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Buying and Upgrading 2006 Mac Pro, Worth it?
- Thread starter AlexxRyzhkov
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I read through all the posts and couldn't help thinking maybe you want a Mac Mini. At $600 you are getting the latest. OK, 2012s latest, but it's a very nice machine and it's going to get updated, probably very soon. Then I re-read your original post and it looks like you are trying to do everything for $600, which wouldn't be the case with the Mini as you need a keyboard, mouse and screen. However, assuming you can find these things used and cheap, you might want to think about this. The updated Mini is going to have even better graphics, and as far as upgradability, what do you really want to upgrade? Maybe the screen one day, which you can't do with the iMac.
I'd say for ultimate futureproofing, get a 2009 or 2010, but yeah my 3,1 has worked well. The only thing that stops me from recommending it entirely is the "unsupported" nature of some graphics cards--many if not most will work but I'd rather have it be a sure thing.
I agree with the Greek chorus that the 2006 is not worth it at virtually any price.
1,1 still have plenty of life. From my past experience, getting Mountain Lion or Mavericks on them is a breeze, and Yosemite I assume will be the same way. My reasoning for me buying one (had a 1,1 months ago, sold it, and needed a Mac Pro again so I found another 1,1) is to do rendering, which with 8 cores in the near future, anything will be better than my 2008 MBP in terms of rendering.
Ok so it looks like I'm buying a used 2008 Mac Pro, unless there are any big reasons I shouldn't.
The one I am buying is the Quad Core model with 6gb of ram.
The one I am buying is the Quad Core model with 6gb of ram.
How much are you paying? Because Macofalltrades had quad core 2009s for 699 dollars yesterday, and that machine is offering you more forward compatability and upgradeability.
Each dollar spent upgrading one of those would be at work much longer than on a pre-2009, since you can flash the 2009 to a 5,1, put a hex core i7 in it, etc etc etc.
RAM isn't too bad. Amazon has Nemix branded RAM for reasonable prices. For example 8GB (2 x 4GB) is running $100.00 new. 16GB (4 x 4GB) is $115.00 new. 32GB (8 x 4GB) $239.00 new. I bought 16GB of this memory for my 1,1 and I was very satisfied with it.
Yeah, but can you toss 3 more hard drives and 2 optical drives in a mini without going external
This is a tough question.
I will preface it with the disclosure that I have a 2006 MP from new, though not used for quite some time now. It will always have a place in my heart as possibly the most beautifully designed computer with internal expansion. Most high end desktops are a mess of cables, but Apple took the same components and turned it into a monolith that looks if anything more beautiful on the inside than the outside.
I guess it comes down to a few key points:
1. Price. All the computers mentioned are far from cheap. I am very thankful that for me they are merely a big investment that I have to budget for rather than completely unobtainable. Only you can say how much is affordable, and it's a great sign of the quality of the people on this forum that nobody is ridiculing you for not throwing the price of a small car at a computer you might not need.
2. Power consumption. I understand that electricity is a good bit cheaper in most of the USA, but when you get to computers with 1000W+ power supplies, the 24/7 running costs are far from free. If a Mac mini does the same for you, it might cost hundreds less per year to run. (Though I admit that I would be much happier with the Mac Pro running full pelt day in day out than the cramped and hot mini)
3. Expandability. Most rarely use the optical drives any more, and the rest of the ports are outdated - no USB 3, no Thunderbolt, no bluetooth 4.0. Cards are possible, but that's extra expense and you end up with the ports being hidden away at the back.
4. Don't be afraid of external storage. I had my eyes opened to this recently when I bought a couple of 2TB USB 3 Western Digital portable drives for a project. You might think that they would be very slow but I was pleasantly surprised. Over 100MB/s read and write, the equivalent of about $100 each, tiny, bus powered and so far reliable for read and writes of massive files. Bigger drives or raid combos etc will be at least a few times faster. For comparison, the 4TB internal WD green drive I bought at the same time is only about 150MB/s. So those four internal bays might not be as essential as you think.
5. OS support. I don't know how much this matters to you, but supporting the latest OSX is a must have for me. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I worry that I'll be stuck with an incompatibility or unplugged security hole.
A previous post hinted at the perfect use case for the computer you are looking at: A 24/7 application that uses all the cores, but not absolute performance, needs multiple large internal drives and without needing latest OS support. That could be perfect, and you will get a bargain. But if you want to use the computer as a day to day, all-use computer and will benefit from the latest IO, you might do better spending the same amount on a 'lesser' consumer orientated mini or iMac.
