Upgrading the 2009 Mac Pro?

[Warren Eig]

I replaced a failed 8-core Mac Pro with a used 2012 12-core with Titan X Nvida GPU and 64 GB RAM. It screams.

Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905

email: info@babyboompictures.com
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[Gabe Strong]

I had a stock 2009 MacPro. Single quad core processor 2.66GHZ with
a GT120 graphics card with 512MB of VRAM. I was poking around online
one day and found an interesting Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Mac.Pro.Upgrade

These guys are all upgrading older MacPros and offer help on
how to do it for less tech savvy people. I ended up upgrading to
a six core 3.46GHZ processor, a 980Ti graphics card with 6GB of
VRAM. Also installed SSDs, including a couple on an internal
PCI card for some real speed. This setup is really fast.
I wrote more about it on my blog here:
https://www.alaskacameradude.blogspot.com

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Joe Marler]

[andy patterson] “Upgrading the 2009 Mac Pro…a 3.2 GHZ dual quad core Xeon system from 2012…with a GTX 1080 would work great with FCPX….”

To my knowledge there are no macOS drivers for a GTX-1080 so it can’t be used with FCPX, Premiere or any other app on a Mac.

For a 2009 Mac Pro, the average of the fastest entries in the GeekBench 4 CPU database is around 2,500 single-core and 13,800 multi-core. GPU performance is around 110,000, except for one entry using a GTX-980Ti which was 141,000.

For a 2012 Mac Pro, the fastest GeekBench 4 GPU numbers are around 145,000-150,000, again using the GTX-980Ti. By contrast a 2013 New Mac Pro with dual D700s produces about 94,000 per card or 188,000 total. So from a GPU standpoint, a D700 2013 Mac Pro is still faster than anything you can easily build using a single GPU that will run on macOS. I have seen claims that people got a Hackintosh running using dual nVidia GPUs, but it’s apparently not straightforward, and I don’t know well FCPX would use that.

The only exception is the Radeon 280X which is almost identical to the D700 and can use the same drivers. It is an older card but dual-280X performance on FCPX is excellent and from a driver/macOS standpoint it is plug-and-play. Max Yuryev demonstrated a reliable, easy-to-build Hackintosh using these dual GPUs in this video. Max also said due to how Apple optimized FCPX for those AMD cards it’s faster than nVidia alternatives. So there’s a difference between benchmark numbers vs real-world application performance, which in this case is FCPX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ZJWPi_CBc

Your thread title asked about a 2009 Mac Pro, but even for a 12-core 2012 Mac Pro, the GeekBench 4 CPU database shows about 2,700 single-core and 20,000 multi-core. Those are the fastest CPU numbers in the GeekBench 4 database for any 2012 Mac Pro, regardless of CPU configuration or aftermarket modification. By contrast a 12-core 2013 New Mac Pro does about 3,450 single core and 25,500 multi-core.

So even though the 2013 Mac Pro is three years old, it still looks faster than most of the upgraded 2009 or 2012 Mac Pros — from both CPU and GPU standpoints. There could still be a good reason to upgrade an older Mac Pro, assuming there is macOS driver and software support and it has demonstrated performance benefit on FCPX.

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[Andy Patterson]

If you like the older Mac Pro and can upgrade it yourself to keep up with your editing needs I say go for it. I was hoping to hear from more people. Some might install an AMD graphics card and find FCPX works a little better than Premiere. Others may opt for Nvidia and say Premiere seems to work better. I am sure different hardware will give different results. It will be interesting to see if anyone has added a Blu-ra burner or SAS RAID controller card. I don’t doubt some one has went from a quad core CPU to a six core CPU.

[Andy Patterson]

[Gabe Strong] “These guys are all upgrading older MacPros and offer help on
how to do it for less tech savvy people. I ended up upgrading to
a six core 3.46GHZ processor, a 980Ti graphics card with 6GB of
VRAM. Also installed SSDs, including a couple on an internal
PCI card for some real speed. This setup is really fast.
I wrote more about it on my blog here:”

Cool. It is good to get some extra use out of the system. I think some people miss the internal storage options and PCIE slots.

