MP All Models The "I just ordered/bought/got my new/refurb Mac Pro" thread [Merged]

[kohlson]

I am considering X5675s over X5680s due to the lower power consumption but still thinking about it.

I don't think you'll notice the difference in your electricity bill. You may notice the extra processing power of 5680s, depending on how much processing power you need.

 

[Partridge]

Got my system up and running.

So to the 3.33 6 core 2010 with 32GB ram, i've added an OWC SATA PCIE card with a 1TB crucial SSD for my boot/work disk. 1TB is a bit more than I really need, but the price differential wasn't bad and I didn't spend a lot on the actual tower. I'm going to reformat the 1TB drive it came with and use it as a Bootcamp disk. Planning on adding a 4TB or so drive to serve as a Time Machine backup for the rest of the house.

I just picked up a Mac EFI flashed Radeon 7950 for $100 shipped thanks to the ebay coupon today, so that should make the system good for Mojave with any luck. Crossing fingers that it works, used hardware and all.

 

[RootCause]

I don't think you'll notice the difference in your electricity bill. You may notice the extra processing power of 5680s, depending on how much processing power you need.

I was thinking more heat then bill. Going from 2.26 to 3.0 or 3.33 is a nice jump. Then again, I may splurge and get the 3.46 instead.

Got my system up and running....so that should make the system good for Mojave with any luck. Crossing fingers that it works, used hardware and all.

Ya, I saw that announcement just after I bought my new-to-me system. *crosses fingers*

 

[Partridge]

Ya, I saw that announcement just after I bought my new-to-me system. *crosses fingers*

I got my card up and running after a bunch of weird initial graphics glitches. The seller packed it in plain bubble wrap. I’m surprised it survived the static. It seems to have settled down now after a PMC and PRAM reset but the initial graphic glitches make me nervous. It still glitches occasionally between the boot screen and the regular desktop, but then all is well. Is that normal?

I checked and I can get a boot screen, so the card was actually EFI flashed already.

 

[Abraxen]

Well I’ve been in the club for about a year now. Started with a 2006 Mac Pro with a 24” Cinema Display for $60. Sold the monitor for $80. Then got a 2008 with a bad power supply for $60, got a 2006 PSU from eBay for $30 and it was good to go. Picked up another 2008 off eBay for $100 that unfortunately is only a single CPU. Just recently picked up a 2006 with a bad logic board. Moved the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth over to the working 2006. Going to to use one of the heat sinks to upgrade the single CPU to dual CPU. Ordered slightly better CPUs for the dual CPU system and will use one of those for those CPUs for the single system.

This weekend I just picked up a 2010 dual CPU system with 32 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 5770, and Magic Mouse for $400. Going to do a CPU upgrade to that once I sell off some of the other systems.

Been a fun year and I learned a lot.

Finally got a chance to do some part swapping today.

First I ordered some E5472 CPUs for for the 2008 for $17. Very minimal upgrade compared to what is in there, but I have two 2008 Mac Pros and one of them was a single CPU configuration. So this allowed me to get them both to dual CPU and at least get a very small upgrade.

The single CPU 2008 was in better condition, so I pulled the top heat sink from the other 2008 and installed that and the the new CPUs in the single CPU 2008 to get that one up to dual CPU. Also moved the Wi-Fi card from the worse condition one to the newly dual CPU Mac.

Then I pulled the bottom heat sink from the 2006 Mac Pro with a bad logic board and installed that into the 2008 that I pulled a heat sink from. Didn’t fit quite as well as the 2008 heat sink but running benchmarks and monitoring temps it works just fine. Had to use the bottom one since the top heat sink has a rubber piece that didn’t allow for a flush fit. Turning it around the cord wouldn’t reach the socket on the motherboard.

So the 2006 Mac Pro with a bad logic board so far has provided the WiFi and Bluetooth cards for my working 2006, and a heat sink to get a single CPU 2008 Mac Pro upgraded to dual CPU. Also, the door was in great shape, so that also ended up on another one of the Mac Pros that had a beat up door. Plus it had all of the drive sleds, and the other computers were missing some. So I think I got my money’s worth out of it even if I couldn’t get it working again.

Haven’t really done much to the 2010 yet other than try and get Windows and High Sierra installed (ran into issues with both). Did some cleaning as well. I probably should have pulled out the whole bottom tray to get at the fans, but spent a really long time cleaning them with Qtips instead.

Now getting the 2006 and the worse condition 2008 Mac Pros ready for sale. Having a tough time trying to figure out which video cards to include as they are all pretty valuable on EBay and I’m not sure I’ll get that value out of them when included with the systems. 2006 has a HD 2600 XT for El Capitan support from a 2008 and the 2008 has a 5770.

 

[DaveGee]

Just got the the deal of my lifetime...

