Old Mac Pro - what to do with it ?
Discussion
Hi All,
I've been gifted an old Mac Pro 2.26, Model A1289 - is this the model some call the 'cheese grater' ?
Currently, it's not working because there is no hard drive in any of the drive bays, though it switches on fine.
I understand that it has two 2.26 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Xeon E5520 (Nehalem) processors and 16gb ram.
It is a large, heavy beast and probably uses a fair bit of electricity.
It seems to have much potential for expansion - better graphics card, more drives, more ram etc.
Should I bung in a SSD and try to do something with it ? If so, what ?
Or should I take it down to the nearest tip - probably the option the missus would prefer {she accuses me of hoarding too much stuff}.
If you have a Mac Pro model A1289, what do you use it for ?
I've been gifted an old Mac Pro 2.26, Model A1289 - is this the model some call the 'cheese grater' ?
Currently, it's not working because there is no hard drive in any of the drive bays, though it switches on fine.
I understand that it has two 2.26 GHz Quad Core 45-nm Xeon E5520 (Nehalem) processors and 16gb ram.
It is a large, heavy beast and probably uses a fair bit of electricity.
It seems to have much potential for expansion - better graphics card, more drives, more ram etc.
Should I bung in a SSD and try to do something with it ? If so, what ?
Or should I take it down to the nearest tip - probably the option the missus would prefer {she accuses me of hoarding too much stuff}.
If you have a Mac Pro model A1289, what do you use it for ?
Edited by pubrunner on Thursday 18th July 21:18
A1289 covers a whole series of cheesegrater Power Macs
2.26 is likely to be a 2009 2x 4 core Xeon box
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/m...
If it works, it's highly upgradeable and has a reasonable value on eBay, even if you don't want to invest in it yourself. Even the dual CPU tray has a value to folks with a single CPU that want to upgrade
Mine's a 2010, tricked out with
2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
Used for video editing, mutliple VMs and app development
Much of that was bought off eBay and it pretty much matches the performance of the top-of-the-range next generation Mac Pro for a quarter of the price
So you can turn it into something useful yourself if you're an experienced Mac user, or flog it off; either the whole box - or else processor tray, CPUs, RAM, GPU all have a value
2.26 is likely to be a 2009 2x 4 core Xeon box
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/m...
If it works, it's highly upgradeable and has a reasonable value on eBay, even if you don't want to invest in it yourself. Even the dual CPU tray has a value to folks with a single CPU that want to upgrade
Mine's a 2010, tricked out with
2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
Used for video editing, mutliple VMs and app development
Much of that was bought off eBay and it pretty much matches the performance of the top-of-the-range next generation Mac Pro for a quarter of the price
So you can turn it into something useful yourself if you're an experienced Mac user, or flog it off; either the whole box - or else processor tray, CPUs, RAM, GPU all have a value
I have an early 2009 model with 2 x 6 core Xeons, which I bought second hand a couple of years ago.
It now has
32Gb Ram,
2 x 500Gb SSDs (one to boot into OSX, the other for Windows 8.1),
2Tb SATA disk
Nvidia Gforce 680 2Gb graphics card
Although the graphics card isn't great, I do use it successfully for playing a few games - Dirt Rally and Euro Truck Simulator with a Logitech G29 wheel and gear shift mounted to a Playseat.
Also play World of Tanks Blitz a bit. I may look to update the card soon.
Apart from a few games, its main use is for processing photos using Adobe CS6 (the last version before it went subscription), and for this it's superb, working on files on the SSD, then moving them to the SATA drive for storage (and backup to a separate NAS).
It also works well to play films/videos on, the HDMI output being fed to a ceiling mounted projector ( Benq W1210ST), and the optical digital sound output to a 5.1 surround processor.
..... so .....
Yours is basically a very capable machine with a few sensible upgrades, which fortunately are pretty easy to do as it was designed for easy changes to disks, graphic card, and memory.
The only real downside is that the system unit is pretty large, but I've hidden this behind the sofa and run long leads wrapped in a neoprene sleeve for the mouse/keyboard, headphones, and 4k 24 inch screen.
It now has
32Gb Ram,
2 x 500Gb SSDs (one to boot into OSX, the other for Windows 8.1),
2Tb SATA disk
Nvidia Gforce 680 2Gb graphics card
Although the graphics card isn't great, I do use it successfully for playing a few games - Dirt Rally and Euro Truck Simulator with a Logitech G29 wheel and gear shift mounted to a Playseat.
