Expansion and I/O Challenges with Older Macs

Imagine the average 8-12 year old Mac sitting on your desk today. Many are getting long in the tooth and have limited external upgrade potential or simply can’t even keep up with the best options offered today in terms of approaching optimal throughput for external graphics (also known as eGPU) or getting the most out of blazing fast NVMe storage. In most Macs of this vintage, you’re looking at Thunderbolt 1 as your best option for external devices (in 2011 and 2012 Macs) and are thus limited to bi-directional 10 Gb/s, which indeed is nearly double the 6 Gb/s offered by SATA III and these Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge Macs. If you look at the majority of 2008-2010 Macs, you then step down to SATA II and 3 Gb/s data rates and max out at 800 Mb/s data rates for external devices with FireWire-800 ports.

Pcie Thunderbolt Card For 2010 Mac Pro Rating: 3,6/5 4064 reviews The Aukey B01AAETL6Y PCI Express card with 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports does work on the 3,1, 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pro, and can deliver a full 10 gigabits per second transfer speed from each port. Mac Pro & Mac Pro Server (Mid 2010 / Mid 2012) Mac Pro & Mac Pro Server (Mid 2010 / Mid 2012) OWC's step-by-step videos of how to install memory, hard drive, optical drive, and a PCI card in the Apple Mac Pro and Mac Pro Server (Mid 2010 / Mid 2012). On May 3, 2011, Apple updated its iMac line with the introduction of Intel Thunderbolt technology and Intel Core i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors as well as a 1 mega pixel high definition FaceTime camera, features which were first introduced in the MacBook Pro line in February 2011. The Apple Thunderbolt Display used Thunderbolt 2 to connect to a Mac and deliver via the monitor FireWire 800, ethernet, USB, a camera, mic, and speakers. It also had a MagSafe power connector.

Dropbox or icloud for mac. Kiss Dropbox goodbye with iCloud folder sharing on iPhone, iPad and Mac. ICloud folder sharing may not sound like a big deal, but. It's a game changer if you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac. Nevertheless by working with our system, it is simple to match the functions of Apple iCloud and Dropbox together with their general score, respectively as: 8.8 and 8.9 for overall score and 98% and N/A% for user satisfaction. You can also compare them feature by feature. Those files are always stored in iCloud, however, and can be reached via the Files app in iOS and iPadOS or iCloud Drive via iCloud.com. With Dropbox, the Dropbox folder on each Mac you use. 1 day ago I haven't used dropbox for awhile and when I was uploading photos from my iphone to icloud for some reason they uploaded to dropbox. You used to be able to drag files/photos from dropbox to your desktop. How do I get the photos out of dropbox (simply as in dragging)? I have read lots of help files and haven't found an answer yet. 2018/02/05 at 14:25 Dropbox is way better for seem-less and instantaneous photo file uploading. I can’t get over how stupid it is that iCloud Photos doesn’t let you access the actual photo.

No matter what, all of these options are a far cry from the 40 Gb/s data path offered by modern Macs equipped with Thunderbolt III, but what about the cMP (known commonly as the classic Mac Pro)? Is there any black cauldron, dark magic wizardry add-in Thunderbolt 3 cards?? As a matter of fact there are!

The Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 Continues Strong Thanks to the GC Titan Ridge and Alpine Ridge

Feast your eyes on a couple amazing devices from the hardware manufacturer Gigabyte.

Enter the GC Titan Ridge and the GC Alpine Ridge…

Recent Advancements Make the GC Titan Ridge and GC Alpine Ridge a Boon for Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 Users

These devices have been around a couple of years, but unfortunately (until this year), obtaining one and planning to use with your Mac required you to have Windows installed in Boot Camp alongside MacOS. Previously, booting into Windows first (with the proper Thunderbolt Drivers installed for the card) and modifying the supplied USB type C header cable or adding a jumper was needed. Then you had to switch back to Mac OS via boot screen or via the Boot Camp startup disk selector in Windows to get the card working on the Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 (the drivers would stay alive when warm booting back to MacOS and voila – Thunderbolt 3 on you Mac Pro). That was a bit of a turnoff for Mac users who did not want Windows, but had to deal with the inconvenience simply for the sake of having this card installed on their Mac (there were also some glitchy behaviors noted). In the last 6 months or so however, firmware and hardware modders have found ways to get the Titan Ridge and Alpine Ridge working with full functionality in MacOS with no dependency on Windows at all and have nearly ironed out all the bugs. There are even full step-by-step instructions out there for those who want to do it themselves!

This is truly amazing and opens up all kinds of doors for the Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 once again.

The GC Titan Ridge Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 DIY Route

There’s some good info on the entire process to get the Titan Ridge working on the Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1 on GitHub, but this will require you to have an EEPROM programmer and the version 23 custom firmware found on MacRumors, which allows you to run this card in the Mac Pro 3,1 to 5,1. You must be cognizant of voltages of your EEPROM programmer, understand risks and follow the entire process correctly or it won’t work. Failure to perform any step incorrectly could result in headaches, repeated flashing attempts and in a worse case scenario – a bricked card and a wasted $150 or so.

Or….

Get your GC Titan Ridge or GC Alpine Ridge Card Flashed or buy Pre-Flashed from an Professional

You could just buy a pre-flashed card from an amazing asset to our Low End Mac community on eBay, who sells under the name “Superchief9”:

Search for “Titan Ridge” or “Alpine Ridge” (depending on what you need from Superchief9) – see the differences of hardware noted below. You will not be disappointed! A pre-flashed card is simply plug and play (don’t forget to plug your header cable into the card – the other end does not need to go anywhere). Superchief9 also sells the flashing services for either card if you find a great deal on one on the open market and want to send it in for service (see items list link above for current pricing).

GC Titan Ridge vs GC Alpine Ridge

There are a couple minor differences to note between the GC Titan Ridge and GC Alpine Ridge in terms of the ports offered and overall capabilities (the only immediate obvious one besides the packaging and label on the unit is the difference of a DisplayPort output on the Titan Ridge versus an HDMI output on the Alpine Ridge):

This is a close-up of the ports offered by the Titan Ridge. You get two DisplayPort input connector links (offered by way of Mini DisplayPort), two Thunderbolt 3 inputs and one DisplayPort output.

Installed in a Mac Pro 3,1 is an Alpine Ridge. On the Alpine Ridge you get the same two DisplayPort inputs (via Mini DisplayPort), two Thunderbolt 3 outputs and one HDMI 2.0 output.

The biggest differences however are really “under the hood”. The video throughput that can be passed from your GPU to the DisplayPort connections on the Alpine Ridge versus the Titan Ridge are quite different and so are the link speeds (as well as power supplied), as a result of the different chipsets used:

Thunderbolt Pcie Card For Mac Pro 2010

Alpine Ridge:

The Alpine Ridge uses Intel chipset DSL6540, and the video links are negotiated at DisplayPort 1.2 speeds and sent down over either HDMI 1.4 or Thunderbolt 3. The manual states to officially allow for a maximum resolution of 4K 24Hz over the HDMI port, but the Thunderbolt ports allow for up to 4K 60Hz (a single 5K Thunderbolt display can allegedly work on the Alpine Ridge as well). Only bus power is provided with the Alpine Ridge unfortunately and the card is supplied with a total of 38W, which allows you to po

Thunderbolt For Mac Pro 2010