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New Harpertown Processors in Old Mac?
- Thread starter matt321
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I wrote a thread about this in "Upgrading Mac Pro Processor" about a week ago. It's proven you can take an older (Woodcrest) Mac Pro and upgrade it with any faster pair of Woodcrest processors, OR Clovertown processors, up to the 3.0GHz 8-core x5365. We do know this is fact, it's been proven (look at Anandtech and Hexus) who did the swap. What we don't know is if you can upgrade a 65nm Woodcrest or Clovertown Mac with a pair of 45nm Harpertowns. They appear to use the same LGA 771 socket, so pin-wise it looks like they would be compatible. Pricewise it's really not feasible, or rather, economically it's not worth it...if you have a 2.0 or 2.66 older machine, dual processor (Quad), your best bet is finding two Xeon x5365 processors on eBay (two 3.0GHz Quadcore Clovertown) and following the Anandtech instructions for installation, that is, if you REALLY are bent on upgrading...if you are successful you will have an 8-core 3GHz Mac when you are finished! For a mere $600 or so. It's still a risky deal and if you mess up the install you could really be up a creek, but if you really don't have anything to lose, it's worth trying. Those proocessors can be acquired for about $300 - $325 each on eBay right now, and I see them on there from time to time. As far as upgrading to Harpertowns, I don't know...nor does anybody else seem to know right now, really.
Hope this helps answer your question.
Good luck!
-Ward
Thanks for the info! I read through the Anandtech article a while back and it doesn't look too hard. I don't need the extra 4 cores right now but I plan on tinkering with my mac over the summer.
Has anyone tried putting harpertowns in the old mac pro?
Has anyone tried putting harpertowns in the old mac pro?
I believe the clovertown upgrade from a 4 core mac pro will work but it will NOT work with a harpertown.
That is what I am thinking. For the Clovertown x5365 chip upgrade...I was saying that this upgrade's proven to work as an upgrade path for a Woodcrest machine. You wouldn't want to put a Clovertown chip in a higher-end (newer, rather) 2008 Harpertown Mac Pro. The 3.0GHz 8-Core Clovertown is about on-par speedwise with the benchmarks comparing to the 2.8GHz 8-Core Harpertown.
The Harpertown dual-processor (eg. 2.8 octacore) upgrade to a pair of 3.2GHz x5482 chips has also been proven to work. You can take a lower Harpertown machine and upgrade the chips. Right now, economically ($-wise) it just doesn't make sense. A single Xeon x5482 chip is running anywhere from $1250 to $1400 now, for a pair it's well over $2000. If you want the 3.2GHz model it's cheaper just to get it that way from Apple. With an edu discount you can get it as low as $4099, cheaper than anything I am seeing on eBay even.
won't work. interesting article HERE on upgrading.
in the comments is someone who has tried and it seems none of the 54xx chips work in the first gen MP. drat.
That's "fun" ... Intel's 5000x chipset, which equips the "old" Mac Pros DOES support Happertown CPUs (at least the ones with bus speed <= 1333 MHz) ...
For instance, if you look at intel's web site you'll see that they recently provided an update for their S5000XVN card, which uses similar hardware than the rev1 Mac Pro ... and it supports Happertown CPUs : http://downloadmirror.intel.com/15265/ENG/release.txt
So, this sounds a lot like the 8800GT issue we also have on old Mac Pros ...
The won't work comments
Listed1.com's feed back on oOo.com's site is misleading. I was speaking to him on insanelymac.com and he told me that his logic board was version #1 "MacPro1,1". There might be hope for people with "MacPro2,1".
Listed1.com's feed back on oOo.com's site is misleading. I was speaking to him on insanelymac.com and he told me that his logic board was version #1 "MacPro1,1". There might be hope for people with "MacPro2,1".
Apple Tech Feedback on Harpertown upgrade
Guys... some promising news. I just received a voice mail from apple for an email I sent them about "macpro2,1" harpertown support. I was told "based on the information you provided, our technical department confirms clovertown and harpertown support for your logic board". In my initial email, I wrote that I have a "macpro2,1" version 2 8X logic board with a 5000X chipset. I hope what they said holds truth because I'm going for it. I will bite the bullet seeing that a Quad 2.5Ghz Harpertown from newegg is only $350. An excellent price for the processor that is new in box. Can anyone with my logic board please confirm my logic boards Chipset with your own... I'm still a little skeptical seeing that I obtained the 5000X info from various forums and whether their department just went by my email description that it has a 5000x chipset... is the chipset 100% certain????
Guys... some promising news. I just received a voice mail from apple for an email I sent them about "macpro2,1" harpertown support. I was told "based on the information you provided, our technical department confirms clovertown and harpertown support for your logic board". In my initial email, I wrote that I have a "macpro2,1" version 2 8X logic board with a 5000X chipset. I hope what they said holds truth because I'm going for it. I will bite the bullet seeing that a Quad 2.5Ghz Harpertown from newegg is only $350. An excellent price for the processor that is new in box. Can anyone with my logic board please confirm my logic boards Chipset with your own... I'm still a little skeptical seeing that I obtained the 5000X info from various forums and whether their department just went by my email description that it has a 5000x chipset... is the chipset 100% certain????