Also play World of Tanks Blitz a bit. I may look to update the card soon.
Apart from a few games, its main use is for processing photos using Adobe CS6 (the last version before it went subscription), and for this it's superb, working on files on the SSD, then moving them to the SATA drive for storage (and backup to a separate NAS).
It also works well to play films/videos on, the HDMI output being fed to a ceiling mounted projector ( Benq W1210ST), and the optical digital sound output to a 5.1 surround processor.
..... so .....
Yours is basically a very capable machine with a few sensible upgrades, which fortunately are pretty easy to do as it was designed for easy changes to disks, graphic card, and memory.
The only real downside is that the system unit is pretty large, but I've hidden this behind the sofa and run long leads wrapped in a neoprene sleeve for the mouse/keyboard, headphones, and 4k 24 inch screen.
mikef said:
A1289 covers a whole series of cheesegrater Power Macs
2.26 is likely to be a 2009 2x 4 core Xeon box
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/m...
If it works, it's highly upgradeable and has a reasonable value on eBay, even if you don't want to invest in it yourself. Even the dual CPU tray has a value to folks with a single CPU that want to upgrade
Mine's a 2010, tricked out with
2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
Used for video editing, mutliple VMs and app development
Much of that was bought off eBay and it pretty much matches the performance of the top-of-the-range next generation Mac Pro for a quarter of the price
So you can turn it into something useful yourself if you're an experienced Mac user, or flog it off; either the whole box - or else processor tray, CPUs, RAM, GPU all have a value
That's an amazing spec - way beyond what I would need. 128 GB of RAM !!! That's an incredible amount !2.26 is likely to be a 2009 2x 4 core Xeon box
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/m...
If it works, it's highly upgradeable and has a reasonable value on eBay, even if you don't want to invest in it yourself. Even the dual CPU tray has a value to folks with a single CPU that want to upgrade
Mine's a 2010, tricked out with
2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
Used for video editing, mutliple VMs and app development
Much of that was bought off eBay and it pretty much matches the performance of the top-of-the-range next generation Mac Pro for a quarter of the price
So you can turn it into something useful yourself if you're an experienced Mac user, or flog it off; either the whole box - or else processor tray, CPUs, RAM, GPU all have a value
A question if I may . . . I see that the graphics card on mine, is the original Nvidia Geforce GT 120 512mb; why is it, that on Ebay, these sell for between £40 - £80 ?
Surely, it is possible to a 2nd-hand graphics card for less than that - and with more than 512mb ? Will any graphics card with the same type of fitting (PCIe ?) work with the Mac Pro ?
Oh yes, just wondering, does the RAM have to be DDR3 or will DDR3L (which will fit) also work ?
Thank you for your help on this.
[quote=C&C]I have an early 2009 model with 2 x 6 core Xeons, which I bought second hand a couple of years ago.
It now has
32Gb Ram,
2 x 500Gb SSDs (one to boot into OSX, the other for Windows 8.1),
2Tb SATA disk
Nvidia Gforce 680 2Gb graphics card
Although the graphics card isn't great, I do use it successfully for playing a few games - Dirt Rally and Euro Truck Simulator with a Logitech G29 wheel and gear shift mounted to a Playseat.
Also play World of Tanks Blitz a bit. I may look to update the card soon.
Apart from a few games, its main use is for processing photos using Adobe CS6 (the last version before it went subscription), and for this it's superb, working on files on the SSD, then moving them to the SATA drive for storage (and backup to a separate NAS).
It also works well to play films/videos on, the HDMI output being fed to a ceiling mounted projector ( Benq W1210ST), and the optical digital sound output to a 5.1 surround processor.
..... so .....
Yours is basically a very capable machine with a few sensible upgrades, which fortunately are pretty easy to do as it was designed for easy changes to disks, graphic card, and memory.
The only real downside is that the system unit is pretty large, but I've hidden this behind the sofa and run long leads wrapped in a neoprene sleeve for the mouse/keyboard, headphones, and 4k 24 inch screen.
[/quote]
Yes, it is put together in a kind of modular way, which just lends itself to being upgraded - so that's why I'm going to keep it. I like the way that everything seems so accessible . . . which is just as well, because it needs cleaning inside, very thoroughly.
As you've mentioned, it is a very large machine and not one that I can hide away from the missus - she complains about my need to hoard and have 'projects'.
