Upgrading and Analyzing Apple's Nehalem Mac Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 13, 2009 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Improvements: Limited but Important
To the disappointment of many, including yours truly, the new Mac Pro doesn’t actually look any different. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the case, there’s just this expectation of improvement with every major Apple product release. In many ways Apple suffers from the same fate that Intel now does; after Conroe, we expect every major CPU generation to give us at least a 20% performance improvement with no nasty side effects.
So it doesn’t look any different, but there are some subtle changes to the outside of the case.
That's FireWire 800 for you
There are no longer any FireWire 400 ports - they are all now FireWire 800. I have two FireWire only devices: a Lexar UDMA Compact Flash card reader and an Apple iSight. The Lexar reader is FireWire 800 (woo!) and the iSight is FireWire 400; I can’t use the iSight on the new Mac Pro (not without a FireWire 400 to 800 adapter as many have pointed out). I’m guessing Apple will probably release an updated 30” display in the not too distant future with an integrated camera. I can’t have it both ways. I can’t have a company who assimilates every standard as quickly as possible yet provides backwards compatibility for every peripheral in my life. It’s the downside to innovation, but I simply can’t dock Apple any points here - it goes against one of the reasons I like Apple.
The inside of the new Mac Pro case is where all of the magic happened.
The drive bays in the first Mac Pro were great innovations at first sight; they just slid in and out and you didn’t really need any tools to use them (although a screwdriver was handy). Anyone who owned a Mac Pro knew that wasn’t enough room between the front of the drive sled and the hard drive when installed. There was just enough room for you to slide the tips of your fingers in there, grab and pull the drive out of the machine. The limited finger room plus the initial tendency of the drive sled to stay in place made for some crushed fingers. It was a nice attempt by Apple, but one that was ultimately frustrating to live with. The new Mac Pro adds more room for your fingers to grab the drive sled, avoiding the crushed fingers syndrome of the old model.
Look ma, more finger room.
The processors are also easier to gain access to; they live on a separate board with the X58 I/O Hub and the DIMM slots. Two latches and a pull are all you need to slide this puppy out:
Of course these are the new Nehalem based Xeon processors, meaning the memory controllers are on-die. The DIMM slots on the board branch off directly from each CPU.
The only danger is bending one of the pins that go into the high density connector you see below
And yes, I’ll show you how to upgrade the CPUs in the new Mac Pro later on in this article.
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wackazong - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
Hello,this may be the right place to ask: What's the difference between the Xeon and the (much cheaper) i7 processors? Couldn't you put an i7 into a Mac Pro?
sdevenshire - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
Hi,I purchased a 2xQuad core mac in Jan 2008 and I would like to upgrade the cpu to the new Nehalem. Apple suggested it could be done but they don't do it. I contacted a number of Mac repair places and they said it can't be done. I realize that upgrading the cpu probably means upgrading the motherboard, but that's fine with me.
Any suggestions on where I could get this done or where I might get instructions for doing it myself?
TIA,
Shane
529th - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
If you’ve read our Nehalem articles you’ll know that each chip has three 64-bit wide memory controllers, thus you’ll want to install DIMMs in triplets. You can install four DIMMs, but accessing memory in the fourth module will be slower - something you’ll never notice if you’re wondering. ???This is hindering me from buying a 4 channel UD3R X58 board. My main goal of an i7 build is for editing AVCHD files through Premiere Pro CS4. Being that tri channel will get me 6g and PP CS4 likes more memory, will adding memory to the 4th module screw things up?
newrigel - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
Man, take your hackysack and go buy some laundry soap to clean the crap out of your drawers! You guy's talk about a couple thousand dollars like it's buying a damn house or some huge purchase LOL!Macs are really cost efficient and yes... PC's are cheaper but who gives a damn! If you want to be cheap... be cheap! Hackintoshes (LOL) are just that... a POS and your getting what you pay for! You cheap asses probably hit your ol' ladies up for gas money to get to work hehe...
MACS RULE!
ditchmagnet - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
Just for fun I went to apples site and customized the mac pro, I just maxed out the hardware choices and then went to newegg and priced out an equivalent PC (Server board, with the same CPUs and everything except more RAM)Total for the apple including shipping and tax is over $20,000
the newegg build is under $9,000
I bet my 920 build at 4.5ghz is faster than the mac pro though, and all for under $1000
moltentofu - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
wander over to the egg and buy a lian li. No flashy lights really, no idiot clear side panels. For some reason the hard drive access light and the power light are different colors on mine though.You can get a combo case with a seasonic 550W power supply with it. I put a phenom II x4 3.2Ghz 16 Gigs of RAM and a 1 Gig 4870 in there with aftermarket cooling all around (air not liquid) and it cost me 900 bucks - all from the egg.
If you think you're going to find performance arbitrage basically anywhere in the market you couldn't be wrong-er. Just pick your price/performance point and stick to it.
Thanks for the awesome reviews as usual Anand!
moltentofu - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
With one big 'ol caveat to the arbitrage thing and that is: building your own system really does seem to be cheaper right now, and also I can't find component setups in the big name companies right now that make me quite happy.I miss when Dell Outlet used to be affordable. I'm afraid these Macs are just waaay out of range of my meagre salary.
fmaste - Monday, July 20, 2009 - link
Everybody talks about how expensive the Mac Pro is, but, has somebody compared with other brands? Look at this:I customize two Dell Precision Workstations with the same components as the base configurations Apple offers for the Mac Pro.
The results!!
Mac Pro Quad-Core: $2,499.00
Dell Precision T5500: $3,427
Mac Pro 8-Core: $3,299.00
Dell Precision T7500: $3,427
BOTH APPLE OFFERS ARE BETTER!!!!!
Both with the same processors, same amounts of memory at the same speed.
The only difference is instead of a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB you get a 256MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 295. And that Dell options have hard drives with less capacity, 500GB vs 640GB. I also added the second Gigabit Ethernet card to both Dells. Dell has no bluetooth option and you may need to add a sound card to them.
Remember, you get a more expensive PC with windows Vista and an ugly chasis.
fmaste - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
And here is HPMac Pro Quad-Core: $2,499.00
Same specs configurable HP Z800 Workstation: $3,942.00
Mac Pro 8-Core: $3,299.00
Same specs configurable HP Z800 Workstation: $3,702.00
excalibur3 - Friday, July 17, 2009 - link
So when you hypothetically created your i7 hackintosh, what were it's specs? I'm thinking about doing this (as a thought experiment only of course) and I'm wondering what such a system would price out. How would I know what motherboard to use to be compatible?