Mac Pro (Early 2008) worth upgrading? If not then move to what?

[666sheep]

In fact i there was just a thread on here where everyone was telling the OP that his new ram was causing his hang up issues, and that he should use only one type of ram.

Was they right at the end? Did OP reported back that RAM was a culprit? I remember that thread, BTW. Mixing RAM manufactures rarily causes issues as long as their specs do match. I can tell you this from my personal experience (and not only me).

Used RAM, I agree – you never know how long it will last. But on eBay you'll find brand new sticks with warranty and return possibility (check this one I linked in my post above, for instance).

I'm out, to not derail this thread more than I already did

 

[Phrygian]

Was they right at the end? Did OP reported back that RAM was a culprit? I remember that thread, BTW. Mixing RAM manufactures rarily causes issues as long as their specs do match. I can tell you this from my personal experience (and not only me).

Used RAM, I agree – you never know how long it will last. But on eBay you'll find brand new sticks with warranty and return possibility (check this one I linked in my post above, for instance).

I'm out, to not derail this thread more than I already did

yea no worries. As far as that thread goes i wanted a memtest done before anything went farther anyway.


As for the OP, in the order of importance of upgrades i believe it is:
1-ssd
2-GPU
3-ram

given the amount of ram you already have. Doing all three will provide a big boost.

 

[666sheep]

As for the OP, in the order of importance of upgrades i believe it is:
1-ssd
2-GPU
3-ram

Yep, but in different order, especially if the OP works in AE and Premiere:

1. GPU + RAM
2. SSD

CUDA makes a hell of difference and more RAM per core will speed up rendering.

 

[Phrygian]

Yep, but in different order, especially if the OP works in AE and Premiere:

1. GPU + RAM
2. SSD

CUDA makes a hell of difference and more RAM per core will speed up rendering.

interesting, i figured the increased read and write speeds of an ssd would be important for rendering, as well improving the dreaded loadtimes on some applications.

 

[Ledgem]

interesting, i figured the increased read and write speeds of an ssd would be important for rendering, as well improving the dreaded loadtimes on some applications.

The SSD will speed up load times for applications dramatically, but that doesn't really matter much. Once the application is loaded into the RAM, the SSD isn't providing much. If you're frequently opening and closing different programs then there's a major benefit. If you're working in one or two programs, not so much.

As to the benefit while rendering, you can determine for yourself where the bottleneck is. Using a program like iStat Menus, you can look at your processor usage and hard drive read/write speeds. In my experience the processor usage hits its maximum but the hard drive speeds aren't even close - and I'm using standard hard drives, not SSDs. But that's just me - other people's setups and applications may differ.

 

[nigelbb]

There could be some benefit from an SSD while rendering but your video files are not going to be on the OS SSD as they are way too large. There might be a good case for an SSD as your work disk but I am often editing projects where there are 2-300GB of raw video files. Currently I store these on a RAID-5 array that gives be a read/write performance of about 200MB/s which is faster than a single work disk & lower than an SSD would deliver but obviously higher capacity. When actually rendering out a finished project I see my processors maxed at 750+% so doubt that disk I/O is the bottleneck so even if I did use an SSD it would not reduce my render times only faster CPUs will do that.

 

[petterihiisila]

My bad, not $175 but $176. It may run slightly hotter than one with Apple heatsinks, but it will work. If you really want Apple-like you can buy cheap 512MB (even dead ones) just for heatsinks.

This is not the right item! I ordered it and it's not compatible. Shows up as an empty slot. Goddamn overseas shipping #fail thanks to this cocksure false advice.

Seller, "memstore", also sells compatible items, and the owner is kind enough to refund my mistake over 14 days later. I like them and will replace the item for the right one and pay the delta.

Note to self and you all: Read the product title well before ordering and ask if unsure! Don't follow 666sheep's advice lightly, I hope he admits he made up BS in a hurry... the info he shared was just plain false. Including the heat sink part.

Price is double, I checked multiple places. Prepare for a $300+ dive. Not 175. OWC sells for $500+.

Still worth it IMHO, for 300. It's a great machine with 4 monitors and a few SSDs plus home-made Fusion drive. Five years old and going strong. This will give it a few more with 8+16=24 gigs. Used to have 12.

