Hey folks -
After 4 years of faithful service, I decided to put my Mac Pro 3,1 up on EBay, where it sold in less than 30 minutes. To replace it, I got (from EBay) a used Mac Pro 5,1 with 2x2.4GHz e5620 processors. I'm sure Apple is going to update the Pro line in the Spring, but I just didn't want to wait that long.
The first upgrade was to replace the RAM with 6 1333MHz 8G DIMMs. With that, I searched around for a deal on a pair of Intel x5690 chips. Again, EBay to the rescue, though the "company" I dealt with isn't one I'd recommend to anyone as they're based in Hong Kong and don't really know how to communicate well with customers. Let's just say: I had to fill out the customs forms to import these chips...
Anyway, I saved a bunch of money and the chips arrived this morning. Following the excellent guides available here, I had the old processors out and new ones in in less than 15-20 minutes. The vast majority of that time was spent cleaning the thermal paste, to be honest.
Anyway, here's the before:
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=319925&stc=1&d=1326570575
And here's the after:
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=319926&stc=1&d=1326570575
jas
After 4 years of faithful service, I decided to put my Mac Pro 3,1 up on EBay, where it sold in less than 30 minutes. To replace it, I got (from EBay) a used Mac Pro 5,1 with 2x2.4GHz e5620 processors. I'm sure Apple is going to update the Pro line in the Spring, but I just didn't want to wait that long.
The first upgrade was to replace the RAM with 6 1333MHz 8G DIMMs. With that, I searched around for a deal on a pair of Intel x5690 chips. Again, EBay to the rescue, though the "company" I dealt with isn't one I'd recommend to anyone as they're based in Hong Kong and don't really know how to communicate well with customers. Let's just say: I had to fill out the customs forms to import these chips...
Anyway, I saved a bunch of money and the chips arrived this morning. Following the excellent guides available here, I had the old processors out and new ones in in less than 15-20 minutes. The vast majority of that time was spent cleaning the thermal paste, to be honest.
Anyway, here's the before:
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=319925&stc=1&d=1326570575
And here's the after:
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=319926&stc=1&d=1326570575
jas
