Thunderbolt on Mac Pro 5,1 - Solution??

[Ryan Young]

I think I may have figured out how to get Thunderbolt on my Mac Pro tower. I'll be getting these items as soon as they start shipping, already have been pre-ordered. I'm curious to see if I'll be able to use an HD Native Thunderbolt as well as other devices.

USB 3.1 & USB-C PCI-e card (click "Accessories")

More PCI-e card info

USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter

Does anybody see something concerning or a reason why this wouldn't work?

[Darryl Ramm]

Ah no. No, no, no.

Won't be close to working. I can say that without even looking at what you are suggesting. It is not going to happen. Any effort do make a Thunderbolt upgrade in a Mac Pro Tower would require a special GPU board with integrated Thunderbolt... which means it is way too much work to justify anybody doing that for a small and dying market. You can thank Apple for jamming graphics into the Thunderbolt spec to make it effectively impossible to backwards retrofit.

And in this particular case, how exactly did you think this will work? A USB 3.1/USB-C PCIe card in the Mac Pro? That gets you USB 3.1 on a USB-C connector... which is uh USB 3.1 not Thunderbolt anything, even though Thunderbolt 3 can use the same physical USB-C connector. And you want to connect that to a Thunderbolt 3 on USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 (or 1) on a Mini-Displayport connector? Well that will do exactly nothing, nada, since you are not running Thunderbolt 3 on the USB-C connector, you have USB 3.1 on it.

And in case you are thinking of other ideas, you cannot go from USB 1, 2, or 3.x to Thunderbolt, you *can* go from Thunderbolt to USB.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Any effort do make a Thunderbolt upgrade in a Mac Pro Tower would require a special GPU board with integrated Thunderbolt....

I've heard the same as well Ryan, has to tie into the main logic board