Buying a 2009/2010 Mac Pro. Will it last me?

[DanSilov]

Here's a few professional benchmarks of the latest iMac 5K versus Mac Pro 5,1 with Nvidia and AMD video. 5,1 with the right upgrades still outperformes every other Mac in almost every test.

http://barefeats.com/imac5K_vs_pros.html
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Isn't the the 6 core 3.46 a X5690? I'm so lost.

There's W5690 which can only work as a single CPU and there's X5690, which is intended to work in dual-CPU setup.

 

[Shamgar]

A hex core 3.46 could be a W3690 or an X5690. Both will work in a single socket, but only the latter will work in a dual socket.

The 2009 model you're looking at will be more capable than the Mac Pro you had; mostly where you can get those extra cores into play. Which should solve your large multitrack issues. The single threaded performance is middling by today's standards and nothing could improve that. It's the most likely bottleneck you end up facing in the future. If you can't take good advantage of the dual processors right now, they aren't worth the extra cash as they will not add any lifespan to your machine.

If you're committed to Logic Pro, this is probably the best Mac value you can get right now. There is the hackintosh route, which isn't as scary as it used to be, but still takes a fair bit of tech savvy to work through and can be sketchy to depend on for work.

 

[Synchro3]

There's W5690 which can only work as a single CPU and there's X5690, which is intended to work in dual-CPU setup.

You mean 'W3690' as single CPU. There is no W5690, only X5690.

 

[devon807]

No, it won't. I tried that on my 5,1 with the 840Evo.

UI, boot time, apps loading time, etc, won't make any noticible difference by upgrading to SATA III.

That 6Gb/s is the theoretical max, doesn't mean that the SSD will load everything at that speed. For OS operation, the SSD only very occasionally may read >250MB/s for a split second （<100MB/s most of the time). SATA III won't make any difference in real world on this matter.

I stand corrected. I guess a better statement would be that any SSD would make a difference over a SATA II based HDD

 

[pb69]

I stand corrected. I guess a better statement would be that any SSD would make a difference over a SATA II based HDD

Does it matter which brand of ssd?

 

[DanSilov]

Does it matter which brand of ssd?

It does matter if it is M.2 blade in PCI slot.

Here's the test of Samsung 850 EVO in different configurations in Mac Pro:
http://barefeats.com/hard203.html

And here's Samsung SM951 PCIe in Mac Pro:
http://barefeats.com/hard200.html

 

[zen]

I'm wondering if I should spend the same money (1300 euros) on a PC instead.

Hell yes. €1300 for a 7-8 year old machine versus €1300 for a 2017 machine? No question about it. The 2017 PC will be much more powerful than the Mac Pro, and will be upgradeable for a lot longer.

 

[h9826790]

I stand corrected. I guess a better statement would be that any SSD would make a difference over a SATA II based HDD

Agree, the improvement is coming from SSD vs HDD (low latency vs high latency), but not SATA II vs SATA III (bandwidth difference)

Does it matter which brand of ssd?

For OS, no, doesn't really matter, any brand, any SSD can do the job more or less the same.

As you can see from the above chart. All SSD require virtually the same time to boot, regardless if it's PCIe, SATA II, SATA III or different model.

There is a big difference in their sequential performance. However, as I said earlier, for OS, it's the matter of low latency, but not high sequential speed. And almost all SSD that can boot form cMP at this moment have roughly the same 4k random read speed. Another good example is RAID 0 improve max sequential speed a lot, but zero help on 4k random read performance. That's why no matter how many HDD you RAID them together, the boot time still slow on HDD.

However, that's just booting and normal apps loading. If you copy large files a lot, a high speed PCIe SSD can do much better. Or if your apps come with a huge library (multi GB), PCIe SSD or SATA III will also help.

Anyway, I made this video some time ago. This is captured from my own cMP, wit a 840Evo just plugged into one of the native SATA port. As you can see, the apps loading is not lightening fast, but sure won't consider slow. A PCIe SSD / SATA III connection may further save you a split second, but won't be significant.

 

[pb69]

Agree, the improvement is coming from SSD vs HDD (low latency vs high latency), but not SATA II vs SATA III (bandwidth difference)



For OS, no, doesn't really matter, any brand, any SSD can do the job more or less the same.
View attachment 706382

As you can see from the above chart. All SSD require virtually the same time to boot, regardless if it's PCIe, SATA II, SATA III or different model.

There is a big difference in their sequential performance. However, as I said earlier, for OS, it's the matter of low latency, but not high sequential speed. And almost all SSD that can boot form cMP at this moment have roughly the same 4k random read speed. Another good example is RAID 0 improve max sequential speed a lot, but zero help on 4k random read performance. That's why no matter how many HDD you RAID them together, the boot time still slow on HDD.

