How old of a MAC Pro if running PT2020? TB3?

[GrievousAngel]

I'm considering getting an older MAC Pro for use with my PT2020. There are some OK Mac's out there but where should the cut-off be if wanting to run PT2020 with Thunderbolt 3 interfaces.

Thanks,

Billy

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by GrievousAngel

I'm considering getting an older MAC Pro for use with my PT2020. There are some OK Mac's out there but where should the cut-off be if wanting to run PT2020 with Thunderbolt 3 interfaces.

Thanks,

Billy

Well for a Mac Pro you can only get the trashcan 6.1 or the new Mac Pro 7.1 for Thunderbolt use as older Mac Pro Cheesegraters dont have TB ports.

[Darryl Ramm]

And be careful here which Thunderbolt version you are talking about.

The Mac Pro trashcan have Thunderbolt 2
The new Mac Pro Cheesegrater (i.e. 7,1) has Thunderbolt 3.

Thunderbolt 3 hopefully has a long compatibility future, because of its adoption into the USB 4 standard. Old Thunderbolt 1, 2 are just slower, esp. for use with fast NVMe storage (and storage is a weak point of the whole Trashcan bad design), and has lower-end video display capability--but not an issue for audio interface use.

Thunderbolt (1) and Thunderbolt 2 are very compatible with each other. Thunderbolt 3 is often compatible, with 1 and 2, via an adapter, but you have to pay attention/check for the specific device.

Some Thunderbolt 3 peripherals will *not* work on Thunderbolt 2, especially Thunderbolt 3 fast PCIe/NVMe disk drives. Audio interfaces are likely to be compatible using an adapter like Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt adapter, and you can often use that bidirectionally to go from 1,2 to 3 or 3 to 1,2. Thunderbolt 3 peripherals that are bus powered are more likely to not work. Many Thunderbolt audio interfaces will be compatible with different versions of Thunderbolt using the Apple Thunderbolt adapter, but you should.

There are other Macs with Thunderbolt 3 at much lower price points than a Mac Pro, including Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro. But all depends on your needs.

[henningaround]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Well for a Mac Pro you can only get the trashcan 6.1 or the new Mac Pro 7.1 for Thunderbolt use as older Mac Pro Cheesegraters dont have TB ports.

Mac Pro 5.1 (Cheesgrater) with Thunderbolt is actually possible:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhlsVhwOVw

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by henningaround

Mac Pro 5.1 (Cheesgrater) with Thunderbolt is actually possible:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhlsVhwOVw

Hell on earth! Trust me!

I mean I could Turbo Charge one of my Cars that doesn’t have Turbo but it was never meant to have turbo but thats asking for problems and with all the hassle of having dual boot on a Mac Pro and only one bootcamp version that works and bla bla bla ... No thanks! Have friends who done that hack and they had enough issues before hand and now working in Pro Audio that Mac Pro is thrown out.

I did not mention this as I thought the OP asked what Mac Pro came with TB to work with TB3 and both 2013 and 2019 does and TB2 with adapter to TB3 is PLENTY fast as we have retired 2 of the MP 12 core trashcans with TB2 and we ran soo many sessions we were amazed along with the X Series Apollo interfaces so you dont need to buy the latest MP if you dont have a spare 7000-8000 dollars and that only gets you the lowest level MP 7.1

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by henningaround

Mac Pro 5.1 (Cheesgrater) with Thunderbolt is actually possible:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhlsVhwOVw

Shooting yourself in the head and living is also possible.