i have the 6 core one , willing to upgrade it to the 12 core , i would say it faster than my i9 but the cool thing about it ? It so quiet i have never heard the fan going on even if a push it hard with 3d apps , my i9 macbook was getting hot and fan goes high while doing some search on chrome lol😂 @@Beatsnmotivation
@@Beatsnmotivation Definetly quieter! Here's my CPU Cinebench results : Trash Can 10 core: CPU: 515 Top spec i9 2019 MBP: CPU 486 M1 Mac mini: CPU 519 My i9 MBP still has the fastest GPU out of all of them though.
We are literally in the same boat! I also have a 16 inch MBP 2019 maxed out, and it really lacks performance for the ‘specs’ it has. I bought a second hand Mac Pro 2013 for a steal and upgraded it a bit. And thanks to the dual-GPU it handles 4k editing in Final Cut Pro way better.
Your videos are part of the reason I'm using a 2013 Mac Pro today! Got a steal of a deal on an 8 core D700 for £35 and I upgraded the CPU to the 12 core for £20. Absolutely great daily machine for me and even plays Windows games really well!
Dang thats a steal. I bought a 12 core d700 64gb version for ~$250 a few years ago and swapped the 12 core to a higher speed 10 core that wasnt offered by apple. Turbo speeds are much improved. Make sure if you want your gpus to stay alive you use a third party fan controller like TG Pro or Mac Fan Control. I didnt originally and my GPUs cooked in sleep mode and had to be replaced.
@@Space_EmperorThey prioritize quietness over heat dissipation and on Intel machines they dont ramp up the fan until its 90c+ on basically every machine. It’s really bad
This whole Thunderbolt, USB-C types and specifications having the same type of connector while not having the same cables can really drive someone crazy. Thanks for sharing this helpful information to the world. I am still loving my trashcan although I am on a Mac Studio now. I would’ve loved Apple to revive the trashcan design fully loaded with the guts a Mac Studio but hey, now I got the BigMac mini how I like to call the Studio, too. Really looking forward to the next videos about this beautiful cylinder PC. Greetings from Germany
Silicon Mac not great. I personally hate them because you can’t have multi Mac OS on the machine. You can install old High Sierra Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur . They can’t run 4 displays
This wasn’t ever a real Pro machine as it doesn’t support PCIe card slots… which makes it useless for storage or capture cards that need the latter for the bandwidth…
Great machine(delivered August '24) and hits the mark for my remote work. Thanks for the great tips; my CalDigit TS3 works perfectly and solved my expandability issues (EUC just over $100 U.S.). I seemed to have worked through the various quirks (every cord must fit snugly, including an HDMI cable that seats firmly, update all the software for a smoother ride), and now, it's a dream - knock on wood.
As a side note, I am running a Mac Pro 6-core with a Blackmagic eGPU, Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display, via Kryptonite to get this all to work. Dual monitors, one on the Mac Pro HDMI and 1 via Thunderbolt to the Apple 27" Display, with other devices in the mix. I had to use 2 Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 Adapters in my setup.
That weird I spoke to Apple about eGPU and Thunderbolt Display they told me I couldn’t connect it like that. An I’m also using Krytonite (Wish for an update) because I want to go to Ventura or Sonoma. I have the Mantiz v1 Venus with place mount for ssd HD
This is amazing. Back in 2020, I had to boot my Mac Pro 2013 off that drive for a few months. What you demonstrate makes total sense and I should have done it! (4320p is 8K).
Waiting for that next video about using OpenCore and updating the OS on your Mac Pro 2013 and then eCPU. From what I see, and I use Kryptonite, it does not support any newer OS past Monterey. As we know Monterey comes to an end soon for support from Apple. Curious if you get a newer Mac OS on yours and it still work with those eGPU. The Kryptonite website shows about 1.5 years ago no new updates past that and folks stating Monterey is it for us. Would be great if we can go past Monterey with eGPU support still. Holding my breath!
I had hoped that OpenCore 1.5 would have the eGPU support rolled in, but having done some research it doesn't look promising. It seems the issue is related to the latest AMD drivers needing AVX2 support on the CPU, which the Xeon E5 v2 doesn't have. With the diminishing demand and lack of financial reward, I expect there is little incentive for any developer to volunteer the required time to create a workaround or backport the drivers. It's probably the case we have to stay on Monterey if we want eGPU. Sorry if I got your hopes up!
@@ConstantGeekery ah bummer. I guess once Apple stops security updates on Monterey, we just need to be more careful using the Mac Pro 2013 with Monterey on the net. Too bad as a minimum they or someone could at least add the security matches to Monterey.
@@MacSociety I never been hack or had virus. Theirs people still using Commodore Amiga connected to the internet. Also long you don’t go to porn site and questionable website you will be fine.
Another fascinating video thanks- please keep the Trashcan content coming 😊 I tried a similar experiment connecting the (Thunderbolt 4) Caldigit TS4 dock I’m using on my main setup to the Trashcan via the Apple Thunderbolt 2/3 adapter. What I found was Thunderbolt devices connected to the dock didn’t show on the Trashcan (including the screen which was obviously a bit inconvenient), but all the USB devices like the sound, webcam, keyboard etc worked fine. So different to your experience and I’m rather confused now 🤔
Great video! The first Thunderbolt cable you grabbed at the start of the video you said was a Thunderbolt 2 cable. How do you tell the difference between a Thunderbolt 1 and a Thunderbolt 2 cable? I can find no definitive information, although both OWC and Apple say their Thunderbolt cables can be used to connect Thunderbolt 1 or 2 devices. I have audio interfaces that are Thunderbolt 2 and if there truly is a difference between Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 cables, I want to make sure I’m using Thunderbolt 2 cables.
Most things work fine in my experience. The onboard GPUs even support CrossfireX. The only trouble I’ve had is in getting an eGPU working under Bootcamp. This is due to the way Windows uses 32-bit PCIe addressing, whereas Mac uses 64-bit. You get an error because Windows is unable to allocate PCIe resources. There are workarounds for most things though, and plenty of helpful folks on the forums to point you in the right direction.
