Is it worth upgrading an ancient Mac Pro 2008?

In my last video, I upgraded a Mac Pro 2008 to macOS 14, and it worked pretty well, but it was hindered by my ancient Nvidia GeForce 760 and my cheap SSD.
Patreon - Bonus video here
/ dmug
So I went on an eBay hunt for a RX 580 and Amazon for a SATA SSD to see if I could make an old computer feel a bit newer. In the process I benchmarked my Mac Pro for disk and GPU improvements. I don't exactly make big KZbin money so this was kinda a dumb purchase. I really figured this video would have been all of 8~ minutes long and finished in a weekend.... was I ever wrong.
0:00 Intro and selecting upgrades
1:48 Why not RAM?
2:06 It should be easy
2:31 Frustration
4:16 Core Memory Unlocked
5:09 macOS 12 and SATA
5:41 Disk Benchmarks
6:34 RX 580
6:51 RX 80 Benchmarks
8:27 General Impressions with macOS gaming
10:37 More RX 580 benefits
-------------------------------------------
Recommended videos:
macOS 14 Sonoma on a 15 year old Mac (classic Mac Pro 2008)
• macOS 14 Sonoma on a 1...
Gaming with a Mac Pro 2019? 6600 XT vs 6900 XT vs M1 Max vs Gaming PCs
• Gaming with a Mac Pro ...
How to play PlayStation 3 Games on your Mac (PS3 emulation on macOS)
• How to play PlayStatio...
-------------------------------------
Benchmarking Utilities:
apps.apple.com/us/app/amorpho...
benchmark.unigine.com/
Cited Sources:
MacRumors: RX 580 three 3 displays
forums.macrumors.com/threads/...
OpenCore Legacy Patcher
dortania.github.io/OpenCore-L...
---------------------------------------
Random Stuff:
KZbinrs mentioned:
MacSoundSolutions (Lance), Jessie's Flying (Jessie), Joerg Henninges, Martin Lo, Mr. Macintosh
These are the guys I recommend checking out for OpenCore info.
Beer Consumed:
pFriem's Druif Blanc - A bit of a backstory on this beer, the first time I had it was "Druif" and it was brand new at the brewery before they made variants of Druif. I had to manually enter the beer info into Untappd making me the first person check the beer in. It'd later win the GABF Gold for barrel aged beer. I recognized it was fantastic from the jump, although not my first pick as chardonnay barrels aren't my jam. It bites a lot like a good white wine and has the tartness and bit of herbal spice to it. Truly one of those "beer as an experience" sort of beer.
www.pfriembeer.com/beer/druif...
beerconnoisseur.com/articles/...
Quinn's Tech Corner Discord (Fellow youtuber's retro Mac focused discord)
/ discord
My cat's instagram:
/ jeffleupagus
Shot, edited, and music by me.

[@universityrepairFL]

I ❤ you bro! I’ve been running those damn exact Kingstons!

[@dmug]

Yeah they were dirt cheap so I have two 240 GB ones just for random messing around but even then I kinda hate them. I’ve been slowly buying 512 GB mx500s for projects. I have one in my Mac Pro and one in PowerMac G4.

[@joshm264]

I've had the same issue with my 2009 Mac Pro, and after days of messing around with it back when Ventura came out, I eventually figured out that if I installed macOS with the original GPU, removed the root patches, shut down, and swap in the 580, I could connect to the machine over SSH or VNC, and then install the patches like that. I've been using it daily since then without any issues! (And yes, the same procedure works with Sonoma for me)

[@dmug]

That's.... not a bad idea. I never considered that it was fully booting. I'll have to try that at some point when I'm more open to being frustrated again. Right now Sonoma is crashing when I try to launch it from OCLP weirdly.

[@joshm264]

​@@dmugI saw Jessie's flying post that there's issues right now with 14.1 on OCLP, so maybe it'll be worth a try in a couple weeks?

[@dmug]

@@joshm264yeah, I was on 14.0 during the making of this vid, I’m hoping in a few weeks I can get macOS 14 working. Also, I forgot I have a black late 2006 MacBook that’d be a perfect candidate for Linux.

[@ladeluff_]

I get stuck on booting up on Sonoma aswell. (Same setup as described above: Dual 2,8Ghz / 16GB 667Mhz RAM and asus GTX 1060 with mSATA SSD (custom ssd enclusure for mSATA drivi) i CAN boot Sonoma if i hold the left SHIFT (Safe mode boot) But then SIP status is all fucked/locked, so i can´t install Root patches (No button availabale to perform patching) and YES this is on 14.0. so shouldn ´t be same issue as Jessie´s flying is describing. BUT look here. it is already solved by Khronokernel (author of OCLP)

[@vgdrtdf]

@@ladeluff_is there a link? 🙏 I just wanna fix my Mac and get it over with 🥲

[@charper1541]

Great content and very useful info for Mac Pro community. Just finished my yummy IPA and your've a good sense of humor my friend. Cheers!

[@alan11121959]

Mr. Macintosh has an update specific to OCLP1.1.0, Mac Pro and Sonoma om his KZbin channel. The problems encountered are unique to the Mac Pro and the OCLP dev team are working on it. Note that the Mac Pro has always had difficulities with these upgrades and remember that you're trying to use modern software on a machine that has long passed it's expiration date...it's 15 YEARS OLD...

[@erg7732]

This is a fantastic video Greg, not sure why you had so much trouble with open core, but yeah I reckon a 5,1 would have been a nicer shout.

