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Quad (PowerPC) to Quad (Intel) - Intel transition of DD begins
- Thread starter eyoungren
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PCIe adapter cards exist that Apple's proprietary AHCI interface plugs into. I can't tell you exactly what they are-the way I buy this stuff is ask @LightBulbFun what to buy and he sends me a link to an Ebay auction. I bought these a while ago.
I'll do the same if I decide to give this a try then - thanks!
They're both grid pigs but my powermac is a real fatty.
Here's the cost of running my dual 2.0 Ghz that draws 400w under load.
And here's my quadcore 1,1 macpro
I used the average cost per kilowatt hour in my neck of the woods, my boxes draw under load (which is not all of the time obviously) and the omni calculator. This is assuming I run both 24/7 which is mostly true as my 1,1 is in my office and my a1047 is in the garage. But yeah, that is really significant when you add just those two computers usage up. $701 bucks can buy me a whole lotta tacos.
And I like tacos.
To be fair, both boxes idle at around the same usage, so below is what idling 24/7 looks like (x2 obviously).
So $369.06. Hmm that's still a lot of tacos but I also like tinkering with my puters & network. In the end, it looks like my annual usage and cost lands somewhere between 370 bucks and 701 buckaroos.
As Im actually paying the electricity bill, I probably shouldn't have looked at this.
Here's the cost of running my dual 2.0 Ghz that draws 400w under load.
And here's my quadcore 1,1 macpro
I used the average cost per kilowatt hour in my neck of the woods, my boxes draw under load (which is not all of the time obviously) and the omni calculator. This is assuming I run both 24/7 which is mostly true as my 1,1 is in my office and my a1047 is in the garage. But yeah, that is really significant when you add just those two computers usage up. $701 bucks can buy me a whole lotta tacos.
And I like tacos.
To be fair, both boxes idle at around the same usage, so below is what idling 24/7 looks like (x2 obviously).
So $369.06. Hmm that's still a lot of tacos but I also like tinkering with my puters & network. In the end, it looks like my annual usage and cost lands somewhere between 370 bucks and 701 buckaroos.
As Im actually paying the electricity bill, I probably shouldn't have looked at this.
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As Im actually paying the electricity bill, I probably shouldn't have looked at this.
There's always a tradeoff between comfort and cost. And $0.12 per kWh is cheap compared to e.g. German tariffs, so it potentially becomes even more of an "issue" depending on where one is located. This is why my systems are sleeping when I don't actually use them (and I have no need for them to run 24/7).
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Awesome command center setup you have there, I wish I could justify having six screens too
The DP-to-DVI adapter is single-link so that's the max you can get. Probably not much of an issue given 30 Hz is quite laggy anyway. 
I look at it this way…They're both grid pigs but my powermac is a real fatty.
Here's the cost of running my dual 2.0 Ghz that draws 400w under load.
View attachment 908826
And here's my quadcore 1,1 Powermac
View attachment 908828
I used the average cost per kilowatt hour in my neck of the woods, my boxes draw under load (which is not all of the time obviously) and the omni calculator. This is assuming I run both 24/7 which is mostly true as my 1,1 is in my office and my a1047 is in the garage. But yeah, that is really significant when you add just those two computers usage up. $701 bucks can buy me a whole lotta tacos.
And I like tacos.
To be fair, both boxes idle at around the same usage, so below is what idling 24/7 looks like (x2 obviously).
View attachment 908837
So $369.06. Hmm that's still a lot of tacos but I also like tinkering with my puters & network. In the end, it looks like my annual usage and cost lands somewhere between 370 bucks and 701 buckaroos.
As Im actually paying the electricity bill, I probably shouldn't have looked at this.
Since I got the Quad it's been on 24/7 at full power. No sleep. That's been a little over 2 years now. Add in my 2.3 DC G5, same deal. My G3 server, my Mini and my G4 500mhz.
My power bill was $137 last month for a 1600sq ft. two story home with 4 people, various devices, a TV and home appliances including a deep freezer in the kitchen.
The Quad made my bill go up by $20 a month.
My air conditioning draws ~3500W per hour. From May to October it's on pretty much 24/7. My bill during these months goes from $200 to roughly $450 a month.
I really, REALLY have zero concern about the power draw these Macs make on my electric bill.
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Well, I didn't really justify it. All I did was look at the Mac Pro at work that had three displays and told myself that my home Mac needed to have double that - 'cause you know, my work Mac cannot be 'better' than what I have.Awesome command center setup you have there, I wish I could justify having six screens too
Really, all I use the TV for is when I run iTunes. So, in the time that I actually DO use it, it's mainly just a static display. I looked up adapters per your mention earlier but I couldn't justify their price because I'm not using this for anything serious.
