Mac Pro Died what can I do with CS5?

[Graeme Hay]

I won't get into the details but my Mac Pro died the other night, going to take it to Apple to see if they can fix it, but as it is 5years old and out of warranty it will likely be more cost efficient to buy a new computer (Mac or PC).

I had been using CS5 on my Mac but looking at Apples offerings in the Mac Pros they look expensive for the offerings (people I'm guessing are expecting an update soon?) so a PC for similar or even lower price looks awfully tempting (we are talking about a huge power boost when you consider getting a fully kitted computer like my last one - 5 years ago).

Ideally would like not to rebuy all my software any thoughts on if one can upgrade to CS5.5 and switch platforms at the same time?

Currently working with the GH2 for 1080p 24fps @28mbs AVCHD codex.

Also are people having luck using Premier/Adobe on iMacs? I worry a bit as they are not upgradeable (Have you seen what Apple charges for RAM these days?)

I also have 4 (four) drives from the Mac Pro with my files which I will still need access too so I'm looking at external enclosures so suggestions on that would also be good)

[Justin Molush]

Buy an iMac and get a little shop put at least 8GB in it for you - Apple charges ridiculous amounts for memory upgrades when in reality it is not even close to being that expensive.

Premiere runs just fine on an iMac if you get one with enough horsepower. Since it is 64 bit optimized it will squeeze out every bit of performance from your machine that it can muster.

I edited with premiere/FCP on an iMac for a while and premiere ran faster for sure.

[Chris Hurd]

You can run CS5 (now CS5.5) on an i7 iMac, but you give up the way way it leverages Nvidia graphics acceleration since all iMacs are ATI graphics only. But you can definitely run it this way. Apple's pricing for their refurb 2010 iMac looks mighty tempting compared to what they want for a Mac Pro (ouch).

[Greg Booth]

Hi,

Adobe does allow platform switching in certain conditions - you should be able to find the relevant info here:

Order an Adobe product platform swap or language swap

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Greg

Calibrated Software

[Ed Fiebke]

First. . . sorry for your lost. Having lost a HDD in the past that contained important project files (Earlier THAT WEEK, I lost the external HDD that contained the back-up of those file! The pain!!), I most certainly empathize with your lost. I hope you're able to retrieve you projects!!

Just another option to present to you. . .

I recently "won" (purchased) an Early 2009 MacPro via eBay. It cost me a fraction of what it would have cost me should I have purchased this MacPro in 2009. There are a number of computer-based "stores" found on eBay that hold high trust-worthy ratings. These used MacPros may be "basic" in that they're not loaded with hard drives and RAM. But I still managed to save money when I loaded my "newer" (used) MacPro with 32 GBs or RAM and four new 1 TB HDDs. I purchased the RAM and HDD from what I understand to be a very reputable and often used Mac/Apple based on-line store (OWC). I suggest this only as an option. But it's one that I found fruitful.

Edited to add: I also purchased Adobe's CS5.5 Production Suite as a cross-grade (from Apple's Final Cut Pro Suite). Both now reside on my happy Early 2009 MacPro. So far, so good! I have a lot to learn as I "cross-over" to Adobe's Production Suite, especially with Premiere Pro and After Effects. Both applications seem to be working just fine on my happy Early 2009 Mac Pro. And, the FCP applications also work just fine. I'm a happy camper. Just a FYI.

[Peter Chung]

I am in a similar boat in that I have the Mac Pro 1.1 with Dual Core Xeon. I was wondering if anyone would know whether an Intel i3-2100 with Nvidia GT 520 card would be faster than my current Mac Pro. Obviously, I would have to switch to Windows 7 but results speak louder (to me) than brand names :)

Thanks!

[Harm Millaard]

Have any of you considered that this is a marvelous opportunity to switch to a Win7 PC?

Far less costly, affordable hardware MPE support with a lot of choices, expandability widely available for decent prices, everything looks much brighter on the PC side. So, congratulations with this new won opportunity.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Peter Chung

I am in a similar boat in that I have the Mac Pro 1.1 with Dual Core Xeon. I was wondering if anyone would know whether an Intel i3-2100 with Nvidia GT 520 card would be faster than my current Mac Pro. Obviously, I would have to switch to Windows 7 but results speak louder (to me) than brand names :)

Peter,

Don't expect much in the way of performance in CS5.x with an i3-2100: Even with a high-end GTX 480, it is still more than six times slower than a fast hexa-core i7 system. In fact, the i3-2100 is hardly any faster with a GTX 580 than with a GTX 550 Ti or even a GT 240 1TB GDDR5. The molasses-slow GT 520 would make matters worse - to the point that you might as well permanently lock CS5.x to MPE software-only mode: It has only 64-bit access to its DDR3 VRAM and only 48 CUDA cores (the now-EOL GT 240, by contrast, has 96 CUDA cores and the GTX 550 Ti has 192 CUDA cores). Plus, the sluggish GPU also affects encoding performance, as well, making that system 12 to 20 times slower than a fast i7 system (the overall PPBM5 benchmark performance of an i3-2100 with a GT 520 would have been only slightly faster than a system with that same CPU but using only the CPU's integrated Intel HD Graphics 2000 - and not sufficiently faster than integrated graphics to justify paying money for it). In other words, it's a case of "why stop there when a few extra dollars buys you so much more".

As a result, that planned build is barely suitable for SD DV work. If you're going with that i3-2100, stick with the GT 430, GT 440, GT 545 or GTX 550 Ti - and don't get anything above the 550 Ti.

[Peter Chung]

Thanks, Randall, as always! I've been looking at the 550 Ti and that is probably what I'll go for. As for the i3, I was wondering how it would compare to my existing Mac Pro v1.1 running CS5 and/or FCP7. Since the Mac Pro is pretty old, I was wondering how it would fare against the i3-2100 or i3-2105.

I've already waited this long but if there are any good deals this Black Friday and holiday season, I'm thinking of "upgrading" if it's worthwhile.

[Peter Chung]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

Have any of you considered that this is a marvelous opportunity to switch to a Win7 PC?

Far less costly, affordable hardware MPE support with a lot of choices, expandability widely available for decent prices, everything looks much brighter on the PC side. So, congratulations with this new won opportunity.

Agreed! And if you still want to go back to OSX, you can build your system with Hackintosh compatible hardware so you can run OSX with no troubles and far less costly than buying hardware with a bitten apple on it ;)

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Peter Chung

Thanks, Randall, as always! I've been looking at the 550 Ti and that is probably what I'll go for. As for the i3, I was wondering how it would compare to my existing Mac Pro v1.1 running CS5 and/or FCP7. Since the Mac Pro is pretty old, I was wondering how it would fare against the i3-2100 or i3-2105.

I've already waited this long but if there are any good deals this Black Friday and holiday season, I'm thinking of "upgrading" if it's worthwhile.

I did try a plain GTX 560 on an i3-2100 system before I upgraded the CPU on that system to an i5-2400.

Let's just say that the GTX 560 does perform significantly better than the GT 240 DDR5 even on an i3-2100. However, with such a relatively weak CPU, it isn't surprising that there is a much greater difference in performance on that CPU between a GTX 550 Ti and a GT 440 than between a GTX 580 and a GTX 550 Ti.

What this means is that the GTX 550 Ti is best used on an Intel CPU of the i3-2xxx class, and the GTX 560 (with or without a "Ti") is a bit overkill for the i3. The GTX 560+ GPUs really need a true quad-core Nehalem or Sandy Bridge CPU to perform at their best.