I didn’t notice an issue, just background light increased and decreased in tone. But I was paying more attention to content that what was around you. 20k subs gogogo
Hey friend, I wonder if you have any suggestion to this problem...when I replaced my internal drive with an OWC one, not knowing better or perhaps something went wrong, I, by mistake formatted the OWC drive in Mac OS Extended (and even worse, as Case-sensitive), since then it won't let me update my OS saying it is a non-compatible third party drive. I asked OWC what to do and they suggest I just put in the original drive to do updates...the problem is that I already long ago wiped that drive fully, including the security partition, for other uses, so I believe it won't do me any good? right? High Sierra really lags for me these days and the case-sensitive mistake has cause me other challenges. Any ideas on what I can do?
@@MichaelSidneyTimpson If you’re happy to wipe the drive, I would try restoring from Internet - OWC drives should support that. (support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904) In the restore system you can open Disk Utility and make the changes, then you can clean install the OS.
@@ConstantGeekery The original drive or the OWC drive? if original drive, do I really have to break open the OWC encloser and remove the OWC drive and put in the original drive or can I do it all from USB?
Great video. i actually picked up 12 core with 512ssd. it only had 16gb ram which upgraded to 64 for less then $100. the great thing about it was it was advertised will D500's but when i got to the seller and we powered on it turned out it had D700s. it was a recording studio get the shelves cleared for the 2019 Mac Pro. The IT guy handling the sale didn't want the hassle so he still honored the listed price with a $100 reduction because i mention the ram upgrade i had to do. Picked it up for $1650! yes it was a steal! I was upgrading from a 2010 Mac Pro Cheese Grader so it wss a nice upgrade. After all the peripherals which i slowly pieced together used and new items total cost of the system came out to about $2300. I'm a sound mixer so it more then enough power for me. Since all my work is offline picture resolution was never going to be an issue. I'm now running four 1080p monitors and i couldn't be happier. the only then i want to advise is make sure to download and install Mac Fan Control. this machine have a tendency of overheating and this app will really help prevent this. the pro edition of the app is $15 and will worth it. After install adjust to at least 1600rpm constant fan and then 1800 for work when editing. this will help tremendously keeping the system from overheating.
That sounds like a very good deal indeed! Completely agree on the fan control. I use TG Pro, which is very similar. My Mac has been super stable ever since. Thanks for watching and sharing 😊
You give Us a complete, concise and precise overview of the benefits of each upgrade on this beautifull Mac model, that we will still use for years to come thanks to you!
You are doing wonderful videos. Thanx a lot. Just bought a 6-core, 64 GB Ram, d500 today. I paid around 370 GBP - witch I think I pretty cheap. It's a beautiful computer - and that's the main reason that I bought it. Just love the design. I have a M1 as well, but this is going to be my "working horse" in my home music studio, running Logic Pro. All the best from Denmark. And thanx again!
I appreciate you so much. I love the 6,1 MP's design and recently upgraded to 64GB of RAM and the OWC 1TB Aura x2 SSD still on quad-core, and I'm still running strong on ProTools, Photoshop & Illustrator daily. I am shopping for an 8-Core now, thanks to this video. Your videos are packed with information yet still concise, mastery at its finest. Keep em coming!
Biggest thing I can recommend for these 2013 machines is to install iStat menus and turn the speed of the fan up. You will get a much happier machine with less graphics glitching.
Picked up a quad core in mint condition at a very low price and I will be upgrading it to the 8 Core (1680) and 64gb ram as recommended. After trawling through many forums this video was the perfect encapsulation of everything I needed to know. Great video!
I just purchased - 8 Core with 64GB RAM, and 1TB SSD, D500 GPU - on Ebay for $500 - I did not see this video before I purchased! but looks like I did a good job! - Thanks :-) for the confirmation!
When Phil Schiller gave a sneak peak of the Trash can Mac Pro i instantly fell in lust with its unique stying , a radical improvement from its big boxy cheese grater predecessor , this machine was elegant and had a small footprint reducing desk clutter . Learning it wasn't that upgradable at the time i blew my savings on a maxed out 12 core 64 GM memory and 1TB SSD . Thats about a grand a year since the purchase price from Apple was 7K . Well its used daily , silent running and still looks awesome , i get the limitations of connectivity but that's the trade off with such a compact machine , it still looks radical and not dated i would go as far as to say a design classic though i know it has its detractors like Marmite .
I bought the quad-core one and upgraded the CPU to 10-core. I love my Macpro now. your videos were very helpful. Your CPU upgrade video was very helpful
Thanks to you I went from wanting 128gb RAM to getting 64gb and from a 6 core to (against your better judgement) a 10 core instead of the 8 you suggested. Your multiple videos on this device have truly inspired me
Hey, I'm thinking of upgrading from the 6core to 12core, I am sure the 12 core is great for video editing but does the lower single-threaded score make it slower for day to day tasks e.g checking emails, RUclips videos or web browsing?
What an amazing man! Found all I needed from this one video for what I've been searching for on Google for the past 3 hours for my purchase of a 2013 mac pro from OWC. Thank you so much, major props to you, Gigachad!
I just bought a base model off some guy on gumtree, it was his work PC and they told him he could keep it. I dont think he new what he was selling tbh cos he listed it at £299 and as soon as I seen it I rang him and said I would take it. WIthin 4 days, I had upgraded to 64 gb of ram ( the max you can have if you want to run it at 1866 Mhz ) stripped it down and took out the crappy 4 core cpu, put an 8 core in, thermal paste and cleaned the machine. Now its running at 38 degrees idle and a lot faster now its using all 4 dimms and the new cpu. I want to get some D700s but they are just to expensive.
Great series of videos, many thanks! They could have been custom made for me as I own a 6-core nMP. I've upgraded the SSD to 1TB NVMe (easy) and I use a Razor Core X eGPU with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 card to basically bypass the ageing (and not well supported) D500s. What came a real surprise was the 8-core sweet spot! Keep 'em coming.
Hi, this (eGPU Radeon RX Vega 56) is interesting. I'm thinking about it too for video editing not gaming. Do you see a good performance boost? Is it stable and reliable, can you recommend it? Thanks
I bought the entry level MP trashcan in 2013. I could only afford the very base model. But it is still my main computer and does everything I need quickly. I don't do games or video but I do a lot of Logic Pro music with zero problems. My specs 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 (upgraded from 12GB...only update) GPU AMD FirePro D300 2GB Have NEVER had a fail of any kind. Still my main computer. And I still LOVE the design.
I bought my 6 core new refurbished from Apple in '14 as well as the Apple care warranty. I saved about 1200$us from a brand new in the box one. It came with the D700's, 500gig SSD and 8 gigs of ram which I upgraded to 32. I used it mostly for SD video editing and Photoshop with a little bit of 4k, which it does very well. Now Im mostly using it for music recording and production which is pretty easy for this setup, although nothing really uses GPU that i'm aware of. I just upgraded the SSD to a 1TB EVO, no real problems other than I was using 10.11 and had to upgrade to 10.13 to take advantage of the NVME. So I started to have video troubles recently and after a bit of research found out about the GPU recall, a few calls to the online service dept and they really took care of me. Replaced both video cards, IO board and some other stuff, all no cost. If you have an Apple work flow, this is it.
I am using a 2013 Mac Pro 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5, with the (nicer) AMD FirePro D500 graphic cards for Photoshop work, the logic to move up to the E5-1680 8 core chip makes a lot of sense, thank you! I suppose I could go for the 12 core, but the higher clock speed of the 8 core chip seems like a good idea for normal day to day use, and the loss of speed VS the 12 core does not seem to be that much.
in 2024, in the era of apple silicone, i had the choice of buying a mac mini m1 16gb for $200 but i opted for the capped at macos monterey trashCAN 6-core, 64gb, 1tb, d700 for $150 because besides technological capability, what a truly beautiful machine this is ✨ been watching all your super insightful, empassioned content on this computer + want to sincerely thank you for sharing it all 🙏🏽
Great overview! Just picked up an extremely clean 8-core model with D700s and still has AppleCare in effect for 10 more months. Your series on this Mac has been very helpful!
Oct 2021 , purchased 2013 12 core/ 64gb /1tb flash storage . It’s a quite a leap from my MacBook Pro 2017 with my i7 quad core 16 gb 512 ssd. Sold MacBook for fairly good price to pay for above hoping it will last me 4-5 years
Impressive video, well researched and full of genuinely useful information, been thinking about a Mac Pro 2013 and considering which version and graphic option would work best for me and this just about answer every question! Well done and thank you😊.
Thanks for the info, I purchased the six core new with an apple 1TB hard disk when they came out, replaced the ram with OWC 64 gigs. It did overheat sometimes but mainly from collecting dust so clean it out occasionally, i run 2 apple 27inch monitors, an LG 34inch Ultrawide as well as a sony bravia 55 inch through the HDMI port. I love all the monitor ports as it replaced my previous apple tower which I had installed multiple video cards to do the same thing so it was a no brainer to buy a machine that of the box could do what my previous machine had to be customised to do but running about the third of the electricity but more silent, also the fact that it looks a little like R2D2 is a bonus.
