I may need to buy a new studio machine earlier than I would like owing to increasing sickness of our early 2008 8-core.
Yes, I know there’s a new Mac Pro on the horizon but goodness knows when, and I gather it will probably be heavily Thunderbolt-biased, so at this stage I’m considering the current model. Unfortunately new ones aren’t even available in the uk so I’m looking at a nearly new 2012 3.33GHz 6-core.
Last I heard, this model was preferred for Cubase and Nuendo because of fewer cores and high cpu speed. Is that still the case?
Thanks for that Curteye - wise words, but I don’t think I want a non-mac at this stage of the game.
The poor old mac is a bit poorly right now, I had hoped it would hold on til the new macpro arrives but even if its announced on Monday I don’t think it will be really here for months, and then I expect it will need a whole bundle of Thunderbolt-ons to actually use… (see what I did there?)
So on the whole a new 6 core may be quite a sensible plan… Possibly
I have one of those here. It’ll take all I can throw at it and then yawn and say “is that all ya got?” (Mostly Cubase v6.5. No performance hang-ups with C7 discovered, but I haven’t felt ready to throw down a big project with C7 yet)
The thing about any new mac design, is that you know it’ll be version 1.0.0. (Do you really want to be an early-adopter?)
I use a mac pro 6 core ,and i looked into the performance before buying new and found it processes better than an 8 core machine , i must say that im happy with my machine and have never maxed out the cpus ,what you will find is the core audio /asio will overload long before you max out the cpu.i can run a bit project using audio /plugins on each channel and my fav vsti uhe diva with 3 instances on full wack .
i also use uad stuff for reverbs and delays to lessen the load on the audio core side of things.
hope this helps
ps may be selling my mac pro but going to wait to later today and see what the new mac pros have in store.
Seriously? You’re going to wait for the iTrashCan with soldered-on RAM, no PCI/PCIe, no swappable drives, no space for additional drives and two GPU’s you have absolutely no need for?
You know that Cubase runs better on Windows, don’t you? And you know that you can custom-build a workstation even more powerful than what AppIe just announced (i.e. dual-CPU…) and precisely tailored to you your needs, don’t you?
But if you are fixated on OSX, then build a Hackintosh. Unless, of course, you feel a “religious” urge to give a ton of money to Apple for something that’s not exactly what you need.
This is worthy of clarification. While it’s a violation of the end user agreement to install OS X on a non Apple computer, it is not illegal, in that there is no law against it. The software does not have to be decrypted or reverse engineered it does not necessarily violate copyright law in the US. If it does, it’s a matter for a civil court, since the copyright law give the owner the right to sue, it does not instruct the police to arrest.
The famous case of Psystar was won by Apple in a civil, not a criminal court. Indeed, Apple could sue individuals for violating the contract and the issues would be weighed on the merits of the individual case.
Note also, a contract is not valid simply by virtue of its existence, it can be judged invalid if, for example, it is egregiously unfair to one party of the contract.
– (4) Ram slot “limitation.” Unless you bought the high-end 8-12 core model in the past, you only had four RAM slots anyway (as with the popular 2012 6 core machine). Right now I have 24GB RAM in my 6-core machine (4 slots). Total overkill… (I don’t use big orchestral VI, however)
– Lack of internal drive bays: I suspect adding bays may have interfered with the “aesthetic”. Would have been nice to have that option [drive bays], but not at the cost of interfering with the cooling design. Hopefully, external Thunderbolt drive enclosures will start appearing in more abundance…
– Single processor? With up to 12 cores available, this should be a non-issue for 99.9%.
The big elephant in the room is not Apple’s redesign, but that it’s success hinges on whether or not Thunderbolt 2 peripherals make a big presence in 2014. If you have a big investment in Firewire & PCI “legacy” gear, I’d grab a 2012 Mac Pro now. Those TB peripherals and adaptors are going to add a significant cost upgrade to the already premium price tag of a 2013 Mac Pro.
I know there are IRRATIONAL people who believe an OS is a religion. Anyone else just uses the best tools for the job… You launch Cubase 7 and there is no difference what OS you’re on. The only difference is that it’s faster on Windows. FACT.
