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mac pro ability

I

iC D

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2012
24
0
hi i am not very knowledgable about what upgrades are available for the 2010 mac pro and whether it would just be cheaper to buy the 'new' version which i have been told is hardly different. The main upgrades i would want to make are 1 to give it extremely fast ram
2 to give it a faster proccessor when the time comes
3 to give it an awesome graphics card

if anyone could point me in the right direction or give me the answer it would be much appreciated

(P.S. do the new mac pro's have the thunderbolt tech as apparently this is needed for the apple displays)
 
Can you not take the dvi output from the MP graphics card and run it through the dvi to mini display port adapter Apple sells? Or (depending on the graphics card you have) just connect a mini display port from the Mac Pro into the Thunderbolt/MDP on the display?

Just read the Apple system requirements and it looks like the adapters are not viable...
 
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The 2010 Mac Pro uses 1333MHz DDR3 ram. If you put faster in it, I believe the memory will just down-clock to 1333 so your money is wasted.

There are some Xeon processor upgrades which you could use but that was about the only thing they changed with the 2012 model.

As for the graphics card, search on this forum. There are plenty of drop-in cards that will work on the Windows side but not give a boot screen on the Mac side. You can squeeze a 570 (or 580 with extra PSU) in on the Mac side and MacVidCards will sell those to get you up and running... or you could wait till Mountain Lion is out and see if support for faster cards matures. Again, MacVidCards and his friends are working on the nVidia 6xx series of cards at the moment.
 
DanielCoffey said:
The 2010 Mac Pro uses 1333MHz DDR3 ram. If you put faster in it, I believe the memory will just down-clock to 1333 so your money is wasted.

There are some Xeon processor upgrades which you could use but that was about the only thing they changed with the 2012 model.

As for the graphics card, search on this forum. There are plenty of drop-in cards that will work on the Windows side but not give a boot screen on the Mac side. You can squeeze a 570 (or 580 with extra PSU) in on the Mac side and MacVidCards will sell those to get you up and running... or you could wait till Mountain Lion is out and see if support for faster cards matures. Again, MacVidCards and his friends are working on the nVidia 6xx series of cards at the moment.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that
as for the ddr3 1333mhz are you saying that by upgrading the processor the clock rate will increase to its full potential so if i use 1600mhz ram it will become 1600mhz ram again. also will it matter if it is quad or duel channel
 
No, I am not aware of faster bus speeds on the current Mac Pros. I think that if you put 1600MHz ram in a 2010 it will just clock itself down to 1333 regardless of which processor you have.

There are Xeons with faster clock speeds but the 2010 has a 1333MHz bus.
 
DanielCoffey said:
No, I am not aware of faster bus speeds on the current Mac Pros. I think that if you put 1600MHz ram in a 2010 it will just clock itself down to 1333 regardless of which processor you have.

There are Xeons with faster clock speeds but the 2010 has a 1333MHz bus.
Click to expand...

been looking around on how to change a bus speed and doe this mean i would have to change the motherboard?
 
iC D said:
i guess i cocked that one up right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, pretty much. Mac Pro motherboards are custom built and not available off-the-shelf. You could probably find them on eBay or buy another Mac pro and replace the motherboard yourself if your one is broken. You would really have to know what you're doing and be very, very determined, but it's not like a PC where you can order yourself a new Asus motherboard with the features that you want and pop that in.

Your upgrade paths are limited to changing the CPU (as long as they are compatible with the chipset on the motherboard), upgrading the RAM, changing the hard drives and the optical disk drives and adding PCIe cards.
 
theSeb said:
Yeah, pretty much. Mac Pro motherboards are custom built and not available off-the-shelf. You could probably find them on eBay or buy another Mac pro and replace the motherboard yourself if your one is broken. You would really have to know what you're doing and be very, very determined, but it's not like a PC where you can order yourself a new Asus motherboard with the features that you want and pop that in.

