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Upgrading a 2010 Mac Pro Quad (2.8Ghz) to a Xeon W3690

Hello. New here. First post. I'm about to do this on two Mac Pro's: 2009 Nehalem 4,1 quad 2.66 and a 2010 5.1 quad 2.8. I'm waiting for W3090 and a X5690. The W3090 will go in the 4,1 Nehalem and the X5600 in the 2.8.

Nervous. I've never done this before. I'm also upping the memory to 32 each.

Basic silly question. Aren't a lot of security passwords etc attached to the CPU serial number? How does this effect Apple Store, iTunes accounts and software on my hard drives? I own them all. I'm just not looking forward to the hassle of locating everything. Or forgetting and launching some app that won't run. I suppose it's a small thing.

What are the gotchas I might look forward to?

Thanks.
 
machenryr said:
Hello. New here. First post. I'm about to do this on two Mac Pro's: 2009 Nehalem 4,1 quad 2.66 and a 2010 5.1 quad 2.8. I'm waiting for W3090 and a X5690. The W3090 will go in the 4,1 Nehalem and the X5600 in the 2.8.

Nervous. I've never done this before. I'm also upping the memory to 32 each.

Basic silly question. Aren't a lot of security passwords etc attached to the CPU serial number? How does this effect Apple Store, iTunes accounts and software on my hard drives? I own them all. I'm just not looking forward to the hassle of locating everything. Or forgetting and launching some app that won't run. I suppose it's a small thing.

What are the gotchas I might look forward to?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Absolutely nothing software related, just swap out the CPU + mem and it will boot into your current OSX install as if nothing happened. O no not completely true, the memory configuration menu will pop up informing you the memory configuration changed. But nothing is related to your account or the CPU's serial number.
 
machenryr said:
Wow. That is reassuring!
Click to expand...

If this is the very first time you do CPU swap. Make sure you know how to apply the thermal paste. It's a relatively easy job, but you have to do it correctly with not much guidance / assistant.

Also, make sure you flash the 4,1 to 5,1 before you install the W3690 (I assume you get this one but not W3090).
 
MacVidCards said:
Windows may think it is a new computer.
Click to expand...

Haven't experienced this myself but could be. My Win 7 Pro install has also gone through two CPU swaps and did not complain/notice. Dual CPU is a bit more tricky, as you can only use Win ... Pro or higher, could be that such a setup responds more to a change of CPU's(?).
 
I may have a problem. I bought a W5690 for my 5,1 quad 2.8Mac Pro on eBay. But what the guy sent was X5698. Am I screwed? Will this work???
 
That wont work, a X5698 was a rare OEM Xeon where 4 out of 6 cores where disabled to get two cores running at 4.4GHz(!). An interesting CPU for sure, it was listed at 10K+ prices back in the days apparently, may I ask what you paid now?

However, it wont boot in the MP, you can use (amongst more, but less popular choises) hexacore X5670, X5675, X5680, X5690 or equivalent W3XXX
 
Try to sell it on, it's quite a unique CPU even though the price you paid is also quite high already.

Really take care in making sure you get a correct type! A X5680 could be found for around 250,- and a X5690 for around 400,-
 
bokkow said:
Try to sell it on, it's quite a unique CPU even though the price you paid is also quite high already.

Really take care in making sure you get a correct type! A X5680 could be found for around 250,- and a X5690 for around 400,-
Click to expand...

Its crazy how expensive the X5690s have gotten. Got mine for about $150 a year ago and now they are going for 400-600 on eBay.
 
bokkow said:
Try to sell it on, it's quite a unique CPU even though the price you paid is also quite high already.

Really take care in making sure you get a correct type! A X5680 could be found for around 250,- and a X5690 for around 400,-
Click to expand...
The guy who sent it acknowledged the error. He's sending me the right one, I believe. We're in the process. He asked for a photo. I took great care in writing the right thing. And the invoice CLEARLY SAYS X5690 not X5698.
 
flehman said:
Its crazy how expensive the X5690s have gotten. Got mine for about $150 a year ago and now they are going for 400-600 on eBay.
Click to expand...