[@erg7732]

This is Quin btw 😂

[@dmug]

@@erg7732As always, thanks for the engagement.

[@annaj1074]

Haven’t seen anyone trying blu ray drive and playing movies. modding front panel for usb c and flash card would be nice. this machine still looks cool after all those years.

[@dmug]

You can with VLC on the old Mac Pro or in windows. I don’t know if you can do UHD though….

[@ryanhines293]

I love the timeless design of Mac hardware from 2008-2020. Which one of my fave setups was taking a 2011 27 inch iMac and getting the ram to 32gb, 2tb samsung sata ssd, and then would put on a pretty custom version of Linux to run on it. Quite a bit of distros now from 22.04 support all the devices in it and older macbooks even the facetime cameras ootb!

[@Dainternetdude]

Beleive it or not this design goes all the way back to the Power Mac from 2003!

[@annonymouspotato-io8jz]

how did you get it to support metal 3? my 580 (exact same 4gb sapphire nitro) is stuck on metal 2 in Sonoma. also how did you go about installing windows, did you use bootcamp? Edit: also, when I first installed my RX 580 in my Mac the only way I could actually get it to output any form of video, was by removing all the SSD's, HDD's, USB's and expansion cards except for the OCLP USB and the 580. Then I had to perform an NVRAM reset to, for lack of a better term: "load the drivers" onto the card. lastly, during the install I had to do an NVRAM reset every single time it rebooted. Hope this helps.

[@jaimemartinez-castillo9779]

Thank you very much for answering friend. I was referring to the RX 590 and not the RX 580. Or are the two video cards the same?

[@SinlowMusic]

This is awesome. I love older Macs and always felt that a lot of them had planned obsolesce before their time. Seeing one comfortably run modern MACos in general is pretty sweet.

[@sinephase]

planned obsolescence is Apple's whole strategy

[@SinlowMusic]

I mean, they receive far better and more consistent support than older Android iPhones. Planned obsolesce is part of the corporate world in general. @@sinephase

[@WaymoresBlues]

I still have a PowerMac 6500 in my garage with OS9 installed on it mostly for nostalgia since it is covered in the stickers from the several bands that I liked or personally knew back in the 90's when I used to make flyers for them in Photoshop and run down to Kinkos to print and cut them on card stock. I miss those days but not the trying to figure out which old extension was incompatible with a new one and was causing my system to crash. That was always a problem and just when I thought I handle on it, BAM, OSX came out and all of my old Macs were now obsolete

[@WaymoresBlues]

And that greedy planned obsolescence practice from Apple is why I stopped buying new Apple products after the burn I felt when I purchased one of the original iMacs that was made obsolete within a year and their ever changing power adapters and lack of backward compability. But what really riled me to no end was when I went to buy a composite cable adapter for my Video iPod and the Apple markup on it was outrageous only to find a similar mini RCA to composite cable at Pacific Radio and find the only difference was that red RCA jack was actually the yellow, the yellow was the white jack and the white was the red jack on a 12 foot cable that was a fraction of the price of the official Apple 3 foot composite cable. Those chicken shyte sumbich's at Apple haven't got a red cent from me since.

[@inthestudy]

Pro tip - 667 vs 800 makes damn near no difference and 667 FB-DIMMs are cheap. :)

[@rodrigo4379]

I bought a used 590 with vial bios and I struggled like an hour with windows drivers, seemed like the car was running a mining bios and after switching the bios it worked great.

[@DanielJBrieckJr]

So glad I am not doing OCLP, thanks for saving me the time. Linux Mint 21.x running like a charm

[@poofygoof]

Definitely some of the better looking Mac systems; I didn't know you could shoehorn newer MacOS in there. I worked extensively with Xeon systems of this era, and they were quite the screamers at the time, I think I had tricked out my dev system with dual W3680 (gulftown) before we moved to Romley (E5-2600 and -2600v2 series).

[@Spoolingturbo6]

What happen the last time you installed MacOS14? I wonder ... did you need to add boot arg's like Pikera. Or maybe you needed to use the Nvida card / use OC to make a MacOS14 instal / then add RX and boot arguments.. just brainstorming. those are my thoughts. I may pull mine out, knock the dust off snd have s go with a Vega 64.

[@dmug]

That’s where my knowledge trails off as I missed the era of manual tweaks. I briefly used Martin Lo’s config but we had the same system: dual 5,1 + Radeon VII so I never messed with it, then I sold my Mac Pro 5,1s. I ran the post install remover from OpenCore, which nuked the GeForce 760 and included the AMD option assuming it’d configure everything properly. My current OpenCore config works for macOS 12 so that portion seems to be ok, but it’s just working with Sonoma and not sure if some post install is messed up.

[@rebel8481]

2010 Macs never die

[@MRSTU1210]

Very cool subbed

[@eppicshotgun1281]

I just bought one of these '08 Cheese graters on ebay for like 100 bucks and the plan is to basically turn it into a glorified thunderbolt dock cause I just like the way they look lol.

[@NegroRotary]

Need your help man, I want a Geforce GT 730 so i can connect two 30 inch cinema display, but in your guide you said I need to have Kepler chipset, how do i know that before i buy one?

