Building a MacPro

[Spiiral]

Nice specs... Im thinking about building one but not sure yet. Might use the money to go traveling

[mymainmanbrown]

I'm a new member here so I can't create a new post, but do any of you know of further discussion on using an ATX PSU on a mac pro? I'd like to convert mine, and there was some discussion of this around page 11 on this thread, but I couldn't find anything else here, on this thread, on this forum, or really anywhere else online. I found a posting on aquamac that was exactly what I was looking for, but they didn't have a great deal of information. I made the last posting on this thread (as of 4/30/10):

 

http://aquamac.proboards.com/index.cgi?act...1032&page=1

[kj.sarino]

What a beautiful build!!

 

The 5500 "Nehalem" 8-Core Mac Pro has CPUs without the heat spreader. Also, the CPUs are held in place by the heatsink, no lever action there.

 

I'm trying to convince my Wife to allow me to buy a pair of the ES 6-Core CPUs, toss them in and have the first 12-Core Mac Pro!

 

Let me know if you get to do that. I would love to hear the result.

[pubjoe]

Wow. What an interesting thread.

 

I never thought this would be feasible. Thanks for sharing your experience. It's nice to compare the cost of the separate parts.

[I-Heine-I]

Hmmm, interesting project. I hope it will turn out good. The Relationship between apple and watercooling has not been one without struggles (G5 )

[amador]

mac pro G5 case worth HK$300.00 only in hong kong. i've seen it this afternoon,still looks good.

[GeraldCole]

So do you think it would be feasible and cheaper to build a mac pro from parts than to buy a new/used one?

 

Some ebay research tells me this:

 

New Mac Pro: $2500

Used Mac Pro: $1400

Mac Pro case w/ power supply: $300

Mac Pro logic board: $200

Mac Pro processor: $150-300

 

So if I were to get the case with a power supply, a logic board, and a processor, could I then buy 3rd-party ram and a hdd and have a working mac pro for under $1000? I'm not really too concerned with peak performance or anything I just want a stable mac that is upgradable and bootcamp-able.

[ejlml]

mac pro G5 case worth HK$300.00 only in hong kong. i've seen it this afternoon,still looks good.

 

Hi, I'm in H.K too, where did U seen it? Want to buy it, thanks!

[WooHu]

I dont get it, why post building a mac on a hackintosh site?

[craterloads]

they can post what they like, interesting none the less

[GeraldCole]

So do you think it would be feasible and cheaper to build a mac pro from parts than to buy a new/used one?

 

Some ebay research tells me this:

 

New Mac Pro: $2500

Used Mac Pro: $1400

Mac Pro case w/ power supply: $300

Mac Pro logic board: $200

Mac Pro processor: $150-300

 

So if I were to get the case with a power supply, a logic board, and a processor, could I then buy 3rd-party ram and a hdd and have a working mac pro for under $1000? I'm not really too concerned with peak performance or anything I just want a stable mac that is upgradable and bootcamp-able.

bump/

 

anybody?

[LucasIsEpic]

Hi There nagal and others.

ive decided to do the same as yourseves by buying a macpro from scratch.

(check out what i have for sale in the marketplace)

but i have a few queries.

Firstly, what Logic board will the 2.66 xeons work in? as ive managed to take a matched pair of these off a close friend because his server is DEDZ.

and i have the 2008 mac pro case, so will any logic board fit?

aside from the 2009+ logic board with the cpu daughterboard.

and does anyone know where to reliably buy mac parts in the uk because to be frank, the ones here like VIS mac are {censored} extortionate. 700 pounds for a logic board plus 17.5% tax and even the heatsinks are 200 each.

[rschultz101]

ramble , bare with me

 

mac pro aluminum case, nice, but , hard to get, and nothing compatible to the regualr stuff, as such

way to much stumbling blocks.

---> 4U rackmount case, medium length,

works fine, can have it as a desktop standing up, little slider feet, and can throw it in a hardcase to take it with me.

 

- dual quad,....

for most parts an OC'ed single quad should be plenty . SSD + memory

 

dual xeon, tend to think 2x 1156 cpu's are easier to come by

to squeeze out the power of LGA1366 cpus, it gets expensive fast !!

 

- cpus core craze , 8 core, 12 core

well the new 8-core amd 6128 looks sweet, especial for the price,

so an 2x 8 16 core for starters, next 2x12 = 24 cores

gonna need a second wide screen monitor , just for CPU perf monitor .....

 

so what's this going to be good for,.... kitchen sink

----> the new craze is VM , virtualization , vmware fusion, parallels, virtualbox,

next hypervisor servers,....

