Is the cheesegrater Mac Pro still viable in 2023?

Thanks to Soundcore for sponsoring this video! Check out the Motion X600 today! soundcore.club/XtIvVT
Throughout the 2010s the cheese grater Mac Pro ruled the world- it was consistently the best purchase for those seeking performance and value. 12 core dual Xeon processors, quad hard drives, PCIe GPUs, PCIe NVMe cards, it was moldable and fast and cheap. But now that a few years have passed, Apple Silicon has arrived, and these 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros are getting older, how are they holding up? Let's examine the Mac Pro in 2023!
Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
1:23 Upgrades
4:29 Mac Pro tips
7:17 macOS installation is tricky
9:45 Performance testing
14:17 Takeaways
#righttorepair #MacPro #soundcoreSpeaker #MotionX600SpatialAudio #soundcoreMotionX6000
Follow me on Twitter: / lukemiani
Follow me on Twitch: / lukemiani
Join my Subreddit! / lukemianiyoutube
Gear:
iFixit Pro Toolkit: amzn.to/3bYIzdM
Panasonic Lumix GH5: amzn.to/3b3oMtj
Leica 12-60MM Lens: amzn.to/3hQ5URf
Sennheiser MKH 416: amzn.to/31zGwt2
Zoom H6: amzn.to/2ECYSk6
Sennheiser MKE 440: amzn.to/2JRwIRU
Edelkrone SliderOne V2: amzn.to/33mTZmt
Amazon Links are affiliate codes and generate small commission to support the channel
#apple #tech #mac

[@privatehand]

Considering I'm watching this on a 2006 Mac Pro running 10.6.8 I'd say "Yeah, they still work fine."

[@AndrewW2733]

Yes, Depending on your workload HOWEVER the faster versions had water cooling which had a tendency to leak coolant destroying the circuit boards below.

[@iRedMCYT]

Really? There's still a browser that'll load KZbin on 10.6? Which one? That'll come in handy for me.

[@iou4152]

@@AndrewW2733 you’re thinking of the G5, no Mac Pro had water cooling 💦

[@JoseJimenez-il5vs]

@@AndrewW2733 Was that not only for the G5 PowerMacs? Never came across an Intel box that had water cooling.

[@samuelrave]

Sadly those old Mac Pro's only have SATA2, so have a max of 300MB/s read and write...So you will not get the optimal speed of ANY SSD.

[@ProductivePM]

Luke, I have the 2009 Mac Pro that I have flashed to 5.1. I have ordered dual 5690 processors with 128 GB RAM, and an RX580 Graphics Card. a 2 tb NVME boot drive running Open Core Legacy Patcher on Monterey, 2 1 TB SATA Drive, and two (in a Raid) 8TB drives for my media running Plex. I absolutely love my machine and your videos from the past are what excited me about the Cheese Grater Mac. Yes, it is worth it. I have an M1 MacBook Air and an iPad mini to round out the lot. Thank you for your videos and for your support of the Mac Pro. She may be 14 years old, but she purrs like a Jaguar.

[@christopherhood9241]

totallt agree

[@Tvj_films8452]

She may purr nice, but I’m tired of dealing with opencore to update it.

[@ProductivePM]

Stick with Monterey and standard equipment(e.g. RX580). I have no issues

[@brucerothwell7944]

Similar setup as mine -- but only a mere 48gb ram. Ha Ha!. Runs like a gazelle. Anyone have any idea what the latest OS we can move to at this time?

[@ProductivePM]

@@brucerothwell7944 I am on Monterey using Open Core Legacy Patcher. I would wait on moving to Ventura until Jessie (from Jessie's Flying on KZbin) gives the go-ahead. He previously said to wait on the Mac Pro 4.1/5/1 upgrade to Ventura due to some issues.

[@marcokrauss5320]

I absolutely love this Mac. Even today, if you buy a broken one for around 50$ you have an amazing case to build anything you want in it.

[@maxdoes_]

I got the ATX conversion kit from The Laser Hive to turn my Power Mac G5 into a PC and I love it! Best looking PC case in my opinion.

[@Keullo-eFIN]

Totally love those cases as well.

[@doctahjonez]

​@@maxdoes_ Power Mac G4 looks pretty cool too imo

[@flynick]

Exactly a case like that new would cost a $1,000

[@Stabby666]

I put a Raspberry Pi 4 in one, so it looks empty but mostly runs emulators :)

[@crosstownsound]

I have a 2010 MacPro - a few years ago I upgraded it to 96GBRAM, dual 6-core Zenon CPUs and an RX580 GPU However, I recently bought a MacStudio. But I kept the old MacPro and use it as a NAS as it can hold a total of 6 drives if the optical drive is removed. It's great for that purpose. I feel the old cheese-grater towers were one of the best computers in their time.

[@IdiotRace]

I wish I could afford the power bills to run any of these old MacPros as a home nas. Honestly theres a perfectly good trashcan 2013 sitting at work I could use but leaving something like that on all the time would cost me so much

[@jacksontint]

Xeon not Zenon

[@serqetry]

I do the same thing with mine. I just wish MacOS wasn't so dumb with waking itself up randomly... no way to stop this that I've found without turning off wake for ethernet access, which makes it not good as a constantly available fileserver. I wake mine up manually when I need to access it... I really wish there was a way around this. The random wakeups are from the mDNSresponder multicast announcing thing... and if you disable it, filesharing doesn't work.

