CPU upgrade for a Mac Pro 3,1 early 2008?

[jaadgy akanni]

Can anyone please tell me if there's a CPU upgrade for a Mac Pro 3,1. I'd be happy to upgrade to at least a Mac Pro 4,1.
Please let me know if there's a company out there that makes an upgrade processor to turn a Mac Pro 3,1 into a 4,1 or 5,1.
Thank you.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Dig around on some of the geekier Mac forums and you will find descriptions of how to do it. Whether its a good idea or not is another question.

Cheers - #19

 

[Christopher Barrett]

this won't help with your 2008, but an upgrade service other users might want to know about...

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/MacPro/2010_Xeon_Processor

 

[Michael Patterson]

I talked with David at OWC about this and if you can land a used pro or even a refurb one from apple's website, you can upgrade that one. From what I know 3,1 and a bunch of 4,1's are end of life for this type of option. Basically you need a 2010 or 2012 model to be able to upgrade.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Fastest / best option out there for a Mac Pro 3,1 model is dual 3GHz quad-core CPUs, which Apple already offered as a standard configuration. Personally, I wouldn't upgrade the CPUs in the '08 Mac Pro at this point, there are too many other bottlenecks, starting with the 800MHz dual-channel RAM. Even with the fastest CPUs, we can't run 1080p and greater in Resolve at more than 8bits. And that's just one of a great many things that can't be done. Only the two bottom slots are PCIe v2 compliant, the upper two 4X slots are PCIe v1.1.

The advice from OWC is spot on. You would do far better to find a Mac Pro 4,1 (maybe) or a 5,1 (current and better option) and run with that. You also have to consider what you will be upgrading from. If you only have a single CPU in your Mac Pro now, the odds of finding a proper heatsink and memory board to turn it into a dual CPU system are pretty remote and it's not going to be cost-effective. If you already have a dual CPU system, and you're already running 8 cores at 2.4 or 2.6 GHz, then I wouldn't spend a dime to upgrade to the 3GHz. Given the memory and PCIe bottlenecks in the system, you would be gaining nothing of any real world value. It's still going to be rather slow by todays standards. In most applications, a quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Mini is going to run circles around this old Mac Pro. Sad, but true. For starters, it has 4X the memory throughput in the current Mac Mini with quad-channel 1600MHz RAM. The only advantage to the old Mac Pro is having the PCIe slots for a real GPU and and another PCIe card or two. Even with that you're limited due to the 1.1 slots.

The '09 Mac Pro (4,1) isn't much better off at this point.

 

[jaadgy akanni]

Thanks for your responses guys.

Jeff, special thanks to you.
Mine is a Mac Pro 3.1, 2 x 3.2 GHz Quad-Core. I also have the latest Macbook pro 15" which I guess is my only option for video editing at this point. I think I'm gonna wait for the new Mac Pro; only a few months away.

Those of you using the Mackbook retina for all your video editing needs, how do you have it set up? I currently have my matrox mx02 connected to it via a mx02 Dock. what other stuff do I need? What else to enhance the experience?

P.S: I forgot to tell you guys that the main reason I wanted to upgrade my computers' CPU to either 4,1 or 5,1 is that 3,1 is not compatible with
Pro Tools 11 which I just got.

 

[jake blackstone]

The '09 Mac Pro (4,1) isn't much better off at this point.

Just curious about your take on this EFI mod.
http://www.cultofmac.com/94627/2009-mac-pro-supports-faster-ram-cpus-with-firmware-hack/
I actually tried it and sure enough my 4.1 2009 Mac Pro is now showing 5.1.
Do you think they are correct claiming, that 2009 MacPro can now support Westmere Xeon CPUs and 1,333MHz RAM?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Thanks for your responses guys.

Jeff, special thanks to you.
Mine is a Mac Pro 3.1, 2 x 3.2 GHz Quad-Core. I also have the latest Macbook pro 15" which I guess is my only option for video editing at this point. I think I'm gonna wait for the new Mac Pro; only a few months away.

3.2GHz 8-core right now? Yup, can't do any better than that.... Even if you could, it still comes back to the memory and PCIe bottlenecks that hold the system back. The CPUs are rarely the bottleneck in the '08 Mac Pro.

