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CORE i7 975 3.3 GHz in my New Quad!
- Thread starter AZREOSpecialist
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You are cracking me up! Actually I sell foreclosures in Phoenix, so I'm extremely lucky to be doing well at a time when most real estate agents are not. I thank the universe every day, I have a lot to be grateful for.
Do you know what a wonderful world it would be if every real estate agent had a Mac? When I started my little office (there's only three of us right now), I told my business partner we should all get on Macs. I told her how easy they were to troubleshoot, promoted Time Machine as a perfect backup solution for our small office, etc. But no dice. So now I'm the only one in our office of three with a Mac. I am also the one who never has any problems, who never has any spyware or viruses, and also am the only one who can restore from a backup in the event of a hard drive crash. In fact I had to do the latter just two weeks ago when my G5 hard drive failed only days before getting the new Mac Pro.
Whenever I hear someone in my office exhale in a huff of frustration at their PC, I giggle and keep working. When my business partner's Vista version of Outlook is completely frozen while it updates mail folders, I'm happily banging away emails, surfing the web, and doing BPOs all at the same time. My new 30" screen has also boosted my productivity with BPOs (broker price opinions, they're similar to appraisals) that require a lot of open windows and tabs. I see a lot of my fellow agents struggling with their 17" monitors, and I wish I could prove to them how much more productive they would be if they just invested in the right computer equipment. It does truly make a huge difference.
The only thing remaining for me to do is install a Corsair P256 SSD as my boot drive. I'm waiting for New Egg to get more stock. The drive is very well reviewed.
Do you know what a wonderful world it would be if every real estate agent had a Mac? When I started my little office (there's only three of us right now), I told my business partner we should all get on Macs. I told her how easy they were to troubleshoot, promoted Time Machine as a perfect backup solution for our small office, etc. But no dice. So now I'm the only one in our office of three with a Mac. I am also the one who never has any problems, who never has any spyware or viruses, and also am the only one who can restore from a backup in the event of a hard drive crash. In fact I had to do the latter just two weeks ago when my G5 hard drive failed only days before getting the new Mac Pro.
Whenever I hear someone in my office exhale in a huff of frustration at their PC, I giggle and keep working. When my business partner's Vista version of Outlook is completely frozen while it updates mail folders, I'm happily banging away emails, surfing the web, and doing BPOs all at the same time. My new 30" screen has also boosted my productivity with BPOs (broker price opinions, they're similar to appraisals) that require a lot of open windows and tabs. I see a lot of my fellow agents struggling with their 17" monitors, and I wish I could prove to them how much more productive they would be if they just invested in the right computer equipment. It does truly make a huge difference.
The only thing remaining for me to do is install a Corsair P256 SSD as my boot drive. I'm waiting for New Egg to get more stock. The drive is very well reviewed.
Probably... for the next 10 minutes anyway until something faster hits the market. 
Quick question... on your 8-core upgrade, did you add additional silicone padding to the underside of the heat sink to facilitate contact with the sensors on the mobo? If so, where did you obtain this padding? I think that's the only "hiccup" in the 8-core upgrade, otherwise it's very similar to what I did with the exception of needing to be extra careful when re-attaching the heat sinks so as not to bend any pins in the LGA socket.
Folks upgrading the 8-core now have a new 3.4 GHz chip they can use. Unfortunately just one of these chips costs as much as a 24" iMac!
Quick question... on your 8-core upgrade, did you add additional silicone padding to the underside of the heat sink to facilitate contact with the sensors on the mobo? If so, where did you obtain this padding? I think that's the only "hiccup" in the 8-core upgrade, otherwise it's very similar to what I did with the exception of needing to be extra careful when re-attaching the heat sinks so as not to bend any pins in the LGA socket.Folks upgrading the 8-core now have a new 3.4 GHz chip they can use. Unfortunately just one of these chips costs as much as a 24" iMac!
My bad, it's not 3.4 GHz -- it's 3.33 GHz like the Core i7 975. The Xeon part is W5590. You can find pricing here. Seems comparable to W5580 pricing, I'm assuming the W5590 is replacing the W5580 and is the Xeon version of the Core i7 975 Extreme which I installed in my Quad.
