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Mac Pro 1,1 vs the others?

I got my MP1,1 back in late 07 - should have waited for next gen models, but I didn't know any better. Two months ago I've upgraded to MP5,1.

My old Mac Pro was showing it's age. It was great with 8mp raw pictures, but with 14bit-12mp+ raws it lagged. Not to mention Aperture 3 was constantly maxing out CPUs. Lack of 64 bit EFI and no official video card upgrades reinforced the fact that I need to upgrade. But I guess the breaking point came when I was making a 32-page brochure in Indesign...slow slow slow...

As to speed differences? Well, for what I do, my new MP5,1 is running circles around my old Pro - not once have I experienced any slowdowns, where with my old MP that was a daily occurrence.

Now...I'm not saying that MP1,1 is trash. With 5770 installed, I'd still be okay using the computer for another year or so.

btw, my old MP is a work-only 2D/3D CAD computer running Windows 7 64 bit with latest bootcamp drivers...not that hard to install...and I use it 9h/day, 5 days a week...it's still kicking and getting the job done 😎

adrian
 
tr3lo9y said:
So first question would be, how different is the first gen mac pro vs the newer models? Reason I ask is I'm getting one for $900 from a friend and am gonna upgrade the hell out of it. I wanna use it as the main server for the house and some Steam gaming since I hate the PC. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!
Tr3L09y
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I have a 1st Gen Mac Pro and I use it for WoW and I also have L4D2 (Steam). My only thought are, avoid it like plauge!!!

Since it have 32-bit EFi you are stuck in the past and the only thing you will achive are that you have paid alot of money for the Mac Pro and for upgrades which achives nothing. It is still a 4 year old slow machine (for gaming) and nothing can change that.
In theory this a upgradeable machine, but not in real life....

If I had the money (and Apple had another choice for gamers) I would have replaced my Mac Pro 2-years ago because it was allready old back then...now I am stuck with this one until....I don't know...Steve decides to sell us a flexible/upgradeable i5/i7 offering which probably never will happend or I buy a gaming computer 🙁
 
spda242 said:
I have a 1st Gen Mac Pro and I use it for WoW and I also have L4D2 (Steam). My only thought are, avoid it like plauge!!!

Since it have 32-bit EFi you are stuck in the past and the only thing you will achive are that you have paid alot of money for the Mac Pro and for upgrades which achives nothing. It is still a 4 year old slow machine (for gaming) and nothing can change that.
In theory this a upgradeable machine, but not in real life....

If I had the money (and Apple had another choice for gamers) I would have replaced my Mac Pro 2-years ago because it was allready old back then...now I am stuck with this one until....I don't know...Steve decides to sell us a flexible/upgradeable i5/i7 offering which probably never will happend or I buy a gaming computer 🙁
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I disagree, my Mac Pro 1,1 was absurdly upgradeable: I started with this:

Mac Pro 1,1
2 x 5150 Dual Core CPU's @2.66ghz
3GB Of 667mhz DDR2 RAM
250 GB HDD
Superdrive
nVidia 7800 GT

Ended up with this:

MikePro
2 x Quad Xeon X5355's @3.2ghz - 1.313v FSB@1600mhz
12GB DDR2 FB-DIMM Kingston HyperX @ 800Mhz
Sapphire 5870 1GB 850/1200 + XFX Black Edition 5970 850/1200 CrossfireX
SATA III 6GB/s + USB 3.0 Asus U3S6
Bluetooth 2.1 + Airport 802.11n
2 x 64GB OCZ Vertex 2E SSD's RAID 0 - Mac OS X 10.6.4
60GB Crucial C300 6GB/s - Windows 7 Pro x64
1.5TB WD Green
1.0TB WD Green
Liteon Blu-Ray R/W x12
Apple 1000w PSU
5.25" 450 PSU
 
Dadioh said:
In software? Or is it a hardware mod? I know, I know... Google is my friend 😱

But he mentioned a higher CPU voltage? Or was that stock?
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No that is just one of the stock options for the VID, it's not increasing the voltage, it's just set at a specific voltage. And it's software.
 
