Used 2.0 Mac Pro + X5350?

[fiatlux]

I am thinking about getting a used Mac Pro (in addition to my current macbook). The early 2.0 GHz 2x2 cores can be found quite cheap.

It looks like I could even get X5350 quad cores for reasonable money, meaning I could build an 8 cores 2.66 ( or 3.4 GHz with BSEL?) for less than 1500 €.

Is this a good idea or am I going to face problems and disillusion?

 

[Tallest Skil]

You can't use Penryn cores in the original Mac Pro, so if they're Penryns, you're out of luck.

 

[bearcatrp]

You have to use clovertown processors. I currently own a 2ghz mac pro and will be upgrading to the 3ghz ones as soon as I find a good price. 1200 a pop at newegg but around 600 on ebay. I'll wait for the new processors to be released before getting them in hope the drop more.

 

[fiatlux]

bearcatrp, could you comment on the respective speed of your machines?

I have a Nov 2007 Macbook 2.2GHz with 4GB RAM and am looking for a bit more reactivity.

I have a couple of large and fast SATA-II drives from my older PC desktop which I could reuse in the Mac Pro, and a good 20" flat screen (IPS). But I'm wondering whether such an investment makes much sense given that I could get an iMac 24" for not much more. I keep reading about people switching from Mac Pro to MacBook Pro so wondering whether the Mac Pro is such a good idea.

 

[MikeDTyke]

I have a 2.0GHz first gen Mac Pro and even this most basic model flays any notebook alive.

The bandwidth of these systems is so much greater, not to mention that the new ones in January with the new Quick Path Interconnect will absolutely annihilate the current mac pros.

I'm just amazed that i'm still very happy with the performance of my Mac Pro, sure it could be faster when i'm doing DVD rips, but for all interactive apps i don't experience any significant slowdown, not even when running a 1Gbyte VMWare virtual PC, Openoffice, Safari, VLC, iTunes, MySQL, Apache Tomcat and GIMP simultaneously. BTW i'm running with 6Gbytes of RAM.

Regards
M.

 

[gigatexel]

Having myself bought a 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro and upgrading to 3.0 Octo Core, I would have to say that sticking to 1500 euros might be difficult if you want to see the most benefit. The problem is that most of the used 2.0 Mac Pros have been kept stock. Upgrading the processor alone in a stock configuration isn't going to change much. Going from quad to octo without any increase in clock speed isn't going to do much unless you multitask or run multithreaded apps. Depending on the application, you might actually see more improvement from a video card upgrade as I did when I moved from the stock ATI 1900xt to the 3870HD. RAM is also a factor. So in reality while it might seem like a cheap option, to get the best performance, you're likely going to have to spend more on some other components as well.

If you do decide to go this route, feel free to PM me about the upgrade procedure, its a bit tricky.

 

[bearcatrp]

I have a 24 inch iMac with a 2.16 ghz chip. When I bought the mac pro, it shaved of almost have the time to render video in iMovie. The mac pro is very expandable. Now, with the new i7 processors coming out, the speed jump is supposed to be awesome. IF apple puts a i7 quad core chip in a new imac, that might be the way to go. Expandability isn't the greated in a iMac but depends what you need. I would wait to see what is released from macworld before getting anything. I want to see the real life benchmarks before I upgrade. If everything holds true, the new machines will be the standard.