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Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
So I am on a 5.1 Mac Pro with 12 cores and 2.44GHZ, stock 5770 video card, and 40GB ram (4 x 2gb sticks and 4 x 8GB sticks)
My 5.1 one sessions on an HDN card are getting larger over the years and with the plethora of CPU hungry plugs over the years, I need way more power. My main OS is on an SSD on 10.12.6 and recently upgraded to 2018.12 from PT11. And with 2019 with 384 tracks... well will need every ounce of power I can get out of the Mac. The options I am looking at: 1) upgrade CPU to 3.46GHz? 2) upgrade ram to 6 x 8GB sticks (getting faster triple speeds?)? 3) upgrade to a XFX RX 580 GPU? Any of your opinions or reviews from personal experience would be greatly appreciated on which route to go with and how much it can help. As I am sure this will help others too.
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-Mac Pro 7,1 16core 3.2GHz 96GB -OSX 12.7.2 -PTHDN 2023.12 Ultimate -HD Omni -BM Intensity Pro -Waves Mercury+SSL4000 Collection+Abbey Roads -iZotope RX10 Advanced -iZotope Post Production Suite 6 -iZotope Music Production Suite 5 -HALO UP/DOWN MIX -ANYMIX -Delonghi Perfecta ESAM 5600.S |
#2
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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1) you'll get the 3.33Ghz CPU (X5680) much cheaper and there's no noticeable difference and the X5680 runs cooler 2) make sure to get the correct speed rating (1333 and not 1066) and yes 2x3 Sticks if you want speed 3) that GFX is plenty fast, I got myself a "slower" one on eBay, an AMD Radeon R9 280X which has been flashed for Mac |
#3
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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1) Would it run that much cooler? heat IS a huge issue, but I always thought more GHz is always better? I found a phenomenal price on trading mine in for a 12c 3.46GHz 2) most definitely getting 1333, but on the fence on 2x3 vs all all 8 slots. (will be getting 8GB sticks). so it comes down to more speed at 2x3 with a total of 48GB or 2x4 at 64GB? 3) I've seen the XFX RX 580 all over the place (B&H, Amazon, etc) for $189. I know I loose the boot screen which doesn't make a difference to me (I'll keep my 5770 for backup anyways) but would a much larger 8GB with some HUGE fans, but would having a far more powerful GPU help in any shape or form, lifting any CPU power giving me more juice in PT?
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-Mac Pro 7,1 16core 3.2GHz 96GB -OSX 12.7.2 -PTHDN 2023.12 Ultimate -HD Omni -BM Intensity Pro -Waves Mercury+SSL4000 Collection+Abbey Roads -iZotope RX10 Advanced -iZotope Post Production Suite 6 -iZotope Music Production Suite 5 -HALO UP/DOWN MIX -ANYMIX -Delonghi Perfecta ESAM 5600.S |
#4
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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For ram using only 3 slots instead of 4 is definitely the way to go. Being you have a dual cpu unit and if you want to max performance I'd go with 3 ram slots filled in each side. 3 slots at 16 gig ram gives 48 gig and do the same on the other side for a total of 96 gig ram. You can never have too much ram. You really want to have all ram the same size/specs. Skip the 8 gig sticks. You only lose the boot screen if the card isn't flashed. To be honest swapping out the video card should be the last thing you do. Get your cpu setup finalized and working along with the ram and THEN see if you really need a different video card. Having a faster/more hefty card won't really help cpu power any. It might make PT run a bit better but that gain is not coming from the cpu doing any less work - it's all on the gpu. Your system ssd - is that on a pcie card or in a drive bay? If the latter pop that baby on a pcie card- better performance. |
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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Thank you for the reply. So yes I have a SSD (Samsung 1TH evo 850) in a drive bay. I was thing of getting a OWC Accelsior S: PCIe to 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD Host Adapter. How much would that help in real world usage on working in a large 5.1 mix session? it's only $50 for the adapter to double my read/write speeds from 250's to 500 The other option is to get a Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series - 1TB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD which the speeds are around 3,000 Any opinions on this route? Thanks again
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-Mac Pro 7,1 16core 3.2GHz 96GB -OSX 12.7.2 -PTHDN 2023.12 Ultimate -HD Omni -BM Intensity Pro -Waves Mercury+SSL4000 Collection+Abbey Roads -iZotope RX10 Advanced -iZotope Post Production Suite 6 -iZotope Music Production Suite 5 -HALO UP/DOWN MIX -ANYMIX -Delonghi Perfecta ESAM 5600.S |
