Can I use a new iMac as a monitor for my 2010 Mac Pro 5,1?
The short answer is
not directly. The long answer is you can log onto Your Mac Pro from the new iMac and run programs on it through an ethernet or WiFi connection. MacOS sports this without additional software but I have found
Screens 4 provides a vastly superior interface. From my experience I can highly recommend Screens for this task it beats heck out of the built-in software.
I want to keep the Mac Pro as a server via a router and ethernet, but also be able to work from it if required (if I need to launch in Snow Leopard).
I do this all the time with a Mac mini that I run as a
headless (no monitor, no keyboard] server. except for some lag in refreshing the screen it works just fine. (You could just leave the Mac Pro at Snow Leopard and other than vulnerability to exploits it would be fine in the role you propose.
I'm thinking I could get a Thunderbolt 3 hub with an HDMI port for video with a DVI-to-HDMI cable from the Mac Pro. Would that work? Is the iMac able to switch from internal video to an external source?
Or, do I need a second, small monitor? I hope not, my desktop is cluttered enough as it is.
If both computers have an ethernet port you might want to connect them with an ethernet cable but if your WiFi network is decently fast that works quite well for me.
NOTE: You would not want to play video games through this kind of hookup because of the communications lag, but for text or passing heavy duty processing to the Mac Pro it should be perfectly adequate. If you are interested in trying this, I can pass along the setup details.