On the Quad Mac Pros, the processors still use IHS (Internal Heat Spreaders), so you don't have to do anything fancy when swapping them out as all retail processors come with IHS's.
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On the Octo mac Pros (Dual socket), the processors do not come with IHS, to help keep temps in check. They are custom order from Intel and cannot be purchased by a normal consumer.
The solution is to either add silicone padding for the thermal sensor on the heatsinks when replacing the processors with consumer Xeon replacements and not tightening the heatsinks as much to avoid bending pins.
OR, remove the IHS on your Xeon replacements, which contrary to popular internet opinion IS possible, and does not brick your processor if done correctly.
HOWEVER, it does require a little skill and very steady, careful hands as it involves removing malleable tin from the top of the processor itself. I can link a thread off site showing how to do it, but be warned:
You are essentially risking the bricking of a $1500 CPU and there's not a snowball's chance in hell the warranty will be honored.
However, someone who has done this (I have seen pics) then put said naked i7 on chilled water, clocked it to 4Ghz, and runs 35C under load. No that is not a typo. So if you do have the coconut sized testicles required to try something like this, the benefits are astounding.
However removal of the IHS only has real benefits if you put it on water, which you don't in a Mac Pro. Otherwise, the temp gain is moderate, but nothing worth the risk as you can put a normal IHS covered Xeon in a dual socket Mac Pro with a few precautions.
Bergquist makes some really good thermal pads. Both the SilPad and GapPad, the latter being designed specifically for thermal transfer over gaps (i.e. heatsinks or metal cases to PCB/component surface).
Removing the heat spreader is difficult, and as you indicate, not worth it for air.It requires a different daughter board, which contains the CPU + cooler (s), memory slots, and chipset. So Quad and Octads are different here. The primary logic board is the same, but the SMC would need to be flashed for the new DP configuration.sounds good
with the standard 2,66 quad you bought from apple is it possible to mount 2x CPU´s or just one ? if 2 is there any part missing i would need to order from apple ?
So it's possible, but needs more than just a second CPU. Also, a pair of W3520's wouldn't work, as they've only 1 QPI channel. You'd have to swap out the existing processor for an identical X/E/L55xx pair (2x QPI channels per chip). You can run the DP CPU's in a SP board, but not the other way around.
You CAN upgrade the 2009 Quad to an Octo configuration, but you will need to order a new processor board which supports two CPUs, new heat sinks, and two new W55XX series CPUs. Conservatively this will set you back almost a cool $4,000 just for the parts if you go with the fastest Xeons @ 3.33 GHz.
For someone who needs the upgrade, though, it's possible.
For someone who needs the upgrade, though, it's possible.
sounds good
with the standard 2,66 quad you bought from apple is it possible to mount 2x CPU´s or just one ? if 2 is there any part missing i would need to order from apple ?
CORSAIR P256 is Coming!
The Corsair P256 SSDs are back in stock @ Newegg, I just ordered one. Hopefully it will get here by Friday, I will post my results. It will be replacing my boot drive.
The Corsair P256 SSDs are back in stock @ Newegg, I just ordered one. Hopefully it will get here by Friday, I will post my results. It will be replacing my boot drive.
Yes, clock is working fine. I don't believe that replacing the stock CPU with a faster one is one of the upgrade scenarios that causes clock timing issues. I think that happens if you mess around with bus timings on the motherboard, increasing voltages, etc.
Hey, azreo, thanks for the help. I have a few questions on the other i7 thread, if you can give me your opinions i would appreciate it.
Do Not Use Core I7 975 In 2009 Mac Pro!
DO NOT MAKE THIS UPGRADE!
