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Mac Pro 2006 gaming rig?

ojwk

ojwk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 5, 2007
126
3
London
Hi,

I've just been given a 2006 Mac Pro. Its pretty archaic, 2.66GHz Xeon, 1GB Ram and a 250GB HD.
I'm trying to decide whether to get rid of it or update it and use it for gaming.
I only want to play some old games but I want high framerates. Call of Duty 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Wolf ET etc..
I wouldn't bother running OS X on it as I think it can only go up to Lion. Windows 7 would be fine as i'd only be using it for gaming.


My plan would be to update to the following:
8GB RAM
128GB PCIe storage
Windows 7
The best GPU I can get

I have a few questions:

1. As I'd just be using Windows 7 and not Mac OS, could I just stick in any old PC graphics card?
2. Is there anywhere I can get compatible cheap RAM? I'd rather get it second hand as opposed to shelling out top dollar for 7 year old technology..
2. Would I be better off ditching the Mac Pro and just putting together a cheap gaming rig? I don't know how good the Xeon processor it has is for gaming.

Thanks
 
jakesaunders27

jakesaunders27

macrumors 6502a
Jan 23, 2012
907
6
United Kingdom
ojwk said:
Hi,

I've just been given a 2006 Mac Pro. Its pretty archaic, 2.66GHz Xeon, 1GB Ram and a 250GB HD.
I'm trying to decide whether to get rid of it or update it and use it for gaming.
I only want to play some old games but I want high framerates. Call of Duty 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Wolf ET etc..
I wouldn't bother running OS X on it as I think it can only go up to Lion. Windows 7 would be fine as i'd only be using it for gaming.


My plan would be to update to the following:
8GB RAM
128GB PCIe storage
Windows 7
The best GPU I can get

I have a few questions:

1. As I'd just be using Windows 7 and not Mac OS, could I just stick in any old PC graphics card?
2. Is there anywhere I can get compatible cheap RAM? I'd rather get it second hand as opposed to shelling out top dollar for 7 year old technology..
2. Would I be better off ditching the Mac Pro and just putting together a cheap gaming rig? I don't know how good the Xeon processor it has is for gaming.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother you can install Yosemite with a little messing about like I did and it runs great but for gaming its not worth it, Windows 7 64 bit is a pain to install, Ive tried multiple times with no success. Its still a fantastic machine in my opinion but I do sometimes feel like I need to upgrade, like when editing footage from my new Blackmagic camera, it just struggles, so in a years time I think it will really be useless so I wouldn't bother.
 
R

resale

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2013
17
0
Boston
Go with the onboard sata 2 drive bays for your ssd. The 2006 Mac Pro has Pci-e 1.0 but has sata 2. Sata 2 has the higher bandwidth so using the pci bus would be a waste of money for slower storage.

Windows 7 as said before is a pita to install for sure, but I've done it on an old 1,1 I used to have.

Ram can be found relatively cheaply on eBay as well as the 3.0Ghz quad-core processors that is the max your machine can take.

And since you're running windows you can stick any graphics card in you please, as long as it only has 2 6-pin power connectors on the side.
 
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