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The Most Adaptable Secondhand Mac Pro
- Thread starter matteodv
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I've just looked at some YouTube vids on the subject, the 1,1 & 2,1 models are easy but it's a very long and fiddle process as there's lots of stuff you have to take off to get to them but in all the other models where the processor is on the same card as the memory it looks like a peice of cake!
I think the hardest thing is trying to find compatible processors etc
People are putting in the following CPUs:
Quads
3.2Ghz: Xeon W3570 or the Core i7 965.
3.33Ghz: Xeon W3580 or the Core i7 975.
Hex - 6-core
3.2Ghz: Xeon W3670 or the Core i7 970.
3.33Ghz: Xeon W3680 or the Core i7 980/980X.
3.46Ghz: Xeon W3690 or the Core i7 990X.
With Core i7 you loose ECC memory support, but it means you can buy normal (and possibly cheaper) memory.
No real point in putting a W3570 or W3580 in, might as well get the W3680 and be done with it.
You should be able to find a 2009 Mac Pro + W3680 + 16GB ECC for £1400.
I upgraded mine earlier this year for £450 (CPU) and £100 (Memory).
I was going to do the same - get a 2.8 quad refurb and then do the upgrade to 6-core.
Then I worked out all the upgrade possibilities. In simple terms, the 6-core upgrade tops out at about 15,000 in Geekbench.
For a similar price (or cheaper if lucky on eBay) to the refurb 2.8 (or 3.2) you could get an 8-core 2009 2.26. This has a Geekbench of about 13500. So, a similar performance for a similar price. But this way you can always upgrade the CPUs further and top out at 22,000+ (that's if you got 2 x 2.66 6-cores) You could always buy faster like 3.46 6-cores.
So after months of thinking it over I got the 2009 8-core for about 500euro less than the 2.8 Apple refurb. I've yet to do the CPU upgrade, but what's the rush - it's already fast and new to me and I can do it when it starts to feel sluggish.
I think this way sounds more upgradable in future. I'd love to hear anybody else pro's and con's of this method.
Just an idea, worked for me, maybe not for you
I was going to do the same - get a 2.8 quad refurb and then do the upgrade to 6-core.
Then I worked out all the upgrade possibilities. In simple terms, the 6-core upgrade tops out at about 15,000 in Geekbench.
For a similar price (or cheaper if lucky on eBay) to the refurb 2.8 (or 3.2) you could get an 8-core 2009 2.26. This has a Geekbench of about 13500. So, a similar performance for a similar price. But this way you can always upgrade the CPUs further and top out at 22,000+ (that's if you got 2 x 2.66 6-cores) You could always buy faster like 3.46 6-cores.
So after months of thinking it over I got the 2009 8-core for about 500euro less than the 2.8 Apple refurb. I've yet to do the CPU upgrade, but what's the rush - it's already fast and new to me and I can do it when it starts to feel sluggish.
I think this way sounds more upgradable in future. I'd love to hear anybody else pro's and con's of this method.
Just an idea, worked for me, maybe not for you
Generally a valid argumentation. Just keep in mind that the upgrade CPUs won't be readily available forever.
If you can hang on till when/if the next model MP appears in 2013 you could use the time to save up more money and get a better spec secondhand MP without mucking about with CPU swaps. Potentially breaking a good MP to make a better one may be disastrous. Just my two cents.
Also, the OP also says he's built a Hackintosh, so it's likely he'd be well capable of it.
Another potential option is to upgrade the 2 x 2.26 quads to 2 x W5590 at 3.33 and get a Geekbench of about 20600 like this fella did-
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/step_by_step_mac_pro_processor_upgrade/
If it ain't broke don't fix it. A motto many a smart arse learnt too late.
And some of us never learn, and that's ok.
The CPU swap after the 4.1 to 5.1 flash is about as easy as it gets. There are a couple of great threads here with pics and a few vids too. My Geekbeench scores went from 9 thousand something to 16,400 going from the W3540 to the W3690. Real world performance improved as much as the benchmarks, if not even better! All you need is 20 to 30 minutes, the CPU, a long 3mm hex wrench and some Arctic Silver thermal paste and two step cleaner/prep solution.
PS - In a sense, all Mac Pros are "broken." Upgrades to the hardware are sorely needed and Pro users can derive great benefits from these upgrades, along with the new GPU possibilities, while awaiting the promised late 2013 refresh. Time = money, and faster FPS in OpenGL apps, along with exponentially faster render/processing times, means pure profit. I spent about 2,000 USD upgrading my 4.1 and the increased performance paid for itself in less than a month.
PS - In a sense, all Mac Pros are "broken." Upgrades to the hardware are sorely needed and Pro users can derive great benefits from these upgrades, along with the new GPU possibilities, while awaiting the promised late 2013 refresh. Time = money, and faster FPS in OpenGL apps, along with exponentially faster render/processing times, means pure profit. I spent about 2,000 USD upgrading my 4.1 and the increased performance paid for itself in less than a month.
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Not wrong at all. I appreciate the gains to be made from nice upgrades and the time=money equation in a professional world, but I also understand the needs of a critically low budget in education having sent the GF's son to Uni with technological requirements not once but twice.
To buy a good single CPU MP for a bargain price to go to school with and increase its usable lifespan with a hex-core later for your career when the need for it to be faster and more profitable makes lots of sense. I would question the risk of screwing up your entire student budget by botching an "easy" mod.
The classic "What's that smell? Too late...." CPU fry has not been unknown to the overconfident.
On the other hand they do make it look very easy: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1120326/
The extra 600 bucks to do that could be more useful buying SSD boot/scratch disks and a decent GFX card.
