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Author Topic: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?  (Read 2981 times)

Lust4Life

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MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« on: February 08, 2016, 11:08:36 am »

Greetings,

Been a while since I've posted so pleased to see many of the same folks still vertical and posting here.

Here is the Given:
Area of Interest:  Landscapes, architecture, occasional portraits.

Cameras:  Currently Nikon 800e with prime Zeiss glass lenses; have many large files from past cameras: Hassie 50MP and also 4x5 negs that were scanned on the Howtek HiResolve 8000 dpi laser scanner that I used to have (some of the 4x5 files are over 1 Gig each).
Future:  Waiting for a 50MP with great DMAX, do not feel the Canon excels in that area.

Computer:  MacPro, early 2008 with 20GB RAM, 2x2.8 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
RAM is 20GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB

Monitor:  LG 34UM95  (I have really found this monitor to work great for my work and I can get a good calibration out of my EyeOne system with it.)

Using three internal drives - 1TB scratch, 2 x 1 TB for image storage.
External drives - 2 that are 1TB each - one is for OS backup, 1 is for backup only of internal image drives.

Wireless keyboard, mouse, Wacom tablet. 
LG


Concerns:  Is there a MacPro 2016 on the horizon to replace the current 2013?  If so, I know it will be released the ween after

Software:  PS CS6, LR6, Photomatrix Pro, PTGui, Helicon Focus, Dreamweaver 4
     (I do not care for the "Cloud" logic so I stay away from it.)
I do a lot of stitching, pano builds, etc.

That's the Given, now for "Where to from here" is what I am pondering:

I would like to make my final career be strictly focused on photography, my life passion.
IF you want to see my work to get an idea of what I have done in the past, just go to shadowsdancing dot com.

This year is the year to reinvent myself.
I'm sober in my thinking and feel it is rare the person that can make a decent living (say $75K/year) with landscape work.
So figure I will be shooting high end homes for realtors where I can extract a decent price for a days work. 
Will adjunct that with life in a trailer traveling at times for a month to 6 weeks of landscape work.

As such, I have concerns about my trusty MacPro Early 2008 unit.
It runs well, and since I do no video, I have no real problem.  But it is old and if it fails I'd be in a rush to figure out what to replace it with.

Choice 1:
Keep what I have, increase RAM from 20GB to 36 GB for very little money, say less than $125.00.
Put larger drives in for my image work that would have a faster response time for saves and reverts to original.

Other than that, not much I would do to it BUT I'm open to suggestions.
Now, need to mention that over the life of this unit the mother board has failed twice and each time has run about $450 repair.
Should it fail again, all is lost as it relates to the MacPro.  Today I could sell it on eBay and get a few bucks to put toward a current unit.

Now, I have a MacBook Pro, 17" Late 2011 but must admit I prefer working on my MacPro.  Could sell it and put cash recovered toward
the new MacPro.

IF traveling in a trailer (Airstream maybe) the size of the new MacPro would be great and I have several 24" monitors I could mount in the trailer permanently so all I'd have to move into the trailer for a trip is the wireless gear and the tablet. 

Price is a concern but:
Should I hold out a bit longer in hopes the next gen MacPro is released?
If not, and buy a current flavor of MacPro, best proc configuration, etc would need to be defined.
Figure with new MacPro, changing to Thunder2 drives, etc I'd probably be hitting the IRA for $6K +/-.

Please respond IF you have made the change or recently started the same evaluations.

Regards to all,
Jack

 

Joe Towner

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Re: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2016, 02:01:53 pm »

Are any of your internal drive SSDs?  http://www.mac-upgrade-store.com/collections/mac-pro-3-1-early-2008/products/hard-drive-2-5-inch-to-3-5-inch-adapter

I'd also check if you're using USB3 yet - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/USB34PME/

I'm tempted to say keep an eye out for a Mid-2010 that works for you to migrate to.  Even with adding RAM, new SSD drives and a video card, you're way under the cost of a baseline trash can.  The Mid-2012 is identical shy of the procs, which are minimal difference, and should be about the same price.  http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.8-mid-2010-nehalem-specs.html

Components are cheap, and while the SSD(s) would need a new tray, would move from your 2008 to the 2010/2012.  The SSD would also work in a USB3 enclosure with any other Mac.  So hold off on the RAM, upgrade to a SSD (1tb from link above with adapter tray is $529) and add the USB3 ($60) and see how it runs.  If you did the adapter tray on its own ($50) and added your own SSD ($325 for a Crucial 1tb), you can save a bit, though compatibility may be an issue.

As for the trash can, nothing you do would tax the current model, which will hit the clearance bin once the next one is announced.  The current pricing is really out of wack, given the age of the technology.  At this point I can only recommend waiting until it's announced, since your luck would be to purchase a week before announcement.
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mgrayson

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Re: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2016, 04:33:02 am »

IMHO, the new Mac Pro is only worth it if you do video. You may resist the idea of an all-in-one, but the new iMac is very fast. In almost every photography related test, it is faster than Mac Pros over twice its price. The 5K screen is also addictive. I keep an NEC monitor next to it for its wide gamut, but after calibration I don't see much difference (aside from the jaw-dropping resolution on the iMac).

You can max out an iMac in everything but RAM and boost that to 40GB via third party expansion relatively inexpensively (or go to 64GB for twice the price).

You still need external storage, but you'd need that with the new Mac Pro, too.

OTOH, the people I know who use the new Mac Pro are very happy with it.

Good luck,

Matt
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Joe Towner

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Re: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2016, 12:14:34 pm »

I wasn't going to put the iMac out first, but since someone else broke the ice :)

It pisses me off the only way to get a discrete graphics card is with the top end 5K model.  Other than that, with a SSD internally and a external 4 bay to TB2 enclosure, you're pretty much set.
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Manoli

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Re: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2016, 01:27:44 pm »

Other than that, with a SSD internally and a external 4 bay to TB2 enclosure, you're pretty much set.

I've been testing single SSD configurations on a MacMINI 6,2 with a Samsung 2TB 850PRO. A few heads-up:

First - the connecting cable must support the UASP protocol - almost certain that all macs built within the last couple of years do, but check anyway (article)

Second - speed is very dependent on which port you use. Do NOT attach via a hub or shared connection (including Apple Cinema Displays) speed can drop to about 1/20th - use a mac native direct USB connection.

Third - and this surprised me, mounting the SSD in a Thunderbolt LaCie drive - as a single drive - produced no performance gain over my 2TB RAID-0 (striped) configuration (280MB/s)

Only way to get the performance is with a UASP enabled connecting cable or housing attached directly via a mac USB3 port - 420 MB/s but still less than the theoretical 550MB/s manufacturers spec - though this I guess must be somewhat dependent on the grade of controller.

Self explanatory screenshots attached.
Any input or constructive suggestions/experience welcome !


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Mark Lindquist

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Re: MacPro early 2008, upgrades? Move up to new MacPro?
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2016, 07:19:56 pm »

Here's what I've got:

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Mark Lindquist
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