2,1 to 5,1 Real World Difference? (Gaming Focus)

[judino28]

So, you can see in my signature the specs of my current Mac Pro 2,1 (upgraded 1,1) that I absolutely love and have poured a lot of time and money into over the years. In short: Dual x5365, SSD for boot, AMD 7950, USB 3.0 Card, 16gb Ram; basically every upgrade you can make to this awesome machine.

Every once and a while, I'm on the lookout for a good deal on a good genuine 5,1 2012 (so it's as new as possible) dual 3.33 or 3.46 as an upgrade. My plan would be to not pay any attention to any upgrades besides of course the processors and maybe RAM as I would just bring over the AMD 7950, hard drives, and USB 3.0 card as all would still be compatible.

My question is, do you think I would really feel any difference in day to day snappiness if I were to ever pull the trigger? I do some audio editing, GarageBand, and gaming under Windows 7, all of which my current machine mostly handles fine. This all in addition to the normal web browsing and video watching.

However, every day my current MP gets older and, as much as I love it, it is a machine locked in time with El Capitan (which is fine). I'm sure the 5,1 will soon be stuck in time too, but prices can be quite good and a dual 3.46 is still an amazing machine today. I love the MP form factor, especially it's flexibility as I use lots of storage, and it perfectly fits my needs.

But again, in your experience, would I really feel much difference in what I do? Would gaming be much noticeably faster and enhanced with the better processors even with the same 7950?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

[flowrider]

Five years ago I graduated from a 3,1 cMP to a 5,1. And even in stock configuration, I noticed a big performance difference in everyday use. My 5,1 has since been hot rodded, as you have done with your 1,1. I still luv my machine and find it contemporary even today. And, remember your machine runs with a 32-bit kernel and a 1333 MHz bus.

Lou

 

[fuchsdh]

Like Flow I moved from a 3,1 to 5,1 and noticed a substantial speed increase. I'd recommend it.

 

[fendersrule]

Going from a 3,1 to a 5,1, the 3,1 felt slow. The 5,1 is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, a much faster system in every day use, and that's my experience from a 3,1!

Some people on here think they're 3,1 is "blazing balls" fast. Not true.

 

[pl1984]

As an owner of a 1,1, a 3,1, and a 5,1 I cannot tell the difference between the three in day to day use. General tasks, browsing the web, general usage...all feel the same. 5,1 is definitely faster than the other two but that's only noticeable in compute intensive work. I cannot speak to games as I don't game on any of them.

 

[joot]

I'm with pl1984,

I, too, have an original 1,1 upgraded to 2,1. I bought from ebay a 3,1 that was too good to pass up ($150 shipped). I also own a 4,1 flashed to 5,1. Day to day use, I don' feel any difference. Surfing, emailing, etc all feel the same. However, I only use the 5,1 for video editing as it has the 980ti.

 

[devon807]

I as well, had a 3,1 back in 2015. It lasted me till 2017 when I purchased my 5,1 and was great in day to day tasks. Like said previously, in day to day tasks almost no difference. Where the difference came was efficiency in pro apps like Final Cut and Logic. It was insane that the base 2.8 GHz quad 5,1 was performing BETTER than a 2.8GHz 8 core 3,1. The 2,1 and 3,1 are very similar machines, hence why I am comparing the 3,1 to the 5,1. Honestly, if you don't do heavily CPU bound tasks everyday, It might not be cost-effective and you might be better off sticking to the 2,1. Furthermore, the dual CPU 2012 Mac Pro's are few and between and cost a lot compared to their 2009 counterparts. The performance of the 2012 is literally identical (with the same CPU's and RAM) to the 2009 system, but with the 2009 you do lose out on native compatibility with the latest OS'es for however long Apple decides to support them. All in all, there are several caveats that present themselves when trying to decide on whether or not to upgrade. Honestly, if the machine is still performing up to par on most tasks and you don't necessarily need speed, then it may not be worth the money.

 

[fendersrule]

IME, everything was more "snappy" with the 5.1 3.46Ghz vs the 3,1 2.8GHz. Both fitted with SSDs. Even simple stuff like popping open a chrome browser. You just "felt" that the 5,1 didn't have to process it and it was my internet speeds that was the only bottleneck, while the 3,1 has a few milliseconds of "load" time. Watching HD1080p Youtube videos was fine on the 3,1, but you still felt like it had to work a bit at it. The 5,1 treated stuff like that like chump change.

I could even feel a difference with the 2.8Ghz 5,1 vs the 2.8Ghz 3,1 even. After adding the 3.46Ghz, it was a no contest in "teh snap". I won't even mention gaming or general benchmarks, this is just general GUI usage perception.

The specs will also agree. The 3,1 has FSB. An FSB is ancient, archaic stuff by now, that limits all the core components by a little pipeline of bandwidth.

