Who's still rocking a Mac 5,1?

[Murray McMillan]

Hi Y'all,

Shout out to all the Indies in here who are still loving their old Macs!

My 2012 5,1 (12/3.3, 64GB, 980TI) is rock steady with 4K. I'm a video artists who has super lean budgets and absolutely thrilled to have a 2012 computer be so strong and reliable [and if I had an extra $10K for a replacement I'd rather throw the money at an elaborate set on the next project].

I see no reason to upgrade until the 2019 Mac Pros are available used for reasonable prices in 3-5 years.

Am I the only one or is there more folks who are rocking classic boats?

 

[Murray McMillan]

Ha. I'm the only one.

Fine art: perhaps the only field where one shoots on Red and edits on a 10 year old machine.

Cheers

 

[Bastian Meier]

No I work on a Mac Pro 4.1 ->5.1 as well.
I actually have still two working ones.
But the one in the edit Grading suite runs a 1080, 2x3.46 GHZ, 96GB RAM, PCI SSD, 10GBE, USB3, DECKLINK, ...

runs like a charm.

 

[jake blackstone]

I have a 2010 dual 3.33 GHz MacPro with Radeon Sapphire 580, 48 GB RAM, Open Core, 4k Decklink Mini monitor, 1 TB NVME for fast cash, 4x3TB in RAID0
spinning drives and of coarse, 2хThunderbolt 3 ports with TB AJA T-tap SDI, TB SanLink for connecting two 4GB Fiber drives and a hub with 3 USB3 ports, another ethernet port and an HDMI out.
Edit, just added a 10GE Myricom card too for 10GE connection to my FreeNas.
Am I the only one that has Thunderbolt 3 ports on my MacPro 5.1?

 

[Mestizo Devon]

12core 2.93 64RAM 18TB spinning internal, 8GB Radeon, way too many external drives....

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

Yeah... thought I'd be on the new Mac Pro by now, but Apple won't release a buyable config....

Never thought I'd ever keep a Workstation for 10, let alone 11 years but:

These old Mac Pros are getting a bit long in the tooth, and they aren't the fastest from 0-60. But my computer never crashes and it has no problem handling 4K/UHD centred content with dual 2560x1440 monitors and a LG 55 C8 via DeckLink MiniMonitor 4K.

DaVinci Resolve, Cinema 4D, increasingly Blender and the usual support apps.

 

[Murray McMillan]

Hell Yeah Brothers and Sisters!

 

[Misha Engel]

 

[Mark Phelan]

Still have my 2008 Cheese Grater with a Red Rocket and Dulce 16TB RAID that works perfectly fine, for 1080 output. I'd be willing to sell it if anyone is interested. Operators are standing by...

 

[Glen Powell]

Still using two: 4,1 -> 5,1 and a 5,1

But I did buy a 2019 Mac Pro - base config and then added all the extras from off the shelf, huge cost savings from the Apple configs. The 2019 is a big move forward in some areas, and just an incremental improvement in others.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Still have 4 of the classic cheese graters, but only fire up 2 on a regular basis. The lead rig has a 980Ti and a RR-X which makes it fine for most workflows. Salivating over the 7,1 2019 MP but no way I'm pulling the trigger until the industry gets back on it's feet. It really is amazing how long the old towers have stayed viable for RED workflows.

Cheers - #19

 

[Hal Long]

Still loving my 4,1 --> 5,1 12c 2.6. Running an Areca 1882 x 24 SAS card, 4 x USB 3.0, BMD Decklink and a 980 TI. It does well for me and grades 4K in real time @ 1/2 debayer in Resolve. Which is fine as I'm on a Flanders HD monitor for grading. Has anyone found that a higher end GPU adds much? I remember reading that the 980 TI was about has much as the system could utilize. I too had to cut a hole in the chassis for a power drop like the above post.

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

I remember reading that the 980 TI was about has much as the system could utilize.

That just means that whatever they were doing was CPU limited. Take software like Resolve and you can make two Radeon VII sweat in a 5.1, depending on task.

 

[Robert Hofmeyr]

Mine has been in storage for a couple of years. Just pulled it out over the weekend to set up a home schooling machine for one of my kids during lockdown and it seems to have died - flashed a grey screen a couple of times, and now nothing at all when I press the power button. Very sad. That machine served me well.

 

[Zack Birlew]

I still have and use my Mac Pro 1.1! I kept it on Snow Leopard and still have it for Final Cut Studio, Logic, and Pro Tools 9 use but I mostly stay on the Windows 7 bootcamp partition where it makes a (still) screaming fast Windows PC. Other than that, I've been experimenting with the Hackintosh scene.

 

[Stephen Mickelsen]

I'm still running a 5,1. It's sitting next to the new 7,1. The old cheese grater holds up surprisingly well.

 

[Eric Santiago]

At work we have a few 2006 (W7 BootCamp), a 2012 (old Avid/Pro Tools) doing some kind of work.
At home, I have a 2012 that houses my Rocket cards (CUBIX) as well as older SAS cards.
Ill be honest, I use them sparingly when I run into clients with older projects.
My 2013 D700 at home is kicking but for film work and putting a 2019 through the paces at work