Nehalem Mac Pro question

[khannonnd]

I recently acquired, for free, a 2009 Mac Pro - dual, 4 core 2.26ghz Xeons, 12 GB RAM, 2 640 GB hard drives, and an NVIDIA T120 with 512MB.

I am thinking of turning this into an every day machine for work and gaming. I can pick up one of the old aluminum Apple LCDs for $130 and I was thinking of getting a better graphics card (like a Radeon 7950).

Obviously the machine is 6 years old. Does anyone have experience using this computer as an every day machine? Is it still passable on processor intensive tasks? Finally, does anyone have any Recs for graphics card upgrades?

 

[khannonnd]

Also, if anyone has any good recommendations for a display to attach to this, I would appreciate it.  I am looking to spend like $200 or so and have been looking for refurbished/used displays in good condition.

 

[mrpippy]

What a steal--the Nehalem Mac Pros are still very desirable machines. You can install the MacPro5,1 firmware on it to use faster RAM and newer CPUs, put in 2 x six-core CPUs for fairly cheap, install SSDs, fill it with RAM, and there's a whole world of PCIe graphics cards you can use (up to supporting 4K/5K monitors).

NVIDIA has official drivers available from their site which work with standard, unflashed PC cards, I think the only downside being that you won't get any boot splash or console.

 

[galgot]

I still use that one at work. Very good machine. can go up to Lion, but I don't like it so keep it in Snow Leopard. 

Can't install mountain Lion cause of the NVIDIA I think, so maybe it would do if you change the card...

Mine as less RAM (6 Gb), but still very good for graphic work. the 4 cores are appreciable for 3d renders.

 

[MJ313]

Wow man that's awesome! A 2009! Honestly, that's the one I would go for if I was in the market for Mac Pro. I'm not, so I can't justify it. So much you can do to upgrade that one. And free! can't beat that. </envy>

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I still use that one at work. Very good machine. can go up to Lion, but I don't like it so keep it in Snow Leopard. 

Can't install mountain Lion cause of the NVIDIA I think, so maybe it would do if you change the card...

Mine as less RAM (6 Gb), but still very good for graphic work. the 4 cores are appreciable for 3d renders.

I think you're thinking of the 2006 model, not the 2009 model. The 2008 and newer Mac Pros are still supported by El Capitan.

OP, here's a guide as far as upgrading the GPU with any nVidia PC card: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/frequently-asked-questions-about-nvidia-pc-non-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/

 

[galgot]

Oh yes indeed ! Thanks. So that working machine is even older than I thought...

Mine it's a 2 x 2.66 GHz btw.

 

[CC_333]

I have a 2008, 8x 2.8 GHz, and it still performs quite well.

I have 24 GB RAM in it, 2x2 TB drives, 1x1 TB drive, a 120 GB SSD on a SATAIII card, and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 (with two Mini DisplayPorts, so now I can use the newer Apple LED Cinema Displays if I want to). About the only thing that makes it feel older is the somewhat slow RAM (it's 800 MHz DDR2, basically). I could upgrade the CPUs to 3.4 GHz if I want to, but I can't justify the cost just yet (maybe by summer; after 7 years, I probably should re-goop the CPUs anyway, so maybe it'd be a good excuse to upgrade them).

A 2009 would probably blow mine out of the water, even with half the RAM, so I think you have quite a find there!

c

 

[techknight]

I run a Core i7 920 as my main PC. And it still works perfectly fine, even still plays the latest games. 

 

[Unknown_K]

Newegg just had a DELL 27" 4k IPS monitor for $200 shipped but they sold out (email came last night).

I can't see you having any issues using that machine for day to day work, no idea about gaming since I don't play anything newish.

 

[khannonnd]

So I got my monitor and fired this up.  It has Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 on it.  It does not have the Mac App Store on it.  Is there a link somewhere that has some of the newer system software (10.6-10.9) for free download outside the App Store?  I would like to eventually put El Capitan on it...

 

[khannonnd]

Ugh, seems like I need to buy a 10.6 DVD.  I have bought it in the past, but I can't find my DVD anywhere.  So much for updating tonight.

 

[mrpippy]

If you have another up-to-date Mac and can download the El Capitan installer, you can make a bootable USB drive: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

 

[khannonnd]

Ya, I saw that, but from what I am reading, the machine on which you install El Capitan has to already have 10.6.8+ ...  is that wrong?

 

[khannonnd]

muahahaha.  I found my Snow Leopard DVD.  It's a little worse for wear, hopefully it will install without error.

Since the main HD has OS X Server on it (this machine was a Powerschool server for the high school), it won't let me install 10.6 over it.  So I am installing it on the second hard drive, will boot from that, and then erase the hard drive that has OS X Server on it.

 

[mrpippy]

Cool that'll work. I'm pretty sure you could install El Cap off a USB drive without needing anything installed on the drive, the 10.6.8 requirement is just because that was the first version with the App Store, and that's the only place to download it from.

 

[johnklos]

Ya, I saw that, but from what I am reading, the machine on which you install El Capitan has to already have 10.6.8+ ...  is that wrong?

Yes, that's wrong. You can install OVER 10.6.8 or newer, but you can always do a completely clean install.

 

[Cory5412]

I've always wanted to play with PowerSchool, I'd probably have bought the system if I'd seen it for that alone.

A 2009 will be a pretty nice system. It doesn't support almost anything fun that newer Macs do, but it'll run the current version of Mac OS X pretty well.

Neat tidbit: I don't know if it still says this, but the requirements for 10.11 used to say either 10.8 or 10.9. It'll happily upgrade a 10.6 install through the Mac App Store, though, and nothing too wild happens when you do that.

Once you have everything running, if you prefer everything to be that much more squeaky clean, you can either install 10.11 to yet another hard disk, or build USB boot media which you can then use to reformat and reinstall the internal disks. (I've got a  10.11 USB device with 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11 installers as well as those for some common, slow-moving applications I use on it, for when I need to redo a system.)

 

[khannonnd]

Ok, so I have tried to locate a good card to use in this machine.  I want to use a "flashed" version of a card, cause I want native support, the boot screen, etc.

I have a budget (max) of around $500.  I was originally looking at this (but then it sold out):

http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p45/Nvidia_GTX_970_4_GB.html

So then I was looking at this:

http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p8/Nvidia_GTX_680_2_GB%2C_4_GB.html

Is that a good card?  More importantly, I want a card that will work off only the internal power of the mac pro - I don't want to fiddle with an external PSU.

Does anyone have any specific recs for a video card that will be effective with current games, etc.?  Thanks!