# Hot-Rodding your "classic" Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 to nearly 2013 Specs



## jcrosby (Jan 2, 2017)

I've had my Late 2009 8 core Mac Pro 4,1, (now spec'd to a 12 core Mac Pro 5,1) running like butter since buying it 2009. The thing still performs like a champ. Many of us Mac Pro folks know about some of these tweaks, but may not be aware of all of them... (Hell I'm sure there are some I'll learn about as the thread grows...) 

I thought it would be nice to start the new year with some very simple hardware changes to your Mac Pro that can drastically improve its performance, and bring it up to current Mac Pro speeds...

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A Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 outfitted with two 3.46 Ghz processors (12-Cores) is only about 2% "slower" than the top of the line Mac Pro cylinder that'll run you damn near 10k if ordered with all of the necessary upgrades to do the heavy lifting many of us need from a machine. 2% is virtually unnoticeable, and with additional hardware upgrades the machines can outperform the latest Mac Pro in some areas as well... These options can be pricy, but if you still own one of these machines than it's a worthwhile purchase, and one less machine destined for a landfill...
http://barefeats.com/mp12c346.html
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Upgrade 1: 3.46 Ghz 12-Core CPU upgrade. *
I converted my 2009 Mac Pro 8-core 2.26 Ghz Mac Pro 4,1 into one of these. It's a whole new machine that puts its previous CPU to shame. This upgrade virtually doubled the CPU performance of my previous CPU. The 3.46 Ghz in particular scores within 2% performance of the highest end Mac Pro cylinder. Swapping CPU trays and upgrading the firmware is painless. It takes about a minute and basically impossible to fuck up.

There are videos on how to perform the upgrade yourself, it's pretty delicate, and more difficult than replacing your average CPU, Id recommend having it done by someone who does them regularly... 

This guy did mine and couldn't recommend him any more highly... http://www.ebay.com/usr/macmotive 
If you prefer to pay extra for a dealer who will stand behind their work *OWC* in the states and *Create Pro* in the UK will perform CPU upgrades...

*Upgrade 2: The Amfeltec SQUID PCIe x16 m.2 SSD "Carrier Board".*
This is where the classic machines can actually outperform the new ones if you're not afraid to RAID. (RAID not necessary, and still plenty speedy...)

This card allows you to install 4 m.2 drives in your Mac Pro via one PCIe Slot. Due to the Mac Pro being limited to PCI 2 the max speed limit is 1.5 Gigs/sec per drive. If run in Raid 0 though these cards are capable of performing at almost 6 Gigs/sec. The SQUIDS are pricy, they'll set you back about $400, but not only do you gain performance out of your machine, you can host 4 drives on it via one slot, leaving you with 2 more PCIe slots for other things like USB3 or a UAD card... http://barefeats.com/hard210.html

Important to note: These Mac Pros do not properly recognize NVMe drives. Some have managed to get them to work with custom kexts but performance is dodgy and unreliable. The way to fly on these machines are AHCI m.2 drives. (Even if NVMe were possible each drive would still be limited to 1500 MB/sec...) AHCI ensures stability and performs at the machines speed limit...

Although people with SQUIDs tend to prefer Samsung drives, Samsung AHCI m.2s have become impossible to find and are astronomically overpriced and used if you do. (Even if you find one claiming it is, it most likely is not unless used. Check Macrumors before buying anything if you're hellbent on Samsungs... http://forums.macrumors.com/threads...4-ssds-5900-mb-s.1936311/page-7#post-24127348) 

The Kingston HyperX Predator m.2 is a solid and affordable alternative that won't bankrupt you. A 980 GB Predator will run you $490, and they perform between 1350 and 1400 MB/sec. It's only been a couple months I've had mine but so far smooth sailing and snappy sample load times... I have my SQUID set up with one as my boot drive, 2 in RAID 0, and a 3rd one on its way... 

http://amfeltec.com/squid-pci-express-carrier-boards-for-m-2-ssd-modules/?view=list

*Convert your drive bays from SATA II to SATA III with a Backplane Attachement.*
I haven't put this mod in my machine since the SQUID was my preference, but it's popular for sure and practical... This basically lets you feed SATA III Speed to each of your drive bays via a PCIe card and a cable. A less expensive alternative to a SQUID and practical way to get more speed out of your pre-exisiting internal drive bays... 

