MP All Models Mac Pro CPU Compatibility List

[Jonathan50]

they should

but if low power is the goal then installing just 1 of these http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SLANM.html will get you down to a 35W TDP at a great performance penalty of course (there is the L5215 as well with a 20W TDP however this CPU does not have a C0 counter part sadly)

however its worth noting the MP3,1 as a platform ignoring CPUs draws quite a lot of power

you may be better off with a low power Mac Mini or if you need a Mac Pro find a single CPU MP4,1/5,1 and kit it out with DDR3L and a low power CPU

Thank you for your informative reply. Do you mean using the Mac Pro with one cpu only and leave the other cpu socket unpopulated?

Yes I know it is a power hog anyway this is why I've removed the dual DVD recorder box and swapped the original 8800GT for a 19W fan-less efi-less nVidia GT710 Kepler card but I still get 150 Watts at idle.

Could you perhaps suggest a 4,1 or 5,1 configuration in detail and perhaps a source? Yes it has to be a Mac Pro so I can use audio / music software with at least one PCIe audio card.

 

[LightBulbFun]

in reference to your 3,1 yes thats what i mean the MacPro4,1/5,1 shipped with 1 socket only configurations. (the MacPro3,1 did ship with a single CPU option but they still had a socket socket just unpopulated)

as for a recommended MP4,1/5,1 configuration

find and fit a single CPU 4,1/5,1 with an L5630 http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon L5630 - AT80614005484AA (BX80614L5630).html

this will get you a nice low 40W TDP on a more efficient platform

 

[Jonathan50]

in reference to your 3,1 yes thats what i mean the MacPro4,1/5,1 shipped with 1 socket only configurations. (the MacPro3,1 did ship with a single CPU option but they still had a socket socket just unpopulated)

as for a recommended MP4,1/5,1 configuration

find and fit a single CPU 4,1/5,1 with an L5630 http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon L5630 - AT80614005484AA (BX80614L5630).html

this will get you a nice low 40W TDP on a more efficient platform

Ok, trying to wrap my head around this. This Mac Pro 3,1 here has the two stock 2.8GHz E5462 cpus. Are both sockets equivalent, I mean, can either of them be left unpopulated and the machine still works? If that is the case then I have an L5420 (C0-SLARP) lying somewhere, modified with a tiny adhesive to fit a 775 socket, can I remove the sticker and use it alone in there? It used to run w7 just fine for a while.

Alternatively, how about a single 6-core 4,1 or 5,1. Those single cpu machines didn't require de-lidding, correct? What is their power consumption with the stock processor?

 

[kohlson]

Electricity is very expensive here.

AT one point I had an APC UPS with an LED that showed power usage. It was to provide UPS for my 2009 4x2.93 GHz MP. Sleeping, it consumed 35-40 watts. Power on steady state it used 200 or so watts. These are nice systems, but power economy wasn't one of the design strengths.

 

[Jonathan50]

AT one point I had an APC UPS with an LED that showed power usage. It was to provide UPS for my 2009 4x2.93 GHz MP. Sleeping, it consumed 35-40 watts. Power on steady state it used 200 or so watts. These are nice systems, but power economy wasn't one of the design strengths.

I see exactly what you mean. Whenever I have to put the original 8800GT back into the MP, consumption goes over 200 watts easily. So I will give it a try with just the lower (CPU-B) in place and the other one removed to see how it goes. Other than that, if I must use a PCIe audio card with macOS, isn't the only option some motherboard made by someone else?

 

[Jonathan50]

Just to report that the 3,1 runs ok with only the lower E5462 (CPU-B) in place. Consumption at idle was reduced from 150 to 133 watts, nVidia GT710, sata2 HFS mechanical hard disk, Mojave, admittedly no huge savings there. Next step is to try the L5420 (TDP 50W).

 

[Jonathan50]

What a wild goose chase. Shaved another 5 watts so now down to 128 with the L5420. Boots and runs ok, sees ram as 667 instead of 800, of course, because it's a 1333 FSB processor. Probably this is about as low as I can go, the technology on the logic board and these processors won't allow any power saving miracles. Can't know how much computing power has been given up in practice, benchmarks notwithstanding, but it's been fun.

 

[ActionableMango]

What a wild goose chase. Shaved another 5 watts so now down to 128 with the L5420. Boots and runs ok

I think you are the first and only person in this thread downgrading to slower and slower processors.

 

[Jonathan50]

This Mac Pro 3,1 was given to me for free by a good friend. Obviously my aim was not to cripple the machine computing power wise but to see how low I could go with regards to power consumption given the fact that electricity is quite dear here and that I would love to have it on for 8-10 hours per day running my favourite audio processing software. Unfortunately I can see this is not a viable option for me.

