Mac Pro Upgradability

Mattitude · 14 Nov 2008 at 23:01

If i were to get one of the first mac pro's to support the intel processors could i keep upgrading the processor? I'm not sure when the first model was released and what processor but say it was a mac pro with 2 dual core processors, could i then change those processors to the latest processors? or have the sockets changed since then?

Same question about the ram, has the limit changed since the first mac pro's or do the updates consist or processor, graphics and memory updates?

Again the graphics card say i got like a 7300GT if thats the right card, could i upgrade that to a 8800gt for example now from a very first model?

iraiguana · 15 Nov 2008 at 13:30

I heard the cpu's were fixed and so you could not upgrade it yourself ?

Ram you can upgrade away fairly happily, can't remember the original limit of ram they had but would imagine somewhere like 8-16Gig

If you can get a "mac" 8800gt then that will also work.

Will_3rd · 15 Nov 2008 at 13:36

the processor is upgradable, but you will be limited to ones that are compatible with socket 771.

memory is upgradable, think at one stage it was limited to 16GB. But as bigger DIMMs are out now think it can go up to 64GB.

you will have to get graphic cards with Mac BIOS' on them, but you can flash equivalent cards to the their Mac counterparts.

iraiguana · 15 Nov 2008 at 16:52

Ta will, was not sure if it was locked in or not. Guess that would more likely be the laptops than the mac pro.

Will_3rd · 15 Nov 2008 at 19:24

iraiguana said:
Ta will, was not sure if it was locked in or not. Guess that would more likely be the laptops than the mac pro.

AFAIK the Mac Pro and Mac Mini are the only ones with sockets that you can upgrade.

Chimerical · 16 Nov 2008 at 14:52

The CPU's on the Mac Pro are upgradeable, but doesn't it void the warranty?

Caged · 17 Nov 2008 at 01:17

I wouldn't buy any Mac with a view to upgrading anything as dramatic as a CPU, personally. I'd say you'd be safe upgrading to any CPU in the same range as they came with when they were released, but nothing past that.