4 great uses for a Mac Pro 5,1 in 2023 -- The prices aren't gonna get lower!

[@oldschooler85]

Apple REALLY broke the mold with these computers. The sheer fact that in 2023/2024 we are still talking and use them is insane

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Completely agree. Give it 5 years and they’ll be going on 20 years old. That’s quite literally unheard of in the world of computers!

[@dominicpascal5512]

just wish they had not gone the trashcan route and made the 6,1 an updated 5,1 with SATA 3, & PCIE 3 - so we could upgrade them for a bit more

[@joshm264]

My 4,1>5,1 has been my absolute favorite computer ever, and it's served me amazingly for about 2 years. Even when Apple drops Intel support, I'll probably still keep using it just because of all the expandability you just can't get in newer macs

[@PaigeEscapes]

Thank you so much- thoroughly enjoy your vids even tho didn’t really have any need to buy one, wanted to watch, as I always learn something! You have actually made me interested in these now… Thank you

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

One of my favourite comments I’ve received. Thank you!! Very glad to hear it.

[@PaigeEscapes]

@@montaguebarnabasltd welcome! I’m glad to hear that ☺️

[@willm5032]

I've got a 2008 that I used as a cheapo mac solution for working from home as a designer during covid. I used it daily for 2 years after maxing it out. I had to replace it with a mac mini this year but I'm keeping it around for storage/a machine to convert video camera footage through firewire. Great old machines. Can only imagine the 2009/10 ones

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Yeah they’re honestly not all bad these days. I do think the 2006-8 ones are notably slower, but glad you got some use out of yours! Thanks for watching.

[@MrCooper83]

Another great video! I love my Mac Pro 5.1. As you said 'owning a piece of history'. It is correct! A legendary machine! The only problem with these is the Northbridge heating issue but changing the fan speeds and new thermal paste can sort out this problem.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Thanks for watching! Very much so. Yeah as long as you regularly clean out the dust, and keep thermal paste relatively fresh, it tends to be ok.

[@sanman9284]

Serviio is amazing to stream 4k content to most modern TVs.

[@flotowncomputerguy6243]

These still make wonderful media center / light gaming machines! Plenty of drive bays, expansion, and the RX 580s are cheap these days. They'll always have one party trick the most of the M1 / M2 / M3 Macs do not. If anything goes wrong, I can swap the parts out

[@adamjg4]

I just got a working 2011 5,1 dual cpu for $20 USD. No hard drive but everything else. The person selling it was totally ignorant about computers, said they got it from someone at work. Probably discarded -- considered as obsolete.

[@bob0507]

With how good Apple Silicon machines are, you really need a specific use case for these old Pros to be the preferred option. They use a ton of power, are bulky, noisy and heavy, and are increasingly outdated from a support/software perspective. For most people, picking up a cheap M1 Mac mini would be far better. That said, they are fun and for people who like to tinker and upgrade hardware, they can still work.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Definitely agree, but these go for under $100 these days. M1 macs are still in the $500 region. People on a tight budget buying a spare computer will care a lot about that.

[@MyMileyTX]

How is the 5,1 noisy? Mine is super quiet. The M1 mini is nice but if you open a lot of chrome browser tabs then you need more memory which is cheap on the 5,1.

[@bramburek507]

I have mine ( dual 12-core CPU, 48 GB RAM, NVMe SSD for Windows and Mac Os Monterrey and rx6600) for gaming. It cost me quite cheap. I can play almost any game I can think of on it, except for the ones that require AVX, but I've managed to get around that pretty well. Most of my games go to ultra details in 4k at 40-60 fps, which is enough for me. Surprisingly, I also started AC Valhalla, for which they released a patch, so it does not require AVX. Satisfaction for me.

[@sanman9284]

Also upgrade to Sequoia using OCLP

[@richie8240]

Hey great video. You have Monterey AND the upgraded bluetooth / wifi module. Does the bluetooth module work with Monterey opencore? I can't get the bluetooth module to work. had to go back to Catalina .

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

@@richie8240 Hey, yes, the Bluetooth was fine for me. Might help to rebuild your OC patch if youre seeing issues with that. Thanks for the kind words either way!

[@stevenlee3661]

I just got a mac 5, 1 for £20 recently and i didn't need it but it was too good to refuse. It has 2 xeon e5620 cpus and 16gb ram. No hdd though and it was a pain to try and install an operating system on as it kept on refusing to boot to and dvd or usb drive. Got a tool to boot to a usb stick for macs burned on a disk and installed windows 11. I can't believe how cheap they are. I think I may turn it into a NAS.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Hell yeah! It’s a fully functioning machine, and running up to date software is capable of plenty.

