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New to me 2009 cMP what to do?

VanneDC

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Hi guys, after my re equaintance with the cMP 1.1, I kinda bit the bullet and thought I'd grab a 4.1, which are cheap enough now.

Bought one for 600us. ;)

Basic spec, single CPU tray, 16gb of ecc ram 2.93 quad core.

I would like to do the firmware upgrade to 5.1 and have bought a X5690 that I'll need to de_lid.

I've got 2 gtx 570's Mac cards that I'd like to run in this box. Will the PSU be powerfull enough? If need be I can get rid of the DVD drive if more power is needed..

Also intending to run non Ecc ram as I have 48gb 1333 from my windows box I'll be tearing down.

Any info or thoughts would be appreciated.
 
You shouldn't need to de-lid that one; Lidless CPU's were only used in the dual-quad AFAIK. All others are regular lidded parts.

Optimal RAM speed is achieved with 3 sticks, since it's a triple-channel memory controller. The 3 slots closest to the side panel are the ones you want to use. If you really need more RAM capacity, it'll be faster to use all 4 slots than going to SSD/HDD swap space.

The PSU can absolutely run 2x 570's. You need the power cables for it. eBay has em cheap.

PCIe SSD; Can't say enough about how big of a speed boost this is. Samsung SM951 AHCI(not NVMe), XP941, or Kingston HyperX Predator are all bootable. You need AHCI to boot; NVMe is not bootable.

Slapping a 1" square heatsink on a PCIe SSD's controller results in better speed when doing large amount of disk work. Not relevant for normal desktop purposes. Can have a big impact on heavy workloads.

KT4004 PCIe card for USB 3.0 (max out at 350MB/s) or Ableconn PUSB31P2A for USB 3.1 (max out at around 500-700MB/s). Neither of these require power from any extra connectors; can be fully powered from PCIe slot. KT4004 runs on any MAC OS 10.8.3 or later. The USB 3.1 card requires 10.12 or later. Bot are plug and play.
 
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VanneDC said:
Hi guys, after my re equaintance with the cMP 1.1, I kinda bit the bullet and thought I'd grab a 4.1, which are cheap enough now.

Bought one for 600us. ;)

Basic spec, single CPU tray, 16gb of ecc ram 2.93 quad core.

I would like to do the firmware upgrade to 5.1 and have bought a X5690 that I'll need to de_lid.

I've got 2 gtx 570's Mac cards that I'd like to run in this box. Will the PSU be powerfull enough? If need be I can get rid of the DVD drive if more power is needed..

Also intending to run non Ecc ram as I have 48gb 1333 from my windows box I'll be tearing down.

Any info or thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

The PSU is powerful enough, however, no way to deliver to 2x GTX570 natively. If you want they powered by the internal PSU only, you have to do the Pixlas mod, or get the power from SATA ports, etc.

Single CPU 4,1 using normal CPU, do NOT de-lid your X5690.
 
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Slash-2CPU said:
You shouldn't need to de-lid that one; Lidless CPU's were only used in the dual-quad AFAIK. All others are regular lidded parts.

Optimal RAM speed is achieved with 3 sticks, since it's a triple-channel memory controller. The 3 slots closest to the side panel are the ones you want to use. If you really need more RAM capacity, it'll be faster to use all 4 slots than going to SSD/HDD swap space.

The PSU can absolutely run 2x 570's. You need the power cables for it. eBay has em cheap.

PCIe SSD; Can't say enough about how big of a speed boost this is. Samsung SM951 AHCI(not NVMe), XP941, or Kingston HyperX Predator are all bootable. You need AHCI to boot; NVMe is not bootable.

Slapping a 1" square heatsink on a PCIe SSD's controller results in better speed when doing large amount of disk work. Not relevant for normal desktop purposes. Can have a big impact on heavy workloads.

KT4004 PCIe card for USB 3.0 (max out at 350MB/s) or Ableconn PUSB31P2A for USB 3.1 (max out at around 500-700MB/s). Neither of these require power from any extra connectors; can be fully powered from PCIe slot. KT4004 runs on any MAC OS 10.8.3 or later. The USB 3.1 card requires 10.12 or later. Bot are plug and play.
Click to expand...
Wow.. Slash, thats a pretty darn good response. Thanks very much. Looking forwards to getting my hands on it. FedEx has it ATM, hopefully have it in a week or so.

