Memo/tips I wish he’d said before i built mine!! (I had the exact same early 2009 i had to flash to 5,1) 1. If you have el capitan you MUST disable SIP (system integrity protection) via recovery mode/disk utility Terminal for the 5,1 firmware to work (re-enable after) 2. If your usb cabled keyboard is has windows based keys like my logitech, the cmd key is the windows/start key and opt key is the alt key between it and the keyboard. Opposite of what youd expect. Hope that saves you the hours of my life i lost lol 3.Redacted 4. The thermal pad gap is 4mm NOT 3mm as he describes in the video. You can even see him stack 3x1.5mm (4.5mm) which i wish i’d noticed before i bought 3mm 5. If the heatsinks are not level within
I just tried putting some 6-cores in my 4,1 and it didnt work, I got them from OWC. I was obviously worried that I could damage something putting a lidded CPU in but I followed this video along with other sites that have the same process. I took them in and out 4 times trying different amounts of tightness and being real careful. Would not boot at all, not even the startup chime. I eventually put in my original CPUs and it booted instantly 1st try. Not sure if the "tested" CPUs from OWC were DOA but they are non refundable. So I'm a bit pissed! Buyer beware. Next step is to try de-lid the 6-cores and try again. And yes I have done the firmware hack and all that.
I'm wondering, relating to your point '5.' where and how many RAM sticks need to be installed for the machine to boot? I just put in 2x4GB, in slot 1&5, for each CPU to see if it would work. Should I have more RAM in for the system to boot???
@@DSRC24 Jony Ive is the chief design officer at Apple. He's saying that really all Steve Jobs did was approve the design which was truly designed by Jony Ive and his team.
@@CaydenMartinIsABoss Steve Jobs always took credit for what people designed around him. If he was there while it was being made "He Designed it" and built it himself. Such a Visionary😑
@@weareallbeingwatched4602 Nah, Ive ruined a lot of the industrial design making things thinner just for the sake of it causing so many end user headaches, trips to AppleCare etc....
ardware Overview: Model Name: Mac Pro Model Identifier: MacPro3,1 Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz Number of Processors: 2 Total Number of Cores: 8 L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB Memory: 16 GB Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05 SMC Version (system): 1.25f4 Serial Number (system): CK84316CXYL Hardware UUID: D3C43221-6377-56A6-B856-4314EB2A87C2 Please provide me link to upgrade firmware of above Mac Pro 3,1 to help me install High Siera
you probably dont care but does any of you know a method to get back into an instagram account?? I was dumb lost my account password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me!
@Layton Leo thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and im in the hacking process atm. Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
I don't understand why people have to dislike such a fantastic effort? We shouldn't be jealous whenever we watch such great passion and meticulous work. Great job!
This video inspired me to do the swap. One call out I would tell others that I learned during my own swap is that if you don’t delid the CPUs. The tension of the heat sinks on the cpus needs to be exact. Through my own troubleshooting and some great forum posts on MacObserver. It’s between 3.25-4.5 turns tightened in an x pattern. If you boot and get a solid white led but no boot chime back the screws off an 1/8th of a turn. If you get a flashing white led and no boot chime tighten the screens an 1/8th of a turn. It takes some time to get just right but don’t get discouraged. I would also add Delidding of course comes with it’s of risks up to destroying your CPU so for the amount of time it took to get my cpus working was better than destroying the CPU’s.
Really well done. Actually showing close-ups of what you're doing makes this light years ahead of most DIY tech videos. Very informative for those who know what they're talking about. BTW the note near the end about getting a better geekbench score with 48MB RAM vs 64MB RAM is because the Xeon's use triple channel RAM and installing 3 sticks per CPU yields the best results.
I replaced the CPUs in my 2009 Mac Pro with X5690s, and got a flashing power indicator when I tried to power it up. The cause of the problem turned out to be that I had not tightened down the heat sinks enough, and one of the processors was not making good contact. It's up-and-running now, and I love it.
I wouldn’t personally consider a machine like this “old” or “trash”, they are still very fast and capable machines, I’d love to get one and upgrade it!
I couldn't score X5690s at a good price, so I opted for the X5680 and 32GBs of RAM. This guy is gonna be a great Video Editor/Photo Editor/Streaming Rig for my setup. Thanks for this! If it wasn't for this, I would have just kept the rig stock.
The difference in GeekBench scores is due to Triple Channel Memory Config vs Dual Channel Config. Triple Channel provides more memory throughput resulting in higher synthetic benchmark scores.
Awesome. That would be why! lol I've just been rocking 48gb (6 sticks) of ram. I haven't really seen the need for 64gb (8 sticks) In what I do with it.
