MP 1,1-5,1 Why you bought a 4,1 or 5,1 when NEW

[MrCheeto]

It's 2009 and you're rocking a upper-mid to max spec Mac Pro. Why?

If you look into my post history, you'll find that I'm always curious to contextualize things within their time.

Back in 2009, I truly coveted a Mac Pro but I never saw one in action so I can't even say it would have performed any better or worse than my expectations. Looking at contemporaneous content on YouTube reveals nothing. YouTube was not as big of a revenue platform for reviewers etc. at the time nor did many people seem to think it would be interesting to see one in action. The written reviews just quote benchmarks and upgrade paths.

Now that I have a 4,1 with both GPU's that were offered, I'm kind of disappointed by a few aspects. Any video around 2k+ just doesn't playback smoothly in most formats or with most players. This is shocking since the PowerPC guys will come here to brag that their G4 plays 50k videos "all day long without dropping a single frame". Playing the COD4 Demo inside of Leopard doesn't yield great results. Most settings are upper-middle and very few can be maxed whether I use the nVidia or ATi. Using Aperture 3 in Leopard still gives some pop-in and lag. I can take the retouch brush and do ten or more retouches before the effect is applied. Going from one image to the next (180MB TIFF's) results in a mosaic being pieced together for almost an entire second (the image builds in a grid of about 20x30 squares) and then the higher res version "pops" in.

Specs:
2.26GHZ 8-Core
48GB RAM
ATi Radeon HD4870 + GT120 from nVidia
PCI-E SSD benching at 2,000MB/s read and write
Running 10.5.8 Leopard and High Sierra

Thoughts on the performance I'm describing?

Why did you buy your Pro and what did it do that a lesser machine simply couldn't?

 

[MarkC426]

I was using a G5 PowerMac and my 3D software was dropping PPC support at next version, so I upgraded to a cMP.
I just had to have something that could be continuously upgraded when required....

 

[MrCheeto]

I just had to have something that could be continuously upgraded when required...

Did you ever imagine that it would still be perfectly useable after 14-years? 😂 Talk about upgradeable.

 

[MarkC426]

Did you ever imagine that it would still be perfectly useable after 14-years? 😂 Talk about upgradeable.

Not at all......🍒

 

[Gymnut]

Had the power supply in my 2009 8-core 2.66Ghz machine not died in late 2015, I'd probably still be using that machine. I upgraded those processors from the stock ones twice; To 3.0 and 3.33Ghz, if my memory serves me correctly.

 

[LEOMODE]

I don’t use it for work but to me, Mac Pro was the ultimate final boss of all consumer computers because it can support both Windows and Mac OS. Fast forward to now I am now using 7,1 Mac Pro. I won’t upgrade to AS Mac Pro because it’s not modular and it can’t run both OS natively.

 

[fatespawn]

I bought my 4,1 the first day it was offered. I had a PowerBook G4 and a PowerMac G5 at home. Since PPC was going away I was looking to future-proof as much as one could expect in 2009. I thought the Nehalem architecture chips were the way forward. Little did I know that PC would still be sitting on my desk running Monterey with an NVMe SSD and a 3.46 westmere processor 13 years later. I mean, there's never been a reason for me to upgrade. But you asked why I purchased it when it came out. Because I thought it was the only mac with a forward path in 2009. I got lucky.

 

[MrCheeto]

What kind of work were you doing that required the top-end machines at the time?

 

[MarkC426]

What kind of work were you doing that required the top-end machines at the time?

Not used for work, I have always been a 3D hobbyist....purely for my own enjoyment.

 

[HDFan]

1. 5,1 Fastest mac available at the time
2. Multiple disk slots
3. Multiple optical drives
4. SSD
5. Lots of USB ports

 

[fatespawn]

What kind of work were you doing that required the top-end machines at the time?

Myself? None. My wife does graphic work every now and then, but the reality was I bought if for the sheer amount of expandability/drive bays and as much "future proofing" as I could muster.

Remember, in 2009 the disparity between the "top-end" machines and "consumer-machines" was much smaller. The low end 4,1 that I have sitting next to me cost $2,499. In 2019 dollars that's a little less than $3,000. The "new" Mac Pro entry level model is $6,000! My G5 had 5 hard drives stuffed into it to store all my home video. Hard drives were expensive back in those days. The Mac Mini's were slow and the iMacs unexpandable. If I went with either of them, I'd need external Hard drives. That seemed silly. USB ports were plentiful. FW800 was "blazing" fast. I could transfer my SD MiniDV camcorder video in "real time!" Wow!

It's a lot different today. My wife still does the occasional graphic job so I had to OpenCore the 4,1 for her to load the latest and greatest Creative Suite on Monterey. That's just a crutch until the M2 Mac Mini's come out. I bought myself another Dual 4,1 last year for a couple hundred bucks off Facebook market place and did the upgrade routine of proessors, SSD's and metal graphics card. I'm set until Mojave no longer plays nice with iCloud. That day will come, but until then I'm good.

