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12 core 2,66 to 3,46 upgrade worht?

M

mpta

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
41
8
Hello Guys,

Does it make sense to upgrade X5650 to X5690?
I know it's quite a lot of GHz but will I fill it? I am doing a lots of 3D rendering but more painful is Photoshop with big files so maybe its single thread low GHz frequency issue? I am using it with quadro 4000.

All the best
-Maciek
 
3D rendering usually able to utilise lots of cores. But as you said photoshop is not. If you are ok with the X5690's cost, it's actually worth to do it. If you rarely fully utilise all 12 cores, dual X5677 may be the very best option for you. They are much cheaper than the X5690.
 
Thank you for your answer. I will just double check if there is any heating problem and I will go for it. Thanks!
 
Both CPU option has been proved no heating issue. Even though the 5,1 never shipped with dual 130W CPUs. Since the cooling system is so good in the cMP and lots of headroom to take more heat. The worst case is just need to spin up the fan a bit (which also means more noise). Of course, the assumption is that the thermal paste is correctly apply, the heat sink itself is clean, the fans are working properly, and there is nothing block the Mac's circulation, etc. However, since the SMC may never programmed to handle dual 130W CPU. You may need to create your own fan profile. Or manually increase the RPM.
 
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I did his exact upgrade a while ago. It is worth it for sure if you plan to keep your 5,1 cMP for a while longer. It is the fastest single core and multicore setup you can get for this machine.

If you utilize all 12 cores for rendering, is CPU speed is up there with the fastest nMP 12-core.

The single core speed is also the fastest you can get on this machine, but is below most new Mac machines today.
 
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I went from two dual core 2.66 GHz to two quad core 3.0 GHz CPU's in my 2006 Mac Pro. It made a huge difference.

While a different setup than yours, I would expect you'd definitely notice an improvement.
 
I think you should get a pair X5690, they very cheap now, even you get pair only with 400-500$.

Our tower is near end support and consider put fastest processor at least to add longer lifespan. Even i'm feel my dual core X5690 is "slow" and energy inefficient since I'm hands on with modern E5 xeon cpus.
 
Thank you guys so much.

yurc said:
Even i'm feel my dual core X5690 is "slow" and energy inefficient since I'm hands on with modern E5 xeon cpus.
Click to expand...

So I need to ask myself.. 500$ and more speed to my mac pro or maybe windows :(. Thanks guys.
And what about X5675 (3.06GHz)? I know that jump is small but it costs just 200$ and having same TDP as X5650 so no heating issues for sure.
 
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mpta said:
And what about X5675 (3.06GHz)? I know that jump is small but it costs just 200$ and having same TDP as X5650 so no heating issues for sure.
Click to expand...
For $200 you can buy pair of X5680 (3.33Ghz). Performance nearly like X5690, no heating issues and have very reasonable price.
 
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I see the 5680s have a TDP of 130w while the 5675s can pull 95w.

Have dual 5680s been stable in heavily-loaded, heavily-exerted systems?
 
I second the use of MacsFanControl. I live in Sydney, Australia and the Mac Pro is my first desktop computer that did not have overheating issues in the summer months.

I have a 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 which I upgraded from a single 2.8GHz CPU to dual 3.0GHz. I decode DVDs for my media library and now I have found that the speed limitation there is the bandwidth of the old PATA/IDE bus on the DVD drive.

I won't buy a trash-can Mac Pro. Too expensive and lacks expandability. I would spend the money on another classic Mac Pro and give it all the upgrades that will go into it.
 
I did the x5680 upgrade. I just didn't see the value of the small jump to x5690 for over double the cost. Machine is solid as a rock and with an SSD incredibly fast as well.
 
Yes,

will get you to next year.

PowerMike G5 said:
I did his exact upgrade a while ago. It is worth it for sure if you plan to keep your 5,1 cMP for a while longer. It is the fastest single core and multicore setup you can get for this machine.

If you utilize all 12 cores for rendering, is CPU speed is up there with the fastest nMP 12-core.

The single core speed is also the fastest you can get on this machine, but is below most new Mac machines today.
Click to expand...
 
