MP 6,1 Ram speed in real world use between 64GB or 128GB in Mac Pro 6.1 and 8 core or 12 core.

[StrawberryX]

Hi,

I curently own a Mac Pro 6.1, bought a refurb 4 years ago. The base model. With D300.
Also 2 Akitio PCIe for nvme drives. One has the AHCI 960GB card that can also boot OS'es before Hi Sierra.
The other one has a 512gb Samsung that can only boot or be recognised.
64 GB samsung ram. I don't use the 256 gb internal drive, except to clone it.
Also different docking stations ( USB 3 ), and sata SSD's

I did buy the 8 core processor. Have not installed It yet.

I just bought a second refurb. This time the 6 core. With 1TB SSD. D500. It was only 1000 euro's with tax reduction. I also ordered 128 ram this time. And the 12 core CPU.
( first I ordered a refurb Imac Pro, but canceled it, if I want a mac that is 4000 euro+ I think is better to see how those M1 macs turn out in 2 or 3 years. For now I'm still happy with the 6.1.
That refurb + 128 ram and 12 core CPU was cheaper than an I7 mac mini.
I did not want to go m1 because of bootcamp. And also not the 2020 Imac because I think it can run Mojave and have a lot of audio software and hardware that works on Mojave.
But for some projects in Logic X, 64 gig ram it not enough. But 128 ram runs slower, and video's on youtube says it will make your CPU run slower.

I have 64 gig ram in my 3.1. Wich is still very usable. But that's only a difference from 633 instead of 800mhz.

I was thinking puting the 12 core in my older mac and then the 8 core in the newer mac.
Because the D500's are faster in bootcamp. Less so in OSX.

But anyone went for 128 gig and switched back to 64 gig's because it is to slow.
A lot of programs prefer more ram, not faster ram.
My 3.1 destroys my macbook air I7 and 8GB ram when using professional software.
Even when the single core speed of the 3.1 is super slow.
I can't work on RAW files and big PSD's on the macbook air.
It is no problem to work on 20 RAW files at the same time on the 3.1.

I did not like the trashcan Mac Pro's at first, but they are pretty ok.
As they are very cheap, if you do some upgrades yourself.
Only downside are graphics, I always put the fan at max if I do some steam.
And no thunderbolt 3. But TB2 is kind of ok for SSD enclosures.
And refurb they are very cheap now. Upgrades are also very cheap.
And they are super silent.

But anyone upgraded from 64GB to 128GB what are your experiences?

 

[MarkC426]

Based on this thread, the ram DOES run slower.
But this should only be under benchmark tests.
With real world use 128gb ram will be very useful.

Mac Pro CPU Compatibility List

Bokkow and I have created a Mac Pro CPU compatibility list. The intent is to cover all relevant and compatible CPU upgrades for all Mac Pros. These are asked about over and over and over again, so I thought it would be nice to have it all in one place. Constructive criticism, corrections to...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[MisterAndrew]

When you say refurb I believe you mean used, because the only refurbs are by Apple and come in a white box and have a new serial number. They aren’t very common, but occasionally they turn up for sale. I wouldn’t call them cheap either, except in comparison to a 2019 Mac Pro. The prices appear to be about the same as they were a year ago.

As far as the ram I think you’ll have to test it and see if 128GB is better for you.

 

[StrawberryX]

It's in the white box, with a handle to carry It around.
Etc ... as new ... think it had some silk cover 2.
Also with 2 year warenty ...

Some pro Apple Stores buy, refurbs or left over stock from Apple I guess.
More the large vendors geared to the the Pro Audio and Video market.
Probably in bulk.
And they sell probably a lot faster through those vendors,
then on the Apple site.
And It's cheaper.

Some sell, new, refurb as new, and refurb that has been used.

The SSD is a new one.

I would not buy a trashcan from ebay.
Because of SSD wear.
And trashcans die if you abuse the graphics cards.

It's in the the EU.
Some even still sell new 5.1's. ( Even if they were banded for sale here new ... )
And with trashcans they sell new one's and refurbs ( It's only 200 euro's price difference ).
They don't sell the new Mac Pro.
A lot of especially audio studio's rely on these older Mac Pro's.
My Pro Tools gear is only supported till Yoshimite.
I still run a Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 with logic 9 and Pro Tools gear on Snow Leopard.

Some also sell used.
I bought my Iphone 8 refurb and It was a "new one".
From one of those vendors.
It was around the time Apple stopped selling the Iphone 8.
And to clear left over stock, they sold new Iphones to some vendors I guess ...
It's the only time I saw new Iphones ( discontinued by Apple ) but It was rated as new,
not no signs of use.
Those are not Apple Stores, they don't have a genius or stuff like that.
But vendors where you buy all the very expensive thunderbolt gear etc ... not OWC.

