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Which Mac Pro compared to 2011 MBP?

I

iOrbit

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
569
30
i have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro 15" base model, intel core i7 2.2ghz.

I'm wondering which of the older mac pro (towers, 2012 or older) will match i7 2.2ghz performance (either about the same, almost the same, or even a little more) when using Handbrake.

my MBP apple care runs out soon, and i don't wish to use it for heavy CPU loads anymore. I want what steve called a Truck - a tower machine that can handle these high CPU loads and remain durable and quiet.

so i want to get an older mac pro because i don't have loads of money..

i've been looking at 2008 Mac Pro's on ebay as they go for affordable prices, but is that going to keep up with a 2011 macbook pro with an i7 when using handbrake specifically? (i don't need this mac pro for photoshop or anything else, this really is about handbrake mostly)

can a 2006 mac pro do the job?

i'd really like some advice here, especially anyone who can compare handbrake use on the older mac pros vs the i7's from 2011.

some people say the 2011 i7's smoke the Mac Pro's from 2008 and even 2009, but some say this is only the case in certain tasks.

all that matters to me is encoding video.
 
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The pre-2009 Mac Pros are Core2 based CPUs and have significantly lower instruction per clock than the later machines. You'd need a fast octo-core one to get near the turbo frequency of your 2011 MBP, looking at the Geekbench scores.
 
MagicBoy said:
The pre-2009 Mac Pros are Core2 based CPUs and have significantly lower instruction per clock than the later machines. You'd need a fast octo-core one to get near the turbo frequency of your 2011 MBP, looking at the Geekbench scores.
Click to expand...

dang, so a 2010 model?

I'm curious, how will i know when my MBP is in turbo frequency mode? i've never been able to tell, or which apps utilise it.
 
I'd go 2010 if possible, yeah.

Turbo is automatically handled by the CPU. Anywhere between 2.8GHz and 3.1GHz depending on the number of cores in use, power consumption and the temperature of the CPU. 2.2GHz is a sort of nominal worst case scenario.

The Intel Power Gadget utility (google it) should satisfy your thirst for CPU related information.
 
thanks guys, i wonder if anyone can do a comparison with me, a handbrake encode on a 2008 mac pro and i will encode the same video on my mbp, see how long it takes for each.

i guess the Mac Mini is better choice bang for buck wise. but its just another little computer that will run hot and loud all the time and probably die.
 
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Mac mini's in my experience are pretty awesome. I've owned a mini since 2009. Used to be my desktop and do file server stuff around my network for five years 24x7. Now it's an HTPC. HDD got a bit noisy last year and got replaced, otherwise it's been quiet, power efficient and faultless. All for a bargain price at the time.

The current models are utter toss for your purposes since they neutered them. If you can find a 2012 quad core then that would do you nicely - it's basically a headless MBP without the troublesome graphics chip. The people at work who edit video on them are pretty happy with the performance.

Can't help out with the Mac Pro, unfortunately. If you need numbers from an rMBP give me a shout.
 
MagicBoy said:
Mac mini's in my experience are pretty awesome. I've owned a mini since 2009. Used to be my desktop and do file server stuff around my network for five years 24x7. Now it's an HTPC. HDD got a bit noisy last year and got replaced, otherwise it's been quiet, power efficient and faultless. All for a bargain price at the time.

The current models are utter toss for your purposes since they neutered them. If you can find a 2012 quad core then that would do you nicely - it's basically a headless MBP without the troublesome graphics chip. The people at work who edit video on them are pretty happy with the performance.

Can't help out with the Mac Pro, unfortunately. If you need numbers from an rMBP give me a shout.
Click to expand...

i like the convenience of the mac mini but i look at it, and like you said - i see a headless MBP. but the problem with a mbp is it runs hot and noisy because its a little ferrari trying to drive up a mountain.

won't the mac mini be similar? i know its a bit thicker than a mbp body but its still really small and compact?
 
They're not trying to keep the mini under an inch thick and squeeze as much battery in there as possible. Go have a look a iFixit for a teardown.
 
If you use handbrake, with single pass encoding, the i-core cpu's is always going to be faster, because of the instruction set (QuickSync) that Xeon cpu's don't have.
That's why a Mac mini is not a bad option.
 
iOrbit said:
thanks guys, i wonder if anyone can do a comparison with me, a handbrake encode on a 2008 mac pro and i will encode the same video on my mbp, see how long it takes for each.

i guess the Mac Mini is better choice bang for buck wise. but its just another little computer that will run hot and loud all the time and probably die.
Click to expand...

I would help.

I have a MacPro 2008 8 x 2,8 and a MacPro 2012 12 x 3,33 for compare.

But i need the video, settings and version of HB.
 
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Geekbench won't give the whole story because the MBP cannot use a scratch disk there is a not insignificant difference when you let handbrake write to a scratch drive.
 
Find yourself a cheap 8 core 2010 and grab some new cpus on ebay. I got a pair of Xeon 3.06ghz 6-core X5675s for $250. Thing screams. 25,000 32b geekbench score.
 
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