Mac Pro hardware questions

N

nuubie

Registered
This is directed to somebody that may work in the industry (with Mac Pro's of course). I was looking into assembling a Mac Pro and there are some significant hurdles. But perhaps not insurmountable. I need to keep the cost down and don't need cutting edge stuff.

Do many socket 771 Xeons that are say, a year or 2 old, work in the 667mhz (last year's model) Mac Pro motherboard?

Are the power requirements for the motherboard very unusual? Can it be powered by other server type power supplies? (We all know the Mac Pro logic board is close to the 5000 and 5400 chipsets.)

Can one use memory riser cards from other server type motherboards in the Mac Pro motherboard?

What about all the connections? I don't want to use the Mac Pro case (lousy design for both cooling and noise plus its expensive) but was worried about how to connect all the wiring and that it might be Apple proprietary. I don't need built on audio as I will use firewire audio but I wonder if there are other hiccups I'm overlooking.

My plan: use older Xeons, 667mhz 1gb FB-Dimms x 4 as they are so much cheaper now, get a video card with the correct efi stuff so its both Mac and PC compatible (is there such a beast?), mount in my own case design (don't care about cosmetics), use non-Apple memory risers, don't use the memory cage thing and that will give me more flexibility to use aftermarket fans on Thermalright CPU heatsinks both fore and aft (push/pull: fan on each side of the heatsinks) or just use water cooling. If I have to use Apple parts, this is what they should cost if I'm patient and I wait for the used deals to surface:
$350 Motherboard
$200 Power supply
$75 Memory riser cards
$200 Xeons (just a guess)
$75 CPU heatsinks
$75 Video card (basic for HD @ 2560 x 1600)
$100 4 x 1gb FB-Dimm Memory
$20 DVD burner
$50 300gb Sata hard drive

The motherboard is going to cost at least $300 but if I can jerry-rig a PC power supply, use older Xeons, use memory risers that are not Apple, I could slash the price by a considerable margin.

Your thoughts?
 
Many construe this to be rude, but it's not meant to be in the slightest:

We can't talk about "hackintosh" computers here. It's against the license agreement of Mac OS X, and this is a strictly legit forum.

Building "hackintosh" computers may be a gray area right now (legal? illegal? who knows?), but as far as this forum is concerned, we adhere strictly to all the limitations imposed by the EULA of Mac OS X -- one of which is the limitation of not being able to install Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware -- and, thus, we don't discuss that kind of thing here.

I understand that you are considering using some Apple parts, but that's treading a thin line of interpretation whether the final product could be considered "Apple hardware," at least enough to be able to "pass" the EULA restrictions of Mac OS X. If your setup was completely Apple, save for the processors, memory and hard drive (the most commonly upgraded parts, as well as "ok" to upgrade as far as the EULA is concerned), then I think it enough to pass... but I'm neither an Apple employee nor a lawyer, so my opinion means diddly in the end, anyway.

I want to say that as long as you use an Apple motherboard, things should fly swimmingly. I want to say that. But I don't know.

There are a ton of other forums and websites out there, though, that do discuss this kind of thing and are easily found with Google.

Good luck!
 
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Apple parts? That's what I'm doing. Its going to be a genuine Mac Pro because the motherboard is Apple. We all know the motherboard is the crux of the deal. Memory, hard drives, optical drives, etc are just fluff. And my question is all about using a genuine Apple motherboard so I avoid OSX86 headaches. A Hackintosh is when the motherboard is not Apple's. Huge distinction. The motherboard is the only thing that is distinctly Apple here I believe.
 
nuubie said:
Apple parts? That's what I'm doing. Its going to be a genuine Mac Pro because the motherboard is Apple. We all know the motherboard is the crux of the deal. Memory, hard drives, optical drives, etc are just fluff. And my question is all about using a genuine Apple motherboard so I avoid OSX86 headaches. A Hackintosh is when the motherboard is not Apple's. Huge distinction. The motherboard is the only thing that is distinctly Apple here I believe.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's what I said -- just crossing off some gray area here and getting specifics about whether it's a hackintosh or not. I'm fully aware of what constitutes a hackintosh and what would constitute a genuine Apple computer -- and, like I said, I wasn't being rude, just giving a general warning that anything non-Apple is against board rules in case you weren't aware of that before. Now that that's settled and it's legit, let's move on.

I'm sure you can use other company's memory risers in place of Apple's -- it's just a matter of whether they fit or not. In the systems I've seen, usually memory risers are motherboard- or machine-specific, so it could be simply a matter of physical dimensions.

Apple does include some proprietary connectors in their systems, with some funky daughtercards sometimes. I would expect them to use them in the front-panel ports, at the very least. Apple-authorized repair personnel, if able to get their hands on motherboards, should also be able to get their hands on the daughtercards and proprietary connectors, too.

Here's a link (or a link to a link) for the service manual for the Mac Pro -- it should include part numbers (so you can check whether they're proprietary or widely available) as well as a dissection guide. Sorry it's a login site, but I couldn't find the manual anywhere else for free in the short time I searched:

http://www.nodevice.com/manual/newmans/apple/Mac_Pro_(feb_2007)pdf/get50504.html
 
There's a difference between a Hackintosh and a FrankenMac. What nuubie seems to be attempting is to build a FrankenMac, where you take the critical Apple internals and move them to another case of sorts. There is a distinction. :)
 
A-yup, I'm still fully aware of the distinction (I've got Frankenmacs at home), as I mentioned before... ;) No one's been accused of building a "hackintosh," I simply stated what I knew and what the board rules were because it seemed to be borderline/gray area until we got more specifics and cleared it up.
 
Perhaps some guidelines like this might help. If you can interchange something in a Mac Pro without Apple caring, its not a gray area. Like hard drives, memory, optical drives, as well as external devices. People go to PC stores all the time to save a few bucks if they see some super sale. I'm interested in more people experiencing OS X with an upgradeable, flexible machine, something that the Mini and iMac don't come close to achieving and the Mac Pro's hideous price prevents most from even starting.

Certainly the motherboard has to be Apple. The next thing might be the power supply and video card. Things like front and rear inputs can often be solved with firewire and USB devices. Those memory risers are indeed a pain. As is the cost of the Apple power supply. Though most people admit its a superb design. The trouble is its so hard to source this stuff used. But if these problems could be ironed out, one could build a Mac Pro for just a few hundred dollars. Mighty exciting.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Many construe this to be rude, but it's not meant to be in the slightest:

We can't talk about "hackintosh" computers here. It's against the license agreement of Mac OS X, and this is a strictly legit forum.

Building "hackintosh" computers may be a gray area right now (legal? illegal? who knows?), but as far as this forum is concerned, we adhere strictly to all the limitations imposed by the EULA of Mac OS X -- one of which is the limitation of not being able to install Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware -- and, thus, we don't discuss that kind of thing here.

I understand that you are considering using some Apple parts, but that's treading a thin line of interpretation whether the final product could be considered "Apple hardware," at least enough to be able to "pass" the EULA restrictions of Mac OS X. If your setup was completely Apple, save for



the processors, memory and hard drive (the most commonly upgraded parts, as well as "ok" to upgrade as far as the EULA is concerned), then I think it enough to pass... but I'm neither an Apple employee nor a lawyer, so my opinion means diddly in the end, anyway.

I want to say that as long as you use an Apple motherboard, things should fly swimmingly. I want to say that. But I don't know.

There are a ton of other forums and websites out there, though, that do discuss this kind of thing and are easily found with Google.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
lol, why couldn't you bend rules like that all those years ago for me when I had questions about a hacked/cracked Quake 4 ^^ :D :D :D :D :D

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx105.pdf
this is the EULA/SLA link for the most recent mac os x version (Leopard).
It states............
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Single Use. This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use
or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one
computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.

