Upgrade advice: Mac Pro 1,1 and HD video

saqibhasan · Sep 13, 2014

Hi there,

So I have upgraded and hacked the system to run mavericks, but have found my system jittery when playing HD video via iTunes. It tends to lag or drop frames so the picture remains static while the sound continues unabated.

Just wondering what people would advice for upgrade? The config is as below:

2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
13GB 667 DDR2 FB DIMM ECC-2x512
ATI Radeon 5870 HD
Several 7200rpm HDD

So does it need more RAM or CPU upgrade the best way to go?

If CPU upgrade - does it need to be a 'mac pulled part' or will any processor do? (Was thinking http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac...Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item232b1c4da0 - but am open to suggestion for what the best thing to use would be - preferably the highest power CPU that would work but I am a little out of my depth about what would be suitable.)

Thanks in advance!

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
Hi there,

So I have upgraded and hacked the system to run mavericks, but have found my system jittery when playing HD video via iTunes. It tends to lag or drop frames so the picture remains static while the sound continues unabated.

Just wondering what people would advice for upgrade? The config is as below:

2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
13GB 667 DDR2 FB DIMM ECC-2x512
ATI Radeon 5870 HD
Several 7200rpm HDD

So does it need more RAM or CPU upgrade the best way to go?

If CPU upgrade - does it need to be a 'mac pulled part' or will any processor do? (Was thinking http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac...Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item232b1c4da0 - but am open to suggestion for what the best thing to use would be - preferably the highest power CPU that would work but I am a little out of my depth about what would be suitable.)

Thanks in advance!

It is strange that video would freeze. Have you tried to see if video freezes in VLC or within the browser.

saqibhasan · Sep 14, 2014

n0cus said:
It is strange that video would freeze. Have you tried to see if video freezes in VLC or within the browser.

I can't since it's iTunes downloads so need to be through iTunes itself due to copy protection.

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
I can't since it's iTunes downloads so need to be through iTunes itself due to copy protection.

I believe you should be able to play them through Quicktime as well. Besides the point, do any other videos freeze up?

saqibhasan · Sep 14, 2014

n0cus said:
I believe you should be able to play them through Quicktime as well. Besides the point, do any other videos freeze up?

hmm. i just checked this again and it seems to be working. last things I did was take apart my video card and clean the fan (which is bloody noisy btw).

so i guess it is all sorted. so far.

still thinking about upgrading my cpu though. any thoughts?

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
hmm. i just checked this again and it seems to be working. last things I did was take apart my video card and clean the fan (which is bloody noisy btw).

so i guess it is all sorted. so far.

still thinking about upgrading my cpu though. any thoughts?

I am going to be 100% honest, I think your money would be best spent on an SSD in order to speed up your system. It is going to be the most noticeable boost in speed. The rest of your specs look pretty decent.

saqibhasan · Sep 14, 2014

n0cus said:
I am going to be 100% honest, I think your money would be best spent on an SSD in order to speed up your system. It is going to be the most noticeable boost in speed. The rest of your specs look pretty decent.

appreciate the honesty and the replies. the only thing is to upgrade the CPU is like $70. To get an SSD is like $400 (1tb). :/.

I ran a GeekBench based on 64bit and I got like 5300 or so. I have no clue what that means to be honest lol.

I didn't mention I do a lot of Aperture and Photoshopping and that's why I have this machine as opposed to using my laptop. I have two 27inch Eizo's to boot.

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
appreciate the honesty and the replies. the only thing is to upgrade the CPU is like $70. To get an SSD is like $400 (1tb). :/.

I ran a GeekBench based on 64bit and I got like 5300 or so. I have no clue what that means to be honest lol.

I didn't mention I do a lot of Aperture and Photoshopping and that's why I have this machine as opposed to using my laptop. I have two 27inch Eizo's to boot.

You do not need a 1TB hard drive. If you get an SSD, you would only put the operating system and your apps on it. You would put all your media files on the traditional hard drive. You would only need a 120GB SSD max, which are about $60.

EDIT: Here is one for example.

EDIT 2: Here are some other Geekbench scores to compare.

saqibhasan · Sep 14, 2014

n0cus said:
You do not need a 1TB hard drive. If you get an SSD, you would only put the operating system, and your apps on it. You would put all your media files on the traditional hard drive. You would only need a 120GB SSD max, which are about $60.

EDIT: Here is one for example.

EDIT 2: Here are some other Geekbench scores to compare.

interesting:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/user/DefenseEngineer/geekbench2

Seems like he bumped his up to 8 cores and almost doubled it. I'm assuming my chip is the 5150?

I'll have a think. The problem is I have four drives:

Bay 1: Boot drive - 1tb - has all except music folder
Bay 2: iTunes/Music - 1.5tb - only 150gb left
Bays 3+4 - Raid for Aperture/Photoshop.

So if I SSD bay 1 - will need a bigger drive for iTunes and the rest of my own files.

Again, appreciate all your time in responding and your advice.

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
interesting:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/user/DefenseEngineer/geekbench2

Seems like he bumped his up to 8 cores and almost doubled it. I'm assuming my chip is the 5150?

I'll have a think. The problem is I have four drives:

Bay 1: Boot drive - 1tb - has all except music folder
Bay 2: iTunes/Music - 1.5tb - only 150gb left
Bays 3+4 - Raid for Aperture/Photoshop.

