Why did you buy a Mac Pro? (particular not in photography/film)

[lexR]

I originally had a mac mini 2012 and then started to do some gopro video edits, filming at 1440@60fps and then editing was taking time with the mac mini... so i got a 2009 cMP and then got the bug... i am now running dual x5690's with a GTX Titan, 48GB of ram and 500GB of PCIe SSD. It screams through DaVinci now, i also use autodesk fusion (like inventor), Autocad and running a 4K SST screen for RAW photo editing. I have a 2013 rMBP which is my portable piece of kit, I've tried DaVinci on the rMBP and it brings it to its knees...

 

[ssgbryan]

I use my Mac Pro for 3d Art.

almost 11 years ago, I picked up a copy of Poser 5 & it immediately brought my PowerMac to it's knees. The MacPro was the 1st computer I owned that could actually handle what my workflow has become (Poser, Vue, Zbrush). After 5 years, I retired my 1st Generation MP & I have replaced it with a 4,1. I'll be hanging on to it for the next few years, before I migrate away from OSX.

I am not Apple's target audience anymore - I create, rather than consume.

 

[Synchro3]

If you get a fast SSD and max-out the RAM (which is really dead-cheap these days), the QC2012 Minis are great.
They don't do 4K video, though. So you've got to settle for a 27" or 30" display.
A 2014 Mini will do 2x2650x1600. So, if you need to maximize screen real-estate, the 2014 is a must, IMO.
Of course, the MP is a totally different animal. It's SSD is much faster than anything the 2012 Mini could support. The Xeon CPUs have much larger caches and are designed to work at max speed for a long time (as is the cooling). And it's video-subsystem blows the 2012 and 2014 out of the water.
And you can have four times the RAM as in the Mini.
But if the system will be sitting idle most of the time - do you really need all that power?

4K and a decent video-subsystem with Mac Mini 2012 is doable if you invest some work for an eGPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/building-external-gpus-on-mac-egpu.1893792/

 

[Atisha]

I bought a Mac Pro in 2007 for video production. It was the base model with upgraded storage and maybe 2gb ram was standard so I had 4gb put in, so around $2800 (with student developer's discount). The ATI card died at some point and I upgraded it with a 1gb ATI card.

Even though I have a 15" 2012 rMBP with dGPU, the 2007 Mac Pro runs games like Skyrim better. I still use the Mac Pro 8 years later for gaming, even though it can't upgrade past Lion. When I had my rMBP's logic board repaired last month I used the Mac Pro for a week and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd like to say that I wish I never bought the rMBP, but I needed a laptop for editing jobs, so no choice there.

One could argue that the Mac Pro price was too high to begin with, but when you consider I've only replaced the video card, and that a cheaper PC would have had many replacements by now, I think it is pretty awesome. If you look at it this way, my rMBP lasted 3 years in terms of up-to-date power, and it cost $3k. And now that iMacs are basically laptops on desks (granted with a lot of power), I think a similar logic follows. The only properly ventilated, properly upgradable machine will be a Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro design is amazing, I would buy one right now if it wasn't due for a refresh. I'll only buy Mac Pros from now on, at least while Apple's golden age lasts and they continue using Intel chips. 8+ years is a huge life cycle for a computer -- I could continue gaming on that machine for a total of 10 years if I wanted to.

 

[zephonic]

For music/audio creation/production, only a MacPro will do. Or an equivalent Windows workstation.

Not sure I'd spring for an nMP, though. Lot of things to consider.