{"id":54,"date":"2012-01-10T01:13:26","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T01:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.z360.com\/blog\/?p=54"},"modified":"2020-01-08T19:01:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T19:01:32","slug":"worlds-fastest-mac-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"World’s Fastest Mac Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or How to Transform a 2009 Mac Pro into a 2012 Mac Pro<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I have installed a 3.46ghz Zeon W3690 (3.73ghz Turbo Boost) processor into my 2009 Mac Pro, replacing the original 4 core 2.93ghz chip, making it a 6 core machine with 12 virtual threads. This chip is faster and better specified than any currently available from Apple (They only sell an older 3.33ghz), yet is a simple replacement job. Hence the headline grabbing “World’s Fastest” claim, along of course with the many others who have doubtless carried out this conversion, so let’s call it first equal.<\/p>\n

Rather sad that this processor is not available from Apple and that no improvements were made to the beautifully engineered Mac Pro line in 2011, here’s hoping they will be upgraded in 2012, despite the rumours.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Well when I say simple replacement, I still had to upgrade the firmware to turn my computer from a 4.1 model into a 5.1 2010 Mac Pro, apparently the only actual difference between 2009 and 2010 models. Many thanks to MacEFIRom at netkas.org for his Firmware Upgrade Utility<\/a> which worked seamlessly and has the side benefit of enabling faster 1333mhz RAM and allowing audio out from the Mini Display Port. Naturally applying any unsupported firmware update or changing the processor will void AppleCare and your Guarantee.<\/p>\n

The only tool required was a very long 3mm hex wrench to unscrew the heatsink, and then some Arctic Silver Thermal Compound for the CPU. All went smoothly if nervously and my renewed Mac Pro restarted first time with nary a crash since. The power requirements and temperature limits of the new Xeon chip are identical to the older one. There are some thorough instructions here at MacRumors.<\/a>\u00a0This procedure may also be carried out on dual processor machines, but is a little more complicated.<\/p>\n

Following this other improvements were made, including 24gb RAM from OWC<\/a>, an internal RAID 0 hard disk, and a faster graphics card. For me, who needs a machine like this for making gigapixel panoramas (5-10gb files), the biggest improvement in actual usage was the increased RAM. Results for the real world retouchartists.com speed test<\/a> showed an improvement from 21secs to 11.2secs, which demonstrates the faster processor. To put this in perspective my 2005 dual 2.7ghz G5 Power Mac took 65secs to carry out this test. That’s Progress\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Update 11 June 2012
\n<\/strong>Apple today updated the dual processor Mac Pro line with some minor improvements to the processor. On the\u00a0We Want a New Macpro<\/a>\u00a0facebook site these improvements were variously called a minor tweak, a joke and an insult. There is still no Thunderbolt, no USB3, nor the latest Intel processors, but they do provide an ancient 2009 video card. A Macbook Air now has faster memory!<\/div>\n
Update 12 June 2012<\/strong><\/div>\n
Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently says there will be a new Mac Pro in 2013.<\/div>\n
Here’s hoping…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Update 19 February 2013<\/strong><\/div>\n
Oh Dear! There is no Mac Pro available in Europe. I thought Apple used to be a computer company… Why not make a serious computer ?\u00a0\"No<\/a>I can only say Seriously not Great…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Update 11 February 2014<\/strong><\/div>\n
Aha! Now there is a new Mac Pro, but only in the USA.<\/div>\n
It is not available in the UK until April, so that is well over a year with no Mac Pro.<\/div>\n
\"Screen<\/div>\n
\n

Well I think it looks small and cool and am relieved it exists.\u00a0I certainly don’t need one though since it will hardly be any faster for my work, plus it has no internal drive space and so requires an expensive external Thunderbolt drive array for any real work.<\/p>\n

Since the new Xeon E5 processors only represent a minor upgrade over my current Xeon processor I am happy to wait for a new faster generation, if there is one! Still the new Mac Pro does have PCIe-based Flash Storage, which certainly does speed things up so I have installed an OWC\u00a0Mercury Accelsior_E2 SSD in my own Mac Pro. It’s great!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Screen<\/div>\n
Retouch Speed Artists Test now under 10sec, reportedly much the same as the new Mac Pro. However if I spent my time video editing in Final Cut Pro X I might make an effort to get one of these new machines, due to the power of the\u00a0AMD FirePro GPU graphic cards.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Update 11 March 2015 Re-Edited 21 February 2016
\nNvidia 5k Video Card<\/strong><\/div>\n
In 2015 I said: “However I am much more likely to simply install a better video card, roughly equivalent to the AMD D500 in the current Mac Pro, which can run 4k screens at 60fps on any Mac Pro dating back to 2008 (Mac Pro 3.1):\u00a0The PNY Nvidia Quadro K5000 Graphics Card for Apple Mac”
\nThis information is now out of date, the K5000 card has now been superceded and was very expensive, explaining why I never actually bought one. Now I have installed a much more powerful card for a quarter of the price, the\u00a0NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"PNY<\/a>This graphics card has 4095MB of VRAM, HDMI 2.0 and can run a 5k monitor, as well as excellent Open CL, GL and CUDA benchmarks. A new Mac Pro cannot even run CUDA, since it uses AMD cards and in most tests the GTX-970 beats the fastest Mac AMD cards.<\/div>\n
There are however some issues since the GTX-970 is not officially supported, so on startup you get a black screen, not a boot screen. This has been the only non-issue so far since Nvidia is now providing a well updated Driver for Yosemite and El Capitan. On installation I had no NVRAM issues as others have reported, having already installed the driver, and I also have an old and unused Nvidia GT120 card installed for backward compatibility.
\nIf you want to spend more money the\u00a0GTX-980 and 980Ti are also available, but beyond this you may run into power supply issues. Incidentally make sure you have 2 of the slightly obscure pci-e to mini\u00a0pci-e 6 pin power cables.<\/div>\n
\n

