New Mac Mini vs Old Mac Pro

[zite]

Hi, whats best for sound producing in Logic Pro?

This newer Mac Mini:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... specs.html

Or this Older Mac Pro:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m ... specs.html

Faster Processor with less core and more ram speed. or Slower Processor with double cores and less ram speed?

Thanks!

[ftech]

Up until a few weeks ago I was using an early 2008 2 x 2.8 quad core Mac Pro with 10gb of RAM and it could handle sizeable projects, just couldn't handle some of the current crop of CPU hungry plug ins like Diversion (unless those synths were what I started with...and rendered).
Keep in mind it's very easy to add internal drives to the Mac Pro as well, which is quite handy for Audio/project/backup drives.

[zite]

Yeah I would like to use it for recording (not so much for mixing or mastering), and I am aiming for huge projects with like 60 tracks, a lot of vsts and plugins. But this processor is very old, I dont know if it would be a good choice even being 8 cores and a Xeon. The Mac Mini has 1600mhz rams and a newer i7, but only 4 cores. I read that the more cores > faster processor with lesse cores.

[ghettosynth]

Yeah I would like to use it for recording (not so much for mixing or mastering), and I am aiming for huge projects with like 60 tracks, a lot of vsts and plugins. But this processor is very old, I dont know if it would be a good choice even being 8 cores and a Xeon. The Mac Mini has 1600mhz rams and a newer i7, but only 4 cores. I read that the more cores > faster processor with lesse cores.

This is only true up to a certain point. If you are using applications that can really exercise the cores, and, no particular application needs more than what can be provided by one processor, then yes, more cores trumps single CPU speed, most of the time, that is.

The thing is, if you are limited by one particular CPU hungry application that is not multicore enabled, the extra cores won't help. For example, Reaktor is limited to one CPU per ensemble, AFAIK, so, for me, that would be a limiting factor.

At the end of the day, it's never quite that simple, but it's a good enough approximation to make a reasonable judgement. Other factors can also have an impact and you really can't compare CPU clock speeds. 2008 is really quite old, but, the laptop i7 vs the workstation xeon isn't as dramatic as you might think just based on age.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E552 ... -i7-3720QM

http://www.youcpu.com/en/compare/Intel- ... o-3.60-GHz

Price would make the ultimate decision for me, if I could get it at a good price, I would probably go for the mac pro. FWIW, I have a mac mini.

[SWAN808]

the answers to this question will be in this thread somewhere

the mac mini 2.6 I think gets around 85-95 tracks which is pretty good...

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/logic-p ... ktest.html

edit just saw - the 2009 MP 2.26 gets it looks like 110...

[ftech]

Yep. Don't underestimate the Mac Pro based on age.
In real world terms there won't be too much difference in performance with the choice you have, so I think other factors such as price, like ghettosynth mentioned, or internal storage as I mentioned, would be determining factors.
Either way, loading up on RAM would be recommended and I believe the Mini will only go to 16gb whereas the Pro has that extra expandability. PCI card expansion too....

[zite]

So, the fact thar the processor from the mac mini at least in number is higher, and the ram 1600mhz yet in the overall performance in studio situations (vsts, plugins, number of tracks) the mac pro would be at the top? Even with the 1066mhz and the 2.26-2.53ghz processor?