Used Mac Pro Quad Core/2.66 GHz upgradeable??

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Oo I saw an ad for a used Mac Pro quad core. I called in and it's actually 2 dual cores so I was wondering, would I be able to upgrade the computer from the 2 dual cores to maybe 2 quad cores? Heck... and when the 6-core comes out maybe that too? Computer specs are below:

Used Mac Pro Quad Core/2.66 GHz

* 3.1 GB of RAM
* 500 GB internal drive
* Internal SuperDrive
* Includes keyboard and mouse
* Airport Extreme and Bluetooth installed
* NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT Video
* Certified Pre-Owned Mac with 90 day warranty
* OS CD is not included
* OS 10.4.9 installed
* Xeon (Woodcrest) processors with two cores each
* ECC DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM. Must be installed in pairs. Max: 16 GB in 8 RAM slots
* Support up to 8 displays (with extra video cards installed), with resolutions up to 2560x1600
* 5 USB 2.0 Ports (2 on the front, 3 on the back), 2 FireWire 400 ports (1 on front and 1 on back) and 2 FireWire 800 port (1 on front and 1 on back)
* Four PCIe Expansion slots (one used by a video card)
* Four 3.5" hard drive bays for Serial ATA drives
* Airport Extreme and Bluetooth slots
* Ethernet: Two 10/100/1000 Base T ports
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2GHz Mac Mini 2GB RAM 160GB 10.6.2 | MDD DP 1.25GHz G4 1.5GB RAM 10.4.11 | 233MHz iMac G3 10.3.9
Nice machine - what apps are you wanting to run? You get the benefit of multiprocessors with apps that are written to use them.
 
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Crossover is definitely one I want to run. Plus Handbrake, Cellulo, Visual Hub, etc. things like that...
 
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I've got probably the exact machine and I'm wanting to know the same thing too.

So did you find out if it could be done or not?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
You can't upgrade those machines like that. The architecture has changed, and the current xeon systems are very different from yours.

You can upgrade them to an extent - see this page:

AnandTech: Apple's Mac Pro - Upgrading CPUs, Memory & Running XP

but AFAIK you'll be limited to dual core xeons but who knows - the socket should be a LGA771, which is what the 5100-5400 series used - according to the anandtech article, they did get the quad cores to work, but they were reported odly in the OS - but then again, it was also before Apple released their quad core Mac Pro.

BUT the new processors, the nehalem quad are LGA1366 sockets and eventually 6 core looks like will be LGA1567, they WILL NOT WORK in your system as it's designed.
 
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I believe my machine has 5150 processors in it right now. I know they are 2.66ghz dual cores, a pair of them. I already knew that the newer sockets couldn't be upgraded to, but thanks for that anyway, appreciate you looking out for me like that.

I'd like to go up to maybe 5160's. I'm really interested in bumping up the L2 cache to be honest, of course getting a little speed increase on the processors isn't a bad deal either. But I believe I'm at 4mb of L2 right now and I'd like to go up higher, the higher the better.

Also, I believe my FSB is at 667 and I'm wondering if I get a pair of processors that'll support 800 or higher could I swap out my ram for faster FSB ram as well?

And yea, I'd be happy with dual core Xeon's just so long as I can get more L2 cache but I'd be very happy if I could run dual quad cores, wouldn't everybody who has a machine like this?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
Looks like the system is just designed for PC2-5300 DDR2 ECC Fully Buffered chips, I don't see anything about being able to use faster ram and getting a speed benefit.

I don't blame you for wanting more speed ;) I'd love to eak out a little more in mine as I do a lot of video transcoding, but if you could move from 2xdual core to 2xquad core that would be a huge increase in overall processing power. Either way, you should be able to get those 3.06 (I think was the number) GHz dual core xeons and put them in - but read that article, they show exactly what needs to be done. Not for the feint of heart ;)
 
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Alright, I appreciate that. I think I might be wrong about the processors I have, not sure, I need to recheck it far as the number goes.

And I agree, if I could go with dual quads that would be a massive jump from just two dual cores. I've not even opened the side of my Mac, I guess I should and rip into it and see what's going on in there.

I'll read that though and see what's up with it, thanks!
 

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