Your upgrade paths are limited to changing the CPU (as long as they are compatible with the chipset on the motherboard), upgrading the RAM, changing the hard drives and the optical disk drives and adding PCIe cards.
Click to expand...

you seem to know what your talking about so can you answer these questions
1. can i add a blu ray player
2. what is the best processor i can put into the mac pro
3.can i put an amd 5870 in cf mode into it
your answer is much appreciated
 
I'm probably not the most knowledgeable guy on here but here's a start:

1. yes you can add a bluray player/burner. I have one in my old 2,1 mac pro. I still don't think bluray is fully supported on mac, so you need third party software to do your burning and movie watching.

2. I think the best upgrade path would be to get the lowest specc'd dual processor 2010, then add two of the 3.46GHz 6-Core X5690 processors.

3. I assume you mean 2 x 5870's in crossfire? After having a quick look around it appears you need to go to a bit of effort with an extra power supply and routing cables to get the second card in there. Here's a bit of reading, perhaps you can try and contact these guys with questions?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1049368/
http://att.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1051225

Good luck, hope some other people jump in to answer.
 
DJenkins said:
I'm probably not the most knowledgeable guy on here but here's a start:

1. yes you can add a bluray player/burner. I have one in my old 2,1 mac pro. I still don't think bluray is fully supported on mac, so you need third party software to do your burning and movie watching.

2. I think the best upgrade path would be to get the lowest specc'd dual processor 2010, then add two of the 3.46GHz 6-Core X5690 processors.

3. I assume you mean 2 x 5870's in crossfire? After having a quick look around it appears you need to go to a bit of effort with an extra power supply and routing cables to get the second card in there. Here's a bit of reading, perhaps you can try and contact these guys with questions?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1049368/
http://att.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1051225

Good luck, hope some other people jump in to answer.
Click to expand...

much appreciated thank you
just to check that in a 2009 or earlier pro you cannot get the same upgrade options ?(just checking because they are cheaper)
 
Yes I think you can, you can even do a firmware update from mac pro 4,1 to 5,1.

The difference will be you still have the original 1066MHz bus speed not 1333MHz like the true 5,1 machines.

It will still be a massive upgrade from the original 2009 model.
 
theSeb said:
Your upgrade paths are limited to changing the CPU (as long as they are compatible with the chipset on the motherboard)
Click to expand...
Not even that - in the 1,1 / 2,1 you can't run Harpertown (Xeon 54xx) processors even though the chipset would be compatible as of Intels own datasheets, because EFI support is missing. Not that it is much of a loss as the performance increase is probably not worth the hassle in the first place - but it's a mentionable (and annoying) shortcoming on Apple's part.
 
iC D said:
much appreciated thank you
just to check that in a 2009 or earlier pro you cannot get the same upgrade options ?(just checking because they are cheaper)
Click to expand...

If you're talking about the single-processor 2009/4,1s, yes, you have similar upgrade paths. The dual-processor 4,1s are far more challenging due to the heat sinks and processors they use. The dual-proc 4,1s use a pair of lidless Intel Xeon processors, which are unobtanium. You can't buy them anywhere. You can add retail Xeons to the dual-processor machines, but you need to modify the heat sinks somehow (longer bolts, washers, or something like that) so that they don't crush the processors when attached.

This problem doesn't exist with the dual-processor 5,1 Mac Pros. Apple decided to use the normal, lidded Xeons with that model, making it far easier to swap them out.

jas
 
Neodym said:
Not even that - in the 1,1 / 2,1 you can't run Harpertown (Xeon 54xx) processors even though the chipset would be compatible as of Intels own datasheets, because EFI support is missing. Not that it is much of a loss as the performance increase is probably not worth the hassle in the first place - but it's a mentionable (and annoying) shortcoming on Apple's part.
Click to expand...

I see. Thanks for the clarification; I wasn't aware of that since I only switched to OSX in 2009.
 
To be honest, do nothing.

Do not buy a 2011 Mac Pro, there is suppose to be a new model coming out next year. Wait for that, the 2011 model is just a small cpu bump from the 2010.

