Upgrade mid 2007 iMac, worth it?

[Neo_Hunt]

Ok the BCM94321MC wifi card is NOT compatible. But I know that the BCM94322MC is recognized by macOS Sierra.

Hey... Thanks for the info! But could you confirm which one is actually the 0x88 one?
I ended up swapping my old SuperDrive for a new one from eBay. I still use it from time to time in order to rip old CDs and to burn some AVCHD DVDs (Blu-Ray DVD-R DL actually).

Hope you get your T9300 the soonest! Wondering why you did not got full throttle directly to the T9500 though... (or even the X9000...!!!)

 

[nandor690]

Hey... Thanks for the info! But could you confirm which one is actually the 0x88 one?
I ended up swapping my old SuperDrive for a new one from eBay. I still use it from time to time in order to rip old CDs and to burn some AVCHD DVDs (Blu-Ray DVD-R DL actually).

Hope you get your T9300 the soonest! Wondering why you did not got full throttle directly to the T9500 though... (or even the X9000...!!!)

To be honest. It came down to price. The T9300 was $18 and the T9500 and X9000 were $50-80.
Other than a marginal difference in frequency they have the same specs i.e: 45nm, 6 Mb L2 cache, 410Million processing transistors.....except for the X9000 which uses a little more power at 44W while the other 2 use 35W

If you put all 3 against each other they all perform almost identically

My CPU finally made it from China to Chicago on Sunday so it shouldn't be to long now!!!!

I'll have before and after geekbench screenshots of the X7900 that's in my iMac now and the T9300
[doublepost=1484676026][/doublepost]

Hey... Thanks for the info! But could you confirm which one is actually the 0x88 one?

Oh and to answer this question!!! The BCM94321MC (original card) is the one that I took out of my iMac and is the 0x88. I have read and am almost 100% positive it won't be recognized by Sierra. BUT once I have Sierra install I can check. They are very easy to swap out

 

[Neo_Hunt]

To be honest. It came down to price. The T9300 was $18 and the T9500 and X9000 were $50-80.
Other than a marginal difference in frequency they have the same specs i.e: 45nm, 6 Mb L2 cache, 410Million processing transistors.....except for the X9000 which uses a little more power at 44W while the other 2 use 35W

If you put all 3 against each other they all perform almost identically

My CPU finally made it from China to Chicago on Sunday so it shouldn't be to long now!!!!

I'll have before and after geekbench screenshots of the X7900 that's in my iMac now and the T9300
[doublepost=1484676026][/doublepost]
Oh and to answer this question!!! The BCM94321MC (original card) is the one that I took out of my iMac and is the 0x88. I have read and am almost 100% positive it won't be recognized by Sierra. BUT once I have Sierra install I can check. They are very easy to swap out

I think you're right! The T9300 is certainly the best price/performance CPU for the 800MHz Socket P iMac.
If the 0x88 is indeed unsupported... It'd be nice to inform SierraPatch's dosdude1 so to include it in his list.

 

[nandor690]

I think you're right! The T9300 is certainly the best price/performance CPU for the 800MHz Socket P iMac.
If the 0x88 is indeed unsupported... It'd be nice to inform SierraPatch's dosdude1 so to include it in his list.

I think he did. Under known issues it says "BCM4321" won't have wifi support. That may be a typo. I think he meant BCM94321

He is on another thread on here, we could let him know. I'll wait until I have macOS Sierra installed and see if there are other issues to let him know about. I think there is only a few of us looking to upgrade 2007 iMacs lol. But I like that. We will be only a few people with these monster machines hahahahaha

 

[Samuelsan2001]

All very fun and a great hobby but you still just have an old computer with old second hand components running new software to a mediocre standard. If you take into account your time and effort as well as parts costs you'd be halfway to buying a new one that is far superior in every metric.

 

[nandor690]

All very fun and a great hobby but you still just have an old computer with old second hand components running new software to a mediocre standard. If you take into account your time and effort as well as parts costs you'd be halfway to buying a new one that is far superior in every metric.

$42 USD is hardly halfway lol.

 

[elf69]

I will be doing this upgrade to my 2007 imac soon.

have a x7900 2.8 core2duo extreme on order.
better than my 2.0 core2duo.

i love to tinker.
I would love to get sierra to run on it.

 

[nandor690]

I will be doing this upgrade to my 2007 imac soon.

have a x7900 2.8 core2duo extreme on order.
better than my 2.0 core2duo.

i love to tinker.
I would love to get sierra to run on it.

