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Ultimate 12 core Mac Pro Upgrade! Step by Step in 4k
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- čas přidán 18. 08. 2024
- If you would like to buy me a coffee click here: sendatip.to/le...
This video is an outline on how to flash a Mac Pro 4,1 to a 5,1 which will allow you to upgrade the CPUs, Faster RAM and run MacOS High Sierra. Basically breathes new life into your system and brings it into in 2017.
Time stamps:
0:00 - Intro
3:10 - Flashing firmware
5:26 - Upgrading CPU's
8:27 - Parts
8:50 - Installing ac wifi / bluetooth
9:40 - Putting in sataiii / usb3 / m.2 cards
9:51 - Installing RX580
11:03 - Thoughts
12:18 - Benchmarks
16:58 - Final thoughts
* I am not responsible for any damages you do to your own system. I have made this guide to show how easy it is to upgrade a Mac Pro 4,1*
Apples EFI Mac Pro firmware 1,5:
support.apple....
4,1 to 5,1 flash tool:
forum.netkas.or...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are all the parts I have used in this video. Some are used and you will need to find the best deal.
Tools-
Hex key: amzn.to/2iMcKNC
Thermal paste: amzn.to/2gMqYdf
Thermal Pad: www.ebay.com/i...
USED-
Mac Pro 4,1: ebay.to/3b9EhzM
CPU's x5690 : ebay.to/2Dh8a4Q
Ram 64gb 1333 ecc: ebay.to/2DcveS8
Video card RX580: geni.us/FOrTb
NEW-
AC wifi / Bluetooth upgrade kit: geni.us/bygc
Dual mini 6Pin to 8Pin: geni.us/TH51EID
Sata to 6pin: geni.us/BybS8p
M.2 card: geni.us/pYymx
Samsung 951 ahci: amzn.to/2iKe5Vh
Sata III card: geni.us/JsdZfBo
USB 3 card: geni.us/ti7YAsC
Parts that I already owned-
GTX 1080ti- geni.us/m6oFY2
Samsung 1th SSD: amzn.to/2ifNr2B
Transcend 1tb SSD: amzn.to/2A1dVgi
3x 3tb Seagate Skyhawk: amzn.to/2ifIuqI
_______________________________________________
This is my "CZcams video kit" kit.co/LeeZavi...
I use Epidemic Sound for music. These guys have the best selection of royalty free music. Check them out for a 30-day free trial! share.epidemics...
_______________________________________________
Follow me:
Patreon: / zedpromedia
Twitter: / zavitzlee
Instagram: / leezavitz
Flickr: www.flickr.com...
Vimeo: vimeo.com/zedp...
______________________________
Affiliate Disclosure:
Some of the links used in the description will direct you to Amazon, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.
In a day and age where we throw out old tech as fast as we can buy it this is an awesome video on bringing stuff back to life. Great work!
Word!!
Tomas Villegas Tottaly agree with your statement. We are sort of programmed to buy new.
Yeah nah I keep everything or I do them up to the best they can do and sell it to go towards something way better
This is legit the best looking tower ever and they are the cheapest even though if u wanna do ur own build u have to do mods but still beautiful
ardware Overview:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.25f4
Serial Number (system): CK84316CXYL
Hardware UUID: D3C43221-6377-56A6-B856-4314EB2A87C2
Please provide me link to upgrade firmware of above Mac Pro 3,1 to help me install High Siera
Memo/tips I wish he’d said before i built mine!! (I had the exact same early 2009 i had to flash to 5,1)
1. If you have el capitan you MUST disable SIP (system integrity protection) via recovery mode/disk utility Terminal for the 5,1 firmware to work (re-enable after)
2. If your usb cabled keyboard is has windows based keys like my logitech, the cmd key is the windows/start key and opt key is the alt key between it and the keyboard. Opposite of what youd expect. Hope that saves you the hours of my life i lost lol
3.Redacted
4. The thermal pad gap is 4mm NOT 3mm as he describes in the video. You can even see him stack 3x1.5mm (4.5mm) which i wish i’d noticed before i bought 3mm
5. If the heatsinks are not level within
Tip 2 alone was worth the read. Wish i'd seen this sooner. Coming from a windows PC I was tearing my hair out
Thanks for all these detailed notes. It will save many people a lot of heartache.
I just tried putting some 6-cores in my 4,1 and it didnt work, I got them from OWC. I was obviously worried that I could damage something putting a lidded CPU in but I followed this video along with other sites that have the same process. I took them in and out 4 times trying different amounts of tightness and being real careful. Would not boot at all, not even the startup chime. I eventually put in my original CPUs and it booted instantly 1st try. Not sure if the "tested" CPUs from OWC were DOA but they are non refundable. So I'm a bit pissed! Buyer beware. Next step is to try de-lid the 6-cores and try again. And yes I have done the firmware hack and all that.
I'm wondering, relating to your point '5.' where and how many RAM sticks need to be installed for the machine to boot? I just put in 2x4GB, in slot 1&5, for each CPU to see if it would work. Should I have more RAM in for the system to boot???