Yeah, you have logic board 2,1 -- that is indicative of a Harpertown machine. I have Logic Board 1,1 -- so I think there is no hope of folks for me, AKA the Woodcrest crowd. Here is the rundown:
Am I looking in the wrong place? Because all the Xeon 5365 3Ghz QC Clovertown processors I see, whether on ebay or Newegg or anywhere, are more like $1200 apiece. So at $2400 the cost of upgrading a Woodcrest MP is just about the cost of buying an entirely new machine.
I wouldn't recommend buying them new off newegg. AT all. They are expensive...really much so, if you buy the x5365 new...try to find a pair on eBay if you can, I see them on there quite a bit.
Well, just looked over there...I think your best bet might be going for the 2.66GHz or 2.33GHz Clovertown pair (quadcore chips). They seem much more reasonably priced, you could probably grab a pair for $350 - $500 -- nowhere nearly as bad as the x5365. Look here:
http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1&fsoo=1&fgtp=
I priced out the X5365s about a month or two ago and a pair of them would've cost over $2500 from NewEgg!!! I decided to just sell my 1st get Mac Pro for $2000 and put it towards an early 2008 model. I ended up buying from Amazon at $2750 - $150 (rebate) = $2600. It seemed like a no brainer to me...
agreed. only thing that makes sense (maybe) is taking an old 2.0GHz Woodcrest Mac Pro, and putting a couple 2.33GHz Clovertowns in there, eBay, on the cheap. You could get the Mac Pro/2.0 for sub-$1500, and with a roughly $400 upgrade have yourself an 8-core Mac Pro, for under $2000. That may make (some) sense, economically at least -- if you are desperate for a cheap route to 8-core.
-Ward
I don't know how you managed to get that much money for your Mac Pro. I was just on ebay looking at what 1st gen Mac Pros were going for and I was seeing bids in the $800-$1000 range. Those machines looked to be in great condition with 6GB ram (more or less). How did you manage to get that much for yours?
I thought about selling mine, but when I saw those prices, I decided that I'd be better off keeping the machine. After all, it's still a damn fast for most of my needs.
Wow! I had no idea what they were selling for on eBay. $800-$1000 seems exceedingly low. Those aren't completed auctions, are they?
I posted mine on Craig's List and started getting replies within 30 minutes. I met the first person to reply the following day and completed the cash transaction. I actually had another 6 people on queue in case the first deal fell through.
Specs of the machine that I sold: 3GHz (4 cores total), 2GB RAM, 500GB HD, X1900.
Well, given that the 1,1 and 2,1 Logic Boards use different firmwares, I'ld say that there is a chance that the boards are not completely identical ... which could explain why Happertown CPUs can be installed on a 2,1 Logic Board (as reported by digitalperforme earlier in this thread), and not on a 1,1 one.
On the other hand, there is no way to be sure that the difference is physical, and not only another marketing trick. As featurewise, I think that the two boards are exactly the same.
Craiglist is a good idea. I might post mine on there to see if I get any takers. Ebay is full of rip-off artists, and I don't want to ship my machine across country. I wonder what mine is worth? It's a 2.66 with 6GB of ram and X1900 video card. I'd probably put a new 500GB drive in it and keep all of my other drives so I don't have to worry about migrating data to my new machine.
Yeah, eBay has really been over run by scammers. That, along with the eBay charges just makes it that much less attractive.
I'd think that your computer could sell for approx $2000 as well.
I basically did the same thing with my drives. I just had to use the restore discs to install Leopard over Tiger and I was up and running.
I think I'm going to give it a try. I'll ask for $2000 and see how it goes. I'll take the money and use it to upgrade to a new machine. While my machine has been great, I don't have a lot of confidence in it. I'm on my 3rd X1900 and I'm worried that there is something going on with the logic board. After the last failure, I had Apple test my logic board but they couldn't find anything wrong. Since I'm out of warranty (they replaced my last X1900 for free because it had gone out before), I don't want to take anymore chances. My next machine I'm going to get Applecare (even though I think it's a rip-off). My machine will probably last for years without any more problems... but now that I've had one or two issues, I sort of don't trust it.
I am seeing anywhere from $1350 - $2000 for 2.0GHz to 2.66GHz Woodcrest Mac Pro (used) on eBay. Some 3.0GHz quads can fetch more than that, depending on the configuration.
Guys... insanelymac.com -> mods and overclocking -> building a mac pro... join us if you want to contribute. Thanks
Thanks for the link... It seems that the heat sink connector for cpu B is the only noticeable difference between the 1,1 and 2,1 boards apart from the firmware. I assume the latest firmware upgrade 1.3 is only for the 3,1 as my mac doesn't report an update?
Now unsure if a 1,1 board will update firmware for a cpu swap from dual to quads!!
Now unsure if a 1,1 board will update firmware for a cpu swap from dual to quads!!