Buying new Mac Pro!!

[Openskies2009]

Hey everyone! New here on this forum!

I have been just budgeted money for a new MacPro for my business, so far I have been using a MacBook I got three years ago with the following2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 - 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory - AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB - with a 500GB internal hard drive.

I work heavily with video animation and editing using Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Cinema 4D… Id like to have a setup where Photoshop or a batch of video would be transcoding at the same time as working heavily switching back and forth between after effects and premiere.
So far my macbook has been able to take this pressure for the most part but its still a bit slow holding me back.

Most of the shoots are 3 multi cam 1080 24p but could easily see moving onto 4k in a year or so with the same setup.

Two questions. I have a budget of $3500.
The standard setup without customization would cover this but would the hardware be enough power without upgrading anything?

If so, it looks like I would have the budget to upgrade the Memory or Storage. Which one, or are there any assessories I should consider? I already have wireless mouse and keyboard monitor..

Thanks!

 

[pigoo3]

I'm assuming that the Mac Pro you are thinking about purchasing is one of the new Mac Pro's (black cylinder shaped one's)…and that you're thinking of getting the entry level quad-core model.

If the work you do is more cpu hardware related than graphics hardware related…for the same $3500 budget…believe it or not…you would be better off with an older model Mac Pro.

The new quad-core Mac Pro has a benchmark score of around 14,000. An older model 12-core Mac Pro can score upwards of 26,000. That's a big difference!

If you upgraded the cpu on the new Mac Pro from a 4-core to a 6-core…the cpu benchmark score gets bumped up to around 20,000…and would still be around $3500.

- Nick

 

[Openskies2009]

options

Thanks for your reply!
Whoops, my mistake. My budget is 4,500.

Yes I am looking at the newest cylinder design MacPro that is the 6-Core and Dual GPU.
On the apple site its priced right at 4k.
Im foreign when it comes to hardware tech. So I would be able to tell you what I needed to boost. , Id be wanting faster preview times, render times or transcoding from one format to another and jumping from one program to the next.

What are some other options if there are better apple desktops out there?

 

[pigoo3]

Whoops, my mistake. My budget is 4,500.

Yes I am looking at the newest cylinder design MacPro that is the 6-Core and Dual GPU.

Aah...with a $4500 budget...just get the 6-core new Mac Pro for $3999! Probably be better in the long run. It has 16 gig of ram...but unless you know you need more...I would wait on a ram upgrade (but you can do it later & prices will probably drop by then as well).

The on board storage should be upgradeable later too (when upgrades from 3rd party vendors become available).

HTH,

- Nick

p.s. If you have the need for a CD/DVD drive...you could order an Apple external Superdrive for $79.

 

[pigoo3]

But as I mentined earlier in the thread...here are two pretty awesome older 12-core Mac Pro systems. One for $1899 (Buy It Now) and one for $1769 (no bids yet...about 14 hours remaining as of this posting):

Apple A1289 Mac Pro 2009 5 1 12 Core 2 x 2 66 GHz X5650 1 64TB 16GB Yosemite | eBay
Apple Mac Pro 12 Core Westmere 2 66 GHz 20GB RAM 120GB SSD 640GB MC250LL A | eBay

The 2nd one has more ram. Less overall storage...but it does have an SSD.

As I also mentioned. Both of these older 12-core Mac Pro systems have cpu benchmark score of around 25,000...compared to the new 6-core $3999 Mac Pro which scores around 20,000.

The new $3999 6-core Mac Pro DEFINITELY has better video hardware...and more modern technology...so this model will be more "future-proof" (I usually hate this term...but it's probably true in this case).

But for half the price of the $3999 6-core Mac Pro...you could get one of the older 12-core Mac Pro's (listed above) which would outscore (cpu) the newer 6-core Mac Pro.

But if the money is really not a concern...get the $3999 Mac Pro.

- Nick

p.s. But also think of this. For the same $4000...you could purchase BOTH of the 12-core Mac Pro's I listed above! This would allow you to run lots of projects at the same time. With a theoretical combined cpu benchmark score of 50,000 (total combined cpu processing power at your disposal). Compared to the 20,000 cpu score for the single $3999 Mac Pro.

 

[chas_m]

Of course, the work he actually mentioned actually doing is very heavily **GPU** dependent, not CPU dependent -- making all this talk about the CPU fairly moot and potentially very misleading ...

I'd suggest Openskies2009 first do an audit on the software they're going to use and see if it has been tuned to work well with the current Mac Pro or if the manufacturer recommends he purchase a new Mac Pro or an old one with more physical CPUs. That would be a better guide, I think, since this is a significant chunk of money we're talking about.

It ain't always just about CPUs and their scores ...

 

[Openskies2009]

Great, thanks guys for the information!