David
I will preface it with the disclosure that I have a 2006 MP from new, though not used for quite some time now. It will always have a place in my heart as possibly the most beautifully designed computer with internal expansion. Most high end desktops are a mess of cables, but Apple took the same components and turned it into a monolith that looks if anything more beautiful on the inside than the outside.
I guess it comes down to a few key points:
1. Price. All the computers mentioned are far from cheap. I am very thankful that for me they are merely a big investment that I have to budget for rather than completely unobtainable. Only you can say how much is affordable, and it's a great sign of the quality of the people on this forum that nobody is ridiculing you for not throwing the price of a small car at a computer you might not need.
2. Power consumption. I understand that electricity is a good bit cheaper in most of the USA, but when you get to computers with 1000W+ power supplies, the 24/7 running costs are far from free. If a Mac mini does the same for you, it might cost hundreds less per year to run. (Though I admit that I would be much happier with the Mac Pro running full pelt day in day out than the cramped and hot mini)
3. Expandability. Most rarely use the optical drives any more, and the rest of the ports are outdated - no USB 3, no Thunderbolt, no bluetooth 4.0. Cards are possible, but that's extra expense and you end up with the ports being hidden away at the back.
4. Don't be afraid of external storage. I had my eyes opened to this recently when I bought a couple of 2TB USB 3 Western Digital portable drives for a project. You might think that they would be very slow but I was pleasantly surprised. Over 100MB/s read and write, the equivalent of about $100 each, tiny, bus powered and so far reliable for read and writes of massive files. Bigger drives or raid combos etc will be at least a few times faster. For comparison, the 4TB internal WD green drive I bought at the same time is only about 150MB/s. So those four internal bays might not be as essential as you think.
5. OS support. I don't know how much this matters to you, but supporting the latest OSX is a must have for me. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I worry that I'll be stuck with an incompatibility or unplugged security hole.
A previous post hinted at the perfect use case for the computer you are looking at: A 24/7 application that uses all the cores, but not absolute performance, needs multiple large internal drives and without needing latest OS support. That could be perfect, and you will get a bargain. But if you want to use the computer as a day to day, all-use computer and will benefit from the latest IO, you might do better spending the same amount on a 'lesser' consumer orientated mini or iMac.
David
orangezorki's reply is fair. But elsewhere so much unfair dismissal against the 1,1 generation! Quite frankly for the majority of tasks they're still perfectly usable. Many are GeekBenching at over 11,000 (multi-core), which is comparable to a 2012 Mini. Unlike the iMac and Mini they can be run at full-tilt all day, accept any modern video card, have plenty of internal storage, and don't require a Thunderbolt enclosure for PCIe cards. Tiamo's solution for 10.9 allows for a near-flawless experience. Sure they're not current and a 3,1 is a step ahead, but for a suitably low price they're a fine base.
If you eBay carefully significant upgrades are very cheap. I paid £7 for a pair of X5160 (3.0 GHz) processors and £50 for 16 Gb of RAM. The lack of PCIe-2.0 isn't a problem for a video card in most Mac use cases: note my comment (easily tested by Googling):
Indeed see this thread for some discussion:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18717313#post18717313
The only thing I'm significantly worried about is the ease of installing 10.10 if the Clover/Chameleon route is unpalatable. If there's a recompiled version of Tiamo then I'd say there's at least another year or two of hassle-free usage from a 1,1 (and yes, I use mine professionally). And after that it will make a fine FreeNAS unit.
If you eBay carefully significant upgrades are very cheap. I paid £7 for a pair of X5160 (3.0 GHz) processors and £50 for 16 Gb of RAM. The lack of PCIe-2.0 isn't a problem for a video card in most Mac use cases: note my comment (easily tested by Googling):
The official 7950 works perfectly in 1,1, but is expensive (at least £290 with nothing secondhand yet). Seemingly in recent Mantle tests (supported by the GCN of the 7950) it's not really PCI bandwidth limited down to 8x PCIe2.0, i.e. around what the 16x slot in the 1,1 can provide.
Indeed see this thread for some discussion:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18717313#post18717313
The only thing I'm significantly worried about is the ease of installing 10.10 if the Clover/Chameleon route is unpalatable. If there's a recompiled version of Tiamo then I'd say there's at least another year or two of hassle-free usage from a 1,1 (and yes, I use mine professionally). And after that it will make a fine FreeNAS unit.
The problem is my budget isn't big enough for a 4,1. I have about 500, and the cheapest 4,1 is $700.
