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MacPro 5,1 Upgradability

H

HoLyCoWzOrZ

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 16, 2011
4
0
I need to buy a new computer now, so I'm looking at the Mac Pros. I've been waiting since April, following the rumors, but I just can't wait anymore.

Now, I used to do a lot of hardware stuff back when the first Pentiums were around, but I haven't educated myself in any of the newest hardware technologies, so....

Before I purchase one though, I had a couple questions:

  1. Do all of the Mac Pros have the same motherboard and chipset? Does this mean that if I buy the 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”, I could eventually upgrade to the Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” like the server model uses?
  2. As for graphics, am I pretty much stuck with ATI? And are the 5770/5870's the only options I have when it comes to a dual-card setup?
  3. I also read somewhere that it's not possible to use CrossFire. If so, then how do the cards work together in OS X?

Thanks.
 
HoLyCoWzOrZ said:
[*] Do all of the Mac Pros have the same motherboard and chipset? Does this mean that if I buy the 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”, I could eventually upgrade to the Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” like the server model uses?
Click to expand...

No, the single processor Mac Pros only have a slot for one processor and only have 4 RAM slots. Whereas the dual processor Mac Pros have two slots for processors and 8 RAM slots.

HoLyCoWzOrZ said:
[*] As for graphics, am I pretty much stuck with ATI? And are the 5770/5870's the only options I have when it comes to a dual-card setup?
Click to expand...

Typically when a new Mac Pro comes out there will be new graphics cards with it and those will be compatible with some of the older Mac Pros.


HoLyCoWzOrZ said:
[*] I also read somewhere that it's not possible to use CrossFire. If so, then how do the cards work together in OS X?
Click to expand...

The cards work for more monitors only. So if you had two graphics cards in there it would use one of the cards as the main card and the other for just powering the other monitors. CrossFire is not supported in Mac OS X.
 
Thanks for the quick response iBookG4user.

So then if I purchase an 8-core system, I should be able to upgrade to the 12-core later on, right?

And as for the graphics cards, I could still get a dual monitor setup with just one card, right? I think I read somewhere that each card can handle up to 3 monitors, is that correct?
 
HoLyCoWzOrZ said:
Thanks for the quick response iBookG4user.

So then if I purchase an 8-core system, I should be able to upgrade to the 12-core later on, right?

And as for the graphics cards, I could still get a dual monitor setup with just one card, right? I think I read somewhere that each card can handle up to 3 monitors, is that correct?
Click to expand...

No problem. And yes, if you purchase the 8-core Mac Pro you would be able to upgrade that to 12-cores later on (Be wary that you'll have to get the X5000 series of Xeon Processors rather than the W5000 series. The X series is the dual processor model whereas the W series is the single processor model.)

I'm running three monitors on my 5870 right now. If you want to use DVI monitors you can use up to 2 DVI monitors using the standard mini displayport to DVI adaptor. If you wanted to run 3 monitors through DVI you would need to get an active mini displayport to DVI adapter. (Superbiiz has the single-link active adapters for ~$30, the standard Apple $29 adapter is not active, which is why this is of note)

MacinJosh said:
What? Is this accurate?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is accurate.
 
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