December 18 , 2019 – Milwaukee , Wisconsin .
Yesterday , Creation Machines , LLC was the first company to upgrade the processor in Apple’s newest workstation , the Mac Pro 7,1 .
The Mac Pro 7,1 uses standard ( not OEM ) Cascade Lake Xeon processors from a specific subfamily , simply called W Xeons .
Last Friday , we received an eight core 3.5 GHz model ( W-3223 ) of that Mac and immediately examined the processor socket and heatsink for possible upgrades .
Apple uses an unconventional heatsink and processor installation method , compared to the PC side of the industry . It took some time to discover a method to safely remove the stock processor and install the upgrade without completely disassembling the computer .
Replacing the stock processor with an Intel Xeon Gold 6212U , we upgraded the Mac to a 2.4 GHz 24 Core configuration . The processor cost around $2,100 , which is considerably cheaper than the $6,000 2.7 GHz 24 Core option available from Apple .
