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64GB RAM in 2006 Mac Pro (2,1)
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With this one it's the Lycom DT120 AFAIR, but you can use any of them. And it is bootable ofc – I use it as OS and apps volume. These are just pass-through adapters (chipless and driverless), only for re-arranging pinouts to regular PCIe form. "Bootability" is a talk between the controller of the drive and Mac Pro EFI AHCI driver.
Thanks for that explanation. Seems like the Lycom DT120 is a good upgrade. Is 512MB the largest M.2 AHCI PCIe SSD? Like the XP941 or SM951?
Except Apple ones 512GB is max what you can buy. Regarding adapters, I find Lycom overpriced for the same functionality as $6 adapter from Ali. I'm currently using such no name cards in all my builds and you can't tell the difference. There is no point in buying SM951 for 1,1/2,1 because these ~700MB/s is actual limit of speed in x4 PCIe 1,1 slot. If one wants a heatsink for their PCIe SSD the best solution is to use heatsink scrapped from old FB DIMM module (a half of it from the side without AMB). It can be glued to the SSD with thin thermal adhesive tape. But heatsink for a boot/apps only drive is an overkill.
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Still plenty happy with my MP 1,1 though I'm STILL looking for a pair of intel confidential 5355's (1066mhz).
Hey time to reboot a dead thread, I have a question about your setup. Is it totally stock OS wise (minus the boot.efi of course)? I only have 4 slots in my Pro because the memory controller is screwed up for the Riser A slot. So I'm running 16GB in Riser slot B. Do you think I could get to 32GB with 4x8GB? I just got the Pro a month ago from a recycler, and it took me 3 days to figure out why it kept crashing. I had all 8 slots filled with 32GB in total until I realized why it was crashing and pulled out Riser A. I'd like to go back to 32GB, can I? Also if I need to boot into Lion, will that cause an issue?
You're the first person I've seen online to get 64GB to work, I knew the Intel 5000x chipset could, but everyone said 32GB was the max for the Pro. This post of yours has given a glimmer of hope for me to get 32GB back.
Should work fine, though for a few dollars more (depending on where you live) you could find another Mac Pro 1,1. I picked mine up for $100.
I got mine for $139, I that was with the money I had left, I'm broke now and probably will be for some time, also 32GB is plenty for me and other than the ram controller for slot A, its 100%, works totally fine. I just wanted more ram for the stuff I do with it. Thanks for the quick reply!
hrutkaymods,
(1) Yes, it is a stock OS (now, OS X El Capitan, 10.11.5) minus boot.efi
(2) I agree with cw48494 that 32GB should work in your specific application.
With 32GB, I hope that your Mac Pro will serve you well for many months to come. Please post your results here!!
(1) Yes, it is a stock OS (now, OS X El Capitan, 10.11.5) minus boot.efi
(2) I agree with cw48494 that 32GB should work in your specific application.
With 32GB, I hope that your Mac Pro will serve you well for many months to come. Please post your results here!!
lol it may be months considering Sierra apparently needs SSE 4.1, been considering 3,1 logic boards, but I'm not too sure yet, plus I could get another 1,1 logic board and use the other 16GB of ram I have, we'll see if I can fins 4x8GB cheap enough. logic boards cost about $50, though I would have to take the ENTIRE system apart, and its anywhere near as simple as a PC to do so
I found a great deal on 4RX4 ram, I see you used 2RX4. I haven't bought it yet, I doubt it compatible, I've seen previous posts on 4RX4
Okay I've found 2RX4 ram at a pretty good price. I think its the same seller I bought my HP sever 8x4GB kit from looks like the same heat spreaders too. I might buy it... anyone know a place other than ebay I can sell my 8x4GB kit?
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I saw an individual who pulled the heatsinks off of his original 667MHz FB DIMMS to reapply the thermal paste. Makes me think if you have the correct speed and spec RAM one could surmise that just swapping the heatsinks from Apple certified DIMMS to non certified DIMMs you would have the same results. I'm guessing the folks who as selling the 8GB FB DIMMs with the correct heatsinks have done just that.
I considered swapping my heatsinks actually, but decided the thin HP heatspreaders would work fine and there's a possibility the heatsink design may not work on other ram properly
Edit: I just tried it (Since I have 4 unused 4GB Dimms) and my theory was correct. I had to re-notch the ends to get the Apple heatsink on (plus the side clips wouldn't go completely down) and then I realized the memory chips stick out the top of the heatsink (original had 4 chips in the center of the heatsink and the new one has 16, in sets of 2, 1 on top 1 on bottom)
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2006 Mac Pro (MacPro1,1)
Flushed to 2,1 firmware
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 [Purchased January 2, 2014 for $468]
Two Xeon X5355’s [Purchased February 25, 2014 for $45]
--> Upgraded to Xeon X5365's [Purchased November 12, 2015 for $90]
Macosxbootloader v3.1
OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
64GB RAM (8 x 8GB) [Purchased November 18, 2015 for $199]
Wow, that is a kick butt rig! What are your benchmarks?
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Caution:
The type of DIMM that works in 2006 Mac Pro is PC2-5300F 2Rx4 FB-DIMM ECC.
(1) The F after 5300 (or FB in FB-DIMM) means that the module is Fully Buffered.
(2) DO NOT get PC2-5300P DIMM’s. These parity modules are incompatible with MacPro1,1; both physically and electrically.
On eBay, use a search string like "64GB (8x8GB) PC2-5300F FB-DIMM”. I just did (November 21, 2015), and $176 is the lowest price at which you can get 64GB right at this moment.
Here are the search results.
What is it that allows the ram to be doubled up to 64GB?
Upgrading to the quad xeons, upgrading to a higher OS than Lion or the 2.1 firmware?
Does Lion support 64GB or just the 32 we are told it will?
I have a standard 2 x 2.66 dual machine with 32 GB ram but may need 64 for an application in the near future.
I'm actually happy with the dual processors and prefer the simple stability of Lion too although I could upgrade if need be.
I only want it to run midi and to store music samples in the ram for quick retrieval and performance so later OS's are not required and are just padded out with stuff I don't need.
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I did this with my original heatsinks. I also bought a few more low capacity Apple FB-DIMMs cheaply just for the heatsinks and transferred those to higher capacity RAM that came with cheap thin heatspreaders. I used 1mm thermal pads I bought rather than paste as this is what I found Apple had used. Although part of some chips protrude above the Apple heatsinks, I reckoned that the effect would be minimal on the overall heat transference.
To be honest, I did not see a massive difference in temps recorded once up and running. The original Apple FB-DIMMs ran quite hot and so did the generic RAM either in the heatspreaders or with Apple's thicker heatsinks. Nor did the fans kick in so perhaps we place too much store on passive thermal dissipation.
Is it possible to mix ram sizes in pairs? For example I have 2x1GB and 2x4GB occupying 4 slots (with 4 empty slots). Can I populate the remaining slots with e.g. 4x8GB to give a total of 42GB?
Obviously I am already mixing 1GB and 4GB rams; but I am wondering if adding 8GB rams will be an issue.
I have a MacPro 1,1 flashed to 2,1, running OS X 10.11.6.
Obviously I am already mixing 1GB and 4GB rams; but I am wondering if adding 8GB rams will be an issue.
I have a MacPro 1,1 flashed to 2,1, running OS X 10.11.6.
The two inner slots on each riser are the main slots. The outer two slots are slaved to them, all data to the outer ram has to go through the inner dimms controller chip first. For max speed with what your saying, I would use only the four 8GB in the inner slots and leave the other dimms off.
Also, the MacPro will use the dimms four at a time for 256bit access IF the dimms all match. The inner pair in each riser makes one 256bit group, then the outer pairs. The only reason eight dimms is faster than four considering the second four are slaved off the first, is that the serial memory controller is faster than four dimms alone, and does get a boost from the second set.
FYI...I was curious as to what this upgrade translates to cost wise from the quoted price of $199.00 purchased on November 18, 2015 to the current/present day just a mere year and three months later. Low and behold the 64GB (8 x 8GB's) of PC2-5300F FB Dimm memory can now be had for less half the cost ($97.95 Total) it was going for just a year and three months ago.
I think that the price drop is a combination of the fact that the market has been flooded with FB-DIMMs pulled from EOL Xeon servers & that the number of people still running systems that require FB-DIMMs is diminishing all the time. Even price of 800MHz FB-DIMMs has plummeted & these were only ever used in the 2008 Mac Pro 3,1.
I hate to be the guy who's like "HEY DOES THIS WORK"... but...
HEY DOES THESE WORK: 8x 4GB PC2-5300F DDR2 667MHz ECC Fully Buffered Server RAM
"PC2-5300F" and "Fully Buffered". They are "only" 32GB, but that's more than enough for me and they're very cheap. The "compatibility" list only shows HP servers, but I assume that won't matter.. right?
HEY DOES THESE WORK: 8x 4GB PC2-5300F DDR2 667MHz ECC Fully Buffered Server RAM
"PC2-5300F" and "Fully Buffered". They are "only" 32GB, but that's more than enough for me and they're very cheap. The "compatibility" list only shows HP servers, but I assume that won't matter.. right?