[Laminar]

It may come down to what's on sale when I'm ready to purchase. The i5-12400F is $110 vs. the i3-14100F at $125 for about equal single-core performance.

[Laminar]

Splurged a little and went for the i5-12600KF for $140, which also meant I had to buy a cooler for another $33. Initially planned on 16GB of RAM but at $38 for 16 or $53 for 32, I just went for 32. Spent a touch over what I had planned but I think it was all value-added. Son liked a white case, so we went with the white case and white CPU cooler.



Got a motherboard off of Marketplace for $50, found an open-box power supply from Best Buy for $40 shipped. RAM and processor were new. All in for about $370, which is less than an Xbox.

The i5 should outperform my 11th-gen i7 in all metrics.

Also, does the term "Black Friday" now just mean "sale"?

[reader50]

What will become of the MDD G4 -> Intel? Based on this thread, I assume your new build replaces the MDD Convertible?

[Laminar]

The MDD is mine and it stays. This replaces the MacPro 5,1.

[Thorzdad]

So, what kind of wacky fun can a guy get up to resurrecting a 2x2 G5? Asking for a friend...

[reader50]

When I rebuild G4s or G5s, the problems usually are dried-out heatsink grease, with hard-to-open heat sinks. Along with failing GPU fans. On the G4s only, there's also the PATA problem if you want to update the drives.

[Waragainstsleep]

The G5 heat sink parts from Apple used to come with pre-applied thermal grease IIRC. Except maybe they earlier ones that used to be supplied with gloves and a hatful of warnings about how toxic the super-duper special grease was.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

So, what kind of wacky fun can a guy get up to resurrecting a 2x2 G5? Asking for a friend...

Strip the Mac components and put a new Intel board in there. The use cases for a current Mac are dwindling, let alone a crappy slow one that's several OS versions behind.

[Laminar]

Facebook Marketplace strikes again. Spot the bent pins.



Went ahead and ordered a new board that got delivered on Saturday. In the meantime, we hooked up the power supply so we could at least see the fun case lights.



The mobo showed up around 4pm and we were gaming by 6:30.



I ran the Heaven 4.0 benchmark on my PC and his and it's a dead heat, which makes sense because we both have a 3060 and that's probably the bottleneck of the system. But he's getting a solid 165fps on Fortnite with no drops so he's pleased. Minecraft on Ultra Fancy settings is 500+ fps.

Next step is making a shelf to get the PC up off the floor.

[andi*pandi]

minecraft + 500fps = does not compute

You set your block rendering to 128 and you'll like it!

(great job, happy kids!)

[subego]

I like the anti-anti static mat.

[Laminar]

Looks like the bottom fell out of the classic Mac Pro market. Listed mine for sale for $450 and haven't had even a single "Is this available?" Checking eBay, they're more in the $200-300 range now. The fact that I have an SSD and an RX580 and upgraded 6-core processors doesn't mean much, especially when any ARM Mac will smoke it.

I'll probably pull out my RX580 and put the original graphics card in it and drop the price again. Daughter can have the RX580 to replace the R7-265 in her setup, then we can actually add some textures to Fortnite.

[MacNNFamous]

That happened a while ago. I sold a 6 core 3.33 mp for $350 like 2 years ago. I'm sure my monster 5.1 is worth nothing... but... still works for me. Do all my video editing on it too.

[reader50]

eBay shows the 2019 MacPro has fallen to $1500 for a 16-core. But it has proprietary storage, no obvious GPU upgrades, and the OS support may vanish soon. x86 gets Sequoia, but the next macOS release is a crapshoot. Even if we get it, it would almost certainly be the last x86 macOS release. And Sequoia may be the last. So if you have a 4,1 or 5,1 ... you have the same macOS upgrade options as the 2019 MP, with plenty of standard drive bays. Or you can buy the current AppleSilicon MP, with no support for GPU upgrades at all. And no M.2 slots, and no SATA bays (there is a single SATA port).

I'm still using my MacPro 4,1 upgraded to 5,1. Skipped the DarthPro due to no upgrades. Not really tempted to upgrade to any later MacPro.

[MacNNFamous]

Originally Posted by reader50 

eBay shows the 2019 MacPro has fallen to $1500 for a 16-core. But it has proprietary storage, no obvious GPU upgrades, and the OS support may vanish soon. x86 gets Sequoia, but the next macOS release is a crapshoot. Even if we get it, it would almost certainly be the last x86 macOS release. And Sequoia may be the last. So if you have a 4,1 or 5,1 ... you have the same macOS upgrade options as the 2019 MP, with plenty of standard drive bays. Or you can buy the current AppleSilicon MP, with no support for GPU upgrades at all. And no M.2 slots, and no SATA bays (there is a single SATA port).

I'm still using my MacPro 4,1 upgraded to 5,1. Skipped the DarthPro due to no upgrades. Not really tempted to upgrade to any later MacPro.