So, yeah, it's enough. It works. Right now, that's all I really care about.
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Hmmm. Might do that.
I do find it interesting that I am logged in on both Messages and Facetime on all my devices and on my MBP and my Mac Mini. Both the MBP and the Mini are on Mojave and the only two Intel Macs I have (other than this new MP).
I actually logged into Messages on the MBP last night with no issues. So, if there is a block it's got to be specific to that Mac.
I will look into it, thanks!
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I got into the habit of shutting down my desktops at night and my laptops too when I’m not using things. I often switch power off at the wall to cancel out trickle power and the only things which stay on all hours are the refrigerator, water heater, the modem and a single night lamp for the kids.
My last quarterly power bill was approx US$325, which included our air con usage during the [S. Hemisphere] summer period. The quarter before that was ~US$250 and I still feel I’m being gouged!
My last quarterly power bill was approx US$325, which included our air con usage during the [S. Hemisphere] summer period. The quarter before that was ~US$250 and I still feel I’m being gouged!
I often have backups going off during the early hours. My Quad backed up at 5am, and the second drive at 5pm. I reset that up on the new MP. My Mini backs up at 2am, the server itself at midnight and the rest of my Macs at various AM hours.
That aside, I just prefer not having to wait for my Macs to boot when I want to use them. If they were causing the huge spikes in my bill then, yeah, I'd shut them down. But that's the A/C.
Saturday is going to be our first 100ºF day. We won't see anything less than that until October. August averages about 114º, spiking to 118º some times. Last year we had a few 120º+ days. Overall we average 110º each day from mid-May on.
A/C is not a luxury here, it's as essential as electricity and water.
TBH, I haven't recently dissected my utility bill but if I did, I think I'd use it as rationale to install a renewable solar system. I am in a great part of the country to do so and experience consistently solid gains, so why not. It would be a fantastic enabler of my affluent everything on lifestyle, which I flaunt relentlessly.
That and it will keep my beer fridge cold. Priorities, people.
That and it will keep my beer fridge cold. Priorities, people.
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Ram came in today. Five days late. No idea why I always get packages late when the shipper is from Texas. Damn package banged around inside the Arizona USPS system for six days! Ah well, at least it's here.
32GB ram.
32GB ram.
So, I also took the opportunity while I had the Mac open to drop in the Blueray DL SATA optical drive that I'd been using in my old Quicksilver. Now the MP has two optical drives, both DL burners.
But of course it gave me problems because it would not eject. A little research says that one particular belt wears out. I've got a stack of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives that are either dead or unable to be used (all IDE) so I opened one and traded belts.
Now the drive works just fine. And hey, I got my Diskwarrior disk back which I didn't remember I left in the drive.
But of course it gave me problems because it would not eject. A little research says that one particular belt wears out. I've got a stack of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives that are either dead or unable to be used (all IDE) so I opened one and traded belts.
Now the drive works just fine. And hey, I got my Diskwarrior disk back which I didn't remember I left in the drive.
OK. So now the final two drive bays are filled (2x 1TB) and I switched my external 3TB drive from my Thinkpad to my MP.
Total of 11TB storage.
PS. All drives installed on this MP are Western Digital Enterprise drives - except for the external, which is a WD Red.
Total of 11TB storage.
PS. All drives installed on this MP are Western Digital Enterprise drives - except for the external, which is a WD Red.
Congratulations on the new-to-you cheesegrater. I now have a 'genuine' 5,1- my flashed 4,1 which I'd had since 2013, broke in November (accident with an air duster, liquid propellant leaked, something burned out, repair process lengthy and unsuccessful), eventually got a good deal on a newer machine in February, with a few components to sell & offset the cost a bit. And I've ended up with a faster, higher spec system that doesn't suffer from a couple of annoying glitches its predecessor had, so certainly not all bad. Still got my 1,1 (bought new in September 2006) as well..
