ULTIMATE cheap and easy Mac Pro build for 2020! 

"This RX 580 I got for $90..." *cries in 2021*

I just wanted to say thank you so much for this video. As the original owner of a 2009 4,1 MacPro, this has been a great guide for keeping an ancient computer relevant. When I first purchased this computer back in the day, it was a pretty basic single CPU 2.93 GHz quad-core machine that I thought would serve as a decent desktop for routine daily use and amateur photography for a few years, which it did quite capably. I never dreamt it would still be going 11 years later. When the MacPro 6,1 came out, it didn't seem terribly appealing, so upgraded the 4,1 with a PCIe SSD, maxed out the RAM, and ran El Capitan for many years without a hitch. Having added several additional new MacBook Pros and Airs to the mix with newer operating systems led to sync issues via iCloud, and I thought I'd wait it out til the 7,1 came out to upgrade. Then came the announcement of Apple Silicon, which put those plans on hold. This led to a brief search for additional options until the dust settles. Hence, this upgrade path. Once the parts were acquired, flashed the 4,1 to 5,1, installed a 3.46 GHz 6-core Westmere, took the RAM to 48 GB, briefly upgraded to High Sierra, upgraded the WiFi/Bluetooth card, dropped in a RX580, loaded Mojave, and added USB 3.2 card. An afternoon worth of work, and the opportunity to clean out 11 years worth of dust, and feels like a fresh machine again:) We'll see what Apple Silicon brings, but at least I'm good for the moment...

Every time I have to open my 4,1 up I'm amazed by the design. I know PC cases have caught up in that regard since the 'finger slicer' days but it's still a masterpiece, yet adaptable and configurable.

That old Mac Pro design is so damned beautiful!

I don’t think this video could have been made any better. Concise, clear, good pace, clean all around.

I’d love a follow up to these Mac Pro 5,1 videos that includes the following: 1) How to flash the GPU to show the boot screen. 2) How to install Windows 10 on this machine. It’s not officially supported in Mojave. 3) How to hack it to upgrade to Catalina. I love these videos. You inspired me to get into upgrading these cheese graters. I have two of these, I just picked up a 30” Cinema Display, and I might be looking at two more. FWIW, these also make fantastic 1080p Windows gaming machines.

Fantastic video. I love how you add a second life to these older machines and show us these are not obsolete. I still have almost my old macs and MacBook since 2007 or so and all of them have been upgraded insole way or form with SSD and max memory. Every single machine is still very useable today.

it's interesting to watch a RU-vidr that's a lot more relatable to me who buys basically all my tech used. It seems more in reach than some people who buy and review brand-new tech that costs as much as a decent car.

You really make the best APPLE videos on the internet. Thank you for making this

Thanks, Luke. Used this video to do many upgrades on my 2010 Pro. One very small thing: the long-handled hex wrench is a 3mm, not 3.5mm. 3.5mm wrenches are extremely rare. :-)

I'm always excited to see any 5,1 videos. Great video Luke! Watching in 4K on my 2009 Mac Pro.

I did this a couple of years ago, it’s been my main computer since then.... awesome video... very easy to follow for people wanting to do something like this. The one thing I’d add to this video is that I believe ram lanes 3 and 4 share so you might see decreased ram speeds with all 4 slots being used , something to keep in mind if upgrading ram.

Wanted to build one two years ago as my main build. I still want to even in 2020! Lol great video as always Luke!

This is the exact build I was looking for when you did the fastest mac pro in the world build. Perfect.

Thanks so much for using Final Cut Pro as a "real world" test for your upgrade. So many RU-vidrs run a "test bench" or play a game, and leave you wondering, "how will this affect what I really bought this computer for?' This answers a lot of questions and leaves no doubt in my mind. 🏆

Great video Luke. It is nice to see these 5,1's still being useful. I have two 5,1's that I use today.

Definitely one of the best Mac Pros to upgrade! Straight up classic here💯💸

Definitely a good value... after loading Mojave, I added a cheap NVME (adapter and chip - $13 for adapter and $47 for chip) and the read/write speed are 4-5x faster than without it. I think in total I spent $400 on machine and upgrades.

