Hello,
I have this old mac which is still really fast,
but well 
would be, if harddrives didn´t
slow it down.
Solution maybe sata3 ssd with pci-e card
connection, but I have not found one
It is 2.8(core4) * 2 , 12mb level 2 cache
for whatever that means, allways though
that 12mb was some really good thing
Yes, thats still a nice machine, very reliable indeed.
You can simply apply SSD’s to the HD slots, either with bought adapter mounts or i even made them myself with simple aluminium u-profiles. Beleave me, the reachable 270 MB/s is faily enough, i have such in a MacPro 1.1 also with sata2. The most significant benefit is the fast acces times.
If you absolutely want it, you can add a cheap pci-card that holds M.2 ssd or msata ssd. Don’t expect topspeeds from the pcie 1 slots. A comparison can be found at barefeats.
Also consider adding a faster gpu, which can be either a saphire 7950 mac-edition with bootscreen or up to a gtx 980 ( has no bootscreen until patched). You can also feed a 7970 or gtx 980ti with getting extra ( dvd slot sized ) psu, such as the booster-x. Keep in mind it can be easy going by keeping any Mac gpu just for the screen and another for rendering, where missing bootscreen would not be an issue then.
See my maxed out ( 5.1 from 2010 ) here as example: http://www.luxrender.net/forum/download/file.php?id=22229&mode=view
Cheers … Jens
What I have on my shelf is msi geforce gtx 750 ti, 32GB ssd and 64 GB ssd (these should have around 230mb/sec speed)
This gtx seems to only work with windows, maybe I put windows 8 on board and on the shelf the three os x harddrives
where I have SnowLeopard and LCapitan.
I was into coding for a while so the Grahics card didnt matter, I dont have ultra hd display that is.
The ssd speeds would have mattered in coding though, I am quite sure.
Jens, Your machine looks nice ! :).
My graphics card seemed to do nice speeds also when I tested cycles a little bit with it.
1: Jep, the internal MacPro 3.1 ssd slots will give you around 270Mb/s with any actual ssd ( even if the could deliver the typical 480MB/s ), an Stripe0 maxes out @ 550MB/s cause of the Mobo bandwidth.( afaik all ssd share 2 lanes )
2. Almost all gpu’s work in a Mac too, but may have no EFI patches available, thus work without bootscreen, Also check if NVidia so called “webdriver” supports it. ( MacRumors also lists “compatible” gpu’s, so does netkas.org )
3.Jep, buy only what you really need, prices are in flow always, expecially when new models are imminent as by now.
Cheers … Jens