Question to those considering the new Macpro

[Ernie Nathaniel]

An excellent question, but I would go with the tower. Although I don’t often comment on this forum, I find the conversations very interesting and thoughtful.

A new tower would probably come in at a lesser cost than the tube, have multiple CPUs, internal storage capability, choice of graphics processors one could utilize, and I have a PCIe investment that leaves no slots empty. More PCIe slots would be nice too, and PCIe 3.0. If Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 were there, then it would at least be on par with the rest of the line. One could still be able to utilize other connectivity cards such as miniSAS directly from the PCIe bus instead of through Thunderbolt adapters, giving better and more stable throughput.

Just my thoughts. Not that the 2013 MacPro is not beautiful, it is, but a tower would be the one for me as it would be the best business decision. It depends on what one is doing with their machines. But a new tower would help to utilize existing hardware and make the transition to external thunderbolt chassis and storage less painful.

and Frank… I’ve got to read the fine print more carefully on the iTunes contract … not that the limitations are that onerous.

[Mark Dobson]

I’ve got my last MacPro sitting forlornly in a corner of my office. It’s already redundant. In fact I wonder why I’m giving it house room, backup?, sentimentality?, for another workstation if we ever expanded?

I’ve already moved forward into Apples next phase through buying a souped up 27″ iMac this time last year. I’ve got the eSata and thunderbolt peripherals already
but for some reason I’m holding off on the new MacPro. I suppose I’m waiting for a definitive iMac vs MacPro comparison and it’s not as if the performance of my current iMac is that shabby.

But the old MacPro has already been given a place in Apples design Museum and in a year or so will look as preposterous as the multi coloured set of original iMacs.

[Julian Bowman]

I’m a one man shop who works with FCPX and Motion 5 and DVD Studio 4. I shoot on DSLRs and do everything myself. I’d go for the new Mac Pro, but then again I may be the target market, which is great for me as the machine and software are designed together. Sympathies to others where the new Mac falls short.

[Marcus Moore]

I’d definitely go with the new enclosure- the nature of my business is that projects and storage is very modular, a lot of separate client drives. So the legacy MacPro’s internal storage would be largely wasted on me.

And all my peripherals (BlackMagic I/O) are Thunderbolt anyway, so I have no stock of PCIe cards I need to worry about replacing.

[Gustavo Bermudas]

I’ll go with the tower, I need to upgrade my 2009 Mac Pro, and I’m thinking I’ll go for a 2010/12 12 core, I think that tower has lots of leg still, specially when considering that the NMP’s power is in the graphic cards, and those cards are actually cheaper when bought as pci-e cards, they are listed as AMD R9 280x, so they can be installed in a legacy Mac Pro as well, although for the moment I’ll stay with NVidia.

I think for the future I’ll go NMP if I have no other choice, but I’ll definitely start moving to HP with a Z820, I’ll aim for Linux for most pro apps, and Mac for everyday tasks, which in that case I’ll probably go iMac instead of NMP.

[Rich Rubasch]

Plus, if you put in a PCI SSD drive in a MacPro Tower you have a rocket fast system drive. Put SSDs in both my old MacBook Pros and they became like new again….much faster app launches, saving files etc.

I agree that a legacy tower with 2 Thunderboldt 2 ports and four USB3 ports with the same 4-port PCI config would be ideal as a transition from our older 2008’s.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Scott Thomas]

Some things to think about… a PCB card to support two CPUs is much more complicated than a single CPU and is therefore more expensive. If we are moving in the direction where more and more software can take advantage of GPUs for general purpose work, perhaps we won’t need as much CPU anyway.

Of course, living in the here-and-now, you need a machine that takes advantage of the software that’s available. Completely understandable.

Personally, I’ll probably buy a new MacPro system. I currently have a single processor 2008 MacPro. It’s been good, but even with a nVidia GTX660Ti video card and a Highpoint RAID, Resolve is a pig to work with. It’s time.