2008 2.8ghz 8 core Mac Pro $500 worth it?

[GearHeadG5]

Hi, I am looking into getting a Mac Pro to use for a light Aperture workflow, and gaming via bootcamp (for example Dirt 3, RTS such as Wargame Airland Battle, etc.). It would all be at 1200p, and would like to play the games at max settings.

The system I'm looking at is a 2008 Mac Pro 2.8ghz 8 core.. 8GB of RAM. Stock Radeon 2600 xt and HD. Disclaimer, I know for sure that any stock Mac Pro will not play the latest games at highest settings, so with any Mac Pro I would get I would at least do a SSD and GPU upgrade. Would the 2.8ghz Xeons hold me back too much, or does the $500 price tag make up for it?

Sorry for being rather long winded! Thanks!

 

[hadek]

Plenty of Power for Decent Price

I believe this machine comes with 2 Penryn series Xeons. Each processor with 4 cores. The CPU will not be the limiting factor for game playing but the video card will be hampering performance.

At $500 I don't think you will go wrong on this machine as a workhorse.

Do your homework as far as GPU upgrade goes.

 

[Macsonic]

$500 seems a good deal. You can try upgrading the video card later on to a Nvidia 8800GT or Nvidia 120GT. They're not high end premium cards but with it's low price tag helps keeps your costs down.

 

[GearHeadG5]

My main question really is, would the rather low single core performance as compared to 2009's badly hinder a GPU such as a GTX 670?

Thanks again!