Worth noting is that PCI slot 2 (above the video card) is the only other slot that will has x8 or x16 connectivity. It's an "either / or" situation as far as having the SQUID or Backplane. That being said there are still two free x4 slots that will host compatible single m.2 drive hot cards, single or double SATA III SSDs, mSATA etc. (There is a valid argument for installing backplane into one of the x4 slots and is something I may look into myself...see blow for an explanation..)

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=413&ParentCat=419

*Chuck out the DVD Drive and replace it with one or two massive HDDs for backups or project storage.*
These are great! The mac Pro's DVD drives are virtually useless these days... Sure some folks still use them but for most it's wasted real estate... This mount let's you install two HDDs or SSDs, (or combination) in each DVD bay, for a total of 4 drives in the DVD Bays. 

https://eshop.macsales.com/owcpages/multimount/

Also worth nothing is that the optical connections are only basic SATA, operate somewhere between 100 and 150 MB/sec and only have two connectors. You can either replace both DVD drives with traditional 7200 RPM HDDs for massive backup or project storage. 

If you want to get crazy, this backplane lets you install 4 SSDs in the optical bay at SATA III and SATA II in the regular bays... https://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=449&ParentCat=351
(If your x16 slot is already being used by a squid or any other x8 or x16 PCIe card the backplane should work, but only at x4 speeds which cut bandwdith in half. (Due to the machine's limitations). 

*Higher Powered GPUs*
This place sells high powered GPUs for all generations of Mac Pros. Swapping GPUs can be a pain when dealing with updates though, the one downside. MacRumors is your friend if curious which cards are best for your OS...

http://www.macvidcards.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

*USB 3*
I'd imagine most folks here with one of these machines has already gone through a USB 3 card, if not but interested there are a lot of options. Unfortunately after Yosemite things get dicy. Some work and some don't... Here's a good place to start... if on 10.11 or above... https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/usb-3-0-pcie-cards-that-work-oob-in-el-cap.174489/page-2

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That's pretty much it in terms of major performance boosts that I know of but I'm sure there are others... Feel free to add on if there are other things you recommend for those of us who still love these machines...


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## Ashermusic (Jan 3, 2017)

While it can be tempting, I just cannot at this point see putting money into a machine that will not have Thunderbolt.


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## JohnG (Jan 3, 2017)

Fair point Jay, but I saved $7k going the upgrade route, which buys a lot of SSDs.

Apropos Jay's point, a brief search for a PCIe card that would offer a Thunderbolt port on an old Mac turned up nothing that looked plausible. You get a lot of hits but the results looked spurious.


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## URL (Jan 3, 2017)

Why is thunderbolt so coveted, I have gone over to the PC so I refrained thunderbolt even if the possibility existed for PC. Today I have 3 SSD drives inside, 3screens (two 2560/1440/ one 1980/1280) SSD for booth, SSD for Samples / backup and SSD for Audio, outside the computer I have USB3 4 for backup disk..today there are alternatives.


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## JohnG (Jan 3, 2017)

@URL Thunderbolt, if I understand it accurately, has the rare ability to daisy-chain without losing much or any speed. That's awesome.

Thunderbolt 2 is ludicrously fast, and the announced-but-not-sure-it's-available Thunderbolt 3 is even more ludicrously fast. Supercaliludicrously fast. http://appleinsider.com/articles/15...b-c-connector-transfer-speeds-of-up-to-40gbps

If you have USB 3.1 devices and 3.1 ports you are doing fine -- similar specs to (but not necessarily the same as) Thunderbolt 1, but it's not clear that the devices I own work at anything close to that speed. I say "not necessarily the same as" based on a review I read that implies Thunderbolt's under-the-hood speed is quite a bit higher than the 10GB/s because of dual channels.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 3, 2017)

URL said:


> Why is thunderbolt so coveted, I have gone over to the PC so I refrained thunderbolt even if the possibility existed for PC. Today I have 3 SSD drives inside, 3screens (two 2560/1440/ one 1980/1280) SSD for booth, SSD for Samples / backup and SSD for Audio, outside the computer I have USB3 4 for backup disk..today there are alternatives.




