MP 1,1-5,1 Choosing between two different 5,1 models. Which should I get?

[casperes1996]

The point is Apple knows better, that's the point

The cheaper system is never the better system

Cheaper and better in what comparison?

A MacBook Air is a lot cheaper than a new Mac Pro, but it'll make for a much better laptop I'll tell you that.

And when you bring used, privately sold devices into the equation, whatever Apple knows plays no part anymore. They don't control those prices.

 

[MattA]

The M1 Mac Mini is nothing like the Mac Mini you had issues with in the past. They are totally different machines. You say you want expandability, but for what? Memory? Storage? Using external storage via thunderbolt will run circles around anything in the cMP.

Honestly, I wanted an old Mac Pro for the longest time, but they have run their course. If you really want one, get one, but the M1 Macs are the only way to go nowadays. Just like the PowerPC, the Intel stuff is going to be dropped as soon as Apple can feasibly do so.

After listing your needs, it seriously sounds like you're after the Mac Mini (desktop, no built in keyboard/monitor/mouse) with 16GB memory and as much storage as you can afford. The fact that people keep recommending it to you should speak volumes. Like I said, if you really want a Mac Pro, get one, but I really think you'd be tossing money down the drain, as the M1 will run circles around even a 12 core Mac Pro. Personally, I'm still running my 2014 Mac Mini until Apple finally releases the Mac Mini with M1 Pro/Max or M2. Mac Pro used to be on my radar (both 2012 and 2013), but with the M1 being released? Not anymore.

 

[Warrington]

Cheaper and better in what comparison?

In comparison to each other. Nobody asked about laptops, the comparison was between iMac M1 and iMac Xeon. If iMac Xeon price is more than double, there is a reason for that and Apple knows very well that reason.

 

[casperes1996]

In comparison to each other. Nobody asked about laptops, the comparison was between iMac M1 and iMac Xeon. If iMac Xeon price is more than double, there is a reason for that and Apple knows very well that reason.

I may have missed something but I never noticed the iMac Pro with a Xeon being brought up in this through.
I would argue the M1 would be a better consumer device, but sure, the Xeon in that comparison would have a lot more throughput

 

[Macsonic]

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. Another option has popped up that has turned out to be a compromise between Option 1 and 2. It's also closer to me than either option I posted about would have been. It's a 12 core 3.33GHz with 24 GB of RAM, 240 GB PCI-E SSD running High Sierra, 120 SSD ml running 10.14 Mojave, 120 GB SSD running Catalina 10.15.6 and a 2 TB hard drive. It has a GTX-680 Metal video card Mac edition. I think this will be a good compromise.

I think option 2 (12 core 3.06, 64 GB ) or option 3 12 core 3.33GHz with 24 GB of RAM, 240 GB PCI-E SSD would be the best fit to your type of work. If your installing Catalina, best to use Opencore. A good scenario too is when you can pick up the Mac Pro, test and examine the computer. I have High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina (Opencore) running and all are working okay. Currently testing out Big Sur.

 

[thetommyboy2k]

Hey Tommy, sorry to hear you've had such a tough time of it recently. Hopefully a New Year will bring with it some better times.

I know how you feel about the Mac Pro. Although not really into 'vintage' things - I prefer new cars with all their mod cons to older vehicles without I am completely taken in by the 5,1 Mac Pro and how its put together and the engineering that went into it.

I showed it to friends of mine who I knew would appreciate good engineering and a couple of them wanted to buy it from me but it's not for sale!

The way I look at it; you have seen the many replies from those who have had experience and although at first it seems overwhelmingly negative for the cMP vs the later machines you will be under no illusion and at least understand the risks involved before you take the plunge.

I would view things such as storage & memory as 'consumables' as they are relatively cheap & easy to replace just by lifting that lovely latch and removing the well engineered side panel so I wouldn't let that influence my decision in any way as the first thing I would do is erase everything on the SSD and start afresh.

Adding memory is easy and although I could have put 128GB RAM in mine I went for the optimum 96GB ECC RDIMM which in reality is way more than I would ever need in any case as the most I have had in a computer is 32GB!

The graphics card although easy to replace is not really a cost-effective upgrade IMHO as prices have shot through the roof but I guess that depends upon which monitor(s) you are going to use with it.

