Opinions requested: new Mac Pro versus Mac Pro 4,1?

I've been toodling along for eight years now with a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1. It continues to serve me well because I do not require blazing speed. The hairiest program I use is Eclipse, which is quite fast enough for my needs. Otherwise, I'm just doing browsing, email, word processing, and a limited amount of image processing -- nothing requiring much speed. Over the years, I have added to the machine; it now has 8 GB of RAM, an SSD, and two monitors.
But Apple has moved on past the limitations of my Mac Pro. I'm stuck at OS 10.7.5; my Mac can't handle the newer OS's. I've been willing to live with this for several years, but I know that the walls are closing in on me. Slowly, steadily, the software I use is being made obsolete by the continuing evolution of the platform. I know that I'll have to replace my Mac this year.
But I balk at the $3000 price tag for the new Mac Pro. Sheesh, I don't get much benefit in reducing my compile times from 0.5 seconds to 0.1 second. The only thing I really need is to be able to handle is Mavericks. (Well, it would be nice to get BlueTooth build in -- that stupid BlueTooth dongle I used drops the connection about once a day).
I'm not enthusiastic about getting an iMac. In the first place, I consider an SSD absolutely necessary, and from what I have found on the Internet, installing an SSD on an iMac is too tricky an operation for me to attempt, even though I build my first computer in 1977.
The option I find most tempting is to buy a 2009 Mac Pro (Nehalem) on eBay. They run around $1000 and provide everything I want. Why spend an extra $2,000 to get power that I don't need?
The Growling Gotcha with this option is the fact that these machines are already five years old and Apple is certain to render them obsolete at some point. But how long will that be? How many years of service can I expect from such a machine before I am forced to abandon it?
It's all guesswork, of course. Which is why I post my question here. I'd like to tap the collective wisdom of this community. Please opinionate.

Have you considered building a PC?
Gag me with a spoon? I've been using and programming on Macs since May of 1984. Every time I've had to work with Windows, I puke. My wife occasionally asks my help with her Windows machine at work, and I always find the experience highly distasteful.
But, to each his own.

Similar Messages

I just bought a new Mac Book Pro and did a migration of the content of the old laptop (also a Mac Book Pro) to the new one. Now I cannot start Photoshop CS6. When I am starting it I have a window "Adobe photoshop CS6 extended" opening requesting a connexi

I just bought a new Mac Book Pro and did a migration of the content of the old laptop (also a Mac Book Pro) to the new one. Now I cannot start Photoshop CS6. When I am starting it I have a window "Adobe photoshop CS6 extended" opening requesting a connexion. When I am entering my password for the connexion the software crashes. How can I fix the problem?

Migrating, transferring or copying is DEMANDING trouble, not just asking for it.
Always install from scratch, from the original media,

New Mac Pro performance versus a Dual 1.8 ghz G5

I just wanted to give some feedback of my new Mac Pro experience and hopefully get some feedback about it.
I recently updated to from a 1.8 dual core G5 to a 3.0 dual quad core Intel machine. In "core" processing (burning from disk and encoding) is sustainably faster (from 30 mins to 10 mins when encoding). The biggest disappointment is just the day to day operation. It isn't faster. I wanted to see Photoshop, iTunes and other programs to just jump up when I launch them (they just take as long to load maybe a little faster) and other just basic mac processes to work really quickly but the speed of the interface is the same as it is on my powermac. It still is paging my hard drive and isn't loading all my data when I do searches (I probably need to leave it running over night to get the hard drive completely paged). I have had this weird fan issue that makes the fans ALOT louder than my powermac (have read many posts here about that issue). Also have been having weird midi issues where my fire wire speakers don't work when I put the computer to sleep and wake it and I have plug my headphones in multiple times before they will be recognized by the computer.
My intial feeling is that the operating system hasn't been fully built up around the mac pro as it is for the powermac. I feel that the powermac was more "integrated" with the Os.
I also have heard that the new version of the OS is supposed to make better use the core processers. Therefore making tasks like hard drive searches and program launching faster. My fear is that part of using the core processors is on software like Adobe to write code to use them.
I have been on the phone with Apple about the speaker issue. I think I'm just going to bring my speakers into a Apple Store and repeat my issue. I also want to see if my headphone port is messed up (because it takes the headphones but seems "loose").
Thanks for listening to my concerns.

