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MP 1,1-5,1 Hex 3.2 update from 2010 quad 2.8 photos new! CPU to use!
- Thread starter philipma1957
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Mike Richardson
macrumors regular
Does anyone have any experience buying a W3690 from eBay from one of the chinese sellers? They're a lot cheaper, but, you know, China.
Has anyone benchmarked the AES instructions? I have a base model MacPro5,1 with the W3530, which does not have AES instructions. All of my hard drives are FileVault 2 and one of the functions of my Mac Pro is a file server, so it would stand to reason that these AES instructions would reduce CPU usage when the file server is under heavy load.
Has anyone benchmarked the AES instructions? I have a base model MacPro5,1 with the W3530, which does not have AES instructions. All of my hard drives are FileVault 2 and one of the functions of my Mac Pro is a file server, so it would stand to reason that these AES instructions would reduce CPU usage when the file server is under heavy load.
If it were me, I'd get an X5690 just in case you decide at some point to go dual, then you'll be half way there. You can get a X5690 for $125 on ebay from a US seller. Those W3690's just seem overpriced compared to the superior X5690.
I've bought a few things here and there from China Sellers without much of a problem and I wouldn't think the CPU chip wouldn't make a huge difference. There is a slightly wait when you purchase from China. You're looking at typically 1.5- 2 weeks to receive the package(I'm assuming eBay). I don't think i've ever gotten anything faulty. I've never returned anything though so if that ended up being an issue, hopefully it wouldn't be too difficult.
My W3690 is coming from a China unknown online store. Work 24/7 for more than 4 years now.
This W3690 is only 114.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon...345067&hash=item4414736a0b:g:~EYAAOSwlY1ZJOlG
I don't know anything about the seller but they are a US seller. Are the ones from China that much less?
Jon...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon...345067&hash=item4414736a0b:g:~EYAAOSwlY1ZJOlG
I don't know anything about the seller but they are a US seller. Are the ones from China that much less?
Jon...
Single processor MacPro's are getting cheaper so I'd imagine the thread will pick up again.
Currently own a Dual 2.4 Quad Core Mid-2010 Mac Pro, with 32GB of 1066 DDR3 RAM and 2 1TB HD in a RAID config.
I decided to go ahead and max this Mac Pro out because I had the time and cash to do so and the prices have fallen tremendously since its debut. I got this as an open box item from Best Buy for $1699 in Dec of 2011. The previous owner had not cleared the purchase through his wife and she was letting the whole store know it as they were returning it. I spotted it and simply asked how much and the cashier said it rang up as $1699. I simplely place my CC down and walked away smiling. I went back in a couple of days later and the Tech Bench guys were like you got that for a steal. I said yep I did!
So now on to my upgrade plans:
Replace the Quad Core Processors with a set of X5670 2.93 Hex Core $139 on eBay
Replace the old 1TB HD’s with 2 SSDHD 1TB WD $130 on Amazon
Plus a PCIe USB 3.0 expansion card
Any pro’s or con’s I should know about before hand? I have been building PC’s on and off for the last 30 years or so but this is my first with a Mac.
Thanks in advance,
Dan
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To be honest, I don't think you're going to see much difference in performance. Unless you're doing something that is highly multi-threaded, going from quad core to 6-core is negligible. Not to mention 2.4 vs 2.9 is not a monumental speed difference.
I'm not sure if you have a budget for the project or if you can spend a bit more, but the one item that would really turbo-charge your Mac Pro would be a SSD, and not a SATA SSD (the old Mac Pro only supports SATA II), but a AHCI SSD like this:
https://www.ebay.com/i/173098101027?chn=ps
Either clone your existing OS to this or install fresh, and keep your existing dual 1TB drives as a data volume.
I would also spend a little more and get faster CPU's. Bump up to the X5680 (3.33Ghz 6-core). Ebay has them for $82 each:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon...050835&hash=item2a94c0b215:g:tZkAAOSw4vFaAgTS
Those are the biggest performance improvements you can make. You could consider upgrading the RAM to 1333 DDR3 (this RAM, unlike DDR4, is pretty cheap now and you can sell your existing RAM to help with the cost), but the actual performance increase may not be that noticeable. Is, by chance, your existing RAM actually labeled as 1066 or is it 1333 running at 1066? Your original CPU can only run at 1066, but the X56xx can support 1333 so if you have 1333 RAM it will clock up when you put in the new CPU's.
