Building an Extreme Linux Mac Pro

[@ActionRetro]

Go to www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal/landing/show/actionretro for a fully-featured no risk free trial of the best backup service there is!

[@MK-of7qw]

Your backblaze link doesn't work =p ask them to renew it, sir :3

[@ActionRetro]

@@MK-of7qw oh dang thanks, fixed!

[@edwardfletcher7790]

Dude, I love what you're doing but wire taps are for CAR electronics !! That's so dodgy!! 🤮 Pop! OS Linux would be a much better choice for a Mac style install, it's also based on Ubuntu...

[@Roxy53280]

@@edwardfletcher7790 Pop!_OS*

[@origamitom]

@@ActionRetro Can you back up your Ubuntu Mac Pro to Backblaze?

[@SalemTechsperts]

Are we competing for who has the drippiest Hoovie's Garage shirt? Because you just won. Awesome video as always man!

[@TheDevil259]

Well hello there Mr. THE GREATEST TECHNICIAN THAT'S EVER LIVED. Hope you don't mind me asking a question. With Windows 10 soon going EOL, do you have any plans on how to deal with customers with devices not supported by Windows 11 after Windows 10 goes EOL?

[@Gadtkaz]

Professional gooch collector

[@govid0000]

​@TheDevil259 well, I am like the 10th greatest technitian that's ever lived, and with my customers I usually offer an upgrade to windows 11 using the registry trick so that even their unsupported machines can run it because the windows 11 minimum requirements are bullshit. And if this is a clean install I offer tiny11 for its lack of bloatware and smaller size.

[@DhavidSetiawanKilluaDhavid]

Hello there my technician teacher

[@ldt8904]

first thing I saw, had me in 80s miami techno. never been there, infant at the time

[@ozzie_goat]

"I may not be the smartest peanut butter in the sandwich" is a saying I've NEVER heard before

Haha. In my homeland, we used to say something similar, like "you aren't the last oreo in the package".

[@David_Phantom]

I may not be the brightest knife in the shed

[@ozzie_goat]

@@David_Phantom SO TRUE BESTIE

[@HisVirusness]

I used to say, "I may not be the brightest light in Home Depot."

[@DanielMReck]

Fairly certain no one has heard that saying before, because Sean just invented it. He's that smart. Like peanut butter. On a sandwich.

[@thedungeondelver]

That in a single 12 minute video you accomplished what a huge organization like Gamer's Nexus started two years ago and never finished speaks volumes to your dedication and embracing of the wonderful weirdness that is "home computing". It's why I like channels like yours, Adrian Black's, This Does Not Compute, Dawid Does Tech Stuff, Budget Builds Official...love you guys!

[@edcdad1124]

Dawid rocks !!!🎉

[@Daktyl198]

I understand where you’re coming from, but gamers nexus is like… 5 guys. They’re not a huge organization lol.

[@thedungeondelver]

@@Daktyl198 Really! I...had the impression they were a big organization! Thank you for setting me straight.

[@xenotiic8356]

@@Daktyl198 The fact they match up to a place like LTT so closely despite being so much smaller is hella impressive

[@delancre5858]

@@xenotiic8356 to be honest, even 5 guys is like, a lot. LTT is just video manufacturer at this point with often poor content quality cause of their conveyor strategy.

[@linux42069]

I love seeing Linux Mac boxes!!! It's a chore because there are a LOT of quirks with these older systems, more specifically laptops. But as Mac stops supporting Intel skews, this will be the only way to preserve these systems with a modern OS!

[@whophd]

SKUs

[@LonksAwakening]

What challenges have you experienced with the laptops? I’ve gotten many different distros to work out of the box with a 2008/2009 MacBook (only difference is DDR3 on the older one) and a 2013 MacBook Pro. No crazy driver stuff was needed. Only difficulty I’ve had with Linux on a Mac was a PowerPC eMac, which 99% of distros (even old ones) would support the ATI Radeon 9200 properly and would even display a TTY

[@papasivir4241]

Yeah man I think x86 CPUs are going to be fine on Linux considering PCS are still using them in large amounts. But anything pre x86 and power PC and especially the 68K era is going to be difficult LOL

[@linux42069]

