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It's funny this just came out when it did. I was just looking at getting an older Mac Pro 5,1 and upgrading all the components in it like a few friends have don

It's funny this just came out when it did. I was just looking at getting an older Mac Pro 5,1 and upgrading all the components in it like a few friends have done. For under $2K you can have a machine that competes with newer machines that cost twice that much. If you're a professional creative type, these machines are the real deal: The Most Powerful Mac Is 6 Years Old and Not Sold By Apple - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xkq8k/mac-pro-upgrade-community https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xkq8k/mac-pro-upgrade-co... the Mac Pro 5.1 was designed to accommodate up to 12 cores: “Even though a single core isn’t fast, imagine having 12 of them for video editing and audio—those cores together are faster than my brand-new MacBook,” Mazzarolo said. The new iMac Pro can have up to 18 cores; new MacBook Pros max out at four cores. The 5.1 can take a whopping 128 GB of RAM, which is equal to what a fully upgraded iMac Pro can take and double what Apple says the trash can Mac Pro maxes out at (it’s worth noting that the RAM used in newer Mac computers is usually faster) The 5.1 can be modified to use modern SSDs, which Mazzarolo said are in some cases faster than the ones used in the new iMac Pro The 5.1 can use almost any brand-new graphics card from most manufacturers, which is the main reason why a fully souped-up, old Mac Pro can outperform new computers. “With some rendering engines, the AMD cards that Apple uses [in new Mac Pros] don’t even work,” he said. “In general, even mid-level graphics cards we put in are as fast as those in the iMac Pro. We can put in better cards and we can put in two of those.” On the Facebook group, Mazzarolo posted benchmarks of one of his custom-built rigs playing 5K, 6K and 8K RED RAW video clips against current-model Apple computers. A new, 15-inch MacBook pro and a recent “trash can” Mac Pro weren’t capable of playing the video at more than 8 frames-per-second. His custom-built model was able to get 24 fps in each case.

chaostheory 7y ago
The big issue with older mac pros is for how long is it able to install the latest versions of MacOS?
- 1over137 7y ago
  macOS 10.15 drops support for the MacPro5,1 (and for no other Macs).
  - socialist_coder 7y ago
    dang. that is a bummer. i picked up a MacPro5,1 from a govdeals auction and it is a pretty nice computer. it even runs dark mode in OSX Mojave. guess it's days are numbered =( i do have to say though, the single core performance of my MacPro5,1 is pretty abysmal. even with similar clock speeds, my 2015 mac mini is 50% faster in single core performance.
    - justinclift 7y ago
      Which cpu model do you have in the MacPro5,1?
      - socialist_coder 7y ago
        Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz quad core, dual cpu. so 8 cores total. multi-core performance is great! we use it as a Unity build box and it functions great since we're normally doing multiple builds at a time, and image compression & shader compilation are multi-threaded. but it's definitely slower if you are just doing 1 build at a time. sucks that in 2 years when Apple starts requiring the latest Xcode for iOS build submissions we will have to retire this guy =(
        justinclift 7y ago
        As an upgrade thought, that box should be able to handle dual X5675's, which are fairly cheap on Ebay. There's a very noticeable performance improvement from (eg) the E5645's, let alone the E5620's. Saying that as I used to use a self build box (Supermicro motherboard) with dual E5645's as my desktop, but it always "felt" a bit slow. :/ Had the opportunity to upgrade to X5675's, and now it "feels" fine interactively due to the higher base and boost clock. The highest model, X5690's, from all reports are literally no faster in use than the X5675's (maybe thermal throttling?). So not worth the extra spend. ;)
- datalus 7y ago
  There are ways around the official support drop as well, I run macOS mojave fine with a Mac Pro 3,1. These original cheese grater macs are truly still the best desktop tower they'll ever make at this point. It'd be fun to trick one out with a 3rd gen threadripper, which is probably faster than the 28-core rumored $35,000 mac pro. Here's the patcher: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ There are caveats, but I've found it to work well. Of course it's totally unsupported so here be dragons, etc.
  - chaostheory 7y ago
    I get where you're coming from but the whole point of getting a Mac is "it just works". I just don't have the time to deal with a Hackintosh. Also from past experience, there's a reason why they sunset older machines. At some point the OS updates are just no longer compatible with the old hardware. The Mojave patch notes that you linked further confirms this. Another issue is that Windows 10 is now at the point of working decently and it has Ubuntu baked in. Apple also has iCloud sync software for it. I will miss Mac Apps, but given economics, most people just crank out electron apps anyways. I give up on Apple computers. imo There's no viable option for iPhone or iPad though, so I'll still will be with Apple on some level.
    - datalus 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you can say Macs just work anymore, and obviously this is the realm of people who like to tinker or make things work for the sake of the process. If only there was a word for it... Oh wait I think it's up up next to that Y up there :) The old hardware is pretty well supported in the Mac Pro because of how modular it remains. The majority of the incompatibility comes from not having a GPU that works with Metal. Those patch notes are mostly for devices with soldered components, like the GPU.
    - albandread 7y ago
      They don't just work any more; I have an older cheese grater mac pro; and new video cards for it are a dismal lottery. You could say this is why a modular Mac is a bad idea. My Apple MAC SE; still just works; it runs Word 5; which is all it ever did.

