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Please elaborate :) Is this just at high res or in general? Or 4k or... ?

Nox

On a dell u2713 which is ACD res. it's a lunchtime pastime in that office. First time I've ever seen Windows only people who normally despise Macintosh gear argue over who's turn in it is, and the first Mac computer they think is utterly superb cos it doesn't sound like a hovercraft doing renders like all their Z workstations - at full load it's quieter than an hp elite sff desktop on idle!
 
On a dell u2713 which is ACD res. it's a lunchtime pastime in that office. First time I've ever seen Windows only people who normally despise Macintosh gear argue over who's turn in it is, and the first Mac computer they think is utterly superb cos it doesn't sound like a hovercraft doing renders like all their Z workstations - at full load it's quieter than an hp elite sff desktop on idle!

I have long argued for quiet computers. People love them! I want the pro!
 
I have long argued for quiet computers. People love them! I want the pro!

When rendering or playing games only a massive zalman passively cooled box or one that requires plumbing with liquid nothing comes anywhere close. After all the nMP only has one single slow spinning fan that cools all the cores of the processors and switch mode PSU so it's no surprise thanks to its very ingenious and novel design.

If you are technically gifted enough to tear a 6,1 down yourself and re-do the thermal paste with more care than Apple does, they run even quieter under maximum load for long periods. I know that because I have set nMP 4 core systems with unauthorised Xeon 3.3 8 core parts and repasted the CPU and both GPU cores and the results give a very noticeable drop in noise from stock with better paste and more care. You would of course need some factory Apple paste to replace your paste upgrade if you ever have to take back it to Apple for service, but if you upgraded the CPU and had to refit the original Apple part (that you should always keep in case of a problem, even the original ram too) you would have to do that anyway.

I don't expect the 7,1 to be any different. If there is one thing that is consistent with every Intel Macintosh I've repasted through all these years it's that the quality of the thermal paste job from one Macintosh to another is always inconsistent and never the same. A few good, a lot ok and the rest I do not think is any good at all!
 
When rendering or playing games only a massive zalman passively cooled box or one that requires plumbing with liquid nothing comes anywhere close. After all the nMP only has one single slow spinning fan that cools all the cores of the processors and switch mode PSU so it's no surprise thanks to its very ingenious and novel design.

If you are technically gifted enough to tear a 6,1 down yourself and re-do the thermal paste with more care than Apple does, they run even quieter under maximum load for long periods. I know that because I have set nMP 4 core systems with unauthorised Xeon 3.3 8 core parts and repasted the CPU and both GPU cores and the results give a very noticeable drop in noise from stock with better paste and more care. You would of course need some factory Apple paste to replace your paste upgrade if you ever have to take back it to Apple for service, but if you upgraded the CPU and had to refit the original Apple part (that you should always keep in case of a problem, even the original ram too) you would have to do that anyway.

I don't expect the 7,1 to be any different. If there is one thing that is consistent with every Intel Macintosh I've repasted through all these years it's that the quality of the thermal paste job from one Macintosh to another is always inconsistent and never the same. A few good, a lot ok and the rest I do not think is any good at all!

im curious. what prompted you to embark on the journey to repaste the GPU's? I for one probably would have thought Apple would have done a better job than most in regards to thermal paste.

And im changing out my CPU when my nMP gets here. Can you give any pasting tips?! :)
 
im curious. what prompted you to embark on the journey to repaste the GPU's? I for one probably would have thought Apple would have done a better job than most in regards to thermal paste.

And im changing out my CPU when my nMP gets here. Can you give any pasting tips?! :)

Because after working on so many Intel Macintosh over the years Apple are just like every other manufacturer regarding thermal paste and PC/Mac CPU/GPU. Shocking by my standards, and one notorious example is the fact that when I paste and reprofile the cooling system on the MBP 2011 15/17 the infamous AMD GPU on that logic board fails drastically less. The best thermal bond I have ever rated for Apple ever is in my own 3,1 8 core 3.2 with the liquid silver type compound and I have even improved on that.

I use a tiny sliver of gelid gc-extreme paste, though as-5 or alternatives will do but nothing too runny or conductive as the silicon are vertical in the nMP unlike the notebooks. I also clean the lids of the chips thoroughly and really polish the heatsink die plates to a nice shine, by either using chrome polish firstly with Classic unibodies/iMac (occasional cMP too) or in the case of the 6,1, towers and retinas just the second stage - Cape Cod jewellery polishing cloths which get them mirror smooth. Cleaned thoroughly with denatured isopropyl after as the cloths are perfumed lol. I go through more than one pair of surgical gloves because I do not want those surfaces contaminated, just the paste between the processor, xeon or AMD GPU and the die plate on the thermal core.