Migration Assistant, we began to see a year ago, was causing most systems to run like molasses and sluggish. So that is #1. There is no way to really see the potential at all with 1GB of RAM and 2GB gets it at least off the starvation diet.
8GB (4 x 2? 8 x 1?) if you use large files (750MB and above) AND you then use the "enable VM Buffer plug-in" from Adobe.
If you were use to using a 750GB drive, that would also help explain why. if you hate launching... don't - just leave them up.... or boot off a RAID.
but be sure to set PS scratch to another drive than boot drive if possible.
When you stop seeing swap files and pageouts, then you know that you are a step further. Tiger or Leopard can still use available memory for cache or for virtual scratch space to some extent that also can improve performance... once running.
You'll want to reformat the 750GB drive to native GUID/GPL partition map from the PPC/APL it has.
I don't even keep /users on boot drive (its there, just in case a program thinks it needs to be there) but ~/ home is on 2nd drive or RAID, just to insure that the boot drive can do its thing and not get slowed down by also having to serve for other tasks and programs.
The new Seagate 7200.11 750/1000GB drive has better multi-user functionality, though the Hitachi seems to be faster overall, except... not all Hitachi models work well on Mac Pro (or didn't as I don't keep up). Which is why I have been using strictly WD Raptor and Caviar (RE/RE2 and SE16) for the last year, they seem to be okay (and some el cheapo MaxLine Pro based on price).
Today, 2 x 1GB costs a mere $139, while a year ago it would have set someone back $700-800.

In need of a new Mac Pro, which one?

In the market for a new Mac Pro, mainly for CS5 apps, an ocassional Final Cut project and some Modo rendering (simple work). My Mac is an early 2008 2.8 GHz 8 core with 10 gigs of RAM, rock solid performance and trouble free and I'm looking to buy a new one within the next week. The 4 core 2.8 appeals to me for the lower price, but inclined for the 8 core, is the $1,000 difference between 4 and 8 core woth it? The 4 core has a faster processor, so I would assume that the difference in speed is basically a non-issue for the work I do, am I right? On the other hand, I rather get the 4 core with at least 12 gigs of ram, since most apps don't take advantage of 8 cores.
Need opinions and suggestions and if someone has a link for performance comparisons test between the two, would be appreciated, can't find any.

Not everyone, but more than a few, swear by SSD making their Mac run smooth and faster all around.
You are rather low on RAM for any real strong CS5 use.
Your Mac can boot into 64-bit kernel, too. Read up on that on MPG and along with 24GB pays 15% dividends.
And you can take advantage of 5870 or 5770 as well as Quadro 4000 ($789 PNY Quadro for Mac on Amazon, versus $1195 on Apple Store). 5770 + 4000 is $1050 investment.
You 'should' be using say 3 x 2-3TB enterprise version drives. And 120-240GB SSD $600.
Intel 3.2GHz Harpertown (Penryn) 5400s are probably not cost effective and seems the highest MHz you can go.
I go with coffee can, create an account to go towards the next system. Put X-amount aside each month and only buy on cash or your business pays for itself in six months.
The real hard part comes when a new model comes out, knowing the first 3 months are often rough and best to hold off, wait, read the reviews and reports. And know that buying that while today you could 'down grade' to Snow Leopard, the next time you can't and it takes time to optimize all the drivers and software that a workstation is more likely to need.
If you have $3.5K burning a hole, then the ref'd 2.8 and optimize "the heck" out of it, with W3680 and everything else, and then sell yours later too for $1500 probably.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC560LL/A
Your 8-core 2,8 is not yet ready to retire!

Which new Mac Pro for Logic Studio?

Hi everyone,
I'm on the verge of ordering a new Mac Pro, but am tossed up over the quad 2.93 or the Octa 2.26. I'll be using it mainly for composing with Logic Studio. I find its a bit of a pain to record the sounds from my Motif ES8, so I'm going to start using software instruments more.
Does anyone know if Logic uses multiple cores? I googled this and couldn't find much on it.
If I get the quad, I'm going to load it to the max of 8G RAM. If I get the Octa 2.26, I will get 12G RAM. Will Logic take advantage of the extra RAM?
Right now, I'm leaning towards the quad 2.26. I keep my Macs for a long time. I currently have a 4 year old G5 iMac with 2G RAM.
Thanks for any opinions.

