Mac Pro old vs new

[BKK-OZ]

Personally, I'm looking at the $3,500 Mac Pro 6,1 Hex. I can get it set up for my needs at around $7.5K including three Apple monitors (I only need two for DP but I use lots of screen real estate in my day job, typically 60-80 tabs open at a time so three will be nice).

That is what I have - with a Dell 27" monitor. Very snappy! I run a very low buffer (often 128) and the only thing that causes processor spikes is the naughty Mach V.

I don't know that I would want more screen - I find the good ol' alt-tab (yes, I use Windoze at work, so I think that way) coupled with my big monitor is plenty of screen real estate. Or you could use Shooshie's Spaces technique to toggle between open windows.

I don't know that I would want more of screen to hunt around on when working. Don't forget, you have to move your mouse around a lot more when you have a lot more screen real estate to cover.

[HCMarkus]

You have me thinking hard about this path. It really seems to be the sweet spot for now.

Is it really as easy as getting in the box, pulling the processor drawers and plugging in new chips (I read the chip replacement tutorial - seems doable)? I assume I can more more less just move the 4 internal drives from my MacPro2,1.

Its a little more involved than replacing RAM, but easy as long as you go with a 5,1 dual CPU model - 2010 or 2012. Most ship with a 5770 GPU, which seems to be perfectly adequate for DAW purposes. If you are brave, you can try upgrading a 4,1 (2009) dual, but there are CPU height issues, as you've probably already read about and you'll want to upgrade the GPU.

To do the job, you pull the processor drawers, unscrew the heatsinks (use a long handled Allen wrench - I've got one, call me and I'll loan it to you), lift off the heatsinks, then unclamp the original CPUs. Clean the heatsink bases, clamp down the new CPUs, apply thermal paste, slide in Heatsink/CPU A assembly first, test, then B.

And yes, you can move the drives, but note the drive sleds are a little different, so you'll have to dismount drives from the 2,1 sleds and re-mount in the 5,1 sleds. But it is cool the 4,1 and 5,1 optical bays provide SATA and power; the second bay is great for an SSD. I have a three SSDs hanging out there; I don't use the internal optical drive and have extra SATA ports on a PCIe card routed via a cable to the optical bay.

If you use Xeon x5690's, you brush up very close to the 6,1 12 core Mac Pro Geekbench score. x5680's get you almost as close. Either will leave your 2,1 so far behind the dust will already have settled.

[supersonic]

My MBP scores indeed around 11000 but working with Hollywood at 256 is hard. Lots of freezing and buffer changes using VE pro. BFD 3 is also a big CPU hog. Of course thee is the option not to run the VIs in real time but that has not proven reliable on my set-up. So I am really looking for lots of headroom in that department, short of buying a PC slave for the libraries - something worth looking into but somehow a clunky solution in a way. So the battle is raging . On one side the new tech and promise of ever higher performance (you can upgrade any new Mac Pro 6,1 processor wise) but at a price. Also the new beast is so small... And quiet. I should think the old one would need to go next door, right?

[HCMarkus]

My MBP scores indeed around 11000 but working with Hollywood at 256 is hard. Lots of freezing and buffer changes using VE pro. BFD 3 is also a big CPU hog. Of course thee is the option not to run the VIs in real time but that has not proven reliable on my set-up. So I am really looking for lots of headroom in that department, short of buying a PC slave for the libraries - something worth looking into but somehow a clunky solution in a way. So the battle is raging . On one side the new tech and promise of ever higher performance (you can upgrade any new Mac Pro 6,1 processor wise) but at a price. Also the new beast is so small... And quiet. I should think the old one would need to go next door, right?

Mine's not terribly loud but it sits in my machine room so the studio is silent. If quiet is important, the nMP has the oMP beat hands down!

[SixStringGeek]

If I were in your shoes I would wait and not go backward in time.
...Beside if you need lots of CPU power I'll consider Mac Pro. For the price you pay it is a good deal.
These are top of the line components that would last you for years of upgrades.

That's what I thought about my MacPro2,1 but the move to 64bit put the lie to that. It wasn't really upgradeable for years to come. I look at computers as appliances - once built they are 'frozen' - minimal os upgrades. Maybe I add ram or disk but I don't expect more than that.

The simple economics of the new MacPro is hard to justify considering the used market. For $2500 and a bit of elbow grease I can get GB score of 27k. Or I can go top of the line on the new MacPro (which curiously only offers dual cpus at 2.7GHz but single cpus at 3.5GHz - red flag to me right there. Can it handle two 3.5GHz processors without overheating?

And then I need all the Thunderbolt to everything-else adaptors which adds a lot of cost. I priced one out - $8228 to get 32k GB score. At the moment I've got a machine that gets around 11k GB score and it has seldom slowed me down since switching to 64bit DP.

So to do the math - I can get $2500/(27-11)GB = ~$156/1k GB improvement vs $8228/(32-11) = ~$391/1k GB improvement. More than double the price per performance point for only 15% faster machine. Plus a much easier upgrade path and a machine I will not likely need to touch for 5+ years.

Still weighing the choices but I'm not really seeing the value in the new MacPros given the prices.

[supersonic]

Mine's not terribly loud but it sits in my machine room so the studio is silent. If quiet is important, the nMP has the oMP beat hands down![/quote]

Yes. This is its strong point

[malditoyanki]

If I were in your shoes I would wait and not go backward in time.
...Beside if you need lots of CPU power I'll consider Mac Pro. For the price you pay it is a good deal.
These are top of the line components that would last you for years of upgrades.

