MP 1,1-5,1 Guidance and advice on upgrading Mac Pro 5.1 2010

[Stormtrooper1967]

Hi all
My first post having had a good look around the forum.
I've always fancied a 'cheese grater' Mac and one came up for sale nearby.

Project Mac Pro 5.1 cost £250

Starting Specs

Intel Quad Core W3530
1TB WD Black 3.5" HDD
10 GB Ram
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB
Running High Sierra

My aim is to upgrade on a budget or as cheap as I possible can whilst trying to keep the Mac as OEM as possible (RAM will be the exception here!) using good quality components and looking out for eBay 'bargains'.

Upgrades so far

Intel Xeon Six Core X5675 3.06ghz £27
500GB Samsung Evo 860 SSD £70 (installed in an Angelbird mount in sata tray2 which was already there)

Previous owner must have removed an SSD from the Angelbird mount and they seem hard to get hold of now.

I'm now on the lookout for some cheap RAM and know what to look for thanks to guidance on this forum. However, I missed out on a 32GB package (4 x 8GB) at £8.50 so looked at 16GB modules. I am now erring towards getting 2 x 16GB modules as an interim measure and then when funds allow take it up to 64GB if I need it. Is this sensible or are there any pitfalls only using 2 modules as opposed to filling all 4?

At some point I may look to upgrade the graphics but I'm in no rush and need familiarise myself with the inner workings of my 'cheese grater' as I am somewhat an Apple newbie having only moved over to this universe a few years ago.

Any advice welcomed. Thanks in advance.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Is this sensible or are there any pitfalls only using 2 modules as opposed to filling all 4?

With 3 RAM modules installed you'll have the advantage of triple channel, which means higher I/O speed.
If, depending on the workload, you may need more RAM , you could add a 4th module of the exact same specs.
Most common is to install 3 modules in a single CPU and 6 in a dual CPU.

This is an example of an eBay seller (Europe) I have good experiences with:

3x 8GB 24GB DDR3 1333 Mhz / 1066 Mhz ECC RAM Apple Mac Pro 4,1 5,1 PC3-10600 | eBay

3x 8GB 24GB DDR3 1333 Mhz / 1066 Mhz ECC RAM Apple Mac Pro 4,1 5,1 PC3-10600 | Computer, Tablets & Netzwerk, Computer-Komponenten & -Teile, Arbeitsspeicher (RAM) | eBay!

www.ebay.nl

 

[Abacab]

Hi all
My first post having had a good look around the forum.
I've always fancied a 'cheese grater' Mac and one came up for sale nearby.

Project Mac Pro 5.1 cost £250

Starting Specs

Intel Quad Core W3530
1TB WD Black 3.5" HDD
10 GB Ram


I had a similar machine bought years ago as a video editing station. It had the infamous "Apple Raid" card (Which worked pretty good except the battery died and replaced with AppleCare, and the power supply as well.
I would say max out the ram. And you have 4 HD bays. Although there were adapters made to fit the SS drives I have seen some attached with Velcro : ) . The other thing I recall is this model would not run anything thunderbolt and I am not sure if there was a card you could get these days but you could surely update the graphics card. You got to hand it to Apple with the way this was put together. If I ever have time my project with these is to find dead units as they make GREAT FURNITURE!. I see you may be in the UK. If there are any parts that may be scarce I'd be happy to assist. Good Luck!

 

[Stormtrooper1967]

With 3 RAM modules installed you'll have the advantage of triple channel, which means higher I/O speed.
If, depending on the workload, you may need more RAM , you could add a 4th module of the exact same specs.
Most common is to install 3 modules in a single CPU and 6 in a dual CPU.

This is an example of an eBay seller (Europe) I have good experiences with:

3x 8GB 24GB DDR3 1333 Mhz / 1066 Mhz ECC RAM Apple Mac Pro 4,1 5,1 PC3-10600 | eBay

3x 8GB 24GB DDR3 1333 Mhz / 1066 Mhz ECC RAM Apple Mac Pro 4,1 5,1 PC3-10600 | Computer, Tablets & Netzwerk, Computer-Komponenten & -Teile, Arbeitsspeicher (RAM) | eBay!

www.ebay.nl

Noted. Am I correct that my cpu can handle up to 64GB? So I could go 3 x 16GB initially and then add another 16GB of the same RAM at a later point? Thanks

 

[KeesMacPro]

Noted. Am I correct that my cpu can handle up to 64GB? So I could go 3 x 16GB initially and then add another 16GB of the same RAM at a later point? Thanks

Yes
To start with 3 x 16GB is a smart move, and probably sufficient for your needs.
Note that with the 6-core CPU, if you install 1333mHz Ram, it will run at that speed instead of the original 1066mHz.

 

[Abacab]

I guess it depends what you intend to use it for and what you can afford. Maxing it out should not be too expensive.

 

[StuAff]

As OEM as possible? In the nicest possible way, don't do that. You'll have a lot more, and better, options, if you explore the unofficial/semi-official alternatives. You'll get the best possible (SATA) SSD performance if you go for a PCIe SSD card like the OWC Accelsior S. I don't notice much real-world difference between the drives I have on the internal bays and my Accelsior S boot drive, but every little helps... Get the firmware updated to 144.0.0.0.0. and you can use NVMe drives as well.

GPU: If you want to upgrade to Mojave (the last 'official' update for these) you'll need to remove the 5770 and install a Metal-supporting AMD GPU, eg RX 460/470/480. These will be much, much faster than the 5770. RX 580 is excellent, an off-the-shelf one will work, but no boot screen unless you go down the OpenCore route. Also briefly had an unflashed RX 560 in my 5,1, which worked just fine. MVC Europe can sell you a card with Mac firmware, at a price (he did my RX 580, excellent service and it's working perfectly). Unsupported cards like the 5770 and GT 120 will work on Mojave once it's installed, but…don't. No acceleration and completely useless for anything other than getting a boot screen. You might want to keep the 5770 handy just in case, but that'll be it.

OpenCore, OTOH, comes with an alternative boot screen that'll work with standard GPUs, so you can save yourself some dosh that way and still have the convenience of a boot screen. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/activate-amd-hardware-acceleration.2180095/post-28255048 has all the files you'd need. I've just installed OC on my own 5,1 today, in order to try the Big Sur beta. Also has a few handy performance benefits, like enabling hardware acceleration for video encoding & decoding. Might seem scary, I avoided it myself for a while...but it isn't, really, with a bit of care.

An excellent primer for upgrades here...

The Definitive Classic Mac Pro (2006-2012) Upgrade Guide

The largest/most-complete guide to all possible classic Mac Pro upgrades covering OS, Firmware, GPU, CPU, Storage, USB, THunderbolt and Network upgrades.

blog.greggant.com