Considering going from 2013 Mac Pro to Mac Studio - Is my thinking sound?

[elasticmedia]

As much as I adore my Mac Pro, with her amazingly cool looks and classic beauty, it is a bit poky in the big scheme of things now, and I am thinking of divorcing her and moving on to a Mac Studio. The current 6 core Pro has 64 GB of ram and 1 TB of internal storage, and my frugal plans are to buy a used entry level config with 32 gb RAM and 512 GB of storage. Here are my assumptions:

I intend to use a thunderbolt 3 external drive for more space. The pro clocks at about 850 MB/S write and 850 MB/S read access, so even if I use files on the thunderbolt 3 drive, my disk will be a lot faster, as it seems that you can achieve 2600/2600 MB/S speeds on a drive like that.

In Geekbench, entry level Mac Studio M1 has a 2405 single core speed vs. the Mac Pro at 759. The multi-core readings are 12,461 for the Studio vs. 3558 for the Pro - basically the Studio annihilates the Pro.

I am a little confused about the speed of a thunderbolt 3 drive: I read contradictory stories about achieving 2800 MB/S. Do I need to have a dual drive setup to get that speed and tie them together at Raid 0? Even if I just get 1500 MB/S that will be way faster than my internal drive access speed on the Pro.

Thanks!

 

[krell100]

Almost exactly the same situation here. I too have a 6 core, 1tb, 64 2013.

I’m waiting for an M3 studio, probably only 4 months away.

A PCIe 4 nvme drive via thunderbolt 4 will easily get 2800 mb/s So you’ll be fine.

 

[elasticmedia]

Almost exactly the same situation here. I too have a 6 core, 1tb, 64 2013.

I’m waiting for an M3 studio, probably only 4 months away.

A PCIe 4 nvme drive via thunderbolt 4 will easily get 2800 mb/s So you’ll be fine.

People have talked about the "imminent arrival of the M3 for a long time. What evidence have you to make you think it is 4 months from now? Definitely a reason to wait if true.

 

[Gloor]

Well, M3 Max is out and Apple is going to update all the lineup this year (most likely). WWDC is a reasonable guess for the studio & mini.

Also, did you consider mini? That could serve you really well too.

People have talked about the "imminent arrival of the M3 for a long time. What evidence have you to make you think it is 4 months from now? Definitely a reason to wait if true.

 

[elasticmedia]

Certainly the Mini is plenty powerful for me. I am drawn to the Studio bc it has an SD card slot and more ports, which would just make the logistics easier of not having to attach a bunch of other adaptors and dongles. Frankly, having the Mini smaller than the studio is no advantage for me - I don't quite get the fetish of tiny here.

 

[haralds]

I got an M1 and still use a fully decked-out Classic Mac Pro. The clincher is the difference in power consumption . Its expensive in CA to keep the CMPro running. Macs used to be good about sleeping, but I have had trouble to keep them asleep.

 

[krell100]

As per the above, WWDC would make sense for M3 studios. Personally I think it’s worth waiting but IMHO, YMMV etc.

 

[MarkC426]

I too went from a cMP to a Studio, and it is 'night and day', not to mention the huge drop in power consumption.

 

[SpecFoto]

As much as I adore my Mac Pro, with her amazingly cool looks and classic beauty, it is a bit poky in the big scheme of things now, and I am thinking of divorcing her and moving on to a Mac Studio. The current 6 core Pro has 64 GB of ram and 1 TB of internal storage, and my frugal plans are to buy a used entry level config with 32 gb RAM and 512 GB of storage. Here are my assumptions:

I intend to use a thunderbolt 3 external drive for more space. The pro clocks at about 850 MB/S write and 850 MB/S read access, so even if I use files on the thunderbolt 3 drive, my disk will be a lot faster, as it seems that you can achieve 2600/2600 MB/S speeds on a drive like that.

In Geekbench, entry level Mac Studio M1 has a 2405 single core speed vs. the Mac Pro at 759. The multi-core readings are 12,461 for the Studio vs. 3558 for the Pro - basically the Studio annihilates the Pro.

