How much longer will the 5,1 (2010) run the latest OS?

[ksq1307]

Right now the 5,1 cheesegrater Mac Pro Tower natively runs "High Sierra" - but how long before Apple decides to make these wonderful machines yesterday's hardware - by making them not compatible with the latest version of OSX?

I've used a Mac Pro 1,1 for years with SFOTT boot .efi hack so I can run Yosemite. How long will it be before this becomes necessary with a 5,1? Next year? Three years? I know only Apple know for sure, but what's the thinking here, please?

I'm about to buy a Mac Pro 5,1 (2010 - 3.33GHz - 6 core - Serial No: CK11901DHF7) on ebay. My question is - how long does the 2010 5,1 have before it no can no longer NATIVELY (WITHOUT the need for boot .efi hacking of the OS) support the latest version of the Mac OSX operating system? I know only Apple know the answer to this question for sure. But I'd be VERY GRATEFUL for your insight. Grateful thanks for your time.

Keith

 

[weckart]

I know only Apple know the answer to this for sure.

There's your insight right there. I don't know what more you can expect as we have no idea what 10.14 looks like, either.

 

[ksq1307]

There's your insight right there. I don't know what more you can expect as we have no idea what 10.14 looks like, either.

Fair enough.

 

[AphoticD]

You could try posting your question in the Mac Pro forum, they might be more onto it. Most people here are hanging onto Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 and not too concerned about wrangling 10.14 to run on their old(er) hardware.

I have a cMP 3,1 which I run as a daily driver. I am solid with El Capitan (10.11.6). I have no intention of ever upgrading this machine from El Cap, regardless of when this last version of "Mac OS X" becomes obsoleted by Apple and they stop releasing security updates for it. (Also, if numbers mean anything, 10.11.6 is a nicely rounded double of my preferred PowerPC OS X 10.5.8).

For me, El Capitan is a perfect operating system. It has only a handful of bugs (that I know about) and the limitations are nothing I can't live with. There is complete backwards compatibility with my PowerPC Macs. They all speak the same language and run the same type of filesystem.

I have not been overly impressed with High Sierra and I can only imagine 10.14 will be more of the same kind of thing. There will be a slow drawn out unifying process aligning iOS and macOS, which will see more Mac features (and support) disappear to make the user experience between the two products more seamless to the everyday iPhone user, with little benefit to the "Pro" Mac user.

 

[bunnspecial]

There is still a lot of interest in the 5,1, and a decent upgrade community around it. Unfortunately, mine is giving me headaches now after installing the X5690s(hex 3.46ghz).

With that said, Apple pushed a firmware update for them to support AFPS, so I think we can expect them to keep them around at least for another OS release or two. There's been enough backlash over the "trashcan" also(which is approaching 5 years old) that I suspect they'll continue getting OS updates until the promised MP replacement actually comes out. 2019 was the most recent I heard, which means that we'll PROBABLY get 10.14 and 10.15 at a minimum on the 5,1.

There's no way to no the future, though, especially not with Apple.

 

[BenTrovato]

Anyone's guess.. my guess is that with the lack of Mac Pro updates we've seen, there's no reason to suspend support for the old Pro's until Apple switches off intel CPU's. So, two more years.

 

[647156]

Obviously no-one knows, but I would think a fair while yet given that they were sold until 2013. Also if they do end support for them it should still be very easy to run the latest OS unsupported on them as the hardware is similar enough to supported models i.e. a modern CPU, EFI64 etc, so it would probably just be a case of editing/deleting the PlatformSupport.plist file like is how you currently run unsupported versions of OS X on hardware that has no other reason (like lack of EFI64 etc) that it can't run them other than Apple wanting you to buy a new Mac.

You will also be able to run Windows 10 on them almost indefinitely given Microsoft's much better support for older hardware and ten-year support lifecycles for released OS versions, even the original 2006 Intel Macs can run the latest Windows absolutely fine - given that Apple obviously has no interest in making professional workstations (or anything with more than one port and an emoji bar) any more, this (or a PC system also running Windows or another non-Apple OS) will be the only way to go once it is eventually impossible to run new-enough versions of OS X on the last non-cylinder Mac Pros.