There's a lot of helpful posting and people over on the Mac Pro board, though admittedly a lot of sniping (price of the 7,1, 'why doesn't Apple use AMD CPUs', etc) as well. I'd heartily recommend going for an SSD boot drive when and if you're able- even plugged into the slower built-in connectors, a SATA drive will read/write at 300MB/s. Get a PCIe adaptor like OWC's Accelsior S, which are pretty cheap, and you're up to 500MB/s. My system is set up so that the User folder is on hard drive- it doesn't need the speed, and far cheaper of course for large capacity drives. NVMe SSDs are an option if you've updated the firmware to 140.0.0.0.0 or later- think that's the case- and will work with High Sierra. 1500MB/s plus. As for GPU, RX580 will give you the best bang for the buck, and Metal support, though no boot screen unless you buy a flashed card from MVC, or pay him to modify one. Mojave install needs a Metal GPU, at least without the dosdude patcher. It will run with a non-Metal GPU, like the GT 120, but performance will be terrible. Wait until you've got a Metal-compatible GPU before you install- you won't need the patcher & it'll run very well indeed. Mojave is very stable, none of the issues that seem to have plagued Catalina (or at least some of its users...), and none of the compatibility problems.
There's a lot of helpful posting and people over on the Mac Pro board, though admittedly a lot of sniping (price of the 7,1, 'why doesn't Apple use AMD CPUs', etc) as well. I'd heartily recommend going for an SSD boot drive when and if you're able- even plugged into the slower built-in connectors, a SATA drive will read/write at 300MB/s. Get a PCIe adaptor like OWC's Accelsior S, which are pretty cheap, and you're up to 500MB/s. My system is set up so that the User folder is on hard drive- it doesn't need the speed, and far cheaper of course for large capacity drives. NVMe SSDs are an option if you've updated the firmware to 140.0.0.0.0 or later- think that's the case- and will work with High Sierra. 1500MB/s plus. As for GPU, RX580 will give you the best bang for the buck, and Metal support, though no boot screen unless you buy a flashed card from MVC, or pay him to modify one. Mojave install needs a Metal GPU, at least without the dosdude patcher. It will run with a non-Metal GPU, like the GT 120, but performance will be terrible. Wait until you've got a Metal-compatible GPU before you install- you won't need the patcher & it'll run very well indeed. Mojave is very stable, none of the issues that seem to have plagued Catalina (or at least some of its users...), and none of the compatibility problems.
I'm waiting until I am in the financial spot again for Metal GPUs to update to Mojave. In the meantime I have Mojave on my 2009 Mac Mini and my 2008 MBP, courtesy of the patcher.
Part of any upgrade paths I take for my Macs (no matter what they happen to be) is that when I do it, I want what I want when I do it. In this instance, getting the type of ports I want on a GPU with the ability to support boot screens, it's going to cost me. I will keep in mind the flashing part, I don't really care to do this myself.
Anyway, I'm still comfortable with spinning drives. I'm web browsing, word processing and doing a bit of graphic design. The need to top out at max transfer rates is not there. My Macs are on 24/7 so, the need for a fast boot isn't there either. Unless someone can tell me that an SSD will boot faster then me pressing the spacebar and my screens popping on.
I may go that route at some point, but not today. I do already have a 500GB SSD in my 2008 MBP so there's that.
Right now I will be on High Sierra for a while, which is fine. My work MBP is High Sierra so I'm used to it. And the clunky dark mode that High Sierra has works well enough.
Anyway, congrats on your new MP.
Nice new box @eyoungren! Glad to see you getting a newer Mac when you need it.
So, here's the thing that now has me very pleased…
As you may know, work has assigned me a mid-20152016 MBP for my job. When working from home this means taking over the kitchen table with this Mac and two work borrowed monitors. That of course does not make my wife very happy.
So, last weekend I got apps set up on my MacPro, because it has the same OS as my MBP - but double the RAM. With the exception of Filemaker Pro (which we use for our job information) I did everything I needed to do this week on my Mac Pro, which affords me three additional displays the MBP cannot leverage. That gave my wife the kitchen table back, making her very happy.
At one point I had over 10 apps open with about 8GB of 32GB ram remaining, and no pageouts. The fact that I can now do the same job on my home Mac as that for which the MBP has been given to me makes me very happy.
And it's very cool to be using a 17 year old 20" Cinema Display as my main monitor to do the work on.
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The keyboard I use at work is the same as the ones I use at home. I had my boss buy that specific keyboard. I am using the wired Mighty Mouse that he bought for me at home for this work though. My Magic Mouse is great, but not for design work.
As you may know, work has assigned me a mid-2015
So, last weekend I got apps set up on my MacPro, because it has the same OS as my MBP - but double the RAM. With the exception of Filemaker Pro (which we use for our job information) I did everything I needed to do this week on my Mac Pro, which affords me three additional displays the MBP cannot leverage. That gave my wife the kitchen table back, making her very happy.
