Upgrading 2013 Mac Pro to 128GB RAM

[Chris T]

Hi Braintrust

I currently have a late 2013 Trashcan Mac Pro which runs a large template in Digital Performer 11 and VEPro7. Hundreds of MIDI, Audio and VI synths, plugins etc, which I enable/disable as needed while I work on various projects. (I also have two Mac Minis on which I run much of my orchestral libraries, reserving the Trashcan to running everything else except strings, wind and brass).

I’ve been working with 64GB of RAM on the Trashcan for years but it occured to me, with several big projects looming and so the need for a big template (switching between projects) that upgrading to 128GB RAM might be a good idea.

However on speaking with OWC about the upgrade kit:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/1333D3Z3M128/

I was advised that due to the 32GB chip size (x4), the speed of the RAM is lower (going from 1866MHz to 1333MHz), and this (they kindly informed me) could slow down my system.

Does anyone have experience with moving from 1866Mhz to 1333Mhz RAM and whether they saw a noticeable downgrade in speed - especially when working in a DAW such as DP ?

Many thanks,
CT

[mikehalloran]

64GB is usually plenty for DP. If you have a browser and other apps going simultaneously or are into Photoshop, you might want to increase the RAM. If you reboot daily, you’ll minimize the effects of apps and plugins with memory leaks (avoiding is impossible but reboot clears RAM cache).

Do you still have the original AHCI SSD in yours? If so, you can nearly triple your Read/Write speed by replacing it with an NVMe 3 x4 blade. You will absolutely see the difference if you do. These come rated “fast” like the OWC and “slow” like the Crucial P2 (SSD+pin adapter + heat sink is less than half the price of the OWC). You have only a 2-lane PCIe bus and cannot take advantage of the additional speed so a P2 will maximize the R/W speed in your machine. These take about 5 minutes to replace in an MP 6.1 like yours not counting data transfer.

[Chris T]

Thanks Mike

Yes I'll consider the SSD upgrade.

I definitely need more RAM due to running ,multiple large mulits, RAM-heavy VIs and a large VEPOr 7 template in the background. I'm always pushing the RAM limit.

Do you know if going from 1866 to 1333MHZ RAM poses a noticeable downturn in speed?

[mikehalloran]

Thanks Mike

Yes I'll consider the SSD upgrade.

I definitely need more RAM due to running ,multiple large mulits, RAM-heavy VIs and a large VEPOr 7 template in the background. I'm always pushing the RAM limit.

Do you know if going from 1866 to 1333MHZ RAM poses a noticeable downturn in speed?

Geekbench scores will reflect a slight degradation of overall speed but this is rarely noticeable in the real world. The advantages… well, if you didn’t have enough RAM, overall performance will improve and that’s the goal. Weird that the use of 32GB modules causes this — but it does.