These are good machines. I’d certainly still pick one up. They are capable of 1080 and 4k editing. Plus with the QUAD channel memory you can do some very fast photo editing. 😊😅😮
This is just a followup to my previous comment. The information provided in your video has helped me improve my production significantly. I have replaced my cumbersome thunderbolt 2 docking station (hub) with the CalDigit thunderbolt 3 hub. Now I have more ports that actually work. I wonder, would this configuration work with the CalDigit thunderbolt 4 hub? Many thanks again for your very informative posts.
Well done, inspired me to check 10Gbe ethernet adapters via Apple‘s TB3-TB2 adapter with an ACASIS TBU42 dock (with NVME). Surprisingly I could get over 7Gbps networking speed for the 2013 Mac Pro 6,1. That‘s twice the speed compared to a directly attached TB2 10Gbe adapter (Sonnet, OWC). Unfortunately the PD powered TBU42 is currently sold out and may not be available again 😢. Will also check with Belkin TB3 dock.
Can’t remember the model number - it’s by Orico. Not sure I would actually recommend it though as it has a cheap screw holding it together which has stripped, and now I can’t open it up to change the drive!
@@ConstantGeekerythank you!! That stinks that the screw stripped out on you. Good luck. Thank you for your videos!! You make a wonderful place to find TrashCan info. I love my TC Mac Pro and enjoy messing with it.
I really enjoy this video series as it’s nostalgic and the trash can was such a great machine that I owned a few years ago. However in 2024 I can’t help but feel it’s bad value against the M1 Mini and that isn’t clear for viewers here
i thought this video might be about how you could use the miniPCI port for the wifi card as a means for adding full PCI Express functionality via adapters etc and then use each device as expected and without issue
I found a Mac Pro in the rubbish. It works fine. I bought RAM from eBay after watching your video. Is there any way of getting a display to work through this dock?
It's a shame that Thunderbolt Standard was allowed to use USB cables. That's why Firewire was better. The different Firewire speed standards used a different style connector, which, I believe, made it a better standard.
I feel like this was eventually replaced with the Mac Studio. But this Mac Pro has way more expandability such as switching out internal storage and some other things.
Excellent video, thank you! Any chance to try TrueNAS Scale or TrueNAS Core on that MacPro? Maybe even with a couple of external USB (5 Gbps ports are okay) drives in ZFS RAID?
Would love to see what is the maximum (realistic) resolution today with today's available monitors would be ( like the Apple studio display ) ...... Many have spoken of 5K / 4K and etc .... however in reality some combinations are non existent anymore or do not work . Mine has been faithfully working extremely well with the older Apple thunderbolt display ( w/ firewire connection in the back ) . Wonderful video ! Love the MacPro 2013 !!!!!
I have just picked up a 12 core D500 2013 Mac Pro for $350 CAD. I already have a 4gb RX 580. Would love to see more tests to see if a $200 EGPU would be worth it for gaming in boot camp! Are they noticeably better than the dual d500? Hard to find much benchmarks on that!
Another use case I would like to know; older iMacs (up until the 2011) that have thunderbolt 1 (10 Gbps), and next to that there's only USB v2. I'd like to connect a faster erxternal drive through the thunderbolt port, but it doesn't seem to be possible, except through a Kanex Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 Adapter. Any info on that ?
Thunderbolt 3 docks can be found ridiculously cheap(under $20), particularly ones from Dell. My current project is to get FibreChannel & SAS working thru external Thunderbolt 2 to PCIe enclosure to my 2013 Mac. Have an LTO5 tape drive I want to use for backups.
Wow, this video was outstanding and, I learned a lot. After the introduction of the M-1 "Mac Studio" desktop in 2022, the price of these "space gray" trash can Mac Pro's stated dropping like a "Rock" and, I picked up a used Mac Pro 8-core/D-700/64GB/1TB SSD model and paired it with an Apple 27-inch Cinema LED (none thunderbolt) display and everything works great together. Had thought about using a Thunderbolt 2 dock but, I did not know the usefulness of using a Thunderbolt 3 dock. Question: Does anyone know if, this type of set-up will also work with an OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock?
It works at 4K resolution only with the adapter. I do plan to try it with the Blackmagic eGPU, but I haven't done that yet. I'll be making a video about it when I do.
@@ConstantGeekeryIt’s kind of annoying because the Studio Display reports to macOS on the Mac Pro it is running at 5K if you look in System Information but it’s just 4K output with the display upscaling to 5K :( I dont understand why it lies about it
Just bought my second MacPro6,1 First one was bought in 2015 and paid 3700usd then for 64GB RAM and an engineering sample version of Xeon E5-2696 v2 (12 core 2.5~3.2GHz) with D300.
I have a mid 2015 macbook pro thunderbolt 2 capable. Recently i bought a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter like yours in order to connect it to a hopday thunderbolt 3 dock station. After connecting them together it doesn’t work. It should be working fine, right? I’m cofused.
If someone could track down or reverse engineer the pinout of the connectors between the main board and the gpu board on the 2013 Mac Pro I think you could potentially attach arbitrary pcie 3 devices.
Protocol integration sounds great in theory but the practice has always been horrible. I'm surprised Caldigit or Satechi didn't produce a Thunderbolt2 aggregator 'dock' for this machine to take the 6-channel (or was it 3?) TB2 to TB3 performance and standardise on USB-C. I guess there would be too much processing for protocol conversion but the user base would have paid handsomely for it at the time. Interesting that the D700s are still so capable. Apple chose AMD for the FP64 performance which still holds up even a decade later. I would still like to have seen Apple Silicon GPU cards for this machine.
I think you should test the thunder 3 disk again, you replaced the cable when you realised it is not thunderbolt cable in your video but you didn’t choose the thunderbolt disk before testing. It should run at 2000m or something like that .
The correct disk was selected. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test will use the same external drive even if you eject and reconnect it - there’s no need to select it again. You can see this at 14:30 There’s also a cut in the edit at 14:55, so you don’t see me check the correct drive. I pre-tested everything and I have my control test numbers using Amorphous Disk Mark (generally very similar to BMDST), which are 1176 read and 1121 write. The same drive on my M3 MacBook Air scores 3158 read and 2424 write. It may be possible that other TB3 drives will run quicker, but this particular combo doesn’t.