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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#7
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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offthewallproductions Mac Pro 5,1 3.46 Ghz 12 core, Open Core 0.9.8, Radeon RX580 GPU, GC-TITAN RIDGE TB3 PCIe card, M.2 NVMe SSD boot drive on PCIe card, 48GB RAM, macOS 12.7.4 Pro Tools Ultimate 2024.3.1/HD Driver 2023.3 HDX, UA Octo PCIe card in external TB3 chassis, MTRX Studio I/O, C|24 control surface. Genelec 1031AP/7070A 5.1 monitoring. |
#8
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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DO NOT GET THE 970 EVO PLUS!!!!! It is incompatible with macOS! you will have all sorts of system instability problems. I do no think this is intentional on Samsung. I should say its a "bug" with the SSD and macOS. Perhaps with future firmware updates for that model it could be more stable for macOS but right now every real mac and hackintosh has reported issues with this. just do some research The 970 EVO and PRO models are compatible with macOS You may notice a little more snappiness from your system using a PCIe drive but it will not make a noticeable real world difference other than transfer speeds. PCIe SSDs actually take longer to boot than SATA SSDs I would recommend getting the fastest clock CPU you can. If you gotta stick to the budget than X5680's are usually about half the cost of X5690's so cost to performance wise the better VALUE is X5680's. But if you want max performance then get the fastest CPU you can install Also unless you do video work or game the HD5770 works fine for me, cannot imagine why it wouldn't for anyone else. I even used a GT120 on this setup. I also have an RX580 but that is in my 2nd cMP that I use to game on Windows 10
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Mac Pro '09 - 5,1 - Dual Hex Core X5680 3.33 ghz CPU - 48GB RAM 970EVO 500GB (10.13.6) - 1TB WD Black HDD (Samples) - 6TB Toshiba HDD (Backups) - 500GB Glyph GT050Q (Legacy sessions & backups) - 3TB Glyph Studio (Main audio/sessions) HD5770 GPU OSX 10.13.6 - Pro Tools 2018.12 - Presonus Studio 192 / Digi 003 Rack+ Focusrite Clarett OctoPre - AKG HPE6 - DBX160A - WA76 |
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
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Is there something I need to adjust with the cores ? THANKS
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MAC PRO 2010 5,1 3.46hex 128ram - MONTEREY 12.7.4- PT 2024.3 / 003 RACK SIGNATURE MOD / DIGIMAX FS / PCM90 2CHANNEL SPDIF
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#10
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Re: Upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 12core 2.4Ghz
NVMe SSD can work as boot drives on older Mac Pros, IIRC you need to go for Mojave and boot ROM 14 or later (included in recent Mojave versions)--lots of info online about what to do. Otherwise if you want PCIe SSD you are stuck on AHCI SSD drives that are hard to find and slower (mostly becase now they are older designs more than AHCI being slower...which it is). If it's an option I'd sure go NVMe/PCIe over SATA. So maybe one thing here where I was suggesting getting another SSD for testing but in thinking about it as a part of a move to Mojave then I'd personally grab that a 970 Evo SSD and use that for testing and hopefully final use with Mojave. M.2 SSD drive pricing is just getting in the ballpark of SATA 2.5" drives it's hard to look at a SATA drive. (I will never go back, I just purchased a 2TB Samsung X5 and am swapping my 2016 MacBook Pro with 1TB SSD for a 2019 with 2 TB internal SSD... just wonderful drives, even with the stupid Apple tax, or is that Apple tax of stupid purchasers?).
Bearing in mind you only get PCIe 2 performance on the cheesegrater (guess we need to call them cheese greater classics now, or fine cheesegrater?) but that mostly limits sequential IO, you still get fantastic random IO performance and that's an area where NVMe vs older ACHI helps as well. Again back to the big picture here, and other folks saying just upgrade the hardware because it worked great for them... here you likely have a specific plugin/CPU issue. Seemingly related to graphics rendering. My suggestion is explore that a little before trying a hardware upgrade. Do one thing at a time. If a Mojave test helps you may be fine as is, or if it helps some and then maybe upgrade. Quote:
*always* check for firmware updates with an SSD. Quote:
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