Fusion 10 or 11 on MacPro 2009 5.1 with 6 core

[The_Lion]

Hi all,

Im looking at upgrading my MacPro to a 2009 5.1 with 6 core Intel Zeon, with OS 10.13 High Sierra I would like to run Fusion 10 or 11 but have seen in the realease notes:

• Hardware
  All Macs launched in 2011 or later are supported except: 
  • 2012 Mac Pro “Quad Core” using the Intel® Xeon® W3565 Processor.

          In addition the following are also supported:

• 2010 Mac Pro “Six Core”, “Eight Core” and “Twelve Core”.
• Software
  OS X 10.11 El Capitan minimum required

Anyone know if Fusion 10 or 11 will runs OK on an 09 MacPro flashed to 5.1??

Edit: Incidentally, Im told that flashing to 5.1 makes it equivalent to a 2010 MacPro model, which can run Mojave

Thanks in advance

N

[ColoradoMarmot]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'flashing', but no, it won't work.  Only metal-enabled CPUs are supported.

[dempson]

"Flashing to 5.1" refers to the technique of updating the firmware in a 2009 Mac Pro to that of a 2010 Mac Pro (which has model identifier "MacPro5,1" hence the 5.1 reference), which also changes the model identifier of the computer. This is not supported by Apple but I'm aware of other users of 2009 Mac Pros having done it with persistently successful results. The standard OS installer sees it as a 2010 Mac Pro so no hacking of the installer is required to install macOS Sierra 10.12 or later (including macOS Mojave 10.14 as long as a metal-capable graphics card is installed).

I don't have any direct experience with this, but since the 2009 Mac Pro would be a 2010 model as far as VMware Fusion is concerned, I expect that this would also extend to allowing recent versions of VMware Fusion to work, provided the CPU installed is a new enough variant that has the same capabilities as the 6-core and better CPUs in a 2010 Mac Pro. That probably means it needs to be a 3600/5600 series Xeon rather than a 3500/5500.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Gotcha, spoofing the OS, didn't realize that was something folks were doing.  I'm not sure I'd go to those lengths to keep a nine year old desktop running, but YMMV.

In either case, you're right - it'd require a metal GPU and Fusion-compatible CPU's, and even then, it won't be supported.  Highly recommend a good (not time machine) backup strategy if attempting it.