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5 Year old mac pro used today?

C

craigsharp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 2, 2008
140
3
Oklahoma
It is still a VERY capable machine, my advice would be to get a 2008 version though, as they have a newer PCI-E so the graphics cards from the Apple store today would work in them. They are still much more powerful than your MBP and run lion beautifully!
 
Just got one last week used one craigslist. I think $800 is a little steep. I grabbed mine for 500. Granted the case isnt perfect but works perfectly.

Ram is relatively cheap if you want to go up to 16GB. You could get 16GB for around 150 used on ebay. 32GB will be a LOT more money though.

As far as I know, there's no limit as to the size of hard drives you can throw in it and it can still use pretty current video cards. With OWCs mounts you can install up to 6 hard drives, so great for RAID setups.

I'm definitely enjoying tinkering around with mine. I've never had a machine this upgradable.
 
ORTOX said:
Just got one last week used one craigslist. I think $800 is a little steep. I grabbed mine for 500. Granted the case isnt perfect but works perfectly.

Ram is relatively cheap if you want to go up to 16GB. You could get 16GB for around 150 used on ebay. 32GB will be a LOT more money though.

As far as I know, there's no limit as to the size of hard drives you can throw in it and it can still use pretty current video cards. With OWCs mounts you can install up to 6 hard drives, so great for RAID setups.

I'm definitely enjoying tinkering around with mine. I've never had a machine this upgradable.
Click to expand...

Yeah, $500 was a really good deal that will be hard to replicate. You were pretty fortunate!
 
It's still very capable though the 7300gt video card is a little lame.

It's better to get an 8800gt if you can find an Apple one for the MP1.1 or flash a generic one with Apple ROM. I believe that the 8800gt is the highest "officially approved" video card for this machine.
This way, everything works fine, though I'm not sure if the 8800 is Tiger-friendly.

Some of the newer and better "64-bit EFI" video cards might cause no display upon boot or other troubles related to the Tiger-compatible 32-bit EFI. It was a compromise at the time because 64-bit capable Leopard wasn't out yet.


Mine has an 8800GT, 4 drives, 8gb RAM and stock 2.66x2 XEONS and runs Lion beautifully with a zillion windows open even with Final Cut Studio and Acorn running.
I bought it with Tiger and upgraded to Leopard, Snow Leopard and now Lion.

A 2008 or newer MP is probably a better bet but these are still extremely capable and very reliable.

Maybe in a year or two I'll get a Thuderbolt-capable replacement... :)
 
The Apple branded 5770 works perfectly with Snow Leopard and Lion. A much better buy than the trouble prone 8800s if you want more power. I would absolutely go that route.
 
Yeah, I'd say go for the 5770 if you pick up a 1,2 or 2,2 model. It's significantly faster than the 8800 GT and you can even flash many PC versions of the card if you want to save some cash.

5870s also work, but they bottleneck on those machines (as in, you can't really use them to their full potential), due to the slower PCIe bus. They also cost a lot more.

1,1 Mac Pros can also be made into fast 8-core machines with Clovertown CPU swaps. Sometimes appropriate chips pop up on eBay.
 
$800 is way too much considering you will need to spend about $200 extra on upgrades to get it up to scratch (New graphics, HDD, RAM is also around ~$50 per gb.

Why not get this year's 13" MBP? It is on par with the 2006 Mac Pro (actually geekbenches higher) in every area except graphics, and you would still have to spend $100 to get a graphics card that isn't worse than what is in this year's MBP.

@CaptainChunk

The 5870 is bottlenecked by Apple's drivers, not the PCIe speed. It runs at full speed in Boot Camp.
 
gullySn0wCat said:
$800 is way too much considering you will need to spend about $200 extra on upgrades to get it up to scratch (New graphics, HDD, RAM is also around ~$50 per gb.

Why not get this year's 13" MBP? It is on par with the 2006 Mac Pro (actually geekbenches higher) in every area except graphics, and you would still have to spend $100 to get a graphics card that isn't worse than what is in this year's MBP.
Click to expand...
The MBP may be on par regarding pure performance, but the MacPro already offers up to 6 drive bays - depending on individual needs, going for a MBP instead of a MacPro may result in having to get a NAS (Proper 4-/5-bay NAS systems cost around 300-500€, which may have to be added to the MBP purchase cost in a comparison). Not to mention higher max Ram capacity, the chance to actually being able to change the graphic card at all in a MP, the possibility to use a cheap off-the-shelf BluRay standard drive in a MP, the lower noise under load etc. etc.

Unless either space, mobility or energy-saving is key, i would take a 1,1 MacPro any time over a current MBP!