 

[reukiodo]

Shaved another 5 watts so now down to 128 with the L5420.

View attachment 773076

It's like your own G5 Quad but a MPc Quad at 2.5GHz!

 

[Zeke D]

The i7-940 does't seem to work in my 4,1 flashed to 5,1. Works with Windows7 pro OA, but not OS X.

INTEL (m)(c) '08 i7-940
INTEL (r) CORE(tm) i7
SLBCK COSTA RICA
2.93GHZ/8M/4.80/08
3837A946

 

[ActionableMango]

Sorry about that Zeke.

The list was originally only for verified CPUs (for example I could find someone claiming that it worked). I regret following requests from people to add CPUs that were just theoretically compatible. So now there's no way to tell which is which.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to go through the whole list of CPUs and re-verify them all. This is not a short endeavor--I think it was about 20 hours of work originally. So give it some time.

FWIW, at this moment, I think the following lists are probably all verified:
1,1
2,1
6,1

I think theoretical CPUs crept mostly into:
3,1
4,1
5,1

 

[LightBulbFun]

The i7-940 does't seem to work in my 4,1 flashed to 5,1. Works with Windows7 pro OA, but not OS X.

INTEL (m)(c) '08 i7-940
INTEL (r) CORE(tm) i7
SLBCK COSTA RICA
2.93GHZ/8M/4.80/08
3837A946

when you say Works in Windows

do you mean in windows on the MacPro4,1-5,1?

if so, what happens exactly, when you do try and boot OS X?
[doublepost=1533345098][/doublepost]EDIT: I see you made a thread on the issue

I see OS X Is kernel panicking on the intel CPU Power management kext,

I suspect you might have a defective CPU rather then an incompatible one.

if you delete AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext you might be able to get OS X to boot

however you wont have any CPU power management and your CPU will most likely be stuck at its base clock of 2.93Ghz

 

[Zeke D]

I bought this on eBay, so defective CPU is totally plausible. What do you think the actual defect is? I ask because I can ask the seller for a refund.

I already put the Xeon back in, but I can put the i7 in again if messing with it will help the community.

when you say Works in Windows

do you mean in windows on the MacPro4,1-5,1?

if so, what happens exactly, when you do try and boot OS X?
[doublepost=1533345098][/doublepost]EDIT: I see you made a thread on the issue

I see OS X Is kernel panicking on the intel CPU Power management kext,

I suspect you might have a defective CPU rather then an incompatible one.

if you delete AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext you might be able to get OS X to boot

however you wont have any CPU power management and your CPU will most likely be stuck at its base clock of 2.93Ghz

 

[LightBulbFun]

I bought this on eBay, so defective CPU is totally plausible. What do you think the actual defect is? I ask because I can ask the seller for a refund.

I already put the Xeon back in, but I can put the i7 in again if messing with it will help the community.

its hard to say what the actual issue is with the CPU

but most likely its been thrashed to death via overclocking. (specifically someone prolly put too many volts through it)

there could also be dirty "pins" on the CPU you can give them a wipe down with some isopropyl alcohol to clean em up and see if that helps as well

as mentioned if you just want to see if you can get OS X to boot delete the kext i mentioned above and that SHOULD get OS X to boot

also what firmware version are you using? your CPU is a 106A4 CPUID CPU (C0 stepping) the Latest 0089 firmware removed microcode for this stepping of Nehalem CPU which may cause issues we dont (yet) know about.

(the C0/C1 stepping of Nehalem CPU was never used in a production Mac Pro/or any Production Xeon CPU, all production Nehalem Xeons are 106A5/D0)

 

[Zeke D]

I've turned in for the night, but I can reinstall the i7 tomorrow. I'm a little hazy on the firmware. I have installed High Sierra, and if memory serves, it did do a firmware update. Do me a favor and screen cap where the firmware version is at in system report, and I'll report back.

I'll give it a good cleaning with isopropyl, tomorrow. I *could* wipe the drive and install El Cap if that'll undo the firmware update. I've got some nice Dara left on my cap and less than a week left, so downloading OS X installers isn't a big deal.

its hard to say what the actual issue is with the CPU

but most likely its been thrashed to death via overclocking. (specifically someone prolly put too many volts through it)

there could also be dirty "pins" on the CPU you can give them a wipe down with some isopropyl alcohol to clean em up and see if that helps as well

as mentioned if you just want to see if you can get OS X to boot delete the kext i mentioned above and that SHOULD get OS X to boot

also what firmware version are you using? your CPU is a 106A4 CPUID CPU (C0 stepping) the Latest 0089 firmware removed microcode for this stepping of Nehalem CPU which may cause issues we dont (yet) know about.

