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Buying an older Mac Pro for VW - false economy?


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Looking to get a new computer.

For some time I've been a big fan of the mac mini - affordable, and seems to work fine for mainly 2D stuff. Plus, relatively easy to upgrade because I can keep my screens, keyboard etc and sell the old mini on ebay - or indeed do semi-unofficial component upgrades.

Now I need something a bit more serious as I move into doing more 3d stuff. My options, if buying new, seem to be an Imac (upper end of the range to get the recommended video cards) or a Mac Pro (it looks like the lowest-end one would do me fine).

But I'm not entirely keen on the iMac because it can't be upgraded and I've already got screens. And the Mac Pro would be very nice but of course expensive and probably overkill.

So I'm starting to think about getting a second hand Mac Pro. Maybe the mid 2010 or mid 2012.

My question is essentially... how future-proof will that be - especially with regards to VW? Will I get left behind in a couple of years when my computer is essentially 5 years old? Or is it reasonable to expect that they could hang on a bit perhaps with some component upgrades?

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Buying a 4 or 6 year old computer sounds like a VERY bad idea. I do not know much about the techincal sides of hardware - but the architcture of the chips can change so much in that time you can run into problems. Even if you wanted to upgrade it - do mondern components work on a motherboard that was designed more than half a decade ago?

You are also buying a machine that is out of warentee. You could easily have component failure. We try to replace machines every 4 years - sometime we strectch it to 5. We ussually see 1 major failure in that time - ussually HD or Graphics card - sometimes motherboard.

A new Imac should last you 4 years, a 4-6 year old Mac Pro - maybe 2 at best? So it would have to be less than half the price to even consider it. Even then - it seems like more problems than it would be worth.

I am dual platform (Mac by day-job, PC by moonlight) and there is much more value on the PC side. If you can stomach the switch - you can get more power for less if you can exit the cult.

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Yes, I'm aware of the warranty issue. Up to a point it's a risk I'm happy to take knowingly. I've done so on all the mac minis I've owned over the years, all of which bought secondhand when 2-3 years old and I've not had any problems. That said, the investment in a mac pro would be more substantial - but there are secondhand outlets which offer a 1 year warranty.

I could argue that even if I buy "new" mac pro it would be a model released at the end of '13. So buying a model from 2012 doesn't seem hugely different.

Edited by col37400
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The Imacs have had internal updates since 2014. They upgrade component options sometimes twice a year. A new Imac today is not the same as the Imac you would buy 2 years ago.

Imacs can handel the 3D side of VW fine - so there is no power reason why you would need to go Pro - so the only reason should be price. If it were me - there would need to be a serious price discrepency between for me to consider buying a machine that old.

Have you checked out refurb.me? There you can buy refurbished machines directly from Apple. Not huge discoutns - 10 to 12% off of market price - but it can save you a few hundred bucks.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

This is often a good guide on whether now is a good new Mac buying time or not:

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

Right now, it isn't a great time, since there are a large number of graphics card update releases in June that are VERY likely to be integrated into the new model series.

This would not only provide better hardware for the money on the new line, but also suddenly drop the prices of used hardware already on the market.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I would be very worried about that, not so much for Hardware concerns, but for Apple's tendency to drop support for older hardware as they rapidly release operating systems.

If they phase out the 2008-2012 series of Mac Pros, you are stuck on an older OS. It is entirely possible that the version of Vectorworks that will run on 10.13 and 10.14 (or whatever number they give it, I hate their numbering system) will not be able to run on, say 10.12 and that may very well be the last OS that Apple allows on those Mac Pros.

It's entirely possible that OS X 10.11 will be the last one to run on the 2012 Mac Pros, but we won't know that for another few months. They DO seem to keep the Mac Pro line well updated compared to the MacBook lines, were some of them were phased out after only 3-4 years of life, but I would call it a big risk.

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Here's my attempt at a comparison between buying a new iMac and used Mac Pro at similar price point.

current iMac 27"

CPU i5 3.2Ghz

8GB RAM

GPU: R9 M390 2GB

1TB fusion drive

---£1599

used mac pro 5,1 (mid 2010) on ebay

CPU 6-core 3.46Ghz

48GB RAM

GPU: Geforce GTX 680 4GB

128GB SSD plus 4TB HDD

---£1750 (I suspect negotiable)

Ignoring warranties and just looking at specs - does the new iMac potentially win out on account of having a newer graphics card? Or in some other way?

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I would be very worried about that, not so much for Hardware concerns, but for Apple's tendency to drop support for older hardware as they rapidly release operating systems.

If they phase out the 2008-2012 series of Mac Pros, you are stuck on an older OS. It is entirely possible that the version of Vectorworks that will run on 10.13 and 10.14 (or whatever number they give it, I hate their numbering system) will not be able to run on, say 10.12 and that may very well be the last OS that Apple allows on those Mac Pros.

It's entirely possible that OS X 10.11 will be the last one to run on the 2012 Mac Pros, but we won't know that for another few months. They DO seem to keep the Mac Pro line well updated compared to the MacBook lines, were some of them were phased out after only 3-4 years of life, but I would call it a big risk.