PC path forward may indeed be different, but Apple is clearly moving to Thunderbolt and USB-C.


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## URL (Jan 3, 2017)

There is TB2 for PC.

Yes I understand the "needs in Mac for this communication port" of TB and I thought that I must have TB on my next computer but I didn't realize at first that I have to wait or refresh a "old" MP to have that function...I looked in a other direction...
Yes we all need speed for fast communication between gear.
I have TB2 on my new Pc motherboard as a Pci-E card-but I don't use it-I don't have the room for it on my motherboard, dsp-card and graphic card is my priority at the moment and occupies all my PCI-E.

There is Magma chassi and Sonnet solution for TB2 maybe not always the best solution to have everything outside the computer, not the cheapest solution I say...today now I'm on Pc I say I'm surprised that everything is working so flawless as a former heavy user of Mac and couldn't wait for a new MP.

As for now Pci-E communication is fast enough...for communication- but tomorrow is a other day...


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## jcrosby (Jan 3, 2017)

JohnG said:


> Fair point Jay, but I saved $7k going the upgrade route, which buys a lot of SSDs.
> 
> Apropos Jay's point, a brief search for a PCIe card that would offer a Thunderbolt port on an old Mac turned up nothing that looked plausible. You get a lot of hits but the results looked spurious.


You can't add thunderbolt to these machines. Unfortunately the chipset doesn't support it...
And fair point for sure... I haven't found a need for Thunderbolt in my setup, but anyone running a TB audio interface, or has invested a bunch in peripherals for sure... it's a no go... This thread was aimed more at people still on these machines who want to keep them up to spec, or didn't realize they could perform on par with current machines, barring external connections..


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## Kaufmanmoon (Jan 5, 2017)

Spoke to @jcrosby on this privately and was really helpful.
Wanted to put a question out there and hope he doesn't mind.

What's going to be the better machine running logic with SSD, all 64gb Ram
12 core 3.46ghz Silver Tower
12 core 2.47ghz Create Pro Trashcan
8 core 3.0ghz Create Pro Trashcan

Part of me thinks some people might go for the 8 core trashcan before the 12 core trashcan
It still amazes me that the Towers are still going strong but it's easy to see why it's a good choice for the next 4-5 years at least.


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## Daniel James (Jan 5, 2017)

I made the upgrade because of the extra power of thunderbolt.

As a practical example:

I have both the UAD Apollo Quad (4 processor rackmount) and the Apollo Twin (2 processor unit). The Quad had the option of both thunderbolt and legacy Firewire800...the 5,1 doesnt support thunderbolt so I had it hooked via Firewire, It was ok but it didnt take long before using the UAD plugins in a DAW lead to clicks and pops without a buffer raise. Then I later got a 2015 Macbook Pro and a UAD Twin (portable rig) which connected via thunderbolt...I discovered very quickly that I could run considerably more UAD plugins in the DAW without any sign of clicks/pops, and remember this is with the Twin which is literally half as powerful as the Quad. And it was all because of the extra bandwidth. That is what made the cost of the Trashcan make sense to me. I wasnt just upgrading hardware, I was investing in the next few years of technology. I have since plugged my Quad in via thunderbolt and night and day doesn't even come close to describing how much more seamless it is. I do still run some SSD's via usb3 however without much issue and one could argue this is a solid reason to stick with a 5,1 machine but like I said I decided to invest now in the future so that I can stay at my limit which the bar is raised next.

-DJ


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## Ashermusic (Jan 5, 2017)

Daniel James said:


> I wasn't just upgrading hardware, I was investing in the next few years of technology.
> 
> -DJ



Exactly.


