Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

I'm looking at getting a refurbished Mac Pro to replace my current iMac, but I'm still trying to understand what I'm looking at to optimize the specs.

Looking over some other threads, I've seen more people leaning towards Number of Cores > Faster CPU, but I would appreciate a second opinion for what I'm looking at with machines in my price range.

One option is 6 Cores, 3.46Ghz. The other is 12 Cores, 2.93Ghz.

I really like that I could get double the cores for the same price on the second machine, but don't know if it that would benefit my ProTools experience at all. I'm typically working as an editor, and do almost no live recording, but need to run a lot of plugins (iZotope RX5, Waves.) Faster bounce times would be a plus.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks!

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

More cores will help with offline bounce, but otherwise it's not so easy to pick the faster one. But if it's hard to pick, isn't it easy to just pick one and be happy with it ;)

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

Whatever Mac you get make sure your version of PT will work with the OSX that's on the 'new' machine. If you're getting a refurb from Apple more likely than not some form of Sierra will be on it. You looking at a cheesegrater or iTrashcan?

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

I'd choose the 12 core. Diff between 3gh and 3.5gh just isn't as significant.

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

Thank you for the recommendations so far!

I am looking at an older refurbished model (the cheese grater), and I'll make sure it's updated to the latest software. Now that the OS updates are free, I'm not as worried about that being a pain. And actually, I've been trying to make do with ProTools 10 for a while to dodge the upgrade fee and not risk slowing my current desktop even more, but I need to bite the bullet for the move to 12. Last I checked the refurbished came with Mavericks and I plan to update it to Sierra.

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

If you're getting a cheese grater, definitely spring for the 12-core machine. The reason is that you can still upgrade the processors to a faster speed (there are several companies out there who do this conversion reasonably) if you find you don't quite have enough power. With the 12-core machine, you already have the right tray with the two-processor configuration. Taking a tray with only 1 processor all the way up to a two-processor configuration is a lot more expensive if you ever need to do that. I recently took my stock 8-core machine (2-2.4gHz processors) all the way up to a 12-core machine (2-3.46gHz) for less than $700. If I had only had a single processor tray (the 2.8gHz model, for example) the same upgrade would have been almost double the cost. My machine should be good for several more years now, and it is already 7 years old!;)

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

Did you take the lids off the new processors or leave them on?

Re: Question about Mac Pro Specs
 

I actually had the work done by a company in Florida (you can easily find them on ebay), but the processor lids went back on and are the same ones that were originally on the machine. The only difference besides the actual huge performance boost is that when I click to see my system specs it now says 2-3.46gHz processors where it used to say 2-2.4gHz processors.