Pakistan was right up against it already coming into the third day of the final Test of the three-match series at 1-14 in its second innings after being forced to follow-on by South African captain Graeme Smith.
South Africa scored 409 batting first at Supersport Park on the back 121 from AB de Villiers, 92 from Hashim Amla and a career-best 74 from Vernon Philander.
The Proteas lost champion all-rounder Jacques Kallis for the Test and replaced him with debutant fast bowler Kyle Abbott rather than a batsmen or all-rounder.
They didn’t need the extra batsman in the end and then the decision to select Abbott proved a masterstroke when he picked up a brilliant 7-29 in 11.4 overs to help bowl out Pakistan in its first innings for just 156.
That left the tourists 253 short of South Africa's total and Smith decided to enforce the follow-on.
Pakistan lost Mohammad Hafeez first ball of its second innings when he was bowled by Dale Steyn before Azhar Ali and Younis Khan survived to stumps on Day 2 at 1-14.
The pair added another 25 on the morning of the third day before the experienced Younis was caught by Smith at slip off a fired up Steyn for 11.
Ali continued to fight hard, though, and teamed up with Imran Farhat for a 54-run third wicket stand before a suicidal second run and Ali was well short of making his ground to be out for 27 from 110 balls.
Pakistan then lost 4-21 in no time to all of a sudden be 6-114 with Farhat out for 43, captain Misbah-ul-Haq for five and Asad Shafiq for six.
The lower-order battled hard with Sarfraz Ahmed making 40, Saeed Ajmal 31, Ehsan Adil 12 and Rahat Ali 22, but it was always only delaying the inevitable with Pakistan eventually bowled out for 235 to fall 18 runs short of making South Africa bat again.
Steyn took 4-80 in the second innings for South Africa with Rory Kleinveldt claiming 2-33 and Robin Peterson 1-32. Abbott took another 2-39 to give him match figures of 9-68, the third best ever for a South African debutant in Test history.
South African captain Smith was proud of the way the Proteas dominated yet another Test series with him passing 100 matches as skipper this summer and now also recording 50 Test wins.
"We were really looking forward to playing in front of our own fans and it was great to see the turnouts that we had for all three matches in this series," Smith said.
"We are always hoping to achieve more so we don’t want to just be happy with what we have done, but I am very proud to be the first captain to reach 50 Test wins. I'm very proud that it is a South African who has got there.
"I said before that depth was going to be a key factor in us staying No.1 and that showed here. When we go to the UAE to play Pakistan, it will be our first challenge of the new season and we hope to do well there."