Looking to purchase classic Mac Pro. I just sold my Mac Pro Late 2013

[fuchsdh]

Honestly I don't think the math works out on having sold your BTO Mac Pro for an older model you'll have to upgrade and then want to upgrade again down the road, because you're locked into kludging modern I/O and the processors are not going to get any faster. But it's your cash.

To equal or beat the nMP's SSD speed you'll need a PCIe card with striped SSDs. Sonnet, Apricorn, and OWC make options; I leave it to someone who actually chases that kind of speed to give you better tips on what the best current options are. Presumably you'd want additional storage as scratch disks for your Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere work.

Adobe applications can use CUDA or OpenCL for rendering, I've tried using both on cards that supported it and haven't really ever noticed a substantial difference. CUDA is only necessary in Adobe AE with the raytracing, which was introduced and then de facto dead in less than two years, so it's pointless to worry about it (even with CUDA it was always dog-slow, so getting into Cinema or 3D plugins like Element is a better use of your time and money.) If you're fine dealing with no boot screens a modern Nvidia card is probably a better buy, as you need a card to fit the Mac Pro's power offerings.

To equal or beat the nMP's GPUs you'll need a AMD 7970 or better.

 

[h9826790]

Honestly I don't think the math works out on having sold your BTO Mac Pro for an older model you'll have to upgrade and then want to upgrade again down the road, because you're locked into kludging modern I/O and the processors are not going to get any faster. But it's your cash.

To equal or beat the nMP's SSD speed you'll need a PCIe card with striped SSDs. Sonnet, Apricorn, and OWC make options; I leave it to someone who actually chases that kind of speed to give you better tips on what the best current options are. Presumably you'd want additional storage as scratch disks for your Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere work.

Adobe applications can use CUDA or OpenCL for rendering, I've tried using both on cards that supported it and haven't really ever noticed a substantial difference. CUDA is only necessary in Adobe AE with the raytracing, which was introduced and then de facto dead in less than two years, so it's pointless to worry about it (even with CUDA it was always dog-slow, so getting into Cinema or 3D plugins like Element is a better use of your time and money.) If you're fine dealing with no boot screens a modern Nvidia card is probably a better buy, as you need a card to fit the Mac Pro's power offerings.

To equal or beat the nMP's GPUs you'll need a AMD 7970 or better.

Not entirely correct. The cMP can use the nMP's SSD (or faster PCIe SSD) with a cheap ($20) PCIe adaptor, no need to go for any expensive PCIe SATA 3 adaptors with SSD's in RAID 0. An expensive $300 dollar PCIe SSD adaptor will make the cMP can install 4x PCIe SSD internally via a single PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, each of the SSD is equals to (or faster then) the nMP's SSD, RAID them all together can have ~5900MB/s read write speed, not just match the nMP, but way beyond the nMP can do. On the other hand, $300 on the nMP can hardly buy anything to expend via thunderbolt with top end performance. Also, the cMP has the option to just plug a $500 2T 850 Evo SSD into one of the SATA port, which the nMP do not have. For most general usage, high IOPS is the key, but not sequential read / write speed. The cMP has the cheapest way to have large volume SSD storage. Even though we keep the optical drive, the cMP can easily has 10T SSD internal storage for just $2500. For external storage, a $20 PCIe USB3.0 card can do the job quite well.

A 7970 will beat the D700, not jsut match it, because the D700 is down clocked. Even my dual 7950 can beat the dual D700s by just overclock them a little bit. For VRAM intensive job, the dual D700 12G VRAM may be a better option (if the software can really use both card. However, the cMP has Titan X...

My understanding is the only I/O that the cMP missing is the Thunderbolt. However, cMP has another generally better I/O option, the PCIe slot. that makes the cMP can have USB3.0, eSATA, HDMI 2.0, 10Gb/s ethernet, SAS... I don't think the nMP can have HDMI 2.0 and 10Gb/s ethernet but cost less than the cMP, isn't it?

 

[rawweb]

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but what's really sad is that if you walk into an Apple Store TODAY and hand over $5000 to buy a Mac Pro, you get 3 year old hardware with very little way to upgrade it (except for overpriced Thunderbolt devices) and underwhelming performance. Benchmarks have shown a properly upgraded cMP can match the performance of a nMP for half the price.

What's sad is that Apple charges PREMIUM prices for it's modern "trash can" design, yet performance is mediocre.

Of the few parts inside the cylinder that are actually in sockets, only the RAM is somewhat readily replaceable. Nothing else is available to buy.

So, the OP has decided he'd rather have the choice to easily upgrade parts and design his own cMP. Having been a nMP owner, he knows that nothing can be done to his MP to make it better. He can use the money he got from the sale of his nMP and buy a better performing cMP.

What's really sad is that Apple has shown ZERO signs of improving on the Mac Pro. A stagnant design that may or may not go the way of the dinosaur. Who knows. But I can't see any benefit with being stuck with 3YO technology, knowing you can never upgrade it.

Not wanting to get into a classic vs 6,1 argument, but in honesty, it's not like in terms of CPU (especially architecture) or memory you're going to jump the 6,1 enough to warrant all the switching. You'll spend a fair amount of money upgrading components in the tower that frankly are stuck in 2009 for the most part. Sure, you can throw a new video card in there, and some SSD cards but...those processors aren't getting younger (really for either machine). If I was in the market right now, frankly, I would either look seriously at a maxed out iMac or if I needed the horsepower, go elsewhere. Just my opinion...