Several good people in this forum who made the Core i7 975 swap have experienced sleep and wake-from-sleep issues. I also experienced sleep issues which I thought I had solved by resetting the SMC on the motherboard. Since then I have started experiencing crashes at login/logout, but only after sleeping and then waking the machine. I also continued to experience random, albeit rare kernel panics. Not wanting to take any chances, today I replaced the Core i7 975 with the Xeon W3580 3.3 GHz chip. This is the proper 3.3 GHz Xeon part with full ECC memory support and core VID voltages equal to the stock Xeon CPUs that ship with the 2009 Mac Pro Quad (W3520 or W3540). Thanks to AppleWorking for pointing out the detailed differences between the Core i7 and Xeon parts, including VID voltage. I have successfully performed three sleep/wake/logout/login cycles. It's too soon to say anything about kernel panics, but I will watch the system closely over the next few days.
In case anyone finds this thread and considers replacing their 2009 Mac Pro Xeon with a Core i7 975 Extreme, based on the experiences of those in this forum including myself PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS UPGRADE! While the Core i7 975 Extreme and Xeon W3520/40/80 appear to have almost identical specifications and share the same basic Nehalem architecture, the slight differences may be enough to cause stability problems with 2009 Mac Pro. Thank you to everyone for the encouraging words after the upgrade and also in helping me troubleshoot some of the erratic behavior. Based upon the experiences of AppleWorking and others, I hope the W3580 swap will prove to be a more stable upgrade than the Core i7.
DO NOT MAKE THIS UPGRADE!
Several good people in this forum who made the Core i7 975 swap have experienced sleep and wake-from-sleep issues. I also experienced sleep issues which I thought I had solved by resetting the SMC on the motherboard. Since then I have started experiencing crashes at login/logout, but only after sleeping and then waking the machine. I also continued to experience random, albeit rare kernel panics. Not wanting to take any chances, today I replaced the Core i7 975 with the Xeon W3580 3.3 GHz chip. This is the proper 3.3 GHz Xeon part with full ECC memory support and core VID voltages equal to the stock Xeon CPUs that ship with the 2009 Mac Pro Quad (W3520 or W3540). Thanks to AppleWorking for pointing out the detailed differences between the Core i7 and Xeon parts, including VID voltage. I have successfully performed three sleep/wake/logout/login cycles. It's too soon to say anything about kernel panics, but I will watch the system closely over the next few days.
In case anyone finds this thread and considers replacing their 2009 Mac Pro Xeon with a Core i7 975 Extreme, based on the experiences of those in this forum including myself PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS UPGRADE! While the Core i7 975 Extreme and Xeon W3520/40/80 appear to have almost identical specifications and share the same basic Nehalem architecture, the slight differences may be enough to cause stability problems with 2009 Mac Pro. Thank you to everyone for the encouraging words after the upgrade and also in helping me troubleshoot some of the erratic behavior. Based upon the experiences of AppleWorking and others, I hope the W3580 swap will prove to be a more stable upgrade than the Core i7.
Sorry to hear of the issues. I guess I'll be the last man standing... Considering the price of the X3580 is identical to the i7 975, it's a no brainer... If I ran into issues with the i7 975, i'd swap it out in a second.
I had one or two random kernel panics prior to SL upgrade, but most problems started after SL upgrade. I don't have enough data yet to determine whether the issues have completely resolved with the Xeon W3580, but preliminary results show that the CPU swap has eased the login/logout crash issues I was experiencing before. I'll keep everyone posted.
Just noticed my machine was waking up at night in SL..... It looks like the issue if the firmtek drivers....
