Mac Help?

I need help with a Mac Pro?

• I'm currently in the market for an 8 core mac pro, and I found several 2006 dual "dual core" mac pros's for for anywhere between $950 to $1200 US. If I were to upgrade a Mac pro of this nature to a dual quad core, and upgrade the video card(s), RAM, and hard drive(s), could I match or even exceed the performance of a 2009 8-core mac pro? The (upgraded) 2006 mac pro would most likely have dual 3.33GHz (socket 771) quad core intel xeon cpu's, and the 2009 8-core mac pro would have dual 2.4GHz (socket 1366) quad core intel xeon cpu's. Assuming that the RAM, hard drives, and video cards were the same on both models, what would the performance figures be if these two mac pro's were faced against each other? Any real life estimates or benchmarks would be greatly appreciated. Also, since the 2006 mac pro with the upgrades that I plan on doing to it would cost around $2500 US and the 2009 mac pro would cost around $4300 US, which one do you think would be more worth it in terms of future proofing? My thoughts are that the 2009 socket 1366 mac pro would be more worth it in terms of future proofing because of the ability to upgrade one day to 6 core socket 1366 intel xeon cpu's. So any thoughts on this would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much everyone! =D

• Answer:

  Go with the latest model because of the different specs on the 2006 model, an upgrade that you specified is not possible due to compatibility with newer products you would need to do such an upgrade.