However, that's just booting and normal apps loading. If you copy large files a lot, a high speed PCIe SSD can do much better. Or if your apps come with a huge library (multi GB), PCIe SSD or SATA III will also help.

Anyway, I made this video some time ago. This is captured from my own cMP, wit a 840Evo just plugged into one of the native SATA port. As you can see, the apps loading is not lightening fast, but sure won't consider slow. A PCIe SSD / SATA III connection may further save you a split second, but won't be significant.

I'm thinking of putting a Crucial MX300 on a PCIe card.

 

[h9826790]

I'm thinking of putting a Crucial MX300 on a PCIe card.

It's nothing wrong to do that, just don't expect you can feel any difference in normal OS operation without helping from any monitoring / benchmarking software.

Also, unless you have any other high speed storage, you may hardly able to take any benefit from the high sequential speed as well. e.g. You copy very large from SSD to HDD. Then your max copying speed still limiting by the HDD.

Of course, for something like duplicate the same file on the SSD, you can finish the job in double speed with a good PCIe SATA III card.

 

[pb69]

It's nothing wrong to do that, just don't expect you can feel any difference in normal OS operation without helping from any monitoring / benchmarking software.

Also, unless you have any other high speed storage, you may hardly able to take any benefit from the high sequential speed as well. e.g. You copy very large from SSD to HDD. Then your max copying speed still limiting by the HDD.

Of course, for something like duplicate the same file on the SSD, you can finish the job in double speed with a good PCIe SATA III card.

I know on Windows it's a noticeable difference with SSD.

 

[ctrlzone]

Exactly. If you want snappy/quick UI a SSD mounted on a PCIe card can help a lot as you will get SATA III 6Gb/s rather than SATA II 3Gb/s with it mounted on the onboard SATA II

this wont really speed up UI ...
it will make a difference in copying files tho

not worth it imho


to OP:

im pretty happy with my 6 core 3.46 Ghz, it can handle a decent amount of demanding plugins.

if you can get the 12 core model thats a huge leap for DAW work and gaming is no problem, especially if your on 1080p

Nvidia now has drivers for even the newest graphic cards 1080ti

 

[darkgoob]

The Mac is dead, don't get a Mac. Seriously.

It died with Jobs, and now exists solely as a way for Apple to sell non-touchscreen iPad-like computers.

Cook destroyed all.

 

[h9826790]

I know on Windows it's a noticeable difference with SSD.

I mean there is no significant difference by running SSD via the native SATA port, or install it on a PCIe SATA III card.

 

[pb69]

I mean there is no significant difference by running SSD via the native SATA port, or install it on a PCIe SATA III card.

If not a noticeable difference in most uses I won't bother with a PCIe card.

 

[h9826790]

If not a noticeable difference in most uses I won't bother with a PCIe card.

Unless your daily ops are mainly duplicate files etc. You should not able to tell the difference most of the time.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Right. The whole point of the m2 PCIE interface wasn't to make regular things 'faster' despite some marketing dishonesty from resellers.

PCIE based SSDs were initially used for massive servers who need low latency, low energy use and no spinning parts so they can efficiently feed data to many users. Then the m.2 interface brought the 'little version' to consumers.

The point on the consumer end was to prepare for a future when that bandwidth would be needed regularly. We won't see that for a long while but when we do at least the SSDs will have large capacity and suitable pricing.

Currently they are good for scratch disks if you use very large multimedia files. NVME has even less usefulness at the moment for consumers.

If you're a video editing professional who has a lot of media sources on a video timeline then NVME can be useful, depends on the media files and editing.

 

[devon807]

Right. The whole point of the m2 PCIE interface wasn't to make regular things 'faster' despite some marketing dishonesty from resellers.

PCIE based SSDs were initially used for massive servers who need low latency, low energy use and no spinning parts so they can efficiently feed data to many users. Then the m.2 interface brought the 'little version' to consumers.

The point on the consumer end was to prepare for a future when that bandwidth would be needed regularly. We won't see that for a long while but when we do at least the SSDs will have large capacity and suitable pricing.

Currently they are good for scratch disks if you use very large multimedia files. NVME has even less usefulness at the moment for consumers.

If you're a video editing professional who has a lot of media sources on a video timeline then NVME can be useful, depends on the media files and editing.

Pretty much nailed it on the head describing these drives. I use mine as a boot disk as well as a scratch disk. It makes 4K editing a lot easier/faster than seeking a mechanical drive for 10+GB files