Even better would have been a sff 4x or 8x type port. Superior and far cheaper. You also wouldn’t be relying on the chipset like you will Thunderbolt depending on the pcie lanes it would be plumbed in to. Newer Mac’s don’t truly run 10gb usb because they now run usb through one lane which limited to 8Gb/sec real world
Mainly because our workflow involves several people and multiple machines - both Mac and Windows - so the software would need to be installed in several places. We're also recording video directly to the drives, so the cameras / recorders need to be able to read the drives. I've never had any issues with exFAT, and when I've tested the performance between the formats, there seems to be negligible difference.
Have you had issues with exFAT and that’s why you go with NTFS? I have heard some users have exFAT issues but Ive used it lots over the years with no issues. Seems to be the best for all 3 major OS’s
I would imagine it would be difficult. It's not a standard M.2 slot and you need an adapter to use standard NVMe drives, but Apple specifically enabled support for that. In any case, you would still be limited to PCIe 2.0.
Hold on, did you say you record STRAIGHT to the usbC hard drive??? How on earth is that possible, please, & what camera type/brand is that possible with also? Thank you in advance.
We use Panasonic S5 cameras outputting raw HDMI to Blackmagic Design Video Assist. The Video Assist has the USB-C recording - this allows us to record BRAW direct to USB drive from the Panasonic. Blackmagic Design’s new Pyxis camera will also have that capability.
@@ConstantGeekery thank you for your reply. That makes a lot more sense 😁 looking forward to those videos regarding export speed and photoshop work on that Mac Pro 2013🥳🙏🏾
Next related video idea... Explain how Apple are the only company who offer a *3m* length TB4 cable, while all other brands only offer a maximum of 2m TB4 cables. Hint: Look at the circuitry inside the cable, perhaps. 😉
I just bought the 12 core with dual d700, and the playback with chrome on youtube is really jerky and missing frames, mac side works fine. May be returning it to cex unfortunately
That’s odd - it should be able to do that. Never had an issue with mine, though I’m using Safari rather than Chrome. It will even play 10-bit H.265 4K video smoothly in Resolve - which tends to be challenging for machines without dedicated video decoders on-chip.
@@ConstantGeekery safari as you say is spot on no issues, my playback was rubbish on brave browser as well (chrome based), found another set of graphics drivers today for the graphics card other than the standard ones with bootcamp and all well now, thanks for the reply. Can i ask as im having some network issues with sequioa do you know if i can reinstall the mojave without disturbing my bootcamp and oclp current install (dumping sequioa). in every other way im loving the machine
@ you should be able to reinstall with OCLP. If bootcamp is on its own partition the install shouldn’t affect it - but I should say that I haven’t personally tried it, so proceed at your own risk 😁
@@ConstantGeekery So just to clarify. You connect one non-powered thunderbolt 4 port to a Thunderbolt 2 on the Mac pro and then the powered thunderbolt 4 port to a USB on the Mac pro?
@@oscarstegland no. The Mac Pro cannot connect to a Thunderbolt 4 dock. You can connect the dock to a USB port on the Mac Pro using a standards compliant type A to type C cable using the port on the front of the dock. USB ports, ethernet and SD card reader on the dock should work, but nothing else will. It’s not something I recommend - I simply used it as an example to demonstrate the compatibility challenges.
the thunderboplt 3 not being present issue completely went under the radar. As an enterprise solutions engineer who was faced with the real issue at the time, let me tell you why they made the choice. UNCORRECTABLE PCIe errors on intel 2011-v1-v2 at the time. Even though technically the chips supported PCIe 3.0, the signaling issues were widespread initially and meant that PCIe 3.0 on intel was way too unstable for many use cases. If your motherboard supported 3.0 at that time and it had to have slots, u had to fallback to pcie 2.0 or have a more rigorous qualifying process for pcie cards. So apple among others were forced to "innovate" in different ways. Apple cant be blamed for bad pcie 3.0 signaling their mac pro had no slots for cards and they could easily ensure that their own GPUs and other components would work well despite the issue. hence why we got the trash can, no slots, under a handful of GPU options. these uncorrectable pcie 3 issue plagued allot of manufacturers. some just didnt care and released boards/systems anyways, others had to remove pcie 3 support via bios while some would fallback to pcie often time without the customer even knowing.
Funny that you get such a low score with the T7 on the standard USB 3 port. My T7 and even the T5’s get scores on over 400 both read and write on any USB 3 port on any of my mac’s. I actually use a T5 on USB 3 as the startup drive on my iMac 27 5K and it runs fine on that 400 ish speeds. Could that be because you run it on exfat mine are all running AFS? Further if I run the T7 on my 16” MBP USB C 3.1 I get scores of 800+ for write and 900+ for read. Also I once read somewhere that the T7’s are not 100% compatible with Mac OS as the speed goes down after longer use. I tested that and it did seem to be the case when used as boot drive. That might be caused by memory swap I heard.
Probably an anomaly or cable issue. I should have repeated the test - my bad. I’ve not noticed any speed issues using exFAT and get similar performance to your scores.
Regarding exFAT, you would be better off using HFS+ and installing macdrive on windows. exfat is painfully slow and prone to errors on both, windows on mac.
I can’t install macdrive on my cameras and recorders, not to mention multiple different machines and users. Our experience over many years and projects: zero errors and negligible speed difference.
bother me about the Mac Pro 2013 , can’t connect a Apple thunderbolt display to a eGPU . My setup with 2 Thunderbolt Display and one Apple Cinema Display . An for my 2 Thunderbolt G-drives cant can be bus power, even though web and video show it happens
Dear sir. sorry to bother you again, my Mac Pro it is running on HDMI at 2560x1080 60Hz on LG Ultrawide Monitor, but when I use the Display Port got a Blank screen, do you know what could be happening?tks again, Im ready to change CPU and Memory follow your great videos.
