MP 6,1 MacPro Late 2013 as upgrade to MacMini i7 Late 2012

[victor.espina]

I agree with you 100%, but I have the same issue with the 2012 Mac Pro as @victor.espina does, it does not support Big Sur. I have one at work running Mojave and it has been great, but feels a bit long in the tooth for computing in 2021. With that said, if I could install KDE neon and a RX580 or Vega 56 in it then it would be an amazing box!

I friend of mine took the time to evaluate hands-on several Linux distros and he choose KDE Neon for a long test of using Linux as Mac replacement (he is more or less in the same predicament I am, but he is a 100% mobile user). I installed it in a very old HP desktop computers that were donated for poor children and the thing worked like a charm!!

I am actually planning to upgrade my HP (i5 16 GB RAM) laptop with a new SSD disk and install KDE Neon there to see how it goes (using VMWare for virtualization).

 

[victor.espina]

option A: you can buy a refurbished one and upgrade ram by yourselves. If you are using a macOS that Mac mini 2018 can run, you could boot from your old drive directly.

Yes, I guess you are right. Since I am not in a hurry to buy anything right now, I could wait until a real good deal appears on the MacMin 2018 (or even on the MacPro.. If I found that thing on 800$ or less I wont resist the temptation LOL).

I am planning to travel to Miami next year for a family reunion, so it could be a great moment to buy the MacMini 2018 and get it back home with me without having to pay import taxes in my country. That alone will save me a lot of bucks... The MacMini, of course... I don't think the customs officer will buy that the MacPro is my "travel" computer

 

[incumbent]

My Photo/Audio workstation was a 3,1 and I moved to a 6,1 and I'll tell you this much, you're better off with a 5,1 than a 6,1 just in general. I have phantoms causing reboots that are somehow GPU related (D300's in mine not the ones part of the Apple warranty program for the 500s and 700s) but very difficult to deal with and I think I'm making progress on isolating and mitigating the root cause but my workarounds are not ideal.

Some Thunderbolt 3 docks work fine with the trashcan6,1 but others work only sometimes or occasionally. I used my OWC TB3 dock for like two weeks when my MBP was away but then I hooked it back up and didn't even light it up! so I'm using an old CalDigit break-out box dock to get me 2 eSATA ports that I use because I've got zpool attached.

The internal storage on the 6,1 can be taken to a 2TB NVME with an adaptoid, you can go up to 128GB of RAM. This is the thing that keeps me off the M-series Apple Silicon Macs right now; I'm used to needing 16/32/64/128GB of RAM for my workloads and I don't even do much that demands it, mostly Lightroom, Firefox, Affinity and extremely rarely Photoshop. I would be fine for Lightroom on an m1 with 16GB and maybe even 8GB but I am super skeptical about anything less than 32GB for any computer I buy anymore.

There is a 70% chance that my trashcan6,1 will turn into a macpro7,1 within the next six months and I'm not thrilled about it but my 2008 macpro3,1 was still a daily driver until a year ago and I haven't decided what to do with it yet (that era of Xeon doesn't have instructions docker/VMWare Fusion expect so I can't even use it as a multipurpose hypervisor but apparently vsphere/ESXi will work, I just don't know the impact of those missing instructions in my pair of CPUs.

The 2013 is a workstation that I'm both impressed with and disappointed in.

---
for anyone curious my watchdog reboots and GPU crashes/WindowServer eruptions — they're like everyone else's and I've tried cranking fans, disabling stuff. I've got an LG Ultrawide Thunderbolt 2 display. that's right Thunderbolt 2 NOT miniDP! has to be thunderbolt 2 cable or it won't work. last night after the 20th crash last week i am following a hunch and knowing the allocations of lanes and busses for those TB2 ports I've moved my monitor from 3 to 6 and moved my dock from 4 to 5 and i'll ditch TB2 for display and try HDMI from the HDMI output next.

i can't even run with filevault because i travel between two residences 900m apart and last month my trashcan crashed at the login screen and I couldn't export any photos for getting prints made without doing a super tedious song and dance with the backups of my NAS that it replicates my photography work to, it was a huge pain in the ass so I can't even follow my own best practices by using WDE on the boot volume. My zfs datasets work with/without encryption fine, i've got like five SSDs hooked up to it using jhfs+, apfs, zfs, my JBODs of magnetic disks (zpool) but someone can just roll in and yank my 2TB NVME out and they've got a lot of important data that would allow them to access even more important data, so i'm feeling really vulnerable at the moment.