 

[z970]

there's no reason to suspend support for the old Pro's

Yeah, that's what we thought about the 3,1...

 

[ksq1307]

You could try posting your question in the Mac Pro forum, they might be more onto it. Most people here are hanging onto Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 and not too concerned about wrangling 10.14 to run on their old(er) hardware.

I have a cMP 3,1 which I run as a daily driver. I am solid with El Capitan (10.11.6). I have no intention of ever upgrading this machine from El Cap, regardless of when this last version of "Mac OS X" becomes obsoleted by Apple and they stop releasing security updates for it. (Also, if numbers mean anything, 10.11.6 is a nicely rounded double of my preferred PowerPC OS X 10.5.8).

For me, El Capitan is a perfect operating system. It has only a handful of bugs (that I know about) and the limitations are nothing I can't live with. There is complete backwards compatibility with my PowerPC Macs. They all speak the same language and run the same type of filesystem.

I have not been overly impressed with High Sierra and I can only imagine 10.14 will be more of the same kind of thing. There will be a slow drawn out unifying process aligning iOS and macOS, which will see more Mac features (and support) disappear to make the user experience between the two products more seamless to the everyday iPhone user, with little benefit to the "Pro" Mac user.

You could try posting your question in the Mac Pro forum, they might be more onto it. Most people here are hanging onto Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 and not too concerned about wrangling 10.14 to run on their old(er) hardware.

I have a cMP 3,1 which I run as a daily driver. I am solid with El Capitan (10.11.6). I have no intention of ever upgrading this machine from El Cap, regardless of when this last version of "Mac OS X" becomes obsoleted by Apple and they stop releasing security updates for it. (Also, if numbers mean anything, 10.11.6 is a nicely rounded double of my preferred PowerPC OS X 10.5.8).

For me, El Capitan is a perfect operating system. It has only a handful of bugs (that I know about) and the limitations are nothing I can't live with. There is complete backwards compatibility with my PowerPC Macs. They all speak the same language and run the same type of filesystem.

I have not been overly impressed with High Sierra and I can only imagine 10.14 will be more of the same kind of thing. There will be a slow drawn out unifying process aligning iOS and macOS, which will see more Mac features (and support) disappear to make the user experience between the two products more seamless to the everyday iPhone user, with little benefit to the "Pro" Mac user.

Many thanks for your informative response. I followed your suggestion and posted in Mac Pro.

 

[t8er8]

Right now the 5,1 cheesegrater Mac Pro Tower natively runs "High Sierra" - but how long before Apple decides to make these wonderful machines yesterday's hardware - by making them not compatible with the latest version of OSX?

I've used a Mac Pro 1,1 for years with SFOTT boot .efi hack so I can run Yosemite. How long will it be before this becomes necessary with a 5,1? Next year? Three years? I know only Apple know for sure, but what's the thinking here, please?

I'm about to buy a Mac Pro 5,1 (2010 - 3.33GHz - 6 core - Serial No: CK11901DHF7) on ebay. My question is - how long does the 2010 5,1 have before it no can no longer NATIVELY (WITHOUT the need for boot .efi hacking of the OS) support the latest version of the Mac OSX operating system? I know only Apple know the answer to this question for sure. But I'd be VERY GRATEFUL for your insight. Grateful thanks for your time.

Keith

It is VERY likely they will be dropping native support for 5,1 in the next version of MacOS. This is because of two things, to make the cMP’s extinct, and to make more room for the 2019 Mac Pro that’ll be coming out.

Apple doesn’t like holding support for old devices for too long, even if they’re still very capable. They tend to carry on OS support for devices for about 6-7 years, but since the 5,1 is still so capable and costed much more than other Apple products, they have had it supported a few more years than that.

The 2019 Mac Pro will likely be a giant revamp to the Mac Pro series as well, so Apple wants to leave the old ones in the past and move to this. The reason this will likely be such a big revamp is because they haven’t updated the Mac Pro series in 5 years, and because people were so disappointed for the price/performance ratio of the 6,1 (trash can) Mac Pro.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the 6,1 support in the next few years as it was quite unpopular and an overall a failure for Apple.