(the C0/C1 stepping of Nehalem CPU was never used in a production Mac Pro/or any Production Xeon CPU, all production Nehalem Xeons are 106A5/D0)

 

[Zeke D]

I went ahead and cleaned the landing grid with isopropyl. Under High Sierra, I was able to get it to boot to a command prompt in single user mode by deleting AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, but safe mode resulted in a crash. I did a fresh install of Lion (with the 5,1 tray,) then deleted AppleIntelCPUPowermenagement.kext, but after swapping back to the 4,1 tray, I could't even get into single-user mode. The machine is running ROM MP51.0089.B00

its hard to say what the actual issue is with the CPU

but most likely its been thrashed to death via overclocking. (specifically someone prolly put too many volts through it)

there could also be dirty "pins" on the CPU you can give them a wipe down with some isopropyl alcohol to clean em up and see if that helps as well

as mentioned if you just want to see if you can get OS X to boot delete the kext i mentioned above and that SHOULD get OS X to boot

also what firmware version are you using? your CPU is a 106A4 CPUID CPU (C0 stepping) the Latest 0089 firmware removed microcode for this stepping of Nehalem CPU which may cause issues we dont (yet) know about.

(the C0/C1 stepping of Nehalem CPU was never used in a production Mac Pro/or any Production Xeon CPU, all production Nehalem Xeons are 106A5/D0)

 

[Zeke D]

Well, if you've been keeping up with my other thread, the i7-940 is up on the 4,1 with the "LOCKED" 0085 firmware. Tsialex has been a major help figuring it out, and tomorrow we're doing more experimentation.

Sorry about that Zeke.

The list was originally only for verified CPUs (for example I could find someone claiming that it worked). I regret following requests from people to add CPUs that were just theoretically compatible. So now there's no way to tell which is which.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to go through the whole list of CPUs and re-verify them all. This is not a short endeavor--I think it was about 20 hours of work originally. So give it some time.

FWIW, at this moment, I think the following lists are probably all verified:
1,1
2,1
6,1

I think theoretical CPUs crept mostly into:
3,1
4,1
5,1

 

[ActionableMango]

Given the outcome from that other thread, I've decided to simply update the CPU compatibility table with a new type of note (**) for the affected processors.

Due to the huge amount of time that it would take, I won't be reverifying every processor unless someone can make a really strong case for doing so.

For anyone who hasn't read the other thread, what it boils down to is that certain firmware updates (that were included with 10.13.5 and newer) no longer have code that is necessary for supporting certain i7 processor steppings (and certain Xeon Engineering Samples too).

 

[Zeke D]

Given the outcome from that other thread, I've decided to simply update the CPU compatibility table with a new type of note (**) for the affected processors.

Due to the huge amount of time that it would take, I won't be reverifying every processor unless someone can make a really strong case for doing so.

For anyone who hasn't read the other thread, what it boils down to is that certain firmware updates (that were included with 10.13.5 and newer) no longer have code that is necessary for supporting certain i7 processor steppings (and certain Xeon Engineering Samples too).

If you want, you could indicate that the thread has instructions to re-add the microcode so that these CPUs work again.

 

[ActionableMango]

If you want, you could indicate that the thread has instructions to re-add the microcode so that these CPUs work again.

Okay, but I think you guys are crazy.

But is it actually the same thread? Isn't it the other "microcode" thread with the instructions?

 

[Zeke D]

In our thread @tsialex gave specific instructions for this.

Okay, but I think you guys are crazy.

But is it actually the same thread? Isn't it the other "microcode" thread with the instructions?

 

[MIKX]

Last week I finally received a 2 identical 5570 CPUs order from AliExpress ( I'm attempting to repair my original cMP processor tray ).
When I checked the chips I found that they had mistakenly included an Intel Core i7 960 4 core 3.2 Ghz !
The original order was cheap enough so I'll keep this i7 cpu for a future Hackintosh.

 

[tsialex]

Last week I finally received a 2 identical 5570 CPUs order from AliExpress ( I'm attempting to repair my original cMP processor tray ).
When I checked the chips I found that they had mistakenly included an Intel Core i7 960 4 core 3.2 Ghz !
The original order was cheap enough so I'll keep this i7 cpu for a future Hackintosh.

i7-960 is a fully supported processor, it has a newer revision (D0) than all i7-940/965 and some of the i7-920 (C0/C1), so you will not have problem with missing microcodes even on a Mac Pro.

 

[MIKX]

The Core i7 960 doesn't accept ECC memory . .. I just recently got a replacement 4,1 processor tray populated with 32 gb ECC memory . ..