This is directed to somebody that may work in the industry (with Mac Pro's of course). I was looking into assembling a Mac Pro and there are some significant hurdles. But perhaps not insurmountable. I need to keep the cost down and don't need cutting edge stuff.
Do many socket 771 Xeons that are say, a year or 2 old, work in the 667mhz (last year's model) Mac Pro motherboard?
Are the power requirements for the motherboard very unusual? Can it be powered by other server type power supplies? (We all know the Mac Pro logic board is close to the 5000 and 5400 chipsets.)
Can one use memory riser cards from other server type motherboards in the Mac Pro motherboard?
What about all the connections? I don't want to use the Mac Pro case (lousy design for both cooling and noise plus its expensive) but was worried about how to connect all the wiring and that it might be Apple proprietary. I don't need built on audio as I will use firewire audio but I wonder if there are other hiccups I'm overlooking.
My plan: use older Xeons, 667mhz 1gb FB-Dimms x 4 as they are so much cheaper now, get a video card with the correct efi stuff so its both Mac and PC compatible (is there such a beast?), mount in my own case design (don't care about cosmetics), use non-Apple memory risers, don't use the memory cage thing and that will give me more flexibility to use aftermarket fans on Thermalright CPU heatsinks both fore and aft (push/pull: fan on each side of the heatsinks) or just use water cooling. If I have to use Apple parts, this is what they should cost if I'm patient and I wait for the used deals to surface:
$350 Motherboard
$200 Power supply
$75 Memory riser cards
$200 Xeons (just a guess)
$75 CPU heatsinks
$75 Video card (basic for HD @ 2560 x 1600)
$100 4 x 1gb FB-Dimm Memory
$20 DVD burner
$50 300gb Sata hard drive
The motherboard is going to cost at least $300 but if I can jerry-rig a PC power supply, use older Xeons, use memory risers that are not Apple, I could slash the price by a considerable margin.
Your thoughts?