The Mac Pro introduced in 2019 has eight PCIe slots:
- Four double-wide slots
- Three single-wide slots
- One half-length slot preconfigured with the Apple I/O card
Mac Pro includes one or two Radeon Pro MPX Modules that occupy slots 1-2 and slots 3-4. You can choose your MPX Modules when you order your Mac Pro or order them separately from Apple. Learn how to install PCI cards in your Mac Pro (2019).
Apple AMD Radeon MPX Modules
Apple currently has four different Mac Pro Expansion (MPX) Modules that contain AMD Radeon Pro graphics processing units (GPUs). Radeon Pro MPX Modules can use slots 1-2 and slots 3-4, and you can install one or two of each module:
- Radeon Pro 580X MPX Module: one module only
- Radeon Pro W5700X MPX Module: one or two modules
- Radeon Pro Vega II MPX Module: one or two modules
- Radeon Pro Vega II Duo MPX Module: one or two modules
You can use Radeon MPX Modules along with other third-party PCIe graphics cards. If you use Boot Camp, using a Radeon MPX Module and a third-party AMD graphics card isn't supported when your Mac is using Windows. Learn about using AMD graphics cards with Microsoft Windows on Mac Pro (2019).
Apple I/O card
If just add SSD to iMac or Mac Pro without taking out original SSD, please Erase new SSD before use. A PCIe Gen3x4 SSD cannot be recognized on 'Mac OS X Utilities'. 10, How to fix various other issues that may occur with Boot Camp Assistant. Dec 11, 2019 Mac Pro supports the same GPUs that are supported by external graphics processors (eGPUs). If you use Boot Camp and want to install a NVIDIA card to use in Windows on your Mac, don't install the card in slot 2. Learn about using AMD graphics cards with Microsoft Windows on Mac Pro (2019). Some older PCI cards might use 32-bit Option ROMs that. Oct 12, 2013 The 2019 Mac Pro DIY Upgrade Guide - Building The Ultimate Video & Podcast Editing Workstation - Duration: 27:00. The Solopreneur Hour Podcast with Michael O'Neal 29,451 views 27:00. OWC Mount Pro SSD Bundle for Mac Pro 2009-2012, 1.0TB 2.5' OWC Mercury Electra 3G Solid State Drive and OWC 5 Piece Toolkit 4.8 out of 5 stars 7 $159.75 $ 159.
Mac Pro comes with the Apple I/O card, which has two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Apple I/O card comes preinstalled in slot 8 and can't be installed in another slot.
Third-party PCIe cards
You can install many different PCIe cards in your Mac Pro, such as fibre channel cards, fibre networking cards, and pro video and audio interface cards. The PCIe bus on your Mac Pro provides up to 300W auxillary power. If your PCIe card requires additional power, such as a GPU, use the Belkin Aux Power Cable.
Mac Pro supports the same GPUs that are supported by external graphics processors (eGPUs). If you use Boot Camp and want to install a NVIDIA card to use in Windows on your Mac, don't install the card in slot 2. Learn about using AMD graphics cards with Microsoft Windows on Mac Pro (2019).
Some older PCI cards might use 32-bit Option ROMs that aren't compatible with your Mac Pro. If you install a PCI card that uses 32-bit option ROMs, your Mac Pro might not start up correctly.
Afterburner
Afterburner is a hardware accelerator card made by Apple. Learn more about Afterburner.
RAID cards
If you want to add additional storage, you can install a third-party RAID card, such as a SAS RAID card, or you can install the Promise Pegasus R4i 32TB RAID MPX Module in one of the two MPX bays. If you use Boot Camp on your Mac, Windows doesn't support Apple software RAID volumes.
Learn more
Classic Mac Pro 5,1 (or simply cMP, also 4,1 upgraded to 5,1) is now considered by Apple as vintage. It’s pretty disappointing considering how capable and upgradable these machines still are. Installing Windows is no longer officially supported, but it’s completely possible though not quite easy.
Another challenge is that macOS Mojave 10.14 now implies using Metal-capable GPU while most of them are not able to display Apple boot menu (which you normally see holding the Option key) required to boot into Windows. Basicaly your screenremains black until macOS is loaded. Well, some EFI bootable cards that support boot menu exist but they are released almost 10 years ago and are really outdated. What is more, none of them supports displaying of boot menu with 4k 60hz monitor connected.
