MP 1,1-5,1 Newbie Question on Processor Upgrade

[maclonchas]

Folks,

I have had my Mac Pro 5,1 2.8 GHZ Quad Xeon Processor for about a month now. This was an Ebay purchase for something to do during the Coronavirus time while am I am geographically distanced from my family. I have used this forum to troubleshoot getting the system up and running ... no boot to first getting High Sierra onto the system .... getting hard drives formatted correctly and now moving to Mojave after a GPU change to MSI Radeon 560 with the corresponding bios update to 144.0.0.0.0. It has been a journey but fun so far.

I am not looking to upgrade the processor or tray to get off the Nehalem processor

Nehalem

4 core

Xeon

W3530

2.80

3.06

1066

130W

to other Xeon processor swap

Westmere	6 core	Dual Xeon	X5690	3.46	3.73	1333	130W	x*	x	-
Westmere	6 core	Dual Xeon	X5680	3.33	3.60	1333	130W

or
a new CPU tray (only for 2010-2012). I am not looking at a dual processor tray.

My question is one of the BIOS when I do this switch with processor replacement or tray replacement, do I have to put the original GPU (5770) and start the process all over or do the swap and the BIOS will update. Not sure if the BIOS is in the CPU, motherboard, or GPU.

Thanks for the help.

Bill

 

[tsialex]

Folks,

I have had my Mac Pro 5,1 2.8 GHZ Quad Xeon Processor for about a month now. This was an Ebay purchase for something to do during the Coronavirus time while am I am geographically distanced from my family. I have used this forum to troubleshoot getting the system up and running ... no boot to first getting High Sierra onto the system .... getting hard drives formatted correctly and now moving to Mojave after a GPU change to MSI Radeon 560 with the corresponding bios update to 144.0.0.0.0. It has been a journey but fun so far.

I am not looking to upgrade the processor or tray to get off the Nehalem processor

Nehalem

4 core

Xeon

W3530

2.80

3.06

1066

130W

to other Xeon processor swap

Westmere	6 core	Dual Xeon	X5690	3.46	3.73	1333	130W	x*	x	-
Westmere	6 core	Dual Xeon	X5680	3.33	3.60	1333	130W

or
a new CPU tray (only for 2010-2012). I am not looking at a dual processor tray.

My question is one of the BIOS when I do this switch with processor replacement or tray replacement, do I have to put the original GPU (5770) and start the process all over or do the swap and the BIOS will update. Not sure if the BIOS is in the CPU, motherboard, or GPU.

Thanks for the help.

Bill

The EFI firmware is stored on the backplane.

A CPU tray don't have EFI firmware, just SMC firmware. The SMC firmware is not upgradeable by users or technicians, only by Apple, so for all effects, CPU trays are not upgradeable.

BIOS only exists on old PC motherboards, usually manufactured before 2011.

 

[maclonchas]

Tsialex,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for my poor wording. Yes I meant firmware and was trying to ensure the EFI was not going to reset by either a cpu tray swap or cpu swap. Thanks for the help.

Bill

 

[DPUser]

I've swapped out CPUs on number of 4,1s and 5,1s, for myself and for friends. It is a fun and rewarding project. Try it, you'll like it! You can throw the old CPU in a desk drawer just in case, but the job is very simple to do, and the X5680 CPUs are running about $40 on eBay, so cost is very low.

Look into replacing the Northbridge spring rivets and repasting the Northbridge heatsink while you're at it.

 

[kohlson]

I agree with @DPUser - this is a perfect "first" project for these times. If you read up on it, and carefully follow the instructions, it's satisfying. I would do.a search for "Mac Pro Technician Guide and grab the pdf. There are minor variations available depending on year, but the CPU swap info is very clear.

Note that when I swapped from a 4-core 2.93 to a 6-core 3.33 (x5680) it wasn't noticeable at all in terms of interactive performance on light tasks. But it does make a difference on CPU-intensive tasks. Arguably, 50%-ish more compute power.

 

[maclonchas]

Thanks