Best CPU for Mac Pro 6.1

[SamPotts]

So I finally received the 2673 and got it fitted. Temps do seem to be ~5-8c lower at my usual "idle" (plenty of apps open but nothing intensive running) - ~57c rather than the ~65c I usually saw with the 2667 - both with an ambient temp of 30c. However, that could well be down to a fresh application of thermal paste and the removal of dust during the process. I did notice while taking the machine apart that had a fair bit of dust had accumulated inside but it certainly wasn't clogged by any means. I'm not sure it's hugely worth it over the 2667 but it certainly doesn't do any harm. The machine still feels as quick as it did with the 2667 which makes sense given its specs.

 

[SamPotts]

Two weeks on and it's definitely running cooler. Idling at 55c whereas it was often ~65c on the 2667. I'm not sure if I had a badly binned 2667 v2 though. Either way, the 2673 is worth a go! ?

 

[macbitz]

Great thread guys. I will probably go with the 1680 v2 as I mostly use my system for coding. BTW, you can still get new systems for under $2000 from OWC with their holiday sales. I decided this route over used, says 1 year warranty. People seem to be paying crazy money for used one still and they seem to be quad cores with aftermarket 12 cores selling for well over 2k. I got a 6 core with 64gb ram and 1 tb SSD and D500 GPU.

Will buy the an 8 core for future upgrade, where is the best place to get them?

While I would love a new mac pro, 6k is too steep for me

 

[MisterAndrew]

Great thread guys. I will probably go with the 1680 v2 as I mostly use my system for coding. BTW, you can still get new systems for under $2000 from OWC with their holiday sales. I decided this route over used, says 1 year warranty. People seem to be paying crazy money for used one still and they seem to be quad cores with aftermarket 12 cores selling for well over 2k. I got a 6 core with 64gb ram and 1 tb SSD and D500 GPU.

Will buy the an 8 core for future upgrade, where is the best place to get them?

While I would love a new mac pro, 6k is too steep for me

I have an 8 core I can sell I was planning to drop into a 6 core machine. I would do $150 shipped.

 

[SamPotts]

Great thread guys. I will probably go with the 1680 v2 as I mostly use my system for coding. BTW, you can still get new systems for under $2000 from OWC with their holiday sales. I decided this route over used, says 1 year warranty. People seem to be paying crazy money for used one still and they seem to be quad cores with aftermarket 12 cores selling for well over 2k. I got a 6 core with 64gb ram and 1 tb SSD and D500 GPU.

Will buy the an 8 core for future upgrade, where is the best place to get them?

While I would love a new mac pro, 6k is too steep for me

I was super lucky to get one of the $1,500 ones they were selling like 3-4 years back on black Friday. Sadly only has the D300s though but I don't do anything GPU intensive. I've heard the D500s were the most reliable. I've since fitted an Amfaltec Carrier Board, 64GB RAM and a 2673 (and 2667 prior).

You can't go wrong with either the 2667 or 2673 if you want 8 core. I did notice the 2673 runs marginally cooler but could be due to other factors such as binning, ambient temps, thermal paste, etc.

 

[macbitz]

I have an 8 core I can sell I was planning to drop into a 6 core machine. I would do $150 shipped.

Sure, I assume you can PM me?

 

[ikir]

Two weeks on and it's definitely running cooler. Idling at 55c whereas it was often ~65c on the 2667. I'm not sure if I had a badly binned 2667 v2 though. Either way, the 2673 is worth a go! ?

Thanks for sharing. So the E5-2673 eat less, consume less, perforance is quite the same. This is the right choice. How your experience so far?

 

[siddhartha]

Old thread, but I have a E5-2697 V2 running for over a year (not turned off) that I put in myself. Put in 64GB RAM, changed all thermal paste (Fire Pro D500) and use a 3rd party fan/stand. MacsFanControl. This thing is still beautiful, runs well, and is my main work computer

 

[SamPotts]

Thanks for sharing. So the E5-2673 eat less, consume less, perforance is quite the same. This is the right choice. How your experience so far?

I actually sold the machine just after the M1 was released but I keep looking for good deals on them. They're such a nice looking machine. I think if they put an Mx chip in one, it'd make a great desktop.

 

[siddhartha]

I actually sold the machine just after the M1 was released but I keep looking for good deals on them. They're such a nice looking machine. I think if they put an Mx chip in one, it'd make a great desktop.

Agreed. Too expensive for a hack job, but if someone had a wrecked 6,1 it would be amazing to fit a M1 mini inside...

 

[crystalidea]

I've heard the D500s were the most reliable.

Not true. Both D500 & D700 have reliability issues, but not D300.

 

[SamPotts]

Not true. Both D500 & D700 have reliability issues, but not D300.

Sadly, also not true. Plenty of folks have had issues with D300, including myself. I eventually had both replaced under warranty and still had the occasional window server timeout which caused a kernel panic.

 

[crystalidea]

Monterey?

 

[SamPotts]

Monterey?

It happened to myself (and others) on anything newer than Mojave. It was pretty frustrating as I loved how the machine looked on my desk (folks always asked what it was, even 7 years later) and it was enough grunt for my day to day job (Web developer + designer). However, I bought an XDR display and my choice was made to move to M1. I don't miss the power usage and heat!

 

[crystalidea]

I will anyway keep it in my collection

 

[SamPotts]

I will anyway keep it in my collection

Good move. I'll be honest, I've been looking for another. I'm not sure what I'll use it for but it'll look nice wherever it is!