[@skip741x3]

@@IdiotRace Bro, while these Do have 1,000 watt power supplies, they are Not running 1,000 watts when they are just on in the background or when ur just websurfing...that 1000watt rating is the power supply's Max output that it can supply under a full load scenerio..when the computer is doing something like rendering, its under some stress and those dual cpu's rated at 130 watts each and gpu like an rx580 at 180 watts, you could only pull 500watts if even... in most cases these realistically pull around 300 watts when being used and Way less than that when idle...In simple terms, if your power. supply is rated at 1,000 watts, thats its Potiential but its Not using much when idle or light load scenerios..it depends on the load.. For example ,my rx570 is using 68watts as I type this and the 6 core cpu is likely under 20 watts to websurf becuz cpu useage to stream or surf only uses about 5% cpu.. you get the idea

[@mastaLuke2]

Same hardware here ❤

[@dawnpoint]

Thing with these Mac Pros is you gotta use OpenCore to activate GPU hardware acceleration. Once you do that it’s leaps and bounds faster. Mine renders 1080p video a mere tad slower than my M1 MacBook Air.

[@skip741x3]

these do h264/hevc decoding /encoding so well.. you can even play 4k video hevc or h264 with 1 to 2% cpu useage.. thats pretty damn cool! only wish the rx570/580 did VP9 decoding as well for 4k youtube playback.. its a no go in that area.

[@AdrianIII]

Does Opencore require a PhD in Hacking to accomplish this???

[@thadrumr]

@@AdrianIII No opencore legacy patcher does everything automatically.

[@davidemarchionniphotograph2347]

@@AdrianIII no, drag and drop skills

[@iPodee]

@@AdrianIII Nah, I hackintoshed my 2011 MacBook Pro easily, so easily, I used it on all my Macs I got after my 2011 MacBook Pro.

[@thrallfaec6130]

I got my 5,1 2010 dual cpu for about $47.Threw in additional 32GB of RAM, replaced CPUs with X5670, added a Radeon RX 5600 XT to it, upgraded AirPort Card to one from 2013 27" iMac, and to be honest, still runs lovely on Monterey running via Opencore.And yes, I do my gaming on it,.Still runs fine.

[@emilsecker7881]

Time to upgrade that thing

[@exdee9]

@@emilsecker7881they already have..?

[@JoshRazauskas]

I just wanted to say that I love your channel! You showing how much old hardware can actually do with the right set up gives me hope! I have cerebral palsy and I live off government funding so I’m still on the last 2019 Intel IMac they made so I think maybe a little bit of an upgrade isn’t that much out of the realm of possibility when I watch a channel like yours. Appreciate you man!

[@bobwlkr]

Dude, this seriously made my day. I still have my cheese grater Mac Pro that I purchased in '09. Upgraded the memory, filled all four hdd bays and put in an updated Radeon card over the years but it is still running, though only used when I need to offload some tasks from my, now aging, iMac. It's always been my best and favorite Mac and your video really hit home. Thank you.

[@ThePilottribune]

If you can find a copy of Mac OSX Server, these machines still make great servers. I set up our little local newspaper with one of these running Apple Server software and 2 1TB HDDs and it works great. In fact, that server has been up and running 24/7 for it's entire lifespan (it was purchased brand new in 2009) with upgrades in the memory and a couple of HDD upgrades. They make perfect servers for a Mac environment.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

A little behind the times Luke, you can now flash your bootrom to to get a boot screen with any GPU. Opencore let’s you run Monterey or even Ventura with Opencore Legacy Patcher also giving you boot screen without flashing the rom. Handoff, air drop work with an upgraded WiFi Bluetooth card. My 5,1 is running a rx6800xt great for gaming in windows and smokes the M1 M2 graphics. Yes the cpu is limiting but still a great machine in 2023 and still my daily driver for Pro Tools and FCPX, windows 11 runs amazingly well on the old cheese grater and 3000 read write on my NVMe Mac OS boot drive.

[@skip741x3]

You can flash ur bootrom for a bootscreen? thats news to me as well bro! when did That happen? did you do a video on it? Ive been using opencore and martin lo with an rx570, so the bootscreen was available to me via these solutions.. I m still curious about flashing the rom to enable bootscreen with All video cards.

[@TheAppleLab]

@@skip741x3 : EnableGOP: Native Bootpicker with every GPU - A cMP Story kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWTQd5-JhpadgJo

[@jakepyrett1715]

Without avx in the chipset.The computer cannot run modern software. It sucks

[@Epicgamer_Mac]

I do agree, but to be fair he did say for most of those things that they were _possible,_ just much more expensive and by that time you could get a newer and better machine. For example, handoff and AirDrop - he did say they work if you get an card for it, it just doesn’t come stock.

[@bleachgarage]

I love to see more videos on this generation of Mac Pro. I learned a lot from you on these and I run a 2012 dual CPU Mac Pro at home next to my PC. I like to run the low profile Radeon 560 for its lack of extra power cables. I boot to an NVMe and run DDR3 in triple channel mode. Catalina patcher forever!

[@mango-vhs]

picked up a 4,1 mac pro early 2009 flashec to 5,1 with a dual cpu tray and the original gt120 with efi on it, all for just 40 bucks. threw in 32gb of ram and a few 4tb hard drives and an ssd for boot. so happy with this little guy.

[@makegamemusic]

I loved my Mac Pro 4,1 but recently retired it despite upgrading it to 12 cores, loads of RAM etc. 2 things, the noise was annoying (as I am a musician) and some plugins for Logic Pro need AVX instructions and those Xeons never supported that with no upgrade options. It was working perfectly using Monterey though (Via Opencore Legacy Patcher). Luke, I don't remember you ever doing a video on Opencore, it really gives so much life to these older Macs and it's nearly as easy to install as an officially supported OS.

[@skip741x3]

agreed bro.. opencore also runs ventura on these now as well, HW encode/decode available. ...no issues and its fast.

[@makegamemusic]

@@skip741x3 I'm currently running Ventura on this 2013 iMac and its like a fully modern Mac, not planning on upgrading any time soon.

[@corygillyard1455]

I'm running OPLC with Monterey as the OS on my cheese grader Mac.

[@AntoneJohnson]

Same here, running Ableton Live and Logic Pro in Monterey on my 5,1, though I’m just an amateur and don’t really need the latest plugin compatibility etc., so not in a “hurry” to replace it after a mere 13 years. ;) On the fan noise, I’m not sure why more people never did this when these machines were more commonly used for heavy lifting, but you can replace the stock fans with Noctua fans that are WAY quieter. I guess that doesn’t help with GPU fan noise, but using mostly audio applications, a decent card like the RX580 doesn’t even get a workout.

[@makegamemusic]

@@AntoneJohnson I didn't realise you could do that! Would have been a good idea. 13 years is amazing Antone!

[@TheRealEstate]

One of the main reasons why I started watching your channel was the upgrades you made to a 4,1 in 2019. In early 2020 I got my hands on an 4,1 and upgraded it. I am still using it Running Ventura, a RX580 and a flashed firmware on my main logic board that allows me to have an boot screen or boot picker when I hold the option key without having to flash my graphics card. Oh and I forgot to mention a flashed Alpine Ridge thunderbolt card that works on reboot. But not on cold startups or after the machine falling asleep. 🤦🏽‍♂️. Great video and thank you for sharing this!

[@Malcire-jl9rn]

Where do you get that firmware for the main logic board? I have 5,1 Mac Pro, does the same firmware work on it?

[@SaraMousebrook]

My 2008 Mac Pro cheesegrater 32GB RAM is still kicking. I can't seem to part with. As a designer, anything I threw at it - it would take it and fly with it. I now use it as a backup. It is well built and I love how customizable it is/was.

[@rickkarrer8370]

Best upgrades for this: 48GB or 96GB RAM to take advantage of the triple channel memory. NVMe SSD (card + SSD). USB 3.0, Type C, and/or Thunderbolt card. CPU upgrades are getting pretty cheap too. macOS 12 Monterey works really well on this, as well as Windows 11.

[@chadwickhell]

That's what I run on the two I have too. Dual booting Monterey and Windows 11. They are very decent machines.

[@brokenelectronics3665]

Big Sur runs absolutely fine on 4,1/5,1 Mac Pros. Once the OCLP team solved the booting problems, it is solid as a rock. I have mine running Monterey, which may not be a smooth, but it is another year of security updates. I have a test machine running Ventura, which does have some issues, but does run. I would not hesitate to put Big Sur on it. AS far as whether or not I would still buy one, as a hobbyist, probably yes. They are so much fun to work in, and still perform well. On the down side, they really do eat power, and an Apple silicon Mac Mini will run rings around it. So yes, they really are on the way to becoming retro hobby machines.

[@richarddcrossley]

Yeah I said elsewhere

[@yorkan213swd6]

Hi, i am considering one… one question: which boot problems ?

[@egbront1506]

Also running Big Sur with mine. I do have serious issues with Monterey and particularly Ventura where the USB ports die randomly and I/O is unresponsive as a result. I am on the latest OCLP 0.65 and it still hasn't fixed the issue. Booting into Ventura often results in unresponsive keyboard and mouse so I can't even log in. It's a dealbreaker as I don't really want to keep force restarting my Mac several times a day. It still happens occasionally with Big Sur when left to go to sleep, the screen just doesn't wake up but it is fine if I manually put the Mac to sleep and the USB ports have yet to die on me. I might try Martin Lo's implementation of OC and see whether his tweaks work better with Ventura.

[@richarddcrossley]

I had a weird issue where my WD black and one of my NVMe drives kept randomly disappearing even on official Mojave! Any other OS bar big sur same issue but big sur has been spotless so stuck with that!

[@willm5032]

Big sur runs on 3,1 mac pros as well! I've been using it for a few months and haven't had any issues

[@penguinlust6749]

I have a 4,1 that I use for some production work involving old Adobe software. Upgraded to a 5,1 with dual Westmere 5690s with an nVidia GTX 1080 and 96 GB. Great machine. Still very usable.

[@emilsecker7881]

Should probably upgrade the 5,1. It’s unsupported too

[@AlecKinnear]

For graphics work or audio work, the 5,1 is fine. Where it misses out is video editing or the latest versions of some of the RAW editors.

[@randyyoung2135]

I bought a 2012 Mac Pro and have upgraded it to 12 core 3.46 ghz - 64gb RAM - RX580 graphics with apple boot screen and the McFiver NVME card with USB C . I am extremely happy with this build . The performance is awesome .

[@lyndon9210]

I got 4.1 flashed to 5.1. This is my favorite Mac of all times, the design is absolutely amazing , the customization is wonderful. I would say the strongest issue is PCIE 2.0 and Sata 2.0. I'm sad to see this machine becoming so obsolete.

[@stelan77]

I sold my 5.1 last year because of my MacBook Air m1. But I missed it so much that I a month ago I bought it back. Its just a beautiful machine. The design, the upgradability so many things. I don't often use it but its such a happiness to see it everyday on my desk. By the way I'm a video editor but I love to compose music. And for sure as a music production this machine still rocks. Nice video.

