4 ms·

i have a 2009 mac pro. first upgrade: more ram second upgrade: ssd third upgrade: video card and monitor. it's on track to give me 10 years of use now, if n

i have a 2009 mac pro. first upgrade: more ram second upgrade: ssd third upgrade: video card and monitor. it's on track to give me 10 years of use now, if not more (i'll probably succumb to upgrade fever before then). knocking on wood. the ram and ssd were a given, but i was surprised at how much more 2d performance the video card delivered. i really just wanted 4k for the real estate, but the actual speed at which it renders everything jumped dramatically.

avidwriter 10y ago
2009 Mac Pro 2.66 quad here. just did a 3.46 hex cpu upgrade. 32GB 1333 RAM sm951 AHCI pcie m2 boot drive (700MB/700MB) nvidia 1080 when it comes out. bootcamp for games. 40" 4K Philips in os x for everything else.
- ulfw 10y ago
  So what is "Mac Pro" in this now? The case and the power supply?
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    The ship of Theseus :-)
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    well the cpu, ram, storage, and video card were never made by apple anyway. the case, motherboard, and other various hard bits and (maybe most importantly) operating system are still apple.
- frou_dh 10y ago
  If you want ultimate speed then take the RAM module out of Slot 4 because that CPU natively wants a triple-channel arrangement
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - avidwriter 10y ago
    good point, I can probably get by with 24GB.
pcurve 10y ago
2006 core 2 duo 6600 dell running just fine here. It's exactly 10 years old. running windows 7. Using HDD and graphic cards so weak it has no fan.
m_eiman 10y ago
I have a 2010 iMac that's unbearably slow at the moment, and since I suspect that the hdd is the reason I'm considering upgrading to a 1TB SSD (since I don't want less storage space).. But including installation, that's roughly $400. And spending $400 to prolong the life of an iMac with a fairly crappy GPU seems a lot. But on the other hand a new iMac (with a non-Intel GPU) is $2000 or more. Hard decision!
- r00fus 10y ago
  Would that $400 investment increase your resale price somewhat (probably not 1:1, but you will get utility out of it). Alternatively, just buy whatever's on sale for small SSDs and do a fusion-drive on it.
  - m_eiman 10y ago
    I'll keep the iMac until it gives up the ghost completely, so resale value isn't a parameter. It's more a question of "will the $400 give it enough longer life to make more sense than buying a new one now". Perhaps I should go with a 500GB SSD and transfer the movies and whatever else is taking up space to the server. And then buy a new iMac once they put the next-gen GPUs in them.
    - Alphasite_ 10y ago
      Why not a hundred dollar ssd and a drive upgrade kit for $50, so you can keep your current drive as well? Or fit a new 3TB drive while you're at it.
  - imtringued 10y ago
    What 1TB SSD costs $400? The 512GB SSD I bought merely cost me $120. The 1TB Model costs a slightly more than twice that. So far I've been completly disappointed with my purchase. Compared to my 3TB HDD I've spent more money yet only see a 2x improvement in speed compared to my HDD for sequential loads. Sure it now boots much faster but that's hardly worth the money I've spent on it.
Joeri 10y ago
My 2009 core 2 duo is still running smoothly with maxed out ram and an ssd upgrade. Granted, it doesn't do games, and I wouldn't want to train a neural net on it, but even as a primary desktop it's still nice to use.

avidwriter 10y ago

2009 Mac Pro 2.66 quad here. just did a 3.46 hex cpu upgrade. 32GB 1333 RAM sm951 AHCI pcie m2 boot drive (700MB/700MB) nvidia 1080 when it comes out. bootcamp for games. 40" 4K Philips in os x for everything else.

ulfw 10y ago
So what is "Mac Pro" in this now? The case and the power supply?
- rangibaby 10y ago
  The ship of Theseus :-)
- beachstartup 10y ago
  well the cpu, ram, storage, and video card were never made by apple anyway. the case, motherboard, and other various hard bits and (maybe most importantly) operating system are still apple.
frou_dh 10y ago
If you want ultimate speed then take the RAM module out of Slot 4 because that CPU natively wants a triple-channel arrangement
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- avidwriter 10y ago
  good point, I can probably get by with 24GB.

pcurve 10y ago

2006 core 2 duo 6600 dell running just fine here. It's exactly 10 years old. running windows 7. Using HDD and graphic cards so weak it has no fan.

m_eiman 10y ago

I have a 2010 iMac that's unbearably slow at the moment, and since I suspect that the hdd is the reason I'm considering upgrading to a 1TB SSD (since I don't want less storage space).. But including installation, that's roughly $400. And spending $400 to prolong the life of an iMac with a fairly crappy GPU seems a lot. But on the other hand a new iMac (with a non-Intel GPU) is $2000 or more. Hard decision!

r00fus 10y ago
Would that $400 investment increase your resale price somewhat (probably not 1:1, but you will get utility out of it). Alternatively, just buy whatever's on sale for small SSDs and do a fusion-drive on it.
- m_eiman 10y ago
  I'll keep the iMac until it gives up the ghost completely, so resale value isn't a parameter. It's more a question of "will the $400 give it enough longer life to make more sense than buying a new one now". Perhaps I should go with a 500GB SSD and transfer the movies and whatever else is taking up space to the server. And then buy a new iMac once they put the next-gen GPUs in them.
  - Alphasite_ 10y ago
    Why not a hundred dollar ssd and a drive upgrade kit for $50, so you can keep your current drive as well? Or fit a new 3TB drive while you're at it.
- imtringued 10y ago
  What 1TB SSD costs $400? The 512GB SSD I bought merely cost me $120. The 1TB Model costs a slightly more than twice that. So far I've been completly disappointed with my purchase. Compared to my 3TB HDD I've spent more money yet only see a 2x improvement in speed compared to my HDD for sequential loads. Sure it now boots much faster but that's hardly worth the money I've spent on it.

Joeri 10y ago

My 2009 core 2 duo is still running smoothly with maxed out ram and an ssd upgrade. Granted, it doesn't do games, and I wouldn't want to train a neural net on it, but even as a primary desktop it's still nice to use.