Rx 580 for Mojave and Catalina, Nvidia only goes to high sierra. I'll be getting delidded CPUs for mine.
This video inspired me to do the swap.
One call out I would tell others that I learned during my own swap is that if you don’t delid the CPUs. The tension of the heat sinks on the cpus needs to be exact. Through my own troubleshooting and some great forum posts on MacObserver. It’s between 3.25-4.5 turns tightened in an x pattern. If you boot and get a solid white led but no boot chime back the screws off an 1/8th of a turn. If you get a flashing white led and no boot chime tighten the screens an 1/8th of a turn.
It takes some time to get just right but don’t get discouraged.
I would also add Delidding of course comes with it’s of risks up to destroying your CPU so for the amount of time it took to get my cpus working was better than destroying the CPU’s.
RIP Steve Jobs and his perfectionism... Even inside his computers were aesthetically beautiful.
Mr. Atlantic that's professor ive
?
@@DSRC24 Jony Ive is the chief design officer at Apple. He's saying that really all Steve Jobs did was approve the design which was truly designed by Jony Ive and his team.
@@CaydenMartinIsABoss Steve Jobs always took credit for what people designed around him. If he was there while it was being made "He Designed it" and built it himself. Such a Visionary😑
@@weareallbeingwatched4602 Nah, Ive ruined a lot of the industrial design making things thinner just for the sake of it causing so many end user headaches, trips to AppleCare etc....
I don't even have a mac pro and i enjoyed this lol, nice work!
Bro I watch your videos
go do a shoe review bro and i'll see you over there
Seth Fowler i have one mac pro
jsut get a new one
You brought life back to such a beautiful machine
Are you able to edit 4k footage with this machine upgrade? Like the video by the way. Good job
you probably dont care but does any of you know a method to get back into an instagram account??
I was dumb lost my account password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me!
@Howard Thaddeus Instablaster ;)
@Layton Leo thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and im in the hacking process atm.
Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Layton Leo It did the trick and I now got access to my account again. Im so happy!
Thanks so much, you saved my account !
I couldn't score X5690s at a good price, so I opted for the X5680 and 32GBs of RAM. This guy is gonna be a great Video Editor/Photo Editor/Streaming Rig for my setup. Thanks for this! If it wasn't for this, I would have just kept the rig stock.
I don't understand why people have to dislike such a fantastic effort? We shouldn't be jealous whenever we watch such great passion and meticulous work. Great job!
Really well done. Actually showing close-ups of what you're doing makes this light years ahead of most DIY tech videos. Very informative for those who know what they're talking about. BTW the note near the end about getting a better geekbench score with 48MB RAM vs 64MB RAM is because the Xeon's use triple channel RAM and installing 3 sticks per CPU yields the best results.
I wouldn’t personally consider a machine like this “old” or “trash”, they are still very fast and capable machines, I’d love to get one and upgrade it!
BTW if someone is having issues upgrading the firmware an still running el Capitan, the system will restart but nothing happens over and over again is cause SIP is enabled, restart holding cmd + r to go into recovery mode launch terminal and type: csrutil disable then restart and try again, this time it will definitely upgrade don't forget once upgraded to go back into recovery mode and tyle: csrutil enable to enable SIP, hope this helps.
"restart holding cmd + r to go into recovery mode"....this also wont work for some people because certain GPUs wont allow you to boot in recovery mode....
Got my 4,1 flashed to 5,1 right here. Upgraded to 12-core~24 threads! Highly recommended. With a 980Ti, I can edit RAW video, 4K, no problems. It should last me at least five more years. Running 2K and 4K monitors off this old can.
I have the exact setup, but are you sure you're editing RAW 4K? I'm a little skeptical. I still have to edit using proxies, which is fine by me. I am looking into a second PSU to add another 980ti though.
useless.
Did u go from single to dual processors?
It means motherboard change ...
The difference in GeekBench scores is due to Triple Channel Memory Config vs Dual Channel Config. Triple Channel provides more memory throughput resulting in higher synthetic benchmark scores.
Awesome. That would be why! lol I've just been rocking 48gb (6 sticks) of ram. I haven't really seen the need for 64gb (8 sticks) In what I do with it.
Nice! I got lucky and found a guy who already did the 12 core processor upgrade and firmware to 5,1, and bought his system. Then I went ahead and put a used Mac flashed 980ti in, loaded the RAM (pilfered from my other Mac Pros), USB 3, SSDs... You can guess the rest. The Cinebench scores are the same as the base model 6,1. For the money I couldn't have bought anything nearly as good for what I do at least. I'm in TO.
Hey man where did you buy that 980ti flashed??? Looking to do the same thing
DaveDeguire hi. I found a guy who sells flashed cards on eBay. I’m sure he’s still doing it. I don’t have his contact info.
- pice ssd is good as a boot drive in mac pros
can you edit 4k with PremeirePro smoothly???
