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Making a beastly 2006 Mac Pro, worth it?

Not to follow what everyone else says.... but they are right! Save a bit extra and just buy a 3,1. I had a 1,1 and its major downfall to me is the PCIe slot is only 1.1, its so slow it slowed down the performance of my superclocked 570. (I owned a 1,1 and I used it for parts to help build my 3,1)

I literally built myself a 3,1 on the cheap almost a year ago (thread located in my sig) Still a very capable machine. Mine will last me another year or 2 before I invest in a 12-core 2010 model... :)

I would ONLY settle for a 1,1 or 2,1 if you found one for DIRT cheap. Over $200 and I would pass on them.
 
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At 16 fellow Gav you are far younger than I was tinkering with computers I say go for maxing the 1,1 out if parts are cheap enough, useful practice if you have a taste for it. I feel very old, when I started it was 8088's 286's and pre macintoshes lol. Upgrade parts such as GPU,PCIe SSD and usb 3 cards you can always migrate to a newer tower.

Have fun, enjoy yourself and don't blow up as many systems as I did :D
 
You're buying a 10 year old computer. Keep in mind that the GHz rating on the CPU is not the full story. A modern CPU at the same GHz will run circles around the processor in the MP 1,1.

Even a lowly Mac Mini will outrun the the MP 1,1 when it comes to CPU bound tasks, and would probably be within the same budget. Granted, you can't get a decent GPU for the Mac Mini.
 
Last month I was wondering whether to upgrade my 1,1 or find a used 3,1 or refurb Mini. By far the most cost-effective option was to upgrade the 1,1. I bought:
  • 2x X5160 (3 GHz) for £7 in total
  • 4x 4Gb FB-DIMM for £50 in total (leaving space for another 16Gb)
  • official 5770 for £120
  • eSATA extender cable for £8
Was already running 10.9.1 perfectly via Tiamo. The plan was to go for either X5355 or X5365, but quite frankly for £7 I'l willing to try the X5160 first. Lower temp and wattage too. Assuming all works will then consider upgrading again later in the year.

The official 7950 works perfectly in 1,1, but is expensive (at least £290 with nothing secondhand yet). Seemingly in recent Mantle tests (supported by the GCN of the 7950) it's not really PCI bandwidth limited down to 8x PCIe2.0, i.e. around what the 16x slot in the 1,1 can provide.

Good luck in finding a Mini which can be upgraded for so little to similar specs. Sure its i7 processors (up to 4 of them at least) might be 50% faster, but it'll cost far more to buy, has a pathetic GPU, no eSATA, and you'll need to buy enclosures for disks. No chance of installing a cheap CUDA card either.

I had wanted a 3,1, but here in the UK those on the secondhand market are at least twice the price of a 1,1. Many of them are highly-specced too, which given I really only wanted the chassis and motherboard makes them unrealistic.
You're buying a 10 year old computer. Keep in mind that the GHz rating on the CPU is not the full story. A modern CPU at the same GHz will run circles around the processor in the MP 1,1.

Even a lowly Mac Mini will outrun the the MP 1,1 when it comes to CPU bound tasks, and would probably be within the same budget. Granted, you can't get a decent GPU for the Mac Mini.
Click to expand...
For a non-production machine does this matter? My specs above may be (in some cases) 10 years old but it's still capable of heavy-lifting. Chuck in 2x X5355 for £50 and it'll be faster for multi-threaded apps than any Mini anyway.
 
Defiantly do it! I'm 16 also so don't really have the funds for a new Mac Pro, my 1,1 flies I don't get what people are on about when they say get a newer machine, well maybe mines a 1 off machine that apple produced that actually performs better haha! But anyway I would say do it, that's what I do a the minute every time I get a little bit of money just do some form of upgrade, I would love to max it out eventually but I would probably have a new machine before hat happens! Mine is in my sig.

Good luck with it if you go for it!

Jake
 
Dude, I would say go for it as well. I picked up my 3,1 for $200 and threw $450 into upgrades, and I personally believe that this will last me a good 3-5 years.
~$50 2nd Processor & Heatsink
~$120 GTX 660
~$230 Velocity Solo x1, 120GB 840 EVO, 1TB HDD Fusion Drive

Got some RAM from a friend of mine who recently upgraded his server, computer came with a monitor, keyboard, and cables, got another monitor from a friend. So happy with my setup.
 
I would have to say "no," 3,1 is not worth investment. There is so much about Mac Pros before 4,1 that make them not worth upgrading. I had a 3,1, which ultimately died in early December, I was totally unaware how pathetic it was until I "tested" one of the 2013 top-specced iMacs. The iMac totally blew away the 3,1 in processing and graphics… whereas before I was struggling to run about 20 "meaty" plug-ins in Pro Tools LE with the 3,1, the iMac ate Pro Tools for dinner. I loaded up 48 tracks with several plug-ins each (and not the lightweight ones either), before it finally redlined.

Your money is better spent buying a 4,1 or better and upgrading that if you absolutely *must* go "old school" tower. There were so many "under the hood" improvement from 3,1 to 4,1… it's like the difference between night and day. There's a reason 3,1 machines sell so cheaply… and why I opted not to even bother repairing my broken one.

The changes from 4,1 to 5,1 were mostly irrelevant. A 4,1 is as good as any 5,1 if you swap CPUs. The 3,1 and earlier are totally different animals.
 
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Pro Tools Milage May Vary!

Running PT 8 on a "pathetic" 3,1 and have a session with 40 plug-ins including
UAD 1176, SSL G Series, UAD 1073, UAD 1081 and Wave limiters. These I think are "Meaty"! PT2 is 1 of 2 mixing screen shots.
So no! All 3,1 and apps are created equal!:)
 

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OS6-OSX said:
Running PT 8 on a "pathetic" 3,1 and have a session with 40 plug-ins including
UAD 1176, SSL G Series, UAD 1073, UAD 1081 and Wave limiters. These I think are "Meaty"! PT2 is 1 of 2 mixing screen shots.
So no! All 3,1 and apps are created equal!:)
Click to expand...

How about my 1,1 (spec in sig) running Pro Tools 11, with about 50 tracks and a around 5/6 plugins per track, yeah in my opinion the old Mac Pros aren't pathetic at all. Unless your doing video then I suppose they struggle.
 
gavinstubbs09 said:
How long did it take for the RAM to die? I will end up finding something to control the fans. I did notice that when I had the 5150's the rear fan was at 600rpm and now it's about 800rpm with the new CPUs.
Click to expand...

The OWC RAM lasted 4 years which is excellent. I ran my PCI-E fan at 800 and my CPU fan at 1000.
 
jakesaunders27 said:
How about my 1,1 (spec in sig) running Pro Tools 11, with about 50 tracks and a around 5/6 plugins per track, yeah in my opinion the old Mac Pros aren't pathetic at all. Unless your doing video then I suppose they struggle.
Click to expand...

I use my 1,1 professionally for video and I have no lag at all editing most of the time in ProRess (@145Mbps) no problem, even faster now with my quad core processors.
 
I would not invest in anything less then a Mac Pro 3,1 and even then I'd be hesitant, however i realize that many people are constrained by budget and want to pull the trigger on something, I'd advise they wait until they have just a little more money.

The first two model Mac Pro's 1,1 and 2,1 were hampered by slow bus speeds, 1.33GHz, slow ram and limited CPU upgrades. There is no getting around the slow bus speeds and ram, both of which are woefully slow by todays comparison. Yes, you can upgrade to dual quad core CPU's, but any newer graphics cards you use will run at PCIe 1.0 speeds no matter what, so that will be a bottle neck. You certainly can put in an SSD for some added speeds, but thats really all you can do. Now, all of this might produce a machine that is fast enough for you, and that is fine, but if you want keep this machine for any length of time, 1-3 yrs, you are quite limited.

In my opinion, it would be better to buy at least a stock 4,1 system, although I realize they are hard to find now and costly by comparison, your options in terms of upgrades are vast. Even a 3,1 is limited by CPU upgradeability, slow ram, and only two PCIe 16x slots.

I've owned a 1,1 and 3,1 so I know these machines, what they are capable of, how they perform etc. I now have a stock quad core 5,1 system and I have lots of upgrade options the least of which, upgrading to a hex core cpu, will increase my geek bench score from around 10k to 15k and make the machine a lot snappier. By contrast, similar cpu upgrades on older machines might produce virtually the same geek bench increase but in reality the machine is not much faster after the upgrade do to technology limitations like bus speed. So your money does not go as far in the older machines as it does in the newer ones.

In the end though, as I said, if you wind up with an older machine which, after some upgrades, is fast enough for you, that is your choice and there is nothing wrong with it. This is really just to illustrate the limitations of the older machines to help people make a more informed decision.
 
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