If you want to make yours fly, ignore the CPU and invest in an SSD pair, RAM and video card. In that order. Unless you're rendering 3D, it's still very very capable multi-screen desktop/server combo. Use those extra 2 SATA connectors for added SSDs, leave 4 slots for HDDs. Highpoint sells an USB 3 card that works well enough though isn't fully reliable.

More info/details about the setup if someone asks.

 

[GermanyChris]

This is not the right item! I ordered it and it's not compatible. Shows up as an empty slot. Goddamn overseas shipping #fail thanks to this cocksure false advice.

Seller, "memstore", also sells compatible items, and the owner is kind enough to refund my mistake over 14 days later. I like them and will replace the item for the right one and pay the delta.

Note to self and you all: Read the product title well before ordering and ask if unsure! Don't follow 666sheep's advice lightly, I hope he admits he made up BS in a hurry... the info he shared was just plain false. Including the heat sink part.

Price is double, I checked multiple places. Prepare for a $300+ dive. Not 175. OWC sells for $500+.

Still worth it IMHO, for 300. It's a great machine with 4 monitors and a few SSDs plus home-made Fusion drive. Five years old and going strong. This will give it a few more with 8+16=24 gigs. Used to have 12.

If you want to make yours fly, ignore the CPU and invest in an SSD pair, RAM and video card. In that order. Unless you're rendering 3D, it's still very very capable multi-screen desktop/server combo. Use those extra 2 SATA connectors for added SSDs, leave 4 slots for HDDs. Highpoint sells an USB 3 card that works well enough though isn't fully reliable.

More info/details about the setup if someone asks.

Those are the DIMM's I have in my MP..from the same store same Dell..

 

[Killerbob]

There might be a good case for an SSD as your work disk but I am often editing projects where there are 2-300GB of raw video files. Currently I store these on a RAID-5 array that gives be a read/write performance of about 200MB/s which is faster than a single work disk & lower than an SSD would deliver but obviously higher capacity.

Take a look at an Accelsior card. I just got one for my MacPro3,1 and it is big (960GB), fast (much faster than SSDs via the SATA2 interfaces), and even performs on par with a 3xSSD RAID0 through a Raid card. That way a 2-300GB video file scares noone

 

[petterihiisila]

Those are the DIMM's I have in my MP..from the same store same Dell..

I tried multiple ways, multiple times, no matter what the memory card and DIMM placement is: Consistently "empty" if the OS is asked. And all four leave the red hardware led on. Both memory host cards, always the correct led: dead.

They certainly look and feel new. Four DIMMs identically and fully "DOA": that's very unlikely. Packaging was over-the-top well done. I was careful with static spikes, moisture and the usual. It's possible but very unlikely that these are dead.

The seller also said that this is not compatible. He told to return for a refund/replacement.

Don't know why the results would vary, but these sure didn't work for me, and I'll get the ones with no DELL in the title from the same store.

Weird that it works for some. Any ideas why it would?

 

[GermanyChris]

I tried multiple ways, multiple times, no matter what the memory card and DIMM placement is: Consistently "empty" if the OS is asked. And all four leave the red hardware led on. Both memory host cards, always the correct led: dead.

They certainly look and feel new. Four DIMMs identically and fully "DOA": that's very unlikely. Packaging was over-the-top well done. I was careful with static spikes, moisture and the usual. It's possible but very unlikely that these are dead.

The seller also said that this is not compatible. He told to return for a refund/replacement.

Don't know why the results would vary, but these sure didn't work for me, and I'll get the ones with no DELL in the title from the same store.

Weird that it works for some. Any ideas why it would?

It's Apple and old..other than that no..

 

[thekev]

The SSD will speed up load times for applications dramatically, but that doesn't really matter much. Once the application is loaded into the RAM, the SSD isn't providing much. If you're frequently opening and closing different programs then there's a major benefit. If you're working in one or two programs, not so much.

As to the benefit while rendering, you can determine for yourself where the bottleneck is. Using a program like iStat Menus, you can look at your processor usage and hard drive read/write speeds. In my experience the processor usage hits its maximum but the hard drive speeds aren't even close - and I'm using standard hard drives, not SSDs. But that's just me - other people's setups and applications may differ.

It would probably make more sense to have the footage to be rendered on a fast raid if the bottleneck was one of loading stuff from disk. Typical ssd sizes are a bit low for this kind of stuff.