Those of you using the Mackbook retina for all your video editing needs, how do you have it set up? I currently have my matrox mx02 connected to it via a mx02 Dock. what other stuff do I need? What else to enhance the experience?

The only thing I add to my MBPR is a Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID and occasionally attach to my Sonnet Thunderbolt box with ATTO H680 and RED Rocket inside. All things considered it's a great system, I think it's the best laptop system I've ever owned. I only have one complaint about it and that is the RAM. I need 32GB!!! 16 just doesn't cut it at times...

P.S: I forgot to tell you guys that the main reason I wanted to upgrade my computers' CPU to either 4,1 or 5,1 is that 3,1 is not compatible with
Pro Tools 11 which I just got.

Really? Huh... I'm not a Pro Tools guy, but I would be curious as to why it's not compatible.

Just curious about your take on this EFI mod.
http://www.cultofmac.com/94627/2009-mac-pro-supports-faster-ram-cpus-with-firmware-hack/
I actually tried it and sure enough my 4.1 2009 Mac Pro is now showing 5.1.
Do you think they are correct claiming, that 2009 MacPro can now support Westmere Xeon CPUs and 1,333MHz RAM?

It *should* work. There were only very minor changes to the logic board hardware between the 4,1 and 5,1 models. The Westmere-EP chips are still socket and pin compatible with the Nehalem-EP predecessors. Where I would be concerned is the RAM boards. They operate at at whatever clock speed the memory controller locks them in at and the ones that shipped with the Mac Pro 4,1 models are a bit different than the 5,1 models and not specifically rated for 1333MHz. I think that would be the biggest concern. Other than that, everything else should just work, provided the EFI mod works.

Many PC vendors simply used a BIOS upgrade to make their motherboards and systems handle the transition from Nehalem to Westmere CPUs.

In terms of upgrade costs, It doesn't seem very feasible. Probably makes more sense to unload the 4,1 system and pick up a used 5,1... Or just wait for the new Pro.

I guess this could be a viable upgrade if you're going from 2 x 2.4GHz 4-core to 2 x 3GHz 6-core....

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Jeff, my 2010 2.66 GHz 12 Core uses 1333MHz DDR3 RAM and has PCI-E 2.0 slots throughout. The OWC upgrade can take the processors up to 3.46 GHz Westmere's. Do you think I'll see a worthwhile improvement from that? I think I'll wait to see what people think of the trashcan once they start shipping... I did just get a Magma TB box which would work well with it. My other option is to go PC and build something really badass.

*headache*

 

[Les C.]

This article I stored long ago should help you.

I think I've seen even more detailed instructions with pictures, just search around.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2800/upgrading-and-analyzing-apple-s-nehalem-mac-pro/10

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff, my 2010 2.66 GHz 12 Core uses 1333MHz DDR3 RAM and has PCI-E 2.0 slots throughout. The OWC upgrade can take the processors up to 3.46 GHz Westmere's. Do you think I'll see a worthwhile improvement from that? I think I'll wait to see what people think of the trashcan once they start shipping... I did just get a Magma TB box which would work well with it. My other option is to go PC and build something really badass.

You'll see about 10% improvement in CPU performance with that upgrade. Everything else stays the same. So you have to ask yourself if it's worth the cost and headache to do the chip swap to get the 10% boost on computational stuff.

As for the whole badass PC thing... it seems a lot of Mac people are suffering from the grass is greener over there syndrome. But as an owner of several badass PC's, I can assure you that there are plenty of issues on that side of the fence as well. And all that performance isn't necessarily equal to the sum of its parts. For the most part, software can't take advantage of all the CPU cores available today and GPUs are still overrated and under-utilized. People think GPUs can do anything, when in fact they mostly can't. Developers are slow on the uptake of GPUs and new GPU tech until new features become established normals, the tech is evolving too fast to try and support and optimize for new features as new GPU platforms arrive every 8 months.