I got a Mac Pro 5,1 - 12 core system 2.66Ghz with 48 gb of 1333 ram and a number of HDs (that I don't really need but....) that was listed on CL as part of a studio liquidation - price ... $140.00 ___AND___ the icing on the cake they had TWO for sale (same system - slightly less ram) for the same price!

Walked out with both 12 core systems for just under $300 or just over $300 if you add the tunnel toll and tip to someone who helped me out the building with them.

Now the question I have is - do I want t do a CPU upgrade on them even just one of them?

1 - My personal system will be one of them:

Samsung 512GB NVME in (thanks to the new firmware flash that allows NVME booting)
GTX 970 MSI Gaming Card
and a few assorted 4-8TB hard drives

2 - The Second one will be my PLEX Server running apps such as...

PLEX
etc
etc

Lots of big HDs are already reserved for this system.

3 - I also have a 3rd MacPro a 4,1 eight core box that I also updated with NVME booting etc etc (this was going to be MY working computer until I happened upon the great deal) this machine I think I will make a backup server of sorts as of now.

My questions are ....

Should I look into doing a CPU upgrade on my working computer 12 core 2.66 to say a pair of X5680's or 90's?? my PLEX server same question?? The backup server I'd think would be fine to leave be... Due to cost I think I will only put NVME into my working machine the PLEX and backup machines will have too much heavy disk io and it doesn't make sense to kill a NVME just so they boot a little faster (sine they will by on 24/7 anyway).


-------------------

Oh and both systems had a PCI card from Blackmagic dated 2009 with a HDMI riser/backplate with 2 HDMI ports on it & a huge bundle of cables the card says BMDPCB95 REV-A1... Should I look at selling those - I'd guess they could be worth something and might help my pay for some of my upgrades....

 

[Partridge]

Just got the the deal of my lifetime...

You’re not kidding. That’s insane.

 

[DaveGee]

You’re not kidding. That’s insane.

Nope, not a joke...

 

[kohlson]

I suspect the conversation in the break room after you left was, "Can you believe it - we got nearly $300 for those things!"

 

[Partridge]

I suspect the conversation in the break room after you left was, "Can you believe it - we got nearly $300 for those things!"

You can probably get that much just for the capture cards alone. That makes the computers free.

 

[Synchro3]

My Mac Pro 2009 is now dead. It starts but doesn't POST, no chime.

No blinking lights, fans working. No red lights at all.

Local Apple dealer refuses to repair and provides no parts. However, he thinks it's the Mobo.

Just ordered a new board. Hope it will work and my Mac Pro will last another few years.

 

[Groovy]

I finally got a chance to do some building at work using some old Macs that were stacked up in the corner of the warehouse, here are the latest results.



There seems to be a few perks to working at a computer recycling center. I have looked at the stack of Mac Pros for the last year and never looked to see if they were dual Xenon's or not, these have been setting around for so long my employer said to have them broken down for the scrap aluminum in the cases and scrap the internal components so I just had to see if they were in workable order or not. Now I'm glad I did. This one had two 2.4 GHz 4 cores and eight 1GB sticks of RAM. Now I just need to find some X5690's and test the rest of the stack to see if there are any more running Mac Pros since I cant stand let them be scrapped for the aluminum content in the cases.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I finally got a chance to do some building at work using some old Macs that were stacked up in the corner of the warehouse, here are the latest results.

View attachment 767594 View attachment 767595
View attachment 767597
There seems to be a few perks to working at a computer recycling center. I have looked at the stack of Mac Pros for the last year and never looked to see if they were dual Xenon's or not, these have been setting around for so long my employer said to have them broken down for the scrap aluminum in the cases and scrap the internal components so I just had to see if they were in workable order or not. Now I'm glad I did. This one had two 2.4 GHz 4 cores and eight 1GB sticks of RAM. Now I just need to find some X5690's and test the rest of the stack to see if there are any more running Mac Pros since I cant stand let them be scrapped for the aluminum content in the cases.

thats pretty mad that they where going to scrap em for the ally, considering how much there worth still un-molested....

I noticed BTW that your About this mac shot shows a Radeon HD 6970 with the full name displaying properly which indicates that the card has a Proper Mac EFI

however there never was a Mac edition HD 6970, and attempts to flash PC ones lead to issues

so im very curious about the card you have there, do you get Boot Screens with the card? and if you can can you please post photos of the card under PCI devices and Graphics and displays in system profiler? a picture of the card it self would be ace too

 

[h9826790]

thats pretty mad that they where going to scrap em for the ally, considering how much there worth still un-molested....

I noticed BTW that your About this mac shot shows a Radeon HD 6970 with the full name displaying properly which indicates that the card has a Proper Mac EFI

however there never was a Mac edition HD 6970, and attempts to flash PC ones lead to issues

so im very curious about the card you have there, do you get Boot Screens with the card? and if you can can you please post photos of the card under PCI devices and Graphics and displays in system profiler? a picture of the card it self would be ace too

May be simply because High Sierra now can correctly identify the card?

