Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Pro 1,1 vs the others?

dermeister said:
  • The ram is more expensive than RAM for the mp5,1. Obviously it's a relative question.
  • PCI-E 1.1 means you can't get full bandwidth with the best video cards (i.e. 5870), and you CERTAINLY can't get any good bandwidth with an SLI configuration since you could have to run both lanes in 8x PCI-E 1.1 mode. So if you care about gaming, it matters. Otherwise, you're right.
  • It's "easy" (unless you're a layman) but not supported. You have to burn a special Win7x64 DVD due to a boot problem. Mildly difficult. You have to trick the bootcamp installer to run. Easy enough. To get full SATA support (to run an HD faster than 100 MBps), you need to hax the HD boot sector and install drivers in a procedure that can easily screw your install. Very difficult. The end-user can't really be expected to do all this stuff.
Click to expand...
  • Heh, yes
  • The 5870 doesn't saturate PCIe 1.1, so it's not a big deal. As far as SLI or Crossfire, the difference is minute.
  • I am a layman (well, sort of). All I did was burn a DVD using an image from Microsoft's website, put it in the DVD drive, and then go through the normal installation process. No tricking Boot Camp, no hacking the boot sector, and nothing else.
 
Floris said:
Downside of the macpro 1,1 is that you can't play steam; counter strike source - it says the model isn't supported.
It doesn't say because of the video card or whatever, it just says it doesn't. Which is odd, since crossover games plays it with the default card 7300 gt from nvidia just fine at 75fps in 32bit.
Click to expand...

CS:S works fine for me? Sounds like a bug.

Mackilroy said:
  • I am a layman (well, sort of). All I did was burn a DVD using an image from Microsoft's website, put it in the DVD drive, and then go through the normal installation process. No tricking Boot Camp, no hacking the boot sector, and nothing else.
Click to expand...

I couldn't install Wind0ze 7 x64 on my Mac Pro without a custom-built ISO either, so I can back him up on that point.
 
gullySn0wCat said:
I couldn't install Wind0ze 7 x64 on my Mac Pro without a custom-built ISO either, so I can back him up on that point.
Click to expand...
I realize for some people they had that problem, but my own personal experience was the exact opposite. I downloaded an .iso from Microsoft's site, burned it to a DVD, and then installed it. That was it. No further customization was necessary on my part.
 
akadmon said:
I hate it when people are hating on my baby! :mad:

Look, my MP 1,1 still runs circles around my daughter's 1 year old MBP. I've got two large non-glossy screens hooked up to it and could connect two more if wanted to -- try doing that with an iMac. With 12GB of RAM, I can run Fusion without worrying about mac apps grinding to a halt because of insufficient RAM allocation (and I keep at least a half dozen running while I'm doing Windows). I have plenty of cheap storage, including external eSata drives, and I can now add USB 3 drives if I so choose (good luck getting anything faster than FW800 on the iMac!). I have absolutely no issues with the 4870 video card, but then again I have no need or desire to render HD video or play the latest shooter game at 300 fps (30 fps is fast enough to fool me into believing I'm seeing totally fluid motion). If you're into games, go build yourself a PC gaming rig. If you make money in video, yeah, get yourself the newest 12 core MP. For anything else, MP 1,1 is more than good enough. Sure, I can afford to replace my MP 1,1 with the newest MP, but frankly I don't see or feel the need to, given what I use it for (multitasking, photography, running productivity apps under Fusion, playing an occasional game). I'd rather go get myself another lens.

If I had only $2000 to spend, I'd buy a used MP 1,1, put in at least 8GB of RAM in it, a couple 2 TB drives, and I'd round it all out with a refurbished 16GB iPad for those times I feed like reading Macrumors on the toilet.
Click to expand...


I Totally agree with you there! I got my MP 1,1 for the expandability, audio production and the occasional gaming. Even with the latest iMac or Mac Mini, there's no way to reach 8+ TB of storage which is important to me since It'll be a home server.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

neckarb said:
gullySn0wCat said:
CS:S works fine for me? Sounds like a bug.



I couldn't install Wind0ze 7 x64 on my Mac Pro without a custom-built ISO either, so I can back him up on that point.
Click to expand...

I bought Windows 7 x64 Pro, stuck it in, installed it...
Click to expand...

Could it be that there was a Bootcamp update in the mean time ?
 
initialsBB said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)



Could it be that there was a Bootcamp update in the mean time ?
Click to expand...

No, M$ probably updated their iso from the sounds of things.
 
I wish I could, but this was more than a year ago when I installed Win7. So I don't have the link anymore, sorry. They might have updated their .iso since then, yes, but mine came from around the time people first started complaining they couldn't install Win7 64 on 1,1 Mac Pros.
 
I would agree with everyone here who says there's nothing wrong with MPs 1,1. I have a 2009 17'' MBP with 8 GB of RAM and a fast 7200 rpm HD and the old 1,1 just destroys it at anything. For what I use it (development, Fusion - for testing, occasional gaming), it's perfect. It's better than anything Apple sells right now, save the latest MPs.

dermeister, even if MP 1,1 is supported by Lion (I doubt it, Apple is just getting greedier and greedier), it still won't be a very long lived machine. Just for a comparison: B&W G3 PowerMacs were released in Jan 99 and are capable of running 10.4. They originally started from under $2000. Sawtooth G4 PowerMacs (also from 99) can run 10.5. Those are 10 year life spans from machines that were cheaper and not nearly as fast as the 1,1 MPs. Plus Apple is doing *way* better today than back in 99.
 
I use my old Mac Pro daily, and haven't really run into anything it can't handle. I'm no longer the super power user I was when I got this beast, but I can still do all the Photoshopping, Lightrooming and Final Cutting I want.

And my wife can do all the email checking and Pandora listening she wants!

All in all, I think it's a great computer, that yes, is old. But it beats the heck out of my old MacBook Pro, and my wife's MacBook combined. Are the new ones better? Of course. That's what you get with technology though, obsolete before you leave the store!
 
A used MacPro1,1 is a great machine if you want an expandable *low-end* Mac.

Mine is still very usable for nearly everything, and the fact that you can put the latest ATI video cards from apple in them is a huge plus.

If you want something somewhat expandable that you can connect multiple monitors to, and are okay with low-to-medium range performance, a 1,1 is great. Just be aware of the caveats, many of which are already in this thread.

- EFI32 (can't use new nvidia cards)
- Memory is somewhat expensive
- Low performance-per-watt (if you pay a lot for energy this may be an issue)
- Compatibility with future OS X versions is vague.

$900 is a great deal and I'd happily pay that much for one. :)
 
Mackilroy said:
I realize for some people they had that problem, but my own personal experience was the exact opposite. I downloaded an .iso from Microsoft's site, burned it to a DVD, and then installed it. That was it. No further customization was necessary on my part.
Click to expand...
It has to do with the EFI32 used in the 2006/7 systems (ISO standard used is older, and versioning hadn't been added to the spec at that time). Nor has Apple offered a firmware update to address this. :(

Where you run into the issue, is with the Retail versions, as they are versioned (contain Ultimate, Professional,... on the same disk; the license key determines what does/doesn't get installed). IIRC, the System Builder disks sold by MS are versioned as well. So to use those disks, you have to modify the .iso during the burn process (there's a thread in here that provides a How-To).

Specific vendor releases are not (i.e. what Dell, HP, ... ship with their systems).

You got lucky, as downloading allowed you to skip any modification of the .iso (download = specific version = reduces the size of the file to download to the smallest possible). ;) Definitely the easier way to go, as you didn't have to modify the .iso to burn what you needed. :D
 
Transporteur said:
The technology you're referring too is called Light Peak, not light speed, and it's developed by Intel, not Apple.

If and when we see Light Peak supported boards by Apple is still an unanswered question. The times it will make PCIe obsolete will be probably more than a decade away from now.
The claimed speeds for the first release are 10Gb/s. PCIe (2.0) is already cabale of 64Gb/s! PCIe (3.0) even 128Gb/s
Intel claims that LP will be capable of 100Gb/s by 2020, so a looooong time till PCIe will be replaced.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the run-down!
 
When I got my Uni-Body Macbook Pro 2.53Ghz, 4GB RAM, i thought that was fast, but when I recently got the 1,1 MP, it blew my MBP away! I'm very happy with the machine and don't see how people say its slow...
 
pdechavez said:
When I got my Uni-Body Macbook Pro 2.53Ghz, 4GB RAM, i thought that was fast, but when I recently got the 1,1 MP, it blew my MBP away! I'm very happy with the machine and don't see how people say its slow...
Click to expand...

I suspect it's mostly people who don't actually own or use one. Then again, I've never used a MP 5,1, so I may be biased also :) Anyway, speed is relative, and at some point it really doesn't matter if something is accomplished in a millisecond or a nanosecond.
 
I edit HD video and animate HD in After Effects and make primetime commercials on a MP 1.1. I love this machine. It'll probably good enough for the next couple years.
 
JesterJJZ said:
I edit HD video and animate HD in After Effects and make primetime commercials on a MP 1.1. I love this machine. It'll probably good enough for the next couple years.
Click to expand...

I do a lot of Photoshop rendering and it does the job so well, even with the stock 7300 and 2 GB Ram...
 
theoretically, is it possible to upgrade a 1,1's motherboard and processors to make it the newest generation?

And if so, would it even be worth it, or would it just be cheaper to buy a new one?
 
JesterJJZ said:
I edit HD video and animate HD in After Effects and make primetime commercials on a MP 1.1. I love this machine. It'll probably good enough for the next couple years.
Click to expand...

At least! I plant to hold on to mine for as long as it's running, then fix whatever is wrong (so long as it's <$500) and use it as a server. By then there is sure to be a thread on MR titled "Mac Pro 5,1 worth keeping???" :D Hopefully 5,1 is not the end of the road for MP. Who knows. Personally I can see one more MP iteration, but all bets are off after 2012.
 
BiikeMike said:
theoretically, is it possible to upgrade a 1,1's motherboard and processors to make it the newest generation?

And if so, would it even be worth it, or would it just be cheaper to buy a new one?
Click to expand...


I too would like to know the answer to this question. However, I do know it costs a bit over $800 for a new logic board...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back