MP 1,1-5,1 Anyone still using a Mac Pro 1,1 / 2,1 for anything?

[Omnius]

Anyone still using a Mac Pro 1,1 / 2,1 for anything? Any projects, or use cases you’re still benefiting from?

I’m putting mine to use for handbreak backups of old dvds so I can watch them on newer devices around the house through plex via a Mac mini HTPC. The main value to me is two optical disk drives and plenty of horse power for the modest task.

 

[H2SO4]

Not me, I have one, and a 5,1. Wish I would have sold them whilst the value was reasonable.
Might eBay them after the new year.

It's strange the amount of noise they make. You really notice how noisy it is when you put next to a 7,1

 

[Omnius]

They’re astoundingly loud compared to my minis and Mac Studio.

 

[mateo14]

They’re astoundingly loud compared to my minis and Mac Studio.

I have 5,1, Mac Mini 2010, and iMac 2009.
The upgraded 1,1 is probably more powerful than Mac Mini 2010 and easy to fix. Of course, you won't install Sierra on it.

These are great machines for storage, PowerPC games/applications and movies on DVD. You can install Linux on it if you need something modern.
It makes sense to keep them because it is much easier to replace a single part than a whole motherboard or the whole computer.

 

[nathan_reilly]

I run a CNC milling machine with a 2,1 running windows. Love the machine.

*edit*
Even the fans blasting is a positive for me. There's a good amount of dust in my shop and having "excess" ventilation means I only really need to clean this computer about once a year. And while 6061 alum is soft, it's a fair sight more durable than the ABS dell optiplex that sits next to it. It's also very cheap to replace the whole machine (or almost any part of it) if needed. Reasonably powerful for my application, durable as all hell, and cheap. Check check check.

 

[macguru9999]

no , i think they are too old imho

 

[Omnius]

I run a CNC milling machine with a 2,1 running windows. Love the machine.

*edit*
Even the fans blasting is a positive for me. There's a good amount of dust in my shop and having "excess" ventilation means I only really need to clean this computer about once a year. And while 6061 alum is soft, it's a fair sight more durable than the ABS dell optiplex that sits next to it. It's also very cheap to replace the whole machine (or almost any part of it) if needed. Reasonably powerful for my application, durable as all hell, and cheap. Check check check.

This is a great use case. It’s sufficient to do the job and pushing air out is one of the things it still does well. Have you seen increased component failure with working in their environment?

 

[Omnius]

I have 5,1, Mac Mini 2010, and iMac 2009.
The upgraded 1,1 is probably more powerful than Mac Mini 2010 and easy to fix. Of course, you won't install Sierra on it.

These are great machines for storage, PowerPC games/applications and movies on DVD. You can install Linux on it if you need something modern.
It makes sense to keep them because it is much easier to replace a single part than a whole motherboard or the whole computer.

A 1,1 heavily upgraded can do many things still better than a 2010 mini (and can do several things still Better than minis until you get to like 2018 minis). The 1,1 will struggle at running with high sierra though. At this point it’s really a “specific use case” machine only. I’d rather use an external drive setup connected to a mini than a loud and power inefficient 1,1 for storage.

 

[nathan_reilly]

This is a great use case. It’s sufficient to do the job and pushing air out is one of the things it still does well. Have you seen increased component failure with working in their environment?

absolutely it’s a perfect match for the job! and i don’t care about electrical consumption because the production on the milling machine pays for whatever marginal cost there is associated with keeping this computer running. i’ve used it probably 20 hours a week for a few years now. no component failure whatsoever but i do have a spare logicboard and gpu, spare xeon cpus and spare ram on-hand. ounce of prevention, pound of cure.

 

[ppinter1]

Anyone still using a Mac Pro 1,1 / 2,1 for anything? Any projects, or use cases you’re still benefiting from?

I’m putting mine to use for handbreak backups of old dvds so I can watch them on newer devices around the house through plex via a Mac mini HTPC. The main value to me is two optical disk drives and plenty of horse power for the modest task.

Yup, I bought mine back in 2006 for $3k (big bux then and now), despite Apple orphaning it on 32-bit EFI firmware.

I used PikerAlpha's bootROM for years with El Capitan before the lack of layered product upgrades (e.g. Firefox) finally forced my hand. Being both militant and impressed with how well-made the physical machine is, I installed Ubuntu 20 (the last one to support EFI32) and easily upgraded it online to Ubuntu 23.10.

It runs everything perfectly, including the latest Firefox, security patches, etc. With only 4 cores(!) it's a bit slow, especially compared to my 24-core daily driver (MacPro5,1 with Alex's BootROM), but still pays its way going on 18 years.

Luv it!

 

[Omnius]

The 2,1 Mac Pro project is just burning through ripping DVDs for my home Plex server. The old cheese grater Mac pros really were just a high quality machine.

 

[Omnius]

Well, I think it’s telling that the 18 year old Mac pros garner any responses at all outside a retro computer forum.

 

[rm5]

The 2,1 Mac Pro project is just burning through ripping DVDs for my home Plex server. The old cheese grater Mac pros really were just a high quality machine.

I’ve never owned a 1,1 or 2,1, but I used to have a 5,1 and I LOVED it!! Was a great desktop machine. I stopped using it last year because the old X58 architecture, even with an upgraded CPU, was still slow. I had a W5500 video card, which was more than powerful enough (in fact it was a little too powerful—it caused a massive bottleneck).

The fact you could upgrade literally everything in it—that kinda stuff doesn’t exist anymore, at least on the Mac side. Even so on the PC side—many windows laptops these days come with soldered RAM. Anyway, yeah, the classic Mac Pro… I miss it!

Anyway, I miss using it, but tbh it was just getting a little old. Now I’m using an iMac as my desktop, which is great.

 

[Omnius]

What upgrades had you done on your old 5,1?

 

[rm5]

What upgrades had you done on your old 5,1?

CPU upgrade (downgrade?????) from an W3630 or whatever the stock 2.8 GHz one is, to an E5645. I think it honestly was both an upgrade and a downgrade at the same time—I gained more cores, but the clock speed was much slower. I just had the E5645 laying around, that's why I used it. I would've gone with an X5675 or X5690, but I already had one I could use.

GPU - upgraded from the stock Radeon HD 5770 to a Radeon Pro W5500. MASSIVE upgrade, although it caused a bottleneck - the GPU wouldn't be utilized more than about 55-60% because of PCI-e 2.0 and the slow CPU.

RAM - upgraded to 32 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC.

Storage - Put in a 1 TB SATA SSD, and a 2 TB data HDD.

OS - I had Monterey.

 

[Omnius]

Interesting, I just bought a Mac Pro 5,1 as a hobby machine. it’ll replace the 2,1 project box. Going to upgrade the 5,1 to the best single cpu hexcore xeon (literally $21 now), upgrade ram to 32gb for $50. And add a card to run off an NVME SSD. I’ll also add a usb 3.2 card. Should be very snappy once it’s all in.