I'm With Dual G5 PowerPC version 3.1 (90nm thecnology)
Logic works fine, but when I need to recording with Omnisphere or Kontakt 3... or any Live Instruments... (anyway I'm able to use the Maximum power request patches of all 3rd party plugs that are installed in My G5)
I need MORE SINGLE THREAD POWER... because Logic and most of 3rdparty plugs allow you to use ONLY ONE CORE (or processor).
The ability to overclocking of the Nehalem processor is very interesting...
you will be able to have up to 3.3Ghz in a single thread operation!
So... I'm not sure to buy a new Mac before Snow Leopard... because I can use my G5 smoothly and if needed I have my Black Macbook for adding power (I have 2X Motu interface (828 MK3 and Mk2).
But if hypothetically I were to buy now...: the best Mac value for money semms to be the Quad 2.93 with full Ram set 8GB!
I don't believe about Multitrhead is needed for Live Audio performances
The power on the single core is very important...
I love to export as Audio the tracks
when I use 3rd party Instruments the ammount of crash risk during the Mix down the percentage are:
with Instruments in Live mode about 80% during professional mixdown
With Audio tracks 0% of crash diring professional Mixdown
Logic Pro is a rock solid DAW if used only with Audio tracks and Logic native instruments!
I'm able to MIX more than 160 Stereo tracks with My System...
I can wait for Snow Leopard Machines.
G

"Best" configuration for new Mac Pro used for Aperture?

I'm getting ready to order a new Mac Pro and would like to configure it to optimize Aperture performance.
On CPUs - I have found no benchmarks which show whether Aperture would benefit from 2 quad core processors versus 1. Does anyone know of any benchmarks or have any experience using a single quad core? I don't want to spend $500 on a 2nd processor if Aperture can't use it.
On Graphics cards - I was sold on the GForce 8800, due to it's supposed blazing speed for gaming and it's larger on board memory. However, after reading the following review http://www.barefeats.com/harper10.html , these guys seem to imply that applications such as Aperture actually run faster with the standard Radeon 2600 video card! If anyone has any experience or opinions on this review, I'd love to hear them!
On memory - I know from experience that Aperture will use all of the physical memory you make available to it. I plan on ordering the standard 2GB from Apple, then adding 8GB from 3rd party for total of 10MB.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I can only say that when faced with the same decision last month, I went with a 2.8 8-core/8800GT/10gb RAM/library stored on 2nd internal drive setup and am completely satisfied with Aperture's speed. Beyond satisfied, really, borderline thrilled to be honest. No beach balls, perfectly responsive adjustment sliders, smooth and quick scrolling through images (even with Quick Preview mode turned off). Aperture 2 definitely takes advantage of all 8 cores - I have MenuMeters installed and can watch its CPU usage across all 8 cores. Exporting, for example, is fast and uses all cores for background processing.
I have seen a couple small anomalies though...when moving photos around in a light table, I get some odd flashing artifacts on the right side of screen that could be graphics card related. Visually annoying but it doesn't affect performance. I'm also seeing some weird behavior with keywords not appearing in Tooltips and in the Viewer, but it's intermittent and is most likely a software bug and not my hardware setup.

I had to buy a new Mac Book Pro. When I tried to install Adobe Flash Player, I couldn't get into it with any of my passwords. Can I reset my password and if so, how do I do that? Thanks

I had to purchase a new Mac Book Pro. When I tried to download Adobe Flash Player, it wouldn't take any of my passwords. I had to change my Apple ID last week, but nothing worked. Can I reset my Adobe Flash Player password and if so, how do I do that? Thanks

Hi Donna,
Please see What userid & password do I need to install Flash Player? for info on the password being requested.
Maria

My new macbook pro is giving me hardtime. even apple team is not being to solve it. they replace the motherboard first it didn't work. second time they formatted the computer and that also didn't work. every time my mac showing different problems.

my new macbook pro is giving me hardtime. even apple team is not being to solve it. they replace the motherboard first it didn't work. second time they formatted the computer and that also didn't work. every time my mac showing different problems.
At first my computer had issues. Once it go to sleep it will not back again. I dropped my laptop at apple store to fix it. After 10 days they returned my laptop saying they were no able to fix the problem so they replaced motherboard aiming if that might help. Acttually that didn't help.I had same issue again. I visited apple store again. This time they said they could fix, if I will allow them to format the harddrive. I said ok. They formatted it. It was working fine for few daysAfter few days compter is taking.even more than 15 min to shutdown. Now computer has another problem. It is being hang frequently like every 20'to.30 min.
I don't know what to do? I still have one month left on first year warranty. I have requested couple times to apple associates either to fix or replace or refund. They are showing me rude behavior. They are not understanding my situation. I am a student. I need to do lot of home work. Since last three month my mac book and apple associates giving me hard time. Any suggestions are welcome.