chaostheory 7y ago

The big issue with older mac pros is for how long is it able to install the latest versions of MacOS?

1over137 7y ago
macOS 10.15 drops support for the MacPro5,1 (and for no other Macs).
- socialist_coder 7y ago
  dang. that is a bummer. i picked up a MacPro5,1 from a govdeals auction and it is a pretty nice computer. it even runs dark mode in OSX Mojave. guess it's days are numbered =( i do have to say though, the single core performance of my MacPro5,1 is pretty abysmal. even with similar clock speeds, my 2015 mac mini is 50% faster in single core performance.
  - justinclift 7y ago
    Which cpu model do you have in the MacPro5,1?
    - socialist_coder 7y ago
      Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz quad core, dual cpu. so 8 cores total. multi-core performance is great! we use it as a Unity build box and it functions great since we're normally doing multiple builds at a time, and image compression & shader compilation are multi-threaded. but it's definitely slower if you are just doing 1 build at a time. sucks that in 2 years when Apple starts requiring the latest Xcode for iOS build submissions we will have to retire this guy =(
      - justinclift 7y ago
        As an upgrade thought, that box should be able to handle dual X5675's, which are fairly cheap on Ebay. There's a very noticeable performance improvement from (eg) the E5645's, let alone the E5620's. Saying that as I used to use a self build box (Supermicro motherboard) with dual E5645's as my desktop, but it always "felt" a bit slow. :/ Had the opportunity to upgrade to X5675's, and now it "feels" fine interactively due to the higher base and boost clock. The highest model, X5690's, from all reports are literally no faster in use than the X5675's (maybe thermal throttling?). So not worth the extra spend. ;)
datalus 7y ago
There are ways around the official support drop as well, I run macOS mojave fine with a Mac Pro 3,1. These original cheese grater macs are truly still the best desktop tower they'll ever make at this point. It'd be fun to trick one out with a 3rd gen threadripper, which is probably faster than the 28-core rumored $35,000 mac pro. Here's the patcher: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ There are caveats, but I've found it to work well. Of course it's totally unsupported so here be dragons, etc.
- chaostheory 7y ago
  I get where you're coming from but the whole point of getting a Mac is "it just works". I just don't have the time to deal with a Hackintosh. Also from past experience, there's a reason why they sunset older machines. At some point the OS updates are just no longer compatible with the old hardware. The Mojave patch notes that you linked further confirms this. Another issue is that Windows 10 is now at the point of working decently and it has Ubuntu baked in. Apple also has iCloud sync software for it. I will miss Mac Apps, but given economics, most people just crank out electron apps anyways. I give up on Apple computers. imo There's no viable option for iPhone or iPad though, so I'll still will be with Apple on some level.
  - datalus 7y ago
    I'm not sure if you can say Macs just work anymore, and obviously this is the realm of people who like to tinker or make things work for the sake of the process. If only there was a word for it... Oh wait I think it's up up next to that Y up there :) The old hardware is pretty well supported in the Mac Pro because of how modular it remains. The majority of the incompatibility comes from not having a GPU that works with Metal. Those patch notes are mostly for devices with soldered components, like the GPU.
  - albandread 7y ago
    They don't just work any more; I have an older cheese grater mac pro; and new video cards for it are a dismal lottery. You could say this is why a modular Mac is a bad idea. My Apple MAC SE; still just works; it runs Word 5; which is all it ever did.