Mac Pro 2009 to 2012 CPU Pricing & Specs

Hey everyone, so I’ve gotten a sweet deal on a Mac Pro that came to my work one day and now it is my daily desktop.
It replaced my Lenovo Erazer X700 gaming desktop, that thing is loud… dunno which fan it is thats so noisy. :O One day I’ll get back to it.

A N Y W H O

I am yearning to upgrade my Mac Pro, I’m not one to complain, it is decently spec’d for anyone.
S/N C07J805BF4MC, here’s the specs from EveryMacLookup – 3.2GHz QuadCore W3565 & ATI HD 5770 GPU, I added an SSD, & have 3TB for data <3.
I’ve upgraded the RAM to 48GB thanks to the 16GB modules ($40+ each on eBay, we’ve sold 128GB RAM kits for $400 in bulk, making $2000 to $3000 each sale)
When I was streaming on OBS, I did notice that the CPU activity hurts a bit… and when rendering videos, it might take longer than usual.
Being somewhat neurotic from having buyer’s remorse, I need to research what is a good price for a processor.

Thankfully, there is a all to one resource to go to for all Mac Pros, from the early 2006 models to the 2013 TrashCan that stayed the same price for years without any performance upgrades.

Many thanks to ActionableMango and Bokkow of MacRumours for having price & compatibility guide. I’ll spare the details, they explain everything necessary.

But, I need to get down and do the data analysis. I know the “cheese grader” Mac Pro might look old to a lot of people, but its expandability against the Mac Pro 6,1 aka late 2013, Cylinder, Tube or Trash Can MP is superb.

I’ve been told the GTX 970 is recommended, and the GTX 1080 is bottlenecked by its PCIe lanes. :O, and I’m in AMD hell right now thanks to cyrptomining, but I ain’t that bothered much as some decent ATI/AMD HD5xxx and later come by my work, so I could get a cheap upgrade!

I’ve been wanting to get a dual slot CPU tray so I can bang out and get the top spec CPU to get or best price/performance model.
Originally I thought having a dual slot CPU would mean double performance for my system, however using passmark benchmarks, it doesn’t translate to double performance. However, having dual CPUs yields about to having from 1.5 to 1.7 times the performance of just one CPU. Yes, if you are running a single processor socket machine, then more cores/GHz is better, but when it comes to having dual CPUs, the 12 cores (2x 6core) seem to get less performance increase than a eight core (2x 4core) system. When looking at passmark we can see how the single core performance affects dual multicores.

You might not need more cores, when it comes to rendering, Puget Systems did an excellent article onto where the core performance dropoff is for Adobe Premiere. Granted, they didn’t test a plethora of processors, but we see that after 8 cores, the system doesn’t seem to yield the same raw computing performance afterwards.

SpoonFeed me!

Best Processor by Passmark score (CPU, Score, GHz, Price, Solo/Dual)
All of these are six core CPUs

1. W3690   – 9373 – 3.46 to 3.7 – $105 to 140 – Single only
2. W3680   – 9204 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $65 to 90      – Single only
3. i7-990X – 9146 – 3.33 to 3.7 – $180 to 330 – Single only
4. X5690    – 9027 – 3.46 to 3.7 – $95 to 150  – Dual Capable
5. i7-980X – 8871 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $108 – 200   – Single only
6. X5680   – 8748 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $50 to 80     – Dual Capable
7. X5679   – 8652 – 3.2 to 3.6   – $41 to 85     – Dual Capable
8. X5675   – 8527 – 3.06 to 3.5 – $40 to 80     – Dual Capable
9. i7-970    – 8443 – 3.2 to 3.5   – $70 to 120   – Single Only
10. W3670  – 8223 – 3.2 to 3.5    – $45 to 65    – Single Only

Best Dual CPU Passmark Score (CPU, Score, GHz, Price, Efficiency)
All are SixCore Westmere unless stated

1. X5690 – 14152 – 3.46 to 3.7 – $95 to 150 – 1.568
2. X5680  – 13804 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $50 to 80   – 1.578
3. X5679  – 13618 – 3.2   to 3.6 – $80 to 160 – 1.574
4. X5675  – 12737 – 3.06 to 3.5 – $90 to 105 – 1.493
5. X5670  – 12500 – 2.93 to 3.3 – $44 to 70   – 1.560
6. X5660  – 11820 – 2.8   to 3.2 – $40 to 70    – 1.522
7. X5677  – 11586 – 3.46 to 3.6 – $80 to ???   – 1.659 (Quadcore)
8. X5650  – 11527 – 2.66 to 3.1 – $30 to 45    – 1.538
9. W5590 – 10445 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $90 to 140 – 1.689 (Quadcore Nehalem)
10. E5646  – 10438 – 2.4 to 2.7   – $20 to 31   – 1595

Best Processor by Dual CPU Efficiency (CPU, Dual Score, Single, GHz, Dual lowest Price)
I divided Dual CPU score against single CPU. All of these are quadcores.

1. X5667 – 8817 v 4722    – 3.06 to 3.5 – $25 to 50
2. W5580 – 10110 v 5836 – 3.2 to 3.5   – $30 to 48
3. X5570 – 9601 v 5679    – 2.93 to 3.3 – $10 to 23
4. W5590 – 10445 v 6183 – 3.33 to 3.6 – $90 to 140
5.  E5620 – 8207 v 4866   – 2.4 to 2.7   – $12 to 18

What are my picks from out of all these?

1. X5670 – 2.93GHz – 8011 v 12500 – $55 dual entry – Best Price/Performance
2.  W3690 – 3.46GHz – 9373 – $105 – Highest Benchmarks – Single CPU Only
3. W5580 – 3.2GHz – 5836 v 10110 – $30 dual entry – Best QuadCore Price/Performance. Best 4,1 Mac CPU before firmware mod
4. X5650 – 2.66GHz – 7495 v 11527 – $30 dual entry – Great dual CPU price, decent performance
5. idk what to put in fifth…

Anyways the data speaks for itself, because im such a good data analyser *smug laugh*

You can view the spreadsheet here or just nab it from the source via Google Sheets. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lM6E4NsuHtwxXoWhC13o6L0m-OGOVDfayVIH3KTmJkA/edit#gid=0