Yeah, I honestly have no idea what to do in the future. It'd be nice to get something that would support modern OSs... but like.... I don't want a PC. And hackintoshes seem ... well... not reliable. And having something that can dual boot into windows to run solidworks and other PC specific software is just so handy.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Yeah, my 2018 iMac is kind of worthless now. It’s basically a dedicated Plex server but 4K transcoding is kind of iffy.

Just picked up a refurb M3 MacBook Air. Seems pretty sweet, although it’ll likely just get used for kids stuff.

[subego]

I’m still rocking my late-2015 iMac, for 4K effects no less. Very creaky though. My M2 Pro Mini is easily 5x faster.

[reader50]

Just installed Sequoia on a spare partition to play with. But mainly to check the GPU driver files.

Still no support past the RX 6900XT. No ID entries for the 6950, or the 6650, or anything from the current RX 7000 generation.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Whoops, I meant Mini. But same difference.

[andi*pandi]

2013 imac. needs os update. out of room.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Whoops, I meant Mini. But same difference.

I’ve got four of those. All retired now by the single M2. iMac has the nice display, so still useful even though it’s pokier.

Stopped giving it updates at Monterey.

[MacNNFamous]

If only they had put input ports on the iMacs..... they wouldn't be trash, they would just become nice displays.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by MacNNFamous 

That happened a while ago. I sold a 6 core 3.33 mp for $350 like 2 years ago. I'm sure my monster 5.1 is worth nothing... but... still works for me. Do all my video editing on it too.

The dual processor versions always commanded a really good premium over the single models. I swapped the RX580 out for the stock Radeon 5870 and installed High Sierra. I'll relist it in that configuration with a price drop and see if I get any nibbles.

I couldn't find my mini-DP to regular DP cable so I had to go DVI-to-VGA and plug it into a TV to get stuff installed.

Daughter's PC is much better with the RX580 in it, we got the neighbor girl friended on Epic this weekend so they can play LEGO Fortnite together.

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by MacNNFamous 

If only they had put input ports on the iMacs..... they wouldn't be trash, they would just become nice displays.

this!!!

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Can you play Minecraft and Fortnite on Macs? I had a very brief period in late 2001 or so where I morphed into one of the better Unreal Tournament players on the planet, and then the next game came out and everyone started to leave and I lost interest and the only video game I’ve played in the 20-odd years since was a Donkey Kong Country sim. I now know nothing about gaming at all, but have younger kids who would probably have fun with them.

[andi*pandi]

MInecraft yes. Note that it's not the same as the xbox versions etc. It is updated, just not compatible I think. We would play the java version and share worlds on home lan with other macs and pcs.

[subego]

Do they have a Switch?


Edit: that question isn’t really directly related to those two games. It just… Mac gaming is a very tough row to hoe. I gave up on it decades ago.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

No Switch

[MacNNFamous]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

The dual processor versions always commanded a really good premium over the single models.

I just checked ebay. Dual CPU 5.1s with Radeon 5770s go for..... wait for it.... around $150.

lmao.

I really really wish there was a decent path forward, I friggin love mine but it is starting to get slow.

Fully pimped ones with NVMe drives and better GPUs go for around $300-400ish.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Can you play Minecraft and Fortnite on Macs?

There's two Minecrafts - Java is the original version and will run on anything that can run Java, including Windows and Intel and ARM Macs. There are hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of people playing Java.

After Microsoft bought Minecraft, they rewrote the whole thing to be Windows and console native and they call it Bedrock Edition. This is what you can buy on the Microsoft app store and for PlayStation, XBox, and Switch. Because of the cross-platform capability, there are probably millions more people playing Bedrock.

I've never played Bedrock so I don't know how different it is, my kids usually play Java but my son and one of his friends played Bedrock last weekend and he said he liked the combat mechanics better.

Fortnite for Mac is available, but Epic and Apple got into a fight about app store purchases so Epic stopped updating it several years ago and it's offline only.

I had a very brief period in late 2001 or so where I morphed into one of the better Unreal Tournament players on the planet, and then the next game came out and everyone started to leave and I lost interest and the only video game I’ve played in the 20-odd years since was a Donkey Kong Country sim. I now know nothing about gaming at all, but have younger kids who would probably have fun with them.

When I was doing tech support in college they sat me in front of an iMac for hours every week and since I was doing Mac tech support there wasn't much to do. I installed the Mac Halo Demo and proceeded to get MURDEROUS at Blood Gulch. I remember playing a lot of UT and Quake 3 in high school on my iMac, sometimes at night I'd use the dial up and play online

[subego]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

No Switch

Maybe I’m projecting, but I’d want a Switch.

More directly towards your original question, assuming Minecraft and Fortnite are what the kids say they want to play, find out what platform their friends use and get that. My guess is it’s not MacOS.

[MacNNFamous]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

I remember playing a lot of UT and Quake 3 in high school on my iMac, sometimes at night I'd use the dial up and play online

Peak .... everything. Games. Music. Life. 97-02 was amazing.