Building the CHEAPEST 12 core 2013 Mac Pro!

**Upgrading a 2013 Mac Pro: A Journey to Enhance Performance**

In recent weeks, I acquired the cheapest 2013 Mac Pro available on eBay, which turned out to be underwhelming. However, today marks a new chapter as we aim to give this machine a fair chance by upgrading it to its maximum potential with a powerful 12-core processor.

**The Base Model and Its Limitations**

When the 2013 Mac Pro was introduced, the base model featured a quad-core processor. Surprisingly, many of these units are still in circulation today. The processor, while not remarkable, performs similarly to an Ivy Bridge Core i7, which is outdated and unremarkable in terms of performance. Priced at just $20 on eBay, it’s a bargain for the CPU, but considering the $1200 cost of the computer itself, this seems questionable.

**Upgrade Possibilities**

Fortunately, as mentioned previously, the 2013 Mac Pro, often referred to as the "trash can" model, offers some upgrade capabilities. Upgrading RAM and SSDs is straightforward and affordable, especially with an adapter that allows the use of any NVMe SSD. This machine supports up to 128GB of RAM, making it a solid choice for those needing high memory capacity. Additionally, upgrading the CPU is feasible, though more involved than other components.

**Disassembling the Mac Pro**

To upgrade the CPU, disassembly is necessary, and it’s quite an intricate process. Starting with removing the casing and extracting five T10 screws that hold the fan housing in place. Once open, two T7 screws secure a retainer for the fan connector and antenna connector. After removing these, the fan assembly becomes free. It's advisable to clean the fan, as it might be caked with dust, which was the case with mine.

Next, five more T10 screws secure the bottom cover to the chassis. The interconnect board snaps onto the two graphics boards and is held in place by two T7 screws. Removing these allows disconnecting the I/O board from the underside. This reveals the "Darth Vader" heatsink, part of the unified thermal architecture.

Flipping the machine over, two T5 screws hold the power supply cage. Inside, 48 screws connect the PSU to the chassis, with two more on the left side. After removing these, the PSU can be detached. The logic board and CPU are then removed from the heatsink. The CPU is secured with eight T10 screws; the outer four hold it to the heatsink. Once removed, the logic board is only attached by thermal paste, allowing easy removal. Finally, after detaching all components, the machine is fully disassembled.

**Upgrading the CPU**

The highlight of this upgrade is the installation of a 12-core, 24-thread Xeon E5-2697 v2 processor, which significantly outperforms the original quad-core setup. Reassembly proved challenging, particularly reattaching the CPU bracket and logic board, but it was manageable once the process was understood.

**Performance Evaluation**

The new Xeon E5-2697 v2 delivers impressive performance. In Geekbench 4, it scores 30,000, comparable to a Core i9 16-inch MacBook Pro. Geekbench 5 yields 7,000, trailing only slightly behind the Core i9 iMac and base iMac Pro. Cinebench tests show 30-40 CB, nearing 8-core i9 MacBooks.

Thermal performance is remarkable. Even after multiple back-to-back Cinebench runs, temperatures peak at 74 degrees Celsius, with fan noise remaining minimal. Interestingly, increasing fan speed doesn’t reduce CPU temps but does aid in cooling post-load.

**Value Comparison**

The total investment was $1,370, offering performance comparable to a 2019 15-inch MacBook Pro at a fraction of the cost. It outperforms the 2018 Mac Mini across sustained loads and offers better CPU performance than well-equipped 4k iMacs.

However, limitations exist: aged graphics and the need for separate peripherals. While adding an eGPU is possible, Thunderbolt 2 connectivity results in a 30% GPU performance loss, making it less cost-effective compared to newer Macs like the 2018 Mac Mini with Thunderbolt 3.

**Conclusion**

The 2013 Mac Pro, when upgraded, provides remarkable value for those willing to invest time and effort into its customization. While not a recommendation for most users due to graphical limitations, it could make sense in specific contexts, such as pairing with an existing high-quality display setup. This project highlights the potential of older hardware with careful upgrades, proving that even a "trash can" Mac Pro can hold its own against newer models.

