Upgrading 2008 Mac Pro

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Level 2

167 points

Upgrading 2008 Mac Pro

While I'm waiting to see the 2013 Mac Pro, I thought that I might upgrade my 8 core 2008 Mac Pro if I would see performance improvements.

I already have a 5770 Graphics card and 8 GBs Ram. I was thinking about adding an SSD 6GBs startup drive and another 8 GBs ram since I have the Ram slots available. I'll mainly be using Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro 9.

Has anyone performed a similar upgrade to a 2008 Mac Pro and can you tell me what kind of performance boost I should expect?

From what I've read boot up time and app launch time should be much faster. What about any other performance boost (i.e. like while an app is running)?

I'm running SL 10.6.8 currently because of external raid drivers but will be formating the SSD drive to dual boot into Lion (and maybe 10.8).

Thanks,

-Richard

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 8 GIGS RAM, 5770 Graphics card

Posted on Jun 17, 2012 5:27 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 17, 2012 5:59 AM in response to Richardttt

Save your money.

Sell and buy the 6-core 3.33GHz instead.

The SSD at least can go into any system but you won't benefit from it being 6G until there are SATA3 ports and by then new prices and models.

Amazon has 2 x 4GB for $220 top tier memory.as long as you have the slots the best DIMM configuration is to use all 8 slots.

We don't know when, we can guess and assume like every other new model that give it 3-4 months to work out firmware and chps and drivers and two OS patches though.. Buy yourself a good solid year and yours has value: it runs 10.5.8 or later and still fetches $1500 possibly making the Apple Store Special 2.8 4-core that can be upgraded $590 to same 6-core 3.33.

However - seems EVERYONE has done upgrades. that is not new different or unique and lots of threads. Take a look at those with 2008s - trouble with those models too with PSU or startup/shutdown and other oddities.

Use to be you could rely on and visit www.xlr8yourmac.com and find lot of reader feedback reports on systems.

I think the time to sell could be now.

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Answer 2

Richardttt Author

Level 2

167 points

Jun 17, 2012 7:12 AM in response to The hatter

Thanks for that very interesting upgrade option.

From what I read the 6 core 2010 Mac Pro would be a nice performance upgrade from the 2008 8 core.

Now if I can find one for a decent price. None on ebay or the Apple store this morning.

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