Contact Apple Customer Care - not Apple Care - Customer Support. Have your receipts handy and/or case numbers. Be patient, be calm, and tell your story just as you have here. I get the sense you are not in the US and don't have access to an Apple Store but are going to an independent shop. This makes using Customer Support all the more important. If phoning isn't viable, use registered mail.
Since time is running short, be prepared to purchase AppleCare to exennd your warranty 2 more years. Yes, you shouldn't have to do this, but it gives you added protection and more opportunities over the next 2 years to claim a replacement computer if you don't get one immediately. After dealing with a similar unhappy situation with a Mac in the late 1990s I finally got a replacement computer and reimbursed for the AppleCare policy.

New Mac Pro or 27" iMac

I apologize in advance for the length but I need some help in making a decision.
SITUATION:
I run a small business and currently have a Late 2012 21.5" iMac and two 23" monitors (3 screens total for running multiple applications and copy/pasting). My day-to-day includes always having 4-8 browser tabs open running external sites that I input order information into, a huge multi-thousand line Excel Spreadsheet (2008 MS Office for Mac), Google Voice tab open for phone calls/texts, Skype always open to talk to my technical team, Calendar, Notifications, Mail, etc... I keep most all emails because I have to search and refer to previous emails for customer issues, etc... so I have more than 10,000 emails in Mail. I take screenshots and screenvideos for our Help library at times as well. All day long I'm pretty much copying and pasting information to and from my spreadsheet to these other applications to process orders and using most of these applications simultaneously. I'm also backing up all data via Time Machine and Dropbox. Due to the volume or orders I process each day, I need my computer to be FAST!!!!
ISSUE:
My 21.5" iMac only has 8GB of RAM and is not user upgradable. I've had this iMac less than a year and I'm seeing the "colorwheel of death a lot", usually when copying and pasting, but sometimes other places as well. I think I need a more robust computer for reasons listed below, plus my wife's 7 year old iMac is on it's last leg so I'm planning on giving the 21.5" iMac to her and upgrading for my business.
Not that it happens all the time, but quite often an application will stop functioning and I have to Force Quit the application and reopen.
Each time I copy data from a cell in Excel it takes at least 5 seconds for the dotted line to appear around the cell indicating it's copied, so I have to be very careful not to paste the wrong data. This did not used to be the case. It would respond as fast as I could copy then paste. Excel and Word also take a lot longer to open and close than other programs.
When scrolling in various applications, sometimes the computer seems to stall then all of a sudden catch up and the page quickly scrolls to catch up.
I've run the Activity Monitor (which I know little about) and seen that I'm running normally 6.5-8GB of Memory Used. On the "DISK" tab often times my "Reads In" is higher than my "Reads Out" which I don't know if that's normal or not.
QUESTION:
I would like to know what you guys recommend for my situation.
Should I purchase a "beefed-up" 27" iMac with 16-32GB RAM or should I purchase one of the new Mac Pro models?
If Mac Pro, should I go with the 12GB Quad-Core or the 16GB Six-Core? (I realize I would have to purchase another monitor and microphone for phone calls).
I don't mind spending the money, but moreso I'm trying to get the right machine for my application without wasting money.
Thank you for your time and help to make this decision.
<*///><