I pretty much did the same thing with my 2010 dual tray. I slapped two x5690s and only 64GB of ram. Amazing video! I wish this was around when I did my upgrades.

Thanks for showing how to apply the thermal paste. That was the only step I needed help with :)

I Love those old cheese graters.

It’s worth 500 bucks just to have it open and look at. What a craftsmanship!!

Thanks Luke, this is such an awesome project. I've been working one too, going to try out the PCI NVME drive adapter to get mega speeds on the hard drive.

I love my 09 tower, installed a SSD drive about a ago year ago. Was looking to to upgrade the CPU and graphics card now that I can see the simplicity, Thank you for this, will be making the changes.

Still rocking my mid 2012 with Vega vii and its a beast! Running with dual 27” apple cinema displays and its such a dream setup still

You can connect the SSD on the connector for the second DVD drive that you probably don't have.

Have a 2008 model (3.1) and its still a great machine. 2 x quad core Xeons and 24GB RAM. Fitted it out with a GTX680 and have it running Mojave. Solid as a rock.

Luke: your video made me pull the trigger on this project. Hoping for the best!

Love it!! I have a 2009 5,1 - Dual 3.33GHz Xeon, 48Gb 1333MHz. Just ordered a Radeon RX 560 ITX. Thanks Luke.

When adding an SSD, I use the second connector on the DVD harness and let it live under the DVD.

I love my 4,1 with a Vega 56. It is by far the oldest piece of technology I use daily but the one I use most often.

Another awesome video... I recently picked up a 2010 5,1 to replace/upgrade from my still working quite well 2008 Mac Pro.

Built one of these after your last video. Dual processor though. It’s the bomb. Keep up the great videos. But, I’d split for the 2.5 to 3.5 drive adapter :)

Luke: We can put whatever card we want in it Me: *sad nvidia noises*

That's pretty dope. I would LOVE to have that on my desk right now.

Watched a few of your videos, but this was the sub. You’re a legend

Oh gosh I hope that nobody that follows this forget to put thermal paste in the processor... But great video Luke! :D

This was cool. I love my 5,1 and it's my main computer! The only thing I'd add in terms of value and/or creature comfort is a cheap USB3 card (~$25). It won't be able to power multiple external HDDs but USB3 vs USB2 is a big difference! Similarly with speed, I think it's important to note that the hard drive bays are SATA2 not SATA3, which means the theoretical max read/write is 300MB/s. Mine has an old apple 128gb SSD and I get about 225 MB/s read and 150 MB/s write. This is just to say, don't buy some crazy fast SSD unless you are going to get a PCIE card to put it in! I really enjoy your videos and am always interested in what fun purchase/repair you make next!

These videos of yours are amazing. Thank you for all of the great info.

This video is extremely helpful. Keep up the good work, Luke! And thank you so much!

Excellent. And better than every “cheap” Hackintosh I’ve seen/built.

I just made mine 2 months ago. I love it. This video would have been helpful then. Cheese grater values are going to skyrocket.

Man, you are a straight up genius. I'm going to try this. I'm stuck at El Capitan. I need this upgrade. Thanks much.

They never go out of style till this day..! Performance still very good too.

Don't forget the cost of power. For people who leave the computer on 24/7, if they can accomplish what they need to do on a mini, the savings in electricity costs over the pro will pay for the machine in short order. Mac pros are definitely machines one should put to sleep when not in use.

Great video. I love this channel and the direction of your work, so here's some constructive criticism:.. You missed a bunch of very important points: 1. The processor you're recommending (as every other one for this platform) features a triple-channel memory controller. The CPU actually performs worse with two or four modules. So to take full advantage of the CPU you should go with 24GB(3x8) or 48 ((3x16) The 5,1 introduced CPUs capable of handling 1333MHz memory, instead of the CPUs that came with the 4,1 (1066), tests show a 4% advantage for the higher clocked memory setup. For a dual CPU scenario it's 48GB(6x8) or 96(6x16). For low-latency audio applications the single-cpu is better. For audio multitrack mixing and video applications the inter-cpu latency won't be an issue. 2. The SATA controller is 2nd gen, so you get 300 MB/s each way per drive and the 6-socket controller maxes out at less than 900((old PCIe). So the most efficent scenario is 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs, or a dedicated SATA3 PCIe card with a dedicated 2,5" drive mounting space for every SATA3 SSD. 3. There's a list of GPUs that work with Mojave. nVidia 740/760/780 support Metal natively, not all AMD cards are suppoorted and the nVidia Web Driver is not being developed since Mojave anymore, so 900 series, 10x series and 20x series are not an option with Mojave and up. You chose the best card for this scenario, but it's not like you said that we can install ANYTHING WE WANT. 4. The main argument against pimping out a cheesegraterr is the lack of Thunderbolt. It is possible though to install an add-in-card and enable partial TB3 support (PCIe element). Depending oon your use scenario, you might get it working just fine ((Universal Audio Apollo devices work fine). Cheers and stay safe Luke!

