I'm probably going to pick up a 2013 Mac Pro in a few years as a legacy machine. Will run 32-bit applications, but won't take up the space of my cheese grater.
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MP 6,1 Buy Mac Pro 2013 in 2019?
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FYI, The 8 core is currently £2700 (-£1200 off) from Amazon UK.
I wonder how AppleCare would work (if you could get it), as Amazon are official resellers now.
If you had an issue in 2 years that couldn’t be fixed, would Apple take the full price of 2013 pro off a 2019 pro as replacement.
I wonder how AppleCare would work (if you could get it), as Amazon are official resellers now.
If you had an issue in 2 years that couldn’t be fixed, would Apple take the full price of 2013 pro off a 2019 pro as replacement.
Even if there was a warranty, £2700 is too much for the entry model. Maxed out 6 Core i7 Mac mini is much cheaper and 5k 8 core imac 27" is at the same price level.
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I'd say the trash can in terms of price/performance is a waste of money. When you buy it as a lovely piece of art for your living and attach to a 4k TV - fine
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I'd say the trash can in terms of price/performance is a waste of money. When you buy it as a lovely piece of art for your living and attach to a 4k TV - fine
The 6,1 is a workstation, and uses Xeon CPUs and ECC RAM. It's designed for sustained workloads. The Mini uses SO-DIMMs and consumer desktop CPUs. People have complained about excessive heat from those machines when pushed for long periods of time. The trashcan's cooling has got to be better than what's in place for the new Mini, especially when you factor in MacsFanControl. Sure, single core performance is going to be better with the 2018 Mini, but how often are you using one core only? Even with basic tasks, open activity monitor and you'll see that Mac OS is taking advantage of multiple cores. In multi-core performance, a 10 or 12 core 6,1 will best a new i7 Mini.
Also, you can use eGPUs with the trashcan... there are hacks that allow you to get past Apple's blocking of TB2 eGPU interface. Sure, bandwidth takes a hit over TB3, but an eGPU setup has got to be better than even the top spec D700. Not to mention, if your internal GPUs take a dump (a common problem with the 6,1), you can bypass them and use an eGPU to remedy the situation.
By no means am I championing the trashcan... however, I am pointing out its strengths that some people overlook. If the entry price point dips below the $1000 mark... one should take a look at them as an alternative to a Mini. They are pretty much fully upgradeable (CPU, RAM, SSD), while the Mini only has upgradeable RAM. The only other limiting factor is OS support... no one but Apple knows when they are going to drop the 6,1 from the supported list.
Also, you can use eGPUs with the trashcan... there are hacks that allow you to get past Apple's blocking of TB2 eGPU interface. Sure, bandwidth takes a hit over TB3, but an eGPU setup has got to be better than even the top spec D700. Not to mention, if your internal GPUs take a dump (a common problem with the 6,1), you can bypass them and use an eGPU to remedy the situation.
By no means am I championing the trashcan... however, I am pointing out its strengths that some people overlook. If the entry price point dips below the $1000 mark... one should take a look at them as an alternative to a Mini. They are pretty much fully upgradeable (CPU, RAM, SSD), while the Mini only has upgradeable RAM. The only other limiting factor is OS support... no one but Apple knows when they are going to drop the 6,1 from the supported list.
We are looking at 6 years of pent up demand for a new model, so I was convinced there would be a huge price drop for the 6,1. But then the 7,1 was priced at $6000 and I think a lot of people have nowhere to go.
It's all true. "It's designed for sustained workloads" CPU wise, yes. Not for GPU though. Luckily I don't push them hard. Anyway, I'm very happy with my trash can.
This is exactly my situation.. i *love* the 2013 mac pro form factor, my only real gripe is with the horribly outdated GPUs and inability to do anything about it because of the lack of tb3.
Looks like something actually can be done: https://egpu.io/forums/builds/late-...-tb2-adapter-macos-10-14-5-itsage/#post-58024
Whaaaaaaaa, you can use the tb3 -> tb2 adapter in reverse for egpus?! I just bought one for my new laptop so I could use my tb2 devices.
