New Mac Pro

[antonis]

There's another PoV to look at this, without speculating. If by September there is no announcement, then you can more seriously think of moving away from Mac Pro altogether, regardless of when/if it will be finally launched.

Having a workstation machine left out in the cold for over 3 years, without upgrades, and without any announcements of where it is going, are enough reasons to call it a day. It is ok - I guess - to surprise-launch an iMac or a laptop. But workstation owners need to know the strategy behind their investment, they need to have a clear view of the machine's lifecycle. Even if a new Mac Pro is launched tomorrow morning, Apple has already failed on that part.

 

[mw360]

Shall i buy current Mac Pro (late 2013) or shall i wait for new one.I know probably this question been asked before but i would appreciate your input.I have currently mid 2010 Mac Pro and i'm a pro photographer and it's getting slower by everday.Thanks in advance.

Its a terrible time to buy a new Mac Pro. Upgrade your current model. We have one 2010 MP and a couple of trashcans. The old one is far better, and still with lots of headroom for upgrades. The trashcan is a dead end with negligible productivity benefits over the old one.

The reason your old Mac is getting slow is possibly because you still have hard disks in there. The new OS versions are 'optimised for SSD' which is a polite way of saying 'very slow'. If you are still on HD's upgrade your drives to SSDs or SSD PCI boards right now and you'll breathe a few more years of life into your Mac. You can also add more RAM up to 64GB, (but only if your system shows signs of high RAM pressure). By the look of things that model will be supported with OS updates until 2020 (security updates only from next year).

 

[pat500000]

Shall i buy current Mac Pro (late 2013) or shall i wait for new one.I know probably this question been asked before but i would appreciate your input.I have currently mid 2010 Mac Pro and i'm a pro photographer and it's getting slower by everday.Thanks in advance.

Buy it before they make a new emoji workstation.
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To be honest i was thinking to wait a few more months but then again its like lottery with apple!

If your apps can run two GPU all the merrier. But it depends on your software.
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There's another PoV to look at this, without speculating. If by September there is no announcement, then you can more seriously think of moving away from Mac Pro altogether, regardless of when/if it will be finally launched.

Having a workstation machine left out in the cold for over 3 years, without upgrades, and without any announcements of where it is going, are enough reasons to call it a day. It is ok - I guess - to surprise-launch an iMac or a laptop. But workstation owners need to know the strategy behind their investment, they need to have a clear view of the machine's lifecycle. Even if a new Mac Pro is launched tomorrow morning, Apple has already failed on that part.

Their method of keeping secret is over. They need to start telling us directly and not some hidden message for each keynotes for example "in da loop" or whatever it was.
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The thing to think about is if they do update it this time, will they do it again. Years ago, Macs were updated on a pretty regular basis so if your Mac was getting long on the tooth, you could be pretty certain that another one was coming since they had updates almost yearly. Now if you want yearly updates, you'll need to look at an iMac. It costs less and you can update it more often as needed. Far from ideal but it is something to consider

The real question that Tim wants to ask you is this: are you gonna wait...regardless when?

 

[MH01]

Buy it before they make a new emoji workstation.

This comment wins MR today !!!! And so true!

 

[lowendlinux]

As always:

Will it make you more money than you can make with your current setup and if it will, does the extra money cover the cost of the computer plus reasonable profit. If the answer to that question is yes then buy if the answer is no then don't.

 

[antonis]

Their method of keeping secret is over. They need to start telling us directly and not some hidden message for each keynotes for example "in da loop" or whatever it was.

Amen to that.

Well, I can understand the hide-and-seek game for all their other products, the hype it creates and all that. But pro users certainly can't work like this. They should treat the Mac Pro differently. Even the number of threads with speculations and potential customers wondering what they should do, in these forums says a lot.

Although I don't hold my breath for nMP anymore, since I've split my work and entertainment between an MBP and a PC, respectively, I do get where those people here stand. nMP pays the rent for them, that's serious and doesn't fit with apple's marketing games.