 

[mikas]

I've got the 6,1 too, for a little over half a year now I've used it allmost daily. It's hooked to my tv, as an HTPC or maybe more like an entertainment center. Forums, movies, youtube, social interaction and then some songs streaming through. And I have tried some professional apps with it too.

I'm kind of sad to say this, but it's not the most reliable Mac I have had. On the contrary, it's the most often crashing or problematic Mac I have had for a long time. (This witness covers only the OS X times though. OS 9 was a diffrent era alltogether).

I do not know if it is about the hardware or the software, because I have started on Catalina with it, and now I am running Big Sur. Maybe I should try Mojave with it. It might make a difference maybe. I run Mojave on most of my daily usage Macs. Mojave has been reliable enough for work and everything with those older Macs of mine.

I paid 1000€ and some for it (6,1), at 2020 september if I remember it right. I would not buy another one anything more than that, and probably even not for that price anymore. And after th Mx announcements from Apple these used intel Mac prices need to come down dramatically pretty soon I think.

Still, it's the most elegant and the most beautiful Mac Pro ever put out of an Apple production line based on looks of it. That might be the reason and the cause of me buying it used.

I do have an eGPU w Vega56 attached to it. It works with TB2/TB3 adapter and with purge-wrangler, with some caveats to it. Because of the nature of it behaving sporadically, I am not so eager to make it my main driver for work. I'll keep the 5,1 for now for that.

 

[incumbent]

On the contrary, it's the most often crashing or problematic Mac I have had for a long time.

<snip>

Mine is infuriating at times. My knock-wood post above about changing different thunderbolt 2 ports? I had another GPU crash and panic like 30m later in the middle of writing something I can't get back. I about threw it across the room by the lip of it.

My latest voodoo? I've switched from direct TB2 to TB2 Display (LG Ultrawide) and now I'm using a miniDP -> DisplayPort cable on the third isolated thunderbolt 2 bus. When it panics again due to GPU crashes, I will move the LG Ultrawide to my employer's side of my desk and move a Dell Ultrawhatever 5K display over to the right and see how that goes.

I do have an eGPU w Vega56 attached to it. It works with TB2/TB3 adapter and with purge-wrangler, with some caveats to it. Because of the nature of it behaving sporadically, I am not so eager to make it my main driver for work. I'll keep the 5,1 for now for that.

Well it's interesting to know that even with an eGPU they're still temperamental little trashcans. I was actually considering buying into something like this but if it doesn't stop the panics I won't bother. Wish I would have known just how pervasive this problem was before I bought it, the extended service Apple gave it was only for the D500/D700 models anyway, mine has dual D300s and a big chip on it's shoulder. It can tell I am ready to hit it with a hammer. Putting that much memory and storage into it wasn't exactly cheap and the 7,1 isn't either, but I suppose a new 7,1 today will probably last me until 2030 so maybe $10k isn't too expensive after all? Really don't like rolling the dice on a ,1 revision to the Pro either and I think they'll have an Apple Silicon Pro that I would consider if the performance was good for the software I use.

 

[victor.espina]

Still, it's the most elegant and the most beautiful Mac Pro ever put out of an Apple production line based on looks of it. That might be the reason and the cause of me buying it used.

Same reason I'll probably buy one of those someday, along with:

• A "Lamp" iMac G4
• An iMac G3
• A G4 Cube

For me, those model are one of a kind and worth to be collected and displayed.

 

[mikas]

Yes, I kind of know what you mean..

They just shout the tube too to stand beside them, y'all think?