 

[Mac Newblet]

This is not the right item! I ordered it and it's not compatible. Shows up as an empty slot. Goddamn overseas shipping #fail thanks to this cocksure false advice.

Seller, "memstore", also sells compatible items, and the owner is kind enough to refund my mistake over 14 days later. I like them and will replace the item for the right one and pay the delta.

Note to self and you all: Read the product title well before ordering and ask if unsure! Don't follow 666sheep's advice lightly, I hope he admits he made up BS in a hurry... the info he shared was just plain false. Including the heat sink part.

Price is double, I checked multiple places. Prepare for a $300+ dive. Not 175. OWC sells for $500+.

Still worth it IMHO, for 300. It's a great machine with 4 monitors and a few SSDs plus home-made Fusion drive. Five years old and going strong. This will give it a few more with 8+16=24 gigs. Used to have 12.

If you want to make yours fly, ignore the CPU and invest in an SSD pair, RAM and video card. In that order. Unless you're rendering 3D, it's still very very capable multi-screen desktop/server combo. Use those extra 2 SATA connectors for added SSDs, leave 4 slots for HDDs. Highpoint sells an USB 3 card that works well enough though isn't fully reliable.

More info/details about the setup if someone asks.

If you want to take a chance, Nemix has 16 GB (4x4) for $258.
The Dell memory on Ebay is showing 4RX8 rank, which I have tried from a different vendor, and got the same thing, not recognized, red LEDs, etc.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-...5041104?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item257adc3250
They told me that it has to be 4RX4 rank, true?

 

[petterihiisila]

If you want to take a chance, Nemix has 16 GB (4x4) for $258.
The Dell memory on Ebay is showing 4RX8 rank, which I have tried from a different vendor, and got the same thing, not recognized, red LEDs, etc.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-...5041104?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item257adc3250
They told me that it has to be 4RX4 rank, true?

I'm not willing to take a mere $50 saving and risk another round of papers with the Customs office, but thanks for the pointer.

Also, it's very bad for the climate to fly these boxes back and forth

Memstore has the correct/recommended item for $300, and it's still $200+ cheaper than OWC. Both guarantee compatibility.

Theory:

Are the specs/ranks/ratings variable somehow, and Chris was just lucky to have the sub-$200 chips wake up in is his machine? Cheap chips, from a good day at the factory perhaps?

A bit like it is with CPUs: some allow undervoltage (less heat for early MacBook Airs) or overclocking, others not so much. And it varies between individual CPUs of the same model.

 

[utekineir]

And at idle the 3770k is quite efficient.

My MP went due to power usage. But I got an iMac i5 rather than a MP. I miss the MP.

This,

except i7


near 200 watt idle to <15.

 

[666sheep]

rant

My bad. I didn't notice that these particular sticks are quad rank (4xR 8).
I'll correct my post to not confuse future readers.
But this was only illustration of fact that you can buy 16GB FB DIMMs for MP under $200 (what is still possible).
Another poster asked for proof, so I've posted that link, wrong link. That same memory, only dual rank (2xR 8) works in MPs. Believe it or not.

I didn't force you (and nobody else) to buying things without your own research or contacting the seller. There's always possibility that random guy from the Internet made a mistake when posting link

 

[nigelbb]

Even buying what is claimed to be the correct RAM for my 2008 MacPro 3,1 wasn't any guarantee of quality. I bought 4x4GB of these but two were DOA & the other two only registered as 2GB 667MHz rather than 4GB 800MHz I got a refund but it was a hassle. The memory sticks didn't look great as the heat gloop between heatsinks & RAM was very messy http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005HIWDFK/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[petterihiisila]

My bad. I didn't notice that these particular sticks are quad rank (4xR 8).
I'll correct my post to not confuse future readers.
But this was only illustration of fact that you can buy 16GB FB DIMMs for MP under $200 (what is still possible).
Another poster asked for proof, so I've posted that link, wrong link. That same memory, only dual rank (2xR 8) works in MPs. Believe it or not.

I didn't force you (and nobody else) to buying things without your own research or contacting the seller. There's always possibility that random guy from the Internet made a mistake when posting link

Thanks for editing it. I do recognize that my own rush in research phase now results in a lot of paperwork with customs. Gotta be more careful next time!