[@dmug]

You don't need specifically Keplar GPU, just a GPU that can do dual 1440p@60hz. The Cinema displays are a pain as they're dual-link DVI and DVI is a dead standard. More modern GPUs either have a single DVI port (which will support Dual Link) or none at all. I know people love those displays but I just am not a fan of using them as most are yellowing at this point and there's better displays now for less money, without the hassle of dual link DVI. Start here: blog.greggant.com/posts/2018/05/07/definitive-mac-pro-upgrade-guide.html#duallinkdvi The best option would be to skip the Cinema Display (or at least two). The secondary option would be to find a more modern GPU with a DVI port and then get an active convertor for the second Cinema Display. You can ask around on MacProUpgrade on Facebook, MacRumors Forums in the Mac Pro group or Reddit's Mac Pro group to see what solutions people have cooked up.

[@NegroRotary]

@@dmug@dmug call me crazy, lol, but I love those damn monitors, man; right now, I have one 30-inch and 27-inch Thunderbolt, and the 27 have a webcam which I won't have with the 30-inch.

[@poorfarmer391]

I have the 1.1 I picked up a few years ago still haven't been able to get it to display I don't know if it's the 32 gigs ram that in it or not

[@ChandlerHartman]

Has anyone else had success with the 5700xt on sonoma? Im using the latest OCLP and haven’t made success getting the os to recognize the gpu only states the 7mb cache

[@clivemorris4845]

I have a similar setup, same GPU but with 8GB RAM, 32GB system RAM but a single processor. It runs Monterey happily under OCLP and I've not moved to Ventura or Sonoma as I don't like the interface. The only issue I've really had is that I have to remove the boot drive and install OCLP from another machine or I loose Bluetooth and I've never managed to get WiFi working so it's as well the ethernet is close by. I tend to use it as a media server, from your experience I think I'll definitely stick with Monterey!

[@universityrepairFL]

Nice I got 32 in my dual 3,1.

[@universityrepairFL]

I’ve heard you can upgrade the processors but gpu and metal is the key to it all or just bootcamp windows tbh it’s still intel

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

How about trying to put NVME SSD into PCI-E x16? I've done that on a random old HP - sure, the bios did not support the NVME but it does not really matter so long you have the boot files on another drive, I just put in an old USB stick permamently as my boot drive ridirecting to NVME.

[@user-ee4wd6yr2t]

Does the RX 570 have metal 3 support?

[@stevenlucas7930]

So question. How did you update to Mac os 14 when the using the built in usb ports are none usable?

[@dmug]

They're usable, just USB1.1 doesn't work until post install patches. I think I talk about it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6mmlIaZmpeohNE You just need a USB2.0 hub to use USB1.1 devices like most mice and keyboards.

[@stevenlucas7930]

@@dmug are the logitech mx master series usb 2.0 or 1.0 and also where did you plug in at.

[@dmug]

@@stevenlucas7930 I don't know off the top of my head. As previously stated, all the USB ports work, but before you do the post-install hacks for OpenCore, you'll need to use a USB 2.0 hub and plug 1.1 devices into it. It doesn't matter which port. After you install the post install hacks, you will not need the hub.

[@stevenlucas7930]

@dmug I understand and sorry for asking, I know Monterey didn't have a problem but when I tried ventura it was like everything just went nuts 🤣🤣. I will buy a adapter tonight and try it. Thank you!!!!!

[@dmug]

@@stevenlucas7930 no worries.

[@davidcmcchesney]

Because of the ufi partition had wrong gpu drivers & SIP when I had the same issue on my 3,1. I sold all my 3,1’s & now have 4 4,1’s and 2 5,1’s

[@sinephase]

such a great design! It's still a desirable case for modding to convert it to a modern PC

[@piecaruso97]

to be honest this kind of hardware is perfect for a linux build since this is an older platform, since the introduction of steam's proton, it's quite the gaming platform and there are great open source apps to perform all the tasks you did in the video too

[@dmug]

LInux content coming, for this machine and another.

[@universityrepairFL]

Linux definitely works on “obsolete “ Mac’s!

[@catalystguitarguy]

Ah I haven't dabbled with running opencore on my Mac Pro 3,1. I just have mine running Catalina with a vega 64 and a PCIe adapter for the sata SSD boot drive. I just had to add the instruction emulation so I could make the CPUs recognize the Vega card. I want to say it was SSE4.2 instructions that the harpertown Xeons do not have natively. I messed around with clover a couple years back for a ryzen based hackintosh that was fantastic. Never got around to trying out opencore. I mostly use linux now. Always fun to push the limits of old hardware. I keep the 3,1 around these days since it has both firewire 400 and 800 making it ideal for troubleshooting and fixing other old intel macs, macbooks, imacs, etc anything from '06-13.

[@AndresValdez54235]

Hi there. This video is perfect for next question. When you used open core legacy patcher to upgrade Mac os to ventura or sonoma or monterrey you REMOVED the original AMD gpu...yet you still have it installed.why? Some other guys say they have both gpus to get boot screen. That means you "switch" monitor wires??or you can have both plugged and get boot screen even of the monitor is plugged to not AMD gpu?

[@dmug]

I'm not sure if it's this video or the other video the Mac Pro 2008 but having the Radeon 2600 XT caused me a lot of grief with OpenCore so I yanked it. I dunno if there's a continuity issue in my shots but I can positively say, I do not have it installed. I do keep it around as a "Just in case" as having an original GPU that can output the EFI bootscreen is useful.

[@AndresValdez54235]

@@dmug thanks for the answer. I also have the original AMD gpu for the rainy days, stored in a box... I used your video (the painful one) to install big sur and monterrey in a 2008 3,1... I experienced the same issue as you with the AMD gpu... let me ask one more question. I have Intel Xeon E5462 @2.8 ghz (2 quad cores) cpus in my working 3,1... if I want to upgrade them which cpus can I install? I will end up giving you for free my 1,1 macpro for your projects

[@dmug]

@@AndresValdez54235 The answers you seek are here. blog.greggant.com/posts/2018/05/07/definitive-mac-pro-upgrade-guide.html If you're offering a whole Mac Pro 1,1 I'd hate to burden anyone with the cost of shipping it as it's _expensive_. I appreciate the offer but but unless you happen to be in the PNW where it's local shipping could be as much as $75. Also, they're a pain to pack.

