Upgrading the processor on a Mac Pro.

Question

Level 1

78 points

Upgrading the processor on a Mac Pro.

Hi, I have been toying with buying a mac pro, but the online chat support says you cannot ever change the processor on a mac pro?

The price difference between the quad core and the 2.93 ghz 6-core is currently $2700.00! YIKES.

We all know that the price of that 6 core processor will drop like a stone over the next three to 6 months and that would be the time to upgrade.

Does the Mother board on the Mac Pro use sockets for the CPUs? And can a user change the processor (just like I have been doing for years with Windows machines)?

Mike

Imac 21.5 and Mac Mini, etc, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 24, 2011 2:22 PM

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Answer 1

Aronis Author

Level 1

78 points

Jan 24, 2011 2:40 PM in response to Aronis

I found the answer....OWC Processor Upgrade....D'ooh....

the upgrade price is more than purchasing the difference...

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Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

61,041 points

Jan 24, 2011 2:50 PM in response to Aronis

No stones dropping. No sign of new socket or changes in Intel roadmap for Xeon 55/5600s.

You can buy low end $2100 single socket and upgrade with W5600. And there are other forums etc where people go into upgrades. Though usually not with intention with a new system. Why buy to begin with? I can easily build and run Windows on my own build and have free rein.

Sandy Bridge and beyond won't come to workstations until 2012.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro

And for $1799 you can get 2009 Mac Pro to play with.
http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

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Answer 3

romko23

Level 2

408 points

Jan 25, 2011 3:09 PM in response to Aronis

The 6-core processor can be had by some ebay sellers for less than 1000 now.. I might consider this move later on.. 849.00 is a lot to spend on a small little chip, esp since I am busy paying off bills.. Wait a second.. tax season? That might make it easier for me to afford the 6-core chip..

Also, bear in mind my original mac pro was a 2009 mac pro.. Seeing that the 2010 was nothing more than a 2009 on adrenaline through westmere and the new firmware + gpus.. I was able to get the backplane board from a 2010 for 250.00 and the processor board was a mere 46 dollars..

All I had to do was supply my W3580 - this is the 3.33 quad core of the 2009.. and it works just great for my needs, and blows away the 2.8 and 3.2 respectively(2.8=w3535, 3.2=w3565).. Also, the w3580/w3680 share the same memory speeds - 1333 mhz memory.

So, for almost 300.00, I bought these two parts and put them in.. Now my Mac Pro is a 2010.. except for the serial number, but I got the disks for the 2010 when I tried to ask Apple if I could buy them...

There is always back doors to everything.

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Answer 4

romko23

Level 2

408 points

Jan 25, 2011 3:10 PM in response to Aronis

Don't waste you money on OWC's upgrade turnkeys.. if you buy now the 2.8 or 3.2, you can just pop in the 3.33 hex core for a lot less than having to get a new machine or even trading up the existing processor board with the slow processor..

Remember, tax season is coming... I am sure you can buy the w3680 for a good price.

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Answer 5

trilobyte

Level 3

555 points

Jan 26, 2011 5:10 AM in response to romko23

Contrary to what you see with the price of consumer processors, Xeon processor pricing remains pretty stable over the life of the product. It's a whole different class of chip from the consumer i7's... aside from the technical specs (ECC memory support, and additional QPI on the dual processor machines), the chips go through a much tougher quality assurance testing phase. They get hand-binned (hand-picked) from the processors that perform best in each speed class, and from there go through an additional battery of performance testing to ensure that they'll operate at peak performance in 'always-on' high performance computing situations for well beyond the life of the product. Historically, Intel has always charged a premium for that class of processor and they've never managed Xeon pricing in the same manner they do with the consumer market.

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Answer 6

romko23

Level 2

408 points

Jan 26, 2011 2:56 PM in response to trilobyte

Remember, you can also use core i7 desktop processors and scrap xeon all together.. just be sure to use non-ecc memory... before my w3680, I was going to get the core i7-980x and scrap ecc memory.. but decided not to as the pricing wasn't totally different.

Maybe now a core i7-980x is worth it.. try it, and let us know.

I agree with you.. Intel charges a good royalty for their processors.. I firmly believe one day Apple might go with AMD though.

