Mac Pro expandability Questions.

1. You can upgrade the processors, but you will void your warranty and it requires a high level of computer expertise. Not something you would want to mess up. The processors need to be supported.

2. Yes you can upgrade the graphics card. However for it to work on Mac OS X it needs to be an Apple supported card, which means your only other option is the X1900XT or the Quadro FX 4500, and they need to be the Mac versions.

Yes you can remove whatever graphics card you get, its uses a PCI-e.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6

"We grabbed a pair of 2.4GHz Clovertown samples and tossed them in the system, and to our pleasure, they worked just fine. Our samples used a 1066MHz FSB, although we're expecting the final chip to use a 1333MHz FSB, but the most important part of the test is that all 8 cores were detected and functional.

We ran a handful of stability tests on the Mac Pro equipped with two Clovertowns and didn't encounter any crashes with the processors, so it would seem that Clovertown will work in the Mac Pro's motherboard. We can't say with 100% certainty that you will be able to upgrade to Clovertown when it comes out, but so far the results are looking good.

For the performance of Clovertown you'll have to wait a bit longer as we're not allowed to disclose it just yet, but we wanted to let you know that so far it's looking like you'll be able to upgrade your Mac Pro to 8 cores in the not too distant future."

 

The previous poster seemed to answer all the questions except the third. You can't "upgrade" the existing sound card as it's soldered onto the motherboard, but you can add a sound card, either PCIe, USB or firewire. Currently, I don't think there are Mac compatible PCIe sound cards, though, so you would have to go with USB or firewire. The main reason to add a sound card on the Mac would be to get additional sound I/O ports. The Mac Pro, itself supports 5.1 surround sound which can be outputted via the toslink or optical audio out port (surround sound is suportted by DVD player).

Graphics cards are only soldered on, on hte laptops, iMac, and Mac Mini. The Mac Pro has PCIe slots which use Mac compatible PCIe cards.

Any computer tech probably could do it as it standard PC parts. Although the motherboard may be customized (firewire 800 ports, etc.), it's virtually the same as a PC motherboard with the same standard parts.

 

If you don't know that the graphics isn't soldered on, you don't need to buy a Mac Pro let alone try to upgrade one.

 

As a musician I can tell you it is easy to upgrade the sound card.

Most cards are now audio interfaces that use firewire, but there may be some PCI express options out there too.

 

Motu 424 is PCIe and I think RME has one now as well.

 

No, but most people who are even entertaining the possibility of upgrading processors most likely know SOMETHING about computers. It has nothing to do with knowledge of the Mac Pro specifically but just basic computers really. I wasn't trying to knock, I just think you need to take yourself a computer course or buy a book before you start trying to upgrade things.

 

I don't know you. But a tad bit of research and historical data of pro towers could have answered all your questions. Thats all.

 

With how unbearably slow Apple updates its products (more specifically the Mac Pro), the damn video card might as well be soldered on

 

I share your frustration! That was good.