 

[Mago]

Shall i buy current Mac Pro (late 2013) or shall i wait for new one.I know probably this question been asked before but i would appreciate your input.I have currently mid 2010 Mac Pro and i'm a pro photographer and it's getting slower by everday.Thanks in advance.

There are solid cues on both iMac retina and Mac Pro Updates are coming, macOS includes KEXT for all the new Polaris 11 GPU (exactly the ones aimed to replace dGPU on rMBP and iMacs) was a little surprise to see the drivers for the Polaris 11 that should come with the iMac Retina.

I don't see you as a Mac Pro user (you don't do advanced video edit, or huge prologic audio processing -a shame prologic being so deficient-), I think you should point on a the updated iMac retina 5K it looks more imminent than the Mac Pro (also we later found cues on Apple testing new Desktop GPU, the Mac Pro is the only mac capable to drive a desktop GPU, futher previouls leaks suggest it will include 10 USB ports, even if apple decides no to release at least they have a MP7,1 prototype working somewhere).

I suggest you to hold until macOS is released then at the same time Apple sould introduce all the renovated mac linup, at least the new Macbooks and the iMac plus some new Retina Displays (21/27").

The iMac with SSD and i7-6750K is far enough for photo workflows than a base Mac Pro (and even maybe cheaper too).

 

[Pending]

Shall i buy current Mac Pro (late 2013) or shall i wait for new one.I know probably this question been asked before but i would appreciate your input.I have currently mid 2010 Mac Pro and i'm a pro photographer and it's getting slower by everday.Thanks in advance.

How is it getting slower by everyday?

 

[ActionableMango]

What can i upgrade?

Almost everything, up to a point. Maybe you need a new machine, or maybe you just need some RAM and an SSD. It's hard to say without knowing what's going on. But for photography, generally speaking the two bottlenecks I see mentioned a lot is RAM and disk speed. CPU can also be a bottleneck for many features, and GPU for a few features too.

Perhaps there are obvious and inexpensive upgrades that could help in a big way, or maybe you are already tapped out. It's hard to make any recommendations without knowing what hardware you already have and what aspect of your computer feels slow. If you could provide that information it would help.

You can check to see if you have sufficient RAM by checking Activity Monitor (check while in a period of high use). If you are running out of RAM, additional RAM will help a lot. In fact, getting a new computer with the same amount of RAM will just have the same bottleneck.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201464

You can also monitor CPU usage realtime there, but I prefer a utility like iStat Menus:
https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

If you have a hard drive, almost certainly the entire system will feel peppier if you switch to an SSD.

Some photography applications, like Photoshop, allow you to specific a separate scratch disk for temporary. It's a good idea to do this if you have more than one drive.

 

[rGiskard]

An upgraded macpro5,1 should serve the needs of most photographers for at least another 2-3 years.

Without knowing your current machine's specs it's hard to say exactly what it needs, but assuming it's fully stock:

High priority upgrades:
-Samsung 951 PCIe SSD. Get 'em cheap on ebay. They use MLC NAND that will outlast the usefulness of your Mac Pro.
-Nvidia GPU for CUDA acceleration in Adobe apps. Your stock video card is ancient tech, so drop in a PC video card flashed with a Mac EFI ROM. It's easy to do yourself and you can pick up a nice used GTX 680 for under $150. Or you can just buy a pre-flashed card on ebay. For photography you don't need the latest GTX Titan, just something with CUDA acceleration and the ability to run 4K displays (GTX 680 does it).
-RAM, if you haven't already loaded up on it. RAM is like smack, no matter how much you have it is never enough!
-USB 3.0 PCIe card for USB 3 SD card reader. Only $20-30 so why not? Also great for external RAID.

