Upgrade Mac Pro 6 1 (2013)

The new Mac mini sounds like it will do everything you need. Just buy the upgraded version with higher memory and storage specs. You don’t need an $8K tower.

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If you need more storage than that, then bumping up to 2TB will be an additional $400.

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What the frick

I don’t think you can upgrade the RAM at all.

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I can't stand using an external as a primary

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A few questions...


1) do you hate installing programs on a “non-c” drive in the software or do you hate the look of an external drive?
2) would you hate a Mac mini on this if it’s the hardware/aesthetic




I recently looked into Mac offerings and determined that the trashcan Mac Pro compares roughly neutrally in price and performance to an intel 8th gen i5 Mac Mini. Exception: GPU-intensive applications were better and faster on the Mac Pro (though I seem to remember the i7 Mac mini and lowest GPU (d300...?) MP still were fairly close in price:performance

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is it worth upgrading the internal hard drive

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Last I looked, the drive seemed semi-proprietary and way overpriced to be able to replace/upgrade it.

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Adding more RAM too

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So, why is 32gb of RAM struggling/insufficient for you? I would very much doubt increasing this is going to increase any noticeable measure of performance in this machine with the info you’ve given.

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I do have the 49 inch Dell curved gaming monitor but i use it by separating into 2 displays - I like that better than having two different monitors

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I have the Phillips 49 ultra wide which is fairly comparable. I use the m1 Mac mini over thunderbolt at 5120x1440. I also use the monitor as a KVM for a windows box. I’m relatively new to MacOS (last apple product I owned ran Snow Leopard). I have not tried splitting it into two displays. I think Windows does a ton better with multi-monitor support (and this monitor acts like 2x27” without a bar in the middle). Maybe the actual split output makes a difference on Mac’s management, but the way that you have to view “split left/right” in each makes me almost want to move the machine to a single monitor. You, being a bit more experienced, may not share this feeling. And you may be able to grab a new Mac mini and get away with still splitting it into two displays inside of one monitor over thunderbolt (which gains you 3x USB - A ports from the monitor giving you 5 total). But I’m not the biggest fan of the way it appears on a single UW monitor (I use a standard mouse and may be missing some “swipe” shortcuts that the trackpad offers. I haven’t set up the “hot corner” control either, so maybe I am missing a simple solution there. Or maybe windows really is better with the hotkey split-apps, or maybe I’m too retarded to find the shortcuts I’m looking for. But the “full screen for two apps” on OSX on this monitor is just clunky and not very wonderful. You may be used to it/like it. Even if you use both USB-c and HDMI, it should function roughly equivalent for what you are used to as your current MP.

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strong graphics

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I feel like I can pretty confidently say that if you are using the Mac Pro from 2013 and think its graphics are sufficient that an m1 Mac mini will meet your needs.