Mac Pro Mid 2012 Processor Upgrade

[iownamac]

Hey guys,

I have a mac pro (mid 2012 model) with dual 2.4 GHz Six Core (i think 24 cores in total) 32-nm Xeon E5645 (Westmere) processors also with 32 gb of ram. I edit video full time and I just upgraded my graphics card (long overdue). I was wondering, what's the fastest processor I can upgrade my computer to? It's fine as is but I would like to max it out as much as possible to increase export rendering time. I use Premiere Pro and exporting with them is very CPU dependent.

Thanks

 

[Squuiid]

Hey guys,

I have a mac pro (mid 2012 model) with dual 2.4 GHz Six Core (i think 24 cores in total) 32-nm Xeon E5645 (Westmere) processors also with 32 gb of ram. I edit video full time and I just upgraded my graphics card (long overdue). I was wondering, what's the fastest processor I can upgrade my computer to? It's fine as is but I would like to max it out as much as possible to increase export rendering time. I use Premiere Pro and exporting with them is very CPU dependent.

Thanks

I suggest you start here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-cpu-compatibility-list.1954766/


2x X5690 would be the absolute best, if somewhat pricey.

 

[haralds]

I suggest you start here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-cpu-compatibility-list.1954766/


2x X5690 would be the absolute best, if somewhat pricey.

It is not really sure, whether upgrades would be noticeable in use except in game frame rates (more dependent on GPU) and CODEC conversions, which most of us let trundle int he background.

I would first look at your disk performance. rendering might be impacted at 20% for max CPU. If you use Final Cut Pro X, I think it pretenders at lower (screen) resolution for review before final rendering.

 

[iownamac]

I suggest you start here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-cpu-compatibility-list.1954766/


2x X5690 would be the absolute best, if somewhat pricey.

lol didn't realize that until later, my bad, thank you
[doublepost=1501158149][/doublepost]

It is not really sure, whether upgrades would be noticeable in use except in game frame rates (more dependent on GPU) and CODEC conversions, which most of us let trundle int he background.

I would first look at your disk performance. rendering might be impacted at 20% for max CPU. If you use Final Cut Pro X, I think it pretenders at lower (screen) resolution for review before final rendering.

Yea final cut is good for the quick and dirty...the work I do is more high end which is why I use Adobe...I just read somewhere that Adobe also doesn't use all of the cores to its fullest potential so now I'm wondering if I should even upgrade at all and just look into getting some SSDs

 

[Silencio]

If you're on a tight budget you could get two Xeon X5677s. You'll get the fastest single thread performance, but only 8 cores / 16 threads instead of the 12 cores / 24 threads you'd get with the X5690s.

 

[ActionableMango]

I just read somewhere that Adobe also doesn't use all of the cores to its fullest potential so now I'm wondering if I should even upgrade at all

Well since you have 12 cores right now, that's something you can actually test with your real life workload. Run your workload and check the CPU load to see if all cores are maxed out.

 

[kschendel]

...I just read somewhere that Adobe also doesn't use all of the cores to its fullest potential so now I'm wondering if I should even upgrade at all and just look into getting some SSDs

Going to a 3.33 or 3.46 Ghz processor will give you something like a 25% improvement in single threaded performance, so I'd expect to see a benefit even if Adobe doesn't multi-thread effectively. SSD will likely give you a similar improvement, roughly speaking. If you can do both, do so. If you can only afford one or the other, I might possibly tilt towards the SSD, since it makes a significant perceived difference over spinners doing ordinary interactive stuff.

 

[h9826790]

Going to a 3.33 or 3.46 Ghz processor will give you something like a 25% improvement in single threaded performance, so I'd expect to see a benefit even if Adobe doesn't multi-thread effectively. SSD will likely give you a similar improvement, roughly speaking. If you can do both, do so. If you can only afford one or the other, I might possibly tilt towards the SSD, since it makes a significant perceived difference over spinners doing ordinary interactive stuff.

Actually a bit more than that.

(3.46 - 2.4)/2.4 x 100% = 44.2%

If only consider single thread with turbo boost

(3.73 - 2.67)/2.67 x 100% = 39.7%

So, in any single thread limiting case. There is about 40% improvement.

Therefore, IMO, if budget limiting, as long as able to get a pair of X5677. It's worth to do the "upgrade". Even though there should be no improvement on multi thread performance, but it helps single thread ops a lot.

But I totally agree that should go after the SSD upgrade. Unless the computer is only use for long time compute, SSD is the most important upgrade to make the users able to feel the snappiness of the computer.