Upgrading and Analyzing Apple's Nehalem Mac Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 13, 2009 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
With this I hope I can retire from writing epic-ly long Apple articles for a while, but I'm not done yet - I must first conclude.
The new Mac Pro is fast and expensive. As I casually mentioned on the performance page, if you're upgrading from a PowerMac G5 then even the cheapest iMac (or even the Mac mini) will have more processing power; an upgrade to the Nehalem Mac Pro will absolutely rock your world.
If you have one of the original Mac Pros from 2006, the new Mac Pro should be an upgrade provided that you're at all CPU bound in your tasks. Clock speed is important however, going from a pair of 3.0GHz Woodcrest based Xeons in the first Mac Pro to a 2.26GHz Nehalem based Xeon won't always give you better performance. The entry level 2.26GHz Xeons for the 8-core Mac Pro are ridiculous given the price point of the system, but so are the upgrade prices for the 2.66GHz and 2.93GHz processors. If you do have a highly threaded workload you can always get the entry level 8-core and then upgrade the CPUs on your own down the line if you're careful.
Now if you’re running applications that stress all eight cores in the $3299 Mac Pro then the clock speed difference won’t matter. But if all you’re doing is stressing four cores then the $2499 machine will perform noticeably better (and save you some money). Apple effectively offers a machine optimized for users of heavily threaded workloads and one for everyone else, they just don’t advertise it as such.
Ultimately, it’s all about snappiness and response time. The new Mac Pro makes tasks that generally take several minutes to hours run in considerably less time, but still on the same order of magnitude of performance. Compiling Adium took 130 seconds on my old eight-core Mac Pro and less than 90 on my new one. That’s a noticeable performance improvement. Unfortunately some aspects of the Mac Pro just haven’t improved that much at all. Application launch time and general use performance are still very I/O bottlenecked; these things need SSDs and with a price tag of over $3,000 there's absolutely no excuse for Apple not including one.
If you have a Mac Pro from last year and aren't doing a lot of heavily threaded work, stick a SSD in your machine, it'll feel better than new.
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mfago - Monday, July 13, 2009 - link
Apple lists the Mac Pro as supporting DDR3 1066 only, yet the higher speed CPUs should support 1333. Have you tested this? I have an application that would love faster memory.Secondly, while Apple's prices are much higher than previous models (due to Intel's CPU prices, as you note), have you compared similar machines from Dell/HP? _Significantly_ more expensive: a T5500 with 2x2.93 GHz and 12 GB ram is $8000 (before discounts). Otherwise, the only way to get decent prices is through second/third tier vendors, or building one yourself. Sure CPU/RAM upgrades have always been this way, but Intel's extreme prices on Nehalem make this very obvious.
austin512 - Saturday, May 1, 2010 - link
Hi Anand,Any word on if the W3680 will work in the 2009 Mac Pro?
rominator - Thursday, July 22, 2010 - link
"While you could stick Clovertown into the first generation Mac Pros, you couldn’t upgrade them to Harpertown without hardware modifications to the system (don’t ask me what they are :)..)."AFAIK, nobody has ever discussed being able to do this. ANyone have an idea what he's referring to?
mrob27 - Thursday, September 23, 2010 - link
Upgrading CPUs:I have the 2.26 GHz 8-core model. I cannot afford to take the risk, but I'd love to upgrade it someday if it was less risky.
I think you should carefully measure the thickness of Xeon processors with and without the heat spreader (using an outside micrometer or something), and add washers to compensate for the needed spacing where the screws mate the heatsink to the processor board. This would properly relieve strain from the CPU package and allow you to tighten the hex nuts to the proper (standard) tension. Based on your photos it looks like that should work.
Turbo mode:
I was able to get valid convincing single-threaded benchmark results (demonstrating Turbo mode in action) by using the "Processor.prefPane" from Apple's Developer Tools. This is a System Preferences module that is placed in /Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes when you install the Dev Tools, and you copy it into /Library/PreferencePanes to enable it. Then use System Preferences to access it. You can turn off hyperthreading and can selectively disable any combination of cores 2-8 (#1 is always on). See for example goo.gl/7MZm or goo.gl/OH4K
- Robert Munafo - mrob.com/pub/comp/mac-models.html
Auralwiz - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Did you ever try the 2.26 8 core CPU upgrade?I tired two w35675s and failed to boot. Is there two big of a speed increase limit?
Michael
Highjnx - Sunday, November 7, 2010 - link
I recently tried to upgrade the E5520 procs in my 2009 Octo Nehalem with a set of X5560 (2.8GHz). I was able to get the machine to power up with no error lights. However I didn't get a chime and it refused to boot.In reading Anand's article on upgrading with a set of X5570 chips I didn't see any mention of the X5560 as an option. Is there something written into the bios that prevents this from posting.
The other thing I question is the added height created by the Integrated Heat Spreader doesn't give a solid connection between the daughter board and the heat sink fan plug. Has anyone run across a how-to on removing the IHS?
Any insight would be appreciated as I have access to several set's of X5560.
todd-
Auralwiz - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I purchased two w3565 LG 1366 processors for my 8 core dual 2.26 GHz 2009 Mac Pro 4,1.These CPUs are 3.2 Ghz.
The install was easy but the machine would not boot up. I re-installed the two 2.26 original CPUs and the system returned to normal. Any idea why it didn't work on an 8 core system?
I had the same experience as user Highjinx.
Michael
Soren4 - Sunday, June 12, 2016 - link
As a 2009 Mac Pro owner, I've followed the upgrade discussions for these machines carefully for some time. There appears to be a lot of discussion and instruction on how to swap out processors but usually involving lidded CPU's instead, which pose potential risks of damaging the motherboard in the process.I found an interesting video tutorial on Youtube today that clearly explains, while demonstrating, how to effectively remove the soldered IHS off the CPU, with the cleaning off of the solder, without damaging it.
It seems to me that this would be a lot easier to do than having to modify the heat sync pads and add washers etc., all the while allowing the processors to stay cooler due to the removal of the IHS.
Here is the link for review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhDfUkll-o
Thanks