Newest Purchases: Mac Pro 1.1 and eMac

[Ultracyclist]

I have BT 4.0 dongle and a AC wifi 5ghz card
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201514214847?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

[Ultracyclist]

Doubt what ever you want... a mac pro 1,1 with 2x X5365 will score roughly 12000 Geekbench points the highest end iMac 4K (HDD) (at only € 2209,-) will score around 13000, so its likely that the Mac Pro will feel faster.

 

[pastrychef]

This is what I found when I searched for Geekbench score for "highest end iMac 4K".

Plus, Geekbench score doesn't necessarily make a computer feel faster.

Source: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3898965

 

[Ultracyclist]

Nice result, but this one has a fusion drive..

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/5668938 it is stil possible a Mac Pro will feel faster in day to day use.

 

[pastrychef]

You do realize that drives play no role in your Geekbench score, right?

 

[Ultracyclist]

Im aware of that, but its not the iMac spoke of. remains it is still possible that a Mac Pro will feel faster on daily operations, it doest depend on the cpu Boost but on the standard speed it has.

 

[pastrychef]

There are a lot of factors involved... The 1,1 is hobbled with very slow (by today's standards) bus speed and RAM. Combined with antiquated chipset and CPUs, it makes for a dated computer. Certainly an SSD could help, but even so, it's limited by the SATA 2 connection.

 

[Ultracyclist]

Nobody will say it won't. Its dated, but it still has a few more good years a head of it!
Believe when I tell you out of my experience its still worth it to have a cMP 1,1 or 2,1 with upgraded internals.

And as an extra (at least for me) I love owning the very first generation Intel Mac Pro. It is the most beautiful computer in the whole world! (IMHO)

 

[pastrychef]

I'm not questioning whether it can be useful. I'm just question claims that it feels faster than current models.

 

[Ultracyclist]

The only models it won't actually feel faster are the current nMP and the iMac 5K when you look at score. Its very possible that one might feel its faster then a whole lot of other Mac like the Books and the mini's

 

[pastrychef]

Again, Geekbench scores are not the only thing that determines how fast a computer feels.

 

[Ultracyclist]

I agree, so that means that a cMP 1,1 may have a faster feeling then the current gen. iMac as you say you doubt

 

[pastrychef]

Despite having an SSD, the 1,1s are hobbled by a lot of old tech. At least a decade old! I'm sure people will still be able to find uses for it but it will be doing so in far, far less efficiently than new machines.

You guys can believe what you want but you're not going to convince me that it feels faster than a current gen iMac.

 

[Johnny365]

That's fine. Moving along...

 

[blindpcguy]

i have a mac pro 1,1 sold my skyline alienware x51 r3 that actually had better specs because it does the job fine i have a msg geforce gtx 650 2gb gddr5 In mine as well as the duel 2.66 ghz eons and 8gb ram. on my windows drive i can play anything i want fallout 3, 4 skyrim, the old republic, gat v runs like a dream at high settings. can even game in surround mode with my 3 screens. need to get an sad soon but other then that i am good. on os x i can run world of warcraft at ultra diablo 3 sims4 and quite a few others pc is my main platform and my 1,1 can run everything i throw at it wonderful going to get a bit beefier gnu soon for it but it preforms really well.
[doublepost=1461116799][/doublepost]forgot to mention i also edit in final cut pro x and mix music in logic x does all that flawless and i own a 2014 mac mini core i5 8gb ram and my pro runs better then that. runs way faster when editing in fox and just overall runs better. its kind of funny how i have to use it in target disk mode to recover my bot.efi every time i update lol

 

[Johnny365]

Im probably leaning toward the Radeon 7950 3GB card down the line. Right now, it's the SSD/RAM upgrade in the next month or so.

 

[redheeler]

Despite having an SSD, the 1,1s are hobbled by a lot of old tech. At least a decade old! I'm sure people will still be able to find uses for it but it will be doing so in far, far less efficiently than new machines.

You guys can believe what you want but you're not going to convince me that it feels faster than a current gen iMac.

Have you ever used any Mac running El Capitan on a 5400 RPM HDD? Seriously, go to the Apple store and try it, they have that embarrassment right there on display

The 2006 Mac Pro with SSD, GPU, and RAM upgrades doesn't feel slow to me running Mavericks or El Capitan. It even outdid my initial expectations of a nearly 10-year-old Mac. The X5355 SLAEG CPU upgrade and flash to 2,1 has helped even more.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I am another guy rocking a Mac pro 1,1 with the 2 2.66 Quad core upgrade done 16GB of ram a 5770 and a 64GB SSD boot drive and despite being a almost 10 year old computer my god is it fast i say the SSD and the 2 Quad Cores make a good difference esp when i reboot into windows 10 64bit to Play GTA 5 (tho windows is running off a mech drive there). I have used a few Modern apple system and i can say the Mac pro feels no slower... (its no slouch scoring 10K in geek bench 3 either with the Dual Quad upgrade http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/5995932 ) and in regards to the SATA 2 "bottle neck" keep in mind nothing stops me (well apart from money ) from dropping in a 1TB nMP SSD blade in a 4x PCIE adapter and getting a good 700MBs (4x PCIE gen 1 maxes out at 1GBs) the 2 X5355 upgrade is a no brainer at this point in the US you can get a pair of G0 SLAEG Stepping ones for $25 (i got a pair for £25 tho mine where B3 SL9YM) while yes this is no Mac Pro 5,1 i can say it can keep up and surpass most of the Modern Macs/iMacs esp with apps finally becoming multi core aware (GTA 5 is quite happy to use all my 8 Cores Just need a faster GPU now I have relived the CPU bottle, neck id like to get a Radeon 7950-R9 280X if i can at some point)
the only place I have seen the Mac pro show its age is the EFI can be quite frustrating and limiting I cant EFI boot windows 10 64 bit (well not yet any way, i did manage to EFI boot windows 10 32bit on it ) and the 32bit EFI makes for fun getting Linux to boot from it. theres also the lack of VT-D witch i find annoying but its not a thing OS X uses (just something iv been wanting to mess with in linux)

so yeah thats my say on the 1,1

 

[pastrychef]

A PCI-e SSD is a great solution for a boot drive. For the 1,1 and 2,1s, it's the only solution that I'm aware of since all the PCI-e SATA 3 adaptors I've seen don't support booting on these models.