This video got you a new subscriber (admittedly way late to the MacOS world) and have been slowly upgrading my 4-core Mac Pro. Thank you for a no-nonsense review of pros and cons to the upgrades.
Thanks for this information. I was considering getting a refurbished 2013 Mac Pro since the prices were dropping, and I was thinking of a 12-Core, but now I see that won't give me as big a boost in performance as I would have thought.
I know your video was 3 years ago, but it was a great help. I just fitted a tb drive and am now going for 64gb of ram in my 6 core machine. I’m keeping it going as I bought it from new. Great bit of kit.
So I've always wanted one, and recently had the opportunity to get one on the cheap. 6core 32gb of ram, the low end D300's. I didn''t know what to really do with it, so I did the upgrade from whatever it had to Catalina, and wow what a MISTAKE. First off I loaded up steam as many games that I have, also have MacOS versions, but the majority are 32bit, so that sucked. The one game I wanted to play with my kids, Kerbal Space Program, actually caused the machine to have CONSTANT kernel panics. I think the thermals are kind of dodgy on these machines, they do remind me a lot of the G4 cube, a machine built around a quite heatsink, although the trashcan has a fan at least.. I loaded Macs fan control, a MUST have program for any 2013 Mac Pro user out there, as the Apple defaults are simply too low (I made the mistake of lifting the lid after a kernel panic and it was incredibly hot under there! You may want to do a video on how to downgrade to Mojave, as it wasn't all that intuitive (well for me anyways) as the bootable USB won't show up in the control panel, instead you have to hold down a key at boot to get the OS boot list to boot from USB. I deleted all the old partitions and installed Mojave which may have been a bad move, as I don't think Mojave installs a factory recovery partition on re-install. OOps. I have a PC with dual E5 2667v2's and I thought it was a pretty fast machine, although I didn't realise that the 2013 MacPro was also a 2011 machine, I'd thought for some reason it was v3 at least, but oh well. I'm curious to what others thing of Catalina on the 2013, to me it's a total dud.
Just got more cooling, I'm your fan :) Seriously, thank you for your insights and videos. I'm modding my 6,1. If you connect it via HDMI it connects to the 4k screen with the right dimensions. Best regards!
Just bought my trashcan originaly purchased in 2015 with dual D700s and 6 core CPU, instantly swapped it into the 3.3 ghz 8 core you've mentioned as I was about to repaste the whole system for optimal cooling :) the sad thing is I bought a wrong nvme ssd which Mac Pro didn't read and I'm about to swap it for another.
I went with a 12 core a couple years ago. At the time my thinking was that I wanted to max out everything on my 6 core. So I went to 64GB ram, OWC Aura Pro x2 1TB SSD and was already working with dual D700. What I found out is that the D700 have more artifacting problems than the D500. Also, the 12 core CPU only hits it's stride when you are firing on all cylinders. On single threaded stuff the 6 core was slightly better. Wish I'd gone with the 8 core. Also, you can get 128GB ram to fit, but it knocks you down a notch in speed. Overall I'm happy with my setup as I can have Photoshop, Premiere, Logic and a few other things open with no noticeable impact. OTOH, I still suffer terribly doing renders. Also, the disk subsystem and USB ports are slow and really bottleneck the work you can do. TB2 is the only way to go for storage. The USB3 on this machine is actually only slightly faster than USB2. It is very bad!
EXCELLENT VIDEO!! I was considering buying a Mac Pro 6,1. I am a Hobbyist only that likes to work with Photoshop. I have a complete Photo Editing System now in the form of a Mac Pro 3.1 Early 2008. The system is old but works fine, No real need to upgrade. After watching this Video I think I need to know more about not only the Computers but the upgraded photoshop software as well. Again, Great Video Very Informative on the Important need to know aspects of these computers.
I've only recently discovered your wonderful channel when looking for upgrade advice for my Mac Pro 2013 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 which I bought on eBay in early 2017 - so thank you for enlightening me of the constructive options available. I matched the Mac Pro to a newly discontinued Dell UK2715K monitor which had matching twin Display ports as well as a single Thunderbolt 2 mini Display port. I had the ram upgraded from 8GB to 32GB using 16GB x 2 in one pair of slots only. Sadly, the pair of display port cables only worked for a short period before something gave up the ghost so I am left with the single mini display port cable as the main source of monitor display. I have successfully produced an animated 8 minute video using Adobe Premiere (albeit the rendering was painfully slow) as well as for Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom but have now run out of disk space but use USB WD hard drives for extra storage. I now want to upgrade the Ram and replace the processor as demonstrated on your video (it looks relatively straight forward?). My questions are as follows, 1) Replacing Ram:- How do I identify the Generation 3 or 4 Apple replacements being advertised compared to the original fitted Ram boards? 2) Replacing CPU:- Should I look only at 8 core CPU with 130 watts for this particular Quad powered machine rather than 12 core that appears to require 150 watts? 3) What do you think is my problem with the paired display port cables not delivering (half screen each when they worked)? 4) I run Catalina 10.15.4. Should I revert to Mohave? These issues have been accumulating over the last 2 years until I discovered your channel! Any advice would be very welcome - thank you.
This is a superb informational video. This is a great summary of options, issues and recommendations!! Caused me to subscribe to your channel. Keep up the great work!
aspiring audio engineer here, I have been having issues with audio plugins in pro tools running on windows and macs, I mainly use 6 core processors and the 1 time I used an Apple silicon processor I finally had the pleasure of running more plugins, it was the 10c CPU with 8 Performance and 2 efficiency cores. Its a lot of money.. I just purchased a Mac pro quad core, and a 2697 v2 12 core CPU. I specifically looking for a budget replacement for the expensive m1 pro macbook pro! IF this performs the same or better then im selling the macbook pro!
Thanks! Your video helped a great deal. I was going to get the 12-core. But now I will opt for the 8-core which suits my usage much better. Thanks again!!!
Here's another "tweak" you can do to the trashcan; 3rd party sellers provide RAM upgrades for it to 128GB. HOWEVER, there is a penalty. Apparently the clock speed of the RAM goes down when you do this, and surprisingly, the hit gets worse the more cores you have. I think this is another thing you might have fun investigating....
Yes, I discovered this in some research, as I was going to “fully load” mine. It actually has a noticeable affect on performance and CPU benchmarks. There was quite a jump in benchmarks between the original 12GB / 3 DIMM configuration and my 64GB / 4 DIMM configuration. It would be great to get a load of different sized DIMMs and test all the possible combinations... 😁
Very thorough and good follow up to your Mac Pro videos and great work on the graphs for a real snapshot of performance. Thinking of options currently and this helps me. Thank you very much for making.
Dust makes a huge difference, my AIO Ryzen 7 1700, was reducing performance to 25% due to bad air flow from duct. I opened system up, cleaned intake holes and removed system fan (CPU/GPU) and body, vacuumed out heat sink etc. Performance went back to 97-99%. Didn't change thermal paste as system under warranty still.
As a photographer who spends most of his time in photoshop, I have to say single core performance is far more important than multi core (to me). There are certainly filters in Photoshop that run faster with more cores. But I find its very rare that I use those. I would guess a graphic designer might spend more time in those filters. For me the 4 core is the way to go and I might upgrade to the 6 or 8 some time later. A large 2TB SSD was my first upgrade, followed by 32GB of RAM, up form the stock 12. Anyone with 12 should bump to 16. You can find plenty of cheap 4GB sticks online from people who replaced the 3 in their machine.
Just bought a 6 core 32gb RAM, 1Tb SSD with the D500 graphics cards. Your video has convinced me that I made the right choice. I have already found a matched set of 4 x 16 sticks of RAM for £36 and a used E5-2667 V2 for £15. That is a total of less than £320 for a very decent machine! (now where’s that thermal paste!) (Edited to add that reading most of the comments on here, the 1680 8-core processor is probably the way to go. A bit rarer and about twice the price of the 2667 but I suspect that I will end up with a better machine.)
I would stick with the 2667 - it's clocked slightly higher. Not much difference on boost frequencies, but in theory you should get marginally better single core performance.
Thank you for the great videos on the 2013 Mac Pro. Very informative, except some of your suggestions like doing a CPU upgrade are mostly only applicable to units that are out of warranty. There are still some new and refurbished ones out there. I found an Apple certified refurbished unit and I got AppleCare+ for it. I'll have to be careful with any upgrades due to the warranty. It looks like I would need to have an Apple authorized service provider do a CPU upgrade for me because reading over their terms it says if they think the computer has been opened (by someone other than Apple or an authorized service provider) they can reject covering any repair for any reason. Also, I have a copy of the technician repair manual and there are very specialized tools only available from Apple that are necessary for replacing internal parts such as the CPU and GPUs. I think it would be best to use those tools and follow Apple's instructions or have an authorized service provider do the work.
Glad you found the videos useful. If you are in a position where you have a warranty, then that’s a fair point and I wouldn’t recommend taking the unit apart. RAM upgrades and SSD would be OK, but nothing more... until the warranty expires. 😜 Of course, the previous Mac Pro 5,1 and the newer Mac Pro 7,1 are designed to be user upgradeable, so it’s understandable why many pros weren’t happy with this particular generation. In fact, it would seem Apple really don’t like CPU upgrades in these - I have a video going up soon about that. Thanks for watching!
