Does PCIe work on a MacPro4.1 with 5.1 firmware?

[FuchsFuchs1]

I have a MacPro4.1 with 5.1 firmware and 2 xeon X5690. If i were to install proxmox could i forward pcie card since it has a cpu wich supports it?

[Needfuldoer]

3 minutes ago, FuchsFuchs1 said:

I have a MacPro4.1 with 5.1 firmware and 2 xeon X5690. If i were to install proxmox could i forward pcie card since it has a cpu wich supports it?

I don't see why it wouldn't work, but a cheese grater Mac Pro isn't the best homelab Proxmox server. That thing's going to be very power hungry compared to even an Ivy Bridge machine.

 

What are you looking to do with it?

[FuchsFuchs1]

38 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

I don't see why it wouldn't work, but a cheese grater Mac Pro isn't the best homelab Proxmox server. That thing's going to be very power hungry compared to even an Ivy Bridge machine.

 

What are you looking to do with it?

well its currently actualy my main maschine and well sometimes the power cuts out to my room when me and my father play games. He has a MacPro1.1 and only plays source games so i could just give him 2 cores. The thing is everything since source needs a actual gpu since vbox and hyper-v dont emulate good engouth graphics for newer titles. 

[Needfuldoer]

9 minutes ago, FuchsFuchs1 said:

well its currently actualy my main maschine and well sometimes the power cuts out to my room when me and my father play games. He has a MacPro1.1 and only plays source games so i could just give him 2 cores. The thing is everything since source needs a actual gpu since vbox and hyper-v dont emulate good engouth graphics for newer titles. 

Oof, that's tough. What are the system specs of both towers?

 

Honestly, I'd recommend entirely new systems for both of you. They'll be much faster, and probably pay for themselves over time just in electricity savings.

 

Besides, if you're still running that same hardware on the same circuit, you're going to keep tripping the breaker. (And gaming VMs aren't a great idea, since anti-cheat picks up on that.)

 

If you're shopping for used Macs, make sure they're not tied to an iCloud account, but are supported by OpenCore Legacy Patcher. A Mac Mini with a Haswell or faster CPU, a 2013 Mac Pro, or any one of the iMacs released in the last decade will run circles around both of your Mac Pros while drawing much less power. (Reasonably modern integrated graphics can handle Source games.)

 

If you're open to using Windows PCs, you can get more for your money with prebuilt office desktops that have official Windows 11 support, or LGA2011-3 or LGA2066 workstations you can load up with RAM and a GPU if that's your thing.

[FuchsFuchs1]

20 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Oof, that's tough. What are the system specs of both towers?

 

Honestly, I'd recommend entirely new systems for both of you. They'll be much faster, and probably pay for themselves over time just in electricity savings.

 

Besides, if you're still running that same hardware on the same circuit, you're going to keep tripping the breaker. (And gaming VMs aren't a great idea, since anti-cheat picks up on that.)

 

If you're shopping for used Macs, make sure they're not tied to an iCloud account, but are supported by OpenCore Legacy Patcher. A Mac Mini with a Haswell or faster CPU, a 2013 Mac Pro, or any one of the iMacs released in the last decade will run circles around both of your Mac Pros while drawing much less power. (Reasonably modern integrated graphics can handle Source games.)

 

If you're open to using Windows PCs, you can get more for your money with prebuilt office desktops that have official Windows 11 support, or LGA2011-3 or LGA2066 workstations you can load up with RAM and a GPU if that's your thing.

1. MacPro4,1(with 5,1 firmware):
CPU: Dual X5690
RAM: 128GB DDR3 1333mhz(in system its only 1088mhz tho)
GPU1: GTX 1080 TI (non founder)
GPU2: Gt 1030
MacPro1,1:
CPU: Dual X5150
RAM: 32GB DDR2(im not sure but i wound asume 667mhz)
GPU: GT 1030
2. Not engouth money
3. Its source games and from testing the anticheat didnt give a shit
4. The macs run windows 10 and im going to switch to linux at windows 10 eol. Running Windows on Macs is like activating a cheat code since now you can put any gpu(up to a 1080 ti) and you are not limited by slow mac os and limited game support for mac.

[Needfuldoer]

15 minutes ago, FuchsFuchs1 said:

2. Not engouth money

What kind of budget do you have to work with?

 

I see tons of Optiplex 7040s with Skylake i5s on eBay for under 100 Euros. Yes they're "only i5s" and "only" have 8 gigs of RAM, but that's still double the processor your dad has and his GT 1030 should fit.

 

You'd have to find somewhere else to put your MacPro5,1 (or at least put it on a different circuit) if you want to solve your power issues. Then you'd need some sort of client machine to connect to your gaming VM with, since Proxmox doesn't do a local console. (I'm assuming he'd use the MacPro1,1 for that.)

[FuchsFuchs1]

On 2/10/2024 at 7:24 PM, Needfuldoer said:

What kind of budget do you have to work with?

 

I see tons of Optiplex 7040s with Skylake i5s on eBay for under 100 Euros. Yes they're "only i5s" and "only" have 8 gigs of RAM, but that's still double the processor your dad has and his GT 1030 should fit.

 

You'd have to find somewhere else to put your MacPro5,1 (or at least put it on a different circuit) if you want to solve your power issues. Then you'd need some sort of client machine to connect to your gaming VM with, since Proxmox doesn't do a local console. (I'm assuming he'd use the MacPro1,1 for that.)

Well I plan to not have clients since it limits gaming... And if I have a cpu on pcie passthought I can just connect a monitor to it. Also a Dell optiplex will never live up to 128gb of ram.

[Needfuldoer]

29 minutes ago, FuchsFuchs1 said:

Well I plan to not have clients since it limits gaming... And if I have a cpu on pcie passthought I can just connect a monitor to it. Also a Dell optiplex will never live up to 128gb of ram.

Your dad's machine has 32 gigs.

 

Even your machine has 128 gigs of old, relatively slow RAM, and you're probably not even using the vast majority of it most of the time.

 

If you want a high RAM ceiling, a single socket LGA2011-3 workstation is basically the replacement for your MacPro5,1.

 

If you're insistent on clinging onto these old computers, there's not much any of us can do to help you. Have fun.

[FuchsFuchs1]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Your dad's machine has 32 gigs.

 

Even your machine has 128 gigs of old, relatively slow RAM, and you're probably not even using the vast majority of it most of the time.

 

If you want a high RAM ceiling, a single socket LGA2011-3 workstation is basically the replacement for your MacPro5,1.

 

If you're insistent on clinging onto these old computers, there's not much any of us can do to help you. Have fun.

1088mhz is not slow. Also I am currently using like 30% of that. also no single socket comes to the specs of my dual x5690 plus LGA2011-3 cpus still use DDR3 and i dont really need more ram with my current setup. basicly a upgrade for nothing(except that im free from stupid mac limitations). Have a nice day!