Well, have a look around that forum then - I have only a passing interest in the subject but someone even boosted a Late 2011 MBP like I have one (TB1) with an eGPU. There are trashcan MP's posted there running with 1080's and all sorts of things.
My takeaway from reading over there is that TB1->TB2->TB3 performance difference seems rather negligible. You just have to get past the Apple-endorsed way of doing it.
How stable for everyday use? I have no idea though.
My takeaway from reading over there is that TB1->TB2->TB3 performance difference seems rather negligible. You just have to get past the Apple-endorsed way of doing it.
How stable for everyday use? I have no idea though.
Got mine in August this year, 8 core, 64GB, 2xD700 and 1TB SSD (original) with Apple care until end of 2020. It's hooked to eGPU with Vega Frontier (air cooled) to a 10bit NEC display using Purge Wrangler script and TB2<->TB3 adapter.
I use it primary as my photo editing machine with OS X at the moment and it screams - my apps are able to use GPU acceleration and despite being 6 years old it still has plenty of breathing room, very few things I do push it to the limits. Plus the thing looks super cool on my desk and is whisper quiet (eGPU box is stowed away under desk).
Living abroad I always preferred laptops, but 2013 Mac Pro is the best machine in terms of size & performance I have used and the only thing I 'kinda' regret is not getting it sooner.
I use it primary as my photo editing machine with OS X at the moment and it screams - my apps are able to use GPU acceleration and despite being 6 years old it still has plenty of breathing room, very few things I do push it to the limits. Plus the thing looks super cool on my desk and is whisper quiet (eGPU box is stowed away under desk).
Living abroad I always preferred laptops, but 2013 Mac Pro is the best machine in terms of size & performance I have used and the only thing I 'kinda' regret is not getting it sooner.
Yeah, same here. Looks like it could have been a smart buy in 2014/15 to last the rest of the decade. Form factor appealed right away. It only really got interesting to me when I heard about these SSD adaptors though. What Apple do with their proprietary storage is a crime.
Oh and - perhaps this should be it's own thread but could you tell us how trouble free this eGPU setup has worked out for you in day to day operation? Boot up/power down, sleep and wake behaviour, overall stability? Have you observed any odd behaviour that requires switching back to the internal GPUs?
Rock solid under OS X, haven’t seen a single problem or hiccup like when I used Nvidia GPU (even if it was natively supported Kepler card). I don’t see the Apple logo during boot (just towards the end), but have a HDMI cable ready if needed, sleep works as it should and the eGPU powers down too, even hot-plugging works surprisingly fine (maybe because it’s AMD).
You just have to make sure to either tell your apps to use eGPU or not and above all make sure you do the homework whether your apps use eGPU.
The only bummer is that it’s rather cumbersome to get it work in boot camp and it requires a specific Win 10 version plus disabling some PCI lanes to free up memory.... someone on eGPU.io managed to do it, but I haven’t tried it myself as I don’t intend to game on this Mac Pro and my software is all Mac based
Unless it's dirty cheap, I wouldn't consider buying 6,1 at this time. Of course, I'd like to have one for the collection
Unless it's dirty cheap, I wouldn't consider buying 6,1 at this time. Of course, I'd like to have one for the collection
quad or hexa cores with D300/500 are not and I wouldn't touch them with a stick as they are 1) not worth it dolar-performance wise, 2) D300 are prone to fail
I haven't had desktop as a primary computer for 15+ years and it's an absolute pleasure to use the 2013 Mac Pro with its tiny footprint, futuristic look, decent performance compared to current Macs (and doesn't come with T2 chip
)I've had mine since 2013 and have no real reason to replace it. Would I buy one today? Maybe for the right price. For my work I don't need a strong GPU and even if that changes apparently the USB-C adapter works.
If you have heavy workloads it will overheat a mac mini so that's where the mac pro shines. If you just want something fast that isn't an iMac then a mac mini or laptop is your best bet.
If you have heavy workloads it will overheat a mac mini so that's where the mac pro shines. If you just want something fast that isn't an iMac then a mac mini or laptop is your best bet.