New or old Mac Pro specs for $4-5000

So the new MacPro's are almost ready to drop and I can get a new box at long last. Unfortunately the options are a bit dizzying, so I'm hoping for some guidance.
Me: pro photographer - shoot 100% RAW files, 21 MP camera. Current image library over 25,000 files. "Average" shoot nets 500-2,000 files which must be ingested (Lightroom), edited and selects converted. Photoshop work is generally more in the retouching than composition mode - in other words, I don't have massive files with multiple composited layers - my layer stack is generally in the range of 20+ layers, many of them adjustment layers.
Software PS CS3, will be upgrading to CS5 with new box. Lightroom - will upgrade that too. I expect to add either Capture 1 or Hassleblad Phocus in the next year.
Good chance I'll be adding either Final Cut Pro or maybe Premiere for video. But I'm not looking to create a "video ready" box for big productions. When I go that route, I'll be making short video's - 30 sec to 5 min max.
I would like to keep my initial investment between $4 - 5,000 max, less could be better!
I am happy to either go with the newly released MacPro or the box that will, in the next day or two, be "out-dated" - and therefore significantly cheaper. I plan to use this as my main machine for next 3 years at least .
I know to get Ram aftermarket to save $$. Any other components I should get aftermarket? Graphics card? Hard drives?
Have a Burley 5 bay enclosure, e-Sata - where I currently store my image files in a JBOD format.
I'm not all that comfortable with putting together and maintaining a Raid for my image files.
What are my best (with an eye on budget) choices for scratch, for PS and LR?
How would you set things up to keep everything moving quickly and to keep backing up clean, simple and idiot-proof?
Thoughts on how to plan for improvements in the machine in the next 12 months if money becomes available?
Many thanks for any input!

Final Cut Pro/Premiere is at the bottom of the chart of my needs.
I'm much more concerned about:
Lightroom speed, especially ingesting, rendering previews and then displaying images once rendered.
One big question is what is the optimum Graphics card for LR? Would a faster Video card improve LR previews? I spend a lot of time at the end of a shoot ingesting files, editing, developing and editing further. For me, this end of the workflow is where I would love to see performance increases.
Photoshop speed. Fractions of seconds don't matter, even several seconds, but I would like to have real time rendering of Liquify etc when doing beauty retouching.
If I went with the new MacPro, it would probably be the 6-core Mac @ 3.33Ghz. If people are familiar with MacPerformanceGuide, I'm considering their set-up. Any feedback on them would be appreciated.
thanks

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Need a RAID that will work on both new and old Mac Pro

Desperately need to expand my RAID storage, and also not quite ready to buy the new Mac Pro. Are there any high quality 6TB+ RAID enclosures that will work on both the new and older non-firebolt Mac Pros? I already have a sh*t load of 2TB 3.5 drives, so I only need an enclosure.
Even when i get the new macpro, I will use the old mac pro as a second station, so i need the RAID to work on both.

Why not go for a eSATA Raid and a cheap eSATA card for old Mac Pro and get either a Thunderbolt to eSATA or USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter for your new Mac Pro? Thunderbolt to eSATA is faster, of course.
I have a MacPower/Inxtron Hydra 4 x 2 TB eSata for example. I have a eSATA card in my Mac Pro and when I need to use it on my Retina Macbook Pro I use a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter. Gives me about 240 MBytes/s with Raid 5.
On the eSATAcard it's just a little bit more, like 250/260 MBytes/s.

Is it worth buying the old Mac pro now, for iOS dev and designing?

I want to replace my old Macbook Pro unibody 2008 late model, and buy something instead of that. Currently it has 8gb ram, an SSD drive, but it's getting slower and slower. I want to replace it with something, and if I don't have to I won't spend ~3000€ for a new machine.
Would it make sense for me to buy an old Mac Pro (2008 - 2010 model, with at least 16gb ram, and SSD, and 2x27" monitor) and use that to create my iOS apps and design with Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't need a machine to do crazy stuff like 3D modelling (don't have time for it ) nor gaming.
Thanks.

