[Cain]

Hi, I purchased a Harpertown Mac Pro (early 2008) last year and was wondering if it will be possible to upgrade to Nehalem processors at some point in the future, after a price drop. Possible?

[ltcommander.data]

Sadly no. Nehalem is a completely different architecture. Not only is the socket different, but the memory controller is integrated on the CPU, so motherboard layout is completely different. FB-DIMMs are also no longer supported which should increase performance.

[The Liberator]

I believe the only things you can change around with a Mac Pro are the graphics cards (GPU), and the memory (RAM).

Liberator.

[Eric5h5]

The Liberator, on March 6th 2009, 05:08 PM, said:

I believe the only things you can change around with a Mac Pro are the graphics cards (GPU), and the memory (RAM).

And the CPUs, because they are socketed, but trying to use Nehalem-class CPUs in a Harpertown Mac won't work because of what teflon said.

--Eric

[teflon]

what did I say?
Im sure I didnt mean it...

anyway, to confirm (what I said), Nehalem Xeons use a different socket to the Harpertown (and other) Xeons in all the previous Mac Pros. Add to that the memory controller being built in etc. and no its not compatible.

But if you wanted to get a fair bit more oomph in terms of CPU speed, and hadnt already got the best that Apple had to offer you, then you can buy a pair (have to be identical) of higher clocking Harpertowns. They should be dropping in price around about now, and be really quite cheap in a year or so.

Of course, for other things that will affect the speed of you mac, you should look at getting more RAM (depending on how much you have and/or use) and also have a serious look at a new HDD. If your current one is rather full and/or feeling a bit sluggish, you should consider getting something newer like a 1tb drive or a WD Raptor for your boot drive and have another three 1tb drives set up in a RAID 5 array... Sorry, something Ive always wanted...

[The Liberator]

Okay, so all of the Intel 775 socketed CPUs, can be used with the 775 socketed motherboards yes? So if you do not have the right motherboard, the computer will not do anything at all?

Liberator.

[teflon]

yes.

also, a different socket on the motherboard wont fit the CPU, meaning youd have to a) be an idiot and b) force it into place thus breaking the CPU in order to get them to do together. At which point its hundred of (currency of choice) out the window.

of course, with the MP, youd want to stick to what Apple is using really.

[ltcommander.data]

The Liberator, on March 6th 2009, 07:23 PM, said:

Okay, so all of the Intel 775 socketed CPUs, can be used with the 775 socketed motherboards yes? So if you do not have the right motherboard, the computer will not do anything at all?

Liberator.

Not all LGA 775 Socket processors will work in LGA 775 Socket motherboards. Processors are given different thermal ratings, like most mainstream processors are under 95W and mainstream motherboards accept that. Higher-end 130W CPUs, particularly Extreme Editions may not be recognized in low-end motherboards to avoid overload. Similarly, Intel sometimes changes the voltage specification even though the Socket is physically the same and this can also lead to incompatibility. Like early 975X motherboards didn't support Conroe Core 2 Duos while later 975X motherboards did. Generally these things are not a problem, just that it isn't possible to make the blanket statement that all LGA 775 Socket processor fit all LGA 775 Socket motherboards.

The other thing is that Apple has never used the LGA 775 Socket. LGA 775 is a desktop socket. Pre-Nehalem Mac Pros used LLGA 771 for dual processor use. I believe notebooks, the iMac, and the Mac Mini don't have sockets at all and have their processors soldered to the motherboard to save space. The new Nehalem Mac Pro use the LGA 1366.

[Dark_Archon]

Also the board may not support newer processors. There was a problem with Socket 775 Penryn processors in older socket 775 boards, but a lot of them were fixed via bios updates.

[the Battle Cat]

teflon, on March 6th 2009, 07:10 PM, said:

also, a different socket on the motherboard wont fit the CPU, meaning youd have to a) be an idiot and b) force it into place thus breaking the CPU in order to get them to do together. At which point its hundred of (currency of choice) out the window.

Don't be such a namby pamby. This is why man invented the mallet.

[The Liberator]

Okay, thanks guys for the great response…

…And all I can say to tBC is this:

Liberator.

[Greg Gant]

I'm really wondering how the 4 core Nehalem will fair against the previous 8 cores. I get the feeling that it won't be all that much faster for codec mashing and other big number mashers where the load is well distributed. When I saw the i7, all but the best i7 were able to top the Core 2 Quad Extreme (The rebranded Xeon one) in gaming but for most other activities it preferable. The real kick however was the $300 i7 bested most for the Core 2s, that costed often 2x as much.

I don't think in this economy the performance gains will be affordable enough for most 2008 owners to dump and upgrade, as you'll really want the 8 core to get the full Mac Pro experience.

Really the guys who'll fair best for upgrades are the original Woodcrest owners who make the Harpertown jump. Right now two 3.16 GHz Harpertowns run you $2400 making it a ridculous price for us 2.8 GHz owners to really justify upgrading (at that point it'd be better to buy the the new Machine and sell the old), but Woodcrests could jump to two 2.6 GHz Harpertowns for a little under $1000. So the original Mac Pro has more "leg room" to grow.

[Cain]

Thanks for the replys everyone! I'm pretty happy with my octo Harpertown Mac Pro but was just curious about the Nehalem. Don't plan on upgrading for quite a while.

Cain