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Old Mac Pro 1.1 with 2 x Radeon HD 5770 vs i7 mac mini?
So my i7 mac mini still works great with FCPx 10.1 and the whole library thing seems to work great – even when I have all of my libraries 7 or so with 3000+ clips in them enabled – I think it somehow disables the libraries temporarily when you don’t have highlighted as I don’t see a slowdown.
My mini though does have a wimpy AMD Radeon HD 6630M with only 256Mb of ram (BTO option non longer offered) , ( yes a miracle that is works as well as it does (I have one library that has over 1000 clips and I can scroll through them all, not even using proxy – shite!) I was reading some folks here who did the BruceXrender test with old Mac Pro 1.1s with two 5770 were getting good render results BUT I wonder how these old machines work compared to say my i7? Can they still handle lots of clips in an event / library and can you scroll through them OK? If you look at the Geekbench scores an i7 is 10x faster than an Xenon no?
Just wondering if I should ditch my mini for a piece of history!
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12 Replies
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I would not invest in old technology. Perhaps you can get good results with this version, but at some point newer versions of X might not work.
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buying a 1,1 machine makes no sense. You can go to ebay and get a 3,1 machine fro $700 from countless people, and this 3,1 will support a 64 bit operating system, OS X Mavericks, and all the modern PCIe cards on the market. If you find a 1,1 for $500 – are you really trying to prove that “I saved 200 bucks, and look – it still works” – what the hell does that mean ? Spend the extra $200 bucks, buy a 3,1, and do everything without excuses. The 3,1 works fine for everything, and supports everything, and it is readily available on ebay.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com -
even mac os mountain lion (10.8.) wont work on the machine as it has 32bit EFI.
10.8. require 64bit EFI, so you would ge stucked at MAC OS 10.7.x.
danny
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A Mac Pro 1,1 machine cannot be upgraded beyond 10.7.X. You should make sure the older machine you are interested in can run 10.9 first.
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You are incorrect, a 1.1 machine can be upgraded with this – oemden.com/?page_id=585
Secondly I’m asking what the performance is like, not looking at spending more that $300 on the machine sans GPU so perhaps this is not as dumb as many of you suggest and sure I’ll take a $3k machine if you’re buying 🙂
I know this is old tech but just curious.
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[Richard Jacana] “You are incorrect, a 1.1 machine can be upgraded with this – oemden.com/?page_id=585
Interesting. How well tested is this with apps like FCPX?
Secondly I’m asking what the performance is like,”
My 1,1 with a 5770 graphics card works pretty well. I’m definitely ready to upgrade to the new macpro. Personally, I would buy a new iMac over something like a 1,1 or a 3,1 for FCPX.
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Hello Everyone, I know this won’t be a recommended practice, but it does work, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the performance and reliablity. But you can turn your Mac Pro 1,1 into a HackPro that will run 10.8 and 10.9. I have an old Mac Pro 1,1 and after much research I made the step to install the Chameleon boot loader and was able to successfully install Mavericks. I did upgrade my Video card from the 8800 to a Radeon 5770 and an Nvidia gfx 620. Also I went from 4 gigs of ram to 16. I am currently able to run the newest version of Final Cut Pro 10.1.1 and have no problems with HD or 4K video. I am currently waiting for my new Mac Pro (Late 2013) to arrive, still 4 weeks out. But when it arrives, I will use the old mac pro as a rendering bay and storage facility for my new Mac Pro. No reason to trash the old beast, if it still can serve a purpose then by all means use it. I do agree if you can afford the newest and best, by all means. But if you are in a situation where you can’t then by all means Upgrade. You can contact me if you need help. I will do my best to help you remotely.
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Thank you so much for your post Michael! I also have an old Mac Pro1.1 and trying to keep it working. Can you also run Adobe Premiere Pro CC on yours? Or would you know which configuration/graphic card would be needed or if it would work at all? Thank you!
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So far I have been able to use all the Creative cloud software applications. I will admit that the PCIE bays are the v.1.0 and so the Radeon 5770 is slower than what it should be but it gets the job done. I am running Nvidia and Radeon in my computer. Some say that is a No No, but I needed a card that would fit in the 4 slot. I have other PCIE cards that must stay in the computer. I have been running Mavericks with this machine since October of last year without fail. I just got my first GoPro Hero +3 black edition, and I havent show much 4k video yet, but the little clips I have done have been ok and rendered just fine, I would say its about 3.5 minutes of render to 1 minute of footage when it comes down to it. Hope this answers your question, or at least helps. Let me know if you need anything else.
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Hello ! I purchased a few days a mac pro 1.1 the same as yours , but mine is a 3 ghz . Now I have a video card geforce 7300 256 mb , a 2tb hdd and ram is 5 gb ……. I just ordered a video card radeon 5770 to put on mac 1.1 ( hoping that it works ) .
Then I would like to extend the ram , and I would put a ssd ….
you think it’s worth it to spend some money on this mac ???
I would use for FCPX and I hope that after the changes work well !!!!!!
why try to ” original ” does not work at all well with FCPX !!!!!!
Tips ?
thanks
Alessio
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