What video card do you currently have?
Those are my thoughts. The CPU upgrades will be tricky since you have dual CPU config, so read up and follow instructions carefully!
Good luck.
He's got a real 5,1 so his processors will have the IHS so there's no need to worry about delidding.
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Here's what I've done
I have an OWC Accelsior S that has a 240GB SSD for OSX
Windows is in an OWC SSD sled in bay 1 with a 240GB SSD
Bay 2 and 3 are a pair of WD Black 2TB in Raid 0
Bay 4 is a 6 TB WD Blue in an OWC sled for Time Machine Backing up all the drives
I have a 128GB MBA SSD on an adaptor card that I use for scratch
I'm using an XFX RX480 GTR that I pulled from my PC
I swapped the quad for a W3690 Hex
I have 24GB DDR3 1333 3@8GB
I bought the OSX Wifi setup for Bluetooth and 802.11ac
I have 2 LG BlueRay drives in the optical bays
A Samsung 28" 590D 4K display that I run scaled to 1080p
I don't have a whole bunch of money invested since my PC coughed up quite a bit of the stuff. Everything runs and it does what I expect it to do and I enjoyed putting it all together but I wouldn't have if I still used a Mac at work. I like having a different system at home and at work so this was a way for me to do that. I honestly wouldn't sink a bunch of money into an older MacPro since we're going to see new ones soon enough and no matter the year it's still at this point 8-9 year old tech.
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Thank you for the quick response. I was going to go with the 2.9 due to being not fully sure of the maximum my motherboard could handle so I went the maxed out factory chipsets and the price seemed resonible. Now that I maybe able to setup to the X5680’s I may go that way.
The old 1TD HD’s are WD 7200 RPM Cavier’s and are starting to chatter so I know they will be going out soon. The new ones are SSD so with those in the RAID should give me the boost I was looking for. I was going to pop them in to an external cloner to copy them over to the new drives once they came in. And keep them as a just in case unless they totally fail as I am suspecting they might. I just really wish the price on the SSD were to come down since I can get 2TB thumb drive now for pretty cheap compared to SSD’s.
For my memory your right it is underclocked to 1066 from 1333 so there should be another boost.
I have the stock Radeon 5770 so I also just picked up a new Saphire Radeon HD 7950 for only $142 on eBay. I had about $500 to spend total on the upgrade as this is not my primary computer. I used it mainly for video editing and occasional gaming. I went with the new video card as my new monitor is a 4K LG 65” TV for grins.
I plan on selling the old chip sets and video card to try an recoup some of the costs as they are still in good working order.
I love this setup and this is my first Mac so as I said before I was very hesitant to do any upgrades but with so much invested from the beginning I figured newer CPU’s, Video Card, and HD’s couldn’t hurt it.
Thank you for your time and suggestions.
Dan
The test results suggest that, for OS operation, there is virtually no difference between PCIe SSD and SATA SSD.
The PCIe SSD shine when there is some large sequential read / write required, but that rarely happen for OS operation.
Sounds like great rig, and your like me leaving nothing to waste. I have donated most of my old PC’s to friends children so they can learn how to use them over the years. However now with Tablets and such many of the needs I once had are fewer and fewer being done on my Desktop. I use this mainly for video editing from my GoPRo and every now and then some Diablo 3 or Starcraft. Never was able to get into using a console for those games.
Thanks again for you help,
Dan
Based on your evidence, Apple would probably like to know that they wasted huge amounts of R&D money on putting PCI-e SSD's in all their Mac computers then! You're only talking about BOOT TIME, 33 seconds out of an entire day of using a Mac. You're saying editing video or large Photoshop files is the same on an old SATA 2 SSD as it is on a PCI-e SSD?
I'm not sure why you are singling out "OS Operation", when my suggestion for an AHCI SSD was for better OVERALL performance? Do people really sit at their Mac all day booting it over and over again?
lowendlinux (above) suggested that it's not necessary as the 2010 model Mac Pro has the heatspreaders ON the CPU, unlike the 2009 model which needed the IHS removed.
Because you mention about "clone the OS" to that drive.
I didn't say the high speed PCIe SSD is useless, but for OS, it perform more or less the same as SATA SSD.
Any SSD can turbo charge the Mac in daily use. And basically only large sequential read / write can utilise the PCIe SSD. I believe most normal computer users won't keep copying large files "entire day", but mainly use the desktop (OS stuff, e.g. Finder), Browsers, etc. Even graphic work and video editing not necessary can effectively utilise the PCIe SSD.
