Mac Pro 5,1 Mojave with Radeon Vega Fronteir, 10gbe, USB-c!!!

[peterxxvi]

Hey so I just wanted show you how I upgraded my MAC PRO 5,1. t I got the Radeon Vega Fronteir working right out of the box in Mojave (still cant get the Nvidia Pascal to work). The 10GBe card is from Solarflare and you will need to get the drivers for this one. I use this to connect to my PC that has a 5x HDD Raid 0 and I get up to 700mb/s transfer speeds. Oh and I also put in a Caldigit USB3.1/USB-C card which also gives me eSata. Now I know that some of these components are a bit pricey, but its still cheaper and better in my opinion of buying the current get Mac Pro or even an Imac Pro for that matter. So here are all the specs and upgrades that I did:


Dual 2.66 GHx 6 Core
32GB ram
Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
Solarflare SFN5122f (10gbe nic)
CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus PCIe Card - Two USB 3.1 Type A/C & Two eSATA 6G Ports
Sedna PCI Express (PCIe) SATA III (6G) SSD Adapter w/ Samsung Evo 850 SSD

Oh and here is quick video about it with benchmarks. Let me know what you guys about it...

Thnx,

 

[Mac Gus]

You're only getting 45 fps on Cinebench with that? I'm getting 65fps with the RX 580 I just put in a few days ago. Also, might as well upgrade those processors to 3.46ghz if you're going to put all that other work into it.

 

[h9826790]

You're only getting 45 fps on Cinebench with that? I'm getting 65fps with the RX 580 I just put in a few days ago. Also, might as well upgrade those processors to 3.47ghz if you're going to put all that other work into it.

That's purely measuring the CPU single thread performance + GPU driver efficiency.

Because his CPU is 2.66GHz, that's why the result is much worse than yours.

That's absolute nothing about RX580 or Vega. Otherwise, my 7950 can do 69FPS. It's even stronger than your RX580 and his Vega FE, which obviously not the case.

.

 

[Mac Gus]

Thank you for explaining that, h98. I didn't realize the CPU had such an impact on that test.

 

[peterxxvi]

You're only getting 45 fps on Cinebench with that? I'm getting 65fps with the RX 580 I just put in a few days ago. Also, might as well upgrade those processors to 3.46ghz if you're going to put all that other work into it.

Yea I was thinking about upgrading the CPU’s, but honestly I really don’t want to mess with that part. Since it dose the jobs that I need it to do and I also have a PC with a 5930k. I guess the biggest reason why I love my Mac is that it’s very reliable and stable. Which is something that I just can’t get out of a windows PC and I have been using them since 3.11 From what I seen changing the CPU’s on these macs is a little involved then a PC and you can mess it up if you don’t tighten them correctly. Thats why I have been putting this off. Who knows one day I just might do so.
[doublepost=1541982773][/doublepost]

That's purely measuring the CPU single thread performance + GPU driver efficiency.

Because his CPU is 2.66GHz, that's why the result is much worse than yours.

That's absolute nothing about RX580 or Vega. Otherwise, my 7950 can do 69FPS. It's even stronger than your RX580 and his Vega FE, which obviously not the case.

View attachment 803367 .

Thank you for the info. This kind of gives me a little motivation to do more upgrading

 

[Slash-2CPU]

Definitely upgrade the CPU’s. It’s not a difficult task. Read up on it. X5680’s are the best bang for the buck. X5690’s are the fastest. Sometimes not a big price difference; you can get the X5690’s cheap if you have patience and stalk eBay for a while. “Matched pair” of X5690’s is a bit of hype. Make sure s-Specs match and you’re good.

 

[h9826790]

Yea I was thinking about upgrading the CPU’s, but honestly I really don’t want to mess with that part. Since it dose the jobs that I need it to do and I also have a PC with a 5930k. I guess the biggest reason why I love my Mac is that it’s very reliable and stable. Which is something that I just can’t get out of a windows PC and I have been using them since 3.11 From what I seen changing the CPU’s on these macs is a little involved then a PC and you can mess it up if you don’t tighten them correctly. Thats why I have been putting this off. Who knows one day I just might do so.
[doublepost=1541982773][/doublepost]

Thank you for the info. This kind of gives me a little motivation to do more upgrading

That’s CPU heatsink tighten thing only annoying the dual processors 2009 cMP users. For genuine 5,1 (2010-2012), the CPU upgrade is as easy (or even easier) then most PC).

And the most limiting factor on cMP is the CPU single thread performance indeed. I also highly suggested go at least X5680 or X5677 (depends on your demand). If don’t mind to pay more, then get a pair of X5690.

 

[peterxxvi]

That’s CPU heatsink tighten thing only annoying the dual processors 2009 cMP users. For genuine 5,1 (2010-2012), the CPU upgrade is as easy (or even easier) then most PC).

And the most limiting factor on cMP is the CPU single thread performance indeed. I also highly suggested go at least X5680 or X5677 (depends on your demand). If don’t mind to pay more, then get a pair of X5690.

One of these days I just might end up putting in 2 x5690's and I found some on ebay for $158.66 (matched pair). So this way I would go form 2.66GHz (3.06 GHz Turbo) to 3.46GHz (3.73GHz Turbo), but also the TDP would go up form 95W to 130W. Now I know that 35w dosent seem like much, but with 2 cpu's that's actually 70w increase on my system. Now the thing that I have to worry about in my system is that the RX Vega can draw up to 380W peak. Do you think that macs PSU can handle this type of power draw from the whole system? I mean this is almost a 9 year machine after all... Also will a .7GHz make that big of a difference in my system under normal use?

 

[h9826790]

One of these days I just might end up putting in 2 x5690's and I found some on ebay for $158.66 (matched pair). So this way I would go form 2.66GHz (3.06 GHz Turbo) to 3.46GHz (3.73GHz Turbo), but also the TDP would go up form 95W to 130W. Now I know that 35w dosent seem like much, but with 2 cpu's that's actually 70w increase on my system. Now the thing that I have to worry about in my system is that the RX Vega can draw up to 380W peak. Do you think that macs PSU can handle this type of power draw from the whole system? I mean this is almost a 9 year machine after all... Also will a .7GHz make that big of a difference in my system under normal use?

You cMP has a 980W PSU. Nothing to worry about.

.7GHz is 22% improvement, quite significant actually.

In fact, that can be the difference between can / cannot play 4k video smoothly.

 

[peterxxvi]

You cMP has a 980W PSU. Nothing to worry about.

.7GHz is 22% improvement, quite significant actually.

In fact, that can be the difference between can / cannot play 4k video smoothly.

Wow good to know, thank you for the info!

 

[Slash-2CPU]

PSU will easily handle it.

As for TDP, the idle and low-load wattage will be fairly similar. Maybe 10W more total at idle and 20-50W more when lightly loaded at 2-4 cores.

It’s fairly difficult to achieve full TDP for any extended period of time on 12 cores.

 

[Mac Gus]

I first upgraded to a pair of x5660s and then later when the prices dropped on the 5690 put a pair of those in my 2009 machine. I noticed a difference in the responsiveness and usability of the machine with the 6590s vs the 5660s, so I think it's worth the upgrade for you, esp for single core performance.