W00T! 2006 Mac Pro upgraded and refreshed - 2 x Xeon 5355 + Mavericks

[jchung]

Just add me to the latest list of MacPro1,1 owners who have upgraded to 2 x Xeon 5355s.

The upgrades to the MacPro1,1 this past month:

1. Upgraded from 2 x Xeon 5150s (Dual core 2.66 Ghz) to 2 x Xeon 5355s (Quad core 2.66 Ghz)
2. Added 16GB RAM - Total installed 24GB
3. Upgraded firmware to MacPro2,1 firmware
4. Upgraded to Mavericks using SFOTT (Sixty Four On Thirty Two - Uses Tiamo's boot.efi).

Now the MacPro's performance is competitive with modern Macs. Not bad for an 8 year old computer! I'm hoping to get another 4 years of use out of it now.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Just add me to the latest list of MacPro1,1 owners who have upgraded to 2 x Xeon 5355s.

The upgrades to the MacPro1,1 this past month:

1. Upgraded from 2 x Xeon 5150s (Dual core 2.66 Ghz) to 2 x Xeon 5355s (Quad core 2.66 Ghz)
2. Added 16GB RAM - Total installed 24GB
3. Upgraded firmware to MacPro2,1 firmware
4. Upgraded to Mavericks using SFOTT (Sixty Four On Thirty Two - Uses Tiamo's boot.efi).

Now the MacPro's performance is competitive with modern Macs. Not bad for an 8 year old computer! I'm hoping to get another 4 years of use out of it now.

May I ask how much the upgrades cost?

 

[jchung]

May I ask how much the upgrades cost?

1. 2 x Xeon 5355s - $50 from Ebay for the pair.
2. 4 x 4GB FB-DIMMs - $85 from Ebay
3. 2 x pair of FB-DIMM Heatsinks (4 total) from MaxUpgrades - $40.
4. Had to buy some Antec thermal paste from a local computer store. I forget the price. I think it was around $20.

Pretty inexpensive overall. This Mac Pro has been relegated to be my Virtual Machine server. I have a WinXP VM, Mac OS X 10.7 VM, and two Linux VMs on it.

Joo

 

[keysofanxiety]

1. 2 x Xeon 5355s - $50 from Ebay for the pair.
2. 4 x 4GB FB-DIMMs - $85 from Ebay
3. 2 x pair of FB-DIMM Heatsinks (4 total) from MaxUpgrades - $40.
4. Had to buy some Antec thermal paste from a local computer store. I forget the price. I think it was around $20.

Pretty inexpensive overall. This Mac Pro has been relegated to be my Virtual Machine server. I have a WinXP VM, Mac OS X 10.7 VM, and two Linux VMs on it.

Joo

You did well, matey. Excellent prices and good job on the upgrades.

 

[Switchfoot]

1. 2 x Xeon 5355s - $50 from Ebay for the pair.
2. 4 x 4GB FB-DIMMs - $85 from Ebay
3. 2 x pair of FB-DIMM Heatsinks (4 total) from MaxUpgrades - $40.
4. Had to buy some Antec thermal paste from a local computer store. I forget the price. I think it was around $20.

Pretty inexpensive overall. This Mac Pro has been relegated to be my Virtual Machine server. I have a WinXP VM, Mac OS X 10.7 VM, and two Linux VMs on it.

Joo

Congrats! If you used one, could you link the walkthrough you used?

 

[NOTNlCE]

Just grabbed a 1,1 for myself real cheap, it's got 2 dual core 2.66's in it, may I ask what your geekbench scores are after the upgrade? I can grab the processors for about $50 and I'm wondering if it's worth the performance improvement.

 

[ashman70]

I grabbed this from another post I replied to about the Mac Pro 1,1. I simply don't think they are worth putting money into and that is just my opinion.

The first two model Mac Pro's 1,1 and 2,1 were hampered by slow bus speeds, 1.33GHz, slow ram and limited CPU upgrades. There is no getting around the slow bus speeds and ram, both of which are woefully slow by todays comparison. Yes, you can upgrade to dual quad core CPU's, but any newer graphics cards you use will run at PCIe 1.0 speeds no matter what, so that will be a bottle neck. You certainly can put in an SSD for some added speeds, but thats really all you can do. Now, all of this might produce a machine that is fast enough for you, and that is fine, but if you want keep this machine for any length of time, 1-3 yrs, you are quite limited.

 

[NOTNlCE]

I grabbed this from another post I replied to about the Mac Pro 1,1. I simply don't think they are worth putting money into and that is just my opinion.

The first two model Mac Pro's 1,1 and 2,1 were hampered by slow bus speeds, 1.33GHz, slow ram and limited CPU upgrades. There is no getting around the slow bus speeds and ram, both of which are woefully slow by todays comparison. Yes, you can upgrade to dual quad core CPU's, but any newer graphics cards you use will run at PCIe 1.0 speeds no matter what, so that will be a bottle neck. You certainly can put in an SSD for some added speeds, but thats really all you can do. Now, all of this might produce a machine that is fast enough for you, and that is fine, but if you want keep this machine for any length of time, 1-3 yrs, you are quite limited.

Believe me, I know, but I have a sale lined up, (provided I can fix the issues with the machine) and I really just want to know the Geekbench numbers. I use an '08 as my main machine, I am well aware these things aren't worth the effort, but I have the hard headed mentality that you should fix things and run them into the ground. If it's a 3-4K Geekbench improvement, that's worth $50 to me.