Issues with Bootcamp on Sierra and High Sierra So I have a brand new Mac Pro 2013 with an NVMe drive and migrated my Mojave and files from a 2012 Mac mini with an HDD drive and that Mac mini USED to have a working windows 8.1 (I deleted it and reformatted the drives at some point) Great the migration of logins and everything work. So I create a partition to use Sierra so that I can use that bootcamp to make Windows 8.1 like I did on the mini. I have the same Windows 8.1 3.9gb ISO I used on the mini and the same flash drive. I go to bootcamp, select the ISO (yes it is unmounted/ejected in disk utility as recommended by many people) and when it comes to the USB I either get " Your bootable USB drive could not be created. An error occurred while formatting the disk" I redo the process a few more times and then it gets past that and then gets stuck at "An error occurred while copying windows installation files" I have tried USB 2.0 flash drives and 3.0 32gb and 128gb. Yes they have been formatted to MS DOS FAT. I even tried using a HDD, same errors. Yes I have also reformatted my NVMe and done a fresh install of all and time machine backups. Same errors So then I installed High Sierra as well, as soon as the windows support files are downloaded it says "Error while partioning your disk" (Directly to my NVMe) Ive also unmounted/ejected the ISO after every try, I used an ISO splitter to split the ISO as well (After doing all of this) still same issues. I Love Windows 8.1, runs fast on everything and hate windows 10. I want to play my old games such as GTA 3 and Rolercoaster tycoon CDs yet Windows 10 doesn't work with them without steam which I don't want to use. Can someone help?
I have a feeling that Boot Camp Assistant only works with Win 8 up to Sierra. 9to5 Mac do an excellent tutorial on installing Win10 to an external drive (ruclips.net/video/3IhW722IMwE/видео.html) - I know you don’t want Win10, but might be worth trying it with your Win8 ISO. I run Bootcamp from an external T5 SSD on my 2013 Mac Pro, because I didn’t want to partition my internal SSD. Maybe this is an option? 🤷🏼♂️
Constant Geekery it works on High Sierra and Sierra with 8.1, I used them on my mac minis. Im thinking the issue is that the Mac Pro uses APFS for the NVME while my minis both had 2x 1tb hard drives that used OS Journaled. Windows 10 installed without issues thanks to your linked videos, as much as I hate it for how glitchy it is, Im stuck with it. Thank you for the help friend
CPU/GPU speed aren’t the only measures that matter. How fast are the drives in these machines? I’m guessing pretty slow compared to new SSDs in the Mac Mini or the MacBook Pros.
I’ve done other videos on that, but max speed on this machine will be about 1,400 MB/sec. So, yes, slower than the latest. However, as Linus Tech Tips recently proved, once you get to about 600 MB/sec, most people can’t tell the difference in everyday usage. Obviously if your workflow involves a lot of file copying you will notice, but for the vast majority of workflows, it’s plenty fast enough.
If you use FCPX or the like get as much memory and cores as you can afford AND spend the most on the D700 GPUs. that's what I have and can tell you I could still use more than my 6 core, 128gb RAM, D700 2013 Mac Pro!
Really really great information about my Mac Pro 2013 I which have a way to contact you to ask more questions. You sound like deeply knowledgeable about this Mac Pro
Fantastic video and very useful information. So is the 8 core version better in your opinion? I use it with audio DAW like Cubase. Can I get more with the 12 core version? (for example more plugin at the same time, more tracks, etc.. ) thanks
The 8-core can boost more cores to higher frequencies, so for most people it will be the better real-world choice. The 12-core really only outperforms it when it’s using all (or almost all) of its cores. For audio, I’d say that individual core frequency is perhaps not as important as having plenty of cores - though that depends on the individual use case. Both CPUs will work well, but the 12-core will certainly allow for more plugins, tracks etc.
Thanks so much for this series. It has given me food for thought! May I ask whether you find any issues with the D500 and your Dell U3219Q, especially when smooth-scrolling long websites at scaled 4k resolutions? I have been trialing an i7 MacMini but the UHD630 onboard graphics are just not up to it and the scrolling is dropping frames.... It's horrid! In light of this, I'm wondering if a 6,1 might be an option as a stop-gap before Apple Silicon takes over. Thanks again for the content.
Glad you enjoyed it. My Mac Pro has the D300s, but they are fine with the 4K display and scaled resolutions. Even a single D300 has something like 6x the raw power of UHD630.
I upgraded from 4 core my Mac Pro 2013 it come with to 12 core Intel Xeon E5 2697. Day to day task are feste r with it!🤭 Also games wor better. And Pro aps work better.
Wait why are you saying the 8c e5-2667 is worse than the stock 8c e5-1680? On paper it’s better. The base clock and boost clock are both higher for the 2667
I just bought 4 core with 512gb, 64 gb ram version, 🤞for years of use. I’m mot sure I’ll upgrade cpu as I’m more single core user with occasional multi core use.
@@ConstantGeekery I got the Mac Pro, love it, but in Windows 10 during boot up I get all kinds of acid-colors for a brief second...GPU issues/failure or WIN10 and Bootcamp driver issues? Yikes, love the Mac Pro but may need to return.
@@ConstantGeekery I was using display port to mini display and tried hdmi same results... I’m in my return window, eBay purchase...it’s super fast in Mac but do seem to get warm to touch under medium load to heavy load but I’m using istats to monitor temps, they are 35 c to 65c normal load then upper 75c under load with a few spikes to upper 80+...I may try reloading windows to see if it does better, oh the things that test is, LOL!
Great series, aftet watching I decided to make a Mac pro 6.1 purchase with a 6 core 32g AMD D500. I have one question as I day trade stocks , I notice I could not add more then 2 monitors I usally use 4 monitors. I notice You had ePGU in the back ground, would that help with adding more monitors to Mac Pro ? or which is the best ePGU that matches up with Our Mac Pro? Thank you
You should be able to drive six displays, unless your screens are 4K, in which case it’s two via the Thunderbolt ports and one more on HDMI (though HDMI will only run 4K at 30Hz). The eGPU is an option for additional displays and I’ll be doing a video on this soon. It is not natively supported on the Mac Pro 6,1 so you have to use a third party tool to make it work (purge-wrangler). You also need Apple’s Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. You won’t get maximum performance from the graphics card. Also you have to plug in (or switch on the eGPU) after boot up and it’s best to disable sleep mode. I use the Razer Core X because you can buy your own card - you can’t change the card in the Blackmagic Design models. If all you need is additional displays, the Sonnet Breakaway Puck is the cheapest route. Hope that helps, and thanks for watching! 😊
@@ConstantGeekery They are not 4k monitors just LG 23inch FULL HD 1920X1080 - I tried to get all 4 displays going at the same time, did not work. But I am going to go with Sonnet Breakaway Puck - Ill just have to figure out (purge wrangler ) thank you for the reply - looking forward towards your ePGU video!
What a phenomenal video! I've been looking to buy one of these (I'm a software developer, so for what I need I think the 8 core could do the trick haha). Any recommendations on where to buy one in Canada? I've been having some trouble finding a refurbished one, in excellent condition. Thanks!!
Thank you! I’m in the UK, so I don’t know much about the Canadian market. Prices seem to be quite inflated at the moment, so it’s getting tougher to find a bargain. You might try emailing or calling some web / design studios in your area to see if they have any they’re looking to offload. Often business can’t be bothered with the hassle of listing things on eBay, so you can pick up good machines at decent prices that way. Given the current climate, you may find studios looking to offload equipment.
Thanks for the advice! I just bought a 6 core from a reputable seller on eBay. The price was the best that I could find. Now I’m just waiting to get my hands on it and see it for myself. Keep up the good work! Stay safe, sir!
i know this is a 3yo video but i just bought a mac pro with the base cpu and gpu with 32gb of ram im thinking of upgrading the cpu but i never used a mac before so ill see how i adapt :)
Thinking to buy Mac Pro, but wondering how long will Apple support software updates on 2013 machine. I don’t want to buy Mac Pro and then I don’t get system updates after couple of years, which already makes your computer slower.
I sold mine. But yes, I high spec one is still usable if you can get it at a sensible price. Given the M2 Mac Mini, it's getting harder to argue for the Trash Can unless you have a specific need of x86.
I'm trying to build a mac pro in 2022 foremost for music production on a pro level with logic pro X, secondary use would be video editing but only on really rare occasions. Does a Mac Pro Trash can model make any sense in 2022? I built all my pcs in the past and I don't have any experience with macs, so I don't understand this no future support issue. I would go for the 8 core or 12 core with 32 or 64gb of ram and a TB or 2 ssd. Ps: strictly for work so don't care about video game performance and I know that 4k video rendering takes forever but not going to use it for that too much.
If you mean the internal GPUs, there are only 3 choices, and upgrading is a non-starter due to the cost. With eGPU, you can go with any of the latest AMD cards, but you won’t be able to use any decent nVidia cards as there is no driver support in macOS anymore. Apple insist that drivers support their Metal framework, and nVidia refuse to play ball. Their silly argument deprives consumers of choice.
Have been watching this Mac Pro series and it has really informed my decision to pick one up. One question I do have is, would buying an OWC apple ssd give me the same benefits as having a "genuine" apple ssd? The owc is keyed like the apple, but I cant seem to find performance number or whether you can restore the OS via internet recovery like an apple drive. Cheers!
