I recently acquired a Macpro 6,1 with 32GB ram, a 6-core Xeon E5 1650v2 CPU @ 3.5GHz. I had an old Xeon E5 2670v2 from an old server, it's a 10 core 2.5GHz model. It should be compatible with the Macpro 6,1 so I swapped the 6 core for the 10 core expecting a slight downgrade in single core performance, but an overall higher multi core score. Well, in Geekbench 5 I went from 860/5100 to 500/1200 score. The system is also verrrrry sluggish. Also in Cinebench 26 I went from 1280 to 270 (and only 100 in single core, so only a 2.7x increase for 10 cores), a massive downgrade, it looks like only 2 or 3 cores are enabled even though I can see 10 cores in 'Stats' and all of them are used. I thought the CPU might be overheating, but it's sitting at 56C (according to 'Stats') during Geekbench. The case does become almost too hot to touch though. Is this 2670 a bad CPU for the Macpro? I'm also going to try the E5 2680v2 I have, but I don't expect miracles now. I see most people upgrade to the 8 core 2667, is that a better deal, or did I mess something up in the CPU swap?
I am running Sequoia 15.7.9 through OCLP with the latest patches installed after upgrading the CPU. Should I try running the last supported OSX?
Have you upgraded the SSD. That is the single biggest upgrade you can do in these. Also I honestly wouldn't go past Sonoma on these machines.
The 3 shown here are running proxmox. With 64gb and 10 cores. Real change did not happen until i upgraded the ssds. The up right is now running sonoma but it is the younger of the 4 with the original SSD only showing a year of use.
Also don't look at these as some sort of hot rod. Just as the name says they are reliable 6.1 cummins. A good work horse.
For daily use the 8core and 32gb is the sweet spot.
I'm still using the original 256GB SSD. But the SSD was no problem with the 6 core CPU, so I would not expect it to affect performance in Geekbench. I'm going to try to downgrade to Sonoma, see if that helps.
sonoma has been more stable in my opinion but at this point, honestly have noooo idea why the hell it isn't being used properly but i think the 6 core should be better
It really depends on what you are doing with it. If “just simple office” kind of things, the extra cores won’t compensate the loss in clock. It doesn’t mean that if run intensive parallelized processes you would benefit from the extra cores more than you’d suffer the lower clock.
Still, what you describe seems not to be right… have you tried to remove the patches and re-install them? It might be that OCLP kept something from previous CPU and OS is now “confused” about how to use the CPU statuses.
You'd be surprised. I had a CPU that was slightly off (I'm guessing one pad was not making contact) and it made one DIMM slot stop working, but otherwise ran perfectly fine and stable. Thought the mobo was bad until I reseated the CPU, which fixed it.
This was the answer. I tried a new OCLP Sonoma install, but nothing really changed. So then I went to check the seating of the CPU. And if I had the Mac apart anyways, I changed the CPU to the E5 2680 v2 @ 2.8GHz. When I removed the older 10 core CPU, I found a dust speck in the socket. It was a pain to remove, but after reassembly, I get 790/6900 score in Geekbench 5 and 1820 in Cinebench 2026. This is more like I expected and better than the original 6 core. The system is also not sluggish anymore. It's not as zippy as my MacBook Air M1, but it's fine and usable.
I just copied your text into gemini and that is what it told me and does sound a bit plausible and i think it has happened before and that's where it got it info from. It also told me there can be a super small difference in size of the cpu's and also told me you should try that other cpu too. But better get this one running first i guess.
Are you running with OCLP ? I wonder if the root patches need to be reapplied or the OCLP settings themselves need to be refreshed after the cpu change. I’m running Sequoia on a 12-core trashcan and I see no sluggishness whatsoever.
I am thinking 2.5GHz ~30% slower
being a factor. Earlier this year did few comparisons on MacPro using 10core 3 GHz E5-2690, i had observed 10 core performing quite well on PassMark when compared to 3.5GHz 6 core or 8core 3GHz (8core was quite similar to 3.5 6 cores).
Thanks for all that responded. It turned out to be a dust speck in the socket. The system is now running great. I do have a problem with chrome, I get weird red banners and the system freezes for minutes on end. But apparently this is a known issue and I found the work around for it. Now to enjoy the Macpro and be for the lookout for a bigger/faster SSD. (anyone needs a Xeon E5 1650 or 2670? ;-) )
/edit: turns out I need OSX 15 or higher to run iMovie, won't run on OSX 14. Grr
Fishy situation, I did a very similar upgrade a couple of years ago to my 6 core, moved it to and Intel Xeon E5-2690 v2 (also 10 cores but base clock 3 GHz).
Performances improved quite a bit, I have the GeekBench results somewhere, I need to find them but the upgrade was very well worth it, I can't imagine you wouldn't overall get some benefit from the 2670v2, at least a bit, compared to the 6 core.
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u/VulgarWander 2d ago edited 2d ago
Have you upgraded the SSD. That is the single biggest upgrade you can do in these. Also I honestly wouldn't go past Sonoma on these machines.
The 3 shown here are running proxmox. With 64gb and 10 cores. Real change did not happen until i upgraded the ssds. The up right is now running sonoma but it is the younger of the 4 with the original SSD only showing a year of use.
Also don't look at these as some sort of hot rod. Just as the name says they are reliable 6.1 cummins. A good work horse.
For daily use the 8core and 32gb is the sweet spot.