I wouldn't know. I always use "ingest" in Premiere when editing 4k, so I can move my work to slower machines to edit if I'm on the road (laptop). The GPU handles it pretty seamlessly in the background.
Got a similar build and it is still a beast in 2020. Got Catalina running on it and it runs smooth as butter.
John Seabourn Am I off or are all these upgrades still limited by the bus?
I did the same thing with my 2009 mac pro....turned it into a 5,1 3.06ghz 12 core with 32gb of ram. I use it in my studio to record audio from my Korg Kronos2 88. Beast of a machine!
Awesome video. Love these old Macs, shame they don't make them so upgradeable anymore.
the problem is the GPU on the trashcan mac pro is trash and its non upgradable
Yeah, a lot of pros (myself included) knew the issues the trash can would run into when it was launched, so they refused to buy them. I'm still running four of these old towers.
I'm still using the 2012 Mac Pro dual 6 core xeon. Great machine. I didn't know I could upgrade the video card! I'll be doing that!
It doesn't really matter that the trashcan gpu is non upgradeable, if you get the dual d700s because they're pretty good. the d300s and d500s arent that good tho
I bought the single socket Mac Pro 4,1 with base specs back in 2009. It is still one of my daily machines and I did most of the upgrades you showed here.
Upgrade to 5,1
Xeon W3690
24GB 1333 low latency regECC DDR3
RX 460 (that might change when prices are not insane anymore)
USB3.1 card
PCIe SSD as OS drive
two SATA SSDs in deathwish raid
three 2TB drives in raidz1 (like raid5 but ZFS)
and I am thinking about 10Gbit network.
This was a stupid expensive system when I bought it but man, not long now and it will be in use for a full decade.
Think about that, a 10 year computer that is still useful.
I replaced the CPUs in my 2009 Mac Pro with X5690s, and got a flashing power indicator when I tried to power it up. The cause of the problem turned out to be that I had not tightened down the heat sinks enough, and one of the processors was not making good contact. It's up-and-running now, and I love it.
I've never, ever seen a Mac Pro inside before and, well, I'm impressed. It's quite a unique system.
People forget that Macs are reliable as. They keep going and going.
my old 2006 is still kicking strong.
Good point; I'm typing this on a 2008 iMac, and its still absolutely fine for web browsing, email, word processing and some gaming. Technically, the 2008 iMac can only be upgraded to El Capitan, but I use the patch from dosdude1 which has allowed me to install High Sierra
im typing on my windows xp machine from 2002 Windows are insanely reliable too
No macs used to be reliable, then the thinness wars started and they now overheat and die . 2006 macbook white, totaly fine , 2015 retina .... dead
buttfacemonkey ppc Macs laugh at the survivability of Intel Macs.
that is so true lol
Funny part is, if you look at Barefeats, this era of Mac Pro is still the best GPU performance you can get in a Mac. Older PCI-E is still less limiting than TB3, and the Vega 64 in the iMac Pro is underclocked to about 83% on both core and memory. So a 1080TI in this is about the best you can get in a Mac for pure GPU performance.
Did this...got two mac pro now... 5.1 high sierra both works amazing. Actually have a geekbench of 20 000 on both machine. Im a composer and now i run hollywood strings etc no problemo smazing
I DID IT! Thanks for the incredible video explaining everything step by step! Typing this comment on my massively faster Mac Pro 5,1 from a 4,1 with new dual x5690s in it. Also got a 1tb Samsung SSD.
Didn't get the same Geekbench scores. Maybe because I'm using 1066 ram still (32gb) vs your 48gb 1333. Single-Core Score: 2965, Multi-Core Score: 24209
Thanks again! Awesome video.
Great job. I may have to try this myself.
I want one. Reminds me of renovating an old Airstream trailer with new interiors...a product with a great original design upgraded to 2017 standards.
Delidding the Xeon processors is very easy to do if you have the right tools (all it needs is a sharp/thin knife or blade, and a small bench vise.) It is also MUCH more advisable than cutting that connector/adding thermal pads to use a Xeon with metal heat shield. I've delidded at least 20~24 xeons so far, did not damage any of them and every time it took me less than 2 minutes to do it. Just carve the bonding glue (?) under the heat shield a little and then use bench vise to take it off- there are a few good videos on CZcams for it.
Did this to mine. Early 2009 MP w/ original dual Xeon Nehalem 2.26s, flashed to 5,1, 32gb DDR3 ECC ram, dual RX470s pushing 4K @ 30hz + openCL goodness, SSD'sx3. Can still run most of Adobe CS , Microbloat Office, Fusion 360, etc. simultaneously. Still better than 80% of current PC's on the market. It's by far the best computer I have owned, or probably ever will own. The ONLY thing that will hobble it is the planned obsolescence holding it forever at 10.12 Sierra, even though High Sierra and whatever comes next would be no problem.... Thanks Apple.
Thanks for this - Looks like my next project, and since we're both in Toronto....