BTW if someone is having issues upgrading the firmware an still running el Capitan, the system will restart but nothing happens over and over again is cause SIP is enabled, restart holding cmd + r to go into recovery mode launch terminal and type: csrutil disable then restart and try again, this time it will definitely upgrade don't forget once upgraded to go back into recovery mode and tyle: csrutil enable to enable SIP, hope this helps.
"restart holding cmd + r to go into recovery mode"....this also wont work for some people because certain GPUs wont allow you to boot in recovery mode....
I am retired from commercial art and started buying macs in 1989. I’ve owned every significant model for design and photography. I Still have my 2009 Mac Pro and my new 12.9 inch iPad pro.
Got my 4,1 flashed to 5,1 right here. Upgraded to 12-core~24 threads! Highly recommended. With a 980Ti, I can edit RAW video, 4K, no problems. It should last me at least five more years. Running 2K and 4K monitors off this old can.
I have the exact setup, but are you sure you're editing RAW 4K? I'm a little skeptical. I still have to edit using proxies, which is fine by me. I am looking into a second PSU to add another 980ti though.
I did the same thing with my 2009 mac pro....turned it into a 5,1 3.06ghz 12 core with 32gb of ram. I use it in my studio to record audio from my Korg Kronos2 88. Beast of a machine!
Yeah, a lot of pros (myself included) knew the issues the trash can would run into when it was launched, so they refused to buy them. I'm still running four of these old towers.
It doesn't really matter that the trashcan gpu is non upgradeable, if you get the dual d700s because they're pretty good. the d300s and d500s arent that good tho
Nice! I got lucky and found a guy who already did the 12 core processor upgrade and firmware to 5,1, and bought his system. Then I went ahead and put a used Mac flashed 980ti in, loaded the RAM (pilfered from my other Mac Pros), USB 3, SSDs... You can guess the rest. The Cinebench scores are the same as the base model 6,1. For the money I couldn't have bought anything nearly as good for what I do at least. I'm in TO.
I wouldn't know. I always use "ingest" in Premiere when editing 4k, so I can move my work to slower machines to edit if I'm on the road (laptop). The GPU handles it pretty seamlessly in the background.
Did this...got two mac pro now... 5.1 high sierra both works amazing. Actually have a geekbench of 20 000 on both machine. Im a composer and now i run hollywood strings etc no problemo smazing
Good point; I'm typing this on a 2008 iMac, and its still absolutely fine for web browsing, email, word processing and some gaming. Technically, the 2008 iMac can only be upgraded to El Capitan, but I use the patch from dosdude1 which has allowed me to install High Sierra
In 2009, mac pro was way ahead of its time. In 2019, it is amazing that we are still using them. I bought a Mac pro 2009 4,1 for $200.00 a month ago. And I'm planning to do major upgrade and some help with this video. Thanks for the tip.
I bought the single socket Mac Pro 4,1 with base specs back in 2009. It is still one of my daily machines and I did most of the upgrades you showed here. Upgrade to 5,1 Xeon W3690 24GB 1333 low latency regECC DDR3 RX 460 (that might change when prices are not insane anymore) USB3.1 card PCIe SSD as OS drive two SATA SSDs in deathwish raid three 2TB drives in raidz1 (like raid5 but ZFS) and I am thinking about 10Gbit network. This was a stupid expensive system when I bought it but man, not long now and it will be in use for a full decade. Think about that, a 10 year computer that is still useful.
Got one of these. Love computers you can open up replace or upgrade anything. This is like owning a car that has old school single din stereo and easy access to engine parts that are common. It’s Very modular
This is the best video I've ever seen on upgrading a 2009 Mac Pro. I've done a few tweaks like PCI USB 3.0 ports, faster video card, and SSD drive in my 2012 Mac Pro (12 cores) and I'm able to do everything pretty quick EXCEPT render 4K. You know your stuff here, and your workarounds are extremely valuable seeing the new Mac Pro coming out will probably be more than 4 grand I bet.
Funny part is, if you look at Barefeats, this era of Mac Pro is still the best GPU performance you can get in a Mac. Older PCI-E is still less limiting than TB3, and the Vega 64 in the iMac Pro is underclocked to about 83% on both core and memory. So a 1080TI in this is about the best you can get in a Mac for pure GPU performance.
I DID IT! Thanks for the incredible video explaining everything step by step! Typing this comment on my massively faster Mac Pro 5,1 from a 4,1 with new dual x5690s in it. Also got a 1tb Samsung SSD. Didn't get the same Geekbench scores. Maybe because I'm using 1066 ram still (32gb) vs your 48gb 1333. Single-Core Score: 2965, Multi-Core Score: 24209 Thanks again! Awesome video.