The 2009 model and later are worth buying. They also feature Multi-Threading, which gives a performance boost.
The 2008 model uses older FBDIMM memories, and its memory has been severely limited in size and expensive (unless you drop down one notch and use 667MHz, which has become quite affordable).
The 2009 model and later change to processor-on-a-shelf, with either a one-chip or a two-chip shelf installed. Each offers four memory slots per processor. 4 DIMMs @8GB would give you 32GB four under US$400.
Four-core models would do what you are talking about, and you can upgrade to a 6-core processor if you are handy and can deal with thermal paste.

Brightness problem - New Display, Old Mac Pro

Hello,
I'm having a problem with the brightness control on a new 24" LED display for my 2007 MacPro with 10.4.11. The display is attached with a Gefen dvi to mini plug adapter (+ usb). It is VERY bright and this display has no external brightness buttons. I'm using an extended aluminum wired keyboard and the brightness function keys on my keyboard are not responding. As far as I remember the brightness keys worked on my old monitor which recently passed away. I have run the latest update for keyboards for this OS.
Any possibility that this is an OS 10.4.11 issue? I also don't have a brightness slider in the system prefs>display like others (probably using a newer OS) have mentioned. Other forums have suggested everything from the adapter, to USB issues, to the possibility that Apple designed a monitor with no brightness control. (?)
Your knowledge and suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Jen

With the Gefen converter, you need to install software for brightness control.
<http://www.gefen.com/kvm/support/download/BrightnessControl.dmg>

I have a new Mac Pro. I want to use my old Mac Pro as a storage drive for photos and old documents, linked to my new Mac Pro. How do I set up the old computer?

I have a new Mac Pro. I want to use my old Mac Pro as a storage drive for photos and old documents, linked to my new Mac Pro. How do I set up the old computer? Both computers have OS X10.9.3. Currently they are connected by a Firewire 800 cable.

You certainly could keep the old Mac Pro in Firewire mode (hold down the T key on its keyboard as you boot) to show its drives on the new MP. This is basically as fast as putting the drives into a Firewire enclosure.
Or you could boot it normally and share its files over the network using the Sharing panel of System Preferences. If you turn on both File and Screen Sharing, you don't even need to have a monitor attached - you can do all administration using screen sharing. However, this method requires that you open all files over the network, which will be slower than the direct-connect method above, and may also not work with all applications.
Matt

I'm getting an error trying to re-install Lightroom 5 on my new Mac Pro. The old Mac Pro died. When i try to enter my Serial

hello. I had Lightroom 5 on my old Mac Pro. Worked great. The Mac PRo died. I bought a new Mac Pro and am trying to re-load Lightroom but it won't accept my Serial number. Please help. Thanks.

You can look here
Adobe - Lightroom : For Macintosh

GeForce 7300 GT from the old MAC Pro don't work on a new mac pro why ?

Hello,
I have buy a GeForce 7300 GT on eBay, i think this one come from the old mac pro.
I have put it on my new MAC PRO and my mac don't see it...
Why ?
Can i have a drivers ?
TY for your help ^^

Apple was emailing people that did, not sure if they still do.
It would be so easy to say "Mac Pro (2008) or later" instead we have:
Compatibility: * Requires Mac Pro with PCI-Express 2.0
Which not everyone knows is, or means "Mac Pro (2008)"
They do need a tech note or knowledge base to go along.
http://www.apple.com/macpro/technology/graphics.html
http://www.apple.com/games/hardware/

New Mac Pro overkill for Logic Pro X?

Hi all,
Is the new Mac Pro overkill for audio work? I use Logic Pro X and mainly use huge sample libraries with Kontakt, so I would get 64gb memory, a Lacie 10tb Thunderbolt drive to store the samples and 2 Apple Thunderbolt displays. Or would an iMac suffice?
I don't want to upgrade my old 8-core, dont want a previous gen 12-core, and the price doesnt matter.
Thank you.

If you do want best ideal in performance for audio, then PCIe SSDs are great even now. And may really need TB2 to shine and share bandwidth.
SSDs with near zero seeks and latency and low prices for Samsung 840 EVO 1TB or 750GB are very appealing.
I would wait until - OS X has had two updates to refine drivers; 3-6 months for any needed changes in firmware for EFI and SMC (which seem to be a regular of ALL new Macs and Mac Pro models); even tweaks to production and TB2 chipsets and such, maybe even those new AMD GPUs.
Version "1.0" hardware and OS really, and of course vendors will now begin to really have some hands on and expect apps, Apple no exception - to need updates.

