nMP 6,1 CPU upgrade from 4 Core to 12 Core

[MacVidCards]

So I wasn't pleased with my 3D Mark scores using eGPU on my 6,1. Decided that upping the ante to 12 Cores should help.

Since this isn't mission critical I decided to save a few thousand and get an ES E5 2697 V2.

I found a Youtube video and knocked it out in about 20 minutes.

Much harder and many more screws then a 5,1 or a 4,1 with single CPU. The Dual CPU 4,1 will remain "most frightening" based on the ease of wrecking a CPU tray and/or CPUs.

Something not covered in the video was that the stand offs on the thermal core unthreaded from the thermal core on 2 of the screws.

Was very reminiscent of work I used to do switching CPUs on Cubes.

Anyhow, booted right up with all 12 Cores recognized. Very doable by anyone with some handiwork experience. Be careful unsnapping connectors !

20+ screws, all Torx in 3 or 4 different sizes. Unlike the GPUs, not a single one of them was a "Security" version. Perhaps Apple considers it so buried that home users won't bother.

Nice engineering, would have been a great mid level Mac.

Anyhow, will hopefully have some fun eGPU numbers soon.

 

[pat500000]

So I wasn't pleased with my 3D Mark scores using eGPU on my 6,1. Decided that upping the ante to 12 Cores should help.

Since this isn't mission critical I decided to save a few thousand and get an ES E5 2697 V2.

I found a Youtube video and knocked it out in about 20 minutes.

Much harder and many more screws then a 5,1 or a 4,1 with single CPU. The Dual CPU 4,1 will remain "most frightening" based on the ease of wrecking a CPU tray and/or CPUs.

Something not covered in the video was that the stand offs on the thermal core unthreaded from the thermal core on 2 of the screws.

Was very reminiscent of work I used to do switching CPUs on Cubes.

Anyhow, booted right up with all 12 Cores recognized. Very doable by anyone with some handiwork experience. Be careful unsnapping connectors !

20+ screws, all Torx in 3 or 4 different sizes. Unlike the GPUs, not a single one of them was a "Security" version. Perhaps Apple considers it so buried that home users won't bother.

Nice engineering, would have been a great mid level Mac.

Anyhow, will hopefully have some fun eGPU numbers soon.

Wait..so you got 6,1?

 

[MacVidCards]

I like to know what I'm posting about. And we are developing eGPUs for all TB Macs. We were first with display output from Nvidia cards in OS X, and now first (and so far only) people to get eGPU output in Windows from nMP.

nMP would have been a great mid-level Mac. It would take Apple all of 30 seconds to alter the boot rom to call the Dx00s their real names and slap an i7 in there, BINGO, decent computer. Shave a few $1,000s off and it would sell well.

 

[pat500000]

I like to know what I'm posting about. And we are developing eGPUs for all TB Macs. We were first with display output from Nvidia cards in OS X, and now first (and so far only) people to get eGPU output in Windows from nMP.

nMP would have been a great mid-level Mac. It would take Apple all of 30 seconds to alter the boot rom to call the Dx00s their real names and slap an i7 in there, BINGO, decent computer. Shave a few $1,000s off and it would sell well.

any more updates on this eGPU?

 

[MacVidCards]

Well, the 12 Core didn't leap me up 3D Mark like I hoped. The sad result of using a single CPU is that the loss of single core speed actually made one section of 3D Mark go DOWN.

A machine with 2 @ 6 Cores would have been significantly faster. But I guess I knew that when I went from 3.7 Ghz to 2.7 Ghz I would lose something. AT least it's small and shiny, right?

The experience in OS X is awesome though. Hooked to a 4K TV I am using a custom eGPU EFI which gives boot picker or standard Apple boot screen via a Titan-X. Choose the OS X partition, it boots right through to desktop. Shows Titan-X as main GPU. Instant CUDA support.

More news coming.

 

[pat500000]

Well, the 12 Core didn't leap me up 3D Mark like I hoped. The sad result of using a single CPU is that the loss of single core speed actually made one section of 3D Mark go DOWN.

A machine with 2 @ 6 Cores would have been significantly faster. But I guess I knew that when I went from 3.7 Ghz to 2.7 Ghz I would lose something. AT least it's small and shiny, right?

The experience in OS X is awesome though. Hooked to a 4K TV I am using a custom eGPU EFI which gives boot picker or standard Apple boot screen via a Titan-X. Choose the OS X partition, it boots right through to desktop. Shows Titan-X as main GPU. Instant CUDA support.

More news coming.

So...when people said 6 core was the sweet spot...i guess it was. I really hope there are ways to upgrade graphic.

 

[Redneck1089]

So...when people said 6 core was the sweet spot...i guess it was. I really hope there are ways to upgrade graphic.

There is -- MacVidCards has figured it out.

Looking forward to his future eGPU solutions!

 

[filmak]

Very interesting thread.
Thanks MVC.

 

[pat500000]

There is -- MacVidCards has figured it out.

Looking forward to his future eGPU solutions!

I'm rooting for him. Make it happen!

 

[kfscoll]

I like to know what I'm posting about. And we are developing eGPUs for all TB Macs. We were first with display output from Nvidia cards in OS X, and now first (and so far only) people to get eGPU output in Windows from nMP.

nMP would have been a great mid-level Mac. It would take Apple all of 30 seconds to alter the boot rom to call the Dx00s their real names and slap an i7 in there, BINGO, decent computer. Shave a few $1,000s off and it would sell well.

Completely agree with your second paragraph. And I'm surprised (and glad) to see that you're developing eGPU solutions for the nMP.

 

[agazoo]

Disable some cores / overclock hard maybe?
Not sure if that possible and how far can you go with this specific CPU, but standard nMP 6c OC'ed pretty well

 

[handsome pete]

Disable some cores / overclock hard maybe?
Not sure if that possible and how far can you go with this specific CPU, but standard nMP 6c OC'ed pretty well

The nMP overclocked pretty well? That's news to me at least.

These Xeon chips have locked multipliers, limiting you to a very modest overclock at best. Not really even worth the trouble in my opinion.

 

[agazoo]

The nMP overclocked pretty well? That's news to me at least.

These Xeon chips have locked multipliers, limiting you to a very modest overclock at best. Not really even worth the trouble in my opinion.

Using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility I was able to change multipliers per core under Boot camp; I went only up to 47x (i think) on all cores; My aim was to overclock the GPU though, so i didn't really try hard as I was hitting temp/power limits very easily;

I'll take screen shot tomorrow