I have enjoyed the performance boost. What is a surprise is the Dual X5690 is running at idle CPU A 112F and CPU B 98F. I have multiple VM's open and the extra CPU with cores is worth it. The ability to support extra RAM, 64GB Single X5690 and 128GB for Dual X5690 is also nice to know in the future as the OS will get more memory hungry. This system should last me to 2019 when I can buy the 7,1 MacPro 2018 used off of Craigslist like I bought this one in 2010. Or I will go Hackintosh.

If you were ever wondering what is the performance between a Mac Pro 2009 with dual 2.26Ghz processors versus a single processor X5690 3.46Ghz, and dual processor X5690 3.46Ghz, here are the geek bench 4 numbers.

(EDIT UPDATE)
Geekbench 4 32bit
2009 Mac Pro E5520 8 Core with 48GB RAM (4,1 to 5,1)

Single-core 2,083

Multi-core 10,705

Geekbench 3 64bit
2009 Mac Pro X5690 6 Core with 12GB RAM (3x4GB) (4,1 to 5,1)

Single-core 2,840

Multi-core 16,247

Geekbench 3 64bit
2009 Mac Pro X5690 12 Core with 48GB RAM (3x16GB)(4,1 to 5,1)

Single-core 2,867

Multi-core 30,798


These are the real scores of my system. The ratios can vary depending on how many background apps and such. I am using 3qty OWC 16GB Dimms for RAM and booting from OWC PCI storage.

# Name Platform Architecture Single-core Score Multi-core Score Geekbench 4
2723427 MacPro5,1Intel Xeon E5520 2260 MHz (8 cores) Mac OS X 64 x86_64 2083 10705
# Name Platform Single-core Score Multi-core Score from Geekbench 3
8346592 MacPro5,1Intel Xeon X5690 3460 MHz (6 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 2840 16247
8346588 MacPro5,1Intel Xeon X5690 3460 MHz (12 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 2867 30798
 
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@yukdave. these benchmarks are pretty useless....for the 5.1 the Geekbench 3 / 64 bit works best, so the 3 Geekbench4 scores won't mean much to most of us.

And a benchmark in 32 bit is equally useless.

Geekbench 3. 64 bit;
For the 3.46Ghz 6 core. its ±2900/ 16500
,, 12. ,, 2900/ 32000
 
I went the x5680 route simply because I found a matched pair for $180. They run very well and plenty cool. The x5690s while only slightly higher in clock speeds/benchmarks were nearly double the price. There's a small part of me that wonders what I might be missing, but I doubt I'd notice much real world difference between the two.
 
astonius86 said:
I went the x5680 route simply because I found a matched pair for $180. They run very well and plenty cool. The x5690s while only slightly higher in clock speeds/benchmarks were nearly double the price. There's a small part of me that wonders what I might be missing, but I doubt I'd notice much real world difference between the two.
Click to expand...

Yep... the mind makes it all worth the extra expense in the end. Always go all the way, or not at all. Cause someday your mind will say "hmm... if I'd gone one step higher, I wonder what it would be like?" And then you convince yourself to buy the parts you wanted the first time. Lol.

I think you'll be fine. But I know how the human mind can spend double the money when it tries to save money :D
 
flyinmac said:
Yep... the mind makes it all worth the extra expense in the end. Always go all the way, or not at all. Cause someday your mind will say "hmm... if I'd gone one step higher, I wonder what it would be like?" And then you convince yourself to buy the parts you wanted the first time. Lol.

I think you'll be fine. But I know how the human mind can spend double the money when it tries to save money :D
Click to expand...

So true! Maybe a few months from now I'll find someone in the same boat to buy them off of me :D
 
astonius86 said:
So true! Maybe a few months from now I'll find someone in the same boat to buy them off of me :D
Click to expand...

Yeah at the end I did something else. I bought pair of 5675 which should be noticed while using all 12 cores.
I wanted to stay cool with temps and silent with fans. SO lets see :) 200$ was not much. Waiting for DHL now. Next will be also 7.1 probably.

Thanks guys
 
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Here is what I got:

# Name Platform Single-core Score Multi-core Score
8346592 MacPro5,1Intel Xeon X5690 3460 MHz (6 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 2840 16247
8346588 MacPro5,1Intel Xeon X5690 3460 MHz (12 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 2867 30798
 
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