Agree, very different. But unless it’s super cheap, an investment in an 11 year old system that can’t run the latest MacOS and is considered “obsolete” by Apple isn’t a solution I would recommend.
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Mac Pro 1.1 still worthed?
- Thread starter YaBe
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Unless the mini or the MBP can't do what the OP wants to do. If I had to choose between a mini/MBP or an 11 year old Mac Pro - I'm getting the cheese grater. It does what I need it to do, the former doesn't.
Actually, they can run fairly current OSs' with minimal effort, and do a pretty decent job of it, too. You can find the tools in the OS forums to boot these into Yosemite and Sierra, I believe. I ran mine on Yosemite for the last year or so without an issue.
I ran a 1,1 up until a year or two ago with upgraded processors (5365s), 32GB of RAM, four 2GB hard drives and a 128GB SSD for a boot drive and a 5770 graphics card. I wouldn't expect to do any high end gaming on the box, but for nearly everything I did it performed flawlessly. The majority of the upgrades I scrounged, so other than the graphics car I probably had less than $400 in it.
MacDann
My biggest pain point with the 1,1 was I/O limitations. Are there any reliable USB 3.0 options for the 1,1? I know at least there aren't any that work out of box (have to install drivers at least). I ended up buying a lot of FW800 drive enclosures, which is quite a bit more expensive than USB 3 enclosures. Also I got the eSATA extender, but eSATA had issues on this machine (it doesn't support hotswap, and drives going to sleep would never come back).
Ultimately, it was the not be able to run latest macOS that forced me off this machine. I was still able to edit 1080P video, manage photos, and do music production. I would've kept using it if I could get Sierra/High Sierra running on it, and would've kept waiting for the next generation Mac Pro (I'm on a 2017 27" iMac now while I wait).
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El Capitan is the last macOS to work on the 1,1. No hacks to get Sierra/High Sierra working. The issue is that Sierra requires a CPU instruction that didn't exist in these machines. While technically possible that someone could hack it to work, that's going to be very difficult to pull off and I'm guessing it's never going to happen.
You can run Windows 10 or a current Linux distro on it, but there are much better options for that.
Ultimately, it was the not be able to run latest macOS that forced me off this machine. I was still able to edit 1080P video, manage photos, and do music production. I would've kept using it if I could get Sierra/High Sierra running on it, and would've kept waiting for the next generation Mac Pro (I'm on a 2017 27" iMac now while I wait).
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El Capitan is the last macOS to work on the 1,1. No hacks to get Sierra/High Sierra working. The issue is that Sierra requires a CPU instruction that didn't exist in these machines. While technically possible that someone could hack it to work, that's going to be very difficult to pull off and I'm guessing it's never going to happen.
You can run Windows 10 or a current Linux distro on it, but there are much better options for that.
Unless you need anything newer than El Capitan. And if it doesn’t need a bunch of replacement parts. Or you don’t have the space for it.
I get your argument, and this is one of those subjective things. I would scrimp and save a few more hundred and get a newer model over a cheap 1,1. Or I would build a hackintosh.
Eleven years and three months. It's old. But I still kind of use it. I bought it used. Usually I buy used.
It's got a little over double (8347) or so the horsepower of geekbench baseline i7-6600U (4000 GB points).
It's got some expansion bays, slow though. But I do use them all today.
My cMP 1.1 is a remote backup machine for a file server and stuff like that.
My cMP 1.1 is one of the CPU rendering nodes then needed.
My cMP 1.1 is installed little higher, with monitor, so I can stand for awhile when surfing.
I paid ~150€ for this a few years ago, and I updated it with a few hundred too (2x5355, 32GB, 512GB SSD). It served as my main machine at home for a while, then my iMac was getting a new heart (i5 to i7) and double SSDs in conjunction with a HDD. I was impressed how it managed to do all I threw at it.
But yeah, I don't use it daily anymore. I agree it is a piece of s*** by todays standards, but I wouldn't say it aloud near it. Not after all these years.
There are cMP 1.1s for sale a lot nowadays. But there is no Sierra or newer for them, so I haven't bought any. It seems I buy cMP 2009s. And I've got to stop it, I know.