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow on social media for more tech content. See you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ena few weeks ago I bought this the cheapest 2013 Mac Pro on eBay and it was not good however today we're gonna give it a fair shake by upgrading it to the max with a 12 core processor so when this guy came out back in 2013 the base model was equipped with a quad core processor and there are a shocking amount of those that are still out there it's really not a very good processor it performs pretty similar to an Ivy Bridge Core i7 which is old not particularly outstanding in any way really the processor itself costs 20 bucks on eBay now don't get me wrong for 20 bucks that's a very good deal for that processor but a twenty dollar CPU and a $1200 computer little questionable however fortunately as I mentioned in the last episode the trash can Mac Pro has some upgrade ability the RAM and SSD are pretty cheap and easy to upgrade especially with the help of an adapter that lets you put literally any nvme SSD in this machine so you could have a couple terabytes of storage and you can have up to 128 gigabytes of RAM which is pretty solid and you can also upgrade the CPU which thanks to the magic of time is only about a hundred and seventy dollars for a twelve core 24 thread processor unfortunately however the process of upgrading the CPU is a lot more involved than the RAM and SSD which really don't take much work at all so without any further ado let's upgrade this mac pro disassembling the Mac Pro starts by removing the casing and twirling out the five t10 the screws that hold the fan housing in place once open there are two t7 screws holding a retainer for the fan connector and the antenna connector after that the fan assembly is free at this point it's probably a good idea to clean out said fan mine was absolutely filthy so we should get better airflow now that the caked up dust is gone next we have five more t10 screws that secure the bottom cover to the chassis this unit contains the air intake vents which could also use some dust removal in fact the whole interior of this machine is a rat's nest of dust and debris with that cleaned out it's time to remove the interconnect board which snaps onto the two graphics boards 2t seven screws hold it in place and with them removed we can disconnect the i/o board from the underside now we can get a better look at the Darth Vader heatsink that comprises the unified thermal architecture of this rather unique workstation let's flip it over and unscrew two t5 screws that hold the power supply cage on inside we'll find 48 screws that connect the PSU to the chassis there's two more on the left side that we'll remove after the PSU is out now that those screws are out we can remove the PSU from the Mac but make sure to watch out for the exposed innards at both ends next we need to remove the logic board and the CPU from the heatsink the CPU is held on with eight t10 screws the outer four hold it to the heatsink so we'll remove them first once they're gone the logic board is only secured to the heatsink by the thermal paste on the CPU so it comes off very easily now the logic board is free but the CPU is still mounted to it so we'll take off the remaining 4010 screws and then remove the retaining bracket the CPU backplate and then we can lift the logic board off of the CPU finally we'll wipe off the thermal paste from the heatsink and the mac pro is fully disassembled that's a lot of disassembly to get at the CPU in this machine one of the reasons why this design was so unpopular speaking of which let's see our much-improved 12 cord 24 thread monster that's going to make this a much more powerful machine this xeon e5 26 97 v 2 should demolish the old processor reassembling this machine is quite frustrating getting the cpu bracket and logic board reattached was really annoying but once I got that out of the way we can reassemble our new and improved 12 core Mac Pro so regardless of the conclusions that we can draw about the overall package of this 2013 Mac Pro I am very impressed with the value of the xeon e5 26.97 v2 cpu I'm actually kind of amazed at how well it performs for a hundred and seventy-five dollars ensure the single-threaded performance isn't fantastic it's still after all an Ivy Bridge era CPU however the single threaded performance isn't bad and the multi-threaded performance is excellent in Geekbench 4 we get a score of 30,000 and Geekbench 5 scores 7,000 which is pretty similar to the core i9 16 inch MacBook Pro and not too far behind the eye 9 iMac and even the base iMac Pro those are impressive numbers considering this machines age and cost Cinebench also shows an impressive 30 to 40 CB putting it close to 8 core i9 MacBooks and again behind the eye 9 iMac and base iMac Pro it is worth noting that when you compare this particular Mac Pro to the only other desktop besides the new Mac Pro that Apple sells the 2018 Mac Mini we outperform every single version of it under sustained load the Mac Pro handles these 12 cores with ease it boosts up 300 megahertz over the 2.7 gigahertz base clock speed and sustains that load indefinitely more impressive though are the temperatures even after back-to-back-to-back-to-back Cinebench runs for 20 minutes it peaks at 74 degrees Celsius that is insane for a Mac the thermal architecture may have been a limitation for the versatility of this machine but it's definitely good at keeping the CPU running well I should also mention that those cpu temps are all at idle fan speeds even if you run Cinebench back-to-back the fan doesn't ramp up we're currently six Cinebench runs in this is the sound coming out of the machine nothing and this is peak fan noise this is the loudest the machine gets and strangely maxing out the fan doesn't improve the CPU temps they stay at 74 degrees although it does cool down a lot faster once the load stops which makes sense so for overall