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New Mac Pro Processor Upgrade?

B

bumzo1

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2009
550
0
Dallas, TX
I was looking at the pictures of the new mac pro in another thread and noticed that the ram and the processors are on one card that comes completely out. (at least on the 8 core model) Is it the same with the quad core? If I buy a quad now will I be able to replace the card with an octad in the future? If not I'm going to buy a 2x2.8. (does anyone know where to get the best price on a 2x2.8?) any input is welcome:).
 
Right, but he should be able to replace the single qc with a faster one when the prices come down.
 
thats what its called the daughter board. I was wondering if you could replace the daughter board in the future?
 
i would go with the bottom 2 quad core because it supports 32 gb ram the singe quad core only supports 8.
 
bumzo1 said:
thats what its called the daughter board. I was wondering if you could replace the daughter board in the future?
Click to expand...
The Tylersburg chipsets come in two lane capacities, and the parts aren't the same for Single Processor and Dual Processor boards.

24S/36S for the Single Processor boards, and the 24D/36D parts for the Dual Processor boards.

So you'd be stuck within the same parts line. W35xx only, if you want to keep the ECC functionality. Otherwise, the Core i7 parts would be usable. (But why bother)? :p
 
You would need to get the new daughterboard and plug it in the single quad doesnt even have the extra ram slots much less socket for the 2nd cpu.
 
cleric said:
You would need to get the new daughterboard and plug it in the single quad doesnt even have the extra ram slots much less socket for the 2nd cpu.
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You wouldn't be able to use the DP daughter card on a board using SP versions of the chipset. It wouldn't support it.

It would be technically possible to change the CPU on the daughterboard that came with the system originally in order to use higher clocked parts. Assuming it doesn't have the highest clocked model already, and Apple hasn't actually soldered them to the board. Of course, if you've the skills and soldering equipment, there's a way around that one. ;)
 
Believe it or not but Apple is only listing one part number for the backplane board. They show two part numbers for the processor boards, naturally. So assuming they aren't limiting anything with the EFI, you *should* be able to swap out the processor board and processors at a later point. I have my doubts about the availability and whether or not it makes fiscal sense but it should work. I imagine it won't be long until someone swaps processor boards between quad and octo core machines just to test. Also wanted to say that the processors ARE NOT soldered to the processor board.
 
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