[@stevenlee3661]

@@montaguebarnabasltd oh yeah and it came with a 21 inch apple cinema display as well

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

@@stevenlee3661 what a bargain

[@EchoAce04]

Is it hdmi or display port

[@peterhoffman4129]

Unfortunately Adobe Premiere and After Effects 2024 don't run anymore on a Mac Pro 5.1 because there is no AVX2 instruction set support on Xeon processors. After 15 years of loyal service and upgrades I have to use my Mac Pro 5,1 as a server or something. Davinci Resolve 18.6.4 runs very smooth on this machine however.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Yup, you’re absolutely right I’d say. Predictably, my next video is about how the 5,1 just isn’t too viable anymore. I’ve yet to try Davinci… probably worth it since there’s a free option.

[@peterhoffman4129]

Davinci is way more professional than Premiere especially for color grading @@montaguebarnabasltd

[@Xalite_]

Genuinely the best computer that I've bought in the last 4 years, even though I got mine for a ridiculous deal, I would've paid a lot more for it. Still so competent even by 2023 standards. Paid £255 for my duel x5690 5,1 with an RX590 and the Pixlas mod already done to it. Also had the original gpu and an apple raid card thrown in. I genuinely think I robbed the guy that sold it to me. Haha The only issue I've had with it is that the cpus lack the AVX2 instruction set which means that some of the newest games just don't run (I.E Starfield) Beyond that I have absolutely fallen in love with this generation of Mac.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Absolutely! I think they’re very hard to sell these days as not too many people are interested in buying, but we both got mad deals nonetheless. Yeah Starfield and Warzone 2 are the problem causers at this point I think with AVX2.

[@Xalite_]

@@montaguebarnabasltd It's quite a shame because I don't think there's any other limitations preventing those games from running on these machines. Just that pesky AVX.

[@doemis8573]

200-300€ in germany. Since apple pcs were never popular here, they are rare and thus quite expensive. I dare anyone to find anything powerpc related for a decent price... Still have 2 old ones from 2010 though. One is collecting dust while the other is my main logic music recording device (Upgraded with 2 X5690s, 96 GB 1330 MTS Ram and a RX6600XT). The upgraded MAC feels even "snapier" (horrible word) than the m2 mac mini, i use for my daily office work. While it's nice to use a modern os, the dusty mac pro still has lion installed. You can't do much with it, but i start it from time to time for pure nostalgia. Snow leopard was the peak of macos and lion is close enough.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

In that case you’ve got a bit of an antique on your hands! Nice spec btw, very similar to mine.

[@herbertkornfield2020]

5 comma 1 you say?

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

yes

[@mackerel25]

I have mac pro 5,1 with rx570 and gt 120 and 2 xeon x5675 very good for gaming etc

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Yeah despite their age they’re super solid.

[@mackerel25]

@@montaguebarnabasltd yeah they are pretty good especially for the price

[@iankennedy1441]

DOES youtube work on a 5.1 macpro

[@Xe4ro]

3:23 MF DOOM!

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Had an MF DOOM phase a few months ago lol…

[@YootubeUK]

After my G4's I bought a couple of G5's. What a shockingly bad Mac that was! Unstable with hardware problems on both. The MacPro 1,1's, my 3,1's and now 5,1 however have been great. The only problems I've had have been with video playback on unsupported OSX's.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

Yeah the PowerPC era stuff just doesn’t hold up these days. Good to hear your older Pros are being used though! Perhaps patching them to later versions would help…

[@YootubeUK]

@@montaguebarnabasltd With the 10.13 that's been fine just the 3,1's weren't happy with 10.15 (that's the unsupported versions) but it may have been graphics card related.

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

@@YootubeUK yeah there’s a lot of variables at play… besta luck with em

[@joen3992]

The RX6600 XT is $400 CAN and that makes it cost more than the machine is worth investing in. For something that you have to run daughter cards to run faster drives. I own one and I gave up after it became a money pit. Not worth the price when you can buy a 2017 4k iMac tha would kick it's ass....

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

In terms of graphics performance, that 2017 iMac wouldn’t beat the 5,1, unfortunately. The CPU is the only thing I do take issue with on that machine, as the 2017 certainly would be more desirable in that area

[@IPULCOLUMBIA]

PCI will be a bottle neck…THE MAC…CAN NOT handle its speed…just buy an SSD…