(Part 2) Best products from r/macpro

Awesome, so this Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_yvOEDb2ZA6QK6

That’s funny because I just paid the same price for this Crucial BX500 960GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-Inch Internal SSD - CT960BX500SSD1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KLD9333/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bwOEDbAT7GHNP

Might be worth switching

I can't honestly say, my experience with that kind of kit suggests it's safer to stick with Apple parts for networking gear as they work for sure and will remain supported in the OS (which is the important thing).

The Bluetooth card (which is behind the processor board - just slide out the processor tray and you can see it) I suggested has four antenna connectors - your Mac will have three wires labelled 1, 2, 3 - so I've explained above which wires will need to go to which connector on the card.

Yep you can plug the SSD directly using a sled adapter and it'll work, just slowly.

Its better to go with this:
https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-Predator-SHPM2280P2H-240G/dp/B00V01C4RK/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512039533&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=kingston+hyperx+predator+m.2+240gb+ssd

Works perfectly as boot device in my mac pro 2009.

I had a similar setup, but what I ended up doing is sort of the opposite of what you are asking. I passed through the onboard SATA controller directly to the FreeNAS VM and added in this card to use as the boot device. From what I remember, ESXi 6.5 will boot this card natively. ESXi 6.0 requires you to add a VIB to the install media. macOS will also boot from this card (the drives on it show as external though).

I have 1 SSD on the card as a boot device and I ran a SATA cable from the card to the second optical bay so I could put a device there as well. I bought a SATA power y splitter and trimmed one of the ends so it would fit on the existing power connector.

I since gave up on ESXi for my uses as I couldn't get it to play nice with GPU passthrough. I also was seeing some odd error messages in the logs which I attributed to the fact that I was running ESXi 6.5 (6.5 isn't certified for the 5,1 and 6.0 doesn't show the errors). I ended up installing Ubuntu and using ZFS for storage and KVM for virtual machines.

As promised here is the link with pictures of the added fan and new rivets.

This isn't a tutorial on how to do this mod. For you to replace the rivets and add thermal paste you will need to remove CPU A. You can find plenty of videos and tutorials on how to upgrade your CPU's on a cMP.

Pictures of Fan, Cable & Rivets

Noctua Fan

Replacement Rivets

SATA to PWM Cables

Macrumors Forum Post

Edit: Added my macrumors forum post about this subject

this one is pretty cheap and has good reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-DisplayPort-Supporting-Technology/dp/B00PJ3LSIG?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A1AMUYYA3CT6HJ

Not sure if the actual 5,1 is the same, but my 4,1 is only sata2, if you want an SSD, I'd recommend sticking it on a pcie card, hang on, I'll check my Amazon history and see if I can see the one I got from there ... Can't get history back that far but think this is it, means it'll go rather faster
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FVXMGTY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_noudBbK141HGK

Or would something like this work if I keep the 8800GT in there?

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-DisplayPort-Active-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00A493CNY

Or a KVM Switch like this?

https://www.amazon.com/LINDY-Port-4K-DisplayPort-Switch/dp/B00ZK2S71W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481773724&sr=8-1&keywords=displayport+switch

1080 WILL need a mini 6-pin to either 6 or 8-pin adapter. Just find out what port is on the card and search that to mini-6pin and that should give you the power cable you need. the Mac Pro has 2 mini-6pin ports so you can have up to two cables

EDIT: looks like the reference 1080 has 1 8-pin port. So you'd need a mini-6pin to 8-pin adapter like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/JacobsParts-Express-6-pin-8-pin-Video/dp/B00OSLGQGE

the biggest limitation IMO is that you're on PCI-e 2.1

here's a list of what you can potentially do:

• CPU: upgrade to Two x 3.46GHz 6-Core 'Westmere' (Intel X5690, 12-Cores, QPI: 6.4GT/s)
  
• RAM: 64GB (8GB* x 8) DDR3 ECC Matched Set
  
• Boot drive: ssd to a PCI-E mSATA one (check for a bootable version; AHCI booting only unless you want to try patching) -- should get you around read/write at 1000mb/sec (cpu limited -- it would go higher on a board/cpu combo that supported PCI-e 3.0/1) -- e.g.,:
  
  • https://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38
    
  • https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SM951-Internal-Solid-MZHPV256HDGL-00000/product-reviews/B00VELD92U/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_kywd?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&sortBy=recent&pageNumber=1&filterByKeyword=mac
    
• any other storage you want for the 4x sata sleds (all sata 2 speeds though)
  
• Gfx: for video cards you can either upgrade yourself or drop a ton of cash and get a current gen, flashed bootable card like http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p44/Nvidia_GTX_Titan_X_12_GB_%28Maxwell%29.html or the 1080 if you want it for gaming instead of work
  
• Wifi: upgrade the wifi/bluetooth card yourself for bluetooth 4.0 and AC and you'll get handoff/continuity support for your phone
  
  
  edit: my opinion on the price -- worth it if you have another $500 to drop on upgrades (you don't have to max it out!)

Total cost was 910ish. My build is a 4,1 2009 flashed to 2010. Intel xeon x5680, 48gb ram 1066 ECC, 4 tb SSD (bought 3, had an extra laying around to make 4), added a USB 3.0 card, and an MSI RX560 2GB GPU.

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=174082488738&view=all&tid=2078078862007

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZWX6PD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072539VBG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D998212/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0773ZMVRH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L9BDY3T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also had a mechanical keyboard, display, and magic mouse prior to the build. So maybe plan on 1200-1300 if you need to buy those and the extra SSD as well. That system from Newegg includes a 1tb HDD though, so you can load it up in one of the hard drive sleds as a storage drive, just don't use it as the boot drive. PM anytime if you have any questions!

This one should work? Lycom DT-120 M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 2280, 2260, 2242) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MYCQP38/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_F4ThAb08RBF90

This is my boot drive in my 2012 Mac Pro (5,1):

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-Predator-SHPM2280P2H-240G/dp/B00V01C4RK/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1492708106&sr=1-5&keywords=pcie+ssd

The SATA ports are limited to 3.0Gbps which is bottleneck because SATA 2.5" SSDs have a transfer rate of 6.0Gbps. Utilizing a PCIe card will give you the fastest possible data transfer speeds. My boot drive has read and write speeds faster than my old 2014 retina MacBook Pro. That was already extremely fast.

It is night and day with a SSD. You will kick yourself for not upgrading sooner.