Upgrade Processor from 2.8Ghz -> 3.2GHz

[caseofthemonday]

I ordered a Mac Pro (8 Core) with 2.8Ghz today. My idea was that I will upgrade the processors in 2-3 years to 3.2GHz. This would save me a lot of money and give me a 2nd performance boost in the future (without buying a new Mac).

My Apple dealer told me that he never done that (processor upgrade) and that he does not know if the processors used in the Mac Pro are standard Intel chips.

Does anybody know that? Is it ok to buy faster processors in 2-3 years?
Or is the only way to get a 3.2GHz Mac Pro to buy it now?

Thanks in advance

Bernd

 

[duppydrew]

the mac pro uses standard intel xeon socket 771 chips they whole 5400 line can be found on newegg

 

[Umbongo]

Worth considering that in 2-3 years .4GHz isn't going to give you much performance increase compared to what will be available new. It is probably still going to cost a fair bit as the processors are going long going to have been discontinued and there won't be a huge surplus on the secondary markets.

In 2-3 years you will also be looking at much faster graphics cards, probably 32 cores as standard for Mac Pros, memory technology is supposed to move rapidly over the next few years too, expect 32GB to be easily affordable and so on.

Selling your old MP and buying new will in all likelyhood get you far more for your money, but yes you can upgrade and there are blogs and articles as well as posts on here about how to do it. If you really want the performance of 3.2GHz get it now and use it for 2-3 years.

 

[Toups]

I ordered a Mac Pro (8 Core) with 2.8Ghz today. My idea was that I will upgrade the processors in 2-3 years to 3.2GHz. This would save me a lot of money and give me a 2nd performance boost in the future (without buying a new Mac).

My Apple dealer told me that he never done that (processor upgrade) and that he does not know if the processors used in the Mac Pro are standard Intel chips.

Does anybody know that? Is it ok to buy faster processors in 2-3 years?
Or is the only way to get a 3.2GHz Mac Pro to buy it now?

Bernd

A processor upgrade is actually very strait forward and takes 10 minutes. Intel is also expected to release some additional speeds such as 3.4 and possible 3.6 and speculations have also indicated upping the cache from 12-16MB for 4mb per core vs 3mb today. This would give you (in the case of 3.6ghz chips) at 27% "boost" which may be just what you need in 2-3 years time and should be approximately $400-$500 per processor at that time.

Or... you could see what we have available then and see what is the best bang for the buck. I work for a technology and services company and even the R&D group cannot tell us where we will be in 24-months let alone 36 or more, so keep your eyes open and enjoy your system once you get it.

 

[caseofthemonday]

Thank you

so keep your eyes open and enjoy your system once you get it.

I will sure do that

Thank you all for you feedback. Don't know what will be in 2-3 years, just needed some reassurance that I made a good decision

 

[Firefly2002]

It might even be possible to overclock your Mac right now. I assume you'd have to boot into windows, though. Unless Apple's somehow locked the FSB frequency , I dunno. Just speculating, but it seems quite reasonable.

Do these Macs have a BIOS?

 

[Toups]

It might even be possible to overclock your Mac right now. I assume you'd have to boot into windows, though. Unless Apple's somehow locked the FSB frequency , I dunno. Just speculating, but it seems quite reasonable.

Do these Macs have a BIOS?

All systems have a bios, but it is a matter of access

 

[zmunkz]

Is it possible to upgrade one of the processors, and not the other? ...or do they need to have matching clock speeds?

 

[Umbongo]

Is it possible to upgrade one of the processors, and not the other? ...or do they need to have matching clock speeds?

Need to be matching.

 

[Mord]

All systems have a bios, but it is a matter of access

≠ true

Intel macs use EFI not BIOS.