This is so inspiring!!! I’ll upgrade my 2010 Mac Pro
This is the best video I've ever seen on upgrading a 2009 Mac Pro. I've done a few tweaks like PCI USB 3.0 ports, faster video card, and SSD drive in my 2012 Mac Pro (12 cores) and I'm able to do everything pretty quick EXCEPT render 4K. You know your stuff here, and your workarounds are extremely valuable seeing the new Mac Pro coming out will probably be more than 4 grand I bet.
In 2009, mac pro was way ahead of its time. In 2019, it is amazing that we are still using them. I bought a Mac pro 2009 4,1 for $200.00 a month ago. And I'm planning to do major upgrade and some help with this video. Thanks for the tip.
Fina Cut Fina Cut..lol, great video and very detail. thanks!
Boring? hell no, i like it :-D
Nice video! I got a Mac Pro 1.1 2006 model with these upgrades:
2 x Intel Xeon X5365 SLAED Quad-Core 3.0 GHz 8M 1333MHz Processor
- ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphic card
- 28 GB RAM (32GB max)
- Wifi og Bluetooth card
- 240GB SSD Samsung EVO 850 as systemdisk
- 3 harddrive storages(320GB, 250GB, 500GB)
My university was having a warehouse sale, selling old University equipment, and I ended up picking up a mid-2010 Mac Pro for $100 USD. This video is so useful for helping me upgrade its parts. Thanks so much!
These are probably the best Macs Apple made.
This was kinda neat. Thanks for sharing!
I am retired from commercial art and started buying macs in 1989. I’ve owned every significant model for design and photography. I
Still have my 2009 Mac Pro and my new 12.9 inch iPad pro.
Got one of these. Love computers you can open up replace or upgrade anything. This is like owning a car that has old school single din stereo and easy access to engine parts that are common. It’s Very modular
"Why do you have that old thing, that thing should be in the trash" - Said no one ever, lol.
If there is actually people that consider the original Tower Mac Pros "trash", you either have too much money, or no idea what yer doing. These things were Apple's best machines so far imo!
Built from thick machined (not cut or punched) Aluminium, with great airflow and actual expandability, these machines are the reason why everybody thinks that Mac OS is the go-to for music production.
Look up pics of known Music studios on Google - you'll find that most of them have a Mac Pro somewhere in their effects racks (often even too). While OSX certanly isn't my prefered operating system, sometimes you just need to have it (Pro Tools is a good example, since it sadly crashes more on Windows then it does on OSX).
And I'd take a Mac Pro Tower over the Trashcan any time.
Why?
Apple has forgotten the Music industry. Composers and Studios have among the weirdest and strangest needs for IO, simply because our tech is years behind the Video/CAD/Rendering industry.
Alot of interfaces and gear still use fucking Firewire for example! I can't put a firewire card in a Trashcan Pro. I need to buy a thunderbolt PCIe box and put a Firewire card inside. Those things are ludecrously expensive!
Apple stopped caring about actually innovating completely. They produce whatever is hip at the moment. And if you can trim removing features as "hip", weeell, all the better, amiright?
These products are for made for fancy, clean studios that edit high-res youtube vids and instagram-whores with Daddys money. No matter how much Apple tells you that shoving 15 grand up their ass is a good idea - it's not.
I lost my shit at "instagram whores" lmao!!! XD
Bro, I once saw one of these in the recycle room of my condo complex. True Story!
They are still the best and Apple made a huge mistake with that black abomination!
"Built from thick machined (not cut or punched) Aluminium, with great airflow and actual expandability" more like cheese graters amirite hahahahha
no but seriously someone here has to make a cheese grater joke
not saying the mac pro is bad,
it just looks like a cheese grater.
kinda like how the new one is a trash can
Couldn't have said it better myself!
Awesome Video! But Raid 0 for the mechanical storage .. you should go Raid 1.
He doesn't care about redundancy, only speed. His stated use case with this machine is literally transcoding only. Meaning, those drives don't actually store any data for long. He doesn't care if a drive dies and he loses his data. Also, you can't Raid 1 on 3 drives. He could do Raid 5, but he clearly has no interest in that.
I was going to build a Hackintosh, however I am rethinking.
Thanks so much for taking the time to make this video.
your correct I went the Hackintosh way and have now moved to a 12 core 09 mac pro much better :)
Just got a Mid-2010 Mac Pro for $200 and this video helped me tremdously to bring this thing up to speed! Thank you sir!
But use final cut on a Mac keep premiere for your pc.... Try it you might be surprised
Tomas C K FCP is optimized for the ATI card architecture. There is a tangible speed bump there. If he’s using an Nvidia card he’ll get better speeds with Premier.
I would agree with Frank DiMaulo, and from experiences Dual GPUs is the best configuration for Mac, 1 RX 480 and 1 Titan or 980 ti, these GPU are the least expensive one but performance is so good. No need for SLI configuration. CUDA for Adobe or Resolve and RX 480 will do its magic to Apple Applications.
How did this not go viral ?
hush or the prices will skyrocket
By FAR the best instructional video on updating these old macs. Thank you.
