Processor Upgrades

[Snowguy]

I'm going to be purchasing a used or refurbished Mac Pro sometime before the end of the year. The big kicker is that even the older Mac Pros are a big upgrade from my current mid '07 iMac. Also the upgradeability.

I've seen a number of threads regarding processor upgrades, which seem fairly doable, if a bit complicated...

But I was told in another thread that replacing the logic board in a mac is not "user serviceable". What is that supposed to mean?

Not user serviceable as in most people don't do it because they just sell and upgrade to a new mac pro? Most don't do it because they don't want to deal with all of that jazz?

Or is it more or less impossible to do?

I don't have a huge budget, so I can't just blow $3500 on a new Mac Pro with 8 cores...and even if I get a used Mac Pro and upgrade, I'm more likely to have the money for upgrades... but I don't have the luxury of selling my computer and then buying a new one. I've replaced mother boards in plenty of PCs without a problem. What makes it so hard in the Mac Pro?

 

[derbothaus]

It means you no longer have a warranty. If this is not a concern it is very simple to do if you have built computers before.

 

[Snowguy]

Ah... thank you.

I probably wouldn't be replacing the logic board until after any warranty was up anyway, so it's not a big deal.

I'm not a huge computer expert, but I know well how they work. My step father builds all of his own computers from scratch and has built and repaired them for most of the family. When the HDD went out in my iMac, we had a good bit of fun taking the sucker apart and replacing it.

Don't believe what they tell you: Repairing an iMac isn't all that hard. It's maybe 10 extra minutes of work to get to the guts compared to a standard tower. Maybe I should hit the books and do it for a living? 😉