2006 Mac Pro and 64-Bit Snow Leopard: Not!!

[thederby]

B.S. It's part of a platform shift and if you bought a supposed 64-bit machine like I did, you got shafted. Same way the G5 quad users did.

supposed? can't your machine already run 64-bit processes? just look in activity monitor.

It also means when the day comes that the latest OSX only supports 64-bit machines this expensive falsely-advertised machine gets left behind when technically it's capable.

that's not necessarily true.

iirc, you can already "hack" the efi to enable the 64-bit kernel on that machine. there's no reason that apple couldn't "officially" enable 64-bit in the future.

 

[AdvocateUK]

iirc, you can already "hack" the efi to enable the 64-bit kernel on that machine. there's no reason that apple couldn't "officially" enable 64-bit in the future.

Got a link for that?

 

[ihatefanboys]

Got a link for that?

http://www.osxbook.com/blog/2009/08/31/is-your-machine-good-enough-for-snow-leopard-k64/

 

[fiatlux]

http://www.osxbook.com/blog/2009/08/31/is-your-machine-good-enough-for-snow-leopard-k64/

That page describes how to hack boot.efi to boot into 64bit kernel on machines that have 64bit EFI but are normally prevented to do so (some MacBook, Mac Mini and iMac machines).

The page does not state how to boot into 64bit kernel on machines that have 32bit EFI. Something that wouldn't be recommended for end users:

Although a 32-bit EFI could launch a 64-bit kernel, the kernel, when running, would not be able to use firmware services. In particular, you wouldn’t have NVRAM. For kernel developers merely wanting to run a 64-bit kernel for testing and debugging, this may not be an issue, but it’s understandable why the limitation is in place.

Finally, I've got a 2006 Mac Pro (about to be upgraded to dual quad @ 3.0 GHz) and feel that it has retained an amazing resale and usage value for a 3.5 years old computer. With plenty of RAM, it remains faster than all non-pro Apple machines apart maybe from the latest Core i7 iMac. And it runs all 64bit apps if not kernels. That's good enough for me.

Amdahl said:

High-end Macs should never be bought for 'forward-looking' reasons, unless you're looking forward to regretting it.

I agree and think this could be said of ANY computer.

 

[sansimage]

i hear you bro... i think i'm in the same boat... what's your workaround?

 

[Chaos Deadlock]

64 Bit Kernel on 2006 Mac Pro

I have booted my Mac Pro up into full 64 Bit mode and I only have 32bit EFI.
It's really simple to do actually. I installed Ubuntu 10.04 as a second OS and it installed and configured the Grub Boot Loader. I found that when I went to boot from the Ubuntu Drive it gave me the option in the Grub Loader to boot into 'Mac OSX (32bit)' and also the option to boot into 'Mac OSX 64bit).
Now all this crap about need more memory to get any benefit is a load of rubbish. 64 bit is faster! Full stop.
I have run a few benchs test and they all came out faster in 64 bit mode.
For the record I only have 4GB installed and 32bit EFI.
The only down side to booting up in 64 bit mode is that I got absolutely no sound as my audio hardware is no-longer detected.