I have an opportunity to purchase a Mac Pro (Late 2013) 3.7 E5 32GB of memory, AMD FirePro 2Gb, 480GB PCi Disk $875. What do you all think? Is this worth the buy. I like the form factor, just not sure I should buy this or wait for either an M series Mac Mini Pro or Pro iMac. I do own on M1 MacBook Pro, also a 2008 Mac Pro, which I would use the "Trash Can" as a replacement.
Mac Pro
Now is a terrible time to think about buying an old Mac Pro, and the 2013 models are starting to have graphics issues when there are no longer any spare parts available.
What work do you do with the 2008 Mac Pro you own now? How does it fall short of your needs?
That isn't an unreasonable consideration. While no longer 'Pro' used 2013 Mac Pros do work as alternatives to the 2018 Mac Mini for people who still want an Intel Mac and feel the increased graphical performance of a discrete GPU is more important than newer faster I/O port speeds of the 2018 Mini.
The lack of spare parts is a concern, but so far the 2GB D300 GPUs seem to be aging better than the faster hotter D500/D700 cards.
As for upgrading now vs waiting for Pro Apple Silicon... that comes down to how much longer you can risk waiting. Apple still has over a year before reaching their stated goal of a 2-year transition.
You can get a replacement graphics card with Apple firmware, and if you don't need Mojave, there are a very large number of cards that users gave up when they switched card to upgrade to Mojave.
You can run El Capitan with Apple's blessing, and if you are willing to go off the beaten path and use hobbyist hacks, a whole lot more.
What does that money buy you that you can't get in your current Mac Pro 2008?
The 2008 is working fine, mostly. I'm on my 3rd set of risers, and the video card, I upgraded to 5770 or 4770 or similar died or had issues, I had to remove it and replace with the original card. Older OS, safari only works on most not all pages. I really only use it to serve ripped movies to the ATV.
Thanks. I was really thinking it was more of a good deal than anything else and I really like the looks. I could probably go with a newer Mac Mini or even an M! Mac Mini. I 'm just looking for an easy way to serve ripped content to my ATV and use it as a back up. Just trying to do this the most cost effective way.
Ya, I’m an El Capitan. I think I’ll try and find a 2010-2012 Mac Pro as a back up, those are usually more expensive though. Unless I come up with another plan.
Mac Pro Trash Can 6.1