I have absolutely no idea if this "new function" also provided for those older GPU.

 

[Groovy]

To answer LightBulbFun

thats pretty mad that they where going to scrap em for the ally, considering how much there worth still un-molested....

I noticed BTW that your About this mac shot shows a Radeon HD 6970 with the full name displaying properly which indicates that the card has a Proper Mac EFI

however there never was a Mac edition HD 6970, and attempts to flash PC ones lead to issues

so im very curious about the card you have there, do you get Boot Screens with the card? and if you can can you please post photos of the card under PCI devices and Graphics and displays in system profiler? a picture of the card it self would be ace too

Believe it or not this video card came in a box of Mac keyboards, mice and track-pads and I thought that it might be better than the stock 5770's that were in the top two Mac Pros in the stack so I took them home and the card worked without issue. As for the X5680's and the 16GB sticks or ram they all came from old Dell servers that are everywhere where I work. There are a few MacPro5,1's and many MacPro4,1's that I need to check out before the end of July or my employer will make me allow these to be destroyed for scrap value. As for the pictures I wish you had asked before I put it together but since that was not possible before I posted I guess I can take it out and take a few. I also have a spare 5770 and another dual 3.33GHz tray but this one only has 64GB of ram but its nice to have spare parts.

 

[LightBulbFun]

interesting it looks like its "regular" PC Radeon HD 6970 I guess someone did have a go at flashing it...

(im still curious how it shows up in System profiler under PCI, and Graphics and displays )

BTW if you work at an e-cycler do you have access to a large array of 32GB DDR3 RAM sticks you could test in a 5,1 for us? also do you have any LRDIMMs you could also test in a 5,1?

@h9826790 it seems like that feature is just for the newer cards

anything GCN1.1 and older shows up as ATI Radeon HD 7xxx or 6xxx etc, still

 

[h9826790]

interesting it looks like its "regular" PC Radeon HD 6970 I guess someone did have a go at flashing it...

(im still curious how it shows up in System profiler under PCI, and Graphics and displays )

BTW if you work at an e-cycler do you have access to a large array of 32GB DDR3 RAM sticks you could test in a 5,1 for us? also do you have any LRDIMMs you could also test in a 5,1?

@h9826790 it seems like that feature is just for the newer cards

anything GCN1.1 and older shows up as ATI Radeon HD 7xxx or 6xxx etc, still

Yeah, there should be a ROM Revision in system info -> Graphics (or PCI) for flashed AMD card.

 

[Groovy]

I do have some 32GB DDR3 sticks but I never thought of trying them since the Mac Pro only sees 96GB even with 128GB installed, only windows boot-camp sees all 128GB. As for LRDIMM I will have to check but I have a few boxes to sort through (10 bins full, usually 800 sticks in a bin) I will see if I can find a set of 32GB sticks to test and post later this week.
As for my current Mac Pro I have 8 16GB sticks of Kingston PC3L 10600 right now. I have also tested Hynix PC3L 10600 but I could only find a few matching sticks so I went with Kingston.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I do have some 32GB DDR3 sticks but I never thought of trying them since the Mac Pro only sees 96GB even with 128GB installed, only windows boot-camp sees all 128GB. As for LRDIMM I will have to check but I have a few boxes to sort through (10 bins full, usually 800 sticks in a bin) I will see if I can find a set of 32GB sticks to test and post later this week.
As for my current Mac Pro I have 8 16GB sticks of Kingston PC3L 10600 right now. I have also tested Hynix PC3L 10600 but I could only find a few matching sticks so I went with Kingston.

as per current testing, people in this forum have gotten up to 160GB of RAM working in the MP5,1 in OS X with no issues via 5 32GB sticks, only old versions of OS X (Pre mavericks IIRC) have the 96GB Ram limit. (also people with Xserve3,1s have done 192GB of RAM via 12*16GB RDIMMs)

however no one has tested a full compliment of 6 or 8 32GB sticks in a 5,1 yet... it would be pretty epic if we can get 256GB of RAM working in a 5,1, and if LR-DIMMs work then theoretically we could max out at 512GB of RAM

(we also wonder how a single CPU W35xx/W36xx machine would react with 32GB DIMMs)

 

[DilemmaDude]

I got tired of waiting for a suitable MBP and got myself a secondhand Mac Pro 6,1 with AppleCare for an even € 2000! It's pretty much the base hexacore configuration, good enough for software development.