[Andy Patterson]

[Joe Marler] “Your thread title asked about a 2009 Mac Pro”

I could have opted for 2010. I just opted for 2009. I was just curious what modifications people had done.

[Joe Marler] “For a 2012 Mac Pro, the fastest GeekBench 4 GPU numbers are around 145,000-150,000, again using the GTX-980Ti. By contrast a 2013 New Mac Pro with dual D700s produces about 94,000 per card or 188,000 total. So from a GPU standpoint, a D700 2013 Mac Pro is still faster than anything you can easily build using a single GPU that will run on macOS. I have seen claims that people got a Hackintosh running using dual nVidia GPUs, but it’s apparently not straightforward, and I don’t know well FCPX would use that.”

I wonder if someone might say FCPX and Premiere seem to work better with dual CPUs instead of dual GPUs. Who knows?

[Joe Marler] “So even though the 2013 Mac Pro is three years old, it still looks faster than most of the upgraded 2009 or 2012 Mac Pros — from both CPU and GPU standpoints. There could still be a good reason to upgrade an older Mac Pro, assuming there is macOS driver and software support and it has demonstrated performance benefit on FCPX.”

I know some people need the PCIE slots. I think others might like internal RAID configurations.

[Andy Patterson]

It is good to be able to still use it today with just a simple upgrade.

[Oliver Peters]

[andy patterson] “I could have opted for 2010. I just opted for 2009. I was just curious what modifications people had done. “

Late model 2009 MPs can be tweaked to show up as a 2010 to the OS. This lets you still make current OS software updates, which Apple has now limited to 2010 or newer.

[andy patterson] “I wonder if someone might say FCPX and Premiere seem to work better with dual CPUs instead of dual GPUs. Who knows?”

At home I run a late 2009 8-core Mac Pro (shows as 2010) with SSDs, plenty of RAM and a Sapphire 7950 (I think that’s the last “official” Mac card you can get). Premiere runs better than FCPX on it. Generally up to HD they are both OK. Higher than HD and this machine becomes painful to work with. A 2013 Mac Pro, new iMac or newish MBP is a better performer, especially with FCPX. 4K is relatively easy on these systems. And there, FCPX will tend to run better than Premiere.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Andy Patterson]

[Oliver Peters] “At home I run a late 2009 8-core Mac Pro (shows as 2010) with SSDs, plenty of RAM and a Sapphire 7950 (I think that’s the last “official” Mac card you can get). Premiere runs better than FCPX on it. Generally up to HD they are both OK. Higher than HD and this machine becomes painful to work with. A 2013 Mac Pro, new iMac or newish MBP is a better performer, especially with FCPX. 4K is relatively easy on these systems. And there, FCPX will tend to run better than Premiere.”

Thanks for the info. I think Premiere might work better with more CPU power and FCPX might work better with more GPU power although both are needed. I think that is why people on these forums have such different results.

[Gabe Strong]

[Joe Marler] “For a 2009 Mac Pro, the average of the fastest entries in the GeekBench 4 CPU database is around 2,500 single-core and 13,800 multi-core. GPU performance is around 110,000, except for one entry using a GTX-980Ti which was 141,000.”

Well, not sure why you are taking ‘an average of the entries in the CPU database.’ That is a little
like averaging the speeds of any GPU anyone puts into the 2009 Mac Pro. The speed of the
2009 Mac Pro in the CPU database, will depend on which CPU a person installed into the computer.
For example, my scores were higher than the scores you quote as my single-core score was over 2,700
and my multi-core score was over 15,000…….and this was with a single processor. People who had a
dual processor and install dual X5690 processors are getting CPU scores in the mid to high 20,000 range.
But plenty of people are installing CPU’s which are not much better than the ones that came ‘stock’ with
the computer….not sure why except that they are cheaper to buy so maybe that’s it. I on the other hand,
decided that if I was going to ‘upgrade’ it, it was worth really upgrading. So I spent the $220 for the X5690
instead of saving a few bucks and getting something slower.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com