[@General_Mills_]

Where can I buy that Finder cushion ?

[@dmug]

throwboy.com/

[@ktangut]

I had the exact headache. Once I was able to install Monterey, everything worked well, except audio. Whenever I played a song, it would skip every 5 seconds and was laggy.

[@CapNemoDRS]

good! . my lenovo thinkcentre 2006 works perfectly with quad 6700 and gt1030 like media centre in my bedroom for 4k movies and browser on tv set

[@MacSoundSolutions]

Nice one Greg! Cheers from NY. I’m on Monterey 12.7 with MLOC 0.9.5 and rx6800xt the old girl is still rockin. But my McFiver pcie card seems to be frying my bus powered SSDs. They work as they should then all of a sudden drop to USB2 speeds and never come back. It’s really weird. Powered drives work fine. Talking with Sonnet but must be some kind of power issue.

[@macgamer1973]

you should upgrade to 1.1.0-With the release of OpenCore Legacy Patcher v1.1.0, some noteworthy improvements are dropping! T1 Security Chip support for macOS Sonoma! Restores Touch ID Authentication Applicable for 2016 and 2017 TouchBar MacBook Pros MacBookPro13,2, MacBookPro13,3, MacBookPro14,2, MacBookPro14,3 Streamlined OpenCore vaulting for additional tamper protections by Jazzzny Improvements for macOS 14.1: Resolved PCIe FaceTime camera support Resolved USB 1.1 support

[@dmug]

You could buy a voltage meter, I picked up a AVHzY model, which you can record what’s happening over time and see if it has weird power spikes. It’d be a pain in the ass and I think the software is windows only for the data it generates. There’s videos that show how to use it. I just bought it so I could tell if my USBc cables were charging cables or not.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

@@dmug I have iStat and it shows pcie voltage etc but doesn’t mean much to my audio engineering brain but it looks consistent on the card. May be slightly underpowered but I don’t know what it should be. I have one bus powered ssd that doesn’t have the issue and keeps working normally. Still waiting to hear back from Sonnet.

[@coordinacionensenada8142]

Good day friend. Thank you for the time you invest in sharing such valuable information, we are very happy with your KZbin channel, I greet you from Ensenada Mexico. If you allow me, I would like to ask you a question: I have a Mac pro 3.1 early 2008. Will an Rx 590 Sapphire Nitro+ (special edition) 8 Gig graphics card be compatible?

[@dmug]

Yes, all Radeon RX 580s are compatible, although there are rare cases where a seller has loaded on specialized firmware onto the card. If that’s the case, you will need to reflash it the proper firmware.

[@jaimemartinez-castillo9779]

Thank you very much for answering friend. I was referring to the RX 590 and not the RX 580. Or are the two video cards the same?

[@dmug]

@@jaimemartinez-castillo9779 sorry I didn’t clarify, the RX 590 is an overclocked RX 580. It has a larger cooler that will block the next PCIe slot but is effectively the same GPU as RX 580x

[@coordinacionensenada8142]

OK. I UNDERSTAND. I THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND FOR RESPONDING SO FAST. ONE LAST QUESTION IS THIS VIDEO CARD (RX 590) COMPATIBLE WITH METAL TECHNOLOGY?

[@coordinacionensenada8142]

Intente istalar Big Sur Con la RX 590 y con OCLP, pero no se que estoy haciendo mal, solo veo una pantalla negra y no puedo ver el boot.

[@universityrepairFL]

I’m stuck on Catalina , have put off the power supply mod on my 3,1 .

[@ladeluff_]

HAH. PERFECT Timing Greg. i´m doing the very same project these days. Having headaches over det shitty web drivers and an Asus 1060 6GB. But i ´m stuck on High sierra 17G66 firmware which REFUSE to get the latest security update, i suspect the dosdude patcher locks down the kext or system some how. So think i have to crawl back to using a spare RX 580 after all ;)

[@dmug]

Yeah I had 1060 in this very system years ago. I ended up with Vega 56 in it but sold it during the gpu crisis for an absurd $850.

[@ladeluff_]

woah lol. That IS (was) absurd.@@dmug

[@ladeluff_]

…and i payed approx $80 a year ago for my 1060@@dmug

[@dmug]

@@ladeluff_Not bad at all, especially given the market then. I bought the 1060 new in early 2018 for $360. I gave it to my brother when I got the Vega 56. The ironic part is at one point I had two Vega 56s and sold it at the very beginning of the pandemic for like $180. Whoops.

[@ladeluff_]

btw: I sorted out the High Sierra (17G66) issue with an hack i found on reddit mac pro group. all fully acceleration now on a GTX 1060 w latest webdrivers for High Sierra 17G14033 WebDriver-387.10.10.10.40.139

[@ladeluff_]

Just quick follow up. I managed to fully complete Sonoma 14.1 on One of my 5.1 w RX 580 fitted UPGRADING from ventura. But NOT booting from ssd Sonoma 14.1 installer. Its just all black/freeze at progress bar at approx 1%😮

[@dmug]

I think Jessie’s flying has a video about the black screen freeze.