@@LonksAwakening Many of the quirks have to do with things like pram settings. On my 2007 MBP I have to install macfanctrl or the other variant otherwise the fans sit at their lowest speed and the computer gets hot as hell. Some of the older Mac's had a very weird hybrid efi setup, similar to a netbook. The CPUs were 64 bit but the efi is 32 bit. That led to some weird confusion and some distros live CDs wouldn't even boot. While newer Macs use AMD and integrated Intel graphics, the older Intel CPU SKUs use Nvidia chips. Installing the out of date proprietary drivers borks the system unless you force grub to use legacy boot. This was also the case when dual booting Windows back in the day. While this works, booting in legacy automatically changes the SATA drive to IDE mode. The only way to fix it is to force grub to check for hardware at specific memory addresses. These were my biggest issues but I'm sure there are more.

[@LonksAwakening]

@@linux42069 I have a 2007 Mac Mini with the 32-bit EFI and Debian has a specific Mac ISO just for this reason. As for the NVIDIA graphics stuff, that’s fair enough, but NVIDIA kind of just sucks on Linux across the board

[@JeffGeerling]

Only 96 GB of RAM?! Heh, I would've died seeing a cheese grater with that much RAM back when my dad bought one. Was very jealous as I was stuck on a G4 a few more years.

[@50-50_Grind]

Ought to be enough for some light web surfing.

[@KevKevAllen]

I was in high school when the 5,1 came out, and it was my dream machine. When I decided I wanted a home server earlier this year I jumped at the chance when I found one for $160 on eBay.

[@KevKevAllen]

@@50-50_Grind mine is a file/media/git server and runs 4 virtual machines 24/7, just fine. Let the horses run. 😂

[@francois2449]

"We're gonna mod the power supply" Basically drives nails in the PSU cable X)

[@Ev1lHaX0r]

Picked up my 5.1 just a few days ago before you drive the price up 😂

[@RyanAumiller]

8:30 - Future reference, dab a little bit of dielectric grease on those scotch-locks before you crimp them. The wires will oxidize internally rather quickly from those points if you don't and you'll probably have to mess with them every spring when the humidity comes back. source: I used to put 12v automotive neons and audio stuff INDSIDE my chopped up 3-foot tall full tower AT case I transformed into ATX in the mid 90s.

[@bubbachubba3600]

I have my 2010 5,1 running windows 11 and it’s my daily computer. Runs fantastic!

[@stevejohnson1321]

Yes the prices have finally come down markedly. Just look at the TDP on those Xeon before buying. They use more electricity than an i7 870, and there's two!

[@ActionRetro]

As we all know, TDP stands for Totally Dope Processors!

[@Thicccbacon]

@actionretro Take note when delidding the 5690's where the components are in relation to the direction your vice is moving the heat spreaders. I delidded some a few weeks ago and can definitely see how easily they can turn to un-usable jank! Looking forward to the next video!

[@scottlucchese7956]

Thanks!

[@MichaelAStanhope]

Obsolete my ass! I still use mine every day! Oh, and Backblaze is freaking awesome! Great sponsor!

[@vimsi]

a shame that Dual CPU nowadays is worse for performance :( and that they convert so much electricity to heat :D

[@MichaelAStanhope]

@@vimsi These old Xeon's... yep! Mine is a single processor that I have installed an X5775 @ 3.06ghz and it still serves me well (im typing this on that machine). Running fairly modern MacOS and its still a good, usable machine, but these old processors are pretty bad in terms of performance per watt.

[@vimsi]

@@MichaelAStanhope I have mine sitting around doing nothing anymore - I just have no usecase :(

[@jammcat]

I have a 1,1 that I found on the side of the road years ago. Flashed the BIOS to 2,1, upgraded the RAM, got Manjaro running on it and threw in a more modern NVIDIA card. The 32-bit EFI coupled with some other quirks make it a more cumbersome computer to work on, but it';s still a beast. I've never seen the 4,1/5,1 RAM/CPU bay removed before but that is SO MUCH easier to work on than the 1,1/2,1. Golly!

[@fmlazar]

Does Mac OS still run on it?