Me too am about to change OS. It's not because of these older machines, it's the newer ones. You can't do a thing to them by yourself. The iMac Pro? How to upgrade - there is absolutely nothing you can do.
They should modernize this cMP idea, thing or beast or what ever it was.
Waiting for the mMP - or not?
It's got a little over double (8347) or so the horsepower of geekbench baseline i7-6600U (4000 GB points).
It's got some expansion bays, slow though. But I do use them all today.
My cMP 1.1 is a remote backup machine for a file server and stuff like that.
My cMP 1.1 is one of the CPU rendering nodes then needed.
My cMP 1.1 is installed little higher, with monitor, so I can stand for awhile when surfing.
I paid ~150€ for this a few years ago, and I updated it with a few hundred too (2x5355, 32GB, 512GB SSD). It served as my main machine at home for a while, then my iMac was getting a new heart (i5 to i7) and double SSDs in conjunction with a HDD. I was impressed how it managed to do all I threw at it.
But yeah, I don't use it daily anymore. I agree it is a piece of s*** by todays standards, but I wouldn't say it aloud near it. Not after all these years.
There are cMP 1.1s for sale a lot nowadays. But there is no Sierra or newer for them, so I haven't bought any. It seems I buy cMP 2009s. And I've got to stop it, I know.
Me too am about to change OS. It's not because of these older machines, it's the newer ones. You can't do a thing to them by yourself. The iMac Pro? How to upgrade - there is absolutely nothing you can do.
They should modernize this cMP idea, thing or beast or what ever it was.
Waiting for the mMP - or not?
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IMHO, god no. I had a 1,1 that I purchased for cheap in 2010 (or was it 2011) and it ran as my main machine for about 2 years. I upgraded it to dual 5355's, 16GB of RAM and an SSD. It also ran dual NVidia video cards (I think a 450 and a 420?). I also put in an eSATA card. Frankly though, it was loud. Used a crap load of power, and was just a pain since it wasn't officially supported past Lion (or was it Snow Leopard). I went the route of Hackintoshing it, but that was a pain every time there was an update. I just moved on. It just wasn't worth keeping after I purchased a couple of 2012 Mac Mini's. They were (are) faster, ran current OS's (and still do). The only thing I had to give up were multiple video cards, but that wasn't a huge loss anyway. It was more of a hobby to keep it running by the end. I think the Power Supply went in it one day as it didn't boot up. Didn't really care. It was 8+ years old, regulated to a 3rd machine. Just wasn't worth figuring out why it wasn't running. Pretty much a money pit as far as I was concerned....
That is why I said don't spend more than $800 for a 1,1 and all upgrades combined. A fully maxed out 1,1 is about as fast as a baseline 8-core 4,1.
I'm bringing my 1,1 back online after xmas as a HTPC. Replacing the CPUs with a pair of low power 5330's ($19.95 & 100 watts total draw, and a GTX 1030 ($70ish), running El Capitan. I have plenty of drives on hand to stuff in it as well as a blu-ray player and it already has 22Gb of memory.
I considered doing a HTPC with mine, and maybe I should considering I occasionally use a PS3 for DVD/Bluray and video files my Roku 3 can't handle. And PS3 is loud and power hungry as it is.
I'd say it matches a 4-core 4,1 in processor performance (Maybe a 4 core/3,33GHz).
maxed out 1,1 can reach around 13,000 on Geekbench, which is what a base 4,1 8 core will do.
You are right, I am wrong.
It's pretty close to what you stated:
EveryMac GeekBench3:
8x3,2GHz: GB3 12490
8*2,26GHz: GB3 13837
It's pretty close to what you stated:
EveryMac GeekBench3:
8x3,2GHz: GB3 12490
8*2,26GHz: GB3 13837
I've got the base 2.66 model, but with a nVidia 8800 GT upgrade running Mavericks. It's pretty good if you don't need tons of processing power. Depends on the price though. But if you can get it cheap, it can make a pretty good machine if you get Mavericks/Yosemite running on it (or dare I say Windows or Linux...) It runs Windows 10 just fine, but if you do that, make sure to use the Pro version of Windows as it supports dual CPUs.
