Can you upgrade processors in quad core? Also HD & BR questions

[Jtuner77]

I just ordered a Mac Pro with Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 2G of memory, 2 500G hard drives and I am wondering it is possible to upgrade it to 3.2GHz more cost effectively then buying it from apple directly during the purchase of a computer or even post purchase?

Also my unit came with 2 500G HD's, this comp is the lifeline for my webstore, web design and storage for all my personal stuff. So i am wondering if I should just buy 2 more 500G drives for roughly 80-90 a drive(memoryamerica.com) and a Raid Card to back up the first 2 500G drives or just buy a Western Digital 1 or 2 TB external OR buy a 1TB Time capsule.

The sole reason for the external or extra internal drives is in case the first 2 500G drives fail I don't lose any data.

Lastly, I bought the basic ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB card to run two monitors(one for the webstore, one for web design, photoshop and Adium or anything else I would use on the daily). I plan on putting in as BR drive(i know Leopard does not support it) but I was looking to use it for burning BR movies, and if need be run MV(microsoft Vista) to view/copy and burn BR movies(the two screens I am getting are HDCP), i am afraid this card does not support 1080P BR data, does any one know which one will?

Any info would be appreciated. I have talked to a Mac Genius and got no real info do to me wanting to use non Apple components IE non apple supplied HD's, memory(buying a 8G memory kit from Memoryamerica.com to reach 10G of memory) and BR drive and Dell Monitors(more cost effective and supports HDCP/BR)....

Please PM pr post away.

 

[tonyl]

1. The answer is yes. You can upgrade it for yourself, but you'll void your warranty. When you can look at the price for a X5482 (3.2ghz quad): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117163 I think Apple charges reasonable price for the upgrade. But if you have sources to get them cheaper or buy used later, that's another story.

2. External hard drives are better for backup. The best is to use 2 external drives and put them in two different places.

3 I'm not sure if 2600xt can do 1080p BR data, but you can look at ATI 3870 or nvidia 8800gt cards.

 

[ChemiosMurphy]

The 2600 does support blu ray HDCP. I have a blu ray burner and it works great. In windowz I can watch 1080p movies on my Dell 2408 monitor.

If it matters, I have three monitors with two 2600 cards. I'm a video editor and dabble in graphics and the card works fine. the 8800 sucks at core video.

 

[CaptainChunk]

i am afraid this card does not support 1080P BR data, does any one know which one will?

There is no magic voodoo in any modern GPU's theoretical ability to play 1080p video off a Blu-ray disc. Playing commercial BD movies with a computer requires HDCP compliant graphics cards (which the 2600 XT GPU certainly is) and display devices. As long as you meet these requirements with a compliant OS (i.e. Windows), you're fine.

Decoding video from a BD movie (which can be MPEG-2, VC-1 or H.264/AVC), regardless of output resolution is largely CPU driven and has nothing to do with the actual GPU other than support for HDCP.

 

[wheezy]

1. The answer is yes. You can upgrade it for yourself, but you'll void your warranty. When you can look at the price for a X5482 (3.2ghz quad): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117163 I think Apple charges reasonable price for the upgrade. But if you have sources to get them cheaper or buy used later, that's another story.

I had no idea the processors were that much!

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

^ those are Xeon server cpus. I could get a Core 2 Duo quad core for around $300 including a motherboard. Server cpus are much higher quality than consumer ones.

 

[Jtuner77]

^ those are Xeon server cpus. I could get a Core 2 Duo quad core for around $300 including a motherboard. Server cpus are much higher quality than consumer ones.

any clue on where I can get the standard Xeon 3.2 for around $300?

 

[Umbongo]

any clue on where I can get the standard Xeon 3.2 for around $300?

5 years in the future.

 

[tobyg]

5 years in the future.

And let me know when you're going, because I need to get the winners of a few superbowls and world series.... just for my own personal knowledge of course! Oh and let me know how AAPL stock is doing!

 

[macintouch]

Yes, you can upgrade them.

But to clear something up on the warranty concerns: You're only going to void the warranty if you upgrade the processor and it causes something else to go bad. I've spoken with several Mac Genuises about it. The processor swap on a Mac Pro should be a piece of cake---very similar to swapping out a processor on a normal PC. The Pro uses more desktop components than say, and iMac or Mac Mini, so it's a bit easier to work on.

Just make sure to reapply thermal paste before you put the heat sinks back in. Arctic Silver 5 is the best stuff to use. Search around for info about applying thermal paste and putting a heatsink on.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

2. External hard drives are better for backup. The best is to use 2 external drives and put them in two different places.

In what Universe? Internal drives take up less space, are generally loads faster (compared to USB or Firewire 400) and with a Mac and Carbon Copy Cloner, you can have a BOOTABLE backup drive, which means it's so simple to continue on with your life if a drive fails. Just boot from the backup until you can replace the bad drive and then clone back to the replacement. It's what I do on my 1.8GHz 7448 G4 PowerMac with two 500GB Sata drives. The 2nd drive mirrors the 1st one in all respects, but it's bootable as I said.

Now if you're talking about data you're afraid to lose in case of a house fire or something, then you should be backing that up to a DVD-R type disc, USB flash drive or an online service and storing it far away. I wouldn't use an external drive for that purpose. Who wants to store that outside your home when a flat CD in a safety deposit box or family member's home will due just fine for key data, or better yet an online storage site you can access from home.

This guy has a MacPro, not a crappy iMac. He should definitely use its capabilities and fill those drive bays, IMO.

 

[tonyl]

In what Universe?

