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What to offer CL Mac Pro 3.1

B

bobbensen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 6, 2017
6
0
https://boise.craigslist.org/sys/6020621189.html
00v0v_cUXHnRQXT1h_600x450.jpg


Shopping around for a machine to take some of the heavy lifting off of my Macbook Pro (Late 2012). Intend to find a machine for Adobe Premiere, Lightroom, etc.

Can this touch 4k video and will this be supported? I have been told to stay away from 3.1 . Have only owned 1 Macbook and 1 Mac Mini and itching for something I can put in my home office to take the next step in photo/video.

Waste of time with this machine? Proper price?

https://boise.craigslist.org/sys/6020621189.html
 
I actually live in this area, and I have a Quad Mac Pro 3,1.

The Mac Pro 3,1 was a phenomenal machine at launch due to its price/performance. I still use my 3,1 to this very day for light gaming and light "pro" use.

However, I would not put a Mac Pro 3,1 for 4k video editing/effects. I can barely get through editing 60 minutes of 2k video in iMovie, and doing it wasn't the most fluid experience. I doubt another 4-cores like that one has would make that much of a difference.

A 3,1 Quad Mac Pro with a basic graphics card and 8GB of Ram should be a $300ish machine these days. RAM for the 3,1 is more expensive than usual, and that machine comes with 32GB of it ($200ish for that nowadays). Sometimes people cheap out and go with the 667MHz ram instead of the 800MHz sticks because I hear it's much cheaper, but I've personally never looked into it. Maybe he did the same thing, who knows.

Anyhow, if you still wanted a Mac Pro, you could make an offer for $400-500 max for that machine. The 5770 is a boring video card (but a "decent" one although nothing special), it's missing the onboard Wifi and the included 2600XT is of absolutely zero value. The disk tray openings look missing. Apple doesn't support that 2008 Mac Pro anymore, so it's already behind the times and left in the dust. The 3,1 is also limited on what you can do for CPU upgrades.

Personally, I'd pass. You can maybe work up some craziness to look for a 4,1 or 5,1 Mac Pro, then work on upgrading that, but to me that still requires some level of craziness in 2017.
 
fendersrule said:
I actually live in this area, and I have a Quad Mac Pro 3,1.

The Mac Pro 3,1 was a phenomenal machine at launch due to its price/performance. I still use my 3,1 to this very day for light gaming and light "pro" use.

However, I would not put a Mac Pro 3,1 for 4k video editing/effects. I can barely get through editing 60 minutes of 2k video in iMovie, and doing it wasn't the most fluid experience. I doubt another 4-cores like that one has would make that much of a difference.

A 3,1 Quad Mac Pro with a basic graphics card and 8GB of Ram should be a $300ish machine these days. RAM for the 3,1 is more expensive than usual, and that machine comes with 32GB of it ($200ish for that nowadays). Sometimes people cheap out and go with the 667MHz ram instead of the 800MHz sticks because I hear it's much cheaper, but I've personally never looked into it. Maybe he did the same thing, who knows.

Anyhow, if you still wanted a Mac Pro, you could make an offer for $400-500 max for that machine. The 5770 is a boring video card (but a "decent" one although nothing special), it's missing the onboard Wifi and the included 2600XT is of absolutely zero value. The disk tray openings look missing. Apple doesn't support that 2008 Mac Pro anymore, so it's already behind the times and left in the dust. The 3,1 is also limited on what you can do for CPU upgrades.

Personally, I'd pass. You can maybe work up some craziness to look for a 4,1 or 5,1 Mac Pro, then work on upgrading that, but to me that still requires some level of craziness in 2017.
Click to expand...

LOVE Boise! Lived here almost 20 years.

Thanks for the detailed response and breakdown. I am really itching for the upgrade and you have me convinced. With Apple it is amazing how your best bet is to buy at release or refurb and sell high years later. Hard to find good value for buyer/seller on used Apple products.
 
Boise is the best! But we don't want anyone to know about it, so let's keep it on the down-low! :)

Yep, the 2008 Mac Pro will not be an upgrade for your late 2012 Mac Book Pro. I'm pretty sure that would be a speed decrease. :)

Keep your eyes out for a 5,1 Mac Pro. Those can be had for $600. They're also supported for MacOS Sierra, and they can hold a host of more upgrades compared to the 3,1. But still, their time is limited as well, so it's probably not "smart" to buy a 5,1 these days. :(

The seller of that Mac Pro has a price reflected of how much it would cost someone who wanted a 3,1 Mac Pro, and did all the upgrades that he did. Sadly, that's not really what's reflected in most buyer's mindset, so he's not going to get that.

Just recently there was a 3,1 Quad Core Mac Pro on Craigslist (Boise) for $400 that had the same specs, just not the octo-core.

The best advice is that you probably should wait for WWDC to see what Apple does to the Mac Pro line before making any moves!
 
im with OS6-OSX, the price is to high his links look good guide for price (there's a dual cpu 4.1 for less than that 3.1 !!). im not shore which macbook pro you have but it may be faster (or a lot faster) than that 3.1 :( something to think about.

worth looking here at single core speed then multi core speed to get an idea of comparative speed of computers
https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
a 4.1/5.1 W3680 3.33ghz (6 core)
single core 2954
multi core 12227
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) i5-3210M @ 2.5 GHz (2 cores)
single core 2923
multi core 6420
Mac Pro (Early 2008) E5462 @ 2.8 GHz (8 cores)
single core 1839
multi core 8184

so if you had that laptop for most tasks the cpu is faster, and yes on multi core tasks it may look faster but i suspect it wont be thanks to cpu scaling and just being a older generation of cpu with slower everything.
 
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