 

[fuchsdh]

My understanding is the only I/O that the cMP missing is the Thunderbolt. However, cMP has another generally better I/O option, the PCIe slot. that makes the cMP can have USB3.0, eSATA, HDMI 2.0, 10Gb/s ethernet, SAS... I don't think the nMP can have HDMI 2.0 and 10Gb/s ethernet but cost less than the cMP, isn't it?

It's still a matter of cards. There are only so many slots in a Mac Pro and so you're going to have to choose at some point between graphics capabilities versus I/O versus fast storage, especially if you're focusing on upgrading every element you can of the computer. Upgrading is a great (and kinda fun!) thing, don't get me wrong, but there's only so far you can take it; computers aren't really a Ship of Theseus situation where you can completely rebuild it over time.

(In regards to 10gE Thunderbolt 2 can actually surpass and replace it, but it entirely depends on what your networking model is whether that's a use case you can take advantage of.)

Mostly this talk is only viable because Apple hasn't upgraded the Mac Pro line with a 7,1 etc model (we'll see if the calculus changes come WWDC), but the economics of buying kit to upgrade it versus running a single model for longer and swapping it out with a new one on a regular schedule don't always favor the upgrade path, especially given the intangible factors beyond the pure figures on the spreadsheet (the USB3 card on my Mac Pro was for an unknown reason performing really slowly for a while, getting new Nvidia cards is predicated on Nvidia continuing to offer new drivers for what is presumably a use case on life support.)

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm not the originator of this comment....
But how cool would this be!?

Mac Pro SE

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

I'm not the originator of this comment....
But how cool would this be!?

Mac Pro SE

You mean "what's old is new again"? Not sure Apple would backtrack with another cheese grater aluminum Mac Pro. That would make them look bad, like the trash can was a mistake.

But, yes, an Aluminum Mac Pro with current technology would be cool!

 

[h9826790]

I'm not the originator of this comment....
But how cool would this be!?

Mac Pro SE

Mac Pro Stupid Edition?

Or Small Edition (base on the 6,1)? So that the Mac Pro will getting smaller and smaller. Just like the iMac getting thinner and thinner, but not better and better.

Or Super Economical? So that the Mac Pro use less power than the iPhone, because it perform worse than the iPhone

Sorry, I just couldn't stop.....

 

[linuxcooldude]

So sad that you sold your four year old Apple for a six year old Apple to have the ability to upgrade.

So very, very sad that you're now stuck with a six year old Apple.

Its even sadder when using the latest video cards with Nvidia web drivers. Any update could break them, booting you up to a blank screen. You might call that an upgrade, but I call that a pain in the neck. I got rid of all my Nvidia cards after that.

 

[alphaod]

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I currently have the Trashcan Pro, it's great and all, but the lack of expansion is annoying all the time. The main annoyance is the lack of GPU upgrades.

Though I have an advantage in that my old Mac Pro is in its box sitting in a storage unit, so I guess I could just pull it out, but I need to upgrade a lot of stuff.

 

[rawweb]

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I currently have the Trashcan Pro, it's great and all, but the lack of expansion is annoying all the time. The main annoyance is the lack of GPU upgrades.

Though I have an advantage in that my old Mac Pro is in its box sitting in a storage unit, so I guess I could just pull it out, but I need to upgrade a lot of stuff.

Trade you my fully maxed 5,1 for the trash can. I personally would love to have one at home.
[doublepost=1460699738][/doublepost]

Its even sadder when using the latest video cards with Nvidia web drivers. Any update could break them, booting you up to a blank screen. You might call that an upgrade, but I call that a pain in the neck. I got rid of all my Nvidia cards after that.

I agree, I got a flashed GTX 770 4gb just because the 700 series is the last officially supported Mac driver so I don't bonk it with an update.

 

[Synchro3]

Yes indeed, my EVGA GTX 770 4 GB was a good investment, causing no problems at all.

The day Apple integrates again actual Nvidia cards, regardless in which Mac, and updates the OS X drivers, I will give big praise.

 

[jeffreyd63]

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but what's really sad is that if you walk into an Apple Store TODAY and hand over $5000 to buy a Mac Pro, you get 3 year old hardware with very little way to upgrade it (except for overpriced Thunderbolt devices) and underwhelming performance. Benchmarks have shown a properly upgraded cMP can match the performance of a nMP for half the price.

What's sad is that Apple charges PREMIUM prices for it's modern "trash can" design, yet performance is mediocre.

Of the few parts inside the cylinder that are actually in sockets, only the RAM is somewhat readily replaceable. Nothing else is available to buy.

So, the OP has decided he'd rather have the choice to easily upgrade parts and design his own cMP. Having been a nMP owner, he knows that nothing can be done to his MP to make it better. He can use the money he got from the sale of his nMP and buy a better performing cMP.

What's really sad is that Apple has shown ZERO signs of improving on the Mac Pro. A stagnant design that may or may not go the way of the dinosaur. Who knows. But I can't see any benefit with being stuck with 3YO technology, knowing you can never upgrade it.

Exactly. It's not that the nMP was not performing well for me, in fact I got a good two years of use out of it. I just decided that I wanted to be able to upgrade components again and not be locked into the nMP restrictions. I figured it was a good time to liquidate it while I could still get a decent return on it and before it's value went down too much. I feel confident that an upgraded cMP will work quite well for me for some time to come and yes at half the cost of what I sold my nMP for most likely. I suppose it's possible but I don't think Apple will release a new model Mac Pro that's upgradable like the cMP in the near future and if they ever did...I bet it would still be expensive. I'm gonna see if I can find a cMP this week and enjoy it's upgradability. Thanks again to everyone for your input on all this.