Processor upgrade recommendations- MacPro 5,1

If you look here http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/index-macpro.html you can see all the standard configurations of Mac Pro. It would clearly be safer and simpler to upgrade yours to another standard configuration. Therefore 1 x 3.33 GHz 6 Core Xeon W3680 would be the logical choice.

On a MacPro 5,1 this is as simple as unscrewing and removing the heatsink unclipping the processor, fitting a new processor, cleaning the heatsink, applying fresh heatsink compound, and putting it all back together.

However to be able to use 1333MHz RAM I believe requires having dual processors and yours appears to be a single quad-core processor. Your processor interconnect speed would also not change for the same reason. Also the maximum RAM is similarly limited compared to a dual processor system.

It is possible to 'upgrade' to a dual-processor configuration but this requires exchanging the entire CPU system tray and will therefore cost significantly more.

RAfBOy wrote:

A couple of questions:

What's the difference between the W3680 and the W5680?

Can I over clock the W3680 (and is it safe)?

None of Apple's Mac Pro models it appears used the W5680 chips. On that basis I would steer away from it. The W3680 was used by Apple.

I believe the difference maybe the number of memory buses. I am not an expert in this but perhaps the W5680 might therefore be more intended for dual processor configurations whereas the W3680 might be for your single processor system.

Again I have no experience of overclocking, I bought two X5675 chips to go in my dual processor 2010 Mac Pro. These were the same model of chip as used by Apple so there was no problems doing this.

I can say that overclocking means the fans would run faster and louder, and the computer would be more likely to eventually overheat and fail. This does not means it will do so, just that it will be more likely to. Apple will have only tested and tuned for certain configurations. Apparently my dual X5675 is the top official configuration Apple ever used. I believe some people have gone for faster chips than my 3.06GHz ones e.g. 3.33GHz but I have no idea how you overclock on the Mac logic board.

Ignore all previous advice, none is any good.

Lots of factual errors.

You can use a W3690, you will be limited to 56GB of RAM but it can run at 1333. W3680 is 3.33, W3690 is 3.46

If you use a X5690 you will be able to use 64GB, also at 1333. Again, X5680 is 3.33 and X5690 is 3.46

I am not quoting a guy I read somewhere once, I am reporting setups I have tried. They work, and they work fine.

In fact, the RAM in your machine may already be 1333, check it out.

I would advise reading up either at Macrumours or Netkas.org on this topic.

Or just try googling "X5690 Mac Pro".

(BTW, one guy at MR found that 32GB sticks also worked, so possible RAM maximums may in fact go up)

If you have not already upgraded to at least a separate fast Boot Drive and preferably an SSD Boot drive and separate drives for Source and Destination files when doing I/O intensive editing, that is the step you should take before a processor upgrade.

User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

Many Mac Pros are I/O bound, NOT compute-bound. Check Activity Monitor > CPU when doing your most processor-intensive operations. ¿Are all cycles used up, or is there still some idle? You may not see much benefit from a Processor upgrade.

I have used both a W3690 and a X5690 in a single tray.

The W3690 was limited to 56GB of RAM

The X5690 was limited to 64GB. I never tried with the 32GB chips.

Please just Google X5690 and Mac Pro, you will find plenty of people who are running them, not rare at all.