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2008 Mac Pro vs. Macbook Pro i7

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Weston Heflin

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I am debating investing in my 2008 Mac Pro (2.8GHz Quad Core, 12GB RAM) with more RAM and this setup (Nvidia GTX570/GT120) OR buying a new Macbook Pro 15" i7 (SSD, 16GB RAM), maybe retina. Will be editing RAW in CS6, coloring in Davinci, some AE and FCP work. Aiming for best performance with RED workflow I can get...without a RedRocket, for now.

May be an obvious choice, but any opinions out there on the best way to go? Any advice would be much appreciated!
 
Out of the box performance is likely around the same, maybe a slight edge to the MBP. But the Mac Pro is much, much more expandable. That means Red Rocket card, second graphics card, Black Magic or AJA I/O card, eSata or mini-SAS card for connection to external storage . . . in addition to ability to house much more RAM and a few extra hard drives . . . You can get much more versatility out of the Pro.

Except the versatility of portability.

So really, the choice is "Do I want to be able to buy additional small components over time? Or do I want to do a full system upgrade once every few years?" One of the key things you could want, SDI out (to a broadcast monitor) can be handled by either an AJA T-Tap or the Black Magic equivalent that will turn a Thunderbolt out to an SDI or HDMI signal. For many, this one adapter eliminates the need for PCIe slots. Which, for many, eliminates the need for a tower.

But really, it comes down to the capabilities that you find most important for the work you are most likely to be doing.
 
go with the mac pro you need a raid to edit hd and raw and a lot! of disk space
with the gtx570 my 2008 mac is 4 times faster than the latest macbook with ssd

i get on the macbook raw 25fps 1/8 res. rendering and playback in sd
on the macpro 2008 25fps 1/4 res. in 1080p in davinci
and 5k footage full res. render 6fps or so..so the RR is a nice option ;)
 
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Noah, what needs to be done to get the GTX570 working on a '08 macpro? I would like to try this for CS8 and learning Resolve.
 
the only advantage the mac pro has is the ability to take a faster gpu and more ram....if you are looking to use a RR, the external box via thunderbolt might be a better option....
don't forget that the Mac Pro will have usb2 instead of 3, (the internal HDs will run slower then external usb3 on mbp!) no thunderbolt, slower ram,....usb3 and thunderbolt make external connections better, faster and sometimes cheaper solutions...especially for storage....and there is only more to come....
the only drawback of the mbp is limited ram and limited gpu.....
btw: when you price out the mbp vs retina, the retina is the better deal and the internal ssd is faster....you can get a second ssd for the mbp and set up a striped array but in that price range the retina with the 750gb ssd is the cheaper and almost as fast option and keeps the warranty intact.....
the worst thing about the mac pro is that even if you get internal ssds, they won't run at their max speed...you are still limited by the slower internal connection....
 
Curious what is a 2008 Mac Pro Quad core worth used? I have client with one collecting dust and said to make him an offer. Having a hard time finding a value for it.
 
joe hedge said:
Really?

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID

Most of the rest of what you said about MacPro's is wrong too, particularly the "only advantage" part
Click to expand...

that one takes up a pci slot and they sell these also with a thunderbolt box....same speed....
i was referring to the internal bus maxing out at 3g....so no matter which ssd you get, it tops out at 300mb r/w (more like 250mb)....the internal ssd in the mbp gets close to 500 r/w...
if you are looking to put in a new/fast gpu the mac pro is the only way....32gb ram...mac pro (or iMac)....but if you have a RR it does not matter again...use thunderbolt...

there is no solution (speed/price/size) like the pegasus for the Mac Pro...
in the end we are simply talking about a 4 year old system....
if you HAVE TO HAVE a Mac Pro wait a couple of months, it will be a completely different machine....if you need something now, get a mbp, work with it and sell it when the mac pro comes out....
 
Ted Parkes said:
Curious what is a 2008 Mac Pro Quad core worth used? I have client with one collecting dust and said to make him an offer. Having a hard time finding a value for it.
Click to expand...

I just bought one few months back for $1200 USD on craigs.
 
With my 08 mac pro FLYING in FCP X with just a 5870 and no red rocket - I would choose upgradeable CUDA/Open CL options if you don't need portability. An internal 6G Sata card and a few non-sandforce SSDs and you have scratch media drives that will outpace most RAID 5 setups.

In addition, with a new mac pro coming in a few months I'm really curious to see what the next round of "apple blessed" GPUs bring...

That, and the intel xeon Phi card will change the "pro" landscape quite a bit...
 
I would say the 2008 8-Core 3GHz with 32gigs of Ram is comparable to the rMBP but drives will be slower and the ram is slower.
Westons is a Quad-core so I but it's a LOT slower then the rMBP and with 2 usb3 ports and 2 thunderbolt ports the only expansion limitation is another GPU and more ram, however the rMBP actually has 2 GPU's in it (not sure if they function at the same time in Resolve or not).

Could try running Geekbench - http://itun.es/us/hVuzy.m
For reference my maxed out rMBP scores 13545
 
paul schefz said:
there is no solution (speed/price/size) like the pegasus for the Mac Pro...
Click to expand...

A thunderbolt port is the equivalent of a 4x pcie slot, the Mac Pro has (2) 16 lane slots and (2) 8 lane slots

Rather ridiculous to state that a 4 lane slot is faster than 40 lanes

You also forget that in DIT Land we're downloading, transcoding, playing back the transcodes, and syncing, all at the same time

All thats going to happen on (1) 4 lane thunderbolt port - nope.
 
If you dont have to do a lot to get the Mac Pro going then Id go with that.
We have a few still kicking butt here at work but not R3D butt.
As far as any external option for Thunderbolt none use GPU like a Mac Pro will.
An if you do want to spend less on a SSD PCI option, try the Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro with dual SSD 512GBs at RAID 0.
Im getting 900/540 r/w speeds on a recent Mac Pro so I dont see why you wouldnt get close with 2008 model.

I have rMPB/Magma/Sonnet w/ROCKET at work but prefer the ROCKET in a Mac Pro or CUBIX anytime.
 
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