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Old Mac Pro repurposed for local LLM tasks with new drivers

An old Mac Pro, originally costing nearly £10,000, is being repurposed for local LLM work thanks to new Linux drivers that enable its D700 GPUs. The machine, equipped with 64GB of RAM and 24 cores, can now run models via llama.cpp, achieving usable speeds for tasks like planning. Notably, the user found that Qwen 3.5 9B provided superior planning output compared to Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6. AI

IMPACT Demonstrates that older, specialized hardware can still be viable for local LLM inference with software updates.

RANK_REASON User repurposes older hardware for AI tasks using new drivers.

Read on r/LocalLLaMA →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Old Mac Pro repurposed for local LLM tasks with new drivers

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User repurposes older hardware for AI tasks using new drivers.
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Only one publisher covered this so far. Single-source stories can still rank when the publisher is high-authority, but they lack cross-source corroboration.
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product, other
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High
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124 days old
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Full methodology in our editorial standards.

COVERAGE [1]

  1. r/LocalLLaMA TIER_1 English(EN) · /u/Hephaestite ·

    Old Mac Pro still proving its worth

    <table> <tr><td> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1tn7csy/old_mac_pro_still_proving_its_worth/"> <img alt="Old Mac Pro still proving its worth" src="https://preview.redd.it/jrqcw2o7z93h1.jpeg?width=640&amp;crop=smart&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=f1a13c8e60ae16f83588ef…