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Mac Pro (Early 2008)

LEM Staff - 2008.01.08

It’s been 17 months since Apple introduced the original Mac Pro, which shipped with two dual-core processors (an 8-core model with two quad-core CPUs was introduced in April 2007), and the new Mac Pro is a big step forward: every configuration uses quad-core Intel Xeon CPUs for even more power.

Mac ProThe new 45nm Harpertown CPU runs at either 2.8, 3.0, or 3.2 GHz and is designed to eventually reach 4.0 GHz; it includes 12 MB of level 2 cache per processor, and supports a very fast 1.6 GHz memory bus (vs. 1.33 GHz on the original Mac Pro). The Harpertown CPU supports lower power, cooler running 1.5V memory, which should help keep the insides of the computer cool, and Apple now uses ECC (Error Correction Code) RAM in the Mac Pro.

For graphics, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT is the default, and you can add one, two, or three more video cards. Or you can choose an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or Nvidia’s top-end Quadro FX 5600.

This model add SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) support, which gives it access to 15,000 rpm hard drives for maximum performance.

If one SuperDrive isn’t enough, put in a second one for US$100 more. And you can upgrade from Apple’s regular wired keyboard and Mighty Mouse to the wireless (Bluetooth) version.

Unlike the previous Mac Pro, Bluetooth is now standard, but 802.11n AirPort Extreme remains optional.

A headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, and a FireWire 800 port are located on the front of the Mac Pro for easy access.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies

The AC power coming into your home or office is a sine wave, but some UPSes generate a square wave when you are operating from battery power. This is not good for the Mac Pro. Be sure you only use a UPS with sine wave output to avoid reducing the life of your Mac Pro.

Unsupported macOS

Although it is not officially supported, the Early 2008 Mac Pro can run the latest intel build of macOS via OCLP. Although OCLP contains patches which can allow even the original GPU to work with the latest macOS, hardware acceleration is unlikely/not guaranteed, and it’s recommended to upgrade your graphics card (see below) as well as other parts.

Earlier versions of macOS such as Sierra/High Sierra/Mojave can be installed using Colin Mistr’s Sierra Patch Tool. However, WiFi is not supported on this device. See our macOS Sierra page for more details and a link.

Intel-based Macs use a partitioning scheme known as GPT. Only Macintel models can boot from GPT hard drives. Both PowerPC and Intel Macs can boot from APM (Apple’s old partitioning scheme) hard drives, which is the format you must use to create a universal boot drive in Leopard. Power PC Macs running any version of the Mac OS prior to 10.4.2 cannot mount GPT volumes. PowerPC Macs won’t let you install OS X to a USB drive or choose it as your startup volume, although there is a work around for that.

Details

  • announced 2008.01.08 at $2,199 with one 2.8 GHz quad-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT; $2,799 with two 2.8 GHz quad-core CPUs; $3,599 at 3.0 GHz; $4,399 at 3.2 GHz; replaced by faster model 2009.03.03
  • requires Mac OS X 10.5.1 Leopard through 10.11 El Capitan, macOS Big Sur – Sequoia via OCLP (See website). Broadcom BCM4321 WiFi module, if present, is not supported by Sierra – macOS 10.14 Mojave and later are not supported.
  • Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compatibility
    • Grand Central Dispatch is supported.
    • 64-bit operation is supported.
    • OpenCL is not supported except with the GeForce 8800 GT GPU.
  • OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion compatibility
    • AirPlay Mirroring is not supported.
    • AirDrop is not supported.
    • Power Nap is not supported.

Core System

  • CPU:
    • Single CPU config (Quad Core): 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon E5462
    • Dual CPU (8 cores total): 2.8 Ghz Xeon E5462, 3.0 Ghz Xeon X5472, 3.2 GHz Xeon X5482
    • All CPUs offered with this Mac Pro are Quad-Core without Hyper-Threading.
  • Bus: 1.6 GHz
  • Performance:
    • Geekbench 2 (Leopard): 8254 (3.2 GHz), 8088 (3.0 GHz), 7650 (2.8 GHz 8-core), 5359 (2.8 GHz 4-core)
  • RAM: 2 GB, expandable to 56 GB using pairs of 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) RAM in 8 slots. 64 GB possible, but the system experiences a massive slowdown that is remedied by reducing ram to just below 64 GB.
  • L2 cache: 12 MB on-chip shared cache per CPU. (24 MB total on Dual CPU config)
  • L3 cache: none

Video

  • Default: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB RAM in double-wide 16-lane PCIe slot
    • 2, 3, or 4 Radeon 2600 optional (add $150 per card)
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT with 512 MB RAM optional (add $200)
    • Nvidia Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5 GB RAM optional (add $2,850)
  • Beyond OS X El Capitan: Depending on the OS you plan to install, you may need to change your GPU to support graphical hardware acceleration. OCLP has patches for the original GPUs, but this does not guarantee performance or hardware acceleration.
    • Kepler based Nvidia GPUs are supported up to macOS Big Sur (See website for Monterey Kepler Patcher). Ex: GTX 6xx, 7xx (not the Maxwell 750 Ti), GTX TITAN BLACK, etc;
    • AMD Polaris GPUs work from macOS Mojave and beyond.
  • Beyond macOS Monterey: Some GPU drivers may need to be patched with OCLP beyond macOS Monterey despite being currently supported. This is because macOS Ventura dropped support for CPUs preceding Kaby Lake, requiring the AVX 2.0 instruction set. As a result, certain AMD GPUs which work between macOS Mojave through Monterey (and are even still supported on newer Macs with the same OS), will stop working properly on Macs if the CPU does not have AVX 2.0 and is unpatched.

Drives

  • Hard drive bus: 3 Gbps SATA Rev. 2
  • Hard drive: 320 Serial ATA 7200 rpm standard – add $100 for 500 GB hard drive, $250 for 700 GB, or $400 for 1 TB instead
  • Optical drive bus: UltraATA
  • 16x dual-layer SuperDrive standard, add second for $100
    writes DVD-R at up to 16x, DVD+R DL at 6x, reads DVDs at 16x; writes CD-R and CD-RW at up to 24x, reads at 32x

Expansion

  • PCI Express: 3 open full-length slots
  • SATA: 4 independent buses
  • optional external 56k v.92 USB modem
  • Microphone: standard 3.5mm minijack, compatible with line-level input, not compatible with Apple’s PlainTalk microphone
  • FireWire: 2 FW400 ports (1 on front), 2 FW800 ports (1 on front)
  • USB: 5 USB 2.0 ports (2 on front)
  • Ethernet: 2 independent 10/100/gigabit ports
  • WiFi: optional 802.11n AirPort Extreme
  • Bluetooth: 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate

Physical

  • size (HxWxD): 20.1″ x 8.1″ x 18.7″ (51.1 x 20.6 x 47.5 cm)
  • Weight: 42.4 lb. (19.2 kg)
  • Gestalt ID: n/a
  • PRAM battery: 3.6V half-AA
  • Part no.: MA970

Accelerators & Upgrades

  • The best CPU possible for any Mac Pro 3,1 is a pair of 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon x5482 CPUs.

Online Resources

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