Photoshop is still very CPU single thread limiting on cMP, assuming the computer has enough RAM, a faster SSD won't help much. A 200MB photo is pretty large for a general user already, and it only require 0.8s to finish loading with SATA 2 connected SSD. A PCIe SSD can finish in 1.4s. Once loaded into the RAM, SSD speed is quite irrelevant. But is that half second really that significant for thew whole workflow? If a person only need 1 min to edit 1 photo (I think it's really very fast for a 200MB photo professional editing), then the overall time saving is less than 1%.
Video editing can be more demanding, but depends on how the user do it. If the user insist not the use proxy / optimised media to edit 10bit 4K60FPS video, then it may be a problem for SATA SSD. But if the user know how to optimised the workflow, reduce unnecessary pressure on the hardware. There is nothing wrong to use SATA 2 connected SSD for video editing. Before I get my SATA 3 card, I actually use a SATA 2 connected 840 Evo to do 4K video editing in FCPX. No problem at all. Even with a PCIe SSD, the most limiting factor during rendering still the GPU. And the most limiting factor during encoding still the CPU.
Apple was not wasting money on the R&D, but lots of people waste money on high speed SSD that they can rarely utilise. The actual gain they get from a PCIe SSD may be even less than 33s per day.
PCIe SSD of course have better overall performance, but do you know how expensive the AHCI SSD now? How much actual gain a normal user can get? Is it worth?
If anyone's main daily ops is copying large files back and forth, or (un)zipping for the whole day, or loading huge apps library for whole day (but not really using it), and cannot do this kind of stuff at the background. Then yes, PCIe SSD is very useful. But in this case, I will suggest he to buy a NVMe SSD, and use this NVMe SSD as data only drive. Why go for the AHCI that is slower, more expensive, harder to buy, and the only benefit over the NVMe is just "can boot natively" (and AHCI is not really faster than SATA SSD on boot / OS / apps loading).
IMO, there are 3 kind of storages now.
1) HDD, good for backup, very large storage, etc. Very cheap but slow.
2) SATA SSD, good for running OS (on the cMP). Cheap (compare to PCIe SSD) and fast (same speed as PCIe SSD for OS).
3) PCIe SSD, good for large files read / write. Very good as temporary storage for the current project to speed up the workflow, or act as scratch disk, or storing VM. Cannot natively boot in cMP, very fast, but very expensive.
Before we have NVMe SSD support, of course make sense to look for AHCI SSD (for demanding job). And if we have the AHCI SSD, then nothing wrong to put the OS on it (especially if the user do not have SATA SSD). But now, we have NVMe support natively, however, Apple didn't give us the NVMe boot ability. In this case, I believe use the cheap SATA SSD for OS, and then another NVMe SSD for work is a better choice. This combination can provide better overall performance than a single AHCI SSD, and cheaper than a single AHCI SSD, and may be more capacity than a single AHCI SSD as well.
High speed SSD can only turbo charge large files read / write. Everything else won't be speed up. It's very nice to have PCIe SSD on a cMP. But "install (or clone) the OS onto it" is definitely not the way to fully utilise it (if compare to SATA SSD).
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What does all this mean? You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. I don't care about NVMe as that was not what I suggested. Neither you or I know what Danny will use his Mac for. For almost all scenarios, using a PCIe SSD will be faster than an old SATA II SSD. OS, apps, and docs on it, just how most people use it. That is the only suggestion I made.
Gentlemen,
My main use is to edit videos from my GoPro and some gaming on the side. I use my Win 10 for mainly Office Products like Power BI and Visio that can not run on a MacOS. I have tried using Parallels and VMWare with little luck. I have had some success with Boot Camp under Win 7. The only other main thing on my Desktop is my music collection of over 300 GB’s. Over time I ripped every CD I owned and converted it over in iTunes. So I wish to keep these files intact. And have them back up on my externals as well as in the cloud. I know doing the upgrades will give me some performance boosts and I am happy with that. I never knew how scalable this system really was until recently. And with this new parts it should last me for sometime until I need to get a new shinny one.