[@TerranceJohnson-dn8qx]

I have the same story but I never sold mine. It's rarely used but it looks so good on my desk

[@DanielGomez-ts6uv]

They work just fine today I had a 2010 dual cpu “12 core” and it ran day to day tasks buttery smooth. The only major drawback is that it uses 100 watts at idle lord knows how many under load. They’re a terrible choice as a daily driver for that reason but definitely fun to tinker around with

[@TurkishSupplier]

beautiful video as always!

[@laserwizard2]

These are magnificent machines - high quality. I love vintage Macs - have a G4 mirror door tower (along with keyboard and matching screen) as well as 2 project mid 2012 13 inch MBP that I got dirt cheap and maxed out just for the heck of it. I don't use them that much but they are from a period where you could actually work on Apple products. I might spring to get one of those cheese graters just to have one. As I have said you are head and shoulders the best Mac channel because you don't breathe through your mouth only focused on what might be coming up next. You actually respect the past. Keep up the great work! Even though this machine is slower than modern Fruit company products, you cannot beat the upgradeability of this unit nor can you beat the quality of construction. This would make a great 2nd computer for a Fruit Fly ecosystem!

[@thenetworkmystery]

I used a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 (with a 6-core Xeon, 32 GB of RAM, 2 TB combined storage, and a W5500 video card) until just a few months ago!! I would say, they're usable nowadays TO A POINT. Works just fine for basic tasks, and even some more intense tasks, but you DO notice a slower system compared to Apple Silicon-it's just not as snappy. I loved my 5,1, and I'm sad I can't use it anymore, but, it was just getting a little too slow.

[@djt1034]

I love my 12 core Mac Pro, main computer, thanks for doing another video on it.

[@iRedMCYT]

NVIDIA card?

[@djt1034]

@@iRedMCYT Sapphire Radeon RX580 8GB

[@iRedMCYT]

@@djt1034 Ah. What games (if any) have you run on it?

[@djt1034]

@@iRedMCYT gta san andreas through steam on mac, runs okay, minecraft runs okay, Xeon’s are slowing down and becoming more and more obsolete unfortunately, reducing frames

[@olivermaier-landshut3047]

I up-cycled my 2007er cheesegrater to a wall mounted mini bar...love it!

[@reedrusselljr1651]

Because of YOU bro, in my studio, I’m running a 2010 Mac Pro upgraded the way you did...minus the graphics card mod and it’s still a beast! For music, it’s a beast and I won’t be changing for the next few years...unless I absolutely have too!

[@scurbdubdub2555]

I’m surprised with how viable these things are still. I have a 2009 4,1(Flashed to 5,1) with a X5690, 32GBs of RAM, and a Radeon VII. It also has Monterey on the machine. It isn’t the fastest (If I compare it to my TR 5955WX, it gets completely blown out of the water), but for what it is, I like it. Even if I don’t use it often, it is fun whenever I do end up using it.

[@emilsecker7881]

Hopefully you have a more modern machine

[@scurbdubdub2555]

@@emilsecker7881 I do, that Threadripper 5955WX is mine. That is my personal machine.

[@CheapSushi]

Dunno, X5690 is just so old at this point. I wouldn't go further than Haswell for older machines. I love the X79 and X99 era (Ivy Bridge & Haswell/Broadwell). But people fall into a "cheapness" trap with pre-X79 systems with Nehalem & Westmere and similar Intels. They're just really really crap at this point. Even a dirt cheap consumer i3 in the past 4 years will out do it with less cores. I mean, seriously, it's that much of a difference and while using way less electricity. The later Xeons up to V4 era are more worth it even if old purely because you can get high core counts for cheaper, especially with dual CPU systems. My X99 ASUS workstation board for example has 88 cores effectively with lots of PCIe lanes & loads of RAM. Then it's worth it in some workloads. You cannot get high core counts with anything before X79. Anything needing single core or doesn't scale well is getting completely eaten IPC wise with anything newer and still cheap. There are some really great multiplier overclockable V1, V2 and V3 Xeons also that can make up for the IPC but very few bother.

[@emilsecker7881]

@@CheapSushi you shouldn’t go older than 2017/2018 machines now tbh

[@Epicgamer_Mac]

@@CheapSushiWell, that’s news to me Can you put those Xeons in this Mac Pro? If so which exact models do you recommend

[@accordinglyryan]

Remarkable how much longevity these machines have. I hope I get this out of my 2019 Mac Pro lol

[@Tvj_films8452]

You gona get long life out of it. Cuz no one wants that model once the M chips came out. Lol

[@accordinglyryan]

@@Tvj_films8452 Yeah, I bought it like a month before they announced the transition. But tbh, I don't regret it. The new Mac Pro that just came out today doesn't have upgradable RAM, and I can run Windows to game with my 2019.

[@GamerGee]

My 2007 dual quad is still in storage. This machine was a monster. We need this modular upgradable design back.

[@Pythonaddiction]

Great video, I retired mine for a Trash Can 6,1 a few years ago and use that as my daily driver along side a M1 Pro for all of my video editing. I Gave up my 5,1 12 core system as the trash can out performed it at a fraction of the power draw / heat. Not to mention the footprint. If Anything I would look for a 2nd trashcan Mac to have around over getting a tower version.

[@alienrefugee51]

7:43 You should always disconnect from power when removing any internal components. There is still 5v trickle power with the power supply connected to mains. You could potentially damage the backplane. 8:13 You can just perform an NVRAM reset x3 and it should purge Windows from trying to boot at startup.

[@JoeTheGreat]

That probably is best practice, but SATA is designed for hotswap, meaning that you can remove it when the computer is on, so long as it was unmounted. It's probably fine.