They aren't cheap trashcans.
But if you upgrade the processor to one of the the 8 core or 12 core.
It is pretty capable and cheaper than the i7 mini.
A i7 mini with 1TB SSD and an enclosure with some radeon ( that will have no use, on M1 ),
would have been more expensive. I don't have one, but stressed, I guess they will be noisy, run hot. Trashcans are silent, unless u stress the GPU's.

And you can run a lot of OS'es.
With is practical, because a lot of expensive hardware and software for audio production,
and video production,
does not work or function great on newer OS's.

I cancelled a refurb iMac Pro.
To buy a second trashcan.
They could't say in the Apple store if they could upgrade the ram.
You can buy It, but installing it yourself is masochistic.
And the latest Imac, is faster but I have plugins that won't do well on catalina.
Big Sur would be more problems for now.
And I have a 43" 4K IPS display. 2 Eizo's and the 24" cinema display.
So another display ... new Mac Pro I don't need and It's obsolete now.

Made more sense to buy the trashcan cheap, It's 1500 euro, 200 for a new 12 core CPU.
It has 1TB SSD. But I usualy boot from external SSD's anyway.
Because I can just take it to another studio, or my apartment and keep working.
Having 2 studio's and an apartment. And taking my Macbook Air of Pro to other studio's.
I have the 8 core ( the same as Apple provides, not the faster compatible one ).
But have never installed it.

And buy a M1x mini, if It doesn't go all Ipad ( appstore everything )
and a decent ram upgrade is not the price of a Macbook Pro.
And see if developers will keep porting there windows software to the mac.
But will wait 2 years, I went from G4 to Intel.
That was cool, because a lot more software became available for Mac.
And you could run Windows. Being able to run iOS is less interesting,
I have an Ipad, don't use it.
But Apple didn't force upgrade that much in those days.
Now If you wan't to upgrade Logic, you need to upgrade your whole OS.

I do hit the limit of 64 gig ram when working with medium format camera files,
big PSD's for campaines. After FX also loves lot's of ram.
From my experience 128 or 64 ram that is slower, is far more practical than 8gig or 16gig
that is twice as fast. At least for the stuff I do.

Same with SSD's speeds, if you don't backup 1 terrabyte the whole time.
I don't really mind If a program boots in 5 seconds or 15 seconds.
Or a 6 gig project saves in 3 minutes or 1 minute.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Where did you find a good deal on them? What are the names of the stores?

 

[Freeangel1]

I have 2 Trash Can Macs too.
They are Super cool looking and run quiet.
I plan to upgrade both to 2.7 12 core and 128GB ram
I also use my Mac Pro's for audio work. Wavelab by Steinberg is my favorite but there are many others.
I have lots of VST plugins that will probably never get updated to APPLE silicon.
I dont Care. I love Mac Pro's that can still boot up Windows and can run many OS,s and repairable and versatile
The Trash Can Mac Pro fits this perfectly

These guys buy M1 Macs so they can render something a few seconds or minutes faster. So what. I like compatibility
Something the M1 Macs are lacking in software and legacy hardware. OLD SCHOOL for me

As long as I can get the job done. I don't care how long it takes to cross the finish line.

 

[DLents]

Hi,

I curently own a Mac Pro 6.1, bought a refurb 4 years ago. The base model. With D300.
Also 2 Akitio PCIe for nvme drives. One has the AHCI 960GB card that can also boot OS'es before Hi Sierra.
The other one has a 512gb Samsung that can only boot or be recognised.
64 GB samsung ram. I don't use the 256 gb internal drive, except to clone it.
Also different docking stations ( USB 3 ), and sata SSD's

I did buy the 8 core processor. Have not installed It yet.

I just bought a second refurb. This time the 6 core. With 1TB SSD. D500. It was only 1000 euro's with tax reduction. I also ordered 128 ram this time. And the 12 core CPU.
( first I ordered a refurb Imac Pro, but canceled it, if I want a mac that is 4000 euro+ I think is better to see how those M1 macs turn out in 2 or 3 years. For now I'm still happy with the 6.1.
That refurb + 128 ram and 12 core CPU was cheaper than an I7 mac mini.
I did not want to go m1 because of bootcamp. And also not the 2020 Imac because I think it can run Mojave and have a lot of audio software and hardware that works on Mojave.
But for some projects in Logic X, 64 gig ram it not enough. But 128 ram runs slower, and video's on youtube says it will make your CPU run slower.

I have 64 gig ram in my 3.1. Wich is still very usable. But that's only a difference from 633 instead of 800mhz.

I was thinking puting the 12 core in my older mac and then the 8 core in the newer mac.
Because the D500's are faster in bootcamp. Less so in OSX.

But anyone went for 128 gig and switched back to 64 gig's because it is to slow.
A lot of programs prefer more ram, not faster ram.
My 3.1 destroys my macbook air I7 and 8GB ram when using professional software.
Even when the single core speed of the 3.1 is super slow.
I can't work on RAW files and big PSD's on the macbook air.
It is no problem to work on 20 RAW files at the same time on the 3.1.

