Iwata City, Shizuoka Pref, Japan

I need a new computer. My 2016 MacBook Pro is having a hard time supporting an external monitor. It heats up and then slows down. But I’m too spoiled now to work with only 1 screen, so I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade, sort of.

The biggest problem is money (as always). My company pays for my laptop, and in this current COVID-19 environment our sales are way, way down and I cannot justify the expense of a new Cadillac MacBook at this time.

So I tried to use an old MacMini as a secondary machine for my home office, but that thing takes forever to do anything. So I relegated it to a render machine.

I decided that for my home office, and later for my actual office, I will rebuild a cheese grater Mac Pro.

I got the idea after watching this Youtube video by Luke Miani:

https://youtu.be/mDQP_HlEgm0

According to his video, he paid:

$270 for the Mac Pro

$20 for a Xeon X5675

$100 for a 1tb SSD

$90 for his Radeon RX580 graphics board

$25 for tools

$505 or ¥53,316

additional Resources:

Metal GPU support and Mojave installation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208898

CPU compatibility: https://bit.ly/2PyX5hU

4,1 to 5,1 Firmware patch: https://bit.ly/2EUGK53