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Just got a Mac Pro 3.1 need adivce on RAM/upgrades

orph

orph

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 12, 2005
1,884
393
UK
hay just picked up a mac pro 3.1 8-core 2.8ghz with a GT 120 & 2gb ram & need adive on upgrades.

RAM is my first problem, where is the best place to pick some up online (i live in the UK if that helps) and any advce.
one thing i noticed is barefeats had an article on using your old ram form a mac pro 1.1 in a 3.1 with only about 4%slow down http://www.barefeats.com/harper5.html and that ram seems to be a lot cheeper on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4GB-4X1GB...erComponents_MemoryRAM_JN&hash=item2574990e64
is it safe or worth it to use that ram or any tips?

next thing im looking at is a GPU thats not exspensive but will give me some acelration CUDA apps, but as im only just learing AE (not shore if i want to switch to it for making animations) any advice is wellcome

ps finaly how do i clean the inside? it's got a lot of dust buneys the guy id got it from was just using it for logic 8 and seemed not to have cleaned it ever, tho i got the full boxed copy of logic 8 with the mac which was cool :D
(got it for £375, i think a good price :p)
 
orph said:
i looked at crucial first as thats where i buy my ram normily but the price is £125 for a 4GB ram kist which seemes a lot to me (thats almost $200 american)
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/lis...Xeon 5400 Series) 2nd Gen. Early 2008&Cat=RAM
anywhere a bit cheeper

(i got my powerbook G4,powermac G5,macbook pro ram from crucial in the past :D)
Click to expand...

One of the main drawbacks of the Mac Pros 1,1-3,1 were their usage of expensive RAM. Unfortunately, the passage of time has not made those RAM modules any less expensive.
 
Congratulations on your new machine and welcome to the site. I've been buying my RAM from Data Memory Systems (DMS) since the mid 1980s. They say they have a lifetime warranty though I wouldn't know because I've never had a RAM module fail:p Anyway, RAM packages are small, and I can't imagine shipping would be to expensive to the UK. I would also buy the correct RAM for the machine I own. Look here:

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/ap...-2-8ghz-ma970ll/a-early-2008-memory-upgrades/

Lou
 
Get RAM from eBay. You only need to know what you're looking for.
PC26400 (or 5300) FB DIMM 1R or 2R - not the 4R with heatsinks, flat or Apple-like.

You can use 667 MHz (PC25300) memory without problem. Performance difference is negligible. Hynix, Samsung, Micron/Crucxial, Kingston will work. Don't buy 1GB sticks, rather 2 or 4GB ones.
Such as these should be good. PC25300 2Rx4 i.e. 667 Mhz dual rank. You can get 16GB for 100 quid shipped.
 
thanks for all the link's, my ram knowledge has started and ended at Crucial so all the links + recommendations for sites give me confidence.

666sheep, thanks for the link to the server RAM, A ebay search gives me a lot of cheep RAM options http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_t....XPC2-5300F&_nkw=PC2-5300F&_sacat=0&_from=R40

relay cool to know the flat heat sinks are safe, found a post on the apple forum with a guy who installed 8GB sticks of 667Mhz RAM (for a total of 64GB) and confirms it's running A-OK, some pics of the ram on the second page show the model info and flat heat sinks.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3722735?start=0&tstart=0

so i think ill aim to get 8GB in 2GB sticks(or 4GB if it's cheeper) and that will give me 2 empty slots in case i need more (as i have two 1Gb sticks already)

thanks for all the help
 
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orph said:
ha found this ram on amazon uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/KOMPUTERBAY...8&qid=1375373550&sr=1-5&keywords=PC2-5300F+FB

8GB 4x2GB for £50, clames to have a warranty but i have no idea how they are so may not be worth anything but it's on amazon so if there's some problems that may help.
what do you think?

is it worth asking what brand of ram it is?
Click to expand...

that RAM is 667MHz, and was designed for the first gen Mac Pros. it should still work in your 3,1 but the Ram won't run at the 800MHz that the system is designed to run at.

you want PC2-6400 FB DIMMs, but if you're on a budget they should still work.
 
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orph said:
ha found this ram on amazon uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/KOMPUTERBAY...8&qid=1375373550&sr=1-5&keywords=PC2-5300F+FB

8GB 4x2GB for £50, clames to have a warranty but i have no idea how they are so may not be worth anything but it's on amazon so if there's some problems that may help.
what do you think?

is it worth asking what brand of ram it is?
Click to expand...

These will work, price is good IMO. Komputerbay is quite reputable seller AFAIK. They have 800 MHz ones as well but for about twice as that.
 
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i-rui said:
that RAM is 667MHz, and was designed for the first gen Mac Pros. it should still work in your 3,1 but the Ram won't run at the 800MHz that the system is designed to run at.

you want PC2-6400 FB DIMMs, but if you're on a budget they should still work.
Click to expand...

Would this RAM work in a 1,1 Mac Pro?
 
orph said:
hay just picked up a mac pro 3.1 8-core 2.8ghz with a GT 120 & 2gb ram & need adive on upgrades.

(...)

next thing im looking at is a GPU thats not exspensive but will give me some acelration CUDA apps, but as im only just learing AE (not shore if i want to switch to it for making animations) any advice is wellcome
Click to expand...