I just had to make a decision whether to buy a Hackintosh or a Mac Pro 5,1 and all of a sudden Luke comes with a video on the MP. Fantastic, thank you!

Spectacular! Thanks for an absolutely fascinating build!

Even old Macs shine in a (tasty,) new light just by the way you say "valuable Machine"!🙂

I picked a 2010 up for $200 and it had the dual cpu tray then I added two of the 5675 xeons for another 45 bucks.

Hi Sean I know that this video was done some time back. However it is still very valuable to me I would like to thank you for this tutorial.

I love my 5, 1 Mac Pro! Mine came with a 6 Core Xeon X5670 processor, 32GB of RAM, standard HD 5770 GPU and a 1TB hard drive. I upgraded the GPU to an RX 570 4GB and the storage to a 250GB Samsung SSD and added a 2TB Seagate drive. Overall, pretty good for my video editing machine.

NEXT UPGRADE (I think) Install OpenCore Add Thunderbolt3 card

I Have a MacPro 3,1 and I love this :) I have upgraded to a 500gb SSD and a nVidia GTX 680 (Flashed for the Mac Edition) This thing has 32GB RAM and a dual Processor 2x Quad^^ with the catalina patcher, this mac run with catalina :)

Luke is reading my mind. I've been researching this for days.

I love this machine so much I wouldn't bother if you would make a video about it every week.

i love the design of the old cheese graters. i remember when i was in an apple store for the first time and i saw one of those, i wanted one so badly. now you can get them for a few bucks. but atm i prefer my self built hackintosh. maybe i'll get one in the future as a second system. great video as always, keep it up luke!

For those wondering, the adapter is a mini 6 pin to 8 pin, not 4 pin.

I did this a few years ago. Made a killer mac pro. 128GB RAM 3 SSDs 1060 running High Sierra. Ended up selling it on ebay for a pretty great profit. I have 3 cheesgrater chassis left over from the combine operation. So now I am converting one to ATX to put a hackintosh in. Such an aesthetically pleasing case. I cant believe how thick the aluminum is compared to even my best PC case.

Luke, i am loosing my mind with trying to upgrade this mac pro to Mojave. I love your channel and appreciate the help.

I wished I could do that in my place. These 5,1, besides extremely hard to find in the used/gray market, are abusively expensive - not to mention the components to make any upgrade 😢 (In case you’re wondering where I live: 🇧🇷)

Literally was about to do this a couple months ago, ended up just buying a Dell XPS. Wish I had this video then :(

Good advice on the cards in the description. I ran an 8-pin RX570 off just one of the 6-pin mini plugs and am fairly certain that is why my logic board failed ($130-ish replacement) as I didn’t realize it was going to pull that much from the one plug 😞. I now run a two mini 6-pin to 8-pin adapter for my 570 in my 2010 5,1 auto-over locked with no issue (120-150 watt power draw under load).

My 2010 Mac Pro has dual X5680 chips for 12 cores and 24 threads, 64 GB RAM, RX 580 and an NVME SSD in a PCIE adapter card. Really solid performance for Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve and Logic Pro.

I‘m still happy with my 2008 Mac Pro with 32GB RAM I paid 130€ for.

Still using Mac Pro 3,1 (early 2008)

Very simple to follow instructions, thank you.

Awesome video! Thanks.... I’ve got an old early 2009 Mac Pro and I might upgrade it now!

Wait, I just did that yesterday. Well, almost. RX 590 and different SSD.

