What would you do?

Phate · 20 Jun 2011 at 18:32

Hi guys,

I have a Mid 2007 Mac Pro 1.1 with the following spec:

2 x 2.66ghz Xeon c2d CPUS
512mb X1900XTX Radeon
Enough hard drive storage space to sink a ship
9gb ram
wifi, bluetooth, etc

I bought this Mac Pro new, and tbh, it's still pretty damn quick, as you can imagine with the above spec.

The issue I have is that the hardware is getting old, for example the graphics card isn't supported anymore so a lot of new games released can't be played on it, which is really annoying. Another big issue for me is the warranty has expired now and could potentially be a big bill if it breaks....

Also the photos from my new camera...whilst the machine handles them fine it COULD be quicker, it would blitz through the ones from my last camera (literally scroll through, render and edit in real time with no slow down at all) where as this sort of chugs through them now, its still usable but it'll be nice to get that silky smoothness back again, mainly because the images are 3 x the size but hey ho...

Just looking at prices of current Apple hardware I've come to the following conclusion

An iMac is a no for the following reasons:

I wouldn't be getting THAT much of a performance upgrade all things considered, it'll be down to one processor, a better graphics card and less ram (the ram in my mac pro wouldn't go in and 2nd hand ram sells for peanuts so I'd make a big loss there)

A new Mac Pro is a potential, but for me to see a decent increase in performance I'd have to spend probably just under 2 grand - 2nd hand I'm confident I could get roughly £1000-£1200 (possibly more looking at the base spec quad core on the apple site) for mine. Ideal spec would be

8 cores, so it would be a big increase for me there, the same or more amount of memory and an upto date graphics card - which comes part of the standard spec.

So the outlay would be no more than what I originally paid (roughly) for my Mac Pro back in 2007. Which is a justifiable expense in my eyes.

Or the alternative is:

Upgrade the graphics card to the ATI 5770 - £200 (I'm pretty set on doing this anyway to be honest, so can always add this card into a new mac pro if I happen to get one)
Possibly hunt around for a set of quad core processors doubling the amount of cores I have £500ish for this, and that's if I find them.

Or final option is to see if any new Mac Pros are released this year? I have NO idea when they are due for renewals? Any ideas folks? dual i7's would be tasty

Cheers for any thoughts/inputs...

Jake

Darkman · 20 Jun 2011 at 18:49

According to macrumors.com you're looking at August for the new mac pros.

Sell yours before then for best price then let Steve fleece you for some Sandybridge goodness.

Phate · 20 Jun 2011 at 19:40

Oooh August eh...Sandbridge goodness too.....fap fap fap

"andy" · 20 Jun 2011 at 20:50

is the mac 5770 really £200

cant you get a £90 pc one and flash it or something ?

personally id be building myself a not to be talked about on here macpro but then i have no loyalty to apple and feel i have already thrown enough cash at them

waiting for new macpros would be your other best option , for now could an ssd help with your photo issues ?

Phate · 20 Jun 2011 at 20:56

"andy" said:
is the mac 5770 really £200

cant you get a £90 pc one and flash it or something ?

personally id be building myself a not to be talked about on here macpro but then i have no loyalty to apple and feel i have already thrown enough cash at them

waiting for new macpros would be your other best option , for now could an ssd help with your photo issues ?

Yes it is, and no you can't, not reliably, I know people have done it but it's not 100% reliable.

SSD would be fine to an extent but they are big enough at all.

8t10 · 20 Jun 2011 at 21:26

5770 for the old Mac Pro. Wait for new Mac Pro. Buy new Mac Pro. Sell old Mac Pro.

Phate · 20 Jun 2011 at 21:57

I think that's going to be the case 8t10...

PaulyD · 21 Jun 2011 at 02:04

Jake I think thats the best way too mate, upgrade what you got as it's still a really good spec as it is.

Bear with it as it is with a small upgrade to play games in mean time, sell off a month before if you can (bear in mind I know your work too so may be hard for you) and then upgrade

Can you get it via work so VAT free?

bigredshark · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:21

I'm just going to point out that an iMac would be a massive performance boost compared to what you have. Sure you loose internal storage and you'd need new RAM but the performance boost would be huge with the latest generation.

Phate · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:33

PaulyD said:
Jake I think thats the best way too mate, upgrade what you got as it's still a really good spec as it is.

Bear with it as it is with a small upgrade to play games in mean time, sell off a month before if you can (bear in mind I know your work too so may be hard for you) and then upgrade

Can you get it via work so VAT free?

I could definitely sort some sort of discount out, I got a business account with Apple as well so maybe I could arrange something through there

bigredshark said:
I'm just going to point out that an iMac would be a massive performance boost compared to what you have. Sure you loose internal storage and you'd need new RAM but the performance boost would be huge with the latest generation.

