Ok, so at least you wouldn't need to spend $8000 for a Mac Pro, which was what I was getting at. A 64GB Mac Studio can be had for as little as $2399 in the US.
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MP 1,1-5,1 Do the older Mac Pros from (2009-2012) still work in the present era?
- Thread starter CarnelianClout
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Same here, running a MacPro 2008 on Big Sur (OCLP). The original gfx card died a couple of years ago, replaced it with NVidia card on a 4K ultrawide screen. The main drive is an OWC SSD on a separate PCI card. The four internal HDD bays are filled with normal harddrives, put in RAID5 (SoftRAID) for speed and some redundancy.
It works very smooth and very fast on most tasks, including software development and even games. It does warm up the room in a couple of hours but it doesn't make fan or HDD noise. It works fine for HD editing. 4K too, on ProRes though.
I must say, the other week I ran MacOS 10.6 on my old Macbook with SSD. It didn't even show the boot screen, it started so blazing fast. All applications too, one click and it ran.
It's the OS and applications nowadays that have become very very slow or can I say inefficient? I mean, just comparing Photoshop 7 and the current one, doing exactly the same tasks on exactly the same pictures. The old software is much faster than the new one, using the same hardware.
I suppose one possible way around the outdated nature of these machines, but would require something out of my skillset as of now (though not entirely impossible in the future) would be to buy the case of an older Mac Pro, and build a Hackintosh out of it using modern components, if such a thing would be possible. Have there been any examples of such a thing?
I currently have a Mac Mini M2 Pro with 16GB Ram, it should last me at least 5 years, if not more, so having a secondary machine is not a current priority at the moment.
Though making a Hackintosh out of a shell of an older computer, like the Mac Pro, or even older ones like the PowerMac G4's would mean that it would potentially be the closest thing to getting my dream setup (which would be an early 2000's Apple Monitor, and Tower, but running modern MacOS and capable of any modern tasks I would need to do on it).
Lots of people have made hackintosh that fitted into either PowerMac G5 or Mac Pro Tower Case.
However note that they don't take standard ATX mountings or back plate so will need to do a fair bit of modification
Will give you an idea of what is involved to modify the case, which is a 3 part video on converting a case to ATX and if is something you feel could do.
You then need to determine what hardware will use. Would suggest find a tonymacx86 golden build and follow that for first hackintosh build. CaseySJ on there documents well enough that even I could follow the instructions and install without getting stumped. He even provides links to where can buy (at the time) the components that used.
Just bear in mind that now with the removal of the last Intel Mac from sale then the clock is ticking on Hackintosh now as Intel Builds of Mac OS won't continue more then a few years now.
The Golden era of hackintosh is sadly over.
It's pretty well pointless to do hackintosh builds as you are still stuck with the Apple deliberate/vindictive restrictions on GPU drivers. They don't want to do anything that might keep you running your existing Mac Pro machines for longer. I'm sure MacOS 15 will likely support the last newest Intel Macs but after that who knows.
So no drivers for Radeon 7000 series GPUs, despite the rumour in one of the posts here.
Just ditch MacOS completely and buy a proper workstation running Windows 11 Pro for Workstations - treat Apple with the same disdain as they show to us.
So no drivers for Radeon 7000 series GPUs, despite the rumour in one of the posts here.
Just ditch MacOS completely and buy a proper workstation running Windows 11 Pro for Workstations - treat Apple with the same disdain as they show to us.
I recently switched away from Windows 11 to MacOS with the intention on abandoning Windows. If I ever end up doing a hackintosh build, I will likely do something involving a Mac Pro.
Yes, and that's still a lot of money. I got my 2010 Mac Pro for about $100 US.
I most certainly didn't get mine for that price, it was just over AUD$6100 for a low spec 3.2ghz quad-core 8GB RAM machine with Radeon 5870 1GB and 1TB spinning HDD and 27" LED Cinema Display back in 2010 from Apple. It was a LOT of money for a machine that quite a number of PC builds back then would obliterate. But it was and still is very stable. The same machine is now upgraded to a dual X5690 with RX580 and 96GB ram and SSD storage.
When comparing prices - remember to think what each machine cost when new. Of course you can get a 2010 Mac Pro much cheaper now because it is 13 years old and is fast becoming obsolete. The 7,1 only just stopped being sold new and is still supported by latest MacOS without needing workarounds.