I assume you have tried all the ports and checked the cable and the monitor. If you're sure the cable and the port on the monitor are both good, try the following: Shut down the Mac. Remove the power cable and wait 60 seconds before plugging it in again. Plug the mini displayport cable into the bottom left Thunderbolt port. Switch on the Mac whilst holding OPTION+COMMAND+P+R on the keyboard (to reset the PRAM).
@@ccedraro3878 it would be unusual for the display output to stop working if the Thunderbolt ports still work. I would focus my attention on the monitor and cables. Are you sure the DisplayPort input on the monitor is working? Are you sure the cable is good? I use a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable with mine, which I bought on Amazon. I think it might be made by Startech.
@@ConstantGeekery tks again , the Monitor is 6 months old, I will buy new cables and adapter and check, really appreciate your support, Best regards, Cesar.
I just wish I could get my Thunderbolt Display to work with my 2013 Mac Pro. It will run as a monitor, but no brightness adjustment, need to replug in after sleep, no camera speakers or other connectors. I am terribly frustrated.
I came here because I was going to find an easy answer to a Mac pro that I was looking at and unfortunately I'm nearly 10 minutes into the video and you haven't actually gotten to whether or not thunderbolt 3 works or thunderbolt 3 dog works. I mean yeah, thunderbolt 4 but you're spending way too much time talking about stuff that just doesn't work and not enough time getting to actually the stuff that does work. I mean come on it's 10 minutes in and we still don't have any answers to the original question
Wonderful video, yours; Thankyou! I use a TB3-10GbE IOCREST ethernet adapter (usd100.-) on a macbookpro M2 Pro; Instant joy. 🕊️ HOWEVER, I have NOT😰 managed to get my Proxmox (on bare-metal reusing an old Intel macbook pro) to recognize it YET (so I'm limited there to using Apple's TB2-1GbE dongle on that old laptop which was recognized just fine); I was hoping to improve my network access speeds to the TrueNAS guest in there but I've clearly misunderstood something when trying to get this 10GbE recognized (could it be that it's incompatible with Apple's TB2-to-TB3 adapter? hmmmm. 😮). According to your video, it MAY simply be that the IOCREST is not getting the power it needs from the bus, as I understand that Apple's TB2-to-TB3 might not be up to the task. Thanks to your video, I now see that I should try with a TB3 dock (not TB4). Fingers crossed. [ed.: FutureShawn here. YES the TB3 dock solved the issue. The Iocrest device requires USB PD negotiated power - which the TB3 dock provides - rather than TB2 fixed BUS power that Apple's adapter provides). It's AWESOME to see your videos that allow us to use/reuse/push our old hardware to the limits.
Keep the Mac Pro 2013 content going , I just bought to replace my i9 MacBook Pro late 2019 and I really enjoyed it
Would you say is faster then the i9 MacBook Pro? 8 core right?
i have the 6 core one , willing to upgrade it to the 12 core , i would say it faster than my i9 but the cool thing about it ? It so quiet i have never heard the fan going on even if a push it hard with 3d apps , my i9 macbook was getting hot and fan goes high while doing some search on chrome lol😂
@@Beatsnmotivation
@@Beatsnmotivation Definetly quieter!
Here's my CPU Cinebench results :
Trash Can 10 core: CPU: 515
Top spec i9 2019 MBP: CPU 486
M1 Mac mini: CPU 519
My i9 MBP still has the fastest GPU out of all of them though.
We are literally in the same boat! I also have a 16 inch MBP 2019 maxed out, and it really lacks performance for the ‘specs’ it has. I bought a second hand Mac Pro 2013 for a steal and upgraded it a bit. And thanks to the dual-GPU it handles 4k editing in Final Cut Pro way better.
@@casparduijsens3786 interesting, considering the MBP has HBM2 memory! Thermal limitation is a b***h.
Your videos are part of the reason I'm using a 2013 Mac Pro today! Got a steal of a deal on an 8 core D700 for £35 and I upgraded the CPU to the 12 core for £20. Absolutely great daily machine for me and even plays Windows games really well!
WoW!
Dang thats a steal. I bought a 12 core d700 64gb version for ~$250 a few years ago and swapped the 12 core to a higher speed 10 core that wasnt offered by apple. Turbo speeds are much improved. Make sure if you want your gpus to stay alive you use a third party fan controller like TG Pro or Mac Fan Control. I didnt originally and my GPUs cooked in sleep mode and had to be replaced.
@blankname8553 Definitely agree on the fan control part, I never trusted Apple's default curves so I used macs fan control from day one
@@Space_EmperorThey prioritize quietness over heat dissipation and on Intel machines they dont ramp up the fan until its 90c+ on basically every machine. It’s really bad
This whole Thunderbolt, USB-C types and specifications having the same type of connector while not having the same cables can really drive someone crazy. Thanks for sharing this helpful information to the world. I am still loving my trashcan although I am on a Mac Studio now. I would’ve loved Apple to revive the trashcan design fully loaded with the guts a Mac Studio but hey, now I got the BigMac mini how I like to call the Studio, too. Really looking forward to the next videos about this beautiful cylinder PC. Greetings from Germany
I just got a Mac pro 2013 yesterday because of your videos.
this mac pro form factor makes more sense since apple released their own silicon.
I wish they would bring it back with the M series. They are beautiful. Much more than the Mac Studio.
Yes, but now it's called Mac Studio, instead of Mac Pro ;-)
Silicon Mac not great. I personally hate them because you can’t have multi Mac OS on the machine. You can install old High Sierra Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur . They can’t run 4 displays
This wasn’t ever a real Pro machine as it doesn’t support PCIe card slots… which makes it useless for storage or capture cards that need the latter for the bandwidth…
Great machine(delivered August '24) and hits the mark for my remote work. Thanks for the great tips; my CalDigit TS3 works perfectly and solved my expandability issues (EUC just over $100 U.S.). I seemed to have worked through the various quirks (every cord must fit snugly, including an HDMI cable that seats firmly, update all the software for a smoother ride), and now, it's a dream - knock on wood.
Bought an 8-core 2013 Mac Pro mainly due to this series. Please keep it going!