Edit: I will use the Computer for about 1.5 years, if that changes anything
Edit: I will use the Computer for about 1.5 years, if that changes anything
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One has to be careful to consider workload when evaluating Geekbench scores. One needs to understand their application and look at the details of the benchmark to determine which is better suited, at least as much as can be from a synthetic benchmark, for their tasks. The overall score is not very useful. For example the late 2012 2.3GHz Mac Mini outperforms every version of the oMP in 32-bit single core performance. That same Mini outperforms every quad core oMP. And it is only slightly behind the eight core 3.0GHz Mac Pro 1,1. Thus the oMP is only faster, according to Geekbench, when the application utilizes a high number of cores and the oMP in question has more than four of them. This Mac Mini is 38% faster than my quad 2.8GHz Mac Pro. That's nothing to sneeze at.
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You can get it to run 10.9.3 with an automated app that will patch Apple Mavericks installer with a 32bit kernel. I did it on my 1,1 xServe that runs 2 Quad Core Xeons X5365 3Ghz and 32Gb of FB-Dimm 667mhz, it scores 12300 at geekbench and I believe that in render tasks it will leave the iMac behind for a fraction of its cost
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Got 32Gb on eBay for my xServe for a little over 130$
And you can put the 802.11AC card of a retina MBP, a 4 ports USB 3.0 card, a Bluetooth 4.0 LE 15$ iogear dongle based on the same broadcom chip that you find in 2013 retina MBP. All that in a 1,1 Mac Pro
You can find great flashed radeon 7950 on macvidcards that are more powerful than the latest top of the line iMac 27" GPU
I'm not trying to say the 1,1 mac pro is better than other options but there are lots of things you can do to bring it to 2014. I don't have the problem to worry about that anymore, I got tired of my old 1,1 a couple years ago and bought a 12 cores 2010 Mac Pro with 48Gb of RAM, a raid of 6Gbps 480Gb SSDs and a GTX 680 + USB 3.0... I should be all good with that for a while now
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If the 32-bit multicore Geekbench benchmark is representative of rendering speed then the current 3.4GHz iMac outperforms your Xserve with a score of 10679 (iMac) to 10468 (Xserve) for a 2% edge. The $800 2.3GHz Core i7 based Mini scores slightly below the Xserve with a score of 10399 for a negligible .6% loss. For single core, 32-bit benchmarks a 2.9GHz Core 2 Duo based iMac (1581) outperforms the eight core Mac Pro 1,1 with X5365 3Ghz processors (1556) for a 1% edge.
I hate to say it but it appears the higher end Mac Mini's and iMacs outperform every 1,1 or 2,1 based Mac Pro in CPU related tasks (at least if Geekbench is representative...I'd like to see some Handbrake and rendering tasks to validate). This is why I hold the opinion the nMP is a very niche product. Because the consumer (Mini and iMac) are very capable systems when core counts are equal.
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Geekbench is an artificial benchmarking tool that does not take into account CPU throttling that occurs due to thermal management, because the test does not push the system for long enough. The Mac Mini's processor will throttle when pushed to the limit for more than a few minutes and its real-world performance will take a hit accordingly. Geekbench does not account for that because it only runs for about a minute. Thus, it is pointless to use Geekbench's artificial score to illustrate a machine's ability to perform consistent real hard work.
Hence why I said:
"If the 32-bit multicore Geekbench benchmark is representative of rendering speed..."
And:
"...at least if Geekbench is representative...I'd like to see some Handbrake and rendering tasks to validate..."
And from earlier (and more importantly):
"One has to be careful to consider workload when evaluating Geekbench scores. One needs to understand their application and look at the details of the benchmark to determine which is better suited, at least as much as can be from a synthetic benchmark, for their tasks. The overall score is not very useful."
I have a 2006 MacPro1,1 as a daily driver, and hacking on the OS is really easy. Alot of the people reporting failures are people who are using odd hardware configurations or are experimenting with the process. Sure the processors arent the greatest, but it gets the job done. At the end of the day, I would by the 3,1, but my 1,1 it awesome too.
The only reason I upgraded from my 1,1 was due to the requirement to run virtual machines with more than 2GB of memory. Without the 64-bit kernel Virtual Box would allow more than ~ 3GB of memory per virtual machine. And then it wasn't reliable.
The 3,1 will give you faster bus speeds, faster RAM, better OS compatibility. For the extra bit of $ the 3,1 is by far your better buy. I'm running a 1,1 myself, but its mostly for the nostalgia
Also if you're only using it for 1.5-2 years its not a HUGE decision to make. Spend a little more for this one, you won't regret it.
But the upgradability on that is limited. Plus, the MacPro looks cooler
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Ah! Thats interesting, thank god I dont run virtualbox.