January 9th, 2014 -- Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Shootout: 2013 Mac Pro vs 2010 Mac Pro
January 3rd, 2014 -- 'late 2013' Mac Pro 6-core versus 'mid 2010' Mac Pro 6-core
December 31st, 2013 -- Slowest 'late 2013' Mac Pro 4-core versus Fastest 'late 2013' iMac 4-core
December 28th, 2013 -- Does Final Cut Pro X 10.1 render faster on Mac Pro towers with Dual AMD GPUs? What about Motion 5.1?
December 16th, 2013 -- 'Late 2013' Retina MacBook Pro beats the 'Late 2013' iMac on Thunderbolt 1.0 Write Speeds
Good review on new vs old Mac Pro
My nMP Review (vs my old 4,1 Mac Pro)
I feel you outgrow an iMac sooner while almost impossible with Mac Pro (other than new software and such in 6 6yrs time) One is an investment and can be upgraded. No throttling (hopefully) and Haswell cpu while nice is not a 24/7 Xeon designed for the type of work loads.
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2013/20131218_3-MacPro-CPU-choice.html
http://www.macperformanceguide.com/
If it weren't for the fact that software in 6 yrs will require newer hardware to meet the demands, your nMP will still be going strong. Other than Apple dropping support for whatever OS X in 5-6 yrs instead of 8-10 years it would still be able to run and do what it is designed for for years to come. Say that about an imac that can be outgrown or "why did OS X 11.99 make my system slow?"
nMP review from a 3,1 owner
My nMP 6core Arrived Today -- View from a non-Pro user
Nice photos: nMP FINALLY

New Mac Pro (Late 2013) and CC 2014

Ok, I've been working on one of the new Mac Pro's from late 2013 and using CC 2013 with R3D footage quite successfully (though without great debayering performance on the R3D - I know it's supposed to be improved in CC 2014).
I'm running 10.9.2 Mac OSX.
When football season here in the states starts in two weeks, I will have a VERY deadline intensive 30 minute television show that I have to turn around from Saturday night at 2am until 8am Sunday morning.
I have purchased CC 2014, but have read in the past few weeks about the headaches the combination of OS 10.9.3 (and .4) and CC 20014 have caused.
My question is, where do we stand with those issues, and what would the community / Adobe moderators say about me heading up to the latest OS and CC 2014 under these circumstances? Thanks so much for the insight everyone.
Banks

jameskachan wrote:
…The obvious reason [sic] seems to suggest…
That's what it suggests to you, in the limited scope of your vision and knowledge, and without your having provided detailed specs about your hardware.
Due to the current unavailability of clairvoyants and mind-readers in the forum, we respectfully request you supply sensible, complete details.
We don't even know what your specific issues are, and for all we know you may be running the pathetic, buggy Yosemite OS—which Apple is giving away for free.
In this case, you have been enormously fortunate in that you received a reply from none other than Gµrµ Chris Cox, a top Adobe engineer who has been writing Photoshop code since the last millennium.
It's hight time you drop the attitude and avoid further embarrassing yourself in a public forum. Just my two cents.

Obsolete new "Mac Pro" vs Windows 6 Core 3930K PC - What should I expect?

OK, I ordered a pretty fast PC from Amazon, kind of a no-name gaming PC but it had great specs, i7 3930 Six Core at 3.2 ghz.
Installed a Nvidia GTX 670, did the supported cards text file hack, and Premiere Pro 5.5 on it, along with Quicktime Pro, and fonts I needed. I also installed a nifty program called X-Mouse which allowed me to customize my logitech scrolling mouse to use Premiere Pro as I also using USB Overdrive on my Mac - indispensable software.
Got a KVM so I could use my 2 large displays currently hooked up to my Mac on the PC without totally disabling my Mac Pro 2008 8 core - it is my workhorse and I use it all the time.
Finally got the PC somewhat functional on with Premiere Pro and even got it working with projects and media via a fast network connection. It seemed like butter vs my old Mac Pro. My lack of being a Windows power user I'm sure was responsible for my ultimate failure at getting my Windows system, but there could be hardware issues with this particular PC as well. Ultimately it was a total pain to share projects and media that resided on my Mac. Using Premiere Pro on the PC was identical in many ways to the Mac, just faster.
However the PC started going downhill pretty much as I got it working. It wouldn't properly reboot, always spinning in the 'Shutting Down' screen. I had to hard restart it all the time.
Then things started to go south, probably due to system corruption from having to hard reset it. I installed a fresh OS on the other internal drive in hopes it would fix the problems, a whole new set of software to get Premiere Pro working well. Again, shutdown hangs, without any diagnostics other than windows coming up at the hard restart saying there was a problem with the previous shutdown, and wiping out a lot of stuff each time. Then in hopes of curing the ills, a reformat of the drives, reinstallation of Windows 7 Pro, and then the ability to actually install the OS. 2 reformatted drives that cannot b installed with OS. Epic failure. The replacement is on the way.
But this being said, the amount of time in order to make this environment 'cross platform' as well as the indiocyncracies of Windows (to me, I'm not bashing Windows - it seems to be a fine OS!) makes me rethinking the PC for Premiere Pro switch.
I realize the current Mac Pros are basically obsolete, however, MY Mac Pro really is, it's from 2008 and not the fastest model from that era (2.8ghz 8 core, non threading Xeon.)
Investigating "new" Mac Pros, I can get a 6 Core 3.3 ghz threading Mac Pro plus 32GB of RAM for about $3,500. I can get a 12 Core 3.09 ghz for $6,700 and a refurb 2.93ghz with 32GB for about $5,700. The Windows PC with everything I need is in the $4K range. I don't need any new peripherals to make it a direct replacement for my current Mac Pro, all PCI, peripherals will just work. I'm familiar with the OS, and all my apps and plugins will work, no KVM necessary, no cross platform issues. Just not as cost effective as the PC and perhaps slower.
However...
Disregarding the cost, my time is valuable and I probably spend a good 3 solid days getting something non functional to work. There will be continual inefficiencies because I'm not a Windows shop, and I don't foresee this.
Will any 'new' Mac Pro, regardless of the cost, get me to the speed using Premiere Pro of this 6 core 3.2ghz i7 3930K? If I get the answer that the Mac 12 core will get me there, it may be a viable option. If the 6 core will get me 80% there, it might be the 'best buy' option.
Thanks for any advice, really!
-Keith