[@jammcat]

@@fmlazar Nothing close to contemporary, so you're basically screwed if you try to run Mac OS with current software. Officially the computer supports Mac OS up to Lion, but with a modified boot loader I believe that you can install up to El Capitan. Nothing beyond that. Linux is definitely a better option.

[@haedenshardware]

Awesome timing with this video, I have two x5690s in the mail to be delivered tomorrow to upgrade my HP Z600 system

[@CharlesBluTheXPicturesInc]

Thanks For The Part 2 Of Linux Mac Pro!

[@luheartswarm4573]

Im not an apple person at all, never been, but gosh I love the cheese grater aesthetic!

[@JimmyDoresHairDye]

I just started getting my 5,1 Mac Pro back to life for a window emulator and mass storage project. Perfect video to listen to while working on it!

[@corywest]

The timing of this video is perfect because I'm about to upgrade my MacPro5,1 and was thinking about running Linux on it.

[@RarefiedError]

mine has done ok with linux on it for years. I don't dual-boot and I have a mac-flashed radeon gfx. i spent quite a while learning how to control the fans and fan curve. Simple to do once you find the web pages and 2 common linux packages that cover it.

[@CrassSpektakel]

The Xeon Workstation I mentioned in my last post by chance runs native MacOS from 10.7 to 10.14 WITHOUT ANY CHANGES directly from Apple-Boot-devices. When I read that some Intel 5000X boards can straight forward boot MacOS without additional software I tried it and it worked like a charm. My board identifies as an Intel S5000XDN which is a S5000XVN with an additional GPIO debug header. I just need to disable the 16Bit-compability support module, aka classic BIOS, so it falls back to EFI 0.9 - nowadays we run UEFI 2.x, EFI 0.9 literally can only boot MacOS and some utterly archaic linux-Sysloader. But then it is just a Mac Board made by Intel. Insane. My guess, Apple used these boards for developing the Mac Pro. It was rare enough that people wouldn't go their way to use it to run MacOS. But to be honest, I only testet it when my buddy brought his Mac over about three times with MacOS 10.8, 10.14 and 10.15 - the later didn't start for missing 32Bit support. I guess the EFI was 32Bit only even though the system itself is running 64Bit very fine.

[@mizinoinovermyhead.7523]

You don't need to delid the processors, just don't torque the heat sinks down as far. I have seen other channels do this mod and that works just fine.

[@cenewton3221]

That isn't always a reliable option. It did not work for my 4,1 a few years ago so I tried delidding them & they broke (I think they were already a bit brittle from heat exposure) so I bought them pre-delidded. It's much simpler to just buy a 2010 MP which doesn't have the clearance issue.

[@RazoBeckett.]

I want the next part as soon as possible. Nice video

[@shepherdosterompton]

I was getting ready to comment the triple channel RAM thing but then I got to that point in the video lol I’m getting ready to do the Pixlas mod on my maxed out cheese grater so I can pop in a 6800 XT 😎

[@recademedia]

Okay, call me the weirdo but I want you to put the optical drive back now! Even better upgrade the optical drive to a Blu-ray ReWritable drive because you can and it's supported! Love the content. Keep it up!

[@tlhunter]

Truly the pinnacle of case design.

[@carltonleboss]

Love the look of these Mac Pros.

[@jarifazmain5170]

Some tips for linux gaming use gamemode and gamescope. These programs massively improve gaming performance in linux. Gamemode optimizes the system for running games and gamescope is a micro compositor that makes games run more smoothly by bypassing the desktops environments compositor. Gamescope actually is made by valve it is used in the steam deck.

[@joe--cool]

And ditch Ubuntu.

[@jarifazmain5170]

@@joe--cool yeah Ubuntu sucks nowadays

[@potardo9851]

That was an amazing write up and well executed! Superb job!

[@EposVox]

Well now I want to do this You’re my hero

[@DonVintaggio]

The frankeinsteinization level in this video is *astronomical* ; subscribed because tim cook is hating you so much for bringing back to life such an extinct mammoth.

[@danagoyette7932]

I hope those power taps for the GPU are rated for high current. It'd probably be a good idea to run a GPU power stress test for a while and make sure they aren't getting stupendously hot.