My university was having a warehouse sale, selling old University equipment, and I ended up picking up a mid-2010 Mac Pro for $100 USD. This video is so useful for helping me upgrade its parts. Thanks so much!
Nice! I have a 2009 Mac Pro also and it’s still very usable today. After flashing to 5,1, I can run the newest OS. Even with the original hardware, it feels just as quick as the macs you buy at the store today. I also regularly use a PowerMac G5 for video editing. They’re still great performers.
He doesn't care about redundancy, only speed. His stated use case with this machine is literally transcoding only. Meaning, those drives don't actually store any data for long. He doesn't care if a drive dies and he loses his data. Also, you can't Raid 1 on 3 drives. He could do Raid 5, but he clearly has no interest in that.
Tomas C K FCP is optimized for the ATI card architecture. There is a tangible speed bump there. If he’s using an Nvidia card he’ll get better speeds with Premier.
I would agree with Frank DiMaulo, and from experiences Dual GPUs is the best configuration for Mac, 1 RX 480 and 1 Titan or 980 ti, these GPU are the least expensive one but performance is so good. No need for SLI configuration. CUDA for Adobe or Resolve and RX 480 will do its magic to Apple Applications.
Yeah its honestly one of the last "Pro" things Apple made. The ability to still add in the latest video card or any expansion card is long gone. This bad boy still holds its own. Sure its not insanely fast. And once the iMac Pro comes out it will crush this. But we need to think of the Price to performance value here.
Yeah! I have a really crappy PC and I wanted to make a Hackintosh, but instead, I can just do this and run Windows on it using Boot Camp. My other option was buying the trashcan mac, but it's 4,000 dollars. This option is about 1,000 dollars. Plus, I don't need insane speed, just something better than what I already have. And this is BY FAR better than what I already have. I was looking into doing this before I even saw this video, but I wasn't sure what parts would fit, and what parts were compatible with MacOS. This helps a lot! And even if I can't run very high versions of MacOS, It still makes a pretty sick looking PC. And good value!
Buy an used 4.1 Mac Pro fews years ago was the best choice I made. I can't believe this is a 10 years old computer. This machine is a tank. (I'm writing this on a 2007 macbook pro by the way...)
@@kpopRC you can add usb3 via the pci slot, I did this with my 2008 3.1 , I have an external usb3 drive that's faster than the internal drives.. I have no requirement for TB so don't need it, I do have firewire800 though 👍
@@PB72UK UNLESS you have 4 raid enclosures using thunderbolt 2. and no way to use them. great computer. just not super useful to people who use old connections with their pro hardware. darn.
I really appreciate this video. What you are experiencing seems to be a backdoor to planned obsolescence. Software is bricking our "old" processors. The only way microchip companies can make money is if people buy "new" ones. You found a way to get around that. Thumbs up homie!
"Why do you have that old thing, that thing should be in the trash" - Said no one ever, lol. If there is actually people that consider the original Tower Mac Pros "trash", you either have too much money, or no idea what yer doing. These things were Apple's best machines so far imo! Built from thick machined (not cut or punched) Aluminium, with great airflow and actual expandability, these machines are the reason why everybody thinks that Mac OS is the go-to for music production. Look up pics of known Music studios on Google - you'll find that most of them have a Mac Pro somewhere in their effects racks (often even too). While OSX certanly isn't my prefered operating system, sometimes you just need to have it (Pro Tools is a good example, since it sadly crashes more on Windows then it does on OSX). And I'd take a Mac Pro Tower over the Trashcan any time. Why? Apple has forgotten the Music industry. Composers and Studios have among the weirdest and strangest needs for IO, simply because our tech is years behind the Video/CAD/Rendering industry. Alot of interfaces and gear still use fucking Firewire for example! I can't put a firewire card in a Trashcan Pro. I need to buy a thunderbolt PCIe box and put a Firewire card inside. Those things are ludecrously expensive! Apple stopped caring about actually innovating completely. They produce whatever is hip at the moment. And if you can trim removing features as "hip", weeell, all the better, amiright? These products are for made for fancy, clean studios that edit high-res youtube vids and instagram-whores with Daddys money. No matter how much Apple tells you that shoving 15 grand up their ass is a good idea - it's not.
"Built from thick machined (not cut or punched) Aluminium, with great airflow and actual expandability" more like cheese graters amirite hahahahha no but seriously someone here has to make a cheese grater joke not saying the mac pro is bad, it just looks like a cheese grater. kinda like how the new one is a trash can
This machine was sexy, functional and upgradable (even 10 years on). WTH was Apple thinking with that garbage trashcan. I guess 2019 we will see a similar Mac Pro (or at least we hope)
Well the garbage trashcan will also be 10 years old before it gets replaced .... ROTFLMAO. Shouldn't apple have come with some previews by now. It will be not an earlyl 2019 model.
