$100 4,1 MP?

[christiann]

Hi all,

I have the opportunity to buy a 2009 4,1 Mac Pro for $100. I currently use a 2013 iMac but I want something more powerful that I can upgrade.

Specs:

2.66GHz 4-Core Intel Xeon
8GB RAM
240GB EVO SSD + 2TB HDD


I have extra parts, so what do you think? Should I pop an NVMe drive and some SSDs in this thing? Or is it just too old for everyday use?

 

[ahurst]

With NVMe storage and a modern GPU, a 4,1 (upgraded to a 5,1) should be able to run modern macOS via OpenCore Legacy Patcher pretty well! However, the question is how long that's going to be a viable solution: future macOS releases might break any one of the workarounds the OCLP team have come up with.

I guess the main question is: what are you planning on using the machine for, and how much are you willing to spend modernizing it to run recent macOS versions? Depending on the specs of your 2013 iMac, the Pro's CPU might be a fair bit slower for many tasks than your iMac (depending on your chip). Conversely, you can get a much newer and stronger GPU in the Mac Pro if you're willing to pay for one.

 

[christiann]

With NVMe storage and a modern GPU, a 4,1 (upgraded to a 5,1) should be able to run modern macOS via OpenCore Legacy Patcher pretty well! However, the question is how long that's going to be a viable solution: future macOS releases might break any one of the workarounds the OCLP team have come up with.

I guess the main question is: what are you planning on using the machine for, and how much are you willing to spend modernizing it to run recent macOS versions? Depending on the specs of your 2013 iMac, the Pro's CPU might be a fair bit slower for many tasks than your iMac (depending on your chip). Conversely, you can get a much newer and stronger GPU in the Mac Pro if you're willing to pay for one.

The reason I’m looking at a Mac Pro is so that I can put in an RX 580 and 48GB of memory, as well as multiple SSDs and NVMe. Right now, my iMac is the maxed out 21.5” model with the 3.1GHz i7 and 16GB RAM, as well as the NVMe SSD.

 

[MarkC426]

With no HDD, is it listed as working.....?
You could find power supply gone or backplane or any number of things, but then it's a bargain at 120.

Also to note gpu's/ram etc are stupid prices at the minute.
And you cannot use OpenCore with that cpu, so latest OS Mojave.

Probably worth getting just for the spare case and other components, if all else fails.

 

[christiann]

With no HDD, is it listed as working.....?
You could find power supply gone or backplane or any number of things, but then it's a bargain at 120.

Also to note gpu's/ram etc are stupid prices at the minute.
And you cannot use OpenCore with that cpu, so latest OS Mojave.

Probably worth getting just for the spare case and other components, if all else fails.

Yea, it’s listed as working.

 

[ahurst]

The reason I’m looking at a Mac Pro is so that I can put in an RX 580 and 48GB of memory, as well as multiple SSDs and NVMe. Right now, my iMac is the maxed out 21.5” model with the 3.1GHz i7 and 16GB RAM, as well as the NVMe SSD.

What are you planning on using all that RAM and GPU for? Since you’d be spending money on upgrade components anyway, you might be better served building a hackintosh: depending on your workload, you might find that RAM/GPU is held back by the mid-range (though still capable) 12-year-old Xeon chip. You’ll need a similar amount of patching and tinkering to run modern macOS either way.

If it’s more for the sake of a cool older machine (especially to run older apps with old versions of macOS), a 4,1 is a great choice and for that price it’s a steal. You’ll be more limited in your GPU choices in that case though, since older versions won’t have drivers for newer cards. Also, it might be worthwhile if you’d benefit from ECC memory and have workloads that use a lot of RAM but aren’t too sensitive to RAM/CPU speeds.

 

[christiann]

What are you planning on using all that RAM and GPU for? Since you’d be spending money on upgrade components anyway, you might be better served building a hackintosh: depending on your workload, you might find that RAM/GPU is held back by the mid-range (though still capable) 12-year-old Xeon chip. You’ll need a similar amount of patching and tinkering to run modern macOS either way.

If it’s more for the sake of a cool older machine (especially to run older apps with old versions of macOS), a 4,1 is a great choice and for that price it’s a steal. You’ll be more limited in your GPU choices in that case though, since older versions won’t have drivers for newer cards. Also, it might be worthwhile if you’d benefit from ECC memory and have workloads that use a lot of RAM but aren’t too sensitive to RAM/CPU speeds.

I use FL Studio, some gaming, and sometimes the Adobe collection.

 

[ahurst]

I use FL Studio, some gaming, and sometimes the Adobe collection.

The way I see it, your two choices are:

1) If you plan on keeping this as your main machine for more than ~2 years and high-ish performance is a concern for you, build a Hackintosh with the same parts you were planning to use for retrofitting the 4,1. It'll have quirks that a real Mac won't, but so will a 4,1 patched to run Monterey, and a newer CPU/mobo will help ensure you get good performance and decent support for future macOS updates as long as Intel Macs are officially supported. The Dortania/OpenCore organization is the best place to get hardware recommendations for this.

2) If you don't care about CPU performance or future macOS updates that much and want the cool aesthetic of a genuine Mac Pro, $120 is a very good price for a working example. It'll work okay for your workloads, but you won't be able to take full advantage of all that RAM or GPU for a lot of tasks due to the slower memory bandwidth and single-core performance relative to a newer i5/i7.

 

[christiann]

The way I see it, your two choices are:

1) If you plan on keeping this as your main machine for more than ~2 years and high-ish performance is a concern for you, build a Hackintosh with the same parts you were planning to use for retrofitting the 4,1. It'll have quirks that a real Mac won't, but so will a 4,1 patched to run Monterey, and a newer CPU/mobo will help ensure you get good performance and decent support for future macOS updates as long as Intel Macs are officially supported. The Dortania/OpenCore organization is the best place to get hardware recommendations for this.

2) If you don't care about CPU performance or future macOS updates that much and want the cool aesthetic of a genuine Mac Pro, $120 is a very good price for a working example. It'll work okay for your workloads, but you won't be able to take full advantage of all that RAM or GPU for a lot of tasks due to the slower memory bandwidth and single-core performance relative to a newer i5/i7.

I ended up selling my Mac Pro 3,1 for $100 and bought the 4,1. I flashed it to a 5,1 and installed High Sierra. I am going to buy a GTX 680 to flash and install macOS Monterey. It works well and runs very silent. Hopefully it can last me the same amount of time as a 2013 iMac would.

 

[Diablo360]

I know it looks like a good deal, but once you start adding parts and getting it configured to decent modern specs, you’re probably going to be pretty close to the price of a used/refurbed M1 Mac mini, which will probably be a better computer on average. If you do end up buying it I’d try to avoid putting too much money into it