UPGRADING the iMac Pro!?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
3,154 words · ~15 min read
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Every so often, and I hate to admit it,
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even I run into some kind of an issue
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where the only viable solution is to use a Mac.
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In my case, it was that I was trying to work on a review
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of this archival tape storage backup system
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and the Windows software experience was,
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to put it as politically correctly as I can, awful.
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So my solution, some kind of Mac machine
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with 10 gigabit networking
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and getting that going on the MacBook Pro
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wasn't gonna be a thing
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because even though I found a network card
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with literally the exact same chipset
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that is in the iMac Pro
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and plugged it into an external enclosure,
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macOS just wouldn't pick it up
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because whatever, you Linus.
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So I dug the iMac Pro out and then I went,
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oh right, the whole reason we were opening
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this stupid thing up in the first place
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was that iFixit sponsored us
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to do a video on how to upgrade it.
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So I guess that's what we're gonna do.
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We're gonna go from eight cores and 32 gigs of RAM
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to theoretically 128 gigs of RAM and 18 cores,
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all while saving $1,000.
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Sounds pretty good, right?
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Let's hope it works.
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Oh, you cut audio as well?
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I did not cut audio.
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You didn't cut audio?
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No.
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Okay, sorry, I don't think I have to re-sync.
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But he did cut the audio.
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So it's not gonna sound very good.
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Sorry about that.
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Step one of any upgrade is to run some benchmarks
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to establish a baseline.
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Oh, actually, no, hey, it's done.
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All right, so this gives us some idea of where we're starting.
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Here's our 32 gigs of RAM.
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We've got a Xeon W2140B.
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So this is fairly similar,
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although not exactly the same as the 2145
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that's worth about $1,100.
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So our base iMac Pro upgraded
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compared to buying a top-of-the-line model
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from Apple in the first place
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gives us a difference of about $250.
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And we're still gonna have an eight-core processor
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and 32 gigs of RAM to flip on Craigslist.
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We'll be using our iFixit kit
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along with one of their guides to complete our upgrade,
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starting with cutting the adhesive
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around the edge of the display
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and disconnecting the three ribbon cables
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before carefully putting it aside.
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And all without breaking it.
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Take that, Anthony.
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That's okay.
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He knows what he did.
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First order of business is we remove the fan.
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You just need to turn them counterclockwise
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until they start making that noise.
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And they're gonna be retained
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by the little rubber washers that are in there.
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Now there's two little connectors here.
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One right there, one right there.
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Those power the fans and you can just pull these out.
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Be very careful around this power supply.
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No touching.
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You could actually die.
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Next, we're gonna pull out Apple's excellent Wi-Fi card.
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And we're gonna stash this out.
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Stash those screws,
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along with this handy dandy little shield right about there.
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Is that it?
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Now all we gotta do is pull some of these other cables out
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and their covers.
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And we can go ahead and pull this board out.
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And all these little antenna connectors.
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These guys are gonna come off too.
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These are really fragile.
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RF shield or something down there.
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That's getting in my way.
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I wonder if I could make my life easier
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by making it temporarily much harder.
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Let's pull this speaker out.
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This is kind of a do as I say, not as I do moment.
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We're having right now.
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Boards out and I didn't get zapped.
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So now that we've got this opened up for our upgrade,
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we can talk about what exactly in the iMac Pro is upgradable
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because frankly, it's not much.
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Over the years, Apple has gone from
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with the original Mac Pro being very upgradable,
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PCI Express cards, CPUs, GPUs, RAM, storage,
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pretty much everything, just like a normal tower,
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to the new Mac Pro, the trashcan Mac Pro
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that theoretically had upgrades.
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Upgradable GPUs, but I don't know
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if they ever actually followed up with anything newer.
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Had upgradable RAM and had upgradable CPU and storage
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if you were willing to put a lot of work into it,
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to this iMac Pro where even,
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so the GPU is actually baked right into the motherboard here.
