New Mac Pro or old Mac Pro?

mainstreetprod

mainstreetprod

Veteran
I've been waiting anxiously for the new whiz bang "garbage can" Mac Pro. I would only buy the basic version ($3000), maybe upgrading to a 512GB SSD but not much beyond that.

Today I noticed that a vendor has some leftover brand new Mac Pro towers for $2200. I really like the idea of being able to upgrade memory, graphics, etc. myself which may or may not be possible on the new Mac Pro. Also, for the price difference I could buy some SSD's for the tower, or get a copy of Premiere Pro. Downside is no Thunderbolt, lower graphics specs, etc.
I don't expect to do much (if any) 4K editing for some time to come.


Which would you buy?
 
I would spend my money on the fastest newest computer I could afford.

For what it's worth, my newest 27" iMac with Thunderbolt eats my older Mac Pro's lunch.
 
mainstreetprod said:
I really like the idea of being able to upgrade memory, graphics, etc. myself which may or may not be possible on the new Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

The new MacPro is actually more upgradeable since you can even swap out the processor chips. Yep. You can do that on the new MacPro. It might be expensive to buy faster proc chips, but eventually they'll go down in price or have more and faster options down the road. The other consideration is that you'd be buying for the future upgrades in major software that will take advantage of the new MacPro that might not do much for the older machine. Look at FCPX as an example. It totally screams on the new MacPro. I've heard that the next major iteration of Adobe's CC will also be better tuned for performance on the new MacPro.
If you're just looking for a stopgap machine for now, then take a look at the iMac before you spend any money. It might just be enough to do what you need right now, and could be faster than an older MacPro.
 
If this is a business decision and you can look at recouping the cost by the jobs you bill because of it in the next two years, then by all means buy the best you can. You probably will be buying a new one then, because they'll be doing a major upgrade at that point, no doubt. If you are more of a hobbyist or indie that is not making money on your projects, then I agree with David. I just upgraded my 2008 Mac Pro which was totally maxxed out. I bought an new 27" IMac and it's way better. The TB drives when you finally buy some of them are distinctly faster than eSata. See Larry Jordan's web site for some RAID 5 testing today on speeds seen on the new TB drives. I could have bought the new MacPro but the speed just didn't pay me back for the extra cost. I have a very fast machine compared to my older Mac Pro, and I was able to buy more external drives for it. I'm not sad in the least that I didn't buy the Mac Pro, but I'm a very small shop, and the extra speed isn't worth the extra cost. I'm always leery of buying a lowest cost unit of any model.
 
Here is a real world comparison:

Stock 2013 MacPro 3.5GHz 6-Core D500 vs. 2010 Mac Pro 12-Core 2.66GHz 24GB with a stock Nvidia GTX 780 3GB in both OS X 10.9.1 and 10.8.4.

Percentages shown represent the highest sustained CPU load for each test.

Blackmagic Cinema DNG Playback
2400x1350 (1080p/24 Project, Cinema DNG Default)

2013 Mac Pro (10.9.1)
Quarter Res: 24fps @ 8%
Half Res: 24fps @ 8%
Full Res: 24fps @ 8%

2010 Mac Pro (10.9.1)
Quarter Res: 24 fps @ 7%
Half Res: 24 fps @ 7%
Full Res: 24 fps @ 7%

2010 Mac Pro (10.8.4)
Quarter Res: 24 fps @ 6%
Half Res: 24 fps @ 6%
Full Res: 24 fps @ 6%

------

RED R3D Playback
(1080/24p Project)

2013 Mac Pro (10.9.1)
4K RED (4096 x 2304)
Quarter Good: 24 fps @ 36%
Half Good: 22 fps @ 100%
Half Premium: 11fps @ 100%
Full Premium: 5 fps @ 100%

5K EPIC (5120 x 2560)
Quarter Good: 24 fps @45%
Half Good: 20 fps @ 100%
Half Premium: 8 fps @ 100%
Full Premium: 3 fps @ 100%

6K Dragon (6144 x 3160)
Quarter: 24 fps @ 56%
Half Good: 16 fps @ 100%
Half Premium: 5 fps @ 100%
Full Premium: 3 fps @ 100%

-----

2010 Mac Pro (10.9.1)
4K RED (4096 x 2304)
Quarter Good: 24 fps @ 25%
Half Good: 20 fps @ 50%
Half Premium: 14 fps @ 86%
Full Premium: 7 fps @ 80%

5K EPIC (5120 x 2560)
Quarter Good: 20 fps @ 29%
Half Good: 14 fps @ 62%
Half Premium: 10 fps @ 89%
Full Premium: 5 fps @ 79%

6K Dragon (6144 x 3160)
Quarter: 20 fps @ 30%
Half Good: 15 fps @ 71%
Half Premium: 8 fps @ 86%
Full Premium: 3 fps @ 73%

------

2010 Mac Pro (10.8.4)
4K (4096 x 2304)
Quarter Good: 24 fps @ 21%
Half Good: 24 fps @ 65%
Half Premium: 14 fps @ 89%
Full Premium: 7 fps @ 75%

5K EPIC (5120 x 2560)
Quarter Good: 24 fps @ 25%
Half Good: 22 fps @ 93%
Half Premium: 10 fps @ 88%
Full Premium: 5 fps @ 75%

6K Dragon (6144 x 3160)
Quarter: 24 fps @ 32%
Half Good: 20 fps @ 92%
Half Premium: 7 fps @ 84%
Full Premium: 3 fps @ 76%

http://www.liftgammagain.com/forum/i...nchmarks.2256/
 
For only $800 difference I wouldn't do it. The newest tech in the old Mac Pros is from 2010 and even then the machines were starting to get long in the tooth (no, the minor speed bump in 2012 doesn't count for anything). The old MPs are also going to start aging quickly as software becomes optimized for the new MPs.

Andrius Simutis said:
The new MacPro is actually more upgradeable since you can even swap out the processor chips.
Click to expand...
AFAIK all Mac towers have had replaceable CPUs.

I've heard that the next major iteration of Adobe's CC will also be better tuned for performance on the new MacPro.
Click to expand...
The current version of PPro already performs very well on it. Philip Hodgett's did a quick test playing back multiple 4k streams and both PPro CC and FCPX performed basically the same. X was set to "Best Performance" and PPro was set to 1/4 playback res (which is similar to the Best Performance setting in X).
 
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