Done it! - Nehalem W5590 Octad 3,33 GHz

huscat said:

How much are the Areca 1210 cards?

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Here's a source I use for Areca cards in the US (ARC-1210). They're usually the least expensive source. But there may be a caveat; check the return policy on each card, as some are non-returnable (special order/non-returnable status = those go for a little less than from other locations). This one's returnable, and seems to be the same price as other e-tailers.

I also checked newegg, who has it for the same price for new, but they have an open box unit/s available as well. Just don't expect the disk, SATA cables, or manual. The cables are easy and cheap, the rest of it you can get off Areca's web site.

gugucom said:

People on this site like Tesselator said that Geekbench is useless, so I never bothered to run it. The W5590 beat the W5580s by a very slim margin in Cinebench, but I was using just 6 GB of RAM and the stock GT120. So that margin would be a bit wider with RAM and graphics on the same level. Tutor published some benchmark with single Xeon quads, that came out of his original octad. He build rendering machines for less than 2000$ from them and they scored incredibly beyond 20.000 with some serious OCing. Of course all done in Windows64.

The Areca was 240€ here in Germany but there are better deals in the US I believe. I have seen it down to 180$ in bulk packaging and re sale. I used the Areca on recommndation of nanfrog the resident expert here. I have to say the technical service is impressive compared to similarly priced products.

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A couple of questions:

so Cinebench is the best Mac performance test?
Tutor built a Hackintosh with a single Xeon that was OC'd and it beat some of the dual proc machines? Is that what you are saying?

nanofrog said:

Here's a source I use for Areca cards in the US (ARC-1210). They're usually the least expensive source. But there may be a caveat; check the return policy on each card, as some are non-returnable (special order/non-returnable status = those go for a little less than from other locations). This one's returnable, and seems to be the same price as other e-tailers.

I also checked newegg, who has it for the same price for new, but they have an open box unit/s available as well. Just don't expect the disk, SATA cables, or manual. The cables are easy and cheap, the rest of it you can get off Areca's web site.

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So you buy the Areca card and then use the MaxUpgrades bypass cable to hook the 4 drives into the card?

huscat said:

So you buy the Areca card and then use the MaxUpgrades bypass cable to hook the 4 drives into the card?

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What exactly are you trying to do?

I suggested the ARC-1210 thinking you would mount the drives in the empty optical bay, and just run SATA cables. If you want to attach it to the HDD bays, you have two basic routes you can go.

1. Get this, but it tacks on $89USD.
2. Get a different model card (they do exist, and are actually more common; it needs an SFF-8087 port instead of the 4x SATA ports on the ARC-1210). The iPass cable end that attaches to the logic board is an SFF-8087 (internal MiniSAS connector).

I think a different card would be less expensive, and certainly a cleaner installation (less cable to contend with).

Please post the details as to location for the drives, drive count desired,...

EDIT: The ARC-1212 can be had for $320USD, has a faster processor on it, and includes an SFF-8087 to 4i*SATA. You can attach this cable to the logic board to continue to use the SATA ports on the board for drives located in the empty optical bay, or even to an eSATA bracket (though it won't support hot swap or hot plug).

nanofrog said:

What exactly are you trying to do?

I suggested the ARC-1210 thinking you would mount the drives in the empty optical bay, and just run SATA cables. If you want to attach it to the HDD bays, you have two basic routes you can go.

1. Get this, but it tacks on $89USD.
2. Get a different model card (they do exist, and are actually more common; it needs an SFF-8087 port instead of the 4x SATA ports on the ARC-1210). The iPass cable end that attaches to the logic board is an SFF-8087 (internal MiniSAS connector).

I think a different card would be less expensive, and certainly a cleaner installation (less cable to contend with).

Please post the details as to location for the drives, drive count desired,...

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I was wanting to have the 4 drive bays hooked to the card.

I ordered a 2.26 8 core and a couple of W5580's. The 5590's were $1150 each and the 5580's were only $650 each so I didn't think the extra $1000 was worth it.

I was wanting to put a RAID card in it to run the 4 drive bays and I was probably going to buy a few of those Intel X25-M 160GB drives to put in it.

One stray questions...... A single proc hackintosh based on a Gigabyte X58 board running the same chip overclocked to around 3.8 or 3.9 would yield what kind of Geekbench score theoretically?

