New Mac Pro Announced

[mikehalloran]

No idea why I’m more likely to see these problems in the cheesegrater Mac Pro and 2011 iMac than the 2009–10 iMacs —yet? I did mine a few years ago at the same time I threw an SSD in there.

With those classroom iMacs I maintained for years, I replaced the HDDs with SSDs on a regular schedule. What sold the deal was not that the OE drives were junk and I’d made a bunch of trips to deal with that. It was that classroom temperatures were cooler and the 30 second boot time. Replacing the NVRAM batteries at the same time just made sense and took an extra minute except for those made late 2009–10.

With the earlier 20”/24” iMacs, I had made a dozen service calls to fix screen problems (always the battery) before the school district decided I should just do them all one summer. Not as fast as on a 2011 but nearly as easy.

[HCMarkus]

CPU replacement starts to really make sense when a computer is old enough that used compatible CPUs start hitting the market.

When I converted my first 4,1 quad core cheesgrater to a hex core CPU, the CPU cost me about $600 new. That same CPU now runs $40-45 used on eBay.

Last time I checked, the CPUs utilized in the 6,1 Mac Pro were readily available used on eBay for very reasonable prices. If I were running a quad 6,1, I'd be seriously considering picking up a compatible 6-8-10-12 core CPU used and performing the swap.

EDIT: Just checked: fastest 8-core $184 or less. https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR19W-Intel-Xe ... 1942!US!-1

Looking forward, I have little doubt the 7,1 Mac Pro will provide a similar opportunity a few years down the road. I can see myself picking up a bargain 7,1 someday and bumping up its core count on the cheap.

[James Steele]

Looking forward, I have little doubt the 7,1 Mac Pro will provide a similar opportunity a few years down the road. I can see myself picking up a bargain 7,1 someday and bumping up its core count on the cheap.

Ditto. As someone who really records my own music for fun (not profit), I'll be sitting on the sidelines a while. Besides, I'm recording rock... not orchestral mockups, etc. My 12-core 5,1 (upgraded from a 4,1) should hold me a while.

My problem is my interfaces are dated. Still running the PCIe stuff, which wouldn't bother me so much, but my HD192 is beginning to get noisy. I had the fan replaced years ago with an aftermarket fan that was quiet, but after so often on power up it's starting to make some noise. I should pull it out of the rack and shoot some compressed air through it and see if that helps. But if I end up replacing it, it will be primarily because the cooling fan started "grinding" again.

[bayswater]

For those who are not likely to buy a new MP in the near (or even distant) future, would these things be a way to connect PCI cards to a less expensive system?

https://www.avshop.ca/video-computer-vi ... rQYdW-MKTA

Or are drivers for the cards going to be a problem? And, if drivers are going to be a problem, will they be a problem with the new MP too?

[mothra]

For those who are not likely to buy a new MP in the near (or even distant) future, would these things be a way to connect PCI cards to a less expensive system?

https://www.avshop.ca/video-computer-vi ... rQYdW-MKTA

Or are drivers for the cards going to be a problem? And, if drivers are going to be a problem, will they be a problem with the new MP too?

Yep thats basically how you solve the problem of moving from a loaded Mac Pro to any other Mac. Thats what Ill be doing, but with one of the drive bays OWC has. I was already set on getting a Mini whenever my 2010 Pro can't hang anyway so Im good to keep riding out Mojave until my software won't let me. I wonder what will happen with the older FW interfaces as it is. The old Cuemix needs a 64-bit update before it will run in Catalina still, hopefully they'll keep supporting them or there's more I need to spend to get a new 828ES.

[mikehalloran]

For those who are not likely to buy a new MP in the near (or even distant) future, would these things be a way to connect PCI cards to a less expensive system?

https://www.avshop.ca/video-computer-vi ... rQYdW-MKTA

Or are drivers for the cards going to be a problem? And, if drivers are going to be a problem, will they be a problem with the new MP too?

With many cards, yes.

That never worked with the MOTU PCIe cards. Intel made a change that required different firmware on the 424e card. As the card firmware could not be updated and MOTU was not going to make a new one...

Only one of UAD's card was compatible at the time because the firmware was updatable—as I recall, it took over a year before the firmware release occurred.

So, can this work to enable MOTU cards over TB3? Not resurrecting my 2408 to find out.

This may cause a similar problem with the 7.1 Mac Pro. We'll find out in September.

Apple ended support for eGPU over Thunderbolt 1&2 with OS 10.13.4. TB3 only now. Although the card makers insisted that a driver update was all that would be required, I've not read that ever happened. Limited support came back with Mojave but whether these can be used with newer cards to enable eGPU on the 6.1 Mac Pro and pre-2017 iMacs is not something I know.

[KenNickels]

Back to cheese graters! Lol

Making Apple grate again?

[mikehalloran]

Back to cheese graters! Lol

Making Apple grate again?

On MacRumors, people are already referring to these as colander Mac Pros. Problem is that cMP is already slang for the cheesegraters.

Damn, it's hard to come up with current slang.

[KenNickels]

Back to cheese graters! Lol

Making Apple grate again?

On MacRumors, people are already referring to these as colander Mac Pros. Problem is that cMP is already slang for the cheesegraters.

Damn, it's hard to come up with current slang.

In order for the joke to work it has to be based on reality. The trouble with colanders is that there is no such thing as a square one. So ... cheese grater stays!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Could be sMP... for sieve...

[Phil O]

Hole-y shiney metal, Batman!