Just got my hands on a Mac Pro 3,1. Need advice on Rebuild for gaming

[Leonp]

Hi guys
I have been fortunate enough to get my hand on a Mac Pro 3,1 from work. my boss didn't think it was worth anything anymore and was going to trough it out. So I asked if i could have it, and here im sitting with a free Mac Pro, laughing at my bosses foolishness.

I primarily want to use it for schoolwork and gaming. What would you guys recommend doing with it? I was saving up a build anyway so right now my budget is roughly around 1000US.

need to be able to run bought windows and OSX on it. preferably on two separate SSD's

Your help is much appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Dschijn]

Not the fastest MP, but you are still lucky. If you get a new GPU and some SSDs for the system you will be ready for almost anything.

 

[Leonp]

Thanks What about the RAM Should I upgrade them, and can it only handle 800Mhz DDR2's?

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks What about the RAM Should I upgrade them, and can it only handle 800Mhz DDR2's?

Look up the specs of your Mac Pro here - http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/index-macpro.html and it will tell you everything you ever want to know about it.

If 800MHz DDR2 is what you have, then that is probably the best you can get, but you might be able to add more DIMMS.

 

[aaron97]

$1000? Thats a pretty big budget, for that price you could by a completely new computer thats more powerful. A more reasonable budget would be a few hundred dollars. What I would do is max out the RAM and drop in a new GPU, and if you have some extra cash get a 128GB SSD for a boot drive.