As a stopgap I am running my Quadro NVS 510 into a couple of old Eizo Flexscan 4:3 monitors that I haven't used in years and that can only display 1280x1024 which means I can at least use my cMP until such times as a decent spec, reasonably priced monitor and/or graphics card drops into my lap. But I'm in no rush at the moment as I'm just enjoying using the Mac Pro.

Similar to you there has not been a Mac that Apple has made since @2012 that I really wanted. Sure a Retina display would have been a welcome upgrade to the machines I have here but the shortage of ports and other design decisions where Jony Ive always seemed to prioritise form over function have held me back and I no longer can afford to buy on a whim these days.

So go ahead and buy whichever one ticks the most boxes for you and enjoy your choice mindful you are dealing with 10 year old technology that has a finite life.

With the help, support & ideas these forums offer you will have every base covered should you want to take it to new heights.

Oh the 2012 would have been my ideal choice as its newer and has the fastest CPU's you can get but of course the 2010 already has NVMe SSD and is closer.

Tough call...let us know whether you took the 4 or 10 hour round trip or went for Option 3!

-=Glyn=-

GlynH, I have to tell you thank you for the most thoughtful reply and advice I could've been given. I realize everyone was trying to help, but I really appreciated this response the most. Thank you so much GlynH.

I did some looking last night at the M1 iMac since between the iMac and Mac mini, I would tend to prefer the iMac over the Mac mini. I didn't realize they had iMac's with color again. Thank God! I can't stand the craze of black/silver on everything. Life is about color, even bright colors. I see the base model is $1300. Everything was looking good except for a few things... an obvious lack of ports for one and 16 GB RAM limit. I do like the different colors. Apple needs to go back to that on most all of their lineup. I have an original Bondi Blue iMac as well as a tray loading Tangerine iMac. I also have several Compact Macs from way back in the day. At one point, I had a slot loading iMac, which was my first and only new Mac, purchased back in 2000. Don't have it anymore as it crapped long ago, but while I like the tray loading iMac's, the slot loaders that replaced them... not so much. Overall, I loved that era of Apple's products, back when they had colors. While I'll admit, the iMac design leading up to now (not counting the M1 iMac) looks really nice to be silver and black, I'm glad to see Apple go back to having color in their Mac lineup.

Now I'm looking at either getting Option 3 on the Mac Pro front or giving the M1 iMac a shot. Does anyone have one of the new M1 iMac's? If so, do you like it pretty well? Talk me into it. I'm starting to think it may be worth giving the M1 iMac a shot. I actually really like it.

 

[casperes1996]

Now I'm looking at either getting Option 3 on the Mac Pro front or giving the M1 iMac a shot. Does anyone have one of the new M1 iMac's? If so, do you like it pretty well? Talk me into it. I'm starting to think it may be worth giving the M1 iMac a shot. I actually really like it.

I think you should.

I don't have the M1 iMac, but I have an M1 Max MacBook Pro and a 2020 Intel iMac (27).
iMac screens are generally fantastic and I don't necessarily think the ports situation is that big a deal, especially on a desktop. The ports are Thunderbolt after all which is a lot of bandwidth and can easily be extended to more ports with things like this (https://www.amazon.com/Satechi-Aluminum-Type-C-Clamp-Reader/dp/B078859974) (that version is for Intel iMac as pictured but I would imagine similar designs exist for the new ones).

I'm a heavy user - I'm a computer scientist and work a lot with code, but I'm also a video producer, podcaster, amateur music-maker and video game playing computer user. I've long been saying that RAM is RAM and M1 isn't magic. A struct like this

struct Point {
    float x;
    float y; 
}

is 64 bytes of memory on M1 as well as Intel, though the absence of SMT does reduce memory cost slightly on a core count equivalent system. - Regardless of this however, under memory pressure M1 systems tend to behave more smoothly, and frankly I doubt you'd be very memory constrained even with 'just' 16GB. It's rare I really come close to using more than around 22GB of memory on my iMac, and I never really close anything, run virtualisation, Compressor, Final Cut and GarageBand on top of other large apps like Final Cut.
And when I say 22GB here it's also important to keep in mind that macOS reported memory usage doesn't mean it *needs* that much necessarily. It may over-allocate to cache things "you might need" for a minimal speed up. I ran with a 16GB machine for a long time before getting the two Macs I have now and were never really in memory issues unless I had made a coding mistake that could easily eat hundreds of GB of RAM - I'd much rather have faster CPU and GPU with 16GB of memory than slower CPU and GPU with 128GB.

