This one is a winner

My desktop Mac Pro, a 2010 model upgraded with dual 3.47GHz Intel 12-core CPUs and 96GB of memory, has long enjoyed the company of a Logitech G500 gaming mouse, which remains available. As I have better things to do with my time than destroy brain cells I do not game, but that mouse, after almost a decade’s use, remains a perfect performer. It’s wired and tracks and clicks perfectly, showing no signs of deterioration after over 3,000 days of daily use.

But the other Mac Pro, which is my movie server, is a different story. That 2009 machine, again with upgraded CPUs, controls over 40TB (!) of disk storage on which reside all sorts of DVD and BluRay movies, all instantly accessible at the click of a mouse using DVDpedia. Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement. For years I have been using an RF Microsoft mouse, one of those with a dongle attached to a USB port, and things have gone from bad to worse. First, in this application, you must have wireless so that there are no wires to trip over. Second, scrolling must be dead smooth if you are to page through a lot of movies on those evenings when there is nothing else to do. And while the pointing and clicking functions of that mouse are as good as it gets, scrolling has gone from bad to unusable over the years, so much so that I resolved to explore alternatives.

I settled on a MacAlly bluetooth mouse – no dongle. It paired instantly and using the adjustable scrolling speed setting in the relevant System Preferences window, it points, clicks and scrolls perfectly. The mouse-to-Mac Pro distance is some 10 feet, with the TV screen hiding the computer. The Microsoft mouse has been relegated to the box in the corner of the garage with the black beetles, perennially in search of cheese. I should throw it out but we have developed a relationship over the years, and it’s not like it’s a disposable ex-spouse. The Mac Pro uses a dated bluetooth card which peaks at 802.11n and that’s all that is needed.

The MacAlly bluetooth mouse.

The MacAlly mouse uses two (included) AAA batteries. I use it on a brown wooden semi-matt finish coffee table, as above, no mouse pad, without issues. Unlike the Logitech G500 – no lefties – the MacAlly is ambidextrous. The small rectangular button below the tilting (sideways scrolling) and very smooth scroll wheel switches sensitivity between 800/1200/1600 DPI and I have found that the 1600 setting provides the smoothest pointer movement in my setting. Plus, you can get it in white finish, in addition to the usual black.

Be aware that this mouse is not very tall, unlike the gaming mouse linked in the first paragraph, so all day use may not be that comfortable. But for occasional use with my movie sever it’s fine.

Recommended, and at $20, what’s not to like?

A note on improving Bluetooth reception: If your Bluetooth reception is marginal, characterized by a delayed response of the cursor to mouse movement, a Bluetooth receiver like this helps. Because my Mac Pro is hidden behind the TV screen, the internal Bluetooth receiver receives a weak signal. I simply attached that external $10 Bluetooth receiver to a USB cable and routed it to the base of my amplifier which is in line of sight of the mouse. Problem solved. For $5 more the receiver even comes in a 5.0 version (the cheap one is 4.0) which confers enhanced sensitivity if needed.

The Bluetooth receiver on a USB extension cord.

An element of future proofing.

For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.

Apple simply cannot leave OS X alone. An OS that was perfectly solid with the Snow Leopard iteration back in 2009 continues to see annual ‘upgrades’ which add nothing but useless bells and whistles. And with OS X High Sierra (10.13 – 2017) Apple made the last version of OS X which worked with Nvidia GPUs. Nvidia and Apple had parted company a while back and Nvidia decided that the small user base no longer justified coding of drivers for later versions of OS X despite having some of the best GPUs made. Then Apple insisted on adding its Metal GPU technology meaning that from OS X Mojave (10.14) no Nvidia GPUs would work. A solution looking for, and finding, a problem.

So why care when OS X High Sierra works well? Because increasingly app makers are coding for Metal, and if your app is one of those and is in need of an upgrade, you are stuck with migrating to a recent model GPU from AMD/ATI.