 

[victor.espina]

Yes, I kind of know what you mean..
View attachment 1772960
They just shout the tube too to stand beside them, y'all think?

you kind of have them all already!! LOL

 

[thekev]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy a 6,1 today. These things aren't immortal or well designed, and it could be very old. A 2012 mini is old today too, but you aren't buying that 2012 mini today with the expectation of many more years of life.

Yes, I guess you are right. Since I am not in a hurry to buy anything right now, I could wait until a real good deal appears on the MacMin 2018 (or even on the MacPro.. If I found that thing on 800$ or less I wont resist the temptation LOL).

I am planning to travel to Miami next year for a family reunion, so it could be a great moment to buy the MacMini 2018 and get it back home with me without having to pay import taxes in my country. That alone will save me a lot of bucks... The MacMini, of course... I don't think the customs officer will buy that the MacPro is my "travel" computer

$800 is still not worth it, regardless of what they might sell for. You would get a lot more support, including security updates, from something more recent. I wouldn't buy any intel model from Apple today with the intention of using it more than 2-3 years, as third party support could start to really dry up around that time.

 

[victor.espina]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy a 6,1 today. These things aren't immortal or well designed, and it could be very old. A 2012 mini is old today too, but you aren't buying that 2012 mini today with the expectation of many more years of life.



$800 is still not worth it, regardless of what they might sell for. You would get a lot more support, including security updates, from something more recent. I wouldn't buy any intel model from Apple today with the intention of using it more than 2-3 years, as third party support could start to really dry up around that time.

Yeah, it it's clear for me now that the only valid reason to get a MacPro6.1 at this moment would be from a collector point of view. Regarding buying a modern Intel Mac today, I disagree. A MacMini 2018 will get me almost twice the computer power I have now and the ability to install more than 16 GB of RAM, which would help a lot in the way of allowing me to run 2 o 3 VMs at the same (which I sometimes need to do for testing), and even if Apple don't release any other MacOS version for Intel and the support for Intel Big Sur ends in a couple of years, most probably I would be able to use that mac for at least 6-8 years without problems.

By then, I would either be working on web technologies exclusively, or Parallels would have found a way to virtualize x86 code in an efficient way, or I would have been moved away from programming altogether into farming/hosting/musician... in any of those cases, I would be able to switch to an Apple Silicon computers without any problems.

 

[thekev]

Yeah, it it's clear for me now that the only valid reason to get a MacPro6.1 at this moment would be from a collector point of view. Regarding buying a modern Intel Mac today, I disagree. A MacMini 2018 will get me almost twice the computer power I have now and the ability to install more than 16 GB of RAM, which would help a lot in the way of allowing me to run 2 o 3 VMs at the same (which I sometimes need to do for testing), and even if Apple don't release any other MacOS version for Intel and the support for Intel Big Sur ends in a couple of years, most probably I would be able to use that mac for at least 6-8 years without problems.

Apple typically cuts security updates within a few year of discontinuation. After five years post discontinuation/replacement, they mark it vintage and repairs are subject to availability past that point. Six to eight years really isn't optimal for something that was already replaced. Personally, I would budget around fewer years of service than that, even if you need the upgrade.

I definitely think it's a better buy than a 2013 Mac Pro. Buying used, I would personally stick to models that are from the past 3 or so years and don't have a lot of known problems. This way they still receive security updates for a while and are unlikely to need repairs.

 

[incumbent]

That's a good point @thekev — after five years Apple isn't afraid to cut an architecture off from security fixes. I had a pair of G5 rackmacs in a datacenter for way too long and was only able to get away with it by manually building new binaries for OpenSSH occasionally and bash/sh for shellshock among a few other things. At the time it was fine but there's no way I'd do it today; I'd have `dd`ed the disks and had them thrown in the dumpster.

Which is kind of how I feel about this thing already and they're getting software updates.

I did think to myself that once it's no longer fit for purpose that it would make a really beautiful piece of household infrastructure; 128GB of RAM, twelve cores, 2TB of internal storage and bonded ethernet performs well for storage from a NAS and maybe these GPU crashes won't happen when it's headless?