Very impressive! I 've just returned to Mac, with an ebay 3.1. I'd used macs since a 7200, in 1999, and got up to a copule of MBPs, that went belly up, then on emergency status, wound up using PCs for the last 5 years. Feel that my brain has been dumbed down, using PCs, but also seem to be impressed, excited, bewildered, at how much versitility these systems offer:-)
Can I just do the firmware update to the 5.1 to be able to use the new OS? I have 2009 quad core that was about to throw away until I saw this. Awesome video!
With 10.11, the wifi is working fine. I'll check with 10.13, but I think what you could want to upgrade is the bluetooth since you don't have the continuity stuff... All the remaining works quite well on 10.11. Even the speed is still quite good (not as with 10.8 but still you can work with it). I'm working to use a ssd on a pci-e to have faster working speed... will see if it'll be ok with 10.13.
Do it! I picked up a single CPU 2009 from ebay years ago. its running a 6 core today with the upgraded 5.1 firmware. I edit in Davinci 14 and do y still work with Capture One on it. These machines are workhorses
Delidding the Xeon processors is very easy to do if you have the right tools (all it needs is a sharp/thin knife or blade, and a small bench vise.) It is also MUCH more advisable than cutting that connector/adding thermal pads to use a Xeon with metal heat shield. I've delidded at least 20~24 xeons so far, did not damage any of them and every time it took me less than 2 minutes to do it. Just carve the bonding glue (?) under the heat shield a little and then use bench vise to take it off- there are a few good videos on RU-vid for it.
It is not gonna be cheap, bro! At least 3K or something to get the best of the Mac Pro. CPUs, Rams are not expensive, the most expensive parts are GPUs, Storage arrangement. - GPU just the Titan, the least expensive one is the 6gb or you can get 980 ti but still it is not gonna be enough if you aim for best configuration for video editing. (*** Don't forget to buy two mini 6 pins to 6+2 pins) - Don't get an SSD or Sata III pcie card, just get pcie ssd instead, nvme would be the best. - Just get 3.1 usb pcie card. - You can install 6 sata II drive in the mac-pro. You can run Raid using Soft-Raid.
Thanks for the great video. I had put a dual SSD card in my 2008 Mac Pro a few years ago. I believe your 2009 has the same capabilities, in that the top two PCIe slots are 4x and the bottom two are 16x. That's why I put my raid 0 boot drive into the second from the bottom slot, just over the graphics card. You may want to switch it and see if your speed increases. I found this on line... (one free PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and two free PCIe 2.0 x4 slots with the default single graphics card installed). Here's the page.... everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.66-early-2009-nehalem-specs.html. You can check your specific mac, but I think they are the same. - The raid 0 dual SSD made video editing possible. I just sent for a RX580 graphics card......PS, I'm trying to get up the guts to change the processors. Thanks again!
this is hands down BEST video ever!!!! Thank you for your hard work!!! I actually do have Mac 5.1 6 cores 3.33 Mhz and I really DO not want to go trashcan router because I love having 4 Hard drives inside.
The project is cool, I love the old Mac Pros, BUT: You H-A-V-E to delid the CPU. There are so many reports on the internet about Mac Pros not working properly or stopping to work at all because of bad CPU swaps. People underestimate that stuff. And don't just say "don't be so sensitive, mine is working fine"- It can stop working after it worked 6 months. The CPU swap gets waaay underestimated. Best is to delid and use exactly the force on the screws that the Apple service technician manual says. Apple always works out the boundaries of the hardware, there is not much room left to play with. These are very complicated devices, other than standard PCs.
well done dude!! excellent post. I wonder, what is the most powerful GPU i could install on this mac pro, to edit with premiere CC 2018??? Any suggestion?
luiskiita well I put my 1080ti in there and it's probably one of the most powerful GPUs you can put in there. The issue is that the drivers aren't very optimized so there isn't huge benefits to having that expensive of a card in there. I'm curious to see how a AMD vega 64 card will perform once Apple comes out with compatibility for it.
The Polaris architecture is natively supported within macOS. Because of this, any 400 series card, 500 series card, or Vega will perform extremely well in any mac computer. There still aren't official drivers for any nVidia 10 series card.
