Welcoming Mac Pro 5,1 to the family

[iModFrenzy]

So recently I decided it was time to get myself a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1. I use mostly Apple devices(iPhone X, MBP 2015,etc etc) so having a Windows Main/Gaming PC in the mix got very frustrating. Not only that, but Windows 10 has become a disaster. Bloatware, terrible UI, trust issues, and lastly working on Windows is terrible compared to MacOS. Now you know the story of what pushed me to get a desktop Mac Pro. After some in-depth searching on eBay, I managed to find a Mac Pro 5,1 with some nice specifications for $485 total.

A few long painful days later, the Mac Pro finally arrived. It came with x2 Quad Xeon 2.4ghz processors,32GB ECC RAM, Radeon 2600XT 256mb and 4x7200rpm 500gb HDDs(Western Digitals/Seagates). @LightBulbFun pointed out that the GPU, oddly, was of an older Mac Pro, as the 5,1 shipped with a different GPU. Now as speedy as these 7200rpm drives are, they aren't what I want to use for my main drive so let's continue to the upgrades ahead.

CPU, which is currently is a Xeon Quad Core 2.4ghz(didn't bother checking what model as it'll be out of the MP 5,1 shortly) will be upgraded to a Xeon X5677 Quad Core processor. I ordered this late so It'll be here in a few days.

RAM, being that the Mac Pro came with 32GB ECC by default, there isn't much of a need to upgrade it at the moment. However, I love overkill. So I plan to throw 8x16gb(128gb) at a later time.

GPU, this is the fun part. I currently had a GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 sitting in my gaming PC. I threw it into the MP 5,1 after some needed BootRom updates/driver installation(s). I am now happily chugging along with it. However a RX580 is on the to-do list.

Storage, as I mentioned earlier it came with 4x500gb drives. However I already have a 2TB drive, making it a waste of space to keep all 4 inside the Mac Pro(that and I don't trust drives I haven't used for long). I also wanted to throw a SSD since MacOS is painful without it usually. The drive configuration, now, is a Samsung EVO 850 256gb, 2TB Western Digital Black Enterprise, 808GB WD Black drive(odd one ain't it?), and just for testing I have left 2 of the Seagate 500gb drives in.

Here is a About My Mac shot of the current configuration(to be upgraded further but who doesn't love AMM shots?):

For some odd reason, El Capitan showed ECC in the AMM shot whereas High Sierra doesn't. Not sure why Apple took this out?

Anyway here's some pictures!



Throwing the Samsung EVO 850 in the optical bay since I don't have a proper adapter.


Here is a after shot of the MP. Which luckily was packed well and shipped to me with no damages.

All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase of the 5,1 and look forward to upgrading it further(and of course posting about it here)

 

[MaxxT]

Congratulations

 

[fhturner]

Nice! Welcome to the club!

Definitely an "oh, crap, we gotta put a video card in this thing...here, this'll work" sort of moment on the GPU. Your original HD 5770 is probably somebody's MP1,1 upgrade or something. But no matter, since you already have the 960 and will soon have the RX 580.

Agree that it's odd Apple removed the ECC detail from the RAM description. Maybe somebody rested a bottle of Tres Commas on the Delete key for too long. Also, it occurs to me that your RAM will probably pick up speed when you swap CPUs. Remember to zap the PRAM if the sticks are indeed 1333MHz and don't show it after the upgrade.

Good thoughts on the drives, but don't forget to have a little fun and blow your hair back w/ some PCIe SSDs! Just tested out NVMe booting w/ a 970 EVO 1TB "stick of gum" SSD, and it worked great.

Enjoy the new Beast!
Fred

 

[Lenny_]

Hello!
I just did something similar: I wanted an upgrade from my "old" iMac (27" late 2012).
I do some movies with GoPros and edit these with FCP X. As the GoPros get better every year... I "needed" some more juice for my rig.
Somehow I did not like the idea of switching to Windows, did not want the hassle with an Hackintosh.. and could not persuade myself to pay the prices for anything from the current Apple lineup...

...so:
I got an MacPro 4.1, 2,26 GHz Eight Core, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 120 GT, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
I had the idea to upgrade it as much as possible.

...and in the last weeks I transformed it into this:

- 2x 3,46 GHz 6-Core
- 48 GB RAM, 1333 MHz DDR3 (2x 3x8GB -> triple channel access)
- Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse 8GB
- HighPoint SSD7101A-1
with: 1x Samsung SM951 256GB AHCI (Bootdrive), 2x Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (Raid 0 - Workdrive)
- Sonnet 4-Port USB 3.0 Adapter
- WLAN 801.22ac und Bluetooth 4.0 upgrade
- Drive bay 1-3: one SanDisk 1TB SSD each -> 3TB Raid 0.... for semi fast storage
- Drive bay 4: Western Digital Gold 6TB HDD for TimeMachine

Even got the new magic keyboard and trackpad... so far everything worked out quite well.

 

[fhturner]

- Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse 8GB

Nice setup, particularly all that SSD goodness. How are you powering your Vega? I’m up on how to do the RX 580, but I can’t keep straight whether Vegas are doable now without serious hacking for power...

 

[Lenny_]

Nice setup, particularly all that SSD goodness. How are you powering your Vega? I’m up on how to do the RX 580, but I can’t keep straight whether Vegas are doable now without serious hacking for power...

I did the Pixlas Mod, here is a good step-by-step:
http://thehouseofmoth.com/mac-pro-pixlas-mod/

That was quite easy to do: just take your time... you'll need the corrects parts of course.
With this mod and the Vega 56: I was running the Heaven and the Valley Benchmark for ages (looks just nice now no issues whatsoever

 

[vetruvian]

CPU, which is currently is a Xeon Quad Core 2.4ghz(didn't bother checking what model as it'll be out of the MP 5,1 shortly) will be upgraded to a Xeon X5677 Quad Core processor. I ordered this late so It'll be here in a few days.

Congrats and welcome to the club!!! The future is bright for the next couple years with official Mojave support!

Just a heads up, your new 5,1 is a dual processor unit. You will need two x5677s. I'm thinking you inadvertently wrote this in the singular, but wanted to make sure you're not disappointed when a single chip shows up on your doorstep.

 

[iModFrenzy]

Congrats and welcome to the club!!! The future is bright for the next couple years with official Mojave support!

Just a heads up, your new 5,1 is a dual processor unit. You will need two x5677s. I'm thinking you inadvertently wrote this in the singular, but wanted to make sure you're not disappointed when a single chip shows up on your doorstep.

I figured someone would point this out, yes I have ordered x2 X5677s, I appreciate you saying that though!
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Remember to zap the PRAM if the sticks are indeed 1333MHz and don't show it after the upgrade.

Good thoughts on the drives, but don't forget to have a little fun and blow your hair back w/ some PCIe SSDs! Just tested out NVMe booting w/ a 970 EVO 1TB "stick of gum" SSD, and it worked

Will do! I was wondering why the speed seemed low, maybe I’ll check the dimms later to verify if the speed is higher

And would love to , sadly it’s too expensive for me at the moment!

 

[fhturner]

Will do! I was wondering why the speed seemed low, maybe I’ll check the dimms later to verify if the speed is higher

Well, you won't see the increased speed while using the original 2.4GHz Nehalem CPUs, but when you upgrade to Westmere, which supports 1333MHz, you should see the increase (as long as the modules are actually 1333).