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Macpropro80

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 31, 2009
408
0
Another Noob question (sorry)

Can I put DDR3 Ram in my mac pro? the Bus Speed is fast enough. If the Slots cant take DDR3 is there any 3rd party memory racks (the 2 cards that hold the ram) that I can put in my mac pro to support DDR3?
 
Is there any 3rd party Riser card (I forget the real name, the 2 cards you put ram on in the pro) That supports DDR3 Ram?
 
Yep, it is called selling your Mac Pro and buying a new one that supports DDR3.

Edit: something that may likely happen with the next Xeon dual CPU chipset.
 
Is there any 3rd party Riser card (I forget the real name, the 2 cards you put ram on in the pro) That supports DDR3 Ram?

Nope.

The current (and all previous) Mac Pros use "DDR-2 FB-DIMMs". They aren't even "normal" DDR-2" They are a special variant of DDR-2 that has an onboard chip (called "AMB", the "Advanced Memory Buffer") that turns the normally parallel memory protocol into a much faster (clock-speed-wise,) serial connection. This means that many fewer pins are necessary for data; which means you can have many more memory channels. (Back when FB-DIMMs were new, two channels was about all any system had; FB-DIMMs made four channels easily possible.)

THEORETICALLY, it would be possible to make a new AMB chip that allows faster DDR-3 chips to reside on the module, yet it would connect to the exact same FB-DIMM connector.

The problem is that the connection from the memory controller to the AMB on the current Mac Pro is only fast enough for DDR2-800. So even if you threw DDR3-2133 on those modules, the memory controller wouldn't know what to do with the extra speed. (And, to my understanding, nobody makes DDR-3 FB-DIMMs yet, anyway.)

So it's a chicken-and-egg scenario. No FB-DIMM systems run faster than 800 MHz (equivalent,) so nobody makes FB-DIMMs faster than 800 MHz.


Edit to summarize: Nobody makes a replacement riser card; but such a card wouldn't even be necessary, since by its design, FB-DIMMs only need a new on-DIMM AMB to support a new memory technology such as DDR-3. But even if they *DID*, it wouldn't matter to the Mac Pro because its memory controller wouldn't support the faster speed.

It's like trying to run 94 octane gas in a Honda Civic. The engine can use it, it just can't take advantage of the higher octane properly. (In fact, using higher octane gas than your car needs actually *REDUCES* power and fuel efficiency.)
 
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