There are so many of us who've wanted to be able to upgrade our machines, and increase their years of value to us. And a couple of intrepid people figured out how to update the firmware to allow the newer OS and guts.
I got a 2009 for $0, and while I haven't yet swapped CPUs, I've been able to upgrade I/O, RAM, and GPU to the point where it's really running great - I do mainly audio production... and a little middle-of-the-road video production.
And it is a good point that ZPM showed that trying to upgrade to HS without having an EFI GPU on board makes things difficult and wastes time. Do the update to HS with the stock card still in a PCIe slot, then swap out the GPU. And it's good to keep the old GPU around in case you have issues down the line.
no thunderbolt though.
no usb3 either.
On another note... this is still a bad ass build.
I dont miss TB ... the old 4,1 & 5,1 are still very useful, upgradable and way less money that the new 2019 MacPro.
@@kpopRC you can add usb3 via the pci slot, I did this with my 2008 3.1 , I have an external usb3 drive that's faster than the internal drives.. I have no requirement for TB so don't need it, I do have firewire800 though 👍
@@PB72UK UNLESS you have 4 raid enclosures using thunderbolt 2. and no way to use them. great computer. just not super useful to people who use old connections with their pro hardware. darn.
This machine was sexy, functional and upgradable (even 10 years on). WTH was Apple thinking with that garbage trashcan. I guess 2019 we will see a similar Mac Pro (or at least we hope)
No, because Apple doesn't want you working on your own machine any more.
Well the garbage trashcan will also be 10 years old before it gets replaced .... ROTFLMAO.
Shouldn't apple have come with some previews by now. It will be not an earlyl 2019 model.
now we have a highly modular Mac Pro again, but it´s quite expensive. Crazy machine though..upgradeable to 1,5 TB RAM
Man.. come to the right place to upgrade my 2009 Mac Pro to 2 x 6core (12core) CPU.. awesome review the process. thank a lot.
Nice! I have a 2009 Mac Pro also and it’s still very usable today. After flashing to 5,1, I can run the newest OS. Even with the original hardware, it feels just as quick as the macs you buy at the store today.
I also regularly use a PowerMac G5 for video editing. They’re still great performers.
Dope as hell something I'd like to do as well one day.
Yeah its honestly one of the last "Pro" things Apple made. The ability to still add in the latest video card or any expansion card is long gone. This bad boy still holds its own. Sure its not insanely fast. And once the iMac Pro comes out it will crush this. But we need to think of the Price to performance value here.
Yeah! I have a really crappy PC and I wanted to make a Hackintosh, but instead, I can just do this and run Windows on it using Boot Camp. My other option was buying the trashcan mac, but it's 4,000 dollars. This option is about 1,000 dollars. Plus, I don't need insane speed, just something better than what I already have. And this is BY FAR better than what I already have. I was looking into doing this before I even saw this video, but I wasn't sure what parts would fit, and what parts were compatible with MacOS. This helps a lot! And even if I can't run very high versions of MacOS, It still makes a pretty sick looking PC. And good value!
64gb of RAM just to run Chrome
I upgraded my 5,1 today. 3 x SSD cards, Radeon RX580, 32Gb ram. Also jumped to Mojave from High Sierra so that Photoshop and Lightroom would update to 2021. Big improvement. Will last another 5-6 years.
i've been using mine since 2009, i've upgraded the CPU twice its worth it.
Can I just do the firmware update to the 5.1 to be able to use the new OS? I have 2009 quad core that was about to throw away until I saw this. Awesome video!
You can and should. I've got a 2012 5'1, and have done a similar upgrade.
You don't ever need the firmware upgrade. Check out the (high) Sierra patcher... I've done both the installation without any problem on a 4.1 Mac Pro
Yes. High Sierra will run fine, but you night need to update the WIFI hardware.
With 10.11, the wifi is working fine. I'll check with 10.13, but I think what you could want to upgrade is the bluetooth since you don't have the continuity stuff... All the remaining works quite well on 10.11. Even the speed is still quite good (not as with 10.8 but still you can work with it). I'm working to use a ssd on a pci-e to have faster working speed... will see if it'll be ok with 10.13.
Do it! I picked up a single CPU 2009 from ebay years ago. its running a 6 core today with the upgraded 5.1 firmware. I edit in Davinci 14 and do y still work with Capture One on it. These machines are workhorses
The project is cool, I love the old Mac Pros, BUT: You H-A-V-E to delid the CPU. There are so many reports on the internet about Mac Pros not working properly or stopping to work at all because of bad CPU swaps. People underestimate that stuff.
And don't just say "don't be so sensitive, mine is working fine"- It can stop working after it worked 6 months. The CPU swap gets waaay underestimated. Best is to delid and use exactly the force on the screws that the Apple service technician manual says. Apple always works out the boundaries of the hardware, there is not much room left to play with. These are very complicated devices, other than standard PCs.
How do you "delid" the CPUs?
Belt sander.
That's how I like my haircuts done too!