I am a little confused about the speed of a thunderbolt 3 drive: I read contradictory stories about achieving 2800 MB/S. Do I need to have a dual drive setup to get that speed and tie them together at Raid 0? Even if I just get 1500 MB/S that will be way faster than my internal drive access speed on the Pro.

Thanks!

Just the last month I purchased a M2 Mac Studio Max with 64GB Ram and 1TB internal drive for $390 off list ($2,209 vs $2599) at the Apple refurbished store. Comes with a full 1 year warranty and can get Apple Care if desired. I use an Acasis #405 external USB4 NVMe enclosure with a 4TB WD 850X for my startup drive and I get 2,800 MB/s +/- RW speeds.

I had a 2012 Mac Pro for 7 years and it was a great machine, loved the versatility of it. With the 4 TB3 ports, 2 USB-C and 2 USB-A ports, HDMI port and the SD UHS-II card reader I feel the same about the Mac Studio. It definitely is the fastest and best Mac I have ever owned, and I have had a lot of them since 1984

You don’t say what your main intended use of the Mac Studio is; that can have a lot to do with how it is initially configured, as you cannot upgrade internal storage or Ram later. I do a lot of photography and wanted at least a 1TB internal SSD, because it runs a lot faster than the base 512GB SSD, and I use the extra space for super fast transfers of internal data to my various RAID and SSD external drives at 5,500 MB/s R speed. After having a 2019 27” iMac with only a 512GB internal SSD (2,200MB/s+/- R/W), I will never go that route again, always was nearly out of disk space, which leads to memory swaps and the potential to wear out the internal SSD faster. So my recommendation would be 32 GB Ram and 1TB SSD as minimum.

Far as external SSD drives and the transfer speeds, the current TB3/USB4 drives should all run the same at a Max of the 2,800MB/s +/- speeds I am achieving, assuming is PCIe 4.0 NVMe is up to date. Some NVMe’s needed firmware upgrades to run at full speeds on the M1/2 Macs and that is why some had lower R or W speeds. Or some may have been PCIe 3.0 versions. The Samsung 980 2TB Pro and WD 850X 4TB are the 2 I have used and they work great with 5 year warranties. There is a newer set of TB4/USB4 enclosures with a slightly faster chip set released in December, and about a 10-12% increase in speed, but they run hot. Their speed can reach up to 3,200MB/s +/- R/W. I just received one a week ago, but am waiting to find a good price on the 4TB WD 850X or Samsung 990 Pro, as the post Holiday prices are pretty high right now.

 

[haralds]

One should also note that the CMPro running with OCLP is unstable on Ventura and Sonoma. The Xeons are missing the AVX2 instructions used in those systems. Monterey works well. But it is missing the current Homekit support and latest versions of Logic Pro and Final Cut.

 

[majus]

...or Samsung 990 Pro...

Make sure it has the latest firmware. Early firmware on that model caused major issues. Firmware updates are available for download from Samsung for those who need them.

 

[Kukodesign]

I did this move from a Mac Pro 2009 to a Studio Mac Ultra M1 with an LG 40" ultrawide display and an OWC 4 bay TB4 external drive with 4 ssd in RAID 0 as Home Folder two years ago.
After 2 years of reinstalling 25 some times the Monterey Os from scratch because an OS bug which created new "I don't know where is" Home Folder setup after accidentally logging out (I had to enable auto login to my account, yet still) an obstructive OS design as Ventura UI...
I am now happy to run a 2013 Mac Pro with D500 64GB ram and 12 core CPU With OWC dual USB3 RAID 0 box running Yosemite with all my softwares, which I had to buy or subscribe for the Studio again, I can use my Epson V600 negative scanner which I couldn't connect or get it recognized in Ventura, I can print with my Epson Pro 7800+ 4880 printers which printed totally differently in Monterey, Ventura.
I still use the Studio for emails and movie editing. The LG display I never used in highest resolution with the Studio, I don't want to wear magnifying glasses, I had it setup since day 1 for 38..x 14.. res.
The OS experience since I use external Home Folder with all my Mac had crippled my creativity until I got my softwares, hardwares back with the 2013 MP. Now I had my "arms" grown back...
Softwares I use, Nik Viveza, APs, Ai, PrinFab, Image Capture, Aperture, iWeb,
Summary, after spending over 8K$, for 2 years I disliked to use the Studio setup, spending 700$ in total for the Mac Pro 2013 setup I am happier than ever...the hardware is about OS experience in my opinion.