Lower priority:
-I didn't catch which CPU(s) are in your Mac Pro, but an upgrade may be helpful. If it's a single processor machine then a 3.33 or 3.46 hexacore is the way to go. Dual processor, it may or may not be worth the investment needed for higher clock speeds. Wait until the SSD and GPU are upgraded to assess CPU upgrade need.
-Airport/BT card for Continuity features. Not really necessary, but you can get 'em for $35 on ebay.

Given the uncertainty of the Tube Pro's future and its lack of upgradability, I would avoid it like toxic waste. It also has overheating issues so longevity is a big question. Apple can get away with bad cooling designs on their consumer Macs but a computer that's in use 10 hours a day, sometimes with overnight renders, will not last without sufficient cooling.

 

[muzzy63]

An upgraded macpro5,1 should serve the needs of most photographers for at least another 2-3 years.

Without knowing your current machine's specs it's hard to say exactly what it needs, but assuming it's fully stock:

High priority upgrades:
-Samsung 951 PCIe SSD. Get 'em cheap on ebay. They use MLC NAND that will outlast the usefulness of your Mac Pro.
-Nvidia GPU for CUDA acceleration in Adobe apps. Your stock video card is ancient tech, so drop in a PC video card flashed with a Mac EFI ROM. It's easy to do yourself and you can pick up a nice used GTX 680 for under $150. Or you can just buy a pre-flashed card on ebay. For photography you don't need the latest GTX Titan, just something with CUDA acceleration and the ability to run 4K displays (GTX 680 does it).
-RAM, if you haven't already loaded up on it. RAM is like smack, no matter how much you have it is never enough!
-USB 3.0 PCIe card for USB 3 SD card reader. Only $20-30 so why not? Also great for external RAID.

Lower priority:
-I didn't catch which CPU(s) are in your Mac Pro, but an upgrade may be helpful. If it's a single processor machine then a 3.33 or 3.46 hexacore is the way to go. Dual processor, it may or may not be worth the investment needed for higher clock speeds. Wait until the SSD and GPU are upgraded to assess CPU upgrade need.
-Airport/BT card for Continuity features. Not really necessary, but you can get 'em for $35 on ebay.

Given the uncertainty of the Tube Pro's future and its lack of upgradability, I would avoid it like toxic waste. It also has overheating issues so longevity is a big question. Apple can get away with bad cooling designs on their consumer Macs but a computer that's in use 10 hours a day, sometimes with overnight renders, will not last without sufficient cooling.

Thank for your advise and here is what i have

Mac Pro (Mid 2010)
500 GB Solid State SATA Drive
2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
16 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC ( i just ordered 4x8gb)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB

and what should i upgrade then to get maximum speed as use mainly lightroom and photoshop heavily.

 

[Pending]

Thank for your advise and here is what i have

Mac Pro (Mid 2010)
500 GB Solid State SATA Drive
2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
16 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC ( i just ordered 4x8gb)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB

and what should i upgrade then to get maximum speed as use mainly lightroom and photoshop heavily.

Firstly get yourself a W3690 cpu, its a fairly straight forward diy install.
That will take you to 3.46GHz. You will notice the extra speed, I did.
Your RAM, if of the type, will bump up to 1333 MHz as a bonus.
There are a number of choices regarding the gpu upgrade and different suggestions will be put to you.
But if you want to stick to Apple official cards you will even notice an improvement going to a Radeon HD 5870
but a GTX 680 mac or Radeon 7950 mac are also official mac cards, if you can get em. After that you are on to flashed versions etc which opens up all sorts of pc cards.
I would do the cpu upgrade first though and see.

 

[mmomega]

Thank you very much for your input i really appreciated for your time.I think i have to sleep on this and see whats happening in morning.

So what he's saying is the fact is that somewhere in between 9 months out of 12 a hardware announcement will be made. If not then wait 3 months and then again hope that an announcement will be made within the next 9 month window.

OR

If there isn't an actual announcement put out then the fact is that hardware can possibly be refreshed somewhere between 12 of 12 months. If not wait until the next year and add more hope.

Keep adding more hope year after year until either hope fails or a refresh comes out. Reset Hope meter.