On the positive side of things, (even though you mention not wanting to) the cMP community will keep the support for the 2009 and 2010 Mac Pro running for a long time, using firmware hacks and kext edits, likely until they release a whole new and very different type of OS, but macOS will stay “supported” on the 2010’s for a long time.

Another good thing is that they’ll keep updating the people who’re
Stuck on high Sierra (which will likely be a large amount of users) with optimization updates and overall smoothing of the OS.

In conclusion, yes they probably will drop native OS support for the 2010 Mac Pro, but it’s not the end of the world for the cMP’s

I recently replaced my 2008 Mac Pro with a 5,1 with a gpu upgrade and I’ll tell ya this thing will last me for a long time, and it was definitely worth the money, even if they drop OS support.

(Keep in mind this is just my assumption on what will happen to it, no one really knows)

 

[ksq1307]

It is VERY likely they will be dropping native support for 5,1 in the next version of MacOS. This is because of two things, to make the cMP’s extinct, and to make more room for the 2019 Mac Pro that’ll be coming out.

Apple doesn’t like holding support for old devices for too long, even if they’re still very capable. They tend to carry on OS support for devices for about 6-7 years, but since the 5,1 is still so capable and costed much more than other Apple products, they have had it supported a few more years than that.

The 2019 Mac Pro will likely be a giant revamp to the Mac Pro series as well, so Apple wants to leave the old ones in the past and move to this. The reason this will likely be such a big revamp is because they haven’t updated the Mac Pro series in 5 years, and because people were so disappointed for the price/performance ratio of the 6,1 (trash can) Mac Pro.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the 6,1 support in the next few years as it was quite unpopular and an overall a failure for Apple.

On the positive side of things, (even though you mention not wanting to) the cMP community will keep the support for the 2009 and 2010 Mac Pro running for a long time, using firmware hacks and kext edits, likely until they release a whole new and very different type of OS, but macOS will stay “supported” on the 2010’s for a long time.

Another good thing is that they’ll keep updating the people who’re
Stuck on high Sierra (which will likely be a large amount of users) with optimization updates and overall smoothing of the OS.

In conclusion, yes they probably will drop native OS support for the 2010 Mac Pro, but it’s not the end of the world for the cMP’s

I recently replaced my 2008 Mac Pro with a 5,1 with a gpu upgrade and I’ll tell ya this thing will last me for a long time, and it was definitely worth the money, even if they drop OS support.

(Keep in mind this is just my assumption on what will happen to it, no one really knows)

Thanks for that. Excellent insights. I've got the seller on Ebay down from £800 to £600 for the above spec - 2010 (NOT a flashed 2009 - a real 2010) - with 3.33GHz and 6 cores. I know it's a good buy because providing it remains stable, these babies are the best for muscle, resolution and just all around aesthetic satisfaction over Windows. Clearly your eloquent response says - it's worth the money, right? Many thanks.

 

[weckart]

Thanks for that. Excellent insights. I've got the seller on Ebay down from £800 to £600 for the above spec - 2010 (NOT a flashed 2009 - a real 2010) - with 3.33GHz and 6 cores. I know it's a good buy because providing it remains stable, these babies are the best for muscle, resolution and just all around aesthetic satisfaction over Windows. Clearly your eloquent response says - it's worth the money, right? Many thanks.

Sounds as if prices are going up since I bought mine unless yours is getting an upgraded graphics card and plenty of RAM.

 

[pl1984]

Obviously no-one knows, but I would think a fair while yet given that they were sold until 2013. Also if they do end support for them it should still be very easy to run the latest OS unsupported on them as the hardware is similar enough to supported models i.e. a modern CPU, EFI64 etc, so it would probably just be a case of editing/deleting the PlatformSupport.plist file like is how you currently run unsupported versions of OS X on hardware that has no other reason (like lack of EFI64 etc) that it can't run them other than Apple wanting you to buy a new Mac.

You will also be able to run Windows 10 on them almost indefinitely given Microsoft's much better support for older hardware and ten-year support lifecycles for released OS versions, even the original 2006 Intel Macs can run the latest Windows absolutely fine - given that Apple obviously has no interest in making professional workstations (or anything with more than one port and an emoji bar) any more, this (or a PC system also running Windows or another non-Apple OS) will be the only way to go once it is eventually impossible to run new-enough versions of OS X on the last non-cylinder Mac Pros.