[@TheGameboyGTS]

videos like this are what inspired me to get a 20009 Macbook Pro and bring it to the modern era with OCPL and an SSD. it's better than my most recent laptop and it connects to my friends minecraft server just fine. this machine came out when i was in high school, and it's older than our youngest server member.

[@vovs3167]

I went with soldering directly to the PSU PCB, of course you would need to get it out and disassemble, but in the end I think it's more straightforward than tapping into the wires. Also made it a bit "modular" - what I soldered in used to be an 8-pin EPS12V extender, which I cut in half, and now it's possible to plug a PCI-E power cable from a modular PSU into it.

[@jeff15]

had this same mac as a gift, due to space i had to regift it. i wish i could have kept it to do the same upgrade as you. awesome vid. can't wait for the follow up on this. thanks.

[@Fallokoch]

I daily drive one of these with 32gigs of ram. I run Sonoma for Logic Pro! Works SUPER well. Love my cheap $100 mac pro!

[@KevKevAllen]

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 running macOS 10.13.6 which is the last natively supported macOS, as my home server. 3.2GHz Quad-Core Xeon 16GB DDR3 (could use a few more sticks but runs just fine atm) ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB And it does absolutely everything I could ever want it to do as a server. No jank needed. ❤

[@shanemitchellspencer]

I still have my 4,1 Mac Pro. That and a 15” MacBook Pro were always my dream Mac’s to own. It’s sad we will never see another Mac like it. Framework is the closest thing!

[@JaredsGarage]

You sir, inspired me to breath new life into all of my old Apple Products. I own a 2011 Mac Mini and a 2011 i7 powered 27 inch iMac that were virtually useless due to no software support. I put ubuntu on both of them, learned how to turn the mac Mini into a file sever (among other things), and actively use my iMac every day again because Ubuntu made everything work perfectly on it again, and in many ways it runs just as good as my M2 Macbook Air.

[@kumedzanimuloiwa2058]

Really appreciate the cliffhangers. They are always done well. I'll be back (Terminator Voice) 🤣🤣

[@macintush]

I can’t wait to see the cpu upgrade

[@blankbruno70]

"But instead today we'll take a more reasoned approach"--am I on the right channel? :D Another great video! Thank you for all you do.

[@gabiedubin]

man this display is beatiful

[@Alexei1727]

You don't need to de-lid the CPU's you can pull out the heatsink fan cables out a bit so they can reach the connectors on the board

[@bubbachubba3600]

Wait… skipping through. BRO you didn’t have to jank the power supply there’s adapters for the mini 6 pin. You could have gotten one dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin cable for the GPU and you’d get a total of 375 watts! It’s $10 on Amazon and just a pin connector to the motherboard.

[@8antipode9]

Oh wow, de-lidding. Godspeed good sir.

[@JimmyDoresHairDye]

I upgraded by 4,1 during covid - more ram, dual 5680's, 1080GTX and NVMe storage. I specifically went with 5680's instead of 5690's to avoid the de-lidding process. The hit in performance (3.33GHz vs. 3.46) is negligible and you don't need to worry about using washers to perfectly space the heat sinks - from the weight of the sinks damaging the chips to over tightening of improperly spaced screws damaging the CPU board or CPU's themselves, it made way more sense to go with the 5680's. But you're also way more adept at this kind of thing so you'll probably have a much easier time with it! :P

[@zakarylakota]

Last time I was this early…I’ve never been this early. Recently found this channel and love the off wall stuff you do with old tech. Keep in rockin! Ps. The hoovies garage shirt made me like this channel more

[@Geek-a-Zoid]

Very cool thanks for the video!

[@sstillwell]

I'm running Ubuntu on my 5,1, but only single processor 6 core with 48 GB RAM. That's still pretty beastly for a Linux box that only runs server tasks. I did the processor and RAM upgrades myself, and stuck in an upgraded GPU that was about the best one I could find that had Mac firmware for native boot capability. I've gone to Apple Silicon for my daily driver, but that 5,1 is still PLENTY capable for most tasks.