If you are going to do a hackintosh then now is when should be doing.
The clock is ticking down on Intel Mac OS support, so if leave till later then very short life as such unless happy running out of date OS, apps.
it will have issues with some of the Apple Services as my parents cMP (handed down from me) constantly mentions cannot connect to iCloud etc. internet connection is fine in itself but they on older Mac OS, no OpenCore on it so now frozen in time, till replace it.
as such is really a now or never, if really want todo a hack however be prepared for work converting a Mac Pro case and then maintaining it however accept that will be frozen at a certain OS as Intel Support won’t last too much longer now that the last Intel Mac stopped shipping with the launch of the Mac Pro 2023 model.
I'd say that what you're looking at would work just fine for your purposes, albeit at a bit of an energy deficit... But as far as the nostalgia purpose.. It will handle what you're wanting to do with it.. and check that nostalgia box as well... I've completed most of my Bachelors degree between my 4,1 and then 5,1... Started my masters degree on my 5,1 as well... I've never noticed a huge kill on my power bill, and if nothing else it saves me a bit during the colder months, not having to run the heat in my office as much... lol Then again, not only do I have huge amounts of heat coming from the older computer, but from the older Cinema Display... Honestly can't wait to get a second Cinema Display... and get back to using my 5,1... especially as I work to learn myself how to do photo editing (and with being new to photography, I'm sure there will be lots of edits needed!!)
They're reliable, but if you want to run anything newer than Monterey (which is about to be two versions behind and, therefore, only supported with security updates for another year) via OpenCore, it's probably not a great call.
They're great machines for older OSes, but if you don't have a specific need to run an older version of macOS (for specific software that can't run on a newer release), I'd say don't bother.
Well, yes. Even Apple had a go shoving a Mac Studio into an old Mac Pro case. Apple dropped the ball on the Intel bit, though...
Gosh yes, that 5,1 with dual X5690s, 128GB RAM and a heat-pump RX580 was damn effective at heating my home office. I could leave the door shut and not use the heater, the room would warm up comfortably.
The 7,1 doesn't do that at all, it doesn't make a sound at all, it is silent and doesn't warm up the room. It's a W3245 Xeon with a W6800X MPX module (32GB). That's better in summer however.
On the topic of nostalgia, I still have the box my 5,1 came in new - Xeon 64-bit Workstation branding on it. That box is pristine and carefully wrapped up, so if I ever sell than 5,1 it will go in the box. The screen could go with it too, that has the original box too.
The heat situation cannot be true. the 2019 Mac Pro draws, at a minimum, about the same power at idle and more at max use than a 4,1 or 5,1. The higher configurations of the 7,1 use far more power than a 4,1 or 5,1.
I have a 2010 and a 2012 5,1, the former (in the signature) has reliably booted everyday (over 40,000 hours) since I purchased it in 2010, and performed flawlessly. The latter is only at around 5,000 hours, so it's not broken in yet, it sat in a closet for years as a spare.
Productivity relies heavily on Reliability, and this machine is Reliable. I just installed Monterey and I'm upgrading the GPU shortly. My friend with a similar machine just upgraded his to 2x3.46 6 core processors and 128 GB of RAM for less than $400.
I added Dual 2TB Samsung NVMe 970EVO Plus Blades and a PCIe Card for around $400, and It gets around 2,700 MB a second, reads and writes. It also has 40 TB of Enterprise Class, Spinner Storage in the SATA Bays, making it an excellent place to store a few extra Selfies or GIFs.
Processor Upgrades, Newer GPUs, Generous Memory Expansion, Faster Storage and Clever Hacks like OCLP make these machines eminently relevant, even today.
Is it as fast as a mini? You find me a 128GB, 4TB SSD Mini and I'll let you know. A similarly configured Mac Studio is $5,800, sure it's faster, but I find I spend very little time waiting on the processors for most things. I've put a lot of money in Apple's pockets since 1989, don't see much reason to give them more if I don't have to.
Buy a "Cheese Grater", you won't regret it, just hold the Reggiano.
The whole point of this thread is not to compare prices at launch, but competitively compare prices now.
A 64GB, 4TB Mac Studio costs thousands of $ more in 2023 than a 12-core 64GB 4TB 5,1 Mac Pro in 2023. And something a Mac Studio can't do, which the 13-years-older Mac Pro can do, is boot into Windows 10 and play DirectX 12 games.