For the context of this discussion their support lifecycle is only five years.
[doublepost=1526417787][/doublepost]

I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the 6,1 support in the next few years as it was quite unpopular and an overall a failure for Apple.

I'm not sure I would agree with this. Pricing on these systems remains, IMO, unreasonably high for the age of the technology. That would imply demand is strong.

 

[t8er8]

Thanks for that. Excellent insights. I've got the seller on Ebay down from £800 to £600 for the above spec - 2010 (NOT a flashed 2009 - a real 2010) - with 3.33GHz and 6 cores. I know it's a good buy because providing it remains stable, these babies are the best for muscle, resolution and just all around aesthetic satisfaction over Windows. Clearly your eloquent response says - it's worth the money, right? Many thanks.

For the context of this discussion their support lifecycle is only five years.
[doublepost=1526417787][/doublepost]
I'm not sure I would agree with this. Pricing on these systems remains, IMO, unreasonably high for the age of the technology. That would imply demand is strong.

or overly expensive and hard to get parts, like the OEM gpu’s in it are likely made on demand. I agree with what your saying but theirs a lot more possible explainations, especially in the computing world, on why things are so expensive.

 

[pl1984]

or overly expensive and hard to get parts, like the OEM gpu’s in it are likely made on demand. I agree with what your saying but theirs a lot more possible explainations, especially in the computing world, on why things are so expensive.

I'd be interested in hearing about some of those explanations.

 

[AphoticD]

I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the 6,1 support in the next few years as it was quite unpopular and an overall a failure for Apple.

I don’t think I’d call the 6,1 a failure. I’d say it’s simply another distinctly niche design that Jonny Ive was given the go ahead for, which customers just didn’t get... it’s not the first time

The cute little cylinder Mac Pro will make a nice collectible one day, just like the Power Mac G4 Cube.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Best guess 2030 AD

 

[647156]

The cute little cylinder Mac Pro will make a nice collectible one day, just like the Power Mac G4 Cube.

Indeed, it is almost identical to the Cube i.e. a very cool and innovative design, but very expensive while not being popular with pro customers as it doesn't meet their needs - only differences are they aren't still offering true "pro" systems alongside it as they did while the Cube was on sale, and they didn't continue to try to sell the Cube 5+ years after its release still at full price despite it being very outdated by that point!

 

[Macbookprodude]

Indeed, it is almost identical to the Cube i.e. a very cool and innovative design, but very expensive while not being popular with pro customers as it doesn't meet their needs - only differences are they aren't still offering true "pro" systems alongside it as they did while the Cube was on sale, and they didn't continue to try to sell the Cube 5+ years after its release still at full price despite it being very outdated by that point!

I think the 6,1 makes a nice trash can

 

[647156]

I think the 6,1 makes a nice trash can

I guess in years to come we might see that modification, like people turning iMac G3 shells into aquariums/cat beds etc!

 

[redheeler]

It is VERY likely they will be dropping native support for 5,1 in the next version of MacOS. This is because of two things, to make the cMP’s extinct, and to make more room for the 2019 Mac Pro that’ll be coming out.

Apple doesn’t like holding support for old devices for too long, even if they’re still very capable. They tend to carry on OS support for devices for about 6-7 years, but since the 5,1 is still so capable and costed much more than other Apple products, they have had it supported a few more years than that.

The 2019 Mac Pro will likely be a giant revamp to the Mac Pro series as well, so Apple wants to leave the old ones in the past and move to this. The reason this will likely be such a big revamp is because they haven’t updated the Mac Pro series in 5 years, and because people were so disappointed for the price/performance ratio of the 6,1 (trash can) Mac Pro.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the 6,1 support in the next few years as it was quite unpopular and an overall a failure for Apple.

On the positive side of things, (even though you mention not wanting to) the cMP community will keep the support for the 2009 and 2010 Mac Pro running for a long time, using firmware hacks and kext edits, likely until they release a whole new and very different type of OS, but macOS will stay “supported” on the 2010’s for a long time.

Another good thing is that they’ll keep updating the people who’re
Stuck on high Sierra (which will likely be a large amount of users) with optimization updates and overall smoothing of the OS.

