After adding 2 USB 3.0 hubs and a couple 6′ USB 3.0 cables, the total cost came to $817. I replaced the original CPU with a Xeon X5690 ($225 on ebay), the graphics card with a Radeon AMD 7950 3GB ($250 on ebay), the RAM with 32GB of 1333 mhz DDR3 RAM ($65 on ebay), the wifi and bluetooth with a custom solution from OSXWifi ($110), and added USB 3.0 support with a Sonnet Allegro PCIe card ($55 on Amazon). If you also have a MacPro, most of this is easier than you may think.Īfter considerable research, I succeeded in upgrading my Early 2009 Quad-Core MacPro so that it is virtually a new machine.
However, with a simple firmware update and/or some hardware updates, it’s entirely possible to breathe new life into your machine, hopefully for some years to come.
Those of you with Macs earlier than Late 2009 have no doubt realized that MacOS Sierra cannot be officially installed on your computer.