6-month old Mac Pro has already had a new logic board and power supply

At a cost of $400 in shipping and a one-month wait, my 5-month old Mac Pro got a new power supply and logic board
Now I keep getting kernel panics, runaway kernel_task in Activity Monitor, and corrupted boot drives
External Firewire drives work some of the time, and occasionally my USB devices dont work either
This computer is a nightmare - how do I begin to figure out if this is OS (10.6.4) or hardware related?
The extended AHT test reports that all is OK - as does an extended memory test using Applejack
Should I do firmware updates and re-install the 10.6.4 combo pack, or am I just wasting more of my time?
I've got 4 macs and this is the only one that works badly - I think Apple's OS updates are getting as bad as Windows updates

My first question is why you spent $400 to get a 5 month old system fixed. That should have been covered under the warranty. So someone ripped you off, or you left out some key details.
And if you had both the logic board and PSU replaced, did you ever stop to think that maybe the problem lies with the power coming into your house? It's not really the big power spikes or blackouts you need to worry about, since those are pretty rare. What you need to worry about are the small fluctuations in voltage that happen several hundred times a day, if not an hour. Sometimes there's not quite enough power, other times there's a little too much, and all of this takes a steady toll on the PSU. It will do what it can to try and feed the rest of the computer a steady diet of electricity, but sometimes a jolt will get past it and start damaging other components. It could even cause data corruption on your HDD.
If the PSU and logic board already went, who knows what damage it may have caused to anything else. It may just be taking longer to show up.
It might also be that whomever ripped you off to the tune of $400 simply traded you one defective logic board for another. Or maybe they don't really know how to protect against ESD. I once saw a repair shop where the techs smoked in the same room they did the repairs. Sadly, for every one good tech out there, there's probably at least 3 complete idiots. Kind of like auto mechanics.
And I never have problems with Windows or Apple updates. Seems like on Windows the majority of people who have problems with updates are either running some program designed to change the way Windows looks or messes with low level system files, or they have a malware infestation they were unaware of/oblivious to. Most of the people who have problems with Apple updates seem to be the same way. They're running some truly bizarre programs that mess with the system in ways programs were not intended to mess with the system. There's generally a reason OS vendors provide an API for developers. You deviate from that at your own peril.

Old Mac Pro vs. new iMac?

I have a nearly three year old Mac Pro that is currently being serviced at my local Apple Store. For almost three years I have had trouble with it -- first it spontaneously rebooted itself which was fixed by replacing power supply, logic board and processor. The other problem is the recurring (but randomly recurring) seizing of Time Machine. I've tried three separate external hard drives, three different cables, all the FW ports, archive and reinstall twice, erase and reinstall twice, and hours on the phone with tech support. No one knows what to do. I have no confidence that they'll find anything this time either. I've just about had it. And my Apple Care runs out in two weeks. So...I'm thinking of getting a new iMac to replace it, because I'm not doing the heavy duty phot/video/design work on the Pro that I thought I was going to do. I know it's a hard question to answer, but aside from the speed, which I probably won't notice that much, what are the biggest trade-offs "stepping down" to the iMac? Thanks

Your 2nd and 3rd disk drives will be external Firewire 800 drives. Slower than internal drives.
You can't change your mind. No video card upgrades 2 years down the road. What you buy is what you live with. You can expand memory to 16GB (which seems plenty to me) and you can (with some effort) replace the disk drive with a larger one.
On the other hand:
1. Less money, a lot less.
2. An awesome 27-inch monitor.
3. Close to the same performance. See http://marketingtactics.com/Speedmark/
4. Quiet.

Could someone suggest a procedure describing how I should migrate my iTunes files from old an older Motorola-based PowerMac to a new Intel-based Mac Pro?

