Connecting a MacBook Pro to Cinema Display

I am at a cross roads with my technology. I do graphic design and I am a photographer. I have had the luxury of a good MacBook Pro laptop, a Desktop Mac Pro with Cinema Display and a portable tablet. I am now rationalising. The MBP died and my Mac Pro is 6 years old. I have looked at the option of updating the Mac Pro with an increased 8GB of Ram and updating the OS to accomodate CS6, which will replace my current CS3. The question I am throwing out to the forum is whether I would be better off updating my Mac Pro, squeeze another 2-3 years out of it, or just replace it with a MacBook Pro and connect it up to my Cinema Display, assuming of course I can connect a relatively new MBP to my 6 year old CD. I need a big display for the graphics work and colour work I do with photographs, so just having a laptop is not an option.
Your opinions would be appreciated

Kajaboss said:

I am at a cross roads with my technology. I do graphic design and I am a photographer. I have had the luxury of a good MacBook Pro laptop, a Desktop Mac Pro with Cinema Display and a portable tablet. I am now rationalising. The MBP died and my Mac Pro is 6 years old. I have looked at the option of updating the Mac Pro with an increased 8GB of Ram and updating the OS to accomodate CS6, which will replace my current CS3. The question I am throwing out to the forum is whether I would be better off updating my Mac Pro, squeeze another 2-3 years out of it, or just replace it with a MacBook Pro and connect it up to my Cinema Display, assuming of course I can connect a relatively new MBP to my 6 year old CD. I need a big display for the graphics work and colour work I do with photographs, so just having a laptop is not an option.
Your opinions would be appreciated

Click to expand...

my professional opinion (worth about what you've paid for it):

1. it's your professional tool. Make sure you keep it up.

Personally i'd make a decision based on how much money you have.. for $500-1000 you can really upgrade the tower and make it snappy.. But if you have $1800-2000, buying a 15" macbook Pro (not retina - because Apple is essentially NO LONGER making a pro-grade laptop, but that's for another thread), put SSD and 16gb in it.

i'm going to make the assumption you have only say $1000 to play with...

I'd then decide if you can deal with a 2-3yr old refurb laptop (which is hwat you can get here in the States with that money), or if you want to just throw it all at your tower...

IF you go the tower route:
1. I'd put at least 16gb of RAM in the tower. if you're a pro-photog, then consider 24gb.

2. SSD drives will revolutionize ANY system. I'd buy a PCIe adaptor card with an SSD drive on it (largest I could afford - at least a 512gb) and run the system on that.. (an SSD on a PCIe board is faster than an SSD on the internal Sata slots on older MacPros!). And I'd get a second or third SSD for the slots....

my $.02.....

Further depends entirely on the actual model of the Mac Pro. if it is a 1.1or 2.1, go the laptop way. If it is a 3.1, capable of running Mavericks and better gfx card upgrades, increase to 16GB of memory, say an ATI Radeon 5770 card, and an SSD as suggested of 512GB as the boot drive and a 7200rpm drive in Bay Two for applications etc.

Hi Guys, thanks for your input.
To VaMountaineer, I have around $2,200 to spend. Are you suggesting that the most recent MacBook Pros are not of the same quality as the older models?
To Harryb2448: I have a Mac Pro 1.1. What is your thinking for saying go the Laptop route. Do you not think it is worth spending the money?

Well it is getting on seven years old, released in 2006 the Mac Pro 1.1, and unable to run an operating system beyond Lion OS X.7 legally, and memory is amongst the dearest you can purchase.

It has a 64bit architecture but alas Apple went with a 32bit firmware which severely restricts the upgrade paths. To show the difference between a 2.66GHz Dual mac Pro 1.1, Geekbench score comes in at 4,833, and a say 2011 2.5GHz MacBookPro, Geekbench comes in at 10,707, a huge difference.

Kajaboss said:

Hi Guys, thanks for your input.
To VaMountaineer, I have around $2,200 to spend. Are you suggesting that the most recent MacBook Pros are not of the same quality as the older models?
To Harryb2448: I have a Mac Pro 1.1. What is your thinking for saying go the Laptop route. Do you not think it is worth spending the money?

Click to expand...

ok, if you've got that kind of money, i'd suggest doing 2 different things.

1. get a used or refurb 15" 2012 model, bumping it to 16gb of RAM and a 1tb SSD drive, and
2. upgrading your MacPro to 16-24gb of RAM.

you'll have plenty of power that way.

Apple has abandoned professionals in the laptop category. I say that, having owned HUNDREDS of apple systems, and being a professional in the Apple market. It is sad, but the truth.. I don't see myself owning a Mac in 5yrs.