 

[StuAff]

I did this move from a Mac Pro 2009 to a Studio Mac Ultra M1 with an LG 40" ultrawide display and an OWC 4 bay TB4 external drive with 4 ssd in RAID 0 as Home Folder two years ago.
After 2 years of reinstalling 25 some times the Monterey Os from scratch because an OS bug which created new "I don't know where is" Home Folder setup after accidentally logging out (I had to enable auto login to my account, yet still) an obstructive OS design as Ventura UI...
I am now happy to run a 2013 Mac Pro with D500 64GB ram and 12 core CPU With OWC dual USB3 RAID 0 box running Yosemite with all my softwares, which I had to buy or subscribe for the Studio again, I can use my Epson V600 negative scanner which I couldn't connect or get it recognized in Ventura, I can print with my Epson Pro 7800+ 4880 printers which printed totally differently in Monterey, Ventura.
I still use the Studio for emails and movie editing. The LG display I never used in highest resolution with the Studio, I don't want to wear magnifying glasses, I had it setup since day 1 for 38..x 14.. res.
The OS experience since I use external Home Folder with all my Mac had crippled my creativity until I got my softwares, hardwares back with the 2013 MP. Now I had my "arms" grown back...
Softwares I use, Nik Viveza, APs, Ai, PrinFab, Image Capture, Aperture, iWeb,
Summary, after spending over 8K$, for 2 years I disliked to use the Studio setup, spending 700$ in total for the Mac Pro 2013 setup I am happier than ever...the hardware is about OS experience in my opinion.

Epson driver for Ventura...

Epson Perfection V600 Photo | Support | Epson US

epson.com

(V500 Photo here, works perfectly with my M1 Pro MBP). There are printer driver updates as well.
As for your monitor, why not adjust the scaling?

 

[Kukodesign]

Epson driver for Ventura...

Epson Perfection V600 Photo | Support | Epson US

epson.com

(V500 Photo here, works perfectly with my M1 Pro MBP). There are printer driver updates as well.
As for your monitor, why not adjust the scaling?

Thanks Stu, the LG is scaled down to 38..x 16.. from 50..x 20.., the V600 driver from Epson on Ventura, Monterey cannot even see the scanner in Image Capture nor Epson Scan...printer drivers are for these OS from Epson but they print totally different prints than from Yosemite, El Capitan. Thanks for your input though
Update: Reinstalled Ventura, deleted- reinstalled Epson scan files after what StuAff said about his V500 scanner...now the scanner is immediately recognized, both Image Capture & Epson Scan working as it should. Thanks!

 

[apostolosdt]

I used to run an MP 6,1 (6-core, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD, D500) as my main computer, until I bought a base Mini M1 a year ago and since then I’ve been running all the apps with no problems. Even the VMs on Parallels.

I tell myself what that Mini would be doing, had it run 16GB RAM; let alone a Studio.

 

[ewitte]

I used to run an MP 6,1 (6-core, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD, D500) as my main computer, until I bought a base Mini M1 a year ago and since then I’ve been running all the apps with no problems. Even the VMs on Parallels.

I tell myself what that Mini would be doing, had it run 16GB RAM; let alone a Studio.

You have more tolerance for reduced system response than I do. I have parallels but even without it I've had to micromanage what I have open. The one app I real need that isn't on Mac, I got it working with Wine which only takes up about 200MB. So, parallels isn't starting up until I move to a Studio.