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## URL (Jan 5, 2017)

I can run as much UAD plugs as the PCie Dsp card can handle not because of the Pcie interface which is the communication interface inside the computer as the communication interface of TB2 is to get out of the computer that make it possible to use UAD outside the computer that don't have PCI-E.

I now have a Q with 62 tracks with a lot of Uad plugs other software plugs and I have room for more- a cache of 128 at Rme Raydat and no pop or click yet.

My old MP rig had the same two UAD card attache to the PCI- E interface for communication to daw software.
My new machine is a 6-core PC with 64Ram and I use UAD exact as I used them before on my old machine no more no less plugs because of the UAD dsp limitation, well I could get more UAD-card but I don't need more Octocards.

My gain is new CPU, modern solutions to the new x99 mother board which can for example handle more RAM (128) so that I could use more plugs that are not dependent on dsp.

Buying older Mac computers to replace the CPU for expensive money where motherboards have a number of running hours only in order to run the TB2 is beyond me, for those who use Cubase and choose to buy old Mac because of TB2, IMHO I can't really understand that choose, sorry.

Capacitors second semiconductor components are those that wear depends environment in which the computer has been in use, I'm not sure but do they really check components when refreshes the old computers that are then sold far too high a price in my opinion...

If you use Logic and don't want to use other daw-well you made a choose and thats fine.
There is alternatives to TB2- and soon TB2 is old and and you have to wait for TB3...only to use Cubase...on Mac.


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## jcrosby (Jan 5, 2017)

Daniel James said:


> I made the upgrade because of the extra power of thunderbolt.
> 
> As a practical example:
> 
> ...



UAD over firewire (in terms of DSP) is a nightmare sure. But you can still buy PCIe cards which are identical to running them via TB. I have an Octo PCIe inside mine... I've filled the DSP up over 90% before and it's smooth as butter... When I had a duo I'd get DSP full messages but never pops. With the SQUID in there now I even have a free slot if I wanted to be add another... (But that's just plain silly for most of us.)



URL said:


> My gain is new CPU, modern solutions to the mother board which can for example handle more RAM (128) so that I could use more plugs that are not dependent on dsp.



Sure if I were starting new probably not, but upgrading this costs a lot less than a fully spec'd new Mac pro with the clock speed, RAM and space I'd want and the CPU I have benchmarks insanely close to the top of the line cylinder... 4,1 and 5,1 have always been able to have 128 GB RAM.

$8800 baseline for a nMP on par with my machine, plus $1100 for 128 GB RAM. That's 10 grand with only 1 TB...

2012 12 Core 3.46 Ghz with 64 GB RAM, upgraded 5k graphics card, PCIe SSD and 64 GB $3100 (warrantied by the dealer for 1 year, and a 3 year warranty option), plus 128 GB RAM $680. Plus PCIe Amfeltec SQUID (4x m.2 Drive host card) with 4 Kingston Predator m.2 SSDs - $2380.
That's $6,160 with 3.84 TBs of m.2 storage capable of 5.5 Gigs/sec data IO and a 1 TB SSD... ($6200 with USB 3)

To me the price of the nMP just doesn't justify the cost... Latency isn't an issue for me either... I can run a 64 sample audio buffer easy on my interface (Metric Halo), but 128 and 256 are more realistic when dealing with proper templates.

All I'm saying is I don't necessarily agree that the new mac Pro is much more future proof since TB isn't a necessity unless you're already married to a certain piece of TB gear. There are PCI solutions for basically everything else, you can actually have better sample streaming, and other than TB the machine has merged bleeding edge technologies really really well and shows no sign of kicking out anytime soon...

And I personally think that being able to remove the CPU tray makes it equally, if not more future proof. I Could buy a pair of 3.46 Ghz Xeons and have them on deck if I wanted to and fix the thing myself... Trying to fix the new ones yourself, god forbid anything ever died just aint happening... It's 10 grand worth of built in obsolesence. Good for Apple but not the end user...


