Let’s move the Macintosh collecting time table to August of 2018. By this point I’d been deep-diving into the more recent vintage Macintosh machines for a few months and had in my possession the 3 2007 iMac systems, the first of the 2 Mac mini’s (MiniServ), the G5 which started it all and the Japanese MacBook. In an interesting twist that I only now realize I had a sample of machine, albeit from varying time periods, from each major “line” that Apple produced in the post-2000 era: one laptop, one desktop tower, one “all in one” and one “mini” system. They were, of course, varied, with the “desktop” tower of the G5 being a PowerPC system, as opposed to Intel, but hey, it was something. Still, I wanted more and began to wonder if it was time for me to make the craziest purchase yet.
Let’s go back a bit to, maybe, 2010 range or so. I don’t recall how it happened, but in looking up computer upgrade videos I eventually found people upgrading Apple desktop systems that I, honestly, didn’t even know existed until that point! No joke, I thought the only computers Apple made were iMac, Mac mini, and the MacBook line. I was damn wrong on that one as the system these people were doing awesome upgrades to were aluminum beasts known as “Mac Pro.” I didn’t know much about Apple computers at the time, beyond the older machines I knew in school, so this was a revelation – here, in these videos, was a fully upgradable tower system with tens of gigabytes of RAM, 4 hard drive bays, and 2 Xeon processors, with enough PCI-e expansion to fill in the gaps.
It quickly became a dream machine, and was, in fact, the whole reason I got into wanting to own some of these Apple computers to begin with. It was just such an awesome thing and felt like the machine I needed in my life, it was just that awesome to me to see. The thing is, this crap is all expensive, and of course back in 2010 there was no way even a 2006 Mac Pro would have been in my price range — let alone did I have anywhere to set it up, given how my life was at that time. I’d simply have to wait it out, and wait I did. As the years went by, I kind of gave up on the quest until that Summer of 2018 when I got that G5. The Mac Pro and the G5 are, at first glance, identical. They do differ completely on the inside, of course, and there are noticeable differences to the outside, but the form-factor and overall look is just about the same.
The fact it looked so similar but was so different taunted me. Sure, I adore the G5 to no end, but it’s the last of the PowerPC family, and is forever stuck in the late 2000’s when PowerPC support finally waned. I needed a machine with more horsepower to truly take advantage of what the Macintosh ecosystem can provide a creative person; or, at least, what I felt it could provide, and the Mac Pro, even a modest one, would do me well.
The hunt was on, and it didn’t take me too long to find a candidate: a nice “Early 2008” unit for a good price. Why that one? Time to explain.
The Machine ID in question is “3,1” with the 2007 and 2006 models being the 2,1 and 1,1 respectively. The reason I didn’t go for one of those is they would be limited to Lion or later OS versions with some hacks I didn’t feel like doing. They also are generally a bit weak for the price you’d still pay for one then, or now, so they were out. The later ones, the 2009 and 2010-2012 models, the 4,1 and the 5,1 would be the best machines, but they were still commanding in many cases double what the machine I found would cost, and while I could afford it, I didn’t want to invest that much into one. The price-to-performance I could get with the 3,1 was good enough, and the particular specimen I found was not only in pretty damn good shape, but it had a few goodies with it.
The system in question was the standard dual processors 2.8GHZ model. It came with 2 (yes, two) separate 500GB hard drives, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, and, most peculiarly, a Windows 7 Home COA attached to the side panel; all that for a price I was fine with paying. Hell yeah! It wasn’t anything super special, but it was more than enough for me and my “needs” with such a system, and was certainly better than a “bog standard” unit.
Software wise, the machine runs Mac OS 10.11, El Capitan, which at the time I purchased the computer was on the tail end of support and since then has aged well enough – it’s still very usable and well supported by most every program I want to use on the machine. Sure, it could be upgraded to High Sierra (10.13) or later, but that involves hacks that, again, I don’t wish to do personally.
Once I ordered came the arduous wait; the hell of it taking nearly a week for this machine to come from Reno, Nevada, to Memphis. I watched it travel over the Rocky Mountains, into Nebraska and Missouri before finally making its way to Memphis. Ironic, given it shipped through FedEx, that it would take its sweet time to make it here, but that’s how things are sometimes.
When it finally arrived I was ecstatic. I finally had a Mac Pro, in my house, to be able to do with what I will! By incidental twist a 2008 Mac Pro happens to be the type of machine that Tom of IMNC had for many years, and he was one of the people (along with Adiblasi and Will The Plank) who also owned Mac Pro systems and were why I took such an interest in them to begin with. The question is, what the hell would I do with it?
Here’s the thing — these are powerful creative machines, great for video editing, music production, etc. The thing is, this is before I got back into guitar and bass so music production, while on my mind, wasn’t as much of a focus for me, nor was video editing. While I was considering making more content at that time, since then I’ve clearly made the decision to take a long break from content creation beyond blog entries, so that was out, and without these two most common usage options for this kind of machine it kind of served no real purpose to me. I had, ironically, bought a professional grade computer to just do normal computer stuff with: web browsing, writing on this site, and some other basic stuff.
Yeah, really anticlimactic, but the point is I actually have the machine, and can (and do) use it as I see fit. With me getting an urge to get back into content creation (namely, for now, bringing the podcast back) this machine may see more use, and recently I upgraded the RAM to 24 gigs total. Granted, it’s running a 667 Mhz vs the normal 800 the machine can run at, but that’s okay – the RAM the system came with was 667 as well and the performance penalty is far more minimal than it would seem so saving the money and getting more of the slower memory to match what I already had was better in the long run to me.
As always, there’s much more I could say about the machine, and intend to down the line. For now we’ll end things here with one of the queens of my computer collection – a modest, but still absolutely kick ass machine which, while I’m not putting it to its full potential now, I hope to very soon.
