Here's the patcher: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/
There are caveats, but I've found it to work well. Of course it's totally unsupported so here be dragons, etc.
Another issue is that Windows 10 is now at the point of working decently and it has Ubuntu baked in. Apple also has iCloud sync software for it. I will miss Mac Apps, but given economics, most people just crank out electron apps anyways.
I give up on Apple computers. imo There's no viable option for iPhone or iPad though, so I'll still will be with Apple on some level.
The old hardware is pretty well supported in the Mac Pro because of how modular it remains. The majority of the incompatibility comes from not having a GPU that works with Metal. Those patch notes are mostly for devices with soldered components, like the GPU.
i do have to say though, the single core performance of my MacPro5,1 is pretty abysmal. even with similar clock speeds, my 2015 mac mini is 50% faster in single core performance.
we use it as a Unity build box and it functions great since we're normally doing multiple builds at a time, and image compression & shader compilation are multi-threaded. but it's definitely slower if you are just doing 1 build at a time.
sucks that in 2 years when Apple starts requiring the latest Xcode for iOS build submissions we will have to retire this guy =(
There's a very noticeable performance improvement from (eg) the E5645's, let alone the E5620's.
Saying that as I used to use a self build box (Supermicro motherboard) with dual E5645's as my desktop, but it always "felt" a bit slow. :/
Had the opportunity to upgrade to X5675's, and now it "feels" fine interactively due to the higher base and boost clock.
The highest model, X5690's, from all reports are literally no faster in use than the X5675's (maybe thermal throttling?). So not worth the extra spend. ;)
For under $2K you can have a machine that competes with newer machines that cost twice that much. If you're a professional creative type, these machines are the real deal:
The Most Powerful Mac Is 6 Years Old and Not Sold By Apple - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xkq8k/mac-pro-upgrade-co...
the Mac Pro 5.1 was designed to accommodate up to 12 cores: “Even though a single core isn’t fast, imagine having 12 of them for video editing and audio—those cores together are faster than my brand-new MacBook,” Mazzarolo said. The new iMac Pro can have up to 18 cores; new MacBook Pros max out at four cores.
The 5.1 can take a whopping 128 GB of RAM, which is equal to what a fully upgraded iMac Pro can take and double what Apple says the trash can Mac Pro maxes out at (it’s worth noting that the RAM used in newer Mac computers is usually faster)
The 5.1 can be modified to use modern SSDs, which Mazzarolo said are in some cases faster than the ones used in the new iMac Pro
The 5.1 can use almost any brand-new graphics card from most manufacturers, which is the main reason why a fully souped-up, old Mac Pro can outperform new computers. “With some rendering engines, the AMD cards that Apple uses [in new Mac Pros] don’t even work,” he said. “In general, even mid-level graphics cards we put in are as fast as those in the iMac Pro. We can put in better cards and we can put in two of those.”
On the Facebook group, Mazzarolo posted benchmarks of one of his custom-built rigs playing 5K, 6K and 8K RED RAW video clips against current-model Apple computers. A new, 15-inch MacBook pro and a recent “trash can” Mac Pro weren’t capable of playing the video at more than 8 frames-per-second. His custom-built model was able to get 24 fps in each case.