picking a new mac

[brianjanthony]

I have been considering upgrading my Cheese grater with OWC. It would take me up to a 3.3 X5680 Xeon 12 total cores. And I'd keep my drive ecosystem intact. I have very little problems with it as is (8 total cores 2.4 mid 2010 with 40 gig RAM). Just looking to extend the life and power of it for the next couple years.

I get confused by all the Geekbench stuff. I look mainly at the 64 bit single and 64 bit dual core numbers. I know there was an issue in the past with Pro Tools hyper threading or something like that (real technical I know). So I don't know if the Single or Dual Core number is more important.

With the OWC upgrade, my Grater would be very comparable to the newest Macs out there. Single core processing, not so much.

I don't know which numbers are more important. But I do know the upgrade would cost me 1/4 the cost of upgrading all my other stuff.

Can anyone explain which numbers are more important to consider when spec'ing out which way I should go?

[JFreak]

The most important number is the number of cores available.

[brianjanthony]

I have the 8 now. I would then have 12 real cores. (so 24 if its hyper threading). And I know RTAS plugins used to love a higher clock number. I'd be going from 2.4 to 3.x. A large increase.

All the Geek bench scores usually get listed by 2 main numbers. Where I wouldn't gain much in the Single department, the Dual processing number nets me double the power.

I'd love a new trashcan. But folks have told me this gets me 75-80% there without changing all my other hardware around. And for a quarter of the price. If its true, I can live with that for a few years. ;-)

[syMPh]

I run a 12 core 3.33... on yosemite 10.3.3 with HD12 it runs great ... VI's, plugs you name it... first time i've been this happy with HD since V7.4 . on 10.8.5 with 11.3.1 or HD 12 it is astoundingly good and maybe 5% more reliable mainly due to a few plugins not being quite stable in yosemite.. ... it beats a 8 core new mac pro hands down in every way if you have a PCIe SSD. Comes close to a new 12 core if not identical... make sure you have a radeon 5770 card :)

[syMPh]

upgrading is very doable on your own if you want to take it on it can be done VERY cheaply :)

[reichman]

I'm sympathetic to not wanting to spend too much, but the new black Mac Pro's have some real benefits. They're almost dead silent, and they're portable. I'm very happy I chose to go black instead of upgrading my ancient silver tank.

[brianjanthony]

Believe me, it'd be lovely to get a new one. But I've got 15TB of drives and 40+ gig of RAM, AND an HDN card that'd all need new homes.

A trashcan would probably run me over 4k. Upgrading my cheese grater would cost between $400-$800. For my money, and with things being slow in my neck of the woods, that's too big of a difference.

Esp if I did it myself, it's one HECK of a bridge towards a trashcan for the price of a few plugins. I don't have a use for thunderbolt right now. And noise isn't a prob.

I have definitely considered doing it myself. I've watched a few Youtube videos on it. But i might turn chicken in the end. If I muck it up, I'm outta luck… and a job.

[Buccanears]

I'm running a 12core 2.66 and it's quite happy with 10.10.3 and PT11.3.1 HDX
As SyMph says, radeon 5770 card is a must have to avoid yucky GUI glitches.

[Brandonx1]

Just bought and installed a nmp 6 core hdn thunderbolt omni system. I am amazed at how small, fast and silent this thing is.

[DetroitT]

Originally Posted by Buccanears

I'm running a 12core 2.66 and it's quite happy with 10.10.3 and PT11.3.1 HDX
As SyMph says, radeon 5770 card is a must have to avoid yucky GUI glitches.

Up a notch:

Real numbers for me are Black Mac is 11K-us, Ungraded like below is 4K-us
Have not decided but close to deciding.

Taking same 5,1 dual 6 core to Sapphire Video card, 48Gb ram, Sonnet dual soft raid-o Samsung 850 pro 1TB (1.9TB boot), HD bay 1 2TB SSHD Boot BU drive, Bay 2 Samples A, Bay 3 Samples B, Bay 4 AUDIO session BU images.
eSata-1 24TB HW raid 6, eSata-2 2-850-Pro SSD drives and 2 SSHD BU Drives