[@fanshaw]

I just used opencore patcher to put Sequoia beta onto a 4,2->5,1 flashed dual X5690 with 64G RAM, R570 graphics and SSDs. Its fine, but it kicks out a lot of heat for relatively small performance. PCIE gen2 is going to hurt the throughput, but its fine if you love your system and just want to keep it alive.

[@rubiigen]

Since you used OCLP, you have now got enableUEFIGOP at your disposal as long as OCLP is set as the default. Though fun thing, you can flash the same enableUEFIGOP into the bootrom of these systems, allowing for even the native boot picker to show up!

[@brslade]

I'm on a 3,1 running linux right now. Dual 3.2 xeons, 32gigs of ram and a gtx980. It's still kicking.

[@unixgod13]

Loved it! Impressive that you were able to dual boot Monterey and Ubuntu 24.04 with the RTX 2070 working. I wonder how it would perform with the Phoronix Test Suite testing the GPU. Love the UNIX t-shirt. It would interesting if you could triple boot with Windows 10/11, Ventura/Legacy OpenCore, and Ubuntu 24.04. Great episode!!

[@jeffsims7386]

I’ve reliably run an rx580 just off the logic board power ports for many years now, with an adapter that pulls from both to a single 8-pin. Much safer to do the mod in the long run though, especially with higher power draw cards.

[@dionelr]

A more reasoned approach? 😮 Who are you and what have you done with Action Retro?!

[@iphonepunker]

You do NOT need to delid the CPUs on the 4.1 the main issue is the fan cables in the heat sink which you can clip out of the heatsink for the extra gap.

[@DarthEd77]

I love my Mac Pro 5,1! 😊

[@semperfidelis316]

The JuiceBox wasn't intended to be an external PSU. It was meant to be installed in the 5.25" optical bay and all cords routed internally. Very similar to how you routed your cables after tapping into the stock connector.

[@jgordon7719]

Would have never considered you a Hoovies garage fan but I love it

[@agoengrezaa]

i agree, this tower are the state of the art

[@eduardocarrasco8830]

Nice video once again ! I have 2 of these 5,1, one with dual X5690 and the other with dual L5640, both with 96 gb of ram and nvme. As far as I know the 4,1 and 5,1 are exactly the same computer and they don’t require delid as the 3,1. Both of mine are not using delid CPUs. The other thing is that, for the Mac pro to be able to accept those 6 cores CPUs I believe you have to flash the motherboard and cpu daughterboard with the 144F rom, which can be done by installing OSX 10.13. There is a new mod now that flashed the Mac pros boot rom to enable vga output using any card. I use one of my 5,1 every single day, they are not the most efficient in terms of power, but they still do everything I need. They are extremely silent and stable. When you upgrade the CPUs, you will need a long torx key to access the mount point from the top. I would recommend also to inspect and reinstall the heatsink that covers the Northbridge between both CPU heatsinks, be sure you mark them prior taking them out as they have a cut in the corner to make them fit.

[@giornikitop5373]

nice one. i don't know what is the spec of the mac power supply but given that you just installed a 2070 and you're going to install those spaceheater xeons (130W each), i would double check. under normal conditions it shouldn't be a problem but if you fire up a heavy game and everything is maxed out, it might be. also, these taps for the cables looks like they cut through the wires so, not ideal.

[@Watcher3223]

I currently use a 5,1 that's upgraded to almost the same level as your computer; the only two differences are that I am using a SATA SSD for my boot drive and the graphics card I'm using is a Radeon 7950 with an Apple BIOS for the boot screen as well as for Metal support with macOS Monterey, which I've got installed courtesy of OpenCore. Everything else is the same, particularly CPUs and RAM. Software Update says I can update the OS installation to macOS Sequoia, thanks to OpenCore ... however, that's not advisable because versions beyond Monterey may require a Mac with Intel CPUs having instruction sets that my computer doesn't support. Apple just recently discontinued support for Monterey, so I think I've got about two, maybe three more years of use out of my Mac before the lack of security updates and software support really become a liability for it. But there's still plenty of life left in it, despite its obsolescence, which is making me seriously consider installing a Linux distro on it whenever I can secure the funds to replace my cheesegrater with a Mac Studio or something. I still do work that pretty much requires a macOS environment, but I have and use computers with macOS and Windows ... and I've wanted to try and get into Linux. So far the farthest I've gone with having a Linux computer is with a small HP PC with Batocera Linux for my home theater system. On the day I use my 5,1 with Linux, I'm debating between Ubuntu, Fedora, or Linux Mint. The thing I do with my Mac is video editing, and one reason why I may continue to use my 5,1 with Linux is so I can continue to use Davinci Resolve on it, though I will have to pay for the Studio version as well as use an nVidia card with Cuda support so I can also get required codec support, as well as being able to output a project to 4k, for my work.