Did this to mine. Early 2009 MP w/ original dual Xeon Nehalem 2.26s, flashed to 5,1, 32gb DDR3 ECC ram, dual RX470s pushing 4K @ 30hz + openCL goodness, SSD'sx3. Can still run most of Adobe CS , Microbloat Office, Fusion 360, etc. simultaneously. Still better than 80% of current PC's on the market. It's by far the best computer I have owned, or probably ever will own. The ONLY thing that will hobble it is the planned obsolescence holding it forever at 10.12 Sierra, even though High Sierra and whatever comes next would be no problem.... Thanks Apple.
I have this Mac and flashed it to a 5,1 years ago. The reason your ram bench mark went up when you removed the 4th stick is because the memory bus on stick 3 and 4 are shared. When you place that last stick you 1/2 the speed of the memory bus. (Former 12 year Apple National Sales Rep)
Great Vid, I am in the middle of upgrading my 3,1 Mac Pro, not as cool as the 4,1. I had thought it was time to dump my machine before I realised it was upgradable.
Dude this video is incredible. I wish I would have seen it 2 months ago when I tossed my old 2009. I honestly did not think it was worth anything. Great work!
Nice video! I got a Mac Pro 1.1 2006 model with these upgrades: 2 x Intel Xeon X5365 SLAED Quad-Core 3.0 GHz 8M 1333MHz Processor - ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphic card - 28 GB RAM (32GB max) - Wifi og Bluetooth card - 240GB SSD Samsung EVO 850 as systemdisk - 3 harddrive storages(320GB, 250GB, 500GB)
This has been one of the most detailed Desktop computer videos i seen for a Apple being rebuilt to give new life and just seeing the details on what makes the whole system to get more power and speed plus extra space is what i need the most. Honestly Hp is good but you can only do so much and i see how apple has more but the price is really how you can manage if your willing to make the big changes without having to spend so much money on a already built one when having the mid year version to be upgraded. By far Apple Desktop i never thought would be so great after doing more research on the specs and the hardware upgrades to get better performance and so on for what you need for your daily usage. This video will help out a lot if i was to build the same one and give more space more speed and better graphics so seeing how cheap for the frame and to get all the parts and pieces to get the computer up and running. Just as he also said this is good for the ones that take the time to watch and learn more on how to make the computer how you want it to be. I really didn't think apple was that good for what i hear for most rumors but getting the information on what it can really do can save you more money in the long run. Well i usually don't write comments like this but to take the time and interest in something you enjoy you will get more value out what you can make out of it. Other than that this video helped out a lot and i appreciate you taking the time to make the video while going through this coronavirus haha.
Great vids my friend, i just upgraded 2010 Macpro with a X5690 6 core 3.46ghz and 64g of ram and not yet sure what would be the best graphics card. But thank to you, i was able to upgrade my ol girl. Thank You =)
There are so many of us who've wanted to be able to upgrade our machines, and increase their years of value to us. And a couple of intrepid people figured out how to update the firmware to allow the newer OS and guts. I got a 2009 for $0, and while I haven't yet swapped CPUs, I've been able to upgrade I/O, RAM, and GPU to the point where it's really running great - I do mainly audio production... and a little middle-of-the-road video production. And it is a good point that ZPM showed that trying to upgrade to HS without having an EFI GPU on board makes things difficult and wastes time. Do the update to HS with the stock card still in a PCIe slot, then swap out the GPU. And it's good to keep the old GPU around in case you have issues down the line.
Because of you, I have bought RX580. And the MacPro 4.1. And all the rest... SM951 was really expensive... X5690 I have found on AliExpress for 87$. 40$ cheaper then on eBay! Investigated further and got the Sapphire Pulse because it’s natively supported by High Sierra. And really really quiet... Anyhow, thanks man, rock on and hi from Istria!!!
I upgraded my 5,1 today. 3 x SSD cards, Radeon RX580, 32Gb ram. Also jumped to Mojave from High Sierra so that Photoshop and Lightroom would update to 2021. Big improvement. Will last another 5-6 years.
Oh wow! Thanks for doing this video and laying out the process. I have a Mac Pro 2009 (Mac 4,1) for a very long time. Over the years, I installed a Sonnet card with 2 SSDs on it, 4port USB3 card, GeForce GTX Mac Edition 2GB card, LG BluRay drive, lots of storage in the 4 bays, and a 16GB OWC RAM Kit. I really didn't want to sink anymore $$$ into the system. I didn't know about the FW flash. If I can get at least High Sierra running at least I can be using Adobe CS 2019.
This is great. I work in a post-production house and we have been struggling with the lack of Mac options, hardware-wise - we want to remain a Mac shop and have been using Hackintoshes but have 2 Mac Pro towers waiting to die. This might save them!
