Display Evolution with Macs (both creation and consumption): What’s Next?

With Mark Sokolovsky’s recent article, HDMI 2.2 is out: 16K at 60Hz, 96 Gbps, and more it’s clear there has been quite the evolution over the years with the HDMI standard.  The same can be said with DisplayPort, as version 2.0/2.1 has already arrived providing approximately 80 Gbps of video bandwidth and is found on […]

2011 17″ MacBook Pro Resurrection

Happy 2025 Low End Mac friends and welcome as always! I’m back after a long hiatus and plan to be writing more frequently again. That said – for this article, I’m going to keep it short and sweet as I swing back into things and will be highlighting a particular Low End Mac that was […]

Super-Charged “Hybrid” 2010/2011 Mac Mini

Introduction and Background A little over 5 years ago I wrote about the mid-2010 Mac Mini being an outstanding Low End Mac for using as a media server in my article titled “Mid 2010 Mac Mini: The Perfect Low-End 1080p Media Center“.  It checks many of the key boxes given the fact that it can […]

Envisioning the Mac Pro 8,2 “Dream Machine”

Some History on the Best Mac Value Ever: The Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1 The Mac Pro has went through many iterations over the years and with the advent of Apple Silicon, things have certainly come to a crossroads. The Mac Pro 4,1 from 2009 and the slightly revised Mac Pro 5,1 (sold from 2010 […]

Mac Pro GPUs by Era

Mac Pro Evolution Each design of the Mac Pro over the years has had its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to overall system architecture and design, including the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) options available.  Many factors are at play when determining what kind of graphics card you can run with your Mac Pro, as […]

Starting Over: A Low End Mac Legacy

Dear Low End Mac friends: Apologies for the very long hiatus on new articles on the website. Things haven’t been easy for a while. Over the summer/early fall, our founder Dan Knight decided to step away after around 24 years of running Low End Mac and its day to day operations as Editor in Chief.  […]

GPU Madness in the Mac Pro 5,1: Early 2021 Edition

This is a bit of a throwback to my article from May of last year – Tri-Booting a Mac Pro 2,1 – not long before I had just procured my Mac Pro 5,1 (well technically a 4,1 that was flashed to a 5,1 with dual Intel Xeon 5680 CPUs with 12 cores at 3.33 GHz).  […]

Best Modern Alternative to the Mac Pro 5,1

It’s safe to say that the Mac Pro 5,1 will reach the end of the line at some point in the next few years – even in terms of user base extended support such as patching tools that have allowed Catalina (and now Big Sur) to be installed keeping these Macs up to date for […]

To Sell or Not to Sell – That is the Question

Hi Low End friends! Let’s call this article part of a “new take” category of Low End Mac.  Welcome to Low End Mac Campfire Discussions.   Now relax and think of yourself in your backyard with family or friends, enjoying your favorite beverage and wondering where all the time has gone surrounding our favorite Low […]