My problem concerns migrating, or moving my iTunes files from a Motorola-based G4 PowerMac OS X 10.4.11 iTunes 9.2.1 (4) to a new Intel-based Mac Pro running OS X 10.8.4 iTunes 11.0.4.
Context Summary:
1. Migration assistants on my old and new macs are not compatible.
2. My older mac has my iTunes library stored on an external firewire disk.
3. Part (but not all) of my iTunes files are also resident/stored on my iPod classic.
4. Finally, I need OS X 10.4.11 on my old mac and cannot upgrade it to OS X10.5.
Proposed method A: Is there a way to transfer my playlists from my Motorola Mac to my Intel Mac? If so, could I then connect my external firewire disk (containing my iTunes library) to my new mac, and then tell iTunes (on new mac) to use my iTunes library located on my external firewire disk?
Proposed method B: Would my chances for success improve if I used my iPod classic to transfer iTunes files from old Mac to new?
Worst Case Proposal C: I could start from scratch and recreate iTunes playlists and library on new mac.... time consuming proposal but it's possible. (Please don't suggest this proposal unless no other viable choices exist for me.)
Or have I missed something? Is there another procedure I should use?
Please advise, and thank you.

Hello Chris,
Answer to your iTunes library question: By iTunes Library, I mean my iTunes Media folder only; not the entire /iTunes/folder with iTunes media folder inside.
BTW: Your pointer to ht4889 was very helpful, and sharing the folder, then copying it over firewire interface from old to new mac was most useful.
However, now with my entire iTunes folder (including iTunes media folder) moved to new mac, I remain unclear as to how I should configure iTunes on the new mac so that it can know about and use these copied files. I understand using iTunes preferences, how to point iTunes to my media folder, but don't know what other iTunes operations are necessary for iTunes to pick up where I left off with my old mac.
Is there any file conversion necessary?
Or inside iTunes, should I:
File->Library->Organize Library? or
File->Library->Export Library? or
File->Library->Import Playlist?
Please advise and thank you again for your help.
As you might imagine, I put a great deal of time building my iTunes library, and would feel very blue if I need to build it again from scratch on my new mac.
So long for now.

Can I use old Mac Pro with new iMac?

I have a Mac Pro (Pre 2007) running on 10.6.8 that is ok for now, but experiencing some degradation in performance. I have 4 drive bays full and memory maxed out. I am looking for a desktop solution that would allow the option to have the latest OSX (such as the latest iMac) and access this old Mac Pro still. Is this possible?
If so, what are some of the caveats?
SoftwareEx: CS6 is compatible with new OSX, but will files saved on new computer still be accessible on old computer?
Access to files
NetworkCurrently using older version of Airport Extreme for home office setup
Any insights would be helpful! I hate the thought of this old workhorse turning into nothing more than an external hard drive, but it is not upgradable to the new operating system.

It sounds like what you want to do is create a simple peer network so you can use the Mac Pro as a storage unit.
This is easy to do, just connect the two with an ethernet cable and log on using the logon and password for the system you want to access. In the general case, this is a bad idea since you you have unrestricted access but you own both machines so security is a very low priority.
Caveats:
     The OS version will determine what apps a machine can run.
     Data is just data as long as both systems use HSF+ or some other common file system.
     Airport may or may not work... but a hard wire will always get it done and transfers data a lot faster.
You almost never get to have it ALL your way when mixing generations of systems, but if you keep it simple it works well. I've had a peer network with 4-6 systems running in my house since the turn of the century. Most Macs support 1000 baseT (gigabit ether) so data transfers up to 80-90MB/sec are easy.