By the way how many more damn posts do I have to make before I can email people on here?

huscat said:

I was wanting to have the 4 drive bays hooked to the card.

I ordered a 2.26 8 core and a couple of W5580's. The 5590's were $1150 each and the 5580's were only $650 each so I didn't think the extra $1000 was worth it.

I was wanting to put a RAID card in it to run the 4 drive bays and I was probably going to buy a few of those Intel X25-M 160GB drives to put in it.

One stray questions...... A single proc hackintosh based on a Gigabyte X58 board running the same chip overclocked to around 3.8 or 3.9 would yield what kind of Geekbench score theoretically?

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Ah. The '09 MP changes things, especially if you want to use the card with the HDD bays.

You need an adapter to make the HDD bays work with any 3rd party RAID card, and it's from Maxupgrades (adds $165USD above the cost of the card and drives).

The minimum card would be the ARC-1212 that would be needed (4 port, using SFF-8087 to work with the adapter).

If you want to have the ability to add additional drives later, you'd want a card with additional ports (say 8 for example), and the drives can be placed in an external enclosure or in the empty optical bay.

Please note that with the '09 models, the use of the adapter with the HDD bays, causes you to loose access to the 4 SATA ports normally attached to the HDD bays. There's no cable, so you can't get access to them (the data's caried on traces on the PCB).

The ARC-1210 (uses SATA ports, not SFF-8087), can still be used, provided, you place the 4x SSD's in the empty optical bay. You can do this either with an adapter available from Maxupgrades (here, use the one for 2x SSD drives for an '09 MP; you'd need 2 of them), or by making something. This would be less expensive.

Quite a bit actually if you DIY (not so much with 2x the ready made adapter), so it's worth considering, and you get to keep the HDD bays for use with other drives, as it still uses the ICH10R on the logic board. HINT: backup drives.

You'd need to make a power adapter for the latter, but it's not that hard or expensive. You get a backplane extension cable, and splice the 4x SATA Power connectors to it. Please note, the data side will be attached to the logic board, so you only use this for power. But there's no modification of the original wiring to cause warranty issues. (About $16USD to make).

As per the Geekbench question, it should be faster, but I'm not sure how much, though I'd expect it to be notable. But if you build a hackintosh, the information above wouldn't apply, and it's easier to do RAID installations in PC systems. No strange adapters, and no EFI firmware to deal with. You stick with BIOS, but you do have to make sure the card has drivers for OS X. Areca cards would still work, and are one of the best companies for RAID cards. They're really hard to beat for the $$$ given the features and performance you get.

OK, so I got my W5580 chips

I need thermal pads to put on top of the chips?

huscat said:

I need thermal pads to put on top of the chips?

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It's not for the CPU's, but the Voltage Regulators beside the socket (still makes contact with the Cooling tower with naked CPU's).

The new parts have the Inegrated Heat Sink, and change the height of the cooler to the top of the Voltage Regulators by almost 2.0mm (1.82mm or so)If the thermal contact is broken, you'd burn them up, and need a new board.

So you need thermal paste for the CPU's, and a thermal gap material to make contact between the Voltage Regs and the copper surface of the Cooling Tower to keep them cool enough to prevent them from being damaged.

Maybe gugucom (hint, hint ) has a pic of the daughterboard without the CPU's added (cooler missing) to show what I'm describing.

Thanks gugucom for the pics. They help a lot.

I didn't know you used an adhesive type, as I've gotten it without it, especially the silicon rubber + boron nitride based material (it's tacky enough it doesn't require an adhesive, so long as the parts surfaces are clean).

Does this mean that we can still expect a minor Mac pro update for the Octa from 2.93 to 3.33 GHz before we get the 6 and 12 cores next year?

ok missed that message How is the speed bumb between 2.93 and 3.33 GHz ??? I need a Mac pro for editing AVC-I-100 .

I guess I don't understand why folks think the quad is a bad value. It gives you the best "real world" performance (see green bars in previous chart and note at the bottom). This is for applications people use the most, and at significantly less cost than a dual CPU system. Yes, the quad costs more than a comparably equipped Dell, HP, or vanilla PC, but so do the iMacs and most flavors of Mac that Apple has ever made. Why is this a surprise?