I have not researched this in great depth but the AMD HD7950 is known to work well as are later versions. I bought a used 3gB HD7950 on eBay – it was fraudulently advertised as a later R9 280, so what else is new with eBay – and it works well in High Sierra. Here are the comparisons from HWCompare:

Nvidia GTX980 4gB vs. AMD HD7950 3gB.

My tests on my Mac Pro 2010 confirm that the AMD card – it ran me $220 – is marginally slower than the Nvidia/EVGA GTX980 in use, but as I do not do heavy video processing that does not concern me.

Unigine video tests. The upgrade to a faster CPU is irrelevant here.

Nova returns similar performance comparisons:

The GTX980 returns 2640.

Static power consumption, measured using a Kill-A-Watt meter, is 225 watts, compared with 252 watts for the Nvidia card. That rises to 460 watts with a BENQ 32″ 1080p display while running Unigine Heaven. That is well within the power handling of the Mac Pro and, more importantly, the 200 watt maximum power draw of the AMD GPU is below the 225 watts available to the card via the PCIe slot (75 watts) and the two motherboard cable feeds, one 6 and the other 8 pin. Those provide 75 watts each for a maximum of 225 watts. The AMD card is very quiet and there is no start up whirr, unlike with the Nvidia card. While the seller stated the boot screen works (my MacVidCards modified GTX980 provides a boot screen on its DVI and DP ports, not on the HDMI one) that is not the case. I could not get boot screens on any of the MDP, DVI or HDMI ports. Oh! well ….

Should you ‘upgrade’ to an AMD card? Well, if your latest apps insist on Metal and you want/have to install OS X Mojave (10.14) or Catalina (10.15), you have no choice. Only AMD GPUs will work. Does the AMD card work with the latest OS X, Big Sur (10.16)? It’s too early to say.

Adding 4K to the movie Mac Pro:

My motivation was different. Having added a big screen LG OLED TV a couple of years ago to the home theater, I wanted to deliver 4K video to the display which is mostly driven from a single CPU 2009 Mac Pro which is a robust and reliable file server as well as offering internet access to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. But the HDMI card in that Mac Pro is an ancient GTX520, limited to 1080p. Thus I have been using an Apple TV4K to deliver 4K streams, but that’s not an especially elegant solution as you have to switch between sources. That machine is running OS X Yosemite (10.10 – 2014) and has no need of Metal technology. So it occurred to me I could both future proof my 2010 Mac Pro by installing an AMD card and at the same time switch the GTX980 over to the 2009 movie Mac Pro where it will happily deliver 4K definition (3840 x 2160 in the 16:9 aspect ratio, compared with 1920 x 1080 in 1080p). That would allow sale of the AppleTV4K as all movies would be streamed through the Mac Pro and no input switching would be required. The home screen looks like this:

The Mac Pro movie server home screen – all icon driven. DVDPedia – at top left – catalogs movies on the server.

I use a small app named Img2Icns to generate icons from images found on the web.

HiDPI

When Apple migrated its screens to the Retina Display icons shrank to a quarter of their original size, making them very hard to see and click. Most external monitors, like a 4K TV, do not recognize the HiDPI tech built into the displays on Macs, so HiDPI has to be enabled to show icons in a decent size while not affecting 4K definition in 4K movies. HiDPI scaling can be enabled by starting Terminal (in Applications->Utilities) and typing the following (works with OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later):

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

Hit enter, type your password, hit enter again and reboot. HiDPI is now enabled. Go to System Preferences->Displays, click on ‘Scaled’ (you may have to hold down the Alt key on your keyboard) and HiDPI options will now be shown. Click on 3840 x 2160 (HiDPI) and your icons will revert to regular size. You can verify that you’re getting the right resolution by clicking the Apple Menu in the top-left, selecting “About This Mac”, then the “System Report” button, then clicking “Graphics/Displays” in the list on the left. You will see something like this:

Displays:

AV Receiver:
Resolution: 3840×2160 (2160p 4K UHD – Ultra High Definition)
UI Looks like: 1920×1080 (1080p FHD – Full High Definition)

If you decide you want to revert the change above, just use this terminal command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool false

SwitchResX:

If you struggle with getting the right definition and frame rate in System Preferences->Displays, install SwitchResX, a small, inexpensive utility which allows you to set both. I find 24fps is inadequate for some movies and with HDMI on a Mac Pro (which supports HDMI 1.4, not the faster 2.0) you can increase the framing rated from 24fps to 30fps, which works well. I have it set at 3840×2160 which is 4K and 30fps.

