owbp Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Hey guys, need as much input and advice as i could get. Is it at all "smart" to buy 2006 Mac Pro? I know its an (very) old machine with 32bit EFI, big power consumer and god-knows what was it's work for past 10 years. On the other hand, there is a cool factor of owning first Mac Pro (better than a painting ), it can be upgraded to 2x4 core 3 GHz Xeon, there's enough power for any GPU you can imagine and it's still quieter than Macbook Pro from few years ago. I'm using Optiplex 755 (Q6600) and it is doing almost everything i need but a bit slower. Im ok with that most of the time. So its not like i will be downgrading, and for the money spent on Mac Pro i can maybe buy a nice Core i5/i7 (CPU only) and that's it. The more i think about it, the less i know, so please help me decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artur_pt Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 hello just remember is a pc with 10 years old .. in my country is called a cigar.. good hack 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owbp Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 Haha, i know, that's one of the concerns I'm having. On the other hand its in the great visual shape... The thing is, i don't think that ill be that worked up if it was 2,1. I mean, there is 3,1 for ok price (comparing to Europe) but it looks like someone got it from the river bottom, so I'm not even intrigued by that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouCioccio Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 I have one got it about 4 years ago used. I just had to replace the PSU (bought a refurb PSU from DVWarehouse 80$US). Yes its 32bit EFI and you will need to install Piker_Alpha boot_EFI to make it work in Yosemite or ElCapitan. Slow depends on your needs I like mine as it houses 4 hard drives. I did have a SSD drive in it and it booted up in 15sec as fast as my 2012 iMac 27" i7 Fusion Drive. If you decide and the price is right (cheap) its very hackable CPU wise but you will still have the bottleneck of old tech. Also have a drive or extra partition that will boot from so you can add the boot_EFI if you have OS Upgrade as it kills it. Also no boot screen but Nvidia and AMD style video pc card work well. I have a EVA Gt-630 and both DVI's and the mini HDMI all work. If you want a boot screen you need to flash the video card off a pc cannot do it from VM. Lou Cioccio 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owbp Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Thanks for your input. Im not that much concerned about speed. It cannot be slower than machine i use, and it can be upgraded to be much more powerful. The only advantage of my 755 is 800MHz RAM vs 667MHz in 1,1. Nothing to write home about. The price is 250 euros (apple pro keyboard and mighty mouse included in pristine condition). It's not cheap, but for that kind of money are Precision 690 Desktops sold here, and eBay prices are 180-350 depending on condition and configuration they're in. I know i can upgrade it to use it for all of my intentions and purposes, but i want to hear from you guys what the general opinion is on this and how good or bad move it is. Im planing to boot Snow Leopard (Pro Tools and nostalgia), current OS X (Final Cut and Logic Pro X) and maybe, but just maybe, Win 7 for 1-3 games... And, yes, maybe buy a card that i can flash with Apple BIOS, or just keep native one for booting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBosZ Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 I bought a used one for 350€ with 16Gb, 4 Hard disks (2 SSD) and ATI Radeon. I've only changed the CPU putting QuadCore Xeons and bought two Eizo 23inches monitors throu DisplayPort.. I'm using Yosemite and I can't be happier than this, I think I will continue to use for other 2-3 years. It depends which you have to do. If you wanna play games switch to a Windows based, but for some good photoediting/music it is still a valid choice IMHO 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owbp Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Just to let you know guys, I have bought it! Thank you all for participating! To recap, Mac Pro 1,1 (July 2007) 2,66 "Quad" Xeon 8GB 667MHz GeForce 7300GT 2 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda It's in the absolute mint condition, unbelievably quiet machine. The GPU is, on the other hand, a dog and it has to be replaced ASAP. I can't try anything until i buy the new GPU. No Final Cut, no new OSX installations, no CPU and RAM upgrade... Nothing! What are you using for your "default old OSX" for boot when updating? 10.6.8 is very fast, snappy and responsive, but 10.7.5 has iCloud, and more supported apps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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