MP 7,1 Mac Pro Upgrade Questions - CPU, GPU and Storage

[sammyman]

Got a few questions about these new Mac Pros. A friend has a nice employee discount (about 25% off I believe) so I'm debating ordering a base and upgrading myself. I realize this computer is way more than what we need, but I'm considering it for longevity. My wife is a professional photographer and spends her life on an iMac Pro (which we love but it does have a screen issue that may be getting worse).

1. I'd like the 12-core. My old Mac Pro towers needed the right socket for a 12-core so upgrading wasn't easy. Is it easy to go from an 8-core to a 12-core? Same socket? How much cheaper is it to do it yourself?

2. I'd like the w5700x with 16gb. Same thing. I don't care if the inside isn't all sleek if I can save some money by buying the card later. Any side issues like ports not working, etc? Based on what I remember with my old towers, this one might make sense to buy from Apple. GPU issues on aftermarket cards was always a nightmare.

3. Storage. I noticed they are saying the storage you originally buy is "internal" storage. I can't see where it is on the computer. So I'm guessing pulling out the original 256gb and upgrading isn't an option. I don't mind having the main boot drive on a 256gb, but I'm worried that in 5 years it would be insufficient and it would just be wasted space. 1tb minimum would be ideal.

Should I order it how we'd like it from Apple or upgrade ourselves? Thank you!

 

[Schismz]

1. I also use EPP for purchases. Got 28 core. Unlike 5,1 7,1 is a dead-end, there will be no upgraded Xeons ever made for that socket, so your hope is that prices will drop as years pass. The thing is, if you go look up pricing right now on what a 12-core will cost you vs. an 8-core, utilizing an EPP discount of 25% ... it's completely pointless, and you may actually end up spending more money for a do-it-yourself project which then leaves you with an 8-core to sell to someone at a loss. It just doesn't really make financial sense (in most cases). I can't think of a single instance where it makes sense if you pay 75% of what everybody else has to pay.

2. No comment, no idea.

3. So just get 1TB. To the best of my knowledge the 256GB is a single stick and doesn't benefit from the T2 doing a hardware RAID0 on dual sticks. I picked 4TB and considered 8TB, but it seemed pointless in light of my intent which was adding another 8-16TB storage on PCIe which is hitting roughly 11K Mb/s RW (RAID0 on 4 Samsung NVME M.2 blades) vs. 3.3-3.5 on Apple OEM SSDs.

 

[sammyman]

1. I also use EPP for purchases. Got 28 core. Unlike 5,1 7,1 is a dead-end, there will be no upgraded Xeons ever made for that socket, so your hope is that prices will drop as years pass. The thing is, if you go look up pricing right now on what a 12-core will cost you vs. an 8-core, utilizing an EPP discount of 25% ... it's completely pointless, and you may actually end up spending more money for a do-it-yourself project which then leaves you with an 8-core to sell to someone at a loss. It just doesn't really make financial sense (in most cases). I can't think of a single instance where it makes sense if you pay 75% of what everybody else has to pay.

2. No comment, no idea.

3. So just get 1TB. To the best of my knowledge the 256GB is a single stick and doesn't benefit from the T2 doing a hardware RAID0 on dual sticks. I picked 4TB and considered 8TB, but it seemed pointless in light of my intent which was adding another 8-16TB storage on PCIe which is hitting roughly 11K Mb/s RW (RAID0 on 4 Samsung NVME M.2 blades) vs. 3.3-3.5 on Apple OEM SSDs.

Awesome. Thank you. I think I'll just order how we want it then. I also want to add a raid storage on PCIe.

Which of the stock storage utilize raid? I'm guessing 2tb and up?

 

[Schismz]

I think everything starting @ 1TB uses RAID0 via the T2. You can google for answers, but to the best of my recollection a 1TB config is dual 512GB sticks. You can change your mind later and decide you want 8TB or whatever, but no 3rd party option presently exists for purchasing the Apple OEM SSDs because they're not really SSDs, the T2 is the controller, it's not like plugging in M.2 drives.

 

[sammyman]

I think everything starting @ 1TB uses RAID0 via the T2. You can google for answers, but to the best of my recollection a 1TB config is dual 512GB sticks. You can change your mind later and decide you want 8TB or whatever, but no 3rd party option presently exists for purchasing the Apple OEM SSDs because they're not really SSDs, the T2 is the controller, it's not like plugging in M.2 drives.

Got it. That's kind of annoying. I think I'll go with 1tb.