I'm anxious to see what the new Ivy Bridge EP Xeons bring to the table. The Sandy Bridge EP or EV-2600 V1 Xeon CPUs are rather disappointing. The good is that they bring us PCIe gen3 with onboard PCIe controllers and a move to 1600MHz quad-channel RAM. The bad is they're big, they're power-hungry and run hot enough to fry an egg on your heatsink. People complain about Apple not jumping on that platform. Well, they're not the only ones. Not only that, but it was long enough delayed that Intel almost completely pulled the plug on their release last spring. In retrospect, they probably should have. Not to mention, they're only about 8% faster than Westmere in a per-core/ per-clock comparison under full load and it's mostly all due to the increased memory throughput. Now factor in that the platform is nearly twice as expensive to buy into vs. the previous Westmere EP generation.

I keep trying to tell people who own a 12-core Mac Pro that they need to just sit tight for now. They're right where they need to be and PC land isn't offering them anything that is truly better. One can argue about GPU choices, but that hasn't been a huge issue as of late with increased driver support from nVidia and official Mac versions of cards like the Radeon 7980, GTX680 and Quadro K5000. Plus the fact that the GTX Titan runs great in OSX

It's going to be interesting to see how Apple's new black R2 unit does. I'm expecting a few growing pains at first until more peripheral makers switch from PCIe cards to Thunderbolt peripherals. The first round or two are going to be nothing more than PCIe cards stuck in Thunderbolt chassis, but that will slowly evolve into more elegant designs. I'm being told that the GPU form factor is supposedly open and something Intel and AMD/ATI (as well as others) have jointly agreed upon and that should also help in the future. GPUs are filling more roles for computational and other purposes and don't always need to have display interfaces and other connectors on them. There is an initiative here to move those interfaces off the GPU cards. Anyway, there's a lot more going on here than people realize. It's not just Apple designing some funky cylindrical computer. Several of the main industry bigwigs are in on this and it's going to be interesting to see if any of it sticks.

 

[jake blackstone]

I guess this could be a viable upgrade if you're going from 2 x 2.4GHz 4-core to 2 x 3GHz 6-core....

Thanks for the response.
That is exactly what I'm thinking. Without spending too much I should be able to do real time 1/2 res with R3D. Right now on my 2x2.26 GHz 4 core it's only 1/4 res.

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Thanks, Jeff, for your insight as always. I've begun diagramming everything that goes into my computing needs and will produce a flowchart comparing my current rig to R2Mac2 and an HP Z820. The only big question mark for me with the forthcoming Mac Pro is... what about RedRocket-X? It requires a 16x physical slot (which Magma has a work around for) but what does it require in bandwidth and will we ever see a TB 2 chassis to support that? Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to shape the new Mac as a crystal ball instead of a black cylinder?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Thanks for the response.
That is exactly what I'm thinking. Without spending too much I should be able to do real time 1/2 res with R3D. Right now on my 2x2.26 GHz 4 core it's only 1/4 res.

1/2 res real-time R3D... That's a stretch for the Mac Pro, especially when talking EPIC 5K, even if you upgrade those CPUs all the way. My Z820 at 16 cores and 3.1~3.9GHz with 1600MHz quad-channel RAM can't pull off 1/2 res real time consistently enough in Resolve or Premiere most of the time. At least not in a way that lets me work the way I want to. I still spend most of my time at 1/4 res and then it just runs smooth and doesn't hiccup. Those upgraded CPUs would still be a generation, and very soon will be 2 generations, behind current. Hence my previous commentary about the '09 Mac Pro 4,1 being just about as bad. All things considered, it's not as dire as if you were upgrading an '08 Mac Pro, which has many other severe limitations, but you're looking at spending a fair bit of money to upgrade a system to something that is still behind the curve.

It will cost you about $3900 to upgrade your Mac Pro to the best it can be -- dual 3.46GHz 6-Core Westmere EP Xeons with 64GB (8 * 8GB) 1333MHz RAM. Forgive me here, but I can't find any value or advantage in doing this. You can typically pick up a decent Mac Pro 5,1 on the used market for less than an equivalent upgrade and add it into the mix with your old one, or sell the old one while it's still worth more than $200...

Both of my Mac Pro systems are 3.06GHz 12-core. One I bought new from Apple, the other was bought as refurbished through an Apple authorized dealer, not an actual Apple Store, over a year ago for about $3600. At the time, that was about what I could buy the two 3.06GHz CPUs alone for on the open market. I still of course had to put some RAM and drives and a GPU in the system as it only came with 8GB and a 1TB HDD and an ATI 5770 card. Anyway, it has 64GB and an OWC 480GB SSD as the apps drive. 4 x WD 2TB HDD's in RAID-0 in the internal bays and an LG Blu-Ray writer for the optical drive. I'm still rocking an EVGA GTX570 as the GPU in that system and it works great. In Resolve it performs pretty decent. My Z820 is my Resolve system and primary workstation for just about everything. I have over $15K sunk into that Z820 setup and have had it over a year now -- that doesn't include monitors, just the system, Rocket card, and a mediocre self-built external RAID. To be blunt, it's been the worst computer purchase I've ever made in terms of ROI. Currently, I'm running the GTX Titan as the GPU in the Z820. Overall it's a nice setup, but at the current rate, it might ROI itself by the time it's a bit over 2 years old. I'll be able to drop dual 12-core Ivy Bridge Xeons into the system here in a couple months. Depending on price and where I'm at in terms of ROI, current workload, etc.. I may consider it to extend the longevity of the system in hopes of squeezing more value out of it. It's somewhat of a depressing system.... 3X the cost of the 12-core Mac Pro I use nearly as often and at it's best, it's only about 20% faster on intensely multithreaded computational stuff. When it comes to high density installations and computational or render node applications, everyone is still buying Westmere-EP. Only advantage of the Z820 over the previous Z820 here is 4 more (usually under-utilized) cores, faster memory and PCIe v3 plus USB3. The latter of which, I can easily add with a PCIe card. SB-EP Xeons are faster per clock, but they don't uphold their clock speeds under load as well as Westmere - EP does. So the actual performance gains just are not there like one wants to believe. I'm hoping Ivy Bridge - EP will do much better in that regard, but I'm doubtful.

Considering the upgrade again, you could save $360 by only going to the 3.06GHz chips. Or you could save $1500 by using 2.54GHz 6-core chips. The 2.54GHz ones are not going to offer you much. You get the 18% boost in memory transaction speed and a total of 4 more cores, but with the exception of individual thread-tasked processes like 3D rendering, nothing else can use more than about 8 cores efficiently anyway. Most can't even do that. Premiere CS6 / CC uses multiprocessor configurations rather well and it still chokes off to a point of little return at 12 to 16 threads (6 to 8 cores). That seems to be with CC. CS6 isn't quite as efficient as that. Same with Resolve. So the 2.54GHz 12-core upgrade isn't really going to buy you anything.

Those, AFAIK, are the only 3 Westmere-EP CPUs that are still in production and commonly available. Intel will cease production of all Westmere-EP Xeons in about 2 months. They were to call it quits about 6 months back when they stopped producing most of the chips in that line, but Westmere-EP has proven to be very popular and the now year-old Sandy Bridge EP has proven somewhat of a bust in the corporate world. I think they just priced the platform too high and most of the advantages don't translate too well along with the pricing. Westmere-EP still holds a better ROI value and power per watt per $$ than E5 Romley (Sandy Bridge Xeon).

Thanks, Jeff, for your insight as always. I've begun diagramming everything that goes into my computing needs and will produce a flowchart comparing my current rig to R2Mac2 and an HP Z820. The only big question mark for me with the forthcoming Mac Pro is... what about RedRocket-X? It requires a 16x physical slot (which Magma has a work around for) but what does it require in bandwidth and will we ever see a TB 2 chassis to support that? Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to shape the new Mac as a crystal ball instead of a black cylinder?

I'm anxious to learn all about Rocket-X specifics as well. We know it takes an X16 physical slot, presumably this is to supply adequate power, but hopefully to scale interface bandwidth as well. That's something the original Rocket kinda failed on. I'm operating under the assumption that it is a PCIe gen2 card, but it may be gen3 capable. Either way on the PCIe generation, I just hope RED does a better job and bandwidth dispersion than they did with the original Rocket. Original Rocket was always an enigma as a PCIe gen1 X8 card. It should have been a gen2 X8 card with the ability to operate and signal within X4 lanes. I realize they were working with DVS and the Rocket was based on their Atomix card design, but even the Atomix was an enigma at its launch for the same reasons. If better thought were put into the PCIe interface design, it could have run at full speed in any slot in an '09 or newer Mac Pro or a multitude of PC systems out there.