I believe it is fully compatible, but probably best to drop their support team an email to check. The Aura Pro X2 will be limited by the Mac Pro’s PCIe 2.0 x4 bandwidth, so I’d say you’ll be looking at something like a max performance of1500MB/sec read and 1200MB/sec write. The drive is capable of more, so it should in theory run cooler, but I’ve not personally tested one.
Hi☺️👍🏻 how are you? I have a mac pro 6.1 quad core 12gb ram and 256SSD. I have seen all yout videos on youtube, i wanted to upgrade the machine. I’m musician, and i need power because i use a lot of track. I think the 12 cores processor is the best, where do you advice me to buy it? At OWC the have it for 414$ tested, do you recommend another site? I would like to put the maximum of ram memory, to work well with orchestral libraries, and the SSD, i saw in a video of you, that with the samsung nvme m2 970 evo, plus and adapter, was is ok? Thank very much
You can get 12-cores for less on eBay - I think mine was £195 (about $245). Obviously, that’s untested without a warranty, so OWC’s price is reasonable. Lots of these CPUs are pulled from servers that have been sat in datacentres their whole life, which is pretty much a perfect environment, so I wasn’t personally worried about buying used. I don’t personally use a 970 SSD in my Mac Pro. Bear in mind that the 970 EVO and the 970 EVO Plus are different models. The Plus needs a firmware update to be compatible, so I would stick to the standard 970 EVO. Many users say this combo is fine, but I’ve not personally tested it. If you’re in any doubt, find a generation 3 Apple SSD.
What about the E5-2696 v2 12 core ? It seems to be keeping up with the 2697 v2 for multicore scores on Geekbench despite being 120W. Im giving up with the stupid sellers on eBay trying to get them to ship a 2697 v2 over to me in Cyprus. thats why i have taken an interest in the 2696 v2.
JUST SEEN{:::::.......fully upgraded Mac Pro 6,1 has been upgraded to the Intel Xeon E5-2680v2 10-Core 2.80Gz Processor and 64GB of Memory. Alongside this it has the upgrade to support NVME storage upgrading to a 512GB SSD. BUT NOT MENTIONED WHICH GRAPHICS VERSION, would it be D500 do you think?
What would be the best graphic card variation Mac Pro to look for used, if planning to run 3 screens (maybe even 6 screens eventually) for stock day trading? Have the opportunity to purchase a nice condition Mac Pro with D500 graphics. Would this be suffice for 3 to screen setup? Not quite sure if VRAM or the MHz speed is the more important spec to watch for smooth multi screen use? Would appreciate any thoughts on this? Thanks Chandler
It depends on the resolution of the displays. I think the D500 would be fine for three screens. All of the models can support up to three 5K Thunderbolt displays, and I’ve seen six 1440p displays being used. VRAM is probably the most important factor.
Constant Geekery I appreciate the reply on that. So say in the future I’d want to move my trading setup to 6 thunderbolt displays, each running think or swim stock charts and other softwares. Do you think the D500 would still handle this with ease? Or is this something the D700 would be more necessary for, as it had the greater 6gb VRAM?
@@yochanman it depends on the resolution. As far as I know, all the 2013 Mac Pro models can drive six of Apple’s 27” Thunderbolt displays. Those were 1440p panels. I believe you can also use Mini DisplayPort (same connector as Thunderbolt 2) to connect 6 displays via DisplayPort. Apple updated these Macs so that they can support three dual-cable 5K displays, which is double the pixel count of six 1440p panels. If all the models can manage the 5K displays, it seems reasonable that all of them could manage six 1440p displays. So I don’t think you specifically need the D700 model for what you’re trying to do. I have no personal experience running this many screens though.
Constant Geekery ok awesome thanks for that. Yeah did mean to put the display types in last comment. My main screen is the 27” Thunderbolt Display, second is a 21” 2011 iMac running as an external display as target display mode. then running two of those small USB-c portable 1080p lcd screens. So the D500 sounds like it should handle these just fine then Thanks so much for the help my friend
I am using a 2013 Mac Pro 6 core / 16Gb RAM. As a music producer, I've learned that it is a very capable machine, especially running external thunderbolt devices. My only quirk is that there is "no way" to upgrade it to Thunderbolt 3. All new components are utilizing the faster USB-C. Having to use the adapter is a bummer. Any thoughts to a possible upgrade to utilizing the Ethernet port to Thunderbolt 3? or is it not the same speed? Thanks :)
There’s no way to get Thunderbolt 3 unfortunately. You can get faster USB by putting a PCIe card into an external PCIe Thunderbolt interface. Or, if you’re using eGPU, some enclosures (like the Razer Core X Chroma) have USB 3.1 ports. Thunderbolt 2 is quick enough to run these at full speed, though you’ll quickly hit the limits if you have more than one device plugged in, and the speed increase is probably not worth the cost. Thunderbolt 3 is 40Gbit/sec. Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gbit/sec. USB 3.1 is 10Gbit/sec. The Ethernet ports are 1Gbit/sec, so no options there either.
@@ConstantGeekery Thanks so much for such quick reply. I've subscribed to your channel. As a music producer, I use an OWC Helios Thunderbolt 2 chassis for a single card. I was asking because I am considering purchase a UA Octo PCIe card during holiday sales. This is to offload processing of plugins and entering into the world of Universal Audio. My ProTools is choking running lots of plugins. But the options now are all Thunderbolt 3. Is the only option for my 2013 Mac Pro the 3 to TB-2 adapter with a chassis?
@@ConstantGeekery Indeed it is. I am just a little cautious with that option since it is the same price as the bare card. I believe the card in an OWC enclosure may have more stability with a cooling fan. But thanks so much for your input. Much appreciated.
I just bought the 12 core 64gb and d700 version. i have it in bootcamp. but cant run some games because of it showing that the driver is not the latest. and i cant figure out how to upgrade the driver. the bootcamp seems to not have the latest driver for it. i also cant use any kind of AMD system test software or AMD driver update software. i was hoping this could run windows without this kind of issue. Now im worried that some of the programs i like to use wont run smoothly on the windows bootcamp side. let me know if you have any resources i can checkout for some possible help. thanks
Boa noite; gostei muito da sua explicação, e também por estar traduzida para o português. Então; vou te explicar, comprei um Mac Pro 6.1 Xeon 12 núcleos , ssd 1 Tera, 128 ram, dual D700 2x6Gb gpu, e já instalado o sistema SONOMA. Agora eu te pergunto, qual é a sua opinião?
Is the GPU option important for Logic Pro? Would the D300s be fine for Audio production or does Logic take advantage of the extra computing power of the D500 or D700?
Apologies for the dodgy lighting, editing and sound. Not my best effort!
Constant Geekery content is stellar
I didn’t notice an issue, just background light increased and decreased in tone.
But I was paying more attention to content that what was around you.
20k subs gogogo
Hey friend, I wonder if you have any suggestion to this problem...when I replaced my internal drive with an OWC one, not knowing better or perhaps something went wrong, I, by mistake formatted the OWC drive in Mac OS Extended (and even worse, as Case-sensitive), since then it won't let me update my OS saying it is a non-compatible third party drive. I asked OWC what to do and they suggest I just put in the original drive to do updates...the problem is that I already long ago wiped that drive fully, including the security partition, for other uses, so I believe it won't do me any good? right? High Sierra really lags for me these days and the case-sensitive mistake has cause me other challenges. Any ideas on what I can do?
@@MichaelSidneyTimpson If you’re happy to wipe the drive, I would try restoring from Internet - OWC drives should support that. (support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904) In the restore system you can open Disk Utility and make the changes, then you can clean install the OS.
@@ConstantGeekery The original drive or the OWC drive? if original drive, do I really have to break open the OWC encloser and remove the OWC drive and put in the original drive or can I do it all from USB?
Great video. i actually picked up 12 core with 512ssd. it only had 16gb ram which upgraded to 64 for less then $100. the great thing about it was it was advertised will D500's but when i got to the seller and we powered on it turned out it had D700s. it was a recording studio get the shelves cleared for the 2019 Mac Pro. The IT guy handling the sale didn't want the hassle so he still honored the listed price with a $100 reduction because i mention the ram upgrade i had to do. Picked it up for $1650! yes it was a steal! I was upgrading from a 2010 Mac Pro Cheese Grader so it wss a nice upgrade. After all the peripherals which i slowly pieced together used and new items total cost of the system came out to about $2300. I'm a sound mixer so it more then enough power for me. Since all my work is offline picture resolution was never going to be an issue. I'm now running four 1080p monitors and i couldn't be happier. the only then i want to advise is make sure to download and install Mac Fan Control. this machine have a tendency of overheating and this app will really help prevent this. the pro edition of the app is $15 and will worth it. After install adjust to at least 1600rpm constant fan and then 1800 for work when editing. this will help tremendously keeping the system from overheating.
That sounds like a very good deal indeed! Completely agree on the fan control. I use TG Pro, which is very similar. My Mac has been super stable ever since. Thanks for watching and sharing 😊
You give Us a complete, concise and precise overview of the benefits of each upgrade on this beautifull Mac model, that we will still use for years to come thanks to you!
