upgrading or buying new?

Hello all, I'm struggling with something and thought this might be a great place to get some insights from others with lots of Mac experience...

I need to either upgrade my system, or buy a new Mac Pro - of these two options - which do you think is better?

2 scenarios:

1) Upgrade my old 2010 Mac Pro Box:

I’ve got a quad core Intel XEON 2.8Ghx processor
And
An ATI Radeon HD 5870 Card (with 16 Gig of Ram)

I could buy from Other World Computing:

Two x 2.93GHz 6-Core 'Westmere' (Intel X5670, 12-Cores, QPI: 6.4GT/s)

And a new graphics card:

AMD Radeon RX 480 – for $200

These upgrades would improve my system significantly, and would run me: $2,300

Or

2) Purchase a new Mac Pro

And get:

3.5 GhZ 6-core Intel Xeon E5

and

a Dual AMD Firepro D500

For $4,000

And here’s what I have no idea about – I need to upgrade my OS – if I chose to upgrade the Mac Pro – could I “buy” a newer OS?

Thanks much,
Donny

Not knowing your location, do not forget about Apple Refurbished.

With the two options you have listed, I would go with the newer model. The difference is basically, age. And, for me, that brings more piece of mind.

drowles25 said:

And here’s what I have no idea about – I need to upgrade my OS – if I chose to upgrade the Mac Pro – could I “buy” a newer OS?

Click to expand...

Not exactly sure what you're driving at here regarding "buying".

But first we would need to know what OS version is installed on your Mac Pro currently.

FYI...all Mac OS upgrades for the past 3 years have been via free download. This is why I'm confused about the "buy" question.

- Nick

Yeah I guess that since I would not be buying new I was wondering if getting the new OS would be difficult - but I think you're saying I can just upgrade for free online? My current computer (a 2010 Mac) is one that I haven't upgraded from 10.6.8 because I've heard that updating to El Capital can cause problems for video files.

My current is OS X 10.6.8...

pigoo3 said:

Not exactly sure what you're driving at here regarding "buying".

But first we would need to know what OS version is installed on your Mac Pro currently.

FYI...all Mac OS upgrades for the past 3 years have been via free download. This is why I'm confused about the "buy" question.

- Nick

Click to expand...

drowles25 said:

Yeah I guess that since I would not be buying new I was wondering if getting the new OS would be difficult - but I think you're saying I can just upgrade for free online?

Click to expand...

Yes that's the way it works. Except that if you did not download any of the previous OS version that were free...the only free OS upgrade available to you now is the latest...which is Sierra.

drowles25 said:

My current computer (a 2010 Mac) is one that I haven't upgraded from 10.6.8 because I've heard that updating to El Capital can cause problems for video files.

Click to expand...

Not sure how long you've owned this computer. But there are/have been...SIX newer versions of the Mac OS since OS 10.6.8. This means 6 opportunities to upgrade the OS over the past 5 years.

El Capitan until last week was the newest version...now the newest version is "Sierra".

- Nick

For mine I would go the OWC route.

Your current setup returns a GeekBench Test Score of 8839. Upgrading to the 2.93GHz will give more than a handy boost, 21,630 on the same test. I would have thought the 5870 would have been more than ample and the good news is Sierra is free! Be aware older PowerPC applications from prior to about 2008 will no longer work so you might like to check that out. Snow Leopard has not been supported by Apple for some years, yes years, so there have been no security updates for some time. Always backup prior to upgrading.