[@bennym1956]

My last Mac tower was a G4 PowerPC....... I just move forward nowadays and run my Macs til they die and get a new one. Still on an 27" 2017 iMac Intel...want an M series 27" iMac if they ever make a new one....

[@laurencejohnson4106]

An interesting video and perhaps you could make a video showing how well it works with Linux Mint or another Linux distro. There are many free games in the Linux Mint repository and Steam can be installed, Wine can also be installed.

[@dmug]

At some point I'll probably go in on a Linux distro and make a video about it. I use Linux via CLI in Docker containers fairly regular but haven't touched desktop Linux in years. I'm a bit of a known Linux-desktop skeptic so might be fun.

[@laurencejohnson4106]

@@dmug My daily driver is Linux Mint Mate, but many folk prefer the Cinnamon desktop, I have tried several Linux distros, (about 30 in fact) but Linux Mint suits me, I do have Windows 11 on another computer though.

[@dmug]

@@laurencejohnson4106 I debated making a Linux video where I have to actually use it to make a video but decided against it as I’d be mildly frustrated by having to learn Da Vinci Resolve to make it happen and I don’t really have a replacement for some of the tools I rely on like Apple Motion, Cubase/Ableton, and Topaz Video AI upscaler. I think the angle I might use focusing on the performance angle as macOS is generally the slowest OS when comparing against windows and Linux, and there’s solid benchmarking tools that are cross platform I could use, and more show it’s feasible to do much of what users want to do, from the perspective of someone who hasn’t used desktop Linux seriously for 15 years. Open to angles to approach the video.

[@BlackLionWolf]

@@dmugWhat I can say is that I pulled out my Dad’s old 2008 Mac Pro and installed Linux Manjaro KDE and was floored by how smooth things were. I even threw in his old Nvidia Quadro k4000 and was running 4k content with ease. I mean, it can run lots of very good and useful retro games and likely could run a few current. All drivers were automatically detected and installed. Quite honestly with this OS this could make this machine last many more years. It’s worth a try at Linux if you want to squeeze out the last bits of use of this machine.

[@mcdjchandler]

Hello Mac Pro users, does anyone know if I can still boot a 2009 Mac Pro into 10.7.5 lion with the 5,1 firmware and the 12 core 3.46 processors? Please and thank you!

[@dmug]

Yes but 10.7.x has pretty limited GPU options and is capped to to something like less than 96 GB of ram. You may want to consider using a virtual machine for 10.7. Check out my video on running snow leopard on my Mac Pro 2008. Can you use OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in 2023? Nearly 15 years later... kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYm1d6Vudqt2b6M

[@mcdjchandler]

It's really just so I can run pro tools mp9 and use all my old firewire hardware etc. I'll take out the metal capable GPU in it and put the much older 5770 that was stock. Thanks for responding. @@dmug

[@johnnymemphis3919]

How much is browsing 2 days on ebay for a graphcs card? ;)

[@dmug]

Probably about an hour total? There’s a pretty steep law of diminishing returns with eBay.

[@the_grand_tourer]

I upgraded my 2009 Cheese Grater switching form 4.1 to 5,1, with new processors, adding 30%. a new GPU, and filled up the ram ... it wasn't entirely smooth (had to add software to deal with fan overrun), but I've been running it very happily, dealing with 4k editing very easily and fast reactive screen processing ... 14 years old. Must have been an oversight by Mac to allow so much potential e-waste get by their general single use attitude to their products.

[@user-bl7qh5bk7v]

Mac's strategy has always been to create a stellar product that no one can copy, and then phase it out so you have to buy the next one. But if youre willing to put in the leg work, you can keep them going for a long time.

[@user-gb8nx8qr2z]

Ive upgraded many 2008 to 2012 Mac Pros for my business. The problem now is the cpu(s) are obsolete so future OSes, even those for Intel chips, wont work properly

[@sinephase]

what software does it have that you can't use on a windows PC?

[@gametime2473]

How do you upgrade a 2008 to a 2012? They are totally different computers. Did you mean 2009 (4,1) to 2010-12 (5,1)? You can upgrade 2009 to a 5,1 but not a 2008

[@slippydouglas]

For an older but good GPU, consider the RX 590. It’s very similar to the RX 580 with slight clockspeed and VRAM speed bumps, but most importantly, shipped with 8GB of VRAM (not sure if all 590s have 8GB, but my PowerColor Red Dragon RX 590 did). I used one with my mid-2017 MacBook Pro in a Razer Core X eGPU for years without any issues.

[@dmug]

The downside is I’m pretty sure all the coolers on those block the 16x pcie slot.

[@Tech-NO-City]

I tried installing a RX580 in my 2008 Mac Pro.... I was unable to get it working if it did what a mess if you wanna upgrade the OS.

[@Tech-NO-City]

I ended up loading fedora linux on the dammn thing

[@davidcmcchesney]

You are as good as you think you are. You wrote the Definitive Mac Pro Upgrade Guide did you not ? 1 more time get another 5,1 please. NVMe, in a good PCIe controller, USB3, modern WiFi & BT please get the 5,1 running well so you can help me Virtualize . I can’t get OCLP & Paralells to work ?

[@dmug]

I did write it but unfortunately I sold my 5,1s during the early pandemic to buy a 7,1 so I really missed out on OpenCore, I never had to comb through the random flags in the config. I understand what OpenCore does and how it works from a high level but not the low level stuff. I’m not much help on OpenCore troubleshooting beyond very general issues as I do not daily drive OpenCore and thus probably never going to be an OpenCore expert.

[@cinemaipswich4636]

As is, it could easily handle 128 channels of audio production with lots of add-ons, and effects.

[@dave7244]

It would be interesting to see how well Linux ran on that machine. Debian runs very well on my old Mac Mini i5.

[@dmug]

Yep, that content is coming for sure. Plan to do a shoot out between Linux / macOS / Windows

[@1digitalsmith]

I'm still dicking @ with mine overseas i had to take out the top row of ram to run 16gigs on bottom tray, with an adjustable usb fan toward the back wall blowing hot ram air out & since I want El Capitan on it its work in progress not quite there yet but did manage to upgrade to 2,1 not sure what is the most effective method to upgrade it to El Cap aside from modding the boot eufi code via terminal etc.

[@dmug]

If anyone can get the Mac Pro 2,1 to modern macOS, they'll be a hero. I never owned one myself so I haven't followed the developments as closely as with the rest of the Mac Pros. Last I saw, I think people had Windows 11 working on them.

[@OddyGoncalves]

I recently bought one and managed to update it to the Ventura, but I can't use AirDrop, can anyone help me?

[@dmug]

Almost certainly it's the wireless chipset.

[@OddyGoncalves]

@@dmug any tips on how to resolve this? 🥹

[@dmug]

@@OddyGoncalvesupgrade the wireless chipset

[@OddyGoncalves]

@@dmug I would have someone to recommend? I've already subscribed to the channel ❤️❤️

[@dmug]

If you search the definitive, Mac Pro upgrade guide, I’ve listed it there on the written version

[@DBLCreations]

I have a 16-core 2019 Mac Pro. I really love this machine but the GPU is the bottleneck with me as well. I have a W5700XT 16GB. I would like to buy either a single or dual Radeon Pro W6800X MPX Module. But it's expensive and i know that for that price, you can buy a Mac Studio or Macbook Pro. But i really love my Mac Pro! I just don't know what i should do at this point... 😩

[@dmug]

Buy a non-W series AMD GPU. See this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJuqmH-doZZ4pKcfeature=shared

[@gametime2473]

It will take a normal GPU though right? Just get a PCIe rx-7800xt or even faster. That will give you a ton more GPU performance.

[@DBLCreations]

@@gametime2473 I don't think that one is supported by Apple sadly enough... 😞 But i really need more Thunderbolt 3 ports. It really sucks that this is only combined with the MPX module!

[@gametime2473]

@@DBLCreations There is a youtube video of a guy installing an rx-6800 in his 5,1. If that works, any AMD should.

[@DBLCreations]

@@gametime2473 The 6800 is supported by Apple. The 70 series are not apparently. Already looked that up. I know the 6800 is supported.

[@miguimau]

Coincidentally I just bought a second GeForce GTX 680 2 GB (€100) for my secondary 3.1 ( 2.8 octocore, x2 SSD/ 32 GB RAM) Am I crazy?

[@BlackLionWolf]

No, this is a testament to how far these modular pcs can be pushed. This is how the pc era should be. If you can keep something alive with a few modest upgrades over time then you should.

[@txilibrist]

Sonoma works correctly on my MacPro 3.1 24GB Ram and GTX 680 2 GB. Even booting from an external USB enclosure

[@miguimau]

@@txilibrist Yes, that´s the plan. As my 2 Mac Pros are almost identical I just will install Sonoma in one of them under OCLP then SuperDuper clone to the other one. Writing from my main 3.1 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon which I use on daily basis even when I have more recent Macs (2014 MBAir, Mini and iMac)

[@txilibrist]

@@miguimau tu apodo me suena mucho de Macuarium ¿Cierto?

[@vgdrtdf]

Dude I freaking figured it out!! Ok there’s a switch on ur rx580 that says bios switch. Switch that and u should be able to have a boot screen. When u get to the boot screen, before u click on Sonoma, hold the shift key and then press on Sonoma. U should be able to boot in and install the root patches!

[@dmug]

Sheesh, I forgot about safe boot. If only my Sonoma install was working but I didn’t ever try safe booting. I wish I had, maybe I’ll follow this up getting Sonoma working.

[@kady5991]

There's one more upgrade that you could do, and it's only theoretical and my 08 cheesegrater got stolen so I can't test it anymore: Getting a pair of X5460 CPUs and modding the pads to force the Bus up to 400Mhz and the CPUs at a toasty 3.8Ghz. (9.5x multiplier I could never test it well because my 667 RAM did not like an increase in the bus speed. (Or if a pair of X5470 CPUs could work with the same FSB mod)

[@ladeluff_]

Woah😮. I just managed to boot Sonoma BETA! (Had One install already on ssd) on this 2008 Mac pro w both gtx1060 and radeon HD 5770 installed. That should really work with OCLP 1.1.0🎉😂 atleast not in 1 hour.

[@laurencejohnson4106]

I tried to answer your last message several times, but it kept disappearing so I sent an e-mail to you with a link. Perhaps you could try installing a Linux distro on an old laptop to try it or you could just try it in live mode from a flash drive.

[@dmug]

Man, KZbin is so weird about it’s censorship. Often I’ll see a notification for a comment and I’ll try to reply to it and then I’m unable to because it’s gone.

[@laurencejohnson4106]

@@dmug Yes, that often happens.

