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Louis100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2020
8
0
Hi guys

Does anyone know what's the most powerful CPU and GPU the can be fitted in a Early 2008 mac pro ?.

Cheers guys
 

joevt

macrumors 604
Jun 21, 2012
6,968
4,262
Does anyone know what's the most powerful CPU and GPU the can be fitted in a Early 2008 mac pro ?.
You'll find two sticky posts:
Mac Pro CPU Compatibility List - if you have a dual quad core 3.2 GHz CPU, then there's no upgrade.
GPU Compatibility List for cMP - GPU choice is only limited by power and OS. You can add more power and use patched installer to load the latest OS (Catalina 10.15.4). Max Nvidia card is 1080 Ti (max OS for that is High Sierra). Max AMD card is Radeon VII. The list hasn't been updated to include AMD Navi cards (requires Catalina 10.15.2). Modern AMD cards require SSE4.2 emulator - there's a new beta that is being tested for Catalina 10.15.4.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Louis100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2020
8
0
Hi
thank you for taking time out to answer my question, much appreciated.

Cheers
Much appreciated
 

StrawberryX

macrumors member
Jun 14, 2013
99
42
Antwerp
The Dual quad core 3.2 is not much faster than the dual quad 2.8.
I went for the GTX 680 and 64gig Ram
3 SSD and a spinner.
3.1 also doesn't have the special trails some big spinners need.
One is a Samsung blade It only gets 700 sec ( if I remove some ram ).
And El Capitan.

If you van find a cheap 2010 It doesn't have the PCI bottleneck problems.
The 6 core is much faster.
 

Dayo

macrumors 68020
Dec 21, 2018
2,257
1,279
I really started updating my mine (2 x 2.8) about a year ago and did a Geekbench test at the time as a baseline:

28-CPU.png

Benchmarking today (2 x 3.2), I get:

32-CPU.png

Basically about 6.3% more on Single Core and 9.2% on Multi Core. Not a huge jump.
I've had to pull two failed RAM sticks and this probably had some impact. Will test again when these are replaced.

I had already upgraded my GPU from a HD 5770 to a Titan X last year when I took the baseline:

Compute-Titan.png

Benchmarking today (RX580) I get:

Compute-RX580.png

27.5% higher. Note that the RX580 results reflects hardware acceleration via OpenCore and the RadeonBoost Kext.

Where I would have been (roughly) with my old HD5770:
HD5770.png


What I have found is that the CPU scores are really low compared to modern units. 2018 MacMini kills it for instance:

MacMini.png


On the other hand, being able to use modern GPU's swings things the other way with those by order of magnitude:
MacMini-Compute.png


The GPU numbers are on par with modern units in general.
 

Louis100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2020
8
0
Hi
That's brilliant info, the gpu makes a big difference
Is there a big difference between the

8BG Sapphire Radeon RX 580 NITRO+ 1411MHz GPU 8000MHz GDDR5 2xDP 2xHDMI DVI-D and the

Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 GME 8GB GDDR5 Dual Graphics card RX590 8G.

Cheers
 

Dayo

macrumors 68020
Dec 21, 2018
2,257
1,279
I gather that the RX 590 is not advisable due to power draw requirements.
 

Ludacrisvp

macrumors 6502a
May 14, 2008
797
363
Also only the RX580 pulse allows you to retain usage of slot 2 ... the Nitro variants do not, I'm not aware of any 590 that doesn't block slot 2.
 

Louis100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2020
8
0
Brilliant thanks guys I'm on it, would you recommend upgrade to usb 3 as well ?
 

Macsonic

macrumors 68000
Sep 6, 2009
1,709
100
Brilliant thanks guys I'm on it, would you recommend upgrade to usb 3 as well ?

Yes, USB 3.0 PCIe card would be great to upgrade to. You can do some reading on this WIKI post on USB 3.
 

Louis100

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2020
8
0
Yes, USB 3.0 PCIe card would be great to upgrade to. You can do some reading on this WIKI post on USB 3.

Excellent info

Much appreciated ??
 

Macsonic

macrumors 68000
Sep 6, 2009
1,709
100
Excellent info

Much appreciated ??

You’re Welcome. I’m using various brands of USB 3.0 PCIe cards like Sonnet Allegro Pro, Sonnet Allegro non-Pro model, Caldigit Fasta-6gu3 6g eSATA & usb 3.0 , Highpoint Rocketu 1144CM, Inateck. They all worked fine. If you’re getting a Caldigit card, just take note that the first gen model released in 2014 will only work up to OS Mavericks. This model won’t work in Yosemite and newer OS versions. The newer Caldigit card works from Mountain Lion to the latest OS

Sonnet Allegro Pro USB 3.0 Comes with the White Heatsink in the middle section
s-l500.jpg


Sonnet Allegro Non-Pro Model
s-l1600.jpg


Caldigit 2ND Gen Model - Works from Mountain Lion to Mojave
s-l1600.jpg


I have an External HD with an eSATA Port, I got a cable adapter that connects the eSATA port to the USB 3.0 port of the PCIe card
s-l500.jpg
 
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