There’s a fair number of sub-assemblies to remove to get at the single CPU which is buried deep inside the form-over-function cylindrical case design of the nMP, but patience and care will get you there. Model number and ‘S-spec’ on a final production CPU. Just avoid Engineering Samples – look for the ‘S-spec’ on the CPU lid, which confirms that it’s the final item. Used CPUs pulled from servers are fine – I lose count of how many of these I have installed in oMPs and have never had one fail. First, there is no earthly reason to buy a new Intel CPU. OWC is barely better, charging $2,978 for the upgrade. So, as you can see, Apple is charging a premium of $3,500 to upgrade from the 4-core to the 12-core CPU.
To ensure meaningful comparisons, I have shown all the Apple-bought options with twin D500 GPUs, 16GB of RAM (the $3,000 base spec nMP comes with only 12GB), and a 256GB SSD. Here’s the current data for the available CPU options which are known to work:Īll of these CPUs have a Thermal Design Power of 130 watts, which compares to 80 watts (E5520 8-core), 95 watts (X5650, X5660, X5670, X5675 – all 12 core) and 130 watts (W5590 (8-core), X5680 (12), X5690 (12)) for 2009-2012 dual CPU oMPs. You have to ship the complete nMP to OWC for the upgrade. Pay lots to OWC/MacSales when you send in your nMP for upgrade and they resell your old CPU for which you get zilch.Pay lots to Apple for a costlier CPU at purchase of your nMP.There are currently three ways of getting a faster CPU: The stock 4-core Xeon E5-1620 in the nMP Geekbenches at 14,600. Install a couple of X5680 3.33GHz or X5690 3.46GHz Xeons in your 2009-2012 oMP and you will get Geekbench scores of 30-32,000, which equals the extremely costly $7,000 top of the line nMP for half the total cost of the computer. Given that the oMP can be upgraded with even faster CPUs than the fastest Apple ever marketed, the 4-core base nMP’s CPU performance is poor by comparison. The Geekbench chart below is for multi-core performance. Where the nMP falls down in price:performance is in CPU speeds.
So that means data speeds are limited to 600mb/s at best in the oMP (using a PCIe SATAIII card) whereas twice that rate should be theoretically possible in the nMP. This Intel data communication technology is a motherboard-only hardware installation and it is extremely unlikely that the aftermarket will ever see a TB-equipped motherboard for the oMP. The nMP adds one feature not available in the oMP – Thunderbolt. Paying Apple or OWC a huge premium for a better CPU suggests you have more money than sense, in which case go for it.
The 2013 Mac Pro may still be hard to find but that does not mean the buyer should overpay for the better CPUs available. For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.
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