Jul 14, 2018

In 2013 Apple told us, that we should move from an all integrated tower style Mac Pro to a smaller machine that instead of putting under a desk, we should show off on top of the desk. The new Mac Pro was fast and had a decent graphics card, at least at the time. And it had Thunderbolt ports that in theory should have satisfied any need for extension. But in reality, this concept sucked. The machine was not upgradeable and had limited internal storage. You had to use the thunderbold ports for everything, display, external storage, dongles etc. After going through all that, you weren't able to see the Mac Pro anymore, because it was littled in cables and your working place became really noisy from small fast spinning fans inside external enclosures.

Fast forward 5 years and Apple still doesn't have a solution that satisfies customers that have extensive need for customization and specialized workflows. During the time of trash can Mac Pro, I worked on a 5K iMac, because I really liked the hi-resolution display. But hiding away all those cables was a chore. After Apple showed us the future of professional hardware with the iMac Pro, I was fed up with the situation and I started to investigate the possibility of building my own Hackintosh. Putting all the hardware together was the easy part, making macOS work was tough, but I did it.

Looking back on 7 months working with, it I don't regret it at all. I was able to put 2 extra SSDs and 2 extra big hard disks into it (imagine how fast Time Machine is), added a beefy graphics card and recently installed a Blackmagic DeckLink SDI 4K PCIe card. And all that internally in an unobtrusive tower case that sits under my desk and hides the bulk of cables inside it. PCIe... I can't really understand, why Apple really has NO hardware in its line up that supports adding PCIe cards. There is so much great hardware available on the market that is inaccessable to Macintosh customers. Boggles my mind.

I originally thought that I would sell my machine as soon as Apple brings the pre-announced new modularized Mac Pro, but I am not so sure anymore. I just love my Hackintosh. Second best machine I ever owned (best was the 2012 Mac Pro). Apple: Here's my list of things the 2019 Mac Pro needs on top of the iMac Pro hardware:

4-6 internal 2.5" hard disk slots

4 PCIe express card slots

User exchangable RAM

Upgradable graphics card (just use one of the 4 PCIe slots)

5K Display P3 external display

Don't forget the freaking USB-A ports!

Apple, if you do that, I am on board again.