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So that's where our Vega 56 is.
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So that will not be upgradable to the storage.
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So the storage theoretically can be pulled off and replaced,
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but because of this T2 encryption chip is actually tied
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into the motherboard in such a way that
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if you swapped them out, it wouldn't work.
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And pretty much only the CPU and RAM are upgradable.
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And I mean, the CPU is even a theoretical one.
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I don't know if anyone has actually done a CPU swap on it yet.
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It's possible that they've even locked out the BIOS.
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So I'm not a hundred percent certain
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if that aspect of this upgrade is going to work.
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So let's find out then, shall we?
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Let's take off these stickers here that were the problem.
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And the reason that Apple refused to give us
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their replacement pricing on the logic board.
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So technically it's not that they're denying us
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warranty service,
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but they were definitely treating us differently.
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Whether it is legal for them to treat us differently
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because of a sticker having been broken or not
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is something that is very much an ongoing debate
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and something that if you're down in the US,
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you should probably contact your local
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congressional representative about.
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So there's eight screws that we're going to use.
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We're going to have to pull off.
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Wow. There's a lot of tension on those mounts.
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I'm having fun. You having fun?
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Oh yeah. Good times.
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Actually it just goes right metal on PCB.
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How interesting.
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So you might not think that we'd have to remove the screws
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from the GPU here,
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but the reason that we do is actually
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because the entire cooling unit is one piece.
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So it's connected by heat pipes between both CPU and GPU.
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So it's connected to these metal cooling fins here.
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Holy crap.
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Okay. I did not see that one coming.
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What the heck Apple.
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So they don't use the retention mechanism for the CPU
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that is normally part of the socket design,
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I guess to save some space on the board,
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which means that when you take the heat sink off,
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it just rips the CPU right out of the board.
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Fortunately that came out clean.
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So I don't think we're going to run into any trouble.
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And Apple expects even their authorized service providers
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to get boards with CPUs, RAM and SSDs pre-installed on them
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as a single unit,
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even though they are socketed and they are not soldered.
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So I guess this isn't supposed to be a problem
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for the end user,
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but I'm still not a fan of designs like this
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that just the thermal paste just pulls the CPU
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out of the socket.
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Go ahead and cut.
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Kidding.
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Anyway, enough about that.
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This is upgrade guide, not complain about the process guide.
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So right here around the CPU socket area
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is pretty much everything we can do.
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So we're going to pull out our eight gig sticks of RAM.
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So we're going to be careful here,
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not to have them pop out of the slot,
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because if they did,
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they could accidentally bend the pins in the CPU socket.
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Then we're going to go ahead and take our 18,
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18 core CPU.
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Currently Intel's highest end workstation chip.
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There we go.
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So they haven't done anything funky
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with the spec of the socket.
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Just goes in a little something like that.
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Now we get to crack open the seals
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on two grand worth of memory.
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Look at all the DRAM packages on this thing.
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Line that bad boy up.
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One, two, three, four.
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The only thing I regret,
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is using a green PCB.
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So now we get to pippity pop our cooling solution back on.
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Going to have to,
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we're probably just going to reuse the thermal compound
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for the GPU,
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but this CPU situation might need a little bit of help.
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I got to like pry this baby out of here.
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Oh, okay.
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Well that was easier than it looked like it was going to be.
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Alrighty then.
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We'll put on some new thermal compound here.
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What?
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Just pop that on just like that.
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Oh, oh, oh.
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Okay. We made one small mistake.
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We're going to have to put in these two RAM sticks afterward.
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Hey, don't blame me.
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You guys subscribed to this mess.
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Pop that back in there.
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Go ahead and turn this over and get that bolted down.
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Now with our upgrades done,
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we're going to flip the machine back over.
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Now it is really important because of the way that CPU
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is just going to pop out of the socket.
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If we move the heat pipe cooler,
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we're going to make sure we hold that in place.