 

other thoughts,.... CUDA monster,

anybody looked at doing a 4x nvidia SLI physx under OSX ?

 

GHZ rule,... unfortunatly most apps, don't do multicore, multi sockets well,

as of now, GHZ still rule, so an OC'ed quad single socket is still preferably.

 

disc bottle neck,.... until you do SSD raid , ...... agregate link gigabit,...

anybody did a softraid with 4 SSD's , and have swap on raid 0,

and / or turned off swap completely ?

 

for the noise sensitive ,..... fanless,....fanless, yeah I wish,...

the macmini server seam to make sense, ....

[feins]

The 5500 "Nehalem" 8-Core Mac Pro has CPUs without the heat spreader. Also, the CPUs are held in place by the heatsink, no lever action there.

 

I'm trying to convince my Wife to allow me to buy a pair of the ES 6-Core CPUs, toss them in and have the first 12-Core Mac Pro!

 

I dont think the Mac Por Octo 2009 will support the new Hex core processor. As what i read that the EFI are different and the board are different in design.

 

Im now on my 1/2 way of assembly a Mac Pro 2009 also.. i've got some of the parts like below and still hunting for a few more part then i can start to do the assembly. The only think i hope is that the W5590 will work on the 1st version logic board. ;(

 

Below are the part and price i got and those no price are still in progress of sourcing.

 

Mac Pro 2009 Case with 980W PSU: £239.99 GBP ($381.90 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Logic Board & UK Spec power core: £212.98 GBP ($338.88 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Restoration DVD kit: €38.00 EUR ($27.97 USD)

24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1066 ECC Ram for Mac Pro: $570.00 USD

Xeon W5590 x2 OEM Processor: $1,850.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Technical and Installation document: $7.49 USD

2mm 100mm x 200mm Thermal Pad: $12.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Support Tray: $51.60 USD

Mac Pro 2009 8 core Processor Board: $369.53 USD

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-A heat sink: $159.35 USD

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-B heat sink: $285.10 USD

Ati 5870 for Mac: RM1,330.00 MYR ($428.82 USD)(Still awaiting for the official release but price already announce at Apple Malaysia web site)

 

So far the amount i've spend on Parts so far are in total USD 4053.82

[LucasIsEpic]

I dont think the Mac Por Octo 2009 will support the new Hex core processor. As what i read that the EFI are different and the board are different in design.

 

Im now on my 1/2 way of assembly a Mac Pro 2009 also.. i've got some of the parts like below and still hunting for a few more part then i can start to do the assembly. The only think i hope is that the W5590 will work on the 1st version logic board. ;(

 

Below are the part and price i got and those no price are still in progress of sourcing.

 

Mac Pro 2009 Case with 980W PSU: £239.99 GBP ($381.90 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Logic Board & UK Spec power core: £212.98 GBP ($338.88 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Restoration DVD kit: €38.00 EUR ($27.97 USD)

24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1066 ECC Ram for Mac Pro: $570.00 USD

Xeon W5590 x2 OEM Processor: $1,850.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Technical and Installation document: $7.49 USD

2mm 100mm x 200mm Thermal Pad: $12.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Support Tray:

Mac Pro 2009 8 core Processor Board:

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-A heat sink:

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-B heat sink:

Ati 5870 for Mac: RM1,330.00 MYR ($428.82 USD)(Still awaiting for the official release but price already announce at Apple Malaysia web site)

 

So far the amount i've spend on Parts so far are in total USD 3188.24

 

 

 

make sure that you don't over tighten the heatsinks when it comes to putting it together, just incase you are not aware the cpu's in the 2009 mac pros dont have a ihs, or integrated heat spreader (the grey metal covering on the top of the cpu) installing OEM cpus like the ones you bought can break the pins on the daughterboard. resulting in one dead board and possible 2 dead cpus. which is a third of your budget.

 

you have been warned.

[feins]

make sure that you don't over tighten the heatsinks when it comes to putting it together, just incase you are not aware the cpu's in the 2009 mac pros dont have a ihs, or integrated heat spreader (the grey metal covering on the top of the cpu) installing OEM cpus like the ones you bought can break the pins on the daughterboard. resulting in one dead board and possible 2 dead cpus. which is a third of your budget.

 

you have been warned.

 

Yes i have gone through Anandtech referring on the upgrading CPU for Mac Pro 2009 and notice that he did kill a processor and a processor board due to the IHS issue.

 

I heard that the intel IHS increase the processor height for about 1.8mm if that's true i think i need to get a washer for the particular height and increase the board lvl so that i wont be over tighten the CPU Heatsink.

 

Today just confirm on the last few parts and the only thing now is to wait for all of the parts to arrive.