So if I SSD bay 1 - will need a bigger drive for iTunes and the rest of my own files.

Again, appreciate all your time in responding and your advice.

Oh, I didn't realize you have filled all the bays. In that case it is a different story. From what I see, upgrading the processor is going to speed up your machine pretty significantly, for a decent price. I would say go for it. Check out this dude's article. It seems like doing the upgrade is worth it. Here is a pair I found one eBay. For about $50, it seems like a must have upgrade to squeeze several more years out of your 2006 Mac Pro.

saqibhasan · Sep 14, 2014

n0cus said:
Oh, I didn't realize you have filled all the bays. In that case it is a different story. From what I see, upgrading the processor is going to speed up your machine pretty significantly, for a decent price. I would say go for it. Check out this dude's article. It seems like doing the upgrade is worth it. Here is a pair I found one eBay. For about $50, it seems like a must have upgrade to squeeze several more years out of your 2006 Mac Pro.

thanks dude - I'm UK based so need a UK ebayer. Is the 5355 the highest the machine can take?

n0cus · Sep 14, 2014

saqibhasan said:
thanks dude - I'm UK based so need a UK ebayer. Is the 5355 the highest the machine can take?

This Cult of Mac article goes in more detail. The fastest you can get is with the Intel Xeon 5365 3.0 GHz. Here is one I found on ebay.co.uk. The x5355 is going to be about a third of the price of the 5365, but about the same performance, so I would recommend that.

saqibhasan · Sep 15, 2014

n0cus said:
This Cult of Mac article goes in more detail. The fastest you can get is with the Intel Xeon 5365 3.0 GHz. Here is one I found on ebay.co.uk. The x5355 is going to be about a third of the price of the 5365, but about the same performance, so I would recommend that.

Awesome dude thanks very much for all your help!

Fuchal · Sep 15, 2014

(Anecdotal of course, but) I found Mavericks much more responsive on my 1,1 when I threw in an nVidia PC card and used the nVidia web drivers. I'm using a GTX 460 and it was night and day over the 4870 I was previously using.

Previously full screen Flash video and iTunes video was choppy. Great now.

saqibhasan · Sep 15, 2014

Fuchal said:
(Anecdotal of course, but) I found Mavericks much more responsive on my 1,1 when I threw in an nVidia PC card and used the nVidia web drivers. I'm using a GTX 460 and it was night and day over the 4870 I was previously using.

Previously full screen Flash video and iTunes video was choppy. Great now.

Do I have such an option for the 5870?

Lol and to think I started using macs because I got fed up of the whole drivers etc lol.

Fuchal · Sep 15, 2014

saqibhasan said:
Do I have such an option for the 5870?

Lol and to think I started using macs because I got fed up of the whole drivers etc lol.

I'm not sure if ATI has custom drivers for OS X like nVidia does, unfortunately.

NorCalLights · Sep 15, 2014

Just to throw one more idea in... I'd buy a 4TB drive to replace the 1 and 1.5TB drives in bays 1 and 2, and then drop a 256GB SSD into the free bay and make a DIY fusion drive:

http://blog.macsales.com/17624-os-x...tup-option-for-non-fusion-drive-equipped-macs

That's what I did in my 2009 Mac Pro, and it rocks. It feels just as fast as my old system (SSD for boot, applications, and some storage + HDD for music, photos, storage, etc...), but I don't have to think about managing it.

Total outlay will be about $275 for the SSD and 4TB HDD.

n0cus · Sep 15, 2014

saqibhasan said:
Awesome dude thanks very much for all your help!

No problem!

Fuchal · Sep 15, 2014

NorCalLights said:
Just to throw one more idea in... I'd buy a 4TB drive to replace the 1 and 1.5TB drives in bays 1 and 2, and then drop a 256GB SSD into the free bay and make a DIY fusion drive:

http://blog.macsales.com/17624-os-x...tup-option-for-non-fusion-drive-equipped-macs

That's what I did in my 2009 Mac Pro, and it rocks. It feels just as fast as my old system (SSD for boot, applications, and some storage + HDD for music, photos, storage, etc...), but I don't have to think about managing it.

Total outlay will be about $275 for the SSD and 4TB HDD.

Killer tip!

saqibhasan · Sep 16, 2014

Fuchal said:
Killer tip!

indeed - will look into all above and maybe do a mix of everything.

blanka · Sep 17, 2014

Don't overspend. An entry level Mini will outperform any modding of the the MP1.1
The described situation is very weird though. HD playback should be a GPU thing, yet the CPU should be able to tackle it too, a Core2Duo can...

ssgbryan · Sep 17, 2014

saqibhasan said:
interesting:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/user/DefenseEngineer/geekbench2

Seems like he bumped his up to 8 cores and almost doubled it. I'm assuming my chip is the 5150?

I'll have a think. The problem is I have four drives:

Bay 1: Boot drive - 1tb - has all except music folder
Bay 2: iTunes/Music - 1.5tb - only 150gb left
Bays 3+4 - Raid for Aperture/Photoshop.

So if I SSD bay 1 - will need a bigger drive for iTunes and the rest of my own files.

Again, appreciate all your time in responding and your advice.

You have 2 unused SATA ports on the logic board. I put 2 SSDs off them (they sit under the DVD drive) Turned them into a RAID 0 & use that as my boot drive - leaving the 4 bays available for data.

Upgrade advice: Mac Pro 1,1 and HD video

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