The X5680, too. I picked up two for $250 in August. Current going price looks to be around $200/per.
 
It was my mistake. The CPU was X5690 after all. Confusion over the small slash in the Zero. Doh. So it's all installed. That Mac went from 2.8 with 3gb ram to 3.46 and 32 gb. It's humming.

Now I have another one to do when the CPU arrives. This one is a 4,1 quad 2.66 12 gb. I'm waiting for a W3090. I bought this for $220. eBay. I have the firmware update too. The only difference in updating.
 
flehman said:
Its crazy how expensive the X5690s have gotten. Got mine for about $150 a year ago and now they are going for 400-600 on eBay.
Click to expand...

I didn't believe you so I had to go look myself. Wow!

Interesting that the W3690s aren't seeing the same dramatic price increase. I seem to remember last year they were about the same price, and people with single proc Mac Pros were upgrading with X5690's because for the same price and 64GB capability, why not?

It's all supply and demand of course...so either last year there was a glut of server pulls hitting the market, or this year there's a glut of upgraders looking to buy.
 
ActionableMango said:
I didn't believe you so I had to go look myself. Wow!

Interesting that the W3690s aren't seeing the same dramatic price increase. I seem to remember last year they were about the same price, and people with single proc Mac Pros were upgrading with X5690's because for the same price and 64GB capability, why not?

It's all supply and demand of course...so either last year there was a glut of server pulls hitting the market, or this year there's a glut of upgraders looking to buy.
Click to expand...

Although it seems to be trending a little more expensive ($75-100 versus $50-60 previously) too, the X5677 is a good alternative for dual processor systems. A pair will get you eight cores at 3.46 GHz.

I bought a set for $69/each over the weekend to put in a new 2009 dp that I picked up on Craiglist last week.
 
Does the x5677 have less performance than x5690 or W3690? Most of the time i have Warcraft or diablo 3, iTunes, safari, discord, icursor and razer synapse on. I have the same setup. Stock 2.8 quad core 2010 Mac Pro.
eBay list x5677 for 25-50$
X5690 and W3690 100-300$
Difference I see on cpuboss.com is a few things. The xx90 chips are 11 months newer. Along with xx90 having more threads and L2 cache. Trying to see if Warcraft could play better.
 
Elxmuerto said:
Does the x5677 have less performance than x5690 or W3690? Most of the time i have Warcraft or diablo 3, iTunes, safari, discord, icursor and razer synapse on. I have the same setup. Stock 2.8 quad core 2010 Mac Pro.
eBay list x5677 for 25-50$
X5690 and W3690 100-300$
Difference I see on cpuboss.com is a few things. The xx90 chips are 11 months newer. Along with xx90 having more threads and L2 cache. Trying to see if Warcraft could play better.
Click to expand...

x5677 seems fine. I doubt anything you listed would be noticeably any faster with 6 cores instead of 4.

With the price difference saved, consider GPU, RAM, or SSD upgrade. All of those might have significantly more effect, depending on what you have now of course.
 
Gtx 1060 6gb
Ram is 16gb but is stuck in 1066mhz because of the Nehalem. I do have the 1333mhz installed already to go.
Regular hdd spinner drive. No ssd installed. Was thinking of the sonnet tempo ssd pcie card next.
 
Elxmuerto said:
Gtx 1060 6gb
Ram is 16gb but is stuck in 1066mhz because of the Nehalem. I do have the 1333mhz installed already to go.
Regular hdd spinner drive. No ssd installed. Was thinking of the sonnet tempo ssd pcie card next.
Click to expand...

I think the best changes you could make are the x5677 and an SSD.

Sonnet Tempo is a bit overkill for your needs IMHO. A dual SSD striped RAID on PCIe will make for very good benchmark screen shots and bragging rights on the forums. I doubt it will make any of your specific use cases noticeably faster than a simple SATA SSD in a drive bay, which would save you hundreds of dollars.
 
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