[@alienrefugee51]

@@JoeTheGreat From what I've read, the cMP's do not have hot-swappable HDD bays, regardless of SATA's design capabilities. Only the X-Serve's HDD bays are hot-swappable. I'm sure plenty of people do it with no issues, but I've learned to be extra cautious with these machines and just do things the proper way.

[@JohnSmith-pn2vl]

BS

[@longwelsh]

I was told by someone who apparently worked on the design of the X-Serve that while that 'advertised' hot swap SATA, the 4,1 still had the functionality but it might not post to Device Manager. So prob safe power wise but you might not get the device to be mountable.

[@alienrefugee51]

@@longwelsh I think it may have to do with macOS and X-Serve software being different?

[@Piipperi800]

Bro's talking crap about the 2018 Mac mini, I just ran Cinebench on mine while watching this video and got 8714 pts. Not only that, but you can put 64 GB RAM in one. And you can easily get a NAVI-based eGPU setup for under $400. Really shows how much Luke has fallen behind on the knowledge of these Macs.

[@MarcSwarbrick]

I’ve got one that I haven’t fired up in a long while, along with a 30” Cinema Display. I just love the design aesthetic so might take some time to get it up and running again! Thanks for the video!

[@ProtoFalcon07]

Watching this on my very heavily upgraded DP 4,1>5,1, which is still my primary machine. To this day, I use it for audio/video/photo editing, occasional 3D graphics editing, Volvo VIDA car parts schematics (via remote desktop because larger displays), gaming in Windows, and many other weird projects outside of general use. I also built a >30TB SP 5,1 home server less than a year ago with a fanless GPU and an LP 6-core Xeon L5640. Both utilizing OpenCore. Despite being ~14-year-old machines, they're still certainly very useful in my case! Primary 4,1>5,1 specs: Dual Xeon X5690 3.46GHz (12C/24T) 192GB (6x32GB) PC3L-10600R 1333MHz RAM (And yes-You read that right) (Originally had 256GB 8x32GB, but POST was MUCH slower for obvious reasons) Powercolor Radeon RX 6600 8GB GPU macOS Monterey (2TB NVMe), Windows 11 (1TB NVMe), macOS High Sierra (128GB SATA SSD) 480GB exFAT SATA SSD (for multi-OS network file sharing) USB 3.0 4x Port PCIe card 5,1 Server specs: Single Xeon L5640 2.26GHz (6C/12T) 128GB (4x32GB) PC3L-10600R 1333MHz RAM (Yes-You read that right again) NVIDIA GeForce GT 720 1GB GPU (fanless) Over 30TB total storage (2x8TB RAID, 8TB, 4TB, & 2TB HDDs) macOS Monterey & Windows 11 (240GB SSD) USB 3.0 Type-C PCIe card

[@computerenthusiast402]

I put a FENVI PCIe WIFI card in my 2009 Mac Pro and it’s definitely worth it. I can see all the WIFI devices in my neighborhood for about a 500ft radius. I had to remove the original WIFI card and make custom cables for the FENVI card to work with bluetooth but its worth it. The original Apple WIFI antenna SUCK and its difficult to upgrade the original card with a NEWER Apple WIFI card and then you Still have to upgrade the Antennas. Its just Much easier to put in the FENVI card. There are posts online on how to make the cables and FENDI card pin outs. Loaded with Large capacity hard drives these still make for a good File Server or Home theater movie server.

[@emilsecker7881]

Time to upgrade that thing. It’s unsupported

[@philosophyben]

Bought exactly this Mac about a year ago for 100 of your over-the-pond-pounds. 6 core, 16GB ram, no hdd. Absolute bargain. Installed an unused SSD on High Sierra as a boot volume, and a 16TB HDD for all my movie files. I just use it as a Plex server which the Mac is probably a tad overkill for.

[@emilsecker7881]

Time to upgrade that thing. It’s unsupported

[@flickwtchr]

@@emilsecker7881 Bro, you're on a mission here huh. Who gives a ____ what you think considering how you are trolling.

[@discoverymoi]

Always loved the design of these “monsters” I still get excited whenever I see one. Great video man.

[@nasseralsharif]

Great video Luke ❤

[@95Comics]

I’m going to try to build that exact mac! Great video!

[@imnotindanger]

got the 5,1 with a apple cinema display and i love it. i use it as my secondary machine and i love to experiment with it and push it to its limits. i always wanted exact that setup and now ive got it for a bargain. awesome computer.

[@MichaelSidneyTimpson]

I still use my cheesegrater 1,1 as network backup. It turns on once a day at night, clones all my drives connected to my trashcan, and turns itself off. Also, I still use my PowerMac G4 to send faxes and burn DVDs too.

[@falkorock]

Thanks Luke for the Video, another great old Mac to think about! FR

[@tr_vmi4844]

I have mine sitting next to me right now! Haven't started it up in a while.....now I'm going to have to do it!!

[@ArtStudio_]

Apart from an iPad Pro 12.9, it is still my only computer. A couple of years ago I upgraded the ram, the video card, put in an SSD and upgraded the processor. For my needs it still runs great, never had any failures or slowdowns.

[@haramaschabrasir8662]

The Mini PCIE Apple used is actually a standard. It's just not common for the consumer market, but OEM manufacturers used it.

[@SandrOliva]

I'm still using my 5.1 12 core dual processor with Mojave and Cubase 12 in my recording studio (I have a 6 core as a backup). Having started in the '80s with a Yamaha X5, then C64, Atari and Macs since Quadra up to the Mac Pro, I don't find my rig slow at all. I will keep it as long as it works.

