Now that Apple has
kicked the first version of the Mac
Pro out of the family, I think it's safe to say that it's now part
of our family - a low-end Mac - yet one with extraordinary power
waiting to be uncorked.
I happened to receive one of these
venerable Macs recently. To be specific, it was the bog standard model
for Apple that year with two 2.66 GHz CPUs, 1 GB of memory, a 250
GB hard drive, and a 7300GT video card. Although this Mac will never
run the newest version of OS X (10.8 Mountain Lion at the time of
this writing) without some tinkering, it has a load of potential in
that it can be upgraded significantly.
I am going to strip this thing down and see what we can get out of
it, and when I am finished, it will become my media and storage server.
It will also be used for some photo manipulation. That being said, I
will choose my upgrades accordingly.
Taking the Mac Pro apart for upgrades is straight forward. This
article is not a step by step guide, as there are several of those
around the Web already. This is a look at performance before and after
hardware upgrades.
The CPUs
I have read about other users upgrading a Mac Pro 1,1 to octo-core
rigs. Off to eBay I went, and I came
upon two choices, dual 2.66 GHz 5355 at $85 or dual 3.0 GHz 5365 at
$175. 
Either one is
a good deal for getting 8 cores. I would have liked to get the faster
3.0 GHz 5365s, but the 5355 seemed to be a better deal at half the
price. The new 5355s went right in and no modifications were
necessary.
Unfortunately I do not have before (stock CPU) benchmarks, and
because of that, from this point forward all benchmarks were done with
8 cores at 2.66 GHz. There are several cases when those extra cores
will come in handy, especially in rendering, filters, and effects in
photo and video editing, as well as 3D software use. I noticed that
when transferring all of my files to this Mac, all eight cores were
running. When multitasking, I also noticed that in many cases, again,
all eight cores were loaded.
The new CPUs will run hotter than the stock dual cores, but I did
not notice any changes in fan speed. It is still the quietest computer
in my house.
Memory
Memory is cheap right now,
even the FB-DIMMs
required for this older Mac are affordable in my eyes. I upgraded from
a paltry 1 GB to 9 GB for only $75. Any computer, Mac or PC,
should be running with 8 GB or more at this point in time. That is
the new sweet spot. Make sure if you do purchase memory for your Mac
Pro that it has the correct heat sinks installed. (These run very hot
and need those heatsinks because of the low spinning fans.)
To test for improvements, I ran Photoshop CS6 benchmarks on a 395.5
MB image file. As I expected, the memory upgrade did great things for
Photoshop. The time it took to run the test filters went from 105.9
seconds to 53.5 seconds. Xbench showed no change at all, staying at
just below 190.
All tests were done with a Crucial M4 SSD installed as the
OS/application drive.
Storage
This Mac had a decent amount of space for an OS and software to be
installed, but the drive was old, almost seven years old. (I only keep
my drives through their warranty, which is usually five years, if you
use Western Digital Black drives, and then destroy them.) I pulled out
the stock Seagate drive and replaced it first with a 250 GB 7200 rpm
Western Digital Blue drive. I saw improvements in drive speeds in
Xbench.
The real tests would come
later when I would get frustrated with how slow that drive was. I use
SSDs in all of my machines and have become accustomed to the speed
increase. In my opinion, this is the single best upgrade one can make
for the money. I swapped in a Crucial
M4 128 GB (barely big enough for daily use - I recommend at least a
256 GB model) - and things really began to shine.
When you look at the benchmarks, remember that this SSD (or any for
that matter) will be strangled by the 3 Gbps SATA speed of this
Mac Pro. It's fine for hard drives, but SSDs will saturate the speed of
connection. There are options out there for PCIe cards that run at a
faster 6 Gbps, but I don't believe the limited hands-on use of this
machine warrants one. If this were a premiere Pro machine, I would
definitely run a hardware RAID card.
To the left is a list of benchmarks made with the SSD as the
operating system/software disk showing the boot times from the push of
the power button to the desktop.
In the next graph, we take a look at application load times. Lower
is better, and the standard hard drive was not tested with the Adobe
software.
I also set up two 640 GB Western Digital Black drives in a RAID
0. This is for storage, and as I needed it to be as fast as I could
afford, a striped set seemed like the best way to go. I would prefer a
RAID 10 with four disks, but I am focusing on what's affordable right
now. I do plan to add another 3 TB hard drive in the near future
that will be just for video files.
While I had the computer open, I decided to use a Lite On DVD SATA
burner to speed up file transfers. You can pick one up for $18. I
needed to use the extra SATA port as well as a Molex splitter and
Molex-to-SATA power convertor. It can be tricky to get all of the new
cabling in place, but rest assured, it is possible to run all those
extra cables through that smallish hole leading to the main motherboard
compartment. I recommend it, as you will be able to burn DVDs up to 6x
faster.
Blu-ray is
another option. I plan to try one out in the near future.
Graphics
As this is mostly going to be used as a server, I chose not to
upgrade the video card. If that changes, the only upgrade I can
recommend at this time is a 8800GT. It is faster in many cases than the
x1900xt, HD3870, and Quadro 4500. One can still get cash for their
7300GT, though as I saw these going for more than $75. (With the 8800GT
going for $125, that is a net $50 upgrade that is probably worth the
dough).
I think the 2006 Mac Pro is still very useful and very powerful in
the configuration I went over today. Bone stock, this Mac is starting
to show its age, but it still has so many possibilities that it is
still a great buy if you can find one at the right price.
Is there any reason to not get a Mac Pro from 2006? As I mentioned
earlier, it will not run the newest Apple OS and there is still no USB
3.0 (unless you want to spend around $75 more for that). There are no
Thunderbolt cards at this time, and even if they become available,
there is the chance they may not be compatible. Lastly, unless you
cough up another $75, the SATA speeds are going to be lower than
today's Macs with 6 Gbps SATA.
Lets take a look at the total cost to the this rig up and
cooking.
- Mac Pro 1,1, eBay, $400
- Xeon CPUs, eBay, $85
- Memory 8 GB, eBay, $75
- Storage SSD, Newegg.com, $99
- Hard drives, Newegg.com, $150
- Optical drive, Newegg.com, $18
The grand total get us $827, with the upgrades costing $427. That is
a pretty affordable Mac, especially considering it has 8 cores, an SSD,
and plenty of memory.
What would a new, similarly configured Mac Pro cost? Well, a 6-core
model with larger SSD and a bit more storage costs over $4,000!
I think its worth holding on to those aging Mac Pros a little longer
- at least until the new 2013 Mac Pro comes out.