 

Here are the parts and total of money spend on the Mac Pro 2009 project.

 

Mac Pro 2009 Case with 980W PSU: £239.99 GBP ($381.90 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Logic Board & UK Spec power core: £212.98 GBP ($338.88 USD)

Mac Pro 2009 Restoration DVD kit: €38.00 EUR ($27.97 USD)

24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1066 ECC Ram for Mac Pro: $570.00 USD

Xeon W5590 x2 OEM Processor: $1,850.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Technical and Installation document: $7.49 USD

2mm 100mm x 200mm Thermal Pad: $12.00 USD

Mac Pro 2009 Support Tray: $51.60 USD

Mac Pro 2009 8 core Processor Board: $369.53 USD

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-A heat sink: $159.35 USD

Mac Pro 2009 CPU-B heat sink: $285.10 USD

Ati 5870 for Mac: RM1,330.00 MYR ($428.82 USD)(Still awaiting for the official release but price already announce at Apple Malaysia web site)

 

So far the amount i've spend on Parts so far are in total USD 4053.82

[LucasIsEpic]

what is the "mac pro restoration dvd"

 

has it got something to do with generating a serial number for the logic board?

[feins]

what is the "mac pro restoration dvd"

 

has it got something to do with generating a serial number for the logic board?

 

This is the Mac Pro restoration DVD kit.

 

[LucasIsEpic]

Gotcha, a restore disc pack. The very same as you'd get with the retail package.

Foes anyone know how to assign a serial to the logic board, as I've heard That when you buy one it can't recieve rom updates and such for that reason

[feins]

Gotcha, a restore disc pack. The very same as you'd get with the retail package.

Foes anyone know how to assign a serial to the logic board, as I've heard That when you buy one it can't recieve rom updates and such for that reason

 

Should the Logic board has serial if its a retail from Apple.

[adzling]

Should the Logic board has serial if its a retail from Apple.

 

hey does anyone know if anyone has been able to get a harpertown 5440 working in their 2006 1,1 mac pro yet?

 

everything i have read says "no" but everything i have read is like 2 years old.

 

thanks!

[feins]

hey does anyone know if anyone has been able to get a harpertown 5440 working in their 2006 1,1 mac pro yet?

 

everything i have read says "no" but everything i have read is like 2 years old.

 

thanks!

 

Unless someone try it out before if not no one can confirm.

[electroteque]

Hi im also curious to build a mac pro. ive already specced the components. i need 15k rpm disks for a protools rig.

 

Im looking for a 12 core logic board that i can purchase outright. Is there such a place yet I can get this ? Where do you get the cases from ?

 

Im curious on the water cooling setup this is exactly what i want to do but a fanless cooling system. what have you found so far.

 

In a weird twist of fate, my search for an Intel MacPro case has led me down the path of actually building a MacPo. I was originally just going to mod an Intel MacPro case like I did the G5 case. After I found a case and saw it had all the little bits and pieces that tend to nickel and dime a project to death, I got to thinking.

 

A little searching and I found everything I need to build a MacPro. For all purposes it is a MacPro but I do have to throw my own little touches on it, like water cooling From what people have related to me, the MacPros are not noisy but any way to cut down on noise make me a lot happier

 

EDIT Due to the size constraints in the case, water cooling is on hold but it will happen. I just need to really research it.

 

I have been in a frenzy of ordering yesterday and today and awaiting parts so as they come, I will be posting pics and once everything is here, I will do a build log. I am expecting the case, logic board, cpus and the other water cooling block (reusing my existing one but still need two of them) shortly after Christmas. I might go ahead and order the PSU, memory and memory riser cards today as well just debating if I want to stretch my bank account that thin right now.

 

Here is the break down of what I have spent. I have not ordered the memory just yet but that will be the price.

 

CPUs (two) 515.00

Case 325.00

Logic Board 782.02

Memory Risers (two) 211.00

Power Supply 301.00

Memory 330.00

CPU Coolers 134.70

Logic board screws 4.00

Leopard 124.99

Mac 7300GT 160.00

 

Total 2887.71

 

I am estimating another $200-$250 for the water cooling when that part comes.

 

Finally having a real Mac Priceless (yes that is SUPER cheesy but I could not resist)

 

The CPUs are Xeon 2.4 GHz Quad Core 1066 FSB Engineering Samples. They *should* OC to 3.0 GHz with the BSEL mod which will give me 8 cores of 3.0 GHz goodness running 1333 FSB Memory will be 8GB of FB-DIMM. Prices are so low right now it would be silly not to get 8 GBs.

