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2006 MacPro: Upgrade or Trade in?

C

cryingrobot

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 26, 2008
156
0
I have run the numbers and I can upgrade my 2006 MacPro for about USD1500. This includes 2 5365 quad processors to upgrade my 2.66 quad processor right now and 8 more gigs of DDR2. From what I understand, this upgraded version would be the equal to the 2.66 Nehalem octos for most things.

I also should be able to trade in the 2006 MacPro for about USD1,000. Which would let me buy the new Mac Pro for about USD 3700 at the configuration I want.

Is the Nehalem processor that much better that its worth buying a new system at more than double the price of the clovertown upgrade? Other than the processor, is there anything else about the 2009 Mac Pro that makes it superior to the 2006 version. For instance, eSata ports?

Any advice would be great.
 
Your upgrade isn't worth the money. With some searching and patience you should be able to get it for 700$ max.

2009 Mac Pros have some significant upgrades. They have:

  • 64 bit EFI
  • SATA booting from ODD
  • QPI instead of FSB
  • Hyperthreading
  • potentially 50-100% more memory bandwidth
  • turbo boost in single CPU mode
  • a CPU and memory daughter board
  • heat sink integrated fans
  • a more powerfull chipset

I probably forgot some items. But for most users it is not worth the money unless they are stressing the system commercially or have the stuff to burn anyway.
 
Those ...

... processor upgrades really only make sense when you get them used via eBay, Craigslist, or the like. Buying them new and retail is way too overpriced; you would be far better off getting a new Mac Pro, as the resale value of the Mac Pro 2006 is still fairly good.

You could grab some quad xeons for around US$150,- to US$250,- which pays you an upgrade for around US$300-500,- for a pair of them. Depending on your budget I´d say a maximum of US$600,- if you can´t afford to spend US$1800,-. If you can, though, then trade in your Mac Pro 2006 (around US$1000,-, I suspect) and buy a new Mac Pro Quad 2,66 or Octo 2,26 instead (the Octo is the better value, though, but much more expensive).
 
Macinposh said:
?

What do you mean with sata booting from ODD?
1.1 can boot just fine from the mobo sockets.
Or do you mean windows booting?
Click to expand...

MacPro1,1 boots all optical disks from IDE. MacPro4,1 has no IDE in the chipset and boots ODD from SATA. If you require a Blu-Ray device you get away with just one ODD instead of two. Blu-Ray needs SATA for playback and you can use the same drive for booting.

I would be a happy man if someone could show me a way to make my 2006 Mac Pro boot ODs from SATA. As it stands OS X doesn't recognize my boot capable drive on the SATA port. This forces me to keep the old IDE Superdrive in the machine to retain an OD boot capability.
 
Just so I get this right:

The 2006 Mac Pro does not boot from optical drives connected via its ODD ports.
Bu it does boot from an HDD connected via ODD port, doesn't it?! :confused:

I'm asking because I just purchased a used Xeon workstation to get its two X5355 (to replace my X5350s which run only at 1066FSB, BSEL-mod didn't work... :(), its RAM (4x2GB ;)) and its 74GB Raptor drive. :D
I'm planning on putting the Raptor into he lower ODD bay and connecting it via one of the ODD ports to use it as my boot drive – which won't work if the ODD porst don't support booting generally.

So, what about HDD booting via the ODD ports in my 2006 Mac Pro?


EDIT:
I know I could put one of my data drives up there and then use one of the HD-sleds (all four in use) for the Raptor anyway, but this would mean turning a few more screws... ;)
 
@flatfoot read what is written! I only referred to booting from optical media not from HDDs. AFAIK booting HDDs from the ODD SATA ports of MacPro1,1 should be no problem in OS X and possible with Windows in AHCI mode.
 
gugucom said:
@flatfoot read what is written! I only referred to booting from optical media not from HDDs. AFAIK booting HDDs from the ODD SATA ports of MacPro1,1 should be no problem in OS X and possible with Windows in AHCI mode.
Click to expand...

I read that you wrote about booting from optical media. I just wanted to make sure. I think that's pretty clear judging from what I wrote in my post.

But thanks anyway; a "should be no problem" is enough for me to try. ;)
And yes, now I remember having read about BootCamp Windows drive in the ODD bay. Shouldn't be different with OSX.
 
gugucom said:
AFAIK booting HDDs from the ODD SATA ports of MacPro1,1 should be no problem in OS X and possible with Windows in AHCI mode.
Click to expand...
This is correct, and has been evidenced from multiple posts/threads in the forum. :) (Tried, and worked for multiple models). ;)
 
Cheap Processors?

Ive been seeing reports on various threads here for 5355s going for USD 150-200 but have not been able to find anything less than USD 400 on ebay or craigs list.

I wonder how much better performance the Nehalem chip is going to have than trying to upgrade. Logic 9 seems to take an incredibly long time to load new files for some reason and is making my 2006 seem really slow for the first time. Could this be a Ram deficiency issue I wonder? I have 8 gigs.
 
cryingrobot said:
Ive been seeing reports on various threads here for 5355s going for USD 150-200 but have not been able to find anything less than USD 400 on ebay or craigs list.

I wonder how much better performance the Nehalem chip is going to have than trying to upgrade. Logic 9 seems to take an incredibly long time to load new files for some reason and is making my 2006 seem really slow for the first time. Could this be a Ram deficiency issue I wonder? I have 8 gigs.
Click to expand...
Drive throughput improvement would help significantly (software RAID0 would be the cheapest means, but other array types and hardware are also possible), and perhaps a little more RAM.

As far as the X5355's, be patient. Those prices listed were the results of lots of looking and waiting for the deal to come along.
 
Yes, ...

... those prices are so called "urban hunting" - you definitely need some breath and lots of patient for this.

You should check your HD settings regarding Logic: You also should not put your logic projects on the same drive as your system/applications run. Also, your HD might experience hardware problems, which could cause slow load/write performances.

A best minimal setup would be:

HD 1: System/Applications (including Apple Loops/third party ones)
HD 2: Storing your audio projects
HD 3: Apple Loops and third party (if you have that much disk space, put them off the system drive)

I don´t think you would need RAID 0, because throughput will only be a problem when you run multistream recordings (24Bit/96khz, more than 32 sources at the same time) or have a project with more than 60 heavy loaded tracks open and running at once (regarding your Mac Pro, not the new ones). You need to describe the project in detail, which causes those hiccups.

With Logic, you very likely first hit the processor speed limits hard, before you experience any disk drives I/O walls.
 
I initially paid 442€ for a pair of X5365 on ebay. That deal included a pair of passive copper heat sinks. I sold the heat sinks and my old X5150 for 145€ and ended with a net cost of 300€ or 410$.
 
gugucom said:
I initially paid 442€ for a pair of X5365 on ebay. That deal included a pair of passive copper heat sinks. I sold the heat sinks and my old X5150 for 145€ and ended with a net cost of 300€ or 410$.
Click to expand...

Well Gugucom, congrats, but I've been watching for pairs of chips and low-bidding on several and I can't even find a pair of E5345 (2.33) quads for $410, let alone 2.66 or 3.0.

3.0's start at $750 each! I'm not saying you're a liar, just extremely fortunate :)
 
I'm aware that it was a very fortunate deal. The guy who sold them put only one in ebay and not in the Mac section.

When I was communicating with him after the deal I learned that he had a second. Why he didn't sell them as a pair and why he didn't go after Apple users I don't know. I just got lucky I guess.

But 500-600$ should be a realistic target if you look long enough. There will be some chips coming on the market which are replaced by 54xx.
 
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