Friday, October 18th, 2013| Author: Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where your 2009 or later Mac Pro could compete with, or even outperform the brand new, fancy-shmancy 2013 iMac when it comes to graphics? We do! In fact, with minimal tweaking, your older Mac Pro can be a dream machine for gamers and creative professionals who depend on the highest quality graphics to do what they do. That may sound crazy, but prepare for a big surprise when you check out the by rob-ART morgan over at Bare Feats. It’s amazing, but an older Mac Pro can outperform later versions of the iMac in almost every significant category. One look at the numbers shows you that a three-year-old Mac Pro with blows the iMacs with GTX 680MX and 780M GPU’s out of the water. That’s something to think about when you are considering whether or not you should upgrade. Sure, there are some great perks with the latest iMac, but if you are hoping they will supply you with a significant bang for your buck when it comes to a graphics upgrade, be prepared to be disappointed.
![]() ![]() Like any other laptop, MacBook Pro also doesn’t support upgrade of graphics card. The graphics card is embedded to the motherboard and upgrade means replacing the motherboard. Apple would hardly support this, as they request the users that while configuring, ensure the best configuration is selected as once finalized modifications are not. That is pretty much all you need to build a machine that can handle just about anything you throw at it. The fact is, as rob-ART points out, the mobile GPU’s Apple sticks into the new iMac are no longer on par with the desktop versions of those same GPU’s. What does that tell you? You don’t need to drop between $1,300 and $2,000 to feel like you are actually in the heart of the swarm in the latest version of StarCraft or to feel like you need to physically start dodging bullets when playing your fave first-person shooter. You don’t need a brand new iMac to be at the top of your profession if you are an artist, game designer or any other type of visual arts professional. All you need is your 2009 or later Mac Pro coupled with the, and bam, you have what it takes to be the best you can be, whether you want to survive the latest zombie apocalypse or design the next one. That’s why I just traded in my 2013 Macbook Pro for a 2010 Mac Pro. I can’t bring myself to drop 3K on an exact replacement that is almost identical to the one I already had except for being around 10% slower and have an extra port. Apple need to take note. I now have a 2010 Mac Pro that is much faster and far more upgrade-able and I had change when selling my macbook. How to get parallels for free mac windows 10. I’ll wait a few years for Apple to impress me again – my Mac Pro will still be outperforming 90% of Macbooks and iMacs in 5 years at this rate. As an added comment – as of this moment, there is still only one Thunderbolt display made – Apple’s 2011 Thunderbolt 27″ display – and I would argue there are better options for 27″ displays today. It’s almost insulting that they have not updated it in the past 2.5 years – not even upgrading it to USB 3.0 for the built in hub. Thunderbolt takes the place of PCIe internal expansion and isn’t yet as fast as what you get from direct PCIe slots. Given the choice, would rather have the PCIe slots vs. Thunderbolt if couldn’t have both and unfortunately, the 2013 Mac Pro adds Thunderbolt – but takes away the PCIe expansion – so to justify the 2013, other factors must weigh imho. If I may weigh in here: For a pro user, I’d highly suggest going with a for the best options on upgrading, customization, and longevity. The 2009 and later versions have PCIe 2.0 slots across the board, while the MacPro3,1 (2008) model has two PCIe 1.1 and two PCIe 2.0 one of which is required by the graphics card. Additionally the 2008 model uses 800MHz memory which is slower and more expensive that the 1066MHz or 1333MHz modules available for the 2009 and later models. I go into more detail in, but in a nutshell, the 2009-2013 models have all the capability and potential for a pro user to get the work that needs to be done now – done. It will definitely be a viable and powerful machine for future use as well. Advancements in the OS will always mean that compatibility with older machines will be dropped if the machine is inadequate to give a good user experience while using the new OS. I’m not anticipating that happening to the 2009 or later Mac Pro models for a while still. Once Thunderbolt-equipped versions of all your needed add-ons and peripherals are available in the marketplace, that in my opinion would be the cost-effective time to consider making the switch. I have a 2009 Mac Pro with upgraded GPU and 256 Gig SSD. It has 12 Gig RAM and dual quadcore processor.
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