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2009 macpro4,1 2.66 upgradeable to hex?

A

auhlixer

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2006
207
3
Philadelphia, PA
If the firmware is flashed to 5,1 can the 2.66 cpu be upgraded to the W3680 Xeon 3.33?

I read somewhere that the chipset in the 2009 macpro4,1 lacked some sort of stepping feature that the W3680 uses..
 
Works fine.

Infact, i've just done it.

6 cores @ 3.46GHz (Turboboost) is great.

Fans need to run quite fast to keep it in the highest performance state tho.
 
Before this Flash update was available, the only way to upgrade a 2009 machine to a Westmere (6-core) was to do a Motherboard swap to a 2010 board (backplane board), which can be done and works. I have a friend who did this.

The reason for this was that that the firmware that supports the B1 stepping is only on the 2010 boards.

The Flash tool now available will change your 2009 board (which by default only supports D0 stepping/Nehalem) to support the Westmere B1 stepping which is used by the 6-core processors.

So, yes, by applying the flash upgrade (flashes the firmware to your backplane board), and then dropping in your Westmere 6-core W3680 or W3690 processor, and of course carefully putting on your heatsink with thermal paste, you should have a working 6-core Westmere machine.
 
Upgrade

Hi

The computer I'm thinking about is a Mac Pro 2.66GHz Two Dual Core Xeon. - Apple Computer MA356LL/A.
Will this computer upgrade to Hex?

Thanks everybody

gary
 
No, your Mac Pro 1,1 is not capable of upgrading to 'Hex', however you can upgrade to two quad core processors, there is a thread in here all about doing that. Only a Mac Pro 4,1 from 2009 is capable of the 'Hex' upgrade.
 
auhlixer said:
If the firmware is flashed to 5,1 can the 2.66 cpu be upgraded to the W3680 Xeon 3.33?

I read somewhere that the chipset in the 2009 macpro4,1 lacked some sort of stepping feature that the W3680 uses..
Click to expand...
My Mac Pro is from 2009, was a 4,1 with the 3.33GHz Quad, now it's got the 5,1 firmware with W3680 6-core 3.33GHz CPU. No heat issues whatsoever no matter how long I render HD video. Stays cool when not working hard.

I have the firmware switching application, and it lets you go back and forth 4,1 <--> 5,1 at will, so you can always go back if you want.
 
The computer I'm thinking about is a Mac Pro 2.66GHz Two Dual Core Xeon. - Apple Computer MA356LL/A.
Will this computer upgrade to Hex?
Click to expand...

Nope. 1,1 Mac Pros use different architecture and will only work with 5100 and 5300 series chips.

The fastest chip that machine will accept is the Clovertown X5365 (3.0GHz quad-core). You can find these chips for under $300 each online. Just make sure both CPUs are the same eSpec/stepping if you decide to upgrade (there are two revisions of the X5365, for example).
 
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I am so tempted to do this with my 4,1 Quad but I have a history of frying things in computers. (As in bad thermal paste application = CPU died after 2yrs).
 
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