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Buying a Mac for a max 800 eur.


lukelee

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Hey,

I decided to buy a new Mac for music production. I'm already having a Macbook Pro 13 (Late 2013 model), but it is too weak in my opinion. I'm following one of the tutorials on Udemy on how to produce music in Logic X, and average track makes that fans goes on - Macbook turns hot and it's really frustrating, things slowing down... On a local website (in Poland) i found Mac Pro 4.1 for 350 euros - one CPU upgradeable to 6 cores. But I found another one (5.1) for 650 euros with dual processors, and I'm wondering is it worth it? What do you guys thing about it? Also, I red about Mac mini 2018 and it's real good performence, but how it is performing in Logic Pro? Is less cores (but few generations newer) better than more old cores? In this price (of max 800) I would probably get used i3 or with a better luck - i5, which can be a really good deal. I also want to mention, that I want to stay with this Mac for at least 3 years, so MP running Mojave will be really obsolete in these few years? Let me know what you think! Thanks!

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Forget the i3 or even i5 mac minis. Especially with no GPU, you want a 4 core i7, the 2012 ones are good.

 

A 2009 4,1 dual CPU is fine if you're handy with tools and mods. They update to 5,1 easily. I have 2, and they've been great, though I'm currently struggling with installing Mojave.

 

Best to get a 2010-2012 5,1 dual CPU, easier upgrade. But many 5,1 on the market are actually updated 4,1, with harder to upgrade CPU sockets.

 

Then get a pair of X5680 3.33 Ghz Xeons. 12 cores, 24 threads. The 3.46 Ghz ones aren't noticeably faster. Get e.g. 32 GB ECC RAM and a Metal compatible 7950 or 680 GPU to run Mojave and up.

 

These "classic mac Pros" are going strong in countless studios. They are a bit short on single core peak speed, but still eminently usable.

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