With some rendering engines, the AMD cards that Apple uses in new Mac Pros dont even work, he said. The new iMac Pro can have up to 18 cores new MacBook Pros max out at four cores. In response to this gap in the market, the Hackintosh community has thrived and the Mac Pro Upgrade community has risen. Last year, Apple went on a press tour to let the pro community know that the Mac Pro is not dead but a new model hasnt yet been announced. The essence is people wanted more powerful Macs and Apple didnt give it to them, so we are. I think a lot of people in this group see upgrading the Mac Pro as a cheaper way to get a functional Mac. You cannot go to and find a computer better than these, Mazzarolo said. Like the Hackintosh community, the Facebook group has a running list of compatible and incompatible parts, shares written and video tutorials about upgrading the computers, and has even found a way to upgrade the Mac Pro 4.1 into the Mac Pro 5.1 with a firmware update. Mazzarolo also has had to find a way to reroute the Mac Pros power supply to directly power electricity-intensive modern GPUs (as designed, the power is routedand limitedby the computers motherboard.).

The lack of Thunderbolt ports makes doing this a nonstarter for certain people. With CPUs, nothing drastic has happened in the last 3-4 years.įor some things, its better than any Mac offered at the moment. The Facebook group Mac Pro Upgrade is filled with people scooping up old Mac Pros from eBay and Craigslist and modifying the hell out of them. Upgraded versions of the 4.1 and 5.1 are, in many cases, the fastest Apple computers you can buy today. These are the last highly upgradeable and modifiable desktop computer that Apple sold before moving to the much-maligned black trash can design that is sold today and hasnt changed significantly since 2013.

Mac pro 5.1 upgrades