Processor Change?

I'm considering buying a refurb. Mac Pro. ( Refurbished Mac Pro 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon - Apple Store (U.S.)) I plan on using this desktop for web browsing, watching movies, and moderate/heavy gaming. Should I be considering changing the processor if I do plan on buying or just stick with what's already there? And if I should change the processor is it a hard task?

Thanks.

 

I'll give you one word of advice - Don't.

Those machines are two generations old and can't be upgraded in the same way a traditional Windows desktop can.

 

Aight, thanks for saving me $2k mate.

 

You can find less epxensive desktops built around gaming that run more modern hardware offering better upgradability for future use. You definitely shouldn't be looking at any Mac, especially one using such old hardware, if you are going to heavily game on it.

 

yeah... I love OSX and Macbooks... and at times the Mac Pro has been a good machine. Right now since they haven't done a real update in years, its a piece of overpriced junk that is laughable beyond belief.

 

yeah- you almost just made a terrible mistake. good of you to do research in advance.

 

A HD 5770 standard for a $2K desktop?

Get real apple

 

Ok, somehow this topic is still in my mind. I currently have a 2011 iMac 21.5 (cheapest one) and it's fine, but I want more expansion options. Will the lowest end Mac Pro be faster than my current machine?

 

Not for what it costs. You've just been told by everyone here that the Mac Pro is outdated and overpriced. I will tell you again, buy a standard Windows desktop if you want something fast with expansion capability. If you don't want to lose OS X, create a Hackintosh.

 

Or just keep the iMac for general computing and use the Wndows gaming desktop for your gaming needs. Not only is Windows a much better environment for gaming but you will get better, more recent hardware with the ability to upgrade later down the line.

The Mac Pro would be a worthy upgrade (albeit still very expensive) if it offered the Sandy Bridge edition of the Xeon processor along with modern AMD/Nvidia graphics but they aren't. The Mac Pros are two years behind. Even then, you would want to stick with a consumer Core i7 desktop processor for gaming as the Xeons are designed more for design and raw number crunching (i.e. servers, AutoCAD, ArcGIS, modeling, etc.).

 

The outdated iMac top of the line 27" smokes the Mac Pro all around except being able to stick a card in a slot or fit a few hard drives inside.

Tim Cook said there will be a Mac Pro update next year, which means it will either be gone, or be a nice buy again for about 6 months.

 

That's an odd comparison. The iMac is a consumer all-in-one machine with desktop CPU, notebook graphics, and very little expandability. The Mac Pro is a server/workstation which you can get with dual 6-core Xeon CPUs, 64GB RAM, Fibre Channel networking, dual desktop graphics cards, dual optical drives, lots of ports and expansion.

The Mac Pro is 6 months overdue for a refresh to Sandy Bridge E, but despite the Nehalem architecture it should still run rings around an iMac with a heavy multiprocessing load (i.e. server use) or workstation applications with more than a few active threads. Single threaded applications would run faster on the current iMac. Games are probably a toss-up, except you can upgrade the card on the Mac Pro. And in Windows, you can probably run two cards in Crossfire mode.

The Mac Pro is a terrible value as a home/gaming rig and I don't think a refresh is going to change that. But it's not that far out of step with competing workstations from HP.

 

And considering that's exactly what the OP said he wanted to do, this is all that need be said.