Ultimate Mac Pro 5,1 2024?

As always Lance thanks for keeping alive the Classic Mac Pro culture for everyone! I love the love you put in this machine and the fact that you point what Is matter! I have almost the same setup you have and my Mac Pro Is still my main workstation. I don't have enough budget at the moment for buy and M series but the more Is that i hate the fact that all the new Mac are NOT UPGRADABLE as you well explain. People doesn't understand the real power of these old wonderful cheesegrater, with mine i primary use Davinci Resolve for edit and color, latest 18 version and.. It.. work.. like a charm!!! For now, who cares of M series Mac! Apple fuc.. you 🤬😅

Forgive me if I get a little off-topic ... I am a pro Mac technician with over three decades of experience. I used to bleed the Apple rainbow colors if I got cut ... Now, seeing how Apple has turned into the biggest two-faced corporate greedy company it is ... with engineered obsolescence and anti-repairability, I can no longer stand it. My MacPro 5,1 continues to give me ALL I need & I am not going to buy a new Mac ever again ... I'll just build a Hackintosh when I outgrow my cheese grater.

I couldn't agree more. I've been using my Mac Pro 5,1, and I'm planning on still using it for years to come, until OCLP can't support it anymore. It's plenty powerful for what I need (which is pretty much like you), and I don't play games. To be honest, a few months ago, I built a i9-14900K/6900XT based hackintosh so powerful that the it puts the latest Mac Pro to shame, especially for more than 1/10th of the price. But I still find myself using my 5,1 all the time. To be honest, I will never, ever again buy anything Apple, and I've been an Apple fan since 1984. Now I hate their policies and all the things they do to make their customers' life miserable. And if it comes down to it, I'd rather switch entirely to Windows. The only thing I'll miss, is Logic Pro.

At the time that Luke Miani made his “most powerful Mac Pro in the world” video, it really was the strongest one you could build (at least with an AMD GPU so you could still run macOS). With dual X5690’s, a Radeon VII, NVME SSD, and 96 GB RAM, you could build an equivalent Mac Pro but you couldn’t build one to beat it. But now, thanks to you, Martin Lo, OpenCore, and your upgraded GPU setup, you have surpassed it and shown how we can do the same! It really speaks to the upgradability of these old machines and how valuable that is for a pro desktop.

This is what a true Mac power user looks like. You, Sir, are a real inspiration. I’m thinking about taking a second or third look at my Mac Pro five, one tomorrow. Thanks for a great video.😊

Great video. Here are my specs: Mac Pro 5.1: Dual CPU 2x Xeon 5690, 128 GB RAM, RX 580 with EFI, with 1 TB NVMe, 1TB SSD, 1 TB HDD. Thats more than enough at the moment. I wont buy M. series MAc as they are ridiculously expensive.

Absolutely love this. I definitely need to pick up a 5.1 to use as a secondary machine. The fact that it’s still 100% useable over 10 years later is really a testament to how far Apple has fallen, at least user serviceability wise.

I have been using my MacPro 5,1 since 2012 until right now (I am writing these lines on it). I have 128 RAM and 54tb scattered among the four hard drives. With an 8GB video card and two 27" LG 4K monitors ... I see NO REASON to replace it. It does EVERYTHING I need and some ... I run macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 without ANY issues. You, Lance, are the poster child of the savy Mac user. I love this channel. ❤

Props to you. Thankyou for the drive explanation and OC on its own drive. Had a real hard time getting dual boot to work.

My brother recently gave me his 5,1. He was convinced that when he went into our local Mac dealer at the time that when he said “i don’t care what the price is, I want a maxed out Mac Pro” that they’d actually jump on the opportunity to make a quick buck. Unfortunately they sold him a base model essentially. For under $500 I’ve essentially maxed out a machine that would’ve cost at least $10k had I done so at time of release 😎 I’m using it for radio production and the occasional multitrack session set up before exporting to a professional studio. This video has been extremely helpful regarding other suggestive upgrades I didn’t consider

« It’s fast enough for me » 100% agree. I love mine, I wont stop using it. I got it an RX570 that is faster than all the M1 chips variants, I have a sonnet usb c card for connectivity, a random pcie m2 SSD card + 1TB 970 Pro. That computer with its 12 cores & 96 GB of RAM is perfect for my photography processing needs, music recording needs & all daily life needs. I will keep it for the years to come. We dont have to change just because something new and shiny is out.

Great video! Love all the details. Just shows how solid the cMP design was, that it’s still relevant in 2023/2024.

Thanks for your content as always, Lance! Love this Video.

A really thorough, engaging and even-handed video. I have a 2010 5,1 Mac Pro, which I received in early January 2023 as a late Christmas present from my parents. I've upgraded it with a 3.46 GHz six-core CPU tray (up from the stock 2.8 GHz quad-core), 48 GB of RAM, an RX 580, a 1 TB NVMe SSD running Mojave in a glowing RGB PCIe card, a USB C and 3 combo card, and a FireWire 400 card. I also purchased a dual-CPU, 12-core tray from a Mac repair/refurbished store in Carlton, and installed 96 GB of RAM. Since I mostly use this Mac Pro for gaming — I keep it and many of my vintage Intel Macs at Mojave for the 32-bit application support, by the way — I still use the 3.46 GHz single CPU tray, as I'd rather have a fast six-core CPU than two slower (2.4 GHz) six-core CPUs. But the beauty of the later cheesegraters is that if you want to upgrade or replace the CPU, it's as easy as sliding out the tray and sliding in a new one. :D

Thanks for sharing. Great tour 🎉.

Glad you’ve kept it going. I stopped using mine this fall, but kept it. I like the idea of turning it into a PC gaming rig. Thanks for the video and all the tips!

Great video man. Makes me nostalgic for my old 5,1 I had a few years back.

Thank you so much for this very interesting and helpful video! Happy new year

This is awesome to see! Nice work thanks

Hey man glad to see it's still going. I have a resolve server hooked up to my 5,1 with an NVME boot. Still on Big Sur...glad I still have a little more time with her.