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Buying a new used computer
Hi folks,
I’m assessing whether it might be a good time to upgrade my current Mac Pro 2.1 (still stable after five years!!)
I have the option to buy an August 2010 2.8 Quad-core for $1,390 vs. an August 2009 2.66 Eight Core Nehalem for $1,200. Aside from video cards and RAM which I can upgrade, what machine would you buy for editing with a M100? My present machine is an early 2008 Mac Pro 2.1 3.0 Quad-Core Intel Xeon and I can’t migrate into later OS and 64 bit programs.
I’d assume the 8-core will render graphics faster but the Quad-core has a more recent processor and supports multi-threading and turbo boost up to 3.06 Ghz.
I welcome your wisdom.
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4 Replies
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Here is a Geekbench result for your Mid 2010 system, and here is one for the early 2009. At least from these tests it looks like the early 2009 8 core system is much faster in Multi-Core tasks than the 4core system. And since Media 100 and RED is pretty well optimized for Multicore tasks (of course, always depending on what you are doing; there are areas that are better optimized and areas that are worse), I would go with the older (and even cheaper) system.
If you really like speed, add a SSD as your boot drive. You will never want to go back, especially with relatively “light” applications like Media 100. Startup and app launch times are great this way.
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Hi Floh,
Thank you for your quick response!!!
Would you recommend 24 gigs of RAM and what brand of SSD drive would you go with? I’ve heard there are high failure rates with some of these drives lately.
Also, I’m thinking of staying in OS 10.6.8 for now. I’m right in the middle of a large project.
Does the older version Mac Pro 4.1 run 64 bit programs efficiently?
All the Best,
Jim
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[jim brodie] “Would you recommend 24 gigs of RAM and what brand of SSD drive would you go with? I’ve heard there are high failure rates with some of these drives lately.”
24 Gigs of RAM is plenty. Depending on what you want to run besides Media 100, I would suggest 8 or 16 GB. 4x4GB would be my recommendation, and you would still have 4 Slots left empty for future upgrades.
We use Samsung SSDs and are happy with them, so far.
[jim brodie] “Also, I’m thinking of staying in OS 10.6.8 for now. I’m right in the middle of a large project.”
Again, this depends on the apps you want to use. Nothing to say against 10.6.8 or 10.7.5 with Media 100, depending on which version you want to use. 10.7.5 is extremely reliable for us as well, and still works with most modern applications (e.g. Adobe CC).
[jim brodie] “Does the older version Mac Pro 4.1 run 64 bit programs efficiently?”
Only the first Mac Pro systems cannot boot in 64 bit, since while the CPUs are 64 bit the EFI (Firmware) is 32 bit only. You won´t have 64 bit problems with the system.
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Hi Floh,
Thank you so much for this information!!! I’m very grateful for your expertise.
All the Best,
Jim
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