To each his own, but an HTPC? These are like the worst computers to use as an HTPC aren't they? All of the HTPC's I've ever built have been small, quiet (and/or silent) and the goal is to draw like 30-50w! I mean a base 2014 Mac Mini with the HD5000 graphics can do 4K (albeit at only 30hz), has a measured power draw of 5W with a max of 40W at full tilt. You don't need a lot of RAM, you don't even need a fast hard drive (since it's always on and you only swap between a couple programs or none if you are me). CPU speed is virtually a non-issue since it just has to be responsive which hell even a good Core2Duo can still be a decent HTPC.
Again to each his own, but this is an opinion of someone who's been there done that. Although anymore, I'd rather use custom designed devices to do this, than cobble together a computer to do it.....
No - the worst would be using a Dempsey based workstation.
My original plan was to go with a Mac Mini - but it simply can't do what I need my HTPC to do. I also can't do it for $100 total, which I can do with the 1,1. Apparently, I have some exotic requirements
I would not recommend buying a 1,1 in 2017 to turn it into HTPC. I have one here collecting dust, along with most of the parts necessary.
1,1 are horrible if you run stock CPUs. Which is why you replace them with low-power quad core Cloverfields - cuts the power draw by 28% (66% if you are replacing quad cores). Even more if you go with the 1.6Ghz 5318. Twice the cores drawing less power. The cores are necessary when ripping physical media down to iTunes - which is a mission critical requirement for my HTPC.
1. CPU - replace with L335 (quadcore, 2.00Ghz, 50 watt power draw) $20.00
2. GPU - GTX 1030 (up to 8K resolution 30 watt power draw) $80.00
3. Blu-ray player - move my LG from the 4,1 to the 1,1.
Media - move 6+Tb of iTunes media to 1,1. (1,500 movies, 4,000+ albums)
Total spend $100.00
This is obviously overkill for most people. If you can fit everything in a Mac Mini, and aren't moving physical media to the computer, then yeah, go with the Mac Mini.
Alas, I followed P.T. Barnum's guidance back in the 10.2 days and made my computer The hub of my digital lifestyle.
>.< a G5 while fun is hard to use now unless you can "find" lots of old version's of software while even a 1.1 will let you use currant apps.
but i relay have mixed feeling's about spending much on upgrades, feels like a black hole
i have a dual 1.8ghz G5 tower and stooped trying to use it maybe 2 years back as even just using the web was becoming a problem
but i relay have mixed feeling's about spending much on upgrades, feels like a black hole
i have a dual 1.8ghz G5 tower and stooped trying to use it maybe 2 years back as even just using the web was becoming a problem
Lol the video card in that 2012 mbp is a piece of crud, Intel hd4000. That alone would steer me well clear of that mbp if I had to use it for anything other than basic web browsing.
No. The maxed out 3.1 GB3: 12490.
It still is really fast considering the age of the machine. But unfortunately I think thats about the maximum there it gets with 3.1. I think hyperthreading technology started right after this generation of xeon processors? Hyperthreading gives something like a factor of 1.33x boost for every core. core i(x) family's might have been there first, I don't know.
Hyperthreading as a technology is actually way older than I thought.
But with MacPro 3.1, you are limited with choices.
But with MacPro 3.1, you are limited with choices.
yah i think a lot of people are confused by the xeon name and dont understand what each cpu actually is (or what gen there from, the xeons are almost identical to there consumer counterparts).
ps Hyper-threading is relay context dependent, on some workloads it works a charm and sometimes it slows things down (some people disable it in bios) real cores always win
also dont confuse "max speed" benchmarks with the "actual speed apps run at" when looking at geekbench it's nice to see speed jumps in generations or between computers but you cant simply look at there all core speed and say o yah that will run app x faster than that
ps Hyper-threading is relay context dependent, on some workloads it works a charm and sometimes it slows things down (some people disable it in bios) real cores always win
also dont confuse "max speed" benchmarks with the "actual speed apps run at" when looking at geekbench it's nice to see speed jumps in generations or between computers but you cant simply look at there all core speed and say o yah that will run app x faster than that