Conclusion:

So if you need to add Metal/Mojave et al compatibility to your Mac Pro a late model AMD card works well and needs no special drivers. An older Nvidia card (GTX680 or later, but no later than GTX980) can be used to stream movies in 4K definition, a definition also supported by the AMD card. However, the Nvidia card is limited to OS X High Sierra (10.13) or earlier.

Perfect for Lightroom.

For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.

If still image processing is your thing and you do not need fast 4K, 8K or 100K movie capability, the old Mac Pro is perfectly adequate.

Click the video to learn more:

A nice 2010 dual CPU Mac Pro can be had for under $500, the faster CPUs to replace the pokey stock ones ran me $170 for two X5690 (at 3.46gHz, the fastest which will work in this chassis), the memory another $115 (you can use cheap server memory in a Mac Pro chassis) and I would recommend an RX580 GPU as it will work with Catalina (my GTX980 stops at High Sierra). Reckon on $180 for the GPU. So for under $1000 you have an industrial grade machine, as fast as anything out there, and infinitely repairable. The only modern connectivity you cannot install is Thunderbolt, so if that is important to you, this is not the right hardware solution.

For the techies out there, here’s the Geekbench data for CPU and memory performance:

Geekbench data for the computer used in the above video.
I am running High Sierra.

I am using a BENQ PD3200Q display which I recommend based on its price:performance.

Had to get the wheels, too.

For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.

There’s a new American Express card out named the AMEX Plutonium, and of course they sent me one. It’s a sweet deal and there’s no charge for the radioactivity, which decays quickly. There’s no credit limit and if you spend $1mm a year they waive the annual $50k fee. And the interest rate is only 10% a month, which beats the local Mob’s.

Well, says, I, better get with the action and earn that freebie, so I decided to splash out on the new Mac Pro. Yup, it’s butt ugly, but I have a mechanic who will gut one of my spare regular Mac Pros and install the hardware inside that elegant box. And he’s only charging $5k to do the work! Too bad he doesn’t take AMEX.

Anyway, to jolly things along I decided to max out the new MP’s specs, so here’s what I ended up with:

Had to get the Apple monitor – it’s only twice the price of the identical Dell. Loaded her up with 768GB of memory at only 3x the market rate, a snip at $10k.

The stand is only $1,000 more. Had to have it.

Ugly as sin, so I’m having it rehoused.

Forget the stock legs. I’m going with the rollers for a mere $400 more.

I hope it arrives soon as it should allow me to email and play Pong much faster. I also charged a new Rolls and a Bentley on the Plutonium – a man needs variety – so now I am well on the way to the free annual fee. I’m going to show the new Roller at local shows with the new Mac Pro in the passenger seat.

Greed redefined.

You can get a top quality BenQ 27″ monitor, with stand for $600:

The 27″ calibrated BenQ monitor.

Apple however Thinks Different and has determined that not only will its new monitor sell for $5000 (likely using a regular LG panel) but wants you to pony up an extra $1000 for the stand ….

The $1000 stand for the $5000 monitor.

Either Apple has concluded that their professional customers base is, you know, stoopid, or they need a new CEO. Heck, they have needed a new CEO, someone who occasionally has an original idea, since Steve passed.

As for myself, I use a 30″ Apple LCD monitor in its elegant aluminum case which I bought used 5 years ago for $400. It calibrates nicely using a puck and is a joy to behold. And yes, it came with a stand included.

The elegant 30″ Apple LCD monitor.