-
Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.
Nehalem Mac Pro question
- Thread starter khannonnd
- Start date
Or you could get the ATI Radeon HD 5770. It works very well in my 2008, and I think it was a CTO/BTO option for the 2009 or 2010.
The one I linked to is $180 and includes the special cable it needs to work (don't worry, it's just a cable that goes between the video card and the logic board for extra power; no external PSUs needed), so it should be well within your budget.
Perhaps a newer AMD/NVIDIA card would be faster/better, but this one has the advantage of being completely stock, which therefore means you'll have your boot screens and such, as it has Mac firmware on it.
c
The one I linked to is $180 and includes the special cable it needs to work (don't worry, it's just a cable that goes between the video card and the logic board for extra power; no external PSUs needed), so it should be well within your budget.
Perhaps a newer AMD/NVIDIA card would be faster/better, but this one has the advantage of being completely stock, which therefore means you'll have your boot screens and such, as it has Mac firmware on it.
c
I think you could find a Radeon 5870 for around $200:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Radeon-HD5870-1GB-GDDR5-Video-Card-For-Mac-Pro1-1-5-1-With-Power-Cables-/201503661939?hash=item2eea8ddf73:g:~~MAAOSwKrxUY-Ki
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Apple-ATI-Radeon-HD-5870-1GB-Graphics-Card-Mac-Pro-MC743ZM-A-/221996177484?hash=item33b000d84c:g:f3cAAOSwL7VWmDtQ
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Radeon-HD5870-1GB-GDDR5-Video-Card-For-Mac-Pro1-1-5-1-With-Power-Cables-/201503661939?hash=item2eea8ddf73:g:~~MAAOSwKrxUY-Ki
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Apple-ATI-Radeon-HD-5870-1GB-Graphics-Card-Mac-Pro-MC743ZM-A-/221996177484?hash=item33b000d84c:g:f3cAAOSwL7VWmDtQ
I have a 2009 Mac Pro also. I have it flashed to 5,1 and upgraded the CPU to the X5680 6 core. As per Graphics, I have installed a non-flashed HD 7950 that works perfectly without boot screens. If I were in your position, I would probably install some sort of SSD, Upgrade the GPU to a vanilla GTX 970 (Better Mac support with Nvidia Drivers), and maybe flash it to 5,1 and upgrade the CPUs to X5677s.
That machine is still very desirable, and configurable to be just as fast as one of the new Mac Pros. I would not however upgrade to a HD 5770 or HD 5870 if you want to do anything intensive. They are both quite old and do not provide enough performance for the money.
If you have any questions, please ask!
That machine is still very desirable, and configurable to be just as fast as one of the new Mac Pros. I would not however upgrade to a HD 5770 or HD 5870 if you want to do anything intensive. They are both quite old and do not provide enough performance for the money.
If you have any questions, please ask!
Last edited by a moderator:
I ended up getting a brand new GTX970 from a source that buys the PC version and then flashes it. My God. I have been used to playing a couple of games on a Macbook Pro. This is a whole different world! I suspect the processors are now the bottle neck in terms of graphics power.
One thing I thought of -- this machine was used as a Powerschool server which, I imagine, means it was left on basically all the time. I am eventually going to replace one or both of the 7200 RPM HDs with an SSD, but are there any common failure points on these machines that its use as a server would exacerbate?
Yeager, how much was the upgrade to the X5680 6 core? Did you do it yourself?
One thing I thought of -- this machine was used as a Powerschool server which, I imagine, means it was left on basically all the time. I am eventually going to replace one or both of the 7200 RPM HDs with an SSD, but are there any common failure points on these machines that its use as a server would exacerbate?
Yeager, how much was the upgrade to the X5680 6 core? Did you do it yourself?
Get an ATI 5770. I put Sonnet SSD card in mine because as a server boot times were about 2 and half minutes. Now boot times are down to 45 secs. So much better when updating "Little "f-%in Snitch" god I hate that program but it is so needed, as I get about 300 screen bundle (VNC) attacks every day, and 100 or so ssh attacks/pings and numerous port 80 hits.
