie Con Valley

Re: dp8/macbook air or dp7/mac pro

Post by mikehalloran »

The MP 1.1 has a bottleneck on its bus speed compared to your newer machine over eSATA or Thunderbolt.

I recommend that your single SSD be used as the boot drive - even though it won't be as fast as it would be on a later Mac Pro. You can stream samples from mechanical drives or the main drive. It's not the issue that it was on the G4 where you had to use single threads on multiple drives to wring every last drop of efficiency out of the system. (the good old days, right?)

A PCIe 'blade' drive, unfortunately, suffers from a slow PCIe bus on these. It will work but there is no speed advantage.

Many good threads on SSDs.
DP 11.31; 828mkII FW, micro lite, M4, MTP/AV USB Firmware 2.0.1
2023 Mac Studio M2 8TB, 192GB RAM, OS Sonoma 14.4, USB4 8TB external, M-Audio AIR 192|14, Mackie ProFxv3 6/10/12; 2012 MBPs Catalina, Mojave
IK-NI-Izotope-PSP-Garritan-Antares, LogicPro X, Finale 27.4, Dorico 5.2, Notion 6, Overture 5, TwistedWave, DSP-Q 5, SmartScore64 Pro, Toast 20 Pro
Post Reply