 

[MacinJosh]

Owning a Mac Pro 1,1 in the siggy, I have to agree. I got it for a steal a few years ago it was a speed demon then but is starting to show its age now. Despite having 3Ghz cores, it loses in Geekbench single core benchmarks to pretty much every current Mac model.

Everything you said below is observable in my daily use. Even having a 5770 for games is bottlenecked by the RAM and Bus speeds, and even CPU. Games like WoW and Diablo III run fine typically but on occasion start stuttering and losing FPS because the rest of the system can't keep up.

My major problem is that I'm running it as a hackintosh to be able to run Mavericks. I'm aware of the boot.efi hack but haven't tried it. You know, if it ain't broke and all that. It's still a hack anyway.

The upgrades I got for it a couple of years ago were worth it and gave life to it to last this far. But now I'm desperately waiting for a Mini. I'm sure with the savings in power bills the Mini would buy itself back in no time. I just want to wait for an update. I'd buy an iMac but I travel a lot spending months or years at a time in various places so I need something small. Wife has an MBA I can use on the move.

Anyway, long rant but I agree. MP 1,1 is not worth upgrading.

I grabbed this from another post I replied to about the Mac Pro 1,1. I simply don't think they are worth putting money into and that is just my opinion.

The first two model Mac Pro's 1,1 and 2,1 were hampered by slow bus speeds, 1.33GHz, slow ram and limited CPU upgrades. There is no getting around the slow bus speeds and ram, both of which are woefully slow by todays comparison. Yes, you can upgrade to dual quad core CPU's, but any newer graphics cards you use will run at PCIe 1.0 speeds no matter what, so that will be a bottle neck. You certainly can put in an SSD for some added speeds, but thats really all you can do. Now, all of this might produce a machine that is fast enough for you, and that is fine, but if you want keep this machine for any length of time, 1-3 yrs, you are quite limited.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Answered my own question, it's about a 4-5K performance improvement in multicore tasks. I'm seeing ranges from 9K-10K depending on Geekbench version and other hardware.
Thanks

 

[jukebox1298]

I did the same upgrade a couple of weeks ago

Answered my own question, it's about a 4-5K performance improvement in multicore tasks. I'm seeing ranges from 9K-10K depending on Geekbench version and other hardware.
Thanks

With the exception of I added a home made Fusion drive (128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD). Geekbench results showed a huge improvement.

 

[NOTNlCE]

With the exception of I added a home made Fusion drive (128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD). Geekbench results showed a huge improvement.

Thank you. Well worth $50 in my opinion. Just gotta convince my boss that it's worth it. Oh, budgeting.
-N

 

[sarthak]

Picked up a Mac Pro 1,1 with 2X Dual Core 3GHz chips. Gets about 7,000 on GB.

Is there any particular stepping code, year/part/serial etc. that we should look out for in the x5355s?

Also, I assume there is no need to flash to 2,1 is there?

I can pick up a pair for ~$100 after tax and shipping in Canada.

 

[Sko]

Is there any particular stepping code, year/part/serial etc. that we should look out for in the x5355s?

The SLAEG-stepping is the latest with substantially lowered idle power consumption. Not a deal breaker, but worth watching.

Also, I assume there is no need to flash to 2,1 is there?

There is no need, but there is some benefit. Besides System Profiler reporting the right hardware, my x5355-equiped Mac Pro 1,1 behaves much better on sleep/wake and fan throttling after patching firmware and SMC to 2,1.

 

[passmaster16]

Picked up a Mac Pro 1,1 with 2X Dual Core 3GHz chips. Gets about 7,000 on GB.

Is there any particular stepping code, year/part/serial etc. that we should look out for in the x5355s?

Also, I assume there is no need to flash to 2,1 is there?

I can pick up a pair for ~$100 after tax and shipping in Canada.

Look for x5355s with the G0 SLAEG stepping. They use 50% less power at idle compared to earlier B3 SLAC4/SL9YM variants.

 

[sarthak]

The SLAEG-stepping is the latest with substantially lowered idle power consumption. Not a deal breaker, but worth watching.

There is no need, but there is some benefit. Besides System Profiler reporting the right hardware, my x5355-equiped Mac Pro 1,1 behaves much better on sleep/wake and fan throttling after patching firmware and SMC to 2,1.

Look for x5355s with the G0 SLAEG stepping. They use 50% less power at idle compared to earlier B3 SLAC4/SL9YM variants.

Thanks. The pair I am able to get for ~$100 are SLAEG.

I'm still conservative when it comes to flashing the 1,1 to a 2,1 (as I was with 4,1 to 5,1 for the W3680 hex). Guess I'll have to try it with the proc first before tinkering with the firmware.

 

[ringlike]

Just add me to the latest list of MacPro1,1 owners who have upgraded to 2 x Xeon 5355s.

The upgrades to the MacPro1,1 this past month:

1. Upgraded from 2 x Xeon 5150s (Dual core 2.66 Ghz) to 2 x Xeon 5355s (Quad core 2.66 Ghz)
2. Added 16GB RAM - Total installed 24GB
3. Upgraded firmware to MacPro2,1 firmware
4. Upgraded to Mavericks using SFOTT (Sixty Four On Thirty Two - Uses Tiamo's boot.efi).

Now the MacPro's performance is competitive with modern Macs. Not bad for an 8 year old computer! I'm hoping to get another 4 years of use out of it now.

I just did the same successfully with one exception: First I installed Mavericks, then I upgraded the CPU's. After the latter Parallels 9 doesn't work anymore. After starting the VM (boot camp or Windows XP) the Mac gets restarted. Has anyone any idea about the cause for this?