Still run one of these. Ticks along pretty usefully too. Thanks for the coverage of what works and what doesn’t 🎉
As a side note, I am running a Mac Pro 6-core with a Blackmagic eGPU, Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display, via Kryptonite to get this all to work. Dual monitors, one on the Mac Pro HDMI and 1 via Thunderbolt to the Apple 27" Display, with other devices in the mix. I had to use 2 Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 Adapters in my setup.
That weird I spoke to Apple about eGPU and Thunderbolt Display they told me I couldn’t connect it like that. An I’m also using Krytonite (Wish for an update) because I want to go to Ventura or Sonoma. I have the Mantiz v1 Venus with place mount for ssd HD
I just wish I could get my Thunderbolt Display to work with my 2013 Mac Pro.
@@Fred_Raimer I use mine fine. I run mine via the eGPU right now but seem to remember I also used directly on my Mac Pro ports as well.
@@MacSociety Thanks! I am now thinking that the problem may be with the monitor itself.
This is amazing. Back in 2020, I had to boot my Mac Pro 2013 off that drive for a few months. What you demonstrate makes total sense and I should have done it! (4320p is 8K).
I've used my TS3 for years and its a life saver.
Best line ever: "I want to show you something important. And the important thing is it doesn't work." 1:35
Waiting for that next video about using OpenCore and updating the OS on your Mac Pro 2013 and then eCPU. From what I see, and I use Kryptonite, it does not support any newer OS past Monterey. As we know Monterey comes to an end soon for support from Apple. Curious if you get a newer Mac OS on yours and it still work with those eGPU. The Kryptonite website shows about 1.5 years ago no new updates past that and folks stating Monterey is it for us. Would be great if we can go past Monterey with eGPU support still. Holding my breath!
I had hoped that OpenCore 1.5 would have the eGPU support rolled in, but having done some research it doesn't look promising. It seems the issue is related to the latest AMD drivers needing AVX2 support on the CPU, which the Xeon E5 v2 doesn't have.
With the diminishing demand and lack of financial reward, I expect there is little incentive for any developer to volunteer the required time to create a workaround or backport the drivers. It's probably the case we have to stay on Monterey if we want eGPU. Sorry if I got your hopes up!
I was hoping the developer would come out with an update. However happy with just Monterey
@@ConstantGeekery ah bummer. I guess once Apple stops security updates on Monterey, we just need to be more careful using the Mac Pro 2013 with Monterey on the net. Too bad as a minimum they or someone could at least add the security matches to Monterey.
@@MacSociety I never been hack or had virus. Theirs people still using Commodore Amiga connected to the internet. Also long you don’t go to porn site and questionable website you will be fine.
Another fascinating video thanks- please keep the Trashcan content coming 😊
I tried a similar experiment connecting the (Thunderbolt 4) Caldigit TS4 dock I’m using on my main setup to the Trashcan via the Apple Thunderbolt 2/3 adapter. What I found was Thunderbolt devices connected to the dock didn’t show on the Trashcan (including the screen which was obviously a bit inconvenient), but all the USB devices like the sound, webcam, keyboard etc worked fine. So different to your experience and I’m rather confused now 🤔
I’m guessing it has a USB controller that the Mac can use, whereas the Razer doesn’t 🤷🏼♂️
Great video! The first Thunderbolt cable you grabbed at the start of the video you said was a Thunderbolt 2 cable. How do you tell the difference between a Thunderbolt 1 and a Thunderbolt 2 cable? I can find no definitive information, although both OWC and Apple say their Thunderbolt cables can be used to connect Thunderbolt 1 or 2 devices. I have audio interfaces that are Thunderbolt 2 and if there truly is a difference between Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 cables, I want to make sure I’m using Thunderbolt 2 cables.
Great video, but does Davinci Resolve 18/19 run on your set up?
It does, and it performs well. No issues with 4k editing on this with the D700 GPUs.
Hello, thank you for the valuable information. Do you think everything will work even through Bootcamp? Thanks Jaroslav
Most things work fine in my experience. The onboard GPUs even support CrossfireX. The only trouble I’ve had is in getting an eGPU working under Bootcamp. This is due to the way Windows uses 32-bit PCIe addressing, whereas Mac uses 64-bit. You get an error because Windows is unable to allocate PCIe resources. There are workarounds for most things though, and plenty of helpful folks on the forums to point you in the right direction.
These are good machines.
I’d certainly still pick one up. They are capable of 1080 and 4k editing. Plus with the QUAD channel memory you can do some very fast photo editing. 😊😅😮
Loving this 2013 series 🎉
Very useful Mac Pro 2013 content!
This is just a followup to my previous comment. The information provided in your video has helped me improve my production significantly. I have replaced my cumbersome thunderbolt 2 docking station (hub) with the CalDigit thunderbolt 3 hub. Now I have more ports that actually work. I wonder, would this configuration work with the CalDigit thunderbolt 4 hub? Many thanks again for your very informative posts.
Pleased to hear that. Sadly, I suspect the TB4 version won’t work, which is a shame because the 2.5G Ethernet would be a nice addition.
Well done, inspired me to check 10Gbe ethernet adapters via Apple‘s TB3-TB2 adapter with an ACASIS TBU42 dock (with NVME). Surprisingly I could get over 7Gbps networking speed for the 2013 Mac Pro 6,1. That‘s twice the speed compared to a directly attached TB2 10Gbe adapter (Sonnet, OWC). Unfortunately the PD powered TBU42 is currently sold out and may not be available again 😢. Will also check with Belkin TB3 dock.
Thanks for sharing - that’s a nice result.
Thank you for the video! Your information is great. One question: what is the Thunderbolt 3 nvme enclosure that you showed?
Can’t remember the model number - it’s by Orico. Not sure I would actually recommend it though as it has a cheap screw holding it together which has stripped, and now I can’t open it up to change the drive!
@@ConstantGeekerythank you!! That stinks that the screw stripped out on you. Good luck. Thank you for your videos!! You make a wonderful place to find TrashCan info. I love my TC Mac Pro and enjoy messing with it.