So I guess I stand alone, but I trust my perception and experience after 8 years of use with a 3,1. The 5,1 is definitely more snappy. The 3,1 was painful to use in iMovie for high res clips. Scrubbing frames took a considerable amount of more time with it. Lots of lag in iMovie, even though it still "got the job done" it was not pleasurable to use in the slightest.

I never said the 3,1 isn't capable, but it is not "blazing fast" by any factual accoutn, and it does NOT, and will never feel "the same as a 5,1." Upgrading only to get a little more "snappiness" in general UI usage may not be cost effective, but upgrading for pro apps and gaming capability is a very easy decision.

I have a 3,1 in the other room in the house with a GTX 1060 6GB, and that 1060 is heavily bottlenecked, more than I could have guessed. FYI, a GTX 1060 pretty much guarantees 60FPS @ 1080p for almost any game, where-as in a 3,1 you'll commonly see 40 FPS with many drops into the 20s. That's a pretty insane amount of bottlenecking.

Whereas a GTX 1070 in my 5,1 has "negligible" bottle-necking, if any, at my resolutions.

 

[vworks]

No
I had the 2.1 and now the 4.1.
Not really faster except in Capture one.

 

[judino28]

Sorry to bump this, but hoping for some more thoughts/experiences.

Let's focus on gaming in Windows 7 Ultimate. Would I see a huge difference with the same video card (HD 7950) from my 2,1 3.0 Eight Core vs 5,1 3.46 Twelve Core?

 

[pl1984]

Sorry to bump this, but hoping for some more thoughts/experiences.

Let's focus on gaming in Windows 7 Ultimate. Would I see a huge difference with the same video card (HD 7950) from my 2,1 3.0 Eight Core vs 5,1 3.46 Twelve Core?

The processor architecture used in the 4,1 and 5,1 is superior to that used in the 1,1 - 3,1. From a high level think of Core i series (4,1 and 5,1) versus Core 2 series (1,1 - 3,1) when it comes to non-Xeon processors.

 

[h9826790]

Sorry to bump this, but hoping for some more thoughts/experiences.

Let's focus on gaming in Windows 7 Ultimate. Would I see a huge difference with the same video card (HD 7950) from my 2,1 3.0 Eight Core vs 5,1 3.46 Twelve Core?

Very depends on game and setting. If you play the games at 4K (GPU limiting), I don't think you will see any difference. Also, if any game that is not CPU limiting, you also should not see noticeable difference.

But if you lower the setting, or the game is very CPU demanding, then yes, I expect you can see a significant improvement.

However, 12 cores 3.46 won't give you any benefit. In fact, may cause trouble to run games occasionally (games are not decided to run with multi processors system). I still haven't see a game that can use more than 6 threads on my 5,1, most of them use 4 thread or less. Therefore, any CPU that has 4 core should be enough in general (I believe games are mainly optimised for the i7, which is a Quad cores CPU), and Hex core should be more than enough already.

 

[fendersrule]

YES. YES. YES. The 5,1 is galaxies faster than the 3,1 for gaming. Read my last post, I have both in my house with GTX cards. The 3,1 is a fat pig when it comes to gaming in today's world. The 3,1 cannot hold 60 FPS (or near it) in any modern game with the GTX 1060. It's disappointing.

 

[devon807]

I agree, the 5,1 is much faster than the 3,1 in every aspect. I wouldn't waste time/money on a dual CPU model/12-core of you are primarily doing gaming. Like h9826790 said, most games aren't designed to run on lots of cores/multiple CPU's. A 6-core 2010/12 would suit you just fine.

 

[fendersrule]

It is still surprising how well the i7 990x/Xeon Westmere 3.46GHz handle their own in today's world! VR? No problem.

 

[nigelbb]

It is still surprising how well the i7 990x/Xeon Westmere 3.46GHz handle their own in today's world! VR? No problem.

This simply demonstrates that the year on year increase in CPU performance has stalled & that Moore's Law ceased to operate at least 10 years ago.

 

[pl1984]

This simply demonstrates that the year on year increase in CPU performance has stalled & that Moore's Law ceased to operate at least 10 years ago.

I believe Moore's law was about transistor count and not performance. Given how we've seen processors go from single core to multiple cores I think Moore's law is holding up well.

Regarding performance, the Core I series processor technology has held up well. There are people who continue to use Sandy Bridge based processors because they still perform well. In fact I'm writing this on an Ivy Bridge laptop. I guess the positive to this is systems become obsolete at a slower rate. Gone are the days when you'd buy a new computer only to have a much faster one released six months later.

 

[orph]

well easy thing to do is just compare the cpu speed x5365 v W3680
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-X5365-vs-Intel-Xeon-W3680
when i moved from my 3.1 2.8ghz 8c to my 5.1 3.33 ghz 6c i saw about 1/3 speed up for all core cpu tests (cinbench multi core or video rendering) and a lot more for single core tests

but needs to be mentioned the W3680 is super slow by today's speeds an i7 8700K (or id gess any i7 4/5/6/7/8 gen cpu even 4c will beat the macpro 5.1)
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-W3680-vs-Intel-Core-i7-8700/m12335vs3940

back to the point yes 5.1 is a lot faster thanks to it being an i7 and the 3.1 being a coreduo cpu (or something close to that)

 

[Synchro3]

The 5,1 is hugely faster than the 3,1.