\what an apple-labeled comp means is a mystery to us all. . . maybe taking the apple logo and sticking it on the side of the comp will solve the problem. ^^
 
I think one guideline is:
What could you replace on a Mac Pro that wouldn't cause them to raise their eyebrows when you sent it in for repair?
Surely any hard drive has to be on the bottom of their list. Memory/ram would be a close second. Same with an optical drive. I bet if the power supply was changed they would question if it could deliver sufficient power like the original. The video card might be dicey if it was a PC version. If it was bone stock it might be ok though. But if it had been hacked to work, that might not work. If the case had been replace they might doubt grounding or perhaps cooling but since the Mac Pro is not even very designed for cooling.....:) Plus its noise suppression is awful as well. So to run several 10k drives (and if you spent so much money on the Mac Pro would you really be satisfied with 7200rpm drives?) in Raid 0 for top performance might entail ear protection.

That's one of my attractions to this project. As a noise and cooling enthusiast I roll my eyes when I see this substandard attempt in the Mac Pro's case. Its clearly not even very good by PC standards. I have a design that is far superior, albeit not as stylish. At least not yet. Form before function. :)

Now if one could source that *&(@#$ power supply used and source some generic memory risers somewhere and forget the daughtercards by using USB or Firewire sound, etc, it might be a viable and totally legit project. And be content in not using the latest and greatest Xenon CPU's....DUH. :)

Remember, its all about he OS. The hardware is just the vehicle enabling it. And the more you know hardware the more obvious it is that Apple's hardware is mediocre at best, easily supplanted by the slightest effort and shopping discernment. Not to mention hideously overpriced.
Power Supply, Motherboard, Memory Risers, Case, Ram, Optical drive, Hard drive(s), Video Card are the main ingredients/challenges. Only the first 3 are difficult. And costly.
 
nuubie said:
Now if one could source that *&(@#$ power supply used and source some generic memory risers somewhere and forget the daughtercards by using USB or Firewire sound, etc, it might be a viable and totally legit project. And be content in not using the latest and greatest Xenon CPU's....DUH. :)
Click to expand...

To late because a processor swap has already been done over at Accelerate Your Macintosh.
 
I'm not sure why you posted this article. Do some Apple users real think they can't change the Mac Pro CPU? I'm pretty sure I've seen compatible Xeons (had the spelling wrong before) for WAY less used than that article mentioned. Now I'm not sure which Xeons are compatible with earlier Mac Pros but here's an example of Ebay prices:

$72 for a pair
http://cgi.ebay.com/Pair-of-Intel-X...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

$79 for a pair
http://cgi.ebay.com/Pair-2-Intel-Xe...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

Core 2 Quad $190
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Xeon-X335...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

Pair for $49.99
http://cgi.ebay.com/Pair-Intel-Xeon...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

2 Intel Xeon SL9RU 5150 LGA771 2.66/4M/1333 CPUs $152
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Intel-Xeon-SL...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

Intel Xeon Quad-Core X3220 2.4GHz LGA 775 Q6600 CPU G0 $149
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Xeon-Quad...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

INTEL Xeon QUAD CORE E5430 2.66GHZ 12MB 1333 LGA771 CPU $183
http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-Xeon-QUAD...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

$127.50 INTEL XEON DUAL CORE 5160 3GHZ 4M 1333MHZ QLUF CPU
http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-XEON-DUAL...0.m14&_trkparms=65:13|66:4|39:1|293:1|294:200

Incidentally, if you disable Javascript in your browser Ebay now has a feature that pops up in the left column that says "Navigation Without Javascript"!!!! This results in far faster loading times and is an absolute joy to use. I use Opera and it was getting to be a major pain with pages taking forever to load compared with Firefox. No more. Hats off to Ebay for finally implementing something efficient.
 
Hi all and sorry for disturb.
My question is: can I use in a Mac Pro first generation a couple of
memory riser card of an Early 2008 model?

Thanks in advance and best regards.

Andy

P.S. Sorry for my poor english but i'm a Italian guy.
 
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