That _may_ change in 1-2 years, but by then newer MacPro's will have reached interesting price points in the second-hand market...
 
Neodym said:
The MBP may be on par regarding pure performance, but the MacPro already offers up to 6 drive bays - depending on individual needs, going for a MBP instead of a MacPro may result in having to get a NAS (Proper 4-/5-bay NAS systems cost around 300-500€, which may have to be added to the MBP purchase cost in a comparison). Not to mention higher max Ram capacity, the chance to actually being able to change the graphic card at all in a MP, the possibility to use a cheap off-the-shelf BluRay standard drive in a MP, the lower noise under load etc. etc.

Unless either space, mobility or energy-saving is key, i would take a 1,1 MacPro any time over a current MBP!

That _may_ change in 1-2 years, but by then newer MacPro's will have reached interesting price points in the second-hand market...
Click to expand...

Thanks for reading the thread! I have an MP1,1 and love it but certainly would not recommend buying one now, especially one that is essentially the stock configuration for $800.

Max RAM capacity doesn't mean a thing when an MP2006-08 4GB RAM kit goes for about $200
 
gullySn0wCat said:
Thanks for reading the thread! I have an MP1,1 and love it but certainly would not recommend buying one now, especially one that is essentially the stock configuration for $800.
Click to expand...
Even if you consider the +200$ for upgrading the MP you still get a completely different (bigger/more capable!) package for roughly the same price you pay for a new MBP. And then it completely depends on the individual needs which package is more attractive. That's what i said and i still stand to my evaluation!

gullySn0wCat said:
Max RAM capacity doesn't mean a thing when an MP2006-08 4GB RAM kit goes for about $200
Click to expand...
Where i live i can get an 8GB Kingston set for 160,- € new, give or take (which would probably roughly translate to the $200 for 4GB you mentioned). 2nd hand on eBay may even be cheaper.
 
Neodym said:
Even if you consider the +200$ for upgrading the MP you still get a completely different (bigger/more capable!) package for roughly the same price you pay for a new MBP. And then it completely depends on the individual needs which package is more attractive. That's what i said and i still stand to my evaluation!


Where i live i can get an 8GB Kingston set for 160,- € new, give or take (which would probably roughly translate to the $200 for 4GB you mentioned). 2nd hand on eBay may even be cheaper.
Click to expand...

2006 MP vs 2011 MBP

CPU speed: MBP except for tasks that require four cores.
HDD: Mac Pro has more bays if FW800/TB hdds aren't good enough.
Graphics: Mac Pro with an upgrade. Really only useful for playing games / hardcore 3D work.
RAM: MP can hold more but it is expensive, slow and hot.
 
Max RAM capacity doesn't mean a thing when an MP2006-08 4GB RAM kit goes for about $200
Click to expand...

2006-08 RAM is expensive, but not that expensive. At OWC it tops out at around $33-34 per GB for both 667MHz and 800MHz memory. US prices, anyway...

But significantly cheaper than 2009-10 RAM (roughly half the price), yes.
 
Still have a MP1.1 as a production machine. Use it daily for photo & and video.

Runs just fine and dandy. I have used the new iMacs and MPs at other locations and have hardly noticed any performance diferencies, as the programs (FCS,LR 3, CS3/5,Phocus) are STILL the bottleneck.

So yes, it is still a workhorse, just as it was on the day one. Especially when you update the gfx cards, stuff it with decent amount of memory and sort out
the hard drives for max performance.

The only real question starts to be the longevity of the machines.
You have to remember that the machines are 5 years old, and no electronics can run indefinitely. They could run for 0-5 years extra ,but you just dont know if it is going to **** the bucket next week or still keep going strong in 2017..
But, older machines are a bit like cars : Either they start bitching on the day
1 or they are problem free until the end..
 
I have a 2008 with 32 gb of ram, blah blah.

It's very slow for heavy CPU tasks compared to my 2 yo core i7.

I wouldn't buy anything older than the 2009 at this point if you are looking for good speed. Intel made serious advances in cpus that year. A modern Mac Mini will be faster for many tasks and can be had for around the same price, for example.
 
I have a Mac Pro 1,1 with XFX 6870, 14GB, 7TB of storage. It is my reliable beast and I have never felt the need to upgrade.

As a comparison I also have Macbook Pro 13" 8,1 i7. When rendering video or images it smokes the Mac Pro, but for everything else the MP wins because of the bigger everything (ram, storage, graphics, gaming).

I use Adobe Premiere over FCP because it uses all 8 cores in my MP, annoyingly FCP doesn't seem to utilize 30% of my core power without some fiddling.
 
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