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Oh boy.
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Oh boy.
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Yep.
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Hold that in place against the board.
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Oh, good.
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Our CPU didn't pop out.
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Then we're going to go ahead and put our mounting bracket
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on the back, back on.
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Now this is a little bit tricky here
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because there are two different kinds of screws
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and you need to make sure you put the right ones
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in the right holes.
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So the ones with the kind of built-in standoff on them,
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those go the orientation we were looking at the board here,
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top left and bottom right.
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The ones with the much shorter posts,
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those go top right, bottom left.
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If you screw this up, best case scenario,
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you've got kind of wonky mounting pressure.
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Worst case scenario, you will damage your board.
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Boy, this is a lot more pressure
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than I'm comfortable putting on a motherboard.
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I hate these mounts.
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Okay.
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Gorgeous.
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Now the GPU is not nearly as scary
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because there's no pins that you can accidentally
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rip the CPU out of and then accidentally put it in sideways.
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You don't have to mangle them up or anything.
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Oh, by the way, I'm sorry, off camera,
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I did wipe the thermal compound off the GPU
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and I did reapply, but I'm not gonna pull this back off
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to show you guys that.
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So to put our GPU cooler back on,
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see these little cutouts right here?
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So just look at these two holes here
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and then the shape of the components underneath them
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and you won't be able to screw up which one goes which way.
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In this case, all the screws are the same.
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So we just go ahead and position these bad boys
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and then screw them down.
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Once again, applying far more pressure
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than I am super comfortable with.
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Beautiful.
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That is our upgraded logic board.
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And they said it couldn't be done.
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Now to put it together and find out if it works.
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One thing we're gonna do to make our lives
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a little bit easier compared to when Lewis and I did this
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is we're gonna pull out the speakers,
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put those back in after we've installed the logic board.
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Let me see.
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There we go.
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Actually, that should be fine.
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All right.
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One of the keys at this stage is making sure
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that you don't accidentally cover up some of the connectors
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that you're gonna need to plug back into your motherboard.
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Now the last thing we wanna do is accidentally scratch
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the PCB with one of these standoffs here
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while we're inserting the board.
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This is one nice thing about the design.
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They've got this rubber stopper here
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so you can't let it fall down or anything.
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Now let's go around and do our motherboard screws.
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Gonna arbitrarily pick this one to start with.
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We want those as centered as possible
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because it can affect the alignment of your rear ports
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if you don't have the board in perfectly.
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We're gonna need to lift up this side of the board here
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a little bit.
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Perfect.
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I'm gonna do these power ones now.
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There we go.
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Oh, beautiful.
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Okay.
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One little trick, guys.
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This speaker connector right here has this little loop here.
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So we're gonna go ahead and put that on just partway.
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We're gonna plug it in.
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Shoop.
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Then we're gonna tighten it down.
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While we're at it,
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we can start connecting some of the back ribbon cables.
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There we go.
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All right, we're gonna check our rear port alignment
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at this point.
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Looking pretty slick.
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All right.
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Now we're gonna throw in our other two power screws.
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Tighten those up.
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Don't wanna lose connection here.
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There we go.
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And we can start connecting the rest
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of the connectors on the back of our board.
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We can go ahead and put our speaker back in
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at this point too.
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How's that cable managed?
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Feeling good now.
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Now we're gonna hook up all the antennas.
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These are really fragile connectors.
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Please be careful.
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Now we're just gonna stick this shield
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into its little cable management slot here.
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There we go.
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It should sit on kind of a little hinge like that.
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Then we're gonna adjust these antenna wires
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and screw it in.
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Now this motherboard mounting screw,
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we're gonna have to take out temporarily.
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We're gonna put this little shield in place.
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Screw it back in partway.
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Screw in the other side.
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Being very careful not to drop it.
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Undoing all of the work we just did.
