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Updating a 2008 Mac Pro

I have an older 2008 Mac Pro desktop computer. It was a solid system in it's day but has aged out of the current computer environment. My question is if there is any way to really update this thing so I can use it today with current software (Adobe Suite)? I know I can swap out drives and put some solid state drives in which will really help. Of course I can always upgrade memory. But can I swap out the processor or mother board easily? And if so, can you point me to ideas on how to go about doing that?


CURRENT SPECS;

2 x 2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon

32 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

512 SSD

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4096MB



Thanks!

Mac Pro, macOS 10.13

Posted on Feb 24, 2020 7:49 AM

Reply
8 replies

Feb 24, 2020 12:47 PM in response to jasoneayers25

Jason,


In short, there are only two upgrades left seeing as you already have a GTX 970 and 32gb of RAM. I believe you could put better processors in, but not that much newer as you're limited by the motherboard, which unfortunately cannot be swiped whatsoever. See this guide for which CPUs will work in your 2008.


However, I would strongly recommend and SSD- they make an absolute world of difference and would be a much better upgrade than new CPUs.


Hope it helps!

-Geotrax

Feb 25, 2020 3:18 AM in response to jasoneayers25

Hello I am a MacPro 3.1 2008, I am running macOS Sierra, macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina. I have SSDs and lots of RAM, a 'metal' capable graphics card Nvidia GTX 650 so that Mojave and Catalina work properly.

So it can be done, search for unsupported macs.


If you are really thinking of swapping out CPUs, motherboards etc you are probably financially better off getting a MacPro 5.1 2010-2012, with a 'metal' graphics card you can upgrade to Mojave without any patchers.

Updating a 2008 Mac Pro

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