WHY? can the MacPro 5,1 not run Catalina?

The Mac Pro (macPro5,1) hardware is aging out, and—among other limits—lacks mitigations for recent Intel x86-64 security issues.

Additional mitigations for speculative execution vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs - Apple Support

Full mitigation will reportedly reduce existing performance by as much as 40%. So yes, processor performance is a factor here. This overhead on older Intel processors presumably, as newer Intel processors have in-built mitigations for various of what has been identified. And as has been documented elsewhere, some of these exploits can arrive from a nefarious web site downloading JavaScript into and running in a web browser.

Thank you for providing the feedback link. Just submitted my comment. I think management made a significant strategic mistake by not providing some way forward to keep the Classic Mac Pros in the upgrade chain. Started out with iMovie way back in the old days, progressed through an iBook, MacBook (white) '06 model, Mac Pro 1,1 then 3,1 (still have) and not a 5,1. Upgraded iMovie to FCP X shortly after it came out.

Does management think that by not finding a way to support the earlier Mac Pros that we will eventually buy a new one? If so, with an entry price of $6,000 they're sadly mistaken. The days of steep growth in media is over and the incremental improvements that lie ahead are small. The difference between HD, UHD, 2K, 4K, 8K are getting smaller and smaller, and the difference from stereo to 5.1 is small.

3D? That's what the new gear would be for but the market for that where new equipment will be required will be limited as existing equipment is already reasonably capable. I'm sure they did a thorough market analysis and will find new markets in medicine, design, and some other areas but for photo, video, and audio I don't see the huge need where they can sell a lot of for $6K (and up) machines.

Maybe our way forward will be to buy up used research and development cast-off equipment as they upgrade in the years ahead?

The 5,1 will work very well with Catalina once it has a metal capable graphics card. The list on https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208898 will provide the approved cards but there are flashed cards being sold. I opted for the Mac Edition 5950 primarily because it has the regular OS X startup procedure and other functions. The 5,1 is really fast and the fact that the card is somewhat slower than the 8GB models doesn't bother me but as they say "your mileage may vary".

Another factor with one of the flashed cards is much less current draw; hence, runs cooler, but I didn't investigate that option but it sounds interesting. I don't do gaming, just video editing.

Other improvements include a Sonnet USB-C PCIe card that was really inexpensive (~ $50) and speeds up data transfer a lot and an SSD drive. Otherwise, with four drive bays what's not to like? For info, the 2012 MBP (mid) is USB 3.0 capable.

Apple considers that model too old, and the hardware isn't powerful enough to run the features of Catalina. I had a 2010 Mac Pro with the Nvidia Metal card, and Mojave was noticeably slower than High Sierra. Such that I reverted it back to High Sierra.

Yes, there are hacks out there that will allow you to install Catalina, but they involve installing unsupported (not written by Apple) firmware. You're completely on your own if you go this route.

Therefore Apple's so called list is hoodwinking, and I'm sure they know it!

FWIW, if Apple was trying to hoodwink anyone into upgrading their Macs, they would require all Macs be from 2018 or newer. Clearly since all that is required is a 2012 Mac or newer, that makes little sense.

That I find is unacceptable, but Apple never comments.

You can let Apple know you find it unacceptable here…

Feedback - macOS - Apple

You seem to be under the misconception that the only compatibility issue is performance. However, you can find that a Late 2018 Mac mini outperforms your Mac Pro if you choose to.

No, it won't. Catalina does not support the 2010 Mac Pro whether it has a Metal capable card installed or not. You have to hack the firmware to get Catalina onto a 5,1 model.

Edit my previous post: It's not a 5950 card, it's a 7950 card.

Sorry.

As I mentioned, performance was not the only compatibility issue. And also, Apple was not trying to "hoodwink" anyone.