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Mac Pro (Early 2008) 820-2128-A Mobo Question

Ursadorable

Ursadorable

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 9, 2013
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The Frozen North
So I ordered a couple 3.2GHz Xeon's for my 820-2128-A motherboard, and rummaging around on eBay noticed there's a 820-2128-B motherboard as well, that's supposed to be for the 3.2GHz chip. I can't seem to find any information on if my -A board will support the 3.2GHz chip now, though I swore I saw someone using the X5482's on the -A board before.

Has anyone with a 2.8GHz board successfully upgraded theirs to 3.2GHz? I'm wondering what the difference might be between the A and B as they look identical from what I can tell.
 
I don't know, but I have a 2.8 that I've been thinking of upgrading to 3.2. When you get it, can you let me know what your experience is, and post some before/after benchmarks?
 
I've already pulled the processors out in lieu of the new ones arriving. :) But I can post some after benchmarks once they are installed.
 
Sounds good. Can't wait to hear what you think. How much did you pay for the new processors? The ones I found seem to be going for 60 bucks apiece on ebay.
 
These are the ones I bought.. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/141770417393?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

As for the board, from what I've been able to find so far is that an Apple parts dealer claims Apple says the boards are interchangeable.

661-4449 - Mac Pro (Early 2008) 2.8/3.0 GHz Logic Board (820-2128-A)

Notes:
Apple Part Number: 661-4449, 630-7997, 820-2128-A

If 661-4449 is out of stock, Apple has authorized a substitute of part 661-4676.


661-4676 - Mac Pro (Early 2008) 3.2GHz Logic Board (820-2128-B)

Notes:
Part Number: 661-4676, 630-7997, 820-2128-B, 630-7997, 631-0836

If 661-4676 is out of stock, Apple has authorized a substitute of part 661-4449.
 
Those are the wrong cpus!

You need SLANZ X5482. The SLBBG ones won't work.
 
Kaspin said:
Those are the wrong cpus!

You need SLANZ X5482. The SLBBG ones won't work.
Click to expand...

Intel only had those ones listed on their website. What's the difference?
[doublepost=1452292866][/doublepost]The only difference I see between the two is the SLBBG is a newer stepping, and has 30W less consumption per CPU. Otherwise they seem identical in specs, socket, etc.
 
Looks like (from what I've briefly read) the Mac Pro only supports C0 stepping and not E0. (Which is a shame because otherwise we would be able to upgrade to the X5492 which is 3.4GHZ, but only offered in E0 stepping).
 
Well that would be frustrating if that turns out to be the case. Ugh.. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what shows up in the mail.
 
Yes, different stepping. E0 physically fits, but isn't supported in the EFI (it doesn't know it needs a lower VCC). In theory, apple could release a firmware update to support it, but they never will.
 
Well, if they end up arriving as non-SLANZ, I'll just toss the 2.8's back in. I have a Velocity Duo 2xSSD card coming, which will give me a significant boost in speed anyways.
 
I'm in Canada, and they don't seem to ship to Canada. Aww well, like I say, I'll wait and see what actually shows up on my doorstep before I worry too much.
 
Kaspin said:
These were my Geekbench scores when I did the upgrade:
Before: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1810696
After: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1916550

Handbrake transcoding goes about 8-10% faster. Not too noticeable otherwise.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of 2.8GHz 3,1s that I bought new plus I bought a used 3.2GHz at a good price a couple of years ago. In use I notice zero difference between the systems. TBH even if I were given some 3.2GHz CPUs for free I wouldn't bother to do the upgrade as I don't think that it would be worth the hassle & potential for damage.
 
Well... Despite the warnings, I decided to purchase the CPU upgrades. Even if there isn't a noticeable difference, at least it gives me a chance to tinker on my machine which is the real reason I have a Mac Pro, right?

I have been doing a lot of handbraking recently too, so the extra speed will hopefully help there!
 
I received the processors, and found time to do the upgrade today. There was a lot of dust in there!

skBzEKo.jpg
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bgG7Va2.jpg


It booted! That's always nice. The results seem pretty good. I just did a before/after with cinebench. If the results are to be believed, there is a 20% performance improvement.

hscrnBN.png


I'm wondering about these temp outputs though. CPU b seems hotter. Is that within tolerance? I didn't think to take note of the measurements prior to the update.

q14X8C2.png


Ursadorable, did you end up returning the CPUs or trying them out? Whats next for you?
 
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Yikes, that's alot of dust! :D

I haven't received the processors yet.. so no way of knowing for sure which ones I'll get.

Gratz on the upgrade!

Depending which ones I get, I may order the SLANZ. In the meantime I'm waiting for my flashed GTX750Ti from MacVidCards. I've upgraded my 3,1 with 16GB of RAM @ 800Mhz (removed the slower 8GB). I've also added a Velocity Duo x2 with two Samsung 840 Pro 256GB drives configured in a striped RAID. Two Seagate 4TB drives softRAID mirrored as a Time Machine backup drive.

This afternoon my 4 port USB3.0 card showed up, and it installed and runs perfectly.

Not a lot left to do to this MP besides the processors and GPU. I may add another 16GB of RAM and increase the size of my RAM drive (browser cache) from 1GB.
 
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Nice! Let me know how the USB card works for you. Where did you purchase it? My worry with them is that I've heard that sleep causes devices to disconnect.

That velocity duo must be screaming. I have an OWC Accelsior card with a Samsung SSD in there. The SSD certainly made certain things faster. That was a satisfying upgrade.

I think my next upgrade will be 16 GB additional RAM.

I upgraded my video card to the Radeon 6870. It was the cheapest worthwhile upgrade I saw at the time. I'm thinking now that I might want to get something that gives me cuda support as well as support for 4K if I ever want to go that direction in the future...

So many ways to spend my money... Sigh...
 
USB 3.0 Card - http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00GG5GMKK

I never sleep my computers (only the display), so I've never tested it. But otherwise, the card works fantastic.. unlike the reviews from people that managed to plug the power cable in the wrong way lol.
 
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I just upgraded my MVC flashed GPU tonight, and got a 400% speed bump over the stock HD2600. Something isn't quite right with your CPU benchmark.

Here's mine with my two 2.8GHz Xeons. I hope I get more than 633 out of it from the 400Mhz bump in speed.

526798-f993fabe606182aa1d70336b2a059012.jpg
 

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Cinebench is heavily biased towards AMD/ATI cards, and I dont trust its cpu benchmark much either.

If you want a cpu benchmark, use Geekbench.
 
You'll note my 2.8 before score is more than 120 less than your 2.8 score. So I don't know that I trust Cinebench for anything more than a relative gauge.

I'd use Geekbench, but i guess I'm too cheap to pay 10 bucks to get the 64 bit support. :p
 
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