Furthermore, the M1 is officially supported by Apple on the newest operating systems and many operating systems to come, which doesn't just come with features, but security updates and longevity. They are also likely to maintain a good resale value should that become relevant.

Oh and you mentioned installing Linux at one point; While it's still not a very mature project, Asahi Linux is bringing full Linux support to Apple Silicon Macs so if one day in the distant future the Mac is no longer supported and you want to pop Ubuntu on it, you'll most likely be able to, as Asahi develops.

 

[thetommyboy2k]

So I wanted to give everyone an update. I'm all in on the M1 iMac. Since I found out about it, the Mac Pro 5,1 is not even an option at this point. I went to Best Buy today and they had a blue as well as a green model in stock. I used the blue one. They were both base spec'ed. Even though my heart is still set on 16 GB of RAM, the iMac was nearly instantaneous on everything except Word and even at that, it was very snappy. Unfortunately, although the guy tried to get me approved for a Best Buy card, I was denied and I was pretty certain I would be. He had another option in mind, but I have to wait until Monday to see if it can be done.

I then drove to the Apple store in Haywood Mall in Greenville. They had all of the colors. They look absolutely awesome. It will be a hard couple of months (maybe not quite that) to save up. I wanted so bad to take one home, but couldn't.

Thank you to everyone who steered me in the right direction!

 

[FNH15]

So I wanted to give everyone an update. I'm all in on the M1 iMac. Since I found out about it, the Mac Pro 5,1 is not even an option at this point. I went to Best Buy today and they had a blue as well as a green model in stock. I used the blue one. They were both base spec'ed. Even though my heart is still set on 16 GB of RAM, the iMac was nearly instantaneous on everything except Word and even at that, it was very snappy. Unfortunately, although the guy tried to get me approved for a Best Buy card, I was denied and I was pretty certain I would be. He had another option in mind, but I have to wait until Monday to see if it can be done.

I then drove to the Apple store in Haywood Mall in Greenville. They had all of the colors. They look absolutely awesome. It will be a hard couple of months (maybe not quite that) to save up. I wanted so bad to take one home, but couldn't.

Thank you to everyone who steered me in the right direction!

Ever consider a refurb?

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...157a062e7e305fe2722709ed5283fa5b69677cae399cf

That’s a BTO green 16GB model for $1439.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...157a062e7e305fe2722709ed5283fa5b69677cae399cf

That’s a base model for $230 off as well.

 

[Warrington]

everyone who steered me in the right direction!

Buying something you can't afford is not exactly "the right direction"

 

[thetommyboy2k]

Ever consider a refurb?

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G12U0LL/A/Refurbished-24-inch-iMac-Apple-M1-Chip-with-8‑Core-CPU-and-8‑Core-GPU-Gigabit-Ethernet-Silver?fnode=5699fe840b011899d896770cf0b4d25ab048ba028e3b3562030d52262ed37e8695d916b59f39a0a6f3bde83d13bccb6e2ba716ad35a09ece135157a062e7e305fe2722709ed5283fa5b69677cae399cf

That’s a BTO green 16GB model for $1439.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FGPK3LL/A/Refurbished-24-inch-iMac-Apple-M1-Chip-with-8‑Core-CPU-and-8‑Core-GPU-Gigabit-Ethernet-Blue?fnode=5699fe840b011899d896770cf0b4d25ab048ba028e3b3562030d52262ed37e8695d916b59f39a0a6f3bde83d13bccb6e2ba716ad35a09ece135157a062e7e305fe2722709ed5283fa5b69677cae399cf

That’s a base model for $230 off as well.

I have considered it, but still would have a ways to go to buy a refurb. Thanks for sharing the links.

 

[thetommyboy2k]

Buying something you can't afford is not exactly "the right direction"

I meant when I can buy one, I'll be getting an M1 iMac instead of the 5,1 like I had planned.

 

[Macsonic]

@thetommyboy2k Congrats in advance with whatever computer you'll be buying if it will be the iMac M1

 

[MattA]

I think for your use case, you'll be much happier with the M1 iMac than the old Mac Pro. Technology has pretty much moved on from those systems, and while they are still very capable today, if you're in the market for new, no Mac can really touch the M1 for cost vs. performance.

Enjoy your new purchase when you get it!