I did not like the trashcan Mac Pro's at first, but they are pretty ok.
As they are very cheap, if you do some upgrades yourself.
Only downside are graphics, I always put the fan at max if I do some steam.
And no thunderbolt 3. But TB2 is kind of ok for SSD enclosures.
And refurb they are very cheap now. Upgrades are also very cheap.
And they are super silent.

But anyone upgraded from 64GB to 128GB what are your experiences?

I have just recently upgraded my Mac Pro 6,1 from 64GB to 96GB (a few days ago)
At the same time, I upgraded the "stock" CPU from 6-core to 12-core.

History:
- I bought this "can" officially refurbished from Apple Store in 2014 or early '15 (best recollection).
- I almost immediately replaced the standard RAM setup from 16G (4x4G) to 32G (2x16G), [Crucial]
- about 3 yrs ago I added a 2nd bank of 2X16G [OWC]
- Note: OWC offers a rebate of a (very) few $$ for the original Apple 4x4G set
- Anybody want my perfectly good Crucial set of 2x16G?
- I previously upgraded the internal SSD from stock 256G to a hatSSD 480G replacement a couple of years ago
- I still have the original Apple SSD, but it didn't want to boot (I had a theory that the Firmware could be an issue). I didn't try to re-install OS on the original drive (yet):
- System Firmware Version: 127.0.0.0.0
- SMC Version (system): 2.20f18

- Love the trashcan, and I have a dual-G5 Pro and an older Xeon Pro (same design) packed away in a closet. Couldn't tell you what generation the Xeon is...but just a way of saying that I'm a long time Mac Pro user and upgrader.

After I dissembled and reassembled her to replace the CPU, I booted up and all seemed in order, except that About/System Report said only 80G. Oops!

With no other guidance, I had initially replaced the 2x32G DIMMs in slots 1-2 with the new 2x32G.
I shut down and rearranged DIMMs so that 2x16G are in slots 1-2, and 2x32G in slots 3-4, reboot and all good: 96G

Seems to work okay but here's some notes, the last of which is a cry for ideas, theories, etc. Read on...

1. System reports 96G of 1066 MHz DDR3 instead of 1866 MHz
- DIMMs are all marked as 1866 and I've always shown 1866 before the RAM upgrade
- Is this normal and due to the slower clock-speed of the new CPU? Firmware?

2. *On a much scarier note*:
- Suddenly I have only a single (D500) GPU, slot-2 showing up. Slot-1 D500 seems to have disappeared
- My 1st thought was seating of the connectors, which I had to unplug for the CPU upgrade; so I dissembled again to that point, and made sure they were snugly in place. I DID NOT unplug/replug them. I'm thinking I should unplug and re-seat the offending GPU connector just in case, but on first look I did not see any visual reason to believe that the connections were not properly seated.

I've been using it and it seems okay 90% of the time, but certain apps/actions give me the beach ball, which I find troubling and I hope can be attributed to the missing GPU.

Note: I am not a huge graphics user, I'm a Software Engineer, so I just have a lot of stuff running at once. Multiple browsers, JetBrains IDE, DEVONThink, stuff like that.

My displays are twin Philips 288P6, bought at the same time I bought the can, around 2015.

System Info shot attached.

Any alternate ideas beyond what I've described above would be appreciated! Thank you

 

[DLents]

Sorry, I guess my inline Markdown was in vain.

 

[complaxneoda]

I am using a 128g ram Mac Pro 6,1. I upgraded it from 32gb.
ram above 64gb will run on 1066MHz after macos 10.13.
I do not have slow problem from RAM. The low clock speed is main reason of problem.

 

[th0masp]

1. System reports 96G of 1066 MHz DDR3 instead of 1866 MHz
- DIMMs are all marked as 1866 and I've always shown 1866 before the RAM upgrade
- Is this normal and due to the slower clock-speed of the new CPU? Firmware?

2. *On a much scarier note*:
- Suddenly I have only a single (D500) GPU, slot-2 showing up. Slot-1 D500 seems to have disappeared
- My 1st thought was seating of the connectors, which I had to unplug for the CPU upgrade; so I dissembled again to that point, and made sure they were snugly in place. I DID NOT unplug/replug them. I'm thinking I should unplug and re-seat the offending GPU connector just in case, but on first look I did not see any visual reason to believe that the connections were not properly seated.

I've been using it and it seems okay 90% of the time, but certain apps/actions give me the beach ball, which I find troubling and I hope can be attributed to the missing GPU.

Sounds rather that the 'missing' GPU and RAM are an indicator of something that went wrong with the upgrade process. Connectors or the like.

A few months back the service manual was posted, perhaps that might help?