can i upgrade graphics card in macbook pro 2011

Even though the 2009 Mac Pro is capable of running macOS Sierra (as proven by me hacking it onto the system), there are myriad other aspects that also have to be up to spec for full functionality. There is a reason why Apple decided not support some older hardware from being able to be upgraded to newer OS revisions. Hell no! Even though I got a new GPU to work in the Mac Pro, the other components being so weak make this a moot point. It would have been worse with the 1080 ti. This means that the Xeon CPUs from the Mac Pro are far too weak to properly supply data to the RX 480 GPU. Although the RX 480 has some much better frame rates, the variation of FPS was very high. I took one of the RX 480's and placed it into the Mac Pro as per a tutorial.Īs you can see, there are some very strange results here. I have a second gaming PC on which I run an Oculus Rift (opens in new tab) running two MSI Rumor RX 480 4GB. So instead of going 'big' with the NVIDIA GPU, I pivoted to go 'medium' with an AMD RX 480. This GPU is also not supported on macOS, but at this point I figured I'd try to exhaust all of my options. The AMD RX 480 is a recent generation mid-range GPU that is good for 1080p gaming and entry-level VR. After a bit more googling, I came across an excellent tutorial on installing an AMD RX 480. I made further google searches and there were a few things I could try, but, frankly, I think that this Mac Pro is just too old to properly power the 1080 ti. I powered off the Mac Pro and put the old GPU back in and it booted up without issue. The Mac Pro powered on, but it didn't make the familiar Mac 'bing' on start up.

I plugged in the two 6-pin power cables anyway and closed the side panel and fired up the Mac Pro and I waited for the login screen… and waited. No matter! It's only missing a measly 25W.

Each 6-pin power cable provides 75W plus the PCI connector bus provides another 75W for a total of 225W.

Plug in the 6-pin and the 8-pin power cables.Įxcept the 2009 Mac Pro doesn't have an 8-pin power cable.

Can i upgrade graphics card in macbook pro 2011