Thanks Eric and Harm for the helpful answers. I was hoping that Windows 7 had evolved to the point where knowning and using some of the troubleshooting techniques that Harm mentioned would not have to be necessary. I do have the ability / skill, etc, but not necessarily the desire to troubleshoot, but was kind of hoping that I wouldn't need to get to this level on such a simple installation, really it was just CS 5.5 and Video drivers. It is very possible the KVM was blocking on the USB request. This occasionally will happen with a hung device on Mac OS X and firewire, but usually it times out after a while. However there have been those odd times where I needed to unplug everything and even do a NVRAM reset on the Mac to get it back. This is pretty rare though. I even have my Mac set to 'verbose mode' which leaves the unix console up on boot and shutdown so I can track offending things like this. Maybe there is a Windows equivalent to this, which would have been helpful. Knowing that there might be some request that wasn't returning, I left Windows in this state for hours, it never got back. I had no choice but to hard restart it. I didn't examine logs and such, though I could have. I just want it to work or to fail gracefully, and not fail in such a way that makes it unusable and unrecoverable without in depth troubleshooting. I also have to use the KVM, without it I can't possibly use the system. So if the KVM makes the PC hang, then I can't use the PC. It doesn't make my Mac hang.
I am also quite positive that ADK's systems would have been a lot more robust and their emergency DVD's would have actually been able to help me as well as their expert tech support. I also appreciate that though Eric and ADK are a business, that the advice you have provided to me is just helpful and agnostic. This goes a long way to pushing my next PC purchase in the ADK direction!
Getting back to my original question, which was not one of troubleshooting Windows PC's though that advice is helpful...
Seems like a 12-Core Mac would allow me to edit well. I can edit right now with my 2008 Mac Pro 8 Core with 24GB RAM and 240GB SSD and Quadro 4000 and numerous internal and external RAIDs, but just scrubbing AVCHD I see all 8 processors go to nearly 100 % utilization and it's laggy. Not the best editing experience. If I have a few AVCHDs overlaid, which I do, it's almost unusable. As the Premiere Pro project gets bigger and more complex, it seems that everything gets slower. I have no scientific basis for this but I think it's true. It doesn't have to be just the sequence I'm working on, it seems to be even navigating simple sequences will be laggier if in a larger complex Premiere Pro project file.
On the Windows PC i7, for the few hours it was functioning, I was able to scrub AVCHD 1080P footage over a gigabit ethernet like butter. I was pleased with this. It was a very simple 1 track sequence, however. I didn't have a chance to try it with more complex projects before it was unusable.
Would I get smooth performance from a Mac Pro 6 Core, which is $2,500 less than the 12 core? From the basic Mac benchmarking I see, I see a 'rating' of 14000 for the Mac Pro 6 Core, and around 9000 for my current Mac Pro 8 core. This is about 50% more. I don't think 50% is going to get me to 'butter.'
Thanks again for all the helpful advice, Harm and Eric.
-Keith

IPhoto missing from a brand new mac book pro running on Yosemite

I have a brand new mac book pro, and trying to open iPhoto I receive the message " in order to open iphoto, you need to update to the latest version." However, when I "Search App Store" I receive the message "Not Available, the item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store." Does this make any sense? How do I get iPhoto??

read the answer to this thread - Why won't my iPhotos open? - ignore the thread jackers who pile on after the answer
LN

New Mac Pro seems to have problems - what type of re install?

