Hello, as the title states, I'd like to upgrade the CPU in my Early 2008 Mac Pro. Currently I'm running 2 Quad-Core Intel Xeon 2.6 GHz Processors, and I'd like to upgrade to something more suitable for gaming. I'm not very experienced in building/upgrading computers beyond RAM and Internal Hard drives so I'll be having a friend who's experienced with building computers running Windows helping me. Just looking for some suggestions on which Processors you'd recommend. I'm looking in the $40-80 range but willing to budge a little if it would make a big difference. Thanks for your help.
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Upgrading Early 2008 Mac Pro CPU
- Thread starter cjrustt
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Lack of hyperthreading in those Mac Pros will create a bottleneck even with the highest specced CPUs. Moving to a 2009-2012 Mac Pro will fix that, but you're just buying old tech at this point thats soon going to be obsolete. If you wanna game, build a PC/Hackintosh.
I disagree. Six cores will be used by more games in the future. E.g. GTA V plays smooth on my cMP with six core W3690 CPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-drivers-over-clocking.1882500/#post-21294414
A lot of games are using six cores of the PlayStation and will be ported to PC.
Quad core i7 even oc'ed to 4 GHz is not better than six core Xeon W3690/X5690. It's no more only the single core performance that counts.
Also note the Direct X 12 topic: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bad-performance-on-mp-3-1-with-gtx-970.1904942/#post-21661318
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I don't think there is much you can do to a 3.1. The fastest processor I think is 3.2 Ghz but it doesn't compare well to even i3/i5/i7 of today from a gaming perspective.
It really depends on what games you play I guess, I was able to play Skyrim, Crysis 1 + 2, Far Cry 3 with a 5870 2GB card in Windows on my Octocore 3 Ghz 3.1 Mac Pro at high settings (not ultra) at 1920x1200. Crysis 2/ Far Cry 3 really taxed the 5870 but I suspect in certain situations the CPU is the cause of slowdowns, especially when there are lots of enemies/things occuring on screen. I can't imagine my old Mac Pro would cope that well with Far Cry 4, Metro etc.
I have a gaming PC now so all is well.
It really depends on what games you play I guess, I was able to play Skyrim, Crysis 1 + 2, Far Cry 3 with a 5870 2GB card in Windows on my Octocore 3 Ghz 3.1 Mac Pro at high settings (not ultra) at 1920x1200. Crysis 2/ Far Cry 3 really taxed the 5870 but I suspect in certain situations the CPU is the cause of slowdowns, especially when there are lots of enemies/things occuring on screen. I can't imagine my old Mac Pro would cope that well with Far Cry 4, Metro etc.
I have a gaming PC now so all is well.
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You may disagree, but the fact is, a single 4790 quad core scores better than any CPU from a Mac Pro, including the 6 cores. Most games dont support dual processor setups, the second CPU is largely ignored. So you don't get any benefit there either. Besides, those 6 cores are as fast as they're going to get. Performance on the 2009-2012 Mac Pros is going to degrade quickly in the coming years.
It's pretty pointless going about the Mac Pro route for gaming... it's at least 3 year old tech. I'd advise against it.
What makes you think that hyperthreading even matters for gaming? It doesn't, a current top-end i5 is all you need, going for an i7 is pointless. Hyperthreading only provides 4 more logical cores which won't even by utilized in most games.
Multi CPU setups are as good or bad supported as the same number of cores on a single chip, every app (including games) won't be able to make a difference
Multi CPU setups are as good or bad supported as the same number of cores on a single chip, every app (including games) won't be able to make a difference
If you're going to make such strong assertions, at least try to make ones that don't cancel each other out. If a program supports Hyper-Threading, it supports dual processors. Simple as that.
Clock-for-clock, 8 real cores, even in two separate processors, will almost always be faster than 4 cores with Hyper-Threading. If a single 4 core CPU with Hyper-Threading is out-performing dual 4 core CPUs at a similar clock, it is almost certainly down to memory bandwidth or poor threading. I'm sure you mean well but maybe you should go read about Hyper-Threading before making any more misleading assertions.
You're probably not going to get anything in the way of a CPU upgrade for $80. In my opinion, you're probably better off with your friend helping you to build a Windows games machine. There are lots more games on Windows. Or get a console. Hook up either one to your TV.