 

The memory riser cards were 90 each and the PSU was 267 but since it was bought from a company in California I had to pay tax.

 

I will be re-using my hard drives. I have an IDE dvd-rom which I will use and I am going to see if my boss minds if I swap out my IDE dvd-rw at work with my SATA one. He is cool and will probably say yes so that will save me $30-40 on buying a new one. I am going to try re-using my Asus 7300GT Video Card but not sure if NVinject will work. It will be not biggie to buy an real Mac 7300GT if I need to.

 

EDIT:

Updated 01-01-2008 Update price list to current totals

Updated 12-23-2007 to add in the price of Leopard. doh!

Updated 12-26-2007 removed water cooling from price list, added in air cooled heatsinks, Apple Remote, Screws and cheesy line

Updated 2-1-2008 Changed price on logic board as the first one was not 100% working and new one cost a LOT more. Also remover Apple Remote from list as it never showed up and my ATI All in Wonder remote works

[TCMW]

Hello everyone!

This one is a very interesting thread, I started reading it about when it was created but only recently (last week) I decided to venture on a project like building a MacPro.

 

This is my experience so far:

-I bought a used 2006 MacPro (1,1) on eBay for $700

-Tossed in a matched pair of Intel 'QUQI' 5340 ES (2.4ghz, 1066 fsb) for $300

-Got some memory from OWC (I think it was around $300 including shipping for 8gigs)

-Bought and then flashed a XFX Radeon HD 5870 card (around $379) with Uakari ROM

-Purchased a USB 2.0 PCIe card that gives me 4 external USB ports and 1 internal ($35)

-Ordered two 6-pin cables for $20 (Logic Board mini 6-pin to VGA card 6-pin)

 

TOTAL: just a little over the $1,700 mark.

 

I immediately removed the Dual Core 2.0Ghz Cpus, installed my Quad Core QUQIs (sounds like 'cookies' :-) ) with the BSEL mod, kept the 4x1GB module so to have a total of 12GB and ventured the flashing odyssey. After 2 days I finally found the right ROM that worked for me.

 

NEXT STEPS:

The next step will be to install a blu-ray burner I have sitting around. I've been told by a friend (he's a movie editor and Macs are all they use) that it doesn't work if connected to the logic board, so they use it hooked it up with an external USB adapter. This is where my PCIe USB card comes handy: I'll use the internal connector on the card to plug a USB-Sata cable, and the drive will be powered normally by the PSU.

 

PROBLEMS:

Not many.

1) As said in many threads, the 5870 (even the Apple one) won't show the booting sequence on a 2006 model if you connect the monitor through DVI. I use a DVI-VGA cable and it works just fine, except for the fact that the initial resolution is lower and the Apple logo is gigantic! A pure cosmetic issue I really don't care about.

2) The QUQIs appear to still work at 1066. I read that this is a common problem and thought myself that these Engineering Samples wouldn't overclock. I decided not to rush re-opening, disassembling and re-doing the mod and wait until I installed Windows. The latter says my CPUs are definitely working at 3,0 Ghz. I've done it this very morning so I'll have to investigate it more, but I think I can say it's just OS X showing the wrong value. Resetting the PRAM (Command+Option+P+R) didn't help. Tonight I'll try Cpu-z or similar and see what is says.

 

So, so far so good. I'm very happy with my savings!

Personally, I couldn't be bothered spending the outraging amount of money they ask (here in Australia) for a new 2010 Mac Pro computer and then having specifications that are very similar to the very first model released by Apple 4 years earlier! (I refer to sata drives, 400/800 Firewire, only 5 USB 2.0 ports and still no Blu-Ray). Seriously.

 

I'll keep you updated on this little project!

Please be kind with me... English is not my first language and I'm a total noob about Macs!

I also think this is my very first post on the forum! ...About time I started contributing!

 

-naymaxoe

[TCMW]

And here are some pictures:

The case, with nothing inside except for the logic board and the old CPUs

 

My "shopping cart", with all the things I wanted to put in the Mac Pro

 

My assembled system. The optical drives are the only things left to be installed

 

Windows says the truth: CPUs clock is 3.0Ghz, not 2.4! BSEL mod works!

Speedstep works too, even without bootcamp drivers installed: I've seen the multiplier changing dynamically depending on the load.

 

I decided to install Apple drivers anyway, I had to force the installation with the command line trick because the installer on SL disc was saying that I couldn't put 64bit drivers on my machine (not true). After that, 3.1 and 3.2 updates installed just fine.

 

I also installed the latest ATI drivers but Aero is still disabled. Is it normal with ATI cards or there's something wrong with my system? I'll soon find out.

 

That's all for now,

-naymaxoe