[@mrjohnwilkesbooth]

We're just alike!! I also have Cubase Pro 12 - I'm bn trying to upgrade to Sonoma using oclp 1.2.1 but I can't seem to get it.🤔 Although I did successfully upgrade it to Monterey abt a year ago. Still trying as of this moment. I'm going to try a different thumb drive & see if it works 👍🏾

[@Smithy92]

I always watch your channel and was inspired to get one a few years ago by one of your vids from back then, so I did get one about a year ago slowly upgrading it. Still love it still rate it and still use it 👌 although the tech we have today is amazing like my 2021 iPad Pro I still love my Mac Pro a solid machine to use 👌🏻. Parts are quite expensive in the uk though lol

[@musclesmouse]

6:03 thanks or showing me the PCIe lock latch. Just 2 weeks ago, I bought a Mac Pro 4.1 upgraded to 5.1 with 80gb, 512GB NVMe ssd, USB3 card, 2 x5680 Xeons for $150. I added my Vega Frontier. Installed Open Core and Monterey from my old 4.1. I need to upgrade the Wifi/Bluetooth card, but otherwise everything I wanted in a Mac. NVMe gets between 600-1350MB/s writes and 1400-1530MB/s reads. This is nice, although, I need a SSD on the SATA bus to help with booting faster because of the way the Mac firmware initially looks for drives. It is an awesome machine. I was lucky guy sold it to me was less than 5 miles away.

[@marcsmith8146]

Because of you, I'd say 2 years ago I built an incredible Mac Pro 4.1 and turned it into a 5.1, and got all the upgraded parts and totally upgraded to as far as I could. It was an incredible machine and if someone is doing just music, it is incredible for that ala Pro Tools/Logic Pro. The only reason I upgraded to a Macbook Pro M1 Pro is because I bought one of the Thunderbolt cards that was patched for that system and bought a UAD Thunderbolt 3 Satellite unit. It worked well with it for about a week then it started acting weird and was to iffy. Not only that, I bought my son the Mac Mini M1 when it came out and when I A/B'ed it to that little machine, it smoked it. Ran twice as much audio tracks and plugins. I had the dual 3.46 CPU's in the machine. That didn't matter, that little Mac Mini killed it so, I started looking at the M1 Mac and got the Macbook Pro M1 Pro and never looked back. That machine was a great machine but, the new M1's etc, just puts them to shame. Also, when doing videos, that Mac Pro is really slow now matter how much ram, cpu etc. I had 128ghz of ram as well on that Mac Pro and the Mac Mini still smoked it with 16gigs of ram. Hope that helps anyone thinking about getting the Mac Pro Machine and wondering if they should get the Mac Mini etc. Thanks and love the channel!

[@TheEmrickman]

My 2003 was my favorite and these are my favorite videos. I want. I think this will be my new hobby.

[@jvlfilms]

Great video! I own a MacBook Pro 14" Max but I still use my 4,1 on the regular as my desktop machine. You are 100% right - with each passing year, these cheesegrater machines get less and less worthwhile investing in. I was gifted one from my professor about 7 years ago and I've been slowly upgrading over the years. Now I have it spec'd out with a Vega 64, dual X5675's, 96GB RAM, USB 3.2 card, running Monterey and Windows 11 - but that took a significant amount of time and effort to get it working. OpenCore has helped the usability of this device tremendously but each year Apple makes it harder and harder to run the latest OS. A lot of games now require AVX instructions which these Xeons do not have, which is completely understandable. While I love this machine for its hard drive trays and flexibility, I don't recommend using this as a daily driver. Save up and invest in a M2 Mac Mini that can do all of this for a fraction of the wattage.

[@_Scintill8tor]

I agree fully with the others, I also still use my 2009 Mac Pro that I purchased back then. I changed to SSDs, but that is it. Ok, it is not fast anymore, but for my music recording setup, it still does all you need.

[@iamkmark]

I have a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 patched to Monterey with 32GB RAM, an RX 580, and a single CPU x5690, and it runs amazingly. I paired it with a 30" Cinema display, and it's absolutely gorgeous. So nice to have a Mac that I can still upgrade in 2023.

[@CodyBelichesky]

Absolutely. My flashed 4,1 dual-CPU is used for everything from photo work, plex server, to FH5. I genuinely don’t know what I’d replace it with since it’s so useful.

[@bradleygibson1989]

Love this grator. I use mine for audio production. Only the 4 core with 32gb Ram. Plays nice with reaper and protools.

[@djt1034]

thanks for doing a video on my favourite apple product!!

[@sethlingenfelter]

Using open core allows me to run Monterrey with no issues plus GPU acceleration. I use it for editing 4k and occasionally multicam, no problem. Dual 3.06 6core, 32gb Ram, RX580 8gb, nvme to pci adapter for my scratch drive. It’s still a mighty workhorse. Work is in progress for Ventura support by OC community.

[@SeanT90M]

Running Monterey 12.6.6 on my flashed 5,1 early 2009 Mac Pro with MSI RX 560. No issues at all with open core legacy patcher

[@rrcoster]

Using Opencore newer unsupported mac os x still make very useable today still in 2023. I'm still using both 2012 today

[@bashdachivo]

If I already had one I would add-on (possibly) and definitely utilize the setup OR sell it to someone who would ❤ THANKS FOR THE VIDEO AND TESTIMONY on your experience with editing for this channel on a cheese grater Mac PRO

[@RonHarris-rhrrs2]

I loved working on those things back in the day!!

