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Can the Mac Pro 1,1 be relevant today?

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Should I upgrade Mac Pro 1,1 or build new system

Hey everyone,
I have been following this website for a while and i've been interested in putting together a hackintosh.
I'm torn between two ideas.
1. Restoring a Mac Pro 1,1 by putting 2 Xeon Quad core processors, SSD, and max out the ram.
2. Build a low end Hackintosh ($500-600 range).

I'm in love with the Mac Pro case, and I don't have very complex computing needs. I would primarily be using it for web based things. I might try running bootcamp on it so I could play some windows games (likely Age of Empires 2 on steam). I also have a firewire music interface that I'd use to do some light music editing (just editing audio for a podcast with Garageband etc)

My preference would be to work with a Mac Pro 1,1. I have looked into the idea of a case mod but I would like to try and keep the Mac Pro case intact. I have a friend who would sell me a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 for $100.
What are your thoughts? Would a 2006 Mac Pro with these specs be relevant today?
 
I have Yosemite running on a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 that was given to me for free. The only thing I did to make it compatible was to update the graphics card to a very Cheap Nvidia 610, which was about $45 on Amazon. It's a great machine with 8 GB of RAM and Dual 2 GHz Xeon Dual-Core CPUs (so 4 total cores). It's amazingly capable for a 10 year old machine. My wife is a professional portrait photographer and this machine has become her main workstation. She loves it and has no plans to upgrade. I haven't tried El Capitan on it yet because it's her business machine and I don't want to risk it since it is more than meeting her needs on Yosemite. There are only a few small problems we have with it.

1. I have not been able to get sleep to work. I have it pulling double duty as a media server, so sleep isn't that necessary, but it would be nice. It's a power hungry machine, so putting it to bed after 1 am or something would be welcome. Someone smarter than me could probably figure out the sleep problem.

2. It starts up slowly. We put an SSD in it as the boot drive, so that has helped. However, this machine has a 32 bit EFI that doesn't support the graphics card, so you have this long space (maybe 20-35 seconds) where the machine is powered on but the screen is just black. Once the OS starts to load, the screen comes on and the graphics are fully supported. Full boot time is a little over a minute and fairly acceptable.

3. No analog sound. This is another thing that someone smarter than myself could probably figure out, but there is no sound card recognized in the OS, so the headphone ports on the front of the machine produce no sound, nor does the speaker output on the back. We solved this problem with a cheap USB sound card, I think it was about $10.

Good luck with your original Mac Pro!
 
Thanks! I appreciate the insight!
 
Thanks! I'm leaning towards building a budget Hackintosh simply because the components will be new. I'd hate to spend $350 on a Mac Pro tower to realize that half the components are bad.

Appreciate the insight guys.
 
Thanks! I'm leaning towards building a budget Hackintosh simply because the components will be new. I'd hate to spend $350 on a Mac Pro tower to realize that half the components are bad.

Appreciate the insight guys.

In that case have a look at the following thread for some build ideas at around ~$300.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-advice/118150-building-budget-haswell-build-how-low-can-you-go.html

You can mix and match with the regular buyers guide if you wish. :thumbup:
 
I recommend a low priced hack. The budget seems the same, but you will have hardware that you can use for five or so years (my last one lasted 7). Additionally, you will get support more readily with current hardware.
 
Thanks! I'm leaning towards building a budget Hackintosh simply because the components will be new. I'd hate to spend $350 on a Mac Pro tower to realize that half the components are bad.

Appreciate the insight guys.

Buying an old Mac Pro 1,1 is kind of like buying a 19 year old Mercedes Benz with 250,000 miles on it.
It was very expensive and top of the line when new and now it's selling at a fraction of that price.

It will probably still keep working a few more years but how much money will you be spending to upgrade it so that it matches the performance of current hardware if that is even possible.

So it's a tough call when you can get a Mac Pro tower for $350 but I'd go with at least Haswell or newer hardware. You'll have more trouble free years with the newer build and can even upgrade easily later on. You'd also need at least a MP 3,1 to be able to run El Capitan if you want that.
 
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Should I upgrade Mac Pro 1,1 or build new system

Hey everyone,
I have been following this website for a while and i've been interested in putting together a hackintosh.
I'm torn between two ideas.
1. Restoring a Mac Pro 1,1 by putting 2 Xeon Quad core processors, SSD, and max out the ram.
2. Build a low end Hackintosh ($500-600 range).

I'm in love with the Mac Pro case, and I don't have very complex computing needs. I would primarily be using it for web based things. I might try running bootcamp on it so I could play some windows games (likely Age of Empires 2 on steam). I also have a firewire music interface that I'd use to do some light music editing (just editing audio for a podcast with Garageband etc)

My preference would be to work with a Mac Pro 1,1. I have looked into the idea of a case mod but I would like to try and keep the Mac Pro case intact. I have a friend who would sell me a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 for $100.
What are your thoughts? Would a 2006 Mac Pro with these specs be relevant today?
El Cap & Windows Server 2012r2 working perfect except no Facetime. PUT IN SSD HD's 32 GB RAM & 2 Quad Core Xeons - your good - need the 64 bit boot loader thoughboot
 
El Cap & Windows Server 2012r2 working perfect except no Facetime. PUT IN SSD HD's 32 GB RAM & 2 Quad Core Xeons - your good - need the 64 bit boot loader thoughboot

Couldn't agree more, the Mac Pro 2,1 that I have is continues to remain an outstanding machine. Even today it performs like a champ with Graphic and Video softwares such as Photoshop and Premiere. I installed the latest OSX (El Capitan 10.11.6) prior to Apple effectively forcing that machine into obsolescence by way of not supporting CPU without SSE4.1

I disagree with the high-mileage mercedes comparison with low performance and costly repairs. I have had none of it. No costly repairs much less performances especially if compared to newer non-pro line of macs made even few years later.

I installed Mavericks thanks to the modified bootloader by piker alpha (bless his heart!) and then to upgrade to Yosemite and then El Capitan I took the SSD out, renamed the modified bootloader to prevent loading, and restore the correct name on the original bootloader... popped the ssd in an external case, connected it to a newer macbook pro and upgraded the OS. Once upgrade was complete, I swapped again bootloaders and placed back the SSD into the Mac Pro et voilá booted on the older unsupported machine. The Yosemited upgrade required to use an updated bootloader from piker alpha which also worked with El Capitan (but then a new updated bootloader was released so I swapped that in.

Might be a bit convoluted of a process for some, but it does work to get a mac pro to the highest level of usability which should buy a few more reliable years of operation at least until a must have feature will force one to upgrade the hardware. But if an older Mac Pro could be used for even lower tasks than graphic and audio/video production, then one should be golden for a few years to come as I can't imagine requirements becoming something where an old Xeon would fall so short that couldn't work on office/web/entertainment at the very least ;)
 
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