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by shimms 2863 days ago
My 2012 Mac Pro (cheese grater) can’t run Mojave since the GPU doesn’t support Metal.

There are aftermarket GPUs available, but it’s becoming an ongoing chore to keep the machine running the latest macOS features (needed new wifi card to support handoff and watch unlock etc).

New wifi, SSD, usb3 etc are relatively cheap. The new GPU is getting more expensive and is now actually blocking keeping up to date with major OS releases.

There is no other Mac I currently want to buy (desktop, my own display). MacMini is too underspecced, MacProvis about to be updated and aside from GPU isn’t really any better than my current MacPro - feels end of life and outdated from day 1, a non-starter for me.

So I’ll probably get a new GPU and hope that buys me another couple of years.
2 comments
jsjohnst 2863 days ago
I’m running Mojave on my cheese grater 2011 Mac Pro, but I’m guessing that’s because I already had upgraded the graphics cards and didn’t realize it (also upgraded CPUs, RAM, and a bunch of other stuff too). The cheese grater Mac Pros were one of the best machines Apple ever shipped imho.
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shimms 2862 days ago
Yep - they're great.

I've put in USB3, replaced the spinning disk with SSD, upgraded the WiFi and RAM, but haven't done the CPUs yet (already got dual 6 cores, so aside from a slight clock bump not much point).

My only concern is that the CPUs don't support something that the next major version will require, forcing a move off the MacPro 5,2 platform.

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jsjohnst 2862 days ago
I also did USB3, upgraded wifi, SSD (also turned it into a custom fusion disk), ram bumped to 128gb, upgraded from dual quad 2.4ghz to dual hexacore 3.3ghz, added a nVidia 1080Ti (which I had to power off an extra SATA connector from the 5.25” drive bays) and upgraded the ATI (kept it split brands as the nVidia can be a momentary pain when doing OS upgrades).

I also share your concern too. :(

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Aloha 2863 days ago
What wifi card is needed?
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shimms 2863 days ago
For unlock with watch an AC card with beam forming (factory was N), for handoff/continuity Bluetooth 4 (from memory, may be wrong).
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Aloha 2861 days ago
I was looking for a particular model :-P
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shimms 2861 days ago
Oh sorry, I totally misread you question and thought you asked what it is needed for.

I got the kit from OSX wifi:

http://osxwifi.com/apple-broadcom-bcm94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-...

Works well, had a bit of trouble getting unlock with watch working, but then all of a sudden started, so not sure what that was about, but been good since then.

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