Now that the prices have come way down on the Skylake Xeon processors, I was wondering if anyone has tried to install one in their 5K iMac. There are many tutorials on how to upgrade them from a Core i5 to an i7, but there is no information on attempts to upgrade to a Xeon from the same family. I have read that this can be done with some of the older iMacs and the Xeons from the same family that the i7 is from. The corresponding process that fits within the specifications is the Xeon E3-1275v5. It is 80 watts, which is below the 95 that is necessary for the 4.0Ghz i7, and also has the built-in Intel graphics like the i7. I've seen the 1275v5 on sale for about $140 and figured that someone must have tried this. If so, please let me know, and then I will chose between that or upgrading an older Mac Pro.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iMac 5K CPU Upgrade - Xeon E3-1275v5
- Thread starter manewman
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Supposedly the E3-1275 v5 uses the same FCLGA1151 socket as the i7-6700K in the 2014/15 iMac 27. It does have Quick Sync but the base clock is 3.6Ghz rather than 4Ghz. Even if it somehow worked in the same socket you would probably take a performance hit, so what's the point of even trying it? In the 2015 iMac 27 there is no major problem with thermal performance limits, even during heavy-duty transcoding.
Re Quick Sync, to my knowledge Premiere Pro CC 2017 does not use this on Mac, so it would only be useful for FCPX or specialized 3rd party utilities.
If you want a faster iMac, it's probably good to wait a few months and see what the update looks like. If you can't wait that long or want a less expensive solution, you can build a Hackintosh with about the same performance as a top-spec nMP for $1k: