Mac Pro Upgrade Opinions

[btate]

Hi All,

I'm about to upgrade my early 2008 3,1 "Harpertown" 2.8 gHz 8core Mac Pro in anticipation of upgrading to Pro Tools 11 later in the year after the bugs have been worked out and AAX support improves. I am considering a (MC770LL/A) 5,1 Quad core 3.2 gHz with 20 gigs of ram. I'd like some opinions on weather I will see a performance increase or weather it will be a somewhat lateral move. I do mostly on air promo, but also do some shows as well as music on occasion, sometimes as many as 48+ tracks. My current rig has had no problems so far.

3,1 MacPro 2008 Harpertown 8 core 2.8 gHz
6 gigs Ram
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
Sig PCIe firewire card

[powerjoe]

I'd increase the current ram and ad an SSD such as a Samsung 840.

I've using this same config with PT11 and would have no problem using it to mimic what you're after.

[btate]

Originally Posted by powerjoe

I'd increase the current ram and ad an SSD such as a Samsung 840.

I've using this same config with PT11 and would have no problem using it to mimic what you're after.

Do you still have the Radeon 2600 card. Since upgrading to Mountain Lion the graphics card fan is constantly spinning up. Most people say replace it with the 5770. My issue is if I add 8gigs of ram at $250 plus the SSD drive (not sure of cost) and the 5770 Radeon card at 250, I'm putting $500 or more into a machine that is only worth $750 or so and is not on the supported list for PT11.
Also, are you running PT11HD? I will be upgrading from CPTK PT10 to PT11HD Native.

[powerjoe]

I am using the stock graphics card with the aforementioned upgrades on ML with PT11 HD.

Love it!

Ymmv