Normally it's about a 3-5c drop on idle temps for all the silicon on the 6,1 and that's going from a 4 to the fastest 8 core!
 
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Because after working on so many Intel Macintosh over the years Apple are just like every other manufacturer regarding thermal paste and PC/Mac CPU/GPU. Shocking by my standards, and one notorious example is the fact that when I paste and reprofile the cooling system on the MBP 2011 15/17 the infamous AMD GPU on that logic board fails drastically less. The best thermal bond I have ever rated for Apple ever is in my own 3,1 8 core 3.2 with the liquid silver type compound and I have even improved on that.

I use a tiny sliver of gelid gc-extreme paste, though as-5 or alternatives will do but nothing too runny or conductive as the silicon are vertical in the nMP unlike the notebooks. I also clean the lids of the chips thoroughly and really polish the heatsink die plates to a nice shine, by either using chrome polish firstly with Classic unibodies/iMac (occasional cMP too) or in the case of the 6,1, towers and retinas just the second stage - Cape Cod jewellery polishing cloths which get them mirror smooth. Cleaned thoroughly with denatured isopropyl after as the cloths are perfumed lol. I go through more than one pair of surgical gloves because I do not want those surfaces contaminated, just the paste between the processor, xeon or AMD GPU and the die plate on the thermal core.

Normally it's about a 3-5c drop on idle temps for all the silicon on the 6,1 and that's going from a 4 to the fastest 8 core!

holy crap you are thorough with your pastings. Thanks for the insight.

Also, do you deem the cpu swap on the nMP hard for a guy like me. I've changed out the 3,1 and 4,1 before. And from the OWC tutuorial video I have seen, it looks pretty straightforward.
 
Some really good posts in this thread. I am actually in a holding pattern for the nMP as well, because I do believe that it will likely be updated in Fed/Mar. I am in the difficult position of needing to overhaul my gear, so I am looking at picking up a rMBP with the 2.8ghz (4980hq) cpu on board. Geekbench 3 scores are really impressive for that CPU (even though the GPU is way behind the times.) Because of the delay in Broadwell, I will use this as a daily driver, pick up a nMP when they release, and likely sell the the rMBP when Apple releases the updates for Broadwell/Maxwell laptops.

On the Hackintosh front, I wouldn't use one for daily use but I do really want to put one together for a project system that could dual boot for Windows gaming. There are some fantastic YouTube builds that are done live by a named Bob Roche, and also some great information from TonyMacX86.com on how to put these systems together and maintain them. When my work is on the line, I go legit. But the inner child that loves Star Wars Legos and Mind Storm thinks that the Hackintosh would be fun.

Just my .02 cents.

:apple:
 
holy crap you are thorough with your pastings. Thanks for the insight.

Also, do you deem the cpu swap on the nMP hard for a guy like me. I've changed out the 3,1 and 4,1 before. And from the OWC tutuorial video I have seen, it looks pretty straightforward.

I am as micron precise as Apple should be with their professional computers and it does work. On all of them.

Use the ifixit guide too, I used a stack of books to the right height topped with anti static bags as a card support.
 
They didn't because the user base for that is tiny and they couldn't have gone with such a small design.

I agree it would need to be a much bigger can and to keep it round shaped it would need 6 instead of 3 boards inside on the thermal core. 2 cpu cards and 4 GPU would be overkill for all but tutor. :D

4 is ideal around the core for just an extra xeon - the black box instead of the trash can :D
 
I wait for the second revision too. All the pieces are in there for Apple to upgrade(cpu; gpu and ram). i will not enter discussions about hackintosh or desktop grade parts. I own a legit business and i am in need of a professional grade machine(plus some minis, but that is not the case anymore since i can't upgrade ram and hard into them anymore, and i am not paying Apple prices for those). Well, i think Apple has a bit of the politics comm back to biting them on they a**. They done some custom connector on GPU side to prevent us from upgrading, and went full professional with AMD firepros. Well, starting this summer AMD has made some bold moves onto this field. They basically doubled the amount of video ram as it goes:
- d300: amd firepro w5000 2GB; now moved to amd firepro w5100 4GB;

- d500: amd firepro w7000 4GB; now moved to amd firepro w7100 8GB;

- d700: amd firepro w9000 6GB; now moved to amd firepro w9100 16GB(yes, a mind blowing 16Gb of video ram!!!!)