I'm hoping the new Rocket is PCIe gen3 compliant. And hoping it can scale bandwidth across available lanes -- So full bandwidth could be achieved in X4 on gen3, in X8 on gen2...

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

1/2 res real-time R3D... That's a stretch for the Mac Pro, especially when talking EPIC 5K, even if you upgrade those CPUs all the way. My Z820 at 16 cores and 3.1~3.9GHz with 1600MHz quad-channel RAM can't pull off 1/2 res real time consistently enough in Resolve or Premiere most of the time. At least not in a way that lets me work the way I want to. I still spend most of my time at 1/4 res and then it just runs smooth and doesn't hiccup. Those upgraded CPUs would still be a generation, and very soon will be 2 generations, behind current. Hence my previous commentary about the '09 Mac Pro 4,1 being just about as bad. All things considered, it's not as dire as if you were upgrading an '08 Mac Pro, which has many other severe limitations, but you're looking at spending a fair bit of money to upgrade a system to something that is still behind the curve.

It will cost you about $3900 to upgrade your Mac Pro to the best it can be -- dual 3.46GHz 6-Core Westmere EP Xeons with 64GB (8 * 8GB) 1333MHz RAM. Forgive me here, but I can't find any value or advantage in doing this. You can typically pick up a decent Mac Pro 5,1 on the used market for less than an equivalent upgrade and add it into the mix with your old one, or sell the old one while it's still worth more than $200...

Both of my Mac Pro systems are 3.06GHz 12-core. One I bought new from Apple, the other was bought as refurbished through an Apple authorized dealer, not an actual Apple Store, over a year ago for about $3600. At the time, that was about what I could buy the two 3.06GHz CPUs alone for on the open market. I still of course had to put some RAM and drives and a GPU in the system as it only came with 8GB and a 1TB HDD and an ATI 5770 card. Anyway, it has 64GB and an OWC 480GB SSD as the apps drive. 4 x WD 2TB HDD's in RAID-0 in the internal bays and an LG Blu-Ray writer for the optical drive. I'm still rocking an EVGA GTX570 as the GPU in that system and it works great. In Resolve it performs pretty decent. My Z820 is my Resolve system and primary workstation for just about everything. I have over $15K sunk into that Z820 setup and have had it over a year now -- that doesn't include monitors, just the system, Rocket card, and a mediocre self-built external RAID. To be blunt, it's been the worst computer purchase I've ever made in terms of ROI. Currently, I'm running the GTX Titan as the GPU in the Z820. Overall it's a nice setup, but at the current rate, it might ROI itself by the time it's a bit over 2 years old. I'll be able to drop dual 12-core Ivy Bridge Xeons into the system here in a couple months. Depending on price and where I'm at in terms of ROI, current workload, etc.. I may consider it to extend the longevity of the system in hopes of squeezing more value out of it. It's somewhat of a depressing system.... 3X the cost of the 12-core Mac Pro I use nearly as often and at it's best, it's only about 20% faster on intensely multithreaded computational stuff. When it comes to high density installations and computational or render node applications, everyone is still buying Westmere-EP. Only advantage of the Z820 over the previous Z820 here is 4 more (usually under-utilized) cores, faster memory and PCIe v3 plus USB3. The latter of which, I can easily add with a PCIe card. SB-EP Xeons are faster per clock, but they don't uphold their clock speeds under load as well as Westmere - EP does. So the actual performance gains just are not there like one wants to believe. I'm hoping Ivy Bridge - EP will do much better in that regard, but I'm doubtful.

Considering the upgrade again, you could save $360 by only going to the 3.06GHz chips. Or you could save $1500 by using 2.54GHz 6-core chips. The 2.54GHz ones are not going to offer you much. You get the 18% boost in memory transaction speed and a total of 4 more cores, but with the exception of individual thread-tasked processes like 3D rendering, nothing else can use more than about 8 cores efficiently anyway. Most can't even do that. Premiere CS6 / CC uses multiprocessor configurations rather well and it still chokes off to a point of little return at 12 to 16 threads (6 to 8 cores). That seems to be with CC. CS6 isn't quite as efficient as that. Same with Resolve. So the 2.54GHz 12-core upgrade isn't really going to buy you anything.