Buy an used 4.1 Mac Pro fews years ago was the best choice I made. I can't believe this is a 10 years old computer. This machine is a tank. (I'm writing this on a 2007 macbook pro by the way...)
As a "veteran" MP upgrader (both the 2006 MP and the 2009/2010 MP), let me just add that:
1) The CPUs in this video were the easiest upgrade I've ever done. X5690s work perfectly in this machine. The single-core GeekBench scores may not be the best, but just having 12 cores / 24 threads itself means that so much more can happen at the same time without any slow-downs or hiccups.
1b) Regarding CPU installation, the amount that you tighten every screw matters...don't underestimate this when upgrading! If you have a machine with stock CPUs, count every single half-turn of the driver as you unscrew it, and after replacing the CPU use the exact number of turns to the best of your ability. You can thank me later. Also, always unscrew and screw in an "x" fashion (top-left, bottom right, top-right, bottom-left) to avoid damaging CPU pins.
2) The X5690s take a lot of power ... like 400W minimum on idle (not sleeping), so just be prepared to pay the electric bill.
3) Lee just throws out putting a GTX 1080 Ti in this thing as if its no big deal ... a regular 1080 works fine. I bought an MSI 1080 card when they first came out, no problem. But the Ti version requires extra power, which means you've got to do some fancier power routing. Just something to keep in mind.
4) I've run this beast with 64Gb of RAM for several years now (from Other-World Computing), and it performs incredibly. Just note that if you're starting with a machine that's already got some RAM in it .... there's the complication of "ECC" ram and "Registered" ram. Also non-ECC and non-Registered. No matter what combination of those terms you choose, you cannot mix RAM types. For example, you can't pair ECC non-Registered with ECC Registered RAM. It just won't boot. So again, something to keep in mind when making purchases.
5) This machine runs Windows 10 extremely well. I've played Half-Life Alyx on this beast on Windows, with the original HTC Vive (not Pro), and it ran perfectly.
5b) If you do run Windows, be sure to install the software called MacsFanControl to regulate the fans properly.
6) While Microsoft, thankfully, allows you to run Windows 10 perfectly, Apple refuses to make their latest OS's compatible with this incredible machine. I have run up to .... I believe High Sierra on it successfully? Don't quote me on that. But I think El Capitan and beyond are just beyond Apple's willingness to support their own hardware. It really is a shame. One VERY important thing to note in this regard is that I believe Apple will let you attempt to upgrade to a later operating system than the available NVIDIA drivers are compatible with. Just Google your setup before upgrading to any particular version of the OS, in order to avoid unnecessary headaches.
7) If you do decide to run MacOS on this machine with an NVIDIA video card, there will be a few extra steps you'll need to perform. First do everything you want to with a (stock) RADEON card. Install the OS, do upgrades, etc. Next, install the NVIDIA web drivers on the machine, but don't restart yet. Thirdly, enable remote desktop, and ensure you are able to connect to your MP from a separate Mac, assuming you have one (this will really be a life saver, trust me.) Four, open System Preferences / NVIDIA, and enable the webdrievers you have just installed. Finally, shut down the MP and replace the video card with a GTX 1080 or whatever you have. It should boot just fine, but if it ever doesn't, you can use remote desktop to get into the machine and re-enable the webdrivers. Of course, if you plan to run MacOS, be sure to also install the CUDA drivers. They're a separate install from the main video card webdrivers.
8) Again, if you are running an NVIDIA card of any kind, do NOT enable automatic software updates for the OS. There is not always a compatible video card driver released right away (if ever), so it's important that you verify and install the latest graphic driver update before (or after, via remote desktop) upgrading the OS. Linux users will understand this need for "kernel / driver" compatibility; veteran Mac OS users might find the whole thing a bit absurd, but it is what it is.
9) Be aware that the boot time shown in this video was edited. The MP does not boot this quickly, even with that fastest compatible SSD.
10) I'm sure there's more to say, you're welcome to ask if you have any questions. This machine really is worth upgrading if you can get your hands on one for a reasonable price. The quality of Apple in Steve Jobs' day was just unbeatable.
2020 and I'm writing this review from the upgraded machine I just described.
Does the FireWire still work?
of course
Hey man, how much did you end up paying for this upgrade?
It is not gonna be cheap, bro! At least 3K or something to get the best of the Mac Pro. CPUs, Rams are not expensive, the most expensive parts are GPUs, Storage arrangement.
- GPU just the Titan, the least expensive one is the 6gb or you can get 980 ti but still it is not gonna be enough if you aim for best configuration for video editing. (*** Don't forget to buy two mini 6 pins to 6+2 pins)
- Don't get an SSD or Sata III pcie card, just get pcie ssd instead, nvme would be the best.
- Just get 3.1 usb pcie card.
- You can install 6 sata II drive in the mac-pro. You can run Raid using Soft-Raid.
What are you even talking about?
This particular upgrade is about 1 grand
I'm not a Mac guy, but I've always loved the silver Mac Pro. I've never seen these old beasts running such modern hardware.
Really nice system.