And with a beefy GPU you have a good gaming machine.

Best deal is to buy a 4,1 with single CPU, and mod it to a 5,1 with W3690/X5690 or W3680/X5680 CPU.

 

[h9826790]

The 5,1 is hugely faster than the 3,1.

And with a beefy GPU you have a good gaming machine.

Best deal is to buy a 4,1 with single CPU, and mod it to a 5,1 with W3690/X5690 or W3680/X5680 CPU.

View attachment 747771 View attachment 747772

For gaming, it's more appropriate to compare the single core performance. Therefore, in CPU limiting case, a properly upgraded 5,1 may performance up to ~50% better than the 3,1.

 

[fendersrule]

Yep. 50% faster is huge.

Real actual gaming at 1080p is probably more.

 

[AlexMaximus]

So, you can see in my signature the specs of my current Mac Pro 2,1 (upgraded 1,1) that I absolutely love and have poured a lot of time and money into over the years. In short: Dual x5365, SSD for boot, AMD 7950, USB 3.0 Card, 16gb Ram; basically every upgrade you can make to this awesome machine.

Every once and a while, I'm on the lookout for a good deal on a good genuine 5,1 2012 (so it's as new as possible) dual 3.33 or 3.46 as an upgrade. My plan would be to not pay any attention to any upgrades besides of course the processors and maybe RAM as I would just bring over the AMD 7950, hard drives, and USB 3.0 card as all would still be compatible.

My question is, do you think I would really feel any difference in day to day snappiness if I were to ever pull the trigger? I do some audio editing, GarageBand, and gaming under Windows 7, all of which my current machine mostly handles fine. This all in addition to the normal web browsing and video watching.

However, every day my current MP gets older and, as much as I love it, it is a machine locked in time with El Capitan (which is fine). I'm sure the 5,1 will soon be stuck in time too, but prices can be quite good and a dual 3.46 is still an amazing machine today. I love the MP form factor, especially it's flexibility as I use lots of storage, and it perfectly fits my needs.

But again, in your experience, would I really feel much difference in what I do? Would gaming be much noticeably faster and enhanced with the better processors even with the same 7950?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I wonder if a Stong GPU Nvidia card like a 1080Ti in your 2.1 would do the trick. It really worked in my case, my 980ti Card made a big difference.

 

[tpivette89]

I have both a 3,1 and a 4,1 flashed to a 5,1. I ran Geekbench 4 scores on them both:

3,1 (2.8ghz quad core X 2)
Single core: 1927
Multi core: 10075

Flashed 4,1 (single 3.46ghz hex core)
Single core: 3184
Multi core: 15148

Even installing a pair of dual core 3.4ghz CPUs in the 3,1 only got a single core score of 2243.

The 4,1 flashed to a 5,1 (or a real 5,1) is faster in every way when it comes to CPU performance.

 

[h9826790]

I have both a 3,1 and a 4,1 flashed to a 5,1. I ran Geekbench 4 scores on them both:

3,1 (2.8ghz quad core X 2)
Single core: 1927
Multi core: 10075

Flashed 4,1 (single 3.46ghz hex core)
Single core: 3184
Multi core: 15148

Even installing a pair of dual core 3.4ghz CPUs in the 3,1 only got a single core score of 2243.

The 4,1 flashed to a 5,1 (or a real 5,1) is faster in every way when it comes to CPU performance.

Do you have any real world gaming benchmark?

 

[nigelbb]

I believe Moore's law was about transistor count and not performance. Given how we've seen processors go from single core to multiple cores I think Moore's law is holding up well.

Regarding performance, the Core I series processor technology has held up well. There are people who continue to use Sandy Bridge based processors because they still perform well. In fact I'm writing this on an Ivy Bridge laptop. I guess the positive to this is systems become obsolete at a slower rate. Gone are the days when you'd buy a new computer only to have a much faster one released six months later.

Single threaded performance has stalled over the last ten years. The 3.2GHz X5482 in the top of the line 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 has a single core benchmark of 1365. The 3.3GHz W3680 in the fastest 2012 Mac Pro 5,1 was delivering just 1518. The 3.7GHz E5-1620 in the Mac Pro 6,1 gives 1948. The fastest Xeon available in January 2018 the 4.10GHz E3-1285 benchmarks at 2560.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5462+@+2.80GHz
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+W3680+@+3.33GHz
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-1620+v2+@+3.70GHz
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-

Single thread CPU performance hasn't even doubled in the last ten years. For many years performance increased year on year in leaps & bounds in line with clock speeds but over the last ten years speeds have only increased from around 3GHz to around 4GHz. There have been efficiencies in CPU design that have provided some performance boost but not approaching those seen when the clock speeds were being doubled year on year.