I really enjoy this video series as it’s nostalgic and the trash can was such a great machine that I owned a few years ago. However in 2024 I can’t help but feel it’s bad value against the M1 Mini and that isn’t clear for viewers here
I am using a CalDigit using that adaptor, work like a charm on my MacPro 6,1
I'm curious to see if we'll ever get hardware mods for this platform. I'd be fine soldering things into place to add in more current tech!
i thought this video might be about how you could use the miniPCI port for the wifi card as a means for adding full PCI Express functionality via adapters etc and then use each device as expected and without issue
Since the Mac Pro is PCIe 2.0, that wouldn’t help with Thunderbolt 3.
Good hubs, CalDigit - I had the TB2 version of the same one. (Eventually I'll get a Trashcan MacPro... )
I found a Mac Pro in the rubbish. It works fine. I bought RAM from eBay after watching your video. Is there any way of getting a display to work through this dock?
It's a shame that Thunderbolt Standard was allowed to use USB cables. That's why Firewire was better. The different Firewire speed standards used a different style connector, which, I believe, made it a better standard.
I feel like this was eventually replaced with the Mac Studio. But this Mac Pro has way more expandability such as switching out internal storage and some other things.
Excellent video, thank you! Any chance to try TrueNAS Scale or TrueNAS Core on that MacPro? Maybe even with a couple of external USB (5 Gbps ports are okay) drives in ZFS RAID?
Oh yes please... I would enjoy seeing your experiments on this.
Would love to see what is the maximum (realistic) resolution today with today's available monitors would be ( like the Apple studio display ) ...... Many have spoken of 5K / 4K and etc .... however in reality some combinations are non existent anymore or do not work . Mine has been faithfully working extremely well with the older Apple thunderbolt display ( w/ firewire connection in the back ) . Wonderful video ! Love the MacPro 2013 !!!!!
The Studio Display works at 4K but not 5K due the DisplayPort limitations on the Mac Pro. So 4K is the limit for video unless you use an eGPU
Nice analysis of backwards compatibility. Thanks!
Liked, Subscribed, and will stay forever... Got one my recording studio powered by 2 x 2013 MacPros - Thanks bruh!
I have just picked up a 12 core D500 2013 Mac Pro for $350 CAD. I already have a 4gb RX 580. Would love to see more tests to see if a $200 EGPU would be worth it for gaming in boot camp! Are they noticeably better than the dual d500? Hard to find much benchmarks on that!
The CalDigit TS3 can also be bought from CEX for £135 (with 2 year warranty) as of 11 June.
Another use case I would like to know; older iMacs (up until the 2011) that have thunderbolt 1 (10 Gbps), and next to that there's only USB v2. I'd like to connect a faster erxternal drive through the thunderbolt port, but it doesn't seem to be possible, except through a Kanex Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 Adapter. Any info on that ?
Thunderbolt 3 docks can be found ridiculously cheap(under $20), particularly ones from Dell. My current project is to get FibreChannel & SAS working thru external Thunderbolt 2 to PCIe enclosure to my 2013 Mac. Have an LTO5 tape drive I want to use for backups.
Wow, this video was outstanding and, I learned a lot. After the introduction of the M-1 "Mac Studio" desktop in 2022, the price of these "space gray" trash can Mac Pro's stated dropping like a "Rock" and, I picked up a used Mac Pro 8-core/D-700/64GB/1TB SSD model and paired it with an Apple 27-inch Cinema LED (none thunderbolt) display and everything works great together. Had thought about using a Thunderbolt 2 dock but, I did not know the usefulness of using a Thunderbolt 3 dock. Question: Does anyone know if, this type of set-up will also work with an OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock?
I have mine connected to an OWC TB4 dock and it works great.
I wanted to see if the TB4 dock would work plugged in/daisy chained through the TB3 dock
Interesting idea. I'll try it when I get chance.
I really like your watch, could you please let me know the model and maker please
Looks like I’m wearing an Apple Watch in this one - is that the one you meant? I have a few different watches that appear in various videos.
How about testing the Samsung drive with its original cable and USB 3.0 port on CalDigit adapter?
I’ve had it for a long time wiht 2 TB and 16 GB RAM; I can’t complain. Only the Thunderbolt 3 is a problem, I admit. But the rest is prety good. 🙂
Great video, thank you! Were you able to connect the Trashcan MacPro to a Studio Display successfully?
It works at 4K resolution only with the adapter. I do plan to try it with the Blackmagic eGPU, but I haven't done that yet. I'll be making a video about it when I do.
@@ConstantGeekeryIt’s kind of annoying because the Studio Display reports to macOS on the Mac Pro it is running at 5K if you look in System Information but it’s just 4K output with the display upscaling to 5K :( I dont understand why it lies about it
My Magic Trackpad started acting up with OCLP 1.5 and Sonoma 14.5. I noticed yours is plugged in. Do you have issues with it too?
It just needed charging. I’m still on Monterey at the moment, so no issues.
Just bought my second MacPro6,1 First one was bought in 2015 and paid 3700usd then for 64GB RAM and an engineering sample version of Xeon E5-2696 v2 (12 core 2.5~3.2GHz) with D300.
thanks, great post as usual
Is there any way to exceed 4k @ 60hz? Perhaps using an eGPU for example... my target is 4k @ 120hz if possible. Thanks!
I have a mid 2015 macbook pro thunderbolt 2 capable. Recently i bought a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter like yours in order to connect it to a hopday thunderbolt 3 dock station. After connecting them together it doesn’t work. It should be working fine, right?
I’m cofused.
If someone could track down or reverse engineer the pinout of the connectors between the main board and the gpu board on the 2013 Mac Pro I think you could potentially attach arbitrary pcie 3 devices.
just keep in mind that Thunderbolt only supports 4 lanes of PCIe no matter which generation as in PCIe3 or PCIe4 or TB2,3 or 4.
Protocol integration sounds great in theory but the practice has always been horrible.
I'm surprised Caldigit or Satechi didn't produce a Thunderbolt2 aggregator 'dock' for this machine to take the 6-channel (or was it 3?) TB2 to TB3 performance and standardise on USB-C. I guess there would be too much processing for protocol conversion but the user base would have paid handsomely for it at the time.