4K screen sounds nice . . . the thing is, it seems so upgradeable, that once completed, I can see it lasting me a good few years.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply !
It now has
32Gb Ram,
2 x 500Gb SSDs (one to boot into OSX, the other for Windows 8.1),
2Tb SATA disk
Nvidia Gforce 680 2Gb graphics card
Although the graphics card isn't great, I do use it successfully for playing a few games - Dirt Rally and Euro Truck Simulator with a Logitech G29 wheel and gear shift mounted to a Playseat.
Also play World of Tanks Blitz a bit. I may look to update the card soon.
Apart from a few games, its main use is for processing photos using Adobe CS6 (the last version before it went subscription), and for this it's superb, working on files on the SSD, then moving them to the SATA drive for storage (and backup to a separate NAS).
It also works well to play films/videos on, the HDMI output being fed to a ceiling mounted projector ( Benq W1210ST), and the optical digital sound output to a 5.1 surround processor.
..... so .....
Yours is basically a very capable machine with a few sensible upgrades, which fortunately are pretty easy to do as it was designed for easy changes to disks, graphic card, and memory.
The only real downside is that the system unit is pretty large, but I've hidden this behind the sofa and run long leads wrapped in a neoprene sleeve for the mouse/keyboard, headphones, and 4k 24 inch screen.
[/quote]
Yes, it is put together in a kind of modular way, which just lends itself to being upgraded - so that's why I'm going to keep it. I like the way that everything seems so accessible . . . which is just as well, because it needs cleaning inside, very thoroughly.
As you've mentioned, it is a very large machine and not one that I can hide away from the missus - she complains about my need to hoard and have 'projects'.
4K screen sounds nice . . . the thing is, it seems so upgradeable, that once completed, I can see it lasting me a good few years.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply !
pubrunner said:
I see that the graphics card on mine, is the original Nvidia Geforce GT 120 512mb; why is it, that on Ebay, these sell for between £40 - £80 ?
The short answer is that Mac video cards are a bit “special” in their firmware. Many video cards will fit and work once booted up, BUT they won’t show the Mac logo and diagnostics on boot up, so if they don’t boot successfully it’s near impossible to tell why. There are not many Apple supplied cards, many are ATI 5770 and 5780 cards and the genuine Apple cards sell at a large premium over the equivalent PC card. There were only a couple of approved 3rd-party cards, like the GTX680 Mac Edition. Many cards can successfully be “flashed” to work on a Mac Pro and most you see for sale are these unofficial cards. To complicate things, the latest Mojave version of OS-X requires a card with support for Metal graphics, which are rarer still - but you really need an Apple-supplied card to actually do the upgrade, so don’t let go of your original card just yet. My GPU is flashed by specialist MacVidCards in HollyWood, CA, who specialize in these cards. I know, that’s turned into a long answerpubrunner said:
Oh yes, just wondering, does the RAM have to be DDR3 or will DDR3L (which will fit) also work ?
The Mac Pro is equally fussy about RAM - it shipped with ECC server-spec RAM sticks. Some report getting it to work with regular DDR3 RAM. Do you feel lucky? I would look to a specialist supplier like Macupgrades if you want it to work out of the boxEdited by mikef on Saturday 20th July 07:56
mikef said:
Mine's a 2010, tricked out with
2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
What he said. I have two of similar spec to the above, only with more SSDs than HDs for audio work, both machines 7 years old and still going strong. Two dual Xeon 3.46 boxes with 128gb each, all for less than the cost of one bog-spec Trashcan, and still outperforms them for multithreaded work. Marvellous. Will probably go into the cupboard come the autumn though. 2x X5690 hex-core 3.46 GHz CPUs
Radion R9-280X GPU
128 GB RAM
PCIe SSD card
2x 1TB SATA SSDs and 3x 6TB HDDs
PCIe USB-C card
To stretch the life of my 2010 5.1 out a little longer, I just swapped the GPU card for a much faster RX-580 (Sapphire Pulse), again flashed by MacVidCards in Hollywood. Less power draw than the old R9-280X.
I /think/ this is the same GPU as the base card in the upcoming Mac Pro 7.1 model
I /think/ this is the same GPU as the base card in the upcoming Mac Pro 7.1 model
Hi Mike, did you get your RX-580 direct from MacVidCards? I'm running a R9-280x plus run the monitor off the Geforce GT 120. Still on 4.1 so have run out of OS upgrades unless I update.
