New Mac Pro & Adobe CS6 (Not CC)

[Andy Wilkinson]

Well I got my grant approved (some time ago... but work and a recent holiday in Mauritius got in the way) so I'm now, finally, about to push the button on this new Mac Pro. Will probably buy the 3.0Ghz 8-core with D700s. I already have a new G-Tech G-Speed Studio 12TB Thunderbolt 2 RAID system and I've a Dell 2713H monitor about to be delivered too.

Reading around the web the last 24hrs it seems that Adobe CC is working a lot more stable now since Apple updated Mavericks to 10.9.4...let's hope the very soon to be released next OSX iteration (Yosemite) does not break things again.

Anyone care to share/elaborate recent real world experiences with CC on the new Mac Pro with 10.9.4 please?

Thanks in advance.

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Andy Wilkinson

Anyone care to share/elaborate recent real world experiences with CC on the new Mac Pro with 10.9.4 please?

I run CC on the new Mac Pro, for several months now without stability issues. I didn't realize there were stability problems; perhaps I need to explore the web more.

The only problem I've had is that strangely the pro won't drive a 4K monitor with smooth 4K (for example with Quicktime). This is an issue with both D500s and D700s (and not D300s). Of course this is odd given all the horsepower of these GPUs. The GPU drivers just don't seem to be set up optimally for 4K display.

Apple has addressed this with the Yosemite beta, which I'm running. 4K output is pretty smooth with Yosemite, but not yet perfect, it will skip a frame now and then.

I have not noticed any stability issues running CC with Yosemite, but I have only been doing short test 4K videos, perhaps 10 minutes each, stringing and trimming clips.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Thanks for chiming in Charles with some useful info.

My Mac Pro arrived today. It's an 8-core 3.0Ghz with 512Gb flash drive and 2xD700 6GB GPUs. I bought it from Jigsaw24 (here in the UK they are a major Apple reseller) and I got it with 32GB of non-Apple RAM.

It came with the 4 strips of 8GB Kingston RAM already installed by them. It was also supplied with 3 strips of original Apple RAM (4GB per strip, that had been taken out when they fitted the bigger RAM).

However, I have had a VERY frustrating few hours as it was often refusing to boot up. Most often it would never even get to the chime…

After a bit of detective work it seems it won't see non-Apple RAM on it's DIMM3 slot (and only that slot) but it will see the original Apple RAM in that slot. Jigsaw24 Tech Support have been brilliant on the phone and on email with helping me diagnose the fault. I've been swapping RAM in and out of slots more times than I care to recall all afternoon to narrow down the issue!

Anyway, this Mac Pro is being collected tomorrow and hopefully this will be resolved by early next week - when I expect they will replace the unit with another one. I suspect this one will be going back to Texas!

On a more positive note the Dell 2713H is a lovely display - mine is Revision 006 - using it right now with my Retina MBP. So much so, that I've just bought a second to sit next to it :-)

[Brian David Melnyk]

I am now on 10.9.4 with a MBP retina, and have also installed a program called Photoline, which is a pretty solid contender to replace photoshop. It is about $79, and has a lot of powerful features. Still testing it out, but am committed to finding an alternative to adobe.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Just a quick update. One of Jigsaw24's engineers has inspected my original new Mac Pro and confirmed that there was indeed a problem with one of it's RAM assembly "carriages" (the bits you flip out to change RAM sticks). I guess it's going back to Texas as a DOA unit.

They have now configured another new 8-core/2xD700 Mac Pro with 32GB RAM, have tested that and I should have that tomorrow. Their service has been excellent in sorting this out, keeping me informed of every step. BTW, this will be the fourth MP/MBP/rMBP I've bought from them in the last few years, always excellent pricing and service.

Hopefully, a second Dell 2713H screen (from a different supplier) will arrive this week too. It'll look good sitting next to it's twin sister! Hope this one is a Revision A06 version too.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Just another update. I've now got my replacement new Mac Pro and both Dell 2713H monitors (both Rev A06).

Been busy working away but have already downloaded FCPX, Motion and Compressor. I also decided to upgrade my retina MBP from Mountain Lion (10.8.5) to Mavericks (10.9.4 - same as the new Mac Pro is running). Don't worry, I always have a disc image created with Carbon Copy Cloner in case I ever need to revert back! The main reason I wanted to update the retina MBP is so that it can run the latest .3 update of FCPX (as that has some important bug, stability fixes and new features). Note: FCPX now needs 10.9.2 or later for this latest version.

Just hoping Mavericks 10.9.4 will not break anything with CS6 on that rMBP...

In the next day or so I should have time to download CC onto the brand new Mac Pro and then we'll see where all this leads me!

I'm in the thick of it editing existing client projects in CS6 on the old Mac Pro (on 10.8.5) and filming away a bit so it may be a while before I can report back with how I get on with all this transitioning to new hardware and software.