Upgrade limits for OSX Mac Pro 3.1 Early 2008

You got one of the few models that set appart the Apple brand from any other workstation manufacturer in the world. If you sell it, it's like giving away an Aston Martin DB Volante to a wiser guy for a few hundred dollars. Like cars, computers in general have a very limited life time, but also as cars some are crafted to last... and that is what happened with the Mac Pro 2008 on, it's was crafted like an Aston or a Rolls, to last (for ever…) making less noise that any new offering from any manufacturer including Apple (with the exemption of the current Mac Pro), more expandable than any, with real Xeon Pro processors the finest server grade processor of its day.

Intel hasn't been able to significantly overgrow the dual 3,3 mhz Xeon that beast carried because it had already hit a physical wall it has yet not been able to break, knowing it was going to be hard and take time, Intel changed its CPU strategy concentrating in reducing the consumption and heat produced and made no significant strides in multicore processing during the past decade. Which has been good for the laptop and the high end servers with multiple blades serving virtual achines but not specially for the high end workstation, that is one of the reasons AI is turning to GPUs not CPUs for core power.

There are many path to upgrade that beast to go as fast as you wish to: try a stripping array 5 x 1TB Fast SSD and compare the speed of writing or reading from it to any other Mac... you will be regularly on top, specially, in real usage and not just synthetic test. The video card can be upgradded a lot if you are willing to forego the Apple startup screen, the WIFI and Bluetooth can be upgraded to AC and BTL, Ram will get max. up at 32 gigs if recall correctly... USB-C no problem, USB3 no problem, 10gigabit ethernet no problem and all of that without a single dongle....

Anyone that advises you to sell that machine if it's working properly and in good condition, either has never used a Mac Pro 2008-2012 or wants to buy it from you cheaply.

Your Mac model is at the latest OS X version it can run, 10.11.6. (screenshot from MacTracker app)

If a computer can run Sierra it will be able to run High Sierra. To prove that try upgrading to Sierra. You should get a message that Sierra can't be installed on your machine.

Yes, and there is BCM4321 replacement I found on OWC online store: AirPort card with BCM94322MCK for $49-50.88. I asked OWC if it will override the current setup of the MP 3,1 and waiting for their response. (somewhat repost).

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/BCM94322MCK/

As I sit here answering this on my Mac Pro 3.1, it runs EVERYTHING fine so far even though I haven't hacked the Sierra install to upgrade from El Capitan yet.

I've significantly upgraded it with 64GB of RAM (8-8Gb DDR2 FB-DIMMs), 2 mirrored 600GB Intel SSDs for the boot drive, 4 Samsung 850Pro 1TB SSDs in a RAID10, 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card powering 2 Dell 2407WFP monitors, 4port USB3+ 2port SATA PCIe card and both Network interfaces bonded for 1.8Gb/s of measured throughput to my NAS.

I do realtime video transcoding and it works fine although I've got two 3.2Ghz Xeon CPU's sitting here waiting to be installed...

I should also mention, I'm in no way trying to save money by keeping this old workhorse going. It's simply fantastic at what it does and with the right upgrades will continue to work beautifully for at least several more years.

My windows gaming machine: http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/6027542

My personal NAS/Steam server: http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/6642705

Hi!

I have a couple of these and they are fully worth upgrading. In addition to the speed and incredible workhorse properties of this machine, it is also quite upgradeable.

As of this date 7/2/17 my machines aren't running "current" MacOS. This is due to the fact that they are in use in a production environment as servers. They work fine and are secured, and I am not going to take them down long enough to upgrade them.

It is currently quite easy and possible to upgrade these to Sierra using the macOS Sierra Patcher Tool. This is super slick and works perfectly. If you need to have WIFI hardware (I don't), you might/will need it upgrade the card in your 2008 MacPro(You will as far as I can see). This isn't a hard job but is another item to upgrade.

Mostly I have done memory, drives & SSD, and video cards too.

The machine is awesome and continues to be a screaming deal to me.

Totally upgradeable. In late 2017 the memory is easily maxed and it takes the latest GPU's. I use one Mac Pro 2008 as a server/ RAID and another for anything else imaginable (upgraded the 8-core CPU ties a kit, though).

These are warhorses and are definitely worth having and upgrading if price permits.

Unfortunately there is no way to know what will be outdated next year or the year after, etc.

Your Mac is already eight years old, next year it will be nine years old. In both dog and computer years this is ancient. Despite this it can still run the current most up-to-date version of OS X and hence run nearly all current applications.

As dialabrain says there is no way to predict whether Apple will allow your model Mac to run the next version of OS X - presumably 10.12. Even if it cannot it will still run current applications. With it being currently eight years old you have already got your moneys worth out of it. As it happens the annual World Wide Developer Conference takes place next week and this might reveal which older model Macs will be able to run the next version of OS X.

You do not detail your Macs current specs. e.g. how much RAM you currently have so we cannot judge what area is best to upgrade but it is possible to add more RAM, and it is possible to fit an SSD drive which it can boot from. In fact most Mac Pro models are fantastically flexible in terms of upgrades. I have upgraded the video card, CPU chips, WiFi, Bluetooth, and fitted an SSD to mine, and more recently just added USB3 as well.

Note: Your model being a 3,1 uses the older 'Fully Buffered' type of memory which is more expensive and I suspect harder to find. You could consider selling your Mac and getting a newer even if still second hand model.

This may be helpful in deciding how upgradeable your current Mac is - http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-2.8-2008- specs.html

despite the fact that system may no longer be included in Apples future plans that model it will still allow you to upgrade the PCI video card, SSD and run Windows making it a viable art production or video editing system with the 8/16 cores on the 2.8GHz. Xeon CPUs

If you do decide to upgrade your mac I would not recommend a Mac Pro to anyone, brand new out of the box the technology inside is 3 years behind the curve. It's already 5 iterations behind current Intel architecture and it's supposed to be a flagship system.

I also run an 'ancient' Mac Pro Early 2008, and I beg to differ with the point of view that as it is 8 years old I should discard it. I own numerous MacBook Pros, Airs etc... and for video editing on a large screen with 32G of RAM and a fast graphics card this system still beats the pants of everything else I own.

I also have a Mac Pro (Early 2008) with machine ID 3,1 with 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad Core processors. You can continue OS X updates with 10.11, I'm currently up to 10.11.6, but unfortunately can not upgrade to 10.12. You can upgrade memory, drive space and the graphics card as needed. but remember this is nearly a 9 year old machine. There are suppliers providing replacement power supplies and optical drive(s) if these need to be replaced. Remember these machines were designed to be workhorses and are extremely resilient, but their cpu, bus and memory architecture are many generations behind what is considered current. If you do upgrade, your drives will be able to move with you, but many other components will not. If you have not already purchased an SSD drive, consider doing so as it will give the machine a great speed boost. I'm looking into upgrading in 2017 myself. Good luck!

Hello MacPro 3.1 running Sierra, and its fine, read this if you are interested, http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-12-sierra-unsupported-macs-thread.1 977128/

test it out on another drive if you like.

You can upgrade to MacOS 10.12 through a tool featured here http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html, however, WiFi will not work without an upgrade to the card internally.