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Mac Pro Outdated? Don't care, I'm taking the plunge anyway.

M

makoffee

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 8, 2009
19
0
Minneapolis, MN
After much hemming and hawing, I've decided to just take the plunge on a refurbished mac pro. I'm going for the 2.4 8-core westmere, and upgrading the ram & SSD from newegg and CPUs from eBay. By far much cheaper than the 12-core BTO options available. Considering it's the same motherboard as the so-called "2012" models, I would consider this the cheapest buy-in to the 2-socket / 8 mem-slot platform.

I've played the waiting game with apple before and I never seem to be happy with the results. People seem to want the Mac Pro to be a hi-performance sports car. For them I would suggest a MBPr. The Mac Pro line is more like a semi-truck, meant for high-miles and long hours. Does it have USB3 or thunderbolt? no. Can I get a USB3 PCIe card sure, no problem. Does thuderbolt really matter... no not right now. Are the video cards the best in class... nope. If that's your issue do yourself a favor and build a gaming PC. I've found the ATI 5870 to be adequate for my professional 3D needs.

Despite all of these so called issues. I still think the Mac Pros are the hardest working computers that I've ever had the pleasure of using. Windows just isn't an option to me. My 2006 served me loyally without issue for 6 years. (though with many upgrades). Half to problem with the Mac Pro market is the fact that the machines last as long as they do. Unlike a macbook, you don't need to upgrade every year or two. I would consider that a plus for the Mac Pro.

Everyone rags on Mac Pro for being outdated, but have a look at geekbench... The fastest Mac's on the planet are Mac Pros despite their lack of thunderbolt, USB3 & Sata III.

Best thing we can do is show Apple that we still want Mac Pros. Cuz waiting for the consumer line of Macs to catch up or possible refresh is going to be a long long wait.
 
makoffee said:
after much hemming and hawing, i've decided to just take the plunge on a refurbished mac pro. I'm going for the 2.4 8-core westmere, and upgrading the ram & ssd from newegg and cpus from ebay. By far much cheaper than the 12-core bto options available. Considering it's the same motherboard as the so-called "2012" models, i would consider this the cheapest buy-in to the 2-socket / 8 mem-slot platform.

I've played the waiting game with apple before and i never seem to be happy with the results. People seem to want the mac pro to be a hi-performance sports car. For them i would suggest a mbpr. The mac pro line is more like a semi-truck, meant for high-miles and long hours. Does it have usb3 or thunderbolt? No. Can i get a usb3 pcie card sure, no problem. Does thuderbolt really matter... No not right now. Are the video cards the best in class... Nope. If that's your issue do yourself a favor and build a gaming pc. I've found the ati 5870 to be adequate for my professional 3d needs.

Despite all of these so called issues. I still think the mac pros are the hardest working computers that i've ever had the pleasure of using. Windows just isn't an option to me. My 2006 served me loyally without issue for 6 years. (though with many upgrades). Half to problem with the mac pro market is the fact that the machines last as long as they do. Unlike a macbook, you don't need to upgrade every year or two. I would consider that a plus for the mac pro.

Everyone rags on mac pro for being outdated, but have a look at geekbench... The fastest mac's on the planet are mac pros despite their lack of thunderbolt, usb3 & sata iii.

Best thing we can do is show apple that we still want mac pros. Cuz waiting for the consumer line of macs to catch up or possible refresh is going to be a long long wait.
Click to expand...

ok.
 
You saved someone else from buying it. :)

You were only following orders. You had no choice... :eek:
 
Well in choosing the 2.4GHz 8-core above all else it shows you have really done your homework.
 
derbothaus said:
Well in choosing the 2.4GHz 8-core above all else it shows you have really done your homework.
Click to expand...

:p

It is the cheapest buy-in to the 2010/2012 dual CPU line of Mac Pros. I realize a lot of people opt for the single 6-core or all out 12-core. But I feel like at my budget this machine will serve me well for a long time to come.

My new Mac Pro along along with a Samsung 830 512gb SSD and 16gb of ram from newegg arrived today. Needless to say I'm totally stoked!

I'm planning on overclocking the stock E5645 chips, anyone have any experience doing this?
 
makoffee said:
:p

It is the cheapest buy-in to the 2010/2012 dual CPU line of Mac Pros. I realize a lot of people opt for the single 6-core or all out 12-core. But I feel like at my budget this machine will serve me well for a long time to come.

My new Mac Pro along along with a Samsung 830 512gb SSD and 16gb of ram from newegg arrived today. Needless to say I'm totally stoked!

I'm planning on overclocking the stock E5645 chips, anyone have any experience doing this?
Click to expand...

It all depends on where you are planning on going with it, right?
Tutor would be your best bet.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1333421/
But most stuff is still done in Hackintosh BIOS NOT Mac EFI. I don't think it can be done. But I have been wrong many times in my life.
 
makoffee said:
:p

It is the cheapest buy-in to the 2010/2012 dual CPU line of Mac Pros. I realize a lot of people opt for the single 6-core or all out 12-core. But I feel like at my budget this machine will serve me well for a long time to come.

My new Mac Pro along along with a Samsung 830 512gb SSD and 16gb of ram from newegg arrived today. Needless to say I'm totally stoked!

I'm planning on overclocking the stock E5645 chips, anyone have any experience doing this?
Click to expand...

After much research, I bought the same machine. In Australia, there are no refurbs available, but a dealer bought all Apple's stock. My machine has made in February this year. I think if a machine was a real refurb, it would be a couple of years old I reckon.

I doubt I'd bother overclocking. That's too close to Hackintoshing, perhaps. But I'd be interested to follow how you go. I will look in a year or so though, for 6 core processors. The 5xxx Xeons should be much cheaper by then. The upgrade is very simple.