I would humbly suggest that they would be more productive upgrades which would also augment a Hex core purchase after the fruits of education and qualification start to pay off. As I said, just my 2c.
[How to start an argument on the internet: State an opinion. Wait.]
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Well, first, you can't always think of performance based on what a Geekbench score will tell you. There are other factors, such as single-threaded applications (there are still many of these) that will perform a lot better with less cores and a higher clock speed. So, a pair of 2.26GHz E5520s isn't always going to perform better than say, a single 3.2GHz W3570.
Upgrading the CPUs on a dual-processor Mac Pro isn't an inexpensive proposition. 5500/5600 series CPUs are a lot more expensive at the same clock speeds than their 3500/3600 counterparts. Often, it's simply a lot less hassle to sell the old machine and buy a new one with higher-clocked processors.
A closing thought: A single-CPU 2009 machine flashed to 5,1 firmware with a CPU swap to W3680 hex-core (a $600 upgrade) will outperform a base 2.26GHz dual-CPU (8 cores) at multithread and completely destroy it at single-thread.
I did the 4,1 to 5,1 3.33 single core upgrade. It was way EZ. Kinda' fun, too!
GB 32 bit went from 8500 to 13800.
GB 32 bit went from 8500 to 13800.
It's a CPU swap under tightened conditions on the 4,1 as that model is missing the heat spreaders on the CPU die(s), making it a little bit more adventurous than on e.g. the 1,1 models...
I agree 100%. I'm looking to run almost all multi-threaded apps so I forget that sometimes.
It depends on what you call inexpensive though, doesn't it? You can get 2x 3.33 W5590 quads second hand for about $500, that ain't too bad.
If you'll allow me to rejig the above a little-Yes, but a dual-CPU 2009 machine flashed to 5,1 firmware with dual CPU swap to W5590 octo-core (a $500 upgrade) will outperform an upgraded 3.46GHz (6 cores) at multithread and be almost the same at single-thread.
I do appreciate being corrected though, I'm new to the idea of CPU replacements and am trying to learn about it
Are you certain that such CPUs could be used in a dual Mac Pro?
3 pairs available here for $549 each pair: http://www.ebay.de/itm/2-x-INTEL-XEON-QUAD-CORE-W5590-SLBGE-3-33GHz-6-4GT-s-QPI-MATCHING-PAIR-LGA-1366-/110932665520?pt=US_Server_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item19d41a24b0#ht_500wt_984
It was my impression that only Exxxx and Xxxx could be used in dual Mac Pros, and the Wxxxx was for machines with only one CPU-slot? (But on the other hand, it would then be strange to sell matching pairs)
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Obviously it must be possible, considering the fact that the guy you referred to did it. Hmmm.
Then I don't see why everybody says it's so expensive to upgrade a dual?
I'm tempted of buying a used 2010 2*2.4GHz now, and do that upgrade as well.
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Yeah, I thought it was strange too but after further research if you look here you can see that the 3.33 W5590's are listed as 2 under 'multi-processing'-
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon%20W5590%20-%20AT80602000753AA%20(BX80602W5590).html
What you miss out on is no turbo boost, and L3 cache is 8mb rather than 12mb which a hex or dual hex would have.
Yes, it seems like a sweet deal!
I got my dual 2.26 from Germany last week
If you get one off eBay you could to the 4,1 to 5,1 firmware hack and achieve this for even less than a 2010 model No TB is not really an issue. Or, at least I fail to see how it's a big problem. It would be a problem in single-threaded applications/games where 3.33GHz just isn't enough, but I don't know of such.
By the way, there's a thrilling rollercoaster ride thread here, about a guy inserting these into his (then) new 2009 MP.
By the way, there's a thrilling rollercoaster ride thread here, about a guy inserting these into his (then) new 2009 MP.
Yeah, 3.33 would be more than enough for what I want to do.
Haha, read that already (been reading so much on this topic the last couple of months)...won't stop me looking over it again though
Strange, here it says that W5590 do support TB: http://ark.intel.com/products/41643/Intel-Xeon-Processor-W5590-(8M-Cache-3_33-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI)
But I presume it's an error on the website.
I don't know if we're missing something here. It seems that with 24GB RAM and in 64-bit mode, the Geekbench score is just below 20000 for this kind of configuration: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/search?page=1&q=W5590
What am I missing? It seems the performance is almost on par with the MP 2010 DP X5650 configuration (which retailed at 4999USD).
But I presume it's an error on the website.
I don't know if we're missing something here. It seems that with 24GB RAM and in 64-bit mode, the Geekbench score is just below 20000 for this kind of configuration: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/search?page=1&q=W5590
What am I missing? It seems the performance is almost on par with the MP 2010 DP X5650 configuration (which retailed at 4999USD).
I think it does and that it's mistakenly listed as not. If it does, then it goes to 3.6 with TB.
Yeah, the performance is very similar. I've been thinking of getting X5650s for a while, but they're a bit more expensive than W5590s - and I think on most programmes the 3.33 would be better than the 2.66 clock speed.
Does anybody know which 'LGA 1366 Sockets' motherboards are used for Mac Pro 2009 2.26 octo-core?
Reason being, there's 1bout 14 listed here-
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Intel/index.html
Some don't seem to support X5690s. No, I'm probably not going to be able to get X5690s, but it would be nice to know what's compatible.
Reason being, there's 1bout 14 listed here-
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Intel/index.html
Some don't seem to support X5690s. No, I'm probably not going to be able to get X5690s, but it would be nice to know what's compatible.
The logic boards in the Mac Pros are of proprietary Apple designs, and built at Foxconn.
A 2009 (4,1) board should support any CPU with D0 stepping (3500/5500 series), but would require a flash to 5,1 firmware to support processors with B1 stepping (3600/5600 series).