At one point I had over 10 apps open with about 8GB of 32GB ram remaining, and no pageouts. The fact that I can now do the same job on my home Mac as that for which the MBP has been given to me makes me very happy.
And it's very cool to be using a 17 year old 20" Cinema Display as my main monitor to do the work on.
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No, it's the pre-touchbar ones. But even so, at work we plug in keyboards and mice. The idea was to take your MBP home with you so you could work from home if you needed to, but to use it like a normal desktop at work.
The keyboard I use at work is the same as the ones I use at home. I had my boss buy that specific keyboard. I am using the wired Mighty Mouse that he bought for me at home for this work though. My Magic Mouse is great, but not for design work.
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Yeh, I remembered you had a pre-touchbar after I made the comment. Sorry.
No worries. I myself have learned more about post 2009 Intel Macs in the last year or so that I never wanted to learn.Yeh, I remembered you had a pre-touchbar after I made the comment. Sorry.
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See, I can't even get it right. It's a mid-2015, not a 2016.Yeh, I remembered you had a pre-touchbar after I made the comment. Sorry.
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Awesome to see you got your main MP going for your job. @eyoungren Right now I'm in the middle of a hardware failure on my Ryzen 7 desktop and have a 2012 MacMini as my daily driver and an old Dell Optiplex with an i7 3770 running linux for workload tasks. AKA VMs and light gaming. Haha
I decided to work on this today. Someone had the same issue and ran down their process. At point 6 in their in process I solved the issue.
For me, apparently the Mac needed a NVRAM reset. At first it didn't seem like it worked. I tried to login to Messages but it wasn't having it. Then all of a sudden the main screen came up. I went to Preferences to try and enter my Apple ID and password again, only to find I was already logged in and authenticated.
So, I loaded up Facetime and this time FT took my credentials with no error. My iPhone also saw my Mac and is now forwarding messages and FT calls.
So, pretty much set now.
PS. I also logged out of iCloud and then back in before resetting NVRAM. I suspect something may have gone wonky in one of the upgrades I did back when going from Snow Leopard to El Cap and onwards.
Parallels was on tap today…and Leopard Server 10.5.8.
OK. A week or so ago I picked up two NVIDIA GeForce GT 640s (thank you for the eBay link @LightBulbFun). These cards have 1xDVI, 1xHDMI and 1xDP. I have five DVI and one HDMI.
The cards are Metal compatible, which was the point. I wanted to get Mojave installed.
Last night my DP to DVI adapters came in. I am still waiting on my HDMI to DVI adapters. Apparently they are still in Hong Kong.
However, my brain tripped today and reminded me that on my 2.3 DC G5 I had one display connected using a DVI to HDMI cable. Proceed to smack forehead.
After work, I installed the cards (which have been sitting for about a week), and attached everything. Long story short, after a few trials and having to use only one card in High Sierra, I got the MP on Mojave natively.
Interestingly enough, my HDTV now shows several new resolutions. After messing with it I put it back at 1080p. Nice to know I can use those resolutions if I want to take the RAM hit though.
Oh yeah, one other thing! I have noticed in High Sierra that kernel_task takes up around 1.6GB of ram. There is nothing I can do to prevent this. But both my Mini and my MBP running Mojave do NOT have this issue. I was hoping that moving to Mojave on the MacPro would fix this - and it did. Or at the very least, it's hidden from me now.
The cards are Metal compatible, which was the point. I wanted to get Mojave installed.
Last night my DP to DVI adapters came in. I am still waiting on my HDMI to DVI adapters. Apparently they are still in Hong Kong.
However, my brain tripped today and reminded me that on my 2.3 DC G5 I had one display connected using a DVI to HDMI cable. Proceed to smack forehead.
After work, I installed the cards (which have been sitting for about a week), and attached everything. Long story short, after a few trials and having to use only one card in High Sierra, I got the MP on Mojave natively.
Interestingly enough, my HDTV now shows several new resolutions. After messing with it I put it back at 1080p. Nice to know I can use those resolutions if I want to take the RAM hit though.
Oh yeah, one other thing! I have noticed in High Sierra that kernel_task takes up around 1.6GB of ram. There is nothing I can do to prevent this. But both my Mini and my MBP running Mojave do NOT have this issue. I was hoping that moving to Mojave on the MacPro would fix this - and it did. Or at the very least, it's hidden from me now.
If you want to run that at 3840×2160 at 60 Hz (which the cards can do via DP), you need an active DP-to-HDMI2.0 adapter. Just sayin'