[@alexalexandros3803]

Mine runs great in 2023. macOS Monterey with 2x x5690, 256 DDR3 ECC RAM (thank’s Martin Lo’s OpenCore package) and CloudNinjas in HTX, sonnet 4x4 NVMe card with 4x 2TB WD Black SN750s, Titan Ridge TB3 w/ power pass thru to my mini 6 pins, Pixlas mod, RX 6900 XT, Noctua fan replacements, 4 x6TB WD Black HDD, LG Blu-Ray player, and a SanDisk 1TB SSD in Optical Bay 2 with my emergency Mojave. It’s a little extreme, but it is my passion project. :)

[@tomford8286]

I have a 2010 MP upgraded to 12 core, 96gb RAM, NVMe drives. I use it for Pro Tools. It still works great! I stopped chasing the upgrade path when I got a system that was stable and did what I need. I will stay here as long as I can.

[@joshualaw375]

I use my 2011 cheese grater Mac Pro as an overpowered web server and it’s a beast! Dual Xeons, 32GB RAM, and a GTX960. Overkill for a web server but it handles multiple medium-traffic sites with ease. And I use it from time to time as a daily driver machine too and no problems at all.

[@Mattsana]

Allow me to share a great memory. I once had the 2010 iMac with the i7 in it. But I quickly realized that I needed the upgradeability. So I put my iMac up for sale and this executive of a company contacted me saying he intended to scale down his company and wanted a family PC. So he wanted to trade off one of his many Mac Pro 2009 with dual E5520. I told him "You do realize the difference in value here, right?" and this was back in 2011 and he said "Yeah absolutely, you're lucky because I simply wanna scale down on my business". And this guy, really nice guy shows up in a fancy car making the trade. We hooked up his machine at my house and we ensured each machine worked properly and did the trade. Guess as if I was happy? What a jackpot. I later upgraded it with dual X5675 (like in this video) and 48GB of 1333Mhz ram and a GTX 970 and man... what a beeeeaaaastttt!

[@vanir23]

Loving the smooth jazz cleaning music. 🎶

[@stevecrowley7729]

I have 2 as ornaments! Nice video by the way 🎉

[@gareyford9071]

I actually purchased one of these a couple of years ago after watching your earlier videos. I updated it to a 5,1 and updated the video card, ssd drives, I even de-lidded two Zeon processors. It worked great for a long time until the Adobe suite could no longer update and stopped working. That was the deal breaker.

[@user-ky9qn4pg3w]

just put linux on it

[@umanoid1523]

Im still running an upgraded 2009. I upgraded EVRYTHING from following you. I turned it into a 5,1 and upgraded the cpu,GPU and ram to 64GB.

[@spencersy1804]

Great video, Luke. I still use the 2010 classic Mac Pro and still dependable. The task I do does not require the top speed of Silicon Macs. Most of my clients are focusing more on one’s pro skills with AI softwares, which are browser based.

[@i4mboyc]

Yes, definitely!!! i love upgrading it & cleaning it. It's my favorite Mac desktop.

[@steverae68]

I have a macpro 5,1 with a HD7950 Mac version, running Ventura perfectly 👍

[@selwynleacock6601]

I own a 2008 8 core with 32gigs ram. I decided to install Linux on the machine and Linux is running well, the machine has come alive again.

[@gil_L]

I have a Mac mini m1 and yet I still go back to my 5,1 Mac for working on music, I like having dedicated hard drives and being able to save everything right there in the system. M1 is for video editing. The 5,1 was the best system apple ever made in my opinion and web browsing is still perfect on it.

[@JohanDee]

Running a 5.1 on 12.6.6. (open Core) with an NVME drive . Also a 6 Core Xeon with a 3.36 and 24 gb ram. Have wifi and BT built in. Runs really nice!😊

[@emilsecker7881]

Time to upgrade that thing. It’s natively unsupported

[@JohanDee]

​@@emilsecker7881Upgrade to what? Double the Xeon?, more RAM, more powerful GPU? I don't do "powerlifting" with this computer... 😂

[@emilsecker7881]

@@JohanDee to something that runs macOS Sonoma obviously. That thing is a piece of unsupported shit

[@maxsdad666]

I just bought a 4,1 about a month ago for $100 plus shipping. It was a little beat up on the outside but all original inside. First thing I did was flash it to 5,1, installed Catalina, threw in a flashed Radeon HD 6870, a 6 core X5690 CPU, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, USB-C/3.0 PCI-E Card, and finally a 2.5 GB Ethernet PCI-E Card. For about $300 it's a respectable Workstation. This is my fist Mac of any kind, and I have to say I am VERY impressed. It's a pleasure to work on. Anyways, that's my first Aluminum Beast!

[@timg6930]

They are a fun build. I picked one up a couple of years ago and upgraded it. They just look cool. I ended up selling it for more than I paid for the Mac, and the upgrades. I still would not mind getting another if the price was right.

[@mikiotty]

I have a 2010 5,1 with X5690 and R9 280X as my main macOS computer running Monterey. It's awesome!

[@philhyde983]

I have a 5,1 Mac Pro currently running Monterey via OpenCore. I use it as my main computer and have no functional issues, but finally decided to get an M2 Mac Mini as a replacement. Main reasons were concerns about power consumption and longevity of the Mac Pro. The Mac Mini sits quietly on my desk and is noticeable faster in every way.

[@davidmoseley4659]

The thing you gotta remember is that out in small town USA and rural areas where you have small newspapers or publishing firms and other small businesses, these are daily workhorses that just don't die. I know people who still uses Macs from this era because they use Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Macromedia Freehand on snow Leopard. It works fine, so why change? Great video. Thanks.

[@dolph9913]

Just because it has 1000 watt doesn’t mean it’s drawling 1000 watts

[@skip741x3]

absolutely true bro.. most people dont understand that simple fact... 1000watts is the max potiential that its capable of supplying under a load.. however, no mac pro is using anywhere near that idling or doing everyday tasks..in those cases, the power supply is supplying Only the watts Needed for those tasks.