In a couple weeks I'm going to be at the other place and I'll pull it off any displays before I go. If I get uptime out of this thing more than a couple of days I'll start stalking Apple's Refurb page or wait to see if they release an Apple Silicon Pro.

 

[th0masp]

For option a) I am considering a refurbished MacPro late 2013 with a 6 cores Xeon E5 v2 CPU, upgraded to a 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB NVMe SSD drive, for a total budget of around 1.300 USD.

What do you think? If it worth it?

I have both the 2012 mini as well as a six-core Trashcan which has become my daily driver for desktop computing. It's quite the upgrade all by itself and being able to easily swap RAM, storage and the CPU is great. It also allows for quite a range of OS versions to be installed, you're not tied to Catalina+ .... which might be considered a plus.

I don't know those new style minis but as for the 2018 model: it has the faster CPU for single core tasks, upgrading the RAM sounds like a nightmare, it'll have doodads hanging off it to expand the storage and you'll be stuck with a netbook GPU. Just (insanely) grrrrrrreat.

As for eGPU's my understanding is that these work with little actual performance difference netween them no matter if hooked up to TB1/2/3. There are perf comparisons posted on egpu.io that make it look like hooking up a big fat eGPU would even make an old TB1 MBP viable again for gaming and the like.
This never seemed to me like a stable solution, permanently hooked up to a daily driver but I guess its good to have it as a fallback option.

 

[iAssimilated]

... I don't know those new style minis but as for the 2018 model: it has the faster CPU for single core tasks, upgrading the RAM sounds like a nightmare, it'll have doodads hanging off it to expand the storage and you'll be stuck with a netbook GPU. Just (insanely) grrrrrrreat. ...

Yeah, I am not sure I would recommend the 2018 mini without an eGPU. I guess it depends on what you use it for. I only used my 2018 mini (bought the moment it was available) for about a month before I got my eGPU. All I can remember was adding the eGPU made it feel like a totally different computer.

 

[mikas]

If it helps, I just ran LuxBall with Mac Pro 6,1 with a few combinations.
E5-1650 v2 + Dual D300 + Vega56 low bios mode in Razor X eGPU, Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter.

I'll just post a screenhot, it's easier:
1) D300, 2) Dual D300, 3) Vega56, 4) Dual D300 + Vega56 in that order from left to right.

3GPUs together make almost a score of 3/4 of one VII. It's not so bad. And the eGPU result of one Vega56 is almost the same as in a Mac Pro 5,1 PCIe slot; 26762 in eGPU versus 27861 in 5,1. So not much of an bottleneck in this benchmark (openCL, though we know it's deprecated in MacOS nowadays).

I might have to take this 6,1 as my main driver eventually, while waiting for that rumored unicorn to come alive, Mx/M2 xMac/MacPro Mini. So maybe I'll have something more to report later, maybe not.

edit. whoops, corrected 5,1 Vega56 result from 37861 -> 27861

 

[DFP1989]

Yeah, it it's clear for me now that the only valid reason to get a MacPro6.1 at this moment would be from a collector point of view.

I want one for no other reason. I can’t believe the prices they are still being listed for and the sale prices on eBay.

 

[mikas]

Well it's interesting to know that even with an eGPU they're still temperamental little trashcans. I was actually considering buying into something like this but if it doesn't stop the panics I won't bother.

Watching YouTube music videos with Vega56 eGPU activated. A Crash, a total hang.

I won't even bother to examine it. Just booted it and everything started all over gracefully - but still, jeesh.

So don't bother, that's my advice. It's a nice collectible, and it works as an htpc, casual youtuber, music player etc whatever. But for real work, I'm afraid not stable enough. Well not this individual with Big Sur or Catalina at least.

Some users do use these for work though, so my opinion is an opinion, not a fact. Still, I will call this a TrashCan from now on. It's actually named exactly that way in my local network allready

What a great reflection from it's chin it does for me of myself though right now, wow.