Don't you see "this comp is the lifeline for my webstore, web design and storage for all my personal stuff."? You can not just trust your whole data in one computer. What if it get stolen, caught on fire? Internal hard drives are much faster than external ones, but we are talking about backup here, safety is the primary purpose.

The capacity of optical media is still low. For online backup service, do you know how much for 100gb? Use two external drives, one at home, one at work, backing up data by time machine or retrospect once a week. Then you can use extra internal drive for daily backup.

 

[tonyl]

^ those are Xeon server cpus. I could get a Core 2 Duo quad core for around $300 including a motherboard. Server cpus are much higher quality than consumer ones.

Not exactly, they are same chips as Core 2 duo/quad, Intel just disabled some feathers in desktop processors. So quality is same. The advantage of server cpus is that you can use 2 or more in one system.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Don't you see "this comp is the lifeline for my webstore, web design and storage for all my personal stuff."? You can not just trust your whole data in one computer. What if it get stolen, caught on fire? Internal hard drives are much faster than external ones, but we are talking about backup here, safety is the primary purpose.

The capacity of optical media is still low. For online backup service, do you know how much for 100gb? Use two external drives, one at home, one at work, backing up data by time machine or retrospect once a week. Then you can use extra internal drive for daily backup.

I don't know about YOUR computer, but my "personal" data doesn't take up 100GB. My MUSIC collection takes up 140GB (in Lossless format), but then seeing as I have the original CDs as hard backups, I think 2 copies are sufficient. But documents, records, etc? A few GBs maximum, probably less. I've got an 8GB USB drive the size of my thumbnail that fits in my wallet that I can use, even. And what good does it do you to keep important records off site if you can't easily get to them? DAILY or even WEEKLY backups require a hard drive that is local and I doubt your closet is safer than your computer during a fire. All of this is why I advocate an internal hard drive for backups against hard drive failure and accidental erasure, corruption, etc. and a secondary method (such as DVD-RW or flash drives) for important records, etc. that DO need protection against fire, etc. Blue-Ray-RW discs make a nice larger off-site storage backup solution for such records as well (30GB goes a long way even for an online web store).

Besides, I'm talking about the average person here. If you NEED more storage and NEED it off-site most of the time, that's different than a wholesale recommendation against internal backups to someone with a Mac Pro who could clearly make good use of it. Internal storage is the primary reason I bought a used PowerMac instead of a MacMini or iMac for my whole house audio system. I didn't want the clutter. Yet I still want a backup to protect against hard drive failure, which is far more likely than theft. I have photo and documented records for my insurance company if theft should occur in which case THEY can replace my CD collection.

 

[IroquoisPliskin]

You just don't understand the concept of what he is talking about.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

You just don't understand the concept of what he is talking about.

Yeah, I'm clueless alright. I bet you own an iImac or a Macbook of some kind.

 

[IroquoisPliskin]

I bet you own a Hackintrash of some kind.

 

[Cave Man]

I bet you own a Hackintrash of some kind.

Lord Zedd, is that you?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I bet you own a Hackintrash of some kind.

You'd be wrong.

 

[IroquoisPliskin]

You'd be wrong.

How would anyone know since you have over 500 posts and no signature/profile of any kind?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

How would anyone know since you have over 500 posts and no signature/profile of any kind?

I guess 'anyone' would know that read any numerous posts where I mention I have an upgraded 1.8GHz 7448 G4 PowerMac with an ATI 9800 Pro, 1.5GB of ram, a Sonnet Sata with two 500GB hard drives, Pioneer 18x DVD-RW, Sonnet USB 2.0 and an internal USB 2.0/Firewire hub where the jaz drive used to be. I use this compute for every day browsing, shopping and to drive my whole house audio system. It runs 24/7. I also own a PC for gaming via XP and Linux on it for most everything else.

I just ordered an MBP on clearance from Amazon for $1444 after rebates so that will be real Apple branded Mac #2 here. Which one do you want me to put in a signature? I usually think of signatures as 'who cares' ego-driven options. Like I care in 99% of threads which Mac people own.

Having said all that, I don't see anything wrong with a Hackintosh. I'd probably buy a desktop Hackintosh over a Mac Pro (that new USB dongle solution is pretty nice as it makes the hardware literally think its a Mac as far as OS X goes and so you don't have to hack anything) since I don't need 4-8 CPUs and Mac Pros cost a small fortune (and Apple refuses to offer the mythical mid-range desktop tower), but I would still want expandability options (which is why I bought a and upgraded a used PowerMac instead of getting an iMac in the the first place. I wanted everything internal and organized for my whole house audio server. I don't want a bunch of junk all over the top of my desk. For all the touting of iMacs for a clean desktop, they neglect to mention that if you want a backup drive or any other expansion item, you either need to clutter your desk top (because nothing goes internal on them) or you can't use it period (because there's no PCI type bus). The last thing I need is clutter. There's enough equipment sitting in this room as it is with two computers, three monitors, a printer and a G25 driving module (for PC driving games), not to mention speakers and USB hubs for joysticks, memory sticks and the like.

 

[AdamTro]

To clarify, is it possible to upgrade a 2008 2.8 to the 3.2 processors? And where can you buy the 3.2s?

 

[Umbongo]

To clarify, is it possible to upgrade a 2008 2.8 to the 3.2 processors? And where can you buy the 3.2s?

Yes. Just google Xeon X5482. You are looking at $1,400 each so $2,800 for a pair. It really only makes sense if you can find them cheap on eBay or through other sources. Even selling your 2.8 processors is still going to leave you with a hefty upgrade cost and you would probably be better of selling your current Mac Pro and buying a used or refurb 3.2GHz. You may even be better off springing for a dual 2.66GHz 2009 Mac Pro.