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## mc_deli (Jan 7, 2017)

This is true


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## mc_deli (Jan 7, 2017)

Kaufmanmoon said:


> Spoke to @jcrosby on this privately and was really helpful.
> Wanted to put a question out there and hope he doesn't mind.
> 
> What's going to be the better machine running logic with SSD, all 64gb Ram
> ...


Do you mean Create pro silver tower first and then new 12 core and new 8 core...?

Depending on what you mean by better, take a look at the Logic Multicore benchmark test on Gearsl***.

The 6,1 nMP trashcan 12 core is just a sliver ahead of the 5,1 cheese grater MP. But the difference is negligible 240-250 track count in that test. The single core performance of the cheese grater is slightly better but the nMP has advantages "built-in" like dual graphics and the PCIe SSD boot drive... and TB2.

But there's no doubt that, in the Logic multicore benchmark test, the old 5,1 is better price/performance wise - by a mile.
Does that mean it's better full stop? No, that really depends on your own circumstances.
Right now I know a nMP 6 core is better for me but it is still a big commitment to justify...


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## mc_deli (Jan 7, 2017)

Apple have been really daft here.
Whichever way you slice it they have made it difficult to justify buying their newest machines and they've given a huge boost to the second hand market. And this has been the case for what, 3 years already.
Heads should roll.


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## URL (Jan 7, 2017)

PCI-E interface have never in my case limit the use of for example UAD plugs dsp or Raydat I/O all together with graphic card thats handle 3screens in high resolution. I almost can buy 3 pieces/6-core PC for an outdated Apple 6-core V.H. That is really cool.


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## jcrosby (Jan 7, 2017)

mc_deli said:


> Apple have been really daft here.
> Whichever way you slice it they have made it difficult to justify buying their newest machines and they've given a huge boost to the second hand market. And this has been the case for what, 3 years already.
> Heads should roll.


Definitely. I'd jump in on a new machine if they rolled out something that had more current hardware, more drive slots and less forced obsolescence. But for the price of the current model? Not a fan of getting price gouged... (FYI you can have a PCIe boot drive in the cheese grater. I have an m.2 boot drive that runs around 1350 MB/sec... The same PCI card also hosts two raided m.2 sample drives and has a free slot for a 4th. All run at full 1.35 Gigs a sec since the card has 16 PCI lanes, (the raided pair about 2.6 gigs/sec.)

The main reasons the cheese grater is still popular with a lot of the 4,1 / 5,1 crowd is that once we got hip to the fact that these could be upgraded to comparable performance of the nMP the price tag was insulting. And now with m.2 options it's virtually a moot point unless video editing... (Even then two GPUs can be installed in the graters.)

I've also never been a fan of the design choice favoring lots of of external devices over limited internal storage. A 5-10k computer shouldn't force you to have to plug in additional storage. It's like designing a high performance sports car with a smaller gas tank because they determined adding a larger trunk allows you to carry additional cans of gas around...

The nMP is aimed at people working with media, (with the tagline "Built for creativity on an epic scale"), people who typically chew through storage. The internal space is insulting considering the price of admission, and to my eyes it's just another slick Apple bait and switch scheme where they spend less in manufacturing costs and jack up the price on the consumer...


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## jcrosby (Jan 7, 2017)

URL said:


> PCI-E interface have never in my case limit the use of for example UAD plugs dsp or Raydat I/O all together with graphic card thats handle 3screens in high resolution. I almost can buy 3 pieces/6-core PC for an outdated Apple 6-core V.H. That is really cool.


All also possible on my outdated cheese grater  UAD Octo, RME (or similar), and 4 monitors at 4k, or even 5k if I wanted to go down that road... $3100 cMP, GPU $680, UAD Octo $1000, Raydat $950 - $5730. That's room for a second identical machine for less than the cost of one preperly spec'd nMP...


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## mc_deli (Jan 10, 2017)

OK apologies. Now I see Create Pro do the 6,1. And at about 15% cheaper than I can find elsewhere. Interesting.


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