[@BollingHolt]

"No chime...... IT CHIMED!" 🤣

[@r0galik]

I see that you have both geekbench results on your account - to compare them you could just select the lower one as the baseline - would be nicer to present.

[@ericbauer4559]

I feel like I sold my 4,1 too soon. Life for these really picked up after the Polaris gpus came out. Unless one falls in my lap for really cheap, I don’t think I’ll go down that road again.

[@aaronburns2858]

I have an 8 core 5,1. My girlfriend uses it as her desktop for playing Disney dreamlight valley. Currently has 48gb of ram, a gtx 680(pixlas modded because I was too cheap to get official cables) a 512gb ssd, and its original dual 2.4ghz westmere e5620 quad cores. Currently hooked up to an HP 30” 2560x1600 screen(looks to be the same panel as the 30 inch apple cinema hd display but with 3 DVI-D inputs) it’s also currently running windows 10 pro because she doesn’t like Mac OS

[@philtkaswahl2124]

A modern keyboard made to resemble the old Commodore 64 is really the perfect complement to this project.

[@JamesnLollify]

You'll likely want to get something like an RX 580 in there, its natively supported in both MacOS and Linux so you'll encounter no issues

[@yaybrianna]

This is a great use of a machine that would otherwise be trash!

[@mr.pumpkin8891]

AHHHHHHH TIM COOK JUMPSCARE

[@butlerwm]

Do you know if the 5,1 will support an NVIDIA RTX A2000? I ask because the A2000 runs on PCIe bus power without external power connectors. Also, do you have plans for a BootCamp Windows install?

[@JasonofWaukesha]

I got one of these out of Free Geek for 20$. It weighs 45 lbs. and was likely priced based on the cost of scrap aluminum. Works fine with the exception of the optical drive. I was thinking of casing a beaten old Atari ST in the thing and replacing the Apple side insignia with the Atari one, but this video gave me a little more to think about before I start that project. Cheers--

[@protocetid]

thought it would be boring because it was a x86 Mac (AKA a PC with an Apple logo), but the GPU that was much newer than the computer and the PSU mod spiced things up

[@DarkennSlots]

this project is gold

[@WaveWaterer]

The Tux Pro 🔥🔥🔥

[@CardboardBots]

I love these machines. So upgradeable and user friendly

[@thomasb.900]

Very cool Hoovie's Garage shirt ❤

[@tonycosta3302]

I bought one last year to use as a home server. My energy bill actually increased noticeably because I left it on 24/7. I switched to a MacMini with a 3d printer SSD expansion box. You will spend more on electricity in a year than the Mac Pro.

[@whophd]

Yikes, suddenly this gets real! I wonder where the modern Intel and AMD CPUs fit, because I'm sure server farms are considering the equation.

[@tonycosta3302]

@@whophd it’s like leaving a 150-200 watt incandescent light bulb on all the time. I think the MacMini uses 1/10th that amount.

[@CommodoreFan64]

I personally don't have a need for a home server, but I have 2 really nice Intel 12th gen desktop builds running Manjaro Linux w/12900H chips(home office, and media room, and yes they are higher end laptop chips on a desktop Mobo setup from Aliexpress), but due to some power bill spikes in recent times, I've been switching to my Lenovo Laptops more often for basic task outside of gaming, or heavier workloads as they pull 65 watts max, so I can only imagine what leaving one of these Mac Pro towers on 24/7 would be like. 😬

[@gorudonu]

we came long way, that multicore score in geekbench is basically modern smartphone single core score

[@jeffsims7386]

My 5,1 sits in my closet running Ubuntu. It’s just a multipurpose server now but it still works great.

