a new mac pro is not much faster for most tasks, unless you are simulating quantum physics or 3d calculations. It does its job very well, and always has. XP was good, vista sucked, windows 7 was good, windows 8 sucks :) Apple upgrades are semi-compulsory because software stops being supported, xcode will not run, and more… in reality mountain lion runs great on the 2006 mac pro after you change a line of text and emulate the 64 bit efi boot loader The ability of the 2006 mac pro doesn’t become obsolete just because there is something faster out there. a 2006 dual core has more than enough processing power to run Windows 8, but windows 8 sucks and windows 7 is widely supported, stable and is better for advanced use. The 2006 Mac Pro runs mountain lion just fine. Just be careful, as this method can erase or otherwise damage the contents of your computer’s hard drive.Īfter six years would you look for a way to install a new opperating system on your computer, or would you look for a new machine? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you want to read the step-by-step guide, you can take a look at Jabbawok’s blog. That said, it’s interesting to see the steps that Apple’s biggest fans will go to to get the latest software updates working on legacy hardware. It’s an involved process which requires new hardware, and is intended for a machine that is six years old.

Needless to say, the hack is for a niche audience. Afterwards Jabbawok edited the PlatformSupportValues, and installed custom software to enable HDMI out. Jabbawok used the Chameleon bootloader to emulate EFI64 protocols in Legacy Boot, which was accomplished with a second SATA hard drive, and formatted it accordingly. In addition to the graphics card, the hack needed to bypass two issues: the lack of 32-bit compatibility in Mountain Lion and the fact that the Mac Pro is not on the software’s list of supported devices. The Mac Pro was updated to a relatively new Apple-branded version of AMD’s HD5770.

It should be noted that Jabbawok wasn’t able to use a pure Mac Pro 1,1, because the pokey NVidia 7300 GT isn’t supported by Mountain Lion. Despite this, the internals of the first Mac Pros are no longer compatible with Apple’s most recent software.

The Mac Pro’s chassis has essentially been unchanged since the release of the Power Mac G5.

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