Sure, a legitimate concern. Although, El Capitan is still apparently supported on mac pros back to the 2008 one, so it would seem hopeful that you'd be good for another couple of releases. But it's an unknown of course, yes.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
Here's my attempt at a comparison between buying a new iMac and used Mac Pro at similar price point.

current iMac 27"

CPU i5 3.2Ghz

8GB RAM

GPU: R9 M390 2GB

1TB fusion drive

---£1599

used mac pro 5,1 (mid 2010) on ebay

CPU 6-core 3.46Ghz

48GB RAM

GPU: Geforce GTX 680 4GB

128GB SSD plus 4TB HDD

---£1750 (I suspect negotiable)

Ignoring warranties and just looking at specs - does the new iMac potentially win out on account of having a newer graphics card? Or in some other way?

The iMac in this scenario would probably spank the pants off the Mac Pro.

The numbers may seem similar, but even a quad core i5 (Probably hyperthreaded to 8 anyway) would beat a 6 core Xeon from 2010 even at the same clock speed, there are a lot of improvements under the hood that don't appear in anything but raw performance when tested.

The GPU is also a big improvement, the GTX 680 was no slouch, but the R9 series are extremely capable graphics cards and even though that one has less VRAM allocated to it, it would easily match or more likely beat the older card. GPU performance will become IMMENSELY more important as we release new versions, so this is a major component to pay attention to.

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What would you do with 48GB of RAM?

It looks like you over paying for aging hardware in quantities that are unnecessary.

I assume you already own a nice monitor. If not - that throws off the price comparison. The 5K is really nice to work with - you can fit a lot on screen with these new 5ks.

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Ok. I think my question is answered! Thank you.

One other question, looking at iMacs including refurbed ones in the apple store - it seems that you can knock a few hundred pounds off with a lower spec graphics card - say,

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

or

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M graphics processor with 2GB of GDDR5 memory

in place of

AMD Radeon R9 M290 graphics processor with 2GB of GDDR5 memory

I see in the VW knowledgebase articles that it's mentioned the GeForce ones with "M" suffix are laptop type ones and less powerful, so it's probably worth paying the extra for the GeForce option?

Edited by col37400
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I'd recommend the R9 but ONLY because you can't upgrade the GPU later in iMacs, the better GPU will translate directly into longer life for the iMac. I have used a few of the 750M series Nvidia cards (my Windows laptop has one) and they are particularly underpowered compared to later revisions in the M series.

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Worth looking at these guys before you rule out the classic MP tower:

https://create.pro/

Well, that'll get me

3.46GHz 6 Core Xeon W3690 Mac Pro 5,1

24GB RAM

AMD R9 280X 3GB

256GB flash drive

2TB HDD

for £1685. So the question is whether that gains me any advantage over the new iMac above for similar price.

Well, it may or may not beat the current iMac offerings in benchmarks, but it is an open and modular system in a way that an iMac is not.... So if you want to update your gpu in a year or two, you can. If you want to swap out hard drives or add another SSD, you can. The iMac is a closed system, but does include a very nice monitor in the base price. It really depends on n your needs and preferences, most of these machines will make a very nice workstation.

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If they phase out the 2008-2012 series of Mac Pros, you are stuck on an older OS. It is entirely possible that the version of Vectorworks that will run on 10.13 and 10.14 (or whatever number they give it, I hate their numbering system) will not be able to run on, say 10.12 and that may very well be the last OS that Apple allows on those Mac Pros.

It's entirely possible that OS X 10.11 will be the last one to run on the 2012 Mac Pros, but we won't know that for another few months. They DO seem to keep the Mac Pro line well updated compared to the MacBook lines, were some of them were phased out after only 3-4 years of life, but I would call it a big risk.

I asked the people at Create Pro about this. Their response:

"The only time they have withdrawn OS X support is for 32 bit systems, our Mac Pros are fully 64 bit, just like the rest of the current Apple product line up. So we can’t see this happening anytime soon."

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Well, here's how I see my options having looked at this fairly intensively.

Firstly, VW knowledgebase articles seem to suggest that a good GPU is fairly critical. And the recommendations for VRAM seem to hover around 2GB as a minimum, with 4GB+ being suggested as preferable.

So, the way it looks to me, if I want to future-proof myself a bit I ought to be looking for something that gives me more than 2GB VRAM. And because iMacs aren't upgrade-able after purchase, satisfying that pushes to me the top-end iMac which can give me a Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB VRAM (all other options in the iMac line are 2GB). And the price for that is £2049. That's with an i5 processor, and I've seen quite a few comments around the messageboard threads here saying that it's worth going up to an i7 - which would make the price £2,249.

On the other hand I can get a rebuilt mac pro for £1610 which as far as I can make out will give me a CPU with similar performance to i7, and an R9 280X with 3GB VRAM, which as far as I can make out ought to perform better than the "M" version cards in the iMac. And it gives me the option of upgrading the GPU in a couple of years without having to buy a new computer.

Of course, the iMac comes with the very nice 5k screen, and the Mac Pro option comes with the risk that it might become unsupported in a few years. But I've already got a monitor that's good enough for now, and the price difference seems potentially to be around £600.

Am I mad still to be contemplating that Mac Pro option (which actually comes with a 3 year RTB warranty that isn't voided by me adding memory etc)?

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