I may get some heat for this, but when comparing prices does anyone take into consideration the operating system, quality of the cases, overall design, components, etc.? There is value in all of that too. I have never seen a "cheap" PC -- even Dell, HP, and the big boys -- produce as nice and friendly a case design as the Mac Pro. I've seen the Gigabyte motherboards that folks use to make hackintoshes and "vanilla" PCs. Frankly they seem unimpressive and very inexpensively made. You can't compare something like that to Mac Pro components.

My office mate uses a Dell. I've used it on occasion. Given a choice I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. They really are that bad compared to what I have to choose from on the Apple side of the fence. That's just my opinion, of course.

AZREOSpecialist said:

I guess I don't understand why folks think the quad is a bad value. It gives you the best "real world" performance (see green bars in previous chart and note at the bottom). This is for applications people use the most, and at significantly less cost than a dual CPU system. Yes, the quad costs more than a comparably equipped Dell, HP, or vanilla PC, but so do the iMacs and most flavors of Mac that Apple has ever made. Why is this a surprise?

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It's due to the fact that an i7-920 is less expensive in terms of hardware than an Apple MP base Quad (W3520). The processors are the same, save the ECC functionality, and sell for the same price in quantity. Memory is the only difference, and ECC (UDIMM's in the case of DDR3) are a little more expensive than their non ECC counterparts.

The same goes for the higher clocks. It's due to Apple's insistance on higher margins than their PC vendor counterparts, such as Dell and HP.

AZREOSpecialist said:

I may get some heat for this, but when comparing prices does anyone take into consideration the operating system, quality of the cases, overall design, components, etc.? There is value in all of that too. I have never seen a "cheap" PC -- even Dell, HP, and the big boys -- produce as nice and friendly a case design as the Mac Pro. I've seen the Gigabyte motherboards that folks use to make hackintoshes and "vanilla" PCs. Frankly they seem unimpressive and very inexpensively made. You can't compare something like that to Mac Pro components.

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Yes, some take the OS into account.

But don't confuse Dell's consumer systems with thier enterprise models (server/workstation systems), as they're really clean internally, and are even easier to service than MP's (more modular designs).

The consumer models are all over the place, and particularly evident in the previous systems that used IDE as the primary drive interface. It's gotten better with SATA, as the cables are smaller, and easier to route cleanly.

I just got some dual W5590s up and running. The whole system is 2 X W5590s, 32GB of RAM, 2 X 2TB Hitachis mirrored on a Mac Pro Raid Card and a GTX 285 MAc Edition.

I basically followed the Anand write-up. I didn't add any extra thermal padding and I can also confirm that modifying the plugs wasn't necessary, at least in my case.

Since I consulted this thread many times while troubleshooting I'd like to give back. I'd be happy to answer any questions or post pics.

gugucom said:

Did your W5590s POST at the first instance?

I'm wondering if there are differences in the height of the heat spreader.

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From the pic you posted, the surface is just flat. It makes sense, as it's the easiest and least expensive way to finish the surface.

I'd be concerned about burning out the Voltage Regs without the use of a thermal gap material.

Interesting... a 3.33Quad is equivalent to a 2008 2.8Octo and is actually getting close to the 2.26Octo in multithreaded tasks (while, of course, killing it in single threaded operation).

Given you can now get a 3.2GHz W3565 for just over $500, the value of buying a 2.66 and upgrading the CPU to the 3.2 (3.5GHz with Turbo) is very attractive. In effect, you can get close to the multi-threaded performance of the entry level Octo Mac Pro with vastly superior single-threaded performance, all for around $3K!

gugucom said:

Did your W5590s POST at the first instance?

I'm wondering if there are differences in the height of the heat spreader.

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No post on first instance. Which is what bought me to this thread. I had actually separated the plugs from the heatsink during my troubleshooting per the suggestions in this thread. Still no joy. I ended up using a second new eight core machine as a control so I could isolate the issue. In the end, it all had to do with how I tightened down the heatsink. I ended up screwing down the screws on the side which lined up with the plug first, until i couldn't hand tighten it anymore. Then I did the same with the other two screws. I also tried to keep the heatsink level. This caused it not to boot, but the power led would flash. Then I backed off the screws about a quarter turn on each until it would boot. I also booted with just CPU A installed first, then installed CPU B.

Now that I've been successful, I can reproduce the installation with ease.

By the way, Cinebench score was 30151 and Geekbench was 16338.