I have a relatively New Mac Pro (2x 2.8 ghz 8 core with 4GB ram). I upgraded from a G5 and ran the migration assistant as normal. I use a lot of programs and use it daily on a professional basis. Mostly used programs are Mail, Safari, Photoshop, Bridge, Indesign, iview media Pro, Rapidweaver, to name but a few.
I have noticed some issues, such a computer running slow, taking its time to do very simple operations. I also have Adobe software misbehaving and crashing, especially Bridge and Photoshop that often comes up saying "could not complete request because of a program error"
I thought that I would completely wipe the drive and start again, but this a lengthly process - especially when it comes to preferences, settings, mailboxes, etc etc.
The question is should I archive and install, or reinstall or indeed try anything else first?
Thanks in Advance..... Mark

There are some simple troubleshooting you can take.
Create a new User go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> "+" (make it an admin acct) and test the apps in this new account, if they work the problem is isolated to your User and not systemwide.
If the issue is limited to your user account try starting up Safe Mode (It will take more time to startup in Safe Mode because it runs a directory check.)
If your apps functions correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> Login Items, and remove them. Boot normally and test. If not go to ~(yourHome)/Library/Contextual Menu Items and move whatever is there to the desktop. Then do the same with /Library/Contextual Menu Items. Lastly, try moving ~(yourHome)/Library/Fonts to your desktop and restarting.
Log out/in or restart, if that sorts it start putting items back one at a time until you find the culprit.
If the issue is systemwide then, you may be able to repair this with the 10.5.6 Combo Update This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before.
Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
-mj

Slow render speed with new Mac Pro / NVIDIA 8800

I bought a new Mac Pro to replace a dual G5 because I have a number of Motion projects to finish quickly. My local dealer recommended the NVIDIA 8800 as it has 512 mb RAM (versus 128 on my old machine). I'm finding that the render time is worse than with the G5. I have yet to successfully render a 1 minute segment using Compressor (I've left it to run overnight several times with no success).
In Activity Monitor I'm seeing this message: CompressorTranscoder (Not Responding). But none of Batch Monitor, Compressor or Motion are unresponsive - not indicating any hung applications.
I've read that version 10.5.5 has compromised the NVIDIA card with Motion but haven't been able to get any reliable corroboration. As the Mac Pro shipped with 10.5.5 I can't really roll back to an earlier version.
Any advice? Anyone with similar experiences? I'm trying to render on a new iMac with 4 GB of RAM (with the ATI 2600 video card) but it doesn't seem to be working as it is an hour in and shows at least three more hours.

ChineesYouth wrote:
there's a better post just use the search and type in 3870 or best graphics card for motion
or click here

After Effects and the new Mac Pro

I recently got one of the new Mac Pros and it doesn't get along great with After Effects, particularly when it comes to ray-tracing. There is no Nvidia GPU option for the new machines, so ray-tracing defaults to CPU. But then, even with a simple solid, it gives you an out of memory error. I've seen postings saying this is fixed in 12.2 but I've got 12.2 and the newest CUDA driver installed and run the machine with all other apps closed, but no luck. Presumably I'll figure out how to get it running after a fashion eventually, but even then, even with the new machines' many fast cores etc, CPU ray-tracing on the new Mac Pro is not looking promising on the speed/usability front.
Element 3D is an option, but its reflections can't interact with the comp the E3D object is within, only with the environment map in the plug-in itself, so there are many cases where it's a poor substitute.
My question isn't really how to get ray-tracing to work with the new machines. That would be great, but my sense is the answer there is, it effectively can't.
My question is, given that motion graphics increasingly involve the complex interplay of light, reflection, transparency, and three dimensional objects, and that from here on out Mac Pros will no longer accommodate nvidia cards, and that many creative types will only work on Macs, how long will this state of affairs continue? How long can it continue? Are there any plans to make After Effects fully functional on the new Mac Pros? Ray-tracing has always been balky and wonky and prone to error messages and crashes, but despite all that it's also an indispensible part of After Effects.