Great Vid, I am in the middle of upgrading my 3,1 Mac Pro, not as cool as the 4,1. I had thought it was time to dump my machine before I realised it was upgradable.
Thanks for the great video. I had put a dual SSD card in my 2008 Mac Pro a few years ago. I believe your 2009 has the same capabilities, in that the top two PCIe slots are 4x and the bottom two are 16x. That's why I put my raid 0 boot drive into the second from the bottom slot, just over the graphics card. You may want to switch it and see if your speed increases. I found this on line... (one free PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and two free PCIe 2.0 x4 slots with the default single graphics card installed). Here's the page.... everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.66-early-2009-nehalem-specs.html. You can check your specific mac, but I think they are the same. - The raid 0 dual SSD made video editing possible. I just sent for a RX580 graphics card......PS, I'm trying to get up the guts to change the processors. Thanks again!
well done dude!! excellent post. I wonder, what is the most powerful GPU i could install on this mac pro, to edit with premiere CC 2018??? Any suggestion?
luiskiita well I put my 1080ti in there and it's probably one of the most powerful GPUs you can put in there. The issue is that the drivers aren't very optimized so there isn't huge benefits to having that expensive of a card in there. I'm curious to see how a AMD vega 64 card will perform once Apple comes out with compatibility for it.
The Polaris architecture is natively supported within macOS. Because of this, any 400 series card, 500 series card, or Vega will perform extremely well in any mac computer. There still aren't official drivers for any nVidia 10 series card.
Nvidia makes official drivers for the 10 series cards, just not apple.
Apple doesnt even make drivers at all for the 10 series cards. You can only use the Nivida drivers for the 9 and 10 series to work in OSX.
im running qty 2 titan x's on my mac pro 5,1
Mine still works. Been a reliable work horse. Prob just keep using it for now. 8 cores.
Very impressive! I 've just returned to Mac, with an ebay 3.1. I'd used macs since a 7200, in 1999, and got up to a copule of MBPs, that went belly up, then on emergency status, wound up using PCs for the last 5 years. Feel that my brain has been dumbed down, using PCs, but also seem to be impressed, excited, bewildered, at how much versitility these systems offer:-)
What kind of dunce would down vote this video?
@@alarak2159 LOL
this is hands down BEST video ever!!!! Thank you for your hard work!!! I actually do have Mac 5.1 6 cores 3.33 Mhz and I really DO not want to go trashcan router because I love having 4 Hard drives inside.
I have this Mac and flashed it to a 5,1 years ago. The reason your ram bench mark went up when you removed the 4th stick is because the memory bus on stick 3 and 4 are shared. When you place that last stick you 1/2 the speed of the memory bus. (Former 12 year Apple National Sales Rep)
Because of you, I have bought RX580. And the MacPro 4.1. And all the rest... SM951 was really expensive... X5690 I have found on AliExpress for 87$. 40$ cheaper then on eBay! Investigated further and got the Sapphire Pulse because it’s natively supported by High Sierra. And really really quiet... Anyhow, thanks man, rock on and hi from Istria!!!
Good to see the old G5 still have some performance in them, build quality of that machine is amazing.
Great vids my friend, i just upgraded 2010 Macpro with a X5690 6 core 3.46ghz and 64g of ram and not yet sure what would be the best graphics card. But thank to you, i was able to upgrade my ol girl. Thank You =)
This vid was perfect...building a Mac Pro 4,1 for a home ESXi host with dual x5690s. This gave me every bit of info I needed. Thanks!
Note: Before doing the upgrade listen to the fans for rattling noise. This would be the time to change them out to make it quiet.
I really appreciate this video. What you are experiencing seems to be a backdoor to planned obsolescence. Software is bricking our "old" processors. The only way microchip companies can make money is if people buy "new" ones. You found a way to get around that. Thumbs up homie!
This has been one of the most detailed Desktop computer videos i seen for a Apple being rebuilt to give new life and just seeing the details on what makes the whole system to get more power and speed plus extra space is what i need the most. Honestly Hp is good but you can only do so much and i see how apple has more but the price is really how you can manage if your willing to make the big changes without having to spend so much money on a already built one when having the mid year version to be upgraded. By far Apple Desktop i never thought would be so great after doing more research on the specs and the hardware upgrades to get better performance and so on for what you need for your daily usage. This video will help out a lot if i was to build the same one and give more space more speed and better graphics so seeing how cheap for the frame and to get all the parts and pieces to get the computer up and running. Just as he also said this is good for the ones that take the time to watch and learn more on how to make the computer how you want it to be. I really didn't think apple was that good for what i hear for most rumors but getting the information on what it can really do can save you more money in the long run. Well i usually don't write comments like this but to take the time and interest in something you enjoy you will get more value out what you can make out of it. Other than that this video helped out a lot and i appreciate you taking the time to make the video while going through this coronavirus haha.
I bought one of these back in 2009 had an 8 core 2009 Mac Pro with 24gb of ram it was insanely expensive back in the day but it was great.