Thanks again for your help and suggestions,
Dan
My main use is to edit videos from my GoPro and some gaming on the side. I use my Win 10 for mainly Office Products like Power BI and Visio that can not run on a MacOS. I have tried using Parallels and VMWare with little luck. I have had some success with Boot Camp under Win 7. The only other main thing on my Desktop is my music collection of over 300 GB’s. Over time I ripped every CD I owned and converted it over in iTunes. So I wish to keep these files intact. And have them back up on my externals as well as in the cloud. I know doing the upgrades will give me some performance boosts and I am happy with that. I never knew how scalable this system really was until recently. And with this new parts it should last me for sometime until I need to get a new shinny one.
Thanks again for your help and suggestions,
Dan
This is exactly what I want to point out, in most case, a PCIe SSD will NOT be faster than an old SATA II SSD, including OS, apps, and docs. But only provide roughly the same speed.
Only under very specific condition, PCIe SSD can shine. And blindly suggest other people to buy PCIe SSD can be a big waste of money.
If you don't know how Danny use this computer, then why suggest the expensive AHCI SSD that can hardly provide any benefit in OS, and is slower then NVMe SSD on anything else?
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If you are still using HDD, definitely go for the SSD. It will make your system up to about 30x more responsive. This is not a make up number, but the 4k random read speed comparison between a low cost SATA SSD (30MB/s) and a normal HDD (1MB/s). Once you boot from the SSD, you will feel that your Mac is like a new computer. But since not everything is 4K random read, so, the actual "speed gain" is about 10-15x. e.g. loading Photoshop require 15 seconds on a HDD, this action can be finish in about 1s on a SSD.
If you further go for PCIe SSD, depends on the model, it may give you another 0-200% responsiveness. The fastest SSD I've ever seen is the NVMe SSD that on those new Mac, which gives stunning ~100MB/s 4k random read speed. It's about 3x of a normal SSD can do. However, for AHCI SSD, most of them are also just doing 30MB/s, same random read performance as the SATA SSD. That's why I said you can hardly benefit from it in most case.
In any case, a PCIe SSD can be 5x faster than a SATA II connected SSD in sequential read / write. e.g. When you copying your GoPro video to / from the SSD. If your source / destination can also achieve 1500MB/s. The transfer will be completed 5x faster with on a PCIe SSD (e.g. loading the video into the RAM). However, if you transfer the video from a SD card that max at 100MB/s, then a PCIe SSD won't help, the transfer speed will still stuck at 100MB/s. And if you copy the video to HDD that can achieve 150MB/s for backup, then the speed will also stuck at 150MB/s.
For music / video storage, HDD is a very good choice indeed.
For normal video editing, it's better to work on SSD (IMO, any SSD can do the job, unless you are super professional. In this case, you should abandoned / upgraded the cMP long time ago). And once finish, move it to HDD for permanent storage.
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I think the best bang-for-your-buck things you can do are SSD, 2x6-core, and updated graphics card. Updating the memory will have a small improvement (remember it's only the speed between the CPU and the memory, not overall throughput). I would search out Mac Pro Technician Guide on google. Youtube and other crowd-sourced information often have misinformation (such as how to apply thermal paste and tighten cpu coolers).
Thanks for posting that tip about the Mac Pro Tech Manual!
I never even thought about using an official manual since the instructions in this thread answered all my questions. But I figured it might be a good idea to have a copy in case I wanted to perform other work on my 2010 Mac Pro.
So I did a search and came across a copy of the Mac Pro (Mid 2010) Technical manual.
The .pdf copy of the Mac Pro (Mid 2010) Technical Manual can be downloaded (without any 3rd party software required to D/L).......
- You can read the manual on-line here....
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/900452/Apple-Mac-Pro.html
To download the manual click the D/L button at the top of the screen, not the large one on the left side. Then on the next page click the "Get Manual" button next to the "I'm not a robot" check box.
- If you just want to download the manual:
Direct link to the Download page is here.......
https://www.manualslib.com/download/900452/Apple-Mac-Pro.html
NOTE: It appears they also have the manuals for.......
Early 2009
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/889501/Apple-Mac-Pro.html
Early 2008
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/886424/Apple-Mac-Pro.html
Enjoy,
Jon...
Just visiting one of my better threads for old times sake
ebay has some 3690 chips for 80 bucks
ebay item number 173559707430
ebay has some 3690 chips for 80 bucks
ebay item number 173559707430
I see it's a W3690, not an X3690. If I was shopping to upgrade my Mac Pro, I think I'd buy this X5680 for $49. Not only can you do dual X5680's but there is negligible speed gains going from 3.33 to 3.46 for that extra $30.