A fun update, long after the fact:
So I've learned Cinema 4D in order to reacquire the capability After Effects once offered internally and have succeeded after a fashion. Let's look at the relative ease of the new method versus the old one using a real-world scene from my project: Adding a bus shelter over actors on a bench.
In ray-trace enabled After Effects of old, I could draw simple draw shapes in Illustrator, extrude them into objects, collect them under a null and position it in my scene. Particularly powerfully, I could bend 2D photograph layers into half-domes for a fun roof, and create planes of transparent glass of any thickness I chose with refraction levels that made for interesting visuals as actors moved behind it, and add reflectivity to any layer I chose -- including the dome roof, for instance, which would then pick up the reflections of any other objects in my scene. I could also put 2D layers in front of my bus shelter as easily as placing a layer closer to the camera than the makeshift model. Well, sometimes it didn't work as advertised; sometimes you also had to have the foreground layer above the background one in your comp even when both were 3D and that wasn't supposed to still apply, but at least it was After-Effectsy. The whole thing was After-Effectsy, which of course is good because presumably AE users know AE, but also it was similarly logical.
To achieve a similar end with C4D and Cineware, all you have to do is this: Build your bus shelter model in Cinema 4D. Wait, first learn Cinema 4D, a hugely complicated piece of software. Come back in 3 months, I'll wait. Hi again. I see you've built your bus shelter. In fairness, you were able to add textures and complicated curves you couldn't in After Effects. But then you always could, if you were willing to learn a hugely complicated piece of software. Anyway, let's get that model into after effects. Just drag that C4D project into your AE project and put it in the comp. Put other layers in front of it or behind it. Easy! Now just a few caveats. 1. Scale. There is no formula available anywhere for the relative scales of your two projects. So tweak that. Just go back and forth between the two software suites -- I hope your computer can have both up and running at the same time! -- until you get that right. 2. Cameras. You can import your AE camera into C4D and vice-versa as easy as pressing a button in Cineware. It shows up somewhere strange in C4D unless you use a workaround unless you are also camera tracking in AE in which case you can't. 3. Scale again: Your camera will match its moves in both suites now. But they are drastically different sizes. If you import your C4D camera into AE it becomes tiny tiny tiny, if the scale of commercial C4D models is to be considered at all standard. Just shrink your model down to say 1% and you should be good to go. And if you tweak your camera in AE or C4D, you have to junk your imported camera and re-do that step. 4. Reflectivity. Your C4D model will only reflect items in your C4D project, not the, um, scene it's going in. 5. Refraction. Transparent C4D items will indeed show your AE items behind them. But you can't add refraction. 6. I've saved the best for last. Say you want your actors in your bus shelter, meaning part of the model is in front of them and part behind them. You used to place them (shot on a greenscreen or roto'd) in the bus shelter model. Now you simply do this: Divide your bus shelter model into halves, the in-front half and the behind half. Put both under nulls. Give the front null a C4D "tag" called compositing. At least its name makes sense. Then go into the tag and enable a numerical "object buffer." You're almost done! Next simply go into "render options" in C4D and into "multi-pass" there and then enable object buffers again there, so intuitive! Make sure to enable the same numerical object buffer you enabled in your compositing tag. Good? Good! Now, all you have to do is place two copies of your C4D project heirarchically in your AE project. You're still almost done! Now all you have to do is go into "multi-pass" in your Cineware plug in in the instance of it that goes in front of the actors and specify your numerical object buffer again. Wait, one tiny thing: If your Cineware plug-in is still set on the default "Standard" setting that option will be grayed-out. Just switch it to the much slower-rendering C4D opions and you're good to go! And don't worry about two copies of your C4D project in your AE one meaning it will now take twice as long to render, because it will. But, as a bonus, you've probably learned a lot of ways to render C4D models really well when learning C4D because Adobe made you. So you can use those to make your AE comp really shine... or wait, could, but they're not supported. You can however render it in that flat ugly video early Pixar style, but life is full of trade offs, no? You end up rendering out the layer you need in C4D and comping it into AE exactly as effects artists have done ever since always. Which is to say AE gave up even trying to do 3D and sent you into the waiting arms of a more-capable competitor, their seeming specialty in the world of video. Maybe it's better this way. AE was only ever for comping. It briefly got a swole head. Now it's back in its comfort zone. The end

Opinions requested: new Mac Pro versus Mac Pro 4,1?

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