That's what I thought about my MacPro2,1 but the move to 64bit put the lie to that. It wasn't really upgradeable for years to come. I look at computers as appliances - once built they are 'frozen' - minimal os upgrades. Maybe I add ram or disk but I don't expect more than that.

The simple economics of the new MacPro is hard to justify considering the used market. For $2500 and a bit of elbow grease I can get GB score of 27k. Or I can go top of the line on the new MacPro (which curiously only offers dual cpus at 2.7GHz but single cpus at 3.5GHz - red flag to me right there. Can it handle two 3.5GHz processors without overheating?

And then I need all the Thunderbolt to everything-else adaptors which adds a lot of cost. I priced one out - $8228 to get 32k GB score. At the moment I've got a machine that gets around 11k GB score and it has seldom slowed me down since switching to 64bit DP.

So to do the math - I can get $2500/(27-11)GB = ~$156/1k GB improvement vs $8228/(32-11) = ~$391/1k GB improvement. More than double the price per performance point for only 15% faster machine. Plus a much easier upgrade path and a machine I will not likely need to touch for 5+ years.

Still weighing the choices but I'm not really seeing the value in the new MacPros given the prices.

Such a tough call man...but you seem to be right. I priced out an upgrade via OWC for my 2010 3.33 ghz Westmere at about $4k (2x3.33 ghz CPU's and 3 SSD PCIe drives.)

Lowest buy-in for new Mac Pro for my needs is around $7.5k OUCH.

I've got processor power to burn as well. It's the slowness of the 3G SSD architecture and 48GB of RAM ceiling that's killing me right now.

[supersonic]

I see we all look at it from a single machine point of view. Anyone here has gone the PC Slave way? I always liked my set-up simple but perhaps getting a PC to run my heavy libraries is a way to go? Anyone care to chip in?

[HCMarkus]

I see we all look at it from a single machine point of view. Anyone here has gone the PC Slave way? I always liked my set-up simple but perhaps getting a PC to run my heavy libraries is a way to go? Anyone care to chip in?

This is probably the most cost-effective approach going, using dimestore PCs (or multiple Macs) and Vienna Pro via ethernet, and may still be the only real answer for folks running huge orchestral templates. Downside is the challenge of keeping track of assets associated with any given project, not to mention dealing with another OS, but very doable.

[malditoyanki]

I see we all look at it from a single machine point of view. Anyone here has gone the PC Slave way? I always liked my set-up simple but perhaps getting a PC to run my heavy libraries is a way to go? Anyone care to chip in?

This is probably the most cost-effective approach going, using dimestore PCs (or multiple Macs) and Vienna Pro via ethernet, and may still be the only real answer for folks running huge orchestral templates. Downside is the challenge of keeping track of assets associated with any given project, not to mention dealing with another OS, but very doable.

I used to do this, but swore it off entirely 6 years ago and there's no way I'm going back! Besides, when I price out a PC powerful enough to do what I want it still comes in around $7k.

[bayswater]

I used to do this, but swore it off entirely 6 years ago and there's no way I'm going back! Besides, when I price out a PC powerful enough to do what I want it still comes in around $7k.

No kidding. I got all excited when the windows version of DP came out thinking about all the stuff I read about how you can get a super PC for next to nothing. But when you price something decent there's no real bargains.

[supersonic]

I see we all look at it from a single machine point of view. Anyone here has gone the PC Slave way? I always liked my set-up simple but perhaps getting a PC to run my heavy libraries is a way to go? Anyone care to chip in?

This is probably the most cost-effective approach going, using dimestore PCs (or multiple Macs) and Vienna Pro via ethernet, and may still be the only real answer for folks running huge orchestral templates. Downside is the challenge of keeping track of assets associated with any given project, not to mention dealing with another OS, but very doable.

I used to do this, but swore it off entirely 6 years ago and there's no way I'm going back! Besides, when I price out a PC powerful enough to do what I want it still comes in around $7k.

Do you mean that having two computers was challenging or having the other as PC. I heard folks saying that Play behaves much better under PC. Hence my question. No doubt I I would prefer doing it all in one box. A lot less hassle as you say, albeit a lot more expensive if I was to go the Mac Pro way.

[malditoyanki]

It was a pain to keep both computers updated and playing nice. Also, the amount of heat two big CPUs can kick out in even a decent sized room can be staggering.

I'm seriously looking at the dual 6 core 3.33 ghz upgrade and a couple PCIe SSD's. I think I could run that for at least another 3-4 years without a thought. My processors are 50% idol as it is even during the most demanding playback. Those 3G SSD's just can't spit out the sample data fast enough hence the clicking and popping I get during big sequences.

[supersonic]

It was a pain to keep both computers updated and playing nice. Also, the amount of heat two big CPUs can kick out in even a decent sized room can be staggering.

I'm seriously looking at the dual 6 core 3.33 ghz upgrade and a couple PCIe SSD's. I think I could run that for at least another 3-4 years without a thought. My processors are 50% idol as it is even during the most demanding playback. Those 3G SSD's just can't spit out the sample data fast enough hence the clicking and popping I get during big sequences.

Were you using VEP to sync them?

[malditoyanki]

I believe I was using Gigastudio