Would it? I'd agree if I went for a top spec one with an i7 to gain 3 additional cores but it was always to my understanding that if you want for less cores but in more processors the performance was better as it could thread tasks individually to each processor...but I may be talking a load of rubbish here!

Phate · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:38

Scrap the above I've just found out the i7 doesn't have 7 cores

Fr0dders · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:39

8t10 said:
5770 for the old Mac Pro. Wait for new Mac Pro. Buy new Mac Pro. Sell old Mac Pro.

and strip out as much of the old Mac Pro as you can.

I doubt that selling it with 5tb of storage is going to command much higher than with 1tb of storage ?

Phate · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:45

Whoever buys it can fit their own hard drives!

- I'll leave the OS drive in there as the new machine will come with an OS drive.

I'll sell it with the RAM intact though, and possibly refit the old graphics card, but only if the new mac pro can take the 5770 I'm going to fit, for dual graphic card goodness

bigredshark · 21 Jun 2011 at 08:12

Phate said:
Would it? I'd agree if I went for a top spec one with an i7 to gain 3 additional cores but it was always to my understanding that if you want for less cores but in more processors the performance was better as it could thread tasks individually to each processor...but I may be talking a load of rubbish here!

No, 4 cores are 4 cores, there might be one or two percent advantage to some architectures but in this case it'll be completely eclipsed by the superiority of the i5 chip over the old Xeons.

The benchmarks say they soundly beat the current quad core Mac Pros so they're going to walk all over the older ones. And that's just the i5 quad core without the upgrade to the i7 which is faster still.

Not saying it's a perfect solution, it means external storage which might not suit and it's not as expandable as the Mac Pro but it is a fair amount cheaper..

Fr0dders · 21 Jun 2011 at 08:45

Phate said:
Whoever buys it can fit their own hard drives! - I'll leave the OS drive in there as the new machine will come with an OS drive.

I'll sell it with the RAM intact though, and possibly refit the old graphics card, but only if the new mac pro can take the 5770 I'm going to fit, for dual graphic card goodness

Seems the best idea.

leave them the bare minimum and carry stuff over to your new one to save money re-buying stuff.

8t10 · 21 Jun 2011 at 10:22

Phate said:
Whoever buys it can fit their own hard drives! - I'll leave the OS drive in there as the new machine will come with an OS drive.

I'll sell it with the RAM intact though, and possibly refit the old graphics card, but only if the new mac pro can take the 5770 I'm going to fit, for dual graphic card goodness

Well IMO the old Mac Pro will command more monies with the 5770 in it along with 6gb of ram. The people interested in that have storage already. Considering the new Mac Pro will have something new(er) in it - like a 6 series as we can see in the other models - and spending £150 for another 5770 may not be the best way to go if you can get something else.

Phate · 21 Jun 2011 at 17:16

8t10 said:
Well IMO the old Mac Pro will command more monies with the 5770 in it along with 6gb of ram. The people interested in that have storage already. Considering the new Mac Pro will have something new(er) in it - like a 6 series as we can see in the other models - and spending £150 for another 5770 may not be the best way to go if you can get something else.

I wouldn't strip the ram out of it, as I wouldn't really be able to sell it on anyway to be honest, plus when people read 9gb its more sellable.

Darkman · 26 Jun 2011 at 18:14

Apple is preparing to release new "Mid 2011" Mac Pro models, according to 9 to 5 Mac who cites internal Apple documents reportedly mentioning options ranging from six to sixteen processor cores. According to the source, Apple has begun putting together product manuals for the new Mac Pros, which are said to begin shipping in late July or early August.

Following a report from earlier this week that claims that Apple is gearing up to launch a new Mac Pro in late July or early August, a reliable source tells 9to5Mac that Apple has referenced a mid-2011 Mac Pro in multiple internal documents.
The late July/early August timeframe for the new Mac Pro release was first reported over the weekend by CNET's Brian Tong, whose sources had previously accurately pinpointed the latest iMac release within a small window six weeks ahead of time.

The primary question surrounding a Mac Pro release within the rumored timeframe is just which processors Apple will be using. A 16-core configuration would almost certainly come as a pair of 8-core processors, and 8-core Sandy Bridge processors of the server class used in the Mac Pro line aren't scheduled to appear until the fourth quarter of this year as Intel's Xeon E5 line. While Apple has been known to receive early access to Intel processors in the past, it seems ambitious to suppose that Apple would have that much advance access to be able to ship new Mac Pros by early August given Intel's production plans.

Source: macrumors.com

Phate · 26 Jun 2011 at 18:24

Interesting...

GSXRMovistar · 26 Jun 2011 at 19:29

What display are you running? Maybe worth factoring that if you did consider an iMac you would also be getting a pretty good display. I've just gone from a C2D Quad PC to the i7 iMac, whilst only a single CPU system it still offers 8 virtual cores to the O/S and absolutely flys along. I normally have PS and Lightroom running plus a whole heap of other stuff and a Win7 VM running.