Mac Pro 2009 Quad Upgrades

[weaverra]

So I just purchased a quad core 2.66 with 3 gigs of rams off eBay for $549 free shipping. It's definitely better than the 2006 dual dual core 3.0 I had with 4 gigs of ram. However it does feel sluggish at times. I have performed the firmware upgrade in hopes of a W3690 one day.

My bucket list:

EVO SSD

Apricorn Sata III controller

16 Gigs of Ram 1333

W3690

How would my MP perform if I just did the SSD without upgrading the ram? Do these two upgrades really need to go hand in hand? I do real estate photography and some video. I mainly use LR 5.6 and PS CC simultaneously.

 

[MacVidCards]

Really think about a true PCIE SSD and skip SATA altogether.

3-4 times faster, literally.

I'm telling you this and we don't sell them.

 

[ShawnF]

So I just purchased a quad core 2.66 with 3 gigs of rams off eBay for $549 free shipping. It's definitely better than the 2006 dual dual core 3.0 I had with 4 gigs of ram. However it does feel sluggish at times. I have performed the firmware upgrade in hopes of a W3690 one day.

My bucket list:

EVO SSD

Apricorn Sata III controller

16 Gigs of Ram 1333

W3690

How would my MP perform if I just did the SSD without upgrading the ram? Do these two upgrades really need to go hand in hand? I do real estate photography and some video. I mainly use LR 5.6 and PS CC simultaneously.

The extra RAM will come in handy if you are doing work like video editing or running Windows on virtual machines. I say go for the sweet spot of 24GB and run the RAM in triple channel configuration.

Plenty of vendor selling PC1333 server RAM on ebay and some for really low prices. I got my Kingston RAM from this vendor - note I am not affiliated with him in any way:

Kingston 8GB ECC Server Memory

 

[flowrider]

Actually, I agree the Apricorn Velocity Solo or Dual x2 card will make a world of difference in performance. Much has been written here about them. True PCIe SSDs (blade type) are quite expensive and IMHO overkill.

Lou

 

[weaverra]

Actually, I agree the Apricorn Velocity Solo or Dual x2 card will make a world of difference in performance. Much has been written here about them. True PCIe SSDs (blade type) are quite expensive and IMHO overkill.

Lou

That's what I was thinking. Honestly I would be happy with an SSD on the internal controller right now. I have a very limited budget right now. I could get the memory and SSD if I skipped the SATA III card right now. It would sure beat 50 MB/s read and write speed. My 2TB WD red actually clocks twice as fast as current my boot drive.

 

[RoastingPig]

i just bought a samsung pcie 512gb off ebay for $250 thats is blazing fast being tested in my macbook retina.. Im getting 700mb reads and writes and soon my mac pro will get that speed as my apple blade to pcie adapter just left china post.