I have also installed a cheap\u00a0Orico USB3 card\u00a0which works natively and is more reliable than external SATA. So my advice is to buy a second hand Mac Pro 4.1 or 5.1 and upgrade it to your required specification, rather than purchase a new Mac Pro 6.1, which is both\u00a0expensive and inflexible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Update 12 February 2016
\nStill the Fastest!
\n<\/strong>According to Novabench Benchmark Testing my computer is faster than a new Mac Pro!\u00a0So much for Moore’s Law, and recent Apple engineering…
\n\"943326\"<\/a>Tha average modern trashcan Mac Pro scores 1595 and the latest iMac 5k 1250, so unbelievably my 2009 Mac Pro is still the Worlds Fastest in 2016 !<\/p>\n

Update 14 April 2017<\/strong>
\nApple eats Humble Pie and admits building the wrong Mac Pro
\n<\/strong>Phil Schiller: We made something bold that we thought would be great for the majority of our Mac Pro users. And what we discovered was that it was great for some and not others. Enough so that we need to take another path.<\/p>\n

Phil Schiller:\u00a0Apple cares deeply about the Mac\u2026 and if we\u2019ve had a pause in upgrades and updates on that, we\u2019re sorry for that, what happened with the Mac Pro, and we\u2019re going to come out with something great to replace it.<\/p>\n

Craig Federighi: The architecture, over time, proved to be less flexible to take us where we wanted to go to address that audience. In hindsight, we would\u2019ve done that differently. Now we are.<\/p>\n

Mac Pro Interview<\/a><\/p>\n

Update 15 December 2017
\nHot Sierra Apple
\n<\/strong>I have just installed macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on my 2009 computer so I could use the updated Final Cut Pro X 10.4 with support for 360\u00b0 VR Editing. I must say the transition went smoothly and remembered nearly all my previous preferences and tweaks. FCPX is a great piece of software and I am pretty impressed I am running such a recent system on a computer this ancient, even though Apple says you can’t. I did not have to do any special install tricks, although I had previously updated the firmware to 5.1 as mentioned above. So kudos to Apple.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I have no desire to update further to High Sierra, which still appears to have teething problems with the new and slow APFS file system. Meanwhile the new iMac Pro, while very expensive at \u00a35,000 or more, looks like a serious machine and bodes well for the modular Mac Pro promised for 2018.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Update 15 January 2019
\n<\/strong>10 Year old Computer running Mojave<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n

\"mojave\"Apple have withdrawn support for Nvidia graphics cards, preventing them from running in Mojave. Under Sierra my NVIDIA GeForce GTX-970 was working well and supported Metal. Despite this Apple has forced me to buy a new AMD graphic card to run my 4k monitor on a newer system. The recommended card is a Sapphire Radeon RX 580 8GB, <\/b>which while rather large works as a direct replacement. Specification wise it is not much better than my previous card, but does have 8gb video ram. The good news is that it works natively with Sierra 10.12.6 and higher, allowing for simpler system upgrades. Also had to buy a new dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin PCIe power connector, previous one was 6 pin of course.<\/p>\n

\"RX580\"To upgrade my Mac Pro 5.1 (see above) it is advised to update first to High Sierra 10.13.6, to receive the required firmware updates. FileVault should be switched off, since it is no longer compatible with this old computer, fine for me since I never use it. The startup disk is a PCIe Accelsior SSD, which is converted to APFS, no problems so far. (There is a firmware update for this card from OWC, which avoids the need for an extension, I applied this before upgrading). Mojave Installer will crash if you have an additional incompatible video card installed, like the Nvidia GT120 or Radeon HD5770, so remove it first.<\/p>\n

I was upgrading mainly to use the latest version of FCPx, a great application requiring a recent system. Still awaiting the new modular Mac Pro, now forecast for 2019.<\/p>\n

Update 5 June 2019
\nThe Cheesegrater is Back!
\n<\/strong>At WWDC 2019 Apple unveiled the 2019 Mac Pro.
\nIt looks awesome and costs as much as a car. Wheels will be available.<\/p>\n

\"mac-pro-2019\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well Done Apple !<\/p>\n

See\u00a0All Hail the Mac Pro<\/a><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or How to Transform a 2009 Mac Pro into a 2012 Mac Pro I have installed a 3.46ghz Zeon W3690 (3.73ghz Turbo Boost) processor into my 2009 Mac Pro, replacing the original 4 core 2.93ghz chip, making it a 6 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,6],"tags":[60,30,32,31],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-computer","tag-apple","tag-mac","tag-upgrade","tag-xeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}