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Matash

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 25, 2016
14
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I was the user of a 2015 macbook air but i sold it. My question is are the 2012 mac pros worth buying these days ?
 
it would help if you explain why you got rid of the Air and what you want the Mac Pro to do, but generally, the cMP remains a viable and capable machine. realize that you will potentially have additional expenses in getting it to the ideal configuration but it will still cost way less than trying with a nMP and can go to places that no currently shipping Mac can (like to 96GB or more of RAM and dozens of TB of internal storage).

an aside: for some folks, a retina screen is an absolute requirement. for others (such as myself), it looks nice but doesn't add to productivity of capability and can get in the way if your business is image creation and manipulation. and on a device with a built in retina screen, there is no way to have a matching second monitor which can be awkward from a workflow and setup perspective when you want to spread out.
 
I am interest how the cMP can replace your MBA. In general, people buying MBA for it's form factor, probability, slim looking, etc. None of these exist in the cMP.

Anyway, may be you just want to emphasis that you know how to use OSX / Mac.

For me, it highly depends on what you want to do.

e.g. For Video editing in FCPX, yes, the cMP still one of the best machine you can use (with proper upgrade).

However, for gaming, it's much better to build a gaming PC.

For media server, the cMP can do the job well, however, with extremely low power efficiency (compare to other media server options).

So, why you want the Mac Pro? Without knowing that, it's hard to tell you if it's worth. Or which config may be the sweet spot for you.
 
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I use a mac pro mid 2012 for music production, and its stable, quiet and its a perfect machine for the job. I installed a SSD for the system and programs, other than that I dont need any upgrades. Hope to use this for years and years, absolutly worth it!
 
h9826790 has a point depends on what you want to do with it.
for normal tasks id look at a imac or mac mini there cpu's are faster, make less nose and take less room + imac has nice display.

for games make a pc

but if you can pick one up cheep and are stuck on osx there ok, but there geting harder and harder to recommend as time go's buy as they are old and can be overpriced for what they are.

so what do you want to do on it?
 
The reason i got rid of my mAcbook air is cause I have a daughter In Uva and her 2012 mbp was giving her problems and just acting funny on her and it was too risky to have it fail on her in school So i sold it to her for $50 bucks. Lol yea $50 i didnt want her to feel like she was taking it from me .
Ive looked at Imacs and Mac minis but i look at the price and notice to get any kind of flash storage in one is costly . I can't go back to 5400 speed hard drives every ever. Basically I'm very picky.
 
The reason i got rid of my mAcbook air is cause I have a daughter In Uva and her 2012 mbp was giving her problems and just acting funny on her and it was too risky to have it fail on her in school So i sold it to her for $50 bucks. Lol yea $50 i didnt want her to feel like she was taking it from me .
Ive looked at Imacs and Mac minis but i look at the price and notice to get any kind of flash storage in one is costly . I can't go back to 5400 speed hard drives every ever. Basically I'm very picky.

In this case, for low performance job, a Mac mini with SSD may be a good idea.

Of course nothing wrong to go for a Mac Pro. It's the Mac that easiest to install lots of SSD.
 
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I don't really see the point in buying a 4 year old computer that is way over priced.

Look at the apps you want to run. You might be better off with a Mini with some external storage, or if you are gaming just get a PC. Or if you just want to set yourself a project and have something you can tinker with from time to time then build a hackintosh. It will be faster and cheaper and you can have new kit
 
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Ill look at the mini again . I have a gaming pc that i built out of spare parts a while back . I also have played with hackintosh on this same pc but i get tired of it not being fully functional and temperamental to every day changes . . Maybe I can find me a mac mini with at least a 2.5 ghz chip and i have a ssd for it .
 
Ill look at the mini again . I have a gaming pc that i built out of spare parts a while back . I also have played with hackintosh on this same pc but i get tired of it not being fully functional and temperamental to every day changes . . Maybe I can find me a mac mini with at least a 2.5 ghz chip and i have a ssd for it .

I have a 2012 mini with the Quad-core i7 (i.e. the good one that everyone wants) and was going to eBay it as I don't use it that much any more, but the price has dropped a lot. There seems to be loads of them on eBay, which is good news for you as you won't have any problems getting your hands on one. I decided to keep mine and put ESXi on it.


--- Edit.

Also meant to say with the Mini, it support thunderbolt storage. Startech make some fairly cheap 2.5" external drive bays (holds 2 drives) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-c...75148093&sr=8-1&keywords=startech+thunderbolt.

Put a couple of 1TB SSD's in there and install SoftRAID and you have good little array that should be big enough for your daily 'stuff', and be fast enough for anything you chuck at it.
 
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In the US you should be able to pick up a Mac Pro 4.1 Quad for around $300-350
A W3680 will set you back ±$100
3x8Gb ram $45
A decent GPU $150

So for the same price you can get a MP 6 core.
2012 models are way to expensive, because some think it actually is a more modern Mac Pro.
As there is no difference between a 2009 and 2012 model other than slightly faster components, which are as obsolete as from a 2009 model.
 
Ive noticed that some of the mac pros have ddr2 and 3. on the ddr3 I wonder if the board is at least 1333mhz compatible
 
I have a 2012 mini with the Quad-core i7 (i.e. the good one that everyone wants) and was going to eBay it as I don't use it that much any more, but the price has dropped a lot.

Hmm, I've seen the 2011 i7 Quad Cores go kind of cheap, but not the 2012.

The 2011 is not nearly as good though. Slower CPU and GPU. Much slower USB 2.0, which is a killer for external storage.
 
there are some good deals out there about a month ago my friend Guy picked up a 2012 mac pro 2.93 12 core 64 gig of ram and HD7970 for around 1300 dollars on eBay. good luck
 
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