Can I put an Intel i7 into a Mac Pro 5.1?

No. Since the Intel i7 uses a FCLGA1150 socket and the Intel Xeon uses a PPGA604, they are not interchangeable.

You can substitute a 6-core processor, but it would have to be from the Xeon family. An i7 will not work in a Mac Pro silver tower.

As others have mentioned you cannot fit an i7 chip of any generation. The easiest upgrade is a faster single Xeon chip upgrade. A more expensive upgrade would be to trade-in your single CPU tray for a dual CPU tray with also possibly faster Xeon chips.

While this will still not give you i7 features like proper Airplay Mirroring support it will give you up to 12 CPU cores (24 threads with hyper threading) and be close to the speed of the current Mac Pro.

I am currently running a 2010 Mac Pro with 12 cores rather then upgrading the CPUs, I opted to install an Mercury Accelsior E2PCIe SSD in it. I then format it with a 1 GB HDD to form a DIY Fusion Drive. This modification had a significant improvement on the overall performance of the Mac Pro. You might want to consider do that.

Allan, I think you meant "with a 1 TB HDD" vice "with a 1 GB HDD".

Thanks.

Fat fingers.😝

I am also wondering this. A Mac Pro 5,1 has a "LGA 1366"-socket ( http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/faq/mac-pro-mid-2010-westmere-how- to-upgrade-processors.html ) so why wouldn't a i7 for a LGA 1366 work? ( http://www.ebay.com/sch/Core-i7-1st-Gen-LGA-1366-Computer-Processor/164/bn_63449 1/i.html )

No because the firmware (EFI) on the Mac does not recognize an i7. Thus it doe snot know how to use an i7.

The 2009/4.1 Mac pro only works with 4 core Xeon processor, not the six-core ones available on the 2010/5.1. However, one can update the firmware on the 2009 to that of the 2010 and then the 2099 can use 6-core processors.

okay, thats a real shame. Would have been great to get some more years out of my macpro5,1 as a primary desktop 😟

Would have been great to get some more years out of my macpro5,1 as a primary desktop 😟

That Mac is a very good performer today, and I would (and do!) recommend that users buy it today for all sorts of Applications.

If yours is not performing adequately, there is something wrong with the computer -OR- the way you have it configured.

Most of these Mac Pro silver towers have plenty of compute power, but are often I/O bound. Changing what drives are used and how they are used often makes them really fast again. Users have remarked that doing some of these things make it seem like they got a brand new computer.

what are you doing with yours, and what drives are you using?

I am doing CAD-work (in both OS X and windows). I noticed how Revit probably wants some more RAM (I got 10 gb now).

But my biggest concern are games, because I see most games now require a i5 or i7 processor. So I would love to keep this computer and still be able to play some games on it. And my wife would not be happy if I get a new computer just for games.

I use and SSD for system and boot and then common SATA drives for storage.

because I see most games now require a i5 or i7 processor

That is because most Users do not own a computer with a Server-class Xeon processor, NOT because a Xeon is inferior -- far from it!

You may need to update to a later graphics card if your Mac Pro silver tower came with a minimal Graphics card. That can increase frame rates (they are already faster than the human threshold of vision of about 12 frames/sec) and may help your CAD computations as well.

Okay, is there anyway to see a comparison chart of the processor so I can figure out if it will work or can I just ignore the name and go for the GHz?

I am looking at a 3gb or 4gb video card, my current one at 1 gb is not really up to spec anymore for CAD and neither for games.