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Mac Pro (1,1) Processor Upgrade Recommendations

T

tayloralmond

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 26, 2009
446
9
Michigan, USA
Hello All,

I have a Mac Pro (1,1) 2xDual 2.66GHz. I've been eying a few Intel processors to swap out for better performance. The ones I've found to be the best deal are the Quad Core L5320's (1.86GHz) which can be purchased used for as low as $17 shipped on eBay...so around $35 for two, obviously. For such a low price, I'd think it's a no brainer to purchase these and have a 2x Quad setup. Does anyone disagree? Also, would I need to purchase any additional parts in order to make this work? Thanks for the help everyone.
 
tayloralmond said:
Hello All,

I have a Mac Pro (1,1) 2xDual 2.66GHz. I've been eying a few Intel processors to swap out for better performance. The ones I've found to be the best deal are the Quad Core L5320's (1.86GHz) which can be purchased used for as low as $17 shipped on eBay...so around $35 for two, obviously. For such a low price, I'd think it's a no brainer to purchase these and have a 2x Quad setup. Does anyone disagree? Also, would I need to purchase any additional parts in order to make this work? Thanks for the help everyone.
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With anything single-threaded or that can't use more than 4 cores, you'll see a massive drop in performance. It's only a good deal if everything you're doing with the machine takes full advantage of all 8 cores.
 
I'd go with Xeon 5355's. I have seen them as low as $73.00 on pricewatch.
 
peabo said:
With anything single-threaded or that can't use more than 4 cores, you'll see a massive drop in performance. It's only a good deal if everything you're doing with the machine takes full advantage of all 8 cores.
Click to expand...

True...it just seemed like such a great deal to nearly double the processing power of my Mac Pro.

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ssgbryan said:
I'd go with Xeon 5355's. I have seen them as low as $73.00 on pricewatch.
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I'll keep an eye out for a good deal. I'm just a bit skeptical if it's worth spending $150+ for two 5355's when two 5320's can be had for literally $30.
 
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tayloralmond said:
True...it just seemed like such a great deal to nearly double the processing power of my Mac Pro.

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I'll keep an eye out for a good deal. I'm just a bit skeptical if it's worth spending $150+ for two 5355's when two 5320's can be had for literally $30.
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Right, its just $30, but its not really that much of an improvement. You have to use on average 6 cores to make that basically money neutral change worth it. If its me, I don't even bother. Not because of the money, but because of the time. It just won't be worth the labor to swap them out. If you're looking at something that needs to be nearly free, why not the 5345s? Only a .33 GHz hit on the clock, as opposed to the .8 you're looking at.
 
Hey everyone, I ended up going with the L5320 1.86 GHz processors. I ran a quick GeekBench test before/after the upgrade to verify my performance improvement and attached the photos. Also, I'm running OS X on a SSD so I'm sure that helped on both tests. It may not be leaps and bounds better, but for $30, it's a pretty sweet deal.
 

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Your geekbench score only shows what your machine can do at max capacity. I just hope you're using all 8 cores for whatever you'll be doing with the machine or you've essentially paid $30 for a downgrade. For example, your old machine got a geekbench score of 6246 using 4 cores whereas your new machine would only get around 3671.
 
WTH? Did you BESL mod? BESL MOD those guys. I did that a month back and it goes out at 8600+ on 64-bit.
 
I just got 2x of the Xeon x5365 on ebay for $350 for the pair. There were/are many of them these days.
 
Well done. I just ran Geekbench again and got close to the same. Did the mod a few weeks ago and can't believe it was just $35 to bump this old thing 60+%.
 
What a ripoff.

Amazon has dual core 3.0GHz CPUs for $33, they will walk all over your 1.86 system in every-day use (meaning the 98% of things you do that don't use all 8 cores).
 
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Mengele said:
Just got them in.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Xeon-3-00Ghz-Fsb1333Mhz-Fc-Lga6/dp/B000GM9CPG
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Yeah but wouldn't a better choice be like every one else does and pick up 2 X5355's off ebay for a total of $100? Yes single threaded the 5160's would win, but for everything else the 8 cores @ 2.66ghz would crush it. Besides going from 4 cores at 2.66 to 4 cores at 3.0 really isn't worth it. You would go from what maybe a geekbench score of 5200 to maybe 6000? Further the OP overclocked his 1.86's to 2.33ghz in the end, so in the end his processors would be a little slower in day to day tasks but in highly threaded situations would crush the 5160's (i.e. handbrake, FCPX, etc.).
 
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paulrbeers said:
Yeah but wouldn't a better choice be like every one else does and pick up 2 X5355's off ebay for a total of $100?
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That would be $100 wasted since there would be no increase in performance for 98% of apps.

Besides going from 4 cores at 2.66 to 4 cores at 3.0 really isn't worth it.
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For $66 and 30 minutes labor its 100% worth it!

You would go from what maybe a geekbench score of 5200 to maybe 6000?
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Actually it went from 6211 to 6975.
So my 4x3.0 is only 367 points lower than his 8x1.83 and everything feels faster, not just a few highly multithreaded apps like handbrake.
 
Mengele said:
That would be $100 wasted since there would be no increase in performance for 98% of apps.
.
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You say that and while an individual application running may not take advantage, you can run dozens of apps (as long as you have adequate memory) and they all would be able to run at full speed. Further, many of us use VM's which will take full advantage of multiple processors not to mention I use handbrake on an almost daily basis which does take advantage.