You are doing wonderful videos. Thanx a lot. Just bought a 6-core, 64 GB Ram, d500 today. I paid around 370 GBP - witch I think I pretty cheap. It's a beautiful computer - and that's the main reason that I bought it. Just love the design. I have a M1 as well, but this is going to be my "working horse" in my home music studio, running Logic Pro. All the best from Denmark. And thanx again!
Absolutely fantastic. Covers everything and in plain language easy to understand. Thank you so much!!
Thank you 😊
I bought an 8 core 64gb, 1tb d500 about 2 years ago. Absolute beast. Great video
Is it the XEON E-2667 ?
@@AliCan-ni3uy just looked it up online, says E5-1680v2
I appreciate you so much. I love the 6,1 MP's design and recently upgraded to 64GB of RAM and the OWC 1TB Aura x2 SSD still on quad-core, and I'm still running strong on ProTools, Photoshop & Illustrator daily. I am shopping for an 8-Core now, thanks to this video. Your videos are packed with information yet still concise, mastery at its finest. Keep em coming!
Thank you :-)
Biggest thing I can recommend for these 2013 machines is to install iStat menus and turn the speed of the fan up. You will get a much happier machine with less graphics glitching.
Picked up a quad core in mint condition at a very low price and I will be upgrading it to the 8 Core (1680) and 64gb ram as recommended. After trawling through many forums this video was the perfect encapsulation of everything I needed to know. Great video!
Thanks 😊
I just purchased - 8 Core with 64GB RAM, and 1TB SSD, D500 GPU - on Ebay for $500 - I did not see this video before I purchased! but looks like I did a good job! - Thanks :-) for the confirmation!
The best description of Mac Pro 2013 at all!
When Phil Schiller gave a sneak peak of the Trash can Mac Pro i instantly fell in lust with its unique stying , a radical improvement from its big boxy cheese grater predecessor , this machine was elegant and had a small footprint reducing desk clutter . Learning it wasn't that upgradable at the time i blew my savings on a maxed out 12 core 64 GM memory and 1TB SSD . Thats about a grand a year since the purchase price from Apple was 7K . Well its used daily , silent running and still looks awesome , i get the limitations of connectivity but that's the trade off with such a compact machine , it still looks radical and not dated i would go as far as to say a design classic though i know it has its detractors like Marmite .
I bought the quad-core one and upgraded the CPU to 10-core. I love my Macpro now. your videos were very helpful. Your CPU upgrade video was very helpful
Thanks to you I went from wanting 128gb RAM to getting 64gb and from a 6 core to (against your better judgement) a 10 core instead of the 8 you suggested. Your multiple videos on this device have truly inspired me
Thank you - enjoy that new machine! 😁
I have a 12-core with the D300 video cards and it works great for video editing. Thank you for the important info about the SSD.
Hey, I'm thinking of upgrading from the 6core to 12core, I am sure the 12 core is great for video editing but does the lower single-threaded score make it slower for day to day tasks e.g checking emails, RUclips videos or web browsing?
What an amazing man! Found all I needed from this one video for what I've been searching for on Google for the past 3 hours for my purchase of a 2013 mac pro from OWC. Thank you so much, major props to you, Gigachad!
I just bought a base model off some guy on gumtree, it was his work PC and they told him he could keep it. I dont think he new what he was selling tbh cos he listed it at £299 and as soon as I seen it I rang him and said I would take it. WIthin 4 days, I had upgraded to 64 gb of ram ( the max you can have if you want to run it at 1866 Mhz ) stripped it down and took out the crappy 4 core cpu, put an 8 core in, thermal paste and cleaned the machine. Now its running at 38 degrees idle and a lot faster now its using all 4 dimms and the new cpu. I want to get some D700s but they are just to expensive.
I brought a six core with D700s, 64gb and 512SSD, for 2k in 2018. It’s been a great machine and still beats a maxed out Mac Mini
Great series of videos, many thanks! They could have been custom made for me as I own a 6-core nMP. I've upgraded the SSD to 1TB NVMe (easy) and I use a Razor Core X eGPU with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 card to basically bypass the ageing (and not well supported) D500s. What came a real surprise was the 8-core sweet spot! Keep 'em coming.
Hi, this (eGPU Radeon RX Vega 56) is interesting. I'm thinking about it too for video editing not gaming. Do you see a good performance boost? Is it stable and reliable, can you recommend it? Thanks
I bought the entry level MP trashcan in 2013. I could only afford the very base model. But it is still my main computer and does everything I need quickly. I don't do games or video but I do a lot of Logic Pro music with zero problems. My specs
3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5
32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 (upgraded from 12GB...only update)
GPU AMD FirePro D300 2GB
Have NEVER had a fail of any kind. Still my main computer. And I still LOVE the design.
I bought my 6 core new refurbished from Apple in '14 as well as the Apple care warranty. I saved about 1200$us from a brand new in the box one. It came with the D700's, 500gig SSD and 8 gigs of ram which I upgraded to 32. I used it mostly for SD video editing and Photoshop with a little bit of 4k, which it does very well. Now Im mostly using it for music recording and production which is pretty easy for this setup, although nothing really uses GPU that i'm aware of. I just upgraded the SSD to a 1TB EVO, no real problems other than I was using 10.11 and had to upgrade to 10.13 to take advantage of the NVME. So I started to have video troubles recently and after a bit of research found out about the GPU recall, a few calls to the online service dept and they really took care of me. Replaced both video cards, IO board and some other stuff, all no cost. If you have an Apple work flow, this is it.
What kind of problems with video Mark?
This is the best and fullest explanation of the Mac Pro 2013 upgrade options I have seen yet! Thank you!
I am using a 2013 Mac Pro 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5, with the (nicer) AMD FirePro D500 graphic cards for Photoshop work, the logic to move up to the E5-1680 8 core chip makes a lot of sense, thank you! I suppose I could go for the 12 core, but the higher clock speed of the 8 core chip seems like a good idea for normal day to day use, and the loss of speed VS the 12 core does not seem to be that much.
Excellent reivew of the 2013 Mac Pro i just bought one on ebay after i watched your video and i just subscribe to your channel. Thanks a 1,000
Awesome, thank you!
in 2024, in the era of apple silicone, i had the choice of buying a mac mini m1 16gb for $200 but i opted for the capped at macos monterey trashCAN 6-core, 64gb, 1tb, d700 for $150 because besides technological capability, what a truly beautiful machine this is ✨ been watching all your super insightful, empassioned content on this computer + want to sincerely thank you for sharing it all 🙏🏽
Great overview! Just picked up an extremely clean 8-core model with D700s and still has AppleCare in effect for 10 more months. Your series on this Mac has been very helpful!
Glad the vids have ben useful. Great find on that Mac Pro!
Oct 2021 , purchased 2013 12 core/ 64gb /1tb flash storage . It’s a quite a leap from my MacBook Pro 2017 with my i7 quad core 16 gb 512 ssd. Sold MacBook for fairly good price to pay for above hoping it will last me 4-5 years
I wish I could give this video two thumbs up! Great information!
Impressive video, well researched and full of genuinely useful information, been thinking about a Mac Pro 2013 and considering which version and graphic option would work best for me and this just about answer every question! Well done and thank you😊.
Thank you, glad it was of use. 🙂
My main machine still is a 2010 MacPro and love that machine. And I love the 2013 model. Someday I’ll get one.
Thanks for the info, I purchased the six core new with an apple 1TB hard disk when they came out, replaced the ram with OWC 64 gigs. It did overheat sometimes but mainly from collecting dust so clean it out occasionally, i run 2 apple 27inch monitors, an LG 34inch Ultrawide as well as a sony bravia 55 inch through the HDMI port. I love all the monitor ports as it replaced my previous apple tower which I had installed multiple video cards to do the same thing so it was a no brainer to buy a machine that of the box could do what my previous machine had to be customised to do but running about the third of the electricity but more silent, also the fact that it looks a little like R2D2 is a bonus.
This video got you a new subscriber (admittedly way late to the MacOS world) and have been slowly upgrading my 4-core Mac Pro. Thank you for a no-nonsense review of pros and cons to the upgrades.
Thank you for this amazing and educational video. Just bought 6 core, d500 in as new condition and upgrading ram to 64. Thanks again :)
Thanks for this information. I was considering getting a refurbished 2013 Mac Pro since the prices were dropping, and I was thinking of a 12-Core, but now I see that won't give me as big a boost in performance as I would have thought.
Glad it helped 👍🏻
I know your video was 3 years ago, but it was a great help. I just fitted a tb drive and am now going for 64gb of ram in my 6 core machine. I’m keeping it going as I bought it from new. Great bit of kit.
Glad it helped 😊
cool wrap up to this series. I went with an 12 core dual d700 myself. It has been a nice machine to use and I am enjoying it very much.
Thanks TJ - good to hear yours is working out 👍🏻
Thank you for this in depth professional buyer's guidance!
Glad it was useful 👍🏻
Great Video! really helped me decide what to purchase!
