Get it? The mitochondria? The powerhouse of the cell? I'm so funny
Intel powered MacPros were some of the best computers Apple ever produced when it comes to reparability, power or features.
The MacPro 5,1 from 2009 is certainly one of the best in it's class.
I got mine for free as it was being decommissioned after 12 years of service. It originally came with MacOS 10.13 High Sierra, dual quad core Xeons, 64GB of ECC DDR3 1066 and the GT120. It came fairly complete, only missing some of the HDD screws. It had a 180GB Intel SATA SSD as well as a 640GB Western Digital Blue hard drive.
Of course, I wouldn't keep this configuration for long.
The first thing I did was find The Definitive Classic Mac Pro Upgrade Guide and plan what the first upgrades would be.
I started off with the CPUs as they are fairly easy to acquire for fairly cheap on Ebay or Aliexpress. I went with two Intel Xeon X5675. Each of these are equipped with 6 cores, 12 threads with a max turbo frequency of 3.46GHz.
This was my first experience delidding CPUs. It's scary, but with some guides and the correct tools, it's pretty easy. This generation of CPUs aren't the easiest to work with as the lid is actually soldered to the chip. The solder itself is fairly malleable so it's still easy to break. To be safe, we could preheat the CPU with a heat-gun to melt the solder. I didn't need to do any of this.
Installing the new CPUs on the tray can be a challenge without a torque screwdriver. The cooler is what helps the CPU make contact with the socket so overtightening or not screwing it in enough can render the system unstable or just break some of the functionalities.
It took some time to have both of the CPUs installed correctly while detecting all the ram but I got it to recognize all 64GB of ram.
The poor HDD along with it's old SSD wouldn't cut it. The SSD started to see some performance issues probably due to it's use and age.
I replaced the SSD with a brand new 256GB Crucial BX500. This computer only being capable of SATA 2, there wouldn't be a big performance uplift by going with a higher-end SSD.
I also added a 1TB Seagate Barracuda I had lying around for more storage.
I could have used M.2 NVME SSDs with the correct adapter. Unfortunately, this computer doesn't support NVME booting natively and the chipset doesn't support PCI-E bifurcation. OpenCore Legacy Patcher would easily remedy the first issue, but the second one is more of a problem. Some of the PCI-E slots on the mainboard are only wired to 4x so it technically could word with NVME SSDs at the cost of only running it a PCI-E Gen 2 speeds. The best solution would be to use a PCI-E adapter that would slot into a 16x port and break it to four 4x slots. But as previously mentioned, the chipset doesn't support PCI-E bifurcation. So I would need to get an adapted with PCI-E switching. This would allow the SSDs to use the full 16x Gen 2 speed. These adapters (Like this one from Startech) are way more expensive as they need to have logic onboard.
For a 14 years old computer, I wasn't willing to spend that kind of money. A regular SATA SSD would be plenty.
I also added a second optical drive (optical media bad). A simple CD/DVD-RW that is faster than the one that was already there.
The old Mini-PCI network card has been unsupported by apple for quite some time, now.
Despite only supporting 2.4GHz and a very old version of Bluetooth, I wouldn't have minded keeping it. But the update to a later operating system requires me to upgrade this card.
I ordered a newer Airport Card off Aliexpress along with the required adapter to make it work. Once the antenna connected, WiFi worked without any issues.
Bluetooth is another story. The Bluetooth card in these machines are separate from the main wireless card. The most elegant way to add this functionality to this Mac would be to extend the original antenna cable to the new Airport card.
I ordered some cables to extend it but after ordering the wrong ones twice, I decided that I didn't need Bluetooth that bad.
Another option is to get a PCI-E wireless card. The guide mentioned above lists some chipsets that should work with OSX. I didn't bother with it as, being in Switzerland, my access to very specific electronics is fairly limited or very expensive (as a regular consumer).
Note : Only upgrade this part after you've installed and patched your install with OpenCore for compatibility reasons
I upgraded the GPU last in this machine because it's by far the most expensive.
I managed to get a good deal at auction for a Gigabyte R9 280X WindForce 3X OC. I originally wanted to get an RX580 but I didn't have the funds for it at the time.
I choose the R9 280X because it is compatible with the Metal API (Apple's graphics API that came to replace OpenGL) and because it didn't require extensive modifications to the power supply.