Had some issues with bluetooth and memory, but got those fixed with the extended warranty Now I'm thinking about upgrading the SSD or RAM, or maybe even both

 

[ActionableMango]

I got a Mac Pro 5,1 - 12 core system 2.66Ghz with 48 gb of 1333 ram and a number of HDs (that I don't really need but....) that was listed on CL as part of a studio liquidation - price ... $140.00 ___AND___ the icing on the cake they had TWO for sale (same system - slightly less ram) for the same price!

Hey, if you want to make some quick money, I'll offer you $145 for one of them.

 

[Groovy]

as per current testing, people in this forum have gotten up to 160GB of RAM working in the MP5,1 in OS X with no issues via 5 32GB sticks, only old versions of OS X (Pre mavericks IIRC) have the 96GB Ram limit. (also people with Xserve3,1s have done 192GB of RAM via 12*16GB RDIMMs)

however no one has tested a full compliment of 6 or 8 32GB sticks in a 5,1 yet... it would be pretty epic if we can get 256GB of RAM working in a 5,1, and if LR-DIMMs work then theoretically we could max out at 512GB of RAM

(we also wonder how a single CPU W35xx/W36xx machine would react with 32GB DIMMs)

You are absolutely correct as I had 1 bad stick and one dusty RAM slot. I am going to do some sorting at work and see how many 32GB sticks I can find. I did find a few 64GB sticks and am wondering if they might work.

 

[LightBulbFun]

You are absolutely correct as I had 1 bad stick and one dusty RAM slot. I am going to do some sorting at work and see how many 32GB sticks I can find. I did find a few 64GB sticks and am wondering if they might work.
View attachment 768461 View attachment 768462

Awesome im glad you got 128GB of RAM working in your 5,1

the 64GB sticks if they are DDR3 im guessing they are LRDIMMs? (I dont think there are any 64GB DDR3 RDIMMs?)

if you can it would help us a lot if you could post pictures of the sticks in question and also test them in your Westmere-EP MacPro5,1. it would be pretty epic if 64GB sticks work

I would start out with just testing 1 in slot 1 then installing more and more and see how the MP5,1 handles em

 

[OldMike]

I just picked up a new Mac Pro 6,1 BTO:

6-core
16GB Memory (upgraded to 64GB)
512GB storage
D500

I was originally thinking about getting a 5,1 but decided that since the 6,1 will still be sold into 2019, it will have many years before it becomes considered 'vintage' and obsolete by Apple. Having 3 year AppleCare is also piece of mind. I assume that it will also receive OS updates for quite a bit longer considering there will still be people buying these up until the new mMP is released.

I have had the cheese grater tower before, and decided that I really wanted something that could sit on my desk. Granted the 6,1 is no replacement for someone who needs a tower - but I think it is an iconic Mac that is really a work of art and engineering. It was a Mac that I just wanted to own (I had alway wanted a G4 Cube as well - but never actually owned one). The last Mac desktop that I owned was a 2012 Mac Mini QC - so this is quite the upgrade.

I will be interested in seeing what the mMP turns out to be and what the price point is. I can't say that I have been thrilled with what Apple has been coming out with lately. Regardless what they come up with, I knew I wanted to own a 6,1.

There was a lot of money, engineering and production line work that went into building the 6,1. I wish they would keep it around, replace the Xeons with Core i5 and i7 processors and call it the new Mac Mini, haha.

 

[SteveW928]

I just picked up a new Mac Pro 6,1 BTO ... I was originally thinking about getting a 5,1 but decided that since the 6,1 will still be sold into 2019, it will have many years before it becomes considered 'vintage' and obsolete by Apple. Having 3 year AppleCare is also piece of mind. I assume that it will also receive OS updates for quite a bit longer considering there will still be people buying these up until the new mMP is released.

I hope you're right, as this is my current plan as well.

The only thing that worries me is that in recent years, Apple has gotten more in a habit of selling out-of-date items to fill in the lower end models (or in this case, because the replacement isn't here). For example, I can't recall if it was the iPad 2 or iPad mini that Apple was selling as new when the current version of iOS didn't run well on it anymore.

Granted the 6,1 is no replacement for someone who needs a tower - but I think it is an iconic Mac that is really a work of art and engineering.

Yes, it is a nice machine and well made/designed (GPU failures aside). I'd really love if it had TB3 ports. But, it is kind of the perfect machine for me, just a bit more pricy than I'd actually need.

It just wasn't the right machine for some market segments.

I wish they would keep it around, replace the Xeons with Core i5 and i7 processors and call it the new Mac Mini, haha.

Yes, absolutely. If they would build something like the cylinder Mac Pro but with more prosumer parts, they'd sell it like hot-cakes. Although, I think there is a market for a machine like the Mini as well, just updated... but that might be too niche if there were a machine more like this.

While Apple thinks the perfect machine in this category is the iMac, I'm not so sure about that if they built it right. My hunch is that a lot of people would rather have a silent, reasonably-powerful, stand-alone than an all-in-one... if Apple every builds one.