MP 1,1-5,1 Which Graphics Card for my Mac Pro 5,1 with High Sierra

[tsialex]

The MacPro internal Wi-Fi card is also called AirPort Extreme, same name as the old Apple wireless router.

You can get a NVMe blade + adapter or even another SATA SSD, see the PCIe blades thread for info, but right you need to buy a METAL supported GPU before looking at the storage options.

 

[tsialex]

This whole thing has me thinking about my laptop too, I am facing the same issue of newer versus older, since my laptop is not a mac pro, and I cannot install multiple drives in it, what would be a good strategy for handling the newer versus older apps and OSes?

I could have 2 laptops; one for older OS and apps, and a newer M1 laptop for newer oses, but this might be expensive.

Focus on one thing at a time, you are looking at too much moving targets at the moment. Get your Mac Pro working as you intended and then use the experience to see what you need for mobile.

 

[Sossity]

The MacPro internal Wi-Fi card is also called AirPort Extreme, same name as the old Apple wireless router.

You can get a NVMe blade + adapter or even another SATA SSD, see the PCIe blades thread for info, but right you need to buy a METAL supported GPU before looking at the storage options.

By the GPU that is the graphics card? I went ahead and bought the AMD Polaris RX 460, so I am hoping that will bring the metal capability, and thus, be able to install a hard drive for newer oses. It looks like I will begin with the GPU installation, and then everything else.

I would like to do all my upgrading at once or as few times, since I do not want to have to keep opening up the mac box, but to it it maybe one or two times to get all the upgrades in one go.

 

[bsbeamer]

Ok, thanks for the heads up, my laptop has CS6 and Mojave on it now, but my 5,1 mac pro has CS6 and High Sierra on it.

Should I downgrade the laptop to High Sierra? get a newer one and install High Sierra on it myself? or just leave my laptop alone?

As for my 5,1 I will get another boot drive just for newer Oses, and keep the High Sierra drive for my older apps as per another poster here advised for me.

If laptop works as is right now, leave it alone. Especially true if it’s NVIDIA GPU with CUDA.

If you get a new laptop, you need to make sure it was released before or during the High Sierra releases. Don’t have the chart on me right now, but do your homework there. Newer ones are often difficult (or impossible) to downgrade due to driver issues.

 

[marman1]

I am reading about compatibility issues with Adobe CS6 apps of photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and bridge and Mojave, and I am beginning to wonder if it is worth it to go to Mojave and risk not being able to use my CS6. It was an expensive purchase and the only way I could afford it was through a student discount, and I have used it ever since, it has been my go to for alot of things.

I read that high sierra was the last mac OS to properly and completely support CS6.

I also have some other legacy apps; phase one photo pro, and expression media.

I also like my CS6 because it came with the install disk and downloads, it was before it all went to a subscription based format. Can I get any free upgrades that are not subscription based? that would work with Mojave?

Perhaps I would be better just keeping this mac as one for all my older content, and getting a mini, and sticking it right on top of my tower, if I need a new modern desktop for newer stuff.

I'm running the Creative Suite CS6 and use all it's apps flawlessly on my 2015 MacBook Pro running Mojave 10.14.6. Also run it on my Mac Pro 5,1 running High Sierra 10.13.6 with a Nvidia GTX 970 powering two 27" Cinema Displays and a 27" 4K monitor (3 monitors). I'd love to run Mojave on the latter for it's dark mode and News app, but unfortunately, due to Apple and nVidia's estranged relationship, drivers for high end nVidea cards are not available from 10.14 and beyond. Truth is Mojave is not all that different from High Sierra, even though some updated apps from Topaz (wonderful AI graphics apps) need Mojave and even Catalina, so i must use the earlier versions on my Mac Pro 5,1. My GTX 970 was modified by MacVidCards? and works perfectly with strong performance in both OpenCL and CUDA. I could go for an AMD metal card, but would lose CUDA and I heard there are lots of quirks running Premier CS6. I'm having to use Chrome as a browser more often because Apple doesn't update Safari for us legacy users (thanks a lot Apple).

Mojave is the end of the line for CS6 and any app that uses 32bit code. Even though CS6 is a 64bit program, it still uses a small amount of 32bit code (plug-in's etc) which can cause problems and jam things up. Plus, I have other great legacy apps that still employ some 32bit code in the same manner. So, it looks like High Siera and Mojave are end of the road for me and most legacy software users. Chrome will eventually replace Safari entirely, so we'lll be okay with a modern up to date browser.

I bought a later 2019 quad chip Macbook Pro, which was more powerful than my 2015, but it's Apple T2 security chip wouldn't work with my Mac Pro 5,1 in Target Mode, which I use extensively to sync files, so I had to go back to a 3khz 20i5 dual core model, but it works fine, yet considerably slower in CS6 Premier Pro without CUDA and Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine (Intel GPU...no CUDA :-( )

CS6 does everything I want and I refuse to pay the Adobe subscription for the latest and greatest. Keep your CS6 running fast and dependable with High Sierra 10.13.6 and a high end CUDA enabled nVidia card. There are a few higher performer models than my standard GTX970, but I'm running a 5 drive RAID and full PCI slots in the cMP5,1, so I didn't want to take my power supply to it's outer limits. Both my machines run flawlessly and get the work done without any issues, which is what successful work production is all about.