 

[crystalidea]

I sold mine year ago but just bought another (how crazy is that?..), can't appriciate enough the design! ?

 

[mikas]

Now that I have 3 pcs 6,1s at my possesion, coming back to this thread.

I've got E5-1680v2, E5-2690v2 and 2x E5-2667v2 to choose from in the drawer. But I seem to have neglected the 2673v2 totally with my considerations.

I can see they (2673v2) aren't cheap, costs like 100€ and more. E5-2667v2 can be bought much cheaper it seems. And 12 core E5-2697 v2 too is about 100€. So I'll just let that thought pass, I think.

I have purchased a HP Z420 to test the E5 v2 processors. Testing done, they were all good, and seem to correlate between each other like I thought and others have witnessed. Wouldn't have wanted to test them with 6,1, now would I.

E5-1680v2 goes in a D500, overall perfomer.
E5-2690v2 goes in another D500, multi core cruncher.
E5-1650 v2 (original) stays in my D300, it's suffering the most from "6,1 sleep problem", so will not bother second time opening it up.

Something to have the hobby going. Meanwhile, work get's done with cMP 2010/128GB/VII, and HP Z440/256GB/RX6900XT.

ps. Geekbench seem to result a little lower on win10 side from MacOS. For me it's been pretty much the same everytime I have tested, at least with X56xx series, and i7 too if I remember it right. It seems it's the case with these too. Getting lower scores than you guys have reported through the line of these E5 processor.

 

[KD7IWP]

Well just for the heck of it I "upgraded" my 1680 V2 to the 2667 V2 since it was $20 for a used chip. Was hoping to find a 2673 but they all were at least $100 which wasn't worth it to me just for a chance to get more intimate with my trash can. There appears to be an unnoticeable, yet statistically significant (3%) increase in performance on my machine. I find that if I do a fresh start and run Geekbench repeatedly it increases a hair on each run for about 5 runs.

The top 5 runs are on the 2667 and the bottom 5 were just before on the 1680, both taken after fresh restarts. My temps appear roughly the same as before, around 70C at idle.

kd7iwp's Profile - Geekbench

PS, I find it interesting that the name of my machine has changed... Is that because Geekbench recognizes I have a non-standard Apple CPU now?

 

[emmab2006]

Had my Mac Pro 2013 , D300 , Base model delivered today , already have the Xeon E 2667 V2 purchased for a bargain of £35, and have an Intel 660p 1TB Drive , and adapter on the way, last 2 things are 64GB Ram , and EGPU, This thread was incredibly helpful, thanks to everyone who contributed to it !

 

[siddhartha]

Had my Mac Pro 2013 , D300 , Base model delivered today , already have the Xeon E 2667 V2 purchased for a bargain of £35, and have an Intel 660p 1TB Drive , and adapter on the way, last 2 things are 64GB Ram , and EGPU, This thread was incredibly helpful, thanks to everyone who contributed to it !

Let us know if you need any help-it's a fun upgrade. Be interested to know your EGPU experience and tips

 

[emmab2006]

Upgrade went well , E2667 unfortunately causes nothing but problems , had a replacement cpu Gifted to me from a friend on here, here is a system info pic , EGPU is performing very well. Runs what i need it to , on Geekbench 4 get’s 202 thousand , Machine is fast as my Mac Mini M1 responsiveness wise, and Better Graphics wise thanks to the Sonnet EGPU With a 6600XT. , though i do plan to replace the ram with 1866 Speed, as I accidentally bought 1600,

 

[siddhartha]

Upgrade went well , E2667 unfortunately causes nothing but problems , had a replacement cpu Gifted to me from a friend on here, here is a system info pic , EGPU is performing very well. Runs what i need it to , on Geekbench 4 get’s 202 thousand , Machine is fast as my Mac Mini M1 responsiveness wise, and Better Graphics wise thanks to the Sonnet EGPU With a 6600XT. , though i do plan to replace the ram with 1866 Speed, as I accidentally bought 1600,

I now have a Studio, but before that (and I still own) is my upgraded 6,1. I actually bought an EGPU enclosure/card, but it arrived with a dent so bad it unseated the card, and I couldn't use it, so I got a refund, and never replaced it. I love the design, but I think I will be selling mine

 

[emmab2006]

Oh that's a shame it came damaged, I love my trashcan though I do need 1866 64gb ram next, accidently bought 64 1600 ,

How is your studio, I considered it but one , cost ,two graphics , the 6600XT in an egpu , granted is not as good as in a full pcie bandwidth based PC, but still out performs the d300 by a massive margin, I'm using it for X Plane Development as it's easier to have a separate machine with the OS I love and not awful windows 11 ( cough visual rip off )

 

[aldergood]

I was super lucky to get one of the $1,500 ones they were selling like 3-4 years back on black Friday. Sadly only has the D300s though but I don't do anything GPU intensive. I've heard the D500s were the most reliable. I've since fitted an Amfaltec Carrier Board, 64GB RAM and a 2673 (and 2667 prior).

You can't go wrong with either the 2667 or 2673 if you want 8 core. I did notice the 2673 runs marginally cooler but could be due to other factors such as binning, ambient temps, thermal paste, etc.

Sorry to bring this up again but in an attempt to upgrade my Mac soon, I'm very curious to try the 2673. I still can't get why its spec is identical with 2667 but can have 20W of TDP lower? Is this something not been told by Intel? I know 2673 is the OEM processor and not widely available for retails sold.

How is your experience with this processor so far? Thanks in advance