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel Wake reason = RTC
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel RTC: maintenance alarm 2009/10/4 12:01:55, sleep 2009/10/4 10:14:05
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel System Wake
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr:owerStateDidChangeTo(): leaving system sleep
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel Previous Sleep Cause: 5
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr::setPowerState(): powerStateOrdinal= power_state_on. Waking up the system on the card with DevID = 31321095
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM ntpd[61] sendto(17.151.16.23) (fd=27): Can't assign requested address
10/4/09 5:01:57 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:00 AM DashboardClient[458] (com.kamalaboulhosn.radarinmotion2) file:///Users/thomaslfessler/Library/Widgets/RadarInMotion.wdgt/weatherchannel.js: Error: NETWORK_ERR: XMLHttpRequest Exception 101 (line: 143)
10/4/09 5:02:00 AM com.apple.Dock.agent[205] 2009-10-04 05:02:00.031 DashboardClient[458:a03] (com.kamalaboulhosn.radarinmotion2) file:///Users/thomaslfessler/Library/Widgets/RadarInMotion.wdgt/weatherchannel.js: Error: NETWORK_ERR: XMLHttpRequest Exception 101 (line: 143)
10/4/09 5:02:01 AM racoon[198] [198] ERROR: failed select (Bad file descriptor)
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel EIR is supported.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel SSP is supported.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel Ethernet [Intel82574L]: Link up on en1, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, Symmetric flow-control, Debug [796d,af48,0de1,0200,cde1,3c00]
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel GbE en0: en0 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM configd[14] setting hostname to "macpro.home"
10/4/09 5:02:06 AM kernel SerialATAPI device reconfiguration did not complete successfully. (failedCommandInfo = 0x1)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr:owerStateWillChangeTo(): entering system sleep
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel GbE en0: en0 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel GbE en1: en1 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr::setPowerState(): powerStateOrdinal= power_state_off. System is already sleeping
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] setting hostname to "MacPro.local"
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel System Sleep
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel Wake reason = RTC
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel RTC: maintenance alarm 2009/10/4 12:01:55, sleep 2009/10/4 10:14:05
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel System Wake
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=82 stateNumber=4
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:262 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMPowerOn (2)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:267 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMRestartCapability (80)
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr:
owerStateDidChangeTo(): leaving system sleep10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel Previous Sleep Cause: 5
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr::setPowerState(): powerStateOrdinal= power_state_on. Waking up the system on the card with DevID = 31321095
10/4/09 5:01:56 AM ntpd[61] sendto(17.151.16.23) (fd=27): Can't assign requested address
10/4/09 5:01:57 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:00 AM DashboardClient[458] (com.kamalaboulhosn.radarinmotion2) file:///Users/thomaslfessler/Library/Widgets/RadarInMotion.wdgt/weatherchannel.js: Error: NETWORK_ERR: XMLHttpRequest Exception 101 (line: 143)
10/4/09 5:02:00 AM com.apple.Dock.agent[205] 2009-10-04 05:02:00.031 DashboardClient[458:a03] (com.kamalaboulhosn.radarinmotion2) file:///Users/thomaslfessler/Library/Widgets/RadarInMotion.wdgt/weatherchannel.js: Error: NETWORK_ERR: XMLHttpRequest Exception 101 (line: 143)
10/4/09 5:02:01 AM racoon[198] [198] ERROR: failed select (Bad file descriptor)
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel EIR is supported.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel SSP is supported.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel Ethernet [Intel82574L]: Link up on en1, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, Symmetric flow-control, Debug [796d,af48,0de1,0200,cde1,3c00]
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM kernel GbE en0: en0 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:03 AM configd[14] setting hostname to "macpro.home"
10/4/09 5:02:06 AM kernel SerialATAPI device reconfiguration did not complete successfully. (failedCommandInfo = 0x1)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateWillChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateWillChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr:
owerStateWillChangeTo(): entering system sleep10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel GbE en0: en0 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel GbE en1: en1 Link down
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel FirmtekCtrllr::setPowerState(): powerStateOrdinal= power_state_off. System is already sleeping
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] network configuration changed.
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM configd[14] setting hostname to "MacPro.local"
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:261 powerStateDidChangeTo: flags=4 stateNumber=2
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel /drv/ MacModule.cpp:266 powerStateDidChangeTo: found flag=kIOPMSleepCapability (4)
10/4/09 5:02:13 AM kernel System Sleep
Over on the Apple support forums there are reports of some RAID and USB cards causing premature wake-from-sleep. I don't think any of these issues, including yours, are actually causing the computer to lock up, freeze, or crash. I would start to worry if you saw beach balls, blue screens, forced reboots, or otherwise crashing at sleep/wake-from-sleep/login/logout.
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