Interesting that the D700s are still so capable. Apple chose AMD for the FP64 performance which still holds up even a decade later. I would still like to have seen Apple Silicon GPU cards for this machine.
You neglected 20gbps USB, which is what I tend to use for my nvme enclosures.
I just bought a 12 core 32gb 2x D500 for $209 shipped, you think I got a nice deal ?
Sounds like a good deal to me 👍
Can you use an Apple Afterburner Card in an external enclosure on the 2013 MacPro via thunderbolt2 ?
Technically, there’s no reason why it couldn’t work, but I expect Apple have it locked to the 2019 Mac Pro in the drivers.
@@ConstantGeekery Thanks for the answer. Keep up the good work!
I think you should test the thunder 3 disk again, you replaced the cable when you realised it is not thunderbolt cable in your video but you didn’t choose the thunderbolt disk before testing. It should run at 2000m or something like that .
Timeline at 14:45
The correct disk was selected. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test will use the same external drive even if you eject and reconnect it - there’s no need to select it again. You can see this at 14:30
There’s also a cut in the edit at 14:55, so you don’t see me check the correct drive.
I pre-tested everything and I have my control test numbers using Amorphous Disk Mark (generally very similar to BMDST), which are 1176 read and 1121 write. The same drive on my M3 MacBook Air scores 3158 read and 2424 write. It may be possible that other TB3 drives will run quicker, but this particular combo doesn’t.
Great video, may I ask what kind of connection do you have with your MacPro and the dell monitor and what resolution, tks
In this video it’s a 1440p running on HDMI. In my home office it’s 4K over Mini DisplayPort.
@@ConstantGeekery thank you!
Most Excellent Review. Thank you.
I use my 2013 Mac Pro as a room heater during the winter.
Friend, Thunderbolt IS PCI Express.
Even better would have been a sff 4x or 8x type port. Superior and far cheaper. You also wouldn’t be relying on the chipset like you will Thunderbolt depending on the pcie lanes it would be plumbed in to. Newer Mac’s don’t truly run 10gb usb because they now run usb through one lane which limited to 8Gb/sec real world
Why not use Tuxera NTFS app to format drives readable by MAC and Windows?
Mainly because our workflow involves several people and multiple machines - both Mac and Windows - so the software would need to be installed in several places. We're also recording video directly to the drives, so the cameras / recorders need to be able to read the drives. I've never had any issues with exFAT, and when I've tested the performance between the formats, there seems to be negligible difference.
Have you had issues with exFAT and that’s why you go with NTFS? I have heard some users have exFAT issues but Ive used it lots over the years with no issues. Seems to be the best for all 3 major OS’s
Just thought off my head - is the internal SSD, could you get a nvme m.2 to egpu adapter and run the egpu off the internal nvme port?
I would imagine it would be difficult. It's not a standard M.2 slot and you need an adapter to use standard NVMe drives, but Apple specifically enabled support for that. In any case, you would still be limited to PCIe 2.0.
what a convoluted mess thunderbolt /usb-c has become.. great video though
thorough and useful, thank you!
I run Logic 11 on my cylinder 8-core with opencore and it flies
Is it not technically possible to expose PCIe lanes via a simple interposer in place of one of the GPU slots?
If I remember correctly, the machine will fail to boot if it doesn’t detect both GPUs.
Hold on, did you say you record STRAIGHT to the usbC hard drive??? How on earth is that possible, please, & what camera type/brand is that possible with also?
Thank you in advance.
We use Panasonic S5 cameras outputting raw HDMI to Blackmagic Design Video Assist. The Video Assist has the USB-C recording - this allows us to record BRAW direct to USB drive from the Panasonic.
Blackmagic Design’s new Pyxis camera will also have that capability.
@@ConstantGeekery thank you for your reply. That makes a lot more sense 😁 looking forward to those videos regarding export speed and photoshop work on that Mac Pro 2013🥳🙏🏾
Next related video idea... Explain how Apple are the only company who offer a *3m* length TB4 cable, while all other brands only offer a maximum of 2m TB4 cables.
Hint: Look at the circuitry inside the cable, perhaps. 😉
I just bought the 12 core with dual d700, and the playback with chrome on youtube is really jerky and missing frames, mac side works fine. May be returning it to cex unfortunately
That’s odd - it should be able to do that. Never had an issue with mine, though I’m using Safari rather than Chrome. It will even play 10-bit H.265 4K video smoothly in Resolve - which tends to be challenging for machines without dedicated video decoders on-chip.
@@ConstantGeekery safari as you say is spot on no issues, my playback was rubbish on brave browser as well (chrome based), found another set of graphics drivers today for the graphics card other than the standard ones with bootcamp and all well now, thanks for the reply. Can i ask as im having some network issues with sequioa do you know if i can reinstall the mojave without disturbing my bootcamp and oclp current install (dumping sequioa).
in every other way im loving the machine
@ you should be able to reinstall with OCLP. If bootcamp is on its own partition the install shouldn’t affect it - but I should say that I haven’t personally tried it, so proceed at your own risk 😁
When using the razer dock as just a USB hub, which port would you connect to on the dock?
The one on the front.
@@ConstantGeekery is that the powered host TB4 connection?
@@oscarstegland yes. Make sure you use a cable from a known brand that is standards compliant.
@@ConstantGeekery So just to clarify. You connect one non-powered thunderbolt 4 port to a Thunderbolt 2 on the Mac pro and then the powered thunderbolt 4 port to a USB on the Mac pro?
@@oscarstegland no. The Mac Pro cannot connect to a Thunderbolt 4 dock. You can connect the dock to a USB port on the Mac Pro using a standards compliant type A to type C cable using the port on the front of the dock. USB ports, ethernet and SD card reader on the dock should work, but nothing else will. It’s not something I recommend - I simply used it as an example to demonstrate the compatibility challenges.
the thunderboplt 3 not being present issue completely went under the radar. As an enterprise solutions engineer who was faced with the real issue at the time, let me tell you why they made the choice.