[@DissertatingMedieval]

I sold my cheese grater when it wouldn't work for the project I intended it for, but I think you can use washers safely to raise the heat sinks just slightly rather than delidding. I think I had a 5,1 though, so I don't know if it still works the same with a 4,1.

[@waydegutman7339]

Right up my alley. I have a Mac Pro rig similar to yours, running Debian 12, SparkyLinux, and FreeDOS. I have not upgraded the cpus due to the de-lidding process, but I wonder if there an alternative path ? Instead of going through the de-lid process, it is possible to install the Xeons as is and use a more modern heatstink/fan combination ? Looking forward to the Xeon video, as I will be upgrading mine as some point.

[@0hN0es203]

"Gaming mac jank pro" lol. I low key love that thing.

[@37Kilo2]

I can't believe they went from this beautiful beast to the trash can. I've owned a few of these secondhand cheese graters over the years. Always had the intention to convert one to ATX, but never did. Some day...

[@MikeFromDownUnder]

Love this! ❤️

[@quadmods]

I think there’s a memory slot configuration application in the “core services” folder that lets you select the layout of the ram depending on the number of channels.

[@acubley]

Once the NVME is in, I'd love to see this go up against a Ryzen 8-core. There's the little difference in power. 95W a piece on the Xeons vs 65W for the Ryzen. Ouchies. Be interesting to see how much that third RAM channel balances the disadvantage of the DDR3. About a decade ago my bro had me refurbish a HP Z80 (?) for him. It's quad channel made it quite peppy.

[@sleveee]

I still have a trusty ole 1,1 "quad core" 3.0Ghz chugging along with windows 10 and a GTX 670. It's not going to win any benchmark competitions but for a secondary office machine it's fine. Still one of the best looking machines Apple ever put out IMHO. I've got a fleet of old cheesegraters from 3,1 to 5,1 and even have a trashpro 6,1 running Sonoma using OCLP and they're still very usable.

[@zaxchannel2834]

I've seen easy tools for delidding CPUs, never tried it myself. Honestly, I'd probably do this build myself if I could. It looks really good considering these old mac-pros are supposed to be so obsolete

[@UpLateGeek]

That's a pretty big upgrade so far, but RSVP your electricity bill if you actually plan on gaming on this thing regularly.

[@astiLP]

Drop the proprietary, use the new open drivers.

[@SmilyTheMare]

i put an intel xeon x5960 in my dell precision t3500 workstation its a great cpu and will def be a great upgrade for the mac when u do it

[@bluephreakr]

Those taps are _wild._ Like, props to Sean for making that _literal_ garbage solution work, and it's certainly faster than doing it the _right_ way, but I would go out of my way to keep the factory connectors on that Juicebox, cut the Mac's PSU leads - entirely outside the PC - so both ends can have a socket which correspond with the existing connectors and install it proper

[@TheDigitalOne]

That is quite a powerful iMac Linux Upgrade, if the CPUs upgrades successfully, will you be able to install the additional RAM to run her at 128GB of RAM? 💪😺

[@prestachuck2867]

I think that machine can run just fine on Sequoia via OCLP, and get updates for another couple of years.

[@s1oplus_wt]

Will not support the RTX 2070 plus he wants ubuntu

[@rileyhance318]

if I remember correctly these machines actually have less ram bandwidth with all 4 slots on each cpu filled. They are reportedly faster with only 3/4 dimms installed per side

[@RarefiedError]

yes triple-channel ftw

[@appleapple3855]

I'll check when I get home, but I don't think it's actually necessary to delid the cpu. If I member correctly I just added some small washers or something... or maybe I just didn't tighten the heatsinks all the way.

[@appleapple3855]

OK just looked, I built out a 2009 mac pro 4,1 a life time ago now for the missus. Made it a 5,1 and used a used a w3690 xeon for the processor. I didn't buy any special kit and didn't delid it either. It's her daily and still plugs along like.a champ. Also used the mini 6 pin connectors on the board to regular size 6 pin for the gtx 760.

[@arturofernandez8487]

The geekbench results from before are actually less than from a raspberry pi 5. wow

[@alexandrecouture2462]

Yeah, these older Xeons are becoming a bit underwhelming.