MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 2010 Open Core Catalina/Big Sur

[richardallan]

Hi Everyone

I decided to start a new thread to avoid confusion, keep this seperate from other discussions & hopefully this can be of help to others.

I want to upgrade my Mac Pro to Catalina or Big Sur so that I can run the latest versions of Photoshop & Lightroom.

My configuration, as it stands, is the following: A 2010 six core 3.33Ghz Mac Pro with 32GB RAM. Four 2TB HD's in the four drive bays. A Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX570 GPU and a PCIe NVMe drive which is the boot drive with Mac OS Mojave installed. This has all been running well for almost a year.

So, is it possible to simply upgrade this to Catalina using Open Core. I haven't been able to find a definitive answer to this. Can it be done without changing my current configuration? Or do I have to start swapping things around & reconfiguring? Can I keep the NVMe drive as my boot drive?

I would like to keep this old Mac Pro running for a couple more years because, from a performance perspective, it runs Photoshop just fine for my needs. But if it's going to be a pain to do this I'll just cut my losses, sell this off & buy an M1 Mac mini.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help you can give me...

 

[Macsonic]

@richardallan There's a sticky thread here dedicated to Open Core topics. You might find some answers to your inquiries. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/?post=27914713#post-27914713 There are also Youtube explanations about Open Core Catalina and FB classic Mac Pro groups

 

[richardallan]

Thanks Macsonic. I have looked at a lot of that stuff but I just get a bit bamboozled especially if the setup isn't the same as mine, which most aren't.

 

[Fastsavage]

Thanks Macsonic. I have looked at a lot of that stuff but I just get a bit bamboozled especially if the setup isn't the same as mine, which most aren't.

Try OpenCore Legacy Patcher - pretty easy to follow

 

[retlif]

I had a similar dilemma. I decided on Big Sur. The procedure is simple, but be prepared for things to go wrong. Especially if you are not doing a clean install.

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forums.macrumors.com

It is best to have a second drive from which you can boot into Mojave or at least a graphics card from which you can boot to Recovery.

I am booting from NVMe but the OC is installed on the other SSD (SATA). Supposedly NVMe+OC can cause booting problems, so I decided not to check it.

The only thing that keeps me from buying an M1 now is the amount of displays that can be connected to it. Probably next generation with Pro/Max or M2 chips will be perfect for me.

 

[krakman]

I recently installed Monterey on my cMP 5.1 and it works fine.

I followed the opencore thread and got stumped by some of the steps requiring use of Terminal, but if you have access to another machine already running Monterey I can suggest a really easy way to install it.

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[prefuse07]

The easiest way to run OpenCore is Martin's Package

@richardallan If you are not that comfortable using Terminal, and want something very very very stable, then I suggest you just use Martin's Package and opt for Big Sur 11.6.2, as Monterey is still in its infancy (hell, just take a look in the Monterey forum).

 

[avro707]

From my experience with Big Sur and Monterey and using the Opencore package of Martin Lo, I’d suggest to go with Monterey 12.1 release version or 12.2 beta.

We found that Surplus doesn’t seem to be required anymore with these latest versions which is a big plus.

Assuming that your software works okay in Monterey then go for it.

 

[richardallan]

Hi Everyone. Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate you trying to help me out.

I am not going ahead with upgrading my Mac Pro. I managed to get an M1 mac min with 512Gb drive & 16Gb RAM for a bargain on ebay. I got it for A$200 less than my maximum bid. I am going to part out the Mac Pro which will more than pay for this. The only thing I will really miss about the Mac Pro is the 4 internal drive bays but there are good external multi bay Thunderbolt enclosures I can use for this...