[@thermoflaskcat121]

same open core thing happend to me and u just tried again 70 times and it eventually worked

[@TheEmrickman]

I’m debating the same for a 2012 5,1 model that I can buy for $100

[@dmug]

tough call, $100 pretty middle of the road for a deal but the CPUs are dirt cheap for it and the RAM is much cheaper for it than the 3,1. I'm guessing for about $100 you could have a newer GPU + faster CPU(s) + SSD and for $150 more RAM, bringing you to about $250 damage, but used Mac Minis M1 are $400 and despite the 8 GB of RAM likely faster for most things. The four reasons I'd go for the Mac Pro is: Love of the hacking/hardware, ability to boot many OSes, and finally, internal storage and finally playing Windows games. The reasons I'd go for the Mac Mini M1 is: need a computer that's stable and have actual work to do, dislike of messing with esoteric system configs, native OS support.

[@universityrepairFL]

My friend I’m eventually going to make a reply video with mine I’ve had since the beginning of covid ❤

[@freetobe3]

Can you do a video comparing performance and hardware compatibility with Linux? Since Windows 10 has clear performances advantages but it's nearing end of life and plenty of people are now seeing Linux as an alternative to keep their older, non Windows 11 compliant, devices running for a while longer.

[@dmug]

I’ll branch into some Linux content soon, might be a month or so before I get to the classic Mac Pro and Linux

[@freetobe3]

@@dmug I recommend Linux Mint, Fedora, and EndeavourOS. All represent different package managers with different setups that attract a chunk of the Linux community.

[@dmug]

@@freetobe3probably will stick with Mint and Ubuntu as those are the ones that have the most mainstream appeal. Mostly, I’ve had exposure in LinuxKit in docker over the past decade. Going super deep in Linux probably will never be my channel as it reminds me too much of work as a web dev.

[@kennethloung3422]

You sacrifice upgrades when you buy a mac mini not only you save money doing this you can do upgrades as well.

[@Knudjensen54]

I tryed many times,I simply cant install this on my 2008 Mac Pro,it wont even use the files on it,only on my mini from 2014 will it work,but thats not the machine I want to install...

[@dmug]

Have you checked out some of the mentioned KZbin channels in this vid? There’s some good tutorials out there. My previous vid sorta covers how to install on a 3.1

[@Knudjensen54]

I think I have looked all over the place,now I will try out Linux..@@dmug

[@Knudjensen54]

Mine is a 3.11,there is a sign over the files I download,it wont read them..@@dmug

[@Knudjensen54]

Yes I have,no one speak of what to do if the file cant be run,there is a sign that shows they wont work on the 2008 Mac Pro. I tryed to install Linux Ubuntu,but cant even figure out how to use the disk program,so no install....

[@dmug]

@@Knudjensen54 I'd check MacRumors Forums, I haven't tried to install Linux on my Mac in probably 10+ years.

[@KirkwoodImaging]

I have one of these. Gorgeous machines but they are really hampered by memory speeds, their ram is slower than modern SSDs!

[@dmug]

At least with expensive multi-SSD cards, you can address PCIe SSDs at 3.0 speeds. Sure, it's not PCIe 4.0 but the law of diminished returns kicks in quite a bit.

[@cjeelde]

Yeah Mac Pro 2006-2012 got SATA/300. Not SATA/600. So "all" SSDs will step down from 500-550 MB/s to 250-300 MB/s but it's so much faster than HDDs plus don't forget the IOPS performance.

[@Fifury161]

This is the first Mac I threw out - the coolant leak ruined it and I had no desire to either repair or mod it. Yes, I have been kicking myself ever since.

[@dmug]

Coolant? Sure it wasn't a Dual CPU, Dual Core G5? The Mac Pros are all air cooled, unless you modded it...

[@Fifury161]

@@dmug Yeah - that - the case looked the same

[@Flamer69420]

Cool

[@josephd6823]

A 4,1 or 5,1 is a much, much better candidate for upgrade. The difference in CPU speed, single and multi, is enormous.

[@dmug]

Oh I mention it 12:06

[@jeffsims7386]

If that’s a 4,1 or 5,1 you don’t actually need registered memory. I ran regular 1333mhz in mine. Welp, Nevermind lol. I have the 5,1 with 6 core 12 thread Xeon. Heard you mention 3,1 a bit after commenting.

[@sojab0on]

polaris and rx serries gpu need avx/avx 2 and the xeon cpus in de 2008 mac pro do not support this only the 4.1 and 5.1 mac pros have support for cpus that support it

[@dmug]

None of the classic Mac Pros support AVX. That’s where the MontRand patch comes into play that’s bundled in OCLP. The Mac Pro 2013s support AVX but not AVX2. It’s why you need to flash the 6000 series GPUs regardless of the classic Mac Pro generation. You’re probably thinking of SSE. The drivers for the RX580 started requiring SSE4.1 which the Mac Pro 2008 doesn’t support but there’s a patch included in OCLP for that.

[@frostanimate]

My film & tv teacher has a lot of these Mac’s in his office and I asked him for one, he actually gave me one.

[@dmug]

Cool teacher, and welcome to the club. Great machine for someone who wants a more geeky experience with macOS

[@Pedro8k]

A great looking machine from back in the time when apple stood for quality and design great video

[@NicolasGirls]

Radeon 5800?

[@dmug]

Oh Jeeze, did I mess up and say fifty eight hundred at one point?

[@robertrada4783]

My 2009 won’t die. Probably won’t. Running nvme ssd, usb-c, and a fairly decent gpu.

[@ericjenks9596]

Therea known issue with oclp 1.1.0 and sonoma 14.1. This is likely what’s happening to you unfortunately. I would downgrade to Ventura for now, or find 14.0 to load on it.