That would be great news indeed. I have my eye on a pair of E5345's. If I could pop those in and increase the FSB then I could get it back up to 2.66GHz. But does that also increase memory clock and then I may run into issues since I am using 4 X 2GB of the standard Apple 667MHz FB-DIMM. I don't want to introduce instability on the RAM.

Google here I come....
 
Dadioh said:
That would be great news indeed. I have my eye on a pair of E5345's. If I could pop those in and increase the FSB then I could get it back up to 2.66GHz. But does that also increase memory clock and then I may run into issues since I am using 4 X 2GB of the standard Apple 667MHz FB-DIMM. I don't want to introduce instability on the RAM.

Google here I come....
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You should be fine with 667Mhz, I was, I only upgraded to faster RAM, because a) I was buying RAM anyway and thought might as well get faster
b) I wanted to see if I could push the FSB further, and I could (a very little bit)
 
neckarb said:
You should be fine with 667Mhz, I was, I only upgraded to faster RAM, because a) I was buying RAM anyway and thought might as well get faster
b) I wanted to see if I could push the FSB further, and I could (a very little bit)
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The ZDnet website implies that the 2.66GHz processors hit 3.1GHz stable on their machine. I assume that this is with the stock 667 memory. So that implies a FSB of 1550MHz which means RAM is running at 775MHz (instead of 667MHz). Did your stock memory do OK at 775MHz?
 
Dadioh said:
The ZDnet website implies that the 2.66GHz processors hit 3.1GHz stable on their machine. I assume that this is with the stock 667 memory. So that implies a FSB of 1550MHz which means RAM is running at 775MHz (instead of 667MHz). Did your stock memory do OK at 775MHz?
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Yep it was absolutely fine, I got it up to 3.12Ghz with 667Mhz RAM then I upgraded to 800Mhz and got it up to 3.25 not a massive increase...
 
pastrychef said:
Did you ever experience any problems with the clock? (by clock in mean the time)

Thanks for the info.
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Yeah in OSX the clock speeds up, but tbh I don't overclock in OSX all the time, just when I'm using handbrake or something, there's no real point.
 
Just picked up a pair of E5345's on eBay. The E5355's seem insanely expensive. I will see how fast it is at a downclock of 2.33GHz 8 cores vs. 2.66Ghz 4 cores. I may end up trying the ZDnet clock utility and see how it goes. The reading that I did suggested that the clock issue disappears if you just reboot the system without powering it down? If that is the case then it is not an issue for me since the machine runs 24/7 for me so doing a double boot from power down is not a big deal. Or did I get this wrong and the clock is still messed up even after a reboot?
 
Dadioh said:
Just picked up a pair of E5345's on eBay. The E5355's seem insanely expensive. I will see how fast it is at a downclock of 2.33GHz 8 cores vs. 2.66Ghz 4 cores. I may end up trying the ZDnet clock utility and see how it goes. The reading that I did suggested that the clock issue disappears if you just reboot the system without powering it down? If that is the case then it is not an issue for me since the machine runs 24/7 for me so doing a double boot from power down is not a big deal. Or did I get this wrong and the clock is still messed up even after a reboot?
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Good choice, as for the clock, a reboot often doesn't work at all when overclocked, you need to shut down then boot up again, at which point the clockspeed will be reset back to stock.

You'll definately notice a difference 8 cores vs 4, particularly with something like handbrake.
 
neckarb said:
Good choice, as for the clock, a reboot often doesn't work at all when overclocked, you need to shut down then boot up again, at which point the clockspeed will be reset back to stock.

You'll definately notice a difference 8 cores vs 4, particularly with something like handbrake.
Click to expand...

OK. Thanks for all the great info. Guess I will have to try it for myself and see. I suspect that it will just be an interesting experiment but I will choose to just run at stock clocks with the 8 cores. I would gladly trade off 10% performance for stability any day.
 
Dadioh said:
OK. Thanks for all the great info. Guess I will have to try it for myself and see. I suspect that it will just be an interesting experiment but I will choose to just run at stock clocks with the 8 cores. I would gladly trade off 10% performance for stability any day.
Click to expand...

That's fair enough In all honesty I don't see a huge difference between 2.66 ghz and 3.25 so I wouldn't worry. 8 Cores is always greater than 4. That's where you'll notice the difference
 
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