Without an SSD it will feel sluggish, but once you put one in, it will feel like a full throttle machine as fast as todays machines. I am sure you know the SSD stories. For me tho I just was like (I have 8 core 2.66) it's got 8 cores (16) but if feels so slow, with SSD it's like yeah that feels like a 2015 machine. Then you rip a blu-ray at 2x speed, and you can taste it!
Have a fun, oh and don't upgrade the firmware unless you are going to throw in the processor upgrade, you won't get the 1333MHz RAM speed without the CPUs. I guess I'll get the HDMI audio out one day but we'll see...
Laters...
Without an SSD it will feel sluggish, but once you put one in, it will feel like a full throttle machine as fast as todays machines. I am sure you know the SSD stories. For me tho I just was like (I have 8 core 2.66) it's got 8 cores (16) but if feels so slow, with SSD it's like yeah that feels like a 2015 machine. Then you rip a blu-ray at 2x speed, and you can taste it!
Have a fun, oh and don't upgrade the firmware unless you are going to throw in the processor upgrade, you won't get the 1333MHz RAM speed without the CPUs. I guess I'll get the HDMI audio out one day but we'll see...
Laters...
So like I mentioned, I have a GTX970 that has been flashed installed. I have the latest NVIDIA drivers installed. Everything seems to be working great but, that isn't saying much since I am used to the graphics performance of a 3 year old Macbook Pro... I decided to run the Engine Heaven Benchmark test (on "extreme" settings), and that yielded the following results:
FPS: 49.0
Score: 1234
Min FPS: 17.2
Max FPS: 64.0
On the Cinebench Open GL test, it gets c. 40-42 FPS.
I know that (1) graphics cards under MacOSX/OpenGL performs VERY poorly compared to under Windows and (2) there is likely a number of bottlenecks in this older system. I was wondering if these results "sounded" right to you guys. I am guessing in terms of removing bottlenecks, putting an SSD in and upgrading the processors is the way to go. The former is easy. The latter will require some time to save! At 12GB of RAM, I am assuming I am ok on that front (at least for now).
FPS: 49.0
Score: 1234
Min FPS: 17.2
Max FPS: 64.0
On the Cinebench Open GL test, it gets c. 40-42 FPS.
I know that (1) graphics cards under MacOSX/OpenGL performs VERY poorly compared to under Windows and (2) there is likely a number of bottlenecks in this older system. I was wondering if these results "sounded" right to you guys. I am guessing in terms of removing bottlenecks, putting an SSD in and upgrading the processors is the way to go. The former is easy. The latter will require some time to save! At 12GB of RAM, I am assuming I am ok on that front (at least for now).
I knew I forgot to mention something! You'd think 12 GB would be enough for that! Nonetheless, it does almost seem like a "simple" web page wants a fast machine with a Quad-core CPU and 8 GB of RAM to perform *at all* nowadays.
Given how costly RAM is for these Mac Pros (only in the last year or so have 800 MHz FB-DIMMs become somewhat affordable), 12 GB ought to be sufficient, even if it's not optimal.
An SSD would be cheaper than a RAM upgrade, and even a modestly fast one will really speed things up (virtual memory benefits from an SSD as well, and that can alleviate some of the not-enough-RAM issues, although the SSD's life might be somewhat shorter than if you didn't use virtual memory).
c
Given how costly RAM is for these Mac Pros (only in the last year or so have 800 MHz FB-DIMMs become somewhat affordable), 12 GB ought to be sufficient, even if it's not optimal.
An SSD would be cheaper than a RAM upgrade, and even a modestly fast one will really speed things up (virtual memory benefits from an SSD as well, and that can alleviate some of the not-enough-RAM issues, although the SSD's life might be somewhat shorter than if you didn't use virtual memory).
c
Similar threads