value how does this stack up well my total cost for this machine was one thousand three hundred and seventy dollars and it offers performance that's actually remarkably close in terms of graphics CPU storage and RAM to a 20-19 15-inch MacBook Pro even accounting for the wild depreciation on those 15-inch MacBook s' this is significantly less expensive and it also undercuts well equipped 4k IMAX while packing better CPU performance the main downside to this machine is the age and the graphics plus the fact that you'll have to buy a separate mouse and keyboard so the big question is is it worth it well I wouldn't recommend going out and buying a 12 core mac pro most of them are over $2,000 and the value is questionable at that point even given the fact that some of those are probably gonna have more RAM larger SSD maybe the better graphics what have you however I think in this scenario paying under $1400 and upgrading it yourself there are some situations where I could see that making sense provided of course you are able to undertake the pretty intense disassembly that is required to do it it would be a lot easier to recommend doing this if it weren't for the graphical limitations this weird and funky machine has upgrading this machine to the D 500 or D 700 graphics is a no-go because they are prohibitively expensive to get a hold of however you can add an e GPU to boost compute performance as with a lot of things about this machine it is old we're running Thunderbolt - so you're gonna lose probably almost 30% of your GPU performance if you do that so even that might not be the most cost-effective compared to getting a 20-18 Mac Mini with a core i7 where you'll lose less GPU performance over a thunderbolt 3 connection compared to Thunderbolt 2 so here's my take on this I think for most cases buying a 5k iMac or a 4k iMac or even a 20-18 Mac Mini would probably be a better bet and sure this is less expensive than a core I nine iMac this is less expensive than a core i7 4k iMac but let's not forget that we aren't limited by the age of this machine in what we can do with it and it's important not to underestimate the cost of a monitor if you don't have a monitor and you're buying a whole set up you're gonna have to add a couple hundred bucks for a nice monitor if you want to use this thing for professional tasks content creation and that sort of thing if you already have like a MacBook Pro and an LG ultra fine 5k display and you want to do something with this by a quad-core upgraded to a 12 core I think it's actually pretty decent value huh that's weird is this is this a situation where a trash can Mac Pro might actually make sense mmm kind of a surprising note to end on but that'll do it let me know in the comments below if there's anything else that you'd like to see me do with this 12 core Mac Pro and as usual don't forget to Like comment and subscribe please consider following me on twitter at luke me on e and don't forget to check out my subreddit if you have any questions and with that I'll see you all in the next videoa few weeks ago I bought this the cheapest 2013 Mac Pro on eBay and it was not good however today we're gonna give it a fair shake by upgrading it to the max with a 12 core processor so when this guy came out back in 2013 the base model was equipped with a quad core processor and there are a shocking amount of those that are still out there it's really not a very good processor it performs pretty similar to an Ivy Bridge Core i7 which is old not particularly outstanding in any way really the processor itself costs 20 bucks on eBay now don't get me wrong for 20 bucks that's a very good deal for that processor but a twenty dollar CPU and a $1200 computer little questionable however fortunately as I mentioned in the last episode the trash can Mac Pro has some upgrade ability the RAM and SSD are pretty cheap and easy to upgrade especially with the help of an adapter that lets you put literally any nvme SSD in this machine so you could have a couple terabytes of storage and you can have up to 128 gigabytes of RAM which is pretty solid and you can also upgrade the CPU which thanks to the magic of time is only about a hundred and seventy dollars for a twelve core 24 thread processor unfortunately however the process of upgrading the CPU is a lot more involved than the RAM and SSD which really don't take much work at all so without any further ado let's upgrade this mac pro disassembling the Mac Pro starts by removing the casing and twirling out the five t10 the screws that hold the fan housing in place once open there are two t7 screws holding a retainer for the fan connector and the antenna connector after that the fan assembly is free at this point it's probably a good idea to clean out said fan mine was absolutely filthy so we should get better airflow now that the caked up dust is gone next we have five more t10 screws that secure the bottom cover to the chassis this unit contains the air intake vents which could also use some dust removal in fact the whole interior of this machine is a rat's nest of dust and debris with that cleaned out it's time to remove the interconnect board which snaps onto the two graphics boards 2t seven screws hold it in place and with them removed we can disconnect the i/o board from the underside now we can get a better look at the Darth Vader heatsink that comprises the unified thermal architecture of this rather unique workstation let's flip it over and unscrew two t5 screws that hold the power supply cage on inside we'll find 48 screws that connect the PSU to the chassis there's two more on the left side that we'll remove after the PSU is out now that those screws are out we can remove the PSU from the Mac but make sure to watch out for the exposed innards at both ends next we need to remove the logic board and the CPU from the heatsink the CPU is held on with eight t10 screws the outer four hold it to the heatsink so we'll remove them first once