How do you like your Mac Pro (2009-2012)? Should I upgrade mine?

• 2010+ CPU tray -- 12 cores at 2.66GHz
• 128 GB of OWC RAM
• Mirrored 1TB SSDs on Marvell based PCIe card
• 16 TB of disk space configured in RAID 10 (8 TB usable) on the built-in SATA trays
• 12 TB external RAID 5 storage on a RocketRaid 640 card
• Radeon 6870 HD Video card
• 4 port USB 3 card

• Upgrade to Sierra
• ARECA SAS card ARC-1883ix-24 replacing the 2 SATA cards
• Adding an Apple 802.11AC wifi/bluetooth card in the spare PCIe slot -or- an M.2 card
• Upgrading the Video to an Nvidia 1080 card
• Add 6 more 1TB SSDs for a 4TB RAID 10 (bootable I hope)
• 3.33GHz CPU upgrades

Stork said:

First, there is no support for the Nvidia GTX 1080 (or any of the Pascal) graphics cards in macOS. Nvidia stop support with the Maxwell drivers (GTX 750/900 cards) which is why you see a lot of GTX 970/980 users on this forum.

While there is a rich amount of information on the MacRumors Mac Pro forum section (see sticky threads), depending upon your workload, you may want to consider a top of the hackintosh. Both pastrychef and myself use the ASUS Z170 GENE motherboard based systems. (Note: I have a 2008 and 2010 Mac Pros while pastrychef sold his Mac Pro 5,1 to build his GENE system, and he's a prosumer.) My build description links are in my signature block. pastrychef's build description is here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/pastrychefs-build-asus-maximus-viii-gene-i7-6700k-gtx-980.198470/. MyHero build is full size ATX motherboard.

BTW, my PowerMacG5, 2008 MacPro3,1 and 2010 MacPro5,1 use SSDs with the Mac Pro's each using the Acorn PCIe SSD adapter card. The 2008 Mac Pro uses a PC HD 7850 graphics card flashed with a Mac VBIOS, and the 2010 uses a PC AMD 208x graphics card also flashed, both graphics cards flashed by MacVidCards.com. My Mac Pro's don't get a lot of use now a days as my Gene and MyHero builds do most of my recording tasks.

The mods (or hackintosh choice) you make will depend upon the most demanding application(s) you are using.

Click to expand...

Stork said:

First, there is no support for the Nvidia GTX 1080 (or any of the Pascal) graphics cards in macOS. Nvidia stop support with the Maxwell drivers (GTX 750/900 cards) which is why you see a lot of GTX 970/980 users on this forum.

While there is a rich amount of information on the MacRumors Mac Pro forum section (see sticky threads), depending upon your workload, you may want to consider a top of the hackintosh. Both pastrychef and myself use the ASUS Z170 GENE motherboard based systems. (Note: I have a 2008 and 2010 Mac Pros while pastrychef sold his Mac Pro 5,1 to build his GENE system, and he's a prosumer.) My build description links are in my signature block. pastrychef's build description is here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/pastrychefs-build-asus-maximus-viii-gene-i7-6700k-gtx-980.198470/. MyHero build is full size ATX motherboard.

BTW, my PowerMacG5, 2008 MacPro3,1 and 2010 MacPro5,1 use SSDs with the Mac Pro's each using the Acorn PCIe SSD adapter card. The 2008 Mac Pro uses a PC HD 7850 graphics card flashed with a Mac VBIOS, and the 2010 uses a PC AMD 208x graphics card also flashed, both graphics cards flashed by MacVidCards.com. My Mac Pro's don't get a lot of use now a days as my Gene and MyHero builds do most of my recording tasks.

The mods (or hackintosh choice) you make will depend upon the most demanding application(s) you are using.

Click to expand...

macs_forever said:

Oops! I guess there ARE pascal drivers, LOL

Click to expand...

Stork said:

Nvidia released the Pascal drivers on Monday, late in the day (IIRC), April 10 (2017). So...

NVIDIA 'Pascal' Graphics Drivers Released: Buyer's Guide Updated!

Lots of singing and dancing at the MacRumors Mac Pro forum section, too.
https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/mac-pro.1/

Click to expand...