Mac Pro X5355 upgrade with ram

[JetLyfe420]

I have recently picked up my first Mac pro 1.1 (2x 3.0 mhz X5160's, 4gb ram, and 500gb HDD) on ebay for $788 shipped to my door. Is this a good price??

Anyway my real question is this; The Mac Pro came with 667mhz ram, is this the max speed ram this system can accept?? I am upgrading to dual X5355 processors which have a 1333mhz front side bus speed, does this mean i can use ram rated at 1333mhz? or am i stuck at 667mhz with this system??

I want to squeeze as much as i can out of this system, i am doing HD video editing, and music production with it. Any help is greatly appreciated, as i need to know before i can order my ram upgrade. Thank you.

 

[ashman70]

The only RAM you can use with that system is 667 or 800, the 800 would clock down to 667, so there would be no great advantage. If you want to squeeze the most out of the system perhaps look at a dual quad Mac Pro 3,1 used, it might come out to the same money at the Mac Pro 1,1 and the cost to upgrade the processors.

 

[JetLyfe420]

Okay, is that speed sufficient or is it considered to be slow? I will be working with H.264 files from a Canon T2i.

 

[ashman70]

Speed of what? If you are talking about the RAM you don't have a choice. The Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 both use 667 RAM, the 3,1 uses 800 RAM, not that much faster but a little faster.

 

[JetLyfe420]

I understand this, im asking if the 667mhz ram is good enough for what i plan to. I ask because if its not i will pick up a more updated system...

 

[ashman70]

There is another user on this board who frequents this Mac Pro sub forum, he is doing HD video editing on a Mac Pro 1,1 and says its slow, but doable. If you have the budget, you can't go wrong with a newer system, it will only make the video editing experience that much faster and enjoyable the faster RAM, CPU and more cores you have.

 

[bearcatrp]

You want at least a 3.1 but higher the better when dealing with HD. I used to own both and found the 2008 worked pretty good. If you can afford a Mac pro with westmere processors, get it. Will serve you many years.