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2008 Mac Pro Replacement

L

letscopro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2012
21
0
Vancouver, BC
I currently have a 2008 Mac Pro 8 core 2.8Ghz with of 18GB ram, the HD 5870 and an SSD. It's showing its age and I'm looking for a replacement. I'm considering the 2009 8 core 2.93Ghz or a new 2012 6 core 3.33Ghz.

I'm looking for better performance with FCPX, Motion and Compressor. My current Mac Pro works fine for my other uses. Would either of these be a big improvement performance wise? I do use the Mac Pro for my video production business.

I've also considered getting the Retina Macbook Pro, but I can't find anything online about how it really performs with FCPX.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I have a 2008 Mac Pro 8 core 2.8 and, facing a similar decision, upgraded to the 2012 hex core. My reasoning is, my 2008 is getting old, it's been running 24/7 pretty much the whole time, and I'd started to worry about critical failures. Also, I figured that if/when a new Mac Pro is unveiled in 2013 that it probably will have manufacturing issues that have to be worked out. So allow six months to a year for that. And, finally, I realized that a 2012 hex core is a very sweet upgrade. I added an OWC Mercury Accelsior -- the machine really screams. I highly recommend going for the new (albeit not so new) 2012.

Which this upgrade cycle also prompted me to upgrade my MOTU Traveler (the original model) mixer to an RME Fireface UCX, but that's another story...

letscopro said:
I currently have a 2008 Mac Pro 8 core 2.8Ghz with of 18GB ram, the HD 5870 and an SSD. It's showing its age and I'm looking for a replacement. I'm considering the 2009 8 core 2.93Ghz or a new 2012 6 core 3.33Ghz.

I'm looking for better performance with FCPX, Motion and Compressor. My current Mac Pro works fine for my other uses. Would either of these be a big improvement performance wise? I do use the Mac Pro for my video production business.

I've also considered getting the Retina Macbook Pro, but I can't find anything online about how it really performs with FCPX.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
gpzjock said:
A 2009 Mac Pro will not give a huge speed hike considering the cost of purchase. However a refurbished 2010 8 or 12 core one would almost certainly give you a massive performance boost.
Putting your 5870 and SSD in either of the following models would make a world of difference compared to your '08 Octo:
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/G0LG0B/A
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FC561B/A
Click to expand...

That depends. 2008 to 2009 was a way bigger jump in performance than the 2009 to 2010 models thanks to hyperthreaded cores. A 2.93GHz 8-core 2009 will beat a 2010 6-core 3.33GHz pretty easily. A quad is now an 8-core and 8-cores are now 16-thread. You can also flash the 2009 to a 2010 and drop in hex westmeres. So you could get a 2009 dual proc and get to 12-core 3.46GHz if you were feeling flush with money.
 
derbothaus said:
That depends. 2008 to 2009 was a way bigger jump in performance than the 2009 to 2010 models thanks to hyperthreaded cores. A 2.93GHz 8-core 2009 will beat a 2010 6-core 3.33GHz pretty easily. A quad is now an 8-core and 8-cores are now 16-thread. You can also flash the 2009 to a 2010 and drop in hex westmeres. So you could get a 2009 dual proc and get to 12-core 3.46GHz if you were feeling flush with money.
Click to expand...

I forgot about the flashing trick for the '09, it might make a difference indeed. I based my ideas on not dropping in hex core Xeons as that can be messy if it goes wrong. Geek bench averages '09 8 cores at around 15.5k and twin hex cores at 22k, a decent '08 octo will do 10k so the unmodded 09 is 50% more CPU bang and the 12 core is double that.
 
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