I know it's a little late, but that Mac CAN use NVME drives. You just need a PCIE adapter.
My Mac 4,1 upgraded feels in every way as fast as my Core i7, only the OS is just a bit less irritating. Smart choice, nice work.
Dude this video is incredible. I wish I would have seen it 2 months ago when I tossed my old 2009. I honestly did not think it was worth anything. Great work!
Oh wow! Thanks for doing this video and laying out the process. I have a Mac Pro 2009 (Mac 4,1) for a very long time. Over the years, I installed a Sonnet card with 2 SSDs on it, 4port USB3 card, GeForce GTX Mac Edition 2GB card, LG BluRay drive, lots of storage in the 4 bays, and a 16GB OWC RAM Kit. I really didn't want to sink anymore $$$ into the system. I didn't know about the FW flash. If I can get at least High Sierra running at least I can be using Adobe CS 2019.
Just found this video, but I made almost the identical build. I shopped around for the best deal on everything, so it took me a while, but my total expenditure was about $900!! it's a great machine, and quite a work horse. The only thing I haven't done is the USB 3 (will soon). I traded the m.2 drive for 10Gb ethernet and boot off the Sonet card. Didn't bother with the WiFi, but might. Do miss AirDrop.
You can actually get 5700MB/s reads from m.2 SSDs RAIDs in this Mac Pro if you know how. That’s nearly 6GBs per second. There’s an unpublished spec that allows this. The reason your 48GBs of RAM gets a higher score then the 64GBs of RAM is due to the six DIMMs running in triple channel mode which gives you a bit of a boost in speed - the third DIMM for each CPU acts as a cache. When using four DIMMS per CPU your RAM moves down to single channel speeds. You can’t install a TB card but you can install a four port USB C card which is a relative of TB.
I’ve been running two of these for five years. (4) X5690s, 128GBs of RAM per machine, all m.2 flash drives in the PCIe buses in RAIDs, four 3TB and 4TB HDDs internal and on the external USB C bus via the USB C card and I added new graphic cards. They’re monsters for multiprocessing aware apps. Faster than the trash can Macs and can almost hold their own with modern PCs except for some of the tech Intel put in new Xeons. They’ll probably hold me a couple more years easily.
This is great. I work in a post-production house and we have been struggling with the lack of Mac options, hardware-wise - we want to remain a Mac shop and have been using Hackintoshes but have 2 Mac Pro towers waiting to die. This might save them!
man! awesome to watch such videos! It never gets boring!
Plus you can add Thunderbolt 3 to the 5,1 MacPro’s. This thing just keeps on giving.
I have an 09 12 core myself! I'm love with it!! can handle anything i throw at it! audio software wise
I got the 2.26 8 core 2009 with 32gigs of RAM for under $600. Dollar for dollar that's a pretty good value. And of course I can upgrade it. I used my flashed 7950 and an SSD on the drive carrier and it's pretty fast still.
One of the most valuable videos I have ever watched on CZcams. Can't thank you enough Lee!
I did this about 3 yrs ago, best mac I ever bought
Top upgrade. simple CPU swap. The thought of lidded cpu's send most people to 5,1 hence high price for them
The lack of thunderbolt makes me leery, but this may well keep me away from a hackintosh for a few more years!
Great tutorial - the first I've seen from you - subscribed!
Please keep updates going on this rig into the future!
You can buy a thunderbolt or USB-C PCI-E Card for the Pro BTW =)
Ooh, shiny!!
NO you can't use Thunderbold PCI cards on those mac. Those cards a specific to "made for motherboards"
olivier talouarn You can buy USB C PCIe Cards. Just not TB.
Nice video man I just picked up one of these myself. I'm impressed by the flexibility of this machine.
Fantastic vid, nicely presented and informative. I have a 3,1 and have started the upgrade with loads more ram, 2gb video-card and 8gb h/drives - I'm now editing on this sucker using Resolve 14.
Thanks so much for the video, I've learned a great deal from it. I'm looking to replace my vintage 06 Mac Pro with a newer 09 or 10 Mac Pro and upgrade it. Yes, the Mac Pro's are older but with the help of your videos and others like it, I can make my Mac Pro better and enjoy it that much more. You made me an subscriber, thanks again. :-)
I am doing pretty much the same thing, 5o am extent. I have the single quad core xeon 2.66. I'm upgrading to a 3.3 6 core xeon, then am going from 5gb of 1066 to 32 GB of 1333 ram, 250 GB samsung 970 NVMe SSD which I got a PCIe X4 adaptor to be able to use it. Then I got a GTX970 4gb video card, which I am going to try to get it to work, but if I cant then I'm going to get an RX580 8gb graphics card which has native support for OS X. I'm pretty stoked to see how it performs. I bought the mac pro with a matching 24" LED cinema display for 160$!!! All said and done I'll be in the whole thing for under 650$, 750$ if I go with the other graphics card, which I'll most likely do. Thanks for the vid. It helped me out
This is why we have these towers in our office: ZERO crashes (running 24/7/365) and GREAT performance!