Just because you have limited needs, does not make it true for the rest of us.

Again 100 dollars compared to 66 and I have a system that scores 10K instead of less than 7K in geekbench seems worth it.

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Mengele said:
Actually it went from 6211 to 6975.
So my 4x3.0 is only 367 points lower than his 8x1.83 and everything feels faster, not just a few highly multithreaded apps like handbrake.
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Further, AGAIN he did the BESL mod to the chips and is now scoring over 9K since they are running at 2.33ghz.
 
For those that read this thread at a later date..... Its much better to have a few fast processors than a lot of really slow ones.

The octo-1.83GHz cpu choice is a very poor option. 98% of normal computer use will actually be slower than the standard 2.66GHz configuration. Its only specialized highly multithreaded apps and people that needlessly run a lot of background apps that might see a small benefit (but each app will still perform slower, limited by the low clock speeds).
Quad 3.0GHz cpus will result in a much faster real-world machine. Not just one that scores well in synthetic benchmarks or a few highly multithreaded apps.
 
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Lesser Evets said:
I DID THIS. I think it was in January. Same machine, same processors.

Did the BSEL mod. Check it up online--the mod is super simple, but just a little nutty because it requires some work with small-small strips of electrical tape.

Taking apart the Pro is explained on the net, and it is simple. Doing the exchange wasn't difficult, just time consuming. The biggest pain was getting a long driver to get the heat sinks away.

Put together, it worked fine. Geekbench upgraded the score of my machine from around 5000 to around 8000+. So, it got a 50% boost. That was the 32-bit test, btw. 64-bit is probably up over 10,000. Everything runs great.

DO IT. I paid $35 for two used processors. Just make sure you ram up the fan speed a little, after the change, since the machine will be a little hotter due to the overclocked processors.

I'll probably upgrade to the highest-possible speed processors in a couple years when the prices are low. The 1,1 will probably get another 20-30% bump again and be a nice machine for 8 yo tech. With that speed, I can imagine this machine being used through 2020 for a video-music container/jukebox and for surfing and text and basic computer work. For graphics and high-end video work, I'll upgrade to a better MacPro in 3 years.
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The driver is easy, Eklind 54630 or Craftsman 47431.

Put together, it worked fine. Geekbench upgraded the score of my machine from around 5000 to around 8000+. So, it got a 50% boost. That was the 32-bit test, btw. 64-bit is probably up over 10,000. Everything runs great.
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Again, synthetic benchmarks don't have any relevance to real-world performance.

Same result, slower app performance for 98% of normal use. :rolleyes:
 
Mengele said:
For those that read this thread at a later date..... Its much better to have a few fast processors than a lot of really slow ones.

The octo-1.83GHz cpu choice is a very poor option. 98% of normal computer use will actually be slower than the standard 2.66GHz configuration. Its only specialized highly multithreaded apps and people that needlessly run a lot of background apps that might see a small benefit (but each app will still perform slower, limited by the low clock speeds).
Quad 3.0GHz cpus will result in a much faster real-world machine. Not just one that scores well in synthetic benchmarks or a few highly multithreaded apps.
Click to expand...

And again, for anyone reading this thread at a later date, why would you upgrade from 4 cores at @ 2.66ghz to 4 cores @ 3.0ghz. What benefit is there? Almost none in day to day operations (11% clock speed increase is almost pointless). That small of an increase isn't going to make web browsing, word processing, iTunes any faster. If you really want to unleash the potential of your Mac Pros, then 8 cores at 2.33ghz or better is much better, because this will actually let you do processor intensive (i.e. heavily multi-threaded stuff) much faster than a slight boost in processor speed. In day to day operations, a Xeon processors based on Core2duos at 2.66ghz or 3.0ghz isn't going to be much better.....

Really what is the point of spending $60+ to go to 4 @ 3.0ghz?

Going with your belief, then why is anyone buying 8+ core Mac Pros? They are usually clocked lower than the 4-6 Cores? Oh yeah, because people buy Mac Pros to do processor intensive stuff. Otherwise you might as well buy a Mac Mini or iMac.
 
paulrbeers said:
And again, for anyone reading this thread at a later date, why would you upgrade from 4 cores at @ 2.66ghz to 4 cores @ 3.0ghz. What benefit is there? Almost none in day to day operations (11% clock speed increase is almost pointless). That small of an increase isn't going to make web browsing, word processing, iTunes any faster. If you really want to unleash the potential of your Mac Pros, then 8 cores at 2.33ghz or better is much better, because this will actually let you do processor intensive (i.e. heavily multi-threaded stuff) much faster than a slight boost in processor speed. In day to day operations, a Xeon processors based on Core2duos at 2.66ghz or 3.0ghz isn't going to be much better.....

Really what is the point of spending $60+ to go to 4 @ 3.0ghz?

Going with your belief, then why is anyone buying 8+ core Mac Pros? They are usually clocked lower than the 4-6 Cores? Oh yeah, because people buy Mac Pros to do processor intensive stuff. Otherwise you might as well buy a Mac Mini or iMac.
Click to expand...

Thats the point actually. Web browsing, word processing, and iTunes are single threaded apps, they will not go faster with more cores. 11% boost compaired to 11% decrease is a big change. 8 cores running slower will make all single threaded apps run slower. I for one took the route of going with dual 3Ghz quad cores over dual 2.66 dual cores...wanted to cover both angles.
 
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