 

[cinclodes]

The aluminum tower Mac Pros were, in my opinion, the best personal computers ever built. I started using them nearly 20 years ago and still have two of them running in good shape and another one that has been in storage. I used them for work and home. My work involves writing and using highly complex computer codes for solving differential equations (wave propagation in fluid and elastic media) in FORTRAN. Those computers were wonderful for this application -- writing codes, compiling and running in UNIX, displaying graphics, writing papers, preparing presentations, etc. My personal use was video processing. The ultimate code for processing video, in my opinion, was iMovie HD, which was very simple and yet very powerful. The later versions of iMovie were useless junk in my opinion. QuickTime Pro was another essential tool for editing and cropping videos (using masks). What went wrong at Apple that made them decide to stop supporting such wonderful software?? I kept my pre-2013 Mac Pros going all these years in order to retain the ability to use the old software. QuickTime Pro continued to work on later devices, including on a laptop that recently died. I found a solution to these problems: the Mac Pro 2013. It's compatible with OS 10.9.5, on which iMovie HD runs. Some had reported not being able to run iMovie HD on that OS, but I gave it a try, and it works! I have another Mac Pro 2013 set up with OS 10.13.6, which allows QuickTime Pro and the best version of MathType, which is essential for my work. What is wrong with Apple phasing out such powerful software?? This isn't what I regard as progress. If you have something that is fantastic, you might keep making improvements, but you don't eliminate it and replace it with junk. For my day-to-day stuff, such as e-mail, I have a 2019 MacBook Pro. The other computers are designated strictly for using the old apps that are essential to my work, and I will never "upgrade" the software on those computers.

 

[avro707]

I went from a high spec PC which had numerous crashes. I got fed up with that and couldn’t trace what was wrong. So got a new Mac Pro 5,1.

That was 8GB Ram, Radeon 5870, 1TB and Xeon 3.2ghz quad-core.

It finished as 128GB Ram, dual Xeon X5690 and RX580 8GB.

I also have a maximum spec MP 6,1, and stumped up big $$$ for a 7,1 in a mid spec. The 7,1 is by far the best Mac Pro ever built so far.

 

[MrCheeto]

What was your gaming experience like? I'd like to know what I could expect from parallels or bootcamp while playing 2008-2010 vintage games.

 

[h9826790]

I don't even know how to use Mac when I bought it back in 2009.

It's just my girl friend (she use Macbook Air at that time) want a new Mac for Photoshop. Therefore, I go to Apple Store and bought the 2009 Mac Pro (it looked like the stongest Mac at that time 😂).

The HD4870 at that time was considered very strong indeed. And no problem at all for whatever usage. Of course, it's way under perform for today's standard now. But you can easily install a RX580 or whatever you see fit into the Mac Pro, then it can perform again. The value of the cMP is the PCIe slots, but not the HD4870.

Anyway, you can't play 2K+ video smoothly most likely because those are highly compressed H264 / HEVC videos. For today, you should install a moden GPU and use the GPU hardware decode (required macOS 10.14.6 or later on cMP, and OpenCore or system files patch).

I created a thread about how to activate HWAccel on cMP

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

In that thread, post #1 Q5, you can see how well my 2009 Mac Pro can play a highly compressed HEVC 4K HDR video. You can download the same testing video, and see how it goes on your cMP now.

I also use my cMP for gaming. Of course, it can do much better in Windows, but gaming in macOS also not a problem at all.

Specs:
2.26GHZ 8-Core
48GB RAM
ATi Radeon HD4870 + GT120 from nVidia
PCI-E SSD benching at 2,000MB/s read and write
Running 10.5.8 Leopard and High Sierra

IMO, this spec is very imbalance. By considering the Westmere Xeon is so cheap now. There is no reason not to flash the cMP to 5,1, then install a pair of X5677 (cheap and fastest), X5680 (reasonably cheap and fast, but has more cores than the X5677) or X5690 (the best option for cMP, but more expensive). Even there are 8 cores 16 threads, but most software are still CPU single thread limiting. That 2.26GHz Xeon is very slow as per today standard (e.g. modern CPU can do much more for each CPU cycle. Therefore, even though some modern CPU has similar clock speed to your Xeon, they may be still 100% faster then your Xeon). For cMP, upgrade to the fastest possible CPU is very improtant. Slower CPU not just compute slower, but some other hardware may be slowed down as well. e.g. The GPU driver is CPU single thread limiting. Slower CPU may also cause the GPU slow down.

The GT120 is very useless in the system, unless you need to drive more than two monitors. But even that's the case, the HD4870 still too old. You better get a moden GPU (e.g. RX460, or if budget allow, go for something higher).

PCIe SSD is good, 48GB RAM also enough for most general usage (for today's standard).

 

[MrCheeto]

There is no reason not to flash the cMP to 5,1, then install a pair of X5677

I do not want to run any OS past Leopard. Nobody has confirmed if Leopard will run on Westmere. If it cannot run in Westmere then I’m not interested.

 

[h9826790]

That's your choice. I fully respect that.

However, you have to accept that an ancient OS has very poor (if not zero) support for modern video codec. It's not the cMP not capable to do so. But you choose the way to use it, which makes it unable to do so.

Anyway, AFAIK, Aperture has no GPU acceleration. That's why it's not smooth (compare to modern Photos apps). But I can understand why you still prefer to stick with it. You are not alone. Many people prefer to stay with Aperture.

For info, you can upgrade the CPU to W5590 without flashing the cMP. Therefore, you can stay at Leopard with W5590. And it is about 50% faster than your E5520. HOWEVER, you will need a pair of DELIDDED W5590, not the normal Xeon.

 

[MrCheeto]

Thanks. I’ve noticed a lot of games run better on the GT120 even though the Radeon HD4870 is said to be several times faster, so I may even try to make the Nvidia my main for a bit and see if things improve.

CPU swap is in the plans!

 

[h9826790]

Thanks. I’ve noticed a lot of games run better on the GT120 even though the Radeon HD4870 is said to be several times faster, so I may even try to make the Nvidia my main for a bit and see if things improve.

CPU swap is in the plans!

I have both GT120 and HD4870, but never compare their performance. TBH, I never expect the GT120 can do anything better.

However, if your game setting is CPU single thread limiting (even with the GT120), then the GT120 may able to do better because of its driver has higher efficiency.