Macworld
If you have an old “cheese-grater” Mac Pro, you probably don’t want to part with it. SO you look at it and wonder what you’re going to do with it, since it can’t be upgraded. Seems like a waste to throw it out, and you won’t get nearly enough to make it worth selling. Well, a Canadian mechatronics enthusiast understands your predicament and has set out to do something about it.
Stefan Bond has launched the Mac Pro 7,1 (A1991) ATX Conversion Kit project on Kickstarter. The kit can be used to install “modern PC hardware” into the chassis of a Mac Pro–specifically, the Mac Pro that was introduced in 2019 and identified with the model number 7,1. Since it was built with Mac hardware in mind, you can’t simply gut it and pop in a PC motherboard, a gigantic graphics card, and other components. The Conversion Kit will allow you to do that by providing a main motherboard and PSU mounting plate, hard drive sled assemblies and cables, Mac Pro fan-adapter PCBs, and more.
To be clear, this is a kit that enables you to install PC components (which aren’t included) for building a PC that runs Windows. There’s no official way to upgrade the Mac Pro with Apple components. If you really want to run macOS, you should be able to turn this into a Hackintosh after building it.
Bond has a goal of $10,000 for his Kickstarter, and a bid of $699 in Canadian currency (about $500 in the U.S.) gets you a full conversion kit. If you don’t have a Mac Pro but just want to contribute to the spirit of the project, you can chip in CA$10, and your name will be mentioned in the final project video.
Apple discontinued the Mac Pro earlier this year, ending a 20-year run for the Mac Pro brand. The latest time it was updated was in 2023, when Apple released it with an M2 Ultra chip. When this design was introduced in 2019, it had Intel processors. Apple offers the Mac Studio as its top Mac workstation, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the character of its old metal towers.