Great to hear I won't have to de lid that CPU, wasn't really looking forward to that after some of the issues the dual CPU guys have gone through.

Can I get enough juice through the DVD bay, if I remove both burners and just run those rails to the card? The 6 pin ones anyways? I don't have the cards in hand yet, so hopefully 2x6pin each. If it's an eight pin, I'll run the 8pin from the MOBO sockets.

I have an SSD I used in my old 2008 cMP that I'll dig up. Should go great. In regards to the memory? Really, 4 sockets, but it runs tripple channel?? Thats great to know, I have a really nice 24gb tripple kit I might Chuck in there, or see if I can grab something larger.

On the hunt now for a USB card.. ;)
[doublepost=1484670367][/doublepost]
h9826790 said:
The PSU is powerful enough, however, no way to deliver to 2x GTX570 natively. If you want they powered by the internal PSU only, you have to do the Pixlas mod, or get the power from SATA ports, etc.

Single CPU 4,1 using normal CPU, do NOT de-lid your X5690.
Click to expand...

Thanks H, how do i get power from the sata ports? Thanks for the hint about the CPU no need for de lidding, that made me smile.

:D
 
VanneDC said:
Wow.. Slash, thats a pretty darn good response. Thanks very much. Looking forwards to getting my hands on it. FedEx has it ATM, hopefully have it in a week or so.

Great to hear I won't have to de lid that CPU, wasn't really looking forward to that after some of the issues the dual CPU guys have gone through.

Can I get enough juice through the DVD bay, if I remove both burners and just run those rails to the card? The 6 pin ones anyways? I don't have the cards in hand yet, so hopefully 2x6pin each. If it's an eight pin, I'll run the 8pin from the MOBO sockets.

I have an SSD I used in my old 2008 cMP that I'll dig up. Should go great. In regards to the memory? Really, 4 sockets, but it runs tripple channel?? Thats great to know, I have a really nice 24gb tripple kit I might Chuck in there, or see if I can grab something larger.

On the hunt now for a USB card.. ;)
[doublepost=1484670367][/doublepost]

Thanks H, how do i get power from the sata ports? Thanks for the hint about the CPU no need for de lidding, that made me smile.

:D
Click to expand...

Pixlas mod involves tapping into the PSU's 12v lines before they enter the motherboard and adding two more PCIe 6-pin connectors.

SATA only has one 12v wire. Not enough to draw any significant power from. Forget SATA power.

If you don't have a real need for 2x 570's, it's possible to run one using the two 6-pin connectors available on the motherboard in the PCIe bay. The second GPU adds a lot of complexity.

If you're good with soldering and have heat shrink tubing available, it's a much better route than the wire-piercing connectors usually used for Pixlas mod.

SSD on the onboard SATA will max out at 280MB/s. PCIe SSD will hit 1300-1400MB/s.
 
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Slash-2CPU said:
Pixlas mod involves tapping into the PSU's 12v lines before they enter the motherboard and adding two more PCIe 6-pin connectors.

If you're good with soldering and have heat shrink tubing available, it's a much better route than the wire-piercing connectors usually used for Pixlas mod.

SSD on the onboard SATA will max out at 280MB/s. PCIe SSD will hit 1300-1400MB/s.
Click to expand...

I'll go the pixlas mod then :)

Which pcie SSD drives do you recommend? It's gotta be bootable.
 
Slash-2CPU said:
PCIe SSD; Can't say enough about how big of a speed boost this is. Samsung SM951 AHCI(not NVMe), XP941, or Kingston HyperX Predator are all bootable. You need AHCI to boot; NVMe is not bootable.

Slapping a 1" square heatsink on a PCIe SSD's controller results in better speed when doing large amount of disk work. Not relevant for normal desktop purposes. Can have a big impact on heavy workloads.
Click to expand...

;) Way ahead of you. The Samsung's are fastest, but discontinued and getting harder to find.

Post pics of final build!
 
Slash-2CPU said:
SATA only has one 12v wire. Not enough to draw any significant power from. Forget SATA power.
Click to expand...

The SATA port provide about 4.5A on the 12V line. So, it's ~55W at there. It's a bit less than the 75W. For some card not really that power hunger. It's possible to drive each card by 1x mini 6 pin + 1x SATA.

For more power hunger card. It can be driven by 1x mini 6pin + 2x SATA.