This guide is for those who want macOS Mojave + Windows 10 + modern GPU (in our case Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580 8GB).
Updated 28 May 2019
Installing Windows 10 in 5 steps
Mac Pro Pcie Ssd
It’s supposed that you have the latest Boot ROM version 144.0.0.0.0. If not, please update first.
Step 1: Use separate drive for Windows
Boot Camp Assistant no longer supports cMP and doesn’t allow creating a separate partition for Windows.Windows has to be installed on a separate drive, which is good actually to avoid messing with partitions in future.
We recommend using the internal SATA II connector in one of four drive bays or alternatively one of two SATA II connectors in the optical drive area. Using the HP 654540-001 3.5” → 2.5” adapter (7$) to place 2.5” SSD in a drive bay can be quite convenient.
Of cause, SATA II (up to 300MB/s) is a bottleneck for modern 2.5” SSDs (up to 550 MB/s where SATA III is preferable) but real life experience shows that the difference is hardly noticable unless you deal with lots of big files (e.g. >1GB where sequential read/write speeds matter) on your system drive.
We didn’t test using PCIe → SATA III adapter or PCIe → NVMe adapter for Windows partition. Many people reported it was not possible in their case. If you successfully did it please let us know in the comments below or via e-mail.
Apple Pcie Ssd
Step 2: Create a bootable Windows 10 DVD disk
Warning: DO NOT install Windows from a USB flash drive. It has been discovered that Windows when installed in EFI mode is corrupting the Mac Pro’s firmware by signing it with multiple Secure Boot (X.509) certificates. Also, you wouldn’t be able to boot into Windows after selecting its drive as bootable in macOS Preferences → Startup disk. Therefore Windows should only be installed in Legacy BIOS mode from an optical drive.
Make sure that your Windows 10 ISO file fits on the DVD disk, in our case we had to burn Windows 10 1803 ISO (64-bit) to a single-layer DVD+R disc 4.7GB.
Burning a DVD disk under macOS can be done with the following Terminal command:
On Windows we recommend using the free ImgBurn app.
Step 3: Boot from your Windows 10 DVD disk
Turn on your mac while holding the “C” key to boot from the optical disk (if you have PCIe drives installed and can’t boot from the disc, remove those PCIe adapters).Proceed with installation normally until you see the “Where do you want to install Windows” drive selection screen.
Step 4: Format the target drive
Press Shift+F10 to launch command prompt. Type the following commands:
Now make sure to select the correct target drive number N (NOT your macOS disk), after that type:
Pcie Ssd Drives
You should now see your drive as Unallocated space.
Press the “New” button to create necessary partitions. There should be only two partitions (for legacy installation, EFI mode creates four) automatically created:
Select the newly created partition 2 and continue with installation normally. Your mac will be rebooted twice.Every reboot do not forget entering the boot menu (by holding the Option key) and selecting ‘Windows’ boot drive there. When finished, boot into Windows.
Step 5: Install Windows drivers and Boot Camp utility
Windows 10 installs all necessary drivers automatically except Bluetooth and internal speaker. These need to be installed from the original Boot Camp package for MacPro5,1.Download and install 7zip, download Brigadier 0.2.4 app, open Windows command prompt where Brigadier is located and type:
When finished, it will create a folder BootCamp-031-11269, you need to install these for Bluetooth and internal speaker correspondingly, make sure you run the command prompt as administrator:
Now we need newer BootCamp drivers intended for iMacPro1,1:
When finished, it will create a folder BootCamp-041-55643, you need to run this command:
When finished, reboot. We also recommend running Apple Software Update to update Wifi drivers:
You probably don’t want to forget installing our awesome Macs Fan Control app, do you? :)
Switching between macOS Mojave & Windows
When you’re in macOS, use Preferences → Startup disk to select a boot drive:
When you’re in Windows, use the Boot Camp Control Panel from your Windows tray to select a boot drive:
This guide is based on this MacRumors thread. Special thanks to h9826790 for sharing his useful experience. Any comments are welcome.