Benchmarks for HD 2600 in old Mac Pro *post them here*

I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread for all HD 2600 XT results from old mac pro's and even some from new mac pro's to see the difference. I got my HD 2600 XT for my original 2Ghz MacPro today, The box says u need a PCI-E 2.0 mac pro ( but we know u don't) and a 10.5.1 witch defiantly seems to contain the drivers for it from what I've read. Please post your results and see how they compare.
Results:
Cinebench 10: OpenGL on 7300GT = 2851 / 2600 = 4442
Xbench:
7300GT results:
Results 121.18
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.1 (9B18)
Physical RAM 7168 MB
Model MacPro1,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG HD321KJ
CPU Test 114.34
GCD Loop 235.46 12.41 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 114.72 2.73 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 91.08 3.00 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 90.59 15.77 Mops/sec
Thread Test 186.65
Computation 181.48 3.68 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 192.13 8.27 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 142.08
System 145.11
Allocate 212.48 780.28 Kalloc/sec
Fill 128.10 6228.60 MB/sec
Copy 122.53 2530.89 MB/sec
Stream 139.17
Copy 137.43 2838.60 MB/sec
Scale 136.06 2810.96 MB/sec
Add 142.26 3030.48 MB/sec
Triad 141.13 3019.07 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 180.82
Line 140.51 9.36 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 190.07 56.75 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 153.09 12.48 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 154.21 3.89 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 443.06 27.72 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 148.63
Spinning Squares 148.63 188.55 frames/sec
User Interface Test 284.51
Elements 284.51 1.31 Krefresh/sec
ATI 2600 results:
CPU Test 115.22
GCD Loop 235.64 12.42 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 114.67 2.72 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 91.81 3.03 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 92.08 16.03 Mops/sec
Thread Test 243.60
Computation 331.37 6.71 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 192.58 8.28 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 134.37
System 129.49
Allocate 140.73 516.81 Kalloc/sec
Fill 127.57 6202.89 MB/sec
Copy 121.60 2511.53 MB/sec
Stream 139.64
Copy 137.73 2844.68 MB/sec
Scale 137.36 2837.88 MB/sec
Add 142.55 3036.65 MB/sec
Triad 141.07 3017.89 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 153.32
Line 120.86 8.05 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 153.95 45.96 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 121.37 9.89 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 133.61 3.37 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 471.96 29.52 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 150.39
Spinning Squares 150.39 190.78 frames/sec
User Interface Test 217.74
Elements 217.74 999.33 refresh/sec

Just put my 2600 in my 2006 Mac Pro 2.66 , replacing X1900 which shows "the lines" every few days. The cards drive a 30 inch ACD and an old type 23inch. I tested the 1900 in Cinebench10 and XBench before removing it:
CINEBENCH R10 for 2600
Processor : Intel
MHz : 2.66
Number of CPUs : 4
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.5.1
Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO OpenGL Engine
Rendering (Single CPU): 2850 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 9011 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 3.16
Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5331 CB-GFX
CINEBENCH R10 for 1900
Processor : Intel
MHz : 2.66
Number of CPUs : 4
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.5.1
Graphics Card : ATI Radeon X1900 OpenGL Engine
Rendering (Single CPU): 2851 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8905 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 3.12
Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5208 CB-GFX
XBench 2600:
Quartz Graphics Test 190.94
Line 173.46 11.55 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 225.53 67.33 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 181.57 14.80 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 194.17 4.90 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 187.63 11.74 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 195.41
Spinning Squares 195.41 247.89 frames/sec
User Interface Test 300.93
Elements 300.93 1.38 Krefresh/sec
XBench X1900:
Quartz Graphics Test 206.60
Line 184.90 12.31 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 246.37 73.55 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 204.28 16.65 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 197.50 4.98 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 209.40 13.10 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 255.01
Spinning Squares 255.01 323.49 frames/sec
User Interface Test 272.05
Elements 272.05 1.25 Krefresh/sec
At first I was a bit surprised about the Cinebench results. But Barefeats actually shows the same thing for the "Imaginator" test of core image effects.
Also surprised there is no power usage difference registered on my wattmeter. Thought it used 60 watts less.
Mike

I was running remote desktop on my old mac pro running 10.4.11. Upgraded to new pro running 10.6.7 Can I get remote desktop to run on new computer?

I was running remote desktop on my old mac pro running 10.4.11 Just upgraded to new pro running 10.6.7 Can I get my previous remote desktop to
run on new computer?
Thanks

Are you talking Apple's Remote Desktop software, or Microsoft's?

I have been using a Lightroom 5 including recent upgrades on my Mac Pro laptop for the past 1 year. This was purchased as an upgrade from Lightroom 4 for which I have a serial number. Today I purchased a new Macbook pro and loaded my Lightroom 5 however i

I have been using a Lightroom 5 including recent upgrades on my Mac Pro laptop for the past 1 year. This was purchased as an upgrade from Lightroom 4 for which I have a serial number. Today I purchased a new Macbook pro and loaded my Lightroom 5 however it is asking for my serial number which I have misplaced. I am unable to trace my serial number anywhere. I have even checked my adobe membership to locate my serial number but it does not seem to have any record which is strange as I have been using this software for over a year now and the previous versions since 2009. Could someone help me in my predicament.

Contavct Adobe support thru chat:
Serial number and activation chat support (non-CC)
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/service1.html ( http://adobe.ly/1aYjbSC )

New or old Mac Pro specs for $4-5000

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