Mac Pro 1.1 upgraded to 2.1 with 48Gigabytes of DDR 2 ECC

[Amethyst1]

Anything that would increase performance would do.

Put in a pair of 3 GHz quad-cores for a start.

I was wondering if the space could be rigged up also with suitable GPU's for rendering.

You'd have to use a riser to separate the GPUs from the PCIe slots and come up with some kind of mount for them. If you can get a Thunderbolt 2 PCIe card to fully work, you might even be able to use eGPUs.

Remember that SSD's are actually smaller than 3.5".

Nope.

 

[simie]

Put in a pair of 3 GHz quad-cores for a start.


You'd have to use a riser to separate the GPUs from the PCIe slots and come up with some kind of mount for them. If you can get a Thunderbolt 2 PCIe card to fully work, you might even be able to use eGPUs.


Nope.

View attachment 2188800

It it difficult to find 3GHZ cpu's cheap. My pair of 266 quad Xeons cost me hardy anything like £1.95 The postage cost more like £3.95

 

[Amethyst1]

It it difficult to find 3GHZ cpu's cheap. My pair of 266 quad Xeons cost me hardy anything like £1.95 The postage cost more like £3.95

Ah, I missed that you have 2.66 quad-cores in there already. I thought you had the stock 2.66 dual-cores. My apologies!

 

[simie]

Ah, I missed that you have 2.66 quad-cores in there already. I thought you had the stock 2.66 dual-cores. My apologies!

I really would like two 3GHz in there but I will keep looking. I need to replace this rather slow HDD

 

[simie]

Just looking on Amazon and found this

Nicoone 2.5in HDD Mounting Rack, Aluminium Alloy, Black, Supports SATA & IDE, 4x 2.5in HDD/SSD, Easy Installation

Specification: Item Type: 2.5in HDD Mounting Rack Material: Aluminium Alloy Number of Expanded Hard Disks: 4 Hard Disk Type: Supports All 2.5 Inch HDD and SSD Package List:1 x 2.5in HDD Mounting Rack 20 x Screws

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Just looking on Amazon and found this

That's not the correct one. You will need to use a more precise keyword for searching. "5.25 to 3.5 bay converter" is the correct one.

The best result (to me) is in the link below.

StarTech.com 3.5" to 5.25" Front Bay Mounting Bracket w/ Mounting Screws (BRACKETFDBK),Black

This 3.5" to 5.25" hard drive mounting bracket lets you install a 3.5" floppy drive, media card readers or other peripherals into a 5.25" front bay of your desktop computer. The hard drive front bay mounting bracket provides a versatile solution that lets you install a 3.5" floppy drive, external...

www.amazon.com

ICY DOCK Dual 2 Bay 2.5 inch HDD/SSD & 1 x 3.5 HDD/Device Front Bay to 5.25" Bay SSD Mounting Bracket Adapter | Flex-FIT Trio MB343SP

The FLEX-FIT Trio MB343SP is a very unique 3.5” to 5.25” front bay adapter. At first glance is of what looks like a simple 3.5” to 5.25 device bay adapter, but there is more than meets the eye. We’ve created a device that utilizes a single external 5.25” bay and converts it into 2 x 2.5” HDD/SSD ...

www.amazon.com

 

[simie]

I am now thinking of using some Mac Pro trays and building something that is still Apple in a custom frame that could also be something Apple with an adapter from Ebay.

 

[simie]

After upgrading the CPU to Quad core CPU's and reinstalling 10.7.5 the 48gigs of ram; I have been using the Mac now off and on ever since and it is very stable. I have yet to do something to replace the HDD and to get the internet working as there is no wireless card installed.

The Mac runs fast and is very reliable. I have got it hooked up to a 22" Lenovo screen operating at 1600x1050.

 

[simie]

Latest project is to get a ASUS ThunderboltEX II/DUAL PCI Express Dual Port Thunderbolt 2 PCI Controller
to work, now I have the card installed but there are no drivers for OSX, is there any drivers that may work.

The card is detected under OSX, so why has no one developed a driver for this card?

Can anybody help with a driver?

Looking around the interweb I came across the original site where the Gigabyte Titan Ridge thunderbolt was talked about and on there they actually reference the Asus boards for the pinouts for the cable to mod. Yet no where is the Asus card ever talked about.

 

[simie]

Asus Thunderbolt II EX Dual Card

Hi, Not sure where to post this - I've installed the Thunderbolt drivers under windows 7 home premium for the Asus thunderbolt II card on a separate drive and checked the BIOS - Thunderbolt is recognized In the info "about this mac" no hardware is found - Do I need a DSDT / driver for this to...

www.tonymacx86.com

I have just found this article on tonymacx86 about the card ion an hackintosh

ASUS ThunderboltEX II PCIe Expansion Card - Testing Thread

Tested the ASUS ThunderboltEX II PCIe Expansion Card on the ASUS Z97-A Test Build - had to install the Windows Thunderbolt Drivers, but then showed up in the BIOS with full settings. Tested with my Goflex SATA adapter, Apple ethernet adapter, and Apple firewire adapter. I would guess the...

www.tonymacx86.com

The downside to this article is that the folk on forum are using Asus Series 9 motherboards and these have the thunderbolt header on the motherboard where as my Mac Pro has nothing but putting a jumper on the cable should keep the devices attached awake. This was why it was done on the Titan Ridge.

 

[simie]

thunderbolt-macpro-5-1

My story to add thunderbolt support to my Mac Pro Early 2009 (5,1)

ameyrupji.github.io

 

[simie]

Just reading the manual for this card and it says ; when the red light is on the cable is disconnected. So this may indicate that the cable has to be connected to the TH Header on a Asus board and the drivers have to be installed in order to get the red light to go out.

 

[Madr]

Did you try to instal the drivers in windows and do a warm boot back to osx?

If i understand it correctly the install keeps the drivers on the tb card when you change OS through the option bootpicker.

Mac 5,1 & Thunderbolt - it can now be done - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

and

Mac Pro 5,1 Cheese-grater With Thunderbolt - The Impossible Is Now Possible | Production Expert

When we heard that our friends at Create Pro has done the impossible to get a Thunderbolt card running in a Mac Pro Cheese-grater, we knew we had to bring it to you.

www.production-expert.com

Anyway not sure if it works with Asus TB2 card but i found one cheaply.

Also i read somewhere the mac pro 6,1 uses the same TB chip as the Asus TB 2 card.

oh here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-thunderbolt-2-aic-in-macpro5-1-working.2330075/