Well, Apple intended to force the user into replacing the machine rather then upgrading the GPU's. Now with this amount of video ram, the machines will not go obsolete for a VERY LONG time. Can you imagine dual d710(or whatever they name will be) with dual 16GB(total 32 Gb) of video RAM??? When will this monster go obsolete? I think Apple will play, again, forced obsolescent in newer mac pro by decreasing the video RAM they will offer. They will go like 2GB; 4GB and 8GB instead of 4GB; 8GB and 16GB amd offering. If this is the case i will drop Apple for good.
 
I agree it would need to be a much bigger can and to keep it round shaped it would need 6 instead of 3 boards inside on the thermal core. 2 cpu cards and 4 GPU would be overkill for all but tutor. :D

4 is ideal around the core for just an extra xeon - the black box instead of the trash can :D
I was thinking it might have been an interesting option for the first generation of nMPs to offer a 2 CPU + 1 GPU option. Since some need CPU power over GPU power still. Would have allowed customers to get to 12-cores cheaper or get a 16, 20, or 24-core machine. Don't know what the thermals would be like, but I would have seriously considered that option.
 
Apple really should have made the nMP dual processor.

No, a single cpu socket is better and it is an affordable design, it will be cheaper over the coming years. Apple design the nMP to last for the next coming 10 years without changing the tube design, so that they can keep the same manufacturing plant, to keep manufacturing nMP aluminium tube chassis and just change the internal parts.

The current single E5-2600 V2 C602 chipset is not really worth it for now, nMP`s single processor design is good, but performance of current GPU (d700) and CPU (E5 2697 V2) is not that great.
 
I was thinking it might have been an interesting option for the first generation of nMPs to offer a 2 CPU + 1 GPU option. Since some need CPU power over GPU power still. Would have allowed customers to get to 12-cores cheaper or get a 16, 20, or 24-core machine. Don't know what the thermals would be like, but I would have seriously considered that option.

The core isn't equilateral triangle shaped and would need a total redesign for that to happen sadly.

vsLQHoGWBPZkMNZw.standard
 
On a dell u2713 which is ACD res. it's a lunchtime pastime in that office. First time I've ever seen Windows only people who normally despise Macintosh gear argue over who's turn in it is, and the first Mac computer they think is utterly superb cos it doesn't sound like a hovercraft doing renders like all their Z workstations - at full load it's quieter than an hp elite sff desktop on idle!

My Z600 is very quiet when doing work. Apple doesn't have an exclusive on quiet computers.
 
My Z600 is very quiet when doing work. Apple doesn't have an exclusive on quiet computers.

The 6,1 is the quietest single core xeon workstation there is easily. The office with the bf4 lunchtime habit has 4 hp Z series. In a dual socket z there are 7 fans including the processors and psu iirc whereas the 6,1 has one!
 
The 6,1 is the quietest single core xeon workstation there is easily. The office with the bf4 lunchtime habit has 4 hp Z series. In a dual socket z there are 7 fans including the processors and psu iirc whereas the 6,1 has one!

Again: My Z600 is a quiet system. However other Z600 systems may be noisier because the Z600 offers a lot more expansion than the nMP permits.
 
No, a single cpu socket is better and it is an affordable design, it will be cheaper over the coming years. Apple design the nMP to last for the next coming 10 years without changing the tube design, so that they can keep the same manufacturing plant, to keep manufacturing nMP aluminium tube chassis and just change the internal parts.

The current single E5-2600 V2 C602 chipset is not really worth it for now, nMP`s single processor design is good, but performance of current GPU (d700) and CPU (E5 2697 V2) is not that great.

Depends. I bought 1 nMP. I would have bought 10 or more if they had dual CPU versions.

Back to windows we go.
 
No, a single cpu socket is better and it is an affordable design, it will be cheaper over the coming years.

Cheaper and affordable are not friendly vocabulary to the pro market. Yes, I can see that it is "better" for average users and prosumers. But for real professionals that want Apple's best and very expensive machine to have CPU power to match, it should have had dual CPU. Can you imagine having over 60,000 Geekbench? That is completely insane, and exactly what the highest end users want. Now all but one (12 core) nMP today trails behind my 2010 gen in CPU power. Yeah the only thing they really did right in my opinion was the GPUs. That being said, if the next gen only tops out at 14 core, I'll still be disappointed. I would want 16 core or higher, but again, ideally in dual processor configuration.

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Maybe? With future Xeons ramping to 16 and 24 cores a CPU, they aren't really as necessary as they were.

True, but can we really expect Apple to include anything higher than a 14 core in the next revision?
 
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