Sure, the CPUs for these models can be found at extremely low prices now. However, you have to consider that these CPUs use a lot of power. I believe TDP is around 120W per CPU. Modern systems are far more efficient.

Yes, there are more multi core aware apps now, but there are still tons that aren't.

Investing in a powerful video card also makes little sense to me because it will be contained by the PCI-e 1.0 spec.

VT-D is an awesome technology and can make for lots of fun and experimenting. I wish OS X supported it. I would love to be able to use it to for some testing without having to reboot.

With prices of the 3,1s dropping to about $300-400 levels on eBay, I fail to see the attractiveness in investing time and money to upgrade 1,1s and 2,1s. The 3,1s eliminated many of the bottlenecks of its predecessors.

 

[owbp]

I cant EFI boot windows 10 64 bit (well not yet any way, i did manage to EFI boot windows 10 32bit on it )

Take out your HDD, start Windows 10 x64 installation on any PC (I've read that it has to be UEFI but I've done it on old Dell with Legacy BIOS), and after the first reboot turn off your PC, put the drive back into Mac, finish installation and enjoy your 64 bit Windows on Mac Pro 1,1!

I even had to set SATA Controllers in DELL on ATA instead AHCI to start installation, and there wasn't any problems.

 

[pastrychef]

WinClone can be used to make it EFI bootable.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Take out your HDD, start Windows 10 x64 installation on any PC (I've read that it has to be UEFI but I've done it on old Dell with Legacy BIOS), and after the first reboot turn off your PC, put the drive back into Mac, finish installation and enjoy your 64 bit Windows on Mac Pro 1,1!

I even had to set SATA Controllers in DELL on ATA instead AHCI to start installation, and there wasn't any problems.
View attachment 627693

I got windows 10 64bit running fine but its in BIOS/CSM mode Id much prefer EFI mode but it looks like ill have to get a 4,1-5,1 to achieve that properly

A PCI-e SSD is a great solution for a boot drive. For the 1,1 and 2,1s, it's the only solution that I'm aware of since all the PCI-e SATA 3 adaptors I've seen don't support booting on these models.

Sure, the CPUs for these models can be found at extremely low prices now. However, you have to consider that these CPUs use a lot of power. I believe TDP is around 120W per CPU. Modern systems are far more efficient.

Yes, there are more multi core aware apps now, but there are still tons that aren't.

Investing in a powerful video card also makes little sense to me because it will be contained by the PCI-e 1.0 spec.

VT-D is an awesome technology and can make for lots of fun and experimenting. I wish OS X supported it. I would love to be able to use it to for some testing without having to reboot.

With prices of the 3,1s dropping to about $300-400 levels on eBay, I fail to see the attractiveness in investing time and money to upgrade 1,1s and 2,1s. The 3,1s eliminated many of the bottlenecks of its predecessors.

couple things id like to address is first of all in the UK at least the 3,1+ still are quite expensive when compared to the 1,1 (even then originally i wanted to get a 4,1 by saving up but i had the opportunity to grab a 1,1 so i took it )

in regards to the video card I doubt PCIE X16 Gen 1 would be a bottle neck before something else in the system becomes one plus also I can always move the New video card to a future 4,1/5,1 im not saying the 1,1 is perfect it has its flaws but for someone on a budget or something its still a great computer

btw in regards to EFI booting windows main issue like i said the 32bit EFI Last i checked windows does not support booting a 64bit install on a 32bit (U)EFI if you know otherwise please do tell me
for now ill leave a shot of when i got windows 32bit EFI booting on a 1,1 (this was before i upgraded the CPUs)

 

[Alameda]

You guys can believe what you want but you're not going to convince me that it feels faster than a current gen iMac.

Who cares? It could be the older OS has less overhead, or something software-related like that.

But the bigger point is that machines you can buy used at $300 are in the same ballpark as brand new machines. If the quantitative performance differences are immeasurable, then it's basically a tie.

 

[richgoga]

You guys can believe what you want but you're not going to convince me that it feels faster than a current gen iMac.

In spite of the old, slow RAM, bus and X5365s, my 2,1 is happily chewing up Fallout 4 at a solid 60fps @ 1080p. Is that real world enough?

Don't know how that compares to an iMac, but I do know it beats PS4 and Xbox One hands down. Not bad for a ten year old machine!

Edit:
The highest end gpu in the retina 5k iMac is roughly as powerful as a stock HD7950, but mine has a massive overclock. Sure, the x5365s are ancient compared to a 4ghz i7... But for what I want, I've saved around £2250 on the price of a maxed out iMac

 

[pastrychef]

This link shows how the newer architecture of the 5,1 performs vs the 3,1: http://barefeats.com/gpu680v4.html

How do you think the 1,1 will fare?