Hi,
Well, after reading the upgrade posts here and there on this forum I decided to take the plunge and go all the way on the Xeon path under Apple.
A lot of credit goes to Phillipma1957's thread: He did it before me and much better:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1122551/
First, a couple of things:
- I know that a self-built Linux box would be cheaper and could be had for less with probably more CPU power, especially with AMD Opteron processors. But at the same time, I wanted to have a Mac Pro maxed out as I use Snow Leopard, I like the case and like the overall Mac experience. (i.e. I didn't want a different case, deal with different issues when upgrading a hackintosh's OS or hardware)
- I use it for 3D animation, with Pixar's Renderman. I play games from time to time, but this is mainly for graphics, video editing and rendering. Before I bought the processors, I expected halving my rendering times in Renderman, and that is exactly what I got. (going from two e5620s to two x5690s)
- I also wanted to have to manage as few systems as possible. I did NOT want to have a PC for this, a Linux server for that, a laptop for this too, etc. I only have this Mac Pro for all my needs and can access the firepower via SSH when needed from a mobile space with my iPad
- Lastly, I have an AMD 5870, and for 3D animation and even games, I think is reasonable for the price. The only card that is better is the nvidia 580, but: a) it would not work under Mac (like it would not run Autodesk Smoke, which I use and is NOT available in windows) and b) will provide small marginal performance in other OS's. I believe this is also the case for the 6970, which is not supported yet, at least for 3D GLSL under Lion.
So, here is what I did:
At the beginning of the year I knew I would be doing something like swapping the CPUs, so I bought the cheapest Westmere dual processor Mac Pro from the refurb
store.
I got a hold of two xeon x5690s.
Using the hex 3mm tool, I took the CPU tray out and unscrewed the heatsinks, exposing the CPUs.
I cleaned the heatsinks and the CPUs in their sockets still. Now that I think about it, it should have been much easier to just take them out of their sockets and clean them afterwards. I wanted to clean them neatly as I am selling them on ebay to recoup some of the costs of the upgrade!
I remembered phillipma1957 mentioned to be careful with the cotton swabs and pads as to not leave them near the pins of the sockets, as some cotton would be left behind. So that is really the reason why I did it.
In any case, the cleaning was a little bit cumbersome and was not perfect, so I took the cpus out of their sockets anyway and cleaned them more afterwards.
I used arctic silver cleaning solutions, and it is great. I used to clean my old my MacBookPro when I cleaned the heatsink. And they work as advertised, it is really that good! I just have one complaint. Back when I bought it, they would sell me these big solutions the size of a small bottle and in two installations of 4 CPUS, I have used drops only. That is right, I have full bottles that will probably last me more than a lifetime.
The most exciting part was getting the Xeons out of their packaging and into their sockets. I was a little afraid of bending pins. As the lever is quite hard on pressing the CPU, but alas, that is the way it works! Also, I think my arctic silver solution has dried from years of use, or rather of not using it as often. And it was hard for me to create a smooth thermal mix screen on top of the CPUs so you could read the letters still and it was uniformly applied. so I decided to just wipe it clean again and apply a little to each CPU and let the heatsink spread it when re-assembled. So I don't really *know* for sure if I used too little.
I have owned macs since 1990s and this is by far, by far, the easiest to upgrade. The CPU swap is really just as promised back in the ZIF (zero insertion force) socket days. Just swap and off you go. No adjusting the height of the heatsink, no jumper settings, no taking off the metal cap on the CPU, no nothing. It is great!
I was already kind of expecting something would go wrong and the mac would not start up, but I did the swap on Thursday and have been rendering, emailing, listening to music and downloading items without a hitch pretty much every day for hours. I am writing it from it right now. And the CPUs are idling at around 35 degrees C. 75 degrees C when fully used (the fans kick in and the temps come back to 35 degrees C)
And lastly, I know in theory, the TDP of above 100 watts per CPU was still acceptable, as some other people had claimed to have done it and OWC says also you can do it. But I *still* was kind of anxious to see if it WOULD work
I love it!
Yes I know that it was a little expensive, but, not all decisions are economic in nature!
love my Mac Pro, until Xeon Sandy Bridge comes out! lol