I will be upgrading the RAM, and I have considered the Pros and Cons of Registered RAM, and of leaving the slots empty to future upgrades. But I've now concluded that 6 4GB memory cards are so much cheaper, I will buy those and hence close the gap to the lower cost single CPU machine with the same RAM, which for me will therefor be 6 x 4 GB = 24 GB + 1 + 1 = 26GB Ram. If I need more RAM later, I could go registered, or just buy two 8 GB cards, and thereby get 40GB if I needed to. Or sell the 4GB cards (for peanuts probably) and then go the registered 8GB card route I presume.

But with the SSD, I am likely to go 830 or or Intel, but although 500GB sounds good, I think I'll go 256/240, and use another drive for video files. But I have bought a $26 Astrotek PCI card, but not bought a power or data cable yet for powering the SSD or connecting it to the card. The Astrotek has the ASMedia ASM1061 chip set, and they claim (or the reseller's data claims) that the card supports Mac OS X 10.6 and above.

Did you use a PCI card for the SSD connection?

Cheers
 
makoffee said:
After much hemming and hawing, I've decided to just take the plunge on a refurbished mac pro. I'm going for the 2.4 8-core westmere, and upgrading the ram & SSD from newegg and CPUs from eBay. By far much cheaper than the 12-core BTO options available. Considering it's the same motherboard as the so-called "2012" models, I would consider this the cheapest buy-in to the 2-socket / 8 mem-slot platform.

I've played the waiting game with apple before and I never seem to be happy with the results. People seem to want the Mac Pro to be a hi-performance sports car. For them I would suggest a MBPr. The Mac Pro line is more like a semi-truck, meant for high-miles and long hours. Does it have USB3 or thunderbolt? no. Can I get a USB3 PCIe card sure, no problem. Does thuderbolt really matter... no not right now. Are the video cards the best in class... nope. If that's your issue do yourself a favor and build a gaming PC. I've found the ATI 5870 to be adequate for my professional 3D needs.

Despite all of these so called issues. I still think the Mac Pros are the hardest working computers that I've ever had the pleasure of using. Windows just isn't an option to me. My 2006 served me loyally without issue for 6 years. (though with many upgrades). Half to problem with the Mac Pro market is the fact that the machines last as long as they do. Unlike a macbook, you don't need to upgrade every year or two. I would consider that a plus for the Mac Pro.

Everyone rags on Mac Pro for being outdated, but have a look at geekbench... The fastest Mac's on the planet are Mac Pros despite their lack of thunderbolt, USB3 & Sata III.

Best thing we can do is show Apple that we still want Mac Pros. Cuz waiting for the consumer line of Macs to catch up or possible refresh is going to be a long long wait.
Click to expand...

Hah. The optical drive will be gone from the Mac Pro in the next refresh. Good thing you bought one now. It's not outdated; you can hack just about anything to work the way you want it to...provided it's not limited by a hardware bottleneck.
 
GoreVidal said:
Because an external BluRay burner costs SOOOOO much money. Glad I got mine for $50 last month to add to my optical-less Mac.
Click to expand...

Well cost is one thing, but I really like having as many things integrated into one unit as possibly. Aesthetically it looks far more pleasing, but we work with what is available.

I sure as hell hope Apple doesn't solder on the RAM for the upcoming Mac Pro and iMac..
 
Davy.Shalom said:
Well cost is one thing, but I really like having as many things integrated into one unit as possibly. Aesthetically it looks far more pleasing, but we work with what is available.

I sure as hell hope Apple doesn't solder on the RAM for the upcoming Mac Pro and iMac..
Click to expand...

I am sure they will not. They only solder it on the rMBP and MBA for the reason of maintaining the thin profile by eliminating the height that could be added when using RAM sockets.
 
Melbourne Park said:
What would it matter, since the units are horribly difficult for non service personnel to access without damaging the Macbooks.
Click to expand...

No they aren't. I have worked on hundreds. oh. "non-service personnel". Maybe. Depends on who has the screwdrivers.
 
At least you bought an upgradeable Mac pro. When prices come down on Westmere processors, you can dump those 2.4 to above 3.0 chips. Westmere processors are still very strong to use for today's applications.
 
Absolutely they are! You have on your hands the cheapest 'new' mac pro possible, with the best performance upgrade path possible.

Had I not started going the hackintosh route this is exactly what I would have done.
 
bearcatrp said:
At least you bought an upgradeable Mac pro. When prices come down on Westmere processors, you can dump those 2.4 to above 3.0 chips.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, why do you think the 1366 Cpus come down in price? I would think they stay expensive, is there any history that points to that? I'm quite new to this game and would consider a 2.4/2.66 12-core myself then.
 
Xeons drop slowly but do drop. Since building mine over a year ago, they have dropped a few hundred bucks. Should drop more when the next generation xeons come out. How much depends on how many companies move to newer tech. Look how cheap harpertowns are now.
 
twietee said:
Out of curiosity, why do you think the 1366 Cpus come down in price? I would think they stay expensive, is there any history that points to that? I'm quite new to this game and would consider a 2.4/2.66 12-core myself then.
Click to expand...

IMO it's R&D costs, and marketing strategies. Perhaps too, manufacturing prices may drop over time.

The R&D is expensive, and has to be paid off. When it is, then each CPU doesn't carry the R&D cost, which has to be distributed across many CPUs.

And then there's marketing. By selling an older gen. CPU cheaply, a lower entry point into the server market is opened. Hence the lower sector of the workstation / server market is opened, hence increasing sales, and availing the producer of good value.

I do not know how automated the production process is for today's CPUs. If there's a production leaning curve, then costs would also fall over time.

And finally, there is market pressure. New lower cost altnerative processors might stop Xeon sales; so lowering the older Xeon prices, keeps them being manufactured and sold.
 
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