The power supply in the MacPro 5,1 is more than capable of driving even higher power GPUs, being 960W. The issues comes from the power delivery. This computer delivers GPU power via two 6 pins mini-PCI-E connectors on the mainboard. These connectors and the traces on the mainboard's PCB can only supply a safe maximum of 250W. It is possible to run higher wattage GPUs by tapping power directly into the 12V rails coming out of the power supply, but I wanted to keep it simple.
The R9 280X, you'll notice, uses two power connectors. A 6 pin as well as an 8 pin. Running the 6 pin connector from the mainboard isn't an issue as it was made for this application. The 8 pin isn't either as mini 6 pin to 8 pin cables do exist. It's just not the best way to do it. Ideally, we'd use a dual 6 pin to 8 pin adapter to ensure we have no issues with power delivery. In my case, the R9 280X has a max TDP of 250W, so we're good when it comes to power delivery. On more demanding cards, I wouldn't recommend using this solution.
This computer has been EOSL for quite some time, now. You can't download anything from the App Store and updated versions of pretty much all applications require a newer version of MacOS.
This is where the legendary OpenCore Legacy Patcher comes to the rescue! If you already have a system installed on your computer, you can use it to create an install USB for a newer version of MacOS or upgrade it right then and there! If yours came without an OS installed, you will need another Apple computer to create the installation media or you'll need to install a compatible version of MacOS on your machine.
For this computer, I really recommend for compatibility reasons and stability to upgrade to MacOS Monterey. Monterey was the last MacOS version to support USB 1.1. The ports on the MacPro are USB 2 compatible but low-power peripherals such as keyboard and mouse still use USB 1. If you go with a newer version of the system, be sure to have a USB hub nearby to force the port into using USB 2.
Once your system installed, run the root patches, install possibly missing drivers and that's it!
I installed MacOS Sequoia on my machine. You can tell this version was never meant to be used on this machine as it runs quite slow and can feel choppy at time. I decided to go with Sequoia to be able to install GarageBand, Logic Pro and Ableton. Ableton would prove troublesome as these CPUs don't have the latest instruction set from x86-64. It works good enough for now, though.
It's a very capable machine. Still being able to run MacOS Sequoia with some struggles and almost everything I ask it to do.
The CPUs being pretty old (first gen Core ix / Last gen Core 2), they lack some of the latest instructions from x86-64. These CPUs namely don't have support for AVX/AVX2. These instructions appeared with the fifth gen Intel Core CPUs and first gen Ryzen CPUs. On MacOS, it's fine as there aren't a lot of apps with AVX dependencies. However, you might not have the same luck on Windows. Ableton, for example, requires AVX and AVX2 support to work properly on Windows.
Today they're collector items more than anything but if you find a good deal, they can be a cheap entry way into OSX and hacking MacOS.
I wanted to use it as my main MacOS workstation as well a way to learn more about how MacOS would work in a professional environment. I have yet to discover all the features or to connect it to a server or try to sync it with an Active Directory.
I'm not gonna give you benchmark numbers as similar machines are all over the web and documented by people that are way better with words than I am.
Not really, no. I would maybe downgrade it to MacOS Monterey to have a smoother experience. I'd also want to get an RX580 as it is pretty much the best GPU to use without modifying the PSU. I could try to flash the GPU so I can retain the boot screen instead of always using the OpenCore one but it's pretty minor. I could also have gone with two X5690 CPUs for about the same price but I didn't feel comfortable adding 60W of TDP at the time.
This was a fun project to work on and see come along. I wouldn't recommend your average Joe to buy one if they want a Mac but it's something neat for us enthusiasts.
Today, if you want a cheap Mac, I'd recommend getting an entry level M4 Mac Mini. They're not too expensive, starting at $700. And they come with Apple support, a warranty and updates for a few years that are sure to work on your machine.
If buying new isn't an option, second hand M1 Macs are getting cheaper.
These two options are sure to work and be fairly stable. A second hand machine most likely won't get updates for as long as a new one but they'll still be very capable machines down the line.
This project pretty much requires you to make a Hackintosh out of your machine. With Apple Silicon, Hackintosh will soon be a thing of the past. If we're lucky, we might get one or two more years of updates for Intel Macs. But then, that's it. We'll still have security updates for Sequoia for a while but I don't think we'll see any major MacOS releases for Intel in the near future.
And then again, MacOS Sequoia run rough on these old machines. The best OS for these would be MacOS 12 Monterey; which as reached EOSL last November.
TLDR : They're really neat machines for enthusiasts and great collector items, but hardly worth the effort.