Is this a possible upgrade?

[mfarris2]

I recently broke my bank by purchasing a Mac Pro with 2 quad core 2.4Ghz processors. I also purchased the 27" Apple Cinema Display. I also purchased from OWC 6 X 4 GB of ram. Thus have a total of 26GB of ram. And finally purchased a 240GB SSD drive also from OWC. This machine is awesome compared to the 2006 iMac I was using.
Now I have built several, including liquid cooled PC's. But this is my first Mac Pro. And the biggest reason I purchased this instead of a new iMac is because of the ability to upgrade.
My question is about processor upgrade options. I do not know if the quad core and the hex cores share the same pin style. Can I, in the future replace the 2 quad cores with the now available 3.3Ghz Hex processors? (Possible faster speeds in the future) If it is possible, what type of configurations will I need to perform. Will I need new heat sinks? Will I need to configure anything in settings or software? Please be as detailed as possible as I am NOT a Mac expert.
I understand how to set up BIOS on a PC. On a Mac I have no idea how to set up anything? No idea how to use Terminal or just about any of the technical stuff.
I simply use Mac OS X because unlike Windows,....it just works!
Thank you in advance for your time, opinions and help.

 

[wonderspark]

Your current CPUs: E5620
3.46GHz CPUs: X5680
Sockets are both FCLGA1366, so yes... pull heat sinks off, pull out old CPUs, clean and reapply Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste after you drop in the new CPUs. Remount same heat sinks, PRAM reset on reboot. Done.
Amazon sells them for $1640 each.
If your RAM is all 1333MHz, it will run at that speed. Not sure what happens if you mix it all up... probably downclocks to slowest RAM speed used.

 

[mfarris2]

Your current CPUs: E5620
3.46GHz CPUs: X5680
Sockets are both FCLGA1366, so yes... pull heat sinks off, pull out old CPUs, clean and reapply Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste after you drop in the new CPUs. Remount same heat sinks, PRAM reset on reboot. Done.
Amazon sells them for $1640 each.
If your RAM is all 1333MHz, it will run at that speed. Not sure what happens if you mix it all up... probably downclocks to slowest RAM speed used.

Thank you for your help. Sound like a pretty simple upgrade.

 

[wonderspark]

Thank you for your help. Sound like a pretty simple upgrade.

I thought so, and I had to upgrade my firmware from 4,1 to 5,1 first. All that means is download and run a simple app first, haha.

That, and my CPU is way cheaper at $585. Price you pay for dual cores. You might look at the 3.46GHz X5690 while you're dropping all that coin.
Here it is for under $1600!

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X5680 for $1465.

 

[mfarris2]

I thought so, and I had to upgrade my firmware from 4,1 to 5,1 first. All that means is download and run a simple app first, haha.

That, and my CPU is way cheaper at $585. Price you pay for dual cores. You might look at the 3.46GHz X5690 while you're dropping all that coin.
Here it is for under $1600!

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X5680 for $1465.

Thank you again. Found it for $1574. ea. That is slightly more than $200.00 extra for both. That is probably a wise choice to grab. The extra speed will help future proof the computer. This is a mid 2010 model, so firmware updates are hopefully not going to be needed. (Not sure how to do this on a Mac.)
Thanks again.