Those, AFAIK, are the only 3 Westmere-EP CPUs that are still in production and commonly available. Intel will cease production of all Westmere-EP Xeons in about 2 months. They were to call it quits about 6 months back when they stopped producing most of the chips in that line, but Westmere-EP has proven to be very popular and the now year-old Sandy Bridge EP has proven somewhat of a bust in the corporate world. I think they just priced the platform too high and most of the advantages don't translate too well along with the pricing. Westmere-EP still holds a better ROI value and power per watt per $$ than E5 Romley (Sandy Bridge Xeon).



I'm anxious to learn all about Rocket-X specifics as well. We know it takes an X16 physical slot, presumably this is to supply adequate power, but hopefully to scale interface bandwidth as well. That's something the original Rocket kinda failed on. I'm operating under the assumption that it is a PCIe gen2 card, but it may be gen3 capable. Either way on the PCIe generation, I just hope RED does a better job and bandwidth dispersion than they did with the original Rocket. Original Rocket was always an enigma as a PCIe gen1 X8 card. It should have been a gen2 X8 card with the ability to operate and signal within X4 lanes. I realize they were working with DVS and the Rocket was based on their Atomix card design, but even the Atomix was an enigma at its launch for the same reasons. If better thought were put into the PCIe interface design, it could have run at full speed in any slot in an '09 or newer Mac Pro or a multitude of PC systems out there.

I'm hoping the new Rocket is PCIe gen3 compliant. And hoping it can scale bandwidth across available lanes -- So full bandwidth could be achieved in X4 on gen3, in X8 on gen2...

Thanks, Jeff for your continued generosity of council and wisdom..MUCH appreciated!

 

[Nook Kim]

So.. Jeff, With all your highly detailed advices, I've kinda made up my mind. Could you recommend some dealers for used/refurbished Mac Pro's? I've been holding on too long for new gen Mac Pro, but I'm afraid iTrahcan won't have much compatiblity with any of my external devices. So I've decided to get something now with which I can work nicely with Resolve just til all the 3rd parties are caught up with iTrashcan. $3,600 for a 3.06Ghz 12-core sounds real sweat!

 

[jake blackstone]

Yes Jeff, $3600 may sound like a lot for just an incremental upgrade, but it's a good route for someone like me, that had invested a lot in PCI and external devices. My scope of using MacPro is very narrow. With the release of Resolve 10 imminent I want to be ready. Unfortunately, right now I'm not planning to move to the new MacPro for couple of reasons. The most important- is the cost of the computer for not much improvement in operational speed. Resolve 10 introduces OFX, motion compensated noise reduction and a flow motion, all requiring MASSIVE GPU power. BM finally started paying attention to the need of proper caching and V.10 does make use of persistent cache. But they have a long way to go, before this feature becomes really useful. I don't believe Open CL using dual ATI cards will be sufficient. I'd rather spend money on nVidia cards in an expansion enclosure, where I'll get more bang for the money. On the new MacPro my fiber and SAS drives will have to share TB ports with BM TB display device, as well as RR. I'm sure, in time all this will get sorted out, but right now I'd rather postpone the upgrade for a year or two. Thanks for the information!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

So.. Jeff, With all your highly detailed advices, I've kinda made up my mind. Could you recommend some dealers for used/refurbished Mac Pro's? I've been holding on too long for new gen Mac Pro, but I'm afraid iTrahcan won't have much compatiblity with any of my external devices. So I've decided to get something now with which I can work nicely with Resolve just til all the 3rd parties are caught up with iTrashcan. $3,600 for a 3.06Ghz 12-core sounds real sweat!

Don't have any recommendations off the top of my head. The last one I bought was actually found on eBay. It was supposedly from an authorized dealer and was a certified Apple refurb system w/ warranty, dealer was in California, but I don't have details here. Shop around and see what you come up with. There are deals to be had if you keep looking. I have a hunch that we're going to see a flood of Mac Pro systems for sale once we know prices and ship dates for the new ones. Just something to think about there.

Just looking at refurbs on the Apple web site, seems like $4800 for a 2.93GHz 12-core. That's a bit pricey, I'd rather take my chances on used elsewhere. Ebay is a mixed bag as always. Configurations and prices are all over the map.

Yes Jeff, $3600 may sound like a lot for just an incremental upgrade, but it's a good route for someone like me, that had invested a lot in PCI and external devices. My scope of using MacPro is very narrow. With the release of Resolve 10 imminent I want to be ready. Unfortunately, right now I'm not planning to move to the new MacPro for couple of reasons. The most important- is the cost of the computer for not much improvement in operational speed. Resolve 10 introduces OFX, motion compensated noise reduction and a flow motion, all requiring MASSIVE GPU power. BM finally started paying attention to the need of proper caching and V.10 does make use of persistent cache. But they have a long way to go, before this feature becomes really useful. I don't believe Open CL using dual ATI cards will be sufficient. I'd rather spend money on nVidia cards in an expansion enclosure, where I'll get more bang for the money. On the new MacPro my fiber and SAS drives will have to share TB ports with BM TB display device, as well as RR. I'm sure, in time all this will get sorted out, but right now I'd rather postpone the upgrade for a year or two. Thanks for the information!

And that's totally understandable in regards to PCIe devices. I suppose that's why I have no plans on offloading my current Mac Pro systems anytime soon. When I put systems together, it's not just about the system or workstation itself, but everything attached to it. At some point RAID systems and other peripherals inside the system or outside will obsolete themselves just as the computer they're attached to. In another year or two, I think the implementation of this new Mac Pro design will have stabilized and there will be lots of peripheral hardware options to truly support it. It's a first generation product and there are going to be growing pains no doubt. It's not cost-effective or remotely practical to adapt the new Mac Pro to existing hardware like external RAID storage. This is what has so many people pissed off. OTOH, I think it's a welcome move in a new direction, but it will be some time before it's widely accepted and fully utilized.

 

[Nook Kim]

Yes Jeff, $3600 may sound like a lot for just an incremental upgrade, but it's a good route for someone like me, that had invested a lot in PCI and external devices. My scope of using MacPro is very narrow. With the release of Resolve 10 imminent I want to be ready. Unfortunately, right now I'm not planning to move to the new MacPro for couple of reasons. The most important- is the cost of the computer for not much improvement in operational speed. Resolve 10 introduces OFX, motion compensated noise reduction and a flow motion, all requiring MASSIVE GPU power. BM finally started paying attention to the need of proper caching and V.10 does make use of persistent cache. But they have a long way to go, before this feature becomes really useful. I don't believe Open CL using dual ATI cards will be sufficient. I'd rather spend money on nVidia cards in an expansion enclosure, where I'll get more bang for the money. On the new MacPro my fiber and SAS drives will have to share TB ports with BM TB display device, as well as RR. I'm sure, in time all this will get sorted out, but right now I'd rather postpone the upgrade for a year or two. Thanks for the information!

This is my exact reason. I'm planning on upgrading my 4 PCI-E Cubix to 6 PCI-E just to add USB 3.0 card. There are too many people using USB 3.0 HDD now although I tell them against it. I guess it's easier to change myself than trying to change all my clients I've also been looking for Thunder Bolt card, but I'm not sure if something like that even exist. TB drives are starting to show up in my office with F65 footage. I may upgrade my 3 x Q4000 to Titans once Resolve 10 comes out as well.

 

[Nook Kim]

Don't have any recommendations off the top of my head. The last one I bought was actually found on eBay. It was supposedly from an authorized dealer and was a certified Apple refurb system w/ warranty, dealer was in California, but I don't have details here. Shop around and see what you come up with. There are deals to be had if you keep looking. I have a hunch that we're going to see a flood of Mac Pro systems for sale once we know prices and ship dates for the new ones. Just something to think about there.

Just looking at refurbs on the Apple web site, seems like $4800 for a 2.93GHz 12-core. That's a bit pricey, I'd rather take my chances on used elsewhere. Ebay is a mixed bag as always. Configurations and prices are all over the map.

I will keep searching. All used dealers I've found so far only have really low profile systems under $1500 range. I agree there will be lots of used systems once iTrashcan (I feel bad when I say it, but don't have anything elso to call it easier) solidifies with its ship date and price. Thanks.