I still feel the old G3/G4 El Capitan style cases were great and they were much more compact than the G5 and Mac Pro cases.
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Realistically, how long do you plan to keep your 5,1 as your main workstation?
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I still feel the old G3/G4 El Capitan style cases were great and they were much more compact than the G5 and Mac Pro cases.
I plan to keep my heavily modified 4,1 for as long a it keeps working. I look forward to (when needed) putting in a pair of RX-480s, a USB C card and some PCIe storage. continuing the reality that this 6 year old machine is in some ways, more relevant than the line that replaced it.
Dual X5690s, SSD boot, R9 280X, 48GB RAM, USB 3, AC WiFi, Bluetooth 4... I know, it doesn't have thunderbolt. but the nMP is stuck at ver. 2. 3 is where Thunderbolt is actually capable enough to justify the cost of an expansion chassis, to gain back functionality I already have.
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Apple_PowerMac_G4_M8570_MDD_sideopen.jpg
Dual X5690s, SSD boot, R9 280X, 48GB RAM, USB 3, AC WiFi, Bluetooth 4... I know, it doesn't have thunderbolt. but the nMP is stuck at ver. 2. 3 is where Thunderbolt is actually capable enough to justify the cost of an expansion chassis, to gain back functionality I already have.
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absolutely. I had a Blue and White G3 and a mirror front G4. That G4 was a marvel, 2 processors, 2 5.25 in. bays, 4 3.5 in. bays, 4 RAM slots, 5 expansion slots, FireWire, USB, Gigabit, WiFi... and so easy to get into.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Apple_PowerMac_G4_M8570_MDD_sideopen.jpg
Yup. I had the B&W G3 and several different G4s. The one thing that stopped the MDD from being perfect was the fan noise. lol
I started to love my Mid 2010 5,1 after stumbling onto this forum 3 years ago. Prior to that I had a stock tower that was ok, but I knew could be much better. The bug hit me and I upgraded the video card, memory and got some SSD drives, though I still hold onto the stock video and HDD in the event of problems (like this past week). I still have my original 30 inch Apple HD Cinema display, though I have also added a 27 inch Dell display as well. The only significant upgrade I could see doing is swapping out processors, adding USB 3.0 cards, and perhaps a PCI SSD board- though I honestly do not need it as I do not edit video or move large chunks of data as others do.
When the black cylinder mac pros came out my wife wanted to buy me one, and I asked why.. she said your computer is four years old, let's get a new one.. I said no thank you. When I had issues this past week, I started searching for other 5,1 systems, she asked me why, and I said I can upgrade this system as I please, not so with the new mac pros.
Like others I plan on keeping this system another 2-4 years, though I have to admit that Windows 10 is attractive from a work standpoint. If I can figure out my nVidia driver issues on my system, I will be upgrading my Win 7 to Win 10.
I upgraded to Sierra, but in all honesty, for me the entire Apple Ecosystem of cloud for photos', documents, etc is not attractive to me- I have concerns with regards to the storage and security management of my data. The base icloud account gives you 5GB... no one in my house own's an iphone with less than 128GB of onboard storage- so I pay apple for more icloud space? Screw that; backups are to the local machine and if your phone happens to blow up while your traveling, no big deal as contacts are shared through icloud and are accessible on ipad or mbp. I just buy SSD's if that's necessary or delete older archives of backed up systems.
I also do not find other's version of cloud interconnectivity appealing either- so the interconnectivity of things in apple's ecosystem is a meh to me.. as is google's and msfts.
TL; DR
User choice is great, give me more, don't lock me in, let me make my own informed decisions, don't tell me cranberry juice is great when I don't like it, and stop trying to sell me on IoT... it's a security nightmare.
It all boils down to : Choice. Let me make it and live with it. Amen.
When the black cylinder mac pros came out my wife wanted to buy me one, and I asked why.. she said your computer is four years old, let's get a new one.. I said no thank you. When I had issues this past week, I started searching for other 5,1 systems, she asked me why, and I said I can upgrade this system as I please, not so with the new mac pros.
Like others I plan on keeping this system another 2-4 years, though I have to admit that Windows 10 is attractive from a work standpoint. If I can figure out my nVidia driver issues on my system, I will be upgrading my Win 7 to Win 10.
I upgraded to Sierra, but in all honesty, for me the entire Apple Ecosystem of cloud for photos', documents, etc is not attractive to me- I have concerns with regards to the storage and security management of my data. The base icloud account gives you 5GB... no one in my house own's an iphone with less than 128GB of onboard storage- so I pay apple for more icloud space? Screw that; backups are to the local machine and if your phone happens to blow up while your traveling, no big deal as contacts are shared through icloud and are accessible on ipad or mbp. I just buy SSD's if that's necessary or delete older archives of backed up systems.
I also do not find other's version of cloud interconnectivity appealing either- so the interconnectivity of things in apple's ecosystem is a meh to me.. as is google's and msfts.
TL; DR
User choice is great, give me more, don't lock me in, let me make my own informed decisions, don't tell me cranberry juice is great when I don't like it, and stop trying to sell me on IoT... it's a security nightmare.
It all boils down to : Choice. Let me make it and live with it. Amen.
I've pretty much upgraded mine's to the max, down to using 4 M.2 SSDs. I use it for 4K video editing/grading/compositing, etc. and has proven to be plenty fast, even for large complex projects. I plan to keep it for as long as possible, hopefully at least another 3-4 years.
I'm a bit surprised by how resilient the machine has been. A real testament to the quality and components that went into this design.
I'm a bit surprised by how resilient the machine has been. A real testament to the quality and components that went into this design.
Voted 2-4 years but could be sooner if Apple created a worthy upgrade. But not holding my breath. My 5,1 is handling 4K source footage which I edit into either 1080 or 720 timelines, so good for now. Until there's something that is really going to improve my productivity, I'll keep my 2010 5, 1 running as long as possible. Apple seems in no hurry to tempt me to do otherwise.
I've got two 4,1>5,1s with hex CPUs, one working daily, the second a spare. equipped with multiple SSDs, they are awesome for audio, and I fully expect to keep using them until "death do us part." As an audio guy, I can expand using VE Pro and add-on PCs if necessary, yet continue to use my current MP as the heart of my studio.