Given how long apple leaves it between upgrades, I would only recommend buying a mac pro as soon as a new model is released (architecture changes), cause it going to stay the same for the next 3-4 years. Buying one at the end of they cycle is like throwing money way on old tech.

Blue-rays, fast GPUS, SLI/Crossfire GPUs, Faster ram (used for overclocking), etc etc is all PC world.... Upgrade paths for Mac Pros are about as exciting as being forced to see that damn chick flick with your other half... yeah sure 5-10% puts a smile on your face
 
jasonvp said:
If you're talking about the single-processor 2009/4,1s, yes, you have similar upgrade paths. The dual-processor 4,1s are far more challenging due to the heat sinks and processors they use. The dual-proc 4,1s use a pair of lidless Intel Xeon processors, which are unobtanium. You can't buy them anywhere. You can add retail Xeons to the dual-processor machines, but you need to modify the heat sinks somehow (longer bolts, washers, or something like that) so that they don't crush the processors when attached.

This problem doesn't exist with the dual-processor 5,1 Mac Pros. Apple decided to use the normal, lidded Xeons with that model, making it far easier to swap them out.

jas
Click to expand...

is the new mac book pro more powerful than the mac pro for 2008?
 
iC D, what are you looking for? Cause you are jumping from topic to topic.

To be more specific, why are you looking at a Mac? What do you plan to do with the machine, what do you want it to do best? What operating system do you plan on using and what's your budget?
 
Pval said:
iC D, what are you looking for? Cause you are jumping from topic to topic.

To be more specific, why are you looking at a Mac? What do you plan to do with the machine, what do you want it to do best? What operating system do you plan on using and what's your budget?
Click to expand...

ok fair enough
1 budget is great enough that it is pretty much infinite i just dont want to spend money unescessarily
2 with this machine i want it to preform games the best whilst using it for adobe photo shop and aperture
3 for gaming windows for every thing else osx
the reason i have been jumping from subject to subject is because i would like to get a better understanding of the mac pro
 
iC D said:
1 budget is great enough that it is pretty much infinite i just dont want to spend money unescessarily
Click to expand...

Let's remember that one for a second...

2 with this machine i want it to preform games the best whilst using it for adobe photo shop and aperture
3 for gaming windows for every thing else osx
Click to expand...

Based on what you're saying here, you'll be spending money unnecessarily. Using an expensive rig like a Mac Pro to play games in Windows is, IMHO, a terrible waste of money (and a machine). I don't know what your Photoshop workload is like, but my guess is: a 27" iMac loaded to the gills with RAM would probably suit your purposes better. That is unless you need a specific video card for your games (bearing in mind the iMacs' video cards are generally "mobile" ones).

Buy an iMac for your OS X work, and then assemble a gaming rig for your games. That's my suggestion...

jas
 
DJenkins said:
Yes I think you can, you can even do a firmware update from mac pro 4,1 to 5,1.

The difference will be you still have the original 1066MHz bus speed not 1333MHz like the true 5,1 machines.

It will still be a massive upgrade from the original 2009 model.
Click to expand...

I believe the 4,1s, just like the 5,1s, use QPI based off of the CPU for ram speed. So dropping in newer CPUs with newer RAM will give you that 1333Mhz link.
 
jasonvp said:
Let's remember that one for a second...



Based on what you're saying here, you'll be spending money unnecessarily. Using an expensive rig like a Mac Pro to play games in Windows is, IMHO, a terrible waste of money (and a machine). I don't know what your Photoshop workload is like, but my guess is: a 27" iMac loaded to the gills with RAM would probably suit your purposes better. That is unless you need a specific video card for your games (bearing in mind the iMacs' video cards are generally "mobile" ones).

Buy an iMac for your OS X work, and then assemble a gaming rig for your games. That's my suggestion...

jas
Click to expand...

ya i thought about it and that was the conclusion i reached
 
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