MP 7,1 Can someone hack a Water cooling setup and Overclock the Xeon W CPU’s ?

[TheRealAlex]

Just asking if we can Overclock the Mac Pro ? I’m sure someone can do it eventually? Just asking if the Xeon W is even Overclockable ?

it wouldn’t be as clean or elegant as the setup is now. But if we can get for example. The 16 Core Option All Cores running at 4.6Ghz reliably with no thermal throttling that would be a huge success.


Which makes me wonder if the Xeon W chips themselves are the internally soldered to the IHS as the TIM or is there a pTIM polymer TIM and no soldered to the die. ? Hmmmm.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Just asking if we can Overclock the Mac Pro ? I’m sure someone can do it eventually? Just asking if the Xeon W is even Overclockable ?

it wouldn’t be as clean or elegant as the setup is now. But if we can get for example. The 16 Core Option All Cores running at 4.6Ghz reliably with no thermal throttling that would be a huge success.


Which makes me wonder if the Xeon W chips themselves are the internally soldered to the IHS as the TIM or is there a pTIM polymer TIM and no soldered to the die. ? Hmmmm.

Nope . Somebody ten years ago in Germany managed to overclock the processor(s) in the Mac Pro 3,1 ( 2008 ) , I believe . It messed up the system clock and that messes up some apps . I guess our clock needs both the reported and actual frequency of the processor to be identical .

 

[goMac]

it wouldn’t be as clean or elegant as the setup is now. But if we can get for example. The 16 Core Option All Cores running at 4.6Ghz reliably with no thermal throttling that would be a huge success.

Most reviews have indicated that the Mac Pro can already sustain at or near boost clocks without throttling.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Most reviews have indicated that the Mac Pro can already sustain at or near boost clocks without throttling.

True . I think maybe he was interested in installing an unlocked chip and then using some tool to raise the frequency to the sky like they do on the PC side . It's a fun concept for a hobbyist . But I don't think there are any unlocked LGA 3647 Cascade Lakes anyways . Those that deploy Xeons are not terribly interested in overclocking silicon . They want reliability , accuracy and durability . Some CL Xeons ( the T suffixed ) are actually guaranteed by Intel to remain online for a decade . Now that's durability !

 

[StuAff]

Even if the clock multiplier on the chip was unlocked- you'd need to swap it out for a W3175X, that's the only overclockable chip that fits the socket- the motherboard would not allow the necessary settings to be altered.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Even if the clock multiplier on the chip was unlocked- you'd need to swap it out for a W3175X, that's the only overclockable chip that fits the socket- the motherboard would not allow the necessary settings to be altered.

And also the W3175X is a Skylake Xeon , not a Cascade Lake like shipped from the factory with the MP7,1s . I know they're very similar designs , but we're having a hard enough time getting non W-series Xeons to run in these Macs as it is . Someone would still have to write the overclock utility .

 

[goMac]

And also the W3175X is a Skylake Xeon , not a Cascade Lake like shipped from the factory with the MP7,1s . I know they're very similar designs , but we're having a hard enough time getting non W-series Xeons to run in these Macs as it is . Someone would still have to write the overclock utility .

Skylake doesn't support the number of PCIe slots in the Mac Pro though.

I think the 7,1 uses a PCIe switch, so in theory if the firmware allowed it, it might work. But you'd take a substantial hit on PCIe bandwidth.

 

[DearthnVader]

Just asking if we can Overclock the Mac Pro ? I’m sure someone can do it eventually? Just asking if the Xeon W is even Overclockable ?

it wouldn’t be as clean or elegant as the setup is now. But if we can get for example. The 16 Core Option All Cores running at 4.6Ghz reliably with no thermal throttling that would be a huge success.


Which makes me wonder if the Xeon W chips themselves are the internally soldered to the IHS as the TIM or is there a pTIM polymer TIM and no soldered to the die. ? Hmmmm.

People don't really buy $7k+++ Mac Pro's to overclock them, just build a PC with the right parts and enjoy!

However, I had not looked in Turbo Boost 3.0, but some level of overclocking the cores to all run up to the Max Turbo Boost Frequency maybe possible if we knew what MSR's to adjust.

We use to have a tool, Reggie SE, that shipped with Apple CHUD tools, that could read and write MSR's under the macOS. I'm not sure there is any tool that will allow us to do that now.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Skylake doesn't support the number of PCIe slots in the Mac Pro though.

I think the 7,1 uses a PCIe switch, so in theory if the firmware allowed it, it might work. But you'd take a substantial hit on PCIe bandwidth.

Yes , when iFixit performed the initial tear down of the MP7,1 they discovered a big fat PLX . Likely used as a switch for the PCIe lanes . Bet Apple paid a pretty penny for that chip ! Shown here circled in light blue :

 

[DearthnVader]

So, in general, you need DirectHW, PCIUtils libraries, and build msrtools from coreboot.

I'm having trouble building the pciutils library, maybe @joevt could offer some guidance?

make install-lib
cd lib && ./configure
-n Configuring libpci for your system...
 x86_64--darwin 17.7.0 x86_64 darwin
-n Looking for access methods...
-n  i386-ports
 dump
-n Checking for zlib support...
yes (auto-detected)
-n Checking for DNS support...
yes (auto-detected)
Checking whether to build a shared library... no (set manually)
make: *** No rule to make target `lib/libpci.pc', needed by `install-lib'.  Stop.

 

[uller6]

Why would you ever want to do this? The whole point of the Mac Pro is a machine that has rock solid stability. The CPUs have been extensively tested by Intel, and the entire system tested by Apple to run for years under heavy loads without any errata. Overclocking beyond these set points may work, but for people like me that rely on these machines for our jobs the risk for system instability isn't worth the marginal (maybe 10%) speed improvements you can get by overclocking the CPU.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Why would you ever want to do this? The whole point of the Mac Pro is a machine that has rock solid stability. The CPUs have been extensively tested by Intel, and the entire system tested by Apple to run for years under heavy loads without any errata. Overclocking beyond these set points may work, but for people like me that rely on these machines for our jobs the risk for system instability isn't worth the marginal (maybe 10%) speed improvements you can get by overclocking the CPU.

Because a CPU + Liquid Nitrogen + Crazy Speeds = A post on MR .

Then , after the coolant evaporates , their life returns to boring .