Mac Pro 5,1...what for?

[Guitarmas]

Hey everyone,

As some of you know, I have a Mac Pro 5,1. It has 12 Cores, 32GB ram, a 3GB GPU, 1TB ssd, and Big Sur installed on it. I think this is great and all...and without trying to sound silly...

...what can I use it for?

Thanks!

 

[eyoungren]

Hey everyone,

As some of you know, I have a Mac Pro 5,1. It has 12 Cores, 32GB ram, a 3GB GPU, 1TB ssd, and Big Sur installed on it. I think this is great and all...and without trying to sound silly...

...what can I use it for?

Thanks!

I use my 4,1 (upgraded to 5,1) as my primary Mac. Graphic design, web browsing, word processing, email, music streaming, video watching, Youtube, games, messaging, pretty much anything I need a computer to do. And I'm using Mojave.

Oh, did I mention I have seven screens attached? See the link in my signature.

 

[B S Magnet]

I use my 4,1 (upgraded to 5,1) as my primary Mac. Graphic design, web browsing, word processing, email, music streaming, video watching, Youtube, games, messaging, pretty much anything I need a computer to do. And I'm using Mojave.

Oh, did I mention I have seven screens attached? See the link in my signature.

This reminds me of that Shel Silverstein parable of the kid who watched so much TV he became a TV himself.

One day, I suspect you might wake up as a multi-panelled LCD display shouting on screen: “NO SIGNAL. PLUG IN COFFEE.”

Your family… won’t have questions.

 

[eyoungren]

This reminds me of that Shel Silverstein parable of the kid who watched so much TV he became a TV himself.

One day, I suspect you might wake up as a multi-panelled LCD display shouting on screen: “NO SIGNAL. PLUG IN COFFEE.”

Your family… won’t have questions.

My wife and son will know what to do, he's in IT and she got me into coffee.

But really, I should actually be a Commodore 64 by now. I spent days during summer vacation in junior high/high school in front of that computer.

 

[B S Magnet]

My wife and son will know what to do, he's in IT and she got me into coffee.

But really, I should actually be a Commodore 64 by now. I spent days during summer vacation in junior high/high school in front of that computer.

“OK Mom, let me try power-cycling him as you send him signal to his coffee port…”

 

[wicknix]

...what can I use it for?

I have the same machine except with 64gb ram, 4 SSD’s, and a crappier video card. Good question. Mine has 10.6 / 10.7 / 10.11 / 10.13 / 10.15 and Linux installed on it. I fire it up about once a month to build new releases of SeaLion. Other than that it sits powered off 99% of the time. I much prefer using my iMac as it takes up less space and energy for daily tasks. Would i get rid of it? No. It’s a beast of a machine that can handle anything thrown at it and supports tons of operating systems. It’s just not practical for my daily needs.

Cheers

 

[TheShortTimer]

This reminds me of that Shel Silverstein parable of the kid who watched so much TV he became a TV himself.

Which in turn reminds me of the warnings from my mum that my eyes would turn square from an overconsumption of TV.

I suppose if 16:9 TVs had been available back then, the warning would've been of rectangular eyes.

 

[chaosbunny]

Hey everyone,

As some of you know, I have a Mac Pro 5,1. It has 12 Cores, 32GB ram, a 3GB GPU, 1TB ssd, and Big Sur installed on it. I think this is great and all...and without trying to sound silly...

...what can I use it for?

Thanks!

Put in some cheap spinning hard drives and use it for local backups of all your devices/data.

Install Windows via Bootcamp and use it as a gaming machine.

That's what I use mine for these days.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I'm in the same boat - I retired my 5,1 as my main Mac last year and have been struggling to find a niche for it to fill since. Its resale value doesn't really justify selling it, and given that it's still pretty beefy it seems a shame not to put it to use somewhere, but I'm also enjoying not running my Apple Space Heater any longer.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Put in some cheap spinning hard drives and use it for local backups of all your devices/data.

This is a particularly great idea. You can take it to the hilt by installing USB 3.0 and eSATA cards and fill the drive bays with 7200RPM spinners. This is what I've done with my Mac Pro to help me manage my ever-increasing archive of TV recordings. The results have been incredible and it's a 1,1 machine - let alone a 5,1.