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MP All Models no wonder they killed Catalina support for 5,1
- Thread starter Flint Ironstag
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It isn't "no wonder" ... Apple Vintage and Obsolete policy . see the Mac Pro 2009 and 2010 in the Obsolete section? That is primarily why dropped from Catalina.
The fact that the Mac Pro slid all the way to the end of 2019 ( probably won't ship to many until 2020 ) is a contributing factor to why the Mac Pro 2012 was hand waved into Mojave support when the 2010 was in vintage.
The 5,1 model got dropped because it is old in terms of Apple's explicit policies. If they aren't supporting the hardware then there is little to no business case to support the software.
Folks are probably kidding themselves if think Apple believes everyone on the 5,1 is going to jump ship to the MP 2019 right away. If folks have been circling the airport for years on dated equipment , then can keep circling for another year or so too. Especially if just coasting on the Mojave "lifecycle extender".
The folks in the $2,299-4,000 price zone... if bolt to Windows I'm not sure they are hard pressed about that either. Even more so after they roll out next updates to Mini, iMac and iMac Pro.
Apple's policy is to not support 5+ year old hardware even if it would cost them virtually nothing to do so. Sometimes specific hardware is justifiably required for new software (Quartz Extreme, Airdrop, Metal), but mostly it's just Apple literally restricting a machine-identifier from the MacOS installer in a plist for no good reason other than their policy. They did indeed let the MacPro5,1 slide because they were so late on the new one, but it doesn't really justify the literal planned obsolescence policy of artificially excluding something on a plist for absolutely no technical reason whatsoever.
I'm gonna get a MacPro7,1 -- mainly because I don't have time to mess with installer hacking for my MacPro5,1 every time I have to update the OS.
But if you think about it, this thing is going to cost $7,000 and this is basically what the change is compared to my current machine:
CPU 2.8x4 -> 3.5x8
RAM 24 -> 32 GB
GPU RX 580 8GB -> 580X 8GB
HDD 1TB SSD -> 1 TB SSD
Now yes, it's a total architecture change and it's going to be unbelievably faster. BUT -- if my current machine worked with Catalina... It would be "Good Enough".
I'm gonna get a MacPro7,1 -- mainly because I don't have time to mess with installer hacking for my MacPro5,1 every time I have to update the OS.
But if you think about it, this thing is going to cost $7,000 and this is basically what the change is compared to my current machine:
CPU 2.8x4 -> 3.5x8
RAM 24 -> 32 GB
GPU RX 580 8GB -> 580X 8GB
HDD 1TB SSD -> 1 TB SSD
Now yes, it's a total architecture change and it's going to be unbelievably faster. BUT -- if my current machine worked with Catalina... It would be "Good Enough".
Just use the Dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported macs.
I updated one of the 5.1s in the office and quickly rolled back to Mojave because we use certain convenient widgets in dashboard and there are no compelling new features in Catalina.