MacOS Sierra won't run on the X7900. I upgraded mine to that from the T7300 a few years ago. It's a pretty nice upgrade. The problem is is that the X7900 doesn't support sse4.1 instructions.
That's why I'm putting a T9300 in it

 

[elf69]

i was lead to believe the 2.8 core2duo extreme supported sse4.1

 

[nandor690]

i was lead to believe the 2.8 core2duo extreme supported sse4.1
[doublepost=1484740682][/doublepost]how about the t9900 as found in 2009 imac at 3.06GHz might try that.

T9900 won't work because the FSB is 1066. Our 7,1 iMacs only support 800 FSB.
Iv search quite a bit and the only solutions I found were the T9300 T9500 and X9000.
I went with the T9300 because it was $18. Other than frequency they are identical except that the X9000 uses more energy at 44W like the X7900. Which isn't to much of a problem, they just get a little hotter. But for the money, the T9300 seemed like the best choice.

But no, the X7900 doesn't support sse4.1. I am 100% sure about that
[doublepost=1484741203][/doublepost]

T9900 won't work because the FSB is 1066. Our 7,1 iMacs only support 800 FSB.
Iv search quite a bit and the only solutions I found were the T9300 T9500 and X9000.
I went with the T9300 because it was $18. Other than frequency they are identical except that the X9000 uses more energy at 44W like the X7900. Which isn't to much of a problem, they just get a little hotter. But for the money, the T9300 seemed like the best choice.

But no, the X7900 doesn't support sse4.1. I am 100% sure about that

I know that a CPU with 1066FSB won't work because I ordered a E8135. The socket is the same and everything. But because the FSB was 1066 it would never completly boot

 

[elf69]

thanks for saving me a head ache.

I too will get the t9300, thankfully the supplier has not sent the order due to no stock of the x7900.
have canceled order.

I need swap my wifi card and do not care for hand of, do you know if this card will work with sierra?

Apple iMac WiFi Airport Card AR5BXB92
[doublepost=1484742572][/doublepost]my own research also showed the CPU cooling system is only good to 45w CPUs

 

[nandor690]

thanks for saving me a head ache.

I too will get the t9300, thankfully the supplier has not sent the order due to no stock of the x7900.
have canceled order.

I need swap my wifi card and do not care for hand of, do you know if this card will work with sierra?

Apple iMac WiFi Airport Card AR5BXB92
[doublepost=1484742572][/doublepost]my own research also showed the CPU cooling system is only good to 45w CPUs

I'm not sure about that card. I know you don't care for handoff but you can get the card I got for $18 and the adapter for $6 and that why you would 802.11ac. You would also have Bluetooth 4.0 but I'm guessing wifi is what you're most conserned about

 

[elf69]

I do not use bluetooth.

as long as wifi work dont care method but you need antenna adaptors?
dont want mess with them

 

[nandor690]

I do not use bluetooth.

as long as wifi work dont care method but you need antenna adaptors?
dont want mess with them

You might want to do more research but I believe the BCM94322MC card will be recognized by macOS Sierra. I know the BCM4321MC isn't. And that is the one in our 7,1. But I'm almost sure I read that the BCM94322MC will work. And it should plug right in with no adapters at all

 

[elf69]

thank you for all your added info.

i'm now even more itchy to upgrade my imac.

 

[nandor690]

thank you for all your added info.

i'm now even more itchy to upgrade my imac.

Awesome!!! Good luck. Let me know if you need anything else.

 

[Neo_Hunt]

I think he did. Under known issues it says "BCM4321" won't have wifi support. That may be a typo. I think he meant BCM94321
View attachment 684199

The thing is he specifically mentioned 0x8C, 0x9D and 0x90. That's why I wondered about our 0x88.
Probably and unfortunately he simply forgot or did not have anyone testing it... until now!

 

[elf69]

took plunge and order everything.

1x4gb ram (got 2x2gb in it now)
CPU t9300
wifi card
2nd hdd caddy
arctic silver cpu paste

already have 120GB ssd ready to swap out hdd

only other question struggling find definitive answer.
do i need change the hdd and optical thermal sensors?

 

[nandor690]

took plunge and order everything.

1x4gb ram (got 2x2gb in it now)
CPU t9300
wifi card
2nd hdd caddy
arctic silver cpu paste

already have 120GB ssd ready to swap out hdd

only other question struggling find definitive answer.
do i need change the hdd and optical thermal sensors?

no. just make sure that they are attached to the hard drives securely. Flat side of the sensor down and you will be fine. Iv had mine in for awhile and no sensor problems.
[doublepost=1484752007][/doublepost]

took plunge and order everything.

1x4gb ram (got 2x2gb in it now)

How much did you find this for? Im looking for another one but the ones I find are crazy expensive
[doublepost=1484752161][/doublepost]

The thing is he specifically mentioned 0x8C, 0x9D and 0x90. That's why I wondered about our 0x88.
Probably and unfortunately he simply forgot or did not have anyone testing it... until now!