In fact, for some very demanding card (e.g. 300W TDP). It is quite easy to power it by 2x mini 6pin -> 8pin + 2x SATA -> 6pin safely.

Anyway, Pixlas mod is the better permanent solution.
 
Ok let me throw something else in the mix, my old PC has 2 gtx 580's in it, just regular PC cards in SLi. Would those be prefered in the Mac Pro? How much of a hassle is it to live without the boot screen (obviously dual boot windows) and any other issues in osx with stock PC cards?

I also have an extra internal PSU to drive the cards in my PC, could easily move that across.

With pcie SSD and 2 drives only, I'd have 2 SATA power slots available.. hmm..

So I could in theory run those gtx580's in my Mac Pro.. would be nice to have a boot screen though...
 
It's not bad with no boot screen. Definitely keep a Mac ROM card handy if you need to troubleshoot.

If you don't do 3D work, 570 vs 580 would be no difference.
 
If you can, trade your 580s in for a GTX 680 and flash it to Mac edition. This will give you boot screens and run with native macOS driver.
The 680 is a great, cheap card for the cMP.
 
why two 570's? one will be fine, i dont think you can SLI if that helps.
 
Hmm , conflicting info..

Does it have enough juice to run 2 gtx 570's?

CPU boss shows there is Jack all difference between the 570, 580 and 680 benchmarks.

Since I already have the 2 Mac 570's, I'll probably stay with them.. and I'll run them in SLi. Not sure what I will do with the 580's..

SLi for in windows..

I also have a Sonnet thunderbolt pcie enclosure that I'd like to use. So just bought a combo usb3.1 and thunderbolt card.. NFI if it will work in the Mac Pro or not, but worth a try. If not in the Mac Pro, it will still function under windows.
 
Last edited:
VanneDC said:
Hmm , conflicting info..

Does it have enough juice to run 2 gtx 570's?
Click to expand...

If you already decided go the Pixlas route, yes, the 980W rated PSU has enough juice.

VanneDC said:
Ok let me throw something else in the mix, my old PC has 2 gtx 580's in it, just regular PC cards in SLi. Would those be prefered in the Mac Pro? How much of a hassle is it to live without the boot screen (obviously dual boot windows) and any other issues in osx with stock PC cards?
Click to expand...

SLI doing nothing in OSX. That's only for Windows. However, multiple GPU can work together in computation. e.g. OpenCL. I am now using 2x 7950 Corssfire in my 4,1, and FCPX can utilise them quite well. However, for gaming, only Windows can utilise SLI / Crossfire.

Boot screen is generally useless. One of my 7950 is the Mac Edition, the other one is also flashed, but I 99% boot my Mac with just the PC ROM. I don't really need the boot screen from day to day operation. And it cause Crossfire crashing. So, I only switch to the Mac EFI ROM only when I really need it.
 
As far as I know, the 5,1 mac pro will not allow SLI in windows, since nvidia does not rate it as having a SLI ready motherboard.

You can run two ATI cards in crossfire, but I highly doubt you can hack the 570's or any nvidia card to work in windows as SLI.

You should look into this before you consider the pixlas mod.
 
Ok, bit of a change in the setup that ill be running...

aquired 2 gtx 570 mac cards... also have 2 gtx 580 PC cards and now have just bought 2x ref gtx 680 2mb cards..

So ill be getting rid of all the other cards, flashing the 680 cards to mac and using an additional power supply in my Mac Pro (drive bay pus from thermal take) to power 2 6pin power sockets on the cards. (currently its powering both 8pin sockets on my gtx580's.

hopefully this will be a good idea :)
 
VanneDC said:
Ok, bit of a change in the setup that ill be running...

aquired 2 gtx 570 mac cards... also have 2 gtx 580 PC cards and now have just bought 2x ref gtx 680 2mb cards..

So ill be getting rid of all the other cards, flashing the 680 cards to mac and using an additional power supply in my Mac Pro (drive bay pus from thermal take) to power 2 6pin power sockets on the cards. (currently its powering both 8pin sockets on my gtx580's.

hopefully this will be a good idea :)
Click to expand...
Smart decision ;)
 
Ok both cards came in, flashed them. Works great on dos, have to wait for the apple power cables to arrive to test in the machine. I gather it's gonna be fine as it still works on dos, so no dramas I'd say.

New CPU came in, now waiting for long Hex key to arrive.

Wow that CPU tray is super nice.. :)
 
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