they're gone the logic board is only secured to the heatsink by the thermal paste on the CPU so it comes off very easily now the logic board is free but the CPU is still mounted to it so we'll take off the remaining 4010 screws and then remove the retaining bracket the CPU backplate and then we can lift the logic board off of the CPU finally we'll wipe off the thermal paste from the heatsink and the mac pro is fully disassembled that's a lot of disassembly to get at the CPU in this machine one of the reasons why this design was so unpopular speaking of which let's see our much-improved 12 cord 24 thread monster that's going to make this a much more powerful machine this xeon e5 26 97 v 2 should demolish the old processor reassembling this machine is quite frustrating getting the cpu bracket and logic board reattached was really annoying but once I got that out of the way we can reassemble our new and improved 12 core Mac Pro so regardless of the conclusions that we can draw about the overall package of this 2013 Mac Pro I am very impressed with the value of the xeon e5 26.97 v2 cpu I'm actually kind of amazed at how well it performs for a hundred and seventy-five dollars ensure the single-threaded performance isn't fantastic it's still after all an Ivy Bridge era CPU however the single threaded performance isn't bad and the multi-threaded performance is excellent in Geekbench 4 we get a score of 30,000 and Geekbench 5 scores 7,000 which is pretty similar to the core i9 16 inch MacBook Pro and not too far behind the eye 9 iMac and even the base iMac Pro those are impressive numbers considering this machines age and cost Cinebench also shows an impressive 30 to 40 CB putting it close to 8 core i9 MacBooks and again behind the eye 9 iMac and base iMac Pro it is worth noting that when you compare this particular Mac Pro to the only other desktop besides the new Mac Pro that Apple sells the 2018 Mac Mini we outperform every single version of it under sustained load the Mac Pro handles these 12 cores with ease it boosts up 300 megahertz over the 2.7 gigahertz base clock speed and sustains that load indefinitely more impressive though are the temperatures even after back-to-back-to-back-to-back Cinebench runs for 20 minutes it peaks at 74 degrees Celsius that is insane for a Mac the thermal architecture may have been a limitation for the versatility of this machine but it's definitely good at keeping the CPU running well I should also mention that those cpu temps are all at idle fan speeds even if you run Cinebench back-to-back the fan doesn't ramp up we're currently six Cinebench runs in this is the sound coming out of the machine nothing and this is peak fan noise this is the loudest the machine gets and strangely maxing out the fan doesn't improve the CPU temps they stay at 74 degrees although it does cool down a lot faster once the load stops which makes sense so for overall value how does this stack up well my total cost for this machine was one thousand three hundred and seventy dollars and it offers performance that's actually remarkably close in terms of graphics CPU storage and RAM to a 20-19 15-inch MacBook Pro even accounting for the wild depreciation on those 15-inch MacBook s' this is significantly less expensive and it also undercuts well equipped 4k IMAX while packing better CPU performance the main downside to this machine is the age and the graphics plus the fact that you'll have to buy a separate mouse and keyboard so the big question is is it worth it well I wouldn't recommend going out and buying a 12 core mac pro most of them are over $2,000 and the value is questionable at that point even given the fact that some of those are probably gonna have more RAM larger SSD maybe the better graphics what have you however I think in this scenario paying under $1400 and upgrading it yourself there are some situations where I could see that making sense provided of course you are able to undertake the pretty intense disassembly that is required to do it it would be a lot easier to recommend doing this if it weren't for the graphical limitations this weird and funky machine has upgrading this machine to the D 500 or D 700 graphics is a no-go because they are prohibitively expensive to get a hold of however you can add an e GPU to boost compute performance as with a lot of things about this machine it is old we're running Thunderbolt - so you're gonna lose probably almost 30% of your GPU performance if you do that so even that might not be the most cost-effective compared to getting a 20-18 Mac Mini with a core i7 where you'll lose less GPU performance over a thunderbolt 3 connection compared to Thunderbolt 2 so here's my take on this I think for most cases buying a 5k iMac or a 4k iMac or even a 20-18 Mac Mini would probably be a better bet and sure this is less expensive than a core I nine iMac this is less expensive than a core i7 4k iMac but let's not forget that we aren't limited by the age of this machine in what we can do with it and it's important not to underestimate the cost of a monitor if you don't have a monitor and you're buying a whole set up you're gonna have to add a couple hundred bucks for a nice monitor if you want to use this thing for professional tasks content creation and that sort of thing if you already have like a MacBook Pro and an LG ultra fine 5k display and you want to do something with this by a quad-core upgraded to a 12 core I think it's actually pretty decent value huh that's weird is this is this a situation where a trash can Mac Pro might actually make sense mmm kind of a surprising note to end on but that'll do it let me know in the comments below if there's anything else that you'd like to see me do with this 12 core Mac Pro and as usual don't forget to Like comment and subscribe please consider following me on twitter at luke me on e and don't forget to check out my subreddit if you have any questions and with that I'll see you all in the next video\n"