Mac Pro 5,1 for DSC? (Windows 10 or 11)

[Oldmopars]

I have several computers, but I need to dedicate one to my flight sim build. I have a 2009 Mac Pro 5,1. This has dual Xeon X5690s in it. They are 3.46Ghz and 6 cores each. It has an RX 580 8gb right now, but I will upgrade that. Right now I have 16gb RAM, but can upgrade to 128gb fairly cheaply. 

I know this is older hardware, but it was a powerful workstation in its day. Do you think this will work? I can afford to buy a much nicer GPU if that is all I need, if I have to build a complete new computer, I will have to spread my funds across everything, not just a new GPU. 
 

The picture is my ATX converted Mac Pro with a Ryzen 7 5800XT. The Mac Pro in question looks the same. 

[MAXsenna]

Before my computer died it was a 3970K @3.7Ghz, 32GB, 2080TI, and I ran pretty much everything maxed out ≈40FPS.
Get more RAM and a better GPU, and you'll be "okay", depending on your own standards and preferences. Worth a try I'd say!

Welcome!

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[BitMaster]

There is no TPM 2.0 for this HW so Win11 for sure won't work on this platform, so you'd be stuck with Win10. If that is worth it, I honestly dunno.

It likely has DDR-ECC RAM with 1333MHz iirc, safe & secure but slow too. Same with PCIe versions and modern GPU, it's problems wherever you look.

Use that Tower, it's iconic, maybe the nicest Tower of all time impv, but forget the interior for DCS.

 

[Aapje]

That CPU is almost 15 years old and as a Xeon, is not made for gaming (workstation CPUs are made to do a lot in parallel at a steady pace, not relatively little very fast).

If you only get a new GPU, it will be really held back by the platform, especially in simming, with is relatively CPU-heavy.

So my advice would be to do a platform upgrade designed for further future upgrading (by getting a cheap AM5 CPU that is still way faster than what you have now and that later can be replaced with an X3D CPU). There is no point in buying a way faster GPU and have it held back so it performs like a much slower one.

[MAXsenna]

That CPU is almost 15 years old and as a Xeon, is not made for gaming (workstation CPUs are made to do a lot in parallel at a steady pace, not relatively little very fast).
If you only get a new GPU, it will be really held back by the platform, especially in simming, with is relatively CPU-heavy.
So my advice would be to do a platform upgrade designed for further future upgrading (by getting a cheap AM5 CPU that is still way faster than what you have now and that later can be replaced with an X3D CPU). There is no point in buying a way faster GPU and have it held back so it performs like a much slower one.

Getting a cheap secondhand GPU for testing? And he said he can't get RAM really cheap.
There are still people here on 1080is.

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[BitMaster]

If I were you, I'd keep that thing in an original as possible config and sell it 20 years down the road...or..if you have the skills and tools, convert it to a PC tower. 

Those things were built like Star Destroyer....

I remember delivering 2 of them to a customer back then, they eagerly awaited them at the front door and my helper, a big guy, who carried one, just gave his Mac to the happily smiling designerin hands, a small but sporty guy,....he almost fell backwards, that's how heavy those Macs are.... solid thru & thru. I'll never forget that moment. LoL.

Edited Friday at 11:04 PM by BitMaster

[Aapje]

14 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

And he said he can't get RAM really cheap.

It's still DDR3. 

14 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

There are still people here on 1080is.

The GPU that is in there is already 6 years newer than the CPU. Generally the GPU can be a decent bit newer than the CPU, but I have strong doubts that the current CPU can cope with a 1080, let alone something faster. Keep in mind that even a 4060 is over twice as fast as his current GPU.

And upgrading the current platform means being limited to PCIe 2.0, so that is also going to limit the performance.

[LucShep]

I used to have a Xeon W3690 (same thing as the X5690) OC'ed to 4.6Ghz on a ASUS P6X58D (skt1366), cooled by a beefy Scythe Mugen4), and 24GB DDR3 1600 CL8 (Gskill Ripjaws-X) running in triple-channel. It was then pretty close to a stock i7 8700K system that I also had build here at the time, but the memory and whole archicture was definitely showing its age - and that was in back in 2018 (seven years ago!). Even with that system OC'ed to the brim, CPU/RAM bottleneck would limit anything faster than a GTX1080, which was what forced me to upgrade to a whole newer system then.
That's really the only purpose I would find for a Xeon 5690 / W3690 if gaming was to be involved - purpose build "hot rod" (OC'ed) system with cheap selected components from the used market, just for the fun of it. And, well, that is not the case here...

I have to agree with @BitMaster - keep that whole thing as original as possible and sell it (now or later down the road), there are "vintage" system nostalgic buyers out there.
At stock speeds the X5690 is slow for modern gaming, the dual-CPU trickery won't help you there either, and I doubt the motherboard in there can even use faster mem than DD3 1333Mhz (ECC?) type, which is veery sloow for any modern gaming (so, a waste of time and money getting a higher capacity mem kit), even if slapping a new GPU and Sata-SSD on it for 1080P resolution gaming.

Get a reasonable budget to make an affordable system with all new components - we can help selecting parts to configure such system if needed.
Higher investment, sure, but also much higher imediate satisfaction and possible upgrade paths in the future.  
If you can't be bothered with picking parts and building it all from the ground up, then a decent prebuild system is not a bad idea (this one is at a great discount).
 

Edited 3 hours ago by LucShep