what to do with aging mac pro

Question

Level 1

25 points

what to do with aging mac pro

My Mac Pro is getting old. I bought it in mid-2007 and have loved it. But now I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion and I'm starting to wonder if I will have trouble upgrading Apps in the future like Aperture, iMovie, Pages, In-Design, etc. I feel I can live without ML but I figure that eventually, and probably sooner rather than later, there will be some impact on the Apps if I'm not running the latest OS. Is this a reasonable concern?

I see where Mac Pros that are the same genre as mine are still moving on Ebay. Is it reasonable to think I can get something for it or should I just run it 'til it can't run no more?

Here is the basic info on my Mac.

All opinions welcome. Thanks.

Alice

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5), iLife 11, Aperture 3.43

Posted on Jan 14, 2013 8:40 AM

Reply

Answer 1

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Jan 14, 2013 8:42 AM in response to alice_srq

All OS X versions are discontinued sooner or later and you won't receive more updates, but until then, you can use the Mac without any problem unless it has got a hardware problem. My advice is that you should carry on using it until Apple discontinues updates for that computer

Reply

Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jan 14, 2013 8:45 AM in response to alice_srq

you can get more out of it but save for next major upgrade.

I would say add more RAM @Amazon has $70 4x2GB that I use. So I'd go to 16GB at least for what you do.

How To Install and Remove Memory Mac Pro

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4433

2x2GB FBDIMM DDR2 667MHz @ $35

http://www.amazon.com/BUFFERED-PC2-5300-FB-DIMM-APPLE-Memory/dp/B002ORUUAC/

Hopefully you have 4 or more internal hard drives, SSD -

and keep those in top shape for system and storage as well as scratch and an ATI 5770 at least.

Nice to have a backup computer as well as system.

Other than security patches always having the latest? if you can do what it was intended to run, no reason to keep upgrading and buying.

Reply

Answer 3

Ziatron

Level 5

4,186 points

Jan 14, 2013 3:08 PM in response to alice_srq

Any Mac Pro capable of running OS 10.6 is valuable. OS 10.6 was the last version of the Mac OS to include Rosetta, this is what makes it valuable to some people. Especially people involved with video.

Reply

Answer 4

Feb 4, 2013 6:25 AM in response to alice_srq

Hi

My recent experience suggests to sell it while it still has some value.

My early 2008 Mac Pro needed more ram as a result of upgrading to snow leopard 5 months ago. £80. Then the NVIDIA graphics card went (knocks out whole machine). £350 for new card. Have just traded it in for a leased MacBook Pro. They have allowed £460 against it, which is just £20 more than I recently spent on it.

Had I left it another year, it's value would have dropped so low it would not be worth spending any money on it at all.

Sob sob, it gets taken away tomorrow. Strange to think the laptop is faster and more powerful. End of an era!

Reply