[@davidhovde]

I picked up a 2012 5,1.. like this video getting MacOS back on it was a challenge, then upgrading to supported OS, then adding the RX580. I did almost everything done in this video. Now I can dual boot windows or Ventura. I got the 5,1 for 60 bucks (small additional amounts for the graphics card, more ram, SSD)... I'll agree with Luke, I'm not sure it actually makes sense but I liked doing the project. Certainly beefy enough for a while. I have an M1 Macbook Air for my laptop which I can use to video edit or whatnot should I choose to. I like to keep it in my work bag though, so a desktop seemed like a thing to do.

[@michellenotherday1482]

We own a recording studio in Atlanta and used to run the whole studio off a single Cheese grater Pro. Now that Pro is doing the work of a central data host: all the rooms are linked to, and back up to, the solid Pro. Love it. But all good things end. Some day I suppose it will be a part of a "history window" at the studio. Til then, she's up and running!

[@KevKevAllen]

Just bought a 2012 Mac Pro, and I’m super excited. It’s going to be a great home server. I’m going to throw a m.2 IHCE in it for the boot disk and NVMe for the rest of the storage drives.

[@blabban1985]

I bought a 4,1 uppgraded to 5,1 in 2022. Dual x5675, 48gb ram, Ssd and a GTX 1080 Ti. With bootcamp and Windows 10 it makes a fine gamingmachine. Mostly play counterstrike at around 200 FPS. Byt it runns Hogwarts Legacy in 1080p on high at almost 60fps so i’m more Than happy 😄 Greatings from Sweden!

[@gavinendsley]

I did a bunch of research and learned how to flash my own mac cards. Still dependent on finding good firmware, but I found a good GTX 780 mac rom and I got a 780 for $100 and I use it in my 2009 mac pro.

[@macmind62-uu6rr]

Because of your videos, I bought a MacPro 5.1 2012 2x2.4Ghz, 24 Gb Ram, 240 SSD, 500Gb HDD, 640 Gb HDD, ATI Radeon HD 5770, High Serra OS for 2000 DDK(approx $283).

[@Microang]

I have a duel x5680 Mac pro, with an RX 5700 XT, usb 3, SATA 3, etc, and it's still my main desktop to this day...

[@Zebra_Paw]

you can ABSOLUTELY run Monterey on here, especially with a Metal supported card, + boot screen is supported with OpenCore wifi related features should also work with OpenCore. My dual Xeon 2008 Mac Pro runs very well with that, and it has a newer MacBook Pro wifi card and one of those Mac Edition GTX 680s, along with 32 GB of fully buffered DDR2.

[@ww21943]

I bought a base model 4 core 2010 Mac Pro. Upgraded it to the fastest 6 core processor it could use. RX 580 with 8 Gb ram, 12.5 GB system ram. Running Monterey with open core off of a SSD. Running Windows 11 on a nvme on a pcie adapter. It’s my main desktop computer now. It handles Photoshop and Indesign just for. I use my M1 Air for anything that I don’t want to be at my desk for. I couldn’t be happier with my Mac Pro. I’m so glad I finally found one.

[@php4u]

And, for $50 get a NVMe drive and $25 for PCIe card, you can get 2500 R/W speeds all day. Good points.

[@joerogers7011]

My 2010 has Monterey on it. No issues. Had to update Wi-Fi card and Bluetooth. I put $400 into it about a year ago. (Got mac for free.). Used it for apple development. Now I have a Mac mini pro model.

[@tkelong3569]

I installed 2 Xeon processors in mine. Still viable. Not quite as fast as my AMD 7950X based PC, but still good.

[@dillonsworldroblox]

I might actually pick one of these up and use it as a server!

[@danebarry8073]

I just picked one up here in the UK for £25 and I’m really looking forward to seeing seeing what I can get out of it

[@havok3344]

I have a flashed 4,1 dual cpu 12-core I’m finally retiring. I did all the popular upgrades and even put an LG Blu-ray writer into the optical drive slot. It’s been a beast. Gonna pickup a MM m2 pro and Synology NAS to replace it.

[@terrytees]

I got a mac pro 1.1 in 2006, didn't stop using it until little over a year ago, thats 16 years of constant use. Sure I had to use dos dude to get high sierra on it but honestly it always worked well for me. I mainly used it for logic pro and most my mixes were all audio so no real need for many soft synths so I really didn't run out of power. The only thing that made me upgrade to a M1 mac mini was the power consumption. I noticed that the 37watts being used on the M1 justified me buying it as it would have paid for itself in energy savings over the space of a year, which it did do noticing a huge drop in my electric bill in the first month of use. For me the cheese grater is mac's finest moment due to the build quality and upgradability.

[@AdrianCartersheffield]

I still use a 2008 Mac Pro as an Ableton machine in my studio. On a day to day basis it works fine, does all my regular tasks without complaint. The music side of things is just starting to get creaky with Ableton 11 and I realise I've been pushing my luck for a good while now. I've had the 2008 since new (it was an Apple shop return so not quite brand new). Over the years I've upped the RAM and swapped out the drives for SSD's and done a GPU upgrade. I can honestly say it has served me very well. I wish Macs were as reliable as this now.

[@emilsecker7881]

@@perrybarton hopefully it’s not a daily driver. It’s majorly unsupported

[@AdrianCartersheffield]

@@perrybarton I suspect I'll run mine until it dies. All the data is continuously backed up so I'm kind of preparing I suppose.