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Just finished my Mac Pro build

andradef

andradef

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 13, 2018
4
4
Richardson, TX
I am quite pleased with my Mac Pro build. My motivation was to run X-Plane 11 Flight Simulator with three 27-in curved monitors. This is what built:
  • Started with a used Mac Pro 4,1 (already upgraded to 5,1) that I got off of Craigslist for $530. It was the dual processor model with 8 GB RAM and 1 TB HDD.
  • GPU: I first tried the Radeon Vega 64 (sticking with Radeon so I always have the built-in drivers from Apple). That didn't work out. I had the two on-board mini 6-pin aux power ports connected into one of the 8-pin ports in the GPU and the other 8-pin connector in the GPU powered by two SATA power cables. NOT ENOUGH POWER. I went back to Micro Center and exchanged the 64 for a Vega 56, which works great now with the same power setup. I kept the factory Nvidia 120 card installed so I can quickly get the boot screen if necessary.
  • RAM: bought 4x8 RAM good for 1600 MHz. After CPU was upgraded and PRAM reset, it's pushing 1333 MHz as expected.
  • CPU: dual Xeon X5690 3.46 MHz 6-core processors. Bought a complete kit of de-lided processors from Ebay and they worked really well. Very easy swap process.
  • Storage: kept the 1 TB HDD and added a 6G PCIe card with 500 GB SSD from OWC. Plug-and-play, and pretty darn fast. Boot-up is super quick now.
  • Connected 3 AOC 27in curved monitors for a wrap-around immersive feel. It works great.
I have not done the WiFi and BT yet. I tried a BT 4.0 dongle and a WiFi dongle but they didn't quite work. Since I do have an ethernet hub available, not having the WiFi is not a big deal at this point. I will do this later.

Overall, I am very pleased. Using X-Plane 11 with three monitors on the Mac is quite demanding, and the performance I am getting is good but not steller. I am still looking for ways to fine-tune it. But it's a massive improvement over my previous setup (MacBook Pro driving two monitors and networked Mac mini driving the third monitor).
 
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Reactions: crjackson2134, Ocnetgeek and Flint Ironstag
andradef said:
I agree. Seriously considered the GeForce 1080Ti. Ultimately, I didn’t want to deal with third-party drivers and prefered to stay with OS X built-in drivers.
Click to expand...

That probably would have been my selection too for games.

btw, I’m from SATX and still have relatives in Dallas area.

Missing TX... :(
 
crjackson2134 said:
That probably would have been my selection too for games.

btw, I’m from SATX and still have relatives in Dallas area.

Missing TX... :(
Click to expand...

Hopefully you come back here to visit often. And stay safe! Seems like you are far enough from the coast but I bet you will get quite a bit of rain there.
 
andradef said:
I am quite pleased with my Mac Pro build. My motivation was to run X-Plane 11 Flight Simulator with three 27-in curved monitors. This is what built

Overall, I am very pleased. Using X-Plane 11 with three monitors on the Mac is quite demanding, and the performance I am getting is good but not steller. I am still looking for ways to fine-tune it. But it's a massive improvement over my previous setup (MacBook Pro driving two monitors and networked Mac mini driving the third monitor).
Click to expand...

How is the performance in apps other than X-Plane? Looking at moving from 2014 Macbook Pro to something similar to what you have just built.
 
Ocnetgeek said:
How is the performance in apps other than X-Plane? Looking at moving from 2014 Macbook Pro to something similar to what you have just built.
Click to expand...

For regular usage it's stellar. It feels way way faster than my 2016 MBP with 16 GB RAM for daily things such as browsing, MS Office, etc. I am not a benchmarking expert by any means, but I've run the Heaven and Cinema bench and it performs very well.

I think that at this point my biggest limitation (and one I simply can't get around) is the 1333 MHz RAM. If anyone is an expert here, please let me know if the RAM speed does have a big impact or not.

Also, I couldn't even see much decrease in performance going from the Vega 64 to the Vega 56. Maybe it's because my Vega 64 was severely underpowered and it was managing itself into power-saving mode? Not sure if this is possible...
 
andradef said:
For regular usage it's stellar. It feels way way faster than my 2016 MBP with 16 GB RAM for daily things such as browsing, MS Office, etc. I am not a benchmarking expert by any means, but I've run the Heaven and Cinema bench and it performs very well.

I think that at this point my biggest limitation (and one I simply can't get around) is the 1333 MHz RAM. If anyone is an expert here, please let me know if the RAM speed does have a big impact or not.

Also, I couldn't even see much decrease in performance going from the Vega 64 to the Vega 56. Maybe it's because my Vega 64 was severely underpowered and it was managing itself into power-saving mode? Not sure if this is possible...
Click to expand...
Aside from benchmarks and limited cases memory speed is essentially imperceptible. I'm also surprised to hear it feels way way faster than your 2016 MBP for browsing, Office, etc. The 2016 MBP utilizes considerably newer technology than a cMP and, for those types of tasks, should easily outperform a cMP.
 
I actually had X-Plane 11 running basically on a Sapphire HD 5870 ! :p . .
it does run much better on my current efi flashed Sapphire 7970 5.0 GT/s
 
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