Hey i have a question. I cliked on the amazon link and it showed me the Retro edition. It cost 177€ and is way to expensive or me. Also i cant find the RX 580 anywhere available . And you said we dont gonna get the booting screen . How can i get him ? Is the Adapter for that ? . And where can i find this power cable for the RX 580 ? . it would be nic if you could answer me

You sold me on this for my first Mac since my experiment with an old G3 Mac. Just want to play with my drone footage. Now I need to find a decent base Mac Pro.

Thank you for your contributions to the pc building community

Wow now I want to make one for my self and sell my old iMac 🖥.

I nearly punched my iPad i tried to hit play so fast

And those upgrades, after 10yrs. is exactly why a Mac Pro is worth it to me. I'm going to buy the new 2019 one. Even though there will be one with Apple silicone in the coming years, the 2019 will still be supported throughout the years. If get anywhere between 8 to 10 yrs with it i'm happy. I'm not a professional at all, more a prosumer. I do some light web/graphic design but i also like to make music with Logic Pro X and i also do a little bit of video editing. I have the 6-core trashcan Mac Pro 2013 but it's getting really slow on me. I have the D700's with 64GB of ram in it. But i'm getting it to it's limits. I'm going with a Mac Pro 16-core with 96GB of ram, 8tb SSD and the w7500 AMD gpu with 16gb. I think this machine will last me for a very long time! Thank you for this video Luke and showing exactly why a Mac Pro is worth it!

I saw your videos on upgrading a mac pro and bought mine on the basis of that. Mine is a 12 core 5,1. No regrets.

How would this handle Ableton and/or other DAWs compared to a mid 2014, 15" Retina MB Pro with 16gb ram and a 2.5 GHz Quad-Core i7?

Hey Luke I’ve recently recently got a 2012 MacBook Pro for 250$ it came with a 500gb sad 8gb of ram duel core i5 is it good value or not good value?

Thank you we always appreciate the knowledge you share with us!!!

I like the way how hones you are try to help anther people. Good presentation in listing all those parts which make easy following.

"We can put what ever graphics card in here" Bottlenecking: Am I a joke to you?

I'm curious could you put in a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU?

I am watching this video on my 2009 Cheesegrater with 3.46 Ghz 6 core flashed to 5.1 with RX580 and 64 GB of Memory and 1 GB SSD. I saw your earlier video when you upgraded a Mac Pro and it inspired me . . . . I've been happy ever since . . . . Thanks Luke!

Great value or not, it sure looks like a fun project. Thanks for the video!

8:34 I THINK YOU FORGOT THE THERMAL PASTE

RIP RX 580 for $90....

Great video as always, Luke. It should be noted for anyone interested, the Pixlas PSU mod actually isn't necessary to power Radeon VII, as I've been doing so with just the power off the motherboard, and have gamed hard for months on it with zero issues!

this is really cool, Luke!

lol this has the gpu has a mac pro xD!!!

6:37 D I L D O

Great vid! Would love to see if it can be maxed out even more

So excellent I love the just pop the SSD in the slot and let it hang :) I use ICEY DoCks in mine, but I did pop a SSD in the second optical bay recently and let it hang :)

But, can it run GTA V?

Dude! Awesome Video! I'm so gonna build one of these to replace my aging 2011 iMac!

I just cleaned the dust off my Mac G5 2009 and looking to upgrade but need to do some more research on what I need to run Pro Tools and see if I can connect it to my 2017 iMac to use as a monitor. Need all the help I can get...thanks for such a great video!!!

Wow great presentation. I have 4 screens on mine. Gonna look inside. I didn’t see the chip down below. Thanks. RWB

Than you for putting this out there on RU-vid - just Subscribed! I just about have what you listed here - went with a Radeon R9 280X with the EFI mod🤕, 512 GB PCI OTW SATA dual 128GB RAID card, 48GB.....now I just need that $20 X5676 Westmere 6 Core and I will be all set! Thank you so much!

This is very very good value for money.. and i like to see more videos just like this one bcz i was recently bought 5,1

Fantastic Video Luke! I have a 2010, and was wondering if I could do this and you came up randomly on my suggested video and boom. Time to upgrade now :)

I always wanted one of these machines. Not sure what I would use it for but I'd love to have it in my collection!