Macbook pro vs mac pro

John wells

John wells

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hi there

I'm looking for guidance/advice, i own a 2009 macbook pro which is great,its using an SSD to boot from and run programmes from but i recently added to the family a macbook air so the pro simply sits there.

what I'm wondering is how much of an improvement on PS and LR etc would i see if i moved to a Mac Pro, as I'm not looking to spend £3k on a new one I'm thinking 1.1,2.1 or possibly 3.1 model but they are coming up around £300 but obviously have 8 cores and faster ram.

bear in mind I'm not hugely computer literate.

Thanks in advance especially this who have used both.

John
 
Depends on how much Ram you stick in it. Do not get the 1.1 and 2.1 will require smbios hacks to run anything recent. 3.1 is pretty much the only option if you are not very computer literate. So an 3.1 with 16gb of ram would be pretty fast for regular photo needs.
 
i would try to max out the ram, its what I've done int the Macbook to be honest, i did look at the earlier ones because i understand that you can get yosemite on it with the right graphics card but not sure how difficult that would be
 
John wells said:
I'm not hugely computer literate.

John
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John,

Might be a good idea to stick with the vanilla flavour then.

Yes the Mac Pro is going to be faster, but are there any other reasons for upgrading? Are a few milliseconds going to make a huge difference? Do you use it for business purposes as well? Yes a 2009 will be starting to show its age, I generally reckon on a five year life for Mac's and an Air probably won't cut the mustard for heavy photo processing tasks.

The size of your files will also be relevant. What sort of size files does your camera normally output and how much pp do you do to each image?

If the MBP simply 'sits there' isn't the Mac Pro going to be doing the same? A case of GAS? Not saying you shouldn't, just take a deep hard look at why you need it.
 
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thanks Shreds

when I bought the macbook it was for portability and processing power over our old imac, portability has been taken over by the air, although I would never put cs6 on it.

the files are full sized raw canon 5d files so around 10meg I think, but I have been playing with brenizer and other multi shot methods which boost files sizes.

I mainly wondering I guess if the Mac Pro is a longer term deal as I would expect it's easier to upgrade and keep up etc it seems a waste to run a laptop as a desk top, not sure how much having 8 cores but slower ram would be over dual core and faster ram, both would run boot drives that are ssd's
 
Very pleased with my Mac Pro - 5.1 mid 2010 model. Its a quad core 2.8 single processor model and I've optimised the RAM to 24 gb. The beauty of a desktop model is that you have four hard disk slots and its dead easy to replace them. I'm probably going to add a pair of SSDs shortly as I think it will make Lightroom quicker. Editing photos on a 27 inch display (mine's a Dell) is also easier than on a laptop screen.
 
If you don't feel the need for it, then don't worry. I worked on 2gb+ files on an i7 macbook air 11" from 2012 without issues. Mac pro is not exactly a long term investment, OS support could be dropped, and it is picky about hardware
 
The MacPro is a great machine, however I do wonder if it is the ideal machine for you. The MacPro is designed for intensive video work, and whilst it will work well with both Lightroom and Photoshop, I think it's a bit overkill for these. I would look at the iMac.OK not as many cores as the MacPro, but does come with it's own screen.which you would need to add to the cost of the MacPro.

I looked very seriously at the MacPro when it came out, to replace my iMac, and came to the conclusion that it was a great machine for video work, but overkill for everything else. The new iMacs are a much better buy even if you don't opt for the 5K. I'm about to upgrade my 2010 iMac for a new one as I'm handling more video work OK it's mainly corporate work, no feature films , but I still think that a 4GHz iMac will do me nicely. Thunderbolt 2 ports if I ever need that speed for data transfer ( which I doubt) . and will handle Lightroom and Photoshop. Go for the i7 processor it does make all difference, and now apps are using GPU processing max this out as well.

I'd also wait until mid June. WWDC is the 8th June and we may see some upgrades in the pipeline Intel are due some new chips this year .iMac5K with 4GHz processor and and the faster video card 8 Gb memory ( Cheaper to buy third party ) and Apple care comes in at £2538 Not too dissimilar to the Mac Pro of similar spec, plus you get a screen as well
 
try and buy fro the usa as they are a lot cheaper and any apple shop in the world will honour the warranty
not like camera manufacturers :(
 
US prices don't include sales tax, as this varies from state to state. You'll probably get a 20% VAT surcharge on top of the price as soon as it enters the UK plus a 5% ( or there abouts )import duty for electricals. Plus the shipping cost if Apple in the US will ship to the UK. Take the price of an iMac in the US convert $ to £ add Vat and it's about the same amount ( Assuming yo don't get hit with the extra 5%)
 
thanks folks, I certainly won't be dropping £2k on a computer... as I don't shoot video I suspect the main point it the map won't be heavily outshone my its desktop brother, I already have the second screen as I couldn't just work from that 13 inch screen
 
New here, but I use a Late 2013 13" Macbook Pro with retina display and it's more than adequate for my fairly basic needs. I would say that a current Mac Pro isn't necessary for general photography work, you could get a MBPro and a decent display or 2 (non Apple) for less than the cost of a Pro on its own.

This would be my preferred setup - 2.7GHz with 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM (8GB is adequate) and a couple of displays - total cost should be less than £2k. The biggest advantage of this is that it's easy to pick up the computer and take it out with you. :)

Older Pros are great workhorses, but they're getting on a bit now, don't have USB 3 or Thunderbolt and can be expensive to repair.
 
For anyone buying a Macbook Pro Retina, I would recommend going for a 16 gb RAM. I only got the 8 and regret it, bearing in mind that it can not be upgraded at a later date.:(
 
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