[@dmug]

In the vid I mention I was on 14.0 with OCLP 1.0 and 1.0.1

[@cycledance]

I think it's a waste to upgrade computers we don't need. Also, the gpu was already plenty strong and upgraded, at 2TF.

[@sonicmistress]

Who's 'we', speak for yourself not others, plenty of 08 Mac Pros being used daily....

[@apistosig4173]

Max Out the RAM, insert SSD and install Linux Mint - Awesome 😉

[@mehrdadcrypto6063]

tanks😐

[@flamingkillermc2806]

You know you sound very similar to another youtuber thetechspot? i would say 70% ish sounding

[@dmug]

I have not heard that before. I checked him out. I can see the tonality part but I have my goofy PNW cadence that has me nearly sounding Canadian and he has a different one

[@TighelanderII]

I put 128GBs of RAM in my 2009/10 for only $40.

[@Eliasmc397]

I would restore it but mod it and make it a gaming pc

[@Djmaxofficial]

Is it worth spending 600€ on gpu than buy new mac 1000%

[@dmug]

I addressed that at here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpK2pZ-sotufq6sfeature=shared&t=721 (link to time stamp)

[@logannosleep5]

Probably would have performed even better under Linux. Pop OS isnt the lightest weight, but its by far one of my favorites. You should check it out sometime on that machine

[@dmug]

There’ll be some Linux content for this machine in the near future and on another computer. There’s a lot of people wanting to see Linux on it. It does well enough in Windows and macOS, and I’ll certainly do a Mac vs Linux vs Windows shoot out.

[@banks3388]

Short answer, no... Long answer, maybe...

[@502RetailPartners]

Phison, not poison controler...

[@dmug]

Thanks. I think autocorrect got my script and didn't notice it.

[@hamfield518]

The mac mini does not support windows natively, for some people that's the main reason to go for intel macs, money well spend man, it's a shame you need to fuck with the software to make it work as it should.

[@dmug]

Yeah, but sadly it's a dead end. I'll very much miss the Intel Mac era.

[@watrobkasmaczna1]

Afetr M1 hackintosh is pointless.

[@davidcmcchesney]

Boot El Capitan & turn off sip

[@papi-tjulo]

Im running win11 on that thing

[@makerkarel2925]

Too bad the machine will use 500 watt at idle because of FBDIMMS and old CPU. LOL.

[@dmug]

It’s quite a bit lower than that. I have a killawatt meter, and I think it idles at about 120w. But yes, Not great when compared to modern power efficient machines. The fully buffered ECC DIMMs idle at about 8w per module vs 4w for non fully buffered. The old cpu on the other hand… yeah… not good.

[@stevejohnson1321]

Too bad these are still rather expensive, or I would buy one to run Debian.

[@dmug]

Depends on where you are in the world and if you find them locally. I’ve seen them go frequently for $50 and under, sometimes free. Since they’re heavy as hell, eBay will never be the rock bottom pricing for them. If you hang out on the Facebook group, MacProUpgrade, sometime people post them for sale but being a global group, you have to be lucky to find one nearish.

[@stevejohnson1321]

Even the systems with Power chip are somewhat expensive. I ended up with a dell 990 i7. That was under $120 U.S. shipped, and will probably be useful for awhile. Yeah I had been looking at ebay with local pickup. That was rather a dead-end, polluted with prices that were good five years ago!

[@dmug]

@@stevejohnson1321 That's too bad.

[@macgamer1973]

sorry buddy Mac Pro 2008 is better pick. Silicon suck balls, no internal Massive Storage, can't remove anything internal. can't run older 32 and 64 bit games /Apps. can't downgrade to Older Mac OS . Modo 3D (MacOS 11.x (Big Sur), 12.x(Monterey) and 13.x (Ventura)* Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit only) Linux CentOS/RHEL 7.6-7.9 (64-bit)** *Modo 16.1 has been tested and validated on apple silicon hardware, running under Rosetta 2 emulation Other operating systems may work but have not been fully tested, please see release notes for details on libraries that will need to be installed. really Rosetta 2 emulation. Apple / Tim get to control what upgrades goings in your computer. What happen to the freedom to pick what upgrades you want for YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER. You can Pick AMD, Nividia , Sonnettech,Newertech, etc. its funny a computers from my childhood (Commodore and Amiga) allow you to do every, while a modern computer don't do gaming well.

[@gteixeira]

At this point a Raspberry Pi 5 is a faster computer than this.

[@sinephase]

why anyone wants such a locked down system is beyond me

[@logannosleep5]

These machines are great for triple booting, and can actually have dual 6 cores with the right "CPU tray" as in 2 physical xeon.... Also there is firmware mods that unlock them even more... Honestly it's a decent machine even in today's world.

[@ladeluff_]

But u see. This what i consider The Fun in «nerding» on a cheesegrater is all about. Solve problems😅

[@andrupka8749]

wawa

[@backstab86]

no.

[@mrhassell]

Great case! Terrible computer.

[@dmug]

Ha, in 2008 when I bought it, was a fantastic computer. ;)

[@mrhassell]

@@dmug time flies, like an arrow.

[@isiahfriedlander5559]

Install Linux and you have a 5+ years machine

[@dmug]

And stuck with Linux 🙃 Don't worry, I'll be doing some Linux vids soon.

[@isiahfriedlander5559]

@@dmug I have a 2009 iMac that wasn’t working with opencore “graphic card issue”, then I installed Linux Mint and it works flawlessly, using it everyday

[@morgorth3242]

you turned ur mac into a broken pc

[@dmug]

It’s working ;)