UNCORRECTABLE PCIe errors on intel 2011-v1-v2 at the time.
Even though technically the chips supported PCIe 3.0, the signaling issues were widespread initially and meant that PCIe 3.0 on intel was way too unstable for many use cases. If your motherboard supported 3.0 at that time and it had to have slots, u had to fallback to pcie 2.0 or have a more rigorous qualifying process for pcie cards.
So apple among others were forced to "innovate" in different ways. Apple cant be blamed for bad pcie 3.0 signaling their mac pro had no slots for cards and they could easily ensure that their own GPUs and other components would work well despite the issue. hence why we got the trash can, no slots, under a handful of GPU options.
these uncorrectable pcie 3 issue plagued allot of manufacturers. some just didnt care and released boards/systems anyways, others had to remove pcie 3 support via bios while some would fallback to pcie often time without the customer even knowing.
Do you prefer the MP running Sonoma or Monterey?
I still have it on Monterey.
very interesting!
It’s time that the 2013 Trashcan lives up to name and goes to the trashcan.
Funny that you get such a low score with the T7 on the standard USB 3 port. My T7 and even the T5’s get scores on over 400 both read and write on any USB 3 port on any of my mac’s. I actually use a T5 on USB 3 as the startup drive on my iMac 27 5K and it runs fine on that 400 ish speeds. Could that be because you run it on exfat mine are all running AFS? Further if I run the T7 on my 16” MBP USB C 3.1 I get scores of 800+ for write and 900+ for read. Also I once read somewhere that the T7’s are not 100% compatible with Mac OS as the speed goes down after longer use. I tested that and it did seem to be the case when used as boot drive. That might be caused by memory swap I heard.
Probably an anomaly or cable issue. I should have repeated the test - my bad. I’ve not noticed any speed issues using exFAT and get similar performance to your scores.
Trashcan: Nah
Mac Studio Xeon: Yeah
Regarding exFAT, you would be better off using HFS+ and installing macdrive on windows. exfat is painfully slow and prone to errors on both, windows on mac.
I can’t install macdrive on my cameras and recorders, not to mention multiple different machines and users.
Our experience over many years and projects: zero errors and negligible speed difference.
bother me about the Mac Pro 2013 , can’t connect a Apple thunderbolt display to a eGPU . My setup with 2 Thunderbolt Display and one Apple Cinema Display . An for my 2 Thunderbolt G-drives cant can be bus power, even though web and video show it happens
Dear sir. sorry to bother you again, my Mac Pro it is running on HDMI at 2560x1080 60Hz on LG Ultrawide Monitor, but when I use the Display Port got a Blank screen, do you know what could be happening?tks again, Im ready to change CPU and Memory follow your great videos.
I assume you have tried all the ports and checked the cable and the monitor. If you're sure the cable and the port on the monitor are both good, try the following:
Shut down the Mac.
Remove the power cable and wait 60 seconds before plugging it in again.
Plug the mini displayport cable into the bottom left Thunderbolt port. Switch on the Mac whilst holding OPTION+COMMAND+P+R on the keyboard (to reset the PRAM).
@@ConstantGeekery Tks for your replied, but nothing is happening, let me know what king of connector and cable are you using ?
@@ccedraro3878 it would be unusual for the display output to stop working if the Thunderbolt ports still work. I would focus my attention on the monitor and cables. Are you sure the DisplayPort input on the monitor is working? Are you sure the cable is good? I use a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable with mine, which I bought on Amazon. I think it might be made by Startech.
@@ConstantGeekery tks again , the Monitor is 6 months old, I will buy new cables and adapter and check, really appreciate your support, Best regards, Cesar.
I just wish I could get my Thunderbolt Display to work with my 2013 Mac Pro. It will run as a monitor, but no brightness adjustment, need to replug in after sleep, no camera speakers or other connectors. I am terribly frustrated.
Too bad the hdmi port is an hdmi cable destroyer. At least on mine and one other reviewer from 2018. I have to use a thunderbolt to hdmi adapter
Oh boy, USB is such a clusterfuck these days.
Dude, you lost so much weight. Were you trying to lose so much weight? I hope you are staying healthy overall. Take care of yourself.
It’s something I had to do for a health issue, but I’m feeling much better as a result. Thanks for the concern 😊
Power consumption is terrible.
518 WRITE, c.500 READ - ace info and can do but does not make it faster than usb - tldr
I came here because I was going to find an easy answer to a Mac pro that I was looking at and unfortunately I'm nearly 10 minutes into the video and you haven't actually gotten to whether or not thunderbolt 3 works or thunderbolt 3 dog works.
I mean yeah, thunderbolt 4 but you're spending way too much time talking about stuff that just doesn't work and not enough time getting to actually the stuff that does work. I mean come on it's 10 minutes in and we still don't have any answers to the original question
Some people want to learn about a topic rather than just hear someone give an answer they could have found in less time on Google.
OMG .... everything you said is wrong
No. It isn't.
Wonderful video, yours; Thankyou! I use a TB3-10GbE IOCREST ethernet adapter (usd100.-) on a macbookpro M2 Pro; Instant joy. 🕊️ HOWEVER, I have NOT😰 managed to get my Proxmox (on bare-metal reusing an old Intel macbook pro) to recognize it YET (so I'm limited there to using Apple's TB2-1GbE dongle on that old laptop which was recognized just fine); I was hoping to improve my network access speeds to the TrueNAS guest in there but I've clearly misunderstood something when trying to get this 10GbE recognized (could it be that it's incompatible with Apple's TB2-to-TB3 adapter? hmmmm. 😮).
According to your video, it MAY simply be that the IOCREST is not getting the power it needs from the bus, as I understand that Apple's TB2-to-TB3 might not be up to the task.
Thanks to your video, I now see that I should try with a TB3 dock (not TB4).
Fingers crossed. [ed.: FutureShawn here. YES the TB3 dock solved the issue. The Iocrest device requires USB PD negotiated power - which the TB3 dock provides - rather than TB2 fixed BUS power that Apple's adapter provides).
It's AWESOME to see your videos that allow us to use/reuse/push our old hardware to the limits.