I haven't actually tested it because I'm still waiting on the cpu. But I am suspecting that because it is the BCM4321MC that it won't work. If for some reason it does, that would be great because then I could buy an adapter and use it in my macOS Sierra hackintosh
[doublepost=1484752557][/doublepost]Just got an update that the cpu finally made it from Chicago to St.Louis!!! should have it today around noon

 

[elf69]

4GB ddr2 667 from china was £37.11 free shipping.

ebay item: 381345549962

 

[nandor690]

4GB ddr2 667 from china was £37.11 free shipping.

ebay item: 381345549962

That's cheap! Thanks

 

[nandor690]

Installing macOS Sierra on my iMac now

 

[nandor690]

The install of the T9300 went smoothly. Except I left one of the white inverter plugs partially unplugged and the top half of my screen went dimmer than the bottom half. But after a few minutes of looking things over I found it and all is good now lol.
Installing macOS Sierra went just as smoothly using the patcher tool.

Initial impressions of the T9300 are impressive. First, I noticed right away that it runs much cooler under load than the X7900.
When running a stress test the X7900 would get close to 70 degrees Celsius. And running the same test on the T9300 it didn't go above 42 degrees Celsius.
I want to give it more time before I make the final call on this but initially, I feel like even tho the T9300 benchmarks a little lower than the X7900, the T9300 runs macOS better. I have not had any beachballs or stuttering problems like I was having with the X7900 on El Capitan and Yosemite. But I think more testing is needed to call this than just using it a few hours.

Benchmarks for X7900


And the T9300

The only thing that I don't like is that 'About This Mac' sees the T9300 as a 400MHz Intel Core 2 Duo and not the 2.5GHz that it is.

But if you use the command sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string in Terminal, it does show the correct CPU


I believe that there is a way to modify the 'About This Mac' section so you can put in the right information. I found an article for macOS and it said the file to modify was in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleSysteminfo.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/
and you edit the AppleSysteminfo.strings file in that folder. Well I tried a few different times and couldn't get it to work.
So If someone knows a way to mod the About This Mac, that would be great.
Also, all the I/O ports seem to be working without problems, the iSight camera is working, I haven't had any problems with wifi (even tho the antennas are not plugged in yet, still waiting on the adapters). But bluetooth won't connect to anything until I get the antennas.

Any one got any questions, OR A WAY TO MOD 'ABOUT THIS MAC' please let me know.

Nandor690

 

[elf69]

at least it is not running at 400MHz!

seen one post and the cpu was running at 400MHz!

Just waiting my bits to arrive from china now.

 

[Neo_Hunt]

The install of the T9300 went smoothly. Except I left one of the white inverter plugs partially unplugged and the top half of my screen went dimmer than the bottom half. But after a few minutes of looking things over I found it and all is good now lol.
Installing macOS Sierra went just as smoothly using the patcher tool.

The only thing that I don't like is that 'About This Mac' sees the T9300 as a 400MHz Intel Core 2 Duo and not the 2.5GHz that it is.

But if you use the command sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string in Terminal, it does show the correct CPU

I believe that there is a way to modify the 'About This Mac' section so you can put in the right information. I found an article for macOS and it said the file to modify was in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleSysteminfo.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/
and you edit the AppleSysteminfo.strings file in that folder. Well I tried a few different times and couldn't get it to work.
So If someone knows a way to mod the About This Mac, that would be great.

Any one got any questions, OR A WAY TO MOD 'ABOUT THIS MAC' please let me know.

Glad to know everything is working, besides the cosmetic "About this Mac" problem.
But it seems benchmark wise you are going down 20% on the multi-core performance...
Fortunately it feels better, probably because it is a Penryn with SSE4.1, 45nm Die topping at 1.250V (instead of 65nm and 1.375V) and has 6MB Cache...

I tried myself the AppleSysteminfo.strings trick, but it did not work out. Even after restarting... I think when the iMac finds a match for the CPU it does not take into account the following keys/strings... (I used TextWrangler to edit them)...

<key>SpeedAndTypeFormat</key>
<string>%1$d x %2$@</string>
<key>UnknownCPUKind</key>
<string>Unknown</string>

What about the System Report CPU and FSB speeds?

I was also trying to figure out how to edit/update the EFI with rEFIt... But I think I am not capable of.
If there existed any Firmware Update for the iMac 8,1, we might have found someone with the expertise to update it into the 7,1. Mostly in the same way people update their iMac 4,1 to 5,1 in order to install a Core 2 Duo. I think there is a similar update for the Mac Pro, exactly from 4,1 to 5,1 as well... Go figure...!!!

Regarding the Wireless connections... Did you test the old 0x88 Card on Sierra? What about the original BT 2.0?

Cheers!