One year ago today, the new Mac Pro hit the market. I thought this might make a good occasion to reflect.
For those that bought one, how do you feel a year after it came out? For those who didn't buy one for some reason, have your feelings changed at all now that you've had a year to get used to the idea of the new model being for sale? Have your questions and concerns been satisfied? Do you plan on buying a new Mac Pro in the future or have you abandoned the Mac Pro line for good?
We have enough topics speculating about future versions, so let's keep that talk to those topics. Looking simply at the transition from a large multi-CPU box with lots of spinning disks and PCI slots to a small multi-GPU cylinder with a single SSD and no PCI slots, do you feel that Apple is on the right track, the wrong track, or is one year later still not enough time to really know?
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For those that bought one, how do you feel a year after it came out?
Our office purchased a maxed out 12-core MP6,1 Dec 2013 (1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, Dual D700s). It was received early Feb 2014. We also purchased an LG 34UM95 34" display to attach to the new MP6,1. We also bought several older/used LaCie TB-1 RAID-0 drives; 4TB, 4TB, 6TB and 8TB models. We already had a 5-bay MacGurus eSATA Port Multiplier tower with 5x 2TB drives. For extra displays we used an older 20" ACD and a 46" Sony TV for client viewing etc. To run the Burly eSATA tower we had to buy a Sonnet adapter and EXPRESS34 card and used it as the last in the LaCie drive daisy chain.
The whole configuration came up without any issues at all. The Burly eSATA drives were the slowest in the i/o group and gave about 120 MBytes/sec per 2TB drive. All the LaCie drives gave around 350 MBytes/sec, and of course the internal 1TB SSD gave around 950 MBytes/sec. The 64GB RAM meant we had plenty of space for the kernel to hold frequently used data in its memory-based file cache, giving us access to data many times faster than hauling it off the LaCie disks all the time.
We have now been using this rig for close to 12 months and have gone from using Mavericks to using the latest Yosemite OS.
The primary application suite used has been Adobe software.
We split the 1TB SSD into two partitions with one for the OS and applications and the other as cache for After Effects. This was very beneficial for AE.
We use Time Machine for backups and the Burly eSATA box for archiving project data.
The MP6,1 sits on a small height table alongside the TV and a desk with the LG and 20" ACD.
All the disks are kept inside a locker under the desk and out of sight.
There are no cables to be seen except for ones connecting to the desktop LG and 20" ACD, as well as wired keyboard and mouse. The office setup with the MP6,1 is very clean looking.
Having the disks located in a locker under the desk means very little disk and fan noises creep into the office workplace area. The MP6,1 itself simply makes no discernible noise for us. We are careful not to place paper or magazines on top of the MP6,1 for obvious reasons.
The locker under the desk we use to house all of the disk units used to hold our older 12-core MP5,1 and the heat from it was at times very excessive. That issue is no longer a problem for us as the disks generate little heat compared to the MP5,1. Because the MP5,1 was so large it used up all the space in the locker and many of our external disks were scattered about the room and some even on the desktop. Their noise was not enjoyed at all.
We have been extremely happy with our MP6,1 purchased almost 12 months ago. The LaCie drives have performed without issues and of course can be upgraded to use 4TB or 6TB disks to meet future requirements. The need for TB-2 enclosures has not been necessary for us at this time. The LaCie purchases were very cost effective for us.
The MP6,1 Geekbench 3 (64-bit, multi core) score is at around 32,000. The Geekbench 3 (64-bit multi core) score for our older MP5,1 12-core 2.93 GHz X5670, 960GB SSD, Sapphire HD 7950 is at around 30,000. Our investment for the MP5,1 with the added goodies over stock was around $9,000. The MP6,1 as configured along with the LaCie drives was at around $10,000. We actually have two maxed out MP5,1s in the office. Our freelancers will always wish they can use the MP6,1 even though the MP5,1s aren't slow by any means. The MP6,1 just gets the work done quicker without any fuss. The MP5,1s will stall at times for unknown reasons and occasionally will need to be rebooted to overcome 'stalling' at critical workflow times. They all run the latest Yosemite OS.
We are so pleased with out MP6,1 12-core that to capitalize on year end expenses for equipment depreciation we have bought another MP6,1 6-core with the other components maxed out; 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM and dual D700s. If this Mac performs as does our 12-core (and we have no doubt that it will) we shall contemplate selling our MP5,1s or keep them as rental units which can fetch as much as $1800/month for the pair, which we've done in the past.
