Mac Pro 1.1 Upgrading

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I've recently purchased a Mac Pro 1.1, one of the Xeon 64-bit workstations. First Macintosh I've personally owned and it's a beauty.
I'm already planning on boosting the processors from the Intel Xeon 2.66Ghz dual cores to the 3Ghz quad core counterparts.
I'm having some trouble finding a suitable graphics card though, the information I've found online is pretty convoluted. Can anyone suggest a graphics upgrade that would speed up 3D rendering in programs such as After Effects and MaxMSP please?
Currently running 2x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256mb
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums felix.

The 7300GT's were a beast of a card with a high failure rate. Best I found in Mac Pro days was either a flashed ATI Radeon HD4870 with 1GB memory or the later 5700/5800 series. Not too cheap though.

The best CPU upgrade for your Mac Pro is the Bloomfield 5500 series 2.66GHz. If you Google replace Mac Pro CPU's you will find directions at sites such as MacRumours. Do not worry about the original 3GHz CPU's as the upgrade is not noticeable.

Sufficient memory is next, suggest with what you want to do 12/16GB, and an SSD will be the biggest bang for your buck.

Remember whilst your Mac Pro may be 64bit, the EFI is 32 bit, so Lion OS X.7 is the final operating system you can install natively with making your Mac Pro a Hackintosh.
 
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Thanks for the advice!

Yeah I've noticed that, even if I have it running with the 64bit kernel extensions it still doesn't want to update
Would a processor upgrade (a drastic one) change that?
 
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chscag

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Would a processor upgrade (a drastic one) change that?

No. Like Harry said, Lion is as far as you can upgrade to (10.7.5).
 
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what is considered a "mackintosh?

I've own a mac pro 1.1.I've upgraded the memory to 18 gb.have a matching pair of 5160's at 3.0 ghz. and have a sapphire ati radeon 5770 hd on the way.I've read a lot on this beast,and bought it for an audio only computer for my recording hobby.If I put the ati radeon card in is it a Hackintosh?Not that I'm worried about updates,because I'm at lion 7.5.Thats as far as this machine will go with out hacking.I've read about people getting maverics to work on it,and this interests me because I'd love to get logic pro 10,but the transport won't work properly in lion.I've given up on pc's after my vista,and windows 7 were destroyed by viruses even with good antivirus protection.This computer will not be online once I get it finished and working the way I want it.Without buying a new mac pro am I spinning my wheels?Or will it be what I want?It already blows the doors of my 3.0 ghz amd dual core pc running cakewalk.
 

pigoo3

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Without buying a new mac pro am I spinning my wheels?Or will it be what I want?It already blows the doors of my 3.0 ghz amd dual core pc running cakewalk.

As long as you don't need to run any more modern software applications than you have right now (you mentioned "Cakewalk" runs great)…then you can use this computer until the "wheels fall off"…even if that's 10+ years from now.

If you don't need to get on the internet…if you don't need any further updated apps that require more than OS 10.7.5…and if you don't need apps that need newer hardware…then you can run this computer forever!:)

But if (at some point in the future) you do need a newer OS version…do need newer apps…want to use newer peripherals…or you want to sync an iPhone or iPad with the computer…then you may run into some hurdles.

- Nick
 
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Just remember not all hacks to make the Mac Pros 1.1 and 2.1 models work with OS X.8 and later are successful. There is a risk involved of making a kellick!
 
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Yes I agree.Thats why 10.7.5 is as far as my mac pro will go.That being said it still kicks the *** off any PC I ever owned.It will work for the next couple of years.
 
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ok here you go

i just purchased a mac pro 1.1 myself lets get down to the brass tax on how to pimp this mother out.

Item's you will need.

1. 2x 3.00ghz intel xeon processors

2. 4 2tb western digital hard drives

3. 16 gig's or better ram

4. Graphics card (recommend amazon unless you have $1,599 dollars to spend from apple)

5. sixty four on thirty two

6. the maverick installer.app file in your applications folder.


Now sounds hard but its really easy.

go to youtube type in mac pro 2006 cpu upgrade.

watch video now listen up because theres something missing in that video in order to install certain xeon processors you have to reflash your mac pro with the mac pro 2.1 update using a hex editor so please make sure you have the right processors its a real pain in the can to do a firmware hack.

once the processors are installed run the machine verify both processors are working in about this mac.

once thats done shut down the machine

install the new ram and three hard drives leave your original in bay one and carbon copy clone the drive original to a 2 tb make sure its bootable.

once thats done replace the hard drive in slot two with slot one and place last 2 tb hard drive inside.

congratulations you just upgraded a 1.1

now for a graphics card get off of the 7300 gtx they fry boards and create **** get any card besides those.

now install new graphics card once finished download sixty four on thirty two get a legal copy of the maverick installer app and copy it to the applications folder run 64 on 32 from launch pad after installation do not use auto create usb key do it manual.

follow the read me you will be fine.

install your on mavericks have fun

all upgraded anything else we need to cover??
 

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