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The Mac Pro is in such bad state that it appears it's worth just building a Hackintosh desktop to avoid buying such old hardware. I'm still running a Mid 2010

The Mac Pro is in such bad state that it appears it's worth just building a Hackintosh desktop to avoid buying such old hardware. I'm still running a Mid 2010 Mac Pro because the new trash can model wasn't compelling and it's since sat without upgrades since introduction.

xja 10y ago
This is true, but I'd guess that having a nice Mac Pro isn't going to gain them market share. The market they're losing is probably the low end (where cost difference is higher).
- gogopuppygogo 10y ago
  Lexus offers the LFA because it attracts enthusiasts and media to enhance the brand and to ensure the pleb models have a higher perceived value. Apple offering an extremely obsolete Mac Pro filters down from a brand standpoint, it hurts them by turning former ambassadors against them (such as myself), and by losing third party support for professional software when the customer base starts asking for alternatives because the hardware is too obsolete.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Sure, the volume is definitely in the low end. But the cost difference has always been there, and they used to have higher market share. They're losing 2 things: 1. Exclusivity of really good hardware and software. They're still among the best in hardware, but a nice 'ultrabook' (like a Surface Book, XPS 13, or X1 Carbon) running Windows 10 is comparable to a Mac in ways that an Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP or Vista just wasn't comparable to a 2007 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5. 2. The dedication of the high end. The developers on this site are a tiny market, for certain. But we're the people our families and friends go to for computer questions (for better or for worse). The artists and especially the musicians and videographers which the Mac Pro used to attract are more trendsetters. If enough high schoolers watch their favorite Youtubers editing on their Mac Pros, and ask their uncle to look up from reading HN on his Macbook Pro to recommend a laptop, that effect can have a powerful impact on the low end.
jsjohnst 10y ago
The 2010 Mac Pro is also very upgradeable (and fairly cheaply too). I upgraded mine from a 2.4ghz 8-core to a 3.3ghz 12-core w/ 128gb RAM, very very fast SSD, USB3, and much improved graphics card (driving five displays). The only thing it's lacking that I'd want is Thunderbolt really. Yes, newer processors are a little faster, but the main benefit of Haswell and later CPUs is much lower TDP for mostly same-ish performance. For my usage, I'm much less concerned about power usage / heat, so it doesn't effect me much.
- carlmcqueen 10y ago
  Who do you use for upgrading it? I have one sitting around that I'd love to upgrade but always found the secondary upgrade market hard to navigate.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    I did it myself, buying parts mostly on Amazon, after doing a bit of research. If you want specific part numbers / buy links, let me know.
- greedo 10y ago
  The issue with that is that eventually that Mac Pro won't support the latest versions of macOS. It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    > It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra I honestly highly doubt that. As I indicated in my post, there's very little new instructions / capabilities in Haswell and newer cores outside TDP reductions for a general purpose OS. There's a couple new AVX instructions and some crypto instructions, but outside that, I can't think of much (admittedly I'm no expert though) that macOS would need that would warrant cutting support.

xja 10y ago

This is true, but I'd guess that having a nice Mac Pro isn't going to gain them market share. The market they're losing is probably the low end (where cost difference is higher).

gogopuppygogo 10y ago
Lexus offers the LFA because it attracts enthusiasts and media to enhance the brand and to ensure the pleb models have a higher perceived value. Apple offering an extremely obsolete Mac Pro filters down from a brand standpoint, it hurts them by turning former ambassadors against them (such as myself), and by losing third party support for professional software when the customer base starts asking for alternatives because the hardware is too obsolete.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Sure, the volume is definitely in the low end. But the cost difference has always been there, and they used to have higher market share. They're losing 2 things: 1. Exclusivity of really good hardware and software. They're still among the best in hardware, but a nice 'ultrabook' (like a Surface Book, XPS 13, or X1 Carbon) running Windows 10 is comparable to a Mac in ways that an Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP or Vista just wasn't comparable to a 2007 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5. 2. The dedication of the high end. The developers on this site are a tiny market, for certain. But we're the people our families and friends go to for computer questions (for better or for worse). The artists and especially the musicians and videographers which the Mac Pro used to attract are more trendsetters. If enough high schoolers watch their favorite Youtubers editing on their Mac Pros, and ask their uncle to look up from reading HN on his Macbook Pro to recommend a laptop, that effect can have a powerful impact on the low end.

jsjohnst 10y ago

The 2010 Mac Pro is also very upgradeable (and fairly cheaply too). I upgraded mine from a 2.4ghz 8-core to a 3.3ghz 12-core w/ 128gb RAM, very very fast SSD, USB3, and much improved graphics card (driving five displays). The only thing it's lacking that I'd want is Thunderbolt really. Yes, newer processors are a little faster, but the main benefit of Haswell and later CPUs is much lower TDP for mostly same-ish performance. For my usage, I'm much less concerned about power usage / heat, so it doesn't effect me much.

carlmcqueen 10y ago
Who do you use for upgrading it? I have one sitting around that I'd love to upgrade but always found the secondary upgrade market hard to navigate.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  I did it myself, buying parts mostly on Amazon, after doing a bit of research. If you want specific part numbers / buy links, let me know.
greedo 10y ago
The issue with that is that eventually that Mac Pro won't support the latest versions of macOS. It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  > It looks like it just made the cut for Sierra I honestly highly doubt that. As I indicated in my post, there's very little new instructions / capabilities in Haswell and newer cores outside TDP reductions for a general purpose OS. There's a couple new AVX instructions and some crypto instructions, but outside that, I can't think of much (admittedly I'm no expert though) that macOS would need that would warrant cutting support.