Just to close out my 4,1 to 5,1 post (#232) with an update - OWC replaced the 1TB Accelsior PCI card free of charge as it was under warranty (with only 1m left). Once Sierra was reinstalled with all apps it ran like a charm. Then took the plunge and updated the CPU's to dual Westmere X5690's, plunked in 64GB Ram and updated the GPU to a GTX 980TI with 6GB. Kept the OWC card as the boot drive in PCI slot 1 and put the GPU in the proper slots above it to avoid the GPU fan from blowing on the drive - and leaving a slot open between them for the fan flow to work. This GPU also required scavenging the power from two of the SATA HD ports (leaving me with only 2) along with the PCI and supplemental board harness to power the thing. I could have stolen the power from the SATA ports in the optical drive bay but that would have meant a partial teardown and cutting the bay floor to fish the cables through. Later, High Sierra was installed, though I waited for the first patch before I did along with NVIDIA drivers and things were peachy. Currently am waiting to install Mojave (waiting actually for the corresponding NVIDIA drivers to be available) and celebrating the 9th anniversary of my original purchase of this 4,1 cheese grater. I'm not going to do any more upgrades based on the current 4,1/5,1 motherboard, rather keep my eye on how Apple intends to transition to its own chipset (as announced), and the effect that will have on the MacOS, to gauge the life span of this beast. I already have a G5 collecting dust.....
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How macOS Sierra handle Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1? Interesting!!
- Thread starter Amethyst
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The GPU fan is sucking cool air from outside, blow it through the cooler, but not sucking hot air from the card and exhaust them. It won't blow the hot air to the SSD above it.
I use the GTX 1080TI in my 5,1 powered by the Pixlas mod (tap the power cables in the drive bay)
http://thehouseofmoth.com/mac-pro-pixlas-mod/
it did not require any cutting as you describe, i didn't even have to remove the power supply. I just fed the cables through the slot and attached the taps.
I Understand your point - but I'm using the card for more than driving a monitor - Its used exclusively for generating HD-3D renders as well and this pushes the GPU to the extremes, as well as all the box fans. Sucker gets very hot in the box and I'd rather be safe than sorry which is why its oriented the way it is. If I did not indulge in 3D builds/renders the 980TI would be overkill for my other applications and screens.
Also because of power cabling to feed this beast, I didn't want the SSDI board exposed to contacting the cabling - as mentioned in my reply below.
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Great Point - my mod was completed a few months before this article. I wondered about this and glad its available now to consider. My mod was based upon an earlier Youtube vid where the guy was considering ways to hook up to the optical bay ports directly but gave up and mentioned going for the mod I wound up eventually using. I do need to consider your suggestion at some point as using the ports from a HDD bay for power there is no "click lock" to secure them - Cables right now are just held in place by friction and dangle above the GPU (not the most trustworthy of situations).
But again, I'm thrilled that I can get so much more mileage out of this 4,1 configuration - for less than the price of an ipad pro. It may come down to the point that the one thing that will antiquate it all is Apples move of the OS over to support only its proprietary MB/non-Intel chip configurations. I have a G5 Mac Pro sitting in the basement to remind me of how thats gonna all turn out...
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