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And we can go ahead and tighten down our motherboard screw.
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All right, now we're gonna throw the speakers in
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and we are almost home free.
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So where did this go?
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Yep, there it goes.
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Now we've got a somewhat obnoxious task ahead of us.
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Because the display is glued on,
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it means we've gotta remove all of the old adhesive.
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So this will take a little while.
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On there too.
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That won't hurt.
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Now that that's all off,
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I'm gonna stretch out my ARM a little bit here.
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All that is left is for us to put on new adhesive strips
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and put on the screen.
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Be really careful with these.
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You don't get two cracks at them.
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So you can see they got this little hole up here
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for alignment, whatever it's for.
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Nailed that one.
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Onto the next.
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These last two along the bottom are the trickiest
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just because this kit was designed, as far as I can tell,
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with the original Retina iMac in mind.
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And there might be just some slight,
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ever so slight differences.
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So you're gonna have like this little tab doodad here
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that kind of doesn't really go anywhere.
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It's not a big deal.
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Or I don't know, maybe it goes along this thing here.
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That really doesn't matter.
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There, boom.
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Minor detail.
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Guess I better put the cooler back in.
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LOL.
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And also these two screws right there.
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Now.
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The trickiest part.
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Removing the adhesive strips,
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putting the display back on.
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We're gonna put on these three cables first though.
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Apple's gonna be watching this video.
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They're gonna be like,
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we want to recruit Linus
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to be an Apple authorized service provider.
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Looks like it goes right there.
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Yep.
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And then put the latch down.
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Boop.
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Oh, it looks like that one went in super easy.
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And this guy.
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Never a problem, you know?
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Now.
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This is not attached.
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This is very scary.
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But I want to know if this thing powers on
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before I waste my adhesive and an hour of my life
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peeling it all back off and reapplying it again.
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So let's go ahead and get this plugged in
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and see how she goes.
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Ooh.
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Ha.
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Okay.
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Jesus.
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Had me going for a minute there.
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I don't use Macs much.
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I don't know how long they take to boot up.
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Whatever.
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Let's get this keyboard and mouse hooked up.
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Let's see how much performance we got.
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Whoa.
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Now we're not out of the woods yet.
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There's a distinct possibility
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that some of our stuff might not have been detected.
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So, okay, nevermind.
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That ruined the suspense and anticipation
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because there it is.
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Intel Xeon W2195.
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That's our 18 core processor
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with 128 gigs of DDR4 memory.
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So let's run our benchmarks, shall we?
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So a quick Google search online tells me it should be
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in the neighborhood of 50,000.
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Come on, show me the big score.
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There it is.
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So we just crushed our old performance.
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We are right up there
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with the regular factory Apple iMac Pro with the 18 core,
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but we saved ourselves a bunch of money
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at, of course, the expense of our time.
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Fantastic.
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This thing is now officially tricked right out.
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And, of course, this video wouldn't have been possible
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without iFixit sponsoring it.
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So a massive thank you to iFixit for sponsoring this video,
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sending over the RAM upgrade,
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sending over the adhesive strips,
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their tool kit that was perfect,
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had everything we needed in it.
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You guys can check out iFixit.com.
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They've got tons of great guides,
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as well as, of course, their comprehensive lineup of tools,
19:17
replacement parts, and all that good stuff
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at the link in the video description.
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So thanks for watching, guys.
19:22
If you disliked this video,
19:23
you can hit that button.
19:24
But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed,
19:26
maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff
19:27
we featured at the link in the video description.
19:30
Also down there is our merch store,
19:31
which has cool shirts like this one,
19:33
and our community forum, which you should totally join.
19:36
If you noticed that we had some audio issues
19:37
for part of this video, you can thank David.
19:41
You can thank him in the comments.
19:43
I can't be in the video.
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Can't talk about it.
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I can talk about whoever I want.
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I'm the CEO of the company.
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That's a good one, sorry.