Upgrading motherboard in MacPro 5,1

Googling for : install PC motherboard in mac pro case revealed many good hits like:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/277025-how-to-the-perfect-hack-pro-mac-pr o-build-using-an-original-mac-pro-case-p…

Using a G5 case seems to be easier

http://build-its.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-fit-your-pc-in-power-mac-g5-case.ht ml

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/using-a-mac-pro-tower-for-a-custom-computer- build.1087925/

I agree with Illaass that using a PowerMac G5 case might make more sense. The PowerMac G5 case is visually very similar to the Mac Pro case and is for example the same height, width and depth but it would likely be cheaper to find an old PowerMac G5 case and still leave you a working Mac.

The one area where using a Mac Pro case would be easier than using a PowerMac G5 case which is the power supply, the PowerMac G5 hides the power supply in the base of the Mac and also makes it much harder to use a standard dimension PC power supply, the Mac Pro puts the power supply at the top and might make it easier to use a standard power supply. As part of such a project you do have to replace the power supply because the Apple original one does not have PC standard connections.

The first step would be to follow the links provided by Illaass so you can make an informed choice.

Either way will be possible as demonstrated by those links.

To a lesser extent you can still upgrade a Mac Pro as a Mac Pro to get excellent performance, for example you can upgrade to 12 core system, and you can install newer and more powerful video cards - currently the GTX 980Ti is the best available but later this year newer and even more powerful ones might become supported by Macs or in Windows via Boot Camp. You can even if you fit an additional power supply have two of these cards running. I believe that a Mac Pro with a GTX 980Ti running Windows should be able to drive an Oculus Rift, supposedly the main requirement is a GTX 970 or better and a fast enough CPU and the Xeon chips in a 2012 Mac Pro should be fast enough. It is also possible to fit a PCIe USB3 card which would be Windows compatible.