Congratulations getting this trusty machine! Today I swapped my ATI 5870 for a shiny new NVIDIA GTX 680 Mac Edition. It wasn't cheap, I wasn't sure, but boy what a difference: gaming in bootcamp is fun again, I can use CUDA in Premiere CS 5.5 and best of all: my Mac Pro is quiet again! I guess this is because the card is able to clock down when used lightly, i.e. surfing the web etc.

I hesitated because of BareFeats' GPU Testings, which showed no big gains for the 3,1 Mac Pro in Apps like Motion, but I would now recommend this card. Great having all these options now - even for a 5+ year old machine :)

Have fun with your Octo!

Greetings
Joerg
 
hay thanks for ok on the seller ;)
got the 8GB (4x2GB) just waiting for it to arrive, cant wait iv only ever had 4GB of ram & ill have 10GB soon :eek:
relay hope i actually see my ram being used.

now just got to decide what i want from a GPU and check to see how HD speed changes final cut 7 with the work load i do.

so i gess it's best to go over to the video forum to ask about HD's speed and how it can affect final cuts render time or if it even makes a change to it?
 
the ram on amazon in the image has (what looks like) the correct heat sink,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/KOMPUTERBAY...r=1-5&keywords=PC2-5300F FB&tag=5336090759-21

the bare feats link shows that the slower ram will work but will bring all your ram down to the slower speed which i hope is faster than to little ram.

i use amazon a lot and have vary little problems with them so i feel safer using amazon over ebay and i hope if there are any problems amazon will give me more security/help.
 
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Some bad news, Komputerbay is messing me around which is a shame, ordered 8GB of ram and only 4GB came in the post.
their customer service has not been very helpful to say the least, got the ram on Tuesday and they have yet to tell me why i only got 4GB of ram or when i will get the next 4GB.
all they have done is ask for some photos of the ram and ask for me to try it out to see if it's working which is kind of avoiding that half my ram is missing (also until it's resolved im not taking it out of the plastic it's in in case that gives me problems later)

ill get back to you once it's resolved.

any advice?

edit- told now that my ram will be sent to me, seems to have gone smooth once i mentioned getting in contact with amazon.
 
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orph said:
Some bad news, Komputerbay is messing me around which is a shame, ordered 8GB of ram and only 4GB came in the post.
their customer service has not been very helpful to say the least, got the ram on Tuesday and they have yet to tell me why i only got 4GB of ram or when i will get the next 4GB.
all they have done is ask for some photos of the ram and ask for me to try it out to see if it's working which is kind of avoiding that half my ram is missing (also until it's resolved im not taking it out of the plastic it's in in case that gives me problems later)

ill get back to you once it's resolved.

any advice?

edit- told now that my ram will be sent to me, seems to have gone smooth once i mentioned getting in contact with amazon.
Click to expand...
Sad to hear. I bought all my sticks from their ebay-shop. No problems.
 
well iv got the final 4GB of ram today and stuck all 8GB in to the mac pro.
i may have just had bad luck, with the ram seller (tho i did notice that the price went up from £50 to £71 after i complained so a bit odd dont know if i need to read in to that or not)

now system profiler shows all the ram (all 10GB :D) at the slower speed but see's it all, using MemTest http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/
to check the ram and while it's slow compared to when i did it with only 2GB of ram it's almost done the first set of test's.
hardware monitor readings during memTest show, memory bank a - b is about 38c-43c and memory module A1 60c,A2 63c,A3 67c,A4 68c,B1 74c,B2 80c
do those temps look good?

so looking good now iv just got to pick up a 2TB drive (a WDgreen or WDblack i think) and a GPU, thinking about the nvidia gtx 640/650 (is it worth looking at the older 540/560 on ebay?) as i dont want to spend to much but still want some power, any advice on that front?
is ATI worth looking at too?
 
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i had 10gb ram, but for my video editing purposes, you should have 2gb ram per core. I have 8 core, so 16gb ram.
 
thanks for the tip Korican100, i still have 2 spare slots so i have room to expand.
as im moving up from a dual core macbook pro 2.6ghz just using more than 2 cores will 'rock my world' :eek: (bad joke but it's true) so if 10Gb give me 5 cores of render speed in Adobe Cs6 video apps ill be super happy.
(tho i think you need 1-2GB per core + ram for Adobe apps so ill play with ram settings once i get to it)

i assume now i have some ram my nvidia GT120 512mb is what's holding me back.
so ill have to look in to what GPU to get, i think i want a nvidia for adobe apps but i understand that ATI are better at openCL apps (finalcut x,motion any more?) so all and any advice is wanted.

i mostly work in photoshop Cs6 and final cut 7 (so no GPU problems there with the GT120), im looking in to learning Adobe after effects/adobe premiere & apple motion to see which works best for me (which may need something a bit newer). maybe even a light look at final cut X and maybe a few light games on the side (but thats not a factor in buying a GPU just a bonus)

second hand GPU's are fine with me if it's a good deal.
do you rate the nvidia gtx 640/650 as valid options?

edit -
found the EVGA GTX 550 TI 1GB for £77, is that a good option?

edit 2 -
been reading on adobe's site and now im confused, do i even need a CUDA card for AE Cs6?
or is it best to have one in case i want to use adobe premiere.
is a ATI card of value/use with adobe Cs6 video apps or am i just being all newb and over thinking it?
 
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