Mac Pro 2009 Processor Upgrade Possibility?

I have updated my 4.1 macpro (bought on release day 2009) to from a 2.66 quad core chip to a 3.2 ghz quad that is able to use 1333 ghz ram modules at full speed (as well as run hex core chipsets and a few other minor things not pertinent to my experience.) Anyway, the swap was really really straightforward, you just need to find a Xeon chip that apple puts in with the 4.1 or 5.1, buy it and some thermal paste, and swap the old one for the new one, reboot a couple times after using netkas firmware upgrade hack program (or wipe and reinstall if you want to be super careful), and viola! You are golden.

I have to say however, new chipsets with more cores and faster ram didn't make half the difference a pci express ssd drive did... The only other really noticeable boost I got from an upgrade was swapping out my gt120 for a 6850 graphics card. I don't mean to discourage anyone from doing a processor upgrade or addition, but when you can buy a brand new iMac for the cost of the upgraded chipset and ram, you may want to think about upgrading more cost effective hardware first, in almost every case the bottleneck is not between the 4th and 5th core, and while having faster (and strangely cheaper) ram is nice, you can only get full effect out of 3 dimms but putting a whopper of a chip in the 4th dimm will make more difference in performance than swapping all 3 chips out for equal sized chips. Plus you can use 1333mhz ram in the 4.1, and use 1066mhz ram in the 5.1 if you want... Either way more ram is better.

Yes, it works fine.

I have a Dual 5680 tray and a single 3690 tray for my 4,1

Switch them whenever I feel like it, no issues of any kind.

Just be forwarned that if you have a licensed copy of Windows, you might very well find that WIndows thinks you have changed computers and will demand that you call MS and spend 45 minutes going through phone **** to re-authorize WIndows.

I have to say however, new chipsets with more cores and faster ram didn't make half the difference a pci express ssd drive did...

Thank you for sharing that tidbit.

Many Mac Pros are I/O bound around the "traffic jam" at the single Boot Drive used for everything. More or Faster Processors will not fix that, but establishing a separte Boot Drive will. You need to have an Admin left behind on the Boot drive for emergencies, so that you can still log in if the Users drive drops out.

Hey Lopezzi this might actually help cause it appears to be possible. I just a found a craigslist LA ad selling a processor board. The seller puts this in the ad-

"For sale, I have one (1) Mac Pro 2009 4,1 8-core Processor Board 3.33GHz with fans, tray, and 24GB Hynix PC3-10600 1333GHz RAM, fully functional and in excellent cosmetic condition. The 8-core 3.33GHz option has a geekbench mark of over 19,000 and it is the fastest 8-core solution for the 2009 (4,1) model.

This board is ready to go and it can be used to upgrade any Mac Pro 4,1 2009 4-core single processor workstation by simply swapping the boards. Also, this board can be used to upgrade their internal processors to higher speed and even the 12-core option. What you see in the photo is what you'll get".

Below is the link-

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/sys/4353966726.html

But like others have said it is expensive. Often times you would find towers for $1.6K compared to a board for $1.1K

I can confirm that it works.

I changed out a "Quad Core" 2.93 (2009/Nehalem) for an "Eight Core" 2.26 (2009/Nehalem). Everything works without issue. Its quite slick. I'm running Mavericks, with 3 hard drives and 1 SSD. Also went from 8 gb of ram to 16 gb.

I'd say no worries, man. If you have the opportunity to trade out the single cpu board for a dual cpu board, GO FOR IT.

You need to upgrade the 2009 4.1 macpro to a 5.1 firmware version in order to get the speed advantage. Check out this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU8p86qHnek

It's free won't cost you anything...