In conclusion, yes they probably will drop native OS support for the 2010 Mac Pro, but it’s not the end of the world for the cMP’s

I recently replaced my 2008 Mac Pro with a 5,1 with a gpu upgrade and I’ll tell ya this thing will last me for a long time, and it was definitely worth the money, even if they drop OS support.

(Keep in mind this is just my assumption on what will happen to it, no one really knows)

Three reasons I do not foresee the Mac Pro 5,1 losing support this year:

• The last model of Mac Pro 5,1 was released in 2012, which is still under 7 years ago (7 years was the cut-off for MacOS Sierra's system requirements in 2016, excluding the Late 2009 Mac mini).
• Before MacOS Sierra the same system requirements persisted for four separate OS X releases, and this would only be release three on the current requirements.
• Apple doesn't have incentive to make room for the 2019 Mac Pro until 2019, so under that logic it's likely that Apple will drop support next year, not this year.

My prediction: MacOS 10.14 will be the last MacOS officially compatible with the Mac Pro 5,1, though that doesn't rule out the possibility of third-party modifications to make future versions compatible.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Three reasons I do not foresee the Mac Pro 5,1 losing support this year:

• The last model of Mac Pro 5,1 was released in 2012, which is still under 7 years ago (7 years was the cut-off for MacOS Sierra's system requirements in 2016, excluding the Late 2009 Mac mini).
• Before MacOS Sierra the same system requirements persisted for four separate OS X releases, and this would only be release three on the current requirements.
• Apple doesn't have incentive to make room for the 2019 Mac Pro until 2019, so under that logic it's likely that Apple will drop support next year, not this year.

My prediction: MacOS 10.14 will be the last MacOS officially compatible with the Mac Pro 5,1, though that doesn't rule out the possibility of third-party modifications to make future versions compatible.

Yeah, and the 5,1 is still a monster machine.. In Ukraine stuff is expensive here, but i got mine from a friend and its got two powerful graphics cards in it plus 6-core Really, though i think Apple's stuff is getting more expensive and most of it is not in my price range. Just getting a 2012 MacBook Pro cost me like 600 dollars, since I can't afford a 2017 and nor would i want one due to it not being expandable.

 

[bunnspecial]

I know I said this earlier, but I'm standing by "supported until the next Mac Pro comes out."

I'd say support for 10.14 is very likely, and depending on just when in 2019 the next machine comes it may or may not get official support past 10.15. If the new MP isn't announced at WWDC 2019, I think the 5,1 will likely support 10.15.

Also, something to note is that I doubt Apple would have tinkered as much as they did with the firmware on the 5,1 if they did not see it being supported to 10.14 at least. The firmware was to enable AFPS support, something that's not strictly necessary to run 10.13.

Depending on just what might change in the system requirements, chances are good that they will last unofficially for a few versions past the official cut-off. The 1,1/2,1 were officially dropped on 10.8, but a lot are trucking along quite happily on 10.11 with GPU upgrades. They only hit a brick wall with the SSE4 requirements in 10.12. The "slot configuration utility" is unique to the 1,1/2,1(it lets you set the bandwidth on the individual PCIe slots) and a recently updated version was actually included in 10.12.

 

[weckart]

Basically, what you need to look out for, among other things, are developments in Intel CPUs. If Intel introduces a new instruction set that cannot function in those previous processors that the 5,1 relies on and Apple makes this an integral part of OSX 10.1x, then this is where ‘support’ for the 5,1 starts to crumble. Anything else can theoretically be worked around.

One positive is that should the new MP have PCIe slots for traditional format graphic cards, there is the prospect of a graphic card upgrade for the 5,1 that also has EFI support, including boot screens. Newer cards seem to be less power hungry than their predecessors.

 

[Bug-Creator]

The 5.1 has all boxes ticked needed for the current OSX and I don't see the need for another box anytime soon.

128Bit? Nowhere near.
Somestuff only found in brandnew GFX cores? Only if these features are also supported in the lowend Intel/NVidia stuff used in MacBooks, basic iMacs or MacMinis. (and you could still update the GFX in the 5.1)

I do have a basic 5.1 and a maxed out 2010 Mini, both running HSierra well enough and I don't expect that to change anytime soon.