Debating whether to invest more, fiddling about upgrading the older banger or just buy an iMac/MBP and an eGPU. My main app is Resolve and now shooting BRAW is smoother to edit than ProRes, even on my 10 year old grater, but runs out of steam with more nodes.
Debating whether to invest more, fiddling about upgrading the older banger or just buy an iMac/MBP and an eGPU. My main app is Resolve and now shooting BRAW is smoother to edit than ProRes, even on my 10 year old grater, but runs out of steam with more nodes.
Thank you all, and especially @mikef, for all the very helpful replies I've received. I have to admit, I'd never previously even seen, or heard of a Mac Pro.
Time and funds {limited
} permitting, I am going to have a go at getting my Mac Pro up and running. I'll give the original Nvidia Geforce GT 120 512mb a go and if it doesn't meet my requirements. I've some idea of what to look for.
What is encouraging, is that once working, this machine could meet my needs for quite a few years.
Once again, thank you all !
Time and funds {limited
} permitting, I am going to have a go at getting my Mac Pro up and running. I'll give the original Nvidia Geforce GT 120 512mb a go and if it doesn't meet my requirements. I've some idea of what to look for.What is encouraging, is that once working, this machine could meet my needs for quite a few years.
Once again, thank you all !
Bacardi said:
Debating whether to invest more, fiddling about upgrading the older banger or just buy an iMac/MBP and an eGPU.
That's a hard one - you'd also need external storage for video work (thunderbolt 3 or NAS)I have a couple of MBPs 2016 and 2018 - here's a Geekbench performance comparison with my Mac Pro (nearly a ten year old machine):
| Apple Mac Pro 5.1 | MacBook Pro 2016 | MacBook Pro 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2x Xeon X5690 6-core | i7-6820HQ 4-core | i7-8750H 6-core |
| Memory | 128GB 1333 MHz DDR3 | 16GB 2133 MHz | 16GB 2400 MHz |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 580 Pulse | Radeon Pro 455 | Radeon Pro 555X |
| Geekbench 4 CPU | 25,839 | 12,934 | 20,906 |
| Geekbench 4 Compute (GPU) | 133,893 | 19,010 | 21,557 |
There are more powerful 2019 hex-core MacBook Pro's available and the internal SSD is incredibly fast. With an eGPU and Thunderbolt storage that would fly, but may cost as much as the forthcoming Mac Pro 7.1?
mikef said:
Sure, if you get stuck, just ask back on here
I'm on a very steep learning curve, but not ready to give up yet.Feel free, to sneer at my pathetic attempts to get my Mac Pro going.
The Mac Pro which is the A1829 model (2009) didn't come with any drives, so I thought I'd connect an old HDD - on the basis that if I messed it up, I wouldn't be losing anything of value.
I tried for an hour or so (In vain), to install an operating system. I kept getting the message :
' This disk doesn't use the GUID Partition Table scheme'
Eventually, it occurred to me (doh!), that the OS that I was trying to install (High Sierra) is too old for the machine - and this appears to be the case. I've now got to install an earlier OS; I believe that El Capitan is the latest that I can install - can anyone confirm that ?
pubrunner said:
I'm on a very steep learning curve, but not ready to give up yet.
Feel free, to sneer at my pathetic attempts to get my Mac Pro going.
The Mac Pro which is the A1829 model (2009) didn't come with any drives, so I thought I'd connect an old HDD - on the basis that if I messed it up, I wouldn't be losing anything of value.
I tried for an hour or so (In vain), to install an operating system. I kept getting the message :
' This disk doesn't use the GUID Partition Table scheme'
Eventually, it occurred to me (doh!), that the OS that I was trying to install (High Sierra) is too old for the machine - and this appears to be the case. I've now got to install an earlier OS; I believe that El Capitan is the latest that I can install - can anyone confirm that ?
Any help?Feel free, to sneer at my pathetic attempts to get my Mac Pro going.
The Mac Pro which is the A1829 model (2009) didn't come with any drives, so I thought I'd connect an old HDD - on the basis that if I messed it up, I wouldn't be losing anything of value.
I tried for an hour or so (In vain), to install an operating system. I kept getting the message :
' This disk doesn't use the GUID Partition Table scheme'
Eventually, it occurred to me (doh!), that the OS that I was trying to install (High Sierra) is too old for the machine - and this appears to be the case. I've now got to install an earlier OS; I believe that El Capitan is the latest that I can install - can anyone confirm that ?
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