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Answer 7

Aronis Author

Level 1

78 points

Feb 5, 2011 7:48 AM in response to The hatter

I appreciate the input. I've built and modified windows machines for years, but I bought a macbook for my wife two years ago and then a Mac Mini for the family room (connected to TV),then once bitten I got onto the Parallels bandwagon and loaded Windows XP on my Mac Mini (actually ended up migrating my boot camp installation to the mac hard drive partition and then deleted the separate bootcamp partition - boot camp still does not have a means of expanding the partition without starting from scratch - boo).
So I bought an iMac for my office and installed windows XP with parallels so I can do all the needed Internet Explore only accessible hospital info access and have a solid mac for the rest! Getting used to Pages and Numbers has taken some time and the lack of old print drivers for some older printers I have is a pain but it's been worth the learning curve.

So the mac Pro would be a rePLACEMENT for my aging XP Pro dual core AMD, ASUS SLI board, 4 gig, Raid 0 and Raid 1, dual DVD drive, Dual Video card, etc etc home built. As I have been doing more digital photography and video I have found that the mac os is just better for these things.

So the question was to buy a lower end Mac Pro now and after a year swap out the processor for a faster one as I did quite nicely with my AMD. After ONE YEAR a $1100 AMD Dual Core Processer dropped to $99.00 WITH SHIPPING!

I did confirm that we can after the fact add a Mac RAID Card ($700) and more hard drives (funny the older model hard drives are much more expensive than the newer ones).

Mike

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

61,041 points

Feb 5, 2011 8:04 AM in response to Aronis

You are more of a candidate for PC it really sounds like, or Hackintosh route, not Mac Pro.

Better is in the eyes of the beholder of course. Sure you can find cheaper older processors, so stick with that route.

i7 980/990X is likely the last of the i7s, Xeons don't drop much if at all.

Most - not 100% but a lot of people don't think Apple RAID card is worth the expense and trouble.

You get two 6-pin aux gpu connectors to live with.

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Answer 9

Feb 5, 2011 5:19 PM in response to Aronis

... lack of old print drivers for some older printers I have is a pain

Some older printers are supported under Mac OS X by third-party open source drives from Unix. Post your printers (or better yet, start a new thread) for advice about that.

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Answer 10

Tim3308

Level 3

557 points

Feb 24, 2011 9:28 AM in response to Aronis

Just purchased a refurb'd 2010 Mac Pro 2.8 ghz unit from Apple. Upgrading the CPU to OWC's 3.46 GHZ. Yep, the math works out pretty darn well compared to a brand new 3.33 GHz Mac Pro(geting a low end model at the refurb price is THE key). Actually, if it was like the old days in the Apple store online --no state sales tax, it would be cheaper over all! But for about an extra $100(tax) I can have the 3.46 speed. Yes, please.

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Answer 11

Feb 27, 2011 8:07 PM in response to romko23

romko23 wrote:
Don't waste you money on OWC's upgrade turnkeys.. if you buy now the 2.8 or 3.2, you can just pop in the 3.33 hex core for a lot less than having to get a new machine or even trading up the existing processor board with the slow processor..

Just beware that retail processors won't fit into a Mac Pro without some tweaking of the heat syncs. The CPU's Apple gets are different and if you aren't careful you will screw up your socket, and/or not get the fan/thermocouple connected ensuring your machine won't boot. Just ask Anand Lal Shimpi: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2800/11

If you are comfortable taking your time and avoiding those kinds of issues - more power to you! Otherwise what OWC offers can be a pretty valuable service for those who aren't confident enough to hack around on their own.

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Answer 12

Tim3308

Level 3

557 points

Mar 10, 2011 8:41 AM in response to Tim3308

OWC just did the turn key upgrade to a 6core 3.46 GHz.

diglloyd PS speed test on my 2008 3.0 GHz Mac Pro( now sold to a friend) w/ 20 GB of RAM, boot OWC SSD, and 3 HDD's striped RAID for Data score: 34.4

Same test on the the new "turbo" Mac Pro (same SSD boot, 24 GB of RAM, 3 HDD's striped for Data --w/ backup!): 21

Pretty good. 😉

If I now didn't have pay state sales tax w/ the Apple online store(ahh, the old days when we did not have an official apple store in the state!), The OWC upgrade(to a 2010 refurb'd 2.8 GHz Mac Pro) to the 3.46 GHz would've been even cheaper than a brand new 3.33GHz!

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