So I've always wanted one, and recently had the opportunity to get one on the cheap. 6core 32gb of ram, the low end D300's. I didn''t know what to really do with it, so I did the upgrade from whatever it had to Catalina, and wow what a MISTAKE. First off I loaded up steam as many games that I have, also have MacOS versions, but the majority are 32bit, so that sucked. The one game I wanted to play with my kids, Kerbal Space Program, actually caused the machine to have CONSTANT kernel panics. I think the thermals are kind of dodgy on these machines, they do remind me a lot of the G4 cube, a machine built around a quite heatsink, although the trashcan has a fan at least.. I loaded Macs fan control, a MUST have program for any 2013 Mac Pro user out there, as the Apple defaults are simply too low (I made the mistake of lifting the lid after a kernel panic and it was incredibly hot under there!
You may want to do a video on how to downgrade to Mojave, as it wasn't all that intuitive (well for me anyways) as the bootable USB won't show up in the control panel, instead you have to hold down a key at boot to get the OS boot list to boot from USB. I deleted all the old partitions and installed Mojave which may have been a bad move, as I don't think Mojave installs a factory recovery partition on re-install. OOps.
I have a PC with dual E5 2667v2's and I thought it was a pretty fast machine, although I didn't realise that the 2013 MacPro was also a 2011 machine, I'd thought for some reason it was v3 at least, but oh well.
I'm curious to what others thing of Catalina on the 2013, to me it's a total dud.
Did you ever figure out how to downgrade to Mojave? It’s easy. I can help.
Just got more cooling, I'm your fan :) Seriously, thank you for your insights and videos. I'm modding my 6,1. If you connect it via HDMI it connects to the 4k screen with the right dimensions. Best regards!
😁 the downside to the HDMI is that it only runs at 30Hz for 4K 🙁
Just bought my trashcan originaly purchased in 2015 with dual D700s and 6 core CPU, instantly swapped it into the 3.3 ghz 8 core you've mentioned as I was about to repaste the whole system for optimal cooling :) the sad thing is I bought a wrong nvme ssd which Mac Pro didn't read and I'm about to swap it for another.
I went with a 12 core a couple years ago. At the time my thinking was that I wanted to max out everything on my 6 core. So I went to 64GB ram, OWC Aura Pro x2 1TB SSD and was already working with dual D700.
What I found out is that the D700 have more artifacting problems than the D500. Also, the 12 core CPU only hits it's stride when you are firing on all cylinders. On single threaded stuff the 6 core was slightly better. Wish I'd gone with the 8 core. Also, you can get 128GB ram to fit, but it knocks you down a notch in speed.
Overall I'm happy with my setup as I can have Photoshop, Premiere, Logic and a few other things open with no noticeable impact.
OTOH, I still suffer terribly doing renders. Also, the disk subsystem and USB ports are slow and really bottleneck the work you can do.
TB2 is the only way to go for storage. The USB3 on this machine is actually only slightly faster than USB2. It is very bad!
EXCELLENT VIDEO!! I was considering buying a Mac Pro 6,1. I am a Hobbyist only that likes to work with Photoshop. I have a complete Photo Editing System now in the form of a Mac Pro 3.1 Early 2008. The system is old but works fine, No real need to upgrade. After watching this Video I think I need to know more about not only the Computers but the upgraded photoshop software as well. Again, Great Video Very Informative on the Important need to know aspects of these computers.
I've only recently discovered your wonderful channel when looking for upgrade advice for my Mac Pro 2013 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 which I bought on eBay in early 2017 - so thank you for enlightening me of the constructive options available. I matched the Mac Pro to a newly discontinued Dell UK2715K monitor which had matching twin Display ports as well as a single Thunderbolt 2 mini Display port. I had the ram upgraded from 8GB to 32GB using 16GB x 2 in one pair of slots only. Sadly, the pair of display port cables only worked for a short period before something gave up the ghost so I am left with the single mini display port cable as the main source of monitor display. I have successfully produced an animated 8 minute video using Adobe Premiere (albeit the rendering was painfully slow) as well as for Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom but have now run out of disk space but use USB WD hard drives for extra storage. I now want to upgrade the Ram and replace the processor as demonstrated on your video (it looks relatively straight forward?). My questions are as follows,
1) Replacing Ram:- How do I identify the Generation 3 or 4 Apple replacements being advertised compared to the original fitted Ram boards?
2) Replacing CPU:- Should I look only at 8 core CPU with 130 watts for this particular Quad powered machine rather than 12 core that appears to require 150 watts?
3) What do you think is my problem with the paired display port cables not delivering (half screen each when they worked)?
4) I run Catalina 10.15.4. Should I revert to Mohave?
These issues have been accumulating over the last 2 years until I discovered your channel! Any advice would be very welcome - thank you.
This is a superb informational video. This is a great summary of options, issues and recommendations!! Caused me to subscribe to your channel. Keep up the great work!
Great series. I need a machine in my workshop do do light CAD Fusion 360. No $$ right now but this is on the horizon.
aspiring audio engineer here, I have been having issues with audio plugins in pro tools running on windows and macs, I mainly use 6 core processors and the 1 time I used an Apple silicon processor I finally had the pleasure of running more plugins, it was the 10c CPU with 8 Performance and 2 efficiency cores. Its a lot of money.. I just purchased a Mac pro quad core, and a 2697 v2 12 core CPU. I specifically looking for a budget replacement for the expensive m1 pro macbook pro! IF this performs the same or better then im selling the macbook pro!
i have WD SN580 in it and worked fine with the internet restore
Thanks! Your video helped a great deal. I was going to get the 12-core. But now I will opt for the 8-core which suits my usage much better. Thanks again!!!
Another year later, and your videos are still saving my bacon 🥓
Here's another "tweak" you can do to the trashcan; 3rd party sellers provide RAM upgrades for it to 128GB. HOWEVER, there is a penalty. Apparently the clock speed of the RAM goes down when you do this, and surprisingly, the hit gets worse the more cores you have. I think this is another thing you might have fun investigating....
Yes, I discovered this in some research, as I was going to “fully load” mine. It actually has a noticeable affect on performance and CPU benchmarks. There was quite a jump in benchmarks between the original 12GB / 3 DIMM configuration and my 64GB / 4 DIMM configuration. It would be great to get a load of different sized DIMMs and test all the possible combinations... 😁
Very thorough and good follow up to your Mac Pro videos and great work on the graphs for a real snapshot of performance. Thinking of options currently and this helps me. Thank you very much for making.
Thank you for watching 😊
Dust makes a huge difference, my AIO Ryzen 7 1700, was reducing performance to 25% due to bad air flow from duct. I opened system up, cleaned intake holes and removed system fan (CPU/GPU) and body, vacuumed out heat sink etc.
Performance went back to 97-99%. Didn't change thermal paste as system under warranty still.
This is what I had been looking for.
As a photographer who spends most of his time in photoshop, I have to say single core performance is far more important than multi core (to me). There are certainly filters in Photoshop that run faster with more cores. But I find its very rare that I use those. I would guess a graphic designer might spend more time in those filters.
For me the 4 core is the way to go and I might upgrade to the 6 or 8 some time later. A large 2TB SSD was my first upgrade, followed by 32GB of RAM, up form the stock 12. Anyone with 12 should bump to 16. You can find plenty of cheap 4GB sticks online from people who replaced the 3 in their machine.
Just bought a 6 core 32gb RAM, 1Tb SSD with the D500 graphics cards. Your video has convinced me that I made the right choice. I have already found a matched set of 4 x 16 sticks of RAM for £36 and a used E5-2667 V2 for £15.
That is a total of less than £320 for a very decent machine! (now where’s that thermal paste!)
(Edited to add that reading most of the comments on here, the 1680 8-core processor is probably the way to go. A bit rarer and about twice the price of the 2667 but I suspect that I will end up with a better machine.)
I would stick with the 2667 - it's clocked slightly higher. Not much difference on boost frequencies, but in theory you should get marginally better single core performance.
@@ConstantGeekery So you would recommend the 2667 over the 1680?
@@john8451 either is great. I’d choose the 2667 personally.
Incredible video. The research is very useful. Thx
So deep. The 8 core feels like the best CPU all-round 10:29
Well done on the video and the research on it! This is the kind of content I'm looking for. Well done!
Thank you 😊
Still a great help in 2021 ! Thank you. Subscribed.
Excellent video! Thank you!
Great video! I just got a Max Pro 2016 6 core on ebay for 900USD! I will upgrade it to 12 core, 128gb and 2tb ssd
Nice! That’s a bit of a bargain!!
I think this is the best looking mac ever
Thank you for the great videos on the 2013 Mac Pro. Very informative, except some of your suggestions like doing a CPU upgrade are mostly only applicable to units that are out of warranty. There are still some new and refurbished ones out there. I found an Apple certified refurbished unit and I got AppleCare+ for it. I'll have to be careful with any upgrades due to the warranty. It looks like I would need to have an Apple authorized service provider do a CPU upgrade for me because reading over their terms it says if they think the computer has been opened (by someone other than Apple or an authorized service provider) they can reject covering any repair for any reason. Also, I have a copy of the technician repair manual and there are very specialized tools only available from Apple that are necessary for replacing internal parts such as the CPU and GPUs. I think it would be best to use those tools and follow Apple's instructions or have an authorized service provider do the work.
Glad you found the videos useful. If you are in a position where you have a warranty, then that’s a fair point and I wouldn’t recommend taking the unit apart. RAM upgrades and SSD would be OK, but nothing more... until the warranty expires. 😜
Of course, the previous Mac Pro 5,1 and the newer Mac Pro 7,1 are designed to be user upgradeable, so it’s understandable why many pros weren’t happy with this particular generation. In fact, it would seem Apple really don’t like CPU upgrades in these - I have a video going up soon about that. Thanks for watching!
Man, wish I watched this before I got my 12 core.
Issues with Bootcamp on Sierra and High Sierra
So I have a brand new Mac Pro 2013 with an NVMe drive and migrated my Mojave and files from a 2012 Mac mini with an HDD drive and that Mac mini USED to have a working windows 8.1 (I deleted it and reformatted the drives at some point)
Great the migration of logins and everything work. So I create a partition to use Sierra so that I can use that bootcamp to make Windows 8.1 like I did on the mini.
I have the same Windows 8.1 3.9gb ISO I used on the mini and the same flash drive. I go to bootcamp, select the ISO (yes it is unmounted/ejected in disk utility as recommended by many people) and when it comes to the USB I either get " Your bootable USB drive could not be created. An error occurred while formatting the disk" I redo the process a few more times and then it gets past that and then gets stuck at "An error occurred while copying windows installation files"
I have tried USB 2.0 flash drives and 3.0 32gb and 128gb. Yes they have been formatted to MS DOS FAT.
I even tried using a HDD, same errors.
Yes I have also reformatted my NVMe and done a fresh install of all and time machine backups. Same errors
So then I installed High Sierra as well, as soon as the windows support files are downloaded it says "Error while partioning your disk" (Directly to my NVMe)
Ive also unmounted/ejected the ISO after every try, I used an ISO splitter to split the ISO as well (After doing all of this) still same issues. I Love Windows 8.1, runs fast on everything and hate windows 10. I want to play my old games such as GTA 3 and Rolercoaster tycoon CDs yet Windows 10 doesn't work with them without steam which I don't want to use. Can someone help?
I have a feeling that Boot Camp Assistant only works with Win 8 up to Sierra. 9to5 Mac do an excellent tutorial on installing Win10 to an external drive (ruclips.net/video/3IhW722IMwE/видео.html) - I know you don’t want Win10, but might be worth trying it with your Win8 ISO. I run Bootcamp from an external T5 SSD on my 2013 Mac Pro, because I didn’t want to partition my internal SSD. Maybe this is an option? 🤷🏼♂️
Constant Geekery it works on High Sierra and Sierra with 8.1, I used them on my mac minis. Im thinking the issue is that the Mac Pro uses APFS for the NVME while my minis both had 2x 1tb hard drives that used OS Journaled. Windows 10 installed without issues thanks to your linked videos, as much as I hate it for how glitchy it is, Im stuck with it. Thank you for the help friend
Do any of the mac pro 2013 motherboards support the compatible cpus you mentioned?
All the E5 v2 CPUs I mentioned are compatible with any 2013 Mac Pro.
CPU/GPU speed aren’t the only measures that matter. How fast are the drives in these machines? I’m guessing pretty slow compared to new SSDs in the Mac Mini or the MacBook Pros.
I’ve done other videos on that, but max speed on this machine will be about 1,400 MB/sec. So, yes, slower than the latest. However, as Linus Tech Tips recently proved, once you get to about 600 MB/sec, most people can’t tell the difference in everyday usage. Obviously if your workflow involves a lot of file copying you will notice, but for the vast majority of workflows, it’s plenty fast enough.
I checked Geekbench 5 chart and filtered only for Mac pro 6.1 Tests.
I found out that the 2667 v2 is slight better than the 1680 v2.
Interesting
So many thank you, a real usefull video!
If you use FCPX or the like get as much memory and cores as you can afford AND spend the most on the D700 GPUs. that's what I have and can tell you I could still use more than my 6 core, 128gb RAM, D700 2013 Mac Pro!
Really really great information about my Mac Pro 2013 I which have a way to contact you to ask more questions. You sound like deeply knowledgeable about this Mac Pro
You’re welcome to email. I don’t have much free time, but if I can help I will.
Fantastic video and very useful information. So is the 8 core version better in your opinion? I use it with audio DAW like Cubase. Can I get more with the 12 core version? (for example more plugin at the same time, more tracks, etc.. ) thanks
The 8-core can boost more cores to higher frequencies, so for most people it will be the better real-world choice. The 12-core really only outperforms it when it’s using all (or almost all) of its cores. For audio, I’d say that individual core frequency is perhaps not as important as having plenty of cores - though that depends on the individual use case. Both CPUs will work well, but the 12-core will certainly allow for more plugins, tracks etc.
@@ConstantGeekery Thank you very much for your advices
Thanks so much for this series. It has given me food for thought!
May I ask whether you find any issues with the D500 and your Dell U3219Q, especially when smooth-scrolling long websites at scaled 4k resolutions? I have been trialing an i7 MacMini but the UHD630 onboard graphics are just not up to it and the scrolling is dropping frames.... It's horrid! In light of this, I'm wondering if a 6,1 might be an option as a stop-gap before Apple Silicon takes over. Thanks again for the content.
Glad you enjoyed it. My Mac Pro has the D300s, but they are fine with the 4K display and scaled resolutions. Even a single D300 has something like 6x the raw power of UHD630.
@@ConstantGeekery Thanks, that's really helpful. Just need to find one at a sensible price!
I think you can enable 4 cores to run max speed and other 8 cores at lower speed, kind of like a mobile phone.
I upgraded from 4 core my Mac Pro 2013 it come with to 12 core Intel Xeon E5 2697. Day to day task are feste r with it!🤭
Also games wor better.
And Pro aps work better.
Wait why are you saying the 8c e5-2667 is worse than the stock 8c e5-1680? On paper it’s better. The base clock and boost clock are both higher for the 2667
I just bought 4 core with 512gb, 64 gb ram version, 🤞for years of use. I’m mot sure I’ll upgrade cpu as I’m more single core user with occasional multi core use.
I'm sure it will provide many years of service - enjoy!
@@ConstantGeekery I got the Mac Pro, love it, but in Windows 10 during boot up I get all kinds of acid-colors for a brief second...GPU issues/failure or WIN10 and Bootcamp driver issues? Yikes, love the Mac Pro but may need to return.
@@DJonathanHayes76 if it’s not doing it in macOS, I’d say it’s possibly a Windows driver thing. 🤷♂️
@@ConstantGeekery I was using display port to mini display and tried hdmi same results... I’m in my return window, eBay purchase...it’s super fast in Mac but do seem to get warm to touch under medium load to heavy load but I’m using istats to monitor temps, they are 35 c to 65c normal load then upper 75c under load with a few spikes to upper 80+...I may try reloading windows to see if it does better, oh the things that test is, LOL!
Wonderful video..!!! I want to buy one just by watching...
Great series, aftet watching I decided to make a Mac pro 6.1 purchase with a 6 core 32g AMD D500. I have one question as I day trade stocks , I notice I could not add more then 2 monitors I usally use 4 monitors. I notice You had ePGU in the back ground, would that help with adding more monitors to Mac Pro ? or which is the best ePGU that matches up with Our Mac Pro? Thank you
You should be able to drive six displays, unless your screens are 4K, in which case it’s two via the Thunderbolt ports and one more on HDMI (though HDMI will only run 4K at 30Hz). The eGPU is an option for additional displays and I’ll be doing a video on this soon. It is not natively supported on the Mac Pro 6,1 so you have to use a third party tool to make it work (purge-wrangler). You also need Apple’s Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. You won’t get maximum performance from the graphics card. Also you have to plug in (or switch on the eGPU) after boot up and it’s best to disable sleep mode. I use the Razer Core X because you can buy your own card - you can’t change the card in the Blackmagic Design models. If all you need is additional displays, the Sonnet Breakaway Puck is the cheapest route. Hope that helps, and thanks for watching! 😊
@@ConstantGeekery They are not 4k monitors just LG 23inch FULL HD 1920X1080 - I tried to get all 4 displays going at the same time, did not work. But I am going to go with Sonnet Breakaway Puck - Ill just have to figure out (purge wrangler ) thank you for the reply - looking forward towards your ePGU video!
What a phenomenal video! I've been looking to buy one of these (I'm a software developer, so for what I need I think the 8 core could do the trick haha). Any recommendations on where to buy one in Canada? I've been having some trouble finding a refurbished one, in excellent condition. Thanks!!
Thank you! I’m in the UK, so I don’t know much about the Canadian market. Prices seem to be quite inflated at the moment, so it’s getting tougher to find a bargain. You might try emailing or calling some web / design studios in your area to see if they have any they’re looking to offload. Often business can’t be bothered with the hassle of listing things on eBay, so you can pick up good machines at decent prices that way. Given the current climate, you may find studios looking to offload equipment.
Thanks for the advice! I just bought a 6 core from a reputable seller on eBay. The price was the best that I could find. Now I’m just waiting to get my hands on it and see it for myself. Keep up the good work! Stay safe, sir!
Vítor Côrtes Happy to be of help. Enjoy the new beast!
i know this is a 3yo video but i just bought a mac pro with the base cpu and gpu with 32gb of ram im thinking of upgrading the cpu but i never used a mac before so ill see how i adapt :)
This would be perfect with the M1 chip.
I was getting ready to build this but with the new Mac minis and studio, it just doesn’t make sense.
It’s a tough sell in 2023. They’re still perfectly decent machines, but you’ve got to really want one at this point.
Thanks. Any info on idle power draw between various models? Can you unplug the second video card to save power?
No worries, your fine.
Thinking to buy Mac Pro, but wondering how long will Apple support software updates on 2013 machine. I don’t want to buy Mac Pro and then I don’t get system updates after couple of years, which already makes your computer slower.
Do you still have your trash can MacPro? Still usable?
I sold mine. But yes, I high spec one is still usable if you can get it at a sensible price. Given the M2 Mac Mini, it's getting harder to argue for the Trash Can unless you have a specific need of x86.
I'm trying to build a mac pro in 2022 foremost for music production on a pro level with logic pro X, secondary use would be video editing but only on really rare occasions. Does a Mac Pro Trash can model make any sense in 2022? I built all my pcs in the past and I don't have any experience with macs, so I don't understand this no future support issue. I would go for the 8 core or 12 core with 32 or 64gb of ram and a TB or 2 ssd. Ps: strictly for work so don't care about video game performance and I know that 4k video rendering takes forever but not going to use it for that too much.
thanks for this great video. I have one question: is there any possibility to use other GPUs for this Mac ? Is there any Geforce GPUs ?
If you mean the internal GPUs, there are only 3 choices, and upgrading is a non-starter due to the cost. With eGPU, you can go with any of the latest AMD cards, but you won’t be able to use any decent nVidia cards as there is no driver support in macOS anymore. Apple insist that drivers support their Metal framework, and nVidia refuse to play ball. Their silly argument deprives consumers of choice.
Have been watching this Mac Pro series and it has really informed my decision to pick one up. One question I do have is, would buying an OWC apple ssd give me the same benefits as having a "genuine" apple ssd? The owc is keyed like the apple, but I cant seem to find performance number or whether you can restore the OS via internet recovery like an apple drive.
Cheers!
I believe it is fully compatible, but probably best to drop their support team an email to check. The Aura Pro X2 will be limited by the Mac Pro’s PCIe 2.0 x4 bandwidth, so I’d say you’ll be looking at something like a max performance of1500MB/sec read and 1200MB/sec write. The drive is capable of more, so it should in theory run cooler, but I’ve not personally tested one.
@@ConstantGeekery Thanks for the insight, I will give them a call. The adapters are so cheep I might grab one and do a video showing the speeds.
@@mechpilotace123 👍🏻send me a link if you do the vid - I’d like to see that.
Thank you
If you install core unlocker for these cpu, you get even more performance.
Hi☺️👍🏻 how are you?
I have a mac pro 6.1 quad core 12gb ram and 256SSD. I have seen all yout videos on youtube, i wanted to upgrade the machine. I’m musician, and i need power because i use a lot of track. I think the 12 cores processor is the best, where do you advice me to buy it? At OWC the have it for 414$ tested, do you recommend another site? I would like to put the maximum of ram memory, to work well with orchestral libraries, and the SSD, i saw in a video of you, that with the samsung nvme m2 970 evo, plus and adapter, was is ok? Thank very much
You can get 12-cores for less on eBay - I think mine was £195 (about $245). Obviously, that’s untested without a warranty, so OWC’s price is reasonable. Lots of these CPUs are pulled from servers that have been sat in datacentres their whole life, which is pretty much a perfect environment, so I wasn’t personally worried about buying used. I don’t personally use a 970 SSD in my Mac Pro. Bear in mind that the 970 EVO and the 970 EVO Plus are different models. The Plus needs a firmware update to be compatible, so I would stick to the standard 970 EVO. Many users say this combo is fine, but I’ve not personally tested it. If you’re in any doubt, find a generation 3 Apple SSD.
What about the E5-2696 v2 12 core ? It seems to be keeping up with the 2697 v2 for multicore scores on Geekbench despite being 120W. Im giving up with the stupid sellers on eBay trying to get them to ship a 2697 v2 over to me in Cyprus. thats why i have taken an interest in the 2696 v2.
Yep, there’s not much difference between them. I’d say a very worthy alternative.
JUST SEEN{:::::.......fully upgraded Mac Pro 6,1 has been upgraded to the Intel Xeon E5-2680v2 10-Core 2.80Gz Processor and 64GB of Memory. Alongside this it has the upgrade to support NVME storage upgrading to a 512GB SSD. BUT NOT MENTIONED WHICH GRAPHICS VERSION, would it be D500 do you think?
What would be the best graphic card variation Mac Pro to look for used, if planning to run 3 screens (maybe even 6 screens eventually) for stock day trading? Have the opportunity to purchase a nice condition Mac Pro with D500 graphics. Would this be suffice for 3 to screen setup?
Not quite sure if VRAM or the MHz speed is the more important spec to watch for smooth multi screen use? Would appreciate any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Chandler
It depends on the resolution of the displays. I think the D500 would be fine for three screens. All of the models can support up to three 5K Thunderbolt displays, and I’ve seen six 1440p displays being used. VRAM is probably the most important factor.
Constant Geekery I appreciate the reply on that. So say in the future I’d want to move my trading setup to 6 thunderbolt displays, each running think or swim stock charts and other softwares. Do you think the D500 would still handle this with ease? Or is this something the D700 would be more necessary for, as it had the greater 6gb VRAM?
@@yochanman it depends on the resolution. As far as I know, all the 2013 Mac Pro models can drive six of Apple’s 27” Thunderbolt displays. Those were 1440p panels. I believe you can also use Mini DisplayPort (same connector as Thunderbolt 2) to connect 6 displays via DisplayPort. Apple updated these Macs so that they can support three dual-cable 5K displays, which is double the pixel count of six 1440p panels. If all the models can manage the 5K displays, it seems reasonable that all of them could manage six 1440p displays. So I don’t think you specifically need the D700 model for what you’re trying to do. I have no personal experience running this many screens though.
Constant Geekery ok awesome thanks for that. Yeah did mean to put the display types in last comment.
My main screen is the 27” Thunderbolt Display, second is a 21” 2011 iMac running as an external display as target display mode.
then running two of those small USB-c portable 1080p lcd screens. So the D500 sounds like it should handle these just fine then
Thanks so much for the help my friend
I am using a 2013 Mac Pro 6 core / 16Gb RAM. As a music producer, I've learned that it is a very capable machine, especially running external thunderbolt devices. My only quirk is that there is "no way" to upgrade it to Thunderbolt 3. All new components are utilizing the faster USB-C. Having to use the adapter is a bummer. Any thoughts to a possible upgrade to utilizing the Ethernet port to Thunderbolt 3? or is it not the same speed? Thanks :)
There’s no way to get Thunderbolt 3 unfortunately. You can get faster USB by putting a PCIe card into an external PCIe Thunderbolt interface. Or, if you’re using eGPU, some enclosures (like the Razer Core X Chroma) have USB 3.1 ports. Thunderbolt 2 is quick enough to run these at full speed, though you’ll quickly hit the limits if you have more than one device plugged in, and the speed increase is probably not worth the cost.
Thunderbolt 3 is 40Gbit/sec. Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gbit/sec. USB 3.1 is 10Gbit/sec.
The Ethernet ports are 1Gbit/sec, so no options there either.
@@ConstantGeekery Thanks so much for such quick reply. I've subscribed to your channel. As a music producer, I use an OWC Helios Thunderbolt 2 chassis for a single card. I was asking because I am considering purchase a UA Octo PCIe card during holiday sales. This is to offload processing of plugins and entering into the world of Universal Audio. My ProTools is choking running lots of plugins. But the options now are all Thunderbolt 3. Is the only option for my 2013 Mac Pro the 3 to TB-2 adapter with a chassis?
@@kirkskeys Thanks for the sub 😊👍🏻 Yes, external PCIe is the only option unless you can find an older Thunderbolt model.
Or there is a USB option perhaps - not sure if this is the same thing: mrph.me/22KTY
@@ConstantGeekery Indeed it is. I am just a little cautious with that option since it is the same price as the bare card. I believe the card in an OWC enclosure may have more stability with a cooling fan. But thanks so much for your input. Much appreciated.
I just bought the 12 core 64gb and d700 version. i have it in bootcamp. but cant run some games because of it showing that the driver is not the latest. and i cant figure out how to upgrade the driver. the bootcamp seems to not have the latest driver for it. i also cant use any kind of AMD system test software or AMD driver update software. i was hoping this could run windows without this kind of issue. Now im worried that some of the programs i like to use wont run smoothly on the windows bootcamp side. let me know if you have any resources i can checkout for some possible help. thanks
Boa noite; gostei muito da sua explicação, e também por estar traduzida para o português.
Então; vou te explicar, comprei um Mac Pro 6.1 Xeon 12 núcleos , ssd 1 Tera, 128 ram, dual D700 2x6Gb gpu, e já instalado o sistema SONOMA.
Agora eu te pergunto, qual é